Andy's Intestinal Bloggage

Five and a half months...

2006-04-03T20:38:00.000-05:00

... is a long time to go without clearing one's intestinal bloggage.

That's all I got though. It's like grunting and pushing and moaning and sweating and swearing that you just crapped an elephant, but when you turn around there's nothing more than a miniature chihuahua. One of the really tiny ones.

Such is life.

2,000

2005-10-26T12:55:00.000-05:00

I approached the milestone of 2,000 dead American soldiers in the Iraq invasion/occupation with the knowledge that my quotes about it would be in an article in the Tech paper, the Daily Toreador. I gave the interview a couple weeks ago, I think. The article is pasted below. I sound like rather an ass in my comments about the political implications of the unpopularity of the war. I didn't know there would be such an emphasis on it, and I am not so great with words and things. I talk a lot about the lies surrounding the war and told Ms. Gepford about the Downing Street Memo, in hopes that she would actually go find out what it was and that, yes, the Bush administration was lying about what they knew about WMDs to lead us into war. But that would have made too much sense. Anyway, here it is, but first, my favorite quote from the Rude Pundit:

For if they place any significance on the number 2000, they will have to acknowlege that corpses have meaning, and if you stack 2000 of them up, it still does not equal the height of the pile of bullshit that took us into the war.

Okay,the article:

U.S. military deaths mark unwanted milestone as casualties in Operation Iraqi Freedom reach 2000

By Anne Gepford/Senior Staff Writer

October 26, 2005

The U.S. troop death toll in Iraq today hit 2,000 since the conflict began in March 2003, according to The Associated Press.

Since President George W. Bush declared major combat operations in Iraq ended May 1, 2003, 1,860 members of the U.S. military have died. Of the total casualties, 1,706 of those as a result of hostile action, according to The AP count. More than 15,000 U.S. troops have been wounded since the war began.

With the U.S. troop death toll in Iraq increasing, the occupation of Iraq has split the nation, but the line between opposition and support does not parallel political party lines.

While politics can factor into a person's view toward the war, it is not the only underlying issue.

Senior advertising major Katie Thompson said her boyfriend of four months, is stationed in Tallil, Iraq, and she is worried for his safety. Thompson, from Paint Creek, said she deals with the situation in a different way than other people with friends and family in the armed forces.

"I try to stay away from the news whenever they're talking about Iraq," she said. "I worry too much. If I read more about it, I get caught up in it. I know his mom does the same thing."

Thompson said her boyfriend is expected to return in December, and it is hard not to be anxious.

"There's still a lot of resistance in the country that it's going to be a while before they're all unified," she said. "It'll be awhile before they're able to be on their own."

Thompson said the continuous attacks in Iraq show the instability of the country. She said she is ambivalent about the war itself.

"I totally support the soldiers that are doing this for their country, but I'm not totally sure how I feel about the whole thing in general," she said.

While Thompson remains unsure about her overall views, other Texas Tech students voice strong positions.

Andy Reay, a junior chemical engineering major from Albuquerque, N.M., said he does not support the war in Iraq.

"I think Iraq is the biggest travesty and lie that has been perpetrated on American people in a while," he said. "The dishonesty that this whole thing is based on is unbelievable. It makes me mad."

While Reay disagrees with the war in Iraq, Matt Fowler, a junior mechanical engineering major from Keller, said he believes it is more disgraceful that people are using the war as a political tool.

"Each death in the military is a tragedy," he said. "The people they've left back home have made sacrifices, but no sacrifice is greater than the one they have made. We should respect that and honor them and remember them."

Fowler said people in Iraq have more rights now than they ever did while under Saddam Hussein's rule.

"What we are accomplishing is positive," he said. "It pales in comparison with what happened under Saddam's rule."

Reay said there is not much anybody can do right now, as U.S. troops are somewhat committed in Iraq.

"Taking away the troops may be an even bigger sin for the Iraqi people," he said. "I don't necessarily think I know the right answer."

Reay attended the anti-war protest in August in Crawford and said the different perspectives among protesters were interesting, including the one that war is not justifiable ever.

"I don't necessarily share that view," he said. "There is such a thing as justified war. The main message of that protest was 'Bring the troops home now.'"

Reay said others have compared this war to the Vietnam War, but the number of deaths is not as high, even though the numbers are starting to increase after two and a half years.

"It's 2,000 too many for dishonest purposes. I'm glad there haven't been more, and I don't think there should be any more," he said. "You can't bring democracy to another part of the world when it's rooted in something that's untruthful."

Fowler also said he would not compare the numbers from this war to another.

"I think that's the big point. You don't have all the massive casualty figures," he said. "America has seen wars that we've lost thousands and thousands and thousands of people a day."

Reay said that despite the smaller numbers, too many people have died. He said there is total corruption in Washington, D.C., and the Republican Party will have trouble taking control in the 2006 and 2008 elections, partially because of the conflict in Iraq.

"It's the perfect opportunity, I would say, for the Democrats to get back in power," Reay said.

While the Democratic Party may be looking to gain political power, Fowler said he does not believe it will happen in upcoming elections because of what some of the main issues could be during the campaigns.

"The Republican Party as a group has proven in the past that they are strong on national security," he said. "If you're going to make an election on national security, the Republican Party is going to win."

While the elections and candidates are not campaigning yet, Reay said he is not sure whether the Democratic Party will gain any power in upcoming elections.

"I don't have enough faith in the Democratic Party that they'll actually seize any opportunity," he said.

In a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Tuesday, 55 percent of Americans said they would vote for a Democratic candidate over Bush if an election were held this year. According to the poll, 39 percent of people said they would vote for Bush in the hypothetical election.

Also questioned was Bush's approval, which 42 percent of people interviewed said they approved of the way Bush is handling his job, while 55 percent disapproved.

November 2004 was the deadliest month for the war, with 173 U.S. troops dying. Other months with at least 100 deaths include January 2005 and April 2004.

The safest month was February 2004, when 20 U.S. troops were killed.

New life, new griping

2005-10-17T00:34:00.000-05:00

So it's been awhile. I didn't post at all in September. In case you haven't noticed, I post when I am angry about something. I haven't been angry in awhile. But, since I am angry and therefore posting again, I may as well take the opportunity to catch you up on things.

First and foremost, I have ceased claiming to be a Christian. I had had a personal faith in whom I believed to be God and Jesus since I was about 12, but that personal faith gradually was replaced by irrepressible doubt, to the point that I did not honestly believe in the factuality of the "necessities" of Christian faith any longer. So continuing to claim to have faith became really only about convenience and protecting my personal relationships; that was a dishonest life, which I have left behind.

Since then, interestingly enough, I have heard some of the most refreshing, intriguing takes on Christianity that I have ever heard. There is a whole world of "liberal theology" that I suppose I was actively avoiding when I was a Christian that I have just now heard of, and it is fascinating. First off, I have been reading a book called Laughing Jesus: Religious Lies and Gnostic Wisdom for...get this...Sunday school class. Yep. But I guess that will tell you a little about the church I go to here in Lubbock. Basically the book says the literal stories of all major religions (it focuses on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) are garbage, completely unsupported by reliable historical evidence. I had never before considered the idea that Jesus was not even a real person; I always assumed there must be some historical evidence for the stories the Gospels told. Not the case, it seems. So yes, it was fascinating to read that, and I still have yet to read the second half of the book that relates how the teachings of those religions can be good and helpful to achieve spiritual awakening and a better world. I look forward to it, though.

I have also enjoyed the fascinating, novel (to me at least) views a new friend who came to believe in Jesus, not because of some fear of going to hell, but because of the call of Jesus' words (whether he was a real person or not) about social justice, peace, common humanity, and love in her life. I must say, those words still speak to me deeply, as they should to all people of conscience.

So yeah, that's what is going on with me. I am not an atheist. I do not believe there is no God. I just am not convinced there is. That is not enough fuel for a personal, depending, trusting relationship with God that the Bible outlines, so I gave up on it. I am now in a transitional period. I will never return to the brand of Christianity I once embraced; that is, Literalist (except for Genesis; I never bought that). But I can't deny the fascination these new experiences of Christianity and philosophy have caused.

But anyway, I mentioned I was angry. I'll tell you why in a minute. When I first admitted the failure of my faith and stopped claiming to be Christian, I did not think it was caused by my disgust with the behavior of "Christians" in this country; behavior that I have basically complained about on this blog incessantly for a year and a half now. For the most part, it really was just a lack of faith on my part. But now, in the last couple months, that I have seen the less morally and philosophically repugnant sides of Christianity more closely than I had before, I'm gaining a better perspective on how I could lose faith in a God whose representatives (whether they were right or not, which I believed the were not) preached a religion of moral and intellectual hegemony, chauvinism, and self-righteousness in the face of human suffering.

FOR EXAMPLE

Okay, regarding cervical cancer and human papillomavirus (HPV), here is some background info:

The magnitude of the association between HPV and cervical squamous cell carcinoma is higher than that for the association between smoking and lung cancer.

Okay.

More frequently known as HPV, it is thought to be the most common sexually transmitted disease, infecting as much as thirteen percent of the world's population, which equates with about 630 million infected people.

Okay.

Gardasil, made by Merck & Co., has been found to be 100 percent effective against HPV and is expected to be available as soon as next year. According to a New York Times article, Gardasil "works by making people immune to two types of a sexually transmitted virus that causes most cases of the disease. It is the first successful vaccine ever developed specifically to prevent cancer."

Okay.

Pia de Solenni, director of life and women's issues for the conservative Family Research Council, states: "If a 10- or 12-year-old is given a vaccine to protect against sexually transmitted disease, then it's implied they'd be engaging in risky sexual behavior." Robert Knight, director of the culture and family institute for the conservative Concerned Women for America, says that "It enters into the area of parental rights and individual freedom."

And Bridget Maher, an analyst at the conservative Family Research Council, states that "The best way to prevent HPV is through abstinence...I see potential harm in giving this vaccine to young women." In another interview, Maher opines that "Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex."

Does this need commentary? Well I'm out of practice on that, for sure. Maybe next time. But to the mass of people in this country who consider it their right - nay, religious duty - to thrust their sexual mores down the unwilling throat of society at the expense of human lives, let me just say I think I'll stick with Jesus being fictional, if your version of him is reality.

It's right outside your door

2005-08-25T17:15:00.000-05:00

Back at school. The Crawford/Camp Casey event was amazing; the most relevant, meaningful event for me, I think, since my first show with Hit by a Bus, which, if you know me, was a big deal. Anyway, I hope to have some pics soon. I have to take a couple more to finish off the film, as I have not yet entered the digital age.

For those unfortunate enough not to have gone to Camp Casey yet, you still have a few days. In case you can't make it, I'll share a few of my observations about it. First off, I expected it to be more protest-like, in the sense of people carrying signs and chanting and stuff, but it wasn't at all. It was like being at a summer camp. A summer camp of dissent. In retrospect, I realize people wouldn't be able to carry signs and chant for a month straight.

Anyway, it is a really cool collaborative effort to run the camp, with food and cleaning up and directing traffic and security at night and planning events and making signs, etc., and everybody volunteers for something. That kind of business takes up most of the day, and they have events in the evening, and Joan Baez was there performing both nights I was there. She is really amazing; her show was pretty much storytelling mixed in with various songs (her own and other folk/traditional songs), and it was just superb; well paced and relevant throughout.

The most inspiring part of Camp Casey and the reason I am still gushing about it is the fact that everybody is there for a reason. You have to be, as the conditions (heat, bugs, hard to find, bad parking, etc.) are pretty unpleasant. Everybody has a reason, and they are all different, but they all converge on fighting the injustice of the immoral and illegal war in Iraq. I imagine it's like the excitement of being at a sports game (I only imagine because I've never really been very excited about being at a sports game), only the team you're cheering is literally right versus wrong, life versus death, truth versus lies. And the outcome of the game could determine whether many more people will get to live or die. There is a palpable feeling that Camp Casey and Cindy Sheehan's protest represent a significant moment in our history, when the lies surrounding the war begin tumbling down, and everybody is excited to be a part of it.

As I mentioned, different people have different motivations for being there. There were veterans and their familes, general peace activists/pacifists, people calling for the end of the war now (which is not necessarily me) and the group into which I fit: people calling for personal and political accountability for the president. My parents asked me before I left, "You don't think he can actually come out and talk to her now, do you?" I said of course not, but the longer he doesn't (so long as the protest is still in the media), the worse it looks for him, and the more chance of electoral defeat for the Republicans and supporters of the Iraq debacle in general. He deserves to be put into an impossible political position at least as much as, say, 1874 American soldiers deserved to die in a war based on deception. I should mention, in case you don't know it, that that is why I chose that Rage lyric (from which I regularly draw inspiration and/or solace) for the post's title: "We've found your weakness / And it's right outside your door." George Bush's weakness is the truth, and it's right outside his door. Or at least within a couple miles of it.

Another significant facet of the Crawford event is that "Support the Troops" is essentially the underlying theme. There are two locations filled with crosses for dead soldiers, pictures everwhere, a giant mural of Casey Sheehan, and the occasional candlelight vigil for the soldiers. We went to Waco yesterday and had an actual protest (chanting, signs, marching, etc.) over the upcoming closing of the VA hospital there, which also has a leading psychiatric program and the only (maybe?) program for blind vets. As far as I could tell there was nobody there joining in with us from the pro-war counter-protest (which, by the way, had about 5 to 8 people at the most when I drove by). So, even though people are beginning to realize it anyway, supporting the troops does not necessarily equal supporting the war, and certainly not vice versa.

Well, anyway, that's all I have to say about that, for now. If you get a chance, do your civic duty and go to Crawford. Or else go to Washington on September 24 when AccountabilityFest 2005 (not the real name) continues, right outside the president's door.

Now Testify.

Crawford On My Mind

2005-08-20T19:12:00.000-05:00

I'm about to pack up the computer because I am heading back to school. But I am going early because I will be heading to the Camp Casey for Monday through Wednesday. I hope to bring back some pics.

I love these things

2005-08-17T14:12:00.000-05:00

Daily Kos has a collection of quotes from Republicans regarding U.S. involvement in Bosnia during the Clinton administration. Now, I know very little about that, as I was not paying much attention at the time (I was in elementary school), but the rich, chocolatey irony of all these statements in light of the present is simply delicious. Mmm...

Anyway, for your enjoyment, and to save you the trouble of clicking through, here is the Kos quotefest reproduced in its entirety:

Quotes from when Clinton committed troops to Bosnia:

"You can support the troops but not the president."
--Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years."
--Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"
--Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99

"[The] President . . . is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."
--Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)

"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy."
--Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy."
--Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of George W Bush

"I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning . . I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area."
--Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today"
--Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is."
--Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)

Funny thing is, we won that war without a single killed in action.

To the dedicated bloggers out there with the patience and skill to really dig through everything and collect all these Golden Tickets of Right Wing Hypocrisy (and this, which I loved even more) into one source, you deserve a trip to the chocolate factory...or something.

The patriotic stand against the Iraq war

2005-07-26T01:11:00.000-05:00

I can't recall reading any better summary than this of why the idea that opposing the war is unpatriotic is the stupidest crap imaginable. Please take the time to read it.

Also...I don't know enough about the potential Democratic candidates for president in 2008 (although seriously, I don't feel too bad about it; that's a long, painful ways away), but the DLC types are a poison for the party. The idea that we'll only win by becoming more like the Republicans is garbage; if it were true, then Democrats would have done better in the last election. I hate to be so dramatic, but for me supporting the war in Iraq will be a deal-breaker for any candidate.

By "supporting the war in Iraq" I do not mean:

- Supporting the troops
- Calling for U.S. troops to stay in Iraq until it is stable enough to take care of itself
- Having voted for the 2002 authorization for war (necessarily)

All those are just fine. What I mean is I will not support any candidate who:

- Claims that the Iraq war began as a valid part of the "War on Terrorism" or a valid response to September 11
- Claims that the invasion of Iraq was justified
- Does anything less than call the Bush administration out for lying to the American public about the reasons for the invasion

Again, I don't know where all of those Democrats who are rumored to run stand in regard to these criteria. But I will find out and weed them out accordingly. Why? Because good Americans and good Iraqis are dying because of the liars who orchestrated this fiasco; any Democrat on their side betrays both country and party. Also because any Democrat who does not meet these criteria will lose the race anyway. Americans are finally taking note of the lies about the war and the incompetency and malignance of those who are running it. Following this DLC nonsense is the quickest path toward another electoral defeat.

(more here)

UPDATE: And here:

"What Democrats need to start doing is grabbing that belt, pulling it out of their hands and saying, "Not anymore, Junior. Why don't you explain why you blew a spy's cover? Why don't you explain where all the money our soldiers need went? Why don't you explain why you tortured innocent people? Why don't you explain where Osama bin Laden is? Where is he? Where the bloody hell is he and why isn't he in jail right now watching his gallows being built outside his tiny little window? Huh? Huh? Got an answer for that, you overblown jingoistic piece of useless? Huh?

"What Democrats need to start doing is realizing that there's nothing wrong with them, except that they don't say, quite loudly enough to be heard over the noise machine, what's wrong with their opposition."

Life

2005-07-16T10:35:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure why I'm inspired to write this now, except that I heard something about it on Majority Report... But I am getting kind of tired of "pro-lifers."

I put the term in quotes because I consider myself pro-life, but I think the term has been betrayed (kind of like conservatives who say they are real liberals, only more honestly). So what is "pro-life" (as opposed to genuinely pro-life, sans quotes) these days? Well, of course in popular usage it means being against abortion...that is, of the opinion that Roe v. Wade was decided incorrectly and abortion should be illegal because it amounts to murder. However, I think we got a more in-depth picture of what "pro-life" really means during the Terry Schiavo case. As disgusting as it was to see the spectacle and rallying cry politicians and activists made of her death, it gave us a little more perspective. "Pro-lifers" (and please tell me if you doubt these people are also against legal abortion) at least appear to be internally consistent: human life is an absolute and must be preserved. Whether it's a blastocyst or a brain-dead woman, the absolute of life is important enough that the government should have domain over the medical decisions that could possibly end these lives.

Anyone is, of course, entitled to hold that view. And, so far at least, it is an internally consistent view. However, I think the statement, "human life is an absolute and must be preserved" is what makes "pro-lifers" the liars and hypocrites of whom I have grown tired. For example, if human life is an absolute, it is independent of any person's faith or morals; in fact, life is not really even a soul or a mind, but simply a beating heart (look at the Schiavo case, or the bumper sticker, "Abortion stops a beating heart"). So therefore, there is no internally consistent way for one to claim human life is an absolute and, say, support the death penalty under any circumstance. (If you take away the "human life is an absolute" phrase and use some other argument, like fetuses/embryos are "innocent," while murderers are "guilty," then you must argue about the innocence or guilt of this, and that seems a little silly.)

Moving on, I am tired of the "pro-lifers" because they seem to show such little concern for people who are already born. For example, there are over 11 million children living in poverty today in America, the richest nation in the history of the world. More continue to fall into poverty as the income gap between rich and poor widens as the result of right-wing economic policies, instituted by politicians the "pro-lifers" faithfully (and sometimes religiously) support. Yes, these children live in squalor, but most of their hearts are still beating (except for the ones whose families couldn't afford necessary health care), so "pro-life" is still internally consistent. Bugger.

Okay then, how about war? 800 civilians die violently every month (certainly including children and probably even...pregnant women!) as the result of the American invasion of Iraq, masterminded by the same politician-heroes of the "pro-life" movement. Their hearts are not beating anymore. What happened to human life being an absolute?

And finally, I am tired of "pro-lifers" because they do not help reduce abortions. I don't like abortions, and I think people shouldn't have them. That's hard for me to say, because the idea of telling people how they can live their lives disgusts me. But as I see it, even a non-viable group of cells in a blastocyst has the potential of becoming a real, living person if it has the chance to be born. To take that potential away is very similar to violating another person's right to life, even if that person is not really a person yet. So yeah, call me pro-life, but drop the quotes, because under our "pro-life" Republican president and the "pro-life" Republican-dominated congress, abortion has increased, while it has previously been decreasing under pro-choice Clinton. Read the article, and you'll find that not only do the right-wing economic policies harm born people, they lead to more abortions.

[Note: According to factcheck.org, the claim is not correct. The number of abortions has continued to decrease in recent years, though not as quickly as before. I stand corrected, although I would guess the number of people being murdered in Iraq more than compensates for the decreased abortions in America.]

There are people who are genuinely pro-life (including myself) by the above standards, and for them I remove the quotes. People who know the death penalty is wrong, that war is wrong when it is not completely justified and honest (and may even be wrong then), that greed and poverty are wrong. We may disagree on the best solution for reducing abortions (although one solution would strip the privacy and basic human rights from all women by making all their medical records subject to government oversight and relegating them to second-class status while the other would protect their privacy, discouraging abortion by improving economic conditions and the social safety net and educating people about contraception), but we have the common goal. Those who want to make abortion illegal (a completely valid, though disagreeable position) but do not share those other values of human life are not pro-life. They occupy the morally backward and self-contradictory realm I call "pro-life," and I am tired of them.

Why am I tired of them? Because, as I've been saying, "pro-life" can't possibly be based on a belief about human life because of the inconsistencies. Jim Wallis says they do not have "a consistent ethic of human life." In real life, the view is based on chauvinism, self-righteousness, and a belief that one should be able to control people's lives. Everybody I have ever heard say that, if a woman is pregnant and doesn't want to be, "she shouldn't have had sex," is a "pro-lifer." That kind of thinking is along the same lines that women should stay at home and produce/raise the kids, and in a broader view, it's the same as all that self-righteous crap that makes gay people inferior and, fifty years ago, made black people inferior. "Pro-life" poisons our country and our politics in exactly the same thoughtless way that racism did (and does), and right-wing politicians have learned to capitalize on it, just like they did racism.

