LSU Blog

Tragic 'War Hero'

2004-05-30T02:36:00.000-05:00

Pat Tillman, the former pro football player, was killed by other American troops in a "friendly fire" episode in Afghanistan last month and not by enemy bullets, according to a U.S. investigation of the incident.

New details released yesterday about Tillman's death indicate that he was gunned down by members of his elite Army Ranger platoon who mistakenly shot in his direction when the unit was ambushed. According to a summary of the Army investigation, a Ranger squad leader mistook an allied Afghan Militia Force soldier standing near Tillman as the enemy, and he and other U.S. soldiers opened fire, killing both men.

... it appears Tillman's bravery in battle led him to become a victim of a series of errors as he was trying to protect part of his stranded platoon, which Army officials say was attacked while hampered by a disabled vehicle it had in tow. The report said Tillman got out of his vehicle and shot at the enemy during a 20-minute firefight before he was killed when members of his unit opened fire after returning to the scene to help.

Pat Tillman's brother has already made the point that it does not matter how his brother died. Yet, I cannot help but think now that he has become a more perfect symbol for our current military situation. He was a brave man, but died senselessly due the ignorance of others. It's certainly debatable how to dole out responsibility here. How much to assign to the kids who accidently shot him, and how much to assign to George Bush for invading Iraq and in the process short-changing the troops levels, supplies, and money available in Afghanistan, the real front on terror.

Doonesbury

2004-05-30T01:23:00.000-05:00

eff the FCC

2004-05-29T23:51:00.000-05:00

Eric Idle sings fuck you to the FCC and numerous Republicans.

Link once again via Neil Gaiman.

beat the system

2004-05-29T21:53:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to post this for some time, this is a wonderful little tool for bloggers, Bugmenot. No more having to register for those pesky newspapers. That's the chief concern for me. Though it's doublegrand if you're concerned about anonymity.

Link via Neil Gaiman.

Best Google Search Referrel yet

2004-05-29T19:38:00.000-05:00

"ted koppel armaggedon plan"

WTF? Am I missing out on something really important? Should I be planning for the apocolypse?

Are Soldiers Slaves?

2004-05-29T01:47:00.000-05:00

TalkLeft provokes this interesting question, when you join the army under false pretenses (the idea that you're joining the glorious good guys), and it turns out you've been misled by propoganda (turns out we torture, and the President lied to us, and no one knows why we're in Iraq anyway), and you're not allowed to quit or consciousteously object, are you a slave? If not, what differentiates you from a slave? Of course, one obvious point is that no one physically forces any of these kids to sign up. However, this is not a real object. Slavery is slavery, whether you enter it willingly or are tricked into it. Remember the problem of indentured servents early in this country's history. Or the fight against sweatshops wherein illegal immigrants are forced to work long hours for low pay in inhumane conditions (already sounds like the Army). Anyway, the point is that we have a precedent against allowing people to be exploited and abused in an extremely unfair manner.

But then again, we already make exceptions for the armed services in this regard. Serving in the armed forces isn't your typical day job; your typical day job doesn't include the chance of being bombed. So there's a different standard. But why is there this standard?

This seperate standard exists because it makes sense in a utilitarian way of understanding. The expenditure of a number of young men (and now women) can save the lives of a much greater population. Thus when a war is reasonably defensive, as in WWII, then there is no argument that the double standard is in effect, and we'll go ahead for now and leave it at that. (we're not writing a thesis here)

In other instances in which we are not engaged in a defensive action, the double standard comes into question. Why should our soldiers die. if not to save the lives of those in their home country? Some arguments have been made for endangering them for the lives of others in the world community. The Bosnian war is one such example. Nothing exceptionally controversial there.

But now we're in Iraq, and the double standard is losing legitimacy. I believe that there is some point at which it is right and acceptable for soldiers to throw off the commands of their superiors and to refuse orders. Some soldiers apparantly think that point has been reached. Now that they have done so, they have in their minds decided that the actions of their government and the orders of their superiors are not legitimate, then they must see any directive and coercion for force them to act against their wills as tyranny.

I can see no argument that supports throwing these conscientiously objecting soldiers into prison. We were led into this war by a leader who did not win a pluarality, much less a majority, of the popular vote. This man in turn misled the American people and Congress about the reasons behind this war. He has never given a consistent reason for being there. We the people have never voted on this war. This is a war waged by the Administration, not by the American people. As such, I conclude that our soldiers have the right to object.

SO now that the veil has been torn, and the soldiers see the situation with clearer vision and decry their part in it, do they also rightwise see themselves as slaves? Unresevedly I say yes, though perhaps better to see them as indentured servents, duped into dangerous and binding servitude. If the double standard of military servitude does not hold, if the war waged is not democratic, and our soldiers are coerced into fulfilling the unpopular wishes of an unpopular administration, then they are not being accorded the just rights of men from a democratic nation.

Whisky Bar Re-Open

2004-05-29T01:37:00.000-05:00

Thought I'd drop an advisory here in case you haven't noticed. Billmon also expresses something that partially explains my laxness in posts the last couple of weeks:

It’s almost as if the mainstream media abruptly awoke from a coma and realized their doctors had been slipping them sedatives and going through their wallets...Suddenly, the outrages the left side of the blogosphere has been screaming about for months – the crimes, the corruption, and, above all, the sheer incompetence of the “war effort” – are being splashed all over the tube. For the first time since I started Whiskey Bar, I've actually felt redundant.

Of course, as I do a lot of meta-blogging, this site has always already been built on redundancy. But let's add to Billmon's observation of the media the observation that the blogging the last couple of weeks has been outstanding. So not only has there been less need for meta-blogging, but I haven't so much felt the need to utilize this cathartic outlet as I normally do. So that's two of the reasons the posts have slowed to a trickle. The other is I think my brain took a hiatus from creativity to rest and recuperate after the end of the semster. Oh, and my parents came to visit for a few days. Getting back into the swing of things.

Have I mentioned how much I like that the button on the new blooger GUI to start a new post is simply "Create"? I love that.

AntiBush Game

2004-05-28T13:39:00.000-05:00

Featuring Hulkmania, Mr T, Fat-Ass He-Man, Voltron, Howard Stern, Howard Dern, Super Stem Cell Christopher Reeves, and more. You know you want to play. Super informative (also at times very vulgar) And long. I had to quit before the end, but still, it's like michael moore made a video game.

AnitBush Game

UPDATE: It seems Atrios is one of my regular readers.

Texas Tea

2004-05-28T03:32:00.000-05:00

Oil's becoming a fashionable topic. Krugman had a couple articles not long ago, and now Kevin jumps in with some analysis. I think this is great; the Impending World Oil Shortage has always been a pet rant of mine.

I'll run down that rant in as orderly a fashion as possible. First let me introduce you to a book, Hubbert's Peak : The Impending World Oil Shortage. It's an interesting book, about a lot of aspecs of oil. But what the title refers to is a famous prediction for the total world output capacity of oil. It was also famously wrong, for reasons the author, Deffeyes, goes into. But Deffeyes, with better information and a more extensive analysis, wants to make the prediction again. Along the way, we learn some interesting things.

First, oil fields range in sizes, and this is very important. Currently, we're mostly extracting oil from supergiant fields. The fields are relatively easy to pump, which keeps prices low. Unfortunatly, Deffeyes doesn't believe there are any more of these fields to be found.
Meanwhile, these fields are being used up. We'll have to resort to smaller fields. This means slower extraction.
We're gonna have to drill more holes, and also, inevitably, many dry holes. This means that the price of extracting oil is going to increase just at the same time as oil production slows down.

So yeah, we may have 50-60 years of oil left, as the auto industry likes to tell you, but as Kevin duly notes, this isn't the right way to think about it. Most of those years will see slow oil production. There are other ways of extracting oil other than drilling, such as squeezing it from shale, but it's not a cheap process. Any way you look at it, we're probably doomed to high oil prices. Kevin seems to think we have about 10 years. Possibly. I suppose it'll depend on when we see a definite trendline of this year's production being lower than last year's, which was lower than the year before. This could happen in 5 years, not ten. I think Kevin's prediction is on the outside. Certainly we'll be seeing this by 2015, and quite possibly earlier.

Say thank-you to everyone who own's a gas guzzling SUV, and a double thank-you to those self-centered Hummer drivers. My toilet paper, of all places, contains some pertinent words of wisdom. (It's the environmentally-friendly kind.) "In our every deliberation, we must think of the impact of our actions on the next seven generations." (allegedly an Iriquois law)

Dirty and Pretty

2004-05-28T02:19:00.000-05:00

Just watched Dirty Pretty Things. Really damn good movie. You should watch it. Fair warning, however, it's not a happy movie. I feel so bourgeoise now. (Which I am. I'm just especially feeling it.)

LSU Student a little longer

2004-05-25T21:52:00.000-05:00

So, I didn't graduate. I was doing this little "honors thesis" thing, and didn't finish. Moreover, because all of my professors have gone to Europe for the summer, it seems I may not be able to defend in time for summer graduation, and I will continue to be LSU Student till December. No big deal, really. My plan for next year was to take time off and a sit in a few fun classes. So, I'll pretty much be doing the same thing. Just the ceremony is held off. I blame the blogs.

A Waist is a terrible thing to Waste

2004-05-25T21:38:00.000-05:00

The Daily Show's coverage of Louisiana House Bill 1626 which ban's low rider pants is here. Wherein we learn that showing crack can lead to crack.

On a more serious note, how sexist is this bill? (which, we find out via Timshel, ~~passed~~ was rejected in the House) I and most other guys from my generation wore saggy pants for years. But when the girls do it, the response is to pass a law. Let's not pretend that this is anything other than sexist, patriarchal culture, men controlling women (or even women controlling women) so that they will be coerced to conform to these legislators' ideas of how women should act.

UPDATE: Corrected to fix moronocy.

Commander-in-Chief?

2004-05-17T08:57:00.000-05:00

Bush Jr. is culpable for the prison abuse scandal and for failing to kill Zarqawi. Or maybe he's just an out-of-the-loop puppet, unfit to be President. Mickey Kaus reports, you decide.

Oh shit

2004-05-17T05:07:00.000-05:00

Leader of Iraq's Governing Council Assasinated in Car Bomb Attack

Abdel-Zahraa Othman, also known as Izzadine Saleem, was killed along with three other Iraqis by a bomb blast as they were entering the green zone. He was the second member of the governing council to be killed.

This really makes America looks weak. They can target our top puppets right on our very doorstep. How much control do we actually have anymore? On June 30th when we hand over "sovreingty" to whomever-it-will-be, does that group stand any chance of survivng the month? We're moving 4,000 troops from South Korea to Iraq. Kind of like using water balloons to put out a house fire.

There are, as far as I can see, three ways for a large nation to fight a war. We'll illustrate these three ways using three examples. First, there's the Troy way. You send a large and powerful force that's committed to doing what it takes. If that means slogging it out for 10 years while your best buddies die, then so be it - you're committed. America obviously doesn't have that kind of committment.

Then there's the Rome model. You send in an overwhelming force of professional soldiers who are better trained and equipped than your enemy. You stomp them like grass. This is the type of war the Powell doctrine calls for. Obviously, we haven't tried this yet. A variation on the Rome model is the Pyrrhic model, which similarly invokes overwhelming force, but is hampered by comparatively undertrained troops. This possibility is unlikely.

Third, there's the Vietnam model. You steadfastly refuse to committ what's necessary to win, but nevertheless maintain insufficient troop levels and baseless optimism by those who support the war. The war, however, isn't widely popular, and faces a lot of opposition at home. Hope doesn't win wars, so this strategy is a loss. This is the war we are currently engaged in. I suppose you could call it playing politics with war.

I unfortunately think we're going to stick with model #3. Model #2 requires the draft, and politics prevents the administration from pursuing that possibility. Dawn is nowhere to be seen.

The boob post

2004-05-16T23:59:00.000-05:00

Drudge prominently displays Kerry's daughter in her see-through dress:

Another reason to vote for Kerry! I myself am a fan of tasteful see-through dresses, on the condition that the woman has nice boobs. I can't deny the sexual quality of it, but I want to emphasize that there's an aesthetic quality as well. Obviously our culture has a tradition (Rush might say a homoerotic one) of showing off and appreciating well-formed male chests. Professional wresting anyone? It's harder to find, in America, open appreciation of the form of the upper half of the female body. We need a President who encourages this! Sure it may not be as high a priority as the Iraq War or medicare, but let's not marginalize the importance of confronting the boob-hating portion of America. Remember how much Janet Jackson's boob was hated on? We cannot allow this to happen again!

At the least, having a first daughter who promotes the natural beauty of the human body is certainly better than two first daughters who only know how to promote partying. Boob-hating America does love a good party, however. Enough booze and pills, and they can admit their love for boobs for a few hours, before the fear takes over again once they sober up.

Hmm, this reminds me of a recent Wonkette post:

As the night wears on, another difference between attendees at this event and the journo-types who dominated the others (WHCD, RTCA) emerges. . . how to put this delicately? Hmmm. OK: I have not had my rack checked out so brazenly and so often since I stopped going to Cozumel for Spring Break. What is it with the cultural conservatives? They're all Ken-Starring me and shit.

UPDATE: Ogged brings new information to bear on the subject of transparant dresses and flash photgraphy.

Another end-of-the-year departure

2004-05-16T06:57:00.000-05:00

Watching SNL last night, I may have been one of the last people to be clued in that it was Jimmy Fallon's last show. What a bummer. People are usually at odds about whether SNL is going through a funny or sucky phase. As for me, right now I think they have (or maybe had) a number of good bits and a few really good ones, but also a number of bad ones. Overall, I'd say it's decently funny. If I could make one suggestion, it wouldn't be to the players, it would be to Lorne, of whoever's in charge, to get better guests. I'm not saying all of the guests are bad, but at least half of them. I could only watch part of tonight, even with it being Jimmy's last show, because it was hosted by the Olsen Twins. I don't think they even bother trying to act. They ended the show shouting "we'll be legal in X weeks!!" I suppose it is a certain kind of wisdom to play to one's strengths.

I can't imagine but that this is a blow to SNL. Jimmy frequently cracked up in his skits, which might seem a flaw, but I perceived it as adding more personality to the show. That, plus his ad libbing (often necessitated by the cracking up) gave SNL a much-needed atmosphere of sponteneity. So that's what I'll miss, the atmosphere of energy and youth he brought to the show.

Who do you think is the funniest cast member? I'm not sure if or how much Horatio Sanz will suffer without Jimmy Fallon to play off of. I think I will say Maya Rudolph, and I think I'll also opine that she's underused. Keenan Thompson would also be a good answer.

Sagacity

2004-05-16T01:13:00.000-05:00

From a clip shown on the Daily Show:

ABC Reporter: What would you say to let’s say Phil to a ten year old child who maybe caught a glimpse of it or maybe heard another child in his or her school discussing it, how would you make sense of for example the Iraqi prisoner abuse?

“Dr.” Phil: I would try to tie it to their experiences in their own life.

