OPINIONS OF ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES, A MINOR GREEK GODDESS. She can be reached at: ECHIDNE-OF-THE-SNAKES.COM

Thursday, June 30, 2005

A Craft Idea 



For all of you craftspeople with itching fingers and nothing left to paint or decorate in the house or on your persons. Freewayblogger has a new project for you:

THE TIME HAS COME ...
to speak out against the Lies and Propaganda and let 25,000 of your closest friends know just how you feel about this war and the lying sons of bitches who dragged us into it.

Starting July 5th, freewaybloggers across the nation will begin placing signs on the freeways voicing their opposition to the war. These signs will continue going up through July and August and on until impeachment hearings begin in September.

The Founders of this Nation gave us the right to free political speech for a reason, and at least part of that reason was to sound the alarm if we felt our country, or its democracy was in danger. If you feel that this is an illegal and immoral war, speaking out is not just your right, it's your duty as a citizen.

Go here for instructions and the list of materials needed. All you really require is what is in this picture:





Though the rabbits are there just to be admired and not necessary to have. In particular, no rabbit parts are used in the craftproject!

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Divided We Fall 



Perhaps. Or we fall over from laughing so hard. The most recent Zogby poll says that the American voters surveyed don't like the divisiveness of current American politics:

A follow-up question found that seven-in-ten (70%) voters believe the parties should be broad-based, and should pursue compromise—while less than one-in-four (23%) favored putting base issues first, even if it means nothing is accomplished.

These views are held by members of both major political parties, as well as independents, although Republicans, whose party controls both houses of Congress, are more likely to favor the parties focusing on the desires of their base than are Democrats and independents, with 31% of Republicans favoring this approach—more than the 20% of Democrats and 17% of independents who hold that view.

Note the greater number of radicals among the Republicans. The "followup" bit above refers to the major findings of the poll:

Just one week ago, President Bush's job approval stood at a previous low of 44%—but it has now slipped another point to 43%, despite a speech to the nation intended to build support for the Administration and the ongoing Iraq War effort. The Zogby America survey includes calls made both before and after the President's address, and the results show no discernible "bump" in his job approval, with voter approval of his job performance at 45% in the final day of polling.

Where voters live has some impact on their perceptions. The President's job rating remains relatively strong in the South, with 51% rating his performance favorably; in all other regions, those disapproving his performance are in the majority.

And two in five of those surveyed would like to see Bush impeached if it's proven that he lied about the reason for Iraq war. All these questions show that the South still loves Bush and whatever he does while the rest of the country is not so inclined.

In other words, we are indeed divided between the southern and the northern parts of the country. Like in the Civil War. Not much has changed in some ways, and maybe we'd all be better off if there were two countries now rather than one. Though one of them would have to be Jesusland and have place for all the wingnuts, whereas the other one would be called Moonbattia and would host the rest of us. Sadly, there is no easy geographical division along these lines as there are moonbats (a wingnut name for people like yours truly) even among the rabidest Republicans.

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Weird News of the Day 



They may not look weird to you but they struck me as odd. Hollow or like deja vu all over again.

First, the newly elected president of Iran, a wingnut in full ripeness, may have met Americans in his past:

The White House said Thursday it is taking seriously the allegations by former hostages that Iran's hardline president-elect, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was one of their captors at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran a quarter century ago.

President Bush told foreign reporters he has "no information, but obviously his involvement raises many questions."

"As soon as I saw the face, it rang a lot of bells to me," Don Sharer, who served as the embassy's naval attache at the time, told CNN.

"...Take 20 years off of him. He was there. He was there in the background, more like an adviser."

Abbas Abdi, the man well-known to be the leader of the 1979 hostage-takers, told CNN that Ahmadinejad, the Tehran mayor, "absolutely was not" part of the event that involved the captivity of 52 people.

Abdi later became a supporter of reformist President Mohammed Khatami and was recently released from jail for advocating closer ties with the United States.

Iranian officials also deny Ahmadinejad was involved.

Whatever the truth of the case, everybody knows that Ahmadinejad is as eager for a theocratic world as some other leader better to remain unnamed here.

Second, Bush spoke and the Americans...slept:

President Bush's latest address to the nation, urging Americans to stand firm in Iraq, drew the smallest TV audience of his tenure, Nielsen Media Research reported Wednesday.

Live coverage of Bush's half-hour speech Tuesday night from the Ft. Bragg military base in North Carolina averaged 23 million viewers combined on four major U.S. broadcast networks and three leading cable news channels, Nielsen said.

Designed largely to bolster sagging public support for the persistently bloody conflict in Iraq, the speech fell 8.6 million viewers shy of Bush's previous low as president, his August 9, 2001 address on stem cell research, which was carried on six networks.

I wouldn't be surprised if those 23 million viewers were of various wingnut stripes, except for us valiant bloggers, sitting there wrapped in tinfoil and wearing wading boots.

Speaking of sleep, did you know that insects sleep? So there wouldn't be much point in coming back as a fly: you'd fritter away those priceless hours in Sandyman's arms just like you do now.

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My Doctoral Robes - RIP 



They started life in a dim shop in London, one where the royalties and the wealthy oil sheiks got their shirts manufactured. I was measured for them by an eighty-year old gentleman who had taken the measures of Princess Margaret. The whole experience was surreal.

They were lovely robes, flowing around me as I walked, fitting perfectly around my shoulders and then rippling down my body like rivers seeking the ocean. The pleating below my shoulders was exquisite and the tag at the back had my name embroidered in beautiful letters. The jaunty little velvet beret went perfectly with the robes. Even the silly bib that is worn on the back in the most senseless of ways looked good.

Of course they didn't get worn that much. It's hard to pop into the supermarket in your woolen robes, at least without attracting a lot of attention. They mostly came out for ceremonial occasions and once or twice as a bathrobe. But I treasured them, even when they were taking up space in my closet, space that I desperately needed for things such as clothes one actually wears.

I treasured them because they were pretty much all I ever got from four incredibly painful years of studying economics. The robes and those little letters after my name: Echidne of the snakes, PhD. Something to show to those who doubted that I could possibly know what I was talking about. Something I might possibly convert into a burqa if things got really bad here. Something to keep, just in case.

But, alas, no longer. The moths, those cruel and heartless creatures, have devoured my robes. I could still wear them in some risque venues but they will no longer work for a burqa. The lesson: Never hold out for the woolen version. Go with the polyester. You save money and your heart from breaking.

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To Be An Internet Journalist 



I should write about shark attacks (why do sharks attack? because they are poor on defense) or about various white people disappearing, it seems, from a cursory reading of the topics of the day in the mainstream media. I'm not a journalist, obviously. But if I write this blog as a private goddess I might be in trouble, too:

Some bloggers who built their Internet followings with antiestablishment prose are lobbying the establishment to protect their livelihoods from federal regulations, working with a political action committee, lawyers and public-relations consultants.

