Random Fate - old

What is the greater danger?

John Poindexter's response to a question regarding privacy troubles me:

question: Is privacy a right?

It's certainly not a constitutional right. It's an individual right that has to be balanced with concern for the common good. Privacy has to be relative to other objectives - for instance, security. The greatest threat to privacy is terrorism. How much privacy was there in Afghanistan under the Taliban?

It seems that Dr. Poindexter is forgetting the fourth amendment:

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

and the ninth amendment:

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Both of these amendments indicate that privacy is indeed a right (see the fourth amendment) and just because privacy is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights does not mean that it is not a right (see the ninth amendment).

The attitude of John Poindexter and the Bush administration in general towards privacy rights of those who are NOT members of the administration or other "special persons" is a matter of great concern to me. A recent editorial posted on MSNBC.com by Jane Black discusses the very attitude that troubles me:

It seems reasonably clear by now that President George W. Bush sees the world in black and white. There are good guys and bad guys. Us and them. Except, that is, when it comes to personal privacy. Two major news stories in late April have highlighted the Bush Administration's flip-flop approach to privacy protection -- what I call suit-yourself privacy. The first is the mammoth prochoice rally in Washington, D.C. The second is the Pentagon's decision to enforce a ban on photos of flag-draped coffins leaving Iraq.

On the face of it, the two have nothing in common. But at the heart of both stories is an individual's right to privacy. On Apr. 23, hundreds of thousands of people marched on the Capitol to protest, among other things, the Administration's decision to subpoena women's private medical records to support its case against late-term abortions.

The Justice Dept. claims this isn't an invasion of privacy because federal law "does not recognize a physician-patient privilege." It further asserts that patients "no longer possess a reasonable expectation that their histories will remain completely confidential."

That very same day, Bush spokesman Trent Duffy condemned the publication of photos of flag-draped coffins in The Seattle Times and on various Web sites, including TheMemoryHole.org. Duffy said the White House found the images inappropriate because "the sensitivity and privacy of families of the fallen must be the first priority."

Privacy, it seems, is irrelevant if the Administration wants your personal information to advance one of its moral crusades. But it's of primary importance if it wants to keep from public view those images that drive home the cost of the conflict in Iraq -- and perhaps cause it political damage in the process.

Of course, this is hardly the first time the Bush White House has customized the definition of privacy to suit itself. In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, hundreds of Arab men were held without being charged. Federal investigators declined to disclose even the most basic facts about them, including their names and where they were being held. The stated reason: protecting the privacy of detainees.

Meanwhile, Vice-President Dick Cheney has used privacy as an excuse not to release his own medical records -- even though he had four reported heart attacks before he took office in January, 2001. And he has gone to the U.S. Supreme Court with the argument that the public would be invading the privacy of his Energy Committee -- and risking "the President's constitutional authority to gather candid advice from his advisers" -- if notes of the committee's conversations were revealed.

I know many are supporting President Bush because they feel he is the only viable candidate who is pursuing the right path in the war on terrorism and national defense in general. I say that if we end up destroying our freedoms and civil rights in the process of supposedly protecting them by setting up a special class of people who have more privacy rights than the common people, we may as well have not protected our civil rights at all. Recall the end of Animal Farm by George Orwell: All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Amid all the lost perspective surrounding the 9/11 Commission...

...Jennifer says it best.

Even unelected officials should be fully reported upon

This is very troubling. From an editorial by Bob Herbert in the New York Times, a report on an incident that occurred during a speech by Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia (quoted extensively due to the New York Times tendency to move articles to a "pay only" status shortly after web publication):

Antoinette Konz is a young education reporter for The Hattiesburg American, a daily newspaper with a circulation of about 25,000 in Hattiesburg, Miss. Ms. Konz, 25, has only been in the business for a couple of years, so her outlook hasn't been soiled by the cranks and the criminals, and the pretzel-shaped politicians that so many of us have been covering for too many years to count.

She considered it a big deal when one of the schools on her beat, the Presbyterian Christian High School, invited her to cover a speech that was delivered last Wednesday by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

About 300 people, many of them students, filled the school's gymnasium for the speech. They greeted Justice Scalia with a standing ovation.

Ms. Konz and a reporter for The Associated Press, Denise Grones, were seated in the front row. They began to take notes. And when Justice Scalia began speaking, they clicked on their tape recorders.

What's important about this story is that Justice Scalia is a big shot. Not only is he a member in good standing of the nation's most august court, he's almost always among those mentioned as a possible future chief justice.

Compared with him, Ms. Konz and Ms. Grones are nobodies.

Justice Scalia, the big shot, does not like reporters to turn tape recorders on when he's talking, whether that action is protected by the Constitution of the United States or not. He doesn't like it. And he doesn't permit it.

Thirty-five minutes into the speech we were approached by a woman who identified herself as a deputy U.S. marshal," Ms. Konz told me in a telephone conversation on Friday. "She said that we should not be recording and that she needed to have our tapes."

In the U.S., this is a no-no. Justice Scalia and his colleagues on the court are responsible for guaranteeing such safeguards against tyranny as freedom of the press. In fact, the speech Mr. Scalia was giving at the very moment the marshal moved against the two reporters was about the importance of the Constitution.

Ms. Konz said neither she nor Ms. Grones wanted to comply with the marshal's demand.

"It was very distracting, very embarrassing," she said. "We were still trying to listen to what he was saying."

The marshal, Melanie Rube, insisted.

The A.P. reporter tried to explain that she had a digital recording device, so there was no tape to give up. Ms. Konz said the deputy seemed baffled by that.

Eventually both recordings were seized.

If this had been an old-time Hollywood movie, the Supreme Court justice would have turned a kindly face toward the marshal and said, in an avuncular tone: "No, no. We don't do that sort of thing in this country. Please return the recordings."

But this is the United States in the 21st century where the power brokers have gone mad. They've deluded themselves into thinking they're royalty, not public servants charged with protecting the rights and interests of the people. Both recordings were erased. Only then was the reporters' property returned.

When agents acting on behalf of a Supreme Court justice can just snatch and destroy information collected by reporters, we haven't just thumbed our nose at the Constitution, we've taken a very dangerous step in a very ugly direction. The depot at the end of that dark road is totalitarianism.

I called Jane Kirtley, a professor of media, ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, and asked her what was wrong with what the marshal did. She replied, "Everything."

Not only was it an affront to the Constitution to seize and erase the recordings, Ms. Kirtley believes it was also a violation of the Privacy Protection Act, a law passed by Congress in 1980.

"It protects journalists not just from newsroom searches," she said, "but from the seizure of their work product material, things like notes and drafts, and also what's called documentary materials, which are things like these tapes, or digital recordings."

Neglecting the gibes in the editorial, even the bare statement of the facts is very disturbing in a democratic republic. I plan to follow up on this, because I have observed in the statements and opinions of Justice Scalia a pattern that seems to indicate an attitude of feeling above the law he is to interpret. Given that some of his opinions have stated there is "no right to privacy" in our Constitution, it is odd that Justice Scalia said regarding this incident:

Justice Scalia indicated he would continue to ban the recording of his speeches by the broadcast press.

"The electronic media have in the past respected my First Amendment right not to speak on radio or television when I do not wish to do so," he wrote, "and I am sure that courtesy will continue."

It seems to me there is a wee bit of an inconsistency here.

What this Centrist stands for

Beth, She Who Will Be Obeyed, recently wrote "What this Conservative stands for" which was a very clear statement of her beliefs and opinions. I wanted to post something similar for what I stand for, but Beth did such a fine job that instead of writing my own list I wanted to use what Beth said as a springboard to contrast what a centrist (which is what I think I am) stands for. Initially, I was surprised by the large areas of agreement that I found, but after some thought I realized that most folks do have many beliefs in common, it is the details where the devil and disagreement usually lie. So, in the spirit of healthy discussion, I present Beth's points (in italics) followed by what this Centrist stands for:

1. Adults are responsible for their own actions. Blaming their own behavior on drugs, alcohol, coming from a poor family or because they are gay or black or female or brown or white is neither rational nor useful. Every day we all have choices to make - good ones and bad ones, and if you make bad choices, then don't blame me and expect me to pick up your pieces if things don't go well for you.

I agree with this completely and have nothing to add that wouldn't repeat what Beth said.

2. Life is precious. Whether you believe in God or don't, life is the most precious thing we have. That includes the life of a baby growing in a mother's womb. I get annoyed at all the liberals who think that 592 American deaths in Iraq (and every one of those deaths is distressing, but probably necessary in a war) is the worst thing that can happen on earth, when millions of Americans have been denied being born because abortions are too easy to come by for any reason whatsoever (let's leave rape out of this discussion, please). The Death Penalty should be abolished, and replaced with life in prison - no parole whatsoever.

I do believe life is precious, but unfortunately I diverge from Beth here. I believe that a woman has the right to control her own body, including a fetus growing in her womb. If the government starts mandating what a woman can and cannot do with HER body when she is pregnant, where would it end? Every egg, even unfertilized, is a potential human life, and if we take this path to the illogical conclusion the song Every Sperm Is Sacred from the Monty Python movie The Meaning of LIfe will become our anthem. We should not focus on potential life more than we work on improving the lives that are already here. As a part of that same underlying philosophy of focusing on the life that is already here, I do believe in a Death Penalty as well, but not as it is implemented now. I believe there are certain individuals who do need to be killed for the same reason a mad dog is destroyed, to protect the public. Unfortunately, the Death Penalty is currently used more as a political chit by prosecutors and other politicians than as a solemn act by a society trying to protect itself.

3. Education is the road out of poverty. Many public schools in cities and suburbs fail to teach children the basics - math, reading, grammar. They graduate these kids, and when the kids can't keep jobs, they make bad choices (see #1). Alternative education choices, including private schools, give kids a much better chance to become productive adults because they spend more time on the basics.

I agree with Beth that education is indeed the road out of poverty. We are failing our children, but far too many people expect to be given an education. Sorry, but an education has to be earned. It is the responsibility of the parents to ensure that their children are working to earn that education. It is NOT the responsibility of the teachers to raise the children as many parents now seem to expect. I know several teachers very well, and they are all hobbled by the administration, the PTA, and the paperwork. They have so little time to teach that it is amazing that any children now know how to read. The teachers are forced to satisfy all these different groups with divergent agendas that have very little to do with actually educating the children and as a consequence have almost no time to TEACH. The only role of the public schools should be to provide the tools and resources for children to earn their education, not to teach morality, not to teach "creation science", not to babysit children. It is the children who have to do the actual work of learning, and it is the responsibility of the parents to make sure their children do the work.

4. Not all values/cultures/morals are equal. I am sorry folks, but cultures like fundamentalist Islam, where women are property and slavery is okeydokey do not have as high a value as Western culture. They are not equivalent to us in morals. Fundamentalist Islamic Arabs want to rule the world and force us all to be their slaves or convert to their rather perverted view of Islam

I agree that not all values/cultures/morals are equal, but I also get angry when people proclaim how superior Western culture is when a very short examination of even very recent history will show how many of the things we decry about fundamentalist Islam were very much a part of Western culture even within the last 100 years. (PLEASE NOTE: I am NOT saying here what Beth believes, do not think I am speaking about her views in any way here, I am referring to a general trend I have observed in the blogosphere.) It is still less than 50 years since people were lynched for being the wrong color in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is still less than 50 years since we had laws enforcing the relegation of people to the back of the bus or to certain water fountains because of the color of their skin. It is less than 100 years since Western civilization unleashed chlorine gas on a battlefield to indiscriminately kill enemies. It is less than 65 years since a significant part of Western civilization had a program to kill Jews, a program that was set up by an elected government that turned murder into a horror on a mass-production scale with the acceptance and active participation of the population. Women did not have the right to vote in the United States until 1920, well into the twentieth century, and even now in the twenty first century women are not treated completely equally as men. You don't even have to look back 10 years to find an instance in Texas where a black man was chained and dragged behind a truck by two white men because of the color of the victim's skin. If we are going to argue cultural relativism, we should look to our own history and how our culture evolved before we pronounce the death sentence on another culture. I do believe Western civilization has evolved and is now better than it was before, and I believe it is better than fundamentalist Islamic culture. I do NOT believe that fundamentalist Christianity is any better than fundamentalist Islam, because the same hatred is spewed from both camps; the primary differences are the particular words used and the straw-man enemies chosen. Fundamentalism of ANY kind perverts religion and culture into a philosophy of hatred that is nothing but evil.

5. We all have the right to protect ourselves and our homes from harm. I am a gun owner. I am proud of that fact.

Agreed.

6. I don't care if someone is gay or lesbian or straight. What is done in the privacy of one's bedroom is not my concern.

Agreed, and I would go further and say that there IS a fundamental right to privacy (which is included in the Constitution, by the way, otherwise why is there a requirement for search warrants written into it?), and what is done in private concerns NO ONE other than the people directly involved.

7. The money I earn is my money. I work very hard for it. Taxes are necessary, but politicians need to stop thinking of my money as the government's money. We need to keep taxes as low as possible - this encourages growth. (Economics 101)

Agreed. It is not the role of government to "redistribute income". It is the role of government to ensure equality of rights, not equality of results.

8. We all have the freedom to worship as we choose - so long as that religion does not harm other people (Islamic fundamentalism comes to mind, as does Satanism). The courts are flat out wrong when they say that Christians cannot express themselves but Muslims and Jews can when it comes to religious symbols.

No dispute here, but I think the actions taken by the courts in many cases are honest errors trying to follow the spirit of the non-establishment of religion enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

9. Owning property is a fundamental right. Home ownership is a wonderful thing. Habitat for Humanity is a wonderful organization that helps people own their home. I would rather see home ownership subsidized by the federal government than Section 8 housing and projects.

Again, complete agreement here.

10. Women and men should be paid the same for the work they do. I am in a predominantly male environment at work - believe it or not, I am a technical consultant. It is still an old boy's network, and I fight that every day.

I agree with this completely, and I would extend it to say everyone should be paid the same for performing the same work at the same level of competence. Unfortunately, I cannot think of a good way to enforce this without creating a big-brother/nanny state. The only way true equality will be achieved is by slow evolution of our culture.

11. A free market that is competitive (which means either eliminating or regulating monopolies) is a really good thing.

This is where the rubber meets the road in terms of philosophy of government versus reality, because one could argue by breaking up monopolies you are penalizing them for the crime of being successful, but in reality the destruction of competition does do society more harm than the harm done by breaking the monopoly.

12. A free market that allows for free trade with other countries is also a good thing - as long as we don't allow other countries to dump artificially low-priced goods on us in an attempt to kill our own production. See #11.

Free trade has become a mantra chanted in a similar way that Communism was proclaimed to be the only moral way to run the world. We should look at how trade is conducted and focus on ensuring that the trade is fair, which means on occasion making it less "free".

13. The so-called War on Drugs needs a peace treaty. It is no more that a repeat of the alcohol prohibition of the 20's. The government should tightly regulate and license drugs like marijuana and possibly cocaine. Other drugs, I'm not too sure what to do about - some are just downright lethal. The gang problems our cities have will not exist without the profits they make from the drug trade. We have way too many kids in prison for doing stupid assed drug tricks - they should be out and learning how to make a legal living.

The War on Drugs is one of the most egregious cases of the "nanny state" that I can think of, yet many who decry the nanny state are among the most die hard of the drug warriors. I agree with Beth in this area as well.