Angry Rant

2004-05-14T15:53:00.000-05:00

The Poor Man puts up a list of quotes by popular conservative pundits. The worst is from Michael Savage:

And I think there should be no mercy shown to these sub-humans. I believe that a thousand of them should be killed tomorrow. I think a thousand of them held in the Iraqi prison should be given 24 hour -- a trial and executed. I think they need to be shown that we are not going to roll over to them. It won't happen. It won't happen because of the CBS Communists. It won't happen because of the CNN traitors. I won't happen because of the MSNBC empty heads. And we the people are the ones who are going to suffer today. ...

Instead of putting joysticks, I would have liked to have seen dynamite put in their orifices and they should be dropped from airplanes. How's that? You like that one? Go call somebody that you want to report me to, see if I care. They should put dynamite in their behinds and drop them from 35,000 feet, the whole pack of scum out of that jail.

Hey, Michael Savage. I think you should be "exterminated." "Cleansed" even. You like that, you racist pig? Go call someone you want to report me to, see if I care you ignorant asshole.

That felt good. But, let me level some more substansive abuse at these sissies. If they had such low tolerance for this kind of stuff, they shouldn't be supporting this goddamed war. I have low tolerance too, but I don't contradict myself by supporting the war. "But we were there to help! We're humanitarians!" Fuck off, we invaded. And ther's no "nice" way to do that. Nick Berg was a noncombatant who died. That's awful, but he's hardly the first. What do you call a person who expects the other side to take all the casualties, and throws a mean hissyfit if just a little of the same is returned? That's pretty much the situation where I think of employing the term "evil," because asshole just doesn't seem strong enough.

So now I'm at an ethical conundrum. Who is morally worse, given that murder is an evil, Michal Savage or those that killed Nick Berg. One on hand, the guys in the video, or one guy, actually did commit a murder. Michael Savage, to the best of my knowledge, hasn't yet. However, he has advocated racism and genocide. We can assume that if he had the power, he would commit genocide. You know, murder I can understand. I don't sympathize with it, but, as a human action, it's very familiar. We all know a hundred different motivations for murder. It's even fairly ubiquitous, in literature, television and movies. Many of us even know someone who has been murdered, either directly or by extension. It's an evil, but it's not alien. Genocide, however, is different. We all know of instances of genocide of course, but they're fairly rare. And the thing about genocide is that we just don't understand it. At least I don't. It's the type of thing you read of as a kid, and assume that it was a problem that occured before your time. You assume it's a thing of the past, like pharohs and knights in armor. It's hard to reconcile genocide with being human. So for someone to desire it, to advocate it, that's less understandable than someone who commits a murder. In fact, it's not understandable at all. The more I think about this, the more alien it seems.

Just because of the mood I'm in, I'm going to reiterate the implication of that paragraph: I find it easier to sympathize, in the literal sense of the word, with the murderer of Nick Berg than with Michael Savage. I dare you to contradict me.

Bad news for Bush

2004-05-13T06:25:00.000-05:00

Josh Marshall points to this CBS News Poll, which shows very bad numbers for Bush.

44% approval rate
60% disapprove of his handling of the economy
64% believe the Iraq war was not worth it, only 29% believe it was
unsurprisingly 49% still believe that military action against Iraq was the right thing to do. When are we going to firmly establish among voters the nonconnection between Saddam and 9/11? Kerry, I'm looking to you.
39% approve of the President's handling of Iraq. Still too high, but that's fallen 18% since December.
46% to 37%, Americans believe the soldiers at Abu Ghraib were following orders

Take these numbers with a grain of salt; the margin of error is plus or minus five percentage points.

India & World Opinion

2004-05-13T05:46:00.000-05:00

Yet another pro-Bush foreign government has been voted out of office by surprising elecltion results:

The outcome of the three-week elections marks a dramatic and unexpected reversal for Vajpayee and the BJP-led coalition, which only a few weeks ago had been expected to coast to victory on the strength of India's booming economy, Vajpayee's personal appeal and a popular peace initiative with neighboring Pakistan.

...

The prospect of an Indian government led by the Congress Party and its left-leaning allies is likely to cause some apprehension in Washington.

The Bush administration has enjoyed warm relations with Vajpayee's government, with which it shares common views on Islamic extremism and economic policy.

Congress Party leaders have been critical of the BJP's closeness to Washington and have blamed its economic policies for neglecting the poor.

I really know nothing about Indian politics, but I'll tentatively say the sound of a lefty government sounds good. More important is this (can we call it a trend yet?) pattern of support for the Bush America equating political disaster at home. Even if Bush gets the boot come November, I don't think that alone will be enough to repair the damage to America's reputation. People living abroad are bound to be more wary of the American public than they have been before. Shortly before the Iraq war began, I went to an anti-war speech given by Kathy Kelly (a terrific, powerful speech). She and others told anecdotes of their visits to Iraq. One really exemplified the theme they were pushing, and I'll re-tell it at the risk of being Friendman-esque. The anecdote was by a lawyer from New Orleans, who had been in Iraq the December of '02. At one point he was in a remote place, a highway perhaps, and there was an Iraqi guard nearby armed with a machine gun. The guard motioned him over. He was not a little intimidated, but he didn't have much of a choice. "You are American?" "yes." The guard grinned, "America good," and a thumbs-up gesture. "Bush bad," and a thumbs down. I'm afraid of the loss of this sentiment. And I think the polls are showing that my fears are being confirmed, at least in Iraq. What would happen if major world opinion started giving America, not our officials but Americans, a giant thumbs-down?

Evil-ish

2004-05-13T04:00:00.000-05:00

I'm really just a little rough around the edges:

Link via Froz Gobo

Evil, coincidently, is one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite bands, Ladytron.

Understanding the proper function of an occupying military

2004-05-12T17:46:00.000-05:00

Michael brings up even more evidence of American misconduct in Iraq. Apparantly, the calls for genocide have made arisen once more in response to the Nick Berg murder. I haven't the heart to look. I think what Michael is arguing is that we destroyed our possibility for righteous anger long ago. This is something conflicting groups, Jews and Palestinians, Irish protestants and Catholics, never learn. A real state cannot demand revenge. A state can punish with the idea of preventing further crimes, but it is actually the function of the state to prevent retaliation. Prisons keep the mob out as much as they keep prisoners in.

One of the scariest things for right now is that Iraq is a dangerous departure from this model. The nature of the war was retaliatory, although it was at least partially veiled to be a preventively war. It was pitched to the public explicitly as prevention and implicitly as retaliation, but, as Billmon records, many of the soldiers were focused on retaliation; they saw it as "payback." This policy was explicit in Fallujah, which was a retaliatory strike.

There are many reasons that a state should not be engaged in retaliotory actions against individuals (it's different concerning other states). One of them we're seeing in spades right now; the slippery-slope of justifications for all of these retaliatory actions. There's a mindset of "they deserve it." It doesn't matter that such an opinion is poorly reasoned, if it is even reasoned at all. Individual soldiers are caught up in a greater mass phantasy such that it becomes difficult for a lone individual to object, and much less rebel. Again, we saw this in Abu Ghraib. Some objected morally to what their fellow soliders were doing, but what could they do? It is difficult if not impossible to buck a desire that has taken hold of an entire mass of people.

In response to the Nick Berger murder, we should do what a state is supposed to do. Deflate violent passions, conduct an investigation, and punish who is responsible or punish no one at all. I think in the current climate this will probably take place, so I am hopeful. However, a bigger problem will be containing vigilantism in the military. Soldiers are not the mob. The kinds of things we are seeing, such as the ones Michael highlights, should not be happening. The personal desires of our soldiers are out of control. I know I'm souding fascist, but the military is a fascist institution, at least in the sense of top-down strict hierarchical control. Right now, my opinion is that what it takes to run an occupation. I would hope this problem is recognized and treated with better training, higher expectations as to the conduct of soldiers, stricter rules, and disciplinary actions for those who deviate from them.

Yay, hits!

2004-05-12T10:38:00.000-05:00

Man, I'm kind of famous today. At least, by the standards of this blog. Thank you Atrios through Jesus' General. I am one step closer to reaching blog-Nirvana. Now on to being just one step closer to graduating..

Sanctions

2004-05-12T08:40:00.000-05:00

US levels sanctions against Syria:

Under pressure from Congress, President Bush slapped sanctions on Syria yesterday for supporting terrorism and interfering with U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq.The White House said the sanctions include banning U.S. exports to Syria except for food and medicine, prohibiting Syrian aircraft from flying to and from the United States, freezing certain Syrian assets and cutting off relations with a Syrian bank because of money laundering concerns.

But what the sanctions don't block are imports from Syria:

Syrian exports to the United States totaled nearly $260 million last year, much of it fuel oil and other petroleum products. While exports from Syria are not barred, U.S. companies may find it difficult to continue working there under the sanctions.

In Damascus, Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Naji Otari told reporters that the sanctions are "unjust and unjustified," but he said "these sanctions will not have any effect on Syria." He called on Washington to "reverse its decision and not provoke problems between the two countries."

Turns out there's also a little backstory to this:

In December, US President George Bush signed the Syria Accountability Act, which aims to punish Syria for alleged ties to terrorists, tacit support for resistance fighters in Iraq, and efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

The bill also demands that Syria withdraw the roughly 20,000 troops it has deployed in Lebanon and calls on the governments of Lebanon and Syria to "enter into serious unconditional bilateral negotiations" with Israel in order to secure "a full and permanent peace".

The legislation directs the president to prohibit US exports to Syria of weaponry and so-called "dual-use" technology with both civilian and military applications.

And it directs the president to choose two sanctions from a range that includes restricting US exports and business investment, downgrading US-Syrian diplomatic ties, imposing travel restrictions on Syrian diplomats in the United States, freezing Syria's assets in the United States, and restricting over-flight rights for Syrian aircraft inside US airspace.

Our top 5 exports to Syria are cereal, machinery, tobacco, vehicles, and manmade staple fibers. It does not appear to me that it would be vital for Syria to buy any of these items from the US. So I think the Prime Minister is essentially right; this is a symbolic action more than anything.

It would, of course, be much more harmful to Syria were we to impose a sanction on imports. But the cynic in me doesn't believe we'll put an import ban on an oil rich nation. At least, not until Iraq's oil fields are more secure.

The deeper cynic in me wonders if these sanctions will prohibit the exporting of Canadian citizens for torture services?

A series of failed opportunities

2004-05-11T18:33:00.000-05:00

A video was released today showing American citizen Nicholas Berg beheaded by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq. The man behind these AQ forces is one Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Yeah, THAT Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger.

In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.

The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council.

“Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties after 9/11 and we still didn’t do it,” said Michael O’Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings Institution.

Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe.

The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it. By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq.

“People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of preemption against terrorists,” according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.

In January 2003, the threat turned real. Police in London arrested six terror suspects and discovered a ricin lab connected to the camp in Iraq.

The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the National Security Council killed it.

Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.

(emphasis mine)

I have nothing to add that isn't obvious. Maybe some more thoughts later.

That's crazy talk!

2004-05-11T03:09:00.000-05:00

So it's late and I've already forgotten which blog I got this link from. But if you haven't seen it already, there's an excerpt from David Brock's new book in Salon. This is brilliant:

Two years after the election, Gore gave an extraordinary interview to the New York Observer that could be read as an explanation of what happened to his presidential campaign. Gore charged that conservatives in the media, operating under journalistic cover, are loyal not to the standards and conventions of journalism but, rather, to politics and party.

"The media is kind of weird these days on politics, and there are some major institutional voices that are, truthfully speaking, part and parcel of the Republican Party. Fox News Network, the Washington Times, Rush Limbaugh -- there's a bunch of them, and some of them are financed by wealthy ultra-conservative billionaires who make political deals with Republican administrations and the rest of the media.... Most of the media [has] been slow to recognize the pervasive impact of this Fifth Column in their ranks -- that is, day after day, injecting the daily Republican talking points into the definition of what's objective as stated by the news media as a whole....

Something will start at the Republican National Committee, inside the building, and it will explode the next day on the right-wing talk-show network and on Fox News and in the newspapers that play this game, the Washington Times and the others. And then they'll create a little echo chamber, and pretty soon they all start baiting the mainstream media for allegedly ignoring the story they've pushed into the zeitgeist. And then pretty soon the mainstream media goes out and disingenuously takes a so-called objective sampling, and lo and behold, these RNC talking points are woven into the fabric of the zeitgeist...."

True to form, the right-wing media greeted this factual description with yet another frenzy of repetitive messaging portraying Gore as crazy. Speaking of Gore on FOX News, The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes said, "This is nutty. This is along the lines with, you know, President Bush killed Paul Wellstone, and the White House knew before 9/11 that the attacks were going to happen. This is -- I mean, this is conspiratorial stuff." Also on FOX, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said of Gore, "I'm a psychiatrist. I don't usually practice on camera. But this is the edge of looniness, this idea that there's a vast conspiracy, it sits in a building, it emanates, it has these tentacles, is really at the edge. He could use a little help." "It could be he's just nuts," Rush Limbaugh said of Gore. "Tipper Gore's issue is what? Mental health. Right? It could be closer to home than we know." "He [Gore] said it's a conspiracy," Tucker Carlson said on CNN's "Crossfire." "I actually think he's coming a little unhinged," The Weekly Standard's David Brooks, now at the New York Times, said of Gore on PBS.

Yup, that's certainly the way to go about disproving a consiparcy, isn't it? It's not that they all say the same thing at the same time because there's a conspiracy; they're just filled with the holy spirit.

POSTSCRIPT: Found it, the link was from Atrios. So I'm sure you've all ready it already.

Not poor in words

2004-05-11T02:53:00.000-05:00

Terrific post by the Poor Man. Simple and true. Three things that right wingers decrying the publication of the Abu Ghraib story as partisan attacks need to realize about Bush.

Quick un-sourced thoughts:

2004-05-11T01:58:00.000-05:00

There's a lot of Kerry bashing going on, and has been going on, in the liberal blogosphere, not to mention the liberal news, a.k.a. the Daily Show. Some of it is well-meaning, but it irks me nonetheless. I realize that people are anxious for a democratic victory, but in that rush to keep our candidate in line, let's not create the meme's to be used against him, shall we? If one does feel inclined to criticize Kerry, how about in a construtive manner, rather than the loud-groan-followed-by-throwing-up-the-hands-in-the-air-followed-by-OH-MY-GOD-HE'S-AWFUL-NOT-AS-BAD-AS-BUSH-BUT-JESUS! that's becoming routine.

Anyway, I'm not here just to admonish. I'm here to ask, "What's going on?" Why is Kerry sucking it up out there, as we all know he is? I have no knowledge at all on this, but that won't stop me from conjecturing and imagining conspiricies. But first let's run down the few things we do know.

