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State Sentence

Saturday 30 December 2006

We’ve all seen the picture of the hooded executioners putting the noose around Saddam’s neck. The International Herald Tribune and the New York Times ran it on their main pages, as did al Jazeera‘s English website. The Washington Post didn’t.

What struck me about the photo was the lack of officialness about everything.

  • The executioners are wearing street clothes.
  • The room looks relatively small, and suspiciously like a randomly chosen room in a building’s basement.
  • The executioners are wearing tattered ski masks.
  • Not only are the executioners not wearing uniforms; not a single uniform is visible anywhere.

Of course, it’s difficult to tell much of anything about the room itself with such a closely cropped photo.

Still, what immediately came to mind when I first saw this was the obvious similarity to all the beheading videos released from Iraq. It hardly looks like an official state action.

Condi’s Coffee Pot

Sunday 3 December 2006

When K and I moved to America, one of the things we would have lacked, were it not for the ingenuity of American capitalism and a heads-up play by my mother, would have been a coffee maker. That would have been a disaster. Yet it was a disaster averted, because my mother had signed up for a Gevalia coffee trial offer and had a coffee maker waiting for us.

Since my mother doesn’t drink so much coffee these days and my father is not so picky, we said we’d make the necessary purchases to fulfill the trial agreement. The coffee we got from Gevalia was actually pretty decent.

As time passed and K and I started feeling less fiscally uncertain, we began really living the American dream: we began spending more money. And one thing we started spending more money on was music. In order to get a lot of new music quick, we did old join/drop-Columbia-House- in-one-month thing that my best friend and I did in high school so many time.

I’ve often wondered what that says about the actual cost of a CD when a company can essentially sell you a significant number of them for about $2.30 a piece. I guess the inflated prices of the regularly priced CDs is supposed to make up for that, else they wouldn’t be in business.

Eventually, we were “settled” enough that we decided to buy another car. We went out one Sunday and began looking at what was out there. At the Kia dealer, we were bamboozled into a test drive, even though we said we were only interested in talking about prices, features, warranties and such. Taking a test drive, though, indicated that we were a step closer to buying than we actually were.

Looking back on it, K and I were furious that we’d allowed ourselves to be manipulated as we had, for the whole awful adventure ended with us sitting with a salesman trying to be firm and yet polite in telling him, “No, we are not going to buy a new car today. We just came to look.”

I guess trial memberships and test drives are as American as any cliche about American-ness you can think of. In an age of a million choices, we consumers don’t want to make a fiscal commitment to something unless we can help it. And this has evolved into a country where we can get trial sizes and sample packs of even pharmaceuticals.

And that’s why Donald Rumsfeld’s suggestion that we should “Announce that whatever new approach the U.S. decides on, the U.S. is doing so on a trial basis.” It’s not a commitment, and we can easily change our minds.

This letters shows that such a the Bush administration had a pathological reluctance to change its mind on Iraq policy because it would say to the world that we might have lost. Changing your strategy is the same as admitting, “If we had not changed strategy and tactics, we would have lost this war.”

America doesn’t change its mind! In its march for freedom, America is the only country seeking the pure good indeed, the philosophical “Good” for all humankind. Our goals are just, and so our methods must also be just and efficient.

Put simply, the Bush administration was so scared of the “L” word having to cross its collective lips that it was barreling ahead on its original plan, not looking left, not looking right, because “to move to another course” is the same as “losing”: “This [labeling our new strategy a “trial’] will give us the ability to readjust and move to another course, if necessary, and therefore not “lose.”

We don’t lose if we don’t say the L word. We’re changing tactics not because we’re losing using these present tactics, but because we want that nice new coffee pot for Condi’s office.

We will leave Iraq on our terms as victors, as liberators! no matter how many linguistic contortions we have to go through to do so.

Justice and the Blind

Thursday 30 November 2006

Apparently, America can’t be about the only country in the world (industrialized or otherwise) with indistinguishable currency, James Robertson ruled Tuesday.

And conservative bloggers are upset. To wit:

Yes, that’s right. The bills our nation has been using for 230 years have been ruled illegal by an idiot judge, U.S. District Judge James Robertson. […]

Stock tip of the day. Buy stock in companies that produce money readers for vending machines. (It’s a Paul World)

Which is odd, because the same argument could have been made against any number of things we now consider the norm: integration, wheelchair accessibility, closed-captioning.

The Treasury Department has, fortunately, a less emotional reason for opposing the suggested changes.