14. Every single one of the Bill of Rights is what makes our country so wonderful. That includes the right to gun ownership and the rights to worship as we please. I am worried that too many judges are abridging our freedom from unreasonable search and seizure - and the folks pushing for these searches without warrants are from both sides of the political spectrum - stop it, I say!

We are the inheritors of the results arising from a convergence of intelligent men with the flowering of a philosophy of government that is almost miraculous. We should treasure the legacy we have been given. Unfortunately, Beth is right in her concern, because the Bill of Rights is slowly being eroded by all three branches of our government. The Judicial Branch has been lowering the bar on searches among other assaults on privacy and rights, the Executive Branch pushing for expansion of police powers (the USA PATRIOT Act and Patriot II), and the Legislative Branch is passing stupid laws that routinely violate the rights enshrined in the Constitution. It is past time for citizens to stand up and let their representatives know that our government is of the people, by the people, and for the people, not the other way around.

15. The elderly - as children, we need to take more responsibility of our parents' needs when possible - not the government. Too many times I hear very wealthy people complaining that their mom or dad can't afford rent or to eat because their medications are too expensive - for God's sake, help your parents! They raised you - the federal government should not be taking the place of families. If someone has no family, that's different - of course we should help them - but the next rich BMW-driving SOB who complains that his mom or dad is suffering because there is not enough Medicare - well, I would say something really rude here!

This is one of those difficult, sticky areas where strict adherence to a philosophy of minimal government intervention in life runs head on into the compassion that people feel towards those who are in need. Children should care for their parents as their parents cared for them. Unfortunately, our Western civilization has almost completely abandoned the idea of the extended family with familial responsibility being paramount in our lives. Instead, we focus on personal fulfillment, leading to the rich BMW-driving SOBs who complain about how the government isn't caring for their parents properly. I don't know how to solve this problem while still following the philosophy of "all men are created equal".

I may follow this up with more later. Comments are both welcome and encouraged.

Israel, the Palestinians, and violence

Beth wrote a post entitled "Israel does what it has to to protect itself" which prompted this thought (and comment on her blog):

You know, the biggest advances in resolving injustices seem to be made when there is a leader who emerges who preaches non-violent responses to violence. Although they were both flawed men (show me anyone who does not have feet of clay), both Martin Luther King, Jr and Ghandi achieved amazing progress in a very short time for their people by showing through non-violence how their opponents were behaving in a morally wrong fashion.

I'm not saying one side or the other in the Israeli/Arab conflict is right. If you look far enough back in history, you can find enough to reason to hate on both sides of this conflict, and I will not argue with anyone who says that the Palestinian side has missed more opportunities for resolution of the conflict than any reasonable and responsible group would. However, if the Israelis stopped all violent responses to Palestinian attacks, the world would see the Palestinians are not interested in peace, but only on killing. If the Palestinians stopped suicide bombings and other attacks, the Israeli government would HAVE to respond, because it is a democracy and will respond to the obvious yearning of the Israeli citizens for peace and security.

Despite their feet of clay, both Ghandi and King were very brave men. The assasination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin cut short the life of a man who may very well have followed their example. That untimely death appears to have doomed Israel to the hell that currently exists, and in one of the most intense ironies I have ever observed the assassin was an Israeli opposed to the peace process.

Sigh...

There is so much evil in the world, on both a large scale and in personal tragedies. I have two good friends along with the woman I love all going through life-altering crises in their lives.

I do not dispute in the least the assertion that Israel has the right to protect itself. There were times in the 1980s and 1990s that I wished the United States would have been more assertive in protecting its citizens, but I also question if in the long term a violent response to violence is always the best path to self-protection. There are times when I'm tempted to say "to Hell with them all, build a fence around Israel and the occupied territories, cut them completely off from the world, and let them all kill each other to their heart's content." I know that's not a realistic solution, nor is it a solution that is compatible with any rational morality. It seems that we are approaching if not having passed the point where the only solution to this conflict is one side or the other has to be completely annihilated. That solution is not acceptable, either. So, where to from here? Violence is only escalating. One definition of insanity is continually repeating the same behavior expecting a different result. Perhaps it is time for either the Israelis or the Palestinians to try a different tack.

Education, it really is the parent's responsibility

Mog had an interesting post on We the People about a program in Florida called "Character First!". I agree with Mog's conclusion of "We don't need thought police irregardless of religion. They should leave the character training to parents and stick to educating the kids, kids need to learn reading, math, sciences, language, history, stuff like that." completely. Read Mog's post first, and then read my comment below:

I have a very good friend who is an elementary school teacher, and a good one, even by my exacting standards. She is not allowed to do her job because of interference by the administrators (principals, district managers, school boards, PTA, ect.) and the excessive paperwork that is now imposed on any determination of the ability of a pupil.

Checks and balances are necessary in any system, especially one associated with the government, but we're now to the point where I think home schooling by those who are not trained in teaching are better than what we're getting out of the public school systems.

I taught people majoring in Education back when I was in graduate school, and they continually complained "why do we need to take Physical Science when we are majoring in Education", never understanding even when I told them that you have to know what you teach before you can truly teach it.

"Professional Educators" are the LEAST qualified to tell us how our children should be educated, but unfortunately they (the ones who have made it to the level of Principal of a school, not the actual teachers) are the ones who have the MOST influence over what happens in the schools.

Sigh...

At times, I'm actually glad I've never had children...

I would like to have children one day, but if I ever do, I will make DAMN sure they have a REAL education, including values. I will NOT rely on the public schools alone.

More on the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit bill

There is an air of something rotten that continues to emanate from the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit bill. First, there was the unprecedented step taken by the Congressional leadership of extending the time allowed for voting on this bill in an effort to get some Republicans with reservations to change their "no" votes to "yes". Then there was the assertion by Representative Nick Smith (R-Michigan) that if he changed his "no" vote on the bill his son would receive help in his electoral campaigning that is now finally being investigated by the House Ethics Panel.

Now, it appears that the magical increase in the 10 year cost of the prescription drug benefit from $395 billion to almost $500 billion was known before the bill was voted on, but that information appears to have been deliberately withheld. Given that this is one of the most expensive government programs ever enacted, and that on the face of it the biggest beneficiaries of this program are drug manufacturers and insurance companies, a serious and deep investigation of all the circumstances surrounding the passage of this legislation should be conducted and the results made publicly available. This kind of monitoring is the only way our democracy can survive the abuses that power (and money) always invites and encourages.

Just because they have an agenda does not mean we should not listen

The International Association of Fire Fighters is unhappy about the television ad put out by the Bush campaign that included images of firefighters. The press release makes the following statement:

Bush is calling on the biggest disaster in our country’s history, and indeed in the history of the fire service, to win sympathy for his campaign. Since the attacks, Bush has been using images of himself putting his arm around a retired FDNY fire fighter on the pile of rubble at ground zero. But for two and a half years he has basically shortchanged fire fighters and the safety of our homeland by not providing fire fighters the resources needed to do the job that America deserves.

The fact is Bush’s actions have resulted in fire stations closing in communities around the country. Two-thirds of America’s fire departments remain under-staffed because Bush is failing to enforce a new law that was passed with bipartisan support in Congress that would put more fire fighters in our communities. President Bush’s budget proposes to cut Homeland Security Department funding for first responders by $700 million for next year and cuts funding for the FIRE Act, a grant program that helps fire departments fund equipment needs, 33% by $250 million. In addition, state and local programs for homeland security purposes were reduced $200 million.

We’re going to be aggressive and vocal in our efforts to ensure that the citizens of this country know about Bush’s poor record on protecting their safety and providing for the needs of the people who are supposed to respond in an emergency.

Yes, the IAFF is a union, and unions are by nature opposed to the Republican Party, but there have been scattered reports of money promised and not delivered for homeland security and first responders that are too persistent to dismiss out of hand. Does anyone have more information on the statements made in the press release regarding not enforcing the new law on increasing the numbers of fire fighters or the cutting of funding for first responders? If there is any truth to these accusations, perhaps it is time to re-examine some priorities in our government.

We cannot have a civilization and abide by the "law of the jungle" simultaneously

The commentary by Stephen Green, the Vodka Pundit, on the Madrid bombings has an interesting statement:

But part of me is so angry after yesterday's bombing, that all I could think was, "Isn't it time we made that American sentiment 'Live free or die' into a goddamn ultimatum?"

I'm not proud of that thought; I know, logically, it's an oxymoron. And yet. . .

In my slowly evolving Darwinian view of cultural and international relations, his thought fits in quite well. The problem is that the very nature of civilization is a rejection of the "law of the jungle". How do we reconcile this?

You can only have a single number one priority

This is a point that I believe many commentators on the right side of the political spectrum have missed, made quite well by Professor Bainbridge, who is not exactly a leftist:

People might also ask whether some of the troops tied down in Iraq couldn't be better used in Afghanistan tracking down bin Laden and the rest of the al Qaeda leadership. I was always taught to finish one job before starting another. Granted, law school taught me to multi-task, but it does seem like we let al Qaeda slip in the priority list while taking out Saddam.

Do not get me wrong here. Yes, the world is a better place now that Saddam Hussein is out of power, and I am not questioning the commitment of President Bush to doing the right thing for the United States in his best judgement. But one has to admit that we still have not yet captured Osama bin Laden, although there seems to be indications we have come close (in what would be a supreme irony, with French troops in Afghanistan). Governments, like people, can only focus on a few things at any one time. The very nature of "focus" implies a concentration of effort on one thing. I wonder if in the second Gulf War, which was never really about terrorism, we have engaged in a distraction from our real goal that was given to us on September 11, 2001, which I thought was fighting Islamist-based terrorism.

Difficult issues

Kevin at Wizbang is the first blogger I've seen to post on the story of a woman charged with murder by showing "depraved indifference to human life" in refusing to have a cesarian section performed on her for the birth of her twins to prevent the predicted death of one of the two children. This is a very complex story, with some questions regarding the competence of the woman in question.

I am uncertain in the ethics of this situation, just as I am uncertain in the abortion debate. In both cases, I can see the point of view of the interventionists (either those who want to mandate an c-section to save a potential life or those who want to make abortion illegal to achieve the same goal of defending the ostensibly defenseless), but I also can comprehend and see the reasonableness of those opposed to intervention (those who say a woman deserves to have control over her body, whether in the choice of a having a c-section versus a natural birth or choosing to undergo an abortion of a child that does not yet truly exist).

These are issues where my preference for individual responsibility conflict with the desire to protect those who cannot defend themselves. These are issues which remind me that this is an imperfect world where we have to be wiling to acknowledge that there is indeed evil in the world and sometimes that evil is the conflict between two fundamental rights, but that those caught inside the conflict are not themselves evil.

Defending the defenseless versus the right to choose what happens to your own body. Where is the line? Is there even a line, or is it all shades of grey in a world that demands certainty?

Is the Internet really disruptive, or just another factor that accelerates modern life?

A participant of the Clark campaign comments on how the use of the Internet evolved during the primaries. It seems that as has been discussed ad nauseam, the the web didn't do much other than accelerate trends that have been observed in prior campaigns.

There are a lot of strong feelings out there

Chris, the Noble Pundit, has posted that he loathes John Kerry.

I don't loathe either candidate for the presidency, but I also don't fully support either candidate because of their positions and policies.

Sigh...

Another election where I vote against someone rather than for a candidate.

---

By the way, I know many of those who read me will not understand why I do not support George W. Bush for the same reasons they do, which is his strong response to terrorism. Unfortunately, I feel that there are many problems with his response, including the cavalier attitude of his Attorney General towards fundamental rights. If we lose the very freedoms we claim to be fighting for, any victory we may achieve would be pyrrhic at best.

That's the problem with questioning everything...

Under the heading of "too much technology"...

I hope this recently issued patent is never reduced to practice (from CNN.com):

MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- Orion, the Big Dipper and Andromeda could be joined in the heavens by ads for soft drinks and cigarettes if a Russian inventor's device catches on.

Alexander Lavrynov, a spacecraft designer, said he has patented a device for putting advertising into space that would be seen from Earth, Interfax news agency reported Wednesday.

"Space commercials could embrace huge areas and a colossal number of consumers," he said. "This would literally be intercontinental coverage."

He said the satellites would be visible in the night sky by employing sunlight reflectors, with multiple satellites linked together to create a message large enough to be seen.

"People would be able to see writing in the skies from the Earth no worse than they see the stars," he said.

Sigh...

The prospect of going out camping as far away from civilization as possible, looking up at the stars, and seeing "drink Pepsi" spelled out is the thing that nightmares are made of.

Re-election campaign off on the wrong foot?

This bothers me (from CNN.com):

President Bush's re-election campaign on Thursday defended commercials using images from the September 11 terrorist attacks, including wreckage of the World Trade Center, as appropriate for an election about public policy and the war on terror.

Some families of the victims of the attacks are angry with Bush for airing the spots, which they called in poor taste and for the president's political gain.

I expect politicians to metaphorically wrap themselves in the flag, extol their patriotism, and otherwise portray themselves as worthy of the public trust, but there is a cynicism behind using images from the 9/11 attacks that deeply disturbs me.

I am not the only one who is concerned:

"It's a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people," Monica Gabrielle, whose husband died in the twin towers, told the New York Daily News for its Thursday editions. "It is unconscionable."

Two of the spots show the destruction at the World Trade Center and include an American flag flying amid the debris.

They also feature images of firefighters working through the wreckage.

"It's as sick as people who stole things out of the place," said Firefighter Tommy Fee of Queens Rescue Squad 270. "The image of firefighters at ground zero should not be used for this stuff, for politics."

While I occasionally feel that we are giving too much reverence to the loss of collective innocence that occurred on that terrible day, the use of imagery from the aftermath of the attacks falls far beyond the pale for a political advertisement. It smacks of emotional manipulation and a no holds barred win at any cost mentality that betrays the philosophy underlying our system of government.

Something to read and discuss...

I've posted an entry on Pennywit that might have possibly fit better on We the People... I'm not sure.

Read it and let me know what you think...

The NEA, the Bush administration, education, and civil liberties

I heard a news report today that Education Secretary Rod Paige called the National Education Association a "terrorist organization". I became very angry upon hearing this, because I have a very good friend who is an elementary school teacher, and right now the NEA is her only advocate against a school administrator who abuses her power, an administrator who is driving the school she runs into the ground with the aid and abetting of the district administration.

Despite popular perception, it is NOT the teachers who are at fault for the current mess in education, it is the administrators and the state and federal bureaucracies who are the primary offenders. Teachers spend so much time filling out forms and attending to the red tape imposed upon them that they have almost no time to actually TEACH in the classroom. In 2004, my friend has only had TWO uninterrupted weeks of teaching, every other week this year has had at least one day of teacher meetings, student days off, or other diversions which took the teacher or the students out of the classroom.

The "no child left behind" mandates are so inflexible that some states are considering opting out of the program and forfeiting the federal funds associated with it.

Do you really want to know what's wrong with education today?

Uninvolved parents who expect the government to play the role that they refuse to fill.

I am a product of the Mississippi school system. Mississippi, the state that spent the LEAST amount of money per student on education during the 1960s and 1970s when I attended elementary and high school. By any reasonable measure, I am a successful man, with an income in the top 10% according to the tax software I used this year. My father did not earn his college degree until the year I graduated high school, and he was a wage earner, not salaried, for most of my life up until that time. I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Yet somehow, even though my parents weren't rich, and even though I went to schools that could barely pay their teachers wages that were just above the poverty level, I RECEIVED AN EDUCATION. An EDUCATION, not just learning a trade, I earned a true education...

