From Andrew Sullivan:
"No president who has presided over Abu Ghraib should ever say he wants to put anyone on a leash. That's all."
From Mike C.:
"'Give me liberty or give me death'? We offer both!"
September 2004 Archives
So far, everyone seems to be saying Kerry won this debate. Let's see what they're saying in a few days...
To put it bluntly, the Bush campaign has created an image of Kerry as a weak and indecisive man, someone that -- whatever you think of President Bush -- just can't be trusted to keep the country safe in these dangerous times.Often they've made him into an object of contempt.
Whatever else you can say about this debate, though, whatever you think of his policies, I don't think that's how Kerry came off. I think he came off as forceful and direct. And I suspect that most people who were at all genuinely undecided came away from the 90 minutes with that impression.
If President Bush's current lead is built not upon confidence in him or his policies but in a simple belief that Kerry isn't solid enough to be president, then I think this performance could help Kerry a good deal.
Andrew Sullivan's take on the debate is interesting too. There are too many good quotes to snip, so you'll have to read the whole thing.
Oh, and apparently even conservative bloggers think Kerry won. Heh.
I am typing this very quickly and roughly as I watch the debate... so I don't scream at the television too much.
I'm watching it now in the living room. Mike C. thinks Bush won the first round. He hits all the bullet points... 9/11. Women voting in Afghanistan. Saddam locked up. Freedom. Democracy. Strength. Kerry sounds nervous and meandering. Tighten it up!
OOh! "What collossal misjudgements has Bush made in your opinion?" "Where do I begin?..."
"You said we'd go to war as a last result! Last resort! These words mean something to me as somebody who's been in combat!"
Now Kerry is talking about what a mess Afghanistan really is. (And about Eisenhower's son, who endorsed him.)
Bush's rebuttal: "My opponent looked at the same intelligence as I did..." ("that's a lie!" says Michael.)
"Pre-September-10th mentality!"
And then, his old friend...
"The world is safer without Saddam Hussein!"
"We're facing a... a... group of folks who have such hatred in their hearts that they'll strike anywhere!"
"Of course we're after Saddam Hussein... I mean Bin Laden..."
Bush thumps the podium a lot.
Continue reading The Debate.
A few years ago, I saw The Vagina Monologues and while I enjoyed it (I like seeing an actor play a number of different roles in monologue form, a la Eric Bogosian or Anna Devere Smith), I didn't come away from the experience ranting and raving either. Something about the whole phenomenon struck me as slightly... off. So I found myself agreeing with much of this opinion piece in today's Chronicle.
I mean, this sounds really, really bad.
he queen of the V-word, Ensler can't seem to shake her obsession with the term. Here are a few gems from her speech at the Apollo Theater:"Are there are any registered vaginas in the house?"
"Step into your vaginas and get the vagina vote out!"
According to one attendee who reported on the event for the United Kingdom's Guardian newspaper, Ensler rattled off supposedly relevant words beginning with the letters in vote: "Voracious! Vociferous! Vitamin! Vehement! Oppose! Out of office! Overcome! Overflow! Orgasm! Talented! Tantalizing! Turn out! Texas!"
She apparently couldn't come up with any words beginning with e, though, and resorted to finishing her speech with, "Vulva! Vulva! Vulva! Vote!"
Ensler's Vagina Warriors also performed, lamenting that they don't have any place to bury their daughters' afterbirths and envisioning a world in which they would be "forever unafraid of being raped by the clean-cutting bulldozers of capitalism."
Oy. It's the subtly nauseating undercurrents of The Vagina Monologues run amok.
That said, the part of this article I strongly disagree with:
It's not new that active feminists tend to be ultraleft politically. From their perspective, you are not a friend of American women unless you support abortion rights, socialized health care and more social-welfare programs. Ronald Reagan's appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor to be the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court never counted. Just as Condoleezza Rice, Gale Norton, Elaine Chao and other female Bush appointees don't count. They are not the right kind of women.
Yeah, well, call me weird, but I don't think somebody can support interfering in one of the most agonizing and private decisions a woman and her partner have to face, support making medicine a big business and let people die because they don't have enough money for a cancer test or treatment, and propose policies that hurt families and benefit corporations lopsidedly... and still call herself a friend to American women. Nice try anyway.
I think we can all agree with her conclusion, though...
Increasing voter registration and turnout among women is important. But the only part of a young woman's body she should vote with is her brain.
1) A woman walks by shouting excitedly into her cellphone something approximately like "Yeah! People were jumping off... I had to jump off... yeah, and that's why I've been in therapy to deal with these issues! And he isn't dealing with it... I don't go around sharing this stuff with everybody..." (Um... I think you just did...)
2) A couple walks by. I don't catch what the guy says, but I do hear the woman say, "Can we skip the part where he has sex with everybody?"
Thank you all for sharing.
The Bush administration, battling negative perceptions of the Iraq war, is sending Iraqi Americans to deliver what the Pentagon calls "good news"about Iraq to U.S. military bases and has curtailed distribution of reports showing increasing violence in that country. The unusual public relations effort by the Pentagon and the U.S. Agency for International Development comes as details have emerged showing the U.S. government and a representative of President Bush's re-election campaign had been heavily involved in drafting the speech given to Congress last week by interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Combined, they indicate that the federal government is working assiduously to improve Americans' opinions about the Iraq conflict - a key element of Bush's re-election message.Funny. If this happened here, there'd be lawsuits, don't you think? Say someone gets killed because the report that would have told them not to go to such-and-such area was suppressed. But in Iraq, it's perfectly OK. The most important thing is to make everyone feel better about this horrible war so Bush can get reelected, so he can do... what, exactly? Edited to add: Whoah, how the heck did I miss the part about the Bush campaign writing Allawi's speech?!?!? Talking Points Memo noticed it, I didn't!