"There's a certain responsibility I have to help protect the medium. I have the platform, the voice to be able to do so," said Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of www.DailyKos.com.

He testified Tuesday at a hearing on a Federal Election Commission proposal that would extend some campaign finance rules to the Internet. He urged the FEC to take a hands-off approach.

At issue here is whether us bloggers should be exempt from campaign financing regulations in the manner of proper journalists, so I'm not personally threatened by the proposal. All I ever do is badmouth people. But this might also be the dipping-of-the-toes-in-water proposal, to see how far the Americans are willing to see their cyberspace regulated, and that does make me worried. Any future regulation would surely hit a pagan goddess hard. So I'm opposed to this regulation, too.

I also agree (!; maybe Hell has frozen over?) with the founder of RedState.org, a wingnut blog, who said:

"What goal would be served by protecting Rush Limbaugh's multimillion-dollar talk radio program, but not a self-published blogger with a fraction of the audience?" Krempasky asked the commission.


The cynical part in me knows that regulation of the internet is just a question of time. What is happening is far too democratic to please any authoritarian government.

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Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Today's Action Alert 



This is from FAIR:

ACTION ALERT:
MSNBC's Pro-Bush "Town Meeting"

June 29, 2005


After George W. Bush's June 28 speech about Iraq, MSNBC's Hardball presented
viewers with a decidedly skewed "town meeting" featuring a panel
dominated by Iraq war boosters.

The two-hour coverage, hosted by Chris Matthews, was anchored by a panel
discussion that featured MSNBC reporter Norah O'Donnell, Islam scholar Reza
Aslan, and four conservative Bush supporters: Tony Perkins of the Family
Research Council, MSNBC host Tucker Carlson, Bobbie Patray of the Eagle Forum of
Tennessee and Jerry Sutton, pastor of the Two Rivers Baptist Church in
Nashville, Tennessee, where the event was held.

MSNBC's coverage also included interviews with Newsweek's Jon Meacham,
Democratic Sen. Joe Biden (who called for "more boots on the ground"),
and Republican senators John McCain and John Warner.

In other words, MSNBC's "town meeting" excluded forceful critics of
the Iraq war--a war that polls show most Americans no longer support, or believe
the White House is mismanaging.

MSNBC's O'Donnell was careful to note that while war critics were the majority,
"at the same time, a majority of Americans also believe that we should stay
and finish the job. Only 1 in 8 Americans believe that we should cut and run.
There are liberal groups like Moveon.org that say we should get out. That's the
minority in America. People think that we should stay and finish the job."
O'Donnell was apparently referring to a Washington Post poll question (6/28/05)
that asked about increasing or decreasing troops, in which 13 percent of
respondents wanted U.S. troops to "withdraw immediately."

Most polls, however, show that support for withdrawing U.S. troops is
substantially higher than 13 percent. In response to another question in the
same poll, 41 percent said that the U.S. troops should be withdrawn from Iraq.
In a recent Gallup poll (6/8-12/05), 46 percent said that the "U.S. should
bring its troops home as soon as possible," while a Harris poll (6/7-12/05)
found 63 percent in favor of "bringing most of our troops home in the next
year."

Audience participation also tended to support Bush, causing host Matthews to
comment: "It's been a great group. As you can see, the people are
passionate. And they have strong patriotic beliefs and moral beliefs, and yet
it's been very nice here. No fights or anything." Of course, having an
unbalanced panel discussion makes it easy not to have any "fights."
Matthews also praised the audience for being supportive of Bush, asking one
guest: "Why do you think the people in this part of the country seem to be
more manifestly patriotic about this president, and this war, and this
situation? What do you think it is, the separation from the coasts?"

Does Matthews really believe that supporting the Iraq war makes citizens more
"patriotic"? And is supporting a president the same as being
"patriotic about" the president? Were citizens who opposed President
Clinton being "unpatriotic" about him?

One member of the audience who disagreed with the consensus provided by MSNBC
was actually booed by the town meeting audience, causing Matthews to remark:
"Don't boo, now, please, ladies and gentlemen. It's been a good night here.
Howard Dean is going to come on our program tomorrow, a different point of view.
We have diversity run amok." Has it really come to the point where having
the leader of the Democratic National Committee on TV qualifies as
"diversity run amok"?


ACTION:
Contact MSNBC and tell them that serious discussion of the Iraq war should
include critics of that war. Ask Chris Matthews if he really thinks war
supporters and Bush supporters are more "patriotic."

CONTACT:
MSNBC
Hardball
hardball@msnbc.com

Phone: (202) 783-2615

As always, please remember that your comments have more impact if you maintain a
polite tone.


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Social Conservatism and Feminism 



James Wolcott called himself a social conservative in a recent post*. Reading this made my stomach turn over as I am an admirer of his writings. In one tiny sentence he sentenced me to the dark side. That is how I interpret "social conservatism": that people like me do not matter very much in the important political battles, that my issues are fringe issues, that my rights are optional. Wolcott doesn't care for me.

Of course that is not what Wolcott really said but that is what I read on the screen. The reason is the fuzzy meaning of "social conservatism". It is one of those terms where the meaning is in the eye of the beholder. One never knows what a speaker means by "social conservatism" or by its brother term "cultural conservatism". But to many on the left these kinds of conservatisms are somehow less important or more trivial to fight than other weighty issues, such as political conservatism or economic conservatism. The social and cultural issues can be condensed to a few soundbites: abortion and same-sex marriage, and these are negotiable issues to many liberals and progressive. Especially to some heterosexual men, even to some heterosexual men who blog.

I don't necessarily blame them in taking this attitude. Abortion rights and the right of gays and lesbians to marry may not have much to do with their own lives, and if they are not good at empathy these may indeed seem like peripheral questions of little importance. But then a white person may find it difficult to imagine what it is like to wake up a minority every single morning and to receive those little mosquito bites of racism day after day after day. Racism might look like something that could be fixed after more important issues are settled. When we have time for it. Right before we tackle sexism.

This would be social conservatism, too. Many on the left are social conservatives in the sense of believing that existing social mores and traditions are nonpolitical matters, not worthy of spending time and resources on when there is so much of real importance in politics. It is not an accident that the existing social mores and traditions favor the individuals who think that way. What's not to like in such mores?

This long pre-amble is to explain why I went and Googled for definitions of social and cultural conservatism. I wanted to understand why many liberals and progressives can so lightly dismiss anything labeled as social or cultural as unimportant.

What I found is enlightening and confusing. The official definitions of social conservatism give us great detail but this detail is ultimately empty. Consider these definitions:

Social conservatism is a belief in traditional morality and social mores and the desire to preserve these in present day society, often through civil law or regulation. Social change is generally regarded as suspect, while social values based on tradition are generally regarded as tried, tested and true. It is a view commonly associated with conservative religious groups, militarism and nationalism.


Social conservatives emphasize traditional views of social units such as the family, church, or locale. Social conservatives are a product of their environment, and would typically define family in terms of local histories and tastes. To the Muslim or fundamentalist Mormon, social conservatism may entail support for polygamy. To the Protestant or Catholic, social conservatism may entail support for "traditional" marriage.


