Radically Rational

It's been a long time ...

2010-09-03T16:16:00.002-07:00

It's been a long time since I wrote her regularly. Simply put, I felt like I just didn't have anything new to add to the discussion, and I didn't really want to take part in the echo chamber and just keep repeating all the stuff that other people were saying better than me.

But it's time to revive the blog, I think, though it's sort of pointless for me to focus the way I used to mostly on national politics -- Arizona politics has more than enough crazy in it right now to keep my interest. And while I've tried in the past to sort of pay attention to local and state politics, it's been way too easy to ignore.

Sadly, that's entirely too common, and in that vacuum of attention, our state has been run into the ground by undereducated ideologues. That's a bad combination: stupidity and ideology.

So I'm back. Some people really need skewering.

This is huge ...

2009-03-11T14:00:00.002-07:00

From TG Daily:

Cambridge (MA) - MIT engineers have developed a type of high-speed tunnel for transporting electrical energy through lithium iron phosphate, a well-known battery material. The discovery may yield lithium ion batteries that fully discharge and recharge in seconds, rather than hours, making batteries lighter, more powerful, and finally suitable for the all-electric vehicle that can be recharged in the same amount of time it takes to refuel the tank today.

Places where my marriage is valued (or at least valid)

2008-10-10T10:47:00.001-07:00

Connecticut. Three down, 47 and a federal district to go.

"We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

--MLK, 1968

Your Democratic congress at work

2008-07-09T16:50:00.002-07:00

So we have phenomenally unpopular lame duck president, and we have a legislature in which his party is in the minority. How much of a disgrace is it, then, that today's FISA bill headline from the AP starts with "Senate bows to Bush"?

So someone tell me, why are third parties are irrelevant in today's America?

I think Ann Coulter is secretly a liberal

2007-06-27T11:34:00.000-07:00

Either she's a liberal or she's really, really stupid.

I mean, seriously! Do you think she's ever actually swayed anyone to her side with her arguments who wasn't already solidly there? I think it's pretty obvious she doesn't believe half of what she says; she often seems to say things simply to gain publicity. But those same things are so out there they invariably galvanize the other side.

Conservatives don't want to be aligned too closely with her, and liberals use her as a fundraising and consciousness-raising tool. If she's not a total dumbfrak, she has to be a liberal.

Wow, how stupid are his followers ...

2006-11-03T15:04:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I mean, does Ted Haggard think there's anyone out there who actually believes this ... (from The New York Times)

"The Rev. Ted Haggard ... admitted today that he had purchased the illegal drug methamphetamine from a gay escort in Denver, but denied that he ever had sex with the man. ... Mr. Haggard said a Denver hotel referred him to Mr. Jones for the purpose of getting a massage. He said he met with Mr. Jones and bought the drug. "I was tempted, I bought it, but I did not use it," he said today. The station posted the video interview on its Web site.

He said he threw the drug out shortly after buying it. "I never kept it very long because it was wrong," he said.

I mean, really. Even if it were otherwise believable, it doesn't make logical sense. A Denver hotel referred him to a prostitute for a massage, so he bought drugs from the prostitute but didn't have sex with him. And he never took the drugs.

Next, he'll be blaming it on alcoholism or childhood sexual abuse. These repressed wingers never change.

John Kerry finally grows a set

2006-10-31T16:10:00.000-07:00

Seriously, why couldn't he have acted like this when he was running for president, instead of the gun-shy eunuch he was?

"If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they're crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I'm sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.

I'm not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq . It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.

The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.

Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they're afraid to debate real men. And this time it won't work because we're going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq."

As a public service ...

2006-10-24T14:07:00.000-07:00

Holy crap, it's been a long time since I posted something! Sadly, I just didn't feel like i had anything new or interesting to contribute to discussions about the upcoming elections.

Fortunately, now I do. As a public service, allow me to present the following list of articles about Republican candidates in divers districts, states and such. I particularly love the JD Hayworth one. Happy reading!

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

--AZ-01: Rick Renzi

--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth

--CA-04: John Doolittle

--CA-11: Richard Pombo

--CA-50: Brian Bilbray

--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave

--CO-05: Doug Lamborn

--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell

--CT-04: Christopher Shays

--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan

--FL-16: Joe Negron

--FL-22: Clay Shaw

--ID-01: Bill Sali

--IL-06: Peter Roskam

--IL-10: Mark Kirk

--IL-14: Dennis Hastert

--IN-02: Chris Chocola

--IN-08: John Hostettler

--IA-01: Mike Whalen

--KS-02: Jim Ryun

--KY-03: Anne Northup

--KY-04: Geoff Davis

--MD-Sen: Michael Steele

--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht

--MN-06: Michele Bachmann

--MO-Sen: Jim Talent

--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns

--NV-03: Jon Porter

--NH-02: Charlie Bass

--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson

--NM-01: Heather Wilson

--NY-03: Peter King

--NY-20: John Sweeney

--NY-26: Tom Reynolds

--NY-29: Randy Kuhl

--NC-08: Robin Hayes

--NC-11: Charles Taylor

--OH-01: Steve Chabot

--OH-02: Jean Schmidt

--OH-15: Deborah Pryce

--OH-18: Joy Padgett

--PA-04: Melissa Hart

--PA-07: Curt Weldon

--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick

--PA-10: Don Sherwood

--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee

--TN-Sen: Bob Corker

--VA-Sen: George Allen

--VA-10: Frank Wolf

--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick

--WA-08: Dave Reichert

FEMA

2006-04-27T08:19:00.000-07:00

So now we see the latest example of the conservative theory of governing. Since they think government can't do anything right, they create their own self-fulfilling prophecy by saddling it with incompetent leadership, slashing its budget to ribbons to give tax breaks to rich people and large corporations, and watching it wither away. The final step? Point to its uselessness and abolish it.

Along comes the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They give it Michael Brown, an incompetent boob who couldn't even run an Arabian horse organization properly. They cut its funding to the point where they can barely operate their offices, much less accomplish anything useful at the times when Americans most need their help.

So what happens now? They complain that it's a weak, ineffectual agency that needs to be abolished.

Nice.

How about fixing the problems you caused instead? Too much to hope for?

Straw men and false dichotomies

2006-02-01T08:32:00.000-07:00

So that's all I actually have to say about that speech last night.

The whole 'isolationist' thing is his biggest straw men yet, the latest in a long line. He can't conduct a real debate against real people making real points, so he has to make up an enemy that's easy to knock down. I mean, I haven't heard anyone say we should close off from the rest of the world. That would be stupid, to put it plainly.

But the choice isn't between closing off from the world and invading practically unarmed countries. The question isn't between exporting our jobs overseas and closing ourselves off from the world economy. The choice isn't between spying on normal American citizens and capitulating to terrorists. The choice isn't between doing everything Bush's way and dismantling our best institutions or hating America.

Ken Mehlman: Shameless shill or propagandist?

2006-01-25T13:20:00.000-07:00

Trick question. He's both, and more. Really, in today's RNC mail, he's excelled himself in ways I cannot describe, only quote.

Let's start with the first sentence. "The President's most solemn duty under our Constitution is to protect the American people."

Already, he's off to a flying start. What does the presidential oath of office have to say about protecting the American people? Abso-fraggin-lutely nothing direct. What it does say is that he swears to (say it with me now, anyone who's ever had a federal job of any sort), "protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic (emphasis mine)."

And while protecting the American people might be implied by this and other oaths, affirmations, and powers delegated by the Constitution, it seems to me that his most solemn duty is right there spelled out very plainly.

"A critical element in this strategy is the terrorist surveillance program that the President authorized shortly after September 11th." And indeed, if they were only listening in on terrorists, that would indeed be a good thing.

"The terrorist surveillance program monitors al Qaeda terrorists and affiliates making phone calls into or from the United States - precisely the type of communication that preceded the 9/11 attacks. This is not 'domestic spying' on ordinary Americans arranging Little League practices or pot luck dinners. It's a tool that even FDR used in fighting World War II."

Hoo, boy. Where to begin? With the fact that they're monitoring domstic-to-domestic calls as well? With the fact that the 'communication that preceded the 9/11 attacks' was intercepted legally, well in advance, but not translated till several days afterward, rendering it useless (seems to me they need more translators, not more wire taps ... but then they fired all those gay ones ... but I digress)? With the Quakers in Florida, or the other war protesters, or the environmental groups? Sure, no Little Leaguers or pot luckers ... just peaceniks, civil libertarians and environmentalists. We all know PETA's just an al Qaeda front group.

Ah, hell.

(which means, if I may digress even further, "Continuous fire" in Minbari ... although any reference to a minbar is a sure way to get myself put on a watch list)

*cough*

Moving on. "After September 11th, we heard so often that our government failed to connect the dots. So, the President signed the Patriot Act, which had been passed overwhelmingly by Congress. He took appropriate action to connect the dots. He reformed the government bureaucracy, enabling it to fight a different kind of war."

Re-formed the government bureaucracy indeed. New redundant agencies. Homeland security funds allocated according to political exigencies rather than need. Politically-timed terror threat level manipulations. "Different kind of war ..." Goodness, we hear that a lot. How do you wage war on a concept? On a strategy? Have we rolled up al Qaeda yet? Have we diminished terrorism? Seems to me the 'different kind of war' we're involved in is a war on the American way of life, a war on civil liberties, a war on the American pocketbook. But war's always good for big business, whoever we're told to fight. And fear is good for war, whoever (or whatever) we're told to fear.

"Now, the Patriot Act is up for renewal. How do Democrats respond? They play politics, brag about "killing" the Patriot Act (video here), and accuse the President of breaking the law and violating civil rights. These are not the actions of a party that can be trusted to safeguard our national security."

Hrm. I'll leave that last point open to debate, except to point out that they are the actions of a party that can be trusted to safeguard the American way of life (which, by extension, I would assert, necessarily includes our national security).

Which part of the Constitution has to be gutted before Republicans and conservatives of good conscience wake up and realize these people aren't even acting like Americans, much less Republicans or conservatives? (oh, yeah, the second amendment; just you wait ...) How big does the budget deficit have to be to put a lie to the whole 'fiscal conservative' thing? How powerful does the executive branch have to be before they see the unconstitutional imbalance? How long till they start being Americans first and Republicans second?

And one last thing: If Bush keeps insisting that the UAMF gave him unilateral power to do what he sees fit, regardless of law, to 'protect' America, I'll keep comparing him to Hitler. It was, after all, Germany's Enabling Act that gave Hitler unilateral power to do what he saw fit, regardless of law, to 'protect' Germany from the Bolshevik threat.

I'm just sayin'. Act like an American, George, however much it hurts.

Ken Mehlman, RNCmail and the State of the Union

2006-01-12T12:50:00.000-07:00

In this week's RNCmail, your friend and mine, Ken Mehlman, exhorts the mindless Republican masses to party like it's 1482 on the night of the State of the Union to celebrate the triumph of Our Glorious Leader and Big Brother over the forces of tyrrany.

I, for one, see little about which to party. Our economy stinks; no one wants our treasury bills (which will have the long-term effect of raising interest rates and further collapsing our economy ... yay!); Iraq is a morass of mixed news, violence and uncertainty; the Democratic party is full of simpering "maybe" men (and women) rather than the righteous swords of justice it should be; the Bush administration asserts the justifiability and efficacy of torture (even though America was at the forefront of pushing for its banishment from the world just two or three generations ago); and they're tapping our phone calls and reading our mail (no, not just the terrorists -- dissident groups and peaceniks, too).

Details are at gop.com, if you feel like hosting a guerrilla house party. Not that I would encourage such a thing.

A headline from today's Google News

2006-01-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

Noted (almost) without comment:

Bush says US eavesdropping program "good for democracy" (Khaleej Times)

The irony clearly escapes him. Too stupid? Too clueless?

Jon Snow on the eavesdropping thing

2005-12-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

One of the highlights of my day is receiving the latest Snowmail. Jon Snow is a presenter for Channel 4 News in Britain, and he sends out a daily news update around midday (well, it's evening in Britain, but midday here). There's always a little commentary, but mostly it's a quick headline grab.

I love it for how quickly he sums up the news and throws a common-sense take into it. Essential for those days when I skip reading the newspaper and/or can't follow the news all day.

An item in today's Snowmail summed up Bush's defense of eavesdropping quite simply. It's good to take a step back and look at this rationally from an outsider's perspective (outside the US, at least), absent the rationalizations of the kneejerk defend-Bush crowd. And I quote:

Bush defends the listeners
=============================================
George Bush is in an ever deepening mire about tapping people's phones without permission.

It's a long and sordid tradition that US presidents tap themselves - remember Nixon?

But tapping others? An American's home is his castle as are the wires running in and out of it, people don't like it - can Bush recover?

Amazing to think that his second term is not even 12 months old and it has come to this.

'Nuff said.

Addendum

2005-12-16T10:20:00.000-07:00

Oh, and by the way.

I've been keeping two blogs going for a long time, basically simulposting almost everything between the two (though I think the posts, etc., relating to He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named all got stuck on livejournal so as not to clutter up the self-hosted one). But I think it makes more sense (particularly since there is at least one political blog list that pulls the RSS feed for the slywiz.com blog ... there's also one on livejournal, but I have to pick one or the other here) to split them out and maintain them separately.

So henceforth, the personal and band stuff will stay on my livejournal page (www.livejournal.com/~celtichris) and political and social commentary will go to the slywiz.com one (www.slywiz.com/celtichris/celtichris.html). And I'm not using my myspace blog for anything at all. I may occasionally cross-post between livejournal and slywiz.com. Occasionally.

But this should keep the people wot want to read my political rantings from having to deal with my day-to-day life, and keep my friends from having to slog through pages and pages of boring politics stuff (their loss, I say, but ... enh, I understand). But if, by chance, you're interested in both, bookmark both or, better yet, plug in the RSS feeds to your favorite reader and effortlessly follow them (Sage tells me there's one for the livejournal page, here).

personal: A festive weekend

2005-12-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

Wow, I really haven't been posting much lately. Fortunately, that's because I've been pretty busy. We start tonight with a birthday party for Mason and my brother-in-law, then head to a holiday cocktail party tomorrow night at the home of my step-sister and her husband (more about that below).

