Kanuckistan

And even more lies

2004-12-10T23:41:00.000-05:00

And in my final post before I head back to Canada for the break...

I've covered before how members of the Bush administration have lied about things related to national security. Here's yet another great one, this time from Donald Rumsfeld.

In case you haven't heard, Rumsfeld gave a pep talk to a bunch of soldierss in Kuwait who were deploying into Iraq. He then let the soldiers ask him questions, and one of them asked him why they still didn't have enough armoured humvees. His response was basically: You can still get blown up even if you have armor, we're doing the best we can, and you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want. He later said it's "a matter of physics, not a matter of money... It's a matter of production and the capability of doing it."

Well, as often happens with the Bush cabinet, it was a flat out lie. The company armours the humvees says it can increase production by 22% anytime the Army wants, and that they've told the army as much. Another company says it is at 50% of capacity, and that the Army knows that too.

This is yet another example of the Republicans being unable to keep their lies straight. Two weeks ago, they were explaining that the commanders in Iraq had everything they needed. Apparently, the commanders just needed to ask and they'd get whatever they wanted. Now, the line is they just can't get what they want. And, this article at The New Republic (bugmenot.com to sign in) explains just how much of a lie the "the commanders on the ground have all the troops they requested" really is. Apparently, the initial plan from Tommy Franks called for 500,000 troops. Rumsfeld's response appears to have been, they could get as many troops as they wanted, as long as it was 140,000. You can read all about the consequences of his incompetence in the article.

Remember. this is how the Republican Party supports the troops. They don't give them the resources to do the job right, and then when the troops complain, they tell them bold-faced lies.

Gay stuff

2004-12-09T23:58:00.000-05:00

The Canadian Supreme Court come down with a ruling saying that the government of Canada can define marriage to include gay couples. The ruling also says that the federal government has the jurisdiction to define marriage for the whole country, so the lunatics in Alberta won't be stop it in their province. The ruling pretty much sets the stage for the final part of the fight for gay rights in Canada. Once Parliament passes the gay marriage bill (as it's expected to do), gays will no longer be denied any rights or opportunities to which straight people have access.

The ruling really was the best one possible. First, as requested, it specificially said that the Charter of Rights' protections of freedom of religion mean that no church can be compelled to perform gay marriage. This was completely obvious to anyone with a brain, but it was needed because the fundie assholes like to use this as a scare tactic against gay marriage. It's funny that the only people who thought this could ever happen were the fundie assholes. It's probably got something to do with their habit of trying to use the government to ram their religion down other people's throats making them think everyone else wants to do the same thing.

The more important thing was that the Supreme Court deferred to parliament on the actual issue of recognizing gay marriages. The Liberals were trying to pull a fast one. They knew it was the right thing to do, but they were hoping be able to say the court forced them into it to mitigate the Catholic and fundie asshole backlash at the poles. The court pretty much said "You had 7 rulings from provincial and territorial courts you could have appealed if you really thought we needed to tell you gay marriage is the right thing to do."

So, although it might be nice to get a ruling from the Supreme Court saying that gays have a constitutional right to get married, I think what's going to happen is better for symbolic reasons. In a few months, the people of Canada, through their representatives in Parliament, will finally declare that gays in Canada are full citizens of the country and have the same rights as everyone else. They'll recognize that gay people already have families, that gay people want families, and that those families deserve support and respect from society.

The whole debate ultimately comes down to family. The family really is the basic building block of society. The Canadian ruling and the coming law are an acknowledgement that the only way to recognize gays as full citizens is to allow them to take part in the building of society.

The Bush Doctrine in seven words

2004-12-09T21:08:00.000-05:00

"Political criticism is our enemies' best friend." -- Bernie Kerik, Bush's nominee to head Department of Homeland Security.

Let the eagle soar

2004-12-09T02:38:00.000-05:00

I thought in honor of John Ashcroft's impending departure from the cabinet, I'd post this tear-jerking homage to America sung by good ole' John himself: Let the Eagle Soar
And, here's this humble scribe's attempt at transcribing some of the lyrics:

Let the eagle soar
Like she's never soared before
From rocky coast to golden shores
Let the mighty eagle soar
Soar with healing in her wings
As the land beneath her sings
Only God--no other Kings
Let the mighty eagle soar
This country's far too young to die...

Sniffle... Let the eagle soar John, let it soar indeed. All Americans will look back fondly on your time at the Justice Department. It's just too bad it took an asshole like Alberto Gonzales and his torture memo to make us realize how lucky we were to have you.

Hypocrisy

2004-12-08T16:13:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while, I go read what the assholes on the right are saying, just to make sure they're still a bunch of morons with their heads up their asses. Over at Power Line, a fine example of right-wing commentary, here's part of what a reader had to say about Yale:

As you could probably guess, Yale students are indoctrinated daily on the evils of our criminal justice system. In fact, in “Crime and Punishment” – the same class where all students opposed to Affirmative Action were placed on the same moral plane as Klansman, there seemed to be no other topic on the syllabus. For example, time and time again, our nation’s drug laws were described as our “New Jim Crow” system. The statistic that African Americans comprise 12.2 percent of the population, 13 percent of drug users, and 75% of the U.S. prison population became so ingrained in my head that I can still recite it.

Moreoever, when introduced to the huge disparity of today’s prison system, we were told that there were two leading theories on the topic. And thus, we were only taught those two theories. The first, as I’ve mentioned, is that it arose as a way for American society to replace Jim Crow/Slavery. The second theory, rooted in Marx, is that our prison system exists as a method for the upper classes to keep down the lower classes, and, as an added bonus, to “pad” our nation’s unemployment figures!