The first presidential debate is tomorrow night. There are 32 pages of rules of engagement.
"It basically is ensuring that there will be a healthy exchange of ideas, there'll be a lot of topics covered…. No gimmicks, no tricks, no sudden surprises, so that we really can have a debate that's dominated by the issues," Bush senior advisor Karen Hughes told ABC News Radio on Tuesday.
No gimmicks? No tricks?
One issue that is somewhat unresolved: the temperature in the room. The Bush campaign wanted it above 70 degrees, hoping to get Kerry to break out in a sweat, while the Democrats were pushing for a cooler ambience. In the end, they settled on "industry standard."
Andrew Sullivan points out that Bush isn't the only one who changed his tune on important stuff like Iraq. Cheney said this back in 1992:
"And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq... All of a sudden you've got a battle you're fighting in a major built-up city, a lot of civilians are around, significant limitations on our ability to use our most effective technologies and techniques. Once we had rounded him up and gotten rid of his government, then the question is what do you put in its place? You know, you then have accepted the responsibility for governing Iraq."
Sullivan also has this thoughtful and thought-provoking email from a fellow conservative who, unlike most/all of the neocons and chickenhawks, actually lived in the Arab world for a time...
When the invasion of Iraq was being debated, I had just returned from two years in Morocco and my now wife had just returned from a year in Egypt. We both considered supporting the war. The Arab world is mired in a political culture obsessed with blaming others for their misfortunes and obsessing over Israel while doing nothing to find practical solutions to their own problems closer to home.
---
We both thought that a shock to the system and a scheme to jar at least one Arab country onto the right track might be worth it. In the end, we both decided that it would be a bad idea, and for good conservative reasons. Utopian social programs rarely work domestically, in circumstances in which the architects of social engineering share a language and culture with their subjects and in which the surrounding society is stable and prosperous. If this is the case, how can we expect a radical experiment in social engineering to succeed in a foreign country with a radically different culture, and in which distrust of the United States is imbibed with mother's milk? Arabs are fixated enough on what they perceive as past humiliations, how can adding another defeat to the list help them?
Subsequent rationales for the war were not convincing. Engage the terrorists in Iraq or face them here? Does anyone really believe that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had a one-way ticket to the US and a scholarship at a flight school but decided to turn around and have a go at us in Iraq after he heard about the invasion? Iraq, in fact, supplies a theater for attacking the US that most of the fighters there, foreign and Iraqi, would not have if we had not given it to them. If Saddam Hussein were still in power, we could continue to contain him for 2 billion per year and when his system did finally collapse, it would be up to Iraqis to sort out the mess, not us. As for Blair's claim that Muslim militants hate the West for our very existence, I don't buy it. Resent us, yes. Envy us, sure. But if we didn't meddle in Middle Eastern affairs, I doubt they would attack us. Bush's claim in his first public statement after 9/11 that they hate us for our freedom is a close parallel to the claim of Muslim militants that we hate them for their core identity and values, that is, that we hate them for being Muslims, that we hate Islam as such.---
Now, we are stuck fighting to try to democratize a polity that is inherently unstable. If there are democratic elections, the result is not likely to be a liberal democracy, but rather one of the illiberal sort. Defeat would be a disaster, victory will be hard to define and unlikely to bring great reward. I agree with Christopher Hitchens that it is shameful to be wishing defeat on the US in Iraq in the hopes that this translates into defeat for Bush at home. I agree that we have to face the fact that we are committed in Iraq now and cannot afford to talk about the past as though turning back the clock were an option. I am no fan of Kerry. Despite all of this, I don't want to hand another four years to a man who brought us unnecessarily into this predicament at such great cost and who waged this war so incompetently. This, combined with the irresponsible economic policy that you have also criticized, have convinced me to cast my vote for Kerry. We cannot afford to dwell on the past at the expense of engaging with the present as it is. But neither can we forget past lapses of judgment and hope that they will not occur again.
I hope this guy talks to other conservatives... and talks some sense into them.
Bush can't seem to make up his mind.
"Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks, to build and keep weapons of mass destruction,'' Bush, State of the Union speech, January 2003
"Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take,'' Bush, U.N. General Assembly on Sept 12, 2002.
Should we have to go in, our mission is very clear: disarmament. And in order to disarm, it would mean regime change... And our mission won't change. Our mission is precisely what I just stated.'' Bush at a news conference, March, 2003
"Our mission -- besides removing the regime that threatened us, besides ending a place where the terrorists could find a friend, besides getting rid of weapons of mass destruction -- our mission has been to bring humanitarian aid and restore basic services and put this country, Iraq, on the road to self- government.'' Bush, April/May 2003
"Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, we were right to go into Iraq. We removed a declared enemy of America who had the capability of producing weapons of mass murder and could have passed that capability to terrorists bent on acquiring them. In the world after September the 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take.'' Bush, July 2004
"The goal in Iraq and Afghanistan is for there to be democratic and free countries who are allies in the war on terror. That's the goal.'' Bush, August 2004
Plus, these goodies:
On March 6, 2003, for example, Bush insisted during a prime-time news conference that he would offer a resolution before the United Nations calling for the use of force against Iraq even if other nations threatened to veto it.
"No matter what the whip count is, we're calling for the vote,'' Bush said.
A few days later, after it became apparent that the measure would not only be vetoed but might fail to win a majority of the Security Council, the Bush administration dropped its demand for a vote.
and
"I do know that we expect [American prisoners] to be treated humanely, just like we'll treat any prisoners of theirs that we capture humanely,'' Bush said, many months before American soldiers committed the atrocities at the Abu Ghraib prison.
From the Washington Post in the last couple of days, we have:
A story quoting a number of intelligence professionals who say that things in Iraq are horrible and getting worse.