The Treasury Department had argued that making bills identifiable by touch would create an undue financial burden for the government. It had estimated that the most expensive approach � printing different sizes for different denominations � would cost $178 million for new printing presses and as much as $50 million for new plates. (NYT)

Less emotive, but also far less convincing (as if that were possible). Arguing that $228 million is excessive, from a government that is willing to pay Halliburton thousands for a hammer?

I too am shaking my head, though for different reasons than conservative bloggers.

Intended?

Tuesday 7 November 2006

At Newsbusters (“Exposing and Combating Liberal Media Bias”) we find the following headline:

While Ted Haggard Is Pounded, Gay Gene Robinson Was Rewarded

Now, since the organization publishing this is, by its own admission, fairly straight-laced (intentional), one has to believe that this awful headline was unintentional.

Bush v Kerry II

Tuesday 31 October 2006

Bloomberg’s take:

While campaigning in California yesterday for gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides, Kerry said: “Education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

Kerry’s suggestion “that the men and women of our military are somehow uneducated is insulting and it is shameful,” Bush said at an appearance in Georgia tonight. “The members of the United States military are plenty smart. And they are plenty brave. And the senator from Massachusetts owes them an apology.”

Contrast this with a snippet of a story on NPR earlier this week:

In their living room, Carmelo Roman de Jesus and Gloria Cruz have a shrine to Alexis, a glass cabinet with his baby shoes, baby teeth, toy cars and Medals of Honor. They’re still upset with military recruiters who promised their son $20,000 to enlist.

In an economy without many options for those lacking a college degree, the military can appear to be the only real option. Particularly when recruiters are making empty promises like that.

Michael Moore makes the same point about his home city of Flint, Michigan.

Kerry’s remark could have been better phrased, but Bush’s response shows a typical lack of introspection.

Assumption

Monday 30 October 2006

In Poland recently, a middle school teacher was called out of her classroom for some administrative duties — a meeting or some nonsense — and while she was gone, a group of male students assaulted a female student, stripping her to her underwear (or further — I can’t recall exactly) and pretending like they were going to rape her.

She committed suicide the next day. Reports indicated that there were other issues precipitating the suicide and that her parents held nothing against the perpetrators’ parents.

It’s hard for me to imagine me reacting similarly were something like that to happen to my soon-to-be daughter.

It’s no longer permissible to say parents are responsible in any way for their children’s behavior. It’s this; it’s that — it’s anything but poor parenting. Yet as L’s birthday approaches, I can’t help but wonder at the validity of that assumption.

Fee Fi Fo Fum

Friday 27 October 2006

Read in the Washington Post:

“I have to think there are Democratic strategists out there thinking the words of the old Japanese admiral: ‘I fear all we’ve done is wake a sleeping giant,’ ” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a Washington-based advocacy group. “They were coasting into an election with a Republican base with dampened enthusiasm. This brings it all back home to the base, what this election is about.”
Religious Conservatives Cheer Ruling on Gays as Wake-Up Call

It’s amusing that the religious conservatives think of themselves as a slumbering giant. Even when in power, they see themselves as victims.

They also think Rove’s “back to the base” campaign strategy will still work its magic for yet another election. Still holding out hope…

What’s even more disturbing is the notion that gay marriage is such a central plank in their whole ideology. Literally thousands of people are dying because of the debacle in Iraq, and these folks are more concerned about something so relatively petty in comparison. The neocon hope of salvaging this election hinges on exploitation of people’s fear.

How…very…predictable.

But it’s really their own doing. The neocons hard-line approach has left them little wiggle room. “Stay the course” has meant “make absolutely no changes in the Iraq strategy” and “You’re either with us or with the terrorists” has turned what should be nuanced foreign relations into Pavlovian over-simplicity. What’s ironic is that neocons are now wanting to stay the course without saying “stay the course” and the “us-vs-terrorist” simplicity gets a little fuzzy when we start talking about Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

But they’re staying the course about gay marriage, and they seem to be pretty sure that if you aren’t with the straights, you’re with the gays. Let’s just hope that such nonsense doesn’t win elections.

Fondling Foley

Friday 20 October 2006

Some unusual frankness from a church official:

Once maybe I touched him or so, but didn’t, it wasn’t — because it’s not something you call, I mean, rape or penetration or anything like that you know. We were just fondling,” Father Anthony Mercieca, 69, said in a phone interview with CNN affiliate WPTV from his home on the Maltese island of Gozo in the Mediterranean. CNN.com

It wasn’t rape — just an older authority figure playing with a kid’s privates.

I mean, let’s not blow things out of proportion here.

