Bush's Speech, With Echidne's Commentary

Apologies for this being very very long. This is because I am taking Bush's blah-blah-terror-blah-blah-fear-blah-blah-methebighero-blah-blah-sacrifice, and adding to it my own biting blah-blahs. I have taken the speech from Think Progress, an excellent blog for political news. The comments I'm taking from my bile and my butt, largely.

To make the epistle easier to follow I will bold the bits in Bush's speech that I especially hate. So here it goes:

Good evening. Three days ago, in large numbers, Iraqis went to the polls to choose their own leaders – a landmark day in the history of liberty. In coming weeks, the ballots will be counted … a new government formed … and a people who suffered in tyranny for so long will become full members of the free world.

Yup. They will have American firms running their capitalistic markets and most likely a shariah law running the lives of their women. But purple ink is great.

This election will not mean the end of violence. But it is the beginning of something new: constitutional democracy at the heart of the Middle East. And this vote – 6,000 miles away, in a vital region of the world – means that America has an ally of growing strength in the fight against terror.

All who had a part in this achievement – Iraqis, Americans, and Coalition partners – can be proud. Yet our work is not done. There is more testing and sacrifice before us. I know many Americans have questions about the cost and direction of this war. So tonight I want to talk to you about how far we have come in Iraq, and the path that lies ahead.

From this office, nearly three years ago, I announced the start of military operations in Iraq. Our Coalition confronted a regime that defied United Nations Security Council Resolutions … violated a cease-fire agreement … sponsored terrorism … and possessed, we believed, weapons of mass destruction. After the swift fall of Baghdad, we found mass graves filled by a dictator … we found some capacity to restart programs to produce weapons of mass destruction … but we did not find those weapons.

It is true that Saddam Hussein had a history of pursuing and using weapons of mass destruction. It is true that he systematically concealed those programs, and blocked the work of UN weapons inspectors. It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. And as your President, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq.

In other words, Bush decided to go to war on grounds which turned out to be totally wrong, at a time when we had a real problem in our hands in Afghanistan, one called bin Laden. But Bush's war wasn't really a mistake because he says so.

Yet it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power. He was given an ultimatum – and he made his choice for war. And the result of that war was to rid the world of a murderous dictator who menaced his people, invaded his neighbors, and declared America to be his enemy. Saddam Hussein, captured and jailed, is still the same raging tyrant – only now without a throne. His power to harm a single man, woman, or child is gone forever. And the world is better for it.

Note how Bush says nothing about the costs of removing Saddam, about the numbers of slaughtered and mutilated people that have paid the full price of this betterment of the world. Note how Bush pretends that the choice to remove Saddam had no negative consequences. How many lives is Saddam's capture worth? Forty thousand?

Since the removal of Saddam, this war – like other wars in our history – has been difficult. The mission of American troops in urban raids and desert patrols – fighting Saddam loyalists and foreign terrorists – has brought danger and suffering and loss. This loss has caused sorrow for our whole Nation – and it has led some to ask if we are creating more problems than we are solving.

This tiny paragraph is crucial. Crucial! Here Bush is pretending that the terrible incompetency of his administration in running the Iraq war is just a usual aspect of wars in general!

That is an important question, and the answer depends on your view of the war on terror. If you think the terrorists would become peaceful if only America would stop provoking them, then it might make sense to leave them alone.

This is not the threat I see. I see a global terrorist movement that exploits Islam in the service of radical political aims – a vision in which books are burned, and women are oppressed, and all dissent is crushed. Terrorist operatives conduct their campaign of murder with a set of declared and specific goals – to de-moralize free nations … to drive us out of the Middle East … to spread an empire of fear across that region … and to wage a perpetual war against America and our friends. These terrorists view the world as a giant battlefield – and they seek to attack us wherever they can. This has attracted al Qaida to Iraq, where they are attempting to frighten and intimidate America into a policy of retreat.

Here we get several tricky falsehoods in a nicely wrapped up package. The first one makes up a strawman about Bush's critics arguing that if terrorists were left alone they wouldn't attack us. No critic is arguing that. What the critics are arguing is that what Bush is doing serves to GROW MORE TERRORISTS. And he is not addressing this criticism at all. Next Bush brings in the terror and fear aspect, the dreadful bogeymen who hate our values and want to oppress the women among us, especially. The terrorists do want to do that, of course, but so do many of Bush's wingnut friends. And the number of terrorists has never been adequate to achieve those goals, though Bush has certainly made them a little more realistic.

The third lie is the last sentence in the above paragraph. The reason Iraq may now be a hotbed of terrorism is because Bush made it so, quite on purpose. If he didn't intend this to happen he is even more incompetent than anybody knew.

The terrorists do not merely object to American actions in Iraq and elsewhere – they object to our deepest values and our way of life. And if we were not fighting them in Iraq … in Afghanistan … in Southeast Asia … and in other places, the terrorists would not be peaceful citizens – they would be on the offense, and headed our way.

Ah, here come the easy and glib answers for those with simple and unquestioning minds. The terrorists hate our way of life and our deepest values. Probably true. But they also hate what is happening in Palestine and the whole history of colonialism in the Middle East. This will not be mentioned, however. And then Bush adds the flypaper theory of terrorism. It has worked beautifully in Madrid and London, for example.

September 11th, 2001 required us to take every emerging threat to our country seriously, and it shattered the illusion that terrorists attack us only after we provoke them. On that day, we were not in Iraq … we were not in Afghanistan … but the terrorists attacked us anyway – and killed nearly 3,000 men, women, and children in our own country. My conviction comes down to this: We do not create terrorism by fighting the terrorists. We invite terrorism by ignoring them. And we will defeat the terrorists by capturing and killing them abroad … removing their safe havens … and strengthening new allies like Iraq and Afghanistan in the fight we share.

Recapping his theories here and adding the necessary reference to 911 and how it changed everything. Which it really didn't, though it certainly gave Bush the arrogance to believe that he is above the laws.

This work has been especially difficult in Iraq – more difficult than we expected. Reconstruction efforts and the training of Iraqi Security Forces started more slowly than we hoped. We continue to see violence and suffering, caused by an enemy that is determined and brutal – unconstrained by conscience or the rules of war.

Could the difficulties be partly because the Bush administration didn't prepare for the reconstruction effort beforehand? Because there were really no plans at all? Because the people sent over to work on some of these plans included twenty-something wingnuts with no qualifications but ideological purity?

Some look at the challenges in Iraq, and conclude that the war is lost, and not worth another dime or another day. I don't believe that. Our military commanders do not believe that. Our troops in the field, who bear the burden and make the sacrifice, do not believe that America has lost. And not even the terrorists believe it. We know from their own communications that they feel a tightening noose – and fear the rise of a democratic Iraq.

The terrorists will continue to have the coward's power to plant roadside bombs and recruit suicide bombers. And you will continue to see the grim results on the evening news. This proves that the war is difficult – it does not mean that we are losing. Behind the images of chaos that terrorists create for the cameras, we are making steady gains with a clear objective in view.

America, our Coalition, and Iraqi leaders are working toward the same goal – a democratic Iraq that can defend itself … that will never again be a safe haven for terrorists … and that will serve as a model of freedom for the Middle East.

The U.S. firms benefiting from the Iraq operations certainly don't feel that no more money should be spent on the war effort. In fact, they are raking it in!

We have put in place a strategy to achieve this goal – a strategy I have been discussing in detail over the last few weeks. This plan has three critical elements.

First, our Coalition will remain on the offense – finding and clearing out the enemy … transferring control of more territory to Iraqi units … and building up the Iraqi Security Forces so they can increasingly lead the fight. At this time last year, there were only a handful of Iraqi army and police battalions ready for combat. Now, there are more than 125 Iraqi combat battalions fighting the enemy … more than 50 are taking the lead … and we have transferred more than a dozen military bases to Iraqi control.

And here, finally, comes a plan for Iraq. I wonder if we are going to learn what the definition of victory is. Building up the Iraqi Security Forces is a good idea, as long as one can devise some plan for keeping them alive long enough to be trained and for discouraging them from jumping onto the other side once their training is complete. Other than that, a good idea.

Second, we are helping the Iraqi government establish the institutions of a unified and lasting democracy, in which all of Iraq's peoples are included and represented. Here also, the news is encouraging. Three days ago, more than 10 million Iraqis went to the polls – including many Sunni Iraqis who had boycotted national elections last January. Iraqis of every background are recognizing that democracy is the future of the country they love – and they want their voices heard. One Iraqi, after dipping his finger in the purple ink as he cast his ballot, stuck his finger in the air and said: "This is a thorn in the eyes of the terrorists." Another voter was asked, "Are you Sunni or Shia?" He responded, "I am Iraqi."

Here is the purple ink. I was getting all impatient about it. Now, it's a great thing to have the Iraqis vote, and I'm glad that they are voting. But that last sentence is very weird. The religious wingnuts in this country certainly put Jesus and the Bible ahead of such wispy pieces of paper as the Constitution and would like the Supreme Court to do the same. But we are to believe that the Iraqis put their country ahead of Islam? Some do, of course, but the majority will not and Bush knows this very well.

Third, after a number of setbacks, our Coalition is moving forward with a reconstruction plan to revive Iraq's economy and infrastructure – and to give Iraqis confidence that a free life will be a better life. Today in Iraq, seven in 10 Iraqis say their lives are going well – and nearly two-thirds expect things to improve even more in the year ahead. Despite the violence, Iraqis are optimistic – and that optimism is justified.

How about hiring Iraqi firms for the reconstruction effort? How about giving Haliburton a kick in the ass? Not gonna happen, of course, as these are Bush's mates.