Kerry ran a pretty damn good campaign starting about January till about April. He cinched the party nomination and came out swinging against Bush for a few weeks.
Then Fallujah and Richard Clarke and the 9/11 Commission happened. At the same time, Bush started spending an avanlanche of money trying to pigeonhole Kerry.
The result was that Bush's approval rating stayed low, and Kerry dropped only a percenage point, despite lots of unfair negative press. Of course, with the Abu Ghriab story, Bush's approval has dropped once again
The Bush team has stymied their campaign spending, and Kerry has stepped up his. I expect Kerry to slightly advance in the lead. This will help drive his fundraising.
The other thing that it's doing is keeping media frenzy at a fevor pinch. "It's Kerry in the lead! No, Bush! No, Kerry! It's too close to call!!" This stuff is ridiculous, but they love it.
Recently, a Kerry staffer stated, "we're right where we want to be." (no citation, i told you this was an unsourced rant)

So here's where I advance the postulate that Kerry's campaign may be mediocre on purpose. I think right now that Kerry could pound Bush a little; the President is vulnerable, his stomach exposed. But that doesn't mean he should. Keeping the race close 1) drives media coverage, 2) drives funding, 3) drives interest. Moreover, a candidate doesn't want to create an atmosphere of inevitability that he will win. A little uncertainty drives voters to the polls. Kerry is probably hoping for high voter turnout, since, by all indications, a high turnout will favor him. So, look to see if Kerry pulls a Muhammad Ali this summer.

Think I need a tinfoil hat? But if this does actually happen, I will claim to be an unstoppable political prophet. Until the next time that I predict that Wesley Clark will win the Dem nomination, that is.

UPDATE: The Poor Man has additional thoughts.

NO BUSH FOR GRADUATION

2004-05-10T07:39:00.000-05:00

I haven't yet brought up the issue of George W. Bush as commencement speaker for LSU's graduationg ceremony. This actually does affect me, because, believe it or not, I'm graduating. After some thought, I about a month ago made the ethical decision, which I of course encourage all others to emulate, to not attend. It strikes me as ironic that Bush, who might be thought of as the nation's highest-profile anti-intellectual, is speaking at a university graduation. As Jacob Weisberg says, Bush has embraced ignorance as a philosophy. I wonder if he even respects the accomplishments of those that will be sitting before him. Maybe he thinks we're all losers for not going to Yale. Anyway, his disparagement of knowledge and intelligent discourse is alone reason enough to boycott.

And I think he's the worst president in the history of the US.

And there's the fact that this is blatantly a politically motivated gesture. Louisiana is a swing state, after all. I see no reason to think his motives might be more pure. Simply look to Dick Cheney's speech at Westminster.

And there's the problem that I simply cannot stand listening to Bush talk for more than a few minutes. He speaks at a juvenile level. "Evil doers." "There are those who hate freedom." His speeches must be real exciting to middle schoolers. But I find his vacuous concepts and overblown or inane rhetoric to be grating.

So I've made the decision that this decidedlly is not the right note to end my undergraduate career on. I'll be drinking.

Nothing New

2004-05-10T07:32:00.000-05:00

Link:

News that American soldiers were mistreating Iraqi prisoners didn't exactly come out of nowhere, although it seems that way.

The New York Times reported last May that two dozen detainees had complained of mistreatment, quoting one man as saying a British soldier kicked him in the ribs and hit him over the head with a gun.

In October, the Los Angeles Times reported on negligent homicide charges against two Marines in the death of a prisoner, and said six others were charged with hitting and kicking prisoners. In December, the paper covered charges against a Marine officer who ordered prisoners to stand for 50 minutes each hour, handcuffed, with burlap bags over their heads.

In October, The Washington Post reported on charges against an Army commander who fired his pistol near a detainee's head. And several news organizations reported in March that six soldiers were criminally charged in the alleged assault and sexual abuse of about 20 Iraqi prisoners. Most of these stories ran on inside pages.

Amazingly, CNN reported in January that, according to a Pentagon official, "U.S. soldiers reportedly posed for photographs with partially unclothed Iraqi prisoners." The story sank without a trace.

Why didn't these reports get what political strategists call "traction"?

There were no horrifying pictures of the kind revealed by "60 Minutes II" and, later, The Post. It was hard to believe such practices were widespread. Politicians were not focusing on the issue, and the press was more concerned with American casualties.

In retrospect, these scattered allegations were missed opportunities for the media. By last week, the three newspapers and others had no trouble finding Iraqis who said they were mistreated in prison -- and playing up these accounts.

It's true, isn't it? Putting a face makes the crime more real. In what respect? One want to say that the crime is real whether we can see it or not, and therefore we're not talking ontology here. On the other hand, in a sense we give reality to these events by the way we treat them. Thus, there is an ontological difference in treating them one way compared to another.

Oh, yeah. It's finals week. Light posting.

Check out today's Boondocks while you're websurfing.

Hadn't thought of that

2004-05-06T07:03:00.000-05:00

Link:

Dr Mustafa al-Bazergan, head of the Iraq Infosearch Centre in London, told Aljazeera.net that he believes, one of the main purposes behind Iraq's occupation is to fight "terrorism" on one front.

"It was not easy for the US to fight terrorism all over the world. One of the main benefits of occupying Iraq, is the country has become an attraction point to all anti-US factions" Bazergan said.

Admittedly it's only a small quote, and I could be misreading him, but I believe the Dr is suggesting that we invaded Iraq so that it would become a target for our terrorist enemies and then we could deal with them there, all together in one place that's not America. This whole war and pissing off the Arab world is just like creating a big flytrap then.

There's a charm to this theory, which is that it suggests that there is an actual rational to the war, something that's a bit lacking these days. I wouldn't believe it however, firstly because there's a lack of evidence. Secondly, if it were true, it hasn't worked thus far. I don't know of anyone reporting thus far that Al Qaeda has up and moved all of its operation to Iraq. Thirdly, while this would put a rational for why everything has been messing up so badly for the last year, it's just too implausable. I just can't picture Bush & Co. thinking of doing something like this.

Just some thoughts

2004-05-06T05:15:00.000-05:00

I should be working on graduating, but all this latest news has me pretty down. I have expressed my shock at the whole Abu Ghrerib situation, to have them reply, "i don't find it surprising." My first instinct was disbelief, and then to think these people were just posing, making a show of being uber-worldly. But these are my friends and relatives, so maybe I'm the one that is naive. What surprises me about the situation is the extent of it. There were numerous "fail-safe" situations in place to prevent just this kind of thing, and not only did they fail, but they joined in. The regular soldiers, private employees, and CIA should have been watching each other. If they had all cooperated together, and it had been just that, I wouldn't be so out of joint about this. But there were the MPs, the military intelligence officials, the officers in charge, all the way up to the General in charge of the prison. It's this massive failure of oversight has me flabbergasted. To just make it worse, people are suggesting that these prisoners weren't even particularly bad guys. Most appear to have been innocent, locked up on cicrcumstancial evidence. Others were guilty, but they don't appear to have been serious offenders.

In other words, this isn't even an issue of torture as we're accustomed to think of it. We typically think of military torture as extreme coercion to extort information. This wasn't that. It was just for kicks. There are a few exceptions here, the Iraqi beaten to death by, apparantly, the CIA and hauled out on a fake gurny seems to have held information. But he was a "ghost prisoner," (see Billmon) and so not the typical prisoner that we're talking about. Most of them were abused for apparantly no reason other than the thrill of it.

What infuiates me more is the people tring to pass this off as something less than it is. Rush and Rumsfeld seem to be in agreement that this isn't "torture" per se. forced fellatio, anal rape, and homicide. Not torture at all. I used to think it was fun to watch Rumsfeld. He's a real asshole, and it was fun to watch him parse words, definitions, and sentences. He'd refer to the logical difficulty of falsifying a statement, thereby preserving his ridiculous assertions. What a dick, I'd laugh. Not anymore. I can't laugh about this.

What are the broader implications for Iraq? I asked myself, if I were a member of a "liberated country," and the "liberators" allowed this, would I want them to stay, no matter how much I knew we needed their money? I'm fairly certain I'd want them to fuck off. Because of this incidence, we owe Iraq more than ever, and yet they're bound to want our help less than ever.

Is it worth it? Well, here's my question: Imagine your child is serving in Iraq. Would you be willing to let that child die there so that we can keep up our perhaps futile efforts to build an Iraqi democracy? If not, how can you ask someone else to make that sacrifice? Because, by advocating that we stay, you're doing just that. I can't ask that. Let's pull out. Iraq will go through its own growing pains. The US had to do the same thing. It still is. So let them sort things out. And then write them a big check. It's not the best of all imaginable worlds, but I think it's the best solution for this one.

To whom may it concern?

2004-05-04T09:24:00.000-05:00

Seems like George Will got around to address the President on this already-much-blogged-about gaff:

There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily -- are a different color than white can self-govern."

Georgey picks up on the Prez's mispeak in characterizing America as a white nation. How that is different from characterizing America as a Christian nation, I'm not really sure, but the conservative Will knows that this one at least isn't PC. Anyway, that's a digression. I thought to myself as I was reading this, who are these people that Bush is alluding to, the racist ones? I have heard this question brought up, somewhat rarely, among liberals, but not as a racist question. It is brought up as a cultural question, are there necessary preconditions that must be met before a democracy can be established? This is a very important question, and Will, to his credit, thinks so too, although he is rather inarticulate about it. It is not enough merely to say that a democracy can be established, as Bush and Blair do, like this was some a priori fact. One must understand how to do it. And you can't do that without asking said question.

Still, that's not the racist issue? Where oh where might we find inditements that the Iraqis are savages and incapable of democracy? Well, I'm not going to look, because I just can't stand to right now, but I bet you'll find your answer over at conservative chickenhawk and warblogger sites, such as Little Green Footballs, among many others. Cruise all the liberal blogs you want, I doubt you'll find that suggestion. I'm confident you'll find it over on the right.

Now that that is put into perspective, it makes what Bush was saying even funnier, doesn't it?

Now if that isn't bizarre..

2004-05-04T03:56:00.000-05:00

Who thought of preserving this in the first place? By the by, 30 cm comes out to 12.5 inches.

Link via Jesus General.

13 Million Page Views

2004-05-03T03:17:00.000-05:00

It's amazing all the fame that an ebay listing can bring. Given the hair, the tattoos, the penchant for beer and ball games, and the references to low class in-laws, the quality of his writing is surprising. Nicely surprising.

Laughing Out Loud

2004-05-03T01:27:00.000-05:00

You know, there is a lot of criticism of Bush out there. Just to name a few, he started a needless, irresponsible war, he and his Administration are violating civil rights, he illegally stole $700 million from the Afghanistan reconstruction act...we could go on. But lot's not forget that real criticsim's aren't just for Bush, they're also for Kerry:

It is Mrs. Rocket's opinion that the American people will not elect as President a man who wears a vest with a flower power zipper pull.

Whenver I wonder how it is that people actually support Bush, I run into these little reminders. Oh and the blogger's handle is 'hindrocket', so let's not pick on someone else for quasi-homosexual imagery, hmm?

If you click the link, don't forget to check how much time this guy wasted actually checking out that flower-dealy. He must have a lot of free time. But more importantly, it shows how seriously he considers this...

A moment of Instahackery

2004-04-30T22:58:00.000-05:00

You know, I often have respect for Glenn's opinions. But fairly regularly it seems he lets his partinsianship blind him and his logic becomes real bendable. Like this post:

THE NATIONAL DEBATE says that Ted Koppel's excuses are wearing thin.

I'd still like to see Nightline present the names of all the oil-for-food money recipients. And maybe of a few Iraqi kids who died because of the fraud's keeping them from getting medicine. And maybe an interview with Kofi Annan's son, Kojo, about his role. . . .

Just in the name of balance, you know.

The implicit assumption here is that Koppel is using his station as a anchorman to make nothing more than a grand partisan gesture. The evidence, as presented in the post Glenn links to? Why it's the stone cold logical that Koppel is hoping to undermine support for the war by deliberately imitating a 1969 issue of Life that showed 241 servicemen who had died in a week in Vietnam, include FIVE casualties from the battle of Ap Bia Mountain which EVERYONE knows was THE MOMENT when American began to no longer support the Vietnam war, and therefore, Koppel is suggesting that now America doesn't support the War in Iraq! (What? You didn't get that? It was SO OBVIOUS! What are you, some kind of MORON?) If you think I'm making this up, and I'm sure it must seem that way, go read it for yourself. And believe you me, Koppel has NO defense against this kind of iron reasoning. It absolutely has been shown that he is decidedly NOT doing something to salute the fallen soldiers. That plainly just can't be!! No one would do such a thing!

The real scary thing is, it is only in the context of this ridiculousness that Glenn Reynold's comments make sense. Maybe he justs posts so fast he forgets to think. Or maybe he has bouts of temporary insanity.

Stinkers

2004-04-30T22:33:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine got one of these as a birthday gift to her friend's 5 year old son. I feel bad for the parent, but the web site IS surprisingly fun to browse. After reading the deliberately revolting and highly amusing descriptions, I wonder how long before the protests of the righteous parents. That aside, these things are rather interesting; they go to lengths to represent a variety of cultures: hippie, jack, punk, vegan, and white trash cultures. There's possibly even a representation of 'alternative lifestyles' in Butt Breath Bob. Yet they're remarkably un-PC, not just because of the their explicit nastiness, but because there don't seem to be any minorities represented. The possible exception is that Cauliflower Carl might have some mixed blood. Aside from the surpise of the all-white cast, I did watch the commercial, and there was a definate appeal to both girls and boys, although mainly to the latter. But still, I was again surprised at that, and rather glad to see it.

More honesty and straight-talk

2004-04-30T15:55:00.000-05:00

Link: (emphasis mine)

In the Rose Garden today, Mr. Bush said that despite the abuses committed by a few, the United States mission in Iraq was a noble one. "A free Iraq is in the interests of world peace, because free societies do not harbor terrorists, free societies do not threaten people or use weapons of mass destruction," the president said.

Well neither do dictatorial countries named Iraq, do they? Any wonder that so many people believe the lies that Iraq and WMD and Al-Qaeda ties? Maybe because the President keeps implying it? Moreover, where is this free Iraq? Where is even the idea of a free Iraq? It's well acknowledged that the constitution we drafted establishes anything but a sovereign Iraq. And as for the people of Iraq, how can you be free when it's too dangerous even to go outside at night? Or travel the roads? High-minded talk and pretty words, but no substance.

Will Bush have to change his tag line?

2004-04-30T05:58:00.000-05:00

I've been wondering when someone would poll the Iraqi people. Gallup did it, and the results are even worse than I would have predicted.

Only a third of the Iraqi people now believe that the American-led occupation of their country is doing more good than harm, and a solid majority support an immediate military pullout even though they fear that could put them in greater danger, according to a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll.

...

Asked whether they view the U.S.-led coalition as "liberators" or "occupiers," 71% of all respondents say "occupiers."

That figure reaches 81% if the separatist, pro-U.S. Kurdish minority in northern Iraq is not included. The negative characterization is just as high among the Shiite Muslims who were oppressed for decades by Saddam as it is among the Sunni Muslims who embraced him.

The growing negative attitude toward the Americans is also reflected in two related survey questions: 53% say they would feel less secure without the coalition in Iraq, but 57% say the foreign troops should leave anyway. Those answers were given before the current showdowns in Fallujah and Najaf between U.S. troops and guerrilla fighters.

...

"I'm not ungrateful that they took away Saddam Hussein," says Salam Ahmed, 30, a Shiite businessman. "But the job is done. Thank you very much. See you later. Bye-bye."

...