Social conservatism means a serious fidelity to those beliefs and traditions which keep us civilized and decent without resort to laws, regulations and bureaucrats.

Note the argument that social conservatives want to have laws which reinforce their beliefs and the argument that they don't have to resort to them. Note that social conservatism is whatever is regarded as traditional in a locality. Thus, bin Laden is a social conservative and so is Jerry Falwell. But this also makes the definition empty of practical meaning. What would be traditional in the United States is not traditional in Iran, and even within, say, the United States what is defined as "traditional" seems to vary by the speaker or writer. If the second wave of feminism took place thirty years ago, isn't the idea of gender equality traditional by now? And why does bin Laden have to dig back a thousand years to get at something he regards as traditional? More generally, a cursory study of history shows all sorts of egalitarian values to have existed at various places and at various times. Why are these not traditional? Why is the right to an abortion not part of social conservatism, given that it was only in the last two hundred years the church turned against the idea of early abortions being acceptable?

In short, social conservatism is not really conservative. It can be quite radical as the bin Laden example demonstrated. What it always seems to be is hierarchical. The view of the family social conservatives embrace has a father as its boss. The religious organizations are seen as determining how the masses live. The government is worshipped as an authoritarian power. And all these hierarchies use some sort of fixed identifiers: sex, race, age, for deciding who will be on top of the pile and who will support the whole pyramid.

Here is the link to feminism. Social conservative pyramids require that women have pre-ordained roles centered around fertility and the service of the home. Anything less is seen as causing chaos, and chaos is what social conservatives fear (unless it's caused by their own radical moves to return the world to some utopian era). Women can't have equal participation in politics and in the public sphere in general because who would then take care of the children? Someone else would have to pick up the slack and as these tasks are arranged at the bottom of the power pyramid this someone else would suffer a drop in power and social esteem.

I believe that social issues are central in politics. If you still doubt me, consider how you would have defined a social conservative in the year of 1850 in America. Surely, this definition would include the support of slavery at that time. And the support of a hierarchical view of the society in general.

The hierarchies of power are not based on gender and race alone, of course. There is also class, the word which must not be uttered in this country. A real social conservative accepts gender, race and class as the determinants of a person's life opportunities. Given this, no social conservative can be a feminist and I doubt that he or she can be a progressive, either. I hope that Wolcott reconsiders his self-definition. Either that or I will delink him**.
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*As several commenters noticed, Wolcott was using satire in his post. It's possible that the satire extended to his calling himself a social conservative, but I didn't read it that way. If I'm wrong about that my sincere apologies to Mr. Wolcott.
**This part is my satire.

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The Bush Speech on the Iraq War 



I planned to blog on it in great detail but there was nothing new. It was all about 9/11 and freedom and hard work. The only interesting quote is this one:

Some Americans ask me, if completing the mission is so important, why don't you send more troops? If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job. Sending more Americans would undermine our strategy of encouraging Iraqis to take the lead in this fight. And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever – when we are in fact working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave. As we determine the right force level, our troops can know that I will continue to be guided by the advice that matters – the sober judgment of our military leaders.

Passing the blame to the military. Not mentioning that there are no more troops to send.

It was boring.

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Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Rape as Punishment 



The gang rape case in Pakistan is reopened:

Pakistan's Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to reopen an inquiry into the high-profile case of Mukthar Mai, an unlettered laborer's daughter from southern Punjab province who allegedly was gang-raped on the orders of a tribal council in 2002.

The court decision overturned a judgment by the Lahore High Court, issued in March, that threw out the convictions of five of the men accused of involvement in the rape and commuted the death sentence of a sixth.

The Supreme Court also ordered the re-arrest of 13 of the original suspects in the case. The high court's decision, following two days of hearings, was a victory for Mai, 32, whose case has prompted an outpouring of international sympathy and also become a focal point for concern about violence against women in Pakistan.
...
The court began hearing arguments Monday on Mai's appeal to reopen the case. In March, a lower court overturned the convictions of five of the six men charged in connection with the rape on the basis of insufficient evidence. The men had been sentenced to death. The sixth man charged had his death sentence converted to life in prison.
...
In an episode that has become a focal point for concerns about violence against women in Pakistan, Mai was attacked in Meerwala, her village in southern Punjab province. The council allegedly ordered the rape to settle a score with Mai's brother, 13, who had been accused of an improper relationship with the sister of one of those accused

I have written about this case many times before, most recently in the context of the Pakistan government trying to stop Ms. Mukhtar (or Ms. Mai or Ms. Bibi; her names appear to vary) from traveling abroad. But the article I link to here reminded me of something that is central in this case: the way rape is used as a form of violence here, as a form of societal punishment. In this particular case it is a quasi-official form of punishment, and one decreed for the crimes of someone else (her brother). But it's still punishment. The debates about whether rape is sex or violence or both seldom address the possibility that there might be a touch of punitiveness about rape, a desire to remind the victim of the limits that she or he has crossed by going out/dressing a certain way/being in a certain place.
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A postscript: Heretik has good coverage of all this.

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Dog Stuff 



Henrietta goes to the veterinarian today for her six month checkup. She's an old rebel dog and her vet recommends twice-a-year checkups. Plus it keeps the vet in the manner that she's accustomed to, I guess. - In any case, Henrietta and I will have a struggle, as usual. She hates the vet's office almost as much as she hates humans. I'm prepared for some of her stratagems, such as slipping the collar to run away or trying to hide under the waiting room bench behind my legs, but I never get used to the way she starts crying. It's heart-breaking, especially in a bully dog who normally determines when and how I breathe.

Henrietta should be fine. She's in excellent shape for any dog age, and especially for her thirteen or so years. But there have been changes. She's no longer quite so interested in food as she used to be and she doesn't like standing around and watching what I might do next (will she brush her teeth in the same order? will she scratch both elbows?) as often as was the custom. Nowadays she likes to perch in an upstairs window (on a bed) and bark at everyone who goes by.

An old dog is wonderful, like a well-fitting piece of comfortable clothing, someone who knows you inside out and fits in seamlessly. But it is always there, that foreknowledge, that fear of the parting which is coming, like a slight aftertaste of bitter in some types of chocolates.

This makes every day precious, even the ones when we visit the dreaded veterinarian.

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Monday, June 27, 2005

New York Times: The Wingnut Edition 



The executive editor of the New York Times has written a memo about the future plans of the paper:

In a lengthy memo published the newspaper's Web site, Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, announced several new policies in response to a recent report by the paper's Credibility Committee. Among them is a fresh attempt to diversify the Times' staff and viewpoints, and not in the usual racial or gender ways, but in political, religious and cultural areas as well.

The aim, he wrote, is "to stretch beyond our predominantly urban, culturally liberal orientation, to cover the full range of our national conversation."

