I'm not even gonna look at the prices on these. (Via MKK.)
Allen Brill has a passage from Leviticus that you should print out and have handy at all times to quote to Thanatical Christianists whenever they try to tell you what god wants you to do.
At Body & Soul, the Greens stand up and protest Republican sleaze when a ringer is fielded as a "Green" in a local election.
Teresa is behind the curve for a change on the Lieberman=Palpatine thing, but she gets great comments, like this from Kip: I felt a great disturbance in the Joementum. As though 5 to 7 per cent of the electorate cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced... 18:56 GMT
The fetal dragon
Not your standard fetus-in-a-jar. The story is from the Daily Telegraph, but to see it with pictures, go here. It's rather beautiful, and the odd thing is that no one appears to have ever looked at it to see what it was. Sure, they thought it was a hoax, but didn't they wonder how it was done?
A metal tin found with the dragon contained paperwork in old-fashioned German of the 1890s. Mr Mitchell speculates that German scientists may have attempted to use the dragon to hoax their English counterparts in the 1890s, when rivalry between the countries was intense. [...] "I've shown the photos to someone from Oxford University and he thought it was amazing. Obviously he could not say if it was real and wanted to do a biopsy."
The documents suggest that the Natural History Museum turned the dragon away, possibly because they suspected it was a trick, and sent it to be destroyed. But it appears a porter intercepted the jar and took it home. The papers suggest the porter may have been Frederick Hart - David Hart's grandfather.
Mr Mitchell said: "The dragon is flawless, from the tiny teeth to the umbilical cord. It could be made from indiarubber, because Germany was the world's leading manufacturer of it at the time, or it could be made of wax. It has to be fake. No one has ever proved scientifically that dragons exist. But everyone who sees it immediately asks, 'Is it real?'"
Yesterday the Natural History Museum said that it was interested in following up the find.
More than a century later they get interested? Museums don't normally throw anything away, but they didn't even have any curiosity about this thing and just handed it to a porter and told him to ditch it? Such Bushian incuriosity is almost Fortean in itself. 18:14 GMT
Things to read
Sidney Blumenthal in the Guardian, In full voice against Bush: For the first time, the United States is hearing sustained criticism of its president and, though the Democratic presidential primaries have been going less than two weeks, the effect has been immediate. Bush was already rattled and preoccupied with his suddenly full-throated opposition even before the Iowa vote. He scheduled his state of the union address to follow it by a day, and it was the most poorly rated in modern times. By last weekend, his approval had fallen below 50% in a Newsweek poll and he was three points behind Senator John Kerry, the new Democratic frontrunner.
How to deal with law-breakers: The Bush administration is looking at waiving some government safety standards at federal nuclear facilities if contractors don't like them — after Congress directed it to start fining the contractors for violations.
From Jane's, Beyond the Hutton Report: The question remains unanswered as to why "undue prominence" was given to the highly controversial intelligence that indicated that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that could be deployed in "45 minutes" or less. It is now established that this intelligence was based on a single source and the evidence to date from Iraq suggests that the claim was unfounded. (Thanks to 56K.)
I keep meaning to mention that Ken MacLeod decided to ask me and a bunch of other fangirls to join him in a blog about fashion, clothing, that sort of thing. It seemed so out of character I had to say yes, even though I haven't been able to find any good new bras lately. It doesn't move very fast and it needs more pictures, but, anyway, it's called Bridesmaid.
He did not say, "hello," or even his name, just left a one-word message: "Whitewash."
It came from an embattled journalist whispering from inside the bowels of a television and radio station under siege, on a small island off the coast of Ireland: from BBC London.
And another call, from a colleague at the Guardian: "The future of British journalism is very bleak."
That's been the reaction of everyone I know, left or right, who has been following this.
But you know what bugs me? I haven't seen anyone ask Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal Democrats, what he thinks of all this. Why the hell not? 02:42 GMT
I don't know if any of you saw it, but ABC news (Peter Jennings) tonight replayed the Dean scream without the effect of the sound-blocking microphone (so the crowd could be heard) and the scream was not audible over the sounds of the crowd. It was stunning. You might want to watch for a story on this.
Diane Sawyer did the story and said they noticed that Dean was using a microphone like they use in the ABC GMA studios, which blocks background sound. So they found videotapes of the event and realized the scream was completely inaudible. Also, all the news organizations admitted they had replayed it too much with one exception -- NBC. Even Fox and CNN backed down, but not NBC.
A lot of people are examining the issue of whether Michael Moore went over the top when he declared George Bush a deserter.
The punditocracy seems to be implying that the entire story has long ago been "debunked", but the real question is whether he can properly be termed "a deserter" or just "AWOL". David Neiwert has a detailed look at the matter, and also poses another interesting question, noting that John McCain, Robert Dole, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Barry Goldwater, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John Kerry, Wesley Clark, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, George McGovern, Lyndon Baines Johnson, John F. Kennedy, and Harry Truman all held military rank before running for president, and asking:
Can anyone name any veteran who has been a major candidate for the presidency in the past half-century who has not released his military records?
His researches so far seem to provide an answer that will not surprise you.
In other news, Gene Lyons says that, contrary to RNC spin, George Soros' willingness to support anti-Bush activity with both his money and his mouth is transparently patriotic:
According to the seers and soothsayers of the right, a terrible new threat confronts America and its inspired leader George W. Bush. Like Shakespeare's Calpurnia, they warn their mighty Caesar of lionesses whelping in the streets, strange omens and portents in the night sky, and they do fear them.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page has waxed apoplectic; James K. Glassman of the American Enterprise Institute foresees "a great threat not just to the re-election of George Bush, but to our truly open society." Even the Washington Post has expressed alarm.
And what's the cause of all this hubbub ? Simple: the Democrats have found a Scrooge McDuck of their own. International financier George Soros, among the richest men in the world, plans to devote a small fraction of his estimated $7 billion to defeating President Bush. The Hungarian-born tycoon, who emigrated from England to the U.S. in 1956, has pledged a reported $18 million to three liberal organizations: $5 million to internet advocacy group MoveOn.org, $3 million to former Clinton aide John Podesta's Center for American Progress, and another $10 million toward a Democratic voter registration drive.
Sounds ominous, right? By taking advantage of an obscure constitutional loophole permitting even billionaires to oppose Bush, Soros bids to overturn the natural order. As if that weren't enough, he's taken to writing books and articles and granting interviews explaining why he believes that Bush's re-election would have terrible consequences for America and the world.
Eric Alterman doesn't think much of Howard Dean's chances... but we shall see. He has a good take on the State of the Union address. I can't remember who it was who suggested that we should make "weapons of mass destruction-related program activity" into Bush's "I didn't inhale," (or "no controlling authority"), but it seems to me a good idea.
And, of course, the most important news of the month: Russian girl claims x-ray vision. (Via Epicycle.) Gosh, I wonder how Peggy Noonan missed the importance of this story to the legend of Bush's enormous brilliance. With Peggy, everything proves that Bush is the sexiest, smartest, holiest, and cosmically coolest guy in the history of the world. (In my fantasy, TBogg writes a brilliant post explaining the connection, then somehow convinces Peggy and causes her to generate her own version for her column.) 14:42 GMT
Whitewash
From all appearances, Hutton just refused to accept what the BBC said and accepted whatever Blair said instead, regardless of the fact that it's as plain as the nose on my face that the BBC was right and you'd have to be completely incompetent to believe that stupid "45 minutes" claim. So the head of the BBC fell on his sword, and everyone is supposed to pretend that Blair wasn't full of it. Please. 01:45 GMT
Damn!
Some virus is spoofing my address again. I just hate seeing all those error messages coming in, all supposedly having bounced a message from me. You know I didn't send it, right? You know I wouldn't be caught dead using Outlook Express.
Yes, I know you think you have an excuse. You have to use it at work, right? Well, maybe you have to use it for work mail, but you don't have to use it to mail me, do you? For real mail, personal mail, you can get a real mail-reader, or use a free webmail account or something, so you never need to put my address in Outlook Express, do you?
