Revisiting John McCain's Journey Up His Own Ass (and other bits and bobs)

Wow. It is, of course, old news that presidential "hopeful" John McCain is probably drawing more on hopefulness than realistic chances to win, and old news that he has must needed to suck up to conservative Republicans rather than his erstwhile large moderate base in 2000, but I hadn't really put it together as succinctly as this (via Slate's Today's Papers from a story in the WaPo): "Ron Kaufman, a former aide to Bush's father, gives us the best take on McCain's alternating praise and criticism of Bush. He bluntly states, 'It's ironic that McCain spent eight years sucking up to the White House, and now it's a negative.'"

Daaaaaaaamn.

He's right, though. I was one of those taken in by McCain's seeming moderatism and "Straight Talk" in 2000, going as far as thinking of voting for him then (had he won the nomination) and after 2000 settling on him as someone who, at least, I could tolerate as an honorable-ish politician, someone with whom you could disagree on priniciple but respect that he had conviction of his beliefs.

HA. How naïve, hoh boy. It's interesting to see, however, how much his extreme ass-kissing and sticking his head so far up his own ass he somehow ended up inside Bush's has backfired. I now think McCain was never that great shakes -- I mean, if he can't even keep up his "Man of Principle" Act throughout an unpopular war and unpopular president and falls on his sword to get a chance at the gold ring again before it's even in sight, well, how much principle would he keep to as an actual president? People aren't known for their bold, radical moves of principle after they enter a presidency (though one could argue Bush did do the bait-and-switch of moderatism and ended up making bold, radical moves of principle, at least as far as principles that apply in his own dreamworld. But I'm not sure bold and radical in this case don't stem from being a dipshit as much as "principle". And I suppose you could call it "principles" to follow your beliefs no matter what they lead to and who they kill, but that's not any kind of good principles people are usually referring to.)

All that puckering up to Bush, and it turns out that an ass is just an ass. Oh, sweet schadenfreude.

I have long been skeptical of McCain -- after all, he was not only a long-time politician, he was a Republican. He talked good on Global Warming, for example, but I read numerous articles laying out how he didn't spend his considerable political capital (now somewhat diminished) to actually get substantive bills through. He did go to the mat on campaign finance, which, most agree, hasn't really worked. (I still don't understand the intricacies of how and why it does and doesn't work, but at least he was working in an area I cared about.) Of course, when he REALLY went to the mat, all the way, offering his hindquarters up like an animal in heat, was for Bush after he lost the nomination in 2000 (in part due to dirty tricks, duly recorded and verified, such as Bush supporters spreading rumors of McCain's "illegitimate black child," presumably based on the RealFact that McCain has an adoptive Bangladeshi daughter. He says he's "very good, friendly relationship" with Bush in a 2004 interview on Democracy Now!. He has since, in order to try and win the Republican nomination, backstepped on his criticism of Bob "No interracial dating" Jones University and has spoken at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.

That, of course, in addition to merrily speaking up for Bush in his 2004 speech.

Of course, I seriously questioned what world McCain was living in anyway when, on (I think) NewsHour with Jim Lehrer years ago, he said something to the effect that he didn't believe any of his colleagues in Congress were corrupt, or took bribes. This could be dismissed as normal politicking, but he repeatedly stuck up for it under questioning, saying that there had been occurences of bribery and corruption in the past, but he seriously didn't believe any of his colleagues were subject to such things. Considering that this was still in his supposed "straight talk" days, and that Tom Delay was still in Congress, then, frankly, give me a fucking break. I don't cotton to lies that insult my intelligence; I feel if you're going to lie, at least make it entertaining (or give it the sarcastic bite McCain sometimes used on The Daily Show to give a wink to his necessary kowtowing and politicking).

In utterly other news, MarketPlace on NPR just had a story about local currencies popping up in Europe alongside the Euro. Such currencies, like the "berliner", are apparently not even meant to supplant the Euro or simply represent exercises in Nationalism, but rather to emphasize a local resistance to globalization and embrace of local variety, and to encourage patronage of local businesses. Hear hear, what a good idea! This is an idea worth revisiting in the future. In the meantime, a relevant quote from one of the founders of modern economics, John Maynard Keynes (and apparently originator of the phrase "In the long run, we are all dead"):

"Ideas, knowledge, art, hospitality, travel -- these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let good be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible; and, above all, let finance be primarily national."

This, of course, is dismissed by people who are otherwise pro-Globalization Keynesians as him being creaky and soft-headed in a moment of weakness, but there you go.

And now for a word...

We interrupt your irregularly scheduled blogging for a word from Noam Chomsky, most widely quoted author in the world and persona non grata in the US:

"...Doubtless Iran's government merits harsh condemnation, including for its recent actions that have inflamed the crisis. It is, however, useful to ask how we would act if Iran had invaded and occupied Canada and Mexico and was arresting U.S. government representatives there on the grounds that they were resisting the Iranian occupation (called "liberation," of course). Imagine as well that Iran was deploying massive naval forces in the Caribbean and issuing credible threats to launch a wave of attacks against a vast range of sites -- nuclear and otherwise -- in the United States, if the U.S. government did not immediately terminate all its nuclear energy programs (and, naturally, dismantle all its nuclear weapons). Suppose that all of this happened after Iran had overthrown the government of the U.S. and installed a vicious tyrant (as the US did to Iran in 1953), then later supported a Russian invasion of the U.S. that killed millions of people (just as the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran in 1980, killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians, a figure comparable to millions of Americans). Would we watch quietly?

It is easy to understand an observation by one of Israel's leading military historians, Martin van Creveld. After the U.S. invaded Iraq, knowing it to be defenseless, he noted, "Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy."

Surely no sane person wants Iran (or any nation) to develop nuclear weapons. A reasonable resolution of the present crisis would permit Iran to develop nuclear energy, in accord with its rights under the Non- Proliferation Treaty, but not nuclear weapons. Is that outcome feasible? It would be, given one condition: that the U.S. and Iran were functioning democratic societies in which public opinion had a significant impact on public policy.

As it happens, this solution has overwhelming support among Iranians and Americans, who generally are in agreement on nuclear issues. The Iranian-American consensus includes the complete elimination of nuclear weapons everywhere (82% of Americans); if that cannot yet be achieved because of elite opposition, then at least a "nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East that would include both Islamic countries and Israel" (71% of Americans). Seventy-five percent of Americans prefer building better relations with Iran to threats of force. In brief, if public opinion were to have a significant influence on state policy in the U.S. and Iran, resolution of the crisis might be at hand, along with much more far-reaching solutions to the global nuclear conundrum.

...Democracy promotion at home is certainly feasible and, although we cannot carry out such a project directly in Iran, we could act to improve the prospects of the courageous reformers and oppositionists who are seeking to achieve just that. Among such figures who are, or should be, well-known, would be Saeed Hajjarian, Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, and Akbar Ganji, as well as those who, as usual, remain nameless, among them labor activists about whom we hear very little; those who publish the Iranian Workers Bulletin may be a case in point.

We can best improve the prospects for democracy promotion in Iran by sharply reversing state policy here so that it reflects popular opinion. That would entail ceasing to make the regular threats that are a gift to Iranian hardliners. These are bitterly condemned by Iranians truly concerned with democracy promotion (unlike those "supporters" who flaunt democracy slogans in the West and are lauded as grand "idealists" despite their clear record of visceral hatred for democracy).

Democracy promotion in the United States could have far broader consequences. In Iraq, for instance, a firm timetable for withdrawal would be initiated at once, or very soon, in accord with the will of the overwhelming majority of Iraqis and a significant majority of Americans. [Blogger's note: A point made here before...] Federal budget priorities would be virtually reversed. Where spending is rising, as in military supplemental bills to conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would sharply decline. Where spending is steady or declining (health, education, job training, the promotion of energy conservation and renewable energy sources, veterans benefits, funding for the UN and UN peacekeeping operations, and so on), it would sharply increase. Bush's tax cuts for people with incomes over $200,000 a year would be immediately rescinded.