And as far as political commentary, Rachel is doing a much better job. I feel redundant. Not giving up; just casting about for something a little more unique to do with it. Until I figure it out, that part of this blog is most likely going to be limited to AFAmail and RNCmail when they're particularly outrageous (instead of predictably so, as they've largely been for the last couple of months ... though AFA taking credit for Ford pulling back on advertising in specialty publications [not just, or specifically, gay ones, it must be noted] was particularly amusing).

I've been, as I said, keeping very busy for the last couple months, mostly with the band. And I'm pleased to say that we are inches away from finishing principal recording for our CD. If Richard weren't leaving for two weeks to spend Christmas with family in Oregon, there's a good chance we could've had it finished by the end of the year. Ach, well. Of course, after the principal recording comes mixing, producing, adding in various other instruments and vocals as seasoning, etc., etc., etc., blah, woof, blah, woof, then we have to figure out what order to put the songs in, master it, come up with a title for the blasted thing, do the cover art and typeset the booklet and send the whole thing off to be manufactured ... If we're extremely lucky, we might be able to have this stuff done by the end of January. If we're lucky.

But the point is, we're getting there. And it's good. Another good thing is that we're actually starting to be offered paying gigs. Up first, tomorrow (saturday) evening we're playing at a cocktail party my step-sister is hosting. And she's paying us! We've been encouraged to invite anyone and everyone we want, so if you're in Phoenix and you know one of the three of us and/or my family, and would like to go, just drop me a line. We're playing from 7-9, but expect it to be an all-evening event.

There's another party on the calendar and then an interesting event at the Paper Heart on March 25, of which more details will soon show up on our event calendar. And we're looking into places for St. Patrick's Day. And possibly our highest profile gig yet, if I can bow and scrape sufficiently before the promoter ... can't be more specific right now, for fear of embarrassing myself if it doesn't pan out. And ... we're planning a tour of the West Coast next fall.

After laboring for more than a year pouring money, time and stress into this project and seemingly getting next to nothing out of it, it's nice to see the seeds we've planted starting to bear fruit. Soon, $11-an-hour coffeehouse gigs and just-for-tips (when nobody, simply nobody tips anymore unless they're a friend) art gallery shows will be a thing of the past.

But things are finally happening! We started podcasting last week, partly because we want to have a record of preparing our album, partly as a tool to promote the album ... but mostly because we're a strange and interesting group of people, and it gives us an opportunity to invite people into Richard's living room once a week. We recorded a new episode last night, so all that remains is for me to plop down at my computer and edit and fix it up. I know, podcasting is painfully trendy. But it's fun.

*phew* I think I've gone on long enough. Happy Christmas to all, as appropriate; Happy Holidays to all others.

politics: The Republicans -- Dishonest on Democrats

2005-11-16T13:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday brought yet another (yawn) installment of RNC-mail from Ken 'I'm not gay! Stop it! I'm not!' Mehlman, this one entitled "Democrats: Dishonest on Iraq". There's a video, if you're really sure you want to watch it.

At this point, I should pipe up and say that even I thought there were chemical weapons in Iraq before the war. I still thought invading was a really bad idea. To make matters worse, I didn't have one of the largest and most sophisticated intelligence infrastructures in the world telling me they didn't, or at least that the evidence was inconclusive. And I didn't take that information, cleanse it of all qualifying phrases, or in some cases completely rewrite the summary conclusions and use that information to lie to Congress and the American people.

Holy Jesus, people, what kind of balls does it take to hold people you lied to equally accountable to yourselves simply because they believed you were acting in good faith? Are you, then, telling us that we should never actually believe anything Republican politicians say? Because that's the logical progression of this line of talking point. So there you all stand, shameless and naked. I hope you freeze to death, politically speaking.

politics/Air America: Buried in a New York Times article this weekend

2005-11-14T13:45:00.000-07:00

It should be no surprise to people who read this blog (particularly the version at slywiz.com that I'm a big fan of Rachel Maddow.

So I was very excited about an article this weekend in the New York Times about the emergence, particularly in liberal talk radio, of women as on air personalities. The bloom is off the rose somewhat for me with Randi, since she frequently dips credulously into dubious conspiracy theories and often yells unmercifully at liberal callers who don't toe her exact line on every point; and her frequent, albeit usually minor, factual errors often stick in my craw.

But Rachel is another beast entirely. Her early morning one-hour news show is peppered with humor (often courtesy of Unfiltered hang-over Kent Jones), insightful observation and a cutting wit (find the current day's show, as well as previous archived shows, in MP3 format at Air America Place, or better yet subscribe to the podcast at iTunes).

So yeah, getting around to the point finally. Halfway through the story was this quote: "The network is expected to announce imminently a move by Ms. Maddow into a more prominent morning drive-time role."

KXXT probably won't carry it, since they don't carry her show at all now and they just reshuffled the lineup to put prominent local talkers in morning drive time. But it's a great idea! It'd be better still for them to put her on in mid-afternoon or evening drive, but hey, one step at a time.

Listen. You'll be glad you did.

politics: So you don't have to

2005-11-03T08:43:00.000-07:00

I just keep getting those right-wing e-mails ... From the RNC, from Progress for America (of all the things they could've named themselves!), the American Family Association (because only right-wing Christian-approved groupings of relatives qualify as American Families), etc., etc., etc.

So what are they saying about Scalito?

Well, Progress for America wants your money to run their TV ad. As a bonus, too, you can download it for your video iPod! Snazzy!

What else do they say? "It is unprecedented for the Senate to oppose a nominee as qualified as Samuel Alito." So, in other words, advise and consent is dead. We own the country, they say, so get out of the way or you will rue the day you decided to oppose our iron fist. It's an unforgivable break with tradition, they say, to oppose their pet wingnut.

I remember a whole study we did in college of logical fallacies. One of the most common? 'Appeal to tradition.' In business, the appeal to tradition usually takes the form of 'Why change? This is how we've always done it.' This is usually followed by bankruptcy. Except in this case we're talking about moral bankruptcy.

How about the RNC?

Well, they want your money, too. But other than claiming that Scalito is a brilliant man out of whose ass the sun always shines, that under his influence America will turn into a land of milk and honey, where everyone joins hands and walks singing and smiling across the meadows, where your whites get whiter, your car never breaks down and money rains down from the heavens like a golden shower, offers up no substantive arguments for why their boy should get the job. But, as I've noted before, Kenny pretty much just expects that sending down his orders from on high should be enough to get the stormtroopers out in the streets smashing Democratic shop windows. And so on. And so on.

Of course, PFAW and MoveOn want my money, too. Frankly, I'm getting sick of all the money pitches, wherever they come from, but that's a side issue here.

personal: And they're off!

2005-11-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

Once a year, for a month, I become absolutely, and almost certifiably, insane. What's that you say? I always am?

Yeah, probably.

But what's up in the month of November is National Novel Writing Month. This is my third year participating, though last year I didn't quite make it to the finish line because I was (shock, horror) working full time finishing the last semester of my master's program. And I was working full time. And my schooling necessitated a once-a-week evening commute to Tucson and back (a two-hour drive each way). And I'm in a band that wanted to rehearse occasionally. And, well, you get the idea.

I suppose my larger point is that I've always considered myself to be a writer but, like so many others, I always have an excuse not to do it. And if you've ever thought about writing a book but haven't done it, you've had your excuses too. It never hits the top of the priority list.

Nanowrimo is about abandoning the excuses and just doing it. It doesn't have to be good. It doesn't have to flow. It doesn't even have to make sense. It just has to be fiction and the goal is to hit the 50,000-word mark by midnight Nov. 30. Knowing my life in the last year or two, I'm pretty sure politics will enter in somewhere, but I'll be honest ... I'm about a page into it so far and I have absolutely no idea what I'm writing about. And that's OK.

Join me, won't you? And if you can't or don't, bear with me if I don't answer e-mails or disappear for days at a time. I'm writing my Great American Novel, even if it falls far short of the Platonic ideal of such a beast.

Oh, and I'll be having fun doing it.

politics: Hurrah!

2005-10-28T09:52:00.000-07:00

Happy Fitzmas, everybody!

politics: Someone wanna buy BushCo an Iain Banks book?

2005-10-05T23:49:00.000-07:00

From 'A Few Notes on the Culture', an essay about Iain M. Banks's fictional galactic society, in The State of the Art:

... In all but the most dedicatedly repressive hegemonies, if in a sizable population there are one hundred rebels, all of whom are then rounded up and killed, the number of rebels present at the end of the day is not zero, and not even one hundred, but two hundred or three hundred or more; an equation based on human nature which seems often to baffle the military and political mind.

politics: Brazen and stupid

2005-10-03T11:10:00.000-07:00

I'm back! *phew* It's been awhile. Much has happened in the mean time, both in my personal life and in the life of the nation as a whole, that I've left uncommented on. Had a lovely trip to Northern California, saw some good music, drank some good wine. Now I'm back, wide awake and refreshed. And ready to take on Ken Mehlman's e-mail from this morning.

He headlines it, "Harriet Miers Needs Your Help." To me, I know I'm biased, but that's reason enough to oppose her, sight unseen.

But the fact that BushCorp nominated this woman in the first place demonstrates, sharply and with great shouting, that they care more about loyalty than about the good of the country. And it demonstrates BushCorp's total tone-deafness to the American public and current events.

Do they not see the collapse of credibility of their public officials? Do they not see the plunging poll numbers, indications that their long honeymoon is, at long last, drawing to a close?

And if they do, what excuse do they have for throwing a lawyer with absolutely no experience as a judge up on the parapet, a candidate for one of the most important judicial posts in the country?

So anyway. Back to Kenny-boy.

"Ms. Miers is an extremely well-qualified and fair-minded individual who is committed to interpreting the law instead of legislating from the bench."

Excuse, please? How is she qualified? How do we know she's a fair-minded individual? Gimme something to go on here. Seriously. As for 'legislating from the bench ...', Ken, please get some new jargon. This stuff's getting old and tired. And get your guys all on board: Arnie wants legislation from the bench in California to protect him from the representative will of the people of California embodied in the state legislature.

Oh, and this part made me laugh: "President Bush selected Ms. Miers after embarking on a thorough and deliberate thought process." Can anyone seriously imagine Skippy thinking anything through thoroughly and deliberately without guffawing uncontrollably?

Ah, yes, and there's this nugget: "They (the Democrats) have no interest in giving Ms. Miers a fair hearing or vote." Erm, so even if they did, what information is out there that would enable anyone not operating on pure and unadulteratedly blind faith to allow her a fair hearing?

I'm sure she's a nice woman and a perfectly competent lawyer. But I know lots of people like that who I wouldn't recommend for a Supreme Court post. And it seems obvious to me how little Kenny thinks of his rank-and-file minions that he can send out blather like this e-mail and not even worry about telling his own people why they should support this woman's nomination. He can assume that simply because he says it's so, that legions of cognition-deficient Republican worker drones will max out the phone lines of Capitol Hill professing their undying devotion to a woman whose name they didn't even know before yesterday.

And he's probably right.

Christian charity knows bounds

2005-09-07T18:33:00.000-07:00

Yes, ladies and gents, it's time for the latest installment of AFA-mail! Yes, it's true, the American Family Association squatted over my e-mailbox today and took a crap the size of Texas.

It starts out innocently enough, soliciting churches to house people displaced by the hurricane and federal negligence in the Gulf region. So far so good. After that, it turns kinda ugly.

"We in turn will contact a family needing shelter and have them get in contact with you directly. You can interview them to see if their needs and your facilities are compatible and to secure references such as their previous local church and pastor."

Excuse me, but WTF?

Yes, it's all very subtle. It's just a 'reference check'. "We suggest that you screen the family carefully. While 99% of these people will be very appreciative, there is always that 1% who can create problems."

In other words, pick the white fundamentalist Christian families first, then the black fundamentalist Christian families, then if you must, the Christian families of more mainstream denominations. But you can safely weed out anyone who doesn't go to church regularly, for whatever reason. They can feel free to die wherever they fall.

Remember, it's just a reference check, to weed out that "1% who can create problems."

yawn Oh, look, the gas boycott is here again

2005-08-31T13:49:00.000-07:00

Yes, here we are again. My inbox is filling up with those e-mails from friends, family, acquaintances, people I barely know ... almost every mailing list I'm on has forwarded one on to me: "Stick It Up Their @$$ Day" and other like appellations. For one day, we won't buy gasoline. Nations will tremble. Oil company executives will cower under their desks. The heavens will ring with the anguished cries of the Middle Eastern oil barons. And the price of gas will instantly halve.

As much of an idealist as I am, get fricking real, people.

I get gas about once every two weeks, once a week if I've done a lot of driving. Does this mean that I'm boycotting the oil companies the other 13 days?

Yeah, OK, maybe if everyone, absolutely everyone in America refrained from refueling (this includes the truckers who bring those frozen pizzas to your grocery stores so you don't have to get up off your ass and make some decent food yourself, and who bring you your mail every day), it might cause a hiccup that they would notice. But it would be nicely offset by the rise in gas sales the week leading up to and the week following it.

A finer example of slacktivism I can hardly envision. It accomplishes absolutely nothing, but makes you feel good about doing it.

You really want to stick it to the oil companies? You really want to complain about the obscene price gouging, the positively criminal level of profiteering?

Get off your ass. Walk. Wipe the cobwebs off that bike, pump up the tires and get riding. Carpool to work. Telecommute. Combine errands into one trip. Decide if you really have to run down to Circle K for a stick of butter. Ride the fricking bus, ferchrissake!

Get rid of that stupid SUV that you never actually use for its intended purpose (even though if you did use most of the newer ones for that intended purpose, they'd fail miserably) and buy a hybrid or a SmartCar. Find ways to save electricity. Etc., etc.

Basically, use less oil over the long term. One day isn't going to accomplish diddly. But a long-term drop in consumption will serve two purposes: It'll make the point that the stuff costs too much, and it'll slow consumption so that the day is delayed when we totally run out; plus, we'll all be in a slightly better position when it finally does.