In all three aspects of our strategy – security, democracy, and reconstruction – we have learned from our experiences, and fixed what has not worked. We will continue to listen to honest criticism, and make every change that will help us complete the mission. Yet there is a difference between honest critics who recognize what is wrong, and defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right.

Defeatism may have its partisan uses, but it is not justified by the facts. For every scene of destruction in Iraq, there are more scenes of rebuilding and hope. For every life lost, there are countless more lives reclaimed. And for every terrorist working to stop freedom in Iraq, there are many more Iraqis and Americans working to defeat them. My fellow citizens: Not only can we win the war in Iraq – we are winning the war in Iraq.

It is also important for every American to understand the consequences of pulling out of Iraq before our work is done. We would abandon our Iraqi friends – and signal to the world that America cannot be trusted to keep its word. We would undermine the morale of our troops – by betraying the cause for which they have sacrificed. We would cause tyrants in the Middle East to laugh at our failed resolve, and tighten their repressive grip. We would hand Iraq over to enemies who have pledged to attack us – and the global terrorist movement would be emboldened and more dangerous than ever before. To retreat before victory would be an act of recklessness and dishonor … and I will not allow it.

This long bit says that Echidne shouldn't ridicule Bush's speech because it gives courage to the enemy and discourages our brave fighters in Iraq. And that Echidne should shut up and support Bush.

We are approaching a New Year, and there are certain things all Americans can expect to see. We will see more sacrifice – from our military … their families … and the Iraqi people. We will see a concerted effort to improve Iraqi police forces and fight corruption. We will see the Iraqi military gaining strength and confidence, and the democratic process moving forward. As these achievements come, it should require fewer American troops to accomplish our mission. I will make decisions on troop levels based on the progress we see on the ground and the advice of our military leaders – not based on artificial timetables set by politicians in Washington. Our forces in Iraq are on the road to victory – and that is the road that will take them home.

In the months ahead, all Americans will have a part in the success of this war. Members of Congress will need to provide resources for our military. Our men and women in uniform, who have done so much already, will continue their brave and urgent work. And tonight, I ask all of you listening to carefully consider the stakes of this war … to realize how far we have come and the good we are doing … and to have patience in this difficult, noble, and necessary cause.

I also want to speak to those of you who did not support my decision to send troops to Iraq: I have heard your disagreement, and I know how deeply it is felt. Yet now there are only two options before our country – victory or defeat. And the need for victory is larger than any president or political party, because the security of our people is in the balance. I do not expect you to support everything I do, but tonight I have a request: Do not give in to despair, and do not give up on this fight for freedom.

Americans can expect some things of me as well. My most solemn responsibility is to protect our Nation, and that requires me to make some tough decisions. I see the consequences of those decisions when I meet wounded servicemen and women who cannot leave their hospital beds, but summon the strength to look me in the eye and say they would do it all over again. I see the consequences when I talk to parents who miss a child so much – but tell me he loved being a soldier … he believed in his mission … and Mr. President, finish the job.

I know that some of my decisions have led to terrible loss – and not one of those decisions has been taken lightly. I know this war is controversial – yet being your President requires doing what I believe is right and accepting the consequences. And I have never been more certain that America's actions in Iraq are essential to the security of our citizens, and will lay the foundation of peace for our children and grandchildren.

Here Bush tells us that he appreciates all the sacrifices of lives for the war that didn't have a reason to begin with. He also reiterates that Echidne shouldn't criticize him because he is the embodiment of this country and to criticize him is to endanger all of the Western civilization. I will take this under advicement, of course.

Next week, Americans will gather to celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah. Many families will be praying for loved ones spending this season far from home – in Iraq, Afghanistan, or other dangerous places. Our Nation joins in those prayers. We pray for the safety and strength of our troops. We trust, with them, in a love that conquers all fear, and a light that reaches the darkest corners of the Earth. And we remember the words of the Christmas carol, written during the Civil War: "God is not dead, nor [does] He sleep; the Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, with peace on Earth, good-will to men."

Thank you, and good night.

And here Bush strikes a blow for Christmas in the O'Reilly wars, also a reference to his fundamentalist God for the radical religious cleric wing of the Republican party, and a general remindeer to all of us that Bush believes God has chosen him to be the savior of the world and that he doesn't need to hear anybody else's opinions on how to achieve that.

More For Your Outrage Meter

From today's Washington Post:

When Tim Holt spotted Maria Rabanales of El Salvador lying still in the Arizona desert this summer, he believed he had a God-given duty to save her.

He forced water through the woman's swollen jaws and poured ice down her shirt. Border Patrol agents later took Rabanales to a hospital, where she was revived.


Holt was praised by Humane Borders, sponsored by First Christian Church of Tucson, where he is a volunteer. But his actions that June day might soon be considered a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison or property forfeiture, if a Republican-sponsored bill that passed the House along partisan lines on Friday becomes law.

The bill -- endorsed by the Bush administration though it would have preferred a more comprehensive bill with a guest-worker program -- would make it a crime to assist undocumented immigrants who enter or attempt to enter the United States illegally. It has sent a chill through church organizations that help migrants in the belief that they are carrying out the will of God.

Maybe Bush got his heavenly telephone wires crossed with those coming from Hell?

Pictures of Our Dear Leader

I think the photographers have decided to show their respect for Bush recently:














Or maybe it's impossible to get better pictures...

I feel that this post might be wasted. After all, what could one possiby comment about here? To use the space for something, please comment if you are a lurker. Tell us who you are and stuff. Or even if you're not a lurker. Do I have lurkers? It would be nice to have some.

The Czar of All America

Is it an accident that he is portrayed in front of a picture that looks like a lone cowboy? He seems to have taken the role of the lone cowboy, fighting evil all on his own, without the support or protection of laws. Too bad that he's the president of the country and can't do that sort of thing. Well, I think that he can't do it, but he thinks that he can do whatever the hell he wants to:

President Bush acknowledged on Saturday that he had ordered the National Security Agency to conduct an electronic eavesdropping program in the United States without first obtaining warrants, and said he would continue the highly classified program because it was "a vital tool in our war against the terrorists."

In an unusual step, Mr. Bush delivered a live weekly radio address from the White House in which he defended his action as "fully consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities." He also lashed out at senators - both Democrats and Republicans - who voted on Friday to block the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act, which expanded the president's power to conduct surveillance, with warrants, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The revelation that Mr. Bush had secretly instructed the security agency to intercept the communications of Americans and suspected terrorists inside the United States, without first obtaining warrants from a secret court that oversees intelligence matters, was cited by several senators as a reason for their vote.

"In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without this law for a single moment," Mr. Bush said forcefully from behind a lectern in the Roosevelt Room, next to the Oval Office. The White House invited cameras in, guaranteeing television coverage.

We cannot afford to be without "this" law for a single moment, but the president can decide to dispense with other laws at his own convenience. Like in ordering people within the United States to be wiretapped/wiretrapped without a court order. The laws are for the little people, it seems.

Bush's strategy is the expected one: He will simply deny having done anything wrong. He will raise the specter of fear and terror and he will argue that 911 changed everything. This country is now a playground for George Bush and whatever he says must be. The Russian czars ruled like that. But even they didn't have the right to keep the country in a war indefinitely as an excuse for the suspension of various civil rights, and it seems, the suspension of reality.

For what Bush did was indeed wrong:

But, by ordering the wiretaps directly, Bush may have violated laws requiring the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to sign off on intelligence surveillance on American soil.

People within the borders of the U.S. are typically protected from this kind of government activity by the Fourth Amendment, which reads in part: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation ..."

The nation's largest civil liberties group flatly labeled the program illegal.

"Eavesdropping on conversations of U.S citizens and others in the United States without a court order and without complying with the procedures of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is both illegal and unconstitutional," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington Legislative Office, in a written release. "The administration is claiming extraordinary presidential powers at the expense of civil liberties and is putting the president above the law," she said.

Fredrickson called on Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to appoint a special prosecutor to look into the program and said that "Congress must investigate this report thoroughly."

One top Senator and member of Bush's own party vowed to do just that.

The wiretaps are "wrong, clearly and categorically wrong,'' said Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, quoted in various wire reports.

Specter, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, promised that a Senate probe of Bush's actions will begin "as soon as we can get to it in the new year -- a very, very high priority item.''

And note that Bush could have used the existing laws to wiretap those with clear Al Queada connections by simply using the secret court orders. He didn't want to bother with that, because he is the czar of all America. And that is what is really frightening of this whole situation; not the terror or the fear but the good likelihood that our whole democracy, such as it is, but with some balances and checks built in, will be allowed to go down the drain of fear, terror and czarism.

Saturday Doggy Blogging

And very happy dogs they are, because the white cool stuff came down from the skies. Sniffing is more interesting through it. So is leaping around like a crazed bunny rabbit or two. But then it's nice to go into the warm lair and chew on a frog or two if you are Hank. If you are Henrietta you will spend the time more productively by pondering some deep philosophical dilemmas.

Hair-Pulling Thought For The Day

Remember the New York Times article that told us about Bush eavesdropping on us, possibly illegally? Remember this part of it:

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

Now comes the hair-pulling part: Did the New York Times know about this before the 2004 elections? If so, how did they justify keeping it secret from the voters?

Fashion News

The radical religious right is not opposed to women's fashions, as long as they are demure and properly dignified. In Bangladesh it means this:

A banned Islamist militant group blamed for a series of bombings in Bangladesh has threatened to kill women, including non-Muslims, if they do not wear the veil, a statement said.

The statement by the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen came hours after Thursday's suicide bomb attack in a northen town that killed at least eight people, the latest of a series of blasts blamed on militant groups in their campaign for an Islamic state.

