In the midst of the great cartoon riots of 2006, I was discussing with a former commenter to this site the irony of these proceedings: these radical Islamists are protesting the portrayal of Islam as a violent religion with violence. The former commenter suggested that no religion makes itself such an easy target for stereotyping than modern Islam. I, of course, took this opportunity to rake Evangelical Christians over the coals. In the wake of this discussion comes this interesting column out of the Times of London which does a good job of comparing and contrasting the two groups (while buffaloing my contentions about evangelicals). Key point:
Far from commanding any special respect or protection from the State, religions must be exposed to relentless criticism, like all non-rational traditions and beliefs. Some religions will survive this contest between tradition and modernity, between reason and revelation, as Christianity, Judaism and Islam have done for centuries. Others, such as Marxism and Scientology, will fall by the wayside. In America, the Constitution, with its prohibition against the establishment of any state religion and its absolute defence of free speech, demands a robust competition between faith and reason and among the religions themselves. And in the end, as America’s surprising piety clearly shows, it is not just society but also religion that emerges stronger from the refiner’s fire of competition, criticism and even insult.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Thoughts on the King Service
As you know, I like nothing better than seeing Bush get gigged. This is exactly what happened today at Coretta Scott King's service, when a preacher and Jimmy Carter pretty much excoriated Bush to his face. Preacher Lowery said:
We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there / But Coretta knew and we knew that there are weapons of misdirection right down here / Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor.
As much as I'd like to rationalize this as Mrs. King going down fighting, I think this was disrespectful to Mrs. King and too tactless by half. It did get a two minute standing ovation, and I'll be interested to listen to Ed Gordon tomorrow to hear the response in the black community and whether they anticipate any galvanic effect.
We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there / But Coretta knew and we knew that there are weapons of misdirection right down here / Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor.
As much as I'd like to rationalize this as Mrs. King going down fighting, I think this was disrespectful to Mrs. King and too tactless by half. It did get a two minute standing ovation, and I'll be interested to listen to Ed Gordon tomorrow to hear the response in the black community and whether they anticipate any galvanic effect.
Two things...
I'm still without a laptop and probably will be for a while, so I'll be blogging during work downtime (which, unfortunately, has been rare of late). Two things have caught my notice today. First, I think Russ Feingold had a nice retort to the administrations "pre 9-11 mindset" talking point. He said:
This administration reacts to anyone who questions this illegal program by saying that those of us who demand the truth and stand up for our rights and freedoms somehow has a pre-9/11 world view. In fact, the President has a pre-1776 world view. Our government has three branches, not one. And no one, not even the President, is above the law.
Secondly, these Muslims that are rising up around the globe and burning embassies are really in need of a sense of humor. I'm afraid there will be a giant puss-out in Europe as they pull up the kid gloves with which the West treats the Muslim world. I admit I'm not the one to be commiserating with Muslims on the sacrosanctity of their holies, but at some point these folks need to stop being such titty-babies about every little thing. I would like nothing more than the world collectively telling them to get the chips off their shoulders and grow up. I thought Andrew Sullivan had a great point when he said:
One massive supporting pillar of Jihadism has been the West's refusal to treat the Islamic world as it would any other part of the world. If Chinese radicals were ransacking Western embassies because of a cartoon, and were backed by the Chinese government, we would be outraged, demanding apologies, severing relations, and so on. But when Muslims do it, backed by Islamist governments, we are supposed to take it on the chin, to "respect" their religious traditions, issue mealy-mouthed statements, etc. In many ways, this is the real offense: treating Muslims as if their violation of global norms, and thralldom to medieval conceptions of politics and religion, were somehow acceptable. They are not acceptable.
The Iranians, as usual, did not help matters. While President Ahmadinejad was planning his trip to the annual pariah conference - held in Havana this year - his state-run newspaper solicited the best holocaust cartoons from the readership. In my opinion the proper response would have been, "Whatever dude." The actual response...pompous rhetoric from the European analog of the Anti-Defamation League furthering the "fuck you, no fuck you" that's been going on between Iranians and Jews for quite a while now.
This administration reacts to anyone who questions this illegal program by saying that those of us who demand the truth and stand up for our rights and freedoms somehow has a pre-9/11 world view. In fact, the President has a pre-1776 world view. Our government has three branches, not one. And no one, not even the President, is above the law.