But if you really think you have to use OE, you could change the defaults so that I don't get viruses from you, and I also don't get that stupid HTML rubbish from you.
I hate your HTML mail, I will always hate your HTML mail, and nothing you can send me will change my mind. You're not a typographer, you're just someone who can do a lot of stuff with your computer, so you imagine that your HTML layouts are somehow nicer and easier to read. They're not. ASCII plain text is nicer and easier to read.
For an insight into the sea change currently underway in the United States, take this excerpt from an ad that was run on the op-ed page of today's NY Times. I can't link to it, because it's an ad, but here's the gist of it:
"While most Americans firmly support the war against terrorism, some professional activists and opportunistic politicians began 2004 with a resolution to keep homeland security efforts tied up in a legal straitjacket. And sadly, they are manipulating one of America's most respected institutions -- the judiciary -- to do it.
These ideologues remain convinced that their absolutist view of "civil liberties" must always prevail over Americans' right to live free from terrorism. No aspect of our government's security operations is immune from activists' profitable fund-raising drives. Special interests groups and lawyers then invest their overflowing war chest in lawsuits and mean-spirited public relations advertising opposing everything from major military actions overseas to the review of airplane passenger manifests. Even moves to modernize outdated intelligence gathering techniques have met with paranoid claims that government is running roughshod over everyone....
Idealogical lawyers have convinced some federal courts that unelected judges, and not our Commander-in -Chief, should have the last word on how our military can detain captured enemies. One appeals court in New York City... made the incredible claim that... federal officials must charge a captured terrorist with a crime or release him."
and here's the kicker:
"So it's time to get our priorities straight. Do we defer to the ideologues' rigid agenda of absolute "civil liberties" for all, or do we trust government officials and our military to use their powers wisely and protect us from the horrors terrorists can unleash?"
This is jaw-dropping --and terrifying--on so many levels I hardly know where to start. First, and perhaps most important, this group, Washington Legal Foundation, is comprised of the most powerful law firms in Washington, who represent the largest global corporations.
Got that? Constitutional rights are just some sort of weird, irresponsible, hippie idea. Go read the rest. 20:51 GMT
It's snowing!
It is the one thing that can make my neighborhood look good, and my little postage stamp of a back garden looks downright picturesque. It's beautiful!
Also, I did manage to clear a lot of stuff off of one side of my desk, so at least I accomplished something. 18:38 GMT
The Texas Democrats have their own weblog, Yellow Dog Blog, and they're reporting more dirty tricks from Governor Rick Perry, who apparently gave his hard-right favorite in the upcoming special election advance notice without bothering to inform the other side. The head of the Texas Democratic Party wrote the Governor a letter:
I am writing on behalf of millions of Texas Democrats, Independents, and moderate Republicans to ask that you refrain from playing favorites and announce the date of the special election run-off for Senate District 1 to all concerned parties at the same time.
There is compelling evidence that your favored candidate in the first round of voting was aware well in advance of other candidates and the general public that you had decided on January 20 as the date. Direct mail on behalf of your candidate began arriving in voters' mailboxes fewer than 48 hours after your public announcement. This was an impossibly short time to have designed, printed, and mailed the pieces under the schedule that pertained to all other candidates -- including those from your own party such as Tommy Merritt and Jerry Yost. (...)
Compared with some of what's been going on lately, this seems like small-change, but this kind of thing is increasingly SOP for the Republican Party these days and it's hardly surprising when it happens in Texas.
A somewhat more amusing post (in a disgusting sort of way) has Republicans expressing complete surprise that all the warnings they ignored about university tuition deregulation have proven to be prophetic, with the result that their middle-class constituents are giving them a headache. And they just can't understand how this happened. 23:10 GMT
I usually ignore the emails I receive telling me to 'embrace' my new-found freedom and be happy that the circumstances of all Iraqi women are going to 'improve drastically' from what we had before. They quote Bush (which in itself speaks volumes) saying things about how repressed the Iraqi women were and how, now, they are going to be able to live free lives.
The people who write those emails often lob Iraq together with Saudi Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan and I shake my head at their ignorance but think to myself, "Well, they really need to believe their country has the best of intentions- I won't burst their bubble." But I'm telling everyone now- if I get any more emails about how free and liberated the Iraqi women are *now* thanks to America, they can expect a very nasty answer.
You know, shortly before the war started, I saw on the news (a rare occurence—I do not watch the news on television, which seems to me to be completely content-free, even with all of its pictures; if a news program starts on a channel not in the pocket of Viacom, GE, Disney, or ADM, let me know) some story that included an excerpt from the Iraqi state news, which had a female newsreader. Who was not covering her head in any way.
And I thought, I wonder what other Islamic nation we'd see that in?
I want every one of those little twerps who told us we had to support the invasion in order to liberate Iraqi women to apologize to us. I mean it. It's about bloody time. 13:20 GMT
Housekeeping
People write to me from time to time and ask me:
why I don't have comments. I don't have comments because I don't know how to code them. I could do something like have an open link every day at Avedon's Other Weblog, if people like that idea. But I can't put them here. Tell me whether you think it's a stupid idea to point comments to my Blogspot page.
why Dennis Kucinich isn't listed in the Presidential Poll. You'll note I'm not even linking to it. I created the poll when I was fooling around one day before Kucinich entered the race, and also before the provider for The Sideshow Annex upgraded their protocols in a way that distinctly messed me up and I can no longer get into the site to edit or upload or even delete pages. So I can't take it down (which I want to do, because the thing is all freeped anyway). And in case anyone hasn't noticed yet, I'm voting for the Democrat. People who write to me about how they have to "vote their conscience" should remember that if Bush gets to keep doing what he's doing because too many people think - like Bush apparently does - that this is a contest for the job of Messiah, that will be on your conscience.
Also, blogging may be light while I'm trying to clean off my desk. I've, uh, left it a bit long. 05:11 GMT
This is too hard. Hell, even this is too hard! Dammit, they all are. But at least go here and vote for either Silber or Henley. Not that I'm trying to tell you what to do or anything....
Lis is pissed off at someone who is trying to, um, "protect" the children.
LOS ANGELES - For the first time, a federal judge has declared unconstitutional a section of the USA Patriot Act that bars giving expert advice or assistance to groups designated foreign terrorist organizations.
In a ruling handed down late Friday and made available Monday, U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins said the ban is impermissibly vague in its wording.
I found this link in a comment from Ray Radlein on this post at Talk Left. 23:53 GMT
On the web
Digby advises the Democrats to stop letting the Republicans keep framing the debate: Just as important, we must counter their obfuscatory rhetoric and never, ever adopt it as our own. Any Democrat who uses terms such as "tax relief," "tort reform" or "partial birth" abortion should be fined 1000 dollars per instance.
Ruy Teixeira discusses some interesting poll results: Among political independents, Bush's approval ratings are almost all net negative: overall (45 percent approval/50 percent disapproval); foreign policy (40 percent/50 percent); Iraq (44 percent/49 percent); and the economy (37 percent/58 percent). Favorability and re-elect figures are much the same. And this is a group that Bush actually won with in 2000. But right now they're not very happy with Bush or with the Republicans, and they are more positive about Democrats as a party. Many people regard independents as the key to winning the election. If this poll is any indicator, Bush is cooked.
Someone was bound to answer Atrios' call to "adopt a columnist" by starting a blog about Tom Friedman. I love the clever title: "Enduring Friedman". Check out this post from last week examining the evolution of Friedman's position on the reverse domino theory, which he originally seemed to realize was whacky but reached for desperately when all the other excuses for the invasion of Iraq turned to dust.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden has learned of Something new in Short Creek: Elizabeth Mitchell has pointed me toward a strange little story that's developing in Colorado City (formerly Short Creek) Arizona: The town's children are fleeing. It started less than a week and a half ago, when two girls named Fawn Broadbent and Fawn Holm ran away for fear of being forced into polygamous "marriages".