"Women will be killed if they are found to move around without wearing burqa (veil) from the first day of Jilhaj," the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen said in the statement sent to a Dhaka newspaper office.

Jilhaj refers to the Arabic month beginning early January.

"Women, including non-Muslims, are hereby advised not to go out of home without burqa. Seclusion has been made compulsory for you," said the statement in Bangla language, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters on Friday.

In the United States matters are much more degenerate, natch. This is, after all, the corrupt West. So women can even go swimming, provided that they are demurely covered, like this.

I wonder about the god of all those fundamentalists. Why did he create women so awkwardly that they must always be covered? Or rather, why do the followers of this god believe that they know better than the supposed creator of all those sinfully attractive women? And what about the alternative, and simple, idea of having those men who are bothered by women's bodies avert their eyes as modesty requires?

But then the alternatives in women's fashions stink, too. Not into burqas or Victorian swimwear? Then how about wearing nothing but a corset, a G-string and high-heeled stilettos? If this doesn't look good we can build your breasts up artificially and cut off the toes that stick out of the shoes. Even here it's the female body that is somehow wrong.

Sometimes these seem the only choices:





It's a good thing I'm naturally covered with snake scales.

The Koufax Awards

These are the awards of the lefty blogosphere. You can nominate blogs in various categories, such as the best professional blog, the best group blog, the best overall blog and the best new blog. They don't have a category for divine bloggers which is too bad because I'd do well in that category: not much competition. As things are, well, you could nominate me for writing fairly legibly in a second language. Couldn't you?

I hate this stuff, I really do. But marketing is soooo important.

Pro-Life Objectivity

The feministing.com posted about South Dakota's Abortion Task Force Report a few days ago:

South Dakota's abortion task force has completed its report. Its introduction states that "the unborn child from the moment of conception is a whole separate human being."

And it gets worse. Because, of 17 task force members, only two were pro-choice (State Sen. Stan Adelstein and Planned Parenthood's Kate Looby). Among the other members are a representative of the Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls, seven anti-choice state legislators, and a chiropractor whose wife runs the largest "crisis pregnancy center" in the state. The pro-choicers were not allowed to submit a minority report.

So what does the task force recommend the state legislature do to reduce the number of abortions?

* Amend the State Constitution to provide the unborn child, from the moment of conception, with the same protection of the law that the child receives after birth and also provide protections for the mother-child relationship. (In other words, criminalize abortion.)

The other recommendations are similar or worse, and equally poorly thought out. To give an example of the problems, note that this recommendation could get a woman sued for child abuse if she gets treated for some serious illness while pregnant (giving a minor illegal drugs). She might also be legally banned from entering any space in which children are not allowed (bars, casinos and places of work where children are not allowed).

The whole report makes interesting reading. Here is what it says about rape and incest in the context of abortions:

Since abortion advocates so often explain the need for legalized abortion by pointing to the pregnancies that result from rape and incest, the Task Force finds that it is appropriate to address this issue briefly.

Dr. J.C. Willke, founder of the Right to Life organization and President of the International Right to Life, testified before the Task Force on September 21, 2005. Dr. Willke noted that only approximately 0.01% of rapes result in a pregnancy. In his book, he writes: "We must approach this with great compassion. The woman has been subjected to an ugly trauma, and she needs love, support and help. But she has been the victim of one violent act. Should we now ask her to be a party to a second
violent act - that of abortion? Reporting the rape to a law enforcement agency is needed." (Willke, Why Can't We Love Them Both, p. 263, 2003). (See Section III of this report for suggested legislation in regarding reporting illegal sexual activity.)

Dr. Donald Oliver is a pediatrician who has practiced in Rapid City, South Dakota, for 25 years and who is board certified with the National Board of Medical Examiners and American Board of Pediatrics. In telephone testimony to the Task Force, Dr. Oliver said, "I was asked to share some genetic information with you regarding the issue of incest. As many of you are aware, the union of two closely related people may result in an infant with genetic deformities or retardation. That is why in the United States we have laws against close relatives marrying. What you may not be aware of is that deformities and/or retardation occur in the smallest minorities of these instances. Ninety-seven percent of the time, these children are normal."
"Just two months ago, I personally took care of a baby boy born to a very young teenage mother who was allegedly raped by her brother. So here we have the two scenarios brought forth most often by those on the pro-abortion side, rape and incest. This brave young lady carried her child to term and delivered a healthy normal boy. Here is an interesting fact that you may not be aware of. Just as two bad genes might pair up and lead to an unfortunate outcome, two good genes can pair up, and the infant of this incestuous relationship, may become the brightest person in the family—sometimes in the genius range of intellect. They are normal children at least 97 to 98 percent of the time. This young teenage mother that I just spoke of, when she found out she was pregnant, felt that besides herself, the only other really innocent person in this sad situation was her baby, and he certainly didn't deserve capital punishment for her brother's sins. What great insight for someone so young! I wonder how many employees of Planned Parenthood would have encouraged and supported this young lady's courage to choose life for her newborn son."

Wow. I never realized that I could have created a genius by having sex with my brother. What you learn from an abortion report! I also didn't realize that getting raped is almost like automatic contraception!

All this wetted my curiosity. I had to find out more about this South Dakota Abortion Task Force and its members. Here is Dr. Allen Unruh, a chiropractor whose wife runs a crisis pregnancy center:

What I have found interesting is the people who are abortion advocates have tried to suppress testimony from women who have had abortions calling it anecdotal evidence. But that's where the rubber meets the road: how abortion affects real people. Hitler said, "One death is a tragedy, a million is merely a statistic." We're not just compiling statistics. The evidence is overwhelming on the devastating effects of abortion on this great country. Let us pray that the SD Legislature will weigh this evidence and do their duty according to principle in the best interest for the people of SD.

You will hear from those on the task force who are pro-abortion that they are a minority on this committee. I would remind you that the purpose of the legislature was to research and discover, based on new evidence what the consequences of abortion really are. It was not to weigh this committee with a majority who would purposely deny, and discredit the evidence every way they know how. Only the truth will gain freedom for the unborn and all those who have been victims of abortion.

This committee has taken its job very seriously and the report will represent a painstaking effort which is unprecedented on this issue. It has been an honor to be on this committee to hear this testimony. It is a huge responsibility to make sure this report reveals the truth about abortion and how abortion has affected this country.

For the sake of South Dakotans I hope that Dr. Unruh is a better physician than he is a writer or a thinker, though to be fair to Dr. Unruh, he never argues that the report was objective, only that it was "painstaking" in revealing the "truth" about abortion.

What about the two pro-choice members of the Task Force? One of them, Stan Adelstein, tells us a little more about what took place during the Task Force meetings. Here he is discussing the issue with Elizabeth Kraus, the only woman (!) who was involved in writing the Report, and an avid pro-lifer:

Adelstein supported two resolutions offered by Dr. Marty Allison, chairwoman of the panel, which were defeated.

One would have supported a ban on abortion except in cases where there was "undue and serious risk to the health or life" of the women; where the child "would have no medically accepted possibility of surviving birth or early infancy;" and in cases of rape and incest.

"I tried to do exactly the same thing," Adelstein said, referring to legislation he has proposed in the past. "I just wish I had used her words. She did it as a doctor, and I did it as an engineer."

Kraus said the question of health of the woman has become "too broad." She also said that instances of rape and incest "are extremely rare." And she said, "There are so many people waiting to adopt."

The other resolution called for a "comprehensive sex- education curriculum … with a strong emphasis on abstinence" with the goal of preventing pregnancies.

"This was a wonderful amendment," Adelstein said. "There is not a single reference to sex education and reductions of abortions. Abortions could be reduced through education," he said.

Kraus characterized the proposal as "not bad" but said that there is no definition of comprehensive.

"We all agree with abstinence as a message," she said. "I'm not against sex education that is within boundaries that parents can agree on. … Parents need to be involved in sex-education material in the schools."

Adelstein said that a walk-out last week by some task force members — including him — in protest of the defeat of several amendments might not have happened "if a minority report had been allowed."

"They basically weren't going to listen to anything," he said.

Kraus said the proposals were "out of the reasonable thinking of most people of South Dakota."

This, my dear readers, might be the new definition of objectivity in the faith-based society. A painstaking and careful attempt to present one-sided information and to stomp the opposition into silence. You might be interested in learning that the possible health risks of abortion are widely discussed but delivering a child is apparently without any risks whatsoever. Or that all the "victim statements" of abortion sufferers came through one person in Texas. Or that the Report argues for abstinence-only education in the Brave New World that would be created if its other recommendations are followed. Imagine that: you can give birth to a baby because your brother raped you but you can't learn about condoms.

Not all South Dakotans are crazy, of course. Those who are not have inquired about the obvious lack of objectivity in the Report. Here is how Brock Greenfield, another Task Force member, responds to such worries:

Sen. Brock Greenfield, R-Clark, another member of the task force, said the report accurately reflects the testimony and written evidence the panel received during its meetings in recent months.

"As I took in the testimony and made many, many notes, it was evident to me the act of abortion has significantly hurt women and families," said Greenfield, who is also director of South Dakota Right to Life.

"For people to suggest there was no objectivity, that it was a preconceived or predetermined outcome, is a little disingenuous to the process," Greenfield said.

Ah.

Eavesdropping

Have you ever wondered what the origin of this term might be? I like this explanation the best:

Eavesdropping: To be caught eavesdropping implies that a person has been deliberately trying to overhear a conversation not intended for their ears. The word and its implication go back centuries to the time when most houses had no gutters; the rain dripped off the roofs but the roofs themselves projected well beyond the walls. This area inside where the water dripped was known originally as the Eavesdrip and later as the Eavesdrop. People sheltering here were somewhat protected from the rain,but could also overhear what was going on in the house.