The insurgents, by contrast, seem to be gaining broad acceptance, if not outright support. If the Kurds, who make up about 13% of the poll, are taken out of the equation, more than half of Iraqis say killing U.S. troops can be justified in at least some cases. But attacks against Iraqi police officers, who are U.S.-trained, are strongly condemned by the Iraqi people.

The Bush administration has contended that the growing resistance, which has killed at least 115 Americans this month, is the work of isolated cells of former regime members or religious fanatics, often from outside Iraq.

Iraqis interviewed in Baghdad say ordinary people have lost patience with the U.S. effort to crush the insurgency and rebuild Iraq.

"I would shoot at the Americans right now if I had the chance," says Abbas Kadhum Muia, 24, who owns a bicycle shop in Sadr City, a Shiite slum of 2 million people in Baghdad that was strongly anti-Saddam and once friendly to the Americans. "At the beginning ... there were no problems, but gradually they started to show disrespect (and) encroach on our rights, arresting people."

Sabah Yeldo, a Christian who owns a liquor store across town, says American failures have left the capital with higher crime and less-reliable services, including electricity. That is "making everybody look back and seriously consider having Saddam back again instead of the Americans."

In the multiethnic Baghdad area, where a Gallup Poll last summer of 1,178 residents permits a valid comparison, only 13% of the people now say the invasion of Iraq was morally justifiable. In the 2003 poll, more than twice that number saw it as the right thing to do.

...

Only 11% of Iraqis say coalition forces are trying hard to restore basic services such as electricity and clean drinking water.

...

Iraqis expected huge improvements in all aspects of their economy within weeks of Saddam's overthrow, and most say there have been at least some improvements. But a year after Bush declared major hostilities in Iraq over, the poll shows:

Nearly half of Iraqis still report long, frequent power blackouts.

Nearly a third lack clean drinking water much of the time.

Almost everywhere except in the Kurdish north, most people are afraid to leave their homes at night.

It seems like a lot of people like the talk about bringing in the UN blue helmets and international legitimacy. But do you honestly think the Iraqis really give a rat's ass? I can tell you what the Iraqis want, anyone can. They want reliable power and clearn water. They want safe streets. They want a moving economy. And they want to be in charge of their own country. Right now, they don't have any of that, and none of it looks like it's in the near future for them, either. It would be nice if the US government would do what was necessary and commit to what it would actually take to secure Iraq. But I really, really don't see that happening. And since I don't think it will, we might as well leave right now. I believe this is what the other world nations have been realising: America isn't willing to commit what is necessary to clean up the mess, so why bother to stay?

The cynical part of me wonders if Bush will ever even ~~see~~ have this survey read to him. (He certainly won't find it on his own)

I love Huey

2004-04-29T20:37:00.000-05:00

It's like the Presidency has become the special olympics and everyone wants to give him an award just for trying.

--Aaron McGruder, The Boondocks

I think they're serious

2004-04-29T17:44:00.000-05:00

New techonology is aiming at 200GHz transistors, and therefore processors, in the near future. And they hope to accomplish this with supremely high-quality man-made diamond wafers, produced at the same cost as their silicone counterparts. I have no idea how soon this technology is to being realisable, or even if it ever will. Still, I might wait around for futher development news before buying that new computer.

Here's an article on manufactured diamonds.

"This is very rare stone," he says, almost to himself, in thickly accented English. "Yellow diamonds of this color are very hard to find. It is probably worth 10, maybe 15 thousand dollars."

"I have two more exactly like it in my pocket."

New Addition

2004-04-29T15:12:00.000-05:00

I'm adding The Daily Howler to the blogroll. Excellent semi-daily coverage of stupidity/lies/bias in the media.

Bushworld

2004-04-29T14:33:00.000-05:00

You know, Dowd wasn't always this pissed off.

Kerry's VP Revealed!

2004-04-29T05:50:00.000-05:00

The rest of the liberal blogosphere is all a-flitter today talking about how Kerry has started vetting backgrounds of potential running-mates. Most bloggers are drumming some variation of "Edwards Rules!" or "Gephardt is Suicide!" However, here at LSU Blog, we have a real insider scoop of what's going down behind locked doors in the Kerry campaign. Actually, a hermetically-sealed, subterranean, bug-free vault. This stuff's top secret. Shhhhhhhh!!!

Ready for the secret? Kerry's running mate will be......Bill Clinton. But that's not all. According to Amendment XX of the Constitution, while a person can only be elected twice to the Presidency, a person can serve a total of 10 years as President. The plan then is that Kerry will serve for two years, and then step down and let Bill rule for the last two. Then Bill will hand-off the mantle of Presidency to Hillary in 2008. (Hillary, by the way, will appoint Bill to the Supreme Court, and ensure that he becomes Chief Justice.) Hillary will easily win re-election 2012, thanks in no small part to a blooming operation to destroy the Republican party. Then, in 2016, guess who's 35? That's right! Chelsea Clinton will become the youngest American in history to become President! She will appoint Hillary to the Supreme Court of course, but I'm sure you'd already figured that out. You've got to hand it to those Clintons. They sure are diabolically clever. I hear the tentative plans right now are that America will become a one-party state somewhere around the mid-teens, and the Democrat who eventually replaces Chelsea in 2024 will officially rename the Unites States "Clintonia'. Oh and Chelsea will put her dad's face on the $1 bill her first term (heehee, "Bills"), and her mom's on the $20 her second term.

These are only the secrets I can tell you about. You should see what I CAN'T reveal! Let's just say it involves cloning research and a whole cadre of lawyers parsing the language of Amendment XX....

More on Iraq fallacies

2004-04-26T13:27:00.000-05:00

Josh Marhsall and Juan Cole have some additional comments on a pole similar to the one I posted a few days ago.

Josh Marhsall makes the point that since the majority of Americans believe the fallacies that 1) Iraq had WMD and 2)Iraq had ties to Al Qaeda, this can only be because the President is letting them believe this. Is this a case of willful passive deception, as Josh suggests, or just an effect of Bush's incapacity to admit he's wrong? I suspect it's a bit of both. While for Bush I certainly think his prime motivator is that he simply cannot admit that he was terrificly wrong and misled the nation. However, other leaders in the administration have not come forward on this issue either. Therefore I assume that it is also a game of ignoring the issue as much as possible, thereby letting people believe their previous assertions. It is quite clear that these people have no guiding philosophy of responsibility that compels them to admit that they lied to America about the causes for war. And in Bush's case his fragile vanity keeps him from doing so.

Juan Cole speculates that the poll numbers are the result of willful deception by the pro-Bush masses. What he is arguing is that people believe the lies because they are pro-Bush, not that people are pro-Bush because they believe the lies. Certainly true in some cases, but I have a problem thinking such a high percentage of people could be that willfully self-deceptive about this issue. I'm tend to think rather that many of the people who believe the fallacies do not pay much attention to the news. And it's not as if "BUSH LIED" has been featured prominently in newsprint. I can easily imagine that this story would completely slip by people who only passively observe the news. As my mother famously said to me about a decade ago, "Who's Michael Jordan?"

Dr. Cole also throws in some information about continued deception.

MR. SCHLESINGER: I think you've had testimony, or a letter, at least, from George Tenet talking about the contacts between al Qaeda and Saddam going back at least a decade.

Which, Dr. Cole points out, is either a lie or deliberately misleading. Tenet acknowledged there were no such connections while under oath before the 9/11 commission.

What we're looking at is not only willful deception by the Bush Administration and their underlings. The horrible, infuriating, sad part of the story is that the Press is letting them get away with it. The Press has forgotten its duty.

Buffo

2004-04-26T01:45:00.000-05:00

Sometimes the disconect is just too much.

For adult parties, he has an 'optional surprise ending'.

Link thanks to Dave Barry.

Mon$y

2004-04-25T14:15:00.000-05:00

This is a neat chart.

It shows on a bar graph total money raised, total spent, total on hand, and amount in debt. Useful for a side-by-side comparison of the ~~three~~ two candidates. Notice they have to add a special "thousands" section at the bottom of the graph so that Ralp Nader is even represented.

March for Women's Lives

2004-04-25T13:22:00.000-05:00

Occured today in Washington. And more unfair, inaccurate coverage in the pro-Bush New York Times:

In general, Mr. Bush has a record of opposing most legalized abortion, with exceptions for cases of rape, incest and when the life of the pregnant woman is threatened. He embraced a platform four years ago that calls for an outright ban on abortion, though he says the country is not ready for it. These days, he more typically speaks of building a "culture of life."

Exactly why, of course, his anti-abortion bill is now being challanged in three states on the grounds that it has no provision for saving the mother's life. I'm not aware of any other provision on it, either. Where do they get this stuff? Are they simply recycling propoganda without looking at the obvious facts? It seems like it.

The Lowlights

2004-04-25T04:25:00.000-05:00

Brad DeLong has a rundown of the lowlights from Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack. It should be read.

ho words

2004-04-24T23:22:00.000-05:00

Neil Gaiman once wrote that words like "freedom" and "liberty" and "equality" were 'ho words.' What he meant was that such concepts mean whatever who speaks them wants them to mean. They have no substance. Any dictator or fascist can talk about freedom and liberty. It's a time honored tradition the world over to talk pretty while comitting the darkest of acts. Just ask the Native Americans, they have some stories about that. But you don't even have to look to history. There are plenty examples going on today. People such as Maher Arar, who get shipped off to be tortured without being charged tried. After 9/11, things changed. Ashcroft and the Bush Administration said, "no more of this innocent until proven guilty stuff, they're guilty if we think they're suspicious." Just another example of this administration shredding the constitution. After 9/11, people disappeared. They were locked up, and no one was told. After 9/11, we accepted the words of lawless bounty hunters in Afghanistan that certain people were terrorists, and put them in Camp X-Ray. They were given no defense, no trial. We just took some nobodies word that these people were terrorists, paid them their money, and locked the "terrorists" away. Today, Talk Left blogs about Jose Padilla, who has been held for nearly two years without being charged, and without any trial. He's an American citizen, born and raised. This could be you, don't forget that. To paraphrase a cliche, "there but for the grace of god go I." This isn't the America we're taught about as kids, this isn't a place that inspires one with patriotism. This is sickening. I'm tired of things like this making me ashamed of being American. I want this guy to go down in flames come November. George Bush talks about freedom, about democracy, but he doesn't understand those words the way I understand them. But he speaks them anyway, and people don't realize they're just whores.

I write another letter

2004-04-24T10:39:00.000-05:00

At Atrios's suggestion, I have once again written a letter. I think I'm determined to pester Republicans this year. Thanks to Atrios' commentors for points #2 and #3.

To: RbnsEggBlu@aol.com
Subject: excommunication?

Mr Robinson,

You call for John Kerry's excommunication because he supports a
woman's right to choose whther or not she will carry a fetus. While
you yourself may disagree with Kerry's position, your call for his
excommunication is, from what knowledge I have, hypocritical, and for a variety of reasons.

1. Many other prominent politicians are both Catholic and pro-choice.
Pataki, Ridge, Giuliani, and Arnold Schwazenegger, to name a few.
If you have called for the excommunication of these politicians,
I am unaware of it. If you have not, then it is obvious you are
not interested in either religion or abortion, but are simply relying
on people's ignorance to stir up anti-Kerry sentiment. Shame on you.

2. The Pope has stated that the Catholic church opposes the death
penalty. Therefore it would seem that most Catholic Republicans
should be excommunicated. Both the death penality and abortion are
equally murder in the eyes of the Church, and I am sure it is not given
to you to say one deserves excommunication but not the other.

3. Your call for excommunication rather implies a turnabout, a flip-flop,
on the position of your party, does it not? When Kennedy ran for
President, the Republicans charged that he could not be President
because he would be a puppet of the Pope. Yet now you charge that
Kerry is unfit because he is %100 obedient to the Pope! It seems
your party does not have any real beliefs, but simply takes whichever
position is anti-Democrat. Great way to be, to stand for nothing!

Most Sincerely,
LSU Student

The NewsMedia, vanguard of democracy. (No wonder we're in such trouble)

2004-04-24T00:31:00.000-05:00

Despite statements by Richard Clarke, David Kay, Hans Blix and others, few Americans perceive most experts as saying the contrary. Only 15% said they are hearing “experts mostly agree Iraq was not providing substantial support to al Qaeda,” while 82% either said that “experts mostly agree Iraq was providing substantial support” (47%) or “experts are evenly divided on the question” (35%). Only 34% said they thought most experts believe Iraq did not have WMD, while 65% said most experts say Iraq did have them (30%) or that experts are divided on the question (35%).

…

Perhaps most relevant politically, perceptions of what the experts are saying are also highly correlated with intentions to vote for the President in the upcoming election. Among those who perceived experts as saying that Iraq had WMD, 72% said they would vote for Bush and 23% said they would vote for Kerry, while among those who perceived
experts as saying that Iraq did not have WMD, 23% said they would vote for Bush and 74% for Kerry.

Among those who perceived experts as saying that Iraq had supported al Qaeda, 62% said they would vote for Bush and 36% said they would vote for Kerry. Among those who perceived experts as saying that Iraq was not supporting al Qaeda, just 13% said they would vote for Bush and 85% for Kerry.

…

Beliefs about prewar Iraq appear to be also sustained by perceptions of claims by the Bush administration. Fifty-six percent said it was their impression that the Bush administration is claiming the US has found clear evidence that Saddam Hussein was working closely with al Qaeda, and 38% perceived the administration saying the US has found clear evidence that just before the war, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

…

On the other hand, a factor that did appear to be strikingly influential was perceptions of world public opinion on the war with Iraq. Despite polling showing that the majority of world public opinion is opposed to the US war with Iraq, only 41% were aware that this is the case. A 59% majority was unaware of this, with 21% saying that a majority of world public opinion favored the US having gone to war, and 38% saying “views are evenly balanced.”

Among those who knew that world public opinion opposed the US going to war with Iraq, only 25% thought that going to war was the right decision. Among the group that thought world public opinion was about evenly balanced, 70% said going to war was the right decision, and among those who perceived world public opinion as favoring the war, 88% said going to war the right decision.

…

Perceptions of world public opinion are also related to voting intentions. Among those who are aware that world public opinion is critical of the war, only 22% said they intended to vote for President Bush’s reelection (Kerry: 75%). Among those who thought world public opinion was about evenly balanced, Bush received support from a modest majority--53%, with 40% preferring Kerry. In the group that perceived world public opinion as favoring the war, 71% said they intended to vote for the president and only 25% said they would vote for Kerry.

Here's the full PDF file.

This survery does everything but say outright that people who are accurately informed on world events overwhelmings support Kerry. Amazing. Billmon the other day pointed out the conflicting nature of answers people are giving in polls (Is Bush trustworthy? Yes. Has Bush lied? Yes). My interpretation? Bush is teetering like a boulder delicately balanced on a pointy cliff, such as in a Road Runner cartoon. A little push, and he'll fall.

Updates

2004-04-23T20:34:00.000-05:00

You'll notice I finally got this place to archive my old posts, apparantly I had to hit a "save changes" for it to do that, even though I'm fairly certain I didn't make any changes. I've also added a number of blogs to my blogroll this week. Additions are:

Noam Chomsky
David Sirota
Dave Barry
Liberal Oasis
Mary of Naked Furniture to the Louisiana blogs, even though she's really an ex-cajun.
and The Poor Man

What Liberal Media?