At the end of 1963 I was hearing Carroll James playing the record on the radio and I liked it. At the time, I thought "exclusive" was only a local phenomenon - I didn't realize that James was the only DJ in America who was playing a Beatles record. But I did learn eventually, after I became a teenager, after it became History. But not 'til now did I know that I owed it all to Marsha Albert. And, hey, the article is written by my old pal Richard Harrington, too.
Bernie Saunders says We are the Majority: Corporate America essentially is saying the hell with the American worker, the hell with the United States of America. We will do anything we want in order to make more and more profits. Read it!
Scripting News has the dope on Dean's "crazy" scream: I was at Dean headquarters on the night of the Iowa caucuses, and I watched the Dean rant on TV in the office, with the other Web programmers. A few minutes before the speech they had a staff meeting in the conference room. Everyone was there except me and another guest. Not being a staffer, I didn't belong in the staff meeting. Several times during the meeting a loud crazy-sounding scream came from the room, everyone was doing it, and it was really frightening. The stuff of nightmares. This was before Howard Dean's rant. I asked Jim Moore what that was about, he said it's an Indian war yell or something like that, they used to do it in United Farm Workers rallies, and they adopted it at Dean For America. A few minutes later Dean let out the famous scream, it was the same scream I heard in the conference room. Oh, so that's all it was. Sheesh!
David Neiwert discusses the distinction between real conspiracies and conspiracy theories.
Patrick offers a warning about accepting the media's spin on the candidates
Over the years I've seen a few national-level politicians in person, even conversed with a few, and none of them seemed particularly similar to their media stereotypes. "Remote and intellectual" Eugene McCarthy was extroverted and full of backslapping bonhomie. Well-known extremist madman Barry Goldwater was thoughtful and considerate. In 1992 I watched robotic, inauthentic Al Gore deliver a stemwinder strong enough to peel the paint off a refrigerator; I thought the crowd was going to levitate. The Howard Dean I saw a few months ago was full of happy-warrior pizzazz, not this dire "anger" stuff we're constantly hearing about. Okay, there was [nationally famous conservative leader's name withheld for reasons of professional courtesy], who really did seem to be the grating smartypants everyone says he is, but by and large it's pretty clear that we should regard these media tags as having somewhat less credibility than Page 6 gossip. And more to the point, always ask ourselves whose interest is being served when we lazily retransmit them.
Well, you know those overtime rule changes that the Chimp said "Screw you" to Congress and the American public and put in anyways? One of the rule changes in there widens the definition of "professional" so that it denies overtime pay not just to those with four-year degrees -- but also those who have accumulated work experience "equivalent" to college. And guess what qualifies as one of those "equivalents". You got it. Military service.
(This was actually posted earlier in error - it was a note to myself and I hadn't checked it yet, and I forgot I'd made it when I reposted the page to correct an earlier spelling error. So I ended up posting an even worse error. And also ruined my clever plan to post it in a different context. Oh, well....)
21:01 GMT
Holy Wesley Clark! (This is so much better than Bush's cheap neon halo.) Thanks to Hesiod for the link. And Steve Coffman sent a link to more halos.
18:10 GMT
Friday, 23 January 2004
More disgusting right-wing government
Thanks to Alice Marie Marshall, who sent me the tip for this:
President Bush has announced his plan to select Dr. W. David Hager to head up the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. The committee has not met for more than two years, during which time its charter has lapsed. As a result, the Bush Administration is tasked with filling all eleven positions with new members.
Was letting it lapse deliberate, so they could do exactly that?
President Bush has announced his plan to select Dr. W. David Hager to head up the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. The committee has not met for more than two years, during which time its charter has lapsed. As a result, the Bush Administration is tasked with filling all eleven positions with new members.
This position does not require Congressional approval. The FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee makes crucial decisions on matters relating to drugs used in the practice of obstetrics, gynecology and related specialties, including hormone therapy, contraception, treatment for infertility, and medical alternatives to surgical procedures for sterilization and pregnancy termination.
Dr. Hager's views of reproductive health care are far outside the mainstream of setback for reproductive technology. Dr. Hager is a practicing OB/GYN who describes himself as "pro-life" and refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women. Hager is the author of "As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now." The book blends biblical accounts of Christ healing women with case studies from Hager's practice.
If we didn't live in the Bizarro world, someone might raise a stink about this.... 19:09 GMT
Goodbye, Captain
Alan Bostick just IM'd me to say Captain Kangroo has died. I'm completely stunned to hear that he was only 76. That means he must've been only recently out of his teens when we were watching him as children. Gee whiz. Of course, there is only one obituary that really counts, and I know where to look for it: Thank you, Mark. 18:55 GMT
And as long as we're discussing entities who take advantage of government largesse, let's point our fingers in the right place: Ms. Payne is living in state-subsidized housing and getting health care through Medicaid while she is *working* as a cashier. That means that taxpayer money is going to *subsidize the substandard wages of that bloody store*, which otherwise would have to pay its employees enough to pay rent, have health care, and buy food. We are not subsidizing Ms. Payne, we are subsidizing Wal-Mart.
The thing is, the longer we let Wal-Mart and places like it get away with consuming people's work-lives without giving them a living wage, the more of us who will end up in situations like Caroline Payne's. And you know, what happens when the emiseration of the populace expands beyond the very fringes is that they eventually respond with violence. They don't feel they have any choice.
What a lot of people don't understand is that the welfare state doesn't just hand money over to people who didn't "earn" it, it pays for your personal security - both economic and physical - in a civilized society, and in a way that having more cops and prisons and federal agents can't. Forgetting that little point has brought more than one nation down. In America, we managed to reverse that trend when it started to eat us up before. This time, we may not get the chance. 18:06 GMT
Where I've been
Gene Lyons sees the RNC playing the race card in every direction while accusing Democrats of anti-Semitism in A matter of decency: The impeccably Republican editors of my hometown Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette recently ran a syndicated piece by one Peter Savodnik
alleging that Democrats suffer at the polls because party "fund-raisers in
Washington often take place in nightclubs filled with black people or
Jewish comedians." Also deemed problematic were an appetite for ethnic
foods and identification with "hep cats," a phrase I hadn't heard since
1958. Jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (1917-93) was the last hep cat.
Republicans, in contrast, go in for "SUVs, white picket fences, flags,
monogamy, organized religion."
Rittenhouse Review offers the highlights of dinner-party life with Tina Brown and friends. And the winner is: Lauren Hutton!
Scoobie Davis is inviting people to leave the Democratic Party. This week's choice: Susan Estrich.
Kevin Drum has some good advice for Democrats on the practice of stagecraft. (My own suggestion is not to write speeches, but to capture some pointed phrases and put good extemporaneous speakers up front who will know how to deliver them in context.)
Lambert at Corrente has thoughts about the fact that the Republicans have been hacking the Democrats' mail all year, but here's my favorite:
4. I hope all the Democratic candidates are being very, very careful. In particular, I hope they are encrypting all of their email, as well as their files, and their cell phone traffic and wifi. Anything that could be intercepted by Echelon. Meanwhile, the Democrats should consider setting up a secure system off the Hill. Put it in a trailer outside the Capital and surround it with barbed wire. Can't we get a little political theatre going on this one? Also, the Farmer explains New Hampshire newspapers, and Leah looks at Bush's exciting new jobs training scheme.
Mary Kay Kare spent a week on the ground in Iowa as part of the Dean campaign and posted daily to Gallimaufry with her impressions. And she wonders in e-mail why Dean's supporters are being described as especially weird, which she thinks is, "just completely off the wall."
What the hell is she talking about? Yeah some of them looked a little weird. And some of them were middle aged white folks like me. And some of them were retirees. And and and.
And we haven't been told what everyone else's troops look like, but I really doubt that Dean supporters are any more funny-looking than anyone else's.
But what if they were? The culture is pretty a la carte these days, and I don't see why it should be taken as a positive that your campaign fails to reach that segment of the population that does not avidly read the fashion pages or dress to please Maureen Dowd. Isn't it more worrying that the anti-Dean forces are so contemptuous of people who don't look like, well, Bush-supporters?