...[The U.S.] would allow the UN to take the lead in international crises, including in Iraq. After all, according to opinion polls, since shortly after the 2003 invasion, a large majority of Americans have wanted the UN to take charge of political transformation, economic reconstruction, and civil order in that land.

If public opinion mattered, the U.S. would accept UN Charter restrictions on the use of force, contrary to a bipartisan consensus that this country, alone, has the right to resort to violence in response to potential threats, real or imagined, including threats to our access to markets and resources. The U.S. (along with others) would abandon the Security Council veto and accept majority opinion even when in opposition to it. The UN would be allowed to regulate arms sales; while the U.S. would cut back on such sales and urge other countries to do so, which would be a major contribution to reducing large-scale violence in the world. Terror would be dealt with through diplomatic and economic measures, not force, in accord with the judgment of most specialists on the topic but again in diametric opposition to present-day policy.

Furthermore, if public opinion influenced policy, the U.S. ...would join the broad international consensus on a two-state settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict, which (with Israel) it has blocked for 30 years -- with scattered and temporary exceptions -- and which it still blocks in word, and more importantly in deed, despite fraudulent claims of its commitment to diplomacy. The U.S. would also equalize aid to Israel and Palestine, cutting off aid to either party that rejected the international consensus.

Evidence on these matters is reviewed in my book Failed States as well as in The Foreign Policy Disconnect by Benjamin Page (with Marshall Bouton), which also provides extensive evidence that public opinion on foreign (and probably domestic) policy issues tends to be coherent and consistent over long periods. Studies of public opinion have to be regarded with caution, but they are certainly highly suggestive.

Democracy promotion at home, while no panacea, would be a useful step towards helping our own country become a "responsible stakeholder" in the international order (to adopt the term used for adversaries), instead of being an object of fear and dislike throughout much of the world."

Emphasis added. Reposted from TomDispatch.com and Portside.org.

"Noam Chomsky is the author of Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (Metropolitan Books), just published in paperback, among many other works.
Copyright 2007 Noam Chomsky"

Ta ta for now.

Self-referential to the max!

See J-Friend Heidi praising me praising her! (More precisely, praising me linking to her. But, you know, her new blog is very deserving of praise, outstripping mine in updates and coolness, and, I suspect, readership in a couple short months. So, Dear Heidi: Praise praise, praise. Less perfunctory praise available on request.)

Most self-self-referential post... ever. (That is, this one. I think. I'm sort of confusing myself at this point. But I think so, at least until Heidi one-ups me and links to THIS, but we all know that "girls aren't competitive"* so that'll never happen.)

*This is sarcasm. If you do not realize this, please read it again holding both your hands up at chest level, then point your middle and index finger on each hand up towards the ceiling and close the rest into your palm. Now, move your hands up and down gently 1-2 times, bending your upheld fingers down into a crook shape and back to pointing straight up concurrent with the hand motions. These are sarcastic air quotes.

Repeat as needed.

Alternatively, read Joan Williams' book, Unbending Gender: Why work and family conflict and what to do about it. In a quote that didn't make it onto the cover, "It fucking rocks."

As the Klingons, Kahn, and Pierre Choderlos de Laclos say, "Schadenfreude is a dish best served cold..."

Ok, actually, what those three say is revenge is a dish best served cold (Nerd break: "...and it is very cold... in space...") But I'll settle for the suffering of others right now over direct revenge; basically, anything bad that happens to Don Rumsefeld's career is A-OK with me.

He hasn't managed to sink any lower than being fired, er, "resigning" from the Bush Crime Syndicate, but a story unearthed from last November's The New Yorker shows one of his oldest friends wondering if he had been wrong about his friend Don all along. Kenneth Adelman, of the Defense Policy Board (to which Rumsfeld appointed him), opened up to reporter Jeffrey Goldberg:

A few days later, Rumsfeld was out. Adelman is, apparently, still in. “I’m heartsick about the whole matter,” he said. He does not know what to make of the disintegration of Rumsfeld’s career and reputation. “How could this happen to someone so good, so competent?” he said. “This war made me doubt the past. Was I wrong all those years, or was he just better back then? The Donald Rumsfeld of today is not the Donald Rumsfeld I knew, but maybe I was wrong about the old Donald Rumsfeld. It’s a terrible way to end a career. It’s hard to remember, but he was once the future.”

Ahh... Just bask in that first line... "A few days later, Rumsfeld was out..." This is delicious because, in the story reported by Goldberg, he (Rumsfeld) was in the middle of assclownishly trying to get his "friend" to resign rather than be fired since his "friend" was being "negative" on the "successful" Iraq War.

The article isn't that long, but it provides some refreshing pathos in the showing of the incredible bathos generated by the Bush Crime Syndicate being given its comeuppance only a few paragraphs later.

It is a small victory, and actually one already stale in terms of real effect (Rummy's gone but the war goes on), but this article is worth coldly basking in the embarrassing of Rummy, truly an asshat if there ever was one. You can only feel schadenfreude for someone like this:

"'I suggested that we were losing the war,' Adelman said... '...it looked like we needed a Plan B. I said, 'What’s the alternative? Because what we’re doing now is just losing...' ...Rumsfeld didn’t take to the message well. 'He was in deep denial—deep, deep denial. And then he did a strange thing. He did fifteen or twenty minutes of posing questions to himself, and then answering them.'"

It's nice (read: horrifying) to know that Rummy uses this method* with his friends, and not just the American Public and the Press and Congres that he wishes would just kiss his ass and be thankful for the opportunity.

Ahhhh... it is very cold in space, Rummy. No doubt he's somewhere swimming in a pile of gold coins à la Scrooge McDuck, but if somehow, he finds himself alone on a street corner in the dead of winter, he can just burn his 1977 Presidential Medal of Freedom to keep warm -- hell, maybe the White House gave him a box of them on the way out, they seem to have enough to go around to award all of the incompetence among their cronies (and boy, is there a lot). Not that I'm hoping he finds himself alone on a street corner in the dead of winter -- I figure, while we're dreaming, he may as well have one foot in Antarctica and one in the Gobi.

Money shot: "Are there still Taliban around? You bet. Are they occupying safe havens in Afghanistan and other places, correction in Pakistan and other places? Certainly they are. Is the violence up? Yes. Does the violence tend to be up during the summer and spring, summer, and fall months? Yes it does. And it tends to decline during the winter period. Does that represent failed policy? I don't know, I would say not. I think you've got an awful lot of very talented people engaged in this, and the decisions that are being made are being made with great care after a great deal of consideration. Are there setbacks? Yes. Are there things that people can't anticipate? Yes. Does the enemy have a brain and continue to make adjustments on the ground, requiring our forces to continue to make adjustments? You bet. Is that going to continue to be the case? I think so. Is this problem going to get solved in the near term about this violence struggle against extremism? No, I don't believe it is."

It Never Rains But it Pours

First, go to J-Friend Heidi's blog and read about the Atheist in the Hizz-owwwwse! By which, achem, I mean, and Atheist in the (US) House (of Representatives). Achem.