Mercieca, however, rejected the idea that he sexually abused Foley, saying, “See abuse, it’s a bad word, you know, because abuse, you abuse someone against his will. But it involved just spontaneousness, you know?”

I mean, he did seem to enjoy it. There are, uh, I mean, there are ways to tell, know what I’m talking about?

Wink wink.

So I’m not sure what to call it, but because there was no penetration and he seemed to like it, “rape” and “abuse” are definitely out.

How about we call it “a good time?”

Mercieca apologized to Foley but implored the former lawmaker to remember the fun they had together.

“I would say that if I offended him, I am sorry, but to remember the good time we had together, you know?” he said. “And how really we enjoyed each other’s company. And to let bygones be bygones. Don’t keep dwelling on this thing, you know?”

Besides, there are plenty of psychiatrists and such to help it if — and that’s a big if — Foley had any problems with it.

“Let’s say it was 40 years ago, almost 40 years ago, so why bring this up at this late stage?” Mercieca asked. “Anyway, he will overcome it, with a psychiatrist you know. Mark is a very intelligent man.”

Mercieca said he and the teen Foley were friends, “almost like brothers,” and they went on trips together to the beach, rodeo and arcade. They also went out of town together to New York and Washington, where they visited museums.

Maybe “incest” would be a better word, then?

This is like something from the Onion.

“Come on, just once!”

Saturday 8 July 2006

“Come on, Larry. Just once! Let’s just see if she’ll notice. I swear I won’t do anything with her.” How many twins have uttered something like that to their identical sibling, trying to convince the sibling to let him go on a date with his brother’s girlfriend?

What if the twins both held public office, only one was much higher in rank? Say Jeb and W were twins — wouldn’t you think that Jeb would try, just once, to convince his brother to let him make some kind of address as the president? “Come on, Georgie! We ain’t talkin’ about a State of the Union address. It’s just a little chat out in the Rose Garden. They’ll never notice!”

We’re fortunate that Jeb and W aren’t twins, because they seem just, well, lacking-in-seriousness enough to try it.

Jarek KaczynskiSuch a situation is not inconceivable in the near future in Poland, though. Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz has resigned and the ruling party, PiS (Law and Order Justice — Prawo i Sprawiedliwość), has indicated that they want Jarosław Kaczynski to take the position.

“Kaczynski. That sounds familiar,” some might think.

Lech KaczynskiThat’s because the president of Poland is Lech Kaczynski, Jarosław’s twin brother.

Oh, he’s so adorable, let’s just call him “Jarek.”

It’s not clear whether Jarek is going to take the position. He turned it down earlier on the reasonable grounds that it might give some people the willies to have twin brothers in the two highest positions in the nation, but I think this time he’ll just suffer through those discomforting thoughts and take the post.

But it’s no big change. Jarek’s been running the country for month’s. Marcinkiewicz’s just been a puppet, people say.

That sounds awfully familiar.

At any rate, the BBC report seems strangely enough to confirm this:

Over recent weeks, there had been frequent reports of a rift between Mr Marcinkiewicz and Jaroslaw Kaczynski over economic policy.

BBC did not use the Polish character “ł,” pronounced like the English “w,” so it’s not a typo.

The KaczynskisWait a minute? I know Jarek is the PiS party leader, but his brother is president, is he not? Wouldn’t it be tensions between the president and the PM that would cause the PM to resign, rather than tensions between the party boss and the PM? Unless, of course, the party boss is the boss.

The good thing in all this? At least Jarek will admit — sort of — that he’s in charge.

A Modest Proposal

Friday 7 July 2006

I prefer the English “football” to the American “soccer.” “American football” barely even makes use of the feet — fat seems critical there.

Perhaps one reason Americans don’t like football is because of the whining, says Jake Novak in Newsday. The Week writes that “European soccer players seem to spend most of the game writing in fake agony.”

Indeed, diving in football — intentionally falling to make it appear one has been fouled — is a growing concern in European football.

Germany World Cup-winning captain and coach Franz Beckenbauer has asked for there to be a crackdown on divers and cheaters.

“The players are looking for an advantage and they attempt to exploit the situation,” said the head of Germany’s 2006 organising committee.

“At the beginning of the tournament, I felt the referees were showing yellow cards too early for trivial offences but the players make it much harder by simulating, and by staying lying on the ground to interrupt play,” he said.

“Perhaps everyone — players, referees and administrators can get around a table after this to come up with a solution to put an end to this kind of unfortunate incidents. (“BBC News)

Often, you see a player gnashing his teeth in pain, clutching a shin video replay shows to have been hardly tapped by an opponent’s leg. The paramedics and team physical trainer all come running out with a medical case and stretcher, only to find that — hey! — he can walk after all! In fact, after a few limps, he’s jogging, then running!