Partisan Postscript
Upon what I consider honest analysis of the Bush administration's tenure and what they and the Republicans in congress have accomplished, it is apparent that today's Republican Party is little more than pro-Republican. Their record cannot qualify them as being much of anything else. They are not pro-prosperity, they are not pro-small government, they are not pro-states' rights, they are not pro-fiscal responsibility, they are not pro-family, they are not pro-security, they are not pro-troops, they are not pro-middle class, and while there are many elements in the party that are "pro-life," there is nothing about today's Republican Party that is pro-life.

Fresh Air

2005-06-18T19:24:00.000-05:00

Posts at Andy's Intestinal Bloggage tend to stay at the top of the page for an excessively long time these days...but I can't think of anything more appropriate than this article to hold the top spot for awhile.

Onward, Moderate Christian Soldiers
By JOHN C. DANFORTH
Published: June 17, 2005

St. Louis

IT would be an oversimplification to say that America's culture wars are now between people of faith and nonbelievers. People of faith are not of one mind, whether on specific issues like stem cell research and government intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo, or the more general issue of how religion relates to politics. In recent years, conservative Christians have presented themselves as representing the one authentic Christian perspective on politics. With due respect for our conservative friends, equally devout Christians come to very different conclusions.
It is important for those of us who are sometimes called moderates to make the case that we, too, have strongly held Christian convictions, that we speak from the depths of our beliefs, and that our approach to politics is at least as faithful as that of those who are more conservative. Our difference concerns the extent to which government should, or even can, translate religious beliefs into the laws of the state.
People of faith have the right, and perhaps the obligation, to bring their values to bear in politics. Many conservative Christians approach politics with a certainty that they know God's truth, and that they can advance the kingdom of God through governmental action. So they have developed a political agenda that they believe advances God's kingdom, one that includes efforts to "put God back" into the public square and to pass a constitutional amendment intended to protect marriage from the perceived threat of homosexuality.

Moderate Christians are less certain about when and how our beliefs can be translated into statutory form, not because of a lack of faith in God but because of a healthy acknowledgement of the limitations of human beings. Like conservative Christians, we attend church, read the Bible and say our prayers.

But for us, the only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. Repeatedly in the Gospels, we find that the Love Commandment takes precedence when it conflicts with laws. We struggle to follow that commandment as we face the realities of everyday living, and we do not agree that our responsibility to live as Christians can be codified by legislators.

When, on television, we see a person in a persistent vegetative state, one who will never recover, we believe that allowing the natural and merciful end to her ordeal is more loving than imposing government power to keep her hooked up to a feeding tube.

When we see an opportunity to save our neighbors' lives through stem cell research, we believe that it is our duty to pursue that research, and to oppose legislation that would impede us from doing so.

We think that efforts to haul references of God into the public square, into schools and courthouses, are far more apt to divide Americans than to advance faith.

Following a Lord who reached out in compassion to all human beings, we oppose amending the Constitution in a way that would humiliate homosexuals.

For us, living the Love Commandment may be at odds with efforts to encapsulate Christianity in a political agenda. We strongly support the separation of church and state, both because that principle is essential to holding together a diverse country, and because the policies of the state always fall short of the demands of faith. Aware that even our most passionate ventures into politics are efforts to carry the treasure of religion in the earthen vessel of government, we proceed in a spirit of humility lacking in our conservative colleagues.

In the decade since I left the Senate, American politics has been characterized by two phenomena: the increased activism of the Christian right, especially in the Republican Party, and the collapse of bipartisan collegiality. I do not think it is a stretch to suggest a relationship between the two. To assert that I am on God's side and you are not, that I know God's will and you do not, and that I will use the power of government to advance my understanding of God's kingdom is certain to produce hostility.

By contrast, moderate Christians see ourselves, literally, as moderators. Far from claiming to possess God's truth, we claim only to be imperfect seekers of the truth. We reject the notion that religion should present a series of wedge issues useful at election time for energizing a political base. We believe it is God's work to practice humility, to wear tolerance on our sleeves, to reach out to those with whom we disagree, and to overcome the meanness we see in today's politics.

For us, religion should be inclusive, and it should seek to bridge the differences that separate people. We do not exclude from worship those whose opinions differ from ours. Following a Lord who sat at the table with tax collectors and sinners, we welcome to the Lord's table all who would come. Following a Lord who cited love of God and love of neighbor as encompassing all the commandments, we reject a political agenda that displaces that love. Christians who hold these convictions ought to add their clear voice of moderation to the debate on religion in politics.

John C. Danforth is an Episcopal minister and former Republican senator from Missouri.

While I wouldn't necessarily call myself a moderate, this article belongs next to the AIB Manifesto. I continue to hope that this position of "moderate" Christianity will take hold in America.

Culture of Life

2005-05-24T10:08:00.000-05:00

My blogging is on a potentially-permanent-but-maybe-not downhill slide. But things like this can't be ignored.

"It looks to me as if the best way to convince Bush and his followers to support stem cell research is to propose that we only use arab embryos."

The evidence of deceit (yawn!)

2005-05-06T12:22:00.000-05:00

Not that anyone really cares anymore in America (even I was rather numb when I read it), but there is this memo, see, from eight months before the invasion of Iraq that belies just about everything President Bush told the American public about the motives thereafter. The memo contains the minutes of a meeting with Bush, Tony Blair, and several American and British defense officials. Here are some key passages:

John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

[...]

The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

Again, that's from mid-July 2002. You may recall Mr. Bush telling you on October 16 of that same year, "I have not ordered the use of force. I hope the use of force will not become necessary," and, "If we go into battle," it would be "as a last resort." Anyway, you get the picture. Blair paid some pretty heavy political costs for this memo in Britain, but the press here are too busy suckling from the presidential teat of approval to have pointed it out. You can read more interesting commentary by Joe Conason at Salon, but you have to click through an ad to get in.

How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?

2005-04-25T21:33:00.000-05:00

So, I've barely been blogging at all for a few months now. I think it's mostly because I am just trying to finish with my school (two more weeks!); but I also haven't found anything I really want to write about. Now don't get me wrong...plenty of stuff is still making me mad, sad, and happy. For example, see my previous post for something that made me mad. (Note: it turns out I violated Godwin's Law in the last post. Sorry! I didn't know.) Also, continue to see the news that has developed in the religious right's ongoing crusade against the separation of powers. It will really blow your mind as they try to convince people that "the majority is wrong except when it's right" (via a highly offensive post from the Rude Pundit; consider yourself warned).

Yes, seeing my fellow Christians campaign against democracy in God's name continues to make me mad. It's just not something I can get used to, no matter how much it happens. I was watching the FamilyNet channel, or something, yesterday on TV while various pastors addressed a megachurch congregation about how the "nuclear option" is necessary to save America (I later discovered it was Justice Sunday), and I was literally yelling at the TV, "I AM NOT ONE OF YOU!" I had to say it out loud to remind myself that I don't share in their filth even though we claim the same God.

But anyway...it's emotionally draining to write about stuff that makes me that mad, so I finally found my inspiration to blog today in something a little funnier than looming theocracy.

I've seen a rash of anti-vegetarian shirts recently (a "rash" is roughly 2), and I'm trying to understand the phenomenon. The shirt I saw today read, "How many vegetables had to die for your stupid salad?" Clever indeed. But, whence arises this anti-vegetarianism? How do people come to be anti-vegetarians? It makes me think.

Now, I'm certainly no vegetarian, if for no other reason than that I accept evolution as being the central physical principle by which life exists, and one long-established, evolved phenomenon is predation. Humans evolved as omnivores, and that is reason enough for me to be okay with it. Also, I dislike very many vegetables. But I do think animals should be treated humanely, and we should work to protect endangered species, in order not to disrupt the ecosystem too much and just to be good stewards of the planet for future generations.

So, I'm not a vegetarian, but I can understand why somebody would be one. For many, it's based in the moral conviction that it's wrong to kill animals for food. I have a harder time relating to those who say, "I don't eat meat because it's wrong, and neither should you," since holding opinions about the rightness and wrongness of people's actions that don't violate others' rights is incomprehensible to me, as you know if you know me or have read many of my posts. But then, I can kind of still understand, if somebody works from a different logical basis, that instead of humans having inherent rights by virtue of being human, all animals have those rights by virtue of being animals. I don't share that view (if I did, I would be a vegetarian), but I can understand it.

So, what is the motivation for anti-vegetarianism? I know I talk about it like it is a real thing, even though it is probably little more than the T-shirts and misspelled bumper stickers. But then again, there must be people to wear the shirts and sport the stickers, so maybe there is something to it...I imagine especially here in Texas where folks love their guns, extended-cab trucks, and giant slabs of beef. But anyway, if vegetarianism has this moral impetus for many, I can only assume that anti-vegetarianism must be based on some moral conviction as well. But the only candidate I can think of is the belief that it is wrong for people not to eat meat. But...surely not! People can't honestly believe that others do wrong by abstaining from meat, can they?

Well, I doubt it. So, according to Andy's sage wisdom, what is the significance of the anti-vegetarian shirts? I'm glad you asked! First and foremost, it is a glimpse into the absurdity of our Culture of Judgement. Is it really any more ridiculous to hold an opinion about whether other people should (or even shouldn't) eat meat, than it is to hold an opinion about how people should dress, or how they should speak, or whom they should or shouldn't sleep with? It is all the same, part of the social disease of self-righteousness. I've heard it suggested that this disease flares up because of our prosperity, that if times were tougher, people would be more concerned about feeding their families than about how other people live their lives. That's possible, but how can we fix it? Maybe by taking up some valid moral causes (the motivation: lots of pretty celebrities want you to!).

Another interesting point (well, interesting to me...you're probably not reading this anymore) I gather from the anti-vegetarian shirts has to do with the difference between liberals and conservatives. I must illustrate. Let's say the "vegetarianism is good" message is a liberal cause, while the "homosexuality is bad" message is a conservative cause. Those are not completely accurate generalizations for either side, but both sides definitely have those elements in them. So, based on that, the anti-vegetarian message of "You're in the wrong if you don't eat meat" (even if it is mostly a joke) would be a conservative reaction against that specific liberal message. If liberals had a corollary, then, it would be, "You're in the wrong if you don't practice homosexuality." And therein lies the difference. I have yet to see an anti-straight shirt. Maybe they have them in California or France something.

Judicial activism

2005-04-09T13:27:00.000-05:00

The recent anti-judiciary movement of the Republicans is a really disturbing development. Currently, they are at their "Stop Judicial Activism" conference in Washington, and the conference is playing on C-Span. Right now they are yelling to themselves about how much America is a Christian Nation, but coming up soon they will be talking about what they are actually going to do to "rein in" the judiciary. Now, if there is a second-least accessible/influencible part of government (following the military-industrial complex), it is the judiciary. That is the point. They are there for life terms so they won't be swayed by the political winds. So I certainly foresee that, from among the masses of the religious right, who are told by their leaders in church and government that the judiciary is the problem, the hand of Satan in our Christian Nation, some of them will turn to violence. Of course, they'll find nothing but sympathy from Republicans like Senator John Cornyn (R-TX):

Sen. John Cornyn said yesterday that recent examples of courthouse violence may be linked to public anger over judges who make politically charged decisions without being held accountable.

In a Senate floor speech in which he sharply criticized a recent Supreme Court ruling on the death penalty, Cornyn (R-Tex.) -- a former Texas Supreme Court justice and member of the Judiciary Committee -- said Americans are growing increasingly frustrated by what he describes as activist jurists

[...]

Cornyn, who spoke in a nearly empty chamber, did not specify cases of violence against judges. Two fatal episodes made headlines this year, although authorities said the motives appeared to be personal, not political. In Chicago, a man fatally shot the husband and mother of a federal judge who had ruled against him in a medical malpractice suit. And in Atlanta last month, a man broke away from a deputy and fatally shot four people, including the judge presiding over his rape trial. The bottom line about this crowd is that they do not care about the rule of law. They only support the process if it gives them the results they want. Otherwise, the process and the people who carry it out are "out of control."

The quote:

"I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence."

So the man is excusing domestic terrorists. So what? That's apparently the policy of the Department of Homeland Security, too.

Anyway, so what do the Republican puppetmasters have in mind with incensing their masses with the anti-independent judiciary movement, anyway, when they know how little chance they have of really affecting anything? Well, they are trying to drum up support for their "nuclear option," to take away the filibuster from the Senate for judicial nominees, so the farthest-right, fringe-crazy nominees who were shot down last term can still make it to the bench without the interference of pesky things like pluralism.

I think we can learn a lesson from these actions by Republicans in congress (being the movement to limit judicial power and the "nuclear option"): they are the ones who are out of control and drunk beyond coherence with sweet power. Fortunately, polls have been showing that Americans do not appreciate it when their government gets like this. Tom DeLay's demise is just around the corner, and approval ratings are dropping for the Republicans. So long as they are not able to implement their fascist agenda (look it up: one party rule, corporations controlling government, implemented by appeals to nationalism, xenophobia, and "morality" - certainly more fascist than the Democratic agenda is communist) before the next elections, and so long as the Democratic Party can get to work on pointing out how these people are screwing America, things should start looking up in the next few years.

UPDATE: Even more insight into how crazy these people are.

Priorities

2005-04-03T23:12:00.000-05:00

Man, the world is a scary place, full of misery and suffering. And the future looks pretty bleak.

I am not depressed or going crazy or anything. I've just been reading some ominous things recently, which have really been making me question what my priorities should be. My one single priority is serving God, but I feel my calling in that endeavor is less about being the evangelizing/preaching/converting type and more about making the world a better place. That is why I am a Democrat instead of a Republican; because, even though I know many Republicans who would also like to make the world a better place, I have found that the Republican Party as a whole promotes policies of selfishness and greed, which outside of an Ayn Rand novel do not generally make the world better.

Anyway, these ominous things I've been reading and thinking about kind of fall into two categories. The first is economic. The second...I will write about in another post. Just this morning I read an article from a recent Time magazine about the falling dollar. It didn't really tell me much I hadn't heard before. Pretty much that the American trade deficit, driven by our unflinching consumerism, has been driving the dollar down for about three years. It looks like it will continue to fall, and, depending on what other countries do, could possibly suffer a catastrophic fall that could cause foreign countries and investors to pull away and send us into big-time crisis.

Another portentous bit of reading was Thomas Friedman's piece today on the new era of globalization. It's really long, but interesting. I found this particularly frightening as a college student about to enter the technology-centered workforce in a few years. Somebody in India will be at least as qualified and less expensive than me in a few years when I graduate, and he will be just as able to do my job from India.

These signs indicate a potential fall from economic dominance for America. But if that were the case, should it even matter? If my priority is to make the world a better place, why should I have that job instead of my Indian (or Chinese) counterpart? My interest in getting the better job is purely selfish. Anyway, I'll still get a job somewhere; it may just pay less. Meanwhile, wealth will be redistributing from America to more impoverished countries. From a purely capitalistic/objectivist point of view, it will have been the long overdue result those people in India and China reaping the rewards of their more "meritorious" behavior. And, from a human rights point of view, it will be a great boon to the condition of many in other countries and probably a slight downturn for the condition of the relatively few in America. I think there is little denying that, overall, the change would make the world a better place.

But would it really be that much of a difference? Would it be a real redistribution of wealth that would really help many people who need it? If you look just in America, the evidence isn't good. I wish I could find the essay I read awhile back (I'm such a horrible blogger) that mentioned something like the average income of the lowest 90% of Americans has dropped by 7-8% (adjusted for inflation) in the last several decades (don't remember how many, but the end of WWII at the earliest). The most recent economic recovery and the Bush tax cuts have been a massive redistribution of wealth to the most wealthy. With that in mind, it seems less reasonable that leveling the global playing field, as Friedman talks about, would actually help the most impoverished people. It will create a larger, more comfortable middle and upper class in countries like India, but will it help the hundreds of millions of poor people there? Of all the countries and regions Friedman mentions, he conspicuously leaves out any mention of Africa, where millions die from hunger and disease.

I'm rambling, but like I said, this has made me think about my priorities. My areas of political and social interest have more to do with the increasingly Orwellian nature of my government and my country, pointing out hypocrisy and lies by right-wing politicians, and ruminating on the conflict I see between Christ and some of the goals of right-wing Christianity in America. These subjects are important, but do they matter compared to the thousands who die every day because of hunger? If I asked Jesus, he would probably say no.

2005-03-29T22:23:00.000-06:00

Wow, I just wrote a long post, but I had been signed onto Blogger for too long, and it asked me to re-enter my user name and password, and my post got deleted in the process. I don't feel like writing it again, and I need to do my homework. Sigh.

Judicating from the Chamber

2005-03-21T01:27:00.000-06:00

I've been gone on spring break, and now I am back at school. I would prefer to still be at home, away from school and hickery (brand new word!) and, yes, blogs. It was refreshing to lose touch with the outside world, but it was also irresponsible. So I am back, though I am not sure how the blogging schedule will be in the near future.

The biggest news in the last couple days, of course, has been Terry Schiavo. Since I've been absent, I definitely can't claim to know a lot of the specifics of this case. Neither do most of the people in the country who nevertheless form opinions about it. What is clear to me, however, is the disgusting behavior of Republicans in congress regarding the issue.

Just as they do with abortion and gay rights issues, the Republican Party is using Ms. Schiavo as a tool to manipulate honest people into voting for them and, consequently, against their own best interests. This case was an irresistible morsel for Tom Delay and the crew because it ignited the right wing Christians while conveniently monopolizing the news, distracting attention from other issues...

Like the budget!

You may ask, but Andy, who cares about the stupid budget when this woman's life is hanging in the balance? You heartless brute!

Bush proposed $8.5 billion in five-year Medicaid savings, while the House would rely on up to $20 billion in reductions from the program.

Wait, you mean the Bush and the House Republicans want to cut Medicaid? I thought millions of children, elderly people, and generally underprivileged Americans rely on Medicaid to get the health care they need to survive! What happened to the "Culture of Life?" Isn't that what this Terry Schiavo thing is about? The sanctity of human life?

Since you are still hypothetically saying all that to me, I reply, those are some very good questions. But if you're still not sure the Republicans are just posturing and hypocritically capitalizing on this woman's unfortunate situation you should read some more interesting and informed commentary than I have to offer. Make sure to visit the link about the Texas Futile Care Law, signed by George W. Bush, that takes away all choice from the family about letting a loved one die, so long as they cannot afford the care (that is, they automatically pull the plug, regardless of the family's wishes). I consider that a better display of the value the Republicans place on life, since that happened when the national spotlight was not on. A better display, that is, than the Senate's recent decision to send the case to federal court. And hence, the title of my post, which (if you didn't get it) is a play on the popular conservative phrase "legislating from the bench." I could have sworn it was the Supreme Court's job to decide to change a legal case's jurisdiction.

Anyway, to recap: I don't really know or care very much about this case, but the Republicans in congress are banking on you caring about it (though knowing about it certainly isn't requisite) so you won't pay attention to the fact that they are screwing you. Particularly if you are young like me. Or old. Or in between.

One awesome highlight from this week's trip to Albuquerque was getting to see the Al Franken Show performed live. It was a wonderful treat, care of Zach, and I'll talk about it in the next post. Hopefully I'll have some pics by then.

UPDATE: I knew I was forgetting some piece of snark when I wrote this last night! The conservatives talk about Ms. Schiavo's brain-damaged state and indignantly ask, should this woman be allowed to die just because she doesn't have full brain function? And so, I would point out the widespread right-wing support for the death penalty for mentally retarded people convicted of murder. Hmm...

Can't pass this one up...

2005-03-10T20:46:00.000-06:00

My goodness, this is priceless. From Atrios:

Washington, DC, -- Earlier today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released a report Addicted to Porn: Members of Congress Accept Political Contributions from Porn Purveyors. The report details how 15 Members of Congress, including 11 Representatives and four Senators, all of whom revile pornography, have accepted campaign contributions from corporations and executives who derive substantial profits from selling pornography.

The report contains four sections: 1) how companies make money from pornography; 2) which companies have PACs that make campaign contributions; 3) which Members of Congress receive these contributions; and 4) the quotes of Members of Congress named in the report who have publicly condemned pornography. In addition, an appendix to the report details the contributions made from corporations and executives to Members of Congress.

CREW's executive director Melanie Sloan stated "it is one thing to be silent on the issue and accept porn purveyor's contributions. However, these Members of Congress attempt to slap pornographers with fines and legislative restrictions with one hand and turn around and accept porn profits with the other. Our report details the hypocrisy of this 'skin caucus.'"

Some of the findings of the report: Kansas Senator Sam Brownback - who equivocates pornography with crack cocaine - accepted $17,000 from porn peddlers.

Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman - who has long campaigned against the growing coarseness of our culture -- along with renown gambling addict William Bennet, handed out "Silver Sewer" awards to those who made immoral videos, and who has criticized MTV for having porn stars on the air, accepted over $16,000.

Cong. Fred Upton, who leads the charge against indecency, accepted over $56,000. Arizona Senator John McCain, who claimed to be the "anti-porn" presidential candidate in ads that ran prior to the South Carolina primary, pocketed $46,000 from corporations and executives who profit from porn.

Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director referred to Rep. Heather Wilson
(R-NM) as "the biggest hypocrite of all" for having written a letter to former Vice President Al Gore demanding that he return a contribution from an adult entertainment web site and for sanctimoniously ranting at Viacom executives that they cared more about profits than morality, despite accepting $47,000 in porn profits.

A copy of the report can be found on the web at www.citizensforethics.org or contact Naomi Seligman at press@citizensforethics.org.
*****
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a non-profit, progressive legal watchdog group dedicated to holding public officials accountable for their actions.

You KNEW!

Doublespeak

2005-03-07T14:59:00.000-06:00

I'm always a day behind on the news. That's like being a week behind in blogland. Oh well.

More on the Bush administration policy of outsourcing torture:

In public, the Bush administration has refused to confirm that the rendition program exists, saying only in response to questions about it that the United States did not hand over people to face torture. The official refused to say how many prisoners had been transferred as part of the program. But former government officials say that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the C.I.A. has flown 100 to 150 suspected terrorists from one foreign country to another, including to Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Pakistan.

Each of those countries has been identified by the State Department as habitually using torture in its prisons. But the official said that guidelines enforced within the C.I.A. require that no transfer take place before the receiving country provides assurances that the prisoner will be treated humanely, and that United States personnel are assigned to monitor compliance.

[...]

In the most explicit statement of the administration's policies, Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, said in written Congressional testimony in January that "the policy of the United States is not to transfer individuals to countries where we believe they likely will be tortured, whether those individuals are being transferred from inside or outside the United States." Mr. Gonzales said then that he was "not aware of anyone in the executive branch authorizing any transfer of a detainee in violation of that policy."

[...]

In Congressional testimony last month, the director of central intelligence, Porter J. Goss, acknowledged that the United States had only a limited capacity to enforce promises that detainees would be treated humanely. "We have a responsibility of trying to ensure that they are properly treated, and we try and do the best we can to guarantee that," Mr. Goss said of the prisoners that the United States had transferred to the custody of other countries. "But of course once they're out of our control, there's only so much we can do. But we do have an accountability program for those situations."

[...]

The Pentagon has also transferred some prisoners to foreign custody, handing over 62 prisoners to Pakistan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, among other countries, from the American prison in Guantánamo Bay, in actions that it has publicly acknowledged. In some of those cases, a senior Defense Department official said in an interview on Friday, the transfers were for the purpose of prosecution and trials, but others were intended solely for the purpose of detention. Those four countries, as well Egypt, Jordan and Syria, were among those identified in a State Department human rights report released last week as practicing torture in their prisons.

I am less mad about the administration being so clearly deceptive and disingenuous than I am about the simple fact that they are allowing "rendition" to happen. I've come to expect the first, but none of us should ever get used to our country torturing people, or torturing them by proxy.

Why? Why should we care if they torture terrorists? Or possible terrorists? Or people who might know something about terrorists? Or people who are accused of terrorism without any actual evidence, but they have brown skin? They could be saving lives! Well, first off, every human the United States tortures, or allows to be tortured, takes away any justification for us to even be indignant about our enemies torturing a captured American soldier or civilian. It's called "moral high ground," and besides making us feel good about ourselves, it protects American soldiers. I think The Rude Pundit said it best, regarding John McCain's approval of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General:

Oh, dear John McCain, sweet Senator from Arizona, how the Rude Pundit feels for you. You remember every night, don't you, Senator McCain, the pain and humiliation dealt to you at the hands of the Vietcong. ... How they beat you, Senator McCain, viciously, on a daily basis, sometimes several times a day, demanding that you say you're a criminal, a terrorist, if you will.

[...]

Yes, yes, we know that you were a real soldier of a nation's military, a real prisoner of a real war so that the breaking of the Geneva Convention was more clear-cut. But, in the end, what happened to you meets the boundaries of legal torture laid out in the memo that Alberto Gonzales requested: you were never brought to organ failure or, indeed, death. If you support Gonzales or the President on this, what you will say is that others deserve what you went through, that your torture at the hands of your captors will be simply the average, expected behavior of our nation towards those we pre-deem evil. Like the North Vietnamese believed you were.

[...]

All those nightmare things that happened to you, you poor bastard, all those aches that you feel on humid days, whenever you walk to a podium to speak. Vote yes on Gonzales, Senator McCain, and no one should give a shit about your story and your pain ever again.

Besides that, we must continue to criticize the government's torture policies because of what I will call the "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" principle. If you let them torture potential terrorists or people with potential information about potential terrorists without bringing charges or facing any burden of proof, then those disgusting pigs are going to want to detain and torture anyone they claim poses an ideological threat to the nation by espousing radical ideas. Give them a foothold without holding them accountable, and Thoughtcrime will be a reality before you know it.

Birthday

2005-03-03T18:30:00.000-06:00

As you might have noticed from the byline, today (in fact, this very moment, according the post time I artificially entered) is this blog's first birthday. It is also this blogger's mom's birthday, but the events are unrelated.

Looking back on my first year of blogging...I have absolutely loved it. Up until I started reading other people's opinions and writing my own all the time, I used to play Unreal Tournament online all the time. I think this has definitely been a step up. I think it goes without saying that I was never as well-informed as I have been since I've been blogging, and I've definitely never had such a great outlet to refine and express my opinions.

I haven't gotten much traffic so far, by the standards of people who write regularly for an entire year. I must say I'm somewhat disappointed about that, but (not to elicit any sympathy or any "no, you're wrong Andy!") I can really see why. My content is almost solid opining, and verbose opining at that, and only occasionally strays into being funny. Looking back at what is currently on the page, I questioned whether I would have stayed around long enough to read an entire post if it wasn't me who had written it.

But really, the low traffic doesn't bother me that much because the audience I almost always have in mind on some level when I write is not the one I'm trying to attract, but my family and friends who visit regularly (or at least they did at one time; I haven't really asked anyone recently), just because they know me and care about my feelings...or something. I know they don't read blogs or news nearly as much as I do, and for that reason I want to keep them apprised of what is going on that I consider important, and which they might not have heard about otherwise. There was a time earlier in this blog's life when I didn't write about politics, but about stuff that was going on in my life and various ideas and stories I thought were funny. I know that at least my parents and Glory would enjoy the blog more if I still wrote about that stuff. But the politics thing just sort of crept up on me, and I discovered just how much of an interest I had in it, and that's what I find interesting to write about now. I still find it most interesting to start with an actual experience of mine (a disporportionate number of which have started in churches) and relate it to the ensuing rant about politics, and I do that when I can. Like in the last post. And probably the next post.

Anyway, I think I'm going to keep it up. If you read regularly, thank you. If not, I understand. I hope you sit on a tack.

In the Face of Evil

2005-03-01T22:00:00.000-06:00

I just got back from the Young Conservatives of Texas meeting, where they were playing the film "In the Face of Evil," a documentary supposedly about Communism and the Cold War, but essentially a hymn of worship to Ronald Reagan. I went in and took notes in case there was any post-film discussion, as the University Democrats always have at the end of our films.

Sadly, though not surprisingly, there was no post-film discussion. However, by the end of the film, my questions had all been rendered moot. What I was going to mention basically centered on how Reagan's actions during his presidency led to the present problems in the Middle East. Things like Iran-Contra, which armed Islamic fundamentalists in Iran while simultaneously killing tens of thousands of innocents in Nicaragua. Things like arming the mujahedeen in Afghanistan to drive out the Soviets - a move that ultimately led to the Taliban coming to power and supporting al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden (more). I figured the documentary would gloss over these things, but I neglected the power of secret paramilitary operations and illegal state-sponsored violence to titillate conservatives. Indeed, the film dedicated a whole section to the "secret wars." They did neglect to mention Iraq, however.

Like I said, though, my questions were rendered moot in the end of the film by a several minutes long section about September 11 and how the face of "The Beast" (an all-encompassing term the film used for Nazism, Communism, Islamic fundamentalism, and more) has changed, but its nature is the same, and those who would object or even question using violence to oppose The Beast are the same wimps they always were.

The fact that they even mentioned September 11 was a surprise to me, since they had dedicated so much time to what Reagan had done in Afghanistan that enabled the radicals who perpetrated it to gain power. I think that ending montage may have even used some of the same clips of evil Arabs carrying guns that they had used previously when describing the good Arabs who came to rescue their country from the evil Soviets. The whole thing was just dripping with irony. But, alas, irony is often sorely lost on that crowd.

Compassionate Conservatism

2005-02-26T15:31:00.000-06:00

Fresh off their success in increasing AIDS and other unnecessary death throughout the world by refusing to fund any organization that even mentions abortion as an option, conservatives in Congress and the White House have moved on to their next target: removing needle exchange programs for drug addicts, which are meant to decrease the spread of AIDS.

Drug use is not a significant source of AIDS infection in Africa. In parts of Asia, the former Soviet bloc and Eastern Europe, needles are the major source of infection; three-quarters of all newly infected people in Russia are intravenous drug abusers, as are half of those newly infected in China. These are just the places where the AIDS epidemic is likely to explode next. A bumper poppy crop in Afghanistan will worsen the outlook, producing cheap heroin that could turn opium smokers into heroin injectors and thus fuel the epidemic.

Opponents of needle exchanges, mainly among the religious right, argue that the practice muddies the message that illegal drug use is unacceptable, and keeps drug abusers from suffering the consequences of their addiction. By this twisted logic, doctors should refuse to treat lung cancer in smokers.

Of course, there are multiple considerations for every issue. The current conservative stance that "people who use drugs deserve AIDS, as do their all of their sexual partners, and any other sexual partners those people may have" is of course not a valid one for those of us who are not consumed by hate and self-righteousness. What would be a valid consideration, though, is if the needle-exchange programs were ineffective in reducing AIDS or if they increased drug use. However, according to this editorial:

Allowing drug users to trade used needles for clean ones gets dangerous needles off the street and minimizes needle sharing. A proven weapon against AIDS transmission, it has not been shown to increase drug use, and indeed may reduce drug addiction by providing a way to talk to drug users and lead them to treatment. It is endorsed by virtually every mainstream public health group.

"Proven?" "Endorsed by every mainstream public health group?" That's just science gobbledygook. We don't speak that language.

You play with my world like it's your little toy*

2005-02-26T03:53:00.000-06:00

This is what the Bush administration stands for.

Mr. Arar was surreptitiously flown out of the United States to Jordan and then driven to Syria, where he was kept like a nocturnal animal in an unlit, underground, rat-infested cell that was the size of a grave. From time to time he was tortured.

He wept. He begged not to be beaten anymore. He signed whatever confessions he was told to sign. He prayed.

Among the worst moments, he said, were the times he could hear babies crying in a nearby cell where women were imprisoned. He recalled hearing one woman pleading with a guard for several days for milk for her child.

He could hear other prisoners screaming as they were tortured.

"I used to ask God to help them," he said.

[...]

Mr. Arar is the most visible victim of the reprehensible U.S. policy known as extraordinary rendition, in which individuals are abducted by American authorities and transferred, without any legal rights whatever, to a regime skilled in the art of torture. The fact that some of the people swallowed up by this policy may in fact have been hard-core terrorists does not make it any less repugnant.

Mr. Arar, who is married and also has an 8-year-old daughter, said the pain from some of the beatings he endured lasted for six months.

"It was so scary," he said. "After a while I became like an animal."

A lawsuit on Mr. Arar's behalf has been filed against the United States by the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. Barbara Olshansky, a lawyer with the center, noted yesterday that the government is arguing that none of Mr. Arar's claims can even be adjudicated because they "would involve the revelation of state secrets."

This is a government that feels it is answerable to no one.

This is what your government and mine does to innocent people, in the name of...freedom? In the name of power. In the name of the cheap thrill they get from knowing they can ruin people's lives with impunity. They have thrown away our country's respect and moral standing in the world just to loosen the restrictions on torture (see Alberto Gonzales); they are like nasty little children seeing how far they can push the rules. They are the schoolyard bullies.

Sorry for the long absence, and sorry for the incoherence. I'll be back on my game soon.

*Bob Dylan--"Masters of War"

Just in case you visit here regularly...

2005-02-18T11:22:00.000-06:00

It will still be a few days before I post again. Going home to Albuquerque for the weekend.

Some people are just so dumb...

2005-02-14T19:10:00.000-06:00

Judith Warner has it totally wrong. The average American marriage isn't losing its romance because of the strain of excessive devotion to children or the struggle to make it economically in an increasingly materialistic society. That's just the kind of hippie crap I would expect to hear from somebody who writes books with the likes of Howard Dean and Hillary Clinton.

No, as anybody with a lick of sense knows, the problems that are so prevalent throughout American marriages are all ultimately the fault of activist judges in Massachusetts who allowed gay people to get married. I mean, look at the facts. They allow the gay marriage in Massachusetts, and then all of the sudden, less than a year and a half later, "Up to 20 percent of couples now report having sex no more than 10 times a year, qualifying them for what the experts call 'sexless marriages.'" Coincidence? Ha!

Of course, this would never have been a problem if those proto-hippies hadn't warped the culture into considering love a necessary part of marriage. Hedonistic fools.

(Note: In all seriousness, both those Times articles are really good and worth reading.)

No Mullah Left Behind

2005-02-13T22:36:00.000-06:00

Thomas Friedman makes the astute point in his op-ed today that the United States and George Bush's policies are financing both sides of the war on terrorism with things like pulling out of the Kyoto Treaty and not trying to reduce petroleum use in America.

Go read it. It's really good.

Of course, the fact that the Republicans are stuffing the pockets of Iranian terrorism supporters by enabling America's gasoline addiction may only be an accident. They're really just trying to help out their domestic oil company friends, and apparently doing a darn good job.

It's worth noting that Friedman may have a lot of sound things to say, but he was also a big supporter of the Iraq war. He was one of the true believers in setting up a democracy in Iraq that would change the Middle East. When he saw that the administration was doing an incompetent job of it, he was hurt and sad and duly critical. Whether he's seen the greed and imperialism that truly underly the motivation of the people who decided to start of this war remains to be seen. It seems from this article that he may be catching on, though.

Corporations cold turn ya to stone before ya realize...

2005-02-11T14:18:00.000-06:00

The Senate passed a bill yesterday that will impede consumers' rights to seek justice through class-action lawsuits. They will no longer be able to take them to state courts, but must instead go through the federal court system, which has been extremely limited in its ability hear class-action suits.

This legislation is solely for the benefit of large corporations, at the expense of everyone else. It is meant to prevent lawsuits like the one a few years ago regarding the heart-damaging Fen-Phen diet drug, or the 2000 lawsuit over explosive Firestone tires.

I had to look a second time through the article to find anything that could actually justify this legislation to an ordinary, "not-a-major-stockholder" American, and I finally found two possible quotes. First, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA):

Out-of-control frivolous filings are a real drag on the economy. Many a good business is being hurt by these frivolous claims.

Ah yes, businesses are harmed by lawsuits. Well, in the previous two examples, the maker of Fen-Phen was American Home Products, which is now Wyeth. According to their website,

Three of our well-established product lines Advil®, Centrum®, and Robitussin® are among the top 12 non-prescription medicines in the world. Other key brands include Chap Stick®, the Caltrate® family of calcium supplements, Preparation H®, Dimetapp®, and Solgar® vitamins and nutritional supplements.

I say that to bring up the question of whether a class-action lawsuit over one of its more deadly but less popular products is really likely to send Wyeth into financial ruin.

Likewise, Firestone is one of the largest tire producers in America, but definitely not at the top. Let's say, then, that the exploding tires lawsuit did drive them out of business (which it didn't). Wouldn't that just be the wages of free enterprise? A lawsuit of the same size wouldn't destroy a larger (and thus inherently superior, according to the free-enterprise worshippers) company, like BFGoodrich. The lawsuit just sped along the demise of a company that was inferior to begin with.

The other quote was from the president:

"Our country depends on a fair legal system that protects people who have been harmed without encouraging junk lawsuits that undermine confidence in our courts while hurting our economy, costing jobs and threatening small businesses." ..."The class-action bill is a strong step forward in our efforts to reform the litigation system and keep America the best place in the world to do business."

Sounds reasonable, if your definition of "the best place in the world to do business" is "the place where businesses can most easily exploit consumers and establish monopolies." Class-action suits are not just filed because of products that harm consumers or companies that harm the environment, but also to protect competition. For those businesses that haven't yet been fortunate enough to gain domination over their market, an environment of healthy competition equals a good place to do business.

Anyway, after all that...it's just unacceptable how much our government representatives are looking out for big business at the expense of their actual consituents. Only 26 senators (all Democrats) voted against this garbage. The rest remained comfortably in the pockets of the corporations, even though it is not the corporations but you and I who give them their power. Right?

Franken not running

2005-02-10T13:52:00.000-06:00

Al Franken was considering running for Senate in Minnesota in 2006, but he will stay at Air America Radio. "I believe in honoring my commitments. I agreed to do two more years on Air America Radio, and I believe, it's part of my values, is honoring your commitments, and it's what I sometimes criticize other people for..."

He also emphasized the importance of Air America's work: "I'm at Air America for a reason. We push against this entire, this right wing media...I'm also talking about the mainstream media, which I don't consider right wing, I consider it no-wing; I consider it scared and intimidated...you saw it in the lead-up to this war in Iraq...But what we gotta do is, the reason we're on the air here is we gotta push back against this, what you're seeing on the right."

Finally, he ruled out running because he would be carpetbagging, but said he is still considering a bid in 2008. "Minnesotans are very serious about their politics, and it would be silly for me to run. I don't live there. And if I go in 2008, you're gonna see me moving back there, we're gonna move the show back there. Because Minnesotans are serious about their politics, and they should be. Because politics is important. It's about doing well for people, as Paul Wellstone said."

I had only heard talk of Franken running at all very recently, and it was some of the most exciting political news I had heard in a long time. To have that man on the floor of the U.S. Senate would be amazing. I hope he makes it in 2008.

Torture

2005-02-08T21:24:00.000-06:00

I didn't talk much about one of the huge issues the liberal blogosphere honorably tackled recently: the appointment of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General. He is, of course, the man responsible for the memo that led to the abuses documented at Abu Ghraib, and those largely undocumented at Guantanamo Bay. He is the man responsible for the United States' utter loss of any "moral high ground" in its various crusades, including "liberating" Iraqis from a torturous dictator. He is the man ultimately responsible for any US soldiers or civilians who are captured and tortured in any of our Middle East incursions.

Many Senate Democrats honorably opposed this man for appointment, but of course to no avail. The most striking vote, however, was not from a Democrat but from Republican John McCain of Arizona, who voted to confirm Gonzales.

Read what McCain suffered at the hands of Vietcong torturers. At least read some of it.

Read The Rude Pundit's post about this.

If you're too depressed by now, read The Medium Lobster's post to experience a melancholy smile.

Ineffective indeed.

2005-02-08T21:06:00.000-06:00

For all of George Bush's talk of slashing programs to lower the deficit (which, by the way, is completely misleading), his budget increases funding for one of the most clearly ineffective programs that currently receives federal funding.

If the budget is approved, abstinence education would get $206 million, an increase of $39 million.

It looked for a little while after the election that GW was flirting with reasonable governance and considering betraying the "morals voters" who crazied him to re-election...but apparently not.

Victory for Marriage Justice

2005-02-04T15:16:00.000-06:00

A New York court has ruled the denial of same-sex marriages unconstitutional. It turns out this is a lower-level court, so the ruling is still subject to appeal, but it is a great first step.

I would encourage you to read the judicial decision (via Daily Kos), or at least the beginning of it. The theme: Prohibition of gay marriage is nothing more than the unfortunate successor of the prohibition of interracial marriage. And, just as reason prevailed when we defeated anti-miscegenation laws, so reason prevails again today.

Just like the movement for racial equality began in the courts and was ultimately put into legislation, so will be the case for sexual orientation equality. The fight will be hard and it will take a long time. Brown vs. Board of Education was 1954. The Civil Rights Act was 1964. It will probably cost Democrats even more elections in the meantime. But in the end, the right side will prevail.

You know you're dangerous...

2005-02-03T01:33:00.000-06:00

...when the internet service in the entire dorm "mysteriously" goes down when you are getting ready to watch the State of the Union and blog about it. I think Rage said it best: "It's the beats and the lyrics they fear." Except I don't have beats, really. Or lyrics. But words, definitely. Lots of words, and a few people definitely read them sometimes.

Anyway, yeah, I can't find a lot to say about the speech. Nothing was very surprising, and I didn't get boiled up into too much of a rage. I think that may have been because of my quiet contentment in the fact that the president's pet project, "Social Security: Dead or Alive," is very unlikely to actually succeed. Oh, and on that same subject, read Krugman's latest article, which exposes the folly and the fallacy of privatization.

I haven't really talked about Iraq since the great turnout in the election there. It's wonderful that so many Iraqi people went out and risked their lives to vote. I was worried that I subconsciously wanted it to go badly, just to be right (as I personally and other war-opposers have been accused of)...but I am very glad it went well. I just think it bears mentioning that there has been "victory" in Iraq before...the "end of major combat," the killing of Uday and Qusay, the capture of Saddam, the capturing of Fallujah, the transfer of power, the...re-capturing of Fallujah...and now the vote. So when is there success? And when can we leave? That's what I care about. And it doesn't look like it will be any time soon:

We will not set an artificial timetable for leaving Iraq because that would embolden the terrorists and make them believe they can wait us out. We are in Iraq to achieve a result: a country that is democratic, representative of all its people, at peace with its neighbors, and able to defend itself.