And unfortunately, this class is emblematic of most classes at Yale.

On a daily basis, Yale students and professors express the moral outrage they feel toward our criminal justice system. Every day, young black men go to prison for crimes that shouldn’t be illegal (in the opinion of professors and students), while their white counterparts rarely see prison. So in their calls for justice (and I certainly agree wholeheartedly) they argue passionately that our justice system should be colorblind.

But don’t ever bring up marijuana, because liberal, white kids at Yale smoke it quite freely, and never face repercussions. Nevermind the fact that their black counterparts go to prison for the same exact crime.

As usual, the right makes absolutely no sense. I think that he's trying to complain about the hypocrisy of the left-wing ivory tower dwellers at Yale, but it's kind of confusing what his point is. Let's break it down step by step:

The mainly (I would infer from his letter) white liberal professors and students at Yale point out the injustice of a "justice" system that singles out blacks for prosecution of drug crimes.
The white liberal students at Yale are in fact beneficiaries of this system, because they get away with things that black people don't get away with.
Therefore, the white liberals at Yale are a bunch of hypocrites.

Apparently, according to the right, pointing out the injustice of a system that benefits you is called hypocrisy. I guess that that means you should only speak out against inequality in a system when it goes against you.

That's the difference between liberals and conservatives. Liberals are concerned about justice even when it means they might lose the special treatment they get from the current state of injustice. Liberals look at a situation and say "Hey, if I were in that guy's shoes I'd be pretty pissed off about it. If I wouldn't want myself to be subjected to something like that, how can I subject someone else to the same thing?" Conservatives ignore inequality until it cuts even the slighest against them and then immediately start crying "Wahhhh! Reverse racism! Those niggers need to fight and struggle for everything that was handed to me on a silver platter because I'm not going to give up a cent of what's mine."

One more thing

2004-12-07T21:26:00.000-05:00

Oh my God, I don't think I can take it anymore.

Rumsfeld on mistakes in Iraq:

I don't think anyone would say that the intelligence left anyone with the impression that you'd be in the degree of insurgency you're in today and resistance on the part of a mixture of Baathists and pro-dictatorship, pro-Saddam people, mixed in with some foreign terrorists and extremists.

Wait wait wait. So, Iraq was supposed to be part of the War on Terrorism, BUT THEY DIDN'T EXPECT THERE'D ACTUALLY BE SOME FUCKING TERRORISM WHEN THEY WENT INTO IRAQ. Jesus Christ, we really are fucked.

Bush spokesman: Rumsfeld wants to make the world a more dangerous place

2004-12-07T21:07:00.000-05:00

From today's New York Times:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld indicated Monday that he expected American troops to withdraw from Iraq within four years, but he cautioned that any final decision hinged on the progress that Iraq's civilian government and security forces made by then.

Bush's reaction:

Bush spokesman Steve Schmidt said Rumsfeld's goal of pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq in the next four years sends "a clear signal of defeat and retreat to America's enemies that will make the world a far more dangerous place."

Ok, Ok, I lied. Here's the actual quote from Fox News:

Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said Kerry's goal of pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq in his first term sends "a clear signal of defeat and retreat to America's enemies that will make the world a far more dangerous place."

So remember, when Kerry says he wants to withdraw within four years if the situation on the ground warrants it, he's advocating a policy of retreat and defeat. But when Rumsfeld says the same thing, well, that's just good policy.

I guess I also lied about taking a month off. Sue me.

Back in a month

2004-12-05T13:07:00.000-05:00

Exams this week, then back to Canada for three weeks, so maybe I'll have something to say in a month.

Arrrrrr!!

2004-12-02T22:06:00.000-05:00

"Sid Meier's Pirates!" is more fun than politics.

Gays die young?

2004-11-25T01:41:00.000-05:00

So apparently Kanuckistan has become Gay Rightsistan. Oh well. Once Congress gets into full swing again I'll probably find something else to talk about.

Here's another passage from the same editorial I was just talking about:

According to the Omega Journal, a leading publication on death and dying, the median age of death for a homosexual man without AIDS and with a longterm sexual partner is only 41 years of age. The median age of death of heterosexual married men is 75 years. The average age for a married, African American male is 69 years. If these statistics are even close to reliable, this is not only a moral issue, but an emerging public-health crisis. Passing laws that would institutionalize a lifestyle that could cut the lives of our young men by nearly a third is unthinkable.

I tracked down that study. It was performed by taking the median age of death from obituaries in gay newspapers and magazines and comparing to the median age of death in the general population. I was going to start ranting about how useless this study is. However, since most people who read this probably have a clue about scientific methodology, I'll just link to a page that does a nice and thorough job of debunking it for the clueless.

But, finally, finally, WHAT THE FUCK DOES GAY MARRIAGE HAVE TO DO WITH INSTITUTIONALIZING A "GAY LIFESTYLE" WHATEVER THE FUCK THAT'S SUPPOSED TO MEAN. Jesus Christ, fuck-face, the whole fucking point of gay marriage is to give gays access to the "lifestyle" (ie, basic rights) enjoyed by heterosexuals. I suspect that those who like to live what the author probably sees as a "gay lifestyle" have no interest in getting married. I'm reminded of the Onion article "Massachusetts Orders all Citizens to Gay Marry".