Secondly, these Muslims that are rising up around the globe and burning embassies are really in need of a sense of humor. I'm afraid there will be a giant puss-out in Europe as they pull up the kid gloves with which the West treats the Muslim world. I admit I'm not the one to be commiserating with Muslims on the sacrosanctity of their holies, but at some point these folks need to stop being such titty-babies about every little thing. I would like nothing more than the world collectively telling them to get the chips off their shoulders and grow up. I thought Andrew Sullivan had a great point when he said:
One massive supporting pillar of Jihadism has been the West's refusal to treat the Islamic world as it would any other part of the world. If Chinese radicals were ransacking Western embassies because of a cartoon, and were backed by the Chinese government, we would be outraged, demanding apologies, severing relations, and so on. But when Muslims do it, backed by Islamist governments, we are supposed to take it on the chin, to "respect" their religious traditions, issue mealy-mouthed statements, etc. In many ways, this is the real offense: treating Muslims as if their violation of global norms, and thralldom to medieval conceptions of politics and religion, were somehow acceptable. They are not acceptable.
The Iranians, as usual, did not help matters. While President Ahmadinejad was planning his trip to the annual pariah conference - held in Havana this year - his state-run newspaper solicited the best holocaust cartoons from the readership. In my opinion the proper response would have been, "Whatever dude." The actual response...pompous rhetoric from the European analog of the Anti-Defamation League furthering the "fuck you, no fuck you" that's been going on between Iranians and Jews for quite a while now.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Burgle Blog Break
We got cold burgled the other day and our laptop was stolen. Therefore I'm in a limited blogging posture until this is remediated.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Bring back the War Department
This post is not meant to be a shrill anti-Bush rant, but I'm not sure how we can defend the Orwellian name of the Department of Defense. Bush was clear tonight as he has been since his second inagural that he believes his mission is to end tyranny in the world. By his invasion of Iraq, this certainly means that military options are in play to end such tyranny. Therefore, we need to either bring back the old "War Department" and make rummy the SecWar or rename it the Department of Offense. I think it's a real reach to think that what we're doing in Iraq is defensive. I'd be honored to die, or have a relative die, in defense of my country, but I'm not sure that I'm willing to die so some Iraqi can elect fundamentalists associated with Iran. The only way in which it's even a smidgen justified is if you twist football phrase and say the best defense as a good offense. I don't anticipate any foreign armies taking Venice Beach, Galveston, or the Jersey Shore any time soon. That's where you'd have an aptly named DoD. Maybe call it the Dept of Ending Tyranny Abroad so Freedom Can Be On the March, but DOETASFCBOTM doesn't seem to fit with the military's love of acronyms.
Cloning
And what the hell was that comment imploring the congress to act on human-animal cloning? Did I miss something? Is the Planet of the Apes a reality? Granted that presidents need to propose new initiatives in this thing, but how deep do you have to dig for that?
UPDATE: Bob Cesca notes over at HuffPost...
Words about New Orleans: 165. Words about legislation prohibiting the creation of a race of Pig Men: 86
UPDATE: Bob Cesca notes over at HuffPost...
Words about New Orleans: 165. Words about legislation prohibiting the creation of a race of Pig Men: 86
SOTU
A few thoughts on the State of the Union address before I get spun to death.
1. I'm a big fan of a so called Manhattan Project to reduce dependence on foreign oil. I thought the speech tonight was most notable for an oilman declaring that we are "addicted to oil." I think that his request to improve math and science education dovetails well with research into new types of energy as well as acceleration of existing alternative energy sources. Unfortunately, words aren't often followed by deeds with Bush so I'll be skeptical to see if anything happens.
2. I thought it was interesting that he mentioned Social Security reform from last year and gave Dems an applause line. When I was really into the debate last year, I recall it was Bush's stubborness to give up on private accounts that really doomed progress when there were compromise measures on the table. By recommending a bipartisan research panel, I hope that this is a harbinger of conciliation and not the creation of a debating society.
3. For the majority of the speech, he seemed to be speaking in broad strokes that were hard for most people to argue with. Other than the above, I didn't find it to be rhetorically compelling.
4. Speaking of rhetoric, he corrected one of my pet peeves by saying that we had killed or captured many Al Qaeda leaders, instead of "75%" of Al Qaeda leaders. Unfortunately he laughably continued to suggest that those that oppose his wiretapping also oppose fighting terrorism.
5. I still don't get the logic that if we fight them over there, we don't have to fight them over here. He repeated this again and it seems rhetorically dangerous. Just because we've been lucky and have evaded attacks doesn't mean this will always be the case. After 9/11 Britain certainly tightened up their security, but that didn't preven the London bombings.