Gawd, people are stupid.

politics: I'm pretty sure lying is a sin, too, right?

2005-08-24T11:29:00.000-07:00

"I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out.' And 'take him out' can be a number of things, including kidnapping; there are a number of ways to take out a dictator from power besides killing him. I was misinterpreted by the AP [Associated Press], but that happens all the time." -- Pat Robertson, today.

"If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it." -- Pat Robertson, Monday.

I'm astonished that he thinks people are that stupid. The man truly has hellfire at his core.

social issues: Intelligent (?) Design

2005-08-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

Stumbled across this quote from Neal Stephenson's The Confusion (vol. 2 of the Baroque Cycle, an intriguing and aptly-named historical fiction trilogy of sorts):

"Monads and atoms are both infinitely small, yet everything is made out of them; and in considering how such a paradox is possible, we must look to the interactions among them. ... We're obliged to explain the things we see ... solely in terms of those interactions."

"Solely, Doctor?"

"Solely, your highness. For if God made the world according to understandable, consistent laws -- and if nothing else, Newton has proved that -- then it must be consistent through and through, top to bottom. If it is made of atoms, then it is made of atoms, and must be explained in terms of atoms; when we get into difficulty, we cannot simply wave our hands and say, 'At this point there is a miracle,' or 'Here I invoke a wholly new thing called Force which has nothing to do with atoms.'"

I am reminded, too, of the old maps that left uncharted areas labelled 'Here there be dragons.

Anyway. Submitted for your consideration.

politics: A 'well, duh' epiphany

2005-08-23T11:45:00.000-07:00

It just occurred to me why the Bush cabal is now, at least covertly, suggesting they might start pulling the troops out of Iraq. I mean, yeah, it took me awhile to connect this with Bush's 'all options are on the table' crap concerning Iran last weekend.

But that's just it. There's no way he can invade Iran while the military is mired in Iraq.

Here we go.

misc.: Gag.

2005-08-23T11:32:00.000-07:00

azcentral.com reports on the new color scheme for the post-merger US Airways planes.

Say what you will about America West Airlines, and there are many things you can say. But their planes are pretty. Their colors are nice. This color scheme is about as exciting as the dress code for male employees at Fry's Electronics.

What part of 'Thou shalt not kill' was unclear?

2005-08-23T08:52:00.000-07:00

Pat Robertson. Dude is seriously whack. Televangelist Calls for Chavez' Death, says the Washington Post. Apparently it's God's will that America assassinate a democratically-elected foreign head of state.

Seriously, even if this were the first time he'd said or done something so monumentally evil, I don't understand why this man still has a job.

misc: An engrossing random Web site find

2005-08-16T09:47:00.000-07:00

I use Firefox for my Web browsing and I have an extension on it from StumbleUpon, which sends you to Web sites it thinks you'll like based on your ratings of other sites you've visited (sort of like TiVo Suggestions for the Web). Because the toolbar is right above the tabs in Firefox, sometimes I hit the 'Stumble!' button by mistake.

So this morning I found the photoblog PostSecret. The deal is that people anonymously send in 4x6 postcards to the address of the blog owner with a secret written, or laid out artistically, or whatever, on the picture side of the postcard.

Some of them, I'm sure, are invented, and some of them are trivial. Some are funny, some are tragic, some are sad ... but almost all of them are fascinating. I lost a chunk of my morning reading them today.

homosexuality: Dobson's really starting to creep me out

2005-08-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

There's so much I could say about this Web site, but really, it speaks for itself.

"My son couldn’t care less about sports and the great outdoors. He’s painfully shy and easily gets hurt. Other kids call him a sissy. I’ve tried everything. My boy even wimped out of Cub Scouts. What am I supposed to do?"

This, of course, is the point in the blog entry at which I obligatorily point out that:

I enjoy watching several sports and even participating in a couple of team sports from time to time.
Hiking, camping, bike riding, rock climbing ... these are all activities I enjoy very much.
Just about every guy (even the straight ones, amazingly!) I know was called a 'sissy', 'fag', etc., etc., more times than he can count over the course of his childhood. Kids are mean that way.
Shyness is, equally amazingly, not limited to us queers, in my experience. Actually, most of the queerwimpsissyfags I know are actually substantially more extroverted and outgoing than me.
I'm an Eagle scout and veteran of the armed forces. So much for their 'wimp' bilge.
I am far from unique in all of this.

I mean, I know I'm no parent, but it seems to me that a paranoid urge to control your child is indicative of your own insecurities and is ultimately harmful to your child.

And, erm, there's this word that's all over this meanspirited, judgmental, psuedopsychological swill ... 'prehomosexual'.

WTF?

politics: Go, Cindy!

2005-08-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

Cindy Sheehan is officially my new hero. Thanks to kniwt, I've been reading this blog/running commentary since yesterday, which keeps me up to date. William Rivers Pitt was doing the updating, but he's gone back to Boston, leaving Scott Galindez to keep everyone informed.

I'm captivated.

politics: You poor take courage, you rich take care

2005-08-03T08:55:00.000-07:00

OK, quoting a Leon Rosselson song in the subject line, and now to quote one of my own songs (in an act of blatant self-aggrandizement), in the name of truth, we're coming for you ...

Yes, it looks like Schmidt is going to Congress, the woman who I indelicately compared last night to "a schoolmarm who performs the Black Mass in her off hours." But if she can win by such a slim margin in a district that hasn't gone Democrat in decades, it's evident that the backlash against neoconservatism, neoimperialism and neofascism is already well underway.

What lessons can we take from Hackett? Being plain-spoken resonates. An anti-war message resonates. Bland and blatant adulation of the president does not resonate particularly well. Slandering veterans and questioning the quality of their service will backfire. But more jobs, protecting Social Security from the rapacious Republican hordes, and better, more accessible and more affordable health care are popular.

I feel certain the Richt will paint this as a sound trouncing of liberal values and a ringing endorsement of the unholy bloodbath in the Middle East. But to go from consistent 75%-25% races to almost a dead heat does indeed indicate a shift in the tide.

politics: Bush to world: F off

2005-07-29T11:37:00.000-07:00

*ahem* Real presidential. Truly.

Right. While you're digesting that, here's a quote from a Powerline post called to attention by the ever-vigilant Daily Kos:

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

I swear, satire is dead. It's been rendered irrelevant by real life.

politics: From Gitmo to Abu Ghraib

2005-07-28T10:36:00.000-07:00

Wasn't it just 'a few bad apples'? Wasn't it an amazing thing that all those interrogators in all those widespread places coincidentally came up with the same strange, creative ways of brutalizing people?

"The commander in charge of Guantanamo Bay prison visited Abu Ghraib in 2003 and recommended the use of military dogs during interrogations, the former warden in Iraq testified Wednesday at a hearing for two Army dog handlers accused of prisoner abuse," according to the Guardian.

Wow. You could knock me over with a feather.

Of course, they'll keep spinning. And Duncan "if feeding the detainees lemon chicken and rice pilaf is torture, well, sign me up!" Hunter will keep inviting embarrassed journalists to sample the fine Guantanamo cuisine in a sublime, surrealistic act of denial.

What will it take for the apologists to wake up? Seriously.

politics: End of an era

2005-07-28T09:08:00.000-07:00

I don't know whether the IRA story will be everywhere or nowhere today, but it struck me in a profound way this morning. It didn't come out of the blue, so I wasn't surprised since it's been brewing for awhile now. But a defining undercurrent of life in the British Isles for the last 30-40 years (well, 80, 90 or more, really, but who's counting?) is making a radical change.

Having been involved in various capacities in the Celtic music community for the past 18 years or so, I've met a lot of musicians, agents, record label people and assorted hangers-on. I've had long talks with registered Sinn Fein partisans. I've shared in the frustration of all involved when said Sinn Fein members were denied visas to the United States. I've heard from all sides of the whole Irish republican question. And I've seen how Irish Americans with a lot of money, a lot of idealism and no understanding of reality have kept the Frankenstein's monsters that are the various militant republican factions going. Even the most vehemently pro-republican people I meant spoke with something between anger and infinite sadness about the whole idea of blowing up school buses and London commuters.

Anyway, time was, the IRA was arguably the most prominent terrorist organization in the West. Did it really take watching a far-reaching network of extremists using planes as missiles and such for them to finally realize that violence only takes you farther away from a solution, rather than closer? And what will it take for the Bush crime family to realize the same thing?

politics: A load of bullcrap regarding Roberts

2005-07-22T15:04:00.000-07:00

How fascinated I was to see this headline on my Google News just now: Most Americans Say Roberts Should Be Confirmed.

I mean, pardon me if this sounds a little snobby (it surely isn't intended so), but what the hell do most Americans actually know about Roberts? This soon after the nomination, really all any but the most dedicated political junkies know about him is that he's young and reasonably easy on the eyes for a 50-some-year-old judge.

Can we wait until there's actually some information about there before running stupid polls like this? They really ought to know better than to fall for the whole bright, shiny object that is the Roberts rush-job.

politics: AFAmail roundup

2005-07-19T11:31:00.000-07:00

And the hits just keep on coming!

I've ignored most of the conmail I've gotten recently, but I've kept around the ones I thought were most special, or struck a special chord with me for one reason or another. Time to clear out my inbox!

On July 14, the American Family Association wrote me with the hopeful message that "The President Is Waiting To Hear From You" (sic). As usual, though, the e-mail contained the much less hopeful message that "the liberals are bombarding the President with demands that he appoint a liberal to the Supreme Court."

Eh?

I'm not sure I know of any liberals who've called on Rove's finger puppet to appoint a liberal justice. I mean, let's face it, even if we did, it would never happen. But the point of judges and justices isn't their political leanings, it's their ability to set aside personal opinions and personally held beliefs in the interest of the conscientious practice of jurisprudence. Radical wingnut judges who've proved in the past their determination to turn America into a new mix of oligarchy and theocracy by selectively upholding or creatively interpreting law do not fit that description.

So if the only wise and fair judges in America are liberal ones, so be it, then, we do want a liberal justice. But doesn't your colorful reinvention of the truth undermine your assertion that liberal judges are activist judges, you creeps?

Ahem. Moving swiftly onward. Or backward, to July 1.

It was then that I received an AFA e-mail headlined, "Stand With The President, Ask Him To Keep His Promise And Appoint Another Scalia and Thomas To The Supreme Court".

I have nothing to add to that. I spontaneously spat out a mouthful of coffee the first time I read that one. I mean, really.

Oh, except there was one sentence in the e-mail that really gave me pause: "The President was elected by voters who share the President's philosophy."

Weirdly enough, even the people I know who voted for Bush largely don't share his philosophy on anything. They held their noses and voted for the creep, either rationalizing his, frankly, nutty views away or trying to reason that other concerns (to wit, his fabulous successes in the War on Terror[tm]) were overriding. The cognitive dissonance was truly headache-inducing.

OK, now we move to more recent times, with the AFA asserting this past Friday with alarm that, "New Bill Would Give One Group Protection Against Discrimination Based Solely On Their Sexual Behavior."

Oh, my word. I really thought this horse was dead, but still they flog.

Throughout the e-mail, the phrase 'sexual orientation' is enclosed in quotation marks, highlighting their rejection of the term, preferring instead 'sexual behavior.'

Idiots.

Stark, raving, Neanderthal, drooling, superstitious, "burn the witch! burn the witch!", "the sky is falling! the sky is falling!", my-God-is-bigger-than-your-God, do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do idiots.

Here's something for them to stick in their craw and suck on:

I realized I was gay at least eight years before I had my first intimate contact of any kind with a member of my own gender. It's so intensely hard-wired into the brain and into aspects of biology, more of which are discovered all the time, that it's simple-minded fear-mongering to dismiss it as an abhorrent and aberrant behavior.

Focussing on the mechanics of sex is merely trying to raise the revulsion of those who find it distasteful and to channel it into meanspirited action.

I find many sexual practices of straight couples revolting, or at the very least distasteful. I don't think they should be discriminated against in hiring if they are involved in specific practices that I dislike. I don't think they should be fired or passed up for promotions because they talk about their spouses or significant others openly. I find graphic public discussion of sex acts to be inappropriate whatever the orientation of the people involved.

Yeah. These people bug me.

misc: Something to add to your Christmas list

2005-07-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

The Smart Car is here! The Smart Car is here!

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0713smartcar13.html

Is there any reason not to have a car that gets over 50 mpg these days?

politics: Dance, little worm, dance!

2005-07-11T11:55:00.000-07:00

It wasn't so long ago that Scott McLellan was characterizing suggestions that Rove might have been in some way involved in revealing Valerie Plame's name and occupation to Robert Novak et al. as "ridiculous" and insisting that whoever the leaker was would be offered the opportunity to seek other employment.

Listening to him wither under reporters' questioning and dance furiously while they fired their figurative pistols at his feet this morning warmed the cockles of my heart. Now, if only it would transpire that McLellan was involved too, my joy would be complete.

politics: An epiphany

2005-07-07T15:27:00.000-07:00

I'm currently reading Douglas Coupland's Polaroids From the Dead and I happened on a little snippet, two quotes spoken in reference to the O.J. Simpson case. But I was struck immediately upon reading them that the point of the short section explains better than anything I've yet heard why it is the mainstream media has done such a piss-poor job of covering the lies, frauds and deceptions to which we've been subject for the last couple of years.

"Barbara Ehrenreich: There's a new standard. It used to be, get the scoop and be first. Now you want to be 14th or 23rd: 'No, I didn't do it until after NBC did it and ABC did it.' You have to be the last one to do these stories and wear the badge of purity.'

"Jery Nachman: When I was editing the Post, I'd get calls from colleagues at newspapers, whose names you would instantly recognize, wondering when and if we were going to pop the 'X' story. And I would ask, 'Are you going to try to do it first?' And they would say, 'No, we want to go the next day.' Ther was a race to see who would be first to go second.'"

Who wants to be the first to stick their neck out and risk having it chopped off by the White House spinning blades? Who wants to go first and be accused of spiteful un-Americanism?