The threshold of suffering

2004-11-25T01:36:00.000-05:00

So a bunch of conservatives assholes hit upon the wonderful potential for synergy between race-baiting and gay-baiting and came up with Both Sides Magazine, an advertorial insert recently carried in the Washington Post. As you quickly see from the content of the magazine, it has two purposes.

The first purpose is to drive a wedge between black people and the Democratic Party. It's considered common wisdom that on average, black people are religiously conservative and tend to be highly disapproving of gays. So, the thinking goes, by putting out a magazine specifically targeting black people, they might get some of them thinking about how the Democrats disagree with them on gay rights and how their votes might be better spent with say, the Republicans.

The second purpose is to reinforce the absolutely dispicable message that the gay rights movement is not part of the larger civil rights movement and that any attempts to link the two are actually a smear on black people and their struggles. The lead editorial is a great example:

More than 20 million human beings lay bloody from resistance, bruised by chains, fevered from lying in their own excrement. They were carried over the ocean in the shadowy hulls of slave ships. The air was thick with disease and the crew took turns with the young girls. Tens of millions died. Their bodies were beaten and identities erased. This was the price of the one-way ticket Africans paid to arrive in the New World.

Chattel slavery lasted for hundreds of years in the Americas. Mothers were routinely sold away from their children. Slaves were worked to exhaustion in the heat of the hotter months and were shoeless, shirtless and hungry during the winter. Eventually, slavery was transformed into another, equally dark form of oppression-- Jim Crow, and American apartheid thrived for another 100 years. Until the dawn of the civil rights movement, African Americans were denied not only social equality, but political and economic equality as well. The monumental challenge of the civil rights movement to overcome racism does not even come close to characterizing the homosexual movement in the United States today. It is a glaring minimization of African American history to liken the two struggles.

Apparently there is some kind of threshold of suffering that must be crossed before something can be considered a civil rights issue. And apparently being special guests in Hitler's gas chambers, being subject to purges, being barred from political office, being denied contact with their children, being victims of hate-driven violence, and being subject to police harassment isn't enough to qualify. Gays have experienced all of these in recent and not so recent history through both official and tacit means. Sure, it's probably true that black people suffered more than gays. But that doesn't mean the gay movement has any less legitimacy. It just means that the the treatment of blacks in the United States reached an incredible level of cruelty and evil. To hold up the black experience as some sort of golden standard of suffering that all other movements must match to achieve legitimacy is despicable.

I think we have a fair ways to go before we reach racial equality in the United States and in many parts of the world. And I always try to be one of the first to condemn people who try to belittle the suffering and inequality experienced by black people. But I don't think the suffering they've experienced gives them the right to be arbiters of other civil rights movements. Gay people aren't trying to say their experience is the same as the black experience; they're trying to say the two have a number of similarities. They're trying to say, "Hey, a lot of people people finally started to question the prevailing wisdom on race and realized that the situation was immoral and untenable. Maybe it's time for the same kind of thinking to be applied to sexuality."

And here's the worst part of the editorial:

Today pundits conveniently link racial identity with sexual desires. Many such commentators purport to be supporters of the African American community. However, if they really understood the average African American and were trying to champion our cause, they would not be so surprised by the pained looks on our faces when we hear them discuss the issue. We ask ourselves, “Where were the water hoses, attack dogs and midnight rides to terrorize the marriage registrants in Massachusetts and San Francisco?”

A similar question could be asked of the black community? "In 2004, where were the water hoses, attack dogs, and midnight rides to terrorize black voter registrants in America?" By the standards the writer uses, black people haven't suffered enough recently to deserve my support. The worst thing is that this is the exact argument that many people use to justify the continued inequality experienced by black people. They point to the lack of blatant, overt, and public racism and use it as an excuse to ignore all of the structural factors thay keep most black people at the bottom of American society. They say (and please note that this not my view), "Goddam, what the hell do you black people want? We stopped killing you when you tried to vote, and now you expect us to make up for 500 years of racism?" I'm not going to demand more firehoses and attack dogs before pushing for equality for blacks. I think the people writing in Both Sides would do well to not demand it of gays either.

There's lots more to be pissed off about in the magazine. I'll probably post more about it later.

More progress in Massachusetts?

2004-11-24T01:34:00.000-05:00

Link

Those who attended the weekend wedding of state Senator Jarrett T. Barrios and political consultant Doug Hattaway said that Senate President Robert E. Travaglini gave a beautiful and moving toast at the couple's reception. The Senate president described the gay couple and their two adopted sons as a true family, in a speech that state Representative Michael E. Festa, also a wedding guest, called "an extraordinary statement of support."
But eight months ago Travaglini was working hard to win passage of a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage, allowing civil unions instead.

His heartfelt toast has advocates on both sides wondering whether the Senate president has changed his mind on the issue of same-sex marriage. The question is crucial to the future of the amendment: Travaglini will lead a second constitutional convention next year to decide whether the measure should go before voters on the 2006 ballot. If Travaglini no longer supports the amendment, which was the result of a delicately constructed compromise, it is less likely to prevail at the special combined legislative session.

In a brief interview with the Globe yesterday, Travaglini refused to say whether his toast reflected a shift in his position.

Or maybe it's just rank hypocrisy. Time will tell. Of course, his response was definitely better than this one:

Ronald A. Crews -- the former president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, who pushed hard for the ban on same-sex marriage -- said he felt uncomfortable that senators had attended the wedding, especially Travaglini, who will have more influence than any other lawmaker over the fate of the constitutional amendment.
"Clearly we have different definitions of what the word family means," Crews said of the Senate president. "I was always concerned about how solidly he was behind the amendment, and I don't know. It is still my hope he will allow the amendment to go forward. What did [he] mean by voting to preserve marriage in the ConCon earlier this year, and to make those kinds of statements? It appears to be a discrepancy."