2004-04-23T20:08:00.000-05:00

Think Again: Testing Media Bias

Which brings up a chance for me to, yet again, note the paradox that always puzzles me: It is undeniably apparant that Bush is treated with kid gloves. I don't necessarily mean that the press has a soft spot for Bush, I mean they treat him like a kid. Besides the fact that this administration is more hell-bent as a whole an avoiding answering any questions than any I have ever seen, (OK, I admit, I can only really compare it to the previous administration...I miss Slick Willy, who was actually fond of talking to the people and answering questions, as long as they were unrelated to blowjobs) but Bush gets underhanded-softball questions. What I take from this is it's an effect of everyone's low opinion of Bush's intellect. In other words, the press does not really expect him to answer Presidential questions in a Presidential manner, and neither do his supporters. They're fine with the fact that he's not proficient in talking about politics. I suppse it's forgivable as long as he keeps making those empty, grandiloquent speech. They're kind of like sugar, people really like it, but it's devoid of actual nutritional content.

The curse of the democrats, as any impassive observer should note, is not just that they're grilled, that's fine, it's that they get loaded questions. The one's Russert threw at John Kerry weren't even that bad. Not compared to the treatment of Democrats on Fox. "Sir, are you a rapist, or merely a pedophile?!"

Why is this? Most people will say "money." And I certainly think that. De-regulation, tax breaks for the rich...times are good for TV station owners when Republicans are in control. (Of course, some, say Donald Trump, think this is a bit short sided; "it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans.") But maybe there's more to it than that. Maybe Republicans tend to get more outraged if their guys get tossed tricky questions, and they make some noise, but Democrats just stew quietly. I really have no way of knowing if this is true, but maybe we should start writing more letters.

Good Lord

2004-04-23T14:14:00.000-05:00

Link (all emphasis mine)

Orphans and babies as young as three months old have been used as guinea pigs in potentially dangerous medical experiments sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, an Observer investigation has revealed.

British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline is embroiled in the scandal. The firm sponsored experiments on the children from Incarnation Children's Centre, a New York care home that specialises in treating HIV sufferers and is run by Catholic charities.

The children had either been infected with HIV or born to HIV-positive mothers. Their parents were dead, untraceable or deemed unfit to look after them.

According to documents obtained by The Observer, Glaxo has sponsored at least four medical trials since 1995 using Hispanic and black children at Incarnation. The documents give details of all clinical trials in the US and reveal the experiments sponsored by Glaxo were designed to test the 'safety and tolerance' of Aids medications, some of which have potentially dangerous side effects. Glaxo manufactures a number of drugs designed to treat HIV, including AZT.

Normally trials on children would require parental consent but, as the infants are in care, New York's authorities hold that role.

...

The medical establishment has defended the trials arguing they enabled these children to obtain state-of-the-art therapy they would otherwise not have received for potentially fatal illnesses.

However, health campaigners argue there is a difference between providing the latest drugs and experimentation. They claim many of the experiments were 'phase 1 trials' - among the most risky - and that HIV tests for babies were not a reliable indicator of actual infection and therefore toxic drugs could have been given to healthy infants. HIV drugs are similar to those used in chemotherapy and can have serious side-effects.

I don't know what to think about this. On one hand, it's not Nazi scientists who were administering the test; they were run by Columbia Medical University doctors. On the other hand, this really doesn't seem safe at all, and it would seem that these tests were only administered to impoverished ethnic minority orphans. In other words, it is not impossible to think that these babies would be seen as 'others', or less-human-than-those-monied-white-children. The article mentions an investigation is looking into this, and there's possible deaths to report. I'll suspend judgement until more facts are in.

So many...

2004-04-23T13:05:00.000-05:00

The Rock and Roll Confidential douchebag hall of fame.

How bad can you suck?

Winner!!

Bugs, lines, and...isometric constructor!

2004-04-23T12:56:00.000-05:00

A really neat website with a whole lot of interactive fun with flash. What's your favorite?

Link thanks to Space Tramp

John Kerry is a flip-flopper!!

2004-04-23T12:38:00.000-05:00

SHOCKING!! The DRUDE REPORT reports that John Kerry is now pro-choice, but in 1972 he said it was an issue for the states to decide!! How can we ever believe this guy?!?

Of course, the DRUDGE REPORT fails to mention that roundabout those same times, George W. Bush was reported to have bought an abortion for his girlfriend.

The Secret Finger Trick

2004-04-22T22:27:00.000-05:00

I know what you're thinking

Corrupt and Incompetent

2004-04-22T21:44:00.000-05:00

Talk Left blogs on the problems of a few Louisiana Judges

New Library?

2004-04-22T01:11:00.000-05:00

A friend told me today that Shaquille O'Neal had recently/soon will donate(d) $40 million to LSU to rebuild our horridly ugly Middleton Library. Great news, I thought, but I have since been unable to find any confirmation of this. Has anyone else heard anything?

Wasn't there a (bad) movie about this or something?

2004-04-21T23:13:00.000-05:00

Link:

It is little known that lying underneath one of The United States largest and most picturesque National Parks - Yellowstone Park - is one of the largest "super volcanoes" in the world.

it IS little known.

Scientists have revealed that Yellowstone Park has been on a regular eruption cycle of 600,000 years. The last eruption was 640,000 years ago…so the next is overdue. The next eruption could be 2,500 times the size of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption. Volcanologists have been tracking the movement of magma under the park and have calculated that in parts of Yellowstone the ground has risen over seventy centimeters this century.

...

The explosion would send ash, dust, and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, reflecting the sun's rays and creating a cold wave lasting several years. Crops in many areas would fail and many species of animals and plants would face extinction.

Volcanic activity began in the Yellowstone National Park region a little before about 2 million years ago. Molten rock (magma) rising from deep within the Earth produced three cataclysmic eruptions more powerful than any in the world's recorded history. The first caldera-forming eruption occurred about 2.1 million years ago. The eruptive blast removed so much magma from its subsurface storage reservoir that the ground above it collapsed into the magma chamber and left a gigantic depression in the ground- a hole larger than the state of Rhode Island. The huge crater, known as a caldera, measured as much as 80 kilometers long, 65 kilometers wide, and hundreds of meters deep, extending from outside of Yellowstone National Park into the central area of the Park.

The most recent caldera-forming eruption about 650,000 years ago produced a caldera 53 x 28 miles (85 x 45 kilometers) across in what is now Yellowstone National Park (Figure 2). During that eruption, ground-hugging flows of hot volcanic ash, pumice, and gases swept across an area of more than 3,000 square miles. When these enormous pyroclastic flows finally stopped, they solidified to form a layer of rock called the Lava Creek Tuff. Its volume was about 240 cubic miles (1,000 cubic kilometers), enough material to cover Wyoming with a layer 13 feet thick or the entire conterminous United States with a layer 5 inches thick. The Lava Creek Tuff has been exposed by erosion at Tuff Cliff, a popular Yellowstone attraction along the lower Gibbon River.

Browsing around Google, you'll find a numbe of Yellowstone-Armaggedon alarmists. There were apparantly a number of micro quakes about a year ago, and it is set to go off in the near future...geologically speaking. Scientists seem fairly confident it will erupt sometime in the next 100,000 years. The question, however, is sooner or later? My advice? Yellowstone postcards are sure to increase in price once it's gone.

I Send Letters

2004-04-21T22:09:00.000-05:00

Following the suggestion made by the Majority Report, I sent out an e-mail to the New York Times (public@nytimes.com) and the Washington Post (Hiatt@washpost.com). Go ahead and do the same! Get this story on the front pages!

Subject: 700 Million Stolen (This is not a form e-mail)

George W. Bush illegally stole $700 million from the money which Congress appropriated for the rebuilding Afghanistan, and diverted it, unbeknownst to Congress of the American people, to funding his Crusade in Iraq. This is potentially an impeachable offense! This story should be on the front page of your newspaper; it should be on the front page of your website; there should be some real investigative journalism on this issue. After the continuous and extensive attention your paper gave to the Clinton land-deal, which turned out to be perfectly legal, you owe it to America to give even more attention to this story about the legally-dubious activities of Mr. Bush while President. He has lied to and misled the American people, all the while the watchdogs of democracy are sleeping. This is an issue that deserves our national attention.

I submit to you this summary of the nature of the crime, written by Dave Sirota, and found on his web log [http://www.davidsirota.com/blogarchive/2004_04_18_davidsirota_archive.html#108250001704787023]:

Sincerely,

- BUSH REQUIRED TO TELL CONGRESS, IF DREW FUNDS FROM THE 9/11 SUPPLEMENTAL: While the President was given discretion to direct $10 billion of the post-9/11 Emergency Supplemental bill, the legislation specifically obligated the President to "consult with the chairmen and ranking minority members of the Committees on Appropriations prior to the transfer" of any funds. In other words, the President was obligated to tell key congressional leaders of both parties anytime he moved money. [Source: Text of HR 2888, Post-9/11 Emergency Appropriations, 9/14/01]

- BUSH DELIBERATELY USED VAGUE LANGUAGE IN DOCUMENTS TO HIDE SECRET MOVE: The White House issued two legally mandated updates to Congress about where the 9/14/01 supplemental funds were being spent. Both covered portions of the time Bush made his $700 million order. But in these documents, instead of telling Congress money was going to Iraq, the White House deliberately used vague and evasive language. For instance, in both of its updates to the Appropriations Committee, the Administration only said it had used monies for "increased situational awareness" and "increased worldwide posture" – and did not mention Iraq at all. [Source: OMB Notification, 8/9/02 & 10/17/02]

- SUMMER SUPPLEMENTAL REQUIRED BUSH TO TELL CONGRESS BEFORE MOVING FUNDS: According to the text of the August 2002 Supplemental, the Bush Administration was only permitted to transfer "up to $275 million" of previously appropriated funds within the Pentagon, and only "15 days after notification to the congressional defense committees." In other words, the White House was obligated to tell Congress if money was moved. [Source: Supplemental Bill, 8/2/02]

- SUMMER SUPPLEMENTAL REQUIRED BUSH TO TELL CONGRESS IF FUNDS GIVEN TO FRONTLINE STATES: According to the text of the August 2002 Supplemental, the President was allowed to use $390 million for aid to countries assisting with the Global War on Terror. However, that money could only be spent only after “15 days following notification to the appropriate Congressional committees.” [Source: Supplemental Bill, HR 4775, 8/2/02]

- UNABLE TO PRODUCE ANY EVIDENCE BUSH EVER MENTIONED IRAQ TO CONGRESS: The Administration has yet to produce one reprogramming or transfer notice to Congress about the supplemental which mentioned Iraq. White House spokesman Scott McClellan “added that the White House had asked the Pentagon comptroller and OMB to document what had happened” but there has still been no evidence. [Source: LA Times, 4/20/04]

- CHAIRMAN OF THE SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE SAYS WHITE HOUSE DID NOT INFORM HIM: Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), who in 2002 was Chairman of the Appropriations Committee (the committee the President was legally obligated to report money transfers to), issued a statement on 4/20/04 saying, "To the best of my knowledge the Bush White House provided no consultations as required by law about its use of funds for preparation for a war in Iraq in advance of those funds being spent. There is nothing contained in the Administration's quarterly reports indicating that projects were being funded to prepare for war with Iraq. If the Woodward allegations are true, then the Administration failed to abide by the law to consult with and fully inform Congress."

Kerry's Record

2004-04-21T20:41:00.000-05:00

DailyKos blogs today on Kerry's glowing reviews from his CO's while in Vietnam.

When was the last time we had a President who had killed another man in hand to hand combat? Maybe Teddy Roosevelt?

They Were Wrong

2004-04-21T17:59:00.000-05:00

Despite the reports and testimony by UN Weapons Inspectors, high level Iraqi nuclear scientists, and even one of Saddam's own sons, this Administration insisted that Saddam Hussein had and was building more WMDs. They were wrong.

Despite reports from the Pentagon to the contrary, this Administration predicted we'd be welcomed as liberators and widely loved by the Iraqi people. They were wrong.

Despite military officials predictions that would need a large, long-term troop presence in Iraq, this Administration predicted that there would be only 30,000 US troops as of last August. They were wrong.

Despite Pentago reports to the contrary, this Administration repeatedly asserted that the Iraq war would cost the US Taxes payers little, a couple billion at most. They were wrong.

This Administration for months has repeatedly and repeatedly said that there were only small pockets of resistence in Iraq. They have stressed how we were still supported by the vast majority of the Iraqi people. They were wrong.

This Administration still insists that they can hand over sovreignity on June 30th. They will be wrong.

Among the other questions this provokes, why oh why does Paul Wofowitz still have a job? He has not just been wrong, but MAGNIFICENTLY wrong. He has ignored all the experts, denying researched analysis because of his faith. The man is beyond incompetent. But, examining the history of this Administration is going, that probably means he'll get a big promotion. At the very, very least, this Administration owes it to the American people to fire Wofowitz.

[I now there barely any links up there, but I'm rather busy today. Besides, most of what I mentioin is so well documented that any passive observer of the news has already heard it. I don't believe I'm mentioning anything that's controversial.]

Democrats and War

2004-04-20T21:42:00.000-05:00

I was just having a discussion with my roomate over something that I've been mulliing about lately, and thought I'd put my thoughts down here. One of the most persistent memes that floats around these days is that EVERYONE KNOWS that democrats are dovish. We don't like wars or conflict or violence, we really can't handle body counts. Just look to this debate, linked to by Ogged, where the senior editor of the national review simply takes it as a given that a hypothetical Democratic president, be it Clinton or Kerry, would not have declared war on Afghanistan, but would have pussy footed it. Of course, this assertion is a ridiculous one to make because it is neither falsifiable nor is it possible to be true. It's sort of like the playground "my dad would kick you'r dad's ass."

Where did this assumption come from? World War I, WWII, the Vietnam War, all began by Democrats. Nixon actually ran and won handsomely BOTH TIMES on the platform that he was going to get us out of Vietnam! I don't remember know where I saw it, but a count of Presidents who instigated military actions in the last century is heavily in favor of the Democrats. So, who's Dovish? Where does it come from? I think, if I may be allowed to theorize, that the perception of Democrats as doves is the effect of massive propoganda since the countery-culture revolution. The fact that liberals declared that the Vietnam War was immoral is still being held against them to identity them as dovish! It's amazing the amount of people who still think the Vietnam War was a good idea. Of course we can't also ignore that a percent of the liberal population was against Reagan's massive build up in the 80s and all that nuke scare. Well, after the fall of the Wall, we know that such a build-up wasn't necessary at all. It maybe hastened to fall of the USSR by a year or two. And created a whole lot of much longer-lasting problems. Of course, to this conservatives reply, "you couldn't have known it at the time!' Bulls&$. It all depends upon who you take as your source. That "there was no one predicting the immanent collapse of the USSR" is patently untrue. It just happens that conservatives didn't listen to such analysis, or replied that it wasn't valid. Whatever. Given history, and you may call it revision history, but it's true that we would have been better off to follow the dovish policy.