Rep. Pete Stark has "come out" as an atheist, which struck me as weird the first time I heard this, when I "came out" as an agnostic during my days at Procter & Gamble. Ol' P & G, despite being the object of much bitching and moaning on my part when I was working there, had an EXCELLENT, excellent diversity training program, really challenging and useful; as my ex-girlfriends can attest (hopefully positively), I use the things I learned from it about communication to this day. (Bottom line: Golden Rule is bullshit. Treat people as THEY want to be treated, not the way YOU would want to be treated -- and to do this, you have to communicate with them and LEARN how they want to be treated. Tougher to pull off, but better in the end, thinks I.) We had different sessions, one of which we went around and identified different things about ourselves (including an interesting one where you walked across the room with every social advantage you possessed, i.e. take one step forward if you're a male, if you're over 5'10", if you're white, etc.). I had never before realized how incredibly unique it was that my first childhood "best friend" was Vietnamese (I wonder what Ninh is up to these days?... hmm, Google-stalking makes it appear he might be a lawyer.) The other thing was that I was agnostic.

Now, not only is P&G predominately Christian, it is predominately Catholic. (It wasn't until I moved to Canton and then to Cincinatti that I realized how much variation there is in number of Catholics in different areas of the US; they're 25% of the US population more generally, but Canton and Cinti seem to have much larger "enclaves." Seems reminiscent to, but not nearly as dramatic as, the influence of Jewish US citizens, who I think actually only make up like 2-4% of the US population. On the other hand, though Catholics are a minority as compared to "Protestants", if you look sect-wise, they're 4 times larger than the next singularly organized Christian institution, the Baptists. That would seem to explain in part the disproportionate political power of a group composing 25% of the population -- that, and influence as a voting bloc extending throughout parties, but I seriously digress.) There were, I think, nigh-audible gasps at the fact that I was (am) an agnostic (or now that Heidi has made me hip to it, agnostic atheist). There was definitely a cricket-chirping pause, and then conversation resumed normally and I got sounds of acceptance. Afterwards, SEVERAL people, including a Section Manager (a solid middle-manager 6-figure position) who thanked me for my bravery in "coming out" and said that they had never had the bravery to do so before. (I kept thinking to myself "Am I gay? Did I say I am?") And incidentally, as I explained to my parents once, this was also when I realized my chances of settling down with a black woman some day are relatively small -- a very hot fellow African American P&G engineer, I forget her name, and I were chatting -- chatting up, perhaps, and somehow it got to religion (this was the same diversity session after all, though she'd been in a different group during my coming out). Feeling freshly confident in my atheist pride ("I´m here! I'm queer! I'm... the only one here..."), I admitted (mentioned) my agnosticism. Literally, I saw a wall come down behind her eyes, and it was the most acute sensation I've ever had from someone's affect going from "flirting/potentially interested" to "being simply very friendly." I was a possible fellow-traveler at P&G after that, a possible friend, but WOAH did I feel the lukewarm shoulder on the romantic interest front there.

So. Yes. Atheists in the House. Yay. Maybe, some day, in my life time, we can dare to dream that an Atheist can be president!!!

Ha ha ha. Okay, okay, I'll stick to being realistic and just wait for our gay (though god-fearing) president to come into office.

The other thing I had wanted to get into is Joan Williams BRILLIANT book, "Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What to Do About It." It is FANTASTIC. Her points are, from my view, logically immaculate, and her prose is easy and enjoyable. It is simply one of the most enjoyable intellectual-politico-legal books I've ever read. That is to say, it's no "Song of Ice & Fire," I'm not staying up nights reading it, but it is very very enjoyable to read and I'm learning a lot.

Her basic point, one I've struggled a little with, is that the "choice" to stay home for today's women, to take the lead in raising the kids and home-making, is not anti-feminist, a step backwards, or simply a tactical error (as Linda Hirshman, for example, would have us believe), but rather an expression of a still male-dominated society together with a particular failure of feminism. That is, she doesn't critique feminism as an endeavor, as many are wont to do these days, or say that getting women into the workforce was simply wrong, tactically in error, or untimely, but just that we must now go beyond this. Working women are having a very tough time as mothers these days (and stay-at-home mothers are becoming more common) BECAUSE what allows and has allowed men to work as they do today in the market is a constant supply of "free" female labor. That is, we all know home-making is tough and is real work and all, but the part that hasn't been appreciated is that men couldn't perform as (what Williams calls) "ideal workers" without women's undervalued labor, meaning specifically that the wage a family man may earn is actually joint property created by a husband and caregiver wife (or any working spouse and caregiving spouse) together. That is, he could not earn what he does, staying at work all the time without a stay-at-home (or part-time working) partner, or hiring home labor and child-rearing services. Especially, she points out, in the cases of very wealthy husbands and/or the "you get your degree and I'll support you while you do it", the home-managing caregiver most often is sacrificing not only her time and immediate career goals, but decreases her own wage-earning power (by being out of the workforce; each year out of the workforce exacts a future penalty on career prospects) AND is essentially providing the services that allows the other partner to make whatever wage and get whatever degree. In a very real way, the degree and/or wage belongs to both of them, as they both made it.

I love her arguments and their rational basis, and of course can't go through the whole book here. But it's revelatory for me (and makes me realize how utterly AWE-SOME my own Mom & Dad are and were) and though I've always been in a weird middle on the "choice to stay home/choice to pursue a career" part of feminism, her critique and suggestions for Reconstructive Feminism make so much sense, and point out that the present regime also penalizes men who actually DO do their fair share of home work and child-rearing, or who would wish to, which is still sadly an exceedingly small minority of men. (Men do something much less than half the housework still in this day and age.)

I can't say enough good things about this book, but I probably will say some more at some future date. Until then, enjoy the update glut.

Episode 9: Wherein I can't even maintain a token protest

After reading the headline only of what was bound to be another execrable article by Slate's Steven Landsburg, I had had enough:

Dear Editor,

I am afraid I will have to launch a personal -- and, I realize, merely symbolic -- boycott of Slate as it continues to publish columns by Steven Landsburg.

I cannot complain specifically about the most recent Steven Landsburg article because I refuse to read it. I have, however, read all of his previously published Slate articles as far as I know, as I have read Slate devoutly since 2002.

Do not think this is fretting about something I haven't seen. I have seen, and commented on, Dr. Landsburg's articles any number of times. I have read perhaps one article by him that I didn't consider to be purely amateurish, poor science, provocative just to be provocative and without any sound evidence or reasoning to back up its contrarian argument. It seems as if Dr. Landsburg gets up and decides to write an Everyday Economics article by thinking "What can I prove using 1 or 2 studies that will surely piss off at least half the readership enough to angrily slobber over my article? I know! 'Is it in the economic interest of black people to eat lots of watermelons and fried chicken, while dancing entertainingly for white people?' Of course it is! Not just before the end of Jim Crow, but now as well!"

As a recent example, view the responses to his prior article, "Women are chokers." I direct you to a post at least nominally by a fellow scientist, Ian T. Ellwood. He reviews how thoroughly poor a study it was that Landsburg relied on almost entirely for his argument. Sure, Slate is not an academic journal, but single-sourced non-peer-reviewed "science" article? No, thanks, that's alright, I'll pass.

If you were to look in the Fray, you'd see that Dr. Landsburg has consistently been critiqued there on scientific sloppiness, sloppiness that goes beyond merely being "casual science" to "almost pure contrarianism with poor scientific reasoning added for rhetorical value."

I cannot for the life of me fathom why Slate continues to publish him, except for the possibility that his provocative churlishness brings in readers and ad revenue. In any case, this issue and Slate's lack of response to readers -- to defend Landsburg, or any other reaction from the top, really -- speaks doubly ill of the Editors, both in terms of publishing tripe and in terms of utterly wasting the Fray, which was notably largely unmentioned in Slate's anniversary self-congratulations. It seems to be a place where we readers can talk to ourselves (and the Freditor), but neither the quality nor quantity of our postings have any effect or elicit cogent responses from those we are writing most often to or about.

Perhaps it's time for Slate to get a Public Editor? That's something I'd like to see, if and when I come back.

Sincerely,

"J Continuum's name"

(This post was greeted by a resounding lack of caring on anyone's part.)