Translation: "FAGGOTS CAN'T HAVE FAMILIES. THEIR GAY."

More on financial panty-sniffing

2004-11-23T03:10:00.000-05:00

It looks like the Republicans are still working on getting their lies in order. From today's NY Times:

"I didn't write it; I didn't approve it; I wasn't even consulted," Mr. Istook, a Republican from Oklahoma, said in a statement issued by his office. On Sunday, Mr. Istook issued a statement saying "nobody's privacy was ever jeopardized," but he did not deny any responsibility for the measure.

Istook is the Chairman of the House Transportation Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee which, strangely enough, has responsibility for the IRS. Apparently he's been pushing for such an amendment for years and yesterday seemed to know all about this amendment, but suddenly it's a complete mystery to him.

Meanwhile, the line from the Republican Senate leadership that the provision was added as the result of "staff error" is apparently falling apart.

The provision, one sentence in the 3,000-page omnibus spending bill that cleared Congress on Saturday night, states, "Hereafter, notwithstanding any other provision of law governing the disclosure of income tax returns or return information, upon written request of the chairman of the House or Senate Committee on Appropriations, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service shall allow agents designated by such chairman access to Internal Revenue Service facilities and any tax returns or return information contained therein."
During the House debate on Saturday afternoon, there was an exchange between Mr. Young and Representative Bill Thomas, Republican of California, in which Mr. Thomas said he understood that the provision "provides the Committee on Appropriations with proper access to I.R.S. facilities for oversight purposes but not the ability to examine individual tax returns, data or information."

Mr. Young replied: "The gentleman is correct. The Committee on Appropriations needs access to I.R.S. field facilities to do our oversight work. That work does not require the Committee on Appropriations to review individual tax returns."

So, it seems that the House Republicans knew all about the measure and, true to form, they were lying through their teeth about it. If the Committee's oversight work didn't require them to review individual returns, why on God's green earth would the bill specifically state that the Appropriations Committee should have access to individual returns and why would it sweep away all of the privacy protections those returns have? The approach in the Senate of blaming the secretary was cute, but they should have called their friends in the House to get the official lie first.

Here's the big thing. If that provision was so important to the Appropriations Committee doing proper oversight, why didn't they say they're going to rewrite it to take into account privacy concerns? The fact that they're backing off so quickly suggests they know they got caught with their hand in the panty-drawer.

The Republicans: Financial Panty-Sniffers

2004-11-21T23:22:00.000-05:00

The Republicans definitely got caught with their hands in the cookie-jar. In case you haven't heard, Congress just finished passing a massive 3000 page long, 14" high, $388 billion appropriations bill to fund pretty much the entire U.S. government. Funding was set to run out at midnight on Saturday, so it needed to get passed. Because our government is completely dysfunctional, the Senate had less than a day in which to debate and pass the final form of the bill. It was only by luck that the staff of a Democratic Senator from North Dakota caught the following line:

Hereinafter, notwithstanding any other provision of law governing the disclosure of income tax returns or return information, upon written request of the Chairman of the House or Senate Committee on Appropriations, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service shall allow agents designated by such Chairman access to Internal Revenue Service facilities and any tax returns or return information contained therein.

It seems pretty clear to me that that's a provision allowing politicians to read and do anything they want to with anyone's tax returns. The Republicans in the Senate were really pissed off. I caught part of it on C-SPAN, and the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee was practically yelling at the top of his lungs that he had no clue the provision was in there and would never use it and his counterpart in the House would never use it and how could the Democrats question his integrity and on and on. Of course, he still opposed a motion to remove it from the bill.

Apparently the Republicans weren't able to get their lies coordinated, because here's what they had to say over in the House:

Representative Ernest Istook, Republican of Oklahoma, who was responsible for the insertion of the tax provision in the 3,000-page, $388 billion legislation that provides financing for most of the government, issued a statement on Sunday saying that the language had actually been drafted by the Internal Revenue Service and that "nobody's privacy was ever jeopardized." Mr. Istook is chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that has authority over the I.R.S. budget.
John D. Scofield, the spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee, said that the purpose of the provision was to allow investigators for the top lawmakers responsible for financing the I.R.S. to have access to that agency's offices around the country and tax records so they could examine how the money was being spent. There was never any desire to look at anyone's tax returns, he said.

Mr. Scofield said the only purpose of the provision was to allow investigators to have access to revenue service offices. He said the authority would be similar to that allowed senior members and staff assistants of the House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee, the panels with primary jurisdiction over the activities of the revenue service.

So, if there was no desire to look at anyone's tax returns, why the fuck did the amendment say "the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service shall allow agents designated by such Chairman access to Internal Revenue Service facilities and any tax returns or return information contained therein"? The idea that the amendment had anything to do with oversight is laughable. The amendment says absolutely nothing about how the I.R.S. spends its money. It has everything to do with the contents of individual tax returns.If they didn't want to look at people's tax returns, why didn't the amendment say this:

Hereinafter, upon written request of the Chairman of the House or Senate Committee on Appropriations, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service shall allow agents designated by such Chairman access to Internal Revenue Service facilities but, in accordance with other provisions of law governing the disclosure of income tax returns or return information, such access will not include any individual tax returns or return information contained therein.