Sheesh. All that can't even be said about America. The $1.5 billion embassy and the prospect of permanent military bases in Iraq don't paint a good picture either. But did you see the congressmen with the ink on their fingers? Pretty absurd and offensive. Of course, that was the initiative of those individuals, not the president...at least until the White House memo that suggested it to them is made public.

The president of course continued his theme of freedom that he began in his inaugural address. And it was interesting to watch it in the SOTU, which is primarily a policy speech, while keeping in mind that the focus on worldwide freedom in the inaugural did not actually mean he intended any changes in policy. And that's about what we saw.

The government of Saudi Arabia can demonstrate its leadership in the region by expanding the role of its people in determining their future. And the great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East.

Pleeeeeease? Pretty please? I particularly liked the bold statement of freedom for Iran:

And to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you.

Translation: "Sorry guys, we're using up all our freedom in Iraq. You'll have to get your own."

I may be wrong about this because I got distracted playing with my little toesies, but in all the freedom talk I don't think I heard any mention at all of genocide in Sudan. I would say that when people are continually being deprived of the freedom to continue living, that is a significant incursion on worldwide liberty. I guess Nicholas Kristof is disappointed tonight. I feel bad for the guy; he's always so optimistic.

Oh, and speaking of freedom, Daily Kos makes a good point: how can you reconcile talking about freedom while amending the Constitution to deny freedom of marriage? There was talk a couple weeks ago that Bush was backing away from that, but I guess the pressure got to him.

And finally, President Bush proved that he can do the same thing with former presidents' words that he does with the Bible's words...

As Franklin Roosevelt once reminded Americans, "each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth."

...use them for political purposes while simultaneously undermining what they stand for.

Beyond the speech, I really appreciated the Democratic response. Harry Reid was great. I particularly liked things like this:

Too many of the president's economic policies have left Americans and American companies struggling. And after we worked so hard to eliminate the deficit, his policies have added trillions to the debt -- in effect, a "birth tax" of $36,000 on every child that is born.

I also thought he very effectively communicated what Democrats value. Great stuff.

Why We're Doomed, Part 2

2005-01-31T13:50:00.000-06:00

Awhile ago, I proposed that America was doomed because of the growing power of movements to stop teaching sex education and evolution in schools. I argued that this anti-education attitude would continue to erode our respectability in the world, leading to America's eventual replacement as the alpha male of countries in this chimpanzee sex romp we call Earth.

I was way off base. It turns out there are much better reasons why we're doomed:

WASHINGTON - The way many high school students see it, government censorship of newspapers may not be a bad thing, and flag burning is hardly protected free speech.
...
Yet, when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes too far in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.
...
When asked whether people should be allowed to express unpopular views, 97 percent of teachers and 99 percent of school principals said yes. Only 83 percent of students did.

This development spells a different type of doom than the one I predicted in the other post. The first doom was a fall from international economic dominance to maybe second place. This doom is a fall from individual liberty and democracy to Orwellian nightmare.

There are predators in our country, both in and out of government, who are constantly lurking and waiting to seize on any opportunity to stifle free expression and steal our most fundamental freedoms. Joe McCarthy was one. Tipper Gore was another. John Ashcroft was another. And those are just the ones who succeeded. Now it is clear that there will be more in the future, and they will be even more successful as the populace cares less and less about protecting free speech.

Satire

2005-01-25T16:03:00.000-06:00

ALBANY, Jan. 24 -

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Monday that the opposing sides in the divisive debate over abortion should find "common ground" to prevent unwanted pregnancies and ultimately reduce abortions, which she called a "sad, even tragic choice to many, many women."

In related news, conservative organizations across America have come out vocally against efforts to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Said one official of a prominent pro-life group, "Hillary Clinton said it, so it must be wrong."

Relativism?

2005-01-23T20:15:00.000-06:00

I hear accusations all the time that being liberal means believing in moral relativism - that there are no absolutes of right or wrong. Of course I reject this out of hand, because I know I believe in absolutes, and I am liberal in the full modern sense of the word. But then it's harder to speak for progressivism as a whole, since it encompasses such a wide range of beliefs. There may be some progressives who really do believe there is no such thing as right or wrong...but I doubt it.

Anyway, I think this editorial in the NY Times provides some insight. The piece decries the degrading treatment of contestants on shows like "American Idol." The main point is in the final sentence: "But there is a very wide gap between demonstrating that life is full of hard knocks and embarrassment, and glorying in the abasement of the utterly defenseless." The Times, which many consider a liberal publication, comes out with a moral judgement against...treating people disrespectfully.

Now, you may recall the several times I have said on this blog that the moral ideal for government should be to protect people from violating each others' individual rights and granting freedom in all other matters that do not affect others' rights. That is the common progressive argument and the source of conviction about things like free speech and gay rights.

But, lest there be any mistake, that is not the extent of progressive values. That is only the view on how the government should be allowed to intercede. As you might see from this editorial, another progressive value is treating everybody with equality and respect. I would call this a moral absolute common to progressives. Now, just because we hold this as a value does not mean we think people should not have the freedom to violate it (i.e. the government should be able to enforce respectfulness, beyond the scope of protecting everyone's inherent rights to life, liberty, and property). It just means we hold this as a pillar of decent human living. From this pillar comes the progressive abhorrence of discrimination and bigotry, torture, human rights violations, and injustice of all kinds.

The misguided accusation of relativism is leveled, I think, because of the inability to distinguish between holding a value for decent behavior and believing the government has a right to enforce that value on the entire population. That distinction is itself, I think, a progressive value: respecting people enough to let them make their own decisions and follow their own beliefs, even if we disagree with them.

Like I said, I can't really speak for other progressives as to what they base their convictions on. As with all kinds of ideas and values, many probably just inherited them. I know I try and base my values as much as I can on Jesus and what the Bible says. In terms of the role I think government should play, I don't base that on the Bible because I haven't seen that it has anything relevant to say about our modern political system. But for how I live my life, I try and become more like Jesus...at least to the extent that I can't escape knowing when I've done something Jesus wouldn't do. And I find that those convictions line up surprisingly well with progressive values like helping the less fortunate and avoiding judgementalism.

Progressives reject the idea that Biblical standards of living should be the law of the land, but they do hold many absolutes in common with those the Bible talks about. I would venture to say that progressives align quite closely with Biblical truth as it pertains to how people should treat each other: "Love your neighbor as yourself." As for how people live their personal and spiritual lives ("Love the Lord your God..."), a progressive would call that nobody's business but one's own, and certainly not the government's.

...

2005-01-21T13:25:00.000-06:00

An Iraqi girl screamed Tuesday after her parents were killed when American soldiers fired on their car when it failed to stop, despite warning shots, in Tal Afar, Iraq. The military is investigating the incident. New York Times

Last night, I stayed awake and cried because of this picture. I don't know why, really; like most Americans my age, I've been inoculated against images of violence. But I saw the horror and the pain and the confusion on her face, and I tried to imagine what it must be like for her. I wanted so badly to just hold her and tell her everything would be okay, even though I knew it wouldn't. And something inexplicable...I wanted to apologize to her.

I know there's tragedy all over the world. There is senseless death, with parents losing their children and husbands losing their wives and kids being orphaned every day. There was the tsunami that has taken over 150,000 lives so far. I learned a few days ago that more people than that die from starvation every day in Africa. There is genocide in Sudan. There were probably a couple thousand children whose parents were killed on September 11, 2001. So what's the big deal here?

I think it hurt the most to see this little girl because my country was responsible for her condition. Now, I'm not blaming the soldiers who did the shooting. They were following orders, and anyway when they're in such a dangerous situation already it makes sense to shoot first and ask questions later, simply out of self-preservation. Similarly, I don't think it's the parents' fault either, for who can blame them for wanting to get out of there when they heard gunfire? It just happened. Right?

No. It did not "just happen." Even if the parties directly involved were not responsible, there is no mistaking that her parents are dead because of America's choices.

"America's choices?" That doesn't sound like me. Countries do not make choices or have values; individuals make choices and have values. So, if this had happened a few months ago, I might have laid the blame squarely on George Bush and his administration for murdering this child's parents and so many others in their war based on lies. I would have been filled with outrage, not sadness and guilt, as I am now.

The difference, of course, is that a few months ago I did not expect a majority of Americans to vote to re-elect George Bush. I have often used the "51% Is Not a Mandate" line, and you can see that I make fun of the whole mandate idea in this blog's byline. But I'm beginning to think the idea is not too far off. More people voted for this man than for any single candidate in history, knowing full well (and willfully choosing to ignore the fact) that we were no longer involved in Iraq for the reasons given for the invasion; that those reasons had proved to be untrue; that our military was bogged down and stretched thin there and having to use desperate measures to survive; and that there was no end in sight.

"We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. "The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me."

He's right. The voters acted and gave the president his Mandate for Orphans.

But what about those of us who actively oppose the people and the policies that caused this? Surely we can't share the blame? That would make sense, but it feels wrong to me. I hear and read hicks all the time expressing the attitude that if you don't like America (meaning you don't like American policies or the current leadership), why don't you just leave? That's idiocy of course, but maybe it has an unintended ring of truth. Maybe by simply not leaving, or even by not speaking out more than we do, we are complicit in the evils perpetrated in our country's name. Maybe complacency amounts to complicity. For example, I wrote a few days after the election,

I'm thinking maybe it's a gift that Kerry wasn't saddled with cleaning up Bush's messes. Bush will have to clean them up himself...or rather further display his own ineptitude at cleaning them up. If Kerry had won and was unable to fix Iraq (as he or anybody would have probably been unable to do), then people might have begun to forget that it was Bush's fault we were there to begin with. The same can be said for the dismal state of the economy, education, and national security (though Kerry would certainly have been able to fix some of these). With his re-election, this whole disgusting period in our country's history will be entirely on Bush's shoulders. It won't have sullied our party, because our party will have had no power during this whole period.

That was all well and good at the time, but not after I saw this little girl. She will always know it was "America" that killed her parents. She'll probably never know about who voted for whom or why, or why the foreign army was ever in her country to begin with. But you and I do know. And reason will only prevail when we, too, realize it was America - and all of us who claim it - that killed her parents.

I may sound mad, but I'm just really sad. Some people see things like this or the mass of tragedy in Asia from the tsunami and ask, "How could God let this happen?" I never really struggle with that. I know there is evil in the world, and it is not God's fault it exists. My God is a God of Justice and Mercy. But I'm sad today because my country has become one of neither Justice nor Mercy.

There is nothing funny or good, nothing to be happy about today. Today I am mourning along with this little girl for her dead parents. And like her, I can't really understand why.

Neil Young: Inventor

2005-01-20T21:49:00.000-06:00

Joe Perry may have his hot sauce, but Neil Young has got his o-gauge.

Neil Young, co-founder of the Creative Trains Company, recently helped develop a new feature in home train layouts called the Time Line Command. It seems that this device, connected to an entire train room with two simple wires, will set your very own town on a time scale, so that in the afternoon the citizens are a-bustlin' and the sun is blazing bright, while at night the interior lights will be shining and a peaceful silence will hang over the layout, broken only by the whistles and smoke of your locomotives. I personally know next to nothing about model trains, but apparently Neil does. A lot more information than I've given can be found at their website here; I recommend you read the articles linked on that page, if you're even slightly interested.

Roll on, Southern Pacific.

SpongeBob Gaypants

2005-01-20T17:13:00.000-06:00

~~Nutjobs like James Dobson seriously just make fun of themselves~~.

A comment from "Your Girl" prompted me to consider the content of this post. It was easy to write. It took about five seconds. I enjoyed reading the article it linked to, because I thought it was hilarious. However, easy and fun posts are rarely the best ones, and shallow insults are rarely the most effective arguments. So I will approach this subject in a more mature manner.

I disagree intensely with the efforts of church leaders the likes of James Dobson to demonize the gay community and alienate them. I believe vilifying a whole significant portion of the population for characteristics they do not determine is not an exercise of Christian love, and it is not an effective way to reach people for Christ.

Now, there are some churches that agree with me on that and some that do not. I say those churches can do whatever they want. However, people like James Dobson, because of their visibility, are the public face of Christianity in America, at least to people who do not regularly attend church.

The most recent word from this public face of Christianity in America is that SpongeBob's creators are trying to brainwash kids into being tolerant of people with homosexual lifestyles. I find two problems with this.

The first is that this is an example of how the "pro-family" movement has gone beyond saying homosexuality is wrong to saying that promoting tolerance for homosexuality leads to more people being gay and going to hell. Indeed this new message, as far as I have seen, has overwhelmed their old one. They talk about the "pro-homosexual lobby" all the time, and this certainly isn't the first time I've read about brainwashing kids into tolerance. How does this help bring people to Christ? Isn't that supposed to be Dobson's goal? People must admit their own sinfulness to come into relationship with God, whether they are straight or gay. Striving to make people think being gay is bad will have no effect on who accepts Jesus and who doesn't, except maybe to drive those away who hear that God punishes people for things that they do not determine for themselves. To think that a gay person must be convinced their gayness is wrong in order to realize they are sinful and in need of salvation begs the question, "How can a straight person ever realize he or she is a sinner?" There are more things to be called sin besides homosexuality, and yet that is one of a very limited range of topics these groups focus on. It doesn't make sense.

Secondly, this SpongeBob paranoia makes James Dobson and other similar public faces of Christianity in America look insane. What kind of priority is this? How could somebody take this seriously? It's a cartoon. This is what the non-Christian community sees of the Christian community. I doubt that helps win converts either.

Anyway, that's what I have to say on the subject. I stand by everything I write here, but I am more satisfied with this than I was with the original comment, because that comment lowered the level of discourse on this blog. My posts are usually about examining an issue and giving my thorough viewpoint on it, so the quick insult post was kind of a cop-out. A lot of people utilize those, but I should and usually do use a higher standard. I guess it's just because I've already pretty much talked about this same subject here and here and here, and I wasn't up for doing it again.

Greatest Hits

2005-01-16T21:09:00.000-06:00

Earlier this week, there was posted on Daily Kos a treasure trove of quotes, mostly from administration officials and Bill Frist, about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. It must have taken a lot of work to compile them, and I am adding the link to the "important articles" section on the sidebar.

I don't expect you to read them all, but let me give you a synopsis. For the first half everybody was saying, "Yes, of course he has them." Then they moved on to, "Well, we didn't expect to just trip over them when we entered the country; it'll take time." Things kept going pretty poorly for the administration in terms of finding weapons, until they apparently found a saving grace in May 2003:

We have teams of people that are out looking. They've investigated a number of sites. And within the last week or two, they have in fact captured and have in custody two of the mobile trailers that Secretary Powell talked about at the United Nations as being biological weapons laboratories.
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Infinity Radio Interview
5/30/2003

Sounds like they were feeling pretty darn good about finding these mobile labs:

Q: The fact that there hasn't been substantial cache of weapons of mass destruction -- is that an embarrassment?
Wolfowitz: No. Is it an embarrassment to people on the other side that we've discovered these biological production vans, which the defector told us about?
Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense
CNN Interview
5/31/2003

But then, after the dust settled, there were still no weapons.

The biological weapons labs that we believe strongly are biological weapons labs, we didn't find any biological weapons with those labs. But should that give us any comfort? Not at all. Those were labs that could produce biological weapons whenever Saddam Hussein might have wanted to have a biological weapons inventory.
Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Associated Press Interview
6/12/2003

That was about the closest they ever got. So, most recently, they have finally stopped looking at all. No weapons. There was some talk of dormant "weapons of mass destruction-related programs," but nothing approaching the confidence of

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
Dick Cheney, Vice President
Speech to VFW National Convention
8/26/2002

or the scope of

Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
George W. Bush, President
CINCINNATI, OHIO Speech
10/7/2002

Anyway, I just thought everyone could stand a reminder of what they actually told us and what was actually true. There were so many gems in there, though, that I have to mention a few of them.

First off, there were literally dozens of statements of absolute certainty, much like Dick Cheney's above statment, about there being weapons in Iraq and that they would be found. Now, it's all right for them to have been wrong about it. Nobody's perfect. Even rushing us into war over the weapons and then having it turn out they were wrong is nearly forgivable.

But the way they talked about their level of certainty makes them liars. Dirty, worthless liars. Obviously they didn't know beforehand that there would be no weapons to find. If they didn't know that (which was true), they certainly didn't know that there were weapons (which was false). They didn't know anything, for to know a thing implies the veracity of that thing, and what they "knew" was untrue. They lied about it. Did they lie so they could have their war and sate their "thirst for blood and oil" (Rage)? We'll probably never know.

On a lighter note, I think the best quotes came from Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who sounds like he should be employed in the Ministry of Truth.

If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.
Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
12/2/2002

I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are.
Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
7/9/2003

The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it
Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Response to Question From Press
12/4/2002

And my favorite, lest every war supporter try and forget it,

But make no mistake -- as I said earlier -- we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found.
Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
4/10/2003

"That is what this war was about and it is about."

UPDATE: I know that when the weapons didn't show up, war supporters started saying they were taken out of the country before the invasion. I couldn't find a suitable place to address this before, but we now see that theory (via Atrios) for the garbage it is as well.

The balance of scandals

2005-01-14T02:32:00.000-06:00

I was reluctant to push that last post down the page, because I think it is important...but that's not how good bloggers work! So I can't help but link to this side-by-side comparison of two scandals provided by The Poor Man. One is the scandal of Dan Rather and CBS news using shoddy journalism and making a story based on falsified documents it received regarding President Bush's National Guard record. The other is the scandal of the administration telling America and the world that there was no doubt Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was just itching to use them or give them to terrorists, using this as the primary justification for the preemptive invasion of Iraq...and then the whole thing turning out to be untrue.

This was seriously one of the most enlightening things I've seen in a long while. Please go check it out. It's quick.

It's interesting to see what the real results of each scandal were and compare it to how much media attention each has received. It's also interesting to note what the perpetrators in each scandal have done to make up for it, in terms of apologies and firings.

I will give you no more commentary, as the link speaks for itself.

The Great Divide

2005-01-12T01:09:00.000-06:00

I just read Arianna Huffington's newest column, and I'm worried for my country. Or maybe I'm just worried for my own psychological well-being. We'll see.

I really ask you to go read it. For me.

Arianna (whom I love) claims the destructive policies the right wing and the Bush administration pursue are likely motivated by the belief in the Apocalypse, the return of Jesus Christ and the end of the world. I drew a couple conclusions from what she wrote:

1. The overwhelming body of evidence seems to support her argument. It is not a far leap from the facts of the administration's seeming total disregard for the future as evinced by its policies, and the facts of the popularity of the Apocalypse theory in America, to establish a causal relationship.

2. Arianna has great contempt for these people.

This presents a conundrum for me. I think it is a pretty essential element of the Christian faith to believe that Jesus is going to come back and this world is going to end someday, somehow. At least it is part of my personal belief, and really can I speak for anybody else? If you know me, you know the answer is no. But for as much as I believe it will happen sometime, Christian love and responsibility to my fellow humans compel me to live and treat the world as though this ending will not come in my lifetime or any time in the forseeable future.

Unfortunately, many who share my general belief in a second coming think it will happen very soon, and it is entirely possible this is the reason they are pursuing these things Arianna talks about -- this economic irresponsibility, this raping of the environment, this pimply schoolyard bully version of foreign policy. Some (whom I think I can safely call nutjobs) really think they play a part in bringing about the end times, or at least bringing about the "signs" of the end times. Others don't give it enough thought to make a distinction. I would encourage them to read 2 Thessalonians.

On the other hand, while Arianna probably correctly makes this connection between second coming belief and the right wing's "F--- the future!" approach to government, she also calls the whole belief a "nutty notion." I think that is going a step beyond the necessary. At that point she has moved from criticizing policies to criticizing people's religious beliefs.

Now, this is just an example of how ever since the election I've been running more and more often into a conflict between my politics and my religion. No, just kidding. There is no conflict. However, I've seen greater and greater conflict between the majority of people who share my religious views and the majority of people who share my political views.

It's nothing new on the one side ... in my experience, right wing Christians -- and most of the Christians I encounter hold right wing views -- tend to think liberals are evil and are ruining America and doing the devil's work. I have heard various versions of this stance since I started attending church in fourth grade, so it's nothing new to me. Of course I consider such opinions to be useless, and while the popularity of the stance has somewhat lowered my respect -- no, maybe just increased my wariness -- of my fellow Christians' opinions regarding political and social issues, they do not bother me. I smile and move on.

But the trend since the election of my fellow liberals being down on Christians kinda hurts. It's not just Arianna, but many others. I heard it on Air America today (not even Mike Malloy either! It was Janeane Garofalo!), and I read it all over.

It all feels wrong, because liberalism has always been the side that promotes acceptance of different values and beliefs, and now it seems like that is changing. The liberal purpose lies in fighting the wrong and destructive political goals of the right wing (no matter what their motivation) and promoting freedom and opportunity ... not in bashing a whole religion, even if a part of that religion's faithful dictates some of the more disgusting of those right-wing political goals. While some use the Christian faith to justify irresponsibility in governance, that doesn't make the faith inherently bad or wrong any more than radical Muslims make Islam inherently bad or wrong. Liberalism is supposed to be love, not hate; open-mindedness, not narrow-mindedness; freedom, not conformity. Leave that garbage to the righties, please.