I am blessed with an education because my parents both told and SHOWED me how important an education is.

I am off my original topic, though. The fact that the Education Secretary felt comfortable calling the NEA a "terrorist organization", even supposedly in jest, encapsulates exactly what concerns me about the current Bush administration. It shows a contempt for those who are not in big business, and a willingness to label those who represent the powerless as the enemy du jour that is very disturbing.

We now live in a nation where the chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General John Ashcroft says "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve." Now, another official is supposedly joking and calling a major labor organization "terrorist". The Bush administration feels free to label anyone an "enemy combatant" whether a citizen or no, whether captured on foreign soil or not, and deny that individual access to legal counsel or have an opportunity to appeal the enemy combatant appellation.

Connect the dots...

Do the math...

However you want to say it, despite the record of "fighting terrorism" abroad, the situation at home does not look good.

Am I advocating voting Democrat in the next Presidential election? No, not until I know who the nominee is. George W. Bush seems to be an honorable man, I believe he is an honorable man, but no matter how honorable a man he is, he also appears to have surrounded himself with those who are a part of the "old boy network", those who feel that government should be run by the elite, not "of the people, by the people, and for the people", those who have contempt for "common" citizens who believe that only an open and transparent government can be restrained from abusing the immense power that now resides in the presidency. Spew all the venomous bile towards the "liberal asshats" that you want, but when you do, please keep in mind what Benjamin Franklin said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Responsibility isn't always easy

Blackfive has a post about both personal responsibility and ultimate justice that I recommend reading. Now...

An opportunity missed

I find this report on ABC news very disturbing:

When a Somali-born computer student was arrested in Minneapolis last December on suspicion of helping al Qaeda, federal counterterrorism officials thought they might finally have found what they desperately need — a way of getting inside Osama bin Laden's shadowy network.

The counterterrorism officials developed a plan to turn the man, Mohammed Warsame, into a double agent working for the United States, ABCNEWS has learned.

"We need people inside al Qaeda, talking to us. We need spies," said Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism official with the Bush administration. "There's only so much you can get from technology, from electronics, from pictures."

Warsame's arrest was supposed to be secret. But within days stories appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about the case — dashing the government's hopes of gaining greater insight into al Qaeda activities against the United States.

Federal officials were furious about the apparent leak, and the Justice Department has launched an investigation to determine how the information about Warsame's arrest leaked to the media. Senior officials told ABCNEWS they are very concerned about the implications of the leak.

I have written elsewhere about "irresponsible journalism", and I wonder if any consideration was given by the reporters or editors of the newspaper that published the story to consult with federal officials to determine if the story should be published.

An insidious and incestuous relationship has developed between journalists and government workers where "leaks" are the currency that the leakers use to advance their personal agendas while journalists use that inside information to advance their careers. There is a fine line between objective, informative journalism and collaboration with the government to hide things that the public does indeed need to know and have a right to know, but the line that demarcates advancing agendas, whether personal or political, is most definitely not a fine one and is crossed routinely by journalists today. I wasn't around to observe first-hand the journalism of the World War II era and the early Cold War, but from what I have been able to read, it appears as if the journalists of the time felt a social responsibility and an obligation to weigh the right to know of the public versus the greater social good in an objective fashion. It seems today that any consideration of social responsibility is completely submerged into the drive for the "scoop" that will get the most eyeballs looking at the advertisements.

Am I just longing for a past that never existed, or have things truly deteriorated?

Irony abounds

James Joyner, of Outside the Beltway, has proposed:

Another alternative would be to simply do away with marriage as a governmental institution, period. Let churches marry people as they see fit—with only religious value attached to the ceremony. We could then have civil unions that the states could regulate. Or perhaps it’s time to simply do away with the institution as a governmental entity altogether. Given no-fault, frequent divorce, serial marriages, the lack of stigma to out-of-wedlock childbirth, and so forth, what’s the need for government sanctioning of a romantic relationship?

It's odd how the ultra-right wing says they don't want government involved in anything until one of their pet causes (oh my GOD, homosexual marriage?!?!?) comes to the fore. Then, WE NEED A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT! Sadly enough, usually to LIMIT rights, rather than to protect them (the anti-flag burning amendment that has made the rounds for years directly contradicts the principles in the Bill of Rights, just as the proposed protection of marriage amendments also limit rights).

That's irony for you.

Thanks to Donnie at the Bejus Pundit for pointing out the link.

Looking back is important before trying to move forward

About a year ago, in the months preceding the 2003 Iraq war, a debate raged in the online community between those who supported the Bush administration and the none too subtle march to ultimatum and war and those who opposed the evolving doctrine espoused by the administration of preemptive military action. NZ Bear posted two lists of questions to be answered, one for the pro-war bloggers and one for the anti-war bloggers. A soldier in the U.S. Army who is currently in his eighth month of a year long rotation in Iraq posted answers to the pro-war questions in February of 2003, and is now reflecting on his answers in light of what he knows now about the situation in Iraq, especially from first-hand experience. Both his original responses a year ago and his thoughts now, after the war and eight months in the occupation forces, are very instructive on how with new information viewpoints can evolve and are well worth reading.

If it is sacred, should it be included in the Constitution? NO!

While I understand the faith of George W. Bush, I find this statement troubling (from CNN.com):

"Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman," Bush said in a statement. "If activist judges insist on re-defining marriage by court order, the only alternative will be the constitutional process. We must do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage."

Aside from the philisophical problems I have with the government treating married people differently than single people in terms of taxes and benefits, the language being used by the President of the United States in this statement, a man who is sworn to "uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States", is the language of religion.

From Dictionary.com:

sanctity

1. Holiness of life or disposition; saintliness.

2. The quality or condition of being considered sacred; inviolability.

3. Something considered sacred.

sacred

1. Dedicated to or set apart for the worship of a deity.

2. Worthy of religious veneration: the sacred teachings of the Buddha.

3. Made or declared holy: sacred bread and wine.

4. Dedicated or devoted exclusively to a single use, purpose, or person: sacred to the memory of her sister; a private office sacred to the President.

5. Worthy of respect; venerable.

6. Of or relating to religious objects, rites, or practices.

Is there any doubt that this is the language of religion?

From the Bill of Rights:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

It's a very short statement, only 45 words, but those 45 words set our nation apart from every other nation on this planet. Those 45 words outline and establish the most fundamental freedoms that the citizens of the United States enjoy. Great care should be taken before we amend these words.

There are many who feel that the removal of a nativity scene from government property is an over-reaction to the phrase "no establishment of religion" in the Bill of Rights. Arguments made to the contrary tend to be of the classic "slippery-slope" type. Not all slippery-slope arguments are invalid, and on the possible harm done to society by the removal of a nativity scene is far less than the precedent set by the apparent government endorsement of a particular religion.

Is this a digression? No. By declaring marriage a "sacrament", that is an explicit statement using religious language that implicitly endorses a particular religious belief about marriage. Is that more or less dangerous than the nativity scene on the courthouse lawn? My answer is "more dangerous!" It is far, far more dangerous to the health of the Bill of Rights. It is subtle and insidious because it implicitly rather than explicitly endorses the tenents of Christianity and endangers the foundations of our freedoms just as a tunnel was used to undermine the walls of a city under siege.

Should we use the Constitution to LIMIT rights?

Chris at the Noble Pundit has explained the danger inherent in a marriage amendment to the Constitution very well:

A marriage amendment is a banana republic tactic. One of the reasons why our Constitution has succeeded where so many others have failed is because it is limited in scope and serves to limit the scope of government, not of the people. Think about it. There has really only been one attempt to Constitutionally tell the people what they cannot do: Prohibition. It is also the only amendment that has ever been repealed. One of the goals of the Founders, I believe, was to protect the rights of the minority against the tyranny of the majority. The marriage amendment would do the exact opposite. It would categorically deny rights to the minority at the direction of the majority. It is an extremely dangerous precedent to set and one that I certainly would not even attempt to set over something like gay marriage. I just can't believe that gay marriage is an issue over which it is worth risking the very foundations of our society, respect for the rights of minorities. It is not a timeless issue, it's a fad issue.

If Bush and Congress believes that there is a problem with judges misinterpreting the laws, then pass a one the is absolutely clear like "Marriage shall be defined as the union between one man and one woman only. The union of two or more men or two or more women shall not be regarded as a legal marriage and no judge shall rule otherwise." Dump all the caveats. Get rid of all the weasel words. Make it plain and clear what the intention of the law is and then, if a judge ignores it, take it all the way to the Supreme Court. Just don't wreck the sanctity of the Constitution along the way. (For what it's worth, I am still mildly supportive of gay marriage if it is instituted with reform to the marriage laws for both hetero- and homo-sexual marriages to make the institution more of an institution again and less of an issue of convienence. See here and here)

(There's a lot more of his opinion on the State of the Union address in Chris' post. Read the whole thing, as they say.)

This is the same problem I have with the anti-flag burning amendment that keeps coming up from the right wing. Do we really want to start a precedent of making amendments that limit the freedoms of the people instead of limiting the powers of the government? That seems a bit contrary to the stated goals of the right wing, to "get the government off the backs of the people". Using Constitutional amendments to define marriage or outlaw behaviors is like using a blowtorch to light a birthday cake candle. Marriage is an institution that is a part of our culture, and given how well the government has fared in other areas, it seems that marriage is in MORE danger from government involvement than it would be with government neglect. The Constitution is the fundamental law of the nation, and amending it should be undertaken only with great care and only for important issues like ending slavery, not to limit the freedoms of the people or define institutions that the government shouldn't be involved in to begin with.

State of the Union

If you want to know my opinion of the State of the Union address last night, go to the Unrepentant Curmudgeon. I'll be posting on the speech there.

A good headline can make the entire article

Amusing headline of the day, from Wired News:

Chong Backed by Tokin' Resistance

I'll be brief so I don't bruise my shins on my soapbox, but the so called "War on Drugs" has been one of the biggest wastes of time and money our government has ever participated in, and I believe it was a key distraction of our law enforcement and intelligence agencies that allowed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, to occur.

Ouch, I bruised my shins anyway...

Emotional intelligence is more important than IQ in leadership

Donnie, the Bejus Pundit, makes another good point about the outcome of the Iowa caucuses, specifically the speech Howard Dean made after the results became obvious:

Howard Dean's third-place finish last night isn't what will do him in.

What will do him in is that horrendous noise he made at the end of his speech...that "Aieeyahharrgghhh" growl/moan.

Nobody who makes a noise like that can expect to become President of the United States. Nobody.

Most who attain the office of President of the United States end up growing into the job and become "presidential" when they are in office. I've written in many different venues about the Dean supporters mistaking anger for "energy". After seeing a tape of Dean's speech, I don't think he has the fundamental character, patience, and emotional intelligence needed for the job. You can say George W. Bush isn't the brightest bulb in marquee and I'll readily agree with you, you can say his domestic policies are aimed at improving the lot of the wealthy rather than the average citizen and you'll hear no argument from me, but Dubyah knows what drives people on a gut level. You'll never hear the inarticulate gutteral sounds that Dean uttered come from our current president, and that is a very good thing indeed.

What did we learn from the Iowa caucus results?

Chris over at The Noble Pundit has written an insightful analysis of the Iowa caucus results. I suggest you read what he has to say.

Personally, I was pleased that the voters chose issues (Kerry) over anger (Dean), and they chose a non-attack based candidate (Edwards) over those who looked to gain support through attacking opponents (Gephardt). Although I feel Edwards lacks experience, overall the news from Iowa gives me more hope for our political system than I've had in many years.

Can't blame this mad disease on prions...

Scary, ain't it...

It seems he's not a total jerk

I find this interesting (from CNN.com):

Before Time magazine named the American soldier the "Person of the Year" for 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld helped encourage that idea, magazine executives acknowledged Thursday.

Rumsfeld, in a Pentagon meeting with Time's top executives late last year, had correctly suspected he was among the candidates for the magazine's honor, and offered what one participant called some "free advice" as the meeting came to an end.

Time Managing Editor James Kelly told CNN that Rumsfeld's unsolicited suggestion to honor the troops was the "first time in my recollection that someone who was obviously a candidate has volunteered someone else."

Kelly said the troops were already in the running, but that Rumsfeld's unprompted comment helped tipped the scale. "In my mind, there were two leading candidates," Kelly recalled, "the American soldier, and the secretary of defense. He did not know that, and in my meeting with him, he volunteered" that the honor should go to the American soldier.

It appears that the Time Person of the Year is indeed now intended as an honor rather than a commentary on who influenced the news for good or for ill the most over the past year.

Good for Donald Rumsfeld, then, on making sure the honor went where it was most deserved.

How did we get here?

Heather at Centerfield has written a post on balancing rights that have come into conflict, and Rob (aka Acidman) at Gut Rumbles has written about the use of the term "oppression" in the overheated rhetoric of radical leftists in such a way that it dilutes the real meaning of the word. On the face of it, these two topics and discussions are unrelated, but upon a deeper examination one can find a common thread. What is that underlying theme?

Extremism of every stripe has overwhelmed all else.

Extremists always shout louder than reasonable people, because reasonable people assume that others are reasonable as well and see no need to shout. Extremists assume that others are just as unreasonable as they are, and as a consequence use extreme rhetoric and take extreme action all out of proportion to the issue under discussion (the irony of murder in the name of anti-abortion comes to mind here).

While I may be waxing nostalgic for a time that never was, I recall reasonable judgement and common sense as once being prized and used often in life and in government. Now, to take a few egregious examples, a woman spills coffee on herself, sues, and wins millions of dollars, extreme leftists are calling the President a Nazi, and extreme right wingers are declaring that gay marriage will destroy the family.

Once, judges had the responsibility of examining the facts of the case at hand before delivering the sentence to a convicted defendant. Now, they are forced into giving mandatory prison terms for minor offenses. Once, there was an expectation that a reasonable person had to exercise good judgement in using a ladder. If you look at a ladder in a hardware store now, you cannot see the brand name because the sides and steps of the ladder are covered with warning labels and disclaimers. Once, parents were expected to instill fundamental values in their children. Now, we expect those values to be taught in the schools instead of facts and critical, logical thinking. People complain about not wanting a "nanny government", but as soon as the Crocodile Hunter does something stupid with his child, people scream "the government should take that child away from him". Would you like a wee bit of irony with your whine?

How did we get here?

I blame the "baby boom" generation for starting the trend. This cohort of people (of which I am in the tail end) has spent more time examining its collective belly button than learning to appreciate the gifts they were given by their parents. Their parents had to endure the privations of the Great Depression followed by the uncertainties and fears of a World War, so the "Greatest Generation" (as they have been named) indulged their offspring, recognizing the children as a precious gift in a cruel and uncertain world. As a result of this sheltered and indulgent upbringing, the baby boomers as a whole felt they were unique in their feelings and protests in the 60s, they felt they were doing "something important". They felt they were unique in their coming of age in the 70s, and they felt they were unique in every life event ever since. Look at Time Magazine covers if you have any doubts about this assertion. The baby boom generation was featured on the cover when it "turned 50", among other times, as if no other generation had reached that milestone. The protection and indulgence of this generation by their parents did not give the baby boomers the hard life experiences that teach moderation and good judgement. This is not to say that every member of the baby boom generation is "to blame", but collectively the legacy of that generation, built up over the past 40 years, is the government and society we have today.