I'm sad to say, I am indeed back, I couldn't keep myself away from Slate for reasons I haven't entirely grasped. I guess because it is the most tolerable -- at times, enjoyable -- way to get a sense of mainstream thought. I love me some Counterpunch, but they are laughably, unfortunately far from mainstream consciousness, and though their articles usually do take mainstream thought into account (and to task), it is not the same as reading and attempting to understand mainstream thought. Which, by the way, is very important -- that is, to understand how people other than those who agree with you think. I'm still occasionally horrified by a liberal who says "Oh, really? I don't really follow mainstream news." WHAT???!! As Chris Rock said about women (and implied about men) who don't give head, "They still MAKE you??" I mean, if you want to effect change, you can't do that. If you're a "Fuck 'em, they're going to screw it all up and kill us all anyway" liberal, then fine, whatever.

I'm drifting away here into digression, so I'll finish with a SNAFU that happened while I actually was (mostly) observing my Slate boycott:

Thursday's headlines here on Slate featured a story, beneath Barack Obama's image, described as "Why Obama is Like a Serial Killer." The featured article, by Jacob Weisberg, was entitled "Candidates and Killers." Generously, we could say it was a light-hearted piece sending up the vapidity of childhood clichés. Somewhat more awkwardly, we could acknowledge that its tentative concluding note about Obama's lonely childhood, in tandem with our promotional headline, struck some readers as downright racist... I'm a scrawny white guy, so I can't speak from a black perspective (I'll leave that to BLACKMOSES). But, aside from the guys talking about God knows what, I can say we created a pretty grumpy mood in The Big Idea Fray.

Is it just me, kiddies, or is Jacob Weisberg's Slate ever-increasingly, if not circling the (toilet) bowl, at least drinking out of it?

Jon Stewart: Hero of Democracy?

The WaPo apparently was pulilng it out of their ass when they alleged last year that The Daily Show may be bad for democracy (by making young people cynical, and -- in WaPo's unsupported, fevered conservative imagination, less likely to vote), but you know, it helps when your proof means what you think it means.

Let me sum up: Apparently, viewers of The Daily Show tend to be cynical about candidates, the electoral process, and the media -- which MAY lead to lower voting and apathy -- but no direct evidence of this was shown. Indeed, the actual study author's the WaPo was drawing from say that it could have such negative effects, but the researchers also mention the (also untested) possibility that TDS-inspired discontent may get people more involved. And indeed, studies in 2004, as I recall, showed that TDS viewers tend to be more informed than young viewers of other news programs, so, as the study said, "Participation breeds more participation and informed participation," and TDS may help viewers become more informed as they strive to "get" Stewart's humor.

Who knows, but the conservative WaPo apparently wanted to jump to a conclusion about Jon Stewart and whether he was hurting America.

No, wait, that was CNN's Crossfire, Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala.

n.b. Do you think WaPo will decide The 1/2 Hour News Hour (T1/2HNH), the conservative "answer" to The Daily Show, is also bad for America? Or is it too wretchedly bad to matter?

A Brief Word, from J on Genetically Modified Food

Something occurred to me the other day, a small "fer-instance" to illustrate the reasons for doubt over Genetically Modified (GM) food.

The US government has allowed Monsanto and friends to use the argument of "substantial equivalence" to establish that GM food is safe. Wikipedia outlines a good summary of this approach. According to Wikipedia, proteomics and metabolomics are new methods for proving this similarity of modified food to "conventional" food. This seems suspect, due to the fact that we don't really understand the activity of all the compounds in "conventional" food, far from it -- though according to Wikipedia, the range of variation within GM foods is less than within conventional. This isn't necessarily a good thing as we probably don't understand the function of variation within the same types of food -- in terms of diet, variation is pretty important. But besides this, we don't really understand the details of the activity and function and formation of many proteins and enzymes -- I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the normal, non-virulent form of the protein that causes Mad Cow almost certainly looks the same biochemically as the virulent, Cow-Maddening variety. All that's different is the shape (technically, the folding) of the protein -- Mad Cow is a disease where a normal, naturally-occuring protein is turned into a very, very bad one that is really the same protein, just now with a very, very bad attitude.

ALL THAT BEING SAID, my idea was this: the idea that genetic modification is better or more controlled than natural breeding seems farcical to me, and to illustrate, which of these scenarios seems more rational and safer to you:

1. You want a kid. Say, you or your partner has a fertility problem, or you're a single mom, so you choose artificial insemination. Since you're going this direction anyway, you decide to choose from "fathers"/donors based on their traits (assuming you can trust the Sperm Donor data). You choose as a donor a strong, smart African-American man (just, fer-instance, and ignoring the deterministic bias here).

2. You want a kid. Say, you or your partner has a fertility problem, or you're a single mom, so you choose artificial insemination. Since you're going in this direction anyway, you decide you want certain traits, which a scientist than adds to a human embryo using DNA from bacteria and various animals. You choose the strength of a horse and antibiotic resistance of some bacterial strains (just, fer-instance).

Which seems like a better idea in this case? Does a child produced from #2 seem substantially similar to a child from #1? What if a profile of their proteins shows everything to be pretty similar?

Personally, if forced to choose, I'd go with #1.

This is, of course, an appeal to gut reaction, not necessarily logic, but I think in this case gut reaction is valuable -- we really don't fully understand GM food -- or even the proteins and genetic workings of ourselves -- so why do we think a radically different form of transferring DNA, across not-closely-related organisms, is practically the same as transferring DNA in a method established by natural selection over millions of years across very-closely-related organisms, i.e. the same species? Besides which, about half of the studies of GM foods, before such studies were essentially banned in the US, showed some carcinogenic results. AND, GM food isn't even necessary and is much more resource-intensive than any other "natural" method...

Go ahead and do GM research, but let's not eat it or inseminate ourselves with it just yet, what say?



...Nota bene: This is important (i.e. I'm still raving about it) because most of the corn and soybeans in the US are genetically modified, and labelling has successfully been fought back again and again. It seems no huge outbreak of genetically-modifiedalicious illness has broken out, but then again... how would we know? There's nothing we could use at this point to easily distinguish as consumers what maladies may (or may not) be a result of GM food, long-term tests on humans or animals is effectively not allowed right now, and long-term maladies like cancer or other illnesses may take decades more to manifest.... (Organic food, by the way, is the only food with a relative gauruntee of not containing GM ingredients...)

Reponses to the Gates/Rockefeller Push for an Anachronistic African "Green Revolution"

The charitable powerhouse that is the Gates' Foundation joined with the Rockefeller Foundation not too long ago to push for a huge anti-hunger initiative. Of course, a major part of their initiative will go to promoting/pushing outmoded Green Revolution type methods, meaning the classic package of "improved" seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers, all of which oft costs small farmers more than they produce from it, gets them on the pesticide treadmill, and is almost certainly unnecessary to address hunger (especially since there are enough raw calories available on a regional scale almost everywhere in the world; distribution, poverty, and lack of entitlement are the real culprits behind hunger, by and large).

Happily, a number of African civil society organizations had this to say at the World Social Forum:

Statement from African civil society organisations at the
World Social Forum 2007

Nairobi, Kenya

25 January 2007

Africa is the source of much of the world's agricultural knowledge and biodiversity. African farming represents a wealth of innovation: for example, Canada's main export wheat is derived from a Kenyan variety called "Kenyan farmer"; the US and Canada grow barley bred from Ethiopian farmers' varieties; and the Zera Zera sorghum grown in Texas originated in Ethiopia and the Sudan. This rich basis of biodiversity still exists in Africa today, thanks to the 80% of farmers in Africa that continue to save seed in a range of diverse eco-systems across the continent.