The point, Keller wrote, "is not that we should begin recruiting reporters and editors for their political outlook; it is part of our professional code that we keep our political views out of the paper. The point is that we want a range of experience. We have a recruiting committee that tracks promising outside candidates, and that committee has already begun to consider ways to enrich the variety of backgrounds of our reporters and editors.

"First and foremost we hire the best reporters, editors, photographers and artists in the business. But we will make an extra effort to focus on diversity of religious
upbringing and military experience, of region and class."

In other words, the Gray Lady is on her knees (take that as you wish). The wingnuts have won. I used to hear the argument that true diversity is not racial and gender based but the acknowledgement of wingnut views (such as that minorities are lazy and women naturally unable to compete) on each and every issue. But I only heard this from wingnuts. Now the New York Times is repeating the same mantra.

Let's see. Why would the New York Times want to diversify its coverage of news by hiring more ex-military, more Evangelical Christians and more Republicans? For that's what the bland statement above boils down to. Isn't this just a way to pretend that one is increasing diversity while hiring more and more white men? Just consider the recent hirings among the opinion columnists: John Tierney and David Brooks. We don't need women columnists on the Times. One is plenty, even if she's on leave. After all, we have John Tierney telling us that women can't compete, and all the columnist boys telling us what their wives think.

Is it a question of profit maximization? But the majority of New York Times readers are New Yorkers and liberals, I bet. Is it a feasible strategy to try to garner the market which most hates New York Times and everything it stands for, the wingnuts? For every new wingnut the paper hires at least a hundred liberal subscriptions will be canceled. I made that up but I bet it's true. So why on earth is Keller going this way? Towards the chasm of no-return? If anything, the country appears to be turning around from increasing wingnuttization. Does the Times always want to be the last rat boarding the sinking ship with a large suitcase when everyone else is jumping off?

And what about the wingnut newspapers? Do their executives wring their hands and cry bitter tears because they are not diversified enough in their coverage and in their staff? Does Washington Times go out of its way to hire liberals born in urban areas? Does the National Review pine over the absence of progressive viewpoints among its columnists? Of course not. They are wingnuts and their rules are different: to win at any cost.

Keller is really stupid. I hope that he will long regret this idiotic plan. Note that I have nothing against covering all political views, religion or areas of the country, but that is not what the Times is doing. They are scouring the dregs of the journalistic community to find wingnutty mouthpieces with no writing or research talents. Now that is diversity for you in the year 2005.

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Speculating About the Next Supreme 



Whom could Bush possibly nominate? The candidate must be the worst you can imagine. He (it will be a he with Bush unless he's filling the token woman quota) will have to have a solid record of judicial activism of the neofascist kind and he must get terrible ratings from any board that assesses the competency of judges. He must have at least one sexist and one racist incident in his path, and he must talk to God daily.

Savonarola is dead. Too bad, he would have been most suitable. I think it might be Ashcroft, because he has proved his stupidity brilliantly and the Crisco stuff is most appealing. But it could be Bork, because it's always fun to install someone full of hatred and desires of blind revenge on the Court. Just look at what happened with Clarence Thomas: if there is a woman in a case Thomas will rule against her. To show all those feminazis who gave him a hard time. Though as someone said on Eschaton, the most enjoyable candidate would be Bill O'Reilly!

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Going Nuclear 



Iran's new ultra-conservative president on nuclear energy:

Hardline President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faced an uphill task on Monday to assuage concern in the West that he will adopt a tougher policy on Iran's nuclear program and roll back freedoms at home.

The ex-Tehran mayor, who defeated veteran politician Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in a crushing election win on Friday, has adopted a conciliatory stance since the vote, vowing to continue nuclear talks with Europe and to lead a moderate government.

But his track record as a former member of the hardline Revolutionary Guards and outspoken commitment to the principles of the 1979 Islamic revolution have convinced some that what he says and how he will act may be very different.

"He's starting from a position of a confidence deficit," said one Iran analyst, who declined to be named.

"No matter what he says right now, people will assume the worst, even though what he's saying is not much different from what Rafsanjani would have said if he'd been elected or what the current government's position is."

Iran says it wants nuclear technology to generate electricity, not make bombs. It has agreed to freeze some nuclear work while it negotiates a long-term arrangement with the EU, talks on which are due to resume in August.

Meanwhile, in the U.S.:

The Bush administration is planning the government's first production of plutonium 238 since the cold war, stirring debate over the risks and benefits of the deadly material. The substance, valued as a power source, is so radioactive that a speck can cause cancer.

Federal officials say the program would produce a total of 330 pounds over 30 years at the Idaho National Laboratory, a sprawling site outside Idaho Falls some 100 miles to the west and upwind of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Officials say the program could cost $1.5 billion and generate more than 50,000 drums of hazardous and radioactive waste.

Project managers say that most if not all of the new plutonium is intended for secret missions and they declined to divulge any details. But in the past, it has powered espionage devices.

"The real reason we're starting production is for national security," Timothy A. Frazier, head of radioisotope power systems at the Energy Department, said in a recent interview.

The two countries share some other things too. Like wingnuts.

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So Much To Choose From 



The horn of abundance floweth over this morning. Should I write about the mad cow disease, the coming pandemic of bird flu which will kill twenty million people in the optimistic scenarios, the likely resignation of Judge Rehnquist? So much to choose from! And all of it pretty awful.

I'm going to take it easy this early in the morning and focus on our dear Donald Rumsfeld. He has been sent out to do a tour of all the media with the message that things will get worse in Iraq and that this is a sign of things getting better one day!

The way he speaks about the whole mess he started is as if he is an innocent bystander, an expert watching detachedly as history passes by:

"The insurgency could go on for any number of years," Rumsfeld said in a U.S. television interview. "Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years"

Way to generalize, Rumsfeld. And to distance yourself from the question why there is an insurgency in the first place. Could this probably be the first steps in preparing the American people to accept failure in Iraq?

Will there be many more violent deaths in this war? You bet, as Rumsfeld would say. But this is only to be expected, and nothing to do with Donald Rumsfeld...

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Sunday, June 26, 2005

The Underbelly of Wingnuttism 



Bobo's World is a blog which follows news about religion and crimes. Here is a snippet from last week's summary:

# On Monday, a Lawrence, Kansas jury convicted Martin K. Miller, 46, a youth group leader and board member at Victory Bible Church, of first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Kansas University librarian Mary E. Miller. Says the Lawrence Journal World:

The case included testimony about Martin Miller's four-year extramarital affair, pornography addiction, and desire to pursue more sexual relationships — all of which stood in contrast to his leadership roles at his church and his children's Christian school... Prosecutor Jones said in his closing argument that divorce wasn't an option because Miller stood to lose his roles as a youth-group leader at church and a board member for Veritas Christian School. "Murder?... Of course he knew it was a sin," Jones said. "But that was supposed to be a private sin. No one was supposed to know about that one."