Crazy-ass hippies "with things pointing out of their clothes" (whatever that means) can't be any dumber than that guy in the White House - the one whose attire Howard Fineman so admires. And they still have a contribution to make, still have the same concerns most Americans do, and probably know something that your average gets-all-their-news-from-FOX types don't have a clue about. Oh, yeah, and they vote, too. I don't really think it's smart to write those people out of the script.
(You know, I never wear designer dresses and pearls, either.) 15:45 GMT
You may be closer than you think
Patrick has linked to a nightmare that hovers on the edges of our consciousness. (He also brings into service that Joanna Russ remark I used to use in my Usenet signature.) Down in the comments, he also says:
Conservatives know that you can't engineer all chance of misfortune and self-created calamity out of society without distorting things so badly that everyone's miserable. Libertarians know that the people who volunteer to be social engineers often harbor teapot-tyrant tendencies of their own. But liberals know that a deep pool of human misery is a recipe for the domination of society by the worst kind of pointy-haired bosses, and they're not wrong.
We know just enough about what it must be like to fall off the edge that we might just sell the bosses our souls to keep from being pushed there. 13:52 GMT
Amazingly ex-felons, unless they used to be CEOs or arbitragers, tend to have few political friends. This helps to explain why they enjoy so few political rights. Much of the public shares the misimpression that after one has served ones time — "paid their debt to society" — all rights and responsibilities are restored. Well, think again. Seven states permanently disfranchise even felons who have fully served their sentences. And because these states do not distinguish between types of felonies or length of sentence, an 18-year-old convicted in Virginia of a one-time drug sale who successfully completes a court-ordered treatment program, and is never rearrested, permanently loses her voting rights unless she obtains a gubernatorial pardon — which is to say almost never.
Being able to permanently disenfranchise those who have been convicted of a felony is a pretty neat trick. It pretty much means that people who have been sufficiently abused by the system are forever deprived of their ability to get redress at the ballot box. Very convenient for, say, dictators. And look at all the things you can make into felonies! 23:24 GMT
We usually say "religious extremists", which is a neat phrase, I guess, except that it already relies on the idea that the people we're talking about are advocating an extreme version of the religion they claim to espouse - not that they have twisted the faith beyond all recognition, but that they are adhering to it so intensely that they are becoming an annoyance and embarrassment to the larger faith's own adherents. As if all Christians or Muslims should be as "devout" as the Christianists and Islamists want us to be, but we just can't be bothered.
This presentation has long offended me and, worse, I think, gives an unearned legitimacy to these versions of our faiths. I'll leave aside the question of how other faiths' "extremists" wander from the origins of their professed faiths, but I'm pretty familiar with Christianity, and while I recognize its bloody history I also know that most of what is presented to us as "Christianity" by so-called fundamentalists doesn't really have a lot to do with the teachings of Christ, so I feel I'm on pretty safe ground in saying that whatever these people are, they are not actually extreme Christians - they are something else.
What they have in common with other "extremists" is not their adherence to the fundamentals of the faith, but their willingness to embrace a purely human hierarchy of authoritarianism in the service of a murderously punitive philosophy that worships death.
Awhile back we found Antonin Scalia rhapsodizing on how Christians supposedly don't fear the death penalty because they know they are going to a glorious afterlife. I doubt many Christians - even his kind - would look forward to execution for a crime they did not commit - or even one they had - but at least we now know that Scalia has what he regards as a justification for his casual attitude toward taking life. He's not interested in establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, as far as I can tell, and he's certainly not interested in allowing sinners the time to find redemption - he just seems to like being able to kill people. There's an awful lot of that going around among his breed of "Christian". John Ashcroft, who also claims to be a Christian, helpfully wanders around the country trying to force the death penalty in violation of state laws that do not allow it.
The Islamists, as we have seen, have a future filled with 17 virgins to look forward to as a reward for outright murder. And because we are in the business of demonizing Islam these days, it's acceptable to observe that their underlying motivations are much more human than spiritual when they undertake their various kamikaze rituals. But some people are still willing to fool themselves into thinking that the "moral clarity" that inspires our avowedly Christian leaders to drop bombs hither and yon, in addition to enforcing the death penalty wherever they can - even in circumstances where the accused is almost certainly innocent - owes itself to some spiritual guiding hand rather than a stunning moral laxity.
But the "Christian" foreign policy, based on deliberately trying to stir up Armageddon, is the capper. These people are most assuredly not embarked on a project of beating their swords into plowshares and following the Prince of Peace. Instead, they want a bloodbath to shatter the world. They don't just want to defeat their enemy, they want to commit the most absolute act of genocide that can be imagined, in which everyone but their relatively small sect of believers ends up not only dead but consigned to an eternity in the fiery pits of Hell.
And then they will be happy. They'll have an eternity of congratulating themselves for killing everyone else.
They're Thanaticists; death is the basis of their lives.
I stole the word from a novel I'm currently reading, Brian Stableford's The Fountains of Youth. I say "stole" because this isn't the way he uses it and the book isn't really about that - the Thanaticists are a bit more honest in their worship of death. But it seemed to me that this is the proper word for those people who seem to be so focused on death that they will not allow the rest of us to live. And they're willing to die for it. Or at least send someone else to do it for them. 16:12 GMT
There is a Libertopia
Lightning (who occasionally posts something at Small Flashes) responds to this post with these words:
Just a note, from one who's not a libertarian, either.
There is a "Libertopia". It's called Russia.
When Communism collapsed, the Russians did everything right, according to Libertarian theology. They privatized all of the industries that looked like they might be worth something, started a completely open stock market, dropped any trade barriers, etc. The result should have been a utopia.
But Russia looks like it's being run by a collaboration between Enron and the Mafia. What happened? Until the Libertarians can explain this (and not just explain it away), they've got a real, fundamental problem.
Presumably, The Market (the nearest the Libertarians come to God) isn't really a natural law ...
That's a point - it's the country that surprised Alan Greenspan by not miraculously turning into a wonderland when they experimented on it with their free-market theories. Oops! 13:57 GMT
"This has to be nipped in the bud...right now," says Hesiod in e-mail, supplying a link to this post at Counterspin Central, in which he notices that some Deaniacs are going all Nader about the possibility of Dean failing to win the nomination. Look, folks, one of the reasons you were supporting Dean was because, unlike his opponents, he looked like a guy who was more interested in the urgent business of beating Bush than in merely becoming the Democratic nominee. If you aren't interested in that same project of beating Bush, and only care about electing your candidate, you're just plain not serious. And we really don't have time for that.
Garance Franke-Ruta heard an ominous quote: "The Dean people are crazy-ass hippies with things pointing out of their clothes in places I don't even want to think about. Whatever happened to 'Get Clean for Gene'? There is no get clean for Dean." Ouch.
Patrick Nielsen Hayden had a rush of politics last night and wrote several posts on the subject.
Here he links to Robert Kuttner's "America as a One-Party State" - an article that should ruin your stomach for the rest of the day and give you a good case of fear and loathing for Tom DeLay (in case you didn't already have one). And here is his commentary on the caucus result, and then there's just a bit of gloating at the discovery that Josh Marshall agrees with him. (Also, in a departure from politics, check out the IRC Bible, linked from Electrolite's Sidelights.)
Arthur Silber is doing great posts even though he isn't feeling too well at the moment. Check out his marvellous rant about CBS' claim that they have declined to broadcast the MoveOn Bush in 30 Seconds ad because they have a policy of rejecting advocacy advertising. Yeah, right.
And here is Lis Riba's briefer (but informative) take on the same subject, along with a snapshot of the economy, another report from the state of boiling frogs, and some amusing bragging about her competence at a skill I do not share but can appreciate.
I must remember to check to see if Wesley Clark's Argyle Sweater is still available on e-bay. Admittedly, it's not my style, and decidedly out of my price-range. (Via MWO.) 18:10 GMT
There's an important aspect to this incident that hasn't been getting much play.