Now guess who might be eavesdropping on you. That's right, our government:

Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.

The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval represents a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches.

I think the correct reaction to this in the new faith-based U.S. would be either "duh" or "whatever". Though this bit in the NYT article does raise my eyebrows:

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

What else do you think they are holding back from us peons?

Slippery Eels

There are some men just too difficult to catch. Like Osama bin Laden (remember him?). And also, it seems, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Well, to be precise, he may have been caught but not for long:

Iraqi security forces caught the most wanted man in the country last year, but released him because they didn't know who he was, the Iraqi deputy minister of interior said Thursday.

Hussain Kamal confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- the al Qaeda in Iraq leader who has a $25 million bounty on his head -- was in custody at some point last year, but he wouldn't provide further details.

A U.S. official couldn't confirm the report, but said he wouldn't dismiss it.

"It is plausible," he said.

Thursday's news tops a list of reports of missed opportunities to capture the 39-year-old terrorist mastermind. An official said the military receives frequent reports of al-Zarqawi sightings, all of which are investigated. (View profile on al-Zarqawi)

In April, U.S. troops stormed a hospital in Ramadi based on credible intelligence that terrorists were hiding there, but no suspects were found, military officials said in early May.

A high-ranking Iraqi Army officer said there were rumors that al-Zarqawi was at the Ramadi medical center, and several groups affiliated with the al Qaeda operative issued statements saying the same.

Iraqi Lt. Gen. Nasser Abadi said Thursday that al-Zarqawi was taken to the hospital. He added that he didn't believe Kamal's report was correct.

"When we got the news, we rushed there, but he was out of there," the general said.

The Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi was almost captured in February, too, after troops received a tip that he was heading to a meeting in Ramadi, said Pentagon officials speaking on condition of anonymity.

What does this remind me of? This:

Macavity's a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw--
For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime--Macavity's not there!

Macavity, Macavity, there's no on like Macavity,
He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.
His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,
And when you reach the scene of crime--Macavity's not there!
You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air--
But I tell you once and once again, Macavity's not there!

Except that Eliot wrote about something fun and al-Zarqawi is not. Still, the bumbling of the authorities here is very similar to the way it is described in the poem. Now how did I get from eels to cats? Hmm.

On The Iraq Elections

I hope that they will go extremely well and that the Iraqis choose widely, though I still think that they are going to have a civil war first and then an Islamic theocracy. This is bad news for women and all non-muslim Iraqis. But I really hope that I am overly pessimistic and that the elections are a great success for everyone. Whatever that means.

Meanwhile, in the other budding theocracy here at home, a wingnut has sought a U.S. House of Representatives passage to a resolution expressing support for the symbols and traditions of Christmas. Because, as you may remember, the wingnuts (who are in power) are oppressed by the rest of us who have nothing better to do with our time than attack Christmas. Sigh.

Just For Fun

I stole this one via Ruenil:

O-oh!

It's not good news for Rumsfeld that Bush thinks:

"He's done a heck of a job. He's conducted two wars, and at the same time is out to transfer my military from a military that was constructed for the post-Cold War to one that is going to be constructed to fight terrorism."

Remember who the last person was that got this accolade from Bush? Yep, it was Brownie of the FEMA disaster fame.

This Week's Most Inane Quote

Comes from a review of the movie "Syriana":

Still, if it is going to say anything, then it ought to say something smart and timely. But, the cynicism of "Syriana" is out of time and place, a homage to John le Carre, who himself is dated. To read George Packer's "The Assassin's Gate" is to be reminded that the Iraq war is not the product of oil avarice, or CIA evil, but of a surfeit of altruism, a naive compulsion to do good. That entire collection of neo- and retro-conservatives -- George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and particularly Paul Wolfowitz -- made war not for oil or for empire but to end the horror of Saddam Hussein and, yes, reorder the Middle East.

They were inept. They were duplicitous. They were awesomely incompetent, and, in the case of Bush, they were monumentally ignorant and incurious, but they did not give a damn for oil or empire. This is why so many liberals, myself included, originally supported the war. It engaged us emotionally. It seemed . . . well, right -- a just cause.

Now I can't get the image of these bumbling, duplicitous, incompetent do-gooders out of my head. Being cynical is so out-dated, don't you know. All people in the know are into starry-eyed naivete. Ho, ho.

Hap-p-py?

Are you happy? The reason I'm asking is that my posts for some time now have been either angry, grumpy or sulky. Not happy at all. I can do whiny, if I try, but I don't think I can do happy. They begin to sound like the seven dwarves...

Which naturally leads me to fairy tales. Most of this world's wisdom is somewhere in a fairy tale and so are most of this world's follies and biases. The Emperor's New Clothes told us all we needed to know about George Bush and the American public long before the emperor himself admitted that he was bare-bottomed (which happened today), and the Princess and the Pea is a precise psychoanalysis of me as a feminist blogger. Every single misogynistic pea leaves a bruise on me unless I blog about it.

Maybe that is the reason why I don't have more happy posts? When I'm all happy I'm not going to sit down and type away for hours, am I? I'll be out carousing with my muse. He is happy, by the way, mostly because he is as thick as a board though a lot more handsome. As muses go I could have done worse.

That's about as happy as I can manage today. Because I just remembered the main thesis of fairy tales: the glorification of female passivity. Just think of the Sleeping Beauty or Rapunzel in her tower or the Snow-White in her coffin. All waiting for the prince to come and rescue them, and to what purpose? At least Cinderella went to the ball, but even she then had to wait for someone to come and offer her the glass slipper.

The fairy tales always end with everybody living happily ever after, but the story isn't telling us how that can be managed. Maybe because happiness is boring and not easy to write about?

Mea Culpa

Finally George Bush takes the blame for the "faulty" intelligence that supposedly made him attack Iraq:

President Bush accepted responsibility on Wednesday for going to war with faulty intelligence, but firmly defended a decision that has deeply divided the country. "We cannot and will not leave Iraq until victory is achieved," he said.

"It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As president I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq," the president told a foreign policy forum on the eve of elections to establish Iraq's first permanent, democratically elected government. "And I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities. And we're doing just that."

What a mess. We have broken into the wrong house and totalled its contents. Some of the inhabitants lie dead or bleeding. And now we are just going to do what? Put the chairs back up and prop the corpses on them, close the door and leave? Say we are sorry?

The elections better be good.

The Token Woman

Amanda at Pandagon has an excellent post on the perks of being the token woman, the only one admitted to the boys' treehouse, the one, who like Pallas Athene, burst out of the Father's head without any of that feminine slime attached to her. The one who is "one of the guys".

Not all token women are honorary males, of course. Some are just put into the slot which tells the rest of the world how egalitarian some organization is. Look! We hire women here! Or at least one woman. If she happens to be a minority woman, so much better. More slots will remain free for the regular guys.

But once you are a token the dangers of becoming an honorary male are great. For the alternative is that you will be viewed as the total of all womankind. Whenever there are news that concern women you, the token, are supposed to express the woman's point of view. Whenever there is a dispute about bathrooms, you, the token, are expected to inform the rest about how much toilet paper women need. And you are the one whose presence might make the tit-and-ass brigade feel uncomfortable while they wish to end a business trip with a nice little trip to a bordello. Truly, the choices the token woman has are between being an honorary male or a generic female.

So in a sense I'm not blaming those tokens who decide that an artificial pair of balls is a better defense than trying to be all-women-all-the-time. It's an easier life. But Amanda is also right when she states this:

If you want to see a no-holds-barred portrayal of people relishing the opportunity to be tokens, you can't do much better than Susan Faludi's Backlash. She has a long section where she interviews a series of prominent anti-feminist women in order to get at how they resolve the hypocritic stance of going out into the public sphere to have exciting, interesting jobs telling other women that the public sphere and exciting, interesting jobs are just not for them. A lot of the "honorary man" thing is going on with these women, a feeling that they are somehow just better than other women and that's why they get to have the access they would deny to others.

"The feeling that they are somehow just better than other women." Yes, this is a neat solution to the problem all women face: how to live in a sexist world. It lets the token woman think that there is nothing wrong with misogyny and such. The other women, the inferior ones, deserve that. The good women get to be taken up to the boys' treehouse.

I wonder if such a token woman notices that it's usually her job in the treehouse to write about those inferior creatures and to keep them off the tree. So she is not really one of the boys, never will be. And should the boys turn against her and push her down the tree, what then?

All token women, whether honorary males or not, are ultimately judged as women. That is the real paradox of the tokenism. The solution, of course, is to hire more women.

And in case you are interested, yes, I have been a token woman, and no, it was not fun.

The Whining Wingnuts

Wingnuts want victimhood. It's really hard to gain when one is in power but never mind. Someone, somewhere must be oppressing the wingnuts-who-are-in-power. If nothing like that is happening (and how could it, given that the wingnuts are in power) then something must be made up. It's important that the wingnuts (who are in power) are always the oppressed ones, the ones whom nobody understands, the ones whom the media ridicules (except here where the wingnuts are in power).

Hence the war on Christmas. Consider this seriously: a country where the majority of people are Christian, a country where Christmas advertizing starts right after Labor Day, a country where you cannot escape hearing "Dreaming of A White Christmas" has a war against Christmas, a war so powerful that this majority is on its knees, silenced, driven out of the public space. What utter crap. Who are these powerful enemies of Christmas, pray, tell me. Where can I tune in to hear about their heinous plans to assassinate Santa Claus or make Jesus speak Swahili (rather than the medieval English everybody knows he spoke)?