It's depressing, but it makes sense to me.

misc: What's disturbing is how entertaining this is

2005-07-03T20:35:00.000-07:00

OK, this isn't personal, political, musical or anything else, but I just had to share this link. Weird, very cringe inducing and painfully fun. If she gets stuck, you can click and drag her, or even toss her around if you're so inclined.

http://www.planetdan.net/pics/misc/tetka.html

politics: Oh, great, here we go.

2005-06-30T14:43:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts and keep all arms and hands inside the vehicle while it's in motion.

Is this how it begins?
Bush Wants Answers on Iranian Leader's Past.

Does it really matter that much 25 years later? And when you have a country run by clerics, who took power in an Islamic revolution during which the Americans were taken hostage, do you really expect that someone high up in the power structure of that country's theocracy wouldn't have gotten his hands dirty back then?

Good gawd, George, quit ratcheting up the rhetoric so transparently.

Twit.

social issues: Spain ... again

2005-06-30T13:36:00.000-07:00

Y'know, that former fascist dictatorship in southwestern Europe is now the fourth country in the world to legalize gay marriage (though it would seem like the 3rd to me, since as far as I know the Canadian law still technically has to go through the senate ... someone correct me if I'm wrong, or if the senate vote is just a formality)?

Get that?

Fascist.

Dictatorship.

Now one of the most socially progressive countries in the world.

And our country? Once perceived as the light of liberty in the world, the laissez-faire city on the hill, the most prosperous, admired, envied nation on earth?

At war with Islam, with science, with civil liberties, with the poor, with all manner of minorities (racial, social, political, etc.). Falling drastically behind in scientific, economic, political and social progress. Being eaten alive from the inside by cancerous greed, corporatism and lust for power.

Is there a point at which we'll have to give it up for dead and let the neofascists gnaw on the bones until they, too perish from their selfish shortsightedness?

It sickens me that they've even pushed things so far that I might even consider that my beloved country may eventually be beyond saving.

politics: Hurrah for Ken Mehlman!

2005-06-28T11:06:00.000-07:00

Ken Mehlman's my hero. No, really. He provides me regularly with fodder for rants, dissatisfaction and general blood pressure elevation.

True to form came his e-mail this weekend containing the latest RNC Newspeak. Well, OK, it's not so new (Republicans have been parroting this crap for months). But still.

"Yesterday's era of Democrats like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy brought real ideas and solutions to the table in an attempt to make a better life for the American people," he says.

"Unfortunately, today's Democrat Party is not the one your parents knew. Instead, today's Democrats are singularly focused on obstruction and over-the-top rhetoric, adding nothing to raise the level of discourse and address the concerns of Americans."

All-righty. Democrats have plenty of ideas. Just because you don't like them, or because the SCLM doesn't cover them, or you don't let them come up for votes, doesn't mean they're not there.

Regardless, if you're on a train that's hell-bent on running off the edge of collapsed bridge up ahead over the canyon, you don't sit there and yell at the guy trying to pull on the emergency brake because he's trying to stop the train instead of coming up with another idea about where to drive it.

Idiots.

politics: Amusing statistic

2005-06-28T10:04:00.000-07:00

Here's something I read in Ode this morning, a CNN, USA Today and Gallup poll from January asking if President Bush brings people together or drives them apart.

49 percent said he brings them together. 49 percent said he drives them apart.

I laughed out loud.

politics: This makes me happy ...

2005-06-16T09:10:00.000-07:00

This makes me happy, but sort of in the same way you'd be happy if someone were in the process of chopping off your hand and instead chopped off four of your fingers:

House votes to limit Patriot Act search powers

politics/social issues: What color is the sky in Newsmax's world?

2005-06-15T13:04:00.000-07:00

This is seriously perplexing, even for Newsmax. From their story headlined Facts Show Schiavo Was Not Blind:

In a press conference that raised more questions than it answered, Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Jon Thogmartin claimed that the "vision centers of her brain were dead," and as a result she could not see.

Seriously.

Not only does every other story out their contradict their headline; their own story contradicts the headline.

The story interestingly casts unfounded aspersions while quoting information from the press conference that directly refutes their every vile untruth.

So rather than honorably backing off their earlier venom, they continue to spew it while the ship of their disgusting politics sinks under their feet. It's sort of fascinating.

politics: Poor choice of gestures

2005-06-15T10:45:00.000-07:00

Hi, George!

politics: The first step toward seceding: Make yer own flag

2005-06-13T14:24:00.000-07:00

Oh. My. Gawd.

These people have seriously launched themselves with great gusto, speed and general verve off the edge of reason, shouting loud hallelujahs as they plunge through space.

From the Baltimore Sun: Creating a Christian flag for God and country

Fun facts and quotes from the article, if you don't feel like clicking over there:

"Eldreth is untroubled by the notion of combining American and Christian symbols this way, as she quickly answers yes when asked whether the American purpose in the world is a specifically Christian project."
"'I believe this country can only be great if God is behind us, and he is,' said Gary Folk, who displays his national Christian flag on a pole in front of his home in Cloverdale, Calif. 'That's why we are a superpower.'" Gott mit Uns, anyone?
"Bobby Ables ... said, 'I don't get in politics too much,' but as he sees it, the flag suitably mixes God and country: 'That's what we are, a patriotic, Christian country.'"
And then the one hyper-Christian phrase I've never understood: "It's time for America to bless God." Isn't it God who does the blessing? What ever happened to praising God for blessings received?

I've always thought that Christians, especially literalist Christians, ought to be more uncomfortable than they seem to be with America's near-worship of our flag, not that it's my business to tell them how to feel about things. But looking at the Word of God and all, it does seem inconsistent.

This seems worse, to me.

Seriously, you guys want your own theocracy, take Texas or something and go do your own thing. The rest of us have a country to save.

politics: Audacious mendacity

2005-06-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

Wow, I've been quiet for awhile. We'll chalk it up principally to the fact that I was rather ill for over a week. Then there's the fact that though there's been such depressing news lately, it's been covered to death by everyone else and I just didn't see the point of going 'Me, too!' over and over again.

But I must re-emerge to present the June 'Disassembler of the Month' award to Ken 'No, I'm not gay! Seriously. I'm not! Shut up! SHUT UP! Lalalalala I can't hear you!' Mehlman, esteemed chairman of the Republican National Committee. Howard Dean may get all sorts of ire for bluntly stating the truth, but apparently Ken Mehlman gets none at all in the SCLM for lying.

You've probably all seen/heard/read about it in the alternative media outlet of your choice, but from MSNBC.com's transcript of June 5's Meet the Press (and if you get the time, do read the whole thing -- what a hoot he is!):

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to the now-famous Downing Street memo. This was a memo, July 23, 2002, from the head of British intelligence to Prime Minister Blair; in effect, notes taken from a briefing that was given to Prime Minister Blair after the head of British intelligence came back from a trip to Washington. It says this: "[The head of British Intelligence] reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, though military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

This is July of 2002. We didn't invade until March of 2003. And the prime minister of Great Britain is being told by the head of his intelligence that he went to Washington and believes that a decision had already been made and that the administration was fixing or manipulating the intelligence to support the policy.

MR. MEHLMAN: Tim, that report has been discredited by everyone else who's looked at it since then. Whether it's the 911 Commission, whether it's the Senate, whoever's looked at this has said there was no effort to change the intelligence at all. The fact is that the intelligence of this country, the intelligence of Britain, the intelligence of the United Nations, the intelligence all over the world said that there were weapons of mass destruction present in Iraq. We knew that Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction before. We still know that there was a weapons of mass destruction program. He was evading the sanctions, and he had plans to reconstitute the program. We also knew that Saddam Hussein had uniquely invaded his neighbors, had uniquely supported terrorists and we all know today that we are safer because he's been removed from power.

So I believe that that individual report not only has been discredited but that the overall reasons for removing Saddam Hussein were broader than that, they were correct, and we're now safer and certainly the people of Iraq are safer now that Saddam Hussein has been removed from power.

MR. RUSSERT: (vewwy quietly -- Chris) I don't believe that the authenticity of this report has been discredited.

So not only does he outright lie, in that not only has no one disputed the authenticity of the memo but the 9/11 Commission and the Senate didn't even know of the memo until we did, but he also falls back on the old saw of 'we're safer, Iraq's safer, everybody's dancing a jig in a field of flowers since we overthrew Saddam.'

I mean, seriously, even if I were to grant that that's true (which I don't, for the record), it would be a bit like, oh, say, someone dropping a few bombs on the Northwest Valley here in the Phoenix area, after which half the population rushes to the person's defense saying, "Look how much smoother the traffic is from Surprise into downtown now! If he hadn't bombed that part of town into oblivion we'd still have nonstop traffic jams at rush hour. Do you want that?'

The benefit isn't the point (though it's certainly cause for debate in itself), you morons. It's the cost. How many dead people is enough? How many is too many? Is there such a thing as too many dead Iraqis? I earnestly hope there's a special place in Hell for Christians who crow endlessly about the 'Culture of Life(tm)' but turn a blind eye to the mass-murder of thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of innocents because they live in another part of the world and (mostly) practice a different faith.

I know I repeatedly go off on this whole death tangent, but it sickens me that no one seems to care. I mean, even a lot of the anti-war crowd only mentions this as an afterthought. A lie is horrible. Profiteering and stealing are horrible. Blithely ignoring the Constitution is reprehensible. And all of these things are important, and I can yell about them with the best of y'all.

But dead is dead folks. Each person has a story, the way you have a story. Each person has plans, dreams, hopes, family, friends, love, hate, creativity, work, play, fun, happiness, anguish, fear, courage, lust and all the other things that make a human life what it is. When it goes, it goes away for good, and no one, and I mean no one has the right to decide for them when it does so.

So all the young Americans who've died as a result of this Big Lie, who will never see their new wives or husbands, or children or parents again are victims of murder. And all of the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives intertwined theirs are, by extension, also victims. And all of the thousands, tens of thousands, of Iraqis, who've died as a result of this Big Lie, are victims of murder. And the millions of people whose lives intertwined with theirs are also victims by extension. These are unfathomable numbers. The human brian cannot, perhaps by design, understand the magnitude of such loss and such sorrow.

That the Iraqis now rise in anger doesn't surprise me. What does surprise me is that, with some notable exceptions, the Americans touched by this mass murder sit quietly, after expressing their grief in quiet and socially acceptable ways, slap the magnetic 'Support the Troops' ribbons on the back of their SUVs and find meaning in the suffering by standing fully upright behind the War Criminal in chief and parroting his poisonous lies.

They shoud be channeling their anger into the immediate, lawful and unequivocal overthrow of the murderous war profiteers who've hijacked what used to be, and could again one day be, the greatest country on earth.

Since my radical college days, I've gradually tempered my total opposition to armed conflict because invariably nearly everyone I know, no matter how sympathetic in principle, would search for examples of a justified war just to see me squirm intellectually and try to argue my way out of their straw box. I got tired of it.

But you know what? I'm done with appeasement. Organized murder, whether you call it war or genocide, is a monstrous evil that has no place in humanity if we're ever to develop beyond savages with a god complex. And these unevolved creatures with the blackness of death and the heavy pain of amoral greed in their hearts need to be locked away in cages for the good of the human family.

*phew*

Catharsis! And before anyone makes any comments on this post, understand that any arguments about my anti-war stance, or exceptions you can find to the rule, or criticisms about how it's 'utopian' or 'unrealistic' will either be ignored or deleted. I have good points to make in support of my position, but I'm tired of offering them up to people who seriously have no interest in listening and just feel like taking my stuff apart.

politics: Thanks for the lesson, George!

2005-05-31T13:58:00.000-07:00

I didn't know until this morning that the word "disassemble" means "to lie."

Especially endearing was the patronizing tone this smarmy know-it-all took when misinforming the assembled press corps.

politics: TRMPAC troubles

2005-05-26T11:15:00.000-07:00

Oh, goodness, what will my old neighborhood's representative, shameless right-wing toady John Shadegg do if TRMPAC goes down? They do seem to be taking on water.

How many more of these things do they have to decide/find/discover before they can actually do something with DeLay? I mean, this is getting serious.

misc: Blinding Flash of the Fricking Obvious

2005-05-23T00:49:00.000-07:00

I swear, I had to look at the first couple of paragraphs of this article a couple of times before I was convinced it wasn't fake. But no, it ain't fake, just stupid.

"Mothers' genes contain bald truth about hair loss"

What gets me about this is that this is news. What gets me about this is that they had to do fancy-schmancy genetic research to find out what we've already known for decades and then they have the balls to try to pass it off as news.

OMFG, people are stupid.

Yes, OK, so the news in the story is that they actually figured out which genes do it. But you don't get to that till you're halfway through the story.

The lead is truly precious. "Sons have long blamed their fathers when they start balding prematurely ..."

I don't know about you, but whenever I've been at any sort of social gathering where someone hinted that he were becoming bald because of his father, or would lose his hair because of his father, or wouldn't because his father never did, that person has instantly been the subject either of polite education or outright ridicule. One wonders what moronic circles this writer moves in.

Maybe I'm just feeling mean this evening.

personal: Oh, crap.

2005-05-20T08:44:00.000-07:00

In searching for some more online information about a festival at which I'll be vending this weekend, the Prescott (AZ) Highland Games, I discovered something very alarming. The Stormfront White Nationalist Community will apparently be in attendance. I won't link to them -- I don't want to give them the traffic -- but you can probably figure it out.

I remember reading an article about a year or so ago saying that they were very actively recruiting at New England and East Coast Highland games. They've apparently spread out.

politics: Oh-so-close to slanderous

2005-05-19T09:16:00.000-07:00

I think I may just reprint the entirety of this e-mail I got two days ago, also from the RNC (why is that all my rants these days seem linked to the right-wing misleadmail I'm always getting?). Note that it carefully avoids directly saying that the Democrats stole the Washington gubernatorial election. But note, also, that they don't actually say where they got their numbers, what they mean or how they compare to other elections that weren't disputed. But there's enough crap-slinging here that, really, it speaks for itself. Enjoy:

Dear Chris,

More and more reports are emerging of the extent to which Democrats were willing to go to try to influence the 2004 election.