The future of agriculture for Africa and the world will have to build on this biodiversity and farmers' knowledge, especially in the current context of climate change. The diversity of seed varieties continually developed by African farmers will be vital to ensure that they have the flexibility to respond to changing weather patterns. With the challenges that climate change will bring, only a wealth of seed diversity maintained by farmers in Africa can offer a response to prevent severe food crises.

However, new external initiatives are putting pressure on these agricultural systems. A new initiative from the Bill Gates/ Rockefeller Foundation partnership, called the "Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa" (AGRA) is putting over $150 million towards shifting African agriculture to a system dependent on expensive, harmful chemicals, monocultures of hybrid seeds, and ultimately genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Another initiative funded by the G8 is pushing biotechnology in agriculture through four new major Biosciences research centres in Africa. And GM companies such as Monsanto and Syngenta are entering into public-private-partnership agreements with national agricultural research centres in Africa, in order to direct agricultural research and policy towards GMOs. These initiatives under-represent the real achievements in productivity through traditional methods, and will fail to address the real causes of hunger in Africa.

This comes at a time when the world is realising the need for organic agriculture; however these initiatives would promote the use of more chemicals, and less seed diversity in the hands of farmers. These initiatives will destroy the bases of biodiversity, knowledge and adaptive capacity - at a time when it is needed most.

This push for a so-called "green revolution" or "gene revolution" is being done once again under the guise of solving hunger in Africa. Chemical-intensive agriculture is, however, already known to be outmoded. We have seen how fertilisers have killed the soil, creating erosion, vulnerable plants and loss of water from the soil. We have seen how pesticides and herbicides have harmed our environment and made us sick. We know that hybrid and GM seed monocultures have pulled farmers into poverty by preventing them from saving seed, and preventing traditional methods of intercropping which provide food security. We vow to learn from our brothers and sisters in India, where this chemical and genetically modified system of agriculture has left them in so much debt and hunger that 150,000 farmers have committed suicide.

The push for a corporate-controlled chemical system of agriculture is parasitic on Africa's biodiversity, food sovereignty, seed and small-scale farmers. Farmers in Africa cannot afford these expensive agricultural inputs. But these new infrastructures seek to make farmers dependent on chemicals and hybrid seeds, and will open the door to GMOs and Terminator crops. Industrial breeding has in fact been driven by the industry's demand for new markets - not to meet the needs of farmers.

We know, however, that the agroecological approach to farming, using traditional and organic methods, provides the real solutions to the crises that we face. Studies show that a biodiversity-based organic agriculture, working with nature and not against it, and using a diversity of mixed crops, produces higher overall yields at far lower costs than chemical agriculture. A 2002 study by the International Centre for Research on Agroforesty (ICRAF) showed that Southern African farms using traditional agroforestry techniques did not suffer from the drought that hit the region so severely that year.

We reject these new foreign systems that will encourage Africa's land and water to be privatised for growing inappropriate export crops, biofuels and carbon sinks, instead of food for our own people. We pledge to intensify our work for food sovereignty by conserving our own seed and enhancing our traditional organic systems of agriculture, in order to meet the uncertainties and challenges that will be faced by present and future generations. Agricultural innovation must be farmer-led, responding to local needs and sustainability. We celebrate Africa's wealth and heritage of seed, knowledge and innovation. We will resist these misguided, top-down but heavily-funded initiatives from the North, which show little or no understanding or respect for our complex systems. We ask that we be allowed to define our own path forward.

Signed by African civil society organisations at the World Social Forum in Nairobi, 2007.

70 organisations from 12 African countries
*(undersigned posted to "Comments")

**(sorry for no web reference; this was forwarded to me in an email, so it's authenticity depends solely on the reliability of my source; he is, however, a fairly reliable source)

Further info on the Gates/Rockefeller Boondoggle Program can be found here.

Breaking Integration Eggs: Who with the what the fuck now?

Listening to an old Democracy Now!, from December 06 2006, I heard some of Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Antonin Scalia's counters in the Parents v. Seattle and Meredith v. Jefferson cases before the Supreme Court. (They're cases 05-915 and 05-908, 12/4/06.)

I've really got to get to work, but what in the ungodly fuck is this:

MR. MADDEN: Well, like the Michigan cases, sometimes student in the end of the day have an assignment determined by race. Just like in the university cases, at some point race will be a tipping factor. It's different, though, when we put someone in a basically comparable school.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, you're saying every -- I mean, everyone got a seat in Brown as well; but because they were assigned to those seats on the basis of race, it violated equal protection. How is your argument that there's no problem here because everybody gets a seat distinguishable?
MR. MADDEN: Because segregation is harmful. Integration, this Court has recognized in Swann, in the first Seattle case, has benefits. The district was -
JUSTICE SCALIA: Well, it seems to me you're saying you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. Can you think of any area of the law in which we say whatever it takes, so long as there's a real need, whatever it takes -- I mean, if we have a lot of crime out there and the only way to get rid of it is to use warrantless searches, you know, fudge on some of the protections of the Bill of Rights, whatever it takes, we've got to do it?

Breaking some eggs? How can anyone with a straight face compare integration as some damaging egg-breakery on par with segregation? AAAAAAAAAHHHH! I know many conservatives do this regularly, but it still blows my mind each and every time. I'm not sure if I've addressed this point in the blog before or not, but I am totally and utterly aghast by the occasionally-mentioned conservative concept that the way to get beyond racial bigotry and segregation and other human and cultural differences is to try to absolutely avoid ever pointing out differences between people. In fact, I seem to remember some other Supreme Court argument where one of the conservative judges said something to the extent of "How can we ever achieve equality if we keep reminding people of the differences between them?" ARGH! The goal here: appreciate difference, not eradicate (or actually, ignore) difference. Black people aren't just going to become white, and the sort of completely-blended multiracial society is a bit a ways away yet. So until there's a whole lot more interracial boot-knocking and the resultant skin color homogenization to a nice toffee color, many minorities are still going to, you know, be and look like minorities. And as long as there are people, there will be cultural differences. Any approach seeking integration through homogeneity is simply not going to work in an already-hetereogeneous society like the US. Even pretending homogeneity, no dice. Especially not while JIM CROW IS IN FREAKING LIVING MEMORY. You'd think we could all agree at least to work consciously on integration until the living memory of American Legal Apartheid is gone (and de facto US apartheid ceases to exist), but apparently not.

Perhaps your Holocaust Denial Conference meant what you thought it meant (though perhaps not)

A lively conversation opened up after my last not-so-recent post between me and good J-Friend Becky T. Becky critiqued my (and Counterpunch's) analysis of Iran's recent-ish Holocaust Denial Conference. She argues, among other things, that being anti-Israel is effectively being anti-Jew (I hope that's a fair characterization), which I sort of agree with, sort of try to rebut. Becky clarifies some things on my assertion that one can be "anti-Israel" but not anti-Jew in that they may be against ethnic/religious discrimination, which it seems to me obviously takes place in Israel. Becky highlights the legal differences in immigration-related issues, and the complications involved with trying to keep Israel a Jewish State. My interpretation of her main point is that being a religious state is not an inherent or root problem of discrimination -- pointing to the state(ish) religion of the Church of England (whom many Brits ignore I think) and the open secret of the US' intensely religious/pro-Christian nature. (Or at least this implies that criticizing Israel for being a religious state is hypocritical in light of such examples.) We'll skip deconstruction of the C of E and US' non-state state religion, in favor of moving on to Becky's defense/critique (defensitique?) of pro-Jew immigration laws.