The war on Christmas tells us one thing and one thing only, and that is the power of the wingnuts to decide what the media talks about. The victimhood of the wingnuts (who are in power) is similar to a king moaning that he isn't allowed to have as much power over the masses as he used to have. It is not about oppression but about the right to dominate all others. That is what the crying and whining means.

Stanley Tookie Williams

I killed a man last night. His name was Stanley Tookie Williams. He may have committed four gruesome murders. He may not have been a good man. And I may not have had a choice about killing him, because the state did that in my name and in the name of all other citizens. Nevertheless, I committed a precalculated and cold-blooded murder last night.

This is why I don't want the death penalty to exist.

Froomkin and the Storm in the Teacup

Do you read Dan Froomkin's "White House Briefing"? I do. It seems that I should have felt confused about the real nature of Froomkin's column, that I should have thought he might have been Washington Post's real White House reporter. Because people who read the Washington Post get confused very easily, it seems, and the real reporters at the Post are worried about Froomkin's column being so very opiniated and liberal. So now the Post is thinking that they might change the name of the column and add a right-wing blog to "balance" Froomkin. Then Froomkin can write something called "What's Wrong With the Government" and the right-wing blog can be "Bush is Perfect". Balance in the 21st century American journalism...

Though I like this idea of making all pundits have Siamese twins of the opposite political persuasion. Who should we link with Ann Coulter? Or with George Will? Or with Laura Ingraham? Hey, I spot something very odd here. We are not looking to twin any wingnuts, after all, just those ornery truthtelling liberals. Because Americans don't understand the media and must have everything spelled out to them in great detail, though only when the media voice is a liberal one. It reminds me of George Bush telling us, over and over, the same thing, in a louder and louder voice, because he is convinced that we will accept his beliefs as the truth if only he keeps at it.

Poor Froomkin. He is one of the victims of the new political correctness which is really just the only political correctness that ever worked: those in political power call the shots.

The Saudi Donation to Harvard and Georgetown Universities

Is interesting in some ways:

Harvard University and Georgetown University each announced yesterday that they had received $20 million donations from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, a Saudi businessman and member of the Saudi royal family, to finance Islamic studies.
...
In making the two gifts, the prince focused on the importance of uniting disparate cultures.

Harvard's news release quoted him as saying that he hoped Harvard's Islamic studies program "will enable generations of students and scholars to gain a thorough understanding of Islam and its role both in the past and in today's world."

"Bridging the understanding between East and West is important for peace and tolerance," he said.

The Georgetown release quoted him as saying, "We are determined to build a bridge between Islam and Christianity for tolerance that transcends cultural and geographical boundaries."

With all due respect to Prince Alsaud, what is he doing about tolerance and peace at home? What programs is he financing in Saudi universities and schools on understanding the non-Islamic world? On tolerating it?

Tattoos

Margaret Cho has had her midriff tattooed with two snakes. Excellent taste she has. She also says this about tattoos:

I love tattoos because they represent a brief glimpse of person's insides, their passions, their true heart. It is like a riddle, a complex haiku that you may or may not be able to decipher, that you are fortunate to even have the opportunity. Even after the thrill is gone, the tattoo remains, as a reminder of a personal history, a life lived, flawed yet genuine, faded yet viable, and if it is visible to us, in daily life, it modifies the public personae in a way that no other physical alteration does.

I love heavily tattooed women. I imagine their lives are filled with sensuality and excess, madness and generosity, impulsive natures and fights. They look like they have endured much pain and sadness, yet have the ability to transcend all of it by documenting it on the body. Women's bodies are fraught with controversy, because it is believed that our bodies belong to the state. We are not supposed to choose what we can do with them. We don't have complete control over reproduction. Though we can get abortions (right now) we must be in the right place at the right time, and even then we might need the consent of someone else (a man) in order to take care of OURSELVES!!!

A lovely defence of tattoos. I especially like the idea of women taking ownership of their bodies by decorating them as they wish. Too bad that I still don't want tattoos, largely because of this bit Margaret said:

I love tattoos because they represent a brief glimpse of person's insides, their passions, their true heart.

I don't want anyone to see my insides! And in any case my passions and my heart are in a continual flux. But if I did have tattoos I'd want my whole face to be covered with black-and-white zebra stripes.

Boy Brains and Girl Brains

Go and read this post by Ampersand (and the previous one he wrote on the same topic). It is one of the best discussions I have read on the question why boys are not doing well at school and why, because it is actually based on some real data and not just propaganda.

The Texas Redistricting

It's going to be reviewed by the Supremes:

The United States Supreme Court agreed today to review the constitutionality of the Texas redistricting plan that was engineered by Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader until recently, and helped Republicans add to their majority from the Lone Star State.

The justices will consider several lawsuits by Democrats and minority groups challenging the redrawn maps of voting districts pushed through in 2003. The redistricting has been credited with helping Republicans gain five more seats in the Texas delegation to the House of Representatives in 2004, increasing the Republican ranks to 21, compared with 11 Texas Democrats.

Today's announcement by the Supreme Court comes 10 days after the Justice Department acknowledged that some of its top officials had overruled a determination by the agency's civil rights division staff in 2003 that the redistricting plan would dilute the voting strength of minorities in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1965.

This will be interesting to watch. That's all I have to say right now, except that the stakes are very high indeed.

The Anti-Feminist Drinking Game

The Countess has made this one up. The idea is to look for certain words in the posts of anti-feminist bloggers as incitement for drinking. Here is her list of cue words and how much to drink for each:

One shot each time an anti-feminist troll writes...

"equality"

"fairness"

"victim"

"misandry"

"FemNag"

"Feminazi"

"matriarchy"

Two shots for the following:

"equity feminist"

"gender feminist"

The equity and gender feminist labels are always a red flag for me, telling me that I'm reading a right-winger, because these classifications are not based on actual feminist thinking.

I'd add "drink the whole bottle" for the following phrases:

"chivalry is dead"
"won't open doors anymore"
"the dignity of women"

Race Riots in Australia

The fruit of 9/11, the Bali bombings, multiculturalism gone bonkers? Or of Bush's war on terror and the religious wars that are going on? Or of too rapid immigration of groups with too different values and customs? Or of plain old racism? You decide. You might as well, because nobody knows the correct answers. But Australia is experiencing something very similar to what happened in France just a moment ago: young men getting together to riot, and in both cases the planning takes place through mobile phones. The difference is that in France it was the minorities who rioted, in Australia it was the white non-Arab majority. But I'm thinking that in some deeper sense that difference isn't very large at all, for in both cases it is mostly young men who feel that their values are threatened who are doing this.

In any case, this is the sort of thing that happened down under:

A day of confrontations began at the southern beach of Cronulla, where 5,000 white youths, many of them drunk, wrapped in Australian flags and chanting racist slurs, fought a series of skirmishes with police, attacked people of Arab appearance and assaulted a pair of ambulance officers.

The violence was a reaction to reports that youths of Lebanese ancestry were responsible for an attack last weekend on two of the beach's lifeguards.

One white teenager had the words "We grew here, you flew here" painted on his back. On the beach, someone had written "100 per cent Aussie pride" in the sand.

Two paramedics in an ambulance were injured as they tried to get youths of Middle Eastern appearance out of the Cronulla Surf Lifesaving Club, where they had fled to escape one mob.

The mob broke the vehicle's windows and kicked its doors as the paramedics tried to get the group out.

TV broadcasts showed a group of young women attacking another woman. Her ethnicity was not immediately clear.

Days ago, police increased the number of officers patrolling the beach after mobile phone text messages began circulating calling for retaliation for the attack on the lifeguards.

Television images of the alcohol and hate-fuelled brawls sparked a string of retaliations in nearby suburbs with cars full of young men of Arab descent smashing 40 cars with sticks and baseball bats, police said.

Another man of Arab appearance was being hunted after stabbing a white man in the back outside a golf club.

And nearby, rioters pelted police in full riot gear with rocks and bottles.

Bubble Boy

That is one description for the leader of the free world, the man who has his finger on the nuclear button, the president of the United States. Well, we (supposedly) elected this man and his problems, so I guess we can live (or die) with them. Here is a taste of what is going on in the White House:

Bush may be the most isolated president in modern history, at least since the late-stage Richard Nixon. It's not that he is a socially awkward loner or a paranoid. He can charm and joke like the frat president he was. Still, beneath a hail-fellow manner, Bush has a defensive edge, a don't-tread-on-me prickliness. It shows in Bush's humor. When Reagan told a joke, it almost never was about someone in the room. Reagan's jokes may have been scatological or politically incorrect, but they were inclusive, intended to make everyone join in the laughter. Often, Bush's joking is personal—it is aimed at you. The teasing can be flattering (the president gave me a nickname!), but it is intended, however so subtly, to put the listener on the defensive. It is a towel-snap that invites a retort. How many people dare to snap back at a president?

Not many, and not unless they have known the president a long, long time. (Even Karl Rove, or "Turd Blossom," as he is sometimes addressed by the president, knows when to hold his tongue.) In the Bush White House, disagreement is often equated with disloyalty.
...
Bush seemed to have no idea. "I got the sense that his staff was not telling him the bad news," says the lawmaker. "This was not a case of him thinking positive. He just didn't have any idea of the political realities there. It was like he wasn't briefed at all." (Bush was not clueless, says an aide, but pushing his historic mission.)

In subtle ways, Bush does not encourage truth-telling or at least a full exploration of all that could go wrong. A former senior member of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad occasionally observed Bush on videoconferences with his top advisers. "The president would ask the generals, 'Do you have what you need to complete the mission?' as opposed to saying, 'Tell me, General, what do you need to win?' which would have opened up a whole new set of conversations," says this official, who did not want to be identified discussing high-level meetings. The official says that the way Bush phrased his questions, as well as his obvious lack of interest in long, detailed discussions, had a chilling effect. "It just prevented the discussion from heading in a direction that would open up a possibility that we need more troops," says the official.
...
A foreign diplomat who declined to be identified was startled when Secretary of State Rice warned him not to lay bad news on the president. "Don't upset him," she said.