It concerns me that these two groups are becoming so hotly opposed. Don't get me wrong, political disagreement is important, but this part of it is becoming a political viewpoint and a religious viewpoint in opposition. Both sides need to realize that they are engaging the wrong opponent. I leave it to the liberals to draw the mature conclusion first.

In conclusion, friends, it frankly concerns me that people are becoming less and less like me.

"Well, I'm back."

2005-01-11T15:06:00.000-06:00

So I didn't do so well keeping up over the break. Three posts, I think. But the counter did pass 3000 while I was at home.

Trying to find something to write about now...Social Security? Not much to say there. The Republicans are trying to screw you. That's all. They want to destroy Social Security because it is a Democratic institution, and it works. Here, read Krugman. "Privatization" (that is, more corporate welfare) will only cause more problems--astronomical ones--while the actual extant problems can simply be solved by another minor adjustment.

Congressional ethics? Not much to say there either. Republcans oppose ethics. The fact that people noticed what they were doing pressured them to water down their plans. But they still managed to pass a rule change wherein any potential ethics investigation that gets a tied vote in the Ethics Committee (which has four Republicans and four Democrats) will automatically be cancelled! So if you're a Republican congressional representative and you're about to get in trouble for unseemly behavior, you just have to convince these four of your fellow members to block it, and you're home free!

So what will I talk about? Well, during this apparently hopeless time of government corruption, unjust wars, and lies by the basketful, what else would I talk about? Relatively immature activism:

Not One Damn Dime Day - Jan 20, 2005: Since our religious leaders will not speak out against the war in Iraq, since our political leaders don’t have the moral courage to oppose it, since Bush is wasting 40 MILLION dollars on his inauguration party…while the soldiers have inadequate armor and too few of them to create or maintain peace in Iraq… Inauguration Day, Thursday, January 20th, 2005 is “Not One Damn Dime Day” in America. On “Not One Damn Dime Day” those who oppose what is happening in our name in Iraq can speak up with a 24-hour national boycott of all forms of consumer spending.

During “Not One Damn Dime Day” please don’t spend money. Not one damn dime for gasoline. Not one damn dime for necessities or for impulse purchases. Not one damn dime for nothing for 24 hours. On “Not One Damn Dime Day,” please boycott Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target…

Please don ‘t go to the mall or the local convenience store. Please don’t buy any fast food (or any groceries at all for that matter). For 24 hours, please do what you can to shut the retail economy down.

The object is simple. Remind the people in power that the war in Iraq is immoral and illegal; that they are responsible for starting it and that it is their responsibility to stop it. “Not One Damn Dime Day” is to remind them, too, that they work for the people of the United States of America, not for the international corporations and K Street lobbyists who represent the corporations and funnel cash into American politics. “Not One Damn Dime Day” is about support ting the troops. The politicians put the troops in harm’s way. Now 1,200 brave young Americans and (some estimate) 100,000 Iraqis have died. The politicians owe our troops a plan - a way to come home.

There’s no rally to attend. No marching to do. No left or right wing agenda to rant about. On “Not One Damn Dime Day” you take action by doing nothing. You open your mouth by keeping your wallet closed. For 24 hours, nothing gets spent, not one damn dime, to remind our religious leaders and our politicians of their moral responsibility to end the war in Iraq and give America back to the people.

I vow to participate in this, and I ask you to as well. It won't be that hard. Just one day, don't spend any money. Unless you are one of those who drink the right-wing Kool-Aid, you have no reason not to be outraged about what is happening to this country, and therefore no reason not to participate in this. Unless you think it won't actually accomplish anything or even receive any notice...in which case you are probably right.

Also, I love this idea:

On January 20th, 2005, we're calling for a new kind of action. The Bush administration has been successful at keeping protesters away from major events in the last few years by closing off areas around events and using questionable legal strategies to outlaw public dissent. We can use these obstacles to develop new tactics. On Inauguration day, we don't need banners, we don't need signs, we just need people.

We're calling on people to attend inauguration as they are: members of the public. Once through security and at the procession, at a given signal, we'll all turn our backs on Bush. A simple, clear and coherent message.

If I were able to participate in this, it would be one of the proudest moments of my life (especially if I got arrested or something)...behind, of course, the moment when Steven Tyler was admiring the sock puppet I made for him.

Anyway, I'll get back to the real news later on. But sometimes I just have to write about things like this that make me feel good. School starts tomorrow!

The Moral Right

2005-01-02T22:14:00.000-06:00

I'm on one of a very few blog-checking kicks during my Christmas break right now. And what do I find at AmericaBlog? Right-wing Christian websites barely mention the tsunami. The Republican National Committee website does not mention it at all. Meanwhile, the DNC website and "religious left" blogs are plugging disaster relief donation sites very prominently.

In defense of right-leaning Christians, I know that many of them individually do care very deeply about this tragedy, as evinced by the special offerings taken at my church today. It's just that the "pro-family" activist groups and the RNC don't seem to care. So why the disparity?

I would propose that websites like Family Research Council or Jerry Falwell's site totally ignore this episode of mass death because their driving motivation has immunized them from any sense of suffering, any sympathy for their fellow humans - basically any shred of Christian love.

But how? How could people who claim to have started out with Jesus Christ's teachings as their motivation have drifted so far from them? Well, these groups' primary goals are defeating abortion rights and gay rights, as well as infusing their version of Christianity into every aspect of public life possible. I don't think they would disagree with me on that. In broader terms, however, these goals represent their belief that their specific morals are superior to those of all other people and should be the law of the land. I don't think I need to address again why this is the wrong belief for Christians to hold, because I've already addressed it here and here. The point is, though, that when one has such an inflated sense of one's own moral superiority, sympathy for the less gifted in character is hard to come by. Why should they have pity for people who worship the wrong god? People die every day; the real fight is for the souls of those who are still living, and that can only be won by putting morality back into the public sphere. That's how they think.

Fortunately, as I saw at church this morning, it seems many of even the right-wing Christians have not yet fully given in to the idea that forcing their morals down everyone's throat trumps actual expressions of Christlike love. It's only those who are entirely absorbed in the mission, like Falwell and the American Family Association and the rest that have had their Christian values totally supplanted by their demented crusade.

And RNC? Well, I don't know what to say except "Did you expect anything different?"

Zach, post something!

2004-12-30T05:07:00.000-06:00

I'm busy enjoying my Christmas break.

A Qualified Praise of Heather Wilson

2004-12-17T14:29:00.000-06:00

I've spoken negatively of my congressional representative Heather Wilson on here before. And rightly so. (That link is for the May 23 post, by the way...) She has proven, time and again, that she is just another shill for the Bush administration and its destructive policies. She is also, as I have mentioned before, a member of the League of Conservation Voters' "Dirty Dozen," the twelve most environmentally unfriendly members of the 535 in both houses of Congress.

However, a few things have come to light recently that, while not making me think I should be less hard on her, at least impel me to commend her on some of her actions.

First (and this is old news), she voted against the "DeLay Rule," which was a rule passed by the House Republicans that would shield party leaders from having to resign or go on hiatus if they were indicted (as Tom DeLay will hopefully be soon for his various unethical adventures). Obviously, a vote for the DeLay Rule, which the majority of Republicans made, would have been a vote against ethical standards for the most powerful people in Congress, and therefore it's disgusting but totally unsurprising that the Republicans passed that rule.

But Ms. Wilson voted against the rule (or so she says...it was a voice vote, so anybody could have lied about it), and it's unfortunate that the press release she made about the vote is not up on her website anymore. It is even more impressive that she voted against it in light of the fact that she received the fourth most money of any member of Congress from Tom DeLay's PAC. Of course, you would think somebody who accepted that much money would get the guy's back, but I guess not.

Secondly, and I just read this in the paper this morning (no link, since you need a subscription), Ms. Wilson was also the lone voice of Republican honesty in an Energy and Commerce Committee vote on whether or not to require the White House to disclose how much its prescription drug proposal would cost. As you may recall, the liars in the White House knew the plan would cost about $150 billion more than Congress thought it would, and they fired the guy who wanted to let the people know about it.

So somewhere along the line, Ms. Wilson voted in committee that the White House should be forced to be honest about the cost (since they seem to have such trouble being honest of their own accord), and she was the only Republican to do so on that committee.

Oh, did I mention? The title of the article is "Wilson Scrambling to Keep Energy Seat."

Yes, in voting for honesty, Ms. Wilson displeased the Republican gods and is now feeling their wrath:

"Wilson, who was recently re-elected to a third term, has drawn the ire of Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican who serves as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee."
...
"According to a Wilson aide, Barton requested a meeting with the congresswoman in his office shortly after Thanksgiving. During the meeting, he told Wilson that he was angry about her vote and asked if she wanted to keep her seat on the energy committee..."

That is how today's Republican party works. Loyalty above integrity. Self-interest above public interest. I'm glad Ms. Wilson stood up for the higher values, at least these two times.

I think I should also note that I know several people who know Ms. Wilson personally who have said she is intelligent, honest, and nice, and I am sure they are right. They would know better than me, as I have never met her. I don't know any politicians personally, and all the attacks I make on here are on their votes and their actions as politicians, not on their personalities. For example, I'm sure George Bush is very nice and pleasant if you get to know him too, but that doesn't make him any less responsible for the 1300+ American soldiers and 100,000+ Iraqi civilians who are dead because of his unjustified war of choice and incompetent handling of it. See? He could still be a nice guy.

2004-12-14T02:25:00.000-06:00

This blog is about to confront a new challenge: its first Christmas break. I hope to maintain it somewhat while I am gone, but I doubt I will even be able to keep up with the anemic posting schedule I have had of late. We'll see!

A Fan Moment

2004-12-11T13:01:00.000-06:00

I was pleasantly surprised to run across this:

That's right, on the left we have Joe Perry, my guitar inspiration. All my rocking is just in imitation and tribute to his rocking, which gave my rocking breath. So yeah, I'm a big Joe Perry fan.

And on the right we have Rachael Ray, my very favorite Food Network personality. That may not be saying much, but I do watch a lot of Food Network, and she even outranks Marc Summers, who was a pillar of my youth. So, while my fanship of Ms. Ray does not approach that of Mr. Perry, I'm still a fan.

So this is really cool! It turns out the picture is promoting an episode of Ms. Ray's show Inside Dish, on which Joe will appear in January. I've never actually watched this particular show before, but then again Joe Perry's never been on it before. And this is definitely cooler than when he was on Emeril Live, on account of how annoying I find that show's host.

So! ...Yep.

What Might Have Been

2004-12-08T18:39:00.000-06:00

I am rarely on the cutting edge of news on this blog, at least by common blog standards (with one notable exception). I don't have the skill or dedication to find and write about really breaking news. However, I usually try and talk about events that are relatively recent.

This post is the exception. I found this,

and it is from August 7. Sorry for the lateness, but this is about the most important and interesting thing I've found to write about in recent memory.

Please go check it out. It is obviously too small to read here.

I'm not sure about something...is it popular consensus now that the war in Iraq didn't make America any safer? I figured after it was determined that Saddam Hussein had no WMDs and the 9/11 Commission determined that Iraq was not connected with al-Qaida, that people finally came to terms with it, and those who supported the war still supported it on the basis of establishing democracy in the Middle East. But I may be out of touch about whether or not people are still clinging to that false line. Anyway, in the Reality-Based Community, we have been able to accept the evidence that the war in Iraq was a distraction from the "war on terror," and that it indeed played into the terrorists' hands.

So this graphic tells us what the money spent on the war in Iraq could have been spent on that would have actually made America safer. The Bush administration does disingenuous lip service to some of these ideas already (like rebuilding Afghanistan while underfunding it), but most of these haven't even been touched.

Now, this is not to say that if there had been no Iraq war, all these things would have been accomplished. The war has been a fiasco of irresponsible, debt-based spending, and if all that money had been spent on these other programs, it still would have been irresponsible and debt-based. It's just that these things could have been prioritized and implemented individually over the long term. Oh yeah, and they wouldn't have cost the lives of 1200+ American soldiers.

Revamped

2004-12-04T13:01:00.000-06:00

I totally redid the format of this blog last night. Can you tell?

I hope not--unless you use a browser other than Internet Explorer and have discovered that the blog actually looks okay now, whereas it was totally appalling before in its sloppiness.

Of course, now I only know it works on IE and Mozilla. It could still suck for Netscape, and it's probably a safe bet that you can't even read this if you are using a Mac. Sigh.

Popular Decision

2004-12-03T02:42:00.000-06:00

Deep breath.

Our president went to Canada recently. Many people in Canada do not like him, and they do not like his war. As usual, he was defensive about the war and about his own leadership--maybe a result of his deep-seated insecurity and maybe not. Nevertheless, he was also "reaching out" to the Canadians and trying to gain their support. Here is some of what he had to say:

"We just had a poll in our country where people decided that the foreign policy of the Bush administration ought to stay in place for four more years, and it's a foreign policy that works with our neighbors."

I guess this post is mostly just a message to the people who claim to be unable to understand how the crazy liberals and the majority of the rest of the world can "hate" our president so fervently.

(Note: I don't hate him. I don't hate anybody. For, to quote what I've heard so many times in church, "Don't hate the sinner, hate the sin." So there you go. I hate our president's many sins.)

The man won 51% of the vote, and 48% of the population said they ~~absolutely~~ disapprove of the job he has done (believe me, they weren't just more enamored with John Kerry), and it becomes "a poll in our country where people decided that the foreign policy of the Bush administration ought to stay in place for four more years." If the man can't realize that it is his arrogance, as displayed in comments like this, that makes people hate him so much, then he does not have the social discernment to be our head of state.

But I also thought the president's comments were interesting in light of this quote I found from Bill Clinton during his visit to Canada in early 1999:

We just had a poll in our country where people decided that the extramarital blowjobs of the Clinton administration ought to stay in place until the end of the term. I'm sure that, as neighbors, we can work together to understand my sex romps in the Oval Office and embrace them."

No, but seriously, it would be the same thing. Clinton's approval rating soared when he was impeached, and he ended up retaining his office. That doesn't mean the "people decided" what he did was okay. Neither does Bush winning just over half the vote mean the "people decided" that his immoral war is okay.

And yes, Clinton could put links into his speeches. He was that good.

Finally, a message to Canada and the rest of the world.

2004-11-30T15:10:00.001-06:00

My mom told me this weekend, "With all this writing you do on your blog about gay rights, people are going to think you're gay!" I said, "Well, isn't that another stereotype we need to get past?" I don't mean to make my mom sound bad or anything, but besides the obvious (I don't care if anybody who reads my blog thinks I'm gay), sometimes she just sort of says things like that with some indiscernible motivation. She is certainly open-minded and taught me to be as well.

The reason I tell that little story is so that I can say the following:

Here is another fabulous post about gay marriage!

Kos over at Daily Kos has addressed the fact that, while the battle for marriage equality will probably be a successful one eventually, just like the battle for other civil rights, the Right will continue to turn it into a losing political battle for us, just like they did in the last election:

It's a battle worth fighting, but why keep fighting it using these tactics? It's not that it could hurt Democrats in elections, since that's a dynamic that at best, has a limited shelf life (younger voters are increasingly tolerant of people loving people).

Rather, let's shake up tactics. The conservative bigotted position is untennable. It has no basis in fact or reason. Arguments against gay marriage are predicated entirely, 100 percent, on emotion. And the vehicle for those emotional appeals are the word "marriage". A mere semantic.

Or it would be, if government rights and benefits weren't predicated on that single word.

So let's gift the word "marriage" to the churches, grant them exclusive use, and get the government out of the realm of "marriage". That way, churches could define whatever it was they called "marriage" (you know, that thing with a 50 percent success rate), and leave the government to certify legal "unions" -- you know, those things between people who love each other.

That way, the churches could find ways to really save marriage, by figuring out how to keep their flocks from divorcing, cheating and abusing their spouses.

Looking past the undercurrent of anti-church snark that is so unfortunately common to the liberal lexicon these days, Kos is absolutely correct. The only reason the religious Right's arguments have any appeal to the broader voting population is that "marriage" is such a loaded and poorly defined word.

"Marriage" in the historical sense is a religious institution, a ceremony performed by a religious official. Many churches marry heterosexual couples and a few churches marry gay couples, but not a single one of these various ceremonies by itself has any legal significance.

What does have a legal significance on many levels is "civil marriage," which is the legal contract between the people getting married. In most states, only a male and a female can enter into this contract (i.e. getting a marriage license).

"Civil marriage" and "civil union" are exactly the same thing. What? Yes. It's amazing how politicians are able to convince people that they are not. When George Bush said his Federal Marriage Amendment would not preclude the possibility of gays entering into civil unions, he was lying. When John Kerry said he was against gay marriage but for civil unions, he was lying as well. Because as far as the government is concerned, "marriage" and "union" are the same word.

So why don't we make them the same word in our vocabulary? Well, that's the solution. Once people recognize that marriage equality does not mean forcing churches to marry gays, but that it only means granting everybody the right to enter into the legal contract of a civil union with whom they please, and that there is no rational or evidential basis for the argument against that right...well, for one, the Democrats might have a chance again.

That is, if the Democrats in their desperation don't abandon the gay community to begin with...Dean for DNC!

Now just tell me how to change the vocabulary of a nation of 300 million and I'll get right on it.

(more info)

Thanks: Given

2004-11-28T20:21:00.000-06:00

Well, I'm back from my break that I didn't tell you I was taking. It was a great Thanksgiving and a great trip home. Had some good times with Glory and friends and family...but not enough with family, I realized. Especially little Ellie.

But I'll be back for Christmas in just over two weeks, after I pass through the fire of finals. In the meantime it'll be pretty crazy.

Went and saw The Incredibles, which of course was just as great as everybody says. The Nietzschean/Objectivist themes were quite obvious throughout, to the extent that one as dense as I would have noticed them even if I hadn't read the comparison before I saw the movie. The movie is explicitly philosophical - not the typical Disney fare - and heavy for a cartoon, but it's all kinds of fun, too.

As cheesy as it sounds, being home really reminded me of what I have to be thankful for. I whine so much on here about how the bad people are triumphing and ruining my country; but really, until they arrest me for sedition (a potentiality only one terrorist attack away), nothing the suits in the government do is really going to cause me any harm or take away anything from me that is really important. Contrast that with my friend Aaron, whom I saw this weekend for the first time in a few months, who would like to marry his boyfriend of several years if it were possible. But then he sees the majority of citizens in eleven states declare that he doesn't deserve that right, that he is not entitled to the American dream and the pursuit of happiness because he was born gay. And he just shrugs and says, "Oh well." But then, that's how I've seen him respond to most things. Maybe I could take a lesson in apathy from Aaron.

But anyway, I'm a white, straight, healthy, middle-class, full-of-potential male...the current government apparently has nothing but love for me! (Granted, if my family was super-rich I would really be in their Book of Privilege...) So the glaring lack of persecution I face (for now) from my government compels me to stop whining for a second and appreciate what I have.

Two wise, loving, and healthy parents who fortunately got all the kinks of parenting worked out before they got to me. They support me in everything I do, but they still hold me to live up to my potential. I have rarely, if ever, appreciated them enough.

Three wonderful older sisters, each wise in their own way and constantly willing to offer advice like "cut your hair," two brothers-in-law, and a beautiful little niece (see above).

Four dear friends who have taken part in almost every interesting story I can think of in the last four years of my life. They are like brothers to me, and I neither expect nor want to find anybody else like them.

One beautiful girlfriend (see left sidebar) of three years who is also my best friend and the love of my life. She puts up with my immaturity and vanity, and in return I make funny noises to make her laugh. We have the shared bond of overcoming our several stark differences and the shared hope of a future together, helping to eliminate the disparity of races.

One Savior more wonderful than words can tell. Like, seriously. For those who are not religious, I can only say that the effect on my life of what I believe to be a relationship with the God of the universe has been such a benefit that I would not want to imagine what my life would be like without it. If I have nothing else, I have the assurance of my relationship with God and the future of my soul...and that's nothing to sneeze at.

Anyway, it's time to buckle down and get my work done. My current light at the end of the tunnel is Christmas break. But I must demonstrate for the people who pay for my schooling a sufficient mastery of organic chemistry, electricity and magnetism, differential equations, and chemical processing in the meantime. Sigh.

Oh, and Aerosmith.

Quote of the Day

2004-11-19T16:16:00.000-06:00

From AmericaBlog:

The religious right, like a gay shark, has tasted blood and wants more. They need to be stopped, or we're going to end up a country of velvet dogs playing poker. And you thought John Ashcroft covering the breast of a statue was just a quirk.

Haha! It's great. I don't really get the gay shark comparison, since the story is not even about gay issues, but nevertheless, this is gold. Gold, Jerry!

Put this in your red kettle and smoke it

2004-11-16T18:05:00.000-06:00

When I read about the Salvation Army's anti-gay agenda, I was surprised and rather indignant (a prevailing tone on this blog of late), and my first thought was "I can't believe I rang the bell for these people in high school." I guess I hadn't really thought of them as a religious organization before, and it hadn't occurred to me that they would have an agenda other than helping poor people.

But it didn't take long for the cognitive dissonance to set in; I give money to my church, both here and in Albuquerque (albeit a meager amount), and there's no question about how anti-gay they are. And I mean "anti-gay" in almost the fullest sense of the term--the fullest sense being exercised by some "churches" in the "God Hates Fags" rallies. That is thankfully far from the mainstream in all denominations of Christian churches in America, and I think the angry liberal community (of which I am a proud, angry member) could stand to be reminded of that. But my church does distribute literature calling for the obstruction of gay rights, and they reserve and exercise the right of employment discrimination based on sexual orientation (they exercised it on their music minister, one of my best friends, several months ago).