Here's a quote from the original AP story on the trip:
"MORGAN CITY -- Vice President Dick Cheney and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spent part of this week on a private duck hunting trip with friends in the marshes south Louisiana."
"Both shot their bag limits on Tuesday three mallards and three teal, Sheriff David Naquin said."
"The pair and their entourage arrived in Morgan City on Monday on a pair of Gulfstream V jets."
"Ken Perry, an official at Harry P. Williams Memorial Airport, said, "It just sent chills up my spine" when he heard on the radio that Air Force 2 was on approach. Any airplane carrying the vice president is generally dubbed Air Force 2."
OK, let's stop right there.
1) Is this a private trip, or an official trip? If it's private, then *somebody* paid for those Gulfstreams. Cheney made millions with Halliburton, so he *could* have... Except, that would be a private gift to a judge sitting on a case in which he's a principal. Forget the socializing aspect, which is bad enough, gifts big enough to involve 1000-mile joyrides (DC to Morgan City) are what you might call a no-no.
2) On the other hand, if those are Air Force jets -- which would make them C-37As, not Gulfstream Vs, as such -- then Messrs. Cheney and Scalia were pilfering Federal assets for personal use. I don't think that plays much better.
Oh, and Justice Scalia's salary as a Supreme Court Associate Justice is in the mid-$160,000 range. So it's not like he could have afforded to pay for a private jet on a whim of his own.
It's not like this was some dinner at The Prime Rib on K street. Both Scalia and Cheney had to go substantially out of their way to have this meeting, and *someone* had to pick up the tab.
Going on in the AP article:
"Cheney and Scalia were guests of Wallace Carline, owner of Diamond Services in Amelia, St. Mary Parish Sheriff David Naquin said. They left Wednesday."
Diamond Services' web site may be browsed at [Link]. There's also a contact list at that site, with Mr. Carline's direct e-mail address, if you're at all curious about asking him some questions.
Now... Guess what Diamond Services does as a business.
No, go ahead -- guess.
"Diamond Services Corporation is recognized for its expertise in the fields of dredging, pile driving, salvage work, fabrication, pipe rolling capability, and general oilfield construction."
So, regardless of the cost and provenance of the plane ride, Justice Scalia and Mr. Cheney both received hunting access and time from a company *directly affected by Cheney's task force's policies.*
I would guess - and freely admit it's a guess -- that Justice Scalia received about $10,000 in what seems to be gifts from the largesse of Messrs. Cheney and Carline, both of whom have a substantial stake in the outcome of the upcoming case.
But my guess to dollar value comes from the hypothetical: Imagine going up to Mr. Carline and asking, "Hey, Wallace... I'd like to hunt some ducks on your property for about a week. How much would you charge me?" That, and the jets.
It's the appearance of penny-ante bribery that's the story here -- not the socializing.
(And I point out the impropriety of the
situation, regardless of direction. "Cheney accepts $10,000 gift from Scalia before trial," strikes me as being as bad as, "Scalia accepts $10,000 gift from Cheney before trial." *Both* show Justice Scalia's appearance of partiality.)
((An earlier version of this was posted on my blog.))
I'm not sure there's much to distinguish the gift-giving and the camaraderie of hunting as examples of corruption. The point is that there should be no appearance of bias, no connection so close that a reasonable person could suspect that a judge had an interest in the outcome of the case. The hunting trip itself, even were there virtually no expenditure involved, still suggests strongly that the judge cannot be disinterested.
The size of the gift is another layer of suborning a judge. The use of taxpayer-funded air travel is obvious corruption, but a mere drop in the bucket of bribery using tax dollars that is a signature of this administration. Obviously, if Clinton or Gore had done this, you'd have been hard-pressed to find anyone who would defend them. But this is the Bush administration and the far right, who can do no wrong because they are defined as Good and therefore anything they do to reach their desired end is morally correct. 15:06 GMT
Blognotes
Strata Lucida takes down William Saletan when he "invokes the spectre of Election 2000 as he glibly equates the Iowa caucus counting process with the deeply flawed recount in Florida."
I've recently noticed a weblog called nyc99 that's full of interesting things about labor and globalization, well worth checking out. I was particularly interested in learning that legislative movement to curtail out-sourcing jobs to other countries is getting serious.
Thanks for the mention, Hugo, but it was only via me, since someone else wrote that.
You remember back here where I was talking about that odd little experience of hearing bleed-through of the Disney cartoon dwarf song while watching the scene in Fellowship of the Ring where they're in Balin's Tomb? It'd seemed like way too much of a coincidence, so we wondered for a bit if it was slipped in by some wiseguy...but we watched the scene again and it wasn't there.
Well, the other night I saw an ad - a PSA for teaching, actually - that uses that song. So now I know. 12:01 GMT
Monday, 19 January 2004
D-I-V-O-R-C-E
I like to remind people of this from time to time:
Here's a fact I couldn't find anywhere in George W. Bush's $1.5-billion plan to prop up American marriage.
The pro-Bush red states, especially those in the rural South, have a far higher divorce rate than Al Gore's blue states.
This is the Bible Belt?
Actually, it's more like the Divorce Belt, where the pro-marriage president's staunchest supporters tend to congregate. [...] "Divorce rates among conservative Christians were much higher than for other faith groups," Barna says flatly. [...] These people will soon be telling us how to run our marriages?
Twenty-seven percent of adults are divorced across the legendarily devout South, pollster Barna found. As for the liberal Northeast? That's the region with the lowest divorce rate, 19 percent.
It's not nice to laugh at the misfortunes of others, but, y'know, ha ha ha.
Via Anne Zook, who also wondered why the media doesn't provide cheesecake for straight women the way it does for straight men. As I explained in the comments, it's because men are a whole lot easier to please. 23:04 GMT
Why I'm not a libertarian
The reason I tend to get along well with honest libertarians is that we share a commitment to individual rights, and the reason I don't count myself among them is that I place individuals above any such more remote concepts as contracts and property, and they don't. Give me a conflict between the rights of an individual and the rights of a business or the strictures of an agreed contract and I'll pretty much come down on the side of fairness toward the individual every time. I cannot agree that a single individual, possibly dealing from a position of powerlessness and dire need, can always be said to be making an uncoerced and fair contract with a large, powerful entity that may be holding your very survival over your head.
And I cannot agree that anything other than force ultimately backs up a contract, and if it's okay to rely on the law (government force) to defend your contractual agreements, it must be equally okay to rely on the government to defend the rights of individuals. And not for a minute do I believe that using economic force is necessarily any different from using physical force when both can harm or kill you (and economic force certainly can kill you.)
I certainly understand why anyone, libertarian or no, would be wary of government power - I'm pretty wary of it myself, and I'm not in favor of giving government very much of it. But libertarians are perfectly happy to expect government power to enforce contracts, and that means privileging those who have more resources (money, land, the ability to pay pricey lawyers and the time to waste on suing those who can't afford to be sued and laughing in the faces of people they've cheated who can't afford to sue them). Some rob you with a six-gun, some rob you with a fountain pen, and pretending that the guy who uses the latter method isn't just as guilty as the other is just plain muddle-headed.
Which leads us to a guy who was one of my all-time favorite posters back in my alt.censorship days, Seth Finklestein, who wrote an article a while back called Libertarianism Makes You Stupid:
Libertarian proselytizers will preach some warm-and-fuzzy story such as
We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized.
[...] Note the rhetoric is made further meaningless by the "initiate force" concept. When Libertarians think using force is justified, they just call it retaliatory force. It's a bit like "war of aggression" versus "war of defense". Rare is the country in history which has ever claimed to be initiating a "war of aggression", they're always retaliating in a "war of defense".
The idea that Libertarians don't believe in the initiation of force is pure propaganda. They believe in using force as much as anyone else, if they think the application is morally correct. "initiation of force" is Libertarian term of art, meaning essentially "do something improper according to Libertarian ideology". It isn't even connected much to the actions we normally think of as "force". [...] While you might be told Libertarianism is about individual rights and freedom, fundamentally, it's about business. The words "individual rights", in a civil-society context, are often Libertarian-ese for "business". That's what they derive as the inevitable meaning of rights and freedom, as a statement of principles:
Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals.