So, because of rational objections to 2 insane military operations, liberals are "doves." Meanwhile, when it comes to actual, valid military operations, say WWII, liberals have been more supportive of these actions than conservatives. We see this again today...a democratic President pushed for war in Bosnia, got it, and it's turned out OK. Not perfect, but what does? Meanwhile, the conservative agenda once againe pushed for an irrational war that history is already showing that we had no need to fight, and, right now, the possibilities of the outcome of that war seem to be either really bad, or very bad.

politics on the brain

2004-04-20T01:08:00.000-05:00

LOS ANGELES, April 16 — The political consultants discreetly observed from the next room as their subject watched the campaign commercials. But in this political experiment, unlike the usual ones, the subject did not respond by turning a dial or discussing his reactions with a focus group.

He lay inside an M.R.I. machine, watching commercials playing on the inside of his goggles as neuroscientists from the University of California, Los Angeles, measured the blood flow in his brain. Instead of asking the subject, John Graham, a Democratic voter, what he thought of the use of Sept. 11 images in a Bush campaign commercial, the researchers noted which parts of Mr. Graham's brain were active as he watched. The active parts, they also noted, were different from the parts that had lighted up in earlier tests with Republican brains.

I'm not exactly sure what the point of this research is. It doesn't seem like they're trying to discover what distinguishes Republicans from Democrats, and I think that would be a futile pursuit using MRI's. The research seems to be limited to studying the neurological effects of campaign ads. This efford is being pushed by two political consultants. It does seem that their research is designed to be used for creating more efficient campaign ads. Just what we need!

Weekend Movies

2004-04-19T02:47:00.000-05:00

Jesse Taylor has movie reviews of The Punisher and Kill Bill Vol II, and I thought I'd add my own takes. I have not seen Punisher, nor will I. If you're anything of a comic book fan, you know Marvel comics has produced an awful lot of shitty titles. But, were I to vote on the worse, long-running title Marvel ever came up with, it would be Punisher. It captured everything that has ever been wrong with comics, but with none of the silver lining that made some other titles at least palatable. Punisher was the bad-ass, ultra-tough father-figure all the bullied geeks who read comic books, in their more pathetic moments, dreamt about being (NB: I'm not really singling comic book geeks on this, i'm quite sure everyone has these moments). So, am I surprised that a move, much less a re-make, made upon this trash would fail to pique my interest? Nope. The Punisher should also be up for an award for the least-enticing trailer of the year. To be fair, I haven't read any professional critic's review of this movie, why waste my time? But I have read a few incredibly enthusiastic and favorable reviews, and they have been more than enough to convince me that this movie is a stinker.

Having seen Kill Bill Vol II on opening night and had time to think about it, as well as re-watch parts of episode one, I'm going to opine that Vol I was the stronger of the two. Maybe I'll change my mind if they add in Caradine's fight scene on the DVD (the Vol I DVD doesn't come with deleted scenes, to my extreme disappointment). I thought one of the biggest weaknesses was Caradine's babbling towards the end of the film. And the Superman speech? Pointless; it was trite and a little boring. A good amount of time was spent humanizing Bill, which I am for, but it went too far. Bill seemed just too ordinary by the end of the film, more of a clever little trickster than a dangerous force in his own right. The second volume ended up marginalizing the mystique of power and presence that the first volume so effectively set up. The other weakness that bothered me, and I know I'm being a bit picky, was the sword-crossing finale in the much-raved on fight between Uma and Daryl Hannah. They swung and crossed swords blade to blade?? From my own nerdy research on the subject, this is a great way of running/breaking your sword, and all samurai knew not to do this. I know it's silly to pick on these films for any unrealisticalities, but it was Tarantino's decsion to make such a big deal about the swords, and it really seemed to me that someone should have called that bit to Tarantino's attention. I'll right, I've picked on the weaknesses enough; I really enjoyed the film, and if I were to go on about everything that was great about it, it would take me much longer.

Oh and, by the way, one of Jesse's commenters points out that you can see the Bride's name in Vol I if you pause the scene where she receives her ticket to go to Tokyo. I've checked, and it's there. Just a bit of film trivia.

QC

2004-04-19T02:18:00.000-05:00

I'd like to share with you a little web comic I've been enjoying. It starts off slow, but I inexplicably kept reading nonetheless, and ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Now I can't wait for updates. Link: Questionable Content

Bush is Insufficiently Christian!

2004-04-18T01:12:00.000-05:00

Dear sirs! We are outraged, outraged! that George W. Bush gets away with portraying his image as a proper "Christian" in this country! He is a Judas! He has sold his Christian morals for 30 shekels of silver worth of political advantage!

In a way, I have more respect for these people I do for most of the right. Sure they hold some beliefs I find bizarre, but they are Christian, and there are many beliefs I find bizarre to be found in the Bible. But they do not, like many on the right, let the fact that George Bush is a Republican blind them from seeing that he does not act in a manner consistent with Republican ideology. Namely, he's for intrusive governent, runaway deficits, against accountability, against visibility in government, and he seems to encourage his senior officials to engage in meaningless semantic wordplay ("historical document," not memo, "series of actionable items," not plan, "discussions," not negotians). To be fair, he has stubbornly cut taxes, outlawed late-term abortions, and promoted faith-based initiatives. But what's that make him, quasi-Republican in ideology? Seems they'd want a higher standard.

Link via Kevin Drum

Deja Vu

2004-04-17T19:59:00.000-05:00

Leader of Hamas Is Killed by Israel in Missile Attack in Gaza

This comes right on the heels of Bush's capitulation of Sharon's demands. Did they plan this before they knew Bush would support them so broadly? Of course, but that they did it anyway is further proof of what we shoudl already know by now: that Israel gives about as much about us as the Bush administration does about Britian. Anyway, I think there is no other way to read this except that it's in Israeli show of force to let everyone know that they are pulling out of Gaza of their own free will, and not because of 'terrorist coercion'. It's the state version of Eric Cartman, "I do what I want!"

UPDATE: There appears to be some disagreement as to the condition of Abdel Aziz Rantisi. This title of this new Salon article is, "Hamas leader wounded in Israeli strike." Interesting.

Final Word? I doubt it.

2004-04-17T19:39:00.000-05:00

Froz Gobo picks up on the Kerry Purple Heart issue which I have previously blogged about. He adds a new source, an article from Salon. The article lists the rules by which one qualifies for a purple heart, which Kerry plainly met. About the issue of Kerry's CO, Lt. Cmdr. Grant Hibbard, Salon has this to say:

Unfortunately, the Boston Globe and New York Post stories omit fully reporting the bylaws. They present Hibbard at face value, downplaying the fact that he is a Republican criticizing a fellow veteran hoping to cause him public embarrassment. According to the Globe, Hibbard -- in classic blowhard fashion -- said Kerry "had a little scratch on his forearm, and he was holding a piece of shrapnel." Adding further verbal insult, Hibbard apparently claimed: "I've had thorns from a rose that were worse." The straight-faced Globe reporter, in fact, claims that Hibbard told him that Kerry's wound resembled a "scrape from a fingernail." Not included in either newspaper account, however, is Kerry's medical report from the incident. He shared it with me last year when I was writing "Tour of Duty." It reads: "3 DEC 1968 U.S. NAVAL SUPPORT FACILITY CAM RANH BAY RVN FPO Shrapnel in left arm above elbow. Shrapnel removed and appl. Bacitracin. Ret. to duty." Is shrapnel removed from an arm really like a "scrape from a fingernail"? Or a thorn prick? The answer, of course, as any sensible person can surmise, is no.

Which raises the question: Why the medical record omission? Why the cruel attempt publicly to mock Kerry for his wound? Why the media need to play "gotcha" with something as sensitive as a war injury? This Dec. 3 medical report is proof that Kerry had shrapnel taken from his arm. According to Kerry, who should know, the doctor wrapped a clean white bandage around his arm. After the procedure he rightfully put in for a Purple Heart. Kerry clearly met the requirements -- as listed above -- for deserving one. From the hospital room Kerry returned to duty. That's apparently when he held the shrapnel out in his palm for Hibbard to see.

The Globe, however, let Hibbard off the hook, no serious questions asked. On the one hand he claimed Kerry was holding his shrapnel and then he also claims it was a scratch. Are we to believe that following his surgical procedure Kerry went to Hibbard and ripped off his battle dressing to show him the wound that looked like a "scrape from a fingernail"? Or is Hibbard simply surmising it was a thorn prick?

Sounds like someone has an axe to grind, doesn't it?

The Kurt Cobain Murder Investigation

2004-04-16T17:52:00.000-05:00

Did Courtney kill Kurt? A lot of people think so. Tom Grant, the original investigator hired by Love to find the "missing" Cobain, makes the case for it. There's also a new book out, based upon Grant's investigations. It's interesting stuff.

For the police to label this as a 'textbook suicide' makes no sense," Grant said. "If for some reason they find it really was, which I stress, there is no way they will, then it will be the oddest, the rarest, and the strangest suicide in history."

Random Book Quote Chain Blog

2004-04-16T03:51:00.000-05:00

From Unfogged, a blog-perversion of the chain letter. The rules are:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the sentence on your blog along with these instructions.

I'm game. Step #1 does present a little bit of a problem, however, because of the way I live. I have a quarter-circle of books around me, so, they're all roughly equally distant. Picking and choosing would seem to violate the game's spirit of randomness. Which leaves us with only one scientifically valid option: eenie-meenie-miney-moe. And the winner is:

It erases itself in presenting itself, muffles itself in resonating, like the a writing itself, inscribing its pyramind in differance.

Jacques Derrida, Margins of Philosophy

Postscript: I see Naked Furniture has one of these, as well.

Race, Politics, Louisiana

2004-04-16T02:44:00.000-05:00

I missed this one, Orcinus posted on April 3rd about the crucial role of race in Louisiana's last gubbernatorial election, which many, myself included, believe decided the outcome. It's a must if you're interested in politics in Louisiana, which in turn means racial politics here in the South, which is a big factor in the upcoming November Presidential election.

PS. In case you don't remember, the race was between Bobby Jindall and Kathleen Blanco.

For love or money?

2004-04-16T01:27:00.000-05:00

Who knew porn payed this well?

JENNA JAMESON was giving this writer a winter tour of her 6,700-square-foot Spanish-style palace, bought two years ago for $2 million, which she made through her pornography empire.

Two religious paintings grace her walls without irony: "St. Joseph Revealing the Madonna and Child to St. Dominic," which her husband, Jay Grdina, said was a 17th-century Spanish work, and "The Birth of Mary," an 18th-century Cuzqueño work from Peru.

Then there are the pictures of Ms. Jameson. "That's the first time I was portrayed in a major magazine photo," she said, pointing to a framed April 2003 Hustler cover. "It was a big deal for me."

...

The house was six years old when they bought it. They redid the walls in hand-painted fake stone and marble finishes and in a leatherlike finish in their bedroom. The front door, of glass and hand-forged metal, is 20 feet high. "It weighs in excess of a ton," Mr. Grdina said proudly. The entrance hall floor is marble and stone inlay and there is a bronze and alabaster chandelier. There is also a gold-plated custom-frame low-rider bicycle that Ms. Jameson gave Mr. Grdina for his birthday.

She showed off her walk-in closet, with 400 to 500 pairs of shoes and hundreds of matching handbags. "I'm psychotic about purses and shoes," she said in her slightly hoarse smoker's voice.

The master bedroom has a king-size bed with an ostrich-skin headboard and feathered pillows. The bathroom contains a 6-by-7-foot bathtub-Jacuzzi on a raised platform. The couple say they plan to have children and will someday add a 1,500-square-foot guest house with a garage, gym and office.

The house is the center for family gatherings (both his and hers live nearby) on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Her father, Lawrence Massoli, is a retired county sheriff. Her brother, Tony Massoli, owns a tattoo parlor in nearby Phoenix, where he lives with his wife and child. As Ms. Jameson showed off the house, her father dropped by. Has he seen her videos? He assumed a horrified expression. "No!" he said.

Gee, the "walls" are fake?

Link via Fleshbot, which operates out of New Orleans.

Problems in Nation Building

2004-04-15T09:55:00.000-05:00

...
"The dropping of the bridges was very interesting, because it showed a regional or even a national level of organization," Pittard said in an interview. He said insurgents appeared to be sending information southward, communicating about routes being taken by U.S. forces and then getting sufficient amounts of explosives to key bridges ahead of the convoys.

Maj. Kreg Schnell, Pittard's intelligence chief, agreed with Batiste's assessment. "There's been a marriage of convenience between Sadr's militia and Saddam loyalists," he said.

You know what you don't see? A major Iraqi force opposing attacks on Americans. That's conspicuously missing. How do you propose to bring "freedom and democracy" (of a sort) to a people who are convinced that you're a bunch of assholes that should be shot? Yeah, I don't know either.

I need a drink

2004-04-15T09:40:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, I'm just not cynical enough. I wondered a few days ago as to whether the august 6th PDB was the only one of its kind to alert the Preznit of a looming Al Qaeda attack. At the time, I didn't consider it likely at all that there were others, because, you know, that would have been just too awful. I was wrong.

By the time a CIA briefer gave President Bush the Aug. 6, 2001, President's Daily Brief headlined "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US," the president had seen a stream of alarming reports on al Qaeda's intentions. So had Vice President Cheney and Bush's top national security team, according to newly declassified information released yesterday by the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

I'm Al Franken, going Oy, Oy, Oy, Oy, Oy....Now, here comes the outrage. WHY DID WE HAVE TO WAIT 2 AND A HALF YEARS TO FIND THIS OUT!!!!!!!!! THIS SHOULD HAVE COME OUT LONG AGO!!!! JESUS BLOODY CHRIST!! COOPERATING WITH THE 9/11 COMMISSION MY ASS!!! I'd say that Bush has forgotten this is a democracy, but y'know, I don't think he's ever understood that.

The government moved on several fronts to counter the threats. The CIA launched "disruption operations" in 20 countries. Tenet met or phoned 20 foreign intelligence officials. Units of the 5th Fleet were redeployed. Embassies went on alert. Cheney called Crown Prince Adbullah of Saudi Arabia to ask for help. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice asked the CIA to brief Attorney General John D. Ashcroft about an "imminent" terrorist attack whose location was unknown.

"The system was blinking red," Tenet told the commission in private testimony, the panel's report noted.

In this context, Bush "had occasionally asked his briefers whether any of the threats pointed to the United States," the report said. Or, as one U.S. senior official more intimately involved in the summer reporting paraphrased the president's question to the CIA: "This guy going to strike here?"

A partial answer was contained in the very first sentence of the Aug. 6 President's Daily Brief: "Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US."

Fred Kaplan is Un-American

2004-04-15T05:51:00.000-05:00

Another Fred Kaplan article in slate. The man is on fire lately.

The official story about the PDB is that the CIA prepared it at the president's request. Bush had heard all Tenet's briefings about a possible al-Qaida attack overseas, the tale goes, and he wanted to know if Bin Laden might strike here. This story is almost certainly untrue. On March 19 of this year, Tenet told the 9/11 commission that the PDB had been prepared, as usual, at a CIA analyst's initiative. He later retracted that testimony, saying the president had asked for the briefing. Tenet embellished his new narrative, saying that the CIA officer who gave the briefing to Bush and Condi Rice started by reminding the president that he had requested it. But as Rice has since testified, she was not present during the briefing; she wasn't in Texas. Someone should ask: Was that the only part of the tale that Tenet made up? Or did he invent the whole thing—and, if so, on whose orders?