People at the CIA "are mad at the policy in Iraq because it's a disaster, and they're digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper," said one former intelligence officer who maintains contact with CIA officials. "There's no obvious way to fix it. The best we can hope for is a semi-failed state hobbling along with terrorists and a succession of weak governments."
"Things are definitely not improving," said one U.S. government official who reads the intelligence analyses on Iraq.
"It is getting worse," agreed an Army staff officer who served in Iraq and stays in touch with comrades in Baghdad through e-mail. "It just seems there is a lot of pessimism flowing out of theater now. There are things going on that are unbelievable to me. They have infiltrators conducting attacks in the Green Zone. That was not the case a year ago."
---
Reports from Iraq have made one Army staff officer question whether adequate progress is being made there.
"They keep telling us that Iraqi security forces are the exit strategy, but what I hear from the ground is that they aren't working," he said. "There's a feeling that Iraqi security forces are in cahoots with the insurgents and the general public to get the occupiers out."
He added: "I hope I'm wrong."
Yeah, me too.
The other story concerns our shiny new missile defense system... and the fact that it may not work.
But what the administration had hoped would be a triumphant achievement is clouded by doubts, even within the Pentagon, about whether a system that is on its way to costing more than $100 billion will work. Several key components have fallen years behind schedule and will not be available until later. Flight tests, plagued by delays, have yet to advance beyond elementary, highly scripted events.
The paucity of realistic test data has caused the Pentagon's chief weapons evaluator to conclude that he cannot offer a confident judgment about the system's viability. He estimated its likely effectiveness to be as low as 20 percent.
"A system is being deployed that doesn't have any credible capability," said retired Gen. Eugene Habiger, who headed the U.S. Strategic Command in the mid-1990s. "I cannot recall any military system being deployed in such a manner."
Still feel safe under Bush? Mind if I ask you what drugs you're taking and where you got them? Man, that's some good s**t.
The famed comedian said the $45 million (U.S.) remake of his own film and broadway smash, The Producers, won't be shot here because of our bagels.
"The bagels, just the bagels alone," he said. "You go to Toronto, they're mushy."
Brooks, a Brooklyn native, will instead shoot the movie at a new studio in his native borough.
Brooks also said new financial incentives and his love of New York helped persuade him to shoot at the recently opened Steiner Studios.
Having been to Toronto, and having just attended a wedding featuring a brunch with bagels brought from Toronto, I can testify that the food there is great and the bagels were better than most around the Bay Area.
I suppose New York could use the moral boost (and Brooks could use the financial incentives). But Mel, why did you need to diss Toronto?
From Al Gore's editorial in today's New York Times:
The biggest single difference between the debates this year and four years ago is that President Bush cannot simply make promises. He has a record. And I hope that voters will recall the last time Mr. Bush stood on stage for a presidential debate. If elected, he said, he would support allowing Americans to buy prescription drugs from Canada. He promised that his tax cuts would create millions of new jobs. He vowed to end partisan bickering in Washington. Above all, he pledged that if he put American troops into combat: "The force must be strong enough so that the mission can be accomplished. And the exit strategy needs to be well defined."
Comparing these grandiose promises to his failed record, it's enough to make anyone want to, well, sigh.
I should have seen that one coming, I suppose.
From today's Oakland Tribune: "Car Trouble delays Camejo van tour"
Somebody call a mechanic.
Independent vice presidential candidate Peter Camejo -- Ralph Nader's running mate -- was supposed to be in San Francisco on Tuesday to unveil his campaign's impending "Journey for Justice" van tour.
But Camejo never made it -- he had car trouble, perhaps an ill omen for this vehicular endeavor.
And when three of the energy-efficient vans circled the Civic Center several times with volunteers proclaiming Naderisms on their public-address systems, San Francisco Police pulled them over and ordered them to stop making a ruckus.
Nonetheless, 19 of these vans -- including those leaving from San Francisco -- soon will be cruising the nation's highways and byways to preach the Nader/Camejo gospel in 38 states.
In California, they'll stop at farmers markets, parking lots and other gathering places to educate the public about "how they can W.I.N. for peace and justice by Writing In Nader." The Nader/Camejo ticket failed to win a place on California's ballot.
The vans are staffed by volunteers calling themselves Nader's "Corporate Crime Busters" who will remain on tour through Election Day.
Man, I really should have started yelling "Kerry/Edwards 2004! Kerry Edwards 2004!" Ah, missed opportunities...
"Compared with Kerry, George W. Bush is a coward. This is not a reference to their respective activities during Vietnam. It refers to the current election campaign," says the Los Angeles Times.
And Bush's Hometown Newspaper Endorses Kerry (but the Lone Star Iconoclast only has a circulation of 425. It is not known whether the Bush family is among the readers, though they do get it mailed to them each week.)
"The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda," the newspaper said in its editorial. "Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry."
It urged "Texans not to rate the candidate by his hometown or even his political party, but instead by where he intends to take the country."
My mom and I were supposed to go meet with the caterer, but when she met me at Lake Merritt BART, I noticed her car had a flat tire. Luckily we were right by a "pod" and I had my membership card with me. So I drove a silver station wagon to our appointment. On the way, as we were about to turn onto the road that leads into Alameda from Fruitvale, I noticed a van next to us that said "Corporation Busters" — it was a (perhaps the) Nader/Camejo 2004 van. Are they in the area? (Yes, I resisted the urge to yell "Kerry/Edwards 2004, W00t!" out the window.)
Anyway, if you live in the Bay Area, go visit www.citycarshare.org . I'm sure Nader would approve.
Yep, they're on KQKE 960 AM as of today sometime.
Their monicker? THE QUAKE. Heh.