The whole idea of a contract is that government enforces relations among individuals. The above sentence is a nonsensical, it's conceptually that they oppose all interference by government in the areas of government enforcing relations among individuals.
The key to understanding this, and to understanding Libertarianism itself, is to realize that their concept of individual freedom is the "whopper" of "right to have the State back up business". That's a wild definition of freedom. If you voluntarily contract to sell all your future income for $1, they then oppose all government "interference" with your "right" to do this. It's a completely twisted, utterly inverted, perfectly Orwellian statement, almost exactly "Freedom is Slavery". [...] One of the seamiest and ugliest aspects of Libertarianism is its support of turning back the civil-rights clock to pre-1964 legal situation for businesses. "I am not making this up". They're very explicit about it:
Consequently, we oppose any government attempts to regulate private discrimination, including choices and preferences, in employment, housing, and privately owned businesses. The right to trade includes the right not to trade -- for any reasons whatsoever; the right of association includes the right not to associate, for exercise of the right depends upon mutual consent.
That's "rights" according to Libertarianism. Whites-only lunch counters, "No Jews or dogs" hotels, "we don't serve your kind here", "No Irish need apply", "This is man's job", etc. All this is a "right of association" in Libertarian theology.
Such a weird position is not just the purview of some position-writers in a corner, but a surprisingly common trait of Libertarians. It's one of the surest way of identifying one, if they justify such a reactionary position from abstract considerations.
It must be stressed that a) Libertarians ARE NOT racists, sexists, etc. and b) The above is not meant to comment either way on the much more controversial affirmative-action debate. Libertarians can go to town whenever they're called racist, sexist, and so on for the above (gee, how could anyone ever get that idea?), proclaiming their great personal but private commitment to equality. Of course, they never have to do anything much in this regard since events have passed them by. But they want make sure you know they fully support the ideals, even if they think that all the past decades legal effort should be repealed as immoral and unprincipled. They also love to switch the debate to affirmative action, because that's far more contentious than anti-discrimination. But the position's very plain. Drinking from the wrong water fountain would presumably be "initiation of force", allowing retaliation of force to eject the malefactor. [...] What Libertarians have the luxury of doing is sitting back and saying "All the problems will be solved if we just let Jesus, err, property into our hearts, err, politics". What they do tactically is to focus on incidents or areas where the political process is at its worst, and peddle their snake-oil theory, contrasting the gritty reality with their pristine fantasy. Of course the fantasy looks better then!
The reason they get away with this is partly that there is no Libertopia, so we don't have a constant series of rile-'em-up stories to point out where Libertopia is an atrocity. Sometimes I think of writing a fictitious "Dispatches from Libertopia" for this sort of stuff. Such as:
"Today, Judge Rand ruled that the so-called "child-slavery" provision of the standard employment contract between MegaCorp and all employees was valid. As parents have the control of their children until eighteen, the signing-over of their labor until age 18 to MegaCorp was ruled a valid exercise of parental authority. Judge Rand, in his opinion, stated "The government is not to interfere with economic arrangements, absent a showing of fraud or force, as per the Fundamental Law of Libertopia. All parties with the legal right to contract consented, and that is the sole standard of evaluation. The fact that MegaCorp said it would fire any worker who did not agree to this provision is of no consequence, as that is entirely the right of MegaCorp."
"The separate individual child contracts were also ruled to be valid. Although the children were told if they did not sign, Mommy and Daddy would lose their jobs and the whole family might starve, this was regarded as simply the employer's right to hire and fire as he or she sees fit. No force, coercion, or fraud within the meaning of Libertopia Law was applied." Junior Warbucks, a MegaCorp spokesman, said "Do you make your children do chores? What's the difference?"
But of course this can be attacked in various ways, because Libertopia is pure fantasy, and the real-world rarely stacks up well to a fantasy, especially a political one.
A Libertarian can blithely argue that all problems would be solved by private charity, by people of goodwill, or if government would just get out of the way. It's a common tactic:
If there's a problem, our first question is not, "How can government solve this problem," but "What government program must be eliminated to improve this situation?"
Since there's no Libertopia, they never have to admit being in error as to what will happen under their proposed regime. That's a great debating advantage.
I've seen all of the arguments Seth discusses occurring in real time, and I've always admired Seth's willingness to confront them head on. He's a bit kinder to libertarians than I am, because I know that some of them really are racists and sexists and that these arguments, whoever is using them, are really the fruit of that poisoned tree. But, obviously, the libertarians I hang out with aren't in this category. In practice, they spend most of their time sounding exactly like liberals. They just have this naivety about how money and power work when not constrained by regulation.
And finally: "You're a Communist"
Not at all. I think business and markets are just great in a lot of areas. But I don't think that is the sum total of civil society. Being against business-worship is hardly the same thing as government-worship. It is the inability to understand this idea which is the ultimate proof that Libertarianism Makes You Stupid.
I don't think the libertarians I count among my friends are stupid, but it does feel sometimes like they are aiming their intelligence at a really stupid purpose. 20:57 GMT
Judah Ariel, formerly of Stage Left, can now be found at Aspasia. The Bloviator is posting there too - check out his post Politicized Science. 13:58 GMT
Sunday, 18 January 2004
Food for thought
Max says: The concession to Islamic supremacy over secularism is not some short-term slip out of pragmatism. It is fundamental to U.S. hegemony in the Middle East, and always has been. Theocracy is one of the U.S.-aligned Oil Cartel's weapons against secularism, nationalism, and democracy. The other one is expansionist Zionism.
William Burton looks at Bush policy and declares it vaporware.
Liberal Oasis on the spinning of Bush's not-very-good poll numbers.
Atrios notes that the place to get decent coverage of the campaign isn't from the professional media, but from ordinary people writing up their first-hand observations in the blogosphere. 21:57 GMT
Another view of Clare Short
Charlie Stross read this Guardian article about Clare Short's recent outburst and wonders if this isn't just The Sun making a mountain out of a molehill again:
This is a non-story. It will have little effect on Short, who shows an indomitable spirit in holding her ground. Nor is it likely to affect Sun sales; a vendetta against a 57-year-old grandmother who has earned considerable public affection for her forthright views is unlikely to haul in more readers, however many breasts on the front page.
But where it does have an impact is that this kind of bullying attempts to kill off public debate about the way women are portrayed in the mass media - and to a considerable extent succeeds. It takes a brave individual to stand up to a thuggish Sun, and one wonders how many other volunteers, apart from Clare Short, would be now prepared to put their heads above the parapet.
Anyone who criticises some of the images of women which routinely appear in newspapers or adverts, is accused of being a killjoy or interfering or both. It becomes impossible to advance the case that there are standards of decency worth fighting for, and that the newspaper industry's distance from the porn industry is also worth maintaining.
The author is right to the extent that some parts of the media (well, most parts, actually) have a tendency to deflect and distort public discussion with a lot of hype - and certainly The Sun is famous for having done so. But talking about banning "Page 3" isn't going to do sexual equality much good and doesn't even do much for standards. The fact of the matter is that those images of bare-breasted women are not replacing any higher standard of journalism on the third page of The Sun.
Other portrayals of women in the media are far more diverse today than they were back in the late '60s and early '70s when the conversation of representation of women in media got started, and sexual imagery does not harm women. What's really hurting women right now is considerably more complex, and about much more concrete issues like transport, daycare, and jobs. Trying to divert our attention at a time like this with pointless attacks on "topless" images is at best a waste of energy. At worst, it continues to promote the idea that there is something dirty about women's bodies - and that can't be good. 21:00 GMT
Kevin Drum at CalPundit has been writing posts about the state of the Democratic campaign and what the best strategies are, and they generate long threads. Most of them seem to be pleas for political moderation that seem ill-placed to me, since all of the campaigns are relatively mainstream, and the so-called "radical liberal" of the frontline, Howard Dean, is clearly a fiscal conservative without any remotely leftist positions.
In fact, one of the most interesting things about Dean is that he has managed to energize the base without taking any unusually strong liberal positions. It is actually less surprising that so many Republicans are moving in his direction (and they are), since his positions are pretty consistent with northern Republicanism as it was before that party became overwhelmed by the radical right.
Threads at Calpundit on this and related themes all seem to center around the idea that there is an out-of-touch liberalism driving the Deaniacs, which strikes me as exactly wrong. What's been wrong with the Democratic Party for quite some time is a cowardly retreat from the liberalism that most of the country actually supports - universal healthcare, good public schools, Social Security and such are both more popular and more economically sound than the actual programs Bush and the Republicans have been pushing (and passing). By failing to stand up for the liberal position on these issues, Democrats have been making themselves irrelevant to ordinary voters. What we need is not to soft-peddle or ignore these positions, but to let people know we are behind them.
And Americans are slowly waking up to the fact that Bush has not been very good at the national security game. Here is a tiny indicator: While pundits and his primary opponents attacked Dean for saying that the capture of Saddam did not make us safer, 60% of the country agreed with Dean. And that fact isn't just something that will endear those people to Dean, but it also helps drive a wedge of dissonance between their perceptions and their acceptance of what the pundits and pols have to say about these issues; if they are so at odds with the media about something so obvious, it gives them that much more reason to doubt what they hear from them about national security as well as what is said about Dean.
Some of the strongest support Bush had in 2000 came from the armed services. But that support is quite a bit softer today, as I think is shown neatly in this comment by Hal O'Brien:
Put it to you this way. A joke I heard from an NCO buddy of mine in the Army:
Q: What's the difference between Dubya and Jane Fonda?
A: Hey, at least Jane went to Vietnam!
If jokes that compare Bush negatively with Jane Fonda are becoming popular among soldiers, I think it's an understatement to say that they are not in love with George W. Bush. 11:12 GMT
Krugman's latest, Who Gets It?, explains what's really going on in this campaign: The real division in the race for the Democratic nomination is between those who are willing to question not just the policies but also the honesty and the motives of the people running our country, and those who aren't.
Bush Installs Perjurer/Cross-Burning Advocate Pickering: A day after facing humiliating protests while visiting Martin Luther King's grave for a photo op on the way to a $2000-a-plate fundraiser, the Unelected Fraud has installed a cross-burning advocate to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. (Their Yahoo link for the story on that humiliating protest seems to be dead, so read Skippy's how to use a first amendment zone instead.)
Also:
Lou Dobbs is using a Drudge-generated lie to claim that Wesley Clark actually supported the invasion of Iraq.
NPR Ombudsman apologies to blog readers and learns what "astroturf" means.
Mickey Kaus edits Lucy the Bat's fake defense of Dean
Bush's space fraud
Heads-up on Alterman and Franken appearing on Book TV Sunday afternoon on C-Span2.
Please take that last one and pound it over the heads of every one of those dopey Iraq hawks who whined about how regime change in Iraq was going to liberate Iraqi women and how us anti-invasion types just didn't care about those women. No, boys, we just understood that invading Iraq would make things worse for them. Because we're smarter than you are.
At Talk Left: CBS Says No to MoveOn but Yes to White House Drug Ads: CBS is out of line. It told MoveOn they would not accept an anti-Bush ad for the Super Bowl because they don't allow advocacy advertising--but they are going to air those insidious White House anti-drug ads. How can they say the White House ads aren't advocacy?
In an update, an action alert from NORML with a sample letter of complaint to CBS.
The Great Divide looks to be a spanking new weblog with a lot of promise, apparently by someone called Claudia Long who hasn't worked out that thing about linking to the article being cited, yet. But with, among other things, a post asking a question about what "liberal" means in its current rather curious context:
"Liberal Hawks Reconsider the Iraq War" reads a Salon headline today. But I am puzzled... what exactly, is a Liberal Hawk? Christopher Hitchens -- a liberal? On exactly what? And Pollack?
What is to be done about this muddledness? Let us put it this way. Anyone who says they are a 'liberal' and still thought it was a dandy idea to blaze in and blow away thousands of people, occupy their country, seize their resources, and tell them precisely what form of government they may now enjoy, is perhaps not a liberal. Perhaps a LINO. Same as those Democrats who call themselves 'centrist' -- which, translated, means "I'll vote for corporate interests over yours anytime."
Well, yes, and that's why a lot of liberals call themselves "progressives" instead, a word Long had no problem coming up with a definition for. And after having already discovered what the unifying principle of the Republican Party is, too. In other definitions: Aubundance of caution. 19:07 GMT
You think you know
I can tell things are back to normal whenever we get more overhyped child porn headlines, and it's been that kind of week, here. Amazingly, The Times has an intelligent article on the subject, by Mick Hume:
Like most of you, I have never seen any explicit images of adults having sex with children. Of course, the idea is repulsive. But I am also sickened by those seeking to prey on our emotions by turning child pornography into an all-purpose moral panic for our times.
In a report published yesterday, the children's charity NCH announced a 1,500 per cent increase in child pornography crimes since 1988, blamed the internet for spreading child porn everywhere, and said that internet-connected mobile phones could make things even worse.
If anybody claimed such an increase in any other crime, the statistics would be considered suspect. Yet such is the concern about child porn that most took the 1,500 per cent figure at face value. NCH compared the 35 people against whom police proceeded in 1988 with the 549 charged or cautioned in 2001.
Given that 1988 was the first year in which it became a specific offence to possess child pornography, it is hardly surprising that the numbers convicted of the newly-invented crime were so low. And given the cultural and legal fixation with child porn in recent years, the only wonder about the later figures is that they are not much higher.
So is child pornography really such a major, and growing, social problem? Campaigners always claim that the relatively few prosecutions are "only the tip of the iceberg". Yet even those who specialise in researching child porn admit they don't know that much about it. Professor Max Taylor, director of the respected Combating Paedophile Information Networks in Europe (Copine) project, told an international conference that "it is difficult to find another area of substantial policy development that has been based on such little empirical evidence".
Extraordinary claims about child porn are pretty much par for the course, with the police and child protection groups often making astonishing claims that simply cannot be supported - and make no sense. Much of it is in direct contradiction to everything we do know about paedophilia and child abuse.
But the success of all this hype relies on exploiting our strong emotional reaction to the horror of child abuse and our general ignorance about the subject. Not a single child is protected by it, but a lot of people make a very nice living off of blasting a combination of horrifying anecdotes and inflated numbers to keep the panic rolling. It's shameful. 16:38 GMT
Why write something myself when Skippy beat me to the punch?
al gore gave a speech about awol's environmental policy (we know, we know, isn't that an oxymoron? well, if awol's involved, it's some kind of moron).
you can see a webcast of the speech or get the transcript here, both courtesy of we love nazis and we drink the blood of white women's children.com. sorry, we mean, moveon.org.
At The Agora there's a series of posts covering the various revelations of administration perfidy leading to the invasion of Iraq. This one cites some curious remarks by Glenn Reynolds saying the whole thing was perfectly all right since going after Saddam showed everyone else how tough we are.
This leads me to all sorts of thoughts about who I should kill in order to show how tough I am. Operating on the invasion-apologist theory, I - like Mr. Bush - need only kill someone who everyone already assumes I can kill - perhaps an elderly invalid or a small child - just so you'll all know I'm real tough. I will be happy to choose someone who is annoying just so the Chickenhawks can rationalize it by saying that my victim needed killing anyway so it's all right.
And here's a post that examines the "It's Clinton's Plan" defense and how absolutely lame it sounds in the context of having been told that we invaded Iraq because "9/11 changed everything." And here's the post pointing out that it wasn't Clinton's plan, anyway. 00:34 GMT
Thursday, 15 January 2004
Did you see?