So how can I give money to them in good conscience and still justify my indignation at the Salvation Army's actions? I'm not quite sure, but here are some ideas. First off, the money I would give the Salvation Army comes from a different motivation than the money I would give my church. The church offers a service which I consume weekly, and the offering is a payment for that. I know the church does not like to emphasize that aspect of it--they talk about giving money to God instead--but that is what it is. They have to pay their bills, and I am just as responsible for my share of it as the next member. It is an unfortunate fact that my money helps support an organization with an anti-gay agenda, but my only other option would be to go Wal-Mart on them (that is, boycott), and I am unwilling to do that. On the other hand, money given to the Salvation Army is charity, not payment; they do not offer a service that I consume like the church does. Therefore my compulsion toward charity does not obligate me to giving money to their specific organization (as attending a church obliges me to give money to that specific church), and the fact that they are fighting against civil rights easily crosses them off my list.

Secondly, the fact that the Salvation Army receives government funds changes things too. I do not dispute my church's legal right to spread anti-gay propaganda and discriminate against gay people in employment. The First Amendment says the government doesn't have the right to tell them what to do, and on the flipside they don't receive any financial support from the government (other than being tax-exempt, but that also comes from good old Numero Uno). While I don't know the details of it, such as whether it only started with the president's Faith-Based Initiatives thing or whether they receive federal money or just state and local money, I do know the Salvation Army receives some money from the government. That fact therefore obligates them to adopt the government policy of nondiscrimination, and yet they continue in their anti-gay agenda.

So I have decided that I will not be giving money to the Salvation Army this year. I will instead give my Christmas charity money to Big Brothers Big Sisters, as they suggest on AmericaBlog. In lieu of money, I will carry these vouchers with me and put them in the Salvation Army kettles whenever I get the chance this Christmas season. If you believe in civil rights and separation of church and state, I would encourage you to do the same.

The CIA Crusades

2004-11-14T23:45:00.000-06:00

I don't even know what to say about this. It shocked even me, and as you know I always expect the worst conceivable judgment from our president. In case you don't open links, as I tend not to, here it is, from Newsday:

WASHINGTON -- The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources.

"The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House," said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. "Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda."

You should read the rest of it too, though. As John notes on AMERICABlog, not only is this indicative of the revenge mentality of our re-elected president, but it is incredibly threatening to our national security. Crimony, if the people whose job it is to gather intelligence for the president to make informed decisions are a bunch of yes-men, what will happen? Well, Operation Iraqi Freedom for one, but that's only the beginning. If the president doesn't want to hear we're in specific danger, nobody will tell him. Or worse, nobody will bother to find out in the first place. It already looked bad enough when that "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the United States" briefing thing showed up! Wouldn't want any more of those happening. And when all the people with a spine have been kicked out of the system, nobody will be around to let the rest of us know what was going on. It's unbelievable.

The president's inability to handle dissent and criticism puts us all in danger. But as appalling as this development is, it is only one example of this prevailing weakness of his character that shines through in his willful ignorance. I expect that several months down the line this purge of the unfaithful in the CIA will seem like small potatoes.

On a vaguely related note, I intend to replace my Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker with my Dissent is Patriotic bumper sticker in the near future. While I anticipate the next four years will bring ample opportunity (and necessity) to remind everybody, "I did not vote for that man," I still bear the pain of the loss whenever I see my current sticker. I also still bear the paranoid compulsion to check all over my car every time I get in it to see if it has been vandalized on account of my sticker (so far the only vandalism has happened to the sticker itself...but I also absolutely believe I got an unwarranted speeding ticket because of it). And finally...my guy lost. While I am proud to still show my support for him, it won't do any good now. In contrast, what we need now (what we've always needed) is dissent--particularly with a president and a Republican Party that are so intent on secrecy and cronyism and loyalty and forcing their morals down our throats. So I'll put on my new bumper sticker and continue to exercise my right--my responsibility, rather--to dissent, even if the CIA can't.

Happy Birthday

2004-11-12T02:11:00.000-06:00

...to my little sister Kara, who is now twelve, and Neil Young, who is fifty nine. One of these fine people has always taught, and continues to teach, me much of what I know about being part of a family and loving my siblings and wrestling and being young; the other has been my undying musical inspiration. Can you tell which is which? I am far too tired to give either what they deserve in terms of eloquence and thanks, but they know how much they mean to me. I intended to put pictures of the birthday girl and boy on the blog, but I cannot remember the teachings of Andy on the matter. Buddy, maybe you can help me out later. And to Kara and Neil, my middle namesake, happy freaking birthday.

ROT...J?

2004-11-11T01:25:00.000-06:00

Okay, so this is for the Star Wars nerds out there. I am not one. I am but a Star Wars fan. Nevertheless, I took interest in the very last shot in "Return of the Jedi" on the newly released DVDs, wherein Anakin Skywalker's ghost, originally played by a man named Sebastian Shaw, was replaced by Hayden Christensen, who plays Anakin in Episodes II and III.

I was originally rather indignant about how they replaced the guy after thirty (or whatever) years! He'll be telling his grandchildren, "Yeah, I used to be in the end of Return of the Jedi, but not anymore." But then I looked into it, and the guy's name is Sebastian Shaw, and the only scenes he was in were this one

and this one.

He wasn't the guy in the suit for the three movies, and he wasn't Vader's voice.

If this had been the only cameo of the man who stayed in that hot Vader suit for three movies (a man named Dave Prowse, whom we not only never see, but we never hear his voice, since James Earl Jones did the dubbed voice), then it would be unacceptable to take out his only moment of precious on-screen nostalgia. But it's not him; it's just the guy who plays Anakin Skywalker in two scenes. So on account of that, I've begun to think it's not that bad that Lucas replaced him. I think the change itself sticks out too much, but I'm just saying it's not something that we can indignantly say Lucas shouldn't have done. It adds to the continuity of the character (since Episode III is, after all, supposed to come before Episode VI), and of course helps George Lucas advertise for the upcoming Episode III! Imagine that.

And they are Lucas' movies after all. They are his creative domain. Therefore I think the Star Wars nerds can't be as indignant about this sort of thing as, say, Lord of the Rings nerds can be indignant about Peter Jackson changing things to an unacceptable degree from the books to the movies. Jackson had a responsibility to remain faithful to the original material, but Lucas made the material, so he can do with it what he wants.

Somebody who has given this much more thought disagrees with me. She is probably more right. What do you think? Either way, I will end with a similar comment: I don't really like Hayden Christensen. But maybe he's gotten better in the last few years. I guess we'll see.

Encouraging...

2004-11-10T16:56:00.000-06:00

Over at Atrios, the subject of nuclear power came up today. Reading through the comments, it was encouraging to see that, even on that most liberal of blogs, there is a lot of support for a re-entry into nuclear power.

From what what I've learned at certain super-secret government places where I have worked (cleaning test tubes), I think the environmentalist movement is off-base in their absolute opposition to nuclear power. They are right on with the fact that we need to reduce fossil fuel consumption (for both the environment and our welfare in the world), but reduce or not, we will eventually run out; and things like wind and solar are great alternatives, but they are decades away from being able to sustain a population.

There are, of course, hazards, particularly in the age of terrorism. Many of these need to be dealt with before any new nuclear plants are built. But the last twenty years of no new plants has given the nuclear industry plenty of time to find solutions.

So anyway, it was good to see that a lot of liberals are okay with this source of energy, which, until something better comes along, is a superior solution to fossil fuel energy. However, many people brought up a good point, which I think was best summarized by commenter four legs good:

I see. You guys think that the people who don't understand evolution or global warming can be trusted with oversight over nuclear power plants? The guys who let industry write their own regulations?

The Bush administration is definitely not trustworthy to have anything to do with a re-emergence of nuclear power in America. Their record shows that they do not believe in any sort of industry regulation, and nuclear power of all industries would require the most stringent regulation. So maybe we can bring it up again when we get a better president.

2004-11-10T02:57:00.000-06:00

Over at Daily Kos, Pericles has explained thoroughly the reasoning behind terrorism and why America's actions for the last three years have played perfectly into the terrorists' hands.

If you read nothing else today, read this. And think about it.

In much-needed lighter news

2004-11-08T22:50:00.000-06:00

I realize that this type of discussion is not what Andy's Intestinal Bloggage was originally conceived for, but I must bring to everyone's attention (and by "everyone" I mean "everyone who cares") that the theatrical trailer for Star Wars: Episode III is now available online for public viewing. It premiered as an opener for The Incredibles this past Friday, and is the main reason for that film's smash success. I have many new excitements and theories after viewing the trailer (and yes, one of those Wookies is Chewbacca), but I will not go into greater depth here. If anyone is interested in generating further discussion (har! I like to kid myself) then I think the comments forum would be most appropriate. My apologies for interrupting the political/musical discourse of late.

Why we're doomed.

2004-11-06T23:00:00.000-06:00

And no, it's not because of the president's cowboy foreign policy and self-destructive economic policy. Well okay, maybe it's partly because of that.

But in the longer term, it's because of this and this.

You're right, the fact that the Texas school board is refusing to teach sex education isn't going to cause anything in and of itself, besides thousands more abortions per year and poor, fatherless children and crime. That's just a problem of degree, though, and not impending news of our doom.

And you're also right, the fact that a Wisconsin school board has decided that Science and Not-Science are both equally valid subjects to teach in a science class will probably have even less of a direct effect than the sex education thing.

No, these things won't have an immediate tangible effect. But the reason they portend our downfall is because they represent the growing lack of respect for the importance of educating people. They are representative of the anti-intellectualism that is taking over the prevailing ideology of our country. And while I hate disparaging my fellow believers in Christ, the entire fault for this belongs to some of them: the ones who think their narrow interpretation of the way our world works and their own personal moral values must be adopted by the government, in spite of the fact that Congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of religion.

I hate talking like that because it gives the impression that I don't believe in the "narrow way" to salvation that Jesus talked about, and I do. But what choice does this group give us, when they make Christianity look like it holds science and intellectualism as its greatest enemies? I say that is impeding the effort of evangelism because it reinforces the idea that Christianity is for the weak-minded and the intolerant.

But that diatribe was not the point of the post. The point is, these things spell our doom. Okay, melodramatic. But you've of course heard that countries like India and China are becoming more wealthy while our economy stagnates, graduating a higher percentage of science and engineering degrees than us. Fewer and fewer people from these countries and others are coming to America for school and work. It's because this type of thing is showing the world that America is rejecting the value of education. As a result, America is eventually bound to no longer inspire faith from other countries to invest in us. And then that's all. We have trillions of dollars of international debt and nobody willing to lend us more money to pay off what we already owe.

But at least our schools won't be tacitly approving of premarital relations!

It just needs to be said...

2004-11-06T02:28:00.000-06:00

Rage Against the Machine's self-titled album from 1992 is absolutely one of the best albums I own. And I own a lot of really good albums.

Two days ago I didn't know what to do with myself, I was so mad about the election. I needed some angry music; that's why I bought the CD. But the reason I have listened to it probably twenty times since then is that it is so profoundly good.

Part of it is probably because it's unlike any of the music I own and listen to all the time (that is, almost no bands that got together after 1980). I don't often have rap going through my head, after all.

The lyrics are all about fighting the establishment. (That reminds me of a pointless story. When I was considering attending the University of Tulsa and visiting there, this guy was walking and talking to a girl I presume he had only recently met and he actually used the word "antidisestablishmentarianism." It stuck out like a sore thumb, and I never heard such poorly-stifled satisfaction in someone's voice at using a big word until I started paying attention to our president.) So you may understand better why I like them.

Now, when you get beyond empty platitudes about "sticking it to the man" and base a whole band's message on fighting the establishment, there must come a point where you address what that really means. I find the lyrics somewhat wanting in that regard, but only to the point of making me more curious about the band's other songs, rather than disregarding the lyrics as contentless. They refer to fighting the indoctrination of "Eurocentric" ideas and how

We needa check the interior
Of the system that cares about only one culture.

The songs use violent imagery, but do not really espouse violent revolution. It's more about cultural revolution. I think the crux of it is in the song "Township Rebellion":

Why stand on a silent platform?
Fight the war
F**k the norm.

The music is hard and nasty, just like the message. At the end of the CD book it says, "NO SAMPLES, KEYBOARDS, OR SYNTHESIZERS USED IN THE MAKING OF THIS RECORDING." (Zach's ears just perked up) Solid guitar riffs and a few face-melting solos were a pleasant surprise.

Anyway, I love it. Granted, I may be a hypocrite for feeling this music so deeply while I wear my GAP jeans and study chemical processing. But even if I am a hypocrite, I at least know about good rock albums. And this is one of them.

Democracy's TKO

2004-11-06T02:14:00.000-06:00

I'm not really the tinfoil hat type, but this deserves some attention. The prospect that Kerry could have won both Ohio and New Mexico (my beautiful state) if all the votes were counted is an important one.

I don't take this as gospel. Partly because this idea that the exit polls are perfect representations of how people actually voted is probably not very sound. But this obvious fact is a shame: the media would paint the Democratic party in the worst light if they demanded all the votes be counted. And they're supposed to be our guardians against government corruption.

I maintain that the Electoral College is bogus anyway, and Bush won the popular vote beyond any dispute, so he legitimately won the presidency. Of course, he didn't win it the first time, so he never should have had the chance to run a second time.

Above all, this is just another argument for the complete removal of party politics from all types of elections in our country. How stupid is it to expect legitimate results from elections when the people in charge of voting on the state level are members of one campaign or the other? Ah, that's right; they don't expect legitimate results. They expect the results they want. It's disgusting.

I have misgivings talking about this. We need to move on. We need to take our country back.

How a Shrubbery Became President... Again

2004-11-04T21:43:00.000-06:00

I am doing my absolute best not to be bitter in the aftermath of this election, nor am I intending to dwell on the future prospects for our country. I agree with Andy in his last post that now this is Bush's mess to clean up or make worse; we'll just have to see. At least that's how I felt earlier today -- now I am again becoming determined to do whatever it takes to make sure that progressive issues stay on the agenda and are not overrun by the overwhelmingly in-control Republican national government. I encourage each and every one of you to pick even one issue that you feel passionate about, and dedicate even some small portion of time to it. Give your time to a local elementary school; pick up trash at the park; write letters to your Congresspeople, whether or not they will actually listen to you; find some organization and get involved in it. There exist so many options through which you can improve the world, and since politics are largely on the back burner for at least a year, I hope you commit yourself to some worthy cause. Think of it this way: If Albuquerque could become much more environmentally conscious in the next two years, Heather Wilson ("YOU LIED!") would have a much greater chance of being booted by some challenger, preferably not Richard Romero for the upteenth time.

If we want to take the presidency of America away from the increasingly conservative right in four years, and if we want to have a hope of reclaiming the Senate and/or the House, we have got to change some minds. I think in hindsight that one of the greatest faults of the entire liberal movement of the past year is that it spent so much time preaching to the choir. I do not mean to belittle the efforts of Texas Tech's small but opinionated College Democrats or the artists on the Rock the Vote tour or even my own presidential candidate, but from what I saw most of the push was to mobilize the American left. Karl Rove decided his mission would be to mobilize the evangelical Christian right and increase their voter turnout by four million. Can you guess roughly by how much Bush won the popular vote this election? Good job. Our efforts certainly paid off: John Kerry earned 86% of the national progressive vote, and 55% of the moderate vote. I am also proud to say that Kerry won my own county, albeit by a very slim margin. But, sure enough, the conservative Christian faction in this country pulled through for their man. This election that should have been about our economy and our basic civil liberties and our position in the world and the intelligence of the president instead became an election about "values." Compassionate conservative values. Apparently enough people in this nation believe that homosexuals are sinners and that a woman's right to choose is baloney and that science is in many ways inherently immoral -- and they, worst of all, are working to deny rights to groups of people in this fine country. To a certain extent, the radical Christians in this country have decided each of our fates. Even if this election had been about the war, I would be more ok with it than I am right now, but I have a difficult time believing that idea. Let's look at a fact here: The three areas in America actually hit with actual real terrorists -- New York, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia -- voted for Kerry by some of the largest margins seen this election. Do they think Bush is doing a great job protecting us? I think not.

Long rambling short, I fear for America. Oklahoma elected a senator who advocates the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions. Tom Daschle is no longer in the House. South Carolina elected a senator who wants to ban homosexuals from teaching in public schools. America didn't come together enough this time; let's not make the same mistake again. An election isn't decided every four, two, or six years. An election is decided during those years. Now isn't the time for us to sit back and wallow in our own disgust, now is as good a time as any to take action. Or marry a Canadian.

2004-11-03T19:10:00.000-06:00

Some inspiration during hard times.

I've been reading people's suggestions in the comments on various blogs for what we need to do now. I'm thinking maybe it's a gift that Kerry wasn't saddled with cleaning up Bush's messes. Bush will have to clean them up himself...or rather further display his own ineptitude at cleaning them up. If Kerry had won and was unable to fix Iraq (as he or anybody would have probably been unable to do), then people might have begun to forget that it was Bush's fault we were there to begin with. The same can be said for the dismal state of the economy, education, and national security (though Kerry would certainly have been able to fix some of these). With his re-election, this whole disgusting period in our country's history will be entirely on Bush's shoulders. It won't have sullied our party, because our party will have had no power during this whole period.

So I say let 'em keep pursuing their destructive agenda for now, because we will get the chance to fix it when they get thrown out. Meanwhile, the party organization, other liberal organizations, and bloggers need to continue to expose the lies of the Republican Party to the rest of the country--so that when we come to the end of the miserably failed second Bush term, people will know who has the right answers. But then again, I thought we did that this time, and apparently people don't care about the right answers as much as the pleasing platitudes.

Today I bought my first Rage Against the Machine album, and probably not my last one. Special thanks to Brian for telling me which one to get.

That's all

2004-11-03T11:27:00.000-06:00

John Kerry is conceding the presidency in half an hour. Meanwhile, I'm going out and converting all my savings to yuan.

Watching some of the pundits now, talking about what went wrong for Kerry. It seemed like he should have had it in the bag, what with all the proof that the President has consistently lied to the American people about Iraq, all the bad news of our weak economy and outrageous deficits, and all the infringements this administration has perpetrated on our freedom. There was a record voter turnout, which by all predictions should have helped John Kerry. But it turns out that a huge number of those people held the nebulous "moral values" as the primary determining factor of their vote. It was his faithfulness to the Religious Right's agenda that got Bush re-elected. And as mean and bitter as it may sound, I say that the people who voted for George Bush on those grounds deserve what they have coming from another four years of a Bush White House.

If they had paid attention, they would have noticed that the abortion rate has gone up in the last four years because Bush has been such a poor steward of the economy and cut off funding for Planned Parenthood and similar organizations. They would have noticed that states that teach "abstience-only" have higher abortion rates because of it.

Maybe they would have looked closer at Supreme Court justices like Scalia (whom Bush claims is his favorite) and contemplated whether they want more copies of him appointed in the next term.

Maybe if they gave it some more thought, they would have questioned whether the President's Marriage Amendment, which would be the only amendment to deny civil rights to Americans rather than grant them, and which would be the only standing amendment to deny rights to a specific group of people while granting them to everybody else, was an agenda that they as Christians should support.

Anyway, these people have coming the side effects of their vote. What will those be? The continued mass unravelling of individual rights. The further movement of American wealth from the middle class to the extremely wealthy. The further decline of American prominence, both economically and morally (hence my transition to the yuan). The draft. It would be nice if, in a few years when they start the draft, part of the basis could be that they pick up people who voted for Bush first. It would only be just, I think.

That's just about enough bitterness toward my fellow citizens, though. I'm mostly sad about this setback to progressivism. The Supreme Court thing alone is going to set our country back by decades, for decades. With no prospect of another campaign, the President is going to push even harder for his hard-right agenda, and it's going to take a long time to make up for it.

I'm sad and worried for my party--the party that stands up for the common people and (at least more often than not) rejects the politics of big corporate interests and consolidation of power to the self-seeking minority. The party leadership let us down. At this point should we seek party leadership that works well with the Republicans to forge compromise, or should we look for leadership that fights faithfully against their wrong policies, even though it would be a losing battle in the near future?

I would say the second one. The Republicans hold the power in all three branches of government, and they have no interest in compromising. Our party must remain proudly liberal and constantly critical of their agenda and wait out the demise of the top-heavy, out-of-touch Republican Party. I look forward to John Kerry being a continued leader of my party in the Senate.

Our people worked so hard (this one goes out to Zach), and it still didn't happen for us. The Republicans had too well-organized and well-funded an operation. I fear that my fellow young people will lose interest in politics because of the apparent futility of their effort. But we have to keep fighting. Whether good prevails in our government or not, we can still stand up for it in our own lives and work for it for our country's future.

Not over.

2004-11-03T01:35:00.000-06:00

Fox News called Ohio for Bush long ago, but they are simply not trustworthy. NBC is only slightly less sold out to the Right than Fox, and they have called Ohio for Bush too. But everybody else leaves Ohio as too close to call, and probably as up in the air until eleven days from now when the provisional ballots will be counted. So it's not over.

But don't get me wrong, no matter what this has been a horrible night for America. We've lost seats in the Senate and the House to some decidedly despicable candidates. My congressional representative--one of the worst in the House--was re-elected. And it looks like my state will be voting for the wrong presidential candidate as well.