Well, their tactics worked in Washington State.

Our Republican candidate for Governor, Dino Rossi, actually won the election. Then he won the recount.

Then Democrat-controlled King County "found" 566 new votes just in time for the second recount, enough to overturn the results of Election Day and the first recount.

The new result? Dino Rossi "lost" by 129 votes. But consider the following facts in Washington state;

943 felons illegally voted
49 dead people voted
3 people voted in Washington and another state
2 illegal aliens voted
12 people voted multiple times
174 provisional votes were counted but later found to be cast people who had already voted or were unregistered

Also, at least another 1,600 ballots are still in question:

875 more absentee votes were cast in King County than there were absentee voters
95 more ballots in King County and 50 ballots in Whitman County were "found" after both recounts, and have never been counted
At least 660 provisional ballots were improperly counted in King County.

Dino Rossi is fighting, and voters of good conscience from across this country should stand with him. For more info on Dino Rossi and his ongoing fight, please go to www.dinorossi.com.

Sincerely,
Michael DuHaime
RNC Political Director

politics: Zell Miller

2005-05-19T09:13:00.000-07:00

The RNC was kind enough to alert me that Zell Miller has a new book out. Hurrah.

No, really, this is exciting! It's called A Deficit of Decency. I mean, this is fantastic! He's finally coming clean! He's admitting what a putz he's been! Really, it warms my heart.

...

What do you mean, that's not what he means?

*sigh*

politics: George Galloway's statement (a public service)

2005-05-18T12:53:00.000-07:00

Norm Coleman, Mr. Galloway would like to hand you your ass now. Read this in its entirety. It's important. After some digging, I found the transcript at commondreams.org, though it originated at Times Online:

"Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.

"Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

"Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are - let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein. This is false.

"I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein.

"As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defense made of his.

"I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and Americans governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi embassy when British and American officials were going in and doing commerce.

"You will see from the official parliamentary record, Hansard, from the 15th March 1990 onwards, voluminous evidence that I have a rather better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do and than any other member of the British or American governments do.

"Now you say in this document, you quote a source, you have the gall to quote a source, without ever having asked me whether the allegation from the source is true, that I am 'the owner of a company which has made substantial profits from trading in Iraqi oil'.

"Senator, I do not own any companies, beyond a small company whose entire purpose, whose sole purpose, is to receive the income from my journalistic earnings from my employer, Associated Newspapers, in London. I do not own a company that's been trading in Iraqi oil. And you have no business to carry a quotation, utterly unsubstantiated and false, implying otherwise.

"Now you have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad. If you had any of the letters against me that you had against Zhirinovsky, and even Pasqua, they would have been up there in your slideshow for the members of your committee today.

"You have my name on lists provided to you by the Duelfer inquiry, provided to him by the convicted bank robber, and fraudster and conman Ahmed Chalabi who many people to their credit in your country now realize played a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster in Iraq.

"There were 270 names on that list originally. That's somehow been filleted down to the names you chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that committee included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former head of the African National Congress Presidential office and many others who had one defining characteristic in common: they all stood against the policy of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted and which has led us to this disaster.

"You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have something on me, I've never met Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know that he's your prisoner, I believe he's in Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war crimes charges, punishable by death. In these circumstances, knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, in Bagram Airbase, in Guantanamo Bay, including I may say, British citizens being held in those places.

"I'm not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner in those circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein Ramadan whom I have never met. If he said what he said, then he is wrong.

"And if you had any evidence that I had ever engaged in any actual oil transaction, if you had any evidence that anybody ever gave me any money, it would be before the public and before this committee today because I agreed with your Mr Greenblatt [Mark Greenblatt, legal counsel on the committee].

"Your Mr Greenblatt was absolutely correct. What counts is not the names on the paper, what counts is where's the money. Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody. And if you had anybody who ever paid me a penny, you would have produced them today.

"Now you refer at length to a company names in these documents as Aredio Petroleum. I say to you under oath here today: I have never heard of this company, I have never met anyone from this company. This company has never paid a penny to me and I'll tell you something else: I can assure you that Aredio Petroleum has never paid a single penny to the Mariam Appeal Campaign. Not a thin dime. I don't know who Aredio Petroleum are, but I daresay if you were to ask them they would confirm that they have never met me or ever paid me a penny.

"Whilst I'm on that subject, who is this senior former regime official that you spoke to yesterday? Don't you think I have a right to know? Don't you think the Committee and the public have a right to know who this senior former regime official you were quoting against me interviewed yesterday actually is?

"Now, one of the most serious of the mistakes you have made in this set of documents is, to be frank, such a schoolboy howler as to make a fool of the efforts that you have made. You assert on page 19, not once but twice, that the documents that you are referring to cover a different period in time from the documents covered by The Daily Telegraph which were a subject of a libel action won by me in the High Court in England late last year.

"You state that The Daily Telegraph article cited documents from 1992 and 1993 whilst you are dealing with documents dating from 2001. Senator, The Daily Telegraph's documents date identically to the documents that you were dealing with in your report here. None of The Daily Telegraph's documents dealt with a period of 1992, 1993. I had never set foot in Iraq until late in 1993 - never in my life. There could possibly be no documents relating to Oil-for-Food matters in 1992, 1993, for the Oil-for-Food scheme did not exist at that time.

"And yet you've allocated a full section of this document to claiming that your documents are from a different era to the Daily Telegraph documents when the opposite is true. Your documents and the Daily Telegraph documents deal with exactly the same period.

"But perhaps you were confusing the Daily Telegraph action with the Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor did indeed publish on its front pages a set of allegations against me very similar to the ones that your committee have made. They did indeed rely on documents which started in 1992, 1993. These documents were unmasked by the Christian Science Monitor themselves as forgeries.

"Now, the neo-con websites and newspapers in which you're such a hero, senator, were all absolutely cock-a-hoop at the publication of the Christian Science Monitor documents, they were all absolutely convinced of their authenticity. They were all absolutely convinced that these documents showed me receiving $10 million from the Saddam regime. And they were all lies.

"In the same week as the Daily Telegraph published their documents against me, the Christian Science Monitor published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and the British newspaper, Mail on Sunday, purchased a third set of documents which also upon forensic examination turned out to be forgeries. So there's nothing fanciful about this. Nothing at all fanciful about it.

"The existence of forged documents implicating me in commercial activities with the Iraqi regime is a proven fact. It's a proven fact that these forged documents existed and were being circulated amongst right-wing newspapers in Baghdad and around the world in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi regime.

"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.

"Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.

"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.

"Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government."

politics: Fundie hyperbole

2005-05-18T08:33:00.000-07:00

Yes, kiddies, it's time for another installment of AFAmail!

This week's is headlined, "The Time Is Now! Phone Calls To Your U.S. Senators Have Never Been This Important! Call Today! Get Others To Call!"

"Never been this important." Every word capitalized. All those exclamation points. Wow.

In a similarly modest tone, the e-mail opens with the proclamation, "We have come down to the final days and hours in the fight for our destiny."

I'm sorry, but if your destiny hinges on breaking longstanding Senate rules about changing longstanding Senate rules to eradicate the longstanding Senate custom of unlimited debate, a standard carefully observed to ensure that the majority never steamrolls the minority and that the Senate takes every action with due deliberateness and regard for the opinions of all its distinguished members, so that you can ramrod a couple of judges who are so ludicrously outside the mainstream in terms of political allegiance and judicial temperament that they can't even garner significant support in a mostly right-wing Senate ... you really need to get out more.

*breathe*

Sorry for that last sentence.

"Call your two Senators today and ask them to vote to kill the filibuster. If they do not, only those nominees who would become a liberal activist judge will ever get a vote on the Senate floor."

Uh, yeah, right. How conveniently they ignore the 95% of Bush judicial nominees who've already been confirmed. Were they liberal activist judges, you morons?

OK, rant over. Except for the call to action that closes the letter:

"Get others to call. Give out this information at church, work and with other family members. Our children's and grandchildren's future is at stake."

If anyone tried politicking to me at work, they'd get a tongue-lashing the likes of which is very rare from me.

And church. These American Taliban are utterly shameless in their attempts to turn America into a theocracy. Shameless. God doesn't play politics, and you shouldn't play politics in God's house.

politics: Idiots.

2005-05-16T15:42:00.000-07:00

Newsweek retracts story on Koran under pressure.

Yes, the story sparked riots. And yes, people died. But you know what? I find their anger quite justifiable. Rioting, murder ... those things I can't abide. But here's what people seem to be missing: This is not a new story, and the story was accurate.

If people want to be angry, they should be angry with the people who defiled the Koran and the command structure that directed it. Find out how often this occurs and has occurred ... hundreds, maybe thousands of interrogators across the face of the globe didn't, simply and coincidentally, arrive at the same choice of tactic by accident.

When I think of what these people are doing in my name it makes me sick, it makes me feel defiled. It makes me very angry.

And bad luck to the spineless suits at Newsweek who lost their concern for the truth back around the same time they lost their souls.

politics: Apparently, I see allegory everywhere these days

2005-05-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

Fascinating.

"As for the story, it's still a little unclear as to why everybody's fighting in the Clone Wars, except that the whole thing is a ruse for those always sneaky Sith to seize control of the galaxy."

politics: Slacktivism

2005-05-10T11:32:00.000-07:00

Oy vey. It's really been the week for e-petitions (and other chain letters, come to think of it). People really need to read this.

I've gotten that stupid name survey (I swear, somebody somewhere's got a list of everyone's first name on earth, listed twice). I've gotten that 'Dammit, Dubya, lower our gas prices!' one. I've gotten at least two of those get-to-know-your-friends things.

Then, thanks to my presence on right-wing-nutjob e-mail lists, I've gotten petitions from the RNC and the American Family Association.

Yes, the RNC, which you would think would know better, is trying to get people to sign an e-petition to get the Democrats to allow a vote on Priscilla Owen. It urges the Democrats to accept Bill Frist's 'compromise', about which I quote from the e-mail:

"Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has offered Senator Reid a compromise that would give Democrats 100 hours to debate each judge and then guarantee each judge a floor vote, but he continues to reject this common-sense offer."

It's like a 'Free Speech Zone' for senatorial debate. Rather than open-ended deliberation, Frist wants to force debate into a little razor-wired area which, though big, is still fenced in. After the debate (which, of course, the Republicans will little heed, even if they bother to attend), the cons get to force their judicial activists down the throats of an unsuspecting public. Yeah, that's compromise. How about reevaluating the nominations, eh?

Dumbasses.

And another thing. The e-mail makes much of how Priscilla Owens has had to wait "4 years or 1,460 days" for confirmation, and that it's too long to wait.

I know it's not exactly related, but how long has it been since Dumbya said he wouldn't rest till we captured Osama bin Laden "dead or alive"? Is it too long yet?

OK, so moving on to the AFA ... It's a petition to the 109th Congress relating to the Marriage Protection Amendment. I shan't belabor either the content or, well, my wide-ranging amazement, amusement and distaste for the American Familay Association.

Given the latest addition to the long-accumulating evidence that, in terms these people may understand, God made us this way for purposes beyond our understanding, how is it wrong for us to seek out love, fall in love, grow in love and want to declare our love in a lasting and meaningful way?

Explain how it's wrong without resorting to Biblical verses about sexual conduct that have about as much relevance as exhortations against women who wear red dresses in church or proclamations against pork and shellfish. Explain to me why my love is wrong, and where it says so in the Bible. I have yet to hear a good explanation that isn't fixated on sex.

If you can't find one, maybe you oughta think about that before telling me I'm not allowed to get married.

social issues: Yes, but are they still giving $20,000 a month to Ralph Reed?

2005-05-06T15:05:00.000-07:00

Microsoft realized that promulgating discrimination is not a good business practice.

It just looks to me like they're trying to hold up a shiny object for people to focus on so they can continue consulting with bonafide nutjob Ralph Reed. But maybe I'm just needlessly cynical.

misc: Quote of the month

2005-05-06T13:03:00.000-07:00

Bitove declared "the facts are `Stacked'" against Anderson and said he wanted her to be "kept fully abreast" of KFC's ethical practices.

What an incredibly suitable, if rude, way to be dismissive. I know nothing about the merits or lack thereof of the protest, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't ask Pamela Anderson to be a spokesperson for any cause in which I was involved.

On a related note, do straight men actually find this plastic bimbo attractive? I mean, seriously, she looks like a comic-book heroine whose body defies the laws of physics.

social issues: AFA-mail hilarity!

2005-04-28T09:18:00.000-07:00

This one is a hoot!

My good and dear friends at the American Family Association sent me e-mail the other day and, though I've been slow to post about it, I couldn't resist.

The subject? "Pornographers Set To Go After Children With Cell Phones"

Shocking. Positively shocking!

"Soon pornography will be available to our children over their cell phones. Playboy hopes to make their porn available to the 170 million cell phone subscribers throughout North America. No doubt scores of other pornographers will follow Playboy's lead."

Do you get the sense that there's stuff here they're leaving out? I mean, just think about it.

"An independent study by IDC revealed that 33.2% of cell phone users in America, more than 55 million, are between the ages of 5 and 19." Yes, and apparently Playboy will indiscriminately send porn to ALL cell phone users for FREE without CHECKING who they're SENDING it to.

Oy.

Talk show host Paul McGuire of Los Angeles says of the Playboy effort: "…soon cell phones will open a tsunami of porn images…" He went on to say "just like the Internet, it will be hard to keep [this] sexual perversion from young people."

Because, of course, talk show hosts are always subject matter experts. The problem here, at least for me, is that the mobile phone industry is very tightly regulated. The Internet is not. The comparison is faulty.

But here's the funniest bit: "We can expect our children to have pop-up ads on their cell phones pushing Playboy's pornography. Playboy says their new venture will allow more people to experience 'the sexiness of the classic Playboy lifestyle.' Unfortunately many of these people will be our children."

Pop-up ads.

On cell phones.

Words fail.

Paper tigers and straw men. These people are just plain weird.

politics: Microsoft dances with the devil

2005-04-26T08:26:00.000-07:00

I reiterate this here for friends of mine who may not read my friend kniwt's blog or Americablog: Microsoft paying Religious Right leader Ralph Reed $20,000 a month retainer.