Do you feel comfortable knowing that the fate of this world lies in the hands of a man who cannot face any criticism at all? Who refuses to learn bad news? Who appears not to have earned the kind of maturity most of us have achieved by the age thirty? Oh well, I guess things could be worse, though I can't quite think of exactly how that could be arranged.

Time for Some More Bad Poetry!

I haven't done any for ages. Here is a good one:

Hotel Hilton

At the Hilton
businessmen end their dinner
with some choice Stilton
and the declaration of the winner
in their annual race
for the merchant with most money
and least grace.

For these men ethics
is a question of phonetics.
This is what the economy is built on.

A beauty, isn't it?

And this I really enjoyed making! It's a plot for a daytime soap and it's perfect as an example of bad poetry:


He came home in a fighting mood.
The day had been long, he was starving for
food.
But his wife, the slut, had scorched his steak.
Something snapped in his brain, he wanted to break
her neck.

Don't touch me, she cried,
shaking with fear.
Oh, honey, I tried,
and the children are here.
Don't hit me in front of them
please!
And she got down on her knees.

He felt suddenly shocked and sad.
Honey, I'm sorry, I must have been mad.
I'm so tired,
he said. Today I was fired.

She rose with a melting heart.
It is OK, she said, we'll make a new start.
Come here, poor thing, she said,
and I'll tuck you in our bed.

Don't touch me! he said,
shaking with fear.
Don't come near me,
he said, the children are here.
Don't paw me in front of them, whore.
And he walked out, slamming the door.

What do you think? Should I quit my day job? Heh.

The Trial

The Trial is one of Franz Kafka's great novels. It is the story of one Joseph K. who wakes up one morning accused of a crime he did not commit by a system he does not understand. The more he fights for his case the less understandable it becomes and by the end of the book he is executed for a crime that probably does not exist.

It's very depressing reading, as are all Kafka's books. But therein lies their fascination: they thoroughly capture the fears we all have about the world gone deranged, about a world we can't understand and in which anonymous others hold all power. At the end of the book we have the consolation that the real world isn't quite that bad, that it was all just a story.

Or was it? Consider this little piece of news from the United States of America in the year 2005 (via Washington Monthly):

A federal appeals court wrestled Thursday with what seems to be a straightforward question: Can Americans be required to show ID on a commercial airline flight?

John Gilmore, an early employee of Sun Microsystems and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says the answer should be "no." The libertarian millionaire sued the Bush administration, which claims that the ID requirement is necessary for security but has refused to identify any actual regulation requiring it.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals seemed skeptical of the Bush administration's defense of secret laws and regulations but stopped short of suggesting that such a rule would be necessarily unconstitutional.

"How do we know there's an order?" Judge Thomas Nelson asked. "Because you said there was?"

Replied Joshua Waldman, a staff attorney for the Department of Justice: "We couldn't confirm or deny the existence of an order." Even though government regulations required his silence, Waldman said, the situation did seem a "bit peculiar."

"This is America," said James Harrison, a lawyer representing Gilmore. "We do not have secret laws. Period." Harrison stressed that Gilmore was happy to go through a metal detector.
(Bolds mine.)

Secret laws? How do we know when we break one if we don't know what the laws are?
Welcome to Kafka's world:

Somebody must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.
(The Trial)

On Merit

Markos on Daily Kos is selecting new guest bloggers for the next year. His post on the topic said this:

I made my decisions, like I have in the past, based on two factors -- the first is merit. I don't concern myself with sex, race, ethnicity, or any of that stuff.

The blogosphere is different from real world in that neither Markos nor anyone else really knows a person's sex, race or ethnicity. Even those who state that they are, say, white men, may be lying. There is no way of knowing. I might be a thirteen year old boy with spots, typing away in my mom's basement.

So the gentle way of interpreting Markos's comments is that he can be objective because there is no data to bias him. A less gentle interpretation is that Markos believes merit to be easily distinguishable from "any of that stuff", even in contexts other than the internet. Sadly, this is also the way most discriminatory acts are justified. No bigot is ever going to state that he or she decided to bypass a minority candidate or a woman even though they had greater merit. I am not calling Markos a bigot, of course, far from it. But it's useful to remember that the merit-defense doesn't have the squeaky clean history he seems to assume by using it.

Orchestras hardly ever hired women until auditions used a screen that hid the auditioner from the judges. I very much doubt that the judges in the pre-screen days thought themselves biased. Rather, they probably felt totally objective and neutral in their choices. But the screens made a difference. This is a salutary reminder of the fact that bias can be unconscious.

The interesting question is whether the anonymity of the internet serves as a screen. I'd call it a screen with holes, because there are ways in which a person can provide information on his or her gender or race, and these ways may influence those who are judging. Consider, for example, the handle you adopt. Someone calling themselves "Kute Kitten" is going to be seen as a young woman, someone calling themselves "Terminator" is going to be seen as a militant man. And so on. I doubt that many men select feminine names for their internet cruising. But quite a few women do, and this may have an impact on someone judging the person's output.

Likewise, the topics that someone writes on frequently can offer cues about gender and race, and so can the way that "someone" comments on topics written by others. Our life experiences inform the points we make. A man is unlikely to comment quite like a woman on topics such as abortion or sexual harassment. Anyone really adamant on finding whether some blogger is a man or a woman could probably succeed. It might be a little harder to establish a person's race but with enough available material even that should be feasible.

Add to this the fact that most bloggers and commenters are quite open about their gender and ethnicity, and the possibility of bias on the internet grows. Once again, I'm not implying any bias on Markos's part, just noting that merit is a tricky thing to judge, even in the blogosphere, and the judgement itself may not be wholly unrelated to gender, race, ethnicity and "any of that stuff".

My Deadly Sins

This is my weekend sermon for all of you wonderful readers, so that you can feel better by hearing how poorly I am doing in the virtue-department.

The seven deadly sins are pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth. I do excellently in all of them as you can see from the following confession:

1. Pride. I am full of sinful pride, pride about this blog, pride about my shining scales and my wonderful dogs, pride about being a goddess even if minor. I'm proud of being sane in an insane world, and proud of not being overly arrogant about my wonderfulness.

2. Envy. Yes, I'm green with envy. When I drive past a nearby area of McMansions I simmer in envy. When I read all those bloggers who write like angels and devils in one person I want them roasted and served in green curry sauce. I want them banned from the internets.

3. Gluttony. Well, me and chocolate could be used as the edifying story of gluttony. But I could do better in this department if I really tried. There must be some other food that I could get really excited about.

4. Lust. MMMMMM. And MMMMMM. And MMMMM.

5. Anger. Anger is a good friend of mine. For a long time I believed in all that crap about feminine virtues, about avoiding anger and about turning the other cheek. Now I kind of like anger. Anger makes me write better and anger, when purified in the holy fires of righteousness, is what fuels my battles against injustice and bigotry. But it's true that anger turned inwards gnaws and gnaws until you go crazy.

6. Greed. Oh yes, greed. I'm so greedy right now. I want to have a bigger blog, a better blog, a famous blog. I want to have to wear shades for anonymity when I go outside, though the snake tail could be a giveaway. I hate my own greediness.

7. Sloth. Welcome to the Snakepit, Inc., the home of sloth. What more can I say? I really need to find someone who wants to vacuum and shovel snow and polish mirrors. But that someone is not going to be me. On the other hand, cobwebs are pretty and doghair has protein in it and life really is too short to feel guilt over every mortal sin as we will be dead soon enough even if we are sinless.

There! Now how do you do in all these categories?

Christmas is Coming!

And then it will be gone, like in a day. So try to catch the spirit and give some money to deserving people. Katha Pollitt gives an excellent list of deserving people in her column here.

If you don't celebrate Christmas you should have your head examined. Oops. That was wingnuttery slipping in. The point of the war against holidays is to make sure that all non-Christians (including pagan goddesses) will feel excluded during this holiday time. Because "holidays" is inclusive, it is bad. Get it? But I say that you can donate to Katha's list even if you believe in the great macaroni man or Echidne.

Mitt Romney's Pilgrim's Progress

Romney, the governor of that Sodom-and-Gomorrh of this Christian land, Massachusetts (where people stay married and stuff), is trying to convert himself into a fullblown wingnut just in time for the next presidential elections. But this is a tough path to hew (!) because he also has to keep governating the licentious lefty masses of his state. So he gets into teeny difficulties all the time, like the latest one where he was trying to arrange the emergency contraception for rape victims NOT to be available in catholic hospitals. But the Sodomans didn't like that:

Facing opposition from women, the Democratic Party and even his own running mate, Gov. Mitt Romney abandoned plans yesterday to exempt religious and other private hospitals from a new law requiring them to dispense emergency contraception to rape victims.

The governor had initially backed regulations proposed earlier this week by his Department of Public Health, which said the new law conflicted with an older law barring the state from forcing private hospitals to dispense contraceptive devices or information.

The interpretation would have allowed hospitals operated by the Roman Catholic church, which opposes abortion, to forego compliance with the new regulation. Opponents accused Romney, a Republican considering running for president in 2008, of trying to assuage social conservatives.

I think that Romney should be kicked out. Into the snow. On his butt.

No More LA Times

For Barbra Streisand. She has canceled her subscription to protest the firing of Robert Scheer, a liberal columnist. Though the Los Angeles Times still has a few liberal columnists their stable is beginning to tilt heavily to the right. Consider the (awful) fact that they just hired Jonah Goldberg, whose virgin column was all about how lies don't disqualify Bush from being a Great President. So.