It was kind of a gentle, rolling sort of motion, just enough to get my window shades rattling and to move a door in the other room. Nothing online about it yet.
Update: Yep, it was a 6.0, and it was on the Central Coast, probably almost 200 miles away!
A strong earthquake occurred at 10:15:24 AM (PDT) on Tuesday, September 28, 2004.
The magnitude 5.9 event occurred 14 km (9 miles) NNW of Shandon, CA.
The hypocentral depth is 1 km ( 1 mile).
I was in Santa Cruz during the 1989 quake. My next-door neighbors had several parrots, and one of them supposedly used to squawk "Earthquake, earthquake that was!" after each aftershock. Heh.
Update: there was a 5.0 quake following the first one... and it was actually 270 miles away. Wow.
Update: they're having a bunch of aftershocks, including a 3.5 and a 4.7. That could go on for a while (we had them for a few weeks in Santa Cruz.)
See, it's one thing to be Republican/conservative. It's another thing to be willfully blind and mendacious. Debra Saunders manages to cover all the major food groups.
In today's column, "With friends like these", Saunders accuses the Democrats "and their surrogates" of flinging about insults against our fearless leader, Bush, Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi, and our willing coalition partners, and she asserts that they "make it harder for Iraqis, Americans and U.S. allies to win the war. Then they call themselves patriots."
Apparently in Saunders' world, what people say about a war has more impact on its success or failure than the rationale, planning and execution of such war. Never mind Abu Ghraib, the dismantling of the Iraqi army, the lack of security and electricity, the hundreds of other miscalculations... we need a little positive thinking here, people!
Does she even care that most of Bush's statements on Iraq's progress are demonstrably false? That a number of the U.K. military deaths in Iraq were from "friendly fire"? Has she bothered to compare the Iraq II coalition to that of Iraq I?And why doesn't she care about Allawi's past?
Her implication that we'd call the Iraqi civilians who have tried to become security force members in their country and been killed for their trouble "puppets" makes me angrier than anything else, I think. Well, right back atcha, babe. Would you call all the civilians, the women and children killed in this war, "terrorists", too?
I suppose I agree with her on one thing. Extreme language isn't going to win us anything. Only honest and good policy. Sadly, she supports the team that gives us anything but.
Edited to add: Y'know, somehow I don't think having the CIA meddle in the new "free elections" helps the American cause in Iraq either. Call me negative. Credit goes to Juan Cole for pointing it out. (I also appreciate his taking issue with the language about Pelosi coming "unglued" when she was merely and rightfully outraged.)
This could be a useful site: http://www.videohelp.com/ . We'll see. (I'm trying to figure out how to convert and post a video clip for work and I'm drowning in alphabet soup.)
Iraq is going to be a big problem no matter who's president next year, but the real question is: what happens next? There are certainly going to be serious, unforeseen foreign policy problems during the next four years, and who do you trust to handle them best? The team that brought you Iraq and continues to believe that they've handled it just fine, or someone else?
Amen.
These chosen people are choosing a different president and a different "war on terrorism", thankyouverymuch.
Why the hell would the Pentagon block international access to the Federal Voting Assistance Program's website? Their excuse is that they're worried about hackers. Nothing to do with blocking Democrats overseas from voting in a close election. Of course not. Look! Over there! Isn't that Cat Stevens? Now, what were we talking about?
And check out this Wired article if you want to be really scared about e-voting. Of course, if you 1) trust government officials completely and 2) think Microsoft makes nothing but good, reliable, secure products, you can rest easy.
Edited to add: and according to this Reuters article (via this TalkLeft story)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Millions of U.S. citizens, including a disproportionate number of black voters, will be blocked from voting in the Nov. 2 presidential election because of legal barriers, faulty procedures or dirty tricks, according to civil rights and legal experts.
The largest category of those legally disenfranchised consists of almost 5 million former felons who have served prison sentences and been deprived of the right to vote under laws that have roots in the post-Civil War 19th century and were aimed at preventing black Americans from voting.
But millions of other votes in the 2000 presidential election were lost due to clerical and administrative errors while civil rights organizations have cataloged numerous tactics aimed at suppressing black voter turnout. Polls consistently find that black Americans overwhelmingly vote for Democrats.
It's mindboggling. It truly is.
A new study (a couple of them, actually) finds that walking can block dementia in the elderly. The article also mentions that Europeans in their 70s, 80s, and 90s had a 65% lower mortality risk if they ate a "Mediterranean" diet, exercised moderately (again with the walking), didn't smoke, and drink alcohol moderately. That doesn't sound so bad, does it?
Here's a "translation" of John Kerry's positions on Iraq from Slate. A sample: "Bush says Kerry habitually contradicts himself. Kerry's answer is that Bush habitually contradicts the facts. In his speech, Kerry cites Bush's claims about Iraq's WMD (contradicted by Bush's chief inspector), its links to al-Qaida (contradicted by the 9/11 commission), the trustworthiness of Ahmad Chalabi (contradicted by recent intelligence), and a host of postwar conditions—Iraqis' embrace of their liberators; the adequacy of the current number of troops; the size and readiness of postwar Iraqi security forces, and the trend of postwar fighting—all of which are contradicted by data and independent reporting on the ground."
A column in the Miami Herald which warns that "Any day on the calendar could be the next 9/11. Anyone who thinks that impossible or even unlikely because the president has ''taken the fight to the terrorists' is risking a nasty shock."
The RNC/GOP mailer that's been making the rounds in the South. The design is just about as ugly as the message.
I rarely watch television and I don't live in a swing state, so I don't get to see a lot of campaign ads. This may make up for it.
Zogby International says that the presidential race is a dead heat (which may make 2000 look like a walk in the park), Americans are overwhelmingly unhappy about outsourcing jobs overseas, and Muslims are flocking to back Kerry.