The distinction is important. If Bush asked for the briefing, it suggests that he at least cared about the subject; then the puzzle becomes why he didn't follow up on its conclusions. If he didn't ask for the briefing, then he comes off as simply aloof. (It's a toss-up which conclusion is more disturbing.)

That's not even the best part of the article, just a follow-up on Bush's need to affirm his "hero" image. You should read the whole thing.

Purple Heart, redux

2004-04-15T01:16:00.000-05:00

Glenn Reynolds links to a Boston Globe article that is critical of Kerry's first purple heart

"He had a little scratch on his forearm, and he was holding a piece of shrapnel," recalled Kerry's commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Grant Hibbard. "People in the office were saying, `I don't think we got any fire,' and there is a guy holding a little piece of shrapnel in his palm." Hibbard said he couldn't be certain whether Kerry actually came under fire on Dec. 2, 1968, the date in questionand that is why he said he asked Kerry questions about the matter.

Well, gee, if people in the office weren't sure that a guy and his crew out on a mission came under fire, then they must not have. The same article gives a description of the events surrounding the 'scratch'

The incident that led to Kerry's first Purple Heart was risky, and covert. He and his crew left the safe confines of the huge US base at Cam Ranh Bay, climbing aboard a "skimmer" boat -- a craft similar to a Boston Whaler -- to travel upriver in search of Viet Cong guerrillas. At a beach that was known as a crossing area for enemy contraband traffic, Kerry's crew spotted some people running from a sampan, a flat-bottomed boat, to a nearby shoreline, according to two men serving alongside Kerry that night, William Zaladonis and Patrick Runyon. When the Vietnamese refused to obey a call to stop, Kerry authorized firing to begin.

"I assume they fired back," Zaladonis recalled in an interview. But neither he nor Runyon saw the source of the shrapnel that lodged in Kerry's arm. '`We came across the bay onto the beach and I got [hit] in the arm, got shrapnel in the arm," Kerry told the Globe in a 2003 interview. Kerry has also said he didn't know where the shrapnel came from.

What gets me is that a lot of people are trying to make hay out of the fact that Kerry received purple hearts for minor wounds. Why am I upset about this? After all, character is an issue. But we as a nation seemingly decided that youthful indescretions are excusable, hence, George Bush, despite years of alcohol abuse, is President. After this, Republicans want to diss Kerry for receiving wounds on life-threatening missions in Vietnam that were maybe to minor to merit a Purple Heart? It's no wonder that the main Bush campaign itself hasn't picked up on this, but, as I've mentioned before, the Rebulican organization is being sure to spread the word. In a word, I'm pissed at the double standard. Anymore, people don't even realize that they're not holding Bush accountable at the same level; it's become accepted that he gets to slide. Reminds me of jocks in high school.

Kerry went on to earn another two Purple Hearts and he led more than two dozen missions in which he often faced enemy fire. He won the Silver Star for an action in which he killed an enemy soldier who carried a loaded rocket launcher that could have destroyed Kerry's six-man patrol boat, and he won a Bronze Star for rescuing an Army lieutenant who was thrown overboard and under fire.

Of course, if the Right had any consistency, then we would be seeing questioning a brave American soldier about the duty he rendered to his country in Vietnam denounced as UnAmerican. Don't get me wrong though; I'm glad it's not.

90 Day Roulette

2004-04-14T22:20:00.000-05:00

I first learned about this over at 2 Millionth Weblog and it deserves more attention: despite repeated promises, tours in Iraq are being extended for 3 months for 10,000 US Soldiers who have already been in Iraq for a year. This includes many solderis from here in Louisiana.

...
LAFAYETTE -- A Louisiana National Guard brigade with about 4,000 soldiers has been activated for overseas service, and about 3,000 Fort Polk-based soldiers will remain in Iraq longer than expected, military authorities said Wednesday...Welcome home ceremonies at Fort Polk, scheduled this month, were canceled.

...
The 23 self-inflicted deaths translate to an annual suicide rate of 17.3 per 100,000 soldiers, much higher than the average over-all Army rate of 11.9 per 100,000 between 1995 and 2002.

Last year's Army rate in the Iraq mission was also higher than the 15.6 rate for all military branches serving in the Vietnam War, and the 3.6 rate for all branches serving the 1991 Gulf War, said Col. Bruce E. Crow, the chief psychologist at Madigan Army Medical Center at Ft. Lewis, Wash. Crow spoke Thursday at a Pentagon press conference.

...
During 1990 and 1991 some 696,778 individuals served in the Persian Gulf as elements of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Of these, 148 were killed in battle, 467 were wounded in action and 145 were killed in accidents, producing a total of 760 casualties

There are ~130,000 soldiers in Iraq now, 686 deaths since the war began, and 3732 wounded. As a rough approximating, equating the time we've been in Iraq this time with the time we were in Iraq last time, the deat rate in Iraq now is roughly 25 times greater.

Bush and Infalibility

2004-04-14T21:17:00.000-05:00

Atrios on Air America right now is cutting into Bush for having a psychological impairment to admitting he's wrong or made a mistake. This makes perfect sense to me given Bush's history; growing up in highly privleged, rich and powerful father, and yet Bush has been a screw-up from as far back as we know. Lackluster grades, drunkeness, and then he got into an oil business, and went bankrupt, 3, maybe 4 times. With a history of such failure, is it surprising that he's developed a block in his mind that he's responsible? For him to claim responsibility for his life, beginning with such resources and expectations, met only by such failures, that would be crushing. I think, for Bush, admitting responsibility at this point would might set off a psychological domino effect, forcing him to take responsibility not just for his Presidency, but for his life. And to do so at this point now in his life would be a very heavy thing to do. On the reverse side, this might be said to be exhibited by his compulsive desire to claim credit for whatever he can, even when he shouldn't.

The Bush Mind

2004-04-14T13:57:00.000-05:00

Will Saletin has a nice article on last night's press conference and the inner workings of Bush's mind. Of course, he is making inferences, but by doing so he is trying to explain Bush's answer's to the questions posed. His readings of Bush's self-justififying may seem harsh, but maybe not in comparison to the other explanations, which are that Bush is either just irrational or that he's oblvious to why his answer's aren't answers, which would imply that he's an idiot. No, I think we should believe that Bush believe's in his answers, which implies that the tautological model which Saletin demonstrates is fairly accurate.

Bush Speaks!

2004-04-14T01:38:00.000-05:00

As you know, Bush gave the a press conference of his Presidency today, which seems a pretty rare thing. I did a little digging, and I found this from the Washington Post:

The extended questioning of the presidential news conference was a regular exercise for all presidents of the recent past. But President Bush has turned the tradition into a rarity, both because of his distaste for the format and his staff's determined message management.

Bush went before 94 reporters for his eighth solo news conference last night as part of his effort to prepare Americans for a likely war against Iraq as increasingly insistent opposition from allies and skepticism at home grow.

At the same point in their presidencies, President Bill Clinton had held 30 solo news conferences (that is, without a foreign leader at a twin lectern) and Bush's father had held 58, according to research by Martha Joynt Kumar, a Towson University political science professor who specializes in presidential communication.

After two years and 45 days in office, President Ronald Reagan had held 16 solo news conferences, President Jimmy Carter had held 45, President Gerald Ford had held 37, President Richard M. Nixon had held 16 and President Lyndon B. Johnson had held 52.

Unfortunately, the article is from last year. But it's still quite remarkable. Has he given any since? If you read on, the White House communications director reveals that for the press conference about which the article was written, Bush was given the questions beforehand. I would say something against that, something about how we deserve honest answers, not scriped talking points, but that's all Bush appears to have given tonight anyway, as he avoided answering the actual questions. There's a mammoth comment thread over at Billmon's, my favorite comment is by one Kimster;

I am still stunned beyond words. I have never seen such a pathetic press conference performance by a sitting president. And I've been watching them since LBJ.

If he doesn't drop in the polls tomorrow, there is no justice in this world.

Bush is so weasly at avoiding answers. I think his press conference should be held in a small room, with no teleprompters, and the doors locked so that he couldn't escape. Just the President, the frustrated press, and the cameras. Also, he'd half to sit right before the press in a fold-out chair. No hiding behind the podium. I can dream...I think he'd turn into Cartman, "I do what I want!" Cheney would be forced to watch through a one-way mirror...with a nurse, a doctor, an EKG, and a defibrilator present of course, because his frustration at his loss of control would give him a heart attack.

March for Women's Lives

2004-04-12T19:42:00.000-05:00

There's a large pro-choice march being organized in Washington, D.C. The LSU Women's group is going, and you can join the bus for $130. Why are they marching?

I am marching...because there is nothing more important than the rights we have over our own bodies! I am marching to thank all the women and men, as well as my family members who have marched before me.
I am marching because women across this nation will NEVER STOP marching until we are secure in freedom of choice over our bodies.

I am marching for those who cannot.
I am marching for freedom.

Angela Terrell,
FL

There will be quite a few celebrities present as well. Will I be going? I'm thinking about it. I'd certainly like to go, if time permits.

UPDATE: Fares are now $45, or, you know, whatever...

Solitary?

2004-04-12T06:04:00.000-05:00

I was just pondering, was the August 6 PDB the only one in that time period to warn of an Al-Qaeda attack? Certainly I haven't heard anyone mention another briefing, so it probably is alone, but I've also never heard it specifically referred to as the only PDB that contained info about Al-Qaeda. Of course, given how classified these things are, maybe no one, outside of the Administration that is, knows. But regardless, I'm not sure that this is good for Bush either way. If there is, however unlikely, another such PDB, then he is really damned. But if this is the only such PDB, that might tell us something else. I believe I am correct in understanding that the CIA tailors these PDB's to the interests of the President. If there was no follow-up PDB, then, clearly, George Bush wasn't interested in information about Al-Qaeda. Of course, right now, he's not exactly denying that.

"I am satisfied that I never saw any intelligence that indicated there was going to be an attack on America — at a time and a place, an attack," Mr. Bush said after attending Easter services in Fort Hood, Tex. "Of course we knew that America was hated by Osama bin Laden. That was obvious. The question was, who was going to attack us, when and where, and with what."

In other words, the Aug. 6th memo was unimportant. Nevermind that in those sentences the President implies that he was looking for the who, when and where, and that the Aug 6th memo hinted at the who and where. Kind of like Officer Barbrady, isn't he? Move alone, there's nothing to see here....

But again, if this really was the only such PDB, what are we to make of this statement?

"The P.D.B. was no indication of a terrorist threat," Mr. Bush said. "There was not a time and place of an attack. It said Osama bin Laden had designs on America. Well, I knew that. What I wanted to know was, is there anything specifically going to take place in America that we needed to react to?"

If that's so, then why wasn't there further information presented to the President? Why no follow-ups? My bullshit-o-meter is going off on this one.

More on Business and Taxes

2004-04-12T03:28:00.000-05:00

Kevin Drum has more on why George W. Bush has such a big wad of cash.

Corporate Tax Evasion

2004-04-11T23:02:00.000-05:00

If you ever have wondered why Bush has so much damn money, take a look at this.

Generation Gap?

2004-04-11T20:42:00.000-05:00

My reaction to the shocking anecdotes in this article about soroity life was somewhat less than shocked. Old news, really. I'll make an exception for the "little sister" bit, but I also imagine that such a thing is less than commonplace. (if not, chalk me up as shocked.) Perhaps I'm jaded in thinking that these kinds of things were common knowledge. Maybe all of this delinquent behavior is still new enough that the older generation hasn't caught on (of course, I think her implicit suggestions that body piercings are improper are amiss)? I think it's possible; I've heard not a few anecdotes of parents urging their kid to join a Greek society, not knowing what goes on there. Greek life at college is changing, and there's a rational behind that. Those of you outside the LSU community might not be familiar with our Master Plan - it's the goal set for what LSU will look like in the future. It includes a lot of adjustments to the buildings and landscaping on campus. Among the changes is the removal of some fraternity houses from their prime location around the LSU lake. The reason, according to one of my professors, is financial. Greek societies have, for the University, always been a source of funding. Alum members of Greek socities tended to give heavily to their alma matter. Moreover, these people tended to be upper middle or upper class, so they could give quite well. But times have changed. Greek members aren't as rich as they used to be, and the money has dried up. There's no longer a reason then to tolerate many of these Greek societies who aren't much but a PR problem, and so they're being marginalized.

Demonization

2004-04-11T14:53:00.000-05:00

There's been a little bit of discussion about this around the blogosphere, Billmon has an interesting post and some good comments, but there needs to be more. It's taking me some time to find out what happened in Fallujah, thanks mass media, and I have two things I want to say about it. First, it's awful how people not only support such actions, but call for even more destruction. It's not just awful, it's sickening. We've reached the point where people in America call for genocide. Around the dinnertable, even. Ann Coulter's fans are speaking up. In every atrocity of this century, what's required is not just a leader, but followers, the aiders and abetters. The people who place a high value on human life, but only on "their side." The rest don't count. The Other is a means to achieving their side's ends. If there is anything that can be called evil, that's it. It's what sets the grounds for other evils. I've been very upset lately that I share even a marginal group identity with these people. I'm more upset over what happened in Fallujah. The worst that can be said of the Iraqi people is that they acted nearly as badly as we did. Four Americans were killed for apparantly no other reason than they were Americans. And that's inexcusable. But the deaths of dozens of Iraqis, including children, just because they were in the way of our bombs is just as inexcusable. If they Iraqi's are guilty, and they are, then we are the more guilty. This leads into the second thing; I believe this week that we have lost Iraq. We haven't completely lost control, but we've lost the Iraqi people. We've lost their trust, and whatever affection and gratitude they had. Without that, nation building, already a dubious proposition from the start, will never work. Not with the U.S. in charge and Bush at the helm.

Swatting Flies

2004-04-11T14:43:00.000-05:00

Haven't we all heard by now a million times that Bush said he was "tired fo swatting flies." First, it is illustrative to me that they are nauseatingly repeating this so much because that's all there is good to say about Bush on terrorism. If Bush had been involved with terrorism a little more, or at all, there would be no need to repeat this one solitary little incident ad infinum. Secondly, and this is what I really don't get, IT'S SWATTING FLIES THAT WOULD HAVE PREVENTED 9/11!! Yeah, those "flies," those AQ operatives in America, those watch-listed individuals in flight school. WHY are they bragging about this? And why are they getting away with it? Oh, and proops to Kerrey for this:

KERREY: You've used the phrase a number of times, and I'm hoping with my question to disabuse you of using it in the future.

You said the president was tired of swatting flies.

KERREY: Can you tell me one example where the president swatted a fly when it came to al Qaeda prior to 9/11?

RICE: I think what the president was speaking to was...

KERREY: No, no. What fly had he swatted?

RICE: Well, the disruptions abroad was what he was really focusing on...

KERREY: No, no...

RICE: ... when the CIA would go after Abu Zubaydah...

KERREY: He hadn't swatted...