# On Tuesday, a Mesa, Arizona Dennis Montoya, a minister at Word of Grace Church, appeared in court on two child molestation charges. The victim was reportedly an eight-year-old girl. Police said Montoya confessed and they fear there are more victims.

# A Rumson, New Jersey grand jury indicted Rev. Joseph W. Hughes, the pastor of Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church, with charges related to the theft of $2 million from his parish. Hughes, who has a "fondness for expensive cars, upscale restaurants and Caribbean vacations," according to the Asbury Park Press, also bought a $47,000 BMW, jewelry and assorted household appliances for a church handyman named David Rogers who, it appears, is somehow related to Hughes. The moral bearings of the church community were perhaps revealed when a group of wealthy parishoners offered to repay the stolen $2,034,428 if prosecutors agreed not to send Hughes to jail. Officials rejected the deal, noting that "[t]his was money from fund-raisers and meant for charity. There are very few instances where we would even consider not seeking jail time for this kind of theft, and this is certainly not one of them."

I haven't done any statistical studies to determine if the clergy is any more or less likely to engage in crime than the rest of the population, but they have been given a position of trust in the minds of their congregations and to breach that trust is vile. When we hear endless arguments about the ethical superiority of those who go to church or run one over the rest of us, though, it's only fair and balanced to present both sides of the issue. This is why Bobo's World is important.

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Saturday, June 25, 2005

Peonies and Weeding 




Garden


Weeding can be a spiritual exercize in the garden. You pull out the crabgrass and think about how deep the roots of wingnuttism might spread, you admire the spider's web and wonder where bin Laden lurks.

You are in control of the weeds, or so you might think if you are a silly wingnut. In truth, the weeds control you and one day they will cover your grave or ashes. So what weeding does is extract some temporary compensation for this final truth. It's also a nice escape from the world if you manage to set aside the political comparisons I started with and just let yourself see, hear, smell and touch.

Today I was weeding under the peonies and almost got drunk on the scent. There is no sexier flower on earth than a full-blown peony. It is heavy, fragile and unbearably scented, and at the end of the weeding session my hands carried the same perfume into the house and onto everything I touched.

Peony buds refuse to open for many days. They sit there, while the sun and the ants, seeking nectar, tickle and kiss the tightly closed petals. The waiting seems endless but then one morning they burst open: flowers so exotic, so soft and silky, so overdone that the only word for them is sexy. Even the way the flowers finally fall apart and cover the ground in a vast silky matt is inviting. I want to lie down under the peonies, I want to roll around on the ground like dogs do. I might even want to be buried under the peonies.

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On Banning 



I don't want to ban commenters from this blog carelessly. But I have decided to ban David for saying this:

here you fucking people UNDERMINING soldiers as they try to defeat terrorists. Your worries about some fucking asshole from afghanistan being questioned under sometimes extreme duress, you piss and moan about being fair yet you are never fair, you cry about fox news but love NPR and AirAmerica, you should all go to classes to perfect spitting and get your slogans in order, Just like mommie and daddie, and your idiot tattered animal house professor did during Viet Nam. Because as far as I am concerned and as far as the vast majority of troops are concerned you can all go straight to hell.

Maybe because it is ninety degrees today, but I don't see any redeeming value in this.

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Friday, June 24, 2005

My Austrian Blinds 




Blinds...


Someone wanted to see them. I should have arranged them for the photograph but I didn't. And you can also see the ceiling which I have not replaced yet, except to the extent of digging those scars wherever the cracks were.

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Friday Embroidery Blogging 




Our Choices?


Back by popular demand! Well, not quite. This is a political embroidery. The inspiration came to me while I was walking by one of those large store windows full of mannequins in the newest fashions. This is my take on that.

The technique is mainly straight and satin stitch.

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Silly Jokes 



Thanks to HMJ:


Word Play

1. Two antennas meet on a roof, fall in love and get married. The
ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.

2. Two hydrogen atoms walk into a bar. One says, "I've lost my
electron." The other says, "Are you sure?" The first replies,
"Yes,
I'm positive..."

3. A jumper cable walks into a bar. The bartender says, "I'll serve
you, but don't start anything."

4. A sandwich walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Sorry we don't
serve food in here."

5. A dyslexic man walks into a bra.

6. A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and
says:"A beer please, and one for the road."

7. Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other: "Does this
taste funny to you?"

8. "Doc, I can't stop singing 'The Green, Green Grass of Home. '"
"That sounds like Tom Jones Syndrome." "Is it common?"
"It's Not
Unusual."

9. Two cows standing next to each other in a field. Daisy says to
Dolly, "I was artificially inseminated this morning." "I don't
believe
you," said Dolly. "It's true, no bull!" exclaimed Daisy.

10. An invisible man marries an invisible woman. The kids were nothing
to look at either.

11. Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.

12. A man takes his Rottweiler to the vet and says, "My dog's
cross-eyed, is there any thing you can do for him?" "Well," says
the
vet, "let's have a look at him." So he picks the dog up and examines
his eyes. Finally, he says, "I'm going to have to put him down."
"What? Because he's cross-eyed?" "No, because he's really
heavy."

13. Apparently, one in five people in the world are Chinese. And there
are five people in my family, so it must be one of them. It's either
my mom or my dad or maybe my older brother Calvin or my younger
brother Ho-Chin. But I'm pretty sure it's Calvin.

14. I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I
couldn't find any.

15. I went to the butcher's the other day to bet him 50 bucks that he
couldn't reach the meat off the top shelf. He said, "No, the steaks
are too high."

16. A man woke up in a hospital after a serious accident. He shouted,
"Doctor, doctor, I can't feel my legs!" The doctor replied, "I
know
you can't - I've cut off your arms!"

17. I went to a seafood disco last week and pulled a mussel.

18. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly; but when they lit a
fire in the craft, it sank, proving that you can't have your kayak and
heat it too.

19. What do you call a fish with no eyes? A fsh.


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Prostitution and War 



Listen to this:

You might not even notice the Manara nightclub if it weren't for the gradual flow of cars leading right to it. Just behind the Mosque of President Hafez Assad, the club's parking lot is crammed with cars, many bearing plates from neighboring gulf states. Inside, disco lights pierce the smoky air. Patrons pack the seats as they sip beer and lazily gaze at the dance floor. They watch teenage girls dressed in snug, revealing clothes awkwardly shuffling to thumping Arabic music. Many girls wear stilettos so steep they can barely walk. Some dance in pairs, often tightly pressed together, fingers entwined. Most seem bored and some, noticeably, are uneasy.

Male customers summon waitstaff to inquire about the availability and age of select girls. A Syrian journalist and I, posing as patrons, consult the staff ourselves. Farah, a 15-year-old, is brought to our table, dressed in camouflage pants and heavy makeup.