And that's the way it is.
From the Chronicle: "A new report on Iraq's illicit weapons program by the chief U.S. weapons inspector is expected to conclude that Saddam Hussein's government had a clear intent to produce nuclear, chemical and biological weapons if U.N. sanctions were lifted, government officials said Thursday. But the report finds no evidence that Iraq had begun any large-scale program for weapons production by the time of the U.S. invasion last year, the officials said."
A chronology of recent bomb attacks in Iraq, from Reuters
"Reporters saw no sign yesterday that a new classified intelligence report predicting serious troubles ahead for Iraq has made any impression on President Bush" from the Washington Post
From A.P.
WASHINGTON -- While a new intelligence estimate offers a gloomy assessment of Iraq's future, President Bush talks instead about brighter days ahead under a new prime minister and the promise of free elections. "Freedom is on the march," he told a campaign rally Thursday.Iraq is a daily theme of Bush's campaign speeches, often a springboard for attacking Democratic rival John Kerry. But Bush does not speak about the more than 1,000 U.S. deaths, the highly publicized kidnappings, executions and beheadings, or the dark scenarios outlined in the highly classified National Intelligence Estimate that was presented to him in late July.
The new report offers a sobering picture of Iraq's future in terms of political, economic and security conditions.
In a worst-case scenario, it envisions developments pointing to a civil war among Iraq's three major populations, the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.
At best, the experts said, Iraq will have a tenuous stability. A middle-ground estimate envisions increased extremism and fragmentation that impede efforts to build a central government and adversely affect efforts to democratize the country.
"Words and excuses meet incompetence, chaos and death. That's what this election is about." (Talking Points Memo, today)
Yep, yep yep yep... oh, and by the way, whoever wrote this editorial for the Austrialian needs some serious cult deprogramming. Rupert Murdoch, perhaps? I thought Australia was in a different hemisphere, not on a different planet. (I believe that most Australians would not agree with this editorial, however)
http://www.drredwood.com/interviews/unknown.shtml (and Alternet and Intervention Magazine)
What did you think about President Bush's Thanksgiving visit to Iraq?
I was there when President Bush came to the [Baghdad] airport. The day before, you had to fill out a questionnaire and answer questions, that would determine whether they would allow you in the room with the President.
What was on the questionnaire?
"Do you support the president?"
Really!
Yes.
Members of the military were asked whether they support the president politically?
Yes. And if the answer was not a gung-ho, A-1, 100 percent yes, then you were not allowed into the cafeteria. You were not allowed to eat the Thanksgiving meal that day. You had an MRE.
What's an MRE?
Meals ready to eat. We also call them "meals refused by Ethiopians."
About this questionnaire, it raises a serious question about whether military personnel, or civil servants for that matter, should ever be asked questions by their supervisors about their political beliefs. It also raises the whole question of freedom of speech. In particular, the circumstances under which members of the military have freedom of speech.
There is none.
Bush-Kerry Race Tied As RNC Bounce Fades, New IBD Survey Shows
A new IBD/TIPP poll put President Bush and Sen. John Kerry in a dead heat, suggesting Bush's post-convention bounce is quickly disappearing.
In IBD/TIPP's first poll of likely voters, conducted Sept. 7-12, both men garnered 47% in a two-man race and 46% in a three-way race. In the latter scenario, independent Ralph Nader would take just 3% of the vote.
Bush Ratings Drop Among Uncommitted Voters, Annenberg Poll Says
Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush's approval rating declined to 44 percent from 56 percent among undecided voters since the Republican National Convention, a poll by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center found.
Young voters rapidly deserting Bush, polls say
Mounting concerns over the war and the sluggish economy have sent President Bush's popularity plummeting among young adults in the past four months, complicating his bid for re-election and challenging Republicans to increase their efforts to win over new or lightly committed young voters. Four years ago, network exit polls found that Bush and Democrat Al Gore split the vote of 18 to 29 year olds, with Gore claiming 48 percent and Bush getting 46 percent -- the best showing by a Republican presidential candidate in more than a decade. But that was then. In the latest Post-ABC News poll, taken immediately after the Democratic National Convention, Kerry led Bush 2 to 1 among registered voters younger than 30. Among older voters, the race was virtually tied. About 1 in 6 voters in 2000 was between 18 and 29 years old.
An amusing side note on that last one: when I tried searching Google News for that story, Google suggested the alternative search wording "Young voters rapidly deserving Bush, polls say"
THE police were in hot pursuit. So he threw the baby girl from his moving car, then took off again.
Later, he died when his car hit a road block, the US police said yesterday.
The dramatic car chase was caught on video and released on television, stunning US viewers.
The incident began as a domestic dispute between a couple in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, but escalated into an attempted kidnapping.
The baby survived without a scratch, quite possibly because of the car seat she was strapped into. (Wonder which brand?)
Many morals of the story here, folks: 1) babies are less fragile than they look, 2) carseats save lives, 3) don't be a violent deranged asshole and 4) if you insist on driving like one, get rid of yourself and don't take anybody else with you!
From the BBC: "Pill propelled into abortion debate"
The birth control pill revolutionised women's health - and grew to become one of the most popular forms of family planning. But it is now under attack from pro-life groups in the US.
A growing number of doctors and pharmacists are now refusing to dispense it, on the grounds that it is actually a form of abortion.
Pro-choice groups fear this new moral objection to the Pill could lead to more unplanned pregnancies, even more abortions.
A woman taking the Pill does not usually release eggs. But occasionally she might - and it is possible that egg could be fertilised.
The hormonal conditions created by the Pill mean, if that happened, the fertilised egg would not be implanted or survive.
Mainstream medicine does not define that as a pregnancy. But some of those strictly against abortion do.