What legacy do we want to leave behind? Choose wisely...

The emperor is naked again

Professor Bainbridge has written on the "terrorist watch lists" and the recent cancellation of Air France flights. What he points out about the lack of a single watch list is troubling to say the least. He writes:

I don't understand why this isn't a bigger story. Creating a single, up-to-date watch list seems like such a basic precaution. Why is it taking so long? According to the Journal, one is supposed to be in the works at the Terrorist Screening Center, but is still months or even years (!) away from completion...

I like his concluding paragraph:

The blogosphere is sometimes credited with forcing the media to pay attention to stories like Trent Lott's comments about Strom Thurmond. If those of us in the blogosphere wanted to do something really useful, however, we would be demanding that the Administration and Congress get off their collective duffs and get this job done.

I'm tired of hearing "we're doing everything we can to make Americans safe from terrorism." Bullshit. Time to write the Senators and Representatives again to make them do their damn jobs.

The stupid laws aren't making themselves...

Blackfive has written a post commenting on how there is there little reporting in the news media of instances where guns, especially those carried concealed, have prevented serious crimes from being committed or defended people from being assaulted. I left a comment to the post that I'm copying below because I'm noticing my comments are at least as good (if not better) than my entries in MY weblog, and the comments I leave are becoming as lengthy as the posts in most weblogs I read.

My remarks didn't directly discuss the reporting in the media (look in my archives, I've posted several entries in the last week or so on that topic) but instead pointed out where the gun control laws are coming from. I wrote in the comments:

I've been thinking a lot about the "gun control" issue along with a lot of other stupidity in government that has been pointed out in various weblogs, and I've come to the conclusion that it's related to the fact that half or less of the people eligible to vote actually get off their fat asses and vote. The politicians play to the extremists because they are the largest group that votes, and they are the ones who keep the politicians in power. In Texas, we have a concealed carry law because the left wing extremists are far outnumbered by the right wing extremists, so any attempt to ban handguns or concealed carry permits is stillborn (not that I'm saying only extremists want concealed carry laws, I think concealed carry is a very good thing, and I'm not an extremist). The opposite happens in regions where the left wing extremists hold sway, such as New York City. The extremist viewpoints are creating the stupid laws because the extremists are the voters who actually get out and vote, so it is they who are picking the politicians who make the laws.

In a democracy, the majority get the government they deserve, especially when the majority chooses not to vote. Apathy is the death of true democracy.

First rant of 2004

At She Who Will Be Obeyed, Beth is correct in pointing out:

One second ain't much time, and who's to say that before the invention of the atomic clock, the earth regularly moved one second a year faster or slower?

28 years of slow moving earth by 1 second a year and 5 years of earth moving as scientists believe is correct does not a trend make, to me.

in reference to an article on CNN.com proclaiming "Earth changes its spin, baffles scientists".

I can guarantee you that the scientists interviewed for this article didn't say that there was any kind of trend in the data they have, as Beth astutely pointed out. I have seen all too often journalists don't bother taking the time to understand what they are reporting on well enough to explain the actual situation. Instead, they find an "angle" to the story that allows them to get a dramatic headline. Scientists are NOT baffled by the apparent changes in the rotation rate of the Earth. To the contrary, there is an overabundance of possible explanations. That is not "bafflement", that is insufficient data to choose between available hypotheses. This type of bad reporting is almost universal in the scientific field, and I suspect it is equally bad in areas where I'm not an expert, I just can't spot it. I wish the scientific community would learn to publish their own press releases, which would end up being quoted wholesale since journalists are too lazy to write their own material.

When I was a teaching assistant while I was going to graduate school, I taught people in Physical Science, basic Physics, and Astronomy. Without exception, my worst students were those majoring in either "Education" or "Journalism". Consistently they would come into the class and say, "Why do I need to learn this stuff, it has nothing to do with my major." My response to the Education majors was, "How do you expect to teach Physical Science if you don't already know it?" My response to Journalism majors was, "How do you expect to report on scientific issues if you don't have a clue about the fundamentals of science?"

College is no longer a place to get an EDUCATION, it has become nothing more than a trade school, and those who are not taking advantage of the opportunities to learn things outside of their chosen profession are hurting us all when they become teachers who may know how to teach but don't know anything TO teach or journalists who don't understand what they are supposed to be reporting on and instead find a "dramatic angle" to the story, regardless of its accuracy.

So, if LeeAnn calls it "getting out the cheesebox" when she voices her opinion, would you be able to say I'm getting out the fate-box, or am I randomly ranting?

Will this really be the question that determines the outcome of the election?

Aaron Swartz has posted an entry on his weblog entitled "Contest: What has Bush done for you?" He writes:

So the other day I was thinking about who would win the US 2004 presidential election. Previously, when it seemed absolutely absurd (he was neck-and-neck with Kucinich), I predicted Howard Dean would be the next president. (Now it doesn’t seem so absurd!) Now I’m going to go farther and predict it won’t even be close.

Why? It’s not because I like Dean. (I don’t — as Dave Winer points out he’s a bland politician with no innovative policy proposals and bland conservative positions on the issues. Well, except for campaign finance reform.) It’s partly because I like Joe Trippi. (He, not Dean, is the one to be watching and voting for — if anyone can beat Bush it’s him.) But mostly it’s because Bush has no redeeming qualities.

I was trying to imagine the campaign a few months out: Bush v. Dean. Dean can easily go on the offensive, attacking Bush’s failures and promoting his own successes. But what can Bush do? What has Bush done? Hey, what has Bush done? I honestly can’t think of anything.

So here’s the challenge: name one good thing Bush has done for the average American.

Rules:

1. It has to be good for the average American, the plain old middle-class guy who’s in the majority on issue polls, is out of a job or isn’t making much money, and just wants to get along. It can’t be a minor gift to a group of special interest voters, or something like that.
2. It has to benefit him directly, not as a side-effect (so no trickle-down economics stuff).
3. The majority of it has to be designed to benefit him, he can’t just get benefits because he’s on the tail end of the curve (so no tax cuts where the bottom 80% get under 10% of the money).

I tried to think of things with no success.

---

He then goes on to list a few straw man accomplishments that he proceeds to knock down. I disagree with his assertions in his list, not only from his assessments of the effects of these actions, but also because the President does not necessarily have as much influence over many of the domestic policies that he lists as is generally thought.

I also disagree with the assessment of what Dean can do in terms of "going on the offensive". Specifically, Dean is just as "weak" in the area of accomplishments as Bush, and although Bush has a frat boy smirk that comes out occasionally and makes me want to punch him, he has a huge advantage over Dean in the charisma department.

I suggest you go over and put in the comments what you feel has benefited you that has arisen from the acts of the George W. Bush presidency according to the rules listed. This is precisely the kind of public debate that the founders of our nation had in mind when they conceived of our form of government, and we would be foolish to not take advantage of the opportunity that the Internet offers to practice it.

Should the government mandate corporate behavior?

John of Argghhh!!! has posted an email he received from someone who asks the following question:

While the problems of the returning reservists or separated RA soldiers are real, why should their former employers bear the considerable cost of what amounts to rehiring them? Why should the replacement worker hired to fill his job suffer arbitrary dismissal and enrollment on the "unemployment" dole? And why should an employer want such a returned soldier if that employer still has reserve obligations or worse, has volunteered to be a reservist for an indefinite (decades long) period?

Be sure to read the entire post before reading my response below.

This is another long post, so it will be continued in the "extended entry" section.

Regardless of the lack of provenance of the words "unlaw" and "maluse", at least the writer is asking questions and making arguments rather than just simply stating "Bush is a moronic asshole". There is entirely too much of that type of behavior on BOTH sides of the political spectrum.

Since the writer of the email has asked his question and made his arguments without resorting to insults, he deserves to be answered in kind. The comments I left on John's site are quoted here:

Are "unlaw" and "maluse" real words????

Seriously, though, the United States needs a ready reserve for our military. I was always concerned about the use of National Guard troops for foreign operations, not only for the disruption of lives it causes but also because there needs to be a fully equipped and large reserve force at home, especially now in a war that truly has no "front line", just zones where there's shooting and zones where terrorists attack.

I was concerned when we decreased the size of our active forces as well. While the "peace dividend" was too attractive for our Congress and the people they represent to pass up, it was still a bad idea to reduce forces in a world that still had (and has) Iran, North Korea, Syria, and China, just to note a few among many. Those in the Joint Chiefs of Staff made the best compromise they could in using both the regular Reserve forces and the National Guard as a quasi-active reserve force, and in trying to get force on the cheap, I think it's only fair that we guarantee the jobs of those who took the chance that they would be called.

I have more to say, but they're calling my flight now, so I'll post it on my weblog later.

Other commenters made the point that I didn't have time to talk about regarding how the companies making the "sacrifice" of ensuring that a job will be there when the Reservists and National Guardsmen return from their assignments are benefiting from the system of government and free market economy that is being maintained by the efforts of those serving.

Strict libertarians and capitalists will say that the government has no business mandating employment policies. I disagree with the strict interpretation, because too much of anything is generally not good. A strictly libertarian government would have resulted in unsafe cars, bad food, and a polluted environment among the most obvious consequences. These examples are quoted because historically they were shown to have been improved by government oversight. Cars are far safer than they were 30 years ago, in large part because of government regulation. Anyone who has read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair will recall the unsettling practices in the food industry before significant government oversight was involved. Those who are old enough can recall how cities smelled of sulfur, smog was ever present, and the Ohio River would spontaneously catch fire during the 1970s. While there has been a lot of good that has come out of governmental oversight or intervention, too much government involvement is also not a good thing. As a good friend of mine is wont to say, there is a happy medium for almost everything. So, as is stated in the preamble to the Constitution, the federal government does have a constructive role to play in promoting the general welfare, including asking companies to make the sacrifice of having jobs for those who have to leave to serve their country. That "sacrifice" made by the companies seems rather mild compared to the risk to life and limb and the time away from family and friends asked of the Reservist and National Guardsmen.

A brief aside: For some odd reason, the phrase "happy medium" always brings to mind an image of a laughing fortune teller...

Why can't we play nice?

As I posted below, some threats were made towards Matt of Blackfive about a post he wrote. I have now been told that threats were made in the opposite direction (not from Matt himself, I cannot and do not believe that he would sanction anything of the kind, but from others claiming to support Matt) towards someone who wasn't even involved in the imbroglio.

I want to make this perfectly clear: I don't care who is threatening whom, physical threats are UNACCEPTABLE, regardless of the source. It's ok to say "your head is full of shit", as has been done to me recently, it's ok to disagree, but it is NOT ACCEPTABLE to make threats of bodily harm towards anyone over a DISCUSSION. Where the hell is the sense of proportion?

Everyone has a right to express their opinion, but NO ONE has the right to threaten someone's health and/or life because they expressed their opinion, regardless of how despicable you may find that opinion. If free speech is abused, it's a very short path to losing the right altogether.

Let's grow up here, people...

In case anyone was curious...

Rob (Acidman of Gut Rumbles) and I have figured out that on the people side of the "global warming" imbroglio he and I see things pretty much the same regarding the alarmists and people who call themselves "environmentalists". Please be sure to read what Rob has to say over at Gut Rumbles to get his opinion.

The "environmentalist" crowd is not really conservationist and is not interested in being good stewards of the Earth. The rest, the "snake oil scientists", are just chasing the money and have a vested interest in dramatic predictions of disaster. There are true conservationists out there, and there are good, ethical scientists as well. Unfortunately, neither get any headlines because they don't provide the "drama" the journalists want to get ratings and sell newspapers.

There may be some disagreement regarding the science side, but that's OK, I have technical and scientific disagreements every day in my job. We still all go out to drinks together. Challenging conventional wisdom is how science advances, and progress would come to a dead standstill if we didn't have the challenges. One of the ways disagreement helps is this: you can be darn sure I'm going to double check the data on any controversial topic. The struggle to prove or disprove keeps us from getting lazy.

Perhaps Mark Twain was right...

Someone has threatened Blackfive for calling Kucinich and Blumrich traitors. Blackfive has a right to state his opinion. You may not agree with what he has to say, but there is absolutely no reason for anyone to be making threats on his life. I wish I could be at Dublin's Pub with Matt tonight so I could offer my assistance, not that he needs it.

The stupidity and arrogance of the people threatening him are almost impossible for me to conceive. There are times when I can't help but despise the human race.

The people versus the science of "global warming"

After reading Rob's post this morning at Gut Rumbles on our discussion regarding global warming, I realized what has thrown sand in the gears. Rob and I are not talking about the same things. If I understand correctly, Rob is talking about the people who have made global warming a "cause" that they use to get money. I have been talking about the science behind the theory of the runaway greenhouse effect that potentially could cause global warming.

You can read my opinions about the science and policy in this post, among others. So that I can talk about the same thing that Rob is talking about, here's my opinion regarding those who cry from the rooftops "Global warming!!! We're all gonna die!!! Stop all industry now!!!" These people are moonbats. The scientists who unethically make exaggerated claims regarding global warming are the equivalent of snake oil salesmen.

My take on the entire public "debate" on global warming is that there are many ethical scientists doing very good work in the field. We should not tar those people with the same brush that we use when we call the unethical ones to task for their exaggerations. The competetion for research money is incredibly cutthroat, and those who shout the loudest and make the most frightening claims are the ones who get the most money. Who is really to blame, though? Those who are competing for the money, or the people giving the research grants and the people who elected the government that set up the grants? The data is out there for anyone to read and understand, especially now with the Interet making this type of information more widely available than ever before, but instead of informing themselves, our government officials and the general public CHOOSE to remain ignorant and listen to the lazy journalists who only talk to those who shout the loudest and write what will sell the most papers or get the most eyeballs on the TV screen.

Who is really to blame? A good analogy is this: There are bears in Glacier National Park. If a man stands at the entrance to the park and says to people coming in, "There are bears here, you'll probably get killed, if you give me $10 I can tell you how to keep from getting killed by a bear!" He is exaggerating the truth. If the ignorant people who pay him the $10 had bothered to do 5 minutes of research by stepping over and asking the Park Ranger, they would have found that the number of bear attacks is miniscule, and all you have to do is shout loudly on occasion to make sure you don't accidentally sneak up on a bear and startle him. So, who's to blame, the man making money off of willfully ignorant people, or the people who pay him?

Hopefully, Rob and I can move on to more productive things, such as writing about what an ass Dennis Kucinich is in his cheap grab for political gain by using the names of soldiers who died in service to our nation in a web flash movie. That ad offended me more than anything I have seen in years, and I am not easily offended.

Free speech doesn't mean society can't say "No"

John of Argghhh! and the Animatrix have collaborated to show what is thought of Dennis Kucinich, who used the names of dead soldiers in a tasteless, revolting, and offensive ad for his candidacy for president.

Mr. Kucinich, politics and partisanship are one thing, but you do NOT use the names of people who lost their lives in service to our nation to get political gain.

I'd love to add that image to my weblog, but I can't seem to get it to download to my host properly...

My opinion on environmental regulations

Earlier today, Key of Key Issues posted some comments on the discussion regarding global warming (I'm quoting in full because she's on BlogSpot and the link may not work properly):

REVIEWING AND FOLLOWING THROUGH

Jack and I began pseudo-dancing in Rob's comments last night on this post. Rob then posted something especially for Jack and Kim. Today, Jack countered on a per item basis.

I must say that for once I've found an area that I can remove myself, look at the facts, and be somewhat objective, whereas I am usually unmistakably opinionated.

Rob disects theory and provides strong opinions, while Jack explains many theories and avoids disclosing personal opinion, although he does promise a second post.

But in an e-mail that Jack sent to me in response to this observation, Jack came across as taking a logical approach. Correct me if I'm wrong, Jack, but I feel as though your take is that if it doesn't HURT us to be more environmentally conscious, then why not make an effort?

Yes, that was broad, and perhaps I'm oversimplifying, but I will have more to discuss as I continue to sort through this; I thought it a pertinent point, that once again everything is relative. There are many opinions out there that are neither objective, nor logical.

I am still gathering the data and writing the technical discussion, but I wanted to go ahead and make my opinion clear on global warming and environmentalism in general.
My opinion is:

1) The human race comes first. Natural resouces should be exploited. I will not swerve my car and run into a wall to avoid killing a squirrel. Just because resources should be exploited doesn't mean they should be recklessly exploited.

2) Where possible, reasonable measures should be taken to prevent damage to the environment and preserve certain areas of natural beauty such as the Grand Canyon.

3) In matters that have a high potential cost with widespread effects (such as the theory of global warming-the possible cost of which is widespread climate change, or air pollution in general-the cost of which is possibly higher incidents of human illnesses such as asthma and cancer), reasonable measures should be taken to reduce the risk of the negative outcome. This would include measures like catalytic converters on cars, the encouragement of a move to a hydrogen based economy and away from a hydrocarbon based economy through both research grants and tax incentives, and efforts such as the voluntary move in the semiconductor industry to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Just to be perfectly clear, the negative outcome I am referring to in this case is a threat to the survival of the human race or something leading to deaths of significant numbers of people.

4) In matters of low potential cost and local effects (such as species extinction), decisions should be made on a case by case basis.

Economic growth is not the be-all and end-all to existence. It's cheaper to piss in the corner, but would you really want to live in a house where that was done?

Not the discussion I had hoped for...

Rob at Gut Rumbles posted the following comment to my response to his assertions on global warming:

The global warming scare is a lucrative industry in the world today. To deny that fact is to be blind. To respond to "theory" by devastating a national enconomy is insane. Your explanation of "greenhouse gas" effects is also full of shit. Ever heard of the Gulf Stream?

Bah! You represent Acidman's First Law of Environmentalism: A head full of shit tends to stay that way, no matter what the facts are.

I have sent him this reply by email:

I am not denying that there is a group out there making an "industry" out of global warming. However, that does not mean that there is not some effect on the climate arising from what we do.

I'm sorry you feel that my head is full of shit, but I would like to tell me, where does the Gulf Stream come from? What is the origin of the Gulf Stream? Where does the heat in the Gulf Stream come from? Greenhouse gases are called that because when it was discovered that they insulate the Earth, it was noted they act just like the glass of a greenhouse. You can say all you want about my explanation of greenhouse gas effects being "full of shit", but I can tell you as someone who has taught Physics and Astronomy for a living, the Earth would not be habitable if these gases did not help insulate the planet. There is insufficient solar radiation incident upon the Earth for the temperature to be above the freezing point of water without greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to insulate the planet. What I was trying to point out is that there is a difference between "greenhouse effect" which keeps the Earth habitable (your "Earth abides") versus "global warming" which hasn't been proven. You are spouting off on something that you are not an expert on. Have you read the technical papers and reviewed the fundamental heat transfer equations involved in the studies? I have. You can call people full of shit all that you want, but there are indeed FACTS out there that you are blind to. You call people all the time (especially when you discuss your history at work) on offering opinions and spouting off about things that they don't know about. What are you doing in this case?

You continually complain about people behaving reflexively and being "stupid" and "fuckwits". In this case, I am sorry to say, it appears to me that you are the one behaving reflexively instead of thinking. In reading your writing, I had come to respect you because you appeared to be one of the few people who actually thought about what their beliefs and opinions were, and on occasion you admitted when you were over the line (such as with Stephen den Best, to state one case that comes to mind).

By saying my head is "full of shit" it shows me that you have not bothered to actually read and understand what I have had to say, because I'm not advocating rampant environmentalism. It is regrettable that I have lost some of the respect I had for you, but then, what kind of evaluation of character can one really get just from reading a weblog and emails?

Regards,

-Jack

It's too bad that Rob prefers to say my "head is full of shit" rather than actually discussing the issue.

In response to Rob...

This was originally posted on December 9, but my host performed a system recovery with no advanced notice so the original post was lost.

---

This response will be broken up into two posts. The first, responding to the text of Rob's post "for Jack and Kim" follows. The second will be a rather dry discussion of the technical details of greenhouse gases and global warming that will likely mostly be in an "extended entry" section.

Rob originally wrote a post called "Cognitive Dissonance" discussing the contradiction between the unusual amount of snow for December in Boston with the statements of an Indian scientist that "Global warming could submerge three of India's biggest cities beneath the sea by 2020 unless the crisis was brought under control". There were several comments added to the post, with me among those commenting. In the interests of space, I will not include the comments; please go read them at Rob's site for the details. My first comment was to the effect that the contradiction was apparent, but that in complex systems a contradiction may not be a true contradiction. A discussion ensued between Key of Key Issues (using the pseudonym "Lucy" as a nod to Rob saying "C'mon, Lucy. 'Splain that to me.") and myself, with a third commenter, someone going by the name of "Alaska Kim" who brought up the glacial recession observed in Alaska despite the snow that falls every winter. I am not going to speak for Alaska Kim, but I will say that her comments were not helpful to the discussion.

Speaking solely for myself, I find it interesting that the same man who wrote this in response to something written by Leonard Pitts:

"To do that is to put the good cop on the defensive and give the bad cop no incentive to change" If the knee-jerk reaction is going be cries of racism every time a white cop has to deal with a black suspect, then WHY NOT be racist?

in a well written post that discusses in part how all police officers are not racist then proceeds to tar ALL environmental scientists with a single brush:

The same people who have managed to create a VERY LUCRATIVE cottage industry out of global warming today are the same asswipes who were warning about the New Ice Age in the 1970s. They have no more of a clue about what the climate will be like in 20 years than my goddam dog does. My dog doesn't care because it isn't looking for any money from the scare. The "scientists" are.

So, don't tar all cops as racist, but it's OK to call all scientists incompetent scare mongers? Has the possibility been considered that those who brought up the examples you give of the "oncoming ice age" in the 1970s were NOT scientists, but uninformed folks with opinions who had or made themselves a pulpit? Just because a small number of scientists are publicity hounds who make wild and inaccurate predictions does not make it any more right to call them all clueless than it does to call all cops racist.

Later in the same post, Rob writes:

The air is cleaner, the water is more pure and we all live a lot longer now than when I was born.

Well, why IS the air cleaner and the water more pure? Has it been considered that it is BECAUSE of the scientific results showing the deterioration of the air and water and consequent adoption of the very environmental laws being condemned? Scientific results shown to be valid by the very fact that the air is cleaner and the water more pure because measures were taken to prevent the pollution from worsening and to reduce the levels of pollution already present.

Rob also states:

Where, exactly, is the fucking "crisis?" It's in research labs that want more money and in classrooms taught by politically-correct teachers who can't read and write. THAT'S where it is.

Excuse me, but when do you turn a supertanker? When you're on top of the rocks, or long beforehand? Let's see, I think the Titanic did a fine job of answering that question, didn't it?

My question is: What does it take to get people to listen? Does anyone think that by quietly saying, "With the levels of greenhouse gases we are putting in the air, there is a small but finite risk we could raise the temperature of the Earth to an extent that would cause massive costal flooding, climate change, and consequent economic disruption", they will get anyone to listen? I think not. Those who before September 11, 2001, quietly said, "Excuse me, but Osama bin Laden is a bigger threat than we are making him out to be" were not listened to, so now we have people dead because of it.

I would like to include a brief comment on the technical part of what Rob wrote, because I feel it is germane enough to the discussion to not be delayed. Rob made the comment:

I'll admit that whoever invented the idea of CO2 being a "greeehouse gas" was one clever sumbitch. He knew good and well when he spouted that shit that very few people understand the process of photosynthesis and even fewer understand that WE ARE CARBON-BASED LIFE FORMS. CO2 is essential to life and all "pristine forests" depend on it to survive.

A greenhouse gas is a gas that absorbs and re-emits infrared radiation. The greenhouse effect is a consequence of the presence of those gases in the atmosphere, notably in the mid to upper reaches, but also near the surface. The greenhouse effect is a FACT. If the greenhouse effect did not exist, Georgia would have a climate closer to that of the northern regions of Siberia. What is causing all the discussion of global warming is the THEORY of the runaway greenhouse effect, where an increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is posited to start a vicious circle of heating. The runaway greenhouse effect has not yet been proven or disproven. There is another THEORY that the plant life on Earth can absorb the additional carbon dioxide being put into the air. The debate between the two THEORIES should be based upon data, NOT opinion, and any actions taken should be after a thorough risk analysis followed by a cost-benefit analysis. I will discuss this more thoroughly in the technical post that will follow later.

Society cannot survive without tolerance

There's a discussion of tolerance over at Say Anything that is worth reading.

Whatever happened to tolerance, anyway?

Thanks to Eric, the Straight White Guy, for pointing out the post (and linking to me at the same time!!!).

Remember the day and those who died

Today is the 62nd anniversary of the surprise attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy on the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor.

Take a moment to remember those who died that day and in all the days that followed after the United States joined in the fighting of World War II. They made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our nation. Also take heart in recalling that the days following the surprise attack may have seemed dark at the time but that victory ultimately followed after a lot of hard work and sacrifice. That is a lesson that we need to all be sure we have learned after the most recent treacherous attacks on our nation and consequent war.

I just realized something

The radical right wingers and radical left wingers have something in common that makes me dislike both groups.

They both want to tell me how to live my life.

Radical right wingers want this to be a "Christian nation". What kind of Christian? Surely not Catholic... especially after the scandals, we don't have enough priests to hear all the confessions... how about Southern Baptist... nope, too many people like to drink alcohol... Wait a minute, I've got it, the one TRUE AMERICAN denomination: MORMON!!!! Too bad about that caffeine habit everyone will have to break.

No???

Radical left wingers want this to be an "equal nation". For those of you who aren't familiar with Kurt Vonnegut, he's already shown where that leads in one of his short stories. A strong, brilliant man has to wear glasses that distort his vision, headphones that blast loud noises in his head to disrupt his concentration, and wear heavy weights. So, there's equality of results, everyone is equally weak and stupid.

No???

Too bad those who just want to be left alone are by inclination silent, leaving no one to tell those on the right AND the left that want us to live THEIR way to shut the hell up.

Before we start name calling, let's review the meanings of the names we're using

From Dictionary.com:

liberal -

a. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.

b. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.

conservative -

Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change.

left -

The people and groups who advocate liberal, often radical measures to effect change in the established order, especially in politics, usually to achieve the equality, freedom, and well-being of the common citizens of a state. Also called left wing.

right -

The people and groups who advocate the adoption of conservative or reactionary measures, especially in government and politics. Also called right wing.

---

So, let's review, shall we?

Liberal: open to new ideas, tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others, broad minded. That does NOT describe the people who are branded (rightfully so, in many cases) as "moonbats" by many bloggers I read. As a matter of fact, there is a reason why the United States is called a liberal democracy. Just look at the "democracy" in Iran, for example, if you want to see a TRULY "non-liberal democratic" state. Most people in the United States are tolerant and broad minded. The United States is more open to new ideas than any other nation in the world I have visited. There is a reason why we attract the best and brightest from all over the globe. The moonbat brigade are radical left wingers. Don't let them drag the fine word "liberal" into the mud.

Conservative: Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change. That does NOT describe the people who label themselves "conservative" and are trying to get laws passed everywhere telling me (and every other US citizen) how to live their lives according to their so-called "traditional values". The traditional values of this nation are to leave people the hell alone unless they're trespassing on your property. I saw a bumper sticker today that expressed my sentiments on this exactly. It said: Pay attention to your OWN damn family. Most people in the United States are proud of the traditions and values of this nation (and rightfully so, in many cases). The United States has values that I have heard praised over and over again by those who grew up in nations that do not have the advantages of our values. These Mr and Mrs Grudys who mind everyone else's business and want to tell everyone how to live "correct" lives are radical right wingers. Don't let them drag the fine word "conservative" into the mud.

So, if you're going to engage in the lazy and counterproductive practice of name calling instead of the hard work of analysis, thoughtful criticism, and suggestions for solutions, at the very least use the correct names.

Tired of unthinking partisanship? So am I...

A commenter at Centerfield did a good job of describing how I feel about the criticism of the visit by the president to Iraq on Thanksgiving, worth quoting in full:

Gracelessness is putting it too kindly. I am at a loss to find a fresh way to express my utter exhaustion at such utterly reflexive and inane partisan criticism. It's just stunning that someone can think themselves gifted with insight when they have a ready-made negative criticism for each of a pair of opposing actions. Bush is uncaring when he doesn't attend the funerals of dead soldiers, but visiting the troops is a PR stunt?

Visiting the troops was an important symbolic gesture, and it's ugly to suggest that Bush's visit was not driven by a sense of concern for our troops. C'mon, are we supposed to believe that the president should AVOID doing things that are good PR because he's open to the criticism that "it's being done for PR reasons?"

I question everything in politics and government (actually, I question everything, but that's a subject for another post). I've grown tired of the unquestioning cheerleading of President George W. Bush that I've read on the right-leaning weblogs, and I've grown more than tired of the unquestioning criticism on the left-leaning weblogs. I agree with bk in his comments. Let's look at each event and judge it in and of itself, not through the distorted lens of our politics.

Cry "racism" and let slip the dogs of war!

Rob (aka Acidman) over at Gut Rumbles has written on racism, and I'm sure his opinion will provoke more than a rumble with some people.

I agree with Rob on both the overuse of the cry of "racism!", and with how things have changed in the years since racism was common and codified into law. Similar to Rob, I grew up in the South, but my childhood was a few years later. I lived in a suburb of Memphis, and I was 5 when Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered. I recall many of the truly racist attitudes that Rob illustrated with examples from his life. One of the key things that Rob does NOT discuss is the "white trash", who were looked down upon (and still are) because they exhibit exactly the attitudes of non-self-responisibility that Rob points out are the ACTUAL origins of the differences in results in people's lives. The attitude towards white trash is not racism, it is the contempt of those who take responsibility for their lives towards those who sponge off others because they refuse that fundamental responsibility. What I see now towards people is that contempt of the responsible for the irresponsible, not racism, because that attitude is independent of skin color on both the giving and receiving ends.

Every day I work with people from many different countries, from many different cultures, and having many different skin colors. There's no time for racism because we're all too busy trying to do our damn jobs to waste time with that BS. I am aware that racism DOES exist in many places in the United States, but it DOES NOT exist in all the places that it has been accused of existing.

Recall the story of the boy who cried "wolf". We are reaching the point where actual cases of racism will be written off because those who want to blame someone else instead of taking responsibility for their lives have cried "racism" a few times too often. Aside from showing no respect for the legacy of those who DID stand up to REAL racism, those who are so ready with accusations are in danger of making it where they and their cause are not taken seriously.

Causes versus goals

This discussion of "modern" feminism is worth reading. The differentiation between being "cause" oriented versus "goal" oriented is something I had never thought about before. Read and think about it!

Speaking my mind

I've been debating back and forth as to whether to post what follows below. Although I doubt I'll have any influence whatsoever, I think it still needs saying. I don't know if I'll lose what readership I've built up by posting something that probably will offend everyone, but "no guts, no glory".

Begin Rant:

There are plenty of writers on both the left and the right who are saying "how dare the opposite side do" whatever it is they are irate about. Those on the right are accusing the Democrats of engaging in the exact same behaviors that the Republicans practiced back when there was a Democrat in the White House. Those on the left are accusing the Republicans of playing politics with national and world events, something the Democrats did when there was a Republican in the White House.

I have had ENOUGH.

I am sick of BOTH sides.

Those on the loony left who think it's perfectly acceptable to compare George W. Bush to Hitler, you have absolutely NO sense of history, and you're insulting ALL of those who died in the German concentration camps before and during World War II. SHAME on you.

Those on the radical right who think it's perfectly acceptable to brand everyone who disagrees with the foreign policies of the United States as traitors, you have absolutely NO sense of history, and you're insulting ALL of those who suffered by speaking out against what they saw as wrong (such the machinations of McCarthy, or those who lived in the Soviet Union and suffered for speaking out against that murderous regime, or those who didn't speak out and were persecuted because of their race, such as the Japanese in the US during World War II). SHAME on you.

I am SICK of this crap.

What the HELL do these people think they're accomplishing by branding those who oppose them with names that are associated with some of the most horrible crimes that this screwed up species have perpetrated? Where the HELL is the sense of proportion?

I am not pointing fingers at any specific writers in the blogosphere. I am just tired of the ranting I see on BOTH sides.

George Washington opposed the idea of political parties because he felt that the agitation and mud-slinging would tear the nation apart. That almost happened during the United States Civil War, and more Americans had to die to maintain the Union than have died in all other wars that the United States has fought, combined. Are we to dishonor their legacy by allowing this nation to balkanize into "left coast", "right coast", and "flyover states"? We owe it to those who died in the Civil War to preserve our Union, those who died in the American Revolution to create our nation, those who died in World War I to end all wars, those who died in World War II to protect democracy, those who died in Korea and Vietnam to defend against the advances of Communism, those who died in the first and second Gulf Wars to defend our nation against aggression of any kind, those who died in the War of 1812 to defend our national sovereignty, those who died in the Spanish-American War to defend the honor of our nation, and those who have died serving our country in all other wars, police actions, hidden conflicts, or other, seemingly meaningless ways, and to those who serve our nation now or have served it in the past to not allow the fundamental principles upon which this country was founded to be corrupted by those who see nothing other than their own extreme viewpoint and try to force it upon others.

The bedrock of our nation and our Constitution is freedom. Freedom to live without being searched without good cause. Freedom to bear arms so that if we are threatened from without (another nation) or from within (a tyrannical government), we can defend ourselves. Freedom to practice the religion we choose (or not to practice a religion at all). Freedom to speak our minds without being arrested. Freedoms reverberate through the document we use to define our government. The system in the Constitution was written explicitly to limit the powers of our government because the Founding Fathers distrusted power, and rightfully so. Power is almost always abused, and those without power (the common citizen) almost always are the losers. Extremists on both sides seek to IMPOSE their views on all. This must not happen, for that is the path to violence and death.

We cannot allow extremism of any variety to turn our debates so vitriolic that no compromise is possible. If you need negative examples where compromise became impossible those abound, from the Israeli-Palestinian war, to Northern Ireland, to the former Yugoslavia, to Rwanda (do I need to go further? Is that not enough blood and death for anyone? Is this what we want to leave as OUR legacy?).

It is OUR RESPONSIBILITY to engage in CIVIL DEBATE. The Constitution itself is a compromise. The most visible example of the compromises present from the founding of our nation is the bicameral legislature, which balances the interests of the large states (the House of Representatives) with the interests of states with low populations (the Senate). If we lose our ability to compromise, we lose ourselves, and we betray the legacy of those who have served our country both past and present.

STOP the name calling. STOP the gloating. Try to understand the other side. Try to understand that NO ONE wants more people to die. NO ONE wants another September 11. Argue, discuss, debate, but DO NOT WASTE OUR LEGACY. Do NOT dishonor those who served our nation and serve our nation now. Understand that there MUST be compromise; understand that those who do not agree with you are NOT evil. LIVE and ACT on the legacy that we have been so fortunate to receive.

Rant over now. Thank you for reading.

This isn't respecting diversity, this is dictatorship of a minority of one

Donnie at Ain't Done It! pointed this out (from CNN.com):

Los Angeles officials have asked that manufacturers, suppliers and contractors stop using the terms "master" and "slave" on computer equipment, saying such terms are unacceptable and offensive.

The request -- which has some suppliers furious and others busy re-labeling components -- came after an unidentified worker spotted a videotape machine carrying devices labeled "master" and "slave" and filed a discrimination complaint with the county's Office of Affirmative Action Compliance.

In the computer industry, "master" and "slave" are used to refer to primary and secondary hard disk drives. The terms are also used in other industries.

"Based on the cultural diversity and sensitivity of Los Angeles County, this is not an acceptable identification label," Joe Sandoval, division manager of purchasing and contract services, said in a memo sent to County vendors.

You have GOT to be kidding.

This isn't "cultural diversity and sensitivity", this is just flat out stupid.

ONE person complains about a label that isn't referring to people, and we get a letter from the government saying that it is "not an acceptable identification"? Setting aside the imbecilic nature of the complaint itself, how is it that a SINGLE complaint has moved the government to make a "request" to stop using labels that have been used for decades? You can't get the city government to make the schools safe, to ensure there are sufficient police to make the streets safe (as opposed to out on "revenue enhancement" tasks such as speed traps), or to even fill in the damn potholes in the roads, but you can get them to send out a letter complaining about the use of the words "master" and "slave".

Addressing the complaint itself, I could understand if the labels were "white" for the "master disk" and "black" for the "slave disk", but what is the problem with the generic words "master" and "slave"? The complaining party apparently has no conception of the fact that words only have the power that people give to them. This person is offended because he is CHOOSING to be offended. He should be told to grow the hell up instead of pandered to, otherwise the English language will ultimately consist only of the words "a", "an", and "the" because all other words offend someone.

I thought Medicare was for PEOPLE, not for corporations...

I stepped in it...

...and then put my foot in my mouth. In the heat of my rhetoric on marriage, I missed the point of the post by Beth at She Who Will Be Obeyed! on gays and marriage that I linked back to. I have removed the offending link, and I hope that Beth will accept my apologies because misrepresenting her point was not my intention.

The lesson I've learned from my mistake is that rhetoric is like manure. If you use it sparingly it's good for growing things, but if you fling it around indiscriminately, all you end up doing is smelling like sh*t.

The "Random Fate" position on marriage in general

There have been several posts on the topic of gay marriage. All the ones I have read say something along the lines of "I don't think the federal government should be involved, I don't care as long as they don't do it on the street and frighten the horses and children."

Here's what I think, assuming that on a topic like this anyone is willing to listen to opinions other than their own:

The federal government, most state governments, and most companies have policies that encourage heterosexual marriage. Admittedly, there has been a "marriage penalty" for the federal income tax, but the Family Medical Leave Act along with several other laws explicitly give benefits or other considerations to marriage, which has been defined as a union between a man and a woman.

Personally, I don't care either way. My only interest is in the fact that married people are treated DIFFERENTLY than single people. I don't give a damn about how marriage is defined, heterosexual, homosexual, or group marriage (in a Heinlienien universe, anyway). Marriage is given PRIORITY over being single. There could be an argument made that marriage is a "social good", but do you really want the government to engage in social "engineering"?

I think government, like justice, should be blind. Blind to skin color, blind to religion, blind to marriage, blind to EVERYTHING. I am treated differently by the federal government, by the state of Texas, and by my employer because I am NOT married. If the government is blind to it, then the definition of marriage is irrelevant, regardless of what the "religious right" has to say.

Warning, satire alert!!!

Rick, at Rick's Cafe Americain, has "stuck his neck out" to ask when our War on Terror is actually going to focus on terrorism. It's definitely worth a read. The link is on Blogspot, so I can't guarantee it'll work, you may have to scroll for the post.

It's OUR government, let's take it back

Donnie has posted a response to a comment that I left on his weblog. I think it merits a full discussion, so I will include his writing and my reply.

BLOGGER and frequent erudite commenter JACK:

Lot's o' pots and kettles in politicking...

I'm just worried all the racket from those pots and kettles banging against each other will drown out what's important. Tit-for-tat isn't debate, it's just childish. There's a lot going on, and a lot that needs to be done. I'm tired of the rancor, I want actual discussions leading to compromises.

BLOGGER AND SUPREME NINJA DONNIE:

Jack,

I think our generation has wanted that for a long time...and the racket has achieved it's goal.

Reasonable discourse between politicians used to only occur in times of crisis. Now, given a crisis, it's still not happening.

I know it sounds absurd on the face of it, but the entire system requires a serious overhaul before it even begins to resemble what our Founding Fathers had in mind. Elections are garbage, taxpayer representation is non-existent, and Pork reigns supreme.

I'd love to see one-term limits put in place, House and Senate salaries tied to representative samples of professional payrolls, and a myriad of other 21st century considerations, well, considered where politics are concerned. Unfortunately, we've created a ruling caste, and we seem all too willing to suffer the consequences.

I have, quite frankly, reached the point where I distrust any and all professional politicians. That said, and bearing in mind that my vote counts for very little these days, I have to push it in the direction I feel will best protect my kids. DoD funding, the War on Terror, and the Patriot Act, for all it's flaws, are more important to me than tree-hugging, welfare entitlements, "social programs", or affirmative fucking action.

Without the former, there will be no need for the latter in a few years.

My reply, left in his comments:

Donnie, I agree with your mistrust of professional politicians. I don't think we'll ever go back to what the Founding Fathers had in mind though. If you recall, the vote was originally restricted to landowners at the time that the Constitution was written and ratified. If we followed that dictum, then everyone who rents an apartment and doesn't own a house would not be a voter. Perhaps even those of us who own mortgages to a postage stamp sized lot with a house built on it might not pass the criteria for being a voter. While the Founders never intended there to be "professional politicians" who effectively form a ruling class (as you astutely pointed out), what they envisioned was rule by an enlightened minority of landed gentlemen. This is why I prefer the interpretation of the Constitution as a living document that is reinterpreted according to the needs of the time. Unfortunately, we seem to be at a cusp in the development of our government. The damage done to the office of the president during the Nixon administration has never been repaired, and the adversarial relationship between the legislative and administrative branches of the government established at that time persists to today.

I believe in a very limited role for government. I believe the sole role of government is to prevent the abuse of the rights of its citizens by the powerful. That is why I fear some of the provisions of the Patriot Act, because they seem to me to violate the spirit I see in the Constitution regarding the protection of the individual (in the form of requiring search warrants, no seizure of property without due process, other protections written into the Constitution to prevent the abuse of power by the government). I fear that in trying to protect ourselves and our way of life we may destroy our principals that we have based our way of life upon.

I do not believe that the federal government should practice "social engineering". That's why I oppose affirmative action programs. I also believe the Social Security system violates the Constitution.

I think we're reading the same page in the same hymnal. I advocate thoughtful debate as often as I can because I believe extremism in ANY form is destructive. I believe we have gotten the government we have SETTLED for, and if we, the people, make it clear that we will no longer SETTLE for the BS we have gotten recently, we may get a better government. That is the hope that I hold for weblogs and the internet in general. We may be able to have a true dialogue among us, the people, that will allow us to let the professional politicians know that what they have practiced is no longer acceptable.

There is a quote that I saw recently to the effect that no democracy can truly survive, because once the people realize they can vote themselves "bread and circuses", they will be unwilling to do the hard work associated with civic responsibility. I hope we can prove that wrong, but I believe that will only happen when we tell our "leaders" that we expect them to both preach and practice that responsibility.

This type of discussion is what democracy is all about. This is the hope I hold for weblogs, email, and the other forms of communication with strangers, friends, foes, and anyone else who cares to read what is out there and available on the internet. We need to EXPECT our so-called leaders to show true leadership, we should hold them accountable when they instead pander to the lowest common denominator. The old saying that you get the government you deserve is true, and it is past time for us to take back control of OUR nation and OUR government from those who have made it a profession to be a "politician".

More on CVS

Andrea wrote in her photo blog her view (with photos) regarding the actions of CVS in putting condoms and pregnancy tests in a locked display case. I understand her reaction, and it is similar to my first gut reaction. However, I stand by what I wrote earlier about true liberty means that you can make your own moral decisions regarding what you sell and how you sell it. CVS is not in the business of performing public service, so it is within their rights (if we mean what we say about liberty) to make their own decisions regarding how they display and sell things. It is also within their rights to allow their moral vision to guide their decisions. I may not agree with what they decided, but it's my right to shop elsewhere.

Outsourcing isn't always the answer

MSNBC.com has an editorial about the plan to "privatize" a lot of the work done for the National Parks. They have a good point when they question the actual cost savings of this approach.

Since when was adding a layer of middlemen a way to save money?

The idea is that government will pay private companies to manage park resources, and those companies will in turn hire and pay workers to do it. Think about that. If the government wants to lop 20 percent off the budget for parks, that means these outside companies will have to try and take the jobs currently being done by professional, trained park employees, and do them on 80 percent of the current budget.

And, since these outside companies are, unlike the government, profit-making enterprises, some of that 80 percent will have to be set aside for their profits, which means less than 80 percent of the money will go into maintaining our parks.

What is a matter for concern is what positions are being "outsourced":

Just which positions will they outsource? Already, outside concessions run most of the parks’ peripheral businesses. The in-park hotels, restaurants, gift shops, gas stations, and book stores—all privately run. Outfitters who set up shop in the gateway towns are the ones who take visitors on backwoods treks and canoe trips. Even bureaucratic, back room stuff like land appraisals, engineering work, and architectural design is largely contracted out these days.

What’s left are the park rangers and the historians, the supervisors and scientists, the maintenance workers repairing trails and the smiling folks wearing “interpreter” badges who teach school groups about conservation. The very folks who enrich our park-going experiences and provide for our safety.

All of them, by the way, are cross-trained. Maintenance workers are trained in search and rescue efforts, and they’re often the ones who find that ten-year-old boy lost in the woods for two days. During a 4th of July weekend car accident in Yellowstone, a nearby road repair crew having lunch heard the radio call and rushed to the scene to direct traffic while a park geologist—who was a certified EMT—arrived to administer first aid to the victims. Could we expect the same from employees hired for less than 80 percent of the pay by some low-ball bidding outside contractor?

The parks already receive woefully inadequate funding—two thirds of the level necessary, according to a Nov 9 LA Times article by Eric Bailey. Bailey writes that the annual shortfall of more than $600 million “has meant a lack of services, reduced public education programs, and deteriorating structures.” Do we want it to get worse?