Farah sits, swings her long dark hair, shakes hands all around, then pointedly asks, "Who am I speaking to?" I'm taken aback by her businesslike tone and point to the Syrian reporter. Farah pleasantly chats with him, negotiating how much time she'll share, and if a "next step" will be taken. Farah locks eyes with the waiter, nods, and a bottle of champagne is brought to our table. "That'll be 7,000 Syrian pounds," says the waiter. That's $140. The champagne signals the beginning of the process. Conversation is next, and "anything else" will cost more.

As we empty our bottle of champagne, Farah tells us her story. Like most of the girls at the Manara disco, she is an Iraqi, a Sunni from Fallujah, one of Iraq's most war-torn areas. She got married in the United Arab Emirates, divorced four months afterward, and found work at the disco through a cousin. She says she's working "just to make some money for my family," who also now live in Syria. Farah says she's the family's breadwinner.

The story of a Sunni girl from Fallujah selling herself in a Damascus nightclub represents startling new fallout from the Iraq war, one human rights organizations and experts are only beginning to address. An increasing number of young Iraqi women and girls who fled Iraq during the turmoil are turning to prostitution in Syria, although there are no reliable statistics on how many girls are involved. That might partly explain why so little reporting has been done on the topic. For journalists and human rights workers, securing contact with Iraqi sex workers in Syria is difficult and dangerous because the topic is taboo.

"It's a serious problem because there are young girls doing this -- 11, 12, 13 years old," says Abdelhamid El Ouali, the representative for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees who's based in Damascus. "It's amazing at first. But when you fight for your life, what are you going to do?"

Read the whole thing, even if you have to sit through an advertisement. It's likely to give you shivers, of the not-so-nice kind.

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War-Weary 



Do you know what I'm tired of? The false dualism everywhere. It's really getting to me. Everything is good or evil, if you're not for us you're against us, if you're not "American" by agreeing to us in every single item you are "traitorous and anti-American". Then there is the unGodly accusations for those who are not literal Bible sniffers.

There are reasons for this way of acting, and they are many. It may be just an easy way for humans to think. It certainly contributes to anger and hatred and prepares us all for a civil war, and though nobody probably wants a civil war I have a feeling that Rove wants to keep us at the edge of it because that will keep him in power, with a little technical help. And false dualism is the answer one gives when attacked by another false dualistic snippet. But the dualism is still almost always wrong.

Take the debate about the Iraq war. I deeply believe that it was wrong to invade Iraq, especially because it was done on the basis of lies and at a time when we had a real enemy to focus on elsewhere. But this does NOT mean that I want the invasion to fail, that I want people to die in Iraq. And this is what I hear when I debate the issue on the many internets. Why is it so hard to expand the little thinking organ into something that can accept three or more alternatives simultaneously? Why is it so hard to accept evidence of all sorts before making up ones mind?

I spent years debating various political issues carefully, moderately, using all those rules about not alienating the opponent, about seeking common ground, about carefully proving my point. All I got for it was ridicule and scorn and lots of saliva sprayed in my face. That's one reason for this blog: the saliva doesn't carry. At first I thought that a blog would be a way of making my points somehow clearer but I soon learned that the form of presenting the arguments makes no difference. We are somehow mired in the world of false dualisms and if I want to participate I have to point out the errors in one extreme end point and root for the other.

To go back to the Iraq question: I didn't want a war there because it was based on false grounds yet real people died in it. - This, by the way, is one of the few cases where dualism is real: you kill or you don't - I also didn't want us to go there because theocracy is the only immediate alternative for those countries and theocracies are terrible torture devices for women and I care about stuff like that. But once we invaded Iraq and destroyed a lot of it we can't just drop it like a hot potato. We should leave as soon as possible, yes, but we should at least try to leave a relatively acceptable administration in place, one which can delay the onset of civil war a little.

Leaving is not the same as encouraging international terrorism. We encouraged that by going to Iraq in the first place, and it doesn't make much difference what we do next. If we leave they won. If we stay they won because we are colonial tyrants. So I wouldn't base that decision on the "war on terror". I'd base it on trying to kill any more people. That, in the long run, could be good against terrorism, too.

Ramblings, ramblings. It's Friday and I had a hard working week. My muse has taken off with his tattooed friends.

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Thursday, June 23, 2005

Today's Deep Troll Thought 



From Eschaton (where else?):

I also would like to say that I think all you traitorous libs should be shipped to Gitmo and tortured until you die, and then cut up into tiny pieces and fed to the sharks.

I'm glad that the wingnuts are shocked at the hatred Durbin demonstrated. Hatred is so un-American...

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The Prince 



Macchiavelli's The Prince is supposedly bedtime reading for our administration (even Georgie???), so when Karl Rove makes an odd move we all are digging into our own copies to find out exactly what it presages. The current odd move is Rove's recent speech with this message:

Karl Rove came to the heart of Manhattan last night to rhapsodize about the decline of liberalism in politics, saying Democrats responded weakly to Sept. 11 and had placed American troops in greater danger by criticizing their actions.

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Mr. Rove, the senior political adviser to President Bush, said at a fund-raiser in Midtown for the Conservative Party of New York State.

Citing calls by progressive groups to respond carefully to the attacks, Mr. Rove said to the applause of several hundred audience members, "I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble."

This is very odd, very old hat and imitative of such great orators as Rush Limbaugh, Jerry Falwell and Pat Buchanan. Also, Rove gave almost exactly the same speech in early 2002. So why is he rehashing all this libural-hatred right now?

My answer to this question comes later in Rove's speech. He's trying to tie 9/11 to liberals and progressives, to make the equation terrorism=American left. You might not agree but consider that he said this:

Mr. Rove also said American armed forces overseas were in more jeopardy as a result of remarks last week by Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who compared American mistreatment of detainees to the acts of "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others."

"Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year?" Mr. Rove asked. "Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."

Nothing looks odd anymore. Rush Limbaugh was told to cover the topic first, to prepare the ditto market, and then Rove comes out and expresses the same hatred. This is all to do with the bottom ratings of the Bush administration. Whenever this happens the wingnuts look for an external enemy which can be used as a scapegoat, which can be used to redirect the anger of the population. And now the American left is an external enemy. We have come far in a few years of this administration.


----
As a footnote, Karl Rove just earned a place in the lowest level of Dante's hell. To politicize the 9/11 slaughters in this way is so vile, so unspeakably vile that none of Rove's earlier truly egregious acts comes anywhere close. Did he stand for hours with a photograph pressed against his chest, asking bypassers for any news of a loved one? Did he haunt hospitals for days on end, desperately looking for one specific name? Did he gather together hair from hairbrushes to send in for DNA matching?

If everything didn't come back threefold I'd send Rove something to take his mind off politics for the next century or so.

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Freeway Blogging 



Freewayblogger is a one person hit squad, doing battle for the freedom of expression. You might enjoy the most recent war story:


Hello all... the first pic shows what happens when you keep taking down my signs and then replace them with a lame,inkjetted "support our troops" sign.



The 2nd pic shows the cops that saw me putting up the sign, and yes, did want to speak to me. They asked me what it said and when I told them one replied, "Probably be a lot more too." and that was it. No hassles, no lectures, no ID check. They didn't even ask me to take it down. In fact, the sign stayed up for three days. Man I love San Francisco.