Oh wow, look at that! The Appropriations Committees get to do the oversight they apparently need to do without any of the financial panty-sniffing they're so desperately claiming they didn't want to do.

It gets better

2004-11-18T22:36:00.000-05:00

Now I'm even more pissed off. From the article I just mentioned.

A spokesman for BWI said the airport needs more information about a shift to private screeners. Like many major airports, BWI said it wants to learn more about liability in the event of another terrorist attack.

"Some pretty significant questions need to be answered," BWI spokesman Jonathan Dean said.

The TSA suggested in its announcement this week that airports would be protected by federal laws that limit tort liability in case of terrorist attack, but it did not specify the exact terms. Airport officials are concerned about what would be covered, said James McNeil, chief executive of McNeil Technologies Inc., a security firm that employs screeners at the Rochester, N.Y., airport. "If they can get some indemnification, that will play a huge role" in decision making, he said.

So yeah, the private companies only want to take over security if they don't have to take fucking responsibility when they fuck up. This is a case that cries out for the tort system. If an airport wants to save money by hiring private screeners, they need a financial incentive to not sure they don't save money by cutting corners. The threat of a huge fucking lawsuit when they screw up is a pretty good incentive. If they don't think they can handle that risk, maybe they should get out of the business. Guess what fuck-heads! I don't like the risk of some asshole with a death-wish flying a plane into my house either. But here's the kicker: I don't have any choice about it. So if you've got a chance to stop that asshole from blowing me up and you don't take it, the least I can can ask for is for someone to take vengeance on the only thing you seem to care about: your bottom line.

Some people apparently like terrorist attacks

2004-11-18T22:13:00.000-05:00

At least that's how I explain this.

Officials at Dulles International and Baltimore-Washington International airports said they are considering the replacement of federal airport screeners at security checkpoints with workers employed by private contractors.

The Transportation Security Administration this week invited airports to apply to leave the federal security screener system and return to private screeners. The government took over airport screening after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and is planning a transition for approved airports by spring or summer 2005.

Several airports have said private contractors might provide more staffing flexibility and might be more responsive than the federal government to hiring more employees when needed. This summer, passengers at Dulles waited more than an hour at times to pass through security as air traffic surged there with the launch of Independence Air.

"The issue of the long lines -- that's probably where we're most concerned about customer service issues," said Tara Hamilton, spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

As the link points out, the whole point of the TSA was replace under-paid under-trained and under-checked private security agents with government workers who received enough training and were carefully enough checked that we could hopefully reduce the risk of a repeat of 9/11. So yes, the government might not be as fast at changing staffing levels as a private contractor. But, as I often point out, that's the whole fucking point. We don't want to drag some dolt off the street every time there's a surge in traffic at an airport. Every security screener needs to be properly trained, thoroughly background-checked, and well-paid so that we can rely on them to provide the security we need. Sometimes it's slow and sometimes it causes inconvenience, but having to stand in a line for an hour when there's a spike in traffic isn't that big of a price to pay.

The best part of having the federal government in charge of airport security is that it provides an opportunity for real accountability. The Republican party isn't always a big fan of it (like whenever a Republican is President) but there's this wonderful thing called Congressional oversight. When a private company is in charge of airport security, they're responsible only to their stockholders. If their stockholders think that lower security is worth the risk, the stockholders win every time. A company's first and only loyalty is to their stockholders. If the TSA decides to lower security, they have to answer to Congress. Then, anyone who wants to lower security for the sake of profit first needs to go through the trouble on bribing the Congress-critters on the appropriate committees. And, if there's a lapse in security, we the people can make sure that heads roll for it. With a private company, accountability is left up to the stockholders.

As we saw on 9/11 aviation security is something that affects everyone, even those who don't fly. If I think a particular airline or airport is unsafe, not flying with them isn't necessarily going to protect me. If someone wants to put a huge fucking bomb in the air and fly it over my house every day, they can damn well let my government check everyone getting onto the plane to make sure no one's going to fly the bomb into my house.

Hope on gay marriage...

2004-11-18T22:00:00.000-05:00

... or at least on civil unions.

I mentioned before that Georgia's ballot initiative on gay marriage was deceptive and nasty because the question voters got asked was "Shall the Constitution be amended so as to provide that this state shall recognize as marriage only the union of man and woman?" while the actual amendment dealt with a whole bunch of things, including civil unions. Turns out that it isn't just dishonest, it's also unconstitutional, and Georgia isn't the only state that used these tactics. 8 of the 11 states that passed amendments did similar things.

At least in Georgia, it looks like there's hope. The Lambda Legal Fund filed a lawsuit before the election, but were told the state couldn't rule on the case until after the election. Now that there's been a lawsuit, they've refiled their case. A similar lawsuit is also being filed in Kentucky.

More on Rice and Powell

2004-11-16T16:25:00.000-05:00

The Daily Howler on Rice lying under oath.

The Rude Pundit on Colin Powell.

Garbage Out, Garbage In

2004-11-15T22:45:00.000-05:00

So it looks like Condoleeza Rice is going to replace Colin Powell as Secretary of State. Which means, that Bush is replacing someone who lied to the U.N. and the entire American people to serve his interests with someone who lied to the 9/11 commission* and the entire American people to serve his interests. Colin Powell had least had the honesty to be embarassed (in private) about his role in the war in Iraq. Too bad he didn't have the integrity to refuse to lend his name to Bush's war. As far as I'm concerned, he spent all of his credibility on Iraq. Condoleeza Rice will more than likely be a crappy Secretary of State, but in the end, Colin Powell was no better.