Certainly, Jews from the rest of the world can gain Israeli citizenship much more easily than non-Jews. This makes sense, if the purpose of the Jewish State's existence is to be a place of refuge for Jews in the diaspora. This has led to a lot of good for African (especially Ethiopian) and Russian Jews, who had the ability to leave desperate situations in their home countries and start fresh in Israel. Obviously, maintenance of a Jewish majority and these types of 'asylum' rights for Jews in Israel is important to world Jewry. So, I think it's somewhat understandable that if Israel loses it's Jewish majority (~80% as of 2003), it no longer functions as it was intended. I guess theoretically if there were no possible threat that Jews may be persecuted in any other place in the world ever again, it would no longer be necessary for Israel to try to maintain the demographics of the country.

She follows this by outlining the exact problems maintaining this has caused (and pointing out the largely secular character of most Israelis, despite the unproportional power the observant and Orthodox wield).

I guess my reaction is, well, one, agreement that this topic is of course almost completely shaped by the, er, "Palestinian Question", but two: given that maintaining a haven for one uniquely persecuted group is a noble goal, how much is that nobility compromised each time one compromises on the usual rights granted across ethnic/religious lines under international law? How is moral righteousness affected when the moral imperative to treat others justly and help them when they're in need are compromised? I don't have an easy answer, and the problem seems to be that neither does Israel (or, you know, anyone else). The problem with hard answers, of course, is that nobody likes to follow them to the difficult conclusions they lead to...

Relatedly, however, please check out another Counterpunch piece, by former Israeli Education Minister Shulamit Aloni, outlining why she thinks Israel does, in fact, have an apartheid. (I don't find her argument to be quite complete -- for the open-minded, check out the relevant chapters in Chomsky's book Failed States.)

I do not think the Holocaust Denial Conference means what you think it means

More stuff on how Pres. "Big A" Ahmadinejad of Iran isn't as evil as we've been led to believe.

Obligatory disclaimer: I not claiming he's a good guy. I'm not claiming he's peace-loving, US-loving, Jew-loving, or Israel-loving. He is part of an oppressive system of rule (allowing elections, true, but not really free) run by religious leaders who most agree are zealots and hostile to "The West."

Ok.

BUT, even if Iran's oppressive government has distaste for us, Jews, and Israel, it doesn't necessarily follow that they are intent on our destruction (or crazy enough to attempt our destruction even though it would almost surely mean their own). People talk about Iran or some other prospective nuclear power giving nuclear weapon material to terrorist groups. I don't know of any proof they're likely to arm such groups with nukes to attack *us*. And indeed, they have no reason to think that doing so wouldn't bring the swift US sword of death upon them, considering our massive nuclear stocks and our intelligence-gathering abilities, which may have been shown not to be perfect, but nonetheless didn't do much to STOP us from bombing perceived enemies and their helpers (see: Taliban, Afghanistan, Hussein, Iraq).

As far as conventional arms, one may consider from their perspective, that supplying traditional weapons to fighters in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq one could see as not-unreasonable (COULD see) attempts to support these countries' fights for their own sovereignty. (One can argue -- correctly -- about the methods they choose, but one must admit all three of those countries -- well, Palestine isn't even a country yet -- are struggling over sovereignty.)

Anyway, point is, this article discusses the so-called Holocaust Denial Conference in Iran, and why it isn't what you think it is. I'll stop digging a hole for myself and refer you to there -- where the author points out he has yet to see any direct quote where Big A directly threatens preemptory action against the US or Israel, or *calls for* their destruction. The author claims Big A has *predicted* their destruction, à la someone making a paralell with the collapse, not annhilation, of the USSR. I'm not sure I'm convinced, but I have no more proof Big A is belligerent than that he's not, and I've got to say, last time we were talking about this, the US media largely got it wrong (achem: WMDs). Iran may not be friendly, or our friend, or not-dangerous, but they may not be an imminent threat (and PS, they're perfectly within their international rights to develop international power, and there's no direct revealed evidence that they are making nuclear weapons, which they couldn't complete for 5-10 years in any case if we did have proof of it.) So: Read, and think about it.

And then post a comment on my blog for goodness' sakes! I know everyone out there (all two of you) don't already agree with me, right? Tell me where I'm wrong...

A quickie on Global Climate Change (aka Global Warming)

Just a couple of centavos on Global Climate Change. For one thing, as the linked article points out, the GCC term (Climate Change) is a better one than "warming." The average temperature change isn't so much the problem as the increase in variability of weather and concommitant increases in severe weather events. So the arguments of former GCC skeptic Gregg Easterbrook, that most people enjoy warmer weather, where's the harm in that, don't hold water. Not that they ever did. While, in all fairness, Easterbrook has recently decided for himself that the debate over the existence of GCC is effectively over, he seems a bit late to the party for me. (But then again, he would.) He has the same annoying triumphalist, knees-bent, breathless giddy excitement over his own discoveries that blogger Mickey Kaus does (and no, I'm not going to link to freakin' Kaus), that their occasional protestations of "but maybe I'm wrong," don't dispel. (Imagine something in the vain of: "Your idol is an idiot, this other guy is a sleazebag, everything Paul Krugman says is wrong in some way, the Dems suck goat ass, and your Bible is a lie. But maybe I'm wrong." Though Easterbrook is a devout religious guy, so that last (James T. Kirkian) Bible thing is just for color.)

Easterbrook did take advantage to a tactical problem, George Lakoff-style, in the original phrasing of Global Warming: Warming sounds pleasant. It's also not a very complete picture of the problem, so there you are. Go forth and say only GCC my children! (Only you probably shouldn't just use the acronym without spelling it out for people first.)

My quickie note was on the factoid that many of my very intelligent friends have espoused, especially in response to Gore's "An Incovenient Truth (starring Al Gore, by Al Gore, on a topic discovered by Al Gore, featuring Al Gore, with Special Guest Al Gore)." That is the "natural cycles" argument, that the earth has large natural fluctuations in temperature and carbon fluxes. Ok, A) True. B) Mostly irrelevant. The human body has natural fluxes in temperature, too, but when an outside force is increasing or decreasing these fluxes, it's cause for concern, if not alarm. And people say, "well, the amount of carbon we're adding to the atmosphere is minimal compared to the natural fluxes." Even accepting that, the "natural fluxes" were closer to equilibrium before the human Industrial Revolution released bunches more. That is, about as much was released as was absorbed. And, as with human body temperature, a couple of degrees, which is what we're talking about as an average, can be very concerning and deadly -- especially when it's indicated that it's not going to stop. We don't understand the whole eons-long cycles of global temperature changes, but tell you what -- rapidly felling the forests of the world, huge carbon sinks, will only exacerbate the imbalance, and just as with the human body -- a small change can be a huge problem. Just food for thought, throwing it out there -- though most of the people who read this blog are my friends and already know this, so.... well, I'm not sure where to go with that. Tchau tchau...

Old Orwellian News

"Stay the course" means "dynamically change in response to new situations". Of course, as John Dickerson of Slate points out in the linked piece, the problem is that we HAVE changed dynamically, and cracking down, semi-flattening Fallujah, "standing down as they stand up," reducing our footprint, curfews, and "stand, hold, build," none of these have worked.

In other news, up is down, right is wrong, truth is a lie, lies are truth, and we are now and always have been at war with Eurasia.

Headline, January 21, 2009

I've just received this from Future J (a conceit I'm stealing from Marc Maron of the late, justly lamented Air America's "Morning Sedition").

Headline, Washington Post, Rush Edition, January 21, 2009

MARRIED, GAY IMMIGRANT TERRORISTS NUKE NEW YORK WITH BOMBS MADE OF HIDDEN STORES OF RADIOACTIVE IRAQI CIVILIANS

Ex-President Bush: "I told the American People that if they voted for Democrats, the terrorists would win."

In a stunning refutation of the yet-to-be-enunciated Democratic Agenda of the incoming Jack Johnson Administration, the warnings of his most recent predecessor have all come true in one fateful day.