RICE: ... or go after this guy...

KERREY: Dr. Rice, we didn't...

RICE: That was what was meant.

KERREY: We only swatted a fly once on the 20th of August 1998. We didn't swat any flies afterwards. How the hell could he be tired?

Back

2004-04-10T19:03:00.000-05:00

As you may have inferred from the absence in posting, it's Spring Break week for LSU. Unfortunately, it is now the end of Spring Break. I spent a week away from any computer, without the blogosphere, and I have to admit it was nice. But I'm back now, my sunburn's healing, and my addiction calls me again. It's been a busy week. It would be good to do a recap of what's gone on.

1. The Iraq war has gone all shitty. We were pushed out of various positions, most notably in Fallujah and in part of Baghdad. It seems now that finally more soldiers were sent over. Score one more for "our side" who said that this Iraq thing would take a lot more manpower than Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and crowd claimed it would. That, by my count, shows that "we" have been right 5000 times, and none yet for "them." I'm tired of reading accounts of military and especially non-military personnel being killed over in Iraq. We need security. That said, where will all these solderis come from? That's the other side of the equation; the more we're committed to Iraq, the less we can respond to developments in the rest of the world.

Despite this being the heaviest week of insurgency in Iraq since "Mission Accomplished," President Bush is quite obviously not doing any leading. No war-time-presidenting from him. He's at his ranch, in Crawford. Giving tours, posing for photo ops, and raising dough. Can you imagine, just for a second, Bush v. Bush in a Presidential election? Just picture that for a minute. Imagine the present Bush were a democrat or some other party. And a fresh Bush, the one from 2000, challanged him. Oh, good lord, the things the you would hear on Fox News. Calls of incompetance, detactchment, arrogance. I'm sure, given a majority in the houses, they'd have impreached him. Anywho, Bush doesn't even care to go to Washington in this all-important week, and he also can't face the 9/11 commission w/o Dick Cheney. Gee, am I crazy or does this look like the guy's not really much of a leader? At all?

I was deeply anguished a year ago when we invaded Iraq. To do so, we had to kill children, and not just a few. I saw the pictures, I read the accounts. They were the casualties of war, but no one seemed to care. I didn't know about the blogosphere then; maybe people did care, but I didn't hear about it. The thing is, it hasn't completely stopped. On Wednesday and Thursday, we bombarded Fallujah. Children, young children, died "accidental" fatalities. The thing is, the Iraqis really do care. And they're pissed. The Spanish seem to care too, enough to surround the American embassy and chant "murderers."

But there's no reaction again here in America. Sure, we get pissed about this sort of thing when it suits our purpose. By right now, I'm seeing calls for mass-retaliation against the Iraqis. Good one, guys. Kill more children. I have no doubt in my mind that those very people who call for dropping daisy cutters on Fallujah, if they themselves were Iraqis, would be supporting raising arms against the US. They are the same type of people; the difference is just a matter of environment. The tendency to not care about the humanity of your opponent, about propoertionality, to demonize the Other as inhuman savages, to not think ethically at all really...that's a description that holds for those on either side who call for such large-scale, indescriminate attacks. And I make no exceptions, no leeway, for someone doing such a thing just because they happen to be on "my side."

I don't wish to excuse the killing of Americans in Iraq. I'm deeply upset over it. But it's a mistake to think as if we can't understand it. Milan Kundera, and he was Czech, wrote that he had more in common than in difference with Hitler. If the Iraqi's are angry, we should know why. Granted if they are angry because they believe America in ipso has evil intentions, there's not a whole lot we can do about that. However, that's really not my impression of what's happening. Instead, a lot of Iraqis who formerally supported or looked favorably on the US are starting to change their minds. We're losing the "hearts and minds," a Powelism that we seem to be hearing less and less of every day.

We need a real President. Someone who treats the war as more than a G.I. Joe episode ("Bring 'Em On") or so unimportant it's a joke ("Where are those WMDs?") and not worth any attention (at the ranch). By the by, Josh Marhsall reports that Bush has spent 40% of his Presidency in his three Presidential retreats. At some point, long passed I think, it almost becomes not just a question of Is He Being A Commander-in-Chief, but also a question of Has He Even Earned His Salary? They don't even get that much vacation time in France.

2. Condi Rice's testimony was one of the other big events of the week. I watched a bit of it (hey, I was on vacation), and thought she did fairly awfully. There was, of course, now that she was under oath, none of that fierce rebutting of Clarke's testimony that we had seen from her earlier. But the most aggravating thing I found was that Rice seemed to basically be saying, "look, it's not my fault: no one told me what to do." She was pretty adamant that she would have done something if "recommended," but apparantly couldn't be bothered to do anything herself, no matter how urgent the need appeared to be. Oh, and that meant that President didn't need to be completely informed about such little details as Al Qaeda operatives in the US. Now, this might seem strange because it is the NSC's job to get the ball moving for everyone else. Sure, she relies on info, but she's supposed to take the initiative. Rice doesn't seem to believe in that philosophy. She sees herself as much more of a passive agent, someone who'll do what they're told, unless they're told by a former official who happened to work under Clinton. Rice basically denied responsibility and blamed structural problems. Well, gee, Clinton sure got over those "structural problems" when he moved to foil Al Qaeda plots around the millenium. And gee, she even had someone there who had experience in getting past said "structural problems," one Mr. Richard Clarke. No, the problem is that Rice declined to act. That's it, that's the problem. That would have been her "silver bullet." Just to have fucking done something. Christ.

By the way, I did find her terminology slightly annoying. "Silver Bullet"??? Is the United States the Long Ranger now? For fuck's sake. Or maybe Al Qaeda is a werewolf? What the fuck is the metaphor? And "a series of actionable items." Or, as any person with a reasonable intelligence calls it, a plan. I don't know what's worse, that she draws that distinction for absolutely no logical reason, or that she expects people to swallow it. And, a "historical document?" 'Why, no, despite the title, Osama Bin Laden Determined to Strike US, the memo only detalied past attacks, it didn't predict future ones.' First of all, given a series of past attacks, might not one infer there would be another? I suppose now my saying that Iraqi insurgents will attack US Military in Iraq, and I base this upon the fact that Iraqi insurgents have attacked US Military in the past, well, that's just a Historical Document too, isn't it? Anyway, it does now appear to be false, and there were predictions of future attacks.

That's all the re-capping I can do for now. Anyone else need a drink?

Cheers, girls

2004-03-29T04:28:00.000-06:00

The Lady Tigers have made it to the Final 8.

I'm not really much of a sports fan. I am too put off by the culture of Big Sports, i.e. football, men's basketball, to ever get into those. Moreover, although I go to school here, I don't get a vicarious pleasure out of watching LSU's teams. I'll never think "Good for us," as if I were somehow in a meaningful group with the players on the field. Still, I have a high respect for skilled atheletes. Especially those who aren't (so much) exalted as gods on earth. So, good for the ladies of the Lady Tigers.

Democratcs Continue to Surprise

2004-03-27T20:11:00.000-06:00

Again, I want to toll this as good news for democracy:

Bush raised at least $12 million this month through March 17, bringing the total for his re-election bid to $171.4 million, according to his campaign Web site. Kerry raised at least $20 million in March through yesterday, breaking the one-month record for a Democratic candidate of $8.4 million that he set in February, according to campaign announcements.

Bush, the 10 Democrats who have campaigned to take his job, the national party committees and outside groups working to influence the presidential election have raised at least $623.4 for the presidential election so far, with Republicans raising 50.3 percent of the total and Democrats 49.7 percent, according to Federal Election Commission and Internal Revenue Service disclosures. Kerry and other Democrats have solicited donations via the Internet this month by portraying Republicans as more successful at raising money.

Bush and his 10 Democratic rivals spent $242.5 million through Feb. 29, compared with the $277.6 million that 19 candidates spent during the entire 2000 primary contest, according to Federal Election Commission records.

The fund drive is pulling even. The DNC has money in the bank ($25mil) for the first time in, well, a long time. And the Democrats especially seem to be benefitting from non-party affiliated groups like MoveOn and Media Fund. Right now, Bush is still outspending Kerry, pretty heavily, but he's not drowning him. Of course, the Kerry campaign may also be gathering up to pounce; it hasn't needed to spend much this past week, the negative Media because of Richard Clarke has been even better than campaign ads. I also suspect it's a possibility that megarich Republicans, seeing their candidate lose ground, will follow George Soros lead and donate massively into Republican 527s. Were this to happen, and tip the scales again in Bush's favor, I would wonder how much it really would help because, honestly, how much can a candidate spend? There has to be a point of diminishing returns. I hope that point is significantly before $200 million.

Link via Daily Kos.

Preach On, Josh Marhsall

2004-03-27T04:45:00.000-06:00

Josh Marshall gives us all something to think about

And speaking of amazing stuff, note this ...

If you recall last Sunday night's 60 Minutes, in which Clark first made his claims, Deputy National Security Advisor Steve Hadley essentially accused Clarke of lying about an alleged encounter between Clarke and President Bush just after 9/11. In this encounter, the president supposedly pressed Clarke to investigate Saddam's possible ties to the attacks.

Hadley was quickly tripped up by the fact that CBS had two sources who confirmed that the encounter had occurred, including one who was in fact present during the discussion.

The White House has kept calling Clarke a liar until today. From CBS this evening ...
Retracted White House statements do little to boost public trust. CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports, until today, the Bush administration denied a meeting had taken place between the president and Clarke, during which Bush allegedly instructed Clarke to investigate Saddam Hussein and Iraq after Sept. 11.

The White House today reversed that comment, and staff members now tell reporters, "We are not denying such a meeting took place. It probably did."

So they called him a liar. But it seems they either had no evidence or their evidence turned out to be wrong.

Now, consider this. Do you think the White House would have changed its tune if CBS didn't come up with another source?

And how about this?

My recollection is that this meeting was supposed to have been an impromptu encounter in the West Wing -- not something like an Oval Office meeting for which there would almost certainly be some sort of record. I also seem to recall that Clarke said this encounter included him and other unnamed persons.

If that's true, and the White House didn't know the identities of the other people (the unnamed persons), who else would have been able to deny that the encounter occurred except the president himself?

Others could confirm it, yes. But if Clarke and Bush were the only identified participants in the alleged encounter, and if the encounter didn't actually happen, who else but Bush himself would be able to say it didn't happen? One of the two or three other people in on this conversation which, in fact, never occurred?

Think about it.

Late Update: Several readers have noted that in Clarke's book, his description of this meeting does reference the names of two persons involved. But those may well have been the two sources who confirmed the account to CBS. If either had denied it, I have to imagine the White House would have gotten them on camera or in front of a notary public real quick. So, the question remains, what was the basis of the White House's denial that this incident occurred, if not a denial from the president?

As I've said before, Presidential elections are decided on character issues.

And an interesting snippet in it's own right from Josh's post directly previous:

(Bear in mind that top White House aides have told the press that the president personally initiated and is directing this campaign against Clarke. Not outside rabble-rousers, not nefarious aides operating on their own account, but the president himself. This is all his doing, according to his own staffers.)

Of course, this is perfectly in keeping with a hoarde of anecdotes of W's vindictive behavior. The Administration's central criticism against Clarke right now is that he is a liar and has perjured himself. What are the odds of this? Look strictly at the human behavior. If Clarke was guilty of these charges, we'd see a bunch of cool, collected, and very smug Republicans. No need to go into a frothing-at-the-mouth frenzy if you've got the goods on your opponent. No, this kind of rhetoric and media attack is only for one thing; trying to turn public opinion by constructing a house of cards. Think My Cousin Vinnie.

I bet Nixon wishes he had these kinds of skills.

Cat with Hands

2004-03-27T03:29:00.000-06:00

This is terrific. It's a video, 6.2 MB. Turn on the sound, turn off the lights.

Frist again

2004-03-27T02:12:00.000-06:00

I may have written my last post a little too soon after reading Frist's comments; he really set me off. Garance Franke-Ruta over at Tapped has a more even-headed response:

EVEN THE APOLOGY. Bill Frist seems to have further determined that Richard Clarke's graceful and powerful apology to the families of the victims of September 11 is the first thing that has to be obliterated for the adminstration's surgical process of dismembering Clarke's reputation to be a success. Today, on the Senate floor, Frist accused Clarke of making "a theatrical apology" and proclaimed that it was not "his right, his privilege or his responsibility" to do so. "Mr. Clarke can and will answer for his own conduct -- but that is all," Frist said.

Though Bush may be adopting "no apologies" as his new motto, it won't be so easy for the GOP to erase Clarke's words. The apology was one of those all-too-rare moments where a public figure speaks the exact words that people are aching to hear. For this, Clarke has won the hearts of many families of the victims of 9-11, and, I expect, of thousands across this country. Now Frist wants to undo all that. Yet once a public figure takes up residence in the emotional lives of thousands, that affection and loyalty is difficult to dislodge. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is someone who underwent the transformation from public official to public hero in the days that followed 9-11. Clarke has now undergone that transformation, too.

Clarke's apology was the right thing to do. By definition, 9/11 was a failure of our government. That was, in my opinion, one of the biggest emotional shocks of 9/11; that we were so vulnerable, that daddy-government wasn't perfect. An apology was needed, and has been needed for 2 1/2 years. We've been anxious, itching for one. Clarke's apology was cool relief. I almost cried it cut through so much pent-up emotion, and I had nearly the same reaction when I saw it play on TV again today. And I think Clarke, more than anybody else in the whole country, has the right to make that apology on behalf of the US Government. Really, as counter-terrorism czar for the decade leading up to 9/11, it was his and only his to make.....Frist is an ass.

Bill Frist, 1st Rate Ass

2004-03-27T01:51:00.000-06:00

I've long had problems with Bill First, but that's to be expected. It's not so much that our ideologies don't match, although there is that, it's his extremist party loyaltism, and complete disregard and insulting attitude against all opponents that's always been why I can't stand the guy. Today, Bill Frist, M.D., proved my regard of him was too high. You can find a good portion of the text of his speech on the Senate Floor over at Kevin Drum's, and Billmon has the best commentary and analysis on Frist's charges. It's worth pointing out yet again that the Republicans have still yet to provide evidence that contradicts the substance of Clarke's charges, which one would assume be easy enough. If they were doing enough, it would be documented. Their best defense so far is only that Clarke contradicts himself, which they have yet to show. This, I think, is by far the most revolting of Frist's charges:

In his appearance before the 9-11 Commission, Mr. Clarke's theatrical apology on behalf of the nation was not his right, his privilege or his responsibility. In my view it was not an act of humility, but an act of supreme arrogance and manipulation. Mr Clarke can and will answer for his own conduct but that is all.

Up yours, Frist. In the spirit of character assassination, I think it's time to remind people of Frist's assinine, self-glorifying book, Good People Beget Good People. It's not that we need Frist's behavior to invalidate this prideful, obviously ridiculous statement (really, how stupid do you have to be to believe something that obviously false?), but it works for us nonetheless. On the other hand, we could have some fun if the statement was true. Such as, if good people beget good people, then a bad person could only be begot by bad people. Neal Bush is, by all accounts, a bad person, ergo George H.W. Bush, the 41st President, is a bad person. That was fun!

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