I am genuinely surprised and of course disappointed. I have a lot more on my mind than this, but everything else I typed made me sound like "a major-league a**hole" (to quote our Righteous President), so I'll give it some time.

More later.

Please, if you care about your future, your children, your aging parents, your country, your schools, your earth, your pets...

2004-11-02T07:09:00.000-06:00

...then vaya voto. Allez le vote. Gehen Sie Stimme. Vá voto. GO VOTE.

And please vote for John Kerry, if for no other reason than I can say I met the President. I sincerely hope that humanity cares about more than my photo op, though, so please prove me right. Vote.

2004-10-31T17:19:00.000-06:00

Happy Halloween.

George approved this message

2004-10-29T19:24:00.000-05:00

I don't see very many presidential campaign ads here in Lubbock, but I just saw this one, wherein a picture of a small number of American soldiers was doctored to make it look like it was a huge bleacher full of them...full of soldiers that look exactly the same.

I think it's funny, and I only mention it because I saw it on TV just now, but doesn't this speak something to what the administration actually thinks of the soldiers? They didn't have a picture with enough blankly staring soldiers, so they Photoshopped what they did have. The troops in Iraq are not people in this administration's eyes; they are just a resource to exploit for re-election. That's even worse than thinking of them as just cannon fodder.

Now, don't get me wrong; there is no problem with using images of soldiers in a campaign ad, especially when there's a war going on. But copying and pasting them is not all right.

It is also not all right that the soldiers are the first people the administration and its shills blame when something goes wrong in Iraq. But that's what they do. They did it with Abu Ghraib. They did it with Al Qaqaa.

Some people say it's not "supporting the troops" to impugn the president's leadership in wartime, but not even our president supports them. The American soldiers have been the administration's scapegoats time and again because the president is incapable of taking responsibility for his failures of leadership.

I guess if these people can make unlimited soldiers with Photoshop, they'll never run out of people to blame.

Suppress the Vote 2004

2004-10-29T19:00:00.000-05:00

Take fifteen minutes and listen to Jack Hitt's summary of the campaign against democracy. It is thorough, ruthless, and an almost entirely Republican effort.

Further proof

2004-10-29T14:01:00.000-05:00

...that we live in the Fifth or Sixth age of Middle Earth.

Eminem good, Zach better.

2004-10-29T01:04:00.000-05:00

Yes. Eminem good. At least in this video and this song.

I just talked to Zach on the phone, and as much as I love him, it was a downer. He reminded me how scary my country's future is, and how much it hangs in the balance. You would think I'd know better than him how frightening it is, living in Texas and all.

Zach is doing a lot of hard work to save our country by campaigning for Kerry in Albuquerque, and I think everyone should leave a comment thanking him for it.** So he knows better than I the dirty tricks the Republicans are doing to steal the election because he's seen it on his campus, and it is indeed sickening to hear it.

To cheer us both up though, I told him about this article. A success by Bush and Republicans in the Senate and House on election day would be disastrous for our country. I mean, it has been so far, and it would only get worse. But the article points out that either way, this is the beginning of the Republicans' decline. The leadership is already out of touch with the fact that they exist to serve their constituents and not just gain power for themselves, and soon enough even the Republican faithful will realize it. Good news, but I think it is at least as likely that a re-election would be the beginning of America's decline as well. I believe our country is strong enough right now, economically and as a moral world leader to recover if we have a change of leadership, but after four more years of this it may be too late.

But enough of this! We will see on Election Day that Americans know better than to screw themselves that bad. And we will have a new President. Thanks to Zach.

**Don't feel bad if nobody leaves a comment for you, Zach. We don't get many comments around here.

Hahaha...

2004-10-27T13:50:00.000-05:00

...hahaha! Sigh. And so many people out there still fail to see the humor.

Fortunately The General has a keen sense for irony.

Sick

2004-10-25T22:33:00.000-05:00

But I think I'm on the mend.

2004-10-22T15:36:00.000-05:00

Glory shares my disgust at all the stories about the underhanded scheming meant to keep people's votes from being counted: either by falsely registering them, or falsely collecting their absentee ballots, or the state-sponsored fraud like Florida keeping all the convicted felons off their rolls except the Hispanic ones, or having law enforcement intimidate get-out-the-vote campaigns, or just the irresponsible use of demonstrably insecure electronic voting machines. And as you well know, the list goes on.

I was glad she was as outraged as me, but when I braced myself and told her, "It's the Republicans that are responsible for all of this," she didn't believe me. But it's true. All of these stories are about efforts meant to keep traditionally Democratic groups from having their votes counted. They all focus on low-income areas and minorities and elderly people. Why would the Democrats want to alienate these groups?

Granted, the flipside of this is that Republicans worry about voter fraud, that people will be allowed to vote in illegal ways (like in the wrong district or multiple times or if they don't own enough land or something). That was the lame excuse for the last minute attempt in Ohio to throw out registration forms based on the type of paper they were on. But the "preventing fraud" argument doesn't even go far enough to defend that attempt (and the courts fortunately agreed on that), let alone all the more corrupt and illegal ones the Republican groups consistently make to disenfranchise voters.

It is really unseemly, too. If I had just moved here from another country and didn't know a thing about the issues or the candidates, but I knew that one party consistently tried its best to keep certain groups of people from voting and the other party tried to get as many people to vote as possible... Well, I would be scared of what that first party wanted to accomplish by stifling the democratic process.

"You think that's bad, you should see what their actual elected officials try to accomplish in office. You would pee your foreign pants," I would say to the foreign version of me.

"Wowee," the foreign version of me would say to the real me.

The only one of these voting travesties that could even potentially work for the benefit of any but Republican candidates is the use of insecure electronic voting machines. Because, you see, anybody can hack those, whether they want Republicans or Democrats to win. But of course, the CEO of Diebold is "committed to delivering Ohio's electoral votes" to President Bush (oh, too bad that didn't work out), so I think it's safe to say the Republicans have an advantage on this source of fraud as well.

I have drawn a conclusion from this. First, I must admit that over the last four years when people have talked about how the election was stolen from Al Gore, I have occasionally thought they should stop whining about that. There was after all a legal (albeit not a valid electoral) process that resulted in Bush being awarded the presidency. But this time around, I declare that if Bush wins the office again, I will not believe it unless he wins by an undeniable landslide. I will be one of those people with a sign (though probably not an actual physical sign) that says "Not My President."

"But Andy, will you believe the results if the election is close and Kerry ends up winning?"

Yes. Because if Kerry ends up ahead by however small a margin in the end, I can safely trust that if all the people in those swing states who had been wrongfully disenfranchised or lied to about where to vote or whatever had actually had their votes counted, then Kerry's lead would be even more substantial.

Meanwhile, I will go back to a point on which Glory and I agreed: this is all inexcusable, whoever is responsible for it. We've had four years since the last debacle, and they're still planning to use machines that can't be verified by a paper record; they're still sending out absentee ballots with the wrong races on them (it happened to my grandparents, too); and groups dedicated to committing illegal election fraud are still allowed to do their business. Inexcusable.

UPDATE: I forgot this at the time, but I intended to mention that, despite her knowledge that I am going to vote for John Kerry, whom she thoroughly dislikes, Glory told me this: "YOU HAVE TO VOTE!!" That was when it was uncertain whether my absentee ballot would come and I was contemplating going to Albuquerque to vote. It's she nice? And pretty too.

Also, I wrote this post without any knowledge that Krugman wrote about the same thing, only better.

The Bush Faithful

2004-10-22T15:17:00.000-05:00

Drink the Kool-Aid of lies.

Gratuitous thanks to the Left Coaster.

I love Big Brother

2004-10-22T02:06:00.000-05:00

Went and watched "Fahrenheit 9/11" tonight, sponsored by the University Democrats group. Just so you know, this is the biggest kind of thing our Texas Tech Dems group is able to pull off, on account of our low numbers. Nothing like my friend Zach at UNM and his Liberal Alliance that gets to meet the guy who made the movie (not to mention our next president). Just watching it wouldn't really draw a crowd there anyway because it's a foregone conclusion that everybody has seen it already.

We are, however, participating in the National Service Day for Kerry-Edwards. I know I heard a lot about this awhile ago, but I can't seem to find much on it now. But I intend to pick up some trash and represent!

Anyway, there were some Bush supporters in our crowd this evening, watching the movie and holding their sign and clapping for things like the invasion of Iraq and dead children (just kidding...sort of). Overall they were much more courteous than other Republican party crashers I've encountered. Call me pleasantly surprised, and slap me for assuming they wouldn't be able to behave themselves. Yeah...Andy's been a bad boy...

And on top of that, we all had a pretty civil discussion at the end. The Republicans invited us to go to their showing of "Celsius 41.11"--the Right wing's fifth (or is it sixth?) "answer" to "Fahrenheit 9/11"--and I think I will go if I don't have something else I have to do. I'm a little nervous that I would accidentally yell things at inappropriate times, or maybe wouldn't be as courteous in an after-movie discussion as people were this evening. I wouldn't want to make a scene, after all!

And finally, I have news for all the people who have been keeping up with my absentee ballot drama. Not that I have talked about it on the blog, but I presume that most of the people who read this are the five or six I've already talked to about it personally. I was calling the Bernalillo County Clerk's office all morning and I kept getting a busy signal. I eventually sent a somewhat testy email to them about the phones not working, and I got a reply...not only apologizing for the lack of phone service, but saying my ballot was in the mail! I had forgotten that Hotmail puts my name in the "From" line. I thought it was going to be an anonymous email. And the person responding to it was obviously the same person I had badgered about my ballot so many times on the phone already, so she remembered that I was curious about my absentee ballot. Oops.

That's right kids, it's okay to be rude, as long as people don't know who you are.

Anyway, now I have a new email for occasions when anonymity is desired or I have to do some stupid registration. My new name is Winston Smith. That's right. And my ballot is on its way, meaning any plans to go to Albuquerque and vote are most likely cancelled.

It's okay, I was starting to like the smell of cow feces anyway.

When you're right, you're right.

2004-10-18T14:09:00.000-05:00

Maybe just a prelude to the October surprise...

From MSNBC:

“But we’ve always said there were ties between Zarqawi and al-Qaida, which underscores once again why Iraq is the central front in the war on terror,” White House spokesman Trent Duffy said in Washington. “It’s also proof positive of why the president’s firm resolve to fight terrorists overseas so we don’t face them in America’s neighborhoods is the only clear way to prevail.”

So what's all this about? According to the article, Iraq's most public and prolific terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, proclaimed allegiance to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida in a statement on Sunday. And the Bush administration's response is, "See, we told you so."

Okay, first off, the argument from Duffy that Zarqawi and bin Laden have always been allied and that the Bush administration always knew it is not really valid. The statement just came out recently, and (if you read farther down in the article) some experts believe it was really just a case of name-dropping by Zarqawi to gain notoriety.

But that's not the point. The point is, if Zarqawi's statement is true, two of the most powerful names in the anti-American Muslim terrorist business have proclaimed allegiance against us, and the administration talks about this like it is a good thing. They are glad, because this adds to the credibility of their statement that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror. They don't care about the American soldiers or the Iraqis who are dying every day. They just want desperately to be re-elected.

This is bad, you idiots! (addressed to the Bush administration) And it's your fault. Zarqawi and al-Qaida would probably never have had anything to do with each other (since it has obviously taken such a long time for a public statement of allegiance, and since as radical fundamentalists they probably disagreed on some minor thing that caused previously insurmountable differences) if it wasn't for your unjustfied and criminally negligent invasion of a sovreign, predominantly Muslim nation. Hence Zarqawi's statement: "Muslims need more than ever to stick together in the face of the religion's enemies."

To talk about this like it is just a boon to your "Iraq is the central front in the war on terror" argument (which, for the record, not even John Kerry disagrees with; he just points out that you made it that way) is traitorous to the soldiers who are dying in Iraq at the hands and bombs of newly unified terrorists.

"This is deception."

2004-10-18T13:29:00.000-05:00

The man who should be President is laying it down. The one benefit of the unfortunate stealing of this election from Al Gore is that he can now be totally honest and as harsh as this administration deserves. This is the most comprehensive, fact-centered and thorough condemnation of the Bush administration that I have ever heard. Better than "Fahrenheit 9/11." I hope they put this all over the news. (hahaha, yeah right)

Update: I am now watching the actual President. I think he just said, "We will stand up for terror." Well, you already have stood up for terror quite effectively, so I don't doubt it, sir. But that's not the point. The point is that if the Supreme Court had given the win to Gore instead of Bush, we would now have a president who talks with facts, rather than platitudes. We would have a president who is a proud member of the "reality-based community," not a president whose senior staff ridicules those of us who are hampered by a dependence on reality.

Going Upriver

2004-10-15T02:56:00.000-05:00

I just finished watching Going Upriver, which I downloaded for free. It was expertly put together for sure (since I know so much about making movies). But more than that, it has made me ashamed for all the times, when personally confronted with a Bush supporter or group thereof, when I have said, "I admit I could desire a better candidate for my party, but..."

And I've said it. Not necessarily because I meant it, but because I am such an equivocator when it comes to interpersonal conflicts. I said it most recently when somebody in one of the aforementioned groups said, "I may not agree with George Bush on everything, but Kerry is just a joke." I realize I should have said, "Wow, I would have said exactly the same about Bush, except the joke isn't funny." But I just didn't have the balls.

And it's true, I don't agree with some of Kerry's stances, some of his votes, some of his campaign's choices. I don't believe anybody who really thinks for him or herself will ever find a candidate with whom they agree on absolutely everything, unless they run for office themselves. But what this movie made me realize is that John Kerry is exactly what I want in my candidate and my President, because he truly knows what it means to fight the establishment.

Frankly, I don't know very much at all about the Vietnam War. From what I've heard, it was that generation's Iraq, except that generation actually had the mettle to really care about it. Maybe that was just because there was a draft, I don't know. The point is, Kerry went there and fought out of duty to his country and loyalty to his fellow soldiers--much like the people fighting in Iraq today. But when he realized the American military was there for a lie and not for America's best interests, he took a principled stand.

And when he came home, Kerry stuck it to the Man.

What better candidate could I ask for to be President--the biggest Man of them all--than somebody who has actually gone out and stuck it to the Man?

And I mean he really did it. He didn't just run a blog and take cheap shots at the President or write letters to the editor or grow his hair out or something; he organized thousands of his disenchanted, angry fellow soldiers to actually speak out and capture the attention of the entire country to hear their cries of injustice. By his leadership, he embodied "Power to the People."

Whom should we trust to be the most powerful man in government, if it's not somebody who has himself called his government to account for breaking its trust with the American people?

---
This next part doesn't have much to do with the rest of what I was writing, except that I was reminded of it by Kerry's principled stand. I only caught about the last third of the debate on Wednesday night. What I did see was the question to the President about whether he would appoint judges to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

Now this issue is the most important issue for many people on both sides, but particularly the Christians of America who are voting for Bush; and indeed the question of what kinds of judges will be appointed (most likely) to the Supreme Court has vastly wider implications than just this issue.

As a person without a terribly strong opinion on this issue (and therefore claiming issue-objectivity), I make this observation:

Bush didn't take a stand on this issue. Kerry did.

Bush did not say he would try to get Roe overturned, but he didn't say he wouldn't, either. He deflected and avoided the question by talking about a "litmus test" for judges. Nobody on either side of the abortion issue cares about a litmus test. They just want their respective results.

In contrast to Bush's waffling, Kerry took the principled stand:

"I'll answer it straight to America. I'm not going to appoint a judge to the Court who's going to undo a constitutional right, whether it's the First Amendment, or the Fifth Amendment, or some other right that's given under our courts today -- under the Constitution. And I believe that the right of choice is a constitutional right.

So I don't intend to see it undone."

Whether one agrees with Kerry's stand or not, at least he took one.

Substitute

2004-10-12T15:45:00.000-05:00

It is highly likely that I will be unable to blog or even watch tomorrow night's final presidential debate. The reason is, my Glory is coming to visit me on Thursday, and as behind in my classes as I already am, I need to get as much stuff done as possible before then, so I can be a good host.

So, I may not be able to give my analysis of the candidates' performances, nor even do the increasingly easy job of pointing out George Bush's debate lies. It is okay though, because Paul Krugman already did it. "But the debate hasn't even happened yet, Andy!" It doesn't matter. Krugman and the rest of us know what George will be saying, and the points he relies on most to defend his record are simply not true. And it's not like he'll be saying anything new, so I'm sure it wasn't that hard to come up with these eight things. Read the article and then watch the debates, and you'll see.

I say he hits at least six of the eight lies. Anybody care to wager?

At Long Last...

2004-10-12T00:49:00.000-05:00

... here is the photograph of John Kerry and myself on the runway in Albuquerque.

Lost in the Dark Forest of Ideas

2004-10-11T01:55:00.000-05:00

I have been icing my cartoonishly swollen, raquetball-and-ultimate-frisbee-ravaged ankle. So please forgive my chilly tone. Har.

I have another dilemma. I have kept up with all the facts and developments on a politics-related issue about which I care, and yet I have not quite been able to develop a solid opinion. Now there are some issues about which I don't really care and others for which I can see both sides of the argument and still others about which I am admittedly underinformed, and on these I don't necessarily form a strong opinion. But this one, it just feels like I should have fallen to one side or the other by now.

The issue is the complicated mess involving the "outing" of Valerie Plame. Here's a synopsis for my friends and family who may not read any blogs besides mine, nor keep up with this story. In the summer of 2003, an ambassador named Joseph Wilson wrote an article in the NY Times about how he investigated in Niger and found no evidence to support President Bush's State of the Union claim that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium from there (one of his primary original justifications for the war). Days later, anonymous senior members of the Bush administration suggested to several reporters that the reason Wilson got the job of investigating in Niger was because his wife, Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA agent, suggested him for it. Robert Novak of the Times reported this, and I believe it was later pretty much confirmed that Wilson was indeed the beneficiary of nepotism--not that it made his report any less credible; the exposure was just retaliation by the Bush administration for making them look bad.

But somewhere in there, somebody remembered that it is a crime to reveal the identity of an undercover CIA agent. In other words, some senior official in the Bush administration committed treason by reavealing this information to the press. That's not just an opinion, that is fact. Again, they would appear to have done this in retaliation against Wilson, and it is quite possible that the knowledge of this crime before it happened goes all the way to the top, and it almost certainly goes at least to Karl Rove.

That is to say, this scandal makes Bill Clinton's Fellatiogate look like small potatoes. It's a funny thing it gets so much less exposure...

But anyway, the Justice Department opened an investigation on it. But the identities of these criminals remains unknown because several of the journalists they contacted have refused to reveal their sources. Most recently, journalist Judith Miller was sentenced to prison for contempt of court for not revealing the source, an event which prompted this article in the Times.

And here is where I don't really know what to think. The article argues that the right of press members to not have to reveal their sources is an essential guarantee of the First Amendment, that if that right is taken away, the public's access to the internal workings of the government (and hence some of the public's check on its power) will be taken away. If government officials cannot be guaranteed anonymity when giving information to the press, they just won't give any more information beyond their official capacity, and we'll be in the dark.

On the other hand, Atrios and others have consistently argued that in this case the journalists are helping to protect criminals (that is the court's case also), and that the mainstream newsmedia have become such lapdogs for the administration that they do not deserve the right to protect these sources. Particularly since these "anonymous senior officials" are regularly used by the administration to reveal information and disinformation without having to officially say it, and it takes the burden off the media to find out if what they are told is actually true (because how are they supposed to find out?). Protecting these sources does not help protect the public's ability to see the inner workings of the government that it doesn't want us to see; indeed it does the opposite. Protecting their anonymity allows the administration to tell the press whatever it wants, whether it be true or not, through these surrogates.

So what to think? I don't know. It's both refreshing and troubling to not know, as it is with the free trade issue. I would venture to say that members of the press do not get the right to protect criminals from the First Amendment, just by virtue of their being the press. I would say that the way federal government officials (not just Bush) have learned to subvert this freedom of the press for their own advantage is disturbing. But while I share Atrios' aversion to the "anonymous senior official" thing, I don't think the solution is to do away the right to protect sources. Someday it might come in handy.

What do you think?

And don't forget to scroll down; I wrote two posts tonight!

Bush-Cheney 2004 needs to grow some shame

2004-10-11T01:07:00.000-05:00

They never cease to amaze by how far out of context they will take John Kerry's words. Of course it's not surprising, since they have been pulling this lowdown garbage for awhile already. This most recent atrocity was regarding what Kerry said in a recent NY Times interview.

''We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance. As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.''

The Bush shills are siezing on the "nuisance" thing to say that Kerry is out of touch with reality. Read the article. They are scumbags, these people.

Now, let me take a moment to speculate on what the Bush people really mean when they use this quote against Kerry, once we put it in context. Because it's obvious that "Kerry thinks terrorism is just a nuisance" is not a viable conclusion from looking at what he really said. So they must mean one of two things.

One is that the goal of just making it so terrorism is a nuisance on the level of prostitution or gambling is somehow not aiming high enough. They really think they will eliminate all terrorist activity throughout the world, if they continue to pursue their doctrine of preemption and gunpoint democracy. Now, I shouldn't have to say it, but this would be an absurd and impossible goal even if they were doing it right--let alone with their current policies, which do nothing but play into the terrorists recruiters' hands.