6. The rest we've all heard before a hundred times. Freedom's on the march. Democracies aren't terrorists (except apparently in Palestine). Affordable healthcare for all Americans. Tax cuts. No child left behind. Blah, blah, blah.
7. The elephant in the room for me when he gave his laundry list of tyrannies (Syria, Iran, Burma, etc.) was China. It's a tyranny. He said 50% of the world is free. Get some elections in China and that becomes 75%. I realize that it would be political and economic suicide to mention this, but it's still notable.
Now I'm off to be spun by Ken Mehlman and Howard Dean.
1. I'm a big fan of a so called Manhattan Project to reduce dependence on foreign oil. I thought the speech tonight was most notable for an oilman declaring that we are "addicted to oil." I think that his request to improve math and science education dovetails well with research into new types of energy as well as acceleration of existing alternative energy sources. Unfortunately, words aren't often followed by deeds with Bush so I'll be skeptical to see if anything happens.
2. I thought it was interesting that he mentioned Social Security reform from last year and gave Dems an applause line. When I was really into the debate last year, I recall it was Bush's stubborness to give up on private accounts that really doomed progress when there were compromise measures on the table. By recommending a bipartisan research panel, I hope that this is a harbinger of conciliation and not the creation of a debating society.
3. For the majority of the speech, he seemed to be speaking in broad strokes that were hard for most people to argue with. Other than the above, I didn't find it to be rhetorically compelling.
4. Speaking of rhetoric, he corrected one of my pet peeves by saying that we had killed or captured many Al Qaeda leaders, instead of "75%" of Al Qaeda leaders. Unfortunately he laughably continued to suggest that those that oppose his wiretapping also oppose fighting terrorism.
5. I still don't get the logic that if we fight them over there, we don't have to fight them over here. He repeated this again and it seems rhetorically dangerous. Just because we've been lucky and have evaded attacks doesn't mean this will always be the case. After 9/11 Britain certainly tightened up their security, but that didn't preven the London bombings.
6. The rest we've all heard before a hundred times. Freedom's on the march. Democracies aren't terrorists (except apparently in Palestine). Affordable healthcare for all Americans. Tax cuts. No child left behind. Blah, blah, blah.
7. The elephant in the room for me when he gave his laundry list of tyrannies (Syria, Iran, Burma, etc.) was China. It's a tyranny. He said 50% of the world is free. Get some elections in China and that becomes 75%. I realize that it would be political and economic suicide to mention this, but it's still notable.
Now I'm off to be spun by Ken Mehlman and Howard Dean.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Logical Fallacies
In the post below, I mention how a misreading of cause-and effect can cause bad things...faulty inferences...to occur. I mentioned religion as a misreading of causality. This is the old Post hoc ergo propter hoc (After the fact therefore because of the fact) fallacy. I found a good example of this as it pertained to the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Excerpt below...article here.
One of the things that fascinated me, not least because it seems to have happened in the aftermath of Krakatoa, was that [the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906] had an effect on religion. After Krakatoa, you had a lot of people who were Islamic saying this is clearly a sign from Allah. This volcano is a sign that he's angry. We must rise up and kill our rulers, the Dutch, and drive them out. And essentially they did. And one might argue that Krakatoa triggered the first militant fundamentalist Islamic uprising in the world-a long, long time before Israel 1948 and all those things. A similar thing happened in California not, however, with the Muslims but with fundamentalist Christians. There was a church down in Los Angeles in a place called Azusa Street, which was a fledgling church of people who called themselves Pentecostalists. They spoke in tongues, they waved their arms around and did all sorts of crazy things. All things that would appear to others as crazy. And all that sort of direction came about because of manifestations as they saw it from God. He would send signs down. Miracles would be called. People would, as I mentioned, talk in tongues. On the week before the San Francisco earthquake, this little church had a modest-size meeting, and a couple of people spoke in tongues, and it was all going along quite nicely, but the Pastor stood up and said we are expecting a sign from the Lord.
Three days later San Francisco, arguably the most sinful of all American cities given over to drinking and whoring and gambling and all those fun things that happened in the aftermath of the gold rush days. But a city that lived for fun, for sin was destroyed by an earthquake. And so the Pastor, not unreasonably, said, well there's no doubt about it, this is the sign from God that we've been waiting for. And suddenly this little church was overrun with people, I mean tens of thousands of people came, they had overspill locations. It became like the Crystal Cathedral that you see in Los Angeles today and the link is not actually an unreasonable one to make because out of the Pentecostalist church that began in essentially 1906 came all the great evangelical movements from Aimee Semple McPherson right through to Pat Robertson and Tammy Fay and Jim Bakker. One might argue--and I don't want to make too much of this--that the power of the Christian right and particularly the Pentecostal brand of Evangelicals has had a crucially important effect on contemporary American politics. That movement was triggered in large part by what was perceived as a sign from God on April 18, 1906. So, the downstream effects of the San Francisco earthquake, if you do say, it caused Pentecostalism, it gave us conservative Christianity, and it gave us certain political effects that are being felt around the world.