Miracle of miracles.

Aside from being immoral, this behavior simply slows a game of otherwise constant motion.

“How do we deal with it?” everyone moans.

And so I present my simple, three step process.

First, introduce the use of video replay into the game. Too often the ref is too far from the “foul” that takes place very quickly. To make a judgment that this was indeed a case of diving is difficult, at best.

Second, provide refs with a small, wireless video monitor. Simple. When a ref thinks there’s been a case of diving, he simply reviews the play on the monitor.

Third, implement a graduated penalty system for diving:

  • The penalty for the first offense of the season: a fine of 1% of the player’s annual contract income.
  • Second offense: 5%.
  • Third offense: 10%.
  • Fourth offense: suspension for the rest of the season, plus an additional 10% of the player’s annual contract income.

The proceeds of this go to a charity designed to provide football facilities in developing nations.

Diving would disappear very quickly.

Blasphemous Rumors

Tuesday 13 June 2006

I’m supposing we all know who Oriana Fallaci is:

The trial of Oriana Fallaci, a journalist and author accused of defaming Islam in a book, was opened and adjourned yesterday in an Italian court.

What is it with Europe and free speech? First of all there was David Irving’s trial in Austria for Holocaust denial. That makes a little sense (a very little sense) because Austria and Germany are still understandably, say, sensitive about the Holocaust. Very good — they should be. But putting people in jail for what they say is not the way to deal with it.

The Fallaci trial is even more ridiculous:

The charge stems from a recent book, The Strength of Reason, one of a trilogy she has published since the September 11 attacks on the US. In the book, Fallaci, 77, is alleged to have made 18 blasphemous statements, including referring to Islam as “a pool that never purifies”. (Guardian Unlimited)

What gets me is the choice of words: blasphemous. Since when is Italy under sharia law? Since when is it okay to insult Christianity (as some claim the Da Vinci Code does) but no other religion?

I’m an equal-opportunity offender. If a religion — or anything — does or promotes something harmful or stupid, I’ll comment on it, usually in the negative. If you’re offended by that, walk away. Don’t listen. Ignore me.

And it’s such an amazing juxtaposition with the whole Danish cartoon controversy. The swinging pendulum of European justice…

Not So Loose Change

Wednesday 17 May 2006

Loose Change has been steadily moving up “Google Video’s Ranking. It’s up to the number one position, after sitting at two for a couple of days.

Well, at least part of it appears to be proven wrong: Flight 77 not a hoax

Of course, they still haven’t released the video from the service station or the hotel, so Dylan and the boys still have part of their film intact.

Sign Language

Tuesday 2 May 2006

I find it interesting that so many of the signs in yesterday’s anti-immigration-reform protest explicitly gave “proof” of the validity of the opposition’s argument. In other words, the cries, “They don’t assimilate! They don’t even learn the language!” were born out in so many of the signs that protesters carried.

Now, I’m not an advocate of creating legislation that makes English the official language of America, but one would think that this time, of all times, would be when immigrants use English. And I’m not even suggesting that it should be even close to correct English.

And that’s why I love the sign at right so much.

(Pictures swiped from NYT. Click on them for larger versions.)

Effective R&D

Sunday 23 April 2006

Excerpts from an article from Bloomberg.com:

  • crude supplies will stay tight through the end of the decade.
  • The situation will persist until 2010.
  • Oil prices have climbed 23 percent to more than $75 a barrel this year
  • Persian Gulf states that don’t allow international companies to develop their oil reserves, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, should invest more to expand output themselves,
  • The International Energy Agency’s Mandil told reporters today in Doha that OPEC would “just about” meet the expected 25 percent growth in global demand over the next three years. (Source)

The most amazing quote is the third:

Persian Gulf states that don’t allow international companies to develop their oil reserves, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, should invest more to expand output themselves

They’re making billions at these prices. Why the hell should they increase output? Eat up their resources for decreased revenue? There’s absolutely no incentive for them to do so.

Oh, this is all just cruel justice for America, which has grown fat and lazy on its cheap gas. Think about it — gas is just now getting to be more expensive than milk! We’ve brought it on ourselves with our short-sightedness. We’ve had almost thirty years to prepare for this oil crisis that is revving up, but what did we do instead?

Invent the SUV.

Protection

Saturday 8 April 2006

Bird flu is coming! It’s just around the corner of the globe and soon we’ll be dropping like cliches.