My favorite is this one:


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Who Is Getting Caught in the Flypaper of Iraq? 



According to MSNBC, most foreign fighters on the insurgents' side come from Saudi Arabia. This is not surprising, not surprising at all. What should be surprising is the fact that the Bush administration pretends great friendship with Saudi Arabia. Yet the majority of the 9/11 suicide terrorists were Saudis and it is the Saudi form of islam, Wahhabism, that is the main breeding ground of muslim terrorism. Contrast our friendship with the fundamentalist Saudis to our invasion of Iraq, a country that used to be secular. Mindboggling, isn't it?

The MSNBC article asks why so many Saudis choose terrorism and answers it with explanations that are more like triggers than real reasons:

Why do they go?

Saudis captured in Iraq say it's because of pictures on Arab television network Al-Jazeera.

"We saw the Americans massacring the Iraqis," says one Saudi prisoner in Iraq via translation.

Radical Saudi clerics urge them to go to Iraq to kill Americans.

"I read the communique of the 26 clerics," says another Saudi prisoner in Iraq.

The underlying real reasons have to do with the unequal distribution of wealth in Saudi Arabia, with the thirty percent unemployment rate, with the lack of any real democracy and with the school system which resembles one gigantic madrasa for all students, with lots of religion and very little of anything that would be valued in the job markets. I suspect that the anger of the population is channeled towards the west, at least partly in order to protect the Saudi royals from becoming the obvious targets.

What is going to happen to all the terrorists that manage to avoid Bush's sticky papertraps? Who knows? But the likelihood is high that they will not calmly return home and resume peaceful lives. In fact, they might well reappear in places closer to our homes:

The war in Iraq is creating a new breed of Islamic jihadists who could go on to destabilise other countries, according to a CIA report.

The CIA believes Iraq to be potentially worse than Afghanistan, which produced thousands of jihadists in the 1980s and 1990s. Many of the recruits to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida had fought in Afghanistan.

Mission accomplished, Mr. Bush?

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Wednesday, June 22, 2005

No Hand Shaking With Women 



The Associated Press reports that the prime minister of Iraq doesn't shake hands with women:

Photographers didn't have much luck getting pictures of Iraq's prime minister shaking hands with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, even though the United States was co-hosting an international conference on rebuilding Iraq.

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari met with Rice for about 15 minutes Tuesday at a downtown Brussels hotel and again at a working dinner Wednesday hosted by the European Union.

However, al-Jaafari -- a conservative Shiite cleric -- is rarely seen shaking hands with women. Islam calls for separation between the sexes, and many Muslim males who strictly adhere to the Islamic faith do not shake hand with females.

One photo shows EU External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner offering her hand to al-Jaafari -- and the Iraqi prime minister smiling, but with his arms firmly at his side.

A literal interpretation of religion, one which to me confuses the intent (to avoid extramarital sex and so on) with the letter. But also one which reminds us that the forces of democracy in Iraq might not offer very much for women. Not that shaking hands is that important, but the segregation of sexes bit is. For it will not mean some sort of a world with two parallel yet separate public spaces and two parallel yet separate governments. It will mean a world where the women are largely restricted to their homes and where women will not have the same rights and powers as men do.

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Molly Explains It 



Molly Ivins is not only an excellent writer. She also has this ability to cut through a complicated subject like a hot knife through butter. Suddenly it's all clear and easy to understand. It's not a common talent and she should get more exposure than she's getting right now.

For an example of Molly's skill, read her take on the media and the Downing Street memos. To whet your appetite, this is how she finishes:

I don't know if these memos represent an impeachable offense -- although I must say, I don't want to bring up the Clinton comparison again. But they strike me as a hell of lot worse than anything Richard Nixon ever contemplated. He used the government for petty political vindictiveness. Heck, I'd settle for that again, over what we're looking at now.

The irony of Deep Throat surfacing after all these years in the midst of this memo mess is almost too precious. Does The Washington Post have any hungry young reporters on Metro anymore? I'd say, start with: Who did Dearlove meet with besides George Tenet?


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Some Really Stupid Research by Echidne 



It went like this:

Hmm. Fudge used to give me migraines. I wonder if it still does. Let's take a tiny piece and test. Mmmmm. No migraine yet. Maybe another tiny piece. Gulp. Delicious.

No migraine. This fudge is really good. Here is a large chunk, just waiting for my ivory snappers. Sooooo gooood.
...
No fudge left.
...
Migraine. Flashing lights. Nausea.


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Houston: The New Iraq 



Tom deLay thinks so:

From the "What Planet Is He On?" department, Tom DeLay has weighed in on how things really are in Iraq. And it turns out that Iraq is like ... Iraq is like ... well, it turns out that Iraq is a lot like Texas, actually.

"You know, if Houston, Texas, was held to the same standard as Iraq is held to, nobody'd go to Houston, because all this reporting coming out of the local press in Houston [would be about] violence, murders, robberies, deaths on the highways," DeLay says in an interview reported in today's Houston Chronicle. It's the media's fault, of course. People should just go to Iraq, DeLay says, and they'd see what's really happening there. "Everybody that comes from Iraq is amazed at the difference of what they see on the ground and what they see on the television."

I've never been to Houston but I doubt that twenty people have recently been blown to smithereens in a restaurant there or that roadside bombs are everyday events. I also suspect that people in Houston have electricity and water all the time. And if there is a war going on in Houston, Texas, the media really fucked up because I have heard nothing about it.

This story is like that old one about New York City being as dangerous as being a soldier in Iraq. If all this was true wouldn't you expect the wingnut politicians to enlist in large numbers, especially those from places like Houston?

Smarter politicians, please! From both sides of the aisle, actually. My job of ridicule is far too easy these days.

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On Fetal Positions 



Media Matters for America reports that Bill O'Reilly doesn't think being chained to the fetal position is all that bad:

REILLY: Well, I mean, you're telling the world, senator, that we're a repressive country because you don't like coerced interrogation. Now, the FBI report, for those of you whom missed it, centered around a detainee who was chained to the floor in the fetal position. You know what the fetal position is -- that's not an uncomfortable position. Most of us sleep in a fetal position. OK? So picture the fetal position, most of us sleep that way. But the guy's chained. Now he can't move, he's down there.

Then they either make the room unbearably hot or unbearably cold. And they keep the guy there for 24 to 36 hours in that position, so they can't go to the bathroom. OK? So that's what the FBI guy reported. That's what's got Durbin conjuring up images of Pol Pot, Hitler, and Stalin. So you make the call, you make the call. It's up to you. I'm not gonna tell you what to think.

Most of us like to each lunch, too. But it would be slightly different if we were chained to the plate and forced to go on having lunch for a few weeks. Without any bathroom breaks.