* Among other lies, Rice said that the August 6 Presidential Daily Briefing that stated "FBI Information ... indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York" as only containing "historical information" and not warnings of an imminent attack.

Why do the Republicans hate anyone who isn't rich?

2004-11-15T14:20:00.000-05:00

Apparently, the Republicans in New York would rather fund the most expensive stadium in the country on the most expensive real estate in the country than basic things the city's schools need like gymns and fucking toilet paper and soap for the bathrooms. A fifth of the city's schools don't have gymns, more than half don't have playgrounds and over 90% don't have athletic field, but the Governor and Mayor of New York both want to put up $600 billion towards a $1.4 billion stadium for the New York Jets. In the world of the Republicans, playthings for the rich take precedence over playgrounds for kids.

Can anyone explain to me why the fuck corporate welfare is a good thing and actual welfare a bad thing? Why is it that government handouts for the rich and self-reliance (ie, poverty) for the poor is so much better than self-reliance for the rich and government assistance for the poor. Considering how much Republicans whine about their tax dollars going to people who actually need it, why aren't they screaming blue murder about tax dollars going to people who clearly don't need any help?

Why the religious right is wrong about prayer

2004-11-14T23:53:00.000-05:00

One of the things that really gets the religious right pissed off is attempts by liberals to promote secularism. These attempts take a number of forms, including the removal of prayer from schools, the removal of the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, and the removal of the Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama Supreme Court. The reaction usually takes two forms. The first is that liberals are "trying to remove God from (insert public institution here)" and that "America is founded on Christian principles". Both of these are wrong.

Here's a typical response. Note the two completely erroneous statements: "Yes, and this is the United States of America, a country founded on Christian principles," and "Our Bible tells us just to pray without ceasing." It's pretty clear that the religious right has no clue about American history or about Christianity.

The United States was not founded on Christian principles. It was founded on Enlighenment principles. The United states was not founded because the other states at the time were not religious enough. It was created because its founders wanted a country founded on the Enlighenment principles of justice, equality, and above all, reason (and for a bunch of economic reasons). Certainly, many of the founders, being devout Christians, saw these as being Christian principles, but a number of them, most notably Thomas Jefferson, were not Christians.

The Constitution makes absolutely no mention of God, Jesus, or Christianity. Its only mentions of religion are "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States" and in the First Amendment "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". The Declaration of Independence mentions God, but not neccesarily the Christian God. Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, was a Deist, not a Christian, and the references to God in the Declaration are very consistent with Deist beliefs.

Not only was Jefferson not a Christian (he published a document known as Jefferson's Bible that was basically the Gospels minus any of the religious parts), but he was also the author of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom. Here's part of what the Staute has to say:

[The] impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time

That's a pretty harsh indictment of state religion, written by the only author of a foundational document that makes a mention of God. Jefferson was so proud of the Staute that his epitaph, according to his instructions, reads "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson Author of the Declaration of American Independence of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom & Father of the University of Virginia".

The Pledge of Allegiance did not originally contain the words "under God". They were added in 1954 to distinguish us from the "godless Communists". The Pledge itself was not created until 1892. The national motto was not originally "In God we Trust". It was originally "E Pluribus Unum". "In God we Trust" was gradually added to the coinage starting in 1864. In 1956 it was made the official national motto to distinguish us from the "godless Communists". That's why reactions like this to the ruling in California removing "under God" from the pledge are so laughable: "Our Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves. This is the worst kind of political correctness run amok. What's next? Will the courts now strip 'so help me God' from the pledge taken by new presidents?" ( Sen. Kit Bond, R-Missouri). The founding fathers had nothing to do with the pledge, let alone with the addition of the words "under God". And, the Constitution does not say anything about "so help me God" in the presidential oath of office. In fact, the Constitution specifically says that "no religious test shall ever be required" for public office.

Now that I've established that the United States was not founded on Christians principles, I'm going to show why Christians should be against public displays of religion. This is important because, although the United States is not an intrinsically Christian nation, it is certainly reasonable for members of its government to allow Christian principles to guide them. I'm not trying to say that government in the United States should not be informed by Christianity. We only run into problems when people want to take the step from individuals within the government being guided by Christianity to the institution of government being Christian itself.

Most members of the religious right seem to have forgotten the Sermon on the Mount. According to Matthew 6:5-6, this is what Jesus had to say about prayer in public:

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

It should also be noted the Gospels of Luke, Mark, and Matthew all depict Jesus as going off by himself to pray alone.

Christians should support removing the words "under God" from the pledge and "In God we Trust" from the currency" for the very reason that "In God we Trust" was allowed to remain on the currency. This is also the reason why we shouldn't have school prayer. "In God we Trust" was upheld because it was held to be ceremonial, or in other words, the exact kind of empty display of public piety that Jesus condemned in the Sermon on the Mount. The same thing goes for "under God" and compulsory school prayer. "In God we Trust" was made the national motto and added to the currency to impress the public and other nations with the piety of our rulers. But, as Jesus makes clear, such displays are futile and self-defeating. They cheapen faith and religion by making them empty displays of public piety instead of the deep and personal relationship with God they are meant (for Christians) to be.