So a tectonic plate shift 100 years ago is responsible for the Bush administration. A reach but something on which to muse...
One of the things that fascinated me, not least because it seems to have happened in the aftermath of Krakatoa, was that [the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906] had an effect on religion. After Krakatoa, you had a lot of people who were Islamic saying this is clearly a sign from Allah. This volcano is a sign that he's angry. We must rise up and kill our rulers, the Dutch, and drive them out. And essentially they did. And one might argue that Krakatoa triggered the first militant fundamentalist Islamic uprising in the world-a long, long time before Israel 1948 and all those things. A similar thing happened in California not, however, with the Muslims but with fundamentalist Christians. There was a church down in Los Angeles in a place called Azusa Street, which was a fledgling church of people who called themselves Pentecostalists. They spoke in tongues, they waved their arms around and did all sorts of crazy things. All things that would appear to others as crazy. And all that sort of direction came about because of manifestations as they saw it from God. He would send signs down. Miracles would be called. People would, as I mentioned, talk in tongues. On the week before the San Francisco earthquake, this little church had a modest-size meeting, and a couple of people spoke in tongues, and it was all going along quite nicely, but the Pastor stood up and said we are expecting a sign from the Lord.
Three days later San Francisco, arguably the most sinful of all American cities given over to drinking and whoring and gambling and all those fun things that happened in the aftermath of the gold rush days. But a city that lived for fun, for sin was destroyed by an earthquake. And so the Pastor, not unreasonably, said, well there's no doubt about it, this is the sign from God that we've been waiting for. And suddenly this little church was overrun with people, I mean tens of thousands of people came, they had overspill locations. It became like the Crystal Cathedral that you see in Los Angeles today and the link is not actually an unreasonable one to make because out of the Pentecostalist church that began in essentially 1906 came all the great evangelical movements from Aimee Semple McPherson right through to Pat Robertson and Tammy Fay and Jim Bakker. One might argue--and I don't want to make too much of this--that the power of the Christian right and particularly the Pentecostal brand of Evangelicals has had a crucially important effect on contemporary American politics. That movement was triggered in large part by what was perceived as a sign from God on April 18, 1906. So, the downstream effects of the San Francisco earthquake, if you do say, it caused Pentecostalism, it gave us conservative Christianity, and it gave us certain political effects that are being felt around the world.
So a tectonic plate shift 100 years ago is responsible for the Bush administration. A reach but something on which to muse...
Economic
It appears that we've had a raging economic debate going on all weekend here (while I was dead drunk in a ditch somewhere, shirking my moderating duties). In failing to distill their individual theories through the lens of the globalized economy, especially the possibility of China's economy overheating and their inability to control it through monetary policy, both authors do a disservice to our esteemed readership. Or something. My point is really that economics is some hard shit with lots of variables that aren't always consistent. Things are seldom black or white. Maybe tax cuts/increases help the economy, maybe they don't...it depends on a multitude of different things. While I'm no economist, I'm a decent statistician and the biggest mistake made with statistics is to infer causality (high contrast example: I got a raise after a big thunderstorm so therefore thunderstorms cause raises). That kind of thinking is how we ended up with religion.
Friday, January 27, 2006
I'm purple...
Okay, I'll take the bait and allow JimL to set the hook. He claims I'm a shameless partisan that lambastes the right while giving the left a free pass. I confess I have a contrarian streak. This makes it much easier to bitch about people with power. The left is powerless and inept and therefore makes a pretty weak target. Additionally, nothing makes my blood boil more than people who impose their morality on others and people that take rights away from Americans. The left hasn't been doing this much lately with the exception of trying to fine people who buy cereal with cartoon characters used in advertising.
But to try and establish my purple credentials:
John Kerry is a fool. He is perhaps the least politically savvy politician ever. This latest effort to call for a filibuster from the ski slopes in the Swiss alps just reinforces the stereotype he rightfully earned during the campaign. The stupidest thing he ever did, however, was when a reporter teed up the easiest question ever during the campaign. If you knew then what you know now, would you still vote for the war in Iraq. The moron said yes. I'd agree to take a year off my life if I never had to hear him speak again. I think he and Bush have each done one thing right in their lives. Kerry had that great line about who wants to be the last person to die for a mistake. Bush had that strike he threw at Yankee stadium after 9/11.