The other possibility is that they think it is not possible to win the war on terror, or even bring terrorism down to the level of a "nuisance;" that indeed this is aiming unrealistically high. This is a reasonable assumption, since Bush said as much. (Yeah, maybe I'm taking his words out of context now too. That's why it pays to read.) Terrorism will perpetually remain a central, enduring threat and determining factor of our way of life. In this case, America is "at war" until our government says it's over, it's won. And apparently, that can never happen. We will always be at war with Eurasia...I mean Terrorism; the color-coded alert system will forever be the center of office water-cooler talk; and we will never forsake our fearless leaders, because without them our tenuous defense against Terror will be shattered.

Frankly, I don't know which is worse. Is the Bush crew so out of touch and arrogant that they think they can eliminate all terrorism and violent anti-Americanism throughout the world by starting unprovoked wars? Or do they hold the prospect of perpetual war as a tool to wrest control of our government from the complacent, fearful populace?

Well, I think I will take the advice of my parents and conclude neither the best nor the worst about any politician. I say even Dubya doesn't know what the endgame is, and for now all these people are trying to do is make John Kerry look bad, using their native tongue: lies.

Conclusion

2004-10-09T00:56:00.000-05:00

No obvious smackdown like the last debate. Oh well.

The questions and the answers in this debate were more useful than in the last one. I think the fact that the audience wrote the questions, even though they were screened and arranged, made for more interesting discourse and definitely a wider range of topics. I was very glad they talked about the Patriot Act and stem cells and (gasp!) the environment. Making this a one-issue race--which it still primarily is, despite tonight's debate--does a disservice to voters.

Nevertheless, I just wasn't as interested in this debate as I was in the last one. Maybe I have debate and blogging fatigue, but maybe it's because the political discourse has gotten so acrimonious. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for the people (people like me) being mean and sarcastic and acerbic about political candidates and officeholders, because that is how we keep them accountable. But it's just a turn-off to see it from the candidates themselves. I think when John Kerry starts every response with how the President has failed...even if it's true, that overshadows the part when he gets to his own plans (which are usually good) for what he would do. He always put the attack first, giving an impression of avoiding the question. Of course, he always answered the question after the attack portion...but that's a bad idea, since voters who are still undecided obviously can't pay attention very well. And harping on the President's prolific failures and lies is not the way to inspire new people to vote for you; it is not the way to erase the idea that the voters have to choose between the lesser of two evils. But on the other hand, what does my talking about the President's failures on my little blog accomplish, as compared to a presidential candidate exposing them on live TV? So I guess acrimony has it's place.

I kept wanting to yell at John, "Say what I want you to say!" Darn it. Like on the Patriot Act question. It is a failure, a ruse, and an attack on Americans' rights, no matter how much the President lies about how well it works. Not a single convicted terrorist! But John and I disagree on the Patriot Act--or at least he has to maintain that stance because, like so many other legislators, he was swindled into voting for it. And in the America that Bush has at least somewhat successfully manipulated, changing one's mind in the face of new evidence is not wisdom but weakness. I think the man should read Proverbs, personally. But anyway, at least Kerry understands that we need to take a closer look at the Act, whereas George and his flunkies just want to keep adding to it, even though it hasn't done anything to fight terrorism.

And again, right at the end with the $87 billion. John gave the same response as last time, when a much better response would have been that the President threatened to veto the bill (with the emphasis to add that vetoing actually kills a bill, whereas a senator voting against it does not) if some of the cost was made a loan, instead of just adding to our deficit. Yes, this would have been another attack exposing the President's unfitness to lead this country; but this one was necessary to put to bed this extremely widespread Republican lie. It would have been better than the "Which is worse?" response. Oh well.

I started by writing criticism of Kerry's performance, but only because I don't expect anything from Bush. And he certainly lived up to my expectations. Besides, he didn't have anything new to criticize. The man has no new ideas to make our country better, because he has such a distorted view of reality that he thinks nothing needs to be changed. Everything is going great in Iraq. Everything is peachy here at home. I don't know if he really believes it or if he's just trying to convince voters to believe it, but it's false either way. More of the same. I think this is best illustrated by a section of the debate:

Q. Mr. President, why did you block the reimportation of safer and inexpensive drugs from Canada, which would have cut 40 to 60 percent off of the cost?

BUSH: I haven't yet. Just want to make sure they're safe. When a drug comes in from Canada I want to make sure it cures you and doesn't kill you. And that's why the F.D.A. and that's why the surgeon general are looking very carefully to make sure it can be done in a safe way. I've got an obligation to make sure our government does everything we can to protect you. And my worry is, is that, you know, it looks like it's from Canada and it might be from a Third World. We've just got to make sure before somebody thinks they're buying a product that that it works. And that's why we're doing what we're doing. Now it may very well be here in December you hear me say I think there's a safe way to do it.

(snip)

KERRY: John, you heard the president just say that he thought he might try to be for it. Four years ago, right here in this forum he was asked the same questions: Can't people be able to import drugs from Canada? Do you know what he said? I think that makes sense. I think that's a good idea. Four years ago.

Four years ago. The President has had four years and a congress that follows his nearly every whim, and America is worse off for it in every apparent respect. If that is not a grounds for his removal from office, I don't know what is.

2004-10-08T21:23:00.000-05:00

"I can't take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for somebody to whom it is not an article of faith."

You've given me hope, John. Please win.

The Constitution

2004-10-08T21:20:00.000-05:00

Our President just equated Supreme Court judges who said that "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is a violation of the First Amendment with judges who ruled that slaves could not be free. Our President does not understand and does not respect our country's most important document. That is probably the scariest prospect of a second Bush term.

How would you rate yourself as an environmentalist?

2004-10-08T21:00:00.000-05:00

Hahahahaha! Here's how.

Would you look into the camera...

2004-10-08T20:55:00.000-05:00

Way to go John! I believe you. You know this will kill you if you go back on it, but I don't think you will. I especially like how you mentioned the programs you've already cut from your agenda to make up for the rising deficit. You better stick to it, John. I think you will.

The Bush Plan: Maintain the Lies

2004-10-08T20:16:00.000-05:00

He's still saying there are going to be 125,000 fully trained Iraqi security forces by the end of the year, even when his own Defense Department says it's not true.

12 minutes

2004-10-08T20:13:00.000-05:00

Before George Bush first mentioned the "global test." Rude Pundit says what the Prez can do with the global test argument (Warning: Extremely profane and offensive and funny).

The VP debates...how did they go on without me?

2004-10-06T02:42:00.000-05:00

Oh my goodness, I'm mad. The stupid, stupid computer deleted my post. I'll try and remember what I said.

So I watched what MSNBC deemed the important clips of tonight's VP debate. My first and biggest criticism goes to the moderator, Gwen Ifill. She asked multiple questions about the same topic (two on tort reform and two on gay marriage) to the exclusion of other topics, which only illicited repetitious responses from the debaters. I applaud Cheney for ending the second question about gay marriage quickly in order to move onto something important (too bad the House can't figure that one out). Her first question about tort reform was just to try and get Cheney to personally attack Edwards, and the second question was just to get Edwards to say he felt he had been personally attacked. This isn't Maury Povich, Gwen. Crimony. And finally,

IFILL: It goes to the Senator. I see you. I just asked him about Israel, even though we didn't actually talk about it much.

The commentary is unnecessary. Just ask the questions.

As for Cheney, well first he should stop lying about the connection between Hussein and al-Qaeda, since nobody else in the government actually takes that seriously anymore. But on the other hand, the people who still believe that lie are a major part of the Bush-Cheney base, so I guess he'd better not flip-flop on it. And Dick,

I personally think one of the reasons that we don't have as many suicide attacks today in Israel as we've had in the past is because Saddam is no longer in business.

...Oh my goodness, did you seriously just say that? Apparently the Vice President can say whatever garbage he wants with out any accountability, no matter how unjustifiable it is, so long as he prefaces it with "I personally think." "Mr. Leahy, I personally think you should go f--- yourself." Hahaha.

Cheney's defense of the administration's economic policies was similarly weak:

Gwen, we've got 111 million American taxpayers that have benefited from our income tax cuts. We've got 33 million students who've benefited from No Child Left Behind. We've got 40 million seniors who benefited from the reform of the Medicare system.

The convenient thing about nebulous arguments like how many people have "benefitted" from your policies is that you don't have to talk about how they have benefitted or about how many people have "malefitted" (Yeah, I made up a word. What of it? It means "been screwed over") by your policies. Like how many more people are unemployed than when your term began, or how many more people are uninsured, or how much wages have fallen as compared to inflation. Yeah.

What I will grant Cheney is that he was cool and collected, and he sounded like he knew what he was talking about, even when it wasn't true. And that's good for his campaign, because to the undecided voter, the fact that he sounded like he was "being straight" with the American people is much more important than whether or not he actually was.

As for Edwards, I think he did a good job, but it just hurt me inside to see him brought down to this level. His campaign was a breath of fresh air back in the primaries when he was all positivity. Now, I'm glad Kerry won instead of Edwards because he is just more qualified, but if the whole campaign had stayed at the level of integrity Edwards brought to it in the primaries...I suspect America would be a happier place today. It's a shame that Cheney's campaigning has brought a new low to American politics by manipulating people's fear and implying (well, saying) that electing the challenger will lead to more terrorist attacks. That's a lot of attacking to live up to, but Edwards did a good job on the offense. It just seemed that (for instance) when Edwards would address something directly to Cheney it ran contrary to his own lovely nice-guy charm.

If this election were not so much about holding the Bush administration accountable for its lies and its failures, I would have liked to see Edwards just let all Cheney's rhetorical bile roll off his back and stick to the positive message about America's future. But sadly, we don't live in that America right now. So stick it to 'em, John! And John! Yeah.

It's bedtime (again). I look forward to actually watching the next debate.

2004-10-05T15:52:00.000-05:00

So how's the new format? That question goes out to anybody who reads this, meaning mostly my family and my friends, but also any other random passers-by (which appear to be increasing, as my second thousand seems to be going by much faster than my first thousand). Anyway, is everything in its right place? No overlapping? Did it load really slow? It probably loaded slow because of the pictures, but I will try to do something about that. This has been my first experience with anything pertaining to designing a webpage. I'm hoping to write and add a couple not-so-fancy Javascript things in here too, mostly for my own amusement.

As I've lamented before, I can't argue for a darn in person. This deficiency came up again yesterday. I was in a Bible study with about eight or ten fellows, and somebody mentioned that we should pray for the election. Well, after some discussion I sort of let the cat out of the bag that YES I am a Democrat and NO I do not want to pray for the election with you. This is the second school year I've hung out with this crowd at the Baptist Student Ministries--the conservative crowd of my conservative school--and up until now I have been an incognito liberal to most of them. These days I don't advertise it, but I do not hide it either, and I proudly sport my Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker.

But anyway, back at the Bible study, this led to the obligatory uninformed crap about Kerry's plan for Iraq (which I fortunately mustered the confidence to debunk--not that anybody cared or understood), but then somebody said something that left me so aghast I couldn't even respond. It went something like this:

"What worries me about Kerry being President is that his wife is the owner of this huge Heinz corporation, and she would just use the White House to manipulate things for its benefit."

Well, here on AIB, I officially give my response, which I was unable to utter at the time:

You're worried about corporate influence at the highest offices of government? So yeah, it's a great idea to vote for Bush/Cheney! Get those dirty corporations out of the White House! You wouldn't want the ruthless ketchup lobby to be in control! Tell me, have you ever heard of Halliburton? Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

And my head explodes. All over them.

Now, I don't want to give the impression that they were harassing me about my stance or anything, because they weren't (in contrast to my previously-blogged experience). They are very nice people, and we know each other pretty well (or rather, we have been hanging out for a relatively long while; I can't claim to really know any of them any more than I would think they really know me, which is hardly at all). But nevertheless, it made me extremely uncomfortable.

It made me uncomfortable because conservatism just makes me sick, for how nasty and mean wrong it is; every right-wing utterance (particularly from people I know and like) just makes me lose a little bit of faith that Americans are the best people in the world and that we're bound to come out on top. We're not. Not when right-wing policies work to concentrate all the wealth and power to fewer and fewer people; to keep the populace distracted through fear, blind nationalism and religious fanaticism; and to stifle individual rights while all dissention is silenced from the top. Look at history; civilizations like that don't last.

But anyway, so why then do I choose to spend so much time with this group? Why did I come to bloody Texas for college? Well, these days I'm kind of trying to figure that out. I do get a lot spiritually out of BSM and the other things I do, and I get along with the people just fine. Even though I know they're all conservative, as long as we're not talking about politics, it's no big deal and I'm not on edge. But it's bound to come up every once in awhile and I get a freakin ulcer every time. My friends back home and Glory and my family never make me want to tear my eyeballs out like this place does sometimes. I'm beginning to think I should have given more credence to people warning me that I'd hate Texas. Everybody says college is the best time of your life, and you'll look back on it whistfully for the rest of your life. If this is all I have to look back on--"this" being hardly anything, beyond my lucrative scholarship--it'll make for a pretty crappy middle age, I'm thinking.

I wish I could watch the VP debate tonight, when John "Dreamboat" Edwards takes on Dick "The Evil Behind the Scenes" Cheney, but I need to go to call bingo at a retirement home and then go to the BSM for our weekly get-together. Yep.

Freedom Visits Lubbock

2004-10-03T03:21:00.000-05:00

I attend Texas Tech University, an institution whose leadership regards free speech as somewhat of a joke. I wrote a letter to our school newspaper about it last semester, and I blogged it here. You should see our "free speech area." I could pee across it.

Well, a law student took them to court over their unconstitutional speech laws, and justice has prevailed. My letter had nothing to do with it, of course (I believe the lawsuit was already in progress when I wrote it), but it's still satisfying. As it turns out, the fellow brought the suit because the college wouldn't let him stand outside and talk about how evil gay people are. But as the saying goes...Freedom can come from unlikely hicks. Or something like that.

I don't know what changes the school will have to manifest, but anything will be a step up. Beyond that, the ruling gives hope that this kind of oppressive speech restriction from colleges will be prohibited all across Texas (although I don't think any of them were as bad as Tech to begin with) and maybe all over the country. We'll see.

As for now, almost nobody at my school will appreciate this, because their opinions are monochrome. So who needs free speech? But, as I promised them last semester, they will appreciate it someday.

John Kerry

2004-10-01T20:46:00.000-05:00

Judicious, contemplative, and thorough.

Conclusion

2004-09-30T21:17:00.000-05:00

John Kerry wins. That is my thesis statement.

First, he totally called the Prez on his lies. Like his "the enemy attacked us" statement (granted, this is not a direct lie, but the administration and its supporters are wont to propagate this untrue implication that Iraq had something to do with it). "Saddam Hussein didn't attack us. Osama bin Laden attacked us. Al Qaida attacked us"..."That's the enemy that was allowed to walk out of those mountains. That's the enemy that is now in 60 countries, with stronger recruits." Boom. Shut down. Good job, John. Unfortunately he didn't call the the Prez on the untruths like 100,000 trained Iraqi security workers, or the 10,000,000 registered voters in Afghanistan.

Other highlights
"Iraq was not even close to the center of the war on terror until the President invaded it."

"Talk about mixed messages..." (I'm paraphrasing the rest of this) "the President says he is against nuclear proliferation, and yet this administration has started work on new bunker-busting nuclear weapons. How can we be a force for non-proliferation in the world while working on a program to make new nuclear weapons? If I am President, I will end this program immediately." Let it be noted that Bush agreed with Kerry that nuclear proliferation is the greatest threat to our national security, and yet he did not respond to Kerry's point that this new nuclear program underminds nonproliferation.

More generally
John put the debate into his own terms. He stayed on the offensive. Over and over, he brought accountability for the president into this debate, and he didn't let up, but he also very effectively clarified his own stances (with some unfortunate exceptions). All these American voters are supposedly saying we don't know where John Kerry stands, what his plans are. Well, now they know. The Repubs keep saying his plan for Iraq is no different from the President's, using "training Iraqis for security" as the example. "Well, that's just what we're doing." Oh okay, so that's why the president uses fictional numbers for how many have been trained. Since they're using the "that's our plan too" argument, they better make it look like they've actually been doing it, even if it's not true.

I know it's shallow and puts me at the rather odious level of the uninformed masses to talk about appearances and demeanor, beyond just content. But I will anyway. Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but I watched these debates on C-Span, where they had a split screen the entire time. It was obvious that Mr. Bush was getting pretty pissed some of the time while Kerry was talking, and he didn't handle it well. He maintained that repugnant smirk all the time, he blinked constantly, and he slouched. He had - very - uncomfortably long moments of speechlessness at the beginning and middle of several of his responses. John smiled (rather than smirked), he spoke evenly and lucidly, he engaged the camera more, and he stood up straight. I preferred watching and listening to this man.

Things that made Andy unhappy (from Bush, Kerry, and Lehrer)
One of the points Bush repeated the most, and one of the most disgusting, idiotic ideas that pervades our country, was that calling the war wrong and a mistake is equivalent to not supporting or respecting the troops. Using the fact that we're at war to stifle dissent and democracy is deplorable. And they do it all the time. Bush repeatedly accused Kerry of sending "mixed messages" to the troops, but Kerry pointed out that there's a distinction "between the war and the warriors." I thought that was obvious. I don't know, the flag-wrapping crap gets me worse than just about anything else.

I would have liked to hear more discussion on the Patriot Act. It was only mentioned once. Minus one for Jim Lehrer.

Like I mentioned a few posts down, John could have capitalized on the opportunity to set the record straight on the $87 billion Iraq appropriation "flip-flop." Granted, he only had 30 seconds, but he could have done it. He did, however, take the opportunity to say he made a mistake in how he talked about it later (though fortunately he defended the actual votes he made), thus making the distinction that he is capable of admitting mistakes, and drawing the due, sharp contrast with Mr. Bush.

On a similar note, I only noticed one time when Mr. Kerry concisely defended his entire rationale for voting to authorize the use of force and still saying the war was a mistake and handled poorly. It's an obvious point, but from what I've seen, people need to hear it over and over again to understand it.

I got a good snicker from George's response when John Kerry said something about how the war in Iraq has played into Osama bin Laden's hands, that he uses it "in order to go out to people and say that America has declared war on Islam." Since I had the split screen, I saw George seem to light up and craftily reach for his pen and write something when he heard this. Frankly, after that display, I was expecting something more relevant than his actual response:

"My opponent just said something amazing. He said Osama bin Laden uses the
invasion of Iraq as an excuse to spread hatred for America. Osama bin Laden
isn't going to determine how we defend ourselves. Osama bin Laden doesn't get to
decide. The American people decide."

Cue the silent chorus of "Okaaaaay........?"

Anyway, that's about all I've got. This was fun, and I am happy, because John Kerry did me proud, and I had fun writing about it.

Allawi count

2004-09-30T20:44:00.000-05:00

The President has used the adjective "brave" for Mr. Allawi, four times in ten seconds. Yes, he is very brave.

In the interest of balance...

2004-09-30T20:31:00.000-05:00

John, you could have answered the response to the $87 billion thing better. Like by pointing out that George threatened to veto the version of the bill that actually made provisions to pay for it. That would have been perfect, John. Darn it.

The first substantive words from President Bush in the debate.

2004-09-30T20:06:00.000-05:00

What is...September 11th?

That's correct.

Putting off studying...

2004-09-30T14:44:00.000-05:00

Like everyone, I will be blogging about the debates. Fortunately, I managed to hurry around yesterday so that I can watch them tonight. I may even try "liveblogging," but we'll see. But in the meantime, I have been watching C-Span coverage of Tom DeLay's political game of forcing debate on the Federal Marriage Amendment in the House...even though it was thoroughly shut down in the Senate and faces no future. As Frank Pallone of New Jersey says, it is "red meat for the conservative right one month before the election."

The Republicans all say they want to support this amendment "for the children," because heterosexual families lead to better children. But they talk like allowing same-sex marriage is equivalent to prohibiting traditional marriage. Or rather, they talk about same-sex marriage leading to the decline of traditional marriage. Why? What bearing does my neighbor's same-sex marriage have on my own traditional marriage? It has no more bearing than I allow it to have. Heck, the law would even still allow me to teach my kids that queers are evil...even if they ARE allowed to marry.

Another catch phrase I'm hearing a lot is about how "the family is the building block of society." I must ask...what ever happened to the individual? Does an individual have no relevance to society outside of his or her role in a family? Is the individual not the real "building block of society?" When the Republicans argue that allowing same-sex marriage will lead to the decline of traditional marriage, they are making exactly this claim. Individuals aren't responsible enough to control how they will live their lives unless the government sets the standard for them. What they're implying is that "if we allow gays to marry then everybody will marry gay!" Why? "Because they're allowed to! And they don't know any better!" This posturing is transparent. Americans are bound to see through the illogic of this. Crimony. Maybe Congress should start talking about something that matters.

And, just to round it out, that is most of what the Democrats are talking about here. "Let's talk about something that matters." While that is a darn good point, there is more inherently wrong with the amendment than the fact that it's a waste of time. Fortunately several Dems have also hit on the point that it would be writing discrimination and bigotry into the Constitution.

And here was another interesting point from Diana DeGette of Colorado: "Why shouldn't we instead ban divorce? I ask you who have been divorced or have committed adultery...are you really ready to stand here today and cast the first stone?" Something like that. I may have missed a few words. But, I hereby declare to the House Judiciary Committee, on behalf of Ms. DeGette, in my best urban-style vernacular:

Ohhhhhhh...you got served!

Anyway, I gotta go study for my evening physics test. I would just cheat off of somebody, but...fortunately the government has told me that it's wrong to cheat. So now I know better.