Does banning school prayer take God out of our schools? Of course not. School prayer never put God in our schools. The people and government of the United States have no power to stop God from being anywhere. God is present in our schools in so many ways. When a teacher summons up extra patience to deal with a difficult student, God is there. When a child makes ignores ridicule from his peers and befriens an unpopular student, God is there. When a teacher notices that a child is having trouble at home and does beyond the call of duty to help out, God is there. When someone takes a pay cut to work as a teacher, because he or she believes in the importance of educating our youth, God is there. When a student makes an attempt to understand a peer from another culture, God is there. When students have a civil discussion to discover and learn from their cultural and religious differences, God is there.

Are liberals trying to remove God from our schools? Well, I can't speak for every liberal, but I'm against it. However, I am against prayer in the classroom. There's nothing to stop students from praying by themselves at school. There's nothing against students creating prayer or religious study groups on their own. In fact, this right is protected by the First Amendment. There's nothing against students and teachers living the message of Jesus at school. It's entirely possible for school-children to receive a moral and Christian upbringing without forcing them to browbeat their non-Christian peers daily with the fact that non-Christians are in the minority. It's entirely possible for Christian parents to shape their children's religious upbringing without denying the right of non-Christians or Christians of a different denomination to do the same.

"But, but," the religious fanatics scream, "why can't the non-Christians just keep quiet or step out into the hall while the rest of the class prays? They're in the minority so we shouldn't ruin things for the majority." Well, first, this ignores disagreements among Christians about the advisability and content of prayer in school. Second, it puts an incredible amount of pressure on school children who often just want to fit in. Kids have a way of turning on people who are different. Forcing school children to distinguish themselves from the crowd to this extent has the potential to force them to decide between respecting their parents' religious teachings and being ostracized or even attacked by their peers. When children are involved, the only way to achieve freedom of religion is through freedom from religion.

Links

The Age of Enlightenment

Deism

The United States Constitution

The Declaration of Independence

Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom

Thomas Jefferson

Facts on School Prayer

The National Motto

The Pledge of Allegiance

Fuck the South

2004-11-10T02:52:00.000-05:00

I'm a big fan of cursing as a rhetorical device, so by my standards Fuck the South is a rhetorical tour de force. Just one thing to add: I've met a lot of great people in the South, so this doesn't apply to everyone here. But, to everyone who thinks that the South is somehow the "real America" or that the slur "Massachusetts Liberal" has any place in our national political discourse, or that "Massachusetts Liberal" should even be considered a slur, a big fuck you is definitely due. I don't see how conversatives can on the one hand accuse liberals and especially northerners of elitism and then on the other hand proclaim that the "heartland" is the one true source of morality, truth, justice, and the American way.

Remember, liberals aren't elitists; they're just better than you.

Bigots

2004-11-07T18:39:00.000-05:00

According to Karl Rove:

If we want to have a hopeful and decent society, we ought to aim for the ideal, and the ideal is that marriage ought to be, and should be, a union of a man and a woman

What exactly is it about gay marriage that makes society unhopeful or indecent? Is sex within wedlock decent for heterosexuals but indecent for gays? Or maybe gay sex is indecent inside and outside of wedlock? Does everyone lose hope when society starts giving proper recognition to gay relationships? Does a hopeful and decent society also have a constitutional amendment banning sodomy? And, like marriage, is sodomy decent and hopeful for heterosexuals but not for gays?

It'd really be nice is Karl Rove just said "I HATE FAGS THEY SHOULD ALL BURN IN HELL" instead of trying to sugarcoat his party's bigotry with the language of "hope" and "decency".

Update: I think I figured it out. If gays get marriage, then they won't have anything to hope for, so society will be less hopeful. That Karl is such a klever fellow.

They'll know we are Christians

2004-11-06T16:37:00.000-05:00

Stuff like this (user latimes18485 password latimes18485) really pisses me off. These are Bush's strongest backers, and he knows it. He knows he owes his election to them, and you can be sure he'll be paying his debt to them in full over the next dour years.

I realize none of this is going to convince anyone who doesn't agree with me, but I'm too pissed off to care.

The religious right, in their own words:

The left bewitches with its potions and elixirs, served daily in its strongholds of academe, Hollywood and old media. It vomits upon the morals, values and traditions we hold sacred: God, family and country. As we learned Tuesday, it is clear the left holds the majority of Americans, the majority of us, in contempt.

Simply, a majority of Americans have rejected John Kerry and John Edwards and the left because they are wrong. They are wrong because there are not two Americas. We are one nation under a God they reject. We remain indivisible despite their attempts to divide Americans through their relentless warfare against class, ethnic and religious unity.

Relentless warfare against class, ethnic, and religious unity? You can't accuse an entire political party of being elitist and then turn around and accuse them of class warfare. And I'm confused about how pointing out that millions Americans live in poverty constitutes class warfare. I'm confused about how wanting to do something about the shocking disparities in education, health care, public services, and just plain opportunity is bad.

To these people, ethnic unity means that no one can point out that blacks and hispanics often get the short end of the stick, especially in the inner cities. To these people ethnic unity means white people moving out into the suburbs and then ignoring the plight of the poor, mainly black, people left behind who aren't yet capable of funding a functioning education system on their own.

To these people, religious unity means subscribing to their sick and twisted view of Christianity. To these people, religious unity means engaging in offensive, divisive, and unchristian displays of public prayer. To these people, religious unity means rejecting hundreds of years of scientific project in order to subscribe to a narrow and erroneous interpretation of scripture. To these people, religious unity means worshipping their god and no other. "One nation under a God they reject." Yes, there are many people who reject their god. Among them are Jews, atheists, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, and many many right-thinking Christians.