Gore isn't much better. The fact that Kerry and Gore couldn't beat a seriously weak Bush in either election bespeaks the political and strategic bankruptcy of the left. The left has no coherent ideology that a layperson can identify with. The left also has no personality. If the evangelicals would just let McCain run, he would slaughter all comers.
Cindy Sheehan doesn't know when to stop and the fact that she and other Hollywood crazies are the poster-children for the left is the reason the left can't get traction. The Dems need some kind of leadership to distance from these nutjobs. As I understand it, Sheehan is currently in Venezuela hobnobbing with Hugo Chavez. The lefties that have actual charisma are way too left for regular folks to identify with. The sensible centrists have no charisma. They're fucked.
As a career third-party voter, I'd love for a true centrist to emerge that had sensible economic policies and didn't want to force their personal Jesus on me. The lobby, the church, and the lefty interest groups are too strong, as well as the goofball primary system. I'm fucked. So I'm going to continue to complain about powerful people putting stupid policies in place. Since George is damn near a monarch, there's a good chance most of this complaining will be about him.
But to try and establish my purple credentials:
John Kerry is a fool. He is perhaps the least politically savvy politician ever. This latest effort to call for a filibuster from the ski slopes in the Swiss alps just reinforces the stereotype he rightfully earned during the campaign. The stupidest thing he ever did, however, was when a reporter teed up the easiest question ever during the campaign. If you knew then what you know now, would you still vote for the war in Iraq. The moron said yes. I'd agree to take a year off my life if I never had to hear him speak again. I think he and Bush have each done one thing right in their lives. Kerry had that great line about who wants to be the last person to die for a mistake. Bush had that strike he threw at Yankee stadium after 9/11.
Gore isn't much better. The fact that Kerry and Gore couldn't beat a seriously weak Bush in either election bespeaks the political and strategic bankruptcy of the left. The left has no coherent ideology that a layperson can identify with. The left also has no personality. If the evangelicals would just let McCain run, he would slaughter all comers.
Cindy Sheehan doesn't know when to stop and the fact that she and other Hollywood crazies are the poster-children for the left is the reason the left can't get traction. The Dems need some kind of leadership to distance from these nutjobs. As I understand it, Sheehan is currently in Venezuela hobnobbing with Hugo Chavez. The lefties that have actual charisma are way too left for regular folks to identify with. The sensible centrists have no charisma. They're fucked.
As a career third-party voter, I'd love for a true centrist to emerge that had sensible economic policies and didn't want to force their personal Jesus on me. The lobby, the church, and the lefty interest groups are too strong, as well as the goofball primary system. I'm fucked. So I'm going to continue to complain about powerful people putting stupid policies in place. Since George is damn near a monarch, there's a good chance most of this complaining will be about him.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Today's Constitutional Abomination
...but not here. Witness the following statement in the new Iraqi constitution:
"The freedom of communication, and mail, telegraphic, electronic, and telephonic correspondence, and other correspondence shall be guaranteed and may not be monitored, wiretapped or disclosed except for legal and security necessity and by a judicial decision."
I'm really curious what the President feels his limits are under his supposed statutory authority to do anything to protect Americans. Using the same justification, he has legalized torture and allowed American citizens to be held without charges or access to attorneys. An article in Slate posits:
Bush and his lawyers contend that the president's national security powers are unlimited. And since the war on terror is currently scheduled to run indefinitely, the executive supremacy they're asserting won't be a temporary condition.
More good stuff:
[I]n inverting specific prohibitions into blanket permission that Gonzales reaches for the genuinely Orwellian. The Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 not only does not authorize Bush's warrant-less snooping but clearly and specifically prohibits it by prescribing the FISA court system as the "exclusive" method for authorizing electronic surveillance for intelligence purposes...[Attorney General Alberto] Gonzales proposes that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act must either be read as consistent with the position that [the president] can wiretap whomever he wants (thus becoming meaningless) or, alternatively, be dismissed as an unconstitutional irrelevancy.
In other words, laws either mean what we want them to or they are unconstitutional. This is really what these people are saying.
But why does this all-purpose rationale not also extend to press censorship or arresting political opponents, were the president to deem such measures vital to the nation's security?