Evil. Evil. Evil. I knew it. And yes, I even knew it before He Who Shall Not Be Named. I'll have it known that while I was chatting with him online the first time, or one of the first times, I was recompiling the kernel on my Linux box. And everyone has known, and derided, my longtime infatuation with the BeOS (now sadly past). So I've been trying to get away for a long time.

For $10,000 a month I'll give them some good PR advice: Stop hooking up with right-wing zealots. That would be good. And work with the GLBT community. You have a lot of gay employees and you can't get anything but a black eye from pissing in their cornflakes (if I may mix a couple of metaphors).

Haiku Rd.: The road is long. And so is this entry.

2005-04-22T14:02:00.000-07:00

Politics will return to these pages soon. But for now, a brief, self-indulgent aside.

So as far as our public image goes, Haiku Rd. has gone missing lately. Our next show isn't until May 6 (check in at our Web site for news and updates) and it's been a few weeks since our last one. Nothing else on the calendar. Why is that, you may ask? Have they broken up? Are they so busy they don't have time?

To you all I say nay!

Rather, we're at least hip deep in recording and sinking fast. It's a hell of a lot of fun.

I don't want to give a whole lot of secrets away, but a sizeable chunk of our best (and fan favorite) songs are already starting to take shape, like "Suddenly Silent," "One Leg at a Time (The Pants Song)" and "Take Me Out," as well as an instrumental I've wanted to record for a long time. Come to think of it, I already have, but it was more of a novelty experiment than an actual attempt.

We're working on this very, very carefully. We've already spent more in-studio time on this than we did on the first Hadrian's Wall album, and we're barely started. I'm not sure where Erik and Richard come down on the timeline, but my feeling is that we'll be working on principal recording through May or so. Re-recording, fixing and adding extra touches will probably last us through most of June, then a couple of weeks to a month for mixing, sequencing (putting the songs in the right order and doing cross-fades or figuring how much silence to put between songs) and mastering. I figure by mid to late summer we'll be done. Then we've got to send it off for duplication/manufacturing. And somewhere in there we have to do the title, cover and inserts. But with three creative minds, at least two of which have no small amount of graphic design experience, that should be no problem.

So a short treatise now on our recording equipment and methods, just because I feel like geeking out (and also documenting it).

As far as the equipment goes, we have the same instruments we use for performing (my two Oscar Schmidt acoustic guitars, Richard's Fender acoustic guitar and Erik's bass and electric guitars [whose manufacturers escape me]), plus a cheap-ass bodhran from Musician's Friend and my Alesis QS6.1 synth. Other instruments may make brief visits to the 'studio' as needs require. I don't want to spoil any surprises or scare anyone away, so I'll leave that vague.

The studio so far consists of two separate and distinct locations: My office (for recording keyboard parts, since inexplicably there is a loud and ineradicable electric hum whenever I plug the keyboard into Richard's equipment) and Richard's living room, for everything else.

The setup at Richard's place has its pluses and minuses. On the plus side, the hardware and software are excellent (if a tad buggy sometimes) and space is ample. On the minus side, we have no way to isolate players, so anything recorded via microphone (which is just about everything) must be recorded singly. Also, because the computer is in the same room and the floors are industrial carpet over plywood, it's practically impossible to completely isolate the microphones from fan noise and other computer hums. We've managed to keep them down to a manageable level, but so far, they're still there.

We're recording through an Aardvark DirectPro Q10 into Richard's Windows XP machine running Cakewalk's Sonar 3 Producer Edition. There's a Shure SM-58 microphone present, as is a condenser microphone whose brand and specifications escape me. We've gotten good results double-micing the guitars, a procedure we've adopted so we can mix-and-match the different tones, or pan them slightly left and/or right for a nice stereo effect.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. After a number of unsuccessful (and at times nearly fistfight-inducing) attempts at finding a procedure for recording that works for all three of us, we've hit on a way of working that seems to fit our character as a band. To start off, we establish a tempo for the song and MIDI up the keyboard to give us a metronome sound. We record this to one audio track while we have all of our instruments plugged into separate inputs on the Aardvark. Usually, we'll leave off the vocal mic, but sometimes it's helpful.

From there, we punch record and run straight through the song, mistakes and all. Usually, one take is enough unless there's a major boo-boo or if we all miss a cue or something.

We take this track as a foundation, then go through and rerecord every instrument and all the vocals. As the track takes on its own rhythmic feel, we mute the click track to try to get a more organic feel. But we have a lot of songs with stops and starts, so we need the click track in order to sync everyone up properly. Once the 'basic tracks' are done, we go through and remove the original 'scratch' tracks to save space and avoid confusion.

From there, we add other instruments (or at least we will; so far only one song has been augmented with keyboards, and even these are likely to be completely redone before long). Thus far, I've avoided sequencing any of the keyboard parts, because I tend to get very perfectionist with MIDI sequences, quantizing and fixing stray notes in the software; everything I've done has been live to 'tape'.

Then we'll mix, add effects, etc., in what I hope is a more or less collaborative process (it's Richard's equipment, Erik is in many senses a sonic wizard and there are certain parts of this recording that I can hear perfectly clearly in my head). I'm sure that as we do this, it will be evident that there are pieces here and there that need polish or slight redoing.

Et cetera, et cetera.

When the time comes for the remixes, I'll blather on about how I do that. That's a really fun process (I acquired the master tracks from Marillion's Anoraknophobia album and have been remixing them over the last year or so -- only two done so far, but if you're interested in hearing them, let me know and I'll make them available to you) that I love to talk about endlessly and bore people with.

When I have interesting news to share during this recording process, I'll talk about it more. I really think it'll be interesting to relate how put our instrumental together when we get there; it's going to be a combination of loops, audio editing and live playing. On the Hadrian's Wall album, "Home" was the track on which we really spread our wings in the studio and tried interesting things (which may or may not be apparent from listening to it). This instrumental, I think, will be the analog on this recording.

We're also planning on doing one written-in-the-studio song just to stir things up a bit. What I want out of this album (and I'm only speaking for myself here) is an album that people with a rock/pop aesthetic can listen to and think we've got some good tunes and a good rhythm, and only after some time realize that there's a lot of acoustic instrumentation and almost no percussion; and that folkies can listen to and grok the folk sensibility and get drawn in before being shocked by the subtle use of electrics, electronics and studio editing and production techniques. At this stage in the game, I want to be clever but not groundbreaking. That'll be the next album.

All right, enough. Back to the usual stuff.

social issues: The progressive beacon on the hill -- Spain?!

2005-04-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

Freedom is breaking out all over.

I couldn't have phrased this better myself, and I find myself wishing we had high-ranking government officials who had this kind of perspective on rights and freedoms:

Justice Minister Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar argued that the bill overcomes "the barriers of discrimination, many of them with deep historical or primitive roots, which affect rights and freedoms and, in a specific way, the extension of free choice in the search for happiness, an unwritten basic right".

Meanwhile the American Taliban struggles to make a retarded theocracy of my beloved home country, binding hundreds of millions of people to their prehistoric, juvenile attitudes to sex (EWWWW! Boobies!) and society.

politics: A short entry about John Bolton (apologies to Neil Gaiman)

2005-04-21T09:56:00.000-07:00

The title of this article made me laugh. Out loud. At work.

It was embarrassing.

Politics is the only reason why anyone with even half a brain would entertain for the briefest moment the notion of confirming this man as the UN ambassador. He gives every impression of being an intolerant, unstable bully with absolutely no facility for diplomacy whatsoever. And he certainly has a broad and threatening attitude toward the United Nations that, until he was up for the job, he didn't even bother to conceal or moderate.

So blind adherence to party dictates from on high is the only thing I can think of that would act in his favor. So go on, you Republican senators who long ago sold out your scruples and who put supremacy of party over the interests of the people and the nation you claim to serve. Go on, vote for the bastard.

Anyone else with a spine and a conscience, go ahead. Set politics aside. And see the man for what he is. Thanks, George!

social issues: A simple, humble worker in God's vineyard?

2005-04-20T10:29:00.000-07:00

There's a minor thing that bugs me about Benedict XVI. I'm leaving all of the nastier allegations alone; they're being done to death in other forums, and a lot of them seem unfair to me (and I'm no great fan of the Catholic Church in general or of Cardinal Ratzinger in particular).

But something rubs me the wrong way about a man bedecked in gold damask, grasping and flanked by ostentatious objects and reminders of the church's obscene wealth and power, describing himself as "a simple, humble worker in God's vineyard."

The Dalai Lama, now there's a man who practices that about which he preaches, simple but elegant and radiating peace.

By comparison, the Vatican and the Bishop of Rome seem hopelessly mired in their own bureaucracy, believing their own PR and peddling influence in an unseemly way.

politics: Shameless rationalizing

2005-04-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Rachel Maddow, I was lucky enough to read this article from Newsmax republished at The Conservative Voice.

I can't really add much to what Rachel said (follow the link above), except to marvel at the ingenious confluence of sexism, rationalizing and just flat-out abnegation of reality. I mean, even if I were to grant their basic premise that the presence of women in Army units hampered their ability to go after Osama bin Laden, wouldn't that point to really, really bad planning on the Army's part (or, perhaps, it might suggest that women should be allowed to participate in combat) instead of the unworkability of allowing women in the Army?

*sigh*

politics: Oops.

2005-04-15T14:33:00.000-07:00

So yeah. I got e-mail from Mark J. Yannone.

Decided I didn't need the stress. Was mildly curious about how he got the e-mail address, but only mildly; it's pretty easy to find if you go looking. Deleted it.

Had second thoughts. Realized I'd promised to post any responses I got.

Feel mildly guilty about calling him a nutbar. Petulant, certainly. Politically utopian (read: unrealistic). Definitely of the shoot-the-mouth-off-first, think-second, variety. But nutbar was probably a bit strong.

Anyway. Went to retrieve the e-mail and forward it to a friend so they could read it and post it for me so I would have some removal from the thing.

Unintentionally had already clicked 'empty trash'. Yannonemail gone.

Mr. Yannone, if you're reading, could you resend? Thankyew.

politics: An ancient fable?

2005-04-15T12:31:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm blatantly stealing this from shanej at the Randi Rhodes Message Board:

The Wolf and the Lamb
Once upon a time a Wolf was lapping at a spring on a hillside, when, looking up, what should he see but a Lamb just beginning to drink a little lower down. "There's my supper," thought he, "if only I can find some excuse to seize it." Then he called out to the Lamb, "How dare you muddle the water from which I am drinking?"
"Nay, master, nay," said Lambikin "if the water be muddy up there, I cannot be the cause of it, for it runs down from you to me."
"Well, then," said the Wolf, "why did you call me bad names this time last year?"
"That cannot be," said the Lamb, "I am only six months old."
"I don't care," snarled the Wolf, "if it was not you, it was your father," and with that he rushed upon the poor little Lamb and "SLURPPPP" ate her all up. But before she died she gasped out
"Any excuse will serve a tyrant."

---Æsop

Word.

babylon 5: Excitement on e-bay

2005-04-14T16:07:00.000-07:00

Looks like JMS is cleaning house. It is that time of year, after all.

Of course, none of the Babylon 5 stuff he's selling of is anywhere near a price I can afford. But the auction descriptions ... well, let's just say it's a pleasure reading an e-bay auction item description crafted by someone who actually knows how to write!

Anything Babylon 5- or Crusade-related would make a lovely gift for yours truly. But, well, maybe I should just take care of myself like a responsible adult.

politics: Well, THIS is what passes for a top story.

2005-04-14T13:58:00.000-07:00

Copied-and-pasted from http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/ ... :

Department of Homeland Security Announces Support for Rail Hazmat Placards

April 8, 2005 -- Speaking at the National Fire and Emergency Services Dinner last night, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff announced that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has recommended continuation of the placard system for hazardous materials transported by rail. The placards are designed to ensure the safety of citizens and first responders and the decision came after the completion of a comprehensive study that included input from first responders, rail operators and other key stakeholders.

"I'm pleased to announce that the Department of Homeland Security has completed a review of alternate technologies to the current Department of Transportation placard system,” said Secretary Chertoff. “Based on that study and the input of the first responder community, we are recommending that the Department of Transportation maintain the placard system. This is a common sense approach to risk management.”

Uh-huh. That's right.

It's good to know this redundant department, this phenomenal waste of taxpayer money is at least working on big-picture issues that keep the ... *ahem* homeland ... *ahem* secure.

social issues: Yeah, the storm is coming. Run for cover. No, really.

2005-04-14T11:22:00.000-07:00

We can always trust that the wingnut press will come to the rescue of America with its balanced coverage of today's issues.

It was with much interest then that I read the article "Family Group Warns of 'Deviant Homosexual Content' on New Cable Networks". Before I even address the content of the article, I find it interesting that they even make a pretense of balanced coverage by including one, and only one, quote from an actual person on the anti-fascist side of this 'issue'. Granted, it's a good quote and one that, to any sane person, obviates all of the contrary wingnut actions and statements, but still ...

What kind of sad little world do they live in that they expect to see graphic sex acts on basic cable? Is it so inconceivable to them that it's possible to look at the world from a gay perspective without everything devolving into pornography?

It's been my observation that as gay America comes out of the closet and integrates more openly in society at large, it manifests itself in more normal and healthy ways. Repression and self-hatred breed deviancy, hypocrisy and dangerously self-destructive conduct.

And as for their complaints that the late-night programming on Here could turn "pornographic," well ... Anyone watched the late-night programming on HBO or Showtime lately? Since it's a video-on-demand service, it's a fair comparison. Double standards, anyone? The article mentions the video on demand at the start, then conveniently immediately forgets it, serving instead as a mouthpiece for chief American Family Association wingnut Timothy Wildmon's blithe ignorance of the truth.

Niche programming on basic cable? An outrage! An outrage, I tell you!

*sigh*

I do love to watch the AFA squirm and shriek, though. It's almost as entertaining as listening to Tom DeLay stick his foot in it again.