These people have lost their way. They pretend to be Christians, but they no longer preach or live the message of Christ. They use the language of faith and morals to attack anyone who disagrees with their hateful perversion of Christianity and people let them get away with it.

It's time for people to stand up to the crazies and say "no more". It's time to expose them for the frauds they are. It's time to bust their monopoly on morals. The left is composed of many moral and upstanding people. Not only that, but their morals are more often than not based on the message of Jesus. And, when their morals are not based on Christianity, they are no less valid simply because they have a different foundation.

So yes, I reject their god. But as long as there are right-thinking people around, we will never be one nation under that god. I will not serve a hateful and intolerant god. I will not serve a god who does not comfort the downtrodden, who does not reach out to the marginalized and oppressed. I will not serve a god who does not demand love for all people.

Many people on the left reject the god of the right. But that does not mean we are godless. It means we believe in the God of the Bible. It means we believe in the God of love. Many people on the left reject the morals of the right. But that does not mean we are immoral. It means we believe in the morals of love, of respect, of compassion, and of justice. Many people on the left reject the right's narrow definition of family. But that does not mean we do not believe in family. It means that we celebrate the potential of all families to bring love and happiness into the world; that we care more about a family's potential to provide care and support for its members that for the gender of its members.

There's a hymn that says "They'll know we are Christians by our love." And so I say to the religious right: With all the hate we see coming from you, how can we know you're Christians?

Coming up: Why the religious right is wrong about everything.

And one more thing: As the United States continues to slide backwards, Canada continues to make progress on human rights. Four provinces and two territories to go.

Couldn't have said it better myself

2004-11-04T03:23:00.000-05:00

As usual, pretty much exactly what I wanted to say. If you don't read Legal Fiction, you're missing out.

link

The aftermath

2004-11-03T18:40:00.000-05:00

So the forces of good lost again. It sucks and I'm incredibly disapppointed.

There are some people who are saying "Now that the President won, we need to rally behind our troops and the Commander in Chief." I plan on doing no such thing, and I hope the Democrats are strong enough to call that bullshit what it is. The fact that 51% of the country voted for Bush makes him no less of a destructive influence on our country and the world. The fact that he won the election in no way justifies his campaign to tear down the institutions that make this country so great. Whether it's the Constitution, the military, Medicare, Social Security, or the courts, George Bush has shown that nothing is sacred to him. Nothing is too important, nothing too vital, to keep from exploiting and weakening them in his campaign to bring about his twisted vision of America. He has done nothing to give me a reason to rally behind him. George Bush is not my Commander in Chief and he never will be. Our Constitution says that he's our President fair and square, but damned if I'm going to rally behind a weak, incompetent and destructive man like George Bush.

As far as supporting the troops, they need all of the support they can get. They sure haven't been getting it from Bush. Accusing your opponent in an election of not supporting the troops does not mean you're supporting them yourself. The empty words he mouthed in the election in no way change the fact that the war in Iraq was, from its conception to its execution, wrongheaded and partisan. If he supported the troops, he would have sent them into Iraq in the numbers and with the resources needed instead of shortchanging them to make the war more palatable to the American public. If he supported the troops, he would not have based his military planning on the presidential election. If he supported the troops, he would have exercised some humility and tact in putting together a true and strong coalition instead of publically insulting our allies for partisan gain. If he supported the troops, he would not have justied sending them into battle with a pack of lies and half-truths. More than anyone, our troops deserve our support, and a big part of that is to continue to hold Bush accountable for his crimes in Iraq.

According to exit polling and many commentators (including some Republican ones) what ended up making the difference for Bush was "moral values". And, of course, moral values means things like school prayer and gays. I'm sick and tired of hatred and bigotry being equated with morality. I can't stand the implication that people like my sister, and people like myself who support their rights are somehow immoral. If you think gays having the same basic family rights everyone else has or being allowed to engage in consensual sexual activities is somehow is a bad thing, you're wrong and you're a bigot. Saying that might make me an elitist liberal asshole, but I'm still better than you. If you think that stopping other people from starting families somehow strengthens your family, you're wrong, you're a bigot, and I'm better than you. If you think denying people incredibly basic rights like visiting their loved ones in the hospital will make anyone's life better, you're wrong, you're a bigot, and I'm better than you. If you think that forcing people who don't agree with you to listen to your children mouth empty words of religious piety every day at school somehow strengths your faith, you're wrong, you're a bigot, and I'm better than you. Faith starts at home, family starts at home, and morals start at home. Where you stick your penis, how loudly you bray empty prayers in public, and how much you try to foist your beliefs on those who disagree with you has nothing to do with it.

You want moral values? Take a look at Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic convention:

If there’s a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there’s a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandmother. If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It’s that fundamental belief—I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sisters’ keeper—that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. “E pluribus unum.” Out of many, one.

This next part actually comes from before, but it kind of flows:

Don’t get me wrong. The people I meet in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks, they don’t expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead and they want to. Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don’t want their tax money wasted by a welfare agency or the Pentagon. Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can’t teach kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. No, people don’t expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice.

That's the message of Jesus. That's what it is to be a Christian. "Feed my lambs," Jesus said. "Tend my sheep," Jesus said. "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me," he said. Barack Obama understands that moral values has so much more to do with a commitment to social justice than with the sexual "morality" so many so-called Christians are pre-occupied with. I hope he continues to preach this message and I desperately hope that more Americans come to recognize the wisdom of his words.

The election

2004-11-02T01:43:00.000-05:00

Well, in a few hours I'll be going out to cast my wasted vote for John Kerry and against