May 2004 Archives

I came back from a lovely vacation visiting friends in Arizona to find over a thousand spam comments on my blogs, from several different I.P. addresses. Luckly, a few SQL statements along these lines

I guess I'm not surprised, but still, not good news:

Sources: Major terror attack planned this summer

(CNN) -- Several U.S. officials said Tuesday that unnamed terrorists, possibly al Qaeda operatives, are in the United States and planning a major attack on U.S. soil this summer.

And Iraq is the front in the war on terror, Mr. President?

The San Francisco Chronicle recently ran an essay by a Muslim woman in which she muses on the parallels between her religion and her computing platform.

The Mac operating system was created from scratch with the goal of being simple. When you turn a Mac on, the desktop is not an artificial environment created to navigate through DOS but is, in fact, the actual environment. Muslims are encouraged by the Koran to look at the world with curiosity and wonder, not to be afraid of scientific discovery. God's creations are "signs" to us of his design, which God wants us to explore and theorize about. The Koran liberates us to ask, "Why?" This accessibility to God is a major attraction for many Muslim converts. Being Muslim, and also being a Mac user, is empowering because both put me in control.

Somewhat related: she was apparently considering law school at the same time I was in graduate school, and tells a story about how the professor was distributing class materials on disk and asked who would need this in Mac format. When a quarter of the class raised their hands, he gave a surprised chuckle. This was "a time before downloading off the Internet became easy," she says.

Well, at my school in 1997, downloading off the Internet was quite easy! In fact, wasn't 1997 the year of the dot-com takeoff? We kept being told to order our books on Amazon.com (which, of course, kept running out of the somewhat obscure texts because nobody had told them they'd be needed — and that's why campus bookstores still exist, people!) and our course syllabi were all put on the web (as well as some of our reading assignments).

What we didn't have was Mac support. The high-tech computer lab came courtesy of some Silicon Valley company, but it wasn't Apple, and the lab staff hated having to support the token Macintosh or two that were there. So that's how I learned to use (though not love) Windows... I wonder if things have changed now that Apple upgraded to OS X.

"Blah blah blah blah freedom. Blah blah blah Abu Grub. Blah blah blah blah blah Some have questioned whether Iraqis are ready for self-govmint, or want it blah blah blah safety blah blah values blah blah free Iraq blah blah blah September 11 blah blah blah We did not seek this war on terror. Blah blah blah Terrorist enemies blah blah blah. Blah blah blah Vision blah blah. Please don't fire me."

Edited to add: If you want the longer version, plus commentary on how other people thought Bush did, and what makeup was used to cover the bruise on his chin from his bike accident, check out "Bush Speech: Was It Enough?" from the Washington Post.

Saw this on a walk along Grand Avenue in Oakland a few weeks ago, and was understandably amused:

The shopowners are aware of the humor in the situation as well. The tiny rectangle on the chocolate shop is an article they posted from a local paper — apparently the Weight Watchers was there first, but they've been accepting of their new neighbor. The chocolate shop has also marketed itself carefully ("Two pieces of candy = 3 points!" or something like that.)

One customer reportedly walked into the shop, sniffed, "Well, this is one helluva location!" and ordered a gelato.

This is the kind of sentiment that makes me feel slightly queasy:

It’s not easy to sit in front of the TV and watch homes of Palestinians refugees being demolished, and read reports that more than 35 Palestinians were killed. Yes, we know that some of those killed are terrorists. Yes, we know that some of the homes demolished had hidden tunnels where weapons were imported from Egypt. But we also know that some of those killed or left homeless were innocent civilians.

That is why we must remind ourselves of all the bus bombings we have witnessed in Jerusalem, where carnage has been strewn on downtown streets. The children and working folks who died on those buses were innocent civilians as well.

There's a war on. No, not that war, silly. The other one! You know, the one on doughnuts, corn chips, french fries, pasta, bread, and even certain fruits and vegetables. It's called "Atkins", and the Amateur Gourmet is fighting back!

I DECLARE THIS THURSDAY, MAY 20TH, NATIONAL CARB AWARENESS DAY.
That's right. Spread the word. This Thursday everyone--including you--will eat a gratuitous carbohydrate. No, not your daily dose of granola; we're talking a mega-cupcake, or a big black and white cookie. Thursday, we're going start a revolution and start it right. And if you have a website, please spread the word. The more people who know about it, the greater the impact we can make. Plus what else do you have to do? It's not like you have a vibrant social life. I'm just saying.