They've insinuated to varying degrees that political opponents are traitors and that all bad news is the fault of a biased press...if things get bad enough, they just might lock them up and shut 'em down. Fox News can stick around as the state-run news channel.
"The freedom of communication, and mail, telegraphic, electronic, and telephonic correspondence, and other correspondence shall be guaranteed and may not be monitored, wiretapped or disclosed except for legal and security necessity and by a judicial decision."
I'm really curious what the President feels his limits are under his supposed statutory authority to do anything to protect Americans. Using the same justification, he has legalized torture and allowed American citizens to be held without charges or access to attorneys. An article in Slate posits:
Bush and his lawyers contend that the president's national security powers are unlimited. And since the war on terror is currently scheduled to run indefinitely, the executive supremacy they're asserting won't be a temporary condition.
More good stuff:
[I]n inverting specific prohibitions into blanket permission that Gonzales reaches for the genuinely Orwellian. The Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 not only does not authorize Bush's warrant-less snooping but clearly and specifically prohibits it by prescribing the FISA court system as the "exclusive" method for authorizing electronic surveillance for intelligence purposes...[Attorney General Alberto] Gonzales proposes that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act must either be read as consistent with the position that [the president] can wiretap whomever he wants (thus becoming meaningless) or, alternatively, be dismissed as an unconstitutional irrelevancy.
In other words, laws either mean what we want them to or they are unconstitutional. This is really what these people are saying.
But why does this all-purpose rationale not also extend to press censorship or arresting political opponents, were the president to deem such measures vital to the nation's security?
They've insinuated to varying degrees that political opponents are traitors and that all bad news is the fault of a biased press...if things get bad enough, they just might lock them up and shut 'em down. Fox News can stick around as the state-run news channel.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Munich...not the movie.
I've been noodling on doing a big tour-de-force post on the similarities between Iran and Germany in 1935. To me this is the scariest problem in the world. Alas, I was beaten to the punch by Newt Gingrich here and at length here. Now Newt and I don't always agree, but I've always thought he was a smart guy with interesting things to say. He says:
Indeed, the new Iranian President does not even require us to read a book like Mein Kampf to understand how serious he is. He enthusiastically makes speeches proclaiming to the world his commitment to genocidal annihilation of another nation. Furthermore his senior foreign policy leader has endorsed his vicious threats.
Meanwhile the civilized world wrings its hands and the United Nations acts with contemptible weakness.
[T]he combination of two elements--the virulence of the ideology of Iran’s current regime and advanced military capabilities it is working energetically to acquire--when added to Iran’s inherent endowment--its strategic location, natural resources, population, and proximity to the vital resources of other nations in the region and the seaways through which these sources reach the rest of the world--poses a threat of such scope and magnitude which leave us with no choice but to take it with the utmost seriousness. We must prepare and take actions of the same intensity and seriousness as the threat.
I feel there's going to be a Munich moment, similar to when Britain chose to appease Hitler rather than confront him. I see the new Iranian leadership as pure evil, and the US is not in a strategically ideal position. Russia and China are acting in their economic self-interest instead of the world's best interest by not denouncing and distancing from Ahmadinejad when he claims the Holocaust didn't happen, Israel should be destroyed, or other incendiary rubbish of that ilk.
The Munich moment was a point of inflection for the Third Reich that allowed them to proceed unabated with their plans until finally the conquest of Poland was too much. A point of inflection with Iran is nearing, I don't know when, but the consequencing will be staggering.
Indeed, the new Iranian President does not even require us to read a book like Mein Kampf to understand how serious he is. He enthusiastically makes speeches proclaiming to the world his commitment to genocidal annihilation of another nation. Furthermore his senior foreign policy leader has endorsed his vicious threats.
Meanwhile the civilized world wrings its hands and the United Nations acts with contemptible weakness.
[T]he combination of two elements--the virulence of the ideology of Iran’s current regime and advanced military capabilities it is working energetically to acquire--when added to Iran’s inherent endowment--its strategic location, natural resources, population, and proximity to the vital resources of other nations in the region and the seaways through which these sources reach the rest of the world--poses a threat of such scope and magnitude which leave us with no choice but to take it with the utmost seriousness. We must prepare and take actions of the same intensity and seriousness as the threat.
I feel there's going to be a Munich moment, similar to when Britain chose to appease Hitler rather than confront him. I see the new Iranian leadership as pure evil, and the US is not in a strategically ideal position. Russia and China are acting in their economic self-interest instead of the world's best interest by not denouncing and distancing from Ahmadinejad when he claims the Holocaust didn't happen, Israel should be destroyed, or other incendiary rubbish of that ilk.