And now, apparently, we have pharmacists in some parts refusing to dispense the pill to their customers.
Julee Lacey, a mother of two, had used the Pill for nine years when a pharmacist at her local chemist in Texas refused her prescription.
"She [the pharmacist] began to tell me she personally does not believe in birth control," says Ms Lacey.
"I was a little caught off-guard and shocked... I asked her again. She said: 'No, ma'am, I don't believe in birth control. I can't help you'...
"I really couldn't believe she had the right to withhold my medication from me," she adds.
At first these were just isolated cases, mostly in the Midwest. But recently they have increased dramatically.
What the hell is this bullshit? What's the point of toppling the Taliban if we're just going to be acting like them anyway?
Every now and then when I'm walking to BART, I see something that makes me pause and scratch my head.
Grand Avenue has more than its share of odd signage, I think. This is the place, after all, with the gourmet chocolate shop nestled next to the Weight Watchers office.
So on the left we have a sign for a copy place. Most of those items make sense, but what the heck could "Fairy Out Put" be? It took me a second to realize they were talking about "Fiery Output" — "Fiery" being a type of color printer. (OK, it's a strange name to begin with, but what can you do.)
The other sign is your standard "Keep Oakland Clean!" type of deal. I've seen it a million times. For some reason, though, this time when I walked by it I really started thinking about the sentence construction and possible sinister interpretations of it.
Think about it. "Take pride in Oakland. Put litter in its place." Put litter in place of your pride in Oakland? Huh?
Maybe I should drink coffee before I walk out the door.
I don't even know what to say.
The heads of West Bank yeshivot and members of the Yesha Council of Settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip's rabbinical council urged the government not to avoid harming Palestinians if it means an effective war on terrorism.
In a letter published yesterday, the settler community leaders called on the government to toughen its policies in the territories even at the cost of civilian Palestinians' lives. They also declared that the army should show less regard for the welfare of Palestinian civilians if terrorists are hiding in their midst.
'Settler rabbis: Get tough on terror, even if civilians die", Ha'aretz, September 8, 2004
"The real conflict over Vietnam... is the veterans' inability to reconcile their own honorable service in a dishonorable war... Today the lesson should be that we should be very careful about where and when we choose to make war."
I'm exhausted and not a little grouchy... but man, was it worth it. My lack of sleep was caused by the great Prince concert I went to last night, which went on a good 4 1/2 hours (including Morris Day and the Time's opening act, which was great fun.)
Prince amazed me for many reasons. I had forgotten what a good jammer he is, that he always has an amazing band with him, and that he is so eclectic in his musical choices. (He covered "No Diggity," one of his bandmates sang "Georgia on My Mind", and they played "Pass the Peas", and... oh, I forget what else they did, but it was great.) Or that he can be funny and playful. And where the heck does a 46-year-old man get all that energy, when this 35-year-old had to sit down after a while?
The only dissonant note for me sounded when he did a little rap about his problems with Warner Brothers. I found myself thinking, gee, we're in a war. We've had nearly four years of the most divisive presidency I can think of, we've had a horrible terrorist attack, a thousand of our soldiers have died, not to mention so many other people, we're about to have an election... and you're still fretting about getting screwed over by your record company several years ago? (O.K., it wasn't quite that elaborate of a thought, but you get the idea.) I don't expect political commentary from Prince, but with such transcendent music, I expect some transcendence of the petty to go with it.
Ah well. The music still speaks very well for itself. Must go back and listen to Sign of the Times again...
If the situation in Iraq is stabilizing and we're winning...
why are all the humanitarian agencies pulling out?
Hint: it ain't because they aren't needed anymore!
To the rude woman with whom I just got off the phone:
You are welcome to make comments on my work, or complain that something is hard to find. You have every right to expect that I will make the requested improvements.
This does not mean you are permitted to comment on my last name, tell me I must be "one of those German Jews", or question my Judaism.
(Yes, I probably shouldn't have said, "I'm sorry, if you're going to be rude to me, I can't help you. Goodbye. I'm sorry," and slammed the phone down. Not very mature of me.)
Oh, and I was actually trying to help you find what you were looking for, when you made that nasty comment. I bet you don't have a lot of positive interactions when you call tech support either.
Happy friggin' new year to you too.
I've been feeling pretty down the last week or two about the likely outcome of the election. It's many things... Kerry stumbling to find his message and some fire in his belly; the Republican convention; the polls; the conversation with a good friend who admitted she was one of the swing voters and hadn't made up her mind; the nasty people I get in arguments with online who think that the answer is to keep hitting back harder and harder rather than reconsider our global strategy; the storekeeper down the avenue from my house who has prominently posted a Bush/Cheney sign, a newspaper from September 12, 2001 with a picture of the World Trade Center wreckage, a sign saying "WE WON'T FORGET" and a verging-on-ridiculous number of American flags of varying sizes, as if his party somehow had a monopoly on the right to display that flag; the conversation with my boss where she said she thought about leaving the country; the conversation with my mother where she fretted about suitcase nukes and commented that she felt sad thinking about her children's lives and her new granddaughter, and how wrong the world around us seems to be going; the thousand-plus soldiers killed in Iraq because of the administration's distortions...
But today, when I was walking around Lake Merritt to BART, I came across this woman.
She says she dusted off her sign from the last Iraq war, and that it still works - all she had to do was insert a "W." with her marker. I asked her if she had been out there every day with her sign and she said, "No - I'm 87 and I can't stand for long periods of time. My marching days are over."
I wished her good luck and hoped that some good would come of it, and she said something like, "We have to keep on going, no matter what."
He takes time out from fighting the ceaseless war on democracy terror to address the second most pressing issue of our time — malpractice lawsuits! And he says: "Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many O-B-G-Y-N's aren't able to practice their, their love with women all across this country." I really wish I were making this up.