KXXT: Charles, please stop saying that!

2005-04-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

I listen to Charles Goyette pretty much every morning on 1010 AM KXXT, our local Air America affiliate. Good show, for the most part, entertaining an informative, even I sometimes find I disagree with his politics. That's fine.

For a recurring joke the last couple of weeks, he plays the theme from The Greatest American Hero, then makes jokes about bubblegum pop singers turning into cable news pundits.

In case you're unsure (as is likely) what the joke is here, that theme song (the chorus goes: "Believe it or not, I'm walking on air / I never thought I could feel so free-ee-ee", etc., etc.) was performed by Joey Scarbury. Charles Joseph Scarborough, usually referred to as Joe Scarborough, is a former congressman and current right-wing commentator on MSNBC.

Goyette asserts that they're the same person and jokes endlessly about (him). But they're not. And it's embarrassing.

Scarbury, from California, was born in 1955, started recording in 1968 and gave up music in the early '80s to pursue a career in baseball. Scarborough, on the other hand, was born in 1963 in Atlanta and served as a US Representative from Florida from 1994 to 2001.

Stop it, Charles, stop it! You're embarrassing me.

music: Uh-huh, that's right

2005-04-08T12:13:00.000-07:00

We are as one and one is all we are.

Yeah, they're hyping the hell out of this thing. But it's pretty much equal to the hype, and that's rare. I haven't decided yet if it's better than #1, but it's certainly close.

politics: The cons are getting desperate

2005-04-06T13:28:00.000-07:00

Yes, I got a brand spanking new e-mail from Ken Mehlman today headlined 'Call Congress! Tell Them To Act Now On Social Security'. Yay. Apologies for the rambling -- what's below is more or less stream-of-consciouness sitting here trying desperately not to be bored at work.

Even two weeks ago, when I got their last Social Security missive, their poll numbers were highly selective, slanted, and misleading. But they're at the point now where there's really no way left to spin the poll results other than to pretty much lie about what they say.

And referring to the recent indoctrination sessions, Mehlman wrote, "These meetings left one clear impression -- Americans want Congress to work together to strengthen Social Security for future generations."

Wow. Talk about a mandate for pillaging our future (i.e., privatizing Social Security).

I mean, sheesh, that's something I can say I agree with. But I think there are vastly less expensive, corrupt and, well, overly complex, ways to do it.

This is a great quote: "60 percent of Americans support the concept of allowing workers to have the choice of a voluntary personal retirement account."

But shockingly absent from Mehlman's missive is the fact that 100% of American workers already have that choice!

Dork.

And, OK, here's one of the bullet points that, when I read it at first, parsed completely differently from the way it was intended: "Polls show an increasing number of Americans understand the problems confronting Social Security because of the President's and Republican Congress' leadership on the issue." Mehlman actually intends to say that because of the Resident's and Republican Congress's efforts, people understand the problems confronting social security. But when I read it, it seemed to say to me that the American people understood that there are problems with Social Security because of Republican leadership.

Ahem. I cop to my own misunderstanding cos I think it's closer to the truth.

Seniors, get on board. "President Bush has said he will not change benefits for Americans born before 1950. While nothing will change for current or near retirees and they will receive their benefits on time and in full, their involvement in this debate is about the kind of Social Security system they want their children and grandchildren to have." What kind of system do you think American seniors want their descendants to have? An untried system that in the best of circumstances will pour America's hard earned cash like an unclamped firehose into the vast underground tanks that are the bank accounts of brokers and brokerage firms, and in the worst circumstances, will lose trillions of dollars to bribery, graft, corruption and the complete unbalancing of the American economy from an uncontrollable inflow of investment capital? Or something essentially the same as our current, conservatively-run system with its modest costs and grounding in the full faith and credit of the US government? What have they come to trust?

Give it up, Ken. They're too smart to buy your monorail. Try Shelbyville.

I was going to stop there till I looked back at the last two bullet points (and by now I've pretty much reprinted the entire RNC e-mail, albeit chopped into small, bite-sized pieces so as not to induce the vomiting that might result from reading the whole thing at once):

"Social Security faces very real demographic problems that cannot be solved with band-aid solutions like tax increases. In 1950, there were 16 workers paying for every one beneficiary. Today, there are about three, and when younger workers retire, there will only be two."
"In 2017, Social Security will begin paying out more money than it receives in payroll taxes. The longer we wait to address the issue the more costly it becomes. Elected leaders have an obligation to address the issue today and not pass it on to our children and grandchildren."

Strangely, almost since its inception it's been taking in more than it's paid out, so there's (at least in theory) some lead time, unless the government decides to start defaulting on its debt ... which would be bad. Very, very bad.

And my last point is that these population changes are cyclical. The Republican's intimation seems to be that the upcoming work force is always going to be much smaller than the generation before it. But in order for this whole thing to be as big a crisis as they imply it is, we'd have to be on track for geometrically worsening negative population growth on top of geometrically expanding life expectancy, in which case all we'd have left would be a few thousand really, really old Americans within a couple hundred years. And that's just silly.

Population rates fluctuate. Yes, the ratio will look bad here in a couple of decades, for a couple of decades.

Anyway.

The upshot of all of this is that the personal accounts part of Mehlman's e-mail is such a brief mention, and so vague, and so ill-supported, even according to their own numbers, that they realize they're losing this one badly. And if they take this tack now (encourage a bipartisan effort to 'solve Social Security', then if the Democrats come to the table with a system that actually works, while the Republicans are still in power, they will still be able to lie to the American people, saying they have all the best ideas and the Democrats are either spineless 'me-too'ers or mindless naysayers, and the unwashed masses will buy it. And keep voting for the bastards.

The solution, to my mind, is to hold off the forces of the Sith through 2006, then bring to the first session a modest change to Social Security that (through the magic of projections and compound interest) will 'fix' it. And quit letting the Republicans take credit for things that actually turn out right.

Oh, and one last thing. It has not escaped my notice that Mehlman has stopped using the word crisis. It must not have been selling well.

personal: It's really geeky of me

2005-04-05T09:54:00.000-07:00

OK, I'll admit to being more than a little bit of an information geek. This would be why I went for a master's degree in library science -- I actually enjoy doing research.

So it's kind of exciting for me that inconjunction with Tartan Day, The Scotsman is opening up 133 years of searchable archives (1817 to 1950) for free for one day for anyone from the US or Canada who registers on the site tomorrow.

Plus, you can sign up for their heritage & culture newsletter for a chance to win an annual access pass to the archive.

Yeah, OK, it's ultra-wonky of me, but I'm already making a list of stuff to look up.

Just so you know.

politics: Unintentional irony

2005-04-05T09:22:00.000-07:00

I was reading this commentary on a livejournal entry this morning and I literally had to read through it about three times before I convinced myself I was actually reading correctly.

In case you either don't want to follow the link or experience similar disbelief while reading it, let me sum up:

I don't care about politics because it gets me all stressed out and worked up. Besides, our country's f**ked because nobody cares about what happens to it anymore.

In other words, someone else should fix the country so I don't have to get all exercised.

I weep.

politics/religion: Good try, George!

2005-04-03T09:45:00.000-07:00

President Bush tries, fails to visit Catholic church

Washington -- President Bush attended church for the first time in his life today to join worshippers in remembering Pope John Paul II. Unfamiliar with Christianity, however, he went to the wrong one.

"It's the thought that counts," said June Butterknife, a regular worshipper at St. John's Episcopal Church near the White House. "I mean, I've always called us 'Catholic Lite!'"

Butterknife continued, "For what it's worth, he looked really uncomfortable the whole time. And I'm sure that's because he realized his mistake the moment he walked in the door."

Observers reported that the president looked restless in his seat and even seemed to be doodling on his hand at one point. Walter Askew, another longtime member of the church, sat behind the president during the service.

"He took out a pocket knife at one point and looked like he was going to carve something in the pew in front of him," Askew said. "But Laura slapped his hand before he could do it."

Another worshipper, who asked not to be identified, reported overhearing Bush on his way out of the church say, "What? They don't have a (expletive) Pope? What the (expletive) are we doing here, then? I'm not going to another (expletive church). Nope, nuh-huh, no (expletive) way. God damn it!"

social issues: Token Terri Schiavo entry

2005-03-29T21:11:00.000-07:00

I was going to stay off the subject. Really I was. My whole contention this whole time has been that it's a private family matter in which none of us have any business butting.

Wouldn't you know it, the American Family Association never fails to get my dander up. So in a way I love getting their e-mails. Endless fodder for ranting!

They headline it thusly: "Terri's Case: The Roe v. Wade of Euthanasia". Subtitle? "Terri's father says the courts are in control of this country".

It opens: "Now that the courts have ruled that a disabled person--Terri Schiavo--must die ... "

Um. Dozens of judges have ruled the same way. For years. You jump on the bandwagon now, you spineless creeps.

Disabled.

Dis-fricking-abled.

Michael J. Fox is disabled. Thousands of returning Iraq war veterans are disabled.

Terri Schiavo has no cerebral cortex to speak of. She's way beyond disabled. She's not there anymore.

"Liberals have been salivating over a case like Terri Schiavo's to use in pushing euthanasia."

If you think anyone is deriving pleasure from Mrs. Schiavo's condition, you're sadly mistaken. You're some truly sick, sick people, to even think that.

One more paragraph.

"How arrogant and powerful have activist judges become? Here is what Robert Schindler, Terri’s father, said about the judicial system that sentenced his daughter to a slow, agonizing death by starvation: 'What I think you're seeing now is a display where the judicial system is…flexing their muscles. They're showing who's in command of this country. And we're not. The public is not, and the people you elect to Congress are not. The judges are. And woe to this country with those people in power. We've lost control.'"

Not one word that comes out of this mercenary bastard's mouth is worth a tinker's damn to me. Until today, I had some sympathy for everyone involved, even if I personally felt the Schindlers were having some trouble letting go. Now, I think they let go a long time ago, but they're trying to milk this for all they can and it sickens me.

Who's profiting from this tragedy? Michael? That money's gone, friends.

Robert Schindler? Tom DeLay? Merchandising tragedy, using it as a smokescreen for criminal behavior.

But then we see what the true point of the e-mail is as we come to the bottom.

"The only body that can stop liberal activist judges from controlling this country is the U.S. Senate. In a few days the Senate will vote on ending the liberals' filibuster of conservative judges who see their sole responsibility to be that of interpreting the Constitution."

Apparently, interfering in private matters and undermining the sanctity of marriage got written into the Constitution when I wasn't looking. Silly me.

These people are utterly shameless in their willingness to use Mrs. Schiavo ... to use her as messily and unthinkingly as a facial tissue, to be wadded up and thrown out as soon as they're through.

As Randi often says, when someone shows you who they really are, believe them.

It all comes 'round again, bastards. Karma's a bitch.

Current events: Michael Jackson needs help. Soon.

2005-03-28T16:22:00.000-07:00

I mean, I thought he took a big, flying leap off the edge when he picketed Sony a couple of years back.

Now, though, it turns out that this is all a big plot to steal his catalog of music copyrights.

"But please know a lot of conspiracy is going on as we speak." and "It's a huge catalogue, it's very valuable and it's worth a huge amount of money, and there is a big fight going on right now as we speak about that," he said, adding he was not broke, as has been rumoured.

Mmm. Sure. Not about sexual abuse at all.

Then this:

"I was coming out of the shower and I fell on my body weight," he said.[blogger's note: Whaaa?!]

"I'm pretty fragile. All of my body weight fell against my rib cage and I bruised my lung very badly. I'm in immense pain. I'm in agonising pain."

Bizarrely, he went on to say how he was in perfect health.

"But I do my very best," he said.

"I am eating, yes I am. I don't want anyone to think I'm starving. I'm not. My health is perfect, actually."

And with that, I'm done with Michael Jackson, unless he, like, shoots up the courtroom or something. But there is one seriously damaged individual.

music: It seems like half my music entries relate to death

2005-03-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

Holy crap. This is very sad. Paul Hester, formerly of Crowded House, took his own life this weekend. I'd go on and on, but the article in the Australian articulates just what I'd say, better than I could.

Not for the first time, I feel an unfortunate darkness settling over the world.

Air America Radio: Is this for real?

2005-03-23T16:22:00.000-07:00

I remember predicting something like this recently. Can't remember if it was in these pages or not, but, um, wow.

Springer Talk Radio Show To Expand Nationwide.

politics: Incredibly misleading

2005-03-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

Oh, how I love getting e-mail from the American Family Association. Better than a Thirstbuster-sized espresso for getting me energized and worked up. Really, what got me most was this paragraph:

"The media has put out so much misinformation concerning this situation that we did an interview with Sen. John Cornyn of Texas to clear up the confusion. Sen. Cornyn is recognized as the leading authority in explaining the battle over which rule will be used to confirm judges, the traditional 51 vote total required by the constitution or the 60 vote total desired by liberal Democrat Senators."

Erm. All-righty, then.

Tradition, is it? Shall we talk tradition? The filibuster has been around a lot more than this pissant little organization. The filibuster is one of the most important checks on the tyrrany of the majority, ensuring that, even if the little guy can't win the fight, at least he can make himself heard.

This paragraph makes it sound as if Democratic senators are trying to unfairly wrest control of the senate from the Republicans and rewrite the time-honored rules of order.

Projection, anyone?

I'm not sure if they're lying or if they honestly don't understand the difference between a filibuster and a confirmation vote, because, though this may be a small quibble, a vote to end a filibuster is not a vote on the measure in question.

While the cause-and-effect chain may be something like 'A causes B causes C causes D', the assertion here is that 'A causes D', omitting certain important and mitigating steps in between.

I was pondering this when I remembered something else I read today, an article to which I was led by Daily Kos.

It turns out that US diplomats told our allies that North Korea had been selling nukes to Libya, surely an alarming assertion and one that bears telling, if true.

But this is the Bush administration -- since when have they been sticklers for the truth? This story is, oddly enough, almost true, in that 'A causes D' sort of way. But B and C are doozies.

See, North Korea sold nukes to Pakistan, our friends of convenience in the region. And Pakistan, our close, personal friends, out of whose ass the sun always shines, sold the nuclear material to Libya.