The Munich moment was a point of inflection for the Third Reich that allowed them to proceed unabated with their plans until finally the conquest of Poland was too much. A point of inflection with Iran is nearing, I don't know when, but the consequencing will be staggering.
A step in the right direction...
Good news in an area I've griped about before: corporate anti-consumerism. Steven Soderbergh's new movie "Bubble" is being released simultaneously at theaters, on DVD, and on broadcast television (via Mark Cuban's HDNET). Big retailers like Wal-Mart and the studios have long been colluding to maintain their grasp on movie dollars by enforcing waiting periods between theatrical, DVD, and television release. This move towards simultaneous release gives consumers more choice, which is the direction we need to be headed. The technology is there for these paradigms to be busted.
Drop the Fruit Loops and come out with your hands up!
This story tells of a group in Massachussets that seeks to fine people $25 everytime someone buys cereal or other unhealthy foods that are marketed to children. Commentary here.
Who are these people? They're running a close second to religious-right types in the "Who do I want to party with the least?" category.
Who are these people? They're running a close second to religious-right types in the "Who do I want to party with the least?" category.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Hello Hobbit people!
I got sucked in to some politics so I haven't been living up to my pledge to convert this blog to a round-the-clock clearinghouse for Lord of the Rings minutiae. So a great way to begin is for everyone to go here and find out your Lord of the Rings name. My name is Valaraukar and I'm a Wizard! What's your Lord of the Rings name little Hobbit-person?
More War Stuff
It appears from some comments to this post that because I don't cotton to Scott McClellan's politically-induced math errors, I'm some sort of terrorist sympathizer. (This is not true. I believe terrorists should be killed cartoon-style with dynamite up their asses, gruesome electrocution, base-jumping sans parachute and other greatest hits from Itchy and Scratchy.) And true to the party-line, there's an immediate conflation of Al Qaeda with Iraq. This raises the question of equivalence again as I did a few months ago here.
It was suggested that the DOD errs on the side of caution when it gives enemy casualty numbers for Iraq. GregC said that although the administration said 30,000 had been killed, it was actually more like 50,000. Never mind that my original comment was on Al Qaeda, not the Iraq war from which those figures were clearly drawn. Even so, the clean intent in quoting these statistics is to show how many terrorists we've rounded up or killed. That's not true.
I don't know how many of that 50,000 were true head-chopper-offers and how many were just a bunch of Iraqi army guys that didn't want to get invaded and went Red Dawn on us. Even the president stated that by far the majority of the insurgency were not terrorists. Yet since, when the administration speaks of the problems in Iraq he always says terrorists because it's good politics at home. He's still trading on 9/11 for a semblance of respect.
A person that targets military or cops is not a terrorist, they are insurgents. Some people don't like other people telling them what to do, regardless of how well intentioned the first party is. This is not always a bad thing...witness the Revolutionary War.
It was suggested that the DOD errs on the side of caution when it gives enemy casualty numbers for Iraq. GregC said that although the administration said 30,000 had been killed, it was actually more like 50,000. Never mind that my original comment was on Al Qaeda, not the Iraq war from which those figures were clearly drawn. Even so, the clean intent in quoting these statistics is to show how many terrorists we've rounded up or killed. That's not true.
I don't know how many of that 50,000 were true head-chopper-offers and how many were just a bunch of Iraqi army guys that didn't want to get invaded and went Red Dawn on us. Even the president stated that by far the majority of the insurgency were not terrorists. Yet since, when the administration speaks of the problems in Iraq he always says terrorists because it's good politics at home. He's still trading on 9/11 for a semblance of respect.
A person that targets military or cops is not a terrorist, they are insurgents. Some people don't like other people telling them what to do, regardless of how well intentioned the first party is. This is not always a bad thing...witness the Revolutionary War.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Style Over Substance Watch
The Powerpoint President has done some rebranding with his civil-liberties infringing domestic spying program...which he's now dubbed the "terrorist surveillance program." How many votes will that get the GOP congress? How many GOP'ers will compromise their beliefs in personal freedom (except for gun-freedom) and hop on board the national security express? Karl Rove's marketing machine appears to be in full swing for an election year.
Comments on Art Rock
As I mentioned in a comment to JimL in a previous post, politics is whipping my ass so I'm changing the theme of this blog to 24/7 Lord of the Rings discussion (bonus points for posting in Elvish).