Presumably, sexual harrassment suits aren't a big worry, then...
According to an article in today's Chronicle ("Microsoft creates static over new radio feature")...
Microsoft is using playlists from more than 900 local radio stations around the country to create its own soundalike Internet stations -- stripped of local DJ chatter, traffic, weather and commercials.
And some local stations are crying foul and talking "trademark infringement".
How did Microsoft get the playlists? It bought them. Anybody can. The twist is that they feed those playlists into their automated system, which then plays the tracks from it, without those pesky commercials or perky DJs. They already have all the music (since they're going to be selling it) so — voila! Instant radio station, just add water!
My suspicion is that Microsoft would be better off not mentioning specific taglines like "Lite rock, less talk", much as TV commercials avoid invoking their competitor/inspiration's name. Otherwise, as things stand, collections of data (like playlists) cannot be copyrighted in the United States.
The question on my mind though, is, "Oh, who cares!?!?" I mean, I listen to Internet radio to get away from the crap on local stations. I like KFOG, I've started to like Live 105 again, and I like KALX. I can just turn on the radio and listen to them, and I don't mind the DJs. And in the case of KALX, there's very little talk and no ads, since it's a college station, and it sure doesn't look like Microsoft had any interest in copying them, from what I can see on their site.
When I get really sick of local stations, I'm looking for something different. There's commercial-free (and DJ-free) Boombastic Radio, there's Groove Salad (I'm too lazy to look for the URL right now), or maybe I do want to dial up a commercial radio station after all — how about Virgin Radio? (I do get a kick out of listening to the evening traffic reports in the morning, or the funny and veddy British commercials. Not to mention the DJs with their cute accents.) And how can I forget Shoutcast, whose top-forty list includes stations from San Francisco to Paris, but always seems to be dominated by South Korean stations?
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but it seems to me that by playing it so safe and unimaginative, Microsoft is completely missing the point of Internet radio.
Edited to add: Yeah, they have international stations too, but my point remains. There's a big world out there.
I need to compile these into one place. Rhetoric & Reality / Origins & Goals of the Bush National Security Strategy and the War in Iraq
Seattle Times, August 27 editorial ("Four years ago, this page endorsed George W. Bush for president. We cannot do so again...")
Republicans should know better than to lunch with me
In other news, it sure looks to me like, at the rate things are going, the 1,000th American soldier is going to die in Iraq this week. It's creepy to think about some young (or perhaps not so young) man or woman going about their daily business there, doing the best they can, and in a few days, that person will be gone and their family will get the terrible phone call. For what good? (Yes, Saddam's no longer in power, yadda yadda yadda. Iraq's no post-war Germany, that's for sure.) The annoying store owner down the street from my house, with his BUSH/CHENEY sign surrounded by American flags, and a copy of the newpaper dated September 12, 2001 with pictures of Ground Zero, still feels it's all worth it, but I'm not sure how any sensible person continues to.
""Five Big American Blunders in the War on Terrorism", From the L.A. Times, an interesting list...
And from Bob Graham, a book claiming that the 9/11 attackers had Saudi government support, and that General Tommy Franks told him 2 1/2 years ago that resources were being diverted to the Iraq war (you know, the one that wasn't supposed to be happening yet.)
Gleaned from today's readings...
" Last night was therefore a revealing night for me. I watched a Democrat at a GOP Convention convince me that I could never be a Republican. If they wheel out lying, angry old men like this as their keynote, I'll take Obama. Any day."
Taking the five highest profile speakers at the convention -- President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Senator Zell Miller, Governor Schwarzenegger, and former Mayor Giuliani -- we get this breakdown:
Mentions of Osama bin Laden: 0
Mentions of John Kerry: 42
Mentions of Saddam Hussein: 21Must just have been an oversight. Let's check, as the pols say, the internals. Let's look at President Bush:
Saddam: 10
Kerry: 2
Osama: 0Must have been an oversight. How about Vice President Cheney:
Kerry: 14
Saddam: 4
Osama: 0I sense a pattern.
Recession. Unemployment. Corporate fraud. A war based on false premises that has cost us $200 billion and nearly a thousand American lives. They're all hills we've "been given to climb." It's as though Bush wasn't president. As though he didn't get the tax cuts he wanted. As though he didn't bring about postwar Iraq and authorize the planning for it. All this was "given," and now Bush can show up, three and a half years into his term, and start solving the problems some other president else left behind.
-- Slate
Plus, Guiliani lies but so does the whole damn GOP. And TalkLeft points out the dramatic and depressing contrast between what the President says about how the war on terrorism is going and, er, how the war on terrorism is actually going.
And finally...
You realize there are far, far too many people, and events, and movements and divine underground alternative superlative surreptitious energies already out there, right now, combating the rank dank demons of hate and homophobia and homeland security for you to possibly wallow in hopelessness or lame sitcoms or Bush's vacant, stupefied, sad little eyes.
You realize that, far from being a threadbare tattered fractured scattershot hodgepodge of diminishing hope and lost possibility, the resistance is actually alive and thriving and pulsing all around you, constantly, all the time, everlasting and unstoppable and eternally refreshed and well lubricated and smiling like the divine trickster. You just gotta know where to look.
And, perhaps more importantly, where not to.
Iraq kidnappings backfire in France / Many Muslims take stand against terrorists, accept head-scarf ban
Paris -- Many of France's more than 5 million Muslims have rallied surprisingly behind President Jacques Chirac in recent days, defending what most Muslims have bitterly opposed until now: a law prohibiting Muslim girls from wearing religious head scarves to school.
When students return to class today after the long summer recess, many Muslim schoolgirls will heed a strong message from their clerics -- obey the law, even though it might violate your principles.