So two examples don't exactly make a trend, but they are an interesting confluence of tactics. Is this a conservative thing or what? And do they realize they're lying, or do they rationalize editing out the in-between steps because people are too stupid to follow a chain of causation?

politics: I can just smell the cons going apoplectic over this

2005-03-21T12:26:00.000-07:00

The man in the UN the cons love to hate, the man they accuse endlessly and breathlessly of being a corrupt, evil America-hater, has a new plan for the United Nations.

This is the grand international body that, on the one hand, they ridicule as impotent and ineffectual, while on the other hand they oppose any expansion of its reach or powers that would actually render it more potent and effectual.

So now he unveils a plan to make the organization more effective, more accountable and more powerful.

The prevailing attitude in America with regard to the rest of the world reminds me of the neighbor kid when I was little. He was an only child with few or no friends, not much for socializing and used to getting exclusively his own way. Early on, I used to go over and play at his house (it always had to be at his house; once or twice, only, did he come over to our side of the fence). What were we going to play? It always came down to him. What were the rules? Up to him, as were any changes midway through to tip the course of things in his favor. If he cheated, it was OK, especially if he did it cleverly and got away with it so he could gloat later. But if I cheated, he'd fly into a raging tantrum and kick me out.

In short, he did not play well with others. Before long, I stopped going over there anything but rarely. He got better later on, as he matured, and as he realized he had few friends.

I think the metaphor stands up pretty well.

Go, Kofi!

politics: Why does the Senate hate America?

2005-03-16T13:37:00.000-07:00

Bastards. Rat bastards. I hope they all die suffocating on their own filth.

Why is this necessary? They are men and women with no vision or understanding of the fact that they mold the future, doing things simply because, now that they hold the sceptre, they can. Like Iraq, these soulless creatures of the night have been fixated on ANWR, perhaps out of some twisted desire to kill off the world so Armageddon can come. It certainly won't do any good as an energy source. The reserves are negligible and I'm reasonably certain that by the time any oil is flowing from underneath that delicate soil either the world will have moved away from a petroleum based economy, or millions will be dying each month in the oil wars.

Get a real energy policy, you spineless wimps. Get some vision. Save America. And leave the wilderness alone.

And a special note to Senate Democrats who voted in favor of this balderdash: You're the reason I'll never join the Democratic Party. Stupid, stupid, stupid, and as long as you keep this up, you'll keep losing the battles you care about as well as the ones you don't. Listen, the rules of the game changed when the Republicans gained an almost unilateral lock on power. They don't need your horse trading. They don't need agreements with you in order to get their agenda through. They're already remaking the government in their own image, and the shadow is spreading across the land. Fight back now, down every avenue, or pretty soon you won't even be able to.

politics: Katie, bar the door! Wolfie's coming!

2005-03-16T08:47:00.000-07:00

I'm ashamed to admit that the Bush administration's ability to choose incredibly bad nominees to important posts continues to surprise me.

And now comes word that Paul Wolfowitz is being put forward to run the World Bank. What insanity is this? Seriously.

I'm loath to direct my outrage so predictably, but let's get real! Expect graft and corruption. Expect money pouring into projects that do nothing to improve the lot of people's lives but enrich neocon-led corporations. It's one more step forward for PNAC's pax Americana.

I could just spit.

personal: Well, isn't this interesting?

2005-03-14T23:34:00.000-07:00

I suppose scoring highest on agnosticism wasn't much of a surprise. Seeing Christianity down so far on the list, and Islam so high, did surprise me, though. I've always sort of fancied myself an agnostic Christian with some Buddhist leanings. Anyway, ...

You scored as agnosticism. You are an agnostic. Though it is generally taken that agnostics neither believe nor disbelieve in God, it is possible to be a theist or atheist in addition to an agnostic. Agnostics don't believe it is possible to prove the existence of God (nor lack thereof).

Agnosticism is a philosophy that God's existence cannot be proven. Some say it is possible to be agnostic and follow a religion; however, one cannot be a devout believer if he or she does not truly believe.

agnosticism

83%

Islam

71%

Buddhism

71%

Paganism

63%

Christianity

58%

atheism

54%

Judaism

50%

Hinduism

42%

Satanism

38%

Which religion is the right one for you? (new version)
created with QuizFarm.com

politics: I shouldn't care about Shadegg anymore, but ...

2005-03-14T14:17:00.001-07:00

I do. I don't live in his district anymore. And I believe I may live in just about the bluest neighborhood in Arizona now (my governor, state legislators and US representatives are all Democrats). But this shameless sycophant is positively insufferable. Most of the other Arizona Republicans range from the positively loony to the almost tolerable to borderline fascist but high enough in profile that other people know already. But where does this leave John Shadegg?

A singularly undistinguished intellect, he hasn't ever really had a good, important idea to put forth. Rather, he admits to shamelessly and mindlessly peddling the neofascist agenda that's destroying America, whatever his own feelings on the issues, though admittedly not in so many words. After all, this imbecilic toadying has gotten him a lot of money and key committee appointments so far, so why quit now? Add to that the fact that his Paradise Valley and East Phoenix electorate votes Republican the way a corpse twitches when you apply electrodes to its musculature, and mix in a few sprinkles of money from Tom DeLay's Corporate Bribery, Graft and Corruption PAC (or whatever he's calling it these days) and, well, heaps of other corporate and special interest money, and really, you have a recipe for success, even if you are an incompetent boob.

Seriously. They'd vote for a twitching corpse if it had an (R) after its name. And then they'd re-elect it.

Ahem. Anyway.

True to form, he submitted this useless waste of paper and ink to the local newspaper, blindly failing to notice that the Bush administration plan for Social Security would utterly eviscerate the most successful social program in the history of the United States (come to think of it, the WPA was pretty darned successful, but Social Security dwarfs even its not insignificant size and economic impact) rather than save it. And he takes the Democrats to task for failing to provide a solution that will 'save' Social Security.

Um. Dude.

It doesn't need saving, any more than someone with a skinned knee needs 'saving.' No plan? Try raising or eliminating the cap on payroll taxes. Presto! Elegant, simple, and doesn't involve mortgaging the future security of America to engorge the gigantic ticks that are the financial services lobby with the blood of working Americans.

But at least he has the party line down, the same party line Jeff Gannon spewed so ably when accusing the Democrats of being 'divorced from reality.' Well, Mr. Shadegg, et al., we are divorced from the 'reality' you've tried to create. We're wise to your shell game. We're in the reality-based community here.

music: sob Why do I NEVER find out about these things till it's too late?

2005-03-11T11:07:00.000-07:00

One of my top-five bands of all time is having a pub-concert crawl.

"It's kinda like Live Aid," says John Mann, "except without any redeeming socio-political factors."

I'm not really that heavy a drinker, but the idea of getting drunk with Spirit of the West holds great appeal for me. But it's tomorrow. To-fricking-morrow! Unfair.

Anyone want to buy a twelve-pack of Okanagan Spring Brewery Beer so I can get the SotW promo CD?

Didn't think so. Alas.

politics: Gannert/Guckon really doesn't get it, does he?

2005-03-08T15:42:00.000-07:00

Loath though I may be to contribute to his traffic, it seems that the White House Whore has forgotten how little credibility he has anymore and rather than hide in shame, as he really needs to, he's showing himself for the publicity hound he really is.

This is precious: "It (the SCLM) was horrified that the relentless string of hostile and a few downright disrespectful questions had been broken. My greater sin in their eyes, however was that I dared to suggest that two Senate Democratic leaders held an illogical view of the economy’s weakness and the strength of Social Security."

Erm, no. Your greatest sin was being an uncredentialled, unexperienced 'journalist' with completely unjustifiable access to the leader of the free world, wielding a fake name (or several) and a hypocritical past. Then there's the fact that your questions themselves were frequently misleading or outright wrong, and solely designed to provide an excuse for the spewing of the day's talking point.

Ooh, this is even more precious: "After all, I had “no journalistic credentials” despite the fact that I had written over 500 articles for Talon News over a two-year period." Erm, yes, true, I suppose, but that was after they let you in the White House, nimrod!

Oy. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Especially spicy is his ongoing list of questions he would've asked had he been in the briefing room that day. Today's? "Has the White House had any conversations with or given any directions to United Nations Ambassador-designate John Bolton to demand a full accounting of the Oil-for-food program and an investigation into the sexual misconduct of UN peacekeepers in the Congo and elsewhere?"

Ooh, ooh, call on me, Jeff, you sexy stud you! I can answer! I can answer!

The answer would be no, primarily because the trail of that would lead back to the Bush administration and its corporate allies who most directly benefited from this, and who directly or indirectly approved of the now-suspect transactions.

Oh, and one last thing, from yesterday's entry: "The New York Times is hailing the first blogger to be issued a "day pass" to a White House press briefing. ... According to the 'Gannon Standard', I am expecting to see other bloggers' reports on his sexual and financial history as well as some conspiracy theories about who this guy is." ... Thanks, JD, for finally admitting that you're a blogger and not a journalist. *phew* Glad that's over with. Really, he's merely a curiosity, and while his story may bear further scrutiny as it continues to unfold (I'm hearing some real tinfoil hat stuff out of Democratic Underground, but I'm a bit credulous at this point), he himself clearly does not, particularly because it's what he craves.

politics: An update to the Arizona embarrassment

2005-03-07T15:52:00.000-07:00

All-righty, then. I thought it was bad enough before, but having been tipped off by radio reports, I looked up the text of the bill I mentioned the other day.

Existing Arizona law apparently defines misconduct, with reference to this subject, as carrying a deadly weapon without a permit, transporting it without a permit, enter public places and such where a reasonable request (e.g., a sign indicating policy) has been made to leave it in the custody of the sponsor, churches, bringing them into polling places on election day. etc., etc., etc., ... The usual, basically. That's part one.

Another Arizona law defines a deadly weapon as "anything designed for lethal use, including a firearm." Follow me? This includes, say, nuclear weapons, poison gas, landmines, bombs, IEDs ... anything designed for lethal use. That's part two.

The bill stipulated that existing law, in essence, "does not apply if the person is a United States citizen carrying a deadly weapon for personal protection, the protection of others, the state or the sanctity of a dwelling unit, whether the person is a resident of the dwelling or not." That's the last bit.

Get it? In other words, the law is so broad that some borderline insane vigilante guy could walk at random into state office building with a dirty bomb in a suitcase and sit in the lobby watching for undesirables.

Etc., etc. I'm sure you can think of more likely scenarios -- I'm just picking one for the sheer ridiculousness of it. Who decides intent? And when is it ever OK for someone to carry capsules of poison gas into a polling place, whatever their intent?

Thankfully, the bill has been withdrawn.

Lord, what fools these Republicans be.

misc: In which I receive some small amount of dairy vindication

2005-03-07T14:46:00.000-07:00

I have always enjoyed dairy products ... particularly cheese, yogurt and ice cream -- in moderation and, mostly, only on occasion. But drinking milk? It makes me phlegmy. It does nothing for my thirst. It tastes OK, but I'd really rather have a nice, cold glass of water than milk.

For decades, the American dairy industry has tried to make me feel un-American, or like I've been seriously endangering my health, like my limbs would eventually all snap like dry twigs because I've avoided a constant flow of cow juice into my stomach. Defiantly, I've stuck to my guns. Consume dairy for enjoyment, not for health! has been my credo, only never spoken -- I don't really want to be dragged off because of my strange obsessions.

Apparently I win. Study: Dairy Not Best Source of Calcium. 'Nuff said.

It's all about the World Bank ... But you can dance to it

2005-03-07T10:46:00.000-07:00

OK, this just blew my mind.

He has integrity. He's intelligent. He's passionate about social justice causes. And he ain't American. So why does this news about Bono make me feel like the world has unexpectedly flipped upside down and we're dangling from trees by our toes?

politics: Sometimes (OK, almost always) my state government embarrasses me.

2005-03-04T10:01:00.000-07:00

Gun bill approved by Senate.

Yeah. Because the most pressing problem Arizona faces is that people with concealed weapon permits aren't allowed to take them into bars. This will make us safer. I know I feel better knowing they won't be allowed to drink if they're packing heat, because it's incredibly easy for the bartender to verify that the concealed weapon permit holder has no weapon with him or her.

Wholly Jeebus, my state is run by yutzes.

misc: Oh my word.

2005-03-02T14:38:00.000-07:00

An actual 'cover letter' sent in by an applicant for a position in one of our facilities (our application process is all online, and this is copied-and-pasted from the window.

Certain parts redacted for privacy's sake ...

JOINING THE [old, superseded company name] TEAM WOULD BE A GREAT OPPURTUNIY OF A GROUND FLOOR POSISTION W/ADVANCEMENT. I COMPLIMENT MYSELF W/HAVING SUCH SUPERB PUBLIC RELATION SKILLS. CURRENTLY I'AM IN A POSISTION @ [other related company], THAT HAS ALLOWED ME TO BUILD MY STABILITY ALONG W/ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS. THE DELEGATION OF MY RESPONSEABILITIES OVER THE YEARS ALLOWS ME TO SUPERSEADE
MY CURRENT POSISTION. I FEEL I COULD REALLY CONTRIBUTE THE THE [company] TEAM!. THE SKILLS I USE SUCESSFULLY PER DAY CONSIST OF; COORDINATION OF REPAIR/REHAB PATIENT SERVICES, QUOTATIONS BEING COMPLETED DAILY TO INSURANCE COMPANIES, VERIFY ELEGABILITY AND BENEFITS, COLLECTING IF NECESARRY, ROUTING DISPATCH DRIVERS HOURLY, AND MAINLY FRONLINE CONTACT WITH PATIENTS AND THERE FAMILIES. OVERALL TROUBLESHOOTING FAMILY ISSUES AND ACCOMADATING THERE NEEDS IS MY NUMBER ONE GOAL. MY EXPERIENCE AND MY QUALITY OF EXPERTISE WOULD BE A AWARDING ASSEST TO THE "[old, superseded company name] TEAM".
RESPECTFULLY, [APPLICANT]

Words fail.