The day after the inauguration of President Johnson, New York City was annhilated in a "nucular" holocaust, killing millions. The all-male crew of terrorists, who had strapped a nuclear bomb to a tanker headed into New York Harbor, were reportedly seen holding hands and kissing each other on the lips as they praised God and delivered their lethal package. Their nuclear weapon is thought to have been procured from Iran, and fashioned from radioactive Iraqi citizens.

These kissing brown men had taken the jobs, formerly held by good, hard-working white Americans, as crew on the hardy oil tanker, the SS Not Named After Condi Rice. It is rumored that matching gold bands were seen on each of the several terrorists' left fingers before it hit -- authorities think these may have been matching wedding bands. This apparently polygamous all-male married crew bears out the predictions of another recently defeated Republican: Rick Santorum, former Senator from Pennsylvania. He memorably compared gay marriage to beastiality, sodomy, incest, and polygamy, insisting one would lead to the next.

Then-Senator Santorum was quickly and thoroughly ridiculed by press outlets on the Left, including Jon Stewart's parody news show, "The Daily Show." The Daily Show sketch included signage with symbols indicating two married men, an equal sign, and a mockup of a stick-figure man copulating with a turtle to indicate "man-on-turtle action." It's not yet known if any of the gay, male, brown, Allah-worshipping terrorists had actually married or had carnal knowledge of any poikilotherms.

President Johnson insisted that the incinerated former residents of New York City would still have supported his campaign bid had they known the costs. "Freedom is messy," he said, channeling former Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld. "And I had promised them more tax cuts."

In the past few hours, staff of ex-President Bush have publicly posed the question, "Is it truly a coincidence that these horrible men, these, these, married and GAY haters of America... [were] immigrants fluent in French and Mexican, two languages that [President Johnson] also speaks?"

President Johnson has said he has "No comment," on this question.

..................

Preliminary evidence implies that the attackers entered the country illegally through Canada's Quebec province, posing as Mexican laborers and taking advantage not only of the "Immigration Reform" passed by the Democratic Congress, but also of education improvements in charter schools ushered in by "No Child Left Behind," a program with an until-now successful legacy under Mr. Bush. Although millions of children were left with no education as failing public schools closed and programs steeply slahsed at those remaining, thousands of rich children were "carried ahead" by the "Left Behind" program in what some have called a "qualified success." Several of the terrorists apparently attended an exclusive private Baptist school, one of many that sprang up with government funding during Mr. Bush's 2nd "lame-duck" term. These exclusive schools have consistently turned out excellent students, providing what many say is "complete vindication of the [NCLB Act]." But perhaps in this case, the question we must ask is rather, "Is our terrorists learning?"

President Johnson has also said this morning that he was calling for the summary and indefinite detention of all Mexicans, Arabs, and "funny looking peoples, you know with those hats, or wraps, or really dark skin". He has already signed a bill passed by Congress five minutes after the attack, allowing anything up to measures as seen in the movie "Saw III" to be used on potential terrorists for interrogation purposes. "That movie was sick," he said, "And so are the terrorists. The terrorists -- and the writers of Saw III -- will never stop trying to think of new ways to sicken, repulse, and terroriize the people of the United States. And neither will we."

President Johnson added, "We do not and will not torture. We will only 'Saw III'-ize illegal enemy combatants, which clearly falls within the Geneva Conventions as I interpret them, or at least the Cliffs Notes version I've read." Democrats on Capitol Hill widely applauded the move, admitting they had neither read the bill nor seen the movie, but pointed out that there is no specific prohibition in the Geneva Conventions about "Saw III-izing" illegal enemy combatants on Tuesdays and Thursdays of every month after 5 pm in technically sovereign countries whose land we rent for $1 a year under duress.

Meanwhile, the question of how the terrorists got hold of fissile material appears to have an unexpected answer: Iraqi nuclear stocks. Though it has become accepted conventional wisdom that the previous administration erred in its insistence that the Iraqis had a nuclear program, it appears that here again they have been vindicated. Apparently, Saddam Hussein had been collecting citizens and casualties from previous American assaults on Iraq. Many of these victims of "collateral damage" had apparently picked up enough radiation from exposure to American depleted uranium munitions to be useful as nuclear "starter kits". Reportedly, thousands of Iraqi civilians had to be processed to gather enough material for the bombs -- nonetheless putting lie to the idea that Iraq did not have nuclear capabilities.

Processing of Iraq's nuclear citiznes was carried out under the aegis of Brown & Root, through a contract Iraq had signed with Halliburton prior to the 1991 invasion, and sub-contracted to the Iranian government via the shell company "ChummyRummy and ZanyCheney's Happy People Processing Labs Initiative." President Johnson's staff has indicated that he may endorse another nuclear attack on Iran, "Just to be sure the rubble and bystanders left over from President Bush's War on Iran will never pose a threat to us. If we don't nuke them there, then we will have to nuke them over here."

***

"Every single thing my administration said, we meant," commented the former President Bush the Second. "Even the contradictory parts. But I can only hope that, maybe now, and I think they will, the Democrats will realize that the only way to win this fight is through resolve, relentless and indiscriminate killing of people in other countries, unlimited executive power, lying, lower taxes, lying, and not having to see gay men touching each other, or even think about it gay men touching each other."

"Only then," he said, "Will we truly be free."

Are they fucking me with this?

Oh, wait, they CAN'T be fucking me. Not yet, at least. They're promoting abstinence only contraception until THE AGE 29. Yeah. That'll work.

With this news in mind, I'm ready to conclude that elephants are smarter than the Bush Administration. (I have it on good intelligence that President Bush has mistakenly declared his own shadow an "unlawful enemy combatant." Twice.)



(Special note for the less J-saavy/more sane members of the audience, in the context of the title, "fucking" is acting as the word "kidding." See the informative history lesson on the versatility of the word "fuck" here.)

Mr. Bush, Tear Down That War

Keith Olbermann writes a fantastic piece, "The Beginning of the End of America", that everyone should read. It's so good... (How good is it?) I'm so glad you asked. It's so good, it made me quote Ronald Reagan in my title.

Ok, the Johnny Carson bit there was unnecessary and unfunny, but still, take my word for it, read Olbermann's piece. It's one that (I think) can speak to Middle America, something us lefties are too reluctant and too infrequent in doing.


(Bonus fake Johnny Carson bit from Emo Philips performing in Winnipeg, later channeled by Kevin Pollack I believe:

"It was so cold, last time we were here..."

(How cold was it?)

I'm so glad you asked. It was so cold, last time we were here we contracted gonorrhea, just for the burning sensation.

Rim shot! Ti-di-boom.)