So, in conclusion, don't do it for your country. Don't do it for your God, or your mother, or your accountant. Do it for the organ that matters most. No, not that one. Do it for your stomach. Only you can save the carbs, America. Won't you?

And since a picture is worth a thousand words, there's also a SAVE THE CARBS movie.

Maybe the best thing to do would be to get Anakin to embrace the Dark Side as quickly as possible, perhaps by forcing him to confront some terrible disappointment that will haunt him for the rest of his days. We suggest this two-line scene set in a Coruscant restaurant:

WAITER: Here’s your green salad, sir.
ANAKIN: What? You fool, I told you NO CROUTONS! Aaaaaaargh!

Anakin puts on his black helmet and storms off to his local county clerk’s office and fills out the paperwork to have his name legally changed to “Darth Annie Vader.” (He later quietly drops the middle name, realizing it doesn’t help his macho image.) And then for the next two hours, it’s all special-effects spaceship battles, which is the real reason most of us will go to the theater anyway. Fade to black.

From an article on how the third Star Wars movie, which is coming out next year, could be salvaged (or at least, not as bad as the first two were), on MSNBC's website.

It all started innocently enough. Michael sent an email to his friends to let them know about his shiny new email account.

Hey you guys:
Please write to me from now on at my new email address:

--------@gmail.com

p.s. this is a google mail account. keep that in mind when you write to me. (the phone may be safer)

But one of his friends decided to have a bit of fun:

Who are these Jews who are even thinking of voting for Bush this time around? I don't get it. They think he's "supporting Israel"? Don't they see how badly things are going there? Sure, the terrorism is terrible. But is Sharon really making Israelis any safer? Is life going to get better for its residents on that path? They think he's "tough on terror"? Well, what is he doing mucking around in Iraq when Afghanistan is crumbling back into chaos?

What happened to the commitment to social justice we're supposed to have? Does it all go out the window the second we're scared?

From the L.A. Times:

Bush Gains in Efforts to Win Over Jewish Vote
By Maura Reynolds and Peter Wallsten Times Staff Writers
May 19, 2004

WASHINGTON — Stuart Weil, a ponytailed tropical fish farmer from Fresno, is a longtime Democrat who regularly attends synagogue. Four years ago, he voted for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore. This year, not only does he plan to vote for President Bush, he's urging his Jewish friends to do the same.

"He is the first president to understand the world in terms of terrorism," said Weil, 51, one of more than 4,000 delegates this week at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the nation's preeminent pro-Israel lobby. "He understands that the terrorism Israel has had is now the terrorism the U.S. has."

On Tuesday, Weil and thousands of other AIPAC members welcomed Bush to their annual meeting with 21 standing ovations — a thunderous display of affection from an audience that, while always hawkish on Israel, had long been a home to more Democrats than Republicans.

And from BeliefNet... hope the author is correct about that last point.

Bush Boosts Jewish Support
United Press International Washington,
May 18--(United Press International)

President George W. Bush looks certain to significantly boost his support in the U.S. Jewish community when he runs for re-election this November. That success will certainly help him carry crucial Florida, but it looks unlikely to do him much good anywhere else.

Today's New York Times:

Like many of its predecessors, the Bush White House has used the machinery of government to promote the re-election of the president by awarding federal grants to strategically important states. But in a twist this election season, many administration officials are taking credit for spreading largess through programs that President Bush tried to eliminate or to cut sharply.

For example, Justice Department officials recently announced that they were awarding $47 million to scores of local law enforcement agencies for the hiring of police officers. Mr. Bush had just proposed cutting the budget for the program, known as Community Oriented Policing Services, by 87 percent, to $97 million next year, from $756 million.

and

Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, announced recently that the administration was awarding $11.7 million in grants to help 30 states plan and provide coverage for people without health insurance. Mr. Bush had proposed ending the program in each of the last three years.

The administration also announced recently that it was providing $11.6 million to the states so they could buy defibrillators to save the lives of heart attack victims. But Mr. Bush had proposed cutting the budget for such devices by 82 percent, to $2 million from $10.9 million.

and

In April, Secretary Thompson announced that the administration was awarding $3.1 million in grants to improve health care in rural areas of Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, New Mexico and New York. He did not mention that the administration was trying to cut the same rural health program by 72 percent, to $11.1 million next year, from $39.6 million.