While you may say that after September 11, 2001, we've had other, more important things to take care of, this is a legacy we should feel incredibly lucky to have received, and it is a legacy we should be sure to pass on as well maintained as we can.

These parks belong to us, the American people, not to the White House, not to the timber companies, not to local municipalities, and not to the mining industries. What’s more, it’s our money being spent—or misspent—to maintain them. It is our right to enjoy these parks, and our responsibility to protect them.

More perspective...

This is funny...

We cannot codify discrimination in ANY form

Chris at The Noble Pundit has written that he has a problem with hate crime laws. I share his opposition of hate crime laws, but for a significantly different reason. I believe that by defining crimes against different groups differently, hate crime laws codify discrimination. This legal definintion of crimes against some groups as being more henious than crimes against the majority does not move us towards the color blind society that Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of. Instead, it perpetuates the viewing of groups as "the other". The ONLY way to eliminate discrimination is to not discriminate in ANY fashion.

It's a good night for opinions

I also think Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite...

There is a reason for Jefferson's "wall of separation"

I strongly believe in Jefferson's "wall of separation" between church and state.

Perspective

The King of Fools has a post on keeping perspective. It is similar to something I've been meaning to write about, but it takes a different approach. It's short, but definitely worth reading.

Rights are for everyone, even the weird

Acidman has posted an interesting discussion of what is happening with Michael Jackson. I think he's right when he says "weird dudes have rights, too."

What he said...

Donnie has posted his opinion on gay marriage at Ain't Done It!

He did such fine job that all I can say is, "What he said!"

Our noble insurers strike again...

Here's ANOTHER thing that pisses me off. An insurance company has fired a reservist when he was called for active duty, not once, but TWICE! What a shock, an insurance company screwing people several times over:

Officials at Country Insurance said they support employees' military service. They said the company gives reservists their full salary for the first 10 days of their leave, extends their benefits for 9 months and fills for 6 months any gap between company salary and military pay--none of which is required by law. The termination policy was crafted to establish consistency with disability leave, which also has a 9-month cutoff, company officials said.

"Technically he has been terminated, that is true," said Cathy Oloffson, a spokeswoman for the company. "This leave policy coincides with other leave policies. ... We believe it is [good] to have a consistent administrative policy.

"We are very proud of our employees serving in the military, and when they return, they have a job."

If they are so proud of their employees serving in the military, then why didn't they change the damn policy the first time they "fired" the reservist? The attempt at "consistency with disability leave" is pure BS, because their policy CLEARLY violates the law regarding activated reservists.

Blackfive is calling for a boycott of this company until they reinstate the reservist. See his post for how to contact the company and let your feelings about this be known. I agree with the boycott, and I think it should continue beyond when the reinstate the reservist to until they change the policy.

OK, I've vented enough now.

Link through Donnie at Ain't Done It!

Unsupervised may equal unsafe

John Hinckley, the mentally unbalanced individual who tried to assassinate President Reagan, is petitioning for unsupervised visits with his parents. I am not a mental health professional, but I agree with Robert Phillips, a forensic psychiatrist who examined Hinckley, when he says that Hinckley should not be allowed unsupervised visits.

On the second day of the three-day hearing, Phillips said Hinckley still shows troubling signs of not being totally honest or forthright with his treating physicians and "a tendency to hide the ball, so to speak."

Phillips said he was concerned that Hinckley had not changed enough since he sought similar privileges three years ago.

In 2000, U.S. District Judge June L. Green canceled a hearing after prosecutors said Hinckley had a continued interest in books and music with violent themes.

"Those behaviors are indicative of intrinsically poor judgment, possibly a reaffirmation of narcissistic tendencies that are present," Phillips said.

Hinkley's mother, Jo Ann Hinckley, understandibly if perhaps not correctly, feels differently:

"I believe he has recovered," Jo Ann Hinckley said. "There is no issue of dangerousness in John at all."

Jo Ann Hinckley said she and her husband planned to take their son to shopping malls, restaurants and bookstores as they had on previous outings when Hinckley was supervised.

In case of problems, she said, she would carry a cell phone and a list of emergency numbers to call, including hospital staff and police, if necessary.

Government lawyer Thomas Zeno questioned whether Hinckley's parents were prepared to deal with a situation in which Hinckley might try to run away or was confronted by someone hostile.

"If he becomes upset, I think we'd just take him back to the hospital," she said.

Somehow, I do not find much reassurance in the statement that they would "just take him back to the hospital" if their son, the attempted assassin, becomes upset.

I believe in redemption, but mental illness, especially of the type that prompted Hinckley's total disconnection from reality, is a different matter. Despite the fact that a psychologist who treated Hinckley says that "Hinckley's violent acts occurred only when he was in a psychotic episode, which has not occurred in 16 years", and is confident that the risk of relapse is "practically zero", I still do not believe it is wise to release Hinckley for unsupervised visits. The fact that Hinckley is regularly feeding stray cats at the hospital was presented as evidence that he should be released for the unsupervised visits, which seems a rather weak argument for releasing a man who shot at a president.

I'm sorry to have to say this, but just because he is feeding stray cats and reading books about them does not mean his mind won't fall back into its well-trodden pattern of thinking in a way that is not connected with the real world. The mind is a strange thing, and a statement that the risk of relapse is "practically zero" cannot be reasonably made for the type of mental illness that prompted Hinckley to turn a sidewalk into a shooting gallery.

Power doesn't corrupt, money does

Ordinarily, I am not one for saying the media is "biased", but the reporting of the state visit of President Bush to the United Kingdom seems particularly egregious in focusing entirely on the protests and not on the support. According to a poll conducted by The Guardian, a newspaper in the UK, more than half of the supporters of the Labour Party are in favor of the visit of President Bush to the United Kingdom.

I think the bias in the media is not politically motivated (no matter what the extremists on either side say); I think it is due to the pursuit of ratings and eyeballs for advertising. There's no news like bad news. However, we are NOT getting the full story on Iraq, and has anyone heard anything about Afghanistan lately? A year ago it would have been hard to believe that Afghanistan would fall completely off the radar like it has.

Money has corrupted the news as it corrupts everything else (anyone up for buying a mutual fund?). Although the newspapers published in the early days of the United States were partisan, they were OPENLY partisan and did not pretend to present a balanced view.

There was a golden age of reporting where it was driven by the integrity of the journalists. That golden age has ended, but the chimera of "balanced reporting" remains, although now the unbalanced nature is driven not by political agendas but by the god of money.

I hope this is never used on our soldiers

We should be VERY careful how we handle "enemy combatants" because it could come back to haunt us.

Hypocrisy for $$

OK, THIS pisses me off:

Private Citizen has been helping people unsubscribe since 1988. It also teaches members how to sue telemarketers and junk faxers. According to its website, its customers have collected over $2 million from telemarketers.

Instead of sending a bushel of opt-out notices to phone companies, credit card issuers and credit bureaus, individuals can stop most sales pitches by sending Private Citizen a $20 check and signing a couple of forms.

Robert Bulmash, president of the company, then sends the signed requests in a big package to each of the eight largest direct-marketing databases.

But over the last few years, Acxiom has been refusing to even open the mail Bulmash sends.

So, a company that is responsible for getting junk mail sent to thousands of people who didn't even know they were signing up for mailing lists refuses to allow those same people to opt out as easily as they unknowingly "opted in".

Recently Acxiom returned a package of 738 requests, saying the company requires each person to contact the company individually, according to Bulmash.

Bulmash calls Acxiom's position hypocritical and is now trying to enlist a powerful Senate committee and the Federal Trade Commission in his battle with the data giant.

"Acxiom collects and merchandises the personal data of many (if not most) of those same Private Citizen subscriber/consumers without their knowledge, permission or 'direct contact,'" wrote Bulmash in a letter he is sending to the House Committee on Government Reform.

Acxiom, whose website claims its database of information on 176 million Americans is the most comprehensive available, collects information from public records, private companies, the Postal Service and product warranty cards, said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

So you can unknowingly get on the mailing list through a third party, but you can't use a third party to get off the mailing list. Yeah, right, THAT is self-consistent.

The marketing company, which sells the information to government agencies, insurance firms and marketers, says it is a leader in consumer advocacy and defends its policy of declining submissions sent in by third parties.

"Consumer opt-outs from third parties may not provide an opportunity for the consumer to become informed about Acxiom's fair information practices, and we have no assurance that any such consumers have consented to opting out of Acxiom's marketing database," an Acxiom spokesman said. "The only way we can be certain that we are dealing with informed consumers is to handle opt-outs directly with the consumer."

I need to get on my waders if I'm going to have to wade through that pool of BS.

And just exactly HOW trustworthy are they?

Recently, Acxiom was involved in the JetBlue Airways scandal. The airline violated its own privacy policy and handed a U.S. government contractor 5 million passenger itineraries. The contractor then purchased matching personal records from Acxiom -- including incomes, occupations, vehicle ownership information, number of children and Social Security numbers -- to test a Pentagon project unrelated to airline security.

Acxiom prides itself on its privacy policies. However, the Electronic Privacy Information Center asked the FTC to look into whether the company violated its own privacy principles of notice, access and choice when it added sensitive customer data (such as income and household size) to data that JetBlue gave a government contractor.

It is unknown whether the FTC is pursuing the complaint -- all its investigations are secret until finished.

Oh, yeah... THAT is trustworty...

Bulmash, who started his company after being frustrated by attempts to stop Citibank from calling his house and asking for a different person, says the issue is not just about stopping dinnertime solicitations and mounds of unwanted mail.

Bulmash points to the ability of phone companies to sell information about who you call as one of the most egregious examples of information sharing, and one that most people are unaware of.

"Our private lives are just that," he said. "We should not be on public display just for some company to make revenue at our expense."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Are ALL "Fundamentalists" completely wacko?

John Hawkins of Right Wing News has cried "foul!" rightfully so on Mark Byron (whom I will NOT link to here, go to the post by John Hawkins if you want a link to the original post) who wrote a post that illustrates everything that I find disturbing about fundamentalist Christianity and shows that the fundamentalists in THIS country are not all that far removed from the Islamist terrorists that have assaulted the United States at home and around the world.

What Mr. Byron wrote was a "fantasy" where an organization called the "Christian Liberation Front" would change the balance of power in the Senate by staging an assault where Democrat senators from states with Republican governors are murdered. The Republican governors would then appoint Republicans as senators to fill out the terms of those murdered Democrats. In another part of this "fantasy" the Supreme Court was also assaulted and five justices killed (unlike the senators, the justices set up for murder are not named). The point behind this violent circumvention of our Constitutional system was to get justices both on the Supreme Court and lower courts with the "appropriate" ideology that aligns with that of "Christians". This is NOT the Christianity that I recall from growing up in Memphis.

Mr. Hawkins is better placed than I am to point out how wrong this "fantasy" is, and he does a very good job of it. What I am curious about is whether people like Mr. Byron realize that in publicly "fantasizing" in this fashion he is showing that the distance between the point of view he is professing and the statements of Islamist terrorists is the thickness of a gnat's hair. Saying that the best manner to achieve your objectives is to murder Constitutionally elected senators and Constitutionally appointed Supreme Court justices is absolutely unacceptable, even in fantasy. Some comments about the furor surrounding this are saying that the remarks of Mr. Byron need to be taken in the context of his writings on his weblog as a whole, and that it was merely "thinking out loud". Stating that it is being "put on the table to be dismissed" is disingenuous at best. I read many entries in his weblog posted both before and after the post containing the "fantasy", and what I saw was not consistent with a man who is interested in discussing ideas and ruling out unacceptable behavior. There is an undercurrent of fanaticism and fascism that is disturbing.

People who advocate this type of terrorism (and regardless of how it is dressed up as "thinking out loud", it is advocacy) even in the form of a "fantasy" should first be firmly corrected, and if they persist, treated like the pariahs they so richly deserve to be. Their expression of free speech should not be suppressed, but people advocating murder and an assault that is not only on the Senate and Supreme Court but the entire concept of elected government should be reminded that free speech does NOT mean that there will be no societal consequences of advocating murder, only that there will be no LEGAL consequences. The "fantasy" described by Mr. Byron is no different than the public proclamations of al Qaida wishing death and destruction upon the United States, and it shows how fundamentalists of ANY religion seem to be all too ready to impose their beliefs on others even if that imposition requires violence from adherents of these "religions of peace".

Tit-for-tat gets you nothing but dirty

The right reason

Roy Moore was removed as chief justice of the Alabama supreme court, and for once something was done for the right reason. Instead of making an issue over the 10 Commandments monument, the court chose to rule on the behavior of Mr. Moore.

I have no issue with people who feel their faith deeply and express those beliefs. What I DO have a problem with is the type of arrogance that was exemplified by the words and actions of Mr. Moore in this case. The presiding judge stated that by “willfully and publicly” ignoring the federal court order “the chief justice placed himself above the law” and that Moore “showed no signs of contrition.” His underhanded way of installing the monument in the middle of the night shows he isn't really interested in the rule of law, because he wanted to present the world with a fait accompli that would be harder to undo than it would be to block the installation in the first place.

I admire deeply held faith. In some ways, I envy it because I do not seem to be capable of having faith in ANYTHING. However, faith is no excuse for the arrogance shown by this man. My concern is that he will gain so much popularity with the ultra-religious nut groups in Alabama (the ones that picketed the courthouse when the workers came to move the monument) that it may propel him to another elected office where he can do even more damage.

More on the MYOB Principle

I've written before about how freedom means the liberty to make stupid choices and about how I believe the role of government is primarily to protect the rights and liberties of the average citizen from the abuses of the powerful. While I can understand the viewpoint of those who feel that the "buying and selling sushi to be eaten off a woman's body" is "dehumanizing", what I do not understand is how this behavior, which is in a business establishment (not out in the streets where it would frighten the horses or offend the sensibilities of the easily offended), the concern of anyone not directly involved? I've heard arguments before how anything that dehumanizes or objectifies any woman harms all women, but BUZZZZZZ!!! I'm sorry, wrong answer, that assertion doesn't mesh with the emphasis on "diversity" that is now all the rage. Where is the respect for the cultural diversity represented by the sushi bar with the "naked sushi night"? This is something that originated in Japan, and it is very emblematic of the Japanese culture as it exists today. Should we not respect that culture as we are supposed to ALL cultures, or do we only respect those cultures that don't offend us? It seems that the latter is truly the case, since at every "diversity event" I've been forced to attend where I work has made me feel like MY culture is "evil".

It is one of my fundamental beliefs that all people should be treated with dignity and respect until they prove through their actions that they do not deserve respect. I still believe that even the most evil person has a fundamental dignity that should not be violated. I do NOT feel that I have the right to tell others how they should behave if they are engaged in a transaction with another person where there is no coercion involved. I do not believe in "victimless" crimes. If a woman wants to sell her body for sex in exchange for money, I don't see why she should be stopped if she is of legal age. If a person wants to take drugs to fry their brain, I don't see why they should be stopped as long as they are not endangering others (such as by doing it while driving).

There are exceptions to every rule that tries to be hard and fast. For example, I believe environmental regulations are necessary, even if they result in "victimless" crimes. I recall how foul the air was in the 1970s, so there is direct evidence that disregard for pollution emissions does harm society as a whole. However, I do not believe that government should tell people how to live their lives if no one else is being hurt, and I do not believe anyone has the right to proclaim an activity is "evil" and should be illegal if no one is being hurt during the activity. A diffuse "it promotes violence" isn't enough, because that denigrates the idea that we have free will and promotes the false premise that we are not directly responsible for our actions. Extremists on both ends of the political spectrum are guilty of forcing their views on the public through laws in this way, ranging from the anti-prostitution laws to the "war on drugs" to the abortion debate to the anti-gun movement.