Nota bene on Ahmadinejad

A couple of posts ago, I talked about Juan Cole and Virginia Tilley discussing how Iran's threat to us is far, far overblown. New J-friend S' (S prime, to distinguish from the heretofore unmentioned dear and good J-friend S) knows someone who is actually a refugee from Iran, who strongly feels the Prez IS a mad, anti-semitic all-around bad guy posing a threat to Israel, Iraq, and the US, and cites first-hand many instances of oppression against the Iranian people who, she says, are not in step with the extremist views of their leader but are kept from positive stances for the US by violent means. Even though I feel that anecdotal evidence is almost never conclusive evidence, I did want to make clear that I don't disbelieve that Pres. Ahmadinejad is an all-around scary or bad guy. I guess the two points I wanted to make were: A) I staunchly disbelieve the US media's portrayal of him, and doubt that they've taken him in context on many occasions, and B) that it seems at least possible given (A), that the characterizations of Ahmadinejad have been inaccurate. Of course, the true rulers of Iran (from what I understand), the Mullahs, certainly do not seem like nice guys or, you know, advocates of freedom or anything else I believe in. I think whatever the case, they're pulling Big A's strings (tired of spelling out his name), and whether or not he is truly so anti-semitic becomes somewhat moot seeing as how the true leadership may very well be -- and is certainly tyrannical. S' pointed this out, that even if it isn't Big A but the mullahs who are the crazy violent bad guys, does it matter in terms of Iran's threat? Thinking on this, the answer is of course no... even if Big A is actually and quietly the most liberal and open-minded person ever, but he's following their orders, well, the result's the same. BUT, as the Juan Cole article I linked to in my other post reinforces, there's not particular good reason to think that they'd pose a nuclear threat. For one thing, it's unclear if they even ARE making weapons-grade uranium rather than, as is their international treaty-ratified right, making power generation uranium (light water nuclear reactors have different enrichment needs than nuclear weapons). If they are, it seems almost certain their capacity is only such that they could make a weapon years and years from now. And even if they DID have "The Bomb," I think an important question is: are the mullahs REALLY crazier than Kim Jong-Il, the Cold War Russians, or the Pakistanis and Indians in regards to their feud with each other? I mean people said that we just didn't understand, Pakistanis and Indians hated each other so much, they were WILLING to face mutual annhilation, and so a nuclear attack WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. Just cuz it hasn't yet doesn't mean it won't, but... I simply do not believe that the mullahs, any more than Hussein, Kim, Gorbachev, Brezhnev, or Pervez care so little for their own comforts or lives that they accept mutually assured destruction, or even just the destruction of their country (where would they go to be dictator, ruler, and/or wealthy statesman?). They are, as our president calls them, irrational -- but only if you are so humanistic as to regard the intentional mistreatment and oppression of any person or peoples irrational. It is horrible and reprehensible, of course, but the fact is that they're getting material benefits -- it's not irrational. Causing (as they must know it would) the destruction of their power base, their home, their resources -- I have yet to see anything, anything that proves the mullahs or Ahmadinejad are on that road.

I rant inexplicably about free will...

In response to Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, here (or more accurately, his post here). I also saw many other lucid refutations, or at least, bones of contention, many of them more cogent than mine, or at least shorter...

As some have commented, this argument is somewhat futile, not necessarily because one cannot determine whether free will exists or not, but rather because if you accept personal responsibility as real (as Adams has it), then whether or not there is free will changes *nothing.* Nada. Zip. I've just been told that my sequence of actions, including writing this post instead of working on my dissertation was, I suppose, an inevitable result of the chain of events before it. But, for the purposes of living my life in a satisfying and orderly way, I cannot therefore use that as an excuse to never work again because I "can't help it." I suppose by Adams' reasoning, my previous experiences, my biology, etc. will drive me to spend (slightly) more time working than posting to achieve various things important to me.

BUT: despite this futility, I am compelled nevertheless to rebut a little bit of Scott's reasoning.

The more interesting (I think) rebuttal is that free will as Adams' describes it doesn't seem to be possible in a universe with rational laws (not rational actors, just laws of reality). He describes it as doing something breaking the chain of causal events before it. As I'm going to explain below, there's good reason to believe that many, many things in human society actually ARE indeterminate to some extent (based on the same finding in ecological systems). Meaning: if you wound history up somehow and replayed it, events might happen differently even with the exact same starting conditions. You could call this the vagaries of probability -- because behavior at least is, I think, probablistic -- a given person may choose differently in the same situation with, again, all the same starting conditions. That is, when faced with a big mac, a given person as a dieter may have a 95% chance of eating it, and a 5% of not. Or a newly-minted vegan a 50/50 chance. Mathematically, even given a complex model of decision making, the most you could get would likely be a probablistic answer. So is falling into probablity free will? I don't know. It doesn't break the chain of causal events...

...but then, really, what does? Adams' definition of free will requires people to act at random, it would seem -- that is, at odds with their own experience or circumstance. I guess it would be something like me getting up right now and killing myself -- when I have no reason to do so. Or does it have to be more crazy? A glass of water combusting? A person becoming a bird out of choice? If it is simply that I won't jump out a window because I'm a product of all the causal factors before now, well then, non-free will is a call for an irrational universe. I mean, given free will and all other things being equal, you'd think people would act according to their will in order to satisfy themselves the most in their lives -- monetarily, sexually, etc. So this system would seem to exactly emulate our system. The only way to have a system PROVING Scott's idea of free will would seem to be people running around setting themselves on fire, deciding to become a homeless person for the rest of your life, eating poisonous food for not reason, slapping your loved ones unprovoked -- I mean, only these things seem out of line of what a person with free will would choose, if you still assume people would want to make themselves happy. The only alternative I see is if you relax that assumption, and people don't want to make themselves happy nor successful. This, in turn, is very unlikely to happen in a universe with rational laws simply because such an population of entities without any sense of self-preservation would quickly become extinct. So, as Adams' defines it, free will is impossible unless the laws of the universe themselves are variable -- similar to my ex-girlfriend's believing that altruism isn't altruism if you enjoy, or at least feel emotional rewards for, helping people . One may define true altruism as only cases where you help people, at a cost to yourself, AND not liking it/thinking it's a stupid or horrible idea, but that's such a ridiculous definition as to not be useful. Same with this.

(now, the boring part... or at leat, MORE boring part)

For, though quantum mechanics do not, as a rule, trickle up into indetermination in the macro-world, chaos mathematics creates similar indetermination to quantum mechanics. There are two forms of chaos: determinate and stochastic. The second is easier to explain: it's "noise," it's all the bunches of little chances and changes that make, say, weather, hard to predict. But famous scientist (ecologist/theoretical physicist/mathematician) Robert May showed decades ago you could also have chaos from a simple equation and a time lag. To sum up, let's compare "conventional math" to "chaos math" -- in conventional math, the underlying assumption of ALL of it is that an incredibly small change in the "inputs" of an equation will lead to proportionally small change in the output -- or more precisely, that as the change in input goes to 0, the change in output also goes to 0. Chaos math turns that around, saying that in some systems, as the input change goes infinitely close to zero, the output can change unpredictably. It turns out that this can happen even in a simple mathematical system; imagine if you have bunches of these overlayed on each other? There simply IS no determinate result. There can be probabilistic results (as in quantum physics), and people may obey these as other systems do (i.e in a large enough sample, people will come out as the stats -- 70% doing A, 30% doing B). Is that free will? I don't know.

The Massacring Civilians to save Civilians Merit Badge: Haditha Marine was recommended for a medal?

You know, it's funny to joke that the Bush Administration gives its highest honors to its most incompetent cronies. George Tenet, L. Paul Bremer and Gen. Tommy Franks were awarded medals of honor for their work in Iraq. That's right, George "Slam Dunk" Tenet, L. Paul "De-Baathification and a misplaced $9 billion" Bremer, and Gen. Tommy "We don't need any more soldiers on the ground, thank you" Franks, medals of honor. Greeeeeeat. Well, that's old news. New news to file under "WTF?":

The Marine Sergeant who led the Haditha assault where they killed two dozen Iraqi civilians was recommended for a medal for his heroism by the only Marine officer present, Lt. William T. Kallop. Sergeant Frank Wuterich has since been promoted to Staff Sergeant, and Lt. Kallop is now 1st Lt. Kallop. So even though it was only a "recommendation" (meaning it didn't get farther in the formal awarding process), both of them have been promoted since Haditha. And Kallop's description of Wuterich's "heroism" ignores, oddly enough, the entire issue of civilian deaths, instead focusing on the now-likely-to-be-fictional insurgent attack. ("There was no IED.") While established details may change as the investigations continue, it still sort of beggars belief that Wuterich was nominated for a medal, and the Lt. Kallop's report doesn't mention any civilian deaths.

At our current rate of rewarding incompetence, Clarence Thomas will be named King Regent of the World next.