I'm annoyed at all the wingnut furor about Durbin's comments. It's the wingnuts who have monopolized the nazi terminology for the last ten years. Just google "Hitlery", for example. In fact, most of these types of comparisons have been made by right-wing commentators. I have a post about it somewhere in the archives which contains actual numbers and stuff. I should dig it up.

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Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Beauty 




Mist


Something beautiful for you to see today, from Australia, courtesy of Helga Fremlin.

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What is a Mission? 



What is the U.S. mission in Iraq? Think Progress notes that it has been redefined every few months, from the early one of ridding the country of WMDs to being completed to not being completed, after all, to being the creation of free Iraq to completing some mission, whatever it might be, for the sake of world peace.

I sometimes write that way, too, when things are not going smoothly and the story veers away from the topic. Then I change the title and pretend that I had another topic in mind all along. But the government shouldn't have the same freedom in doing this as an anonymous unpaid blogger. There are missions and then there are missions. The lives of people depend on how the Bush government defines its mission. I wish they would decide on one definition and stick to it.

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It's Our Fault 



Everything is. But especially any future terrorist attack on the United States. That's how powerful we are, the lefties. So Rush Limbaugh said a few days ago:

LIMBAUGH: Let me tell you something, folks, if we are hit again, if we are hit again, we need to hold these people in our country who are undermining our efforts responsible. It ain't going to be the FBI's fault next time. It isn't going to be the CIA's fault next time. It isn't going to be some bureaucracy's fault next time. It's going to be the fault of politicians, left-wing groups and the like who have names and identities and spend their every waking moment trying to obstruct our ability to secure intelligence information for our own national security.

You want some names: [Sen. Patrick] Leahy [D-VT], [Sen. Joseph R.] Biden [D-DE], [Sen. Richard J.] Durbin [D-IL], [Sen. Barbara] Boxer [D-CA], [Sen. Edward] Kennedy [D-MA], [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid [D-NV], Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, Amnesty International. If we get hit again, these are the names of the people and organizations we need to look at when we're trying to find out why and how it happened.

This makes planning the future much easier. All the government needs to do is to intern us and the country will be safe! The real enemy has finally been revealed and the wingnuts can sleep safe in their little cots.

Which troll was it who recently foamed about how liberals hate everybody in this country? Sounds to me like it's the Limbaugh types who have some serious issues with misplaced hatred.

Sounds to me also like it might be Limbaugh himself who is stoking the flames of terrorism in the Middle East:

LIMBAUGH: Club G'itmo and our brochure at rushlimbaugh.com now features two T-shirts, ladies and gentlemen. We put them on sale yesterday, and they are going like hotcakes. They're a reddish-orange t-shirt and you can buy one or you can buy both. One of them says, "Club G'itmo" on the front and then on the back, "Your Tropical Retreat From the Stress of Jihad."

The other one says, "Club G'itmo" on the front, and on the back it says, "My Mullah Went to Club Gitmo and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt." They're both $19.95. They come in sizes small up to double-X, and we're also still checking on prices to come up with Club G'itmo bathrobes and soap on a rope or just soap. Club G'itmo, whichever, and we've also added the fact that kids might want to be sent down to Club G'itmo, except Americans, because American kids are not allowed to pray in school or anything else. It's a great place for young jihadists to go and take a break from their training.


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Truth. What Truth? 



Truth is relative in the wingnut world, which is funny as it's us who are usually blamed for relativism of all types. But it's the wingnuts who view facts as just one more of those pesky things which hate America.

The most recent proof of this comes from some gentle rewriting that happened to a Bureau of Land Management report on the environmental impact of cattle grazing on public land. The Bush administration wants cattle to graze on such land, even though they are normally free-marketeers, but the report pointed out that easing limits on cattle grazing would damage both wildlife and the quality of water. These bits were edited out from the final report:

Last week, the Bureau of Land Management made it easier to graze cattle on public land, despite objections from its own scientists. Grazing cattle can denude the West's arid lands, a special concern given the recent drought in the region. Two BLM scientists -- a biologist and a hydrologist, both of whom recently retired from the bureau -- predicted that easing limits on cattle grazing would hurt wildlife and water quality. But their objections were edited out of a BLM report. Who needs to trouble with dissent when you can just delete it?

"This is a whitewash. They took all of our science and reversed it 180 degrees," Erick Campbell, a former BLM state biologist in Nevada told the Los Angeles Times. "They rewrote everything," Campbell said. "It's a crime."

Campbell retired recently after 30 years at the agency. Here's more on how he was thanked for his years of service: "The original draft of the environmental analysis warned that the new rules would have a 'significant adverse impact' on wildlife, but that phrase was removed. The bureau now concludes that the grazing regulations are 'beneficial to animals,'" the Times reported.

Maybe these scientists made arguments which would not ultimately hold, or maybe not. In either case, why aren't the readers of the report allowed to judge that?

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Monday, June 20, 2005

Skippy Will Be Three Years Old! 



Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, a weird (in a good way) nonhuman blogger, is coming for the third birthday of the blog, and is approaching one million hits. If you click on this link you can help him achieve the goal of his life which is to hit both important events at the exact same point in time. Well, I made the "goal-of-his-life" stuff up but I'm trying to make you click on the link. Because that's how empty my life is.

And he is a nice guy and a good blogger, and I expect the same care and attention when I turn two.

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Research Findings 



After the interesting discussion on women as consumers of porn on the comments thread of this blog I went to the library and got out a few books mentioned in those threads as containing soft porn or erotica for women. Think of what I do in order to serve the gods and goddesses of research.

Yesterday I slaved over these books. Here is an excerpt from Laurell K. Hamilton's A Caress of Twilight:

His hands found my body, spilling my breasts bare to the wind. He drew his lips back from mine and lowered his face to my breasts, taking first one and then the other into his mouth, rolling the nipples in the warmth, spilling power.

It gets considerably more heated and more explicit. The heroine of the book is a half-elf who has to mate with as many elves as possible! She has an alphabetical rotation of lovers, sometimes more than one during the night. She also appears to have an insatiable appetite for sex and no menstrual cycle but such details are understandable in the heat and spilling warmth stuff.

Things do get a little repetitive. How many different ways can you combine six or seven elves and one half-elf? This is a problem in permutations but let's not go there.

I'm not sure if this book would qualify as soft porn for women, or erotica, or neither. It has other things happening in addition to sex though not many. I'm also not sure what the meaning of books like this is, except that there indeed seems to be a thriving market for the description of sex from the woman's point of view.

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And Still, In Pakistan 



The tale of great courage and cowardice continues. On the side of courage is Mukhtaran Bibi, on the other side the government of Pakistan:


Let me back up. Ms. Mukhtaran is the indomitable peasant whom I first wrote about in September after visiting her in her village. Three years ago, a village council was upset at her brother, and sentenced her to be gang-raped. After four men raped her, she was forced to walk home nearly naked before a jeering crowd.

She then defied tradition by testifying against her attackers, sending them to prison, and she used compensation money to start elementary schools in her village. She