Mr. Thompson likewise recently boasted that the administration was awarding $16 million to 11 universities to train blacks and Hispanic Americans as doctors, dentists and pharmacists. But at the same time, the administration was urging Congress to abolish the program, on the ground that "private and corporate entities" could pay for training.

The article also talks about how Bush and his underlings piggyback political trips onto official ones. This is not new, but it has a particularly bitter twist (emphasis is mine):

The combination of official business and politics is neither illegal nor unusual in an election year, though Bush administration officials were reluctant to provide details. In fact, the Bush administration is using techniques refined by President Bill Clinton. The difference is that in the Clinton years the White House was often trying to add and expand domestic programs, not cut them.

In short, Clinton was trying to take the credit for things his administration had done, and drum up support for things he wanted to do. Bush, on the other hand, is trying to get support by pretending to do things he doesn't do, and take credit for things he didn't want to do. And people think he's for real?

("White House Is Trumpeting Programs It Tried to Cut", Robert Pear, May 19)

Slashdot has a story today about the family of one Professor Edward Kasner, the man who coined the mathematical concept of "Googol" ... it seems that they are considering a lawsuit because Google is using the word without drawing attention to Professor Kasner's achievements.

This (rather silly) story reminded me that I had read about the Googol (a one followed by 100 zeroes) someplace when I was in grade school. When I proudly tried to share my newfound knowledge with one of my teachers, he laughed at me and accused me of having made it up. I was really mad at him.

I assume by now he's heard of Google? Ha. How you like me now? Punk.

(Actually, other than that, he was a pretty cool teacher and it was a nice school. They just weren't ahead of the curve like I was. Yeah, that's it.)

Google News displayed the Washington Times story on legalized same-sex marriages in Massachusetts like so:

It's nice to hear some good news!

"What a release it must be for a man so bound to conservative convention to eat a fistful of pills, throw on a leash, put something in his ass, and just party."
From Jim Jaroch's posting on Political Animal today (speaking of Rush Limbaugh).

O.K., Is this really necessary? Am I just being grouchy because I haven't had enough coffee or sleep? I will admit to mocking my share of submitted resumes in my day. (My favorite was the applicant with "experience in pubic relations." But it's one thing to be snide in the privacy of your office with only your equally snide coworkers to bear witness. It's another thing to display your snideness to the world and would-be applicants. (Though perhaps it also warns them what they're getting into)

Please note: If you send a resume, we won’t read it. We won’t even open it. We will file your application under ‘can’t follow simple instructions’. In order to apply, please send an e-mail without any attachments, that answers these questions:

Name and phone number deleted to protect the guilty (though you can find it on Craigslist today):

Author more than half-way done completing a book on the secret causes of deliberate mass unemploymnet. Looking for an assistant or co-author for 10 or more hrs/week. Author is offering between 1/3-1/2 of royalties depending upon contribution made. Especially needed is someone to write letters asking for permission to use copyright material; write & organize end notes; and compile index. Due to the intense public debate on mass unemployment, the book has great promise for financial reward. Call XXXX at XXX-XXX-XXXX.

He didn't say he needed a proofreader, though! But I'm guessing that wouldn't hurt.

Oh, go on. Guess.

"There is a temperament, there is a nature there, there is an essence to his character and his capacity to be a leader that is defective and prone to political opportunism, this almost insatiable desire to achieve higher office at the expense of what is best for this nation.''

What is going on here?

Jewish Federation criticized for Cheney invite

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

The honor of hosting Vice President Dick Cheney for an "important Middle East policy address" put a local Jewish federation on a collision course with Democrats who wonder why the nonpartisan group would welcome such a blatantly political event.

*snip*

While no one from the White House or the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign returned phone calls for comment, the head of the Palm Beach County Republican Party said Cheney's visit is part of organized efforts to lure historically Democratic Jewish voters to the Republican camp.

"We want the Jewish vote," said Sid Dinerstein, chairman of the county Republican Party. "We have earned the Jewish vote."

More from the Palm Beach Post

Meanwhile, the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County has prominent messages on its website to the effect of "we didn't invite the guy!"