I have cancelled lots of subscriptions in bouts of righteous anger and have never regretted it. But I doubt that my acts improved anything but my own temper. Still, if enough famous people follow Barbra's example...

Paging Bill O'Reilly...

Via Atrios, I found this Townhall column by a Jewish humorist. It's not meant to be humorous, though:

My fellow Jews, who often have the survival of Israel heading the list of their concerns when it comes to electing a president, only gave 26% of their vote to Bush, even though he is clearly the most pro-Israel president we've ever had in the Oval Office.

It is the ACLU, which is overwhelmingly Jewish in terms of membership and funding, that is leading the attack against Christianity in America. It is they who have conned far too many people into believing that the phrase "separation of church and state" actually exists somewhere in the Constitution.

You may have noticed, though, that the ACLU is highly selective when it comes to religious intolerance. The same group of self-righteous shysters who, at the drop of a "Merry Christmas" will slap you with an injunction, will fight for the right of an American Indian to ingest peyote and a devout Islamic woman to be veiled on her driver's license.

I happen to despise bullies and bigots. I hate them when they represent the majority, but no less when, like Jews in America, they represent an infinitesimal minority.

I am getting the idea that too many Jews won't be happy until they pull off their own version of the Spanish Inquisition, forcing Christians to either deny their faith and convert to agnosticism or suffer the consequences.

This is what O'Reilly's war blabberings about Christmas mean, you know. Not secularism at all. Not many things could get me angrier right before Christmas, the celebration of new beginnings and the return of light (heh!), than plain old bigotry.

Come on, wingnuts, get a life. There are people killed in Iraq today, there will be people killed in Iraq tomorrow and for many Christmases to come if you get your way. Nobody is killing you if you wish someone Merry Christmas. Nobody is forcing you to shop at Macy's, you know, and nobody is going to take you seriously when you imply that the Jews are controlling this country. Look who is in charge of everything. It's you, my dear radical right-wingers, whatever your religion might happen to be. And however hard you may try you are not victims. Except perhaps of your own stupidity.

The Hubris of Humanities

Kristof has an interesting column in the New York Times (sadly, behind a paywall). He argues that the Americans are ignorant when it comes to science:

The best argument against "intelligent design" has always been humanity itself. At a time when only 40 percent of Americans believe in evolution, and only 13 percent know what a molecule is, we're an argument at best for "mediocre design."

But put aside the evolution debate for a moment. It's only a symptom of something much deeper and more serious: a profound illiteracy about science and math as a whole.

One-fifth of Americans still believe that the Sun goes around the Earth, instead of the other way around. And only about half know that humans did not live at the same time as dinosaurs.

The problem isn't just inadequate science (and math) teaching in the schools, however. A larger problem is the arrogance of the liberal arts, the cultural snootiness of, of ... well, of people like me - and probably you.

I kept nodding my head as I read until I came to the point where Kristof turns his scorn towards the liberal arts and the snootiness of those who are trained in them. That's where he lost me, for two reasons: first, I'm well educated in mathematics, very well actually, and I'm still extremely snooty, and second, the people who believe that Adam rode his dinosaur while he went to Bible Study are not trained in humanities, either. Kristof is erecting a false correspondence between the American science ignorance and the knowledge of T.S. Eliot's verses, probably so that he can whip the latte-sipping elites, too, but it really detracts from his message. In reality, the science ignorance is a problem that begins in high school. The hubris of the humanities (Kristof's term) touches a miniscule percentage of American university students.

It is true that many decades ago a university education may well have stocked the student's head with quotations from the classics and nothing else, but this time is long gone. What is more likely today is that a student leaves equipped with a degree and a head that contains nothing but platitudes about how to do business (including formulas). I wouldn't call such an education a liberal arts one.

It's a good idea to study science, of course, but there is no reason to pretend that students must choose between humanities and science. Both are important. Consider this example that Kristof uses in his article:

In this century, one of the most complex choices we will make will be what tinkering to allow with human genes, to "improve" the human species. How can our leaders decide that issue if they barely know what DNA is?

True, but does knowledge about the DNA suffice? Surely a more important field of study for a future leader would be ethics, and studying ethics is part of the liberal arts curriculum. Though of course it would be nice if the future leaders could first be persuaded to believe that the Earth is older than a few thousand years...

Ford

The carmaker. It doesn't have the most liberal of histories:

In the 1921 screed "The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem," automaker and notorious anti-Semite Henry Ford observed that "most people had a hard time finding Christmas cards that indicated in any way that Christmas commemorated Someone's Birth." He noted menacingly, "Now, all this begins with the designers of the cards."

Interesting, isn't it, when you consider the O'Reilly argument that Christmas is under attack now, too? And given this little news item about Ford today:

This is from WardsAuto.com, the publication that broke the Ford story last week, and it's owned by Primedia, it's a real industry publication:

Ford Motor Co.'s decision to cease advertising in gay publications for its Jaguar and Land Rover luxury brands is part of a truce between the auto maker and the American Family Assn. (AFA) to avert a threatened boycott by the right-wing Christian conservative group, Ward‚s learns....

As part of the latest agreement hammered out Nov. 29, sources confirm Volvo Cars will continue to advertise in the publications but will use generic ads not tailored to the gay community.

In addition, Ford has agreed not to sponsor any future gay and lesbian events but will continue to maintain its employee policies, such as same-sex partner benefits.

I'm not sure what to say. But Ford has certainly made it easier for me to decide on my next car purchase...

From Echidne's Mailbag

Yesterday was the sixteenth anniversary of the Montreal Massacre. This is a touching post on it.

Emily's List has announced its support for the following Democratic candidates:

· Francine Busby for California's 50th District

· Peggy Lamm for Colorado's 7th District

· Paula Hollinger for Maryland's 3rd District

· Patricia Madrid for New Mexico's 1st District

· Nancy Nusbaum for Wisconsin's 8th District

And the question of whether men should have a choice over a woman's pregnancy is discussed here, as in many other places in the blogosphere. This debate is another example of what happens to the women's bodies when we redefine the point at which a human being is born: they become something everybody wants to control.

Harold Pinter On Politics

This year's Nobel Prize winner in literature, Harold Pinter, has some tough words to say about both the United States and the United Kingdom:

On Wednesday his lecture, entitled Art, Truth and Politics, studied the importance of truth in art before decrying its perceived absence in politics.

He said politicians feel it is "essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives".

Pinter said the US justification for invading Iraq - that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction - "was not true".

"The truth is something entirely different," Pinter added. "The truth is to do with how the United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody it."

I agree with Pinter about the politicians' desire to have us live in ignorance, and most people indeed live in almost total ignorance of the world events and their hidden underpinnings. Maybe there is no other way of enduring it all, but we probably would have a better society if more people had the time and energy to be informed and active. Maybe.

American Diplomacy

Listen to this:

The United States snubbed a call by host Canada on Tuesday for 189-nation climate talks in Montreal to launch a two-year search for new ways to fight global warming.

"The United States is opposed to any such discussions," the U.S. delegation at the Nov. 28-Dec. 9 talks said in a statement, reiterating remarks by chief negotiator Harlan Watson earlier in the week.

Can you see why we are not exactly loved abroad? If the Bush administration insists on acting like the bully of the class, well, the other countries are going to react like you would towards the bully.

The evidence on global warming is pretty good. Even my gardening diaries show a change over the last five years. But I guess this administration thinks that Rapture will arrive before the earth becomes uninhabitable. Grrr.

The Real Hot 100

This is today's alert from feministing.com:



Know a younger woman that's breaking barriers, fighting stereotypes, and making a difference in their community or the nation? Nominate her today for the REAL hot 100*!

What is the REAL hot 100?

We're tired of the media telling young women how to be "hot"! The
REAL hot 100 shows that young women are "hot" for reasons beyond their
ability to pose provocatively in a magazine. REALLY hot women are
smart. REALLY hot women work for change. REALLY hot women aren't
afraid to speak their minds. And while some REALLY hot women might
look awesome in a bikini, they know that's not all they have to offer.

The REAL hot 100 will compile a list of young women who are REALLY
hot, and publish it, in magazine format, in June 2006. Anyone can
nominate a young woman who is REALLY hot, and the REAL hot 100
selection committee will choose 100 women that best represent the
intelligence, drive and diversity of young women in the U.S.

By nominating a REALLY hot woman, not only will you help battle the
popular notion that all young women have to offer is their ability to
appeal to men, but you are also helping highlight the important--but
often overlooked--work young women are doing are doing for their
communities and the nation as a whole.

Visit www.therealhot100.org today and nominate a REALLY hot woman you know!

*The Real hot 100 is sponsored by Girls in Government,
Feministing.com, and the Younger Women's Task Force. Want to be a
REAL hot 100 supporter? Visit our website or email
info@therealhot100.org.

Blog Stuff

Housecleaning before Christmas! I have gone through my blogroll and added some new blogs. Let me know if your blog should be there and is not, or if you want your blog taken off the roll. Right now I have mixed blogs and other types of sites but one day I may create separate categories. If I feel especially energetic or something. Not likely to happen.

You should also notice my excellent advertisers on the right, especially right before Christmas and other holidays, to remain unnamed. You might have to buy a gift to your wingnut relative and the firms on the right have many good ideas for that. See how commercial I have fallen!

The Christmas gift for this blog is broadband. Which you, my dear readers (or the choicest among you), have paid for. I just did my accounts for my blogging enterprise and I am only seven dollars in the red! Next year will probably be the year when I break into Big Time (not to be confused with Dick Cheney), and then you can tell your grandchildren that you were present when that happened.

Actually, the Big Time is right now, today, as is all of our lives. So carpe diem.

The Girl Reporter on Religion

That would be me, a sort of divine version of Nancy Drew, and you will get the benefits of this transformation.

First, the Catholic church is telling God that some changes will now be made to limbo, the place where unbaptized babies go to slumber:

According to Italian media reports on Tuesday, an international theological commission will advise Pope Benedict to eliminate the teaching about limbo from the Catholic catechism.

The Catholic Church teaches that babies who die before they can be baptized go to limbo, whose name comes from the Latin for "border" or "edge," because they deserve neither heaven nor hell.

Last October, seven months before he died, Pope John Paul asked the commission to come up with "a more coherent and enlightened way" of describing the fate of such innocents.

Nancy Drew has trouble with this. Either there is a limbo and God arranged it to exist or there is no such thing, and the church has been telling stories about it all these centuries. If there is one, how can the church find "a more coherent and enlightened way" of describing it? And if there isn't one, why all the lying?

This is linked to the questions Nancy Drew has about how saints are created. It seems to her that it's mortals on earth who decide on sainthood and that seems wrong. Shouldn't it be God who does the sorting of the sheep and the goats? And why is it only celibate men who decide on the quality of limbo and on what makes people saints?

I guess that is what faith means? Religions have done a lot of good but I (Nancy) really think that believers should make a distinction between gods and their followers.

Some of these followers don't actually believe in any divinities at all. They just cynically exploit religions to cause people to rise up and vote for them or even to rise up and kill for them. The first version of this is evident in the United States. As James Wolcott wrote recently:

"'A year ago, I asked Kristol after a lecture whether he believed in God or not. He got a twinkle in his eye and responded, "I don't believe in God, I have faith in God." Well, faith, as it says in Hebrews 11:1, "is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." But at the recent AEI lecture, journalist Ben Wattenberg asked him the same thing. Kristol responded that "that is a stupid question," and crisply restated his belief that religion is essential for maintaining social discipline. A much younger (and perhaps less circumspect) Kristol asserted in a 1949 essay that in order to prevent the social disarray that would occur if ordinary people lost their religious faith, "it would indeed become the duty of the wise publicly to defend and support religion."'

"Here we have a guy who plainly doesn't believe in God, but who thinks that well-padded intellectual elitists like himself ought to evade the issue in public for fear of demoralizing the proles and perhaps jeopardizing some padding thereby. I can't think of anything nice to say about that; and in fact, the only things I CAN think of to say would not be suitable for a family website...

Straussian stuff. And how exactly does religion work as a social discipline? Rorschach links to this piece of news about it all:

A professor whose planned course on creationism and intelligent design was canceled after he sent e-mails deriding Christian conservatives was hospitalized Monday after what appeared to be a roadside beating.

University of Kansas religious studies professor Paul Mirecki said that the two men who beat him made references to the class that was to be offered for the first time this spring.

Originally called "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies," the course was canceled last week at Mirecki's request.

The class was added after the Kansas State Board of Education decided to include more criticism of evolution in science standards for elementary and secondary students.

"I didn't know them," Mirecki said of his assailants, "but I'm sure they knew me."

One recent e-mail from Mirecki to members of a student organization referred to religious conservatives as "fundies," and said a course describing intelligent design as mythology would be a "nice slap in their big fat face." Mirecki has apologized for those comments.

Lt. Kari Wempe, a spokeswoman for the Douglas County Sheriff's Department, said a deputy was dispatched to Lawrence Memorial Hospital after receiving a call around 7 a.m. regarding a battery.

She said Mirecki reported he was attacked around 6:40 a.m. in rural Douglas County south of Lawrence. Mirecki told the Lawrence Journal-World that he was driving to breakfast when he noticed the men tailgating him in a pickup truck.

"I just pulled over hoping they would pass, and then they pulled up real close behind," he said. "They got out, and I made the mistake of getting out."

He said the men beat him on the head, shoulders and back with their fists, and possibly a metal object.

Wempe said Mirecki drove himself to the hospital after the attack.

This is what religion does in the little puddles of Kansas. What it does in the much larger waves of Iraq does not bear thinking about.

Today's Action Alert

Amnesty International USA and the Moving Ideas Network are hosting a webchat about women’s rights in Guatemala. Entitled Ending Violence Against Women in Guatemala, the chat will focus on the brutal killings of Guatemalan women and girls that have claimed more than 1,188 lives. People can submit questions in advance that will be answered by experts on this issue on Wednesday, December 7 from 1 – 2 PM EST.

If you are interested in participating, go to Moving Ideas for more information.

You Are Either For Us Or...

That is the shorter summary of Condoleezza Rice's message to the Europeans on the questions of rendition and the possible use of European countries as places to hide various terrorist suspects. She reminded those arrogant Old Europeans that whatever we are doing is saving their hides, too! Well, not in Madrid and not in London, but in principle.

But she didn't deny the existence of U.S. interrogation centers in Europe:

In her remarks, the Bush Administration's official response to the reports of a network of secret detention centers, Ms. Rice repeatedly emphasized that the United States does not countenance the torture of terrorism suspects, at the hands of either American or foreign captors.

She offered her remarks to reporters early this morning, in a departure lounge at Andrews Air Force Base, just before setting off for a trip to Europe, where she was certain to be asked about the growing controversy over the secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons believed to be located in at least eight European nations. Her statement is also to serve as the basis for the government's response to an official inquiry from the European Union over the secret prisons.

Noting that half-a-dozen international investigations are underway, Ms. Rice did not explicitly confirm the existence of the detentions center. But that was implicit in her remarks.

"We must bring terrorists to justice wherever possible," she said. "But there have been many cases where the local government cannot detain or prosecute a suspect, and traditional extradition is not a good option."

"In those cases," she added, "the local government can make the sovereign choice to cooperate in the transfer of a suspect to a third country, which is known as a rendition.

"Sometimes, these efforts are misunderstood," she said.

News reports starting early last month said the Central Intelligence Agency began holding dozens of terror suspects in secret prisons in as many as eight European nations shortly after Sept. 11. The Administration has not confirmed the reports but has repeatedly maintained that it is abiding by American law and international agreements. Officials have also repeatedly said that the United States and the European states share a common concern about terrorism.

I want to hear a lot more about "the efforts being misunderstood", a lot more. Like in what way are we misunderstanding them, exactly? Is it that the European interrogation centers were just chosen because they had excellent food and beer?

The U.S. administration doesn't understand the Europeans at all, which is not very surprising as this administration has shown itself incapable of understanding anyone who isn't a religious wingnut or a wealthy corporation. I think that someone should tell Rice about this:

An unnamed European diplomat who had contact with US officials over the handling of the scandals told Reuters yesterday: 'It's very clear they want European governments to stop pushing on this... They were stuck on the defensive for weeks, but suddenly the line has toughened up incredibly.'

Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative MP who will be chairing a Commons committee of MPs along with Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, has said Rice needs to make a clear statement. She 'does not seem to realise that for a large section of Washington and European opinion, the Bush administration is in a shrinking minority of people that has not grasped that lowering our standards [on human rights] makes us less, not more, secure'.

That's it, in a nutshell.

Flip-Flopping vs. Bull-Headed Stupidity

The manner in which the U.S. media describes the Democratic and Republican ideas about how to get out of Iraq could be summarized as done in my heading for this post, but only because I feel very generous today. In reality, the media contrasts Democratic disarray and flip-floppery and internal fights with the clear plan of Republicans (which happens to be a really stupid one, too). The neutrality of the media requires bashing of the Democrats:

It didn't take long for the Republicans to pounce. "Nancy Pelosi's flip-flop on troop withdrawal further demonstrates the deep division and chronic indecision that exist within the Democrat Party on the war on terror," New York Rep. Tom Reynolds, head of the House Republican Campaign Committee, told Reuters earlier this week. The Washington Times says Republican leaders are "delighted" by the "chaos" among Democrats. When the Democrat running against Tom DeLay in 2006 finds himself forced to say whether he supports the "Pelosi-Murtha" plan for Iraq, it's easy to see why the GOP might be pleased.

The Democratic Leadership Council's Marshall Wittmann tells the Post that the Democrats' response on Iraq -- and, in particular, Pelosi's public flip-flop -- plays right into the hands of Republicans who need to convince the public that the opposition still can't be trusted on matters of national security. "If Karl Rove was writing the timing of this, he wouldn't have written it any differently, with the president of the United States expressing resolve and the Democratic leader offering surrender," Wittmann said. "For Republicans, this is manna from heaven."

It is true that some Democrats are in deep shit because they voted for the war initially and now want to be publicly opposed to it. But we all know what lay behind the yes-vote. At the time of that vote a nay-vote was seen as political suicide. We were all firmly behind George Bush then, weren't we? The whole country wore little wingnut-masks and waved little American flags, and every single politician knew that voting against the war would probably be identical to retiring from politics. Yes, this was contemptible but such are human beings.

I prefer confusion and flip-floppery to a plan which just maps the shortest road to hell for more and more people. And no, the two parties are not in the wrong by an equal amount.

Sunday Hank Blogging (and Henrietta, too)

Hank is doing very well. Her main tumor can't be felt anymore and the other is about one tenth of its original size. She is back to being an Everready Energy Bunny most days and making my life as difficult as usual. Yesterday she jumped down from a six foot tall wall and then Henrietta wrestled her into submission. Which means that even Henrietta thinks she is well enough to be beaten. So we are all happy.

But the oncologist has warned us that Hank still probably only has twelve months to go, though she also pointed out a couple of total miracle recoveries in the same situation. Every day is good, though, and none of us knows when the Last Mailcarrier knocks.