As many readers know, I'm a big fan of satellite radio. The range of music offered is amazing, especially to those of you that tune in to the Mansion of Fun featuring David Johannsen. The other day I was heading out to get a sandwich for lunch and landed upon "The Vault" on Sirius. This station specializes in "deep cuts" from classic rock era artists. As I was meandering down the road, Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick came on. I know the song well, going back to my youth listening to KZPS. However, this was Thick as a Brick (parts 1 & 2). I left the song and went inside to get my sandwich. I emerged roughly a half hour later to find the SAME SONG still playing. Upon running across the same tune tonight, I felt obliged to indulge you with a comment or two upon that most self-indulgent musical relic from the seventies - art rock/theme albums.
I confess I was once held in the sway of this musical genre, most notably by art-rock placard-carrier Rush. Other mainstays like Yes, ELP, and Pink Floyd were proponents of this style. It strikes me now how incredibly dated and banal this entire bunch of music seems. While the riffs of Rush's 2112 still kick, the blatant ripoff of Ayn Rand and various biblical themes serve to underscore the pseudo-intellectual vacuity of these bands. I can't see myself as an adult jamming down to the tale of By-Tor and the Snowdog regardless of how live Neil Peart's drumming might be. I'd much rather hear everyday truths about relationships and sex artfully conveyed by, say, the Rolling Stones, AC/DC, or, for that matter, Humble Pie, than listen to retreaded classical tales interpreted by the doltish gang above or someone even more ham-fisted like Thin Lizzy.
But this music is, to my mind, the soundtrack to Lord of the Rings and its ilk. Which makes me wonder if we shouldn't be expecting a comeback. What could accompany an evening of male-only video gaming and pot smoking than a few hours of Geddy Lee singing about Cygnus X-1? It seems that the true benefactor/scion of art rock has been the jam band. They share the self-indulgence, but seem to differ in the importance of the spaceman ethos. So, I predict the advent of the spaceman/medieval knight jam-band. It's a hell of an opportunity for you musicians out there.
As many readers know, I'm a big fan of satellite radio. The range of music offered is amazing, especially to those of you that tune in to the Mansion of Fun featuring David Johannsen. The other day I was heading out to get a sandwich for lunch and landed upon "The Vault" on Sirius. This station specializes in "deep cuts" from classic rock era artists. As I was meandering down the road, Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick came on. I know the song well, going back to my youth listening to KZPS. However, this was Thick as a Brick (parts 1 & 2). I left the song and went inside to get my sandwich. I emerged roughly a half hour later to find the SAME SONG still playing. Upon running across the same tune tonight, I felt obliged to indulge you with a comment or two upon that most self-indulgent musical relic from the seventies - art rock/theme albums.
I confess I was once held in the sway of this musical genre, most notably by art-rock placard-carrier Rush. Other mainstays like Yes, ELP, and Pink Floyd were proponents of this style. It strikes me now how incredibly dated and banal this entire bunch of music seems. While the riffs of Rush's 2112 still kick, the blatant ripoff of Ayn Rand and various biblical themes serve to underscore the pseudo-intellectual vacuity of these bands. I can't see myself as an adult jamming down to the tale of By-Tor and the Snowdog regardless of how live Neil Peart's drumming might be. I'd much rather hear everyday truths about relationships and sex artfully conveyed by, say, the Rolling Stones, AC/DC, or, for that matter, Humble Pie, than listen to retreaded classical tales interpreted by the doltish gang above or someone even more ham-fisted like Thin Lizzy.
But this music is, to my mind, the soundtrack to Lord of the Rings and its ilk. Which makes me wonder if we shouldn't be expecting a comeback. What could accompany an evening of male-only video gaming and pot smoking than a few hours of Geddy Lee singing about Cygnus X-1? It seems that the true benefactor/scion of art rock has been the jam band. They share the self-indulgence, but seem to differ in the importance of the spaceman ethos. So, I predict the advent of the spaceman/medieval knight jam-band. It's a hell of an opportunity for you musicians out there.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Texas de Brazil
I may be stealing my wife's thunder with respect to restaurant reviews, but I went to Texas de Brazil the other night on a vendor's tab and wasn't impressed. The novelty has worn off and with a few exceptions, you're just eating overcooked meat. I asked for some rare lamb and received a chunk of meat that was better suited for a fat sandwich. Additionally, I don't necessarily like the meat-carriers descending on me like a pack of wolves as soon as I go "green". I still managed to get shitfaced on a couple of bottles of wine and about four after-dinner scotches (should have been two after-dinner scotches, but the bartender was a chintzy fucker.) I think this place is a one trick pony useful for out-of-town guests that like gimmckry.
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