Fortunately, you can protect yourself.

That kind of thinking is certainly already motivating marketing execs.

While looking for respirators for painting and staining, I found this.

Protesting Protesters

Monday 13 March 2006

Here in Asheville Saturday we had what one blogger called a “Hatefest.” It was, in short, a rally to support family values — in other words, condemn homosexuality.

With his Bible tucked under his arm like so many others around him, Jim Ballard stood in the middle of Pack Square to stand “for what the word of God stands for… not against anyone, but against sin.”

Ballard joined a crowed of more than 200 assembled downtown on Saturday to support Wolf Laurel Ski Resort and other businesses that defend their right to choose not to employ homosexuals.

Wolf Laurel fired a lesbian couple after they placed a wedding announcement in the local paper upon returning from Massachusetts. Apparently the proprietors of the resort a “good Christians” and fired the wretched, evil lesbians. Sparking a protest. Which in turn sparked a protest.

“They are trying to make a statement so we as Christians are trying to make a statement,” said Wendell Runion, president of International Baptist Outreach Missions Inc. and organizer of the event.

Runion, who also spoke at U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor’s prayer breakfast earlier the same day, said the rally was not meant to debate the issue of homosexuality and same-sex marriage, but to make a declaration solidly against it.

Taylor, R-Brevard, said he was supportive of “Christian businessmen trying to be Christian in their work lives as well as in their personal lives” when asked about the rally. Taylor did not attend the rally. (Citizen Times)

That sort of talk — “We’re not here to debate it, but to oppose it!” — makes me think of, say, the Taliban.

Doubt that?

Combine it with the dominion theology of Rod Parsley and others, and it’s clear to see that a theocracy is their ultimate goal.

As the cliche goes, “God, save us from your followers.”

See Citizen Times article and BlogAsheville for more info.

Un-spinnable Proof

Wednesday 1 March 2006

Now that there exists video proof that W knew before Katrina that there was a serious risk to the levees, how is he going to try to spin his way out of this?

“I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”

That outright lie should make any thinking person sick.

The Alternative?

Friday 24 February 2006

The battle lines are drawn again. South Dakota’s legislature has voted to make abortion illegal in all circumstances. No exceptions.

A direct attack on Roe v. Wade is coming from the South Dakota legislature. The new bill, which outlaws abortion, makes no exceptions, not for a pregnancy caused by incest or rape. It would only be legal — the only exception if it would save the pregnant woman’s life.

Doctors who perform abortions could face up to five years in prison. The bill passed the State Senate 23-12. It’s expected to pass the House again and then go to Governor Mike Rounds’ desk. The bill’s sponsor says he thinks the antiabortion movement has momentum on its side and a — quote — “change in national policy on abortion is going to come in the not-too-distant future.” (MSNBC)

With Alito and Roberts now on the Supreme Court, the intention couldn’t be any clearer: a full-scale assault on Roe v. Wade.

There’s a good piece in the Village Voice about South Dakota’s strategy.

Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, just after I was born. As an adoptee, I have wondered many times about what would have happened had Roe been a year earlier. Knowing next to nothing about my birth mother, it’s a question that will never have an answer. If I had the opportunity to ask my birth mother, it might still go unanswered. Thirty-three years of introspection would produce a very different response, I’m sure.

This fact alone serves as the foundation for my very mixed feelings about legalized abortion. On the one hand, I walk lock-step with other bleeding-hearts in saying that a woman’s body is just that — not mine, but hers. And yet, thinking about the possible abortion of what became my body, I think, “Hey, wait — I have something to say in this too.”

“What became my body?” What was it before? Abortion opponents have a point that if the fetus is human, there is very little to talk about, and very few instances when abortion can be ethically defensible. Is it human? I don’t know. And the purpose of this post is not to ruminate over the slippery slope of when a fetus becomes a human.

All that being said, I remain pro-choice, but with a lump in my throat. I remain nervously pro-choice. Like many, I would like to live in a world in which abortion is a woman’s legal right, but never, ever necessary. A utopia, in other words.

Anti-abortion activists should be working to make that utopia a reality, but I don’t see much happening in that way. Indeed, this is what bothers me most about the various camps that make up the anti-abortion movement: their unwillingness to help provide a viable alternative, namely adoption. How many children has the average women’s health clinic picketer adopted? How many protest by example? It seems to me that if these individuals feel so strongly about the issue, they would literally put their money where their angry, raised voices are and adopt, adopt, adopt.

Restrained Freedom Part II

Friday 24 February 2006

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