No link right now, but this time I got the news direct via my telephone from various radio stations and newspapers that wanted my comments over the fact that - and I can hardly believe it - Clare Short has suddenly revived her campaign to ban "Page 3" photos.
You know about "Page 3", right? "Topless" pictures that appear on the third page of certain daily tabloids, especially those called The Sun? Which Short introduced a bill to ban in the heyday of overblown anti-porn rhetoric, more than a decade ago, and still couldn't pass?
Why is this fruitbat raising this issue now? It's hardly as if there aren't more vital matters for our elective officials to concern themselves with. (And did I hallucinate that Short gave an interview a while back saying that the whole Page 3 thing had been overblown and she was never that fussed about it? So why is she doing this?) Hell, even if she wanted to brush up her credentials on women's issues, I can think of several things of far greater import.
In any case, the phone has been ringing since about 9:15 - the morning radio shows wanting comments - and I thought they were done at lunch time but of course then they came back for the afternoon shows, and even The Sun itself, having heard me on the radio, decided it would be cool to get a statement from Feminists Against Censorship. So I haven't had much time for blogging, and I'm not going to editorialize about these things I was looking at last night:
Because Matt Drudge posted an incomplete and edited transcript of Margaret Cho's set (about 2 mins. out of the 20 min. set) at the MoveOn.org show Monday night, I have received nonstop hateful e-mails (I have over 100, and they're coming in at the rate of 1 per minute).
I believe that many people who read the transcript didn't even realize she is a comedian because they mentioned her "speech."
Most of my traffic has come directly from a site called freerepublic.com which posted the transcript from Drudge.
Although people were offended by and commented on different parts of the transcript, it seems that Margaret's biggest crimes are being fat, Asian-American, GLBT supportive, and possibly female.
Here's one that seemed downright civil compared to the others:
Given your recent comments about President Bush at the MoveOn.org awards, you obviously have no problems with personal attacks. Therefore I thought I'd take a moment to let you know that most people think you are a no talent, fat, washed up a-hole.
Quite a few of the messages refer to that fat thing. Well, she looks pretty good to me.
I had a rare insight watching Mr. Rumsfeld preening and crowing on 60 Minutes. Leslie Stahl kept asking him how the capture of Saddam Hussein was going to change the likelihood of terror, how it made us safer. And, as he usually does, he started to get huffy and strident, clearly annoyed that she would dare ask him such a question. Eventually he stammered out answers that covered his leadership and finally, weakly, pointing to the money he had with him. In my view they were all weak, silly arguments.
But he seemed to be reflecting an belief, widespread in the administration, that a single leader can make a huge difference in the political climate. *sound of my hand slapping my forehead* That's why this mattered so much. Without the charismatic leader they actually believe any opposition to the US will melt with the capture of Saddam Hussein. By the same token, the Supremes appointment of our very own charismatic leader was supposed to dissolve all opposition to his will. No wonder he is so pissed off at upstarts who dare to challenge his will. Doh.
It's true that a charismatic leader can drag a nation up or down in a way that a milquetoast probably can't, but it's also true that a charismatic leader may accomplish nothing but more-of-the-same if their vision doesn't depart much from the SOP of their nation and culture. And if you have a culture that is already based on authoritarian hierarchy in which strongmen operate to cement their control, the guys who rise to the top are likely to be the guys who are already good at that - so getting rid of one of them just makes room for the next one. 22:31 GMT
You have to listen to what they say when they are live on TV because the really important things they say are never repeated in the later bulletins.
So it was today, when Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve spoke to his Central Bankers hosts in Berlin.
And when you listen to what they have to say, you have to understand the implications of what they are saying, the underlying meaning. (Rayelan is right - this is where the chocolate is hidden.)
What I am about to tell you will not be repeated in the financial papers or on Bloomberg. And if it is briefly mention in the DJ, most won't get it.
During a Q&A following his speech, Greenspan was asked about the dangers of an economic crash, the collapse of currencies and the risks of collapses in the banking sector in the modern deregulated world economy. This was in context of concerns about the weak dollar and the burgeoning US current account deficit.
Casual and relaxed, almost in slow motion, Greenspan explained how deregulation had allowed the formation of a complex deriviatives sector in which risks to banks could be spread across borders and to pension funds and insurers. "Not one bank has collapsed under this deregulated system," he gloated from the bridge, hands firmly on the wheel as he peered with his watery eyes at the darkness.
He explained just how the risks had been farmed out to pension funds and insurance funds. They had taken the brunt, not the banks.
He didn't even bat an eyelid.
Now let's think about this for a moment folks. What is he actually saying?
What he is saying is this. "Hey, things got tough for a little while after 9/11. But look friends we're sitting pretty. None of us big fat cat bankers suffered.
"All those losses were farmed out to pension, insurance and mutual funds. We didn't lose our multi-million dollar retirement plans. Instead those suckers, the riff-raf who have to work for forty years for a measly pension lost theirs.
"So what are you worrying for? It's never us that pays, it's THEM!"
Just before he went to bed, Mr. Sideshow suddenly remembered to tell me about this.
Tony Blair Live on LBC 97.3FM
Tony Blair brings his 'Big Conversation' to LBC 97.3FM
For the first time ever, a serving British Prime Minister is to host his own radio phone-in show...on LBC 97.3FM.
Pity he couldn't have remembered in time for me to actually listen to it. 00:59 GMT
Tuesday, 13 January 2004
For the eyes
I was hoping the Valentine's Day sale would save me - and those cute little Beau sets, too! - but, alas, thumbnails of sets don't have quite the same visual impact, and the range is too small, anyway. Hmph. (Here's something that's not on sale but looks fairly tasty all the same.)
For some good visuals in another category, go to GailOnline and scroll down. Actually, follow the links on her page, too - she may not be blogging hard, but she still findsgoodstuff.
23:53 GMT
I'm in a crummy mood after a crummy day of stupid mail and stupid telephone calls and a visit to the dentist, so here's my uncreative contribution of the moment:
Air Passenger Code Plan In Motion. What I want to know is whether I'll just be able to call my travel agent and find out whether I am cleared to fly or don't need to bother planning the trip. I sure don't want to spend £300 and find out when I get to the airport that they won't let me board. Or go back home later.*
But OK, I guess the RNC wants contrasts between Bush and Hitler, not comparisons. So lets oblige them: Hitler probably had syphilis, whereas Bush probably doesn't. Hitler killed millions. Bush hasn't. (Shall we insert a Bushian yet?) Hitler was a much better public speaker. Shall we continue?
A little bit of help from Bryan in the comments:
Hitler was a decorated veteran of WWI.
Hitler went to prison for his political views and wrote his own book.
Hitler's family was not wealthy.
But Kathryn knows exactly what causes those Nazi comparisons to the Bush administration:
Hitler was Hitler for decades before killing millions. If we learned anything from the Nazi era it should be to stop fascism before it gain control. Many of those comparing Bush to Hitler are not simply out to defame him, but rather want to halt America's emergent fascism.
Ricardo, however, had a second theory, which he called the "iron law of wages." You do not hear much about the iron law, in part because you wouldn't want to hear about it, and also because experience has seemed to prove it untrue. But times are changing.
The iron law of wages is also simple and logical. It says that wages will tend to stabilize at or about subsistence level. That seemed inevitable to Ricardo, since while workers are necessary, and so have to be kept alive, they have no hope of any better treatment since they are infinitely available, replaceable, and generally interchangeable.
Ricardo's wage theory has seemed untrue. The supply of competent workers in a given place is not unlimited; neither workers nor industry are perfectly mobile, and labor demonstrated in the 19th and 20th centuries that it could mobilize and defend itself. The iron law of wages would seem to function only if the supply of labor is infinite and totally mobile.
Unfortunately that day, for practical purposes, has now arrived, thanks to globalization.
Globalization is removing the constraints imposed in the past by societies possessing institutions, legislation, and the political will to protect workers.
That'd be things like, oh, unions, for example, and laws that prevent import of goods produced under unacceptable worker conditions, and that o