This article in the Chronicle profiling Malcolm Margolin, founder and head of Heyday Books, interested me in no small part because I interned there right after college back in 1992. There was a recession then, and it took me a long time to get off my butt and land gainful employment. Luckily, my supervisor at the time, a woman named Tracey, let me lay out some of their flyers in PageMaker 4.0, which gave me DTP skills, and that and the Malcolm connection eventually landed me a job doing print production at Home Energy magazine in Berkeley. And the rest is not very interesting history.
Heyday published great stuff then, as they continue to do today. Their magazine News From Native California has been joined by Bay Nature, and they continue to publish beautifully produced books about native americans, ecology, and California history. (I suspect they've long since stopped using PageMaker 4.)
Malcolm doesn't look or sound like he's changed a bit! Although... "micromanager" is not how I would have ever described him...
I've been trying to follow the RNC goings-on. So you don't have to. I've helpfully translated and annotated their claims:
Horsesh*t: Just about all of Laura Bush's speech. Touching anecdotes about a woman who owns a tow-truck company, a woman athlete from Afghanistan who can run with her head uncovered, a man who is learning how to do laundry while his wife is away at war, and very little of substance on anything else. She's trying to push that "W stands for Women" nonsense.
The straight-shooting sh*t: "Consider the following: Recent census data indicate that over the last three years, more and more women have fallen into poverty with job losses and decreases in wages. The wage gap for men and women widened in 2003, with women 15 and older in 2003 marking the first annual decline in real median earnings since 1995. Health insurance coverage also declined more sharply among women than men. The number of uninsured women and girls rose to 21.2 million in 2003, up 4% from the previous year. The Bush-approved party platform denies women in the U.S. the right to choose an abortion, even if the pregnancy poses extreme danger to the mother's life or is the result of rape or incest." (New York Daily News)
Horsesh*t: "We are winning and we will win" the war on terrorism! Everything's just peachy and getting better! The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades!
The straight-shooting sh*t: "I think we're losing. We're losing by almost any measure. If you look at the number of terrorist attacks that have happened in the 36 months since 9/11, it's double the number of terrorists attacks compared to the three years prior to 9/11. If you look at the number of people around the world supporting the jihadist movement, most people think it's up significantly in the last two years. So I know of no real measure that suggests to me that we are doing well. The President of the United States says that we have captured or killed two-thirds of the Al Qaeda managers and by that he means two-thirds of the Al Qaeda Shura council as of September 11, 2001.What he overlooks is that all of those people have been replaced and Al Qaeda is alive and well... I mean, it's clear from Jane's intelligence review, the Britain security and intelligence coordinator, Sir David Omand and many others are saying that the base of Al Qaeda supporters and the base of their ideology is expanding." (Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism advisor. Also, see "U.S. raises figures for 2003 terrorist attacks: 'Significant attacks' at 21-year high, revised data show' from CNN... or the front page of today's Chronicle, with reports of terrorist attacks in Israel, Russia, and Iraq.)
Horsesh*t: "To those critics who are so pessimistic about our country, I say: 'Don't be economic girlie men!''' (Ahnold's Convention speech)
The straight-shooting sh*t: One in eight Americans has lost a job in the past three years (Scrips Howard).
Also: "The U.S. Census Bureau announced Thursday that the number of citizens living in poverty and without health insurance rose in 2003. The government agency says the poverty rate rose from 12.1 percent of the population, or 34.5 million, in 2002, to 12.5 percent, or 35.8 million last year. The poverty rate for children under the age of 18 also increased from 16.7 percent, or 12.1 million in 2002, to 17.6 percent in 2003, or 12.9 million. The number of citizens without health insurance coverage rose by 1.4 million last year for a total of 45 million people. The percentage of uncovered citizens rose from 15.2 percent in 2002 to 15.6 percent in 2003." (Voice of America)
Horsesh*t: We're a tolerant party! See! We have women speaking! We have immigrants speaking! We even have a woman from Iraq saying that she's grateful to the United States for liberating her country! The whole damn thing. Look it up.
The straight-shooting sh*t: "We affirm that homosexuality is incompatible with military service." (RNC Party Platform) The RNC rejects a unity plank, moving away from a more tolerant stance in 2000. (Nuke Free Zone) "The problem is that too many Republican officeholders still believe it’s important to keep the GOP a congenial home for all manner of unreconstructed yahoos and even downright racists." (The Hill) "Kerry yard signs destroyed", (Las Alamos Monitor) “I left God’s country... They could use a bunch of people from Iowa to come here to show New Yorkers what life is all about, what being patriotic is all about and what country is all about. I’m as confident about Bush being re-elected as I am that eggs are going to be in New York tomorrow morning.” (Republican delegate Leon Mosley of Waterloo, IA)
And finally, Edward Brooke, the first African-American elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote:
I spent much of my political career unsuccessfully trying to bring black voters into the Republican Party. It was a difficult task, and it remains so. Understandably, black voters still see domestic policies that do little to advance their hopes for a better life for themselves and their children. They see black unemployment rates more than double those for whites. They also see too many young black men in jail and too few in college.
Moreover, I fear that, as in 1964, they will see far too few black delegates at our convention. One reason Barry Goldwater failed so totally was that he and his advisers hoped that by opposing the civil rights movement - or, less gently put, supporting racism - they would sweep to victory both in the South and elsewhere in America. This strategy failed because it underestimated the decency of the American people. If our party writes off black votes in a cynical appeal to votes based on prejudice, it too will fail, both politically and morally.
The same is true with the issue of same-sex marriage. A great many Americans oppose a constitutional ban on such marriages, and if our party ignores their opinion and caters to homophobia, it will once again be wrong - morally and politically. There is a great need, too, for more tolerance on the difficult issue of abortion and more respect for those on both sides of the debate.