I grew up in the South. I spent a lot of time around rednecks who had the worst of the attitudes that are associated with that stereotype. Does that mean that as a result of my environment I am not responsible if I do not treat women or people who don't happen to look like me with respect? No!!! I am not a prisoner of my environment; I have free will and the ability to choose how I will behave.

Most of the fundamental problems in our society today have their root cause in our culture of "it's not my fault, I'm not responsible!" Another example from my life: I grew up in northern Mississippi, with the poorest funded school system in the nation then as now. Our schools barely had money to pay for English and math classes, much less foreign languages or other "extras" that I see paid for now in what are regarded as "under funded" schools. Somehow, despite that, I went to college and graduate school, and I now make a six-figure salary and have been asked to move to France as a part of an inter-company R&D effort. This isn't limited to just me. Of my graduating class of around 350, there are many successful doctors, lawyers, and other professionals who didn't have the benefit of going to a school with all the bells and whistles. Why? Because our parents took responsibility for our upbringing and told us that we were responsible for our future, and the best way to assure our future was through our education. So although we didn't have all the benefits that even the poor schools have now, we made sure we got everything out of the school we could.

I think if a politician (Democrat or Republican) would stand up and instead of pandering to the lowest denominator announce that government isn't our parent, that personal responsibility was the key to the success of the United States in the past and will be vital to continued success in the future, we would have a candidate that people would vote FOR, rather than the trend of every election I can recall where almost all vote AGAINST a candidate because there is no one running who they can believe in.

Don't some people have anything better to do?

OK, THIS gets my blood up:

Promoters insist it's performance art. Detractors say women are getting a raw deal.

Whatever the case, the controversy over the Bonzai nightclub serving sushi on nearly naked women isn't about to fade anytime soon.

"It's dehumanizing, the manner in which people are buying and selling sushi to be eaten off a woman's body. It's dehumanizing to be treated as a plate," said Cherry Cayabyab, president of the local chapter of National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum.

If the club persists, she and other activists plan to launch a media campaign -- apparently the first organized opposition to naked sushi in the United States.

Promoters and customers counter that the monthly naked sushi night at Bonzai is art.

The practice, which began in Japan and also has spread to Los Angeles and New York, involves sushi placed on clear plastic wrap over the torso of a model wearing nothing more than a thong and a few flower petals.

NO ONE IS PUTTING A GUN TO ANY WOMAN TO FORCE HER TO WORK IN THIS PLACE!!!!!!!!!!

Geez...

You know, eating sushi off cellophane on a woman's torso wouldn't float my boat, but why is it that some people INSIST on sticking their nose into other people's business and then getting that nose out of joint over something that offends their sensibilities? The very people who are insisting that we have diversity events as part of our jobs are the SAME people who complain about behavior they say "dehumanizes" women. Where is the diversity mantra now? The women aren't being forced to do this, they are being PAID to do this.

Does it make a woman into an object? Yes, but men and women are turned into objects every day by both sexes. GROW UP PEOPLE! If an adult woman wants to get paid to lay there and have a man get off on eating sushi off her body, who cares? Personally, I think the guy has some "issues", but it's none of my damn business if the woman doesn't mind.

Argh... I can't write coherently about this now. Maybe after some wine. Wait... I think this one merits a few scotches before I can write about it in the fashion it TRULY deserves.

The best government money can buy

For your convenience...

What frightens me...

I find the Republican Party frightening because they appear to hold the interests of the wealthy above that of the average citizen, and because of the hyper-conservative religious fundamentalist Christians who tend to dominate the party with quasi-facist policies.

I find the Democractic Party frightening because they appear to not understand that the individual must take responsibility for his life, not the government, and because of the hyper-liberal moonbats who tend to dominate the party with looney policies.

I find the Libertarian Party frightening because they appear to not understand that government MUST play a role in protecting the individual with his few resources from the depredations of the powerful, whether they be big business, local government, or anyone else with the ability to dominate, and because of the hyper-allegiant market worshipers who tend to dominate the party with no policies.

I find the Communist Party frightening because... well, actually, I find the Communist Party pathetic...

More on this later.

The "people like us" syndrome

While surfing the blogosphere (can you surf a sphere???), I have noticed a trend that I find troubling. I'm noticing that the comments tend to be either complete agreement (usually inarticulate, such as "You tell 'em!!!!") or complete disagreement (which generally descends to the depths of name calling that gets the commenter justifiably labeled as a "troll"). I am troubled by this trend because it is being speculated that weblogs may have a not insignificant influence on the next presidential election, and because I find weblogs (and the communication provided by the Internet in general) as a possible savior of democracy in the United States.

While it is a natural tendency of people to spend time with those who think like them, the culture of the United States has carried this to an extreme. The tendency I've observed is that people are "expected" by their friends to agree with them to the extent that when there is a disagreement there is an implication that the friendship is damaged. I think this penchant for associating disagreement with dislike, or maybe a better way to phrase it is "anti-friendship", leads to the extremist views that lead to vitriolic conflicts that ultimately degenerate to incoherent shouting matches between intransigent opponents. Almost every debate of public issues in my adult life has turned into a confrontation between two uncompromising adversaries. This is no way to set rational, effective policies. Instead, we end up more often than not in a deadlock where nothing is done until it is too late.

I try to read points of view that do not agree with mine. Most of the weblogs I read express views that in most cases do not match mine and in some cases I find repulsive. For example, many "conservative" (for lack of a better label at the moment) weblogs generally have a least one posting a month proclaiming how terrible a president Bill Clinton was. However, in my view, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan did more to damage the office of the President than anything Bill Clinton did. Both the abuse of power by Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal and the subversion of the Constitution on the watch of Ronald Reagan that was exemplified by the Iran-Contra affair did far more damage to the office of the President than anything that occurred during the term of Bill Clinton. Getting a blow job in the Oval Office or having your wife fire the staff of the White House travel agency in a fit of pique does NOT compare to the harm done during the terms of those two presidents. Does this mean I refuse to read (or consider friends, in some cases) the people who say "Clinton was the worst thing that ever happened to this country"? No, I continue to read those who disagree with me because everyone should have their views challenged, even if they do not change them after consideration of the opposing position.

Everyone feels comfortable around "people like us", and there is nothing wrong with that. However, it should never be forgotten that "people not like us" are not always the enemy, and they have the same inalienable rights as the "people like us". I hope that weblogs can improve the discussion of important issues, but I fear that if the current trends continue they will end up being more divisive than discursive.

Are we doomed to be prisoners of the past?

Donnie is having to deal with some people who don't agree with his opinion on how caucasians seem to be expected to feel guilty for the crimes of our forebears against Africans.

I am of the firm opinion that we cannot be held accountable for the crimes of our fathers. Otherwise, where would it end? If we keep dwelling on the actions of the past, of people long dead, there is no reconciliation, no end. I am not a fan of "slippery slope" arguments, but you can see it in action in the Middle East, in the former Yugoslavia, and in race relations in the United States. We should not allow ourselves to become prisoners of history. History shapes the circumstances that we have to cope with, but if we don't overcome history, we are indeed doomed to repeat it.

This would be a nice place to work if it wasn't for all those damn employees...

An editorial in USATODAY.com by Alan M. Webber discusses a very disturbing trend I have noticed lately, which is that companies are treating workers as "disposable". From the article:

Caught in a profit squeeze and faced with mounting competition from foreign companies with much lower costs and lower-paid workers, U.S. companies are resorting to "human disinvestment." Firms are writing their people off, just as they would machinery they had failed to maintain or upgrade.

But what is a mystery is why business leaders are resorting to this strategy - again.

The fact is, we saw this movie back in the 1970s, and it has an ugly ending. Back then, American manufacturers were preoccupied with financial engineering and lost track of innovation and quality. Japanese firms took advantage of the situation. In a host of industries, from cars to consumer electronics, the Japanese outperformed their U.S. competitors. They offered products of higher quality and lower cost. When U.S. companies woke up, they learned that one defining difference between the two sides was how each treated its workers: The Japanese trusted their people, trained them and listened to them. They invested in them. The Americans treated their workers as a cost of production. The experience prompted a renewed commitment here to worker involvement. The cost and quality gaps gradually closed.

It's deja vu all over again. It is becoming painfully obvious that employees are almost universally regarded by company managers as a "cost of production" that needs to be reduced as much as possible. Why is it that the people who run companies are continually so shortsighted? It seems that the higher you rise in management, the less able you are to see the forest because all those damn trees keep getting in the way.

Simple isn't always better

While I don't agree with everything written in the article, there is an opinion piece by Gilbert Porter Blythe that discusses the simplistic thinking (or if not the thinking, the public statements at least) of the Bush administration regarding the terrorist attacks against the United States. Merely saying "they hate freedom" when talking about the terrorist attacks in the United States, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere shows a complete lack of understanding of the motivations of the enemy. If you do not understand your opponent, you cannot defeat him.

Why does everyone think they're an expert?

Being a scientific professional, I hate it when people second guess doctors on when people are brain dead. Doctors DO understand these things, you know...

Secrecy is the death of democracy, part II

Who's government is it, anyway?

Secrecy is the death of democracy

A not too exaggerated example of a disturbing trend in the current administration:

Texas redistricting

The redistricting in Texas has fallen off the radar recently, but I still have problems with the entire process, regardless of which party is in charge and making sure it benefits.

Hurling insults is not discussion

Here is a commentary that describes very well what has been troubling me in many of the weblogs I have read and in the general level of political discourse that I see. Although if you look back at history to the newspapers published during the early days of the United States you will see a level of personal attack and vitriolic statements that put much of what is said today to shame, that does not justify the "warfare by other means" approach that is being taken by most politicians and commentators.

Link through Donnie.

Secrecy, intelligence analysis, and democracy

Wired News has an interesting article on how the obsession with secrecy shown by the Bush Jr administration has actually hurt the ability of the intelligence services to process data. Some highlights:

There's a "total meltdown" in America's intelligence services -- and the Bush administration's penchant for secrecy is one of the major reasons why, current and former top U.S. spooks charged Tuesday.

George W. Bush's White House has pushed like few before it to put government information out of the public's grasp. Moves to classify documents are up 400 percent from a decade ago, to more than 23 million such actions in 2002, according to the Information Security Oversight Office, a division of the National Archives.

.....................................................

"Our secrecy system is all about protecting secrecy officers, and has nothing to do with protecting secrets. It's a self-licking ice-cream cone," said Rich Haver, until recently Donald Rumsfeld's special assistant for intelligence, now with Northrop Grumman. "We're compartmentalizing the shit out of things. It's causing a total meltdown of our intelligence processes."

Case in point: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, prepared a report last year for firefighters and other so-called "first responders" on how to react to a chemical weapons attack. But when the paper was completed, the Defense Department classified it, CSIS analyst Jim Lewis noted. Now, the firefighters will never get the benefit of that information.

In July, a George Mason University graduate student mapped out in his dissertation (registration required) the details of the country's fiber optic network. Using information publicly available online, he spotted vulnerable spots where terrorists might strike. The paper could have been used to shore up weak links in the country's infrastructure. Instead, the government immediately suppressed it.

"He should turn it in to his professor, get his grade -- and then they both should burn it," former White House cyberterror czar Richard Clarke told The Washington Post.

I find the seemingly obsessive desire of this administration for keeping information from the public eye troubling from many points of view, not the least of which is that secrecy is the death of democracy. Now we see that this desire for total information control is hurting our efforts to analyze the data we DO have to prevent terrorism. There's a lot of iron in that irony.

---

If our democracy is to flourish, it must have criticism; if our government is to function it must have dissent.
   -Henry Commager

A country which proposes to make use of modern war as an instrument of policy must possess a highly centralized, all-powerful executive, hence the absurdity of talking about the defense of democracy by force of arms. A democracy which makes or effectively prepares for modern scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic.
   -Aldous Huxley

Another meaning to the Medal of Honor

John has posted a perspective on what it really means when someone earns the Medal of Honor. Read it all. I had never thought of it from that point of view before, but now that I've had it pointed out I realize it should have been obvious.

I found the link via Beth at She Who Will Be Obeyed.

"Liberty" means the freedom to be stupid, too

There is a series of amateur fights that take place around the country called Toughman. Recently, there have been several deaths in the competitions, and controversy has arisen. I'm sure that people will be calling for the end of the fights. Despite the deaths, I think things like this should ALWAYS legal. It is not the job of the government to keep people from being stupid. I think the ONLY job of the government is to protect the liberties of the people, and the sole purpose of the Constitution is to protect the rights of people from the government. Too bad that the ultra-liberals and ultra-conservatives all seem to think that government exists to allow them to tell other people how to live their lives.

Both liberals and conservatives talk dumb

Acidman thinks Rush Limbaugh is a victim of the "PC police" in the controversy over an statement he made that could have been interpreted as racist. My take on it (posted in Acidman's comments) is:

I agree that the imbroglio over what Rush Limbaugh said is overblown. I've listened to what he said, and it's pretty obvious to me that if anyone else had said it there wouldn't be a controversy like this. WHO spoke it is more important that WHAT was said in this case.

However, I recall the glee with which the conservatives tore into the Dixie Chicks when one of them said at a concert that she was ashamed that George W. Bush was from Texas. Although she didn't pick the least controversial way to say it, her point was that she was against Bush's seeming intent to have a war in Iraq regardless of the consequences. The conservatives were screaming then just as loudly as the liberals are now, saying "It borders on treason to say things like that in a time of war." It's a citizen's DUTY to speak their mind, especially if it's against the majority opinion, and especially in time of war.

The lesson to be drawn out of this is that it's good to remember that what goes around comes around. The liberals bash the conservatives for speaking the their minds, and the conservatives bash the liberals for speaking their minds. Personally, I miss actual DEBATE; I think this continual hurling of vitriol damages our society.

Speaking your mind

Someone left a comment on Acidman's site to the effect that if Acidman had such strong opinions he should "step up to the plate" and join the military. The commenter appears to be one of the many who doesn't understand that dissent is not only patriotic in the United States, but a civic duty. My response:

Back in 1991 when the first gulf war started I seriously considered joining the military, although I was in graduate school at the time with a wife to support.

When the terrorist attacks occurred on September 11, 2001 I seriously considered joining the FBI, until I found out I was "too old" at 36.

Now, when war is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq, and when "old Europe" is repeating their deplorable performance that we saw before in Bosnia (and every other time genocide occurred on their VERY DOORSTEP) of playing the ostritch, I do my best to be a good US citizen and contribute the only way I can. That is by voting, by participating in public discussion, by paying my taxes and not trying to find questionable deductions, and by hollering as loud as I can every time that I see the Constitution being subverted or our troops' lives being given in vain.

Speaking your mind is not only a right in the United States, it is a civic duty. Agreement is not necessary, but there is a concept called "disagree but support" that is too large to fit in the minds of many. You can disagree with policy and still be patriotic, you can disagree with the President and still be a good citizen.

Why is it that so many seem to think that speaking your mind, even when it's not the majority opinion, is EXACTLY what this nation is all about?