Oh, it was the Jewish Federation of SOUTH Palm Beach County. Which has nothing about it on their website whatsoever.

Very confusing. Did they have amnesia?

Updated to add: You can read the text of his speech that day here on the White House website. It seems like a lot of puffery upon first glance, at least to me it does.

I used to think Thomas L. Friedman was brilliant. From Beirut to Jerusalem is simply a must-read book on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Even his book on globalism was pretty good (if overly optimistic). But he's been such an apologist for this administration and the war, and it's been uncomfortable to watch him squirm, presenting increasingly feeble justifications, trying to reconcile noble ideals with what was actually happening.

In today's New York Times, he finally admits he can't.

I thought the administration would have to do the right things in Iraq — from prewar planning and putting in enough troops to dismissing the secretary of defense for incompetence — because surely this was the most important thing for the president and the country. But I was wrong. There is something even more important to the Bush crowd than getting Iraq right, and that's getting re-elected and staying loyal to the conservative base to do so. It has always been more important for the Bush folks to defeat liberals at home than Baathists abroad. That's why they spent more time studying U.S. polls than Iraqi history. That is why, I'll bet, Karl Rove has had more sway over this war than Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Bill Burns. Mr. Burns knew only what would play in the Middle East. Mr. Rove knew what would play in the Middle West.

I admit, I'm a little slow. Because I tried to think about something as deadly serious as Iraq, and the post- 9/11 world, in a nonpartisan fashion — as Joe Biden, John McCain and Dick Lugar did — I assumed the Bush officials were doing the same. I was wrong. They were always so slow to change course because confronting their mistakes didn't just involve confronting reality, but their own politics.

Leave me at home all day with a bad cold, my laptop, and an iTunes account, and what happens? I buy music! The Magnetic Fields' new album, i, showed up on iTunes today, so of course I had to buy it! So far, I'm enjoying it. All the reviews said "It's Only Time" is a beautiful song, and it is, but so's "Irma". Then there's the songs with the great titles like "I Wish I Had an Evil Twin." (Don't we all?)

For those who  aren't familiar with the band, it's pretty much the creation of one Stphin Merritt, a deep-voiced man who seems to have absorbed every musical and pop song (well, the good ones) of the last fifty years. A lot of his stuff is quite tongue-in-cheek, and some is just gorgeous.

I just found an interview with Merritt in Frontier Magazine. It's not particularly revealing, but it is amusing... (he describes his childhood with his mom thus: "'We lived out in communes occasionally; she was a Buddhist,'" Merritt recalls. "'We made a lot of dioramas.'")

• I'm sick of cough drops.
• I want coffee (but shouldn't drink it. Maybe I can have decaf?)
• I'm bored!
• I wonder if work misses me yet?
• Air America Radio is interesting. I've been listening to it more than perhaps a housebound ill person should during the last two days. I've decided that I enjoy Al Franken's show because, well, it's Al Franken and the "Oyoyoy! Show" is amusing ("So what's going on in Israel? / You don't want to know!!!")... but it's not necessarily all that. He could be doing more with it.
• Randi Rhodes, on the other hand, kicks motherf**n' ass. I love listening to her tear into a blind Bush supporter. She's even hard on well-intentioned liberals (like me) who haven't really thought through their arguments carefully (also like me.) She seems to have memorized every New York Times and Washington Post article, and every government piece. And she has that awesome New Yawk accent.
  
• If I hear the Dr. Scholl's ("I'm gellin' and sellin'. Gellin' and sellin'!) ad one more time, I'm going to frigging lose it. (That goes for the other ads too. They need more rotation!)
• The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk is very difficult to concentrate on. I can't figure out what's going on or where he's going with the plot. I want to finish it this time though (I abandoned it once before, about eight years ago.)
  

Remember General Boykin, who gave a sermon in his military uniform and made that comment about a Muslim general in Somalia? He's baaaaack. Worse, it seems he never went away.

MSNBC published a story in March by Jim Miklaszewski saying that Bush had several chances to wipe out the terrorist organization of Abu Musab Zarqawi, but kept squashing the Pentagon plans for action. Don't remember who this Zarqawi dude is? He's the one responsible for the beheading of Nick Berg.

I feel the need to link to this. Would it work? Who knows? At least it's a positive plan for action, and lord knows the current approach in Iraq isn't working. It's also nice that it's from a liberal group...

The May 17 issue of U.S. News & World Report features an interesting page spread on pages 40 and 41. Page 40 offers a column by Michael Barone on the Abu Ghraib torture photos, proclaiming in its headline: "No, it's not the American way".

Page 41 consists of an ad from PBS with the heading "Stock Scandal, 1628." Underneath this picture is a woman in Pilgrim costume immobilized by, oh, that kind of stock! It's for the TV program Colonial House ("Can 26 people from 2004 survive life in 1628?")

They must have done it on purpose. It's too good not to have been intentional. Did anyone else see this and think it was odd too?

If your faith in the wisdom of the war in Iraq continues undimmed, you might want to consider the following:

1) Conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan admits that his support for the war is hanging on by a thread in the wake of this past week's news.

Also, the "Friends" finale might have distracted some... but there's a lot going on!

• FDA rulls against over-the-counter "morning-after" pill due to religious-right pressure, despite recommendations from its own advisory panel
• Bush flip-flops, backs away from previous concessions to Sharon, and mideast talks are back on
• UN missions finds "reign of terror" going on in Darfur region of Sudan as Arab militias are trying to drive black Africans out of their homes
• Alan Greenspan says "rising federal deficits may be the biggest threat to the nation's longterm economic stability"
• Plans are underway for a possible revival of the military draft in 2005 which would include women, and extend to age 34

This quote from the New Yorker article on the prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq...

Such dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, but it is especially so in the Arab world. Homosexual acts are against Islamic law and it is humiliating for men to be naked in front of other men, Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at New York University, explained. “Being put on top of each other and forced to masturbate, being naked in front of each other—it’s all a form of torture,” Haykel said.

Right. Ask any American man how he'd feel about being in that situation. I suspect he wouldn't feel much more positively about being forced to participate in sex acts with other men at gunpoint. I know, I know, he said such "dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture"...

Bush finally says it. But this you call an apology? (Emphasis mine)

Bush said he told Abdullah he was "sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners and the humiliation suffered by their families."

"I told him I was as equally sorry [sic] that people seeing those pictures didn't understand the true nature and heart of America," Bush said during his appearance with Abdullah.

Um, once you've done something wrong, you don't get to control how other people feel about it. And what's the "true nature and heart of America" when it's at home? It's not like the Iraqis have gotten to see much of it.

Edited to add...

Thinking more about the nature of apologies. I know I've said "I'm sorry" for things when what I really meant was "I'm really sorry that you're pissed at me about something." Not quite the same thing as being sincerely sorry that I did something wrong. That takes longer to get to, and defensiveness tends to be my first (and second, and third) reaction.

Much like the Bush administration.

At least Rumsfeld apologized. But it's still not enough to satisfy the world. And then of course dear Democrat-only-in-name Senator Joe Lieberman had to give his pious little speech about how "he hasn't heard anyone apologize for the 3,000 Americans killed in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, or an apology for the hundreds of Americans killed in liberating Iraq or an apology for the killing and desecration of four security persons in Fallujah."

Yes, but the intentions of terrorists are presumably to terrorize. They meant to hurt us. Why would they apologize? Our intentions were supposed to be nobler than that. So when we act like a bunch of thugs, we should damn well be sorry, and we should say so... and we should take steps to make sure the thuggery stops. (And vote the thugs out.)

I probably shouldn't even bother writing about any of this, but there's been a kerfluffle over this cartoon. I looked at it, it didn't really make me laugh or inspire any particular thought. If I was Pat Tillman's family, I'd be pretty pissed to see a complex and interesting human being reduced to caricature for political purposes. He doesn't sound like he was racist at all. Why was it necessary to say that he was? Why is necessary to insult a dead guy to make a point that this administration lies about its motives and goals? Bush may be after the oil fields of the Middle East, but Tillman sure wasn't.

I didn't support the war on Afghanistan at the time (wussy Berkeley 1960s product that I am!), but logically... if their government was hosting Bin Laden, and there was a pretty good linkage established (especially compared to the sorry excuses for this war), I can see why people like Tillman would sign up for the military in good faith. And once you're in, you go where you're told.

The right-wing media is all over this one. It occurs to me that they have also reduced Tillman to a two-dimensional figure for their purposes, like he died to excuse every sin this country has committed in the course of the war on terrorism. It also occurs to me that with the news this week being what it is, they might find other directions to direct their ire. But no. I suspect Ted Rall serves as a useful distraction from the smelly pile of failures that is the Bush administration and their track record of the last three-plus years.

Tillman died for our sins, and Rall cartooned for them?

When your defense comes down to "OK, it was bad, but it wasn't as bad as under Saddam!" you've got a problem. Perhaps for this MP, another defense could be "OK, the British government screwed up, but we didn't screw up as badly as the American government, who started this whole invading Iraq thing!" Read it and weep...

Via Slashdot, this article at NewsForge covers a library in Maryland which migrated its public computers from Microsoft to Linux, with largely happy results. "The migration seems to have been almost transparent to most of the library's regular PC users. One patron asked Dave as he was walking by one day if he had anything to do with the computers. Dave said yes, and the user thanked him for stopping the pop-up ads."

Maybe it's just my imagination, but it seems like suddenly, walking has become hip! At the least, it's getting some positive attention. The Chronicle is running a series of articles by a guy whose goal is to walk every street in San Francisco, and the first installment brought in a small flood of letters from readers who confessed their own pedestrian activity.

And Alternet ran an article last week pointing out that:

All across the land, people are speaking up, organizing meetings, fighting city hall and, in some cases, working with city hall to make streets safer and more pleasant for pedestrians. They've gotten crosswalks painted in some places, streets narrowed in others, stop signs and speed bumps installed, zoning ordinances changed to promote pedestrian-friendly development, and plans created to help kids walk or bike to school.

These issues reach deep into the heart of people's lives. Two neighbors bump into one another on the sidewalk and start talking about planting more flowers along the street, turning an empty storefront into a coffee shop or lobbying the city council to add bike lanes to that busy road. In small but important ways, these people are changing the face of America block by block.

I love walking, especially this time of year in California, where it's sunny most days, and each day the sunlight lasts a little longer. It's a great form of exercise that almost doesn't seem like exercise. When I was in graduate school, I walked to campus most days, and often, I'd walk back as well. It was three miles each way. Without changing my diet, I started losing weight. People kept asking me what was going on, and when I explained, they'd look startled. "You walk all that way?" As the Alternet article says,

Walking, in many ways, is still viewed as an exotic and slightly odd habit. Try this experiment some time at a party or other gathering: Announce that you are walking home. I'll bet you, two-to-one odds, that someone will offer a ride, even if you live just three blocks away and it's a sunny 80 degrees outside. This is a generous gesture, of course, seen by most folks as similar to giving a glass of water to someone who says they're thirsty. Why walk if you could go in a car?

Because walking is a lot nicer, that's why! You put one foot in front of the other, you look at stuff around you, you space out a bit, and sooner than you expected, you're at your destination. It beats the gym any day. (Especially this gym)

Sometimes you read a letter to the editor in the paper that simply renders you speechless. But not blogless! From today's Chron:

Editor -- Just as you had no problem in your shallow attempt to embarrass the Bush administration with pictures of the Iraqi prisoners ("Images of abuse at U.S. hands stir world furor,'' May 1), I have no problem with how they are being treated. War is not a pleasant thing and I think anything we can do to discourage the enemy from fighting is a good thing to do. We are not fighting Iraq. We are fighting a vicious Islamic radical group whose stated goal is to kill infidels wherever they are and to all but enslave the women. As long as you claim you are being responsible by publishing such pictures, why don't you also publish some pictures of Saddam Hussein's torture chambers and explain to your latte-sipping liberal readers just what went on in those places?

TOM MARTIN
Sunnyvale

I feel like pointing out that "the enemy", far from seeming discouraged, seems more inspired to violence than ever at the moment, and suggesting to Mr. Martin that this is America, and generally, we do have a problem with treating human beings that way, even if our government and military seems not to at the moment, and that if he doesn't like it, he should feel free to move to a third-world dictatorship somewhere.

Sheesh! Almost ruined my latte there!

Edited to add: here's a link to the full report on the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, in PDF format, courtesy of NPR.

Why, why, why? And in a prison which was a notorious symbol of Saddam's excesses, no less. What were they thinking? Nice way to win over the populace, guys. And it is worse when we do something like this, somehow, because we're supposed to be the good guys! We're supposed to know better! We're the ones bringing democracy to Iraq, remember? I mean, WTF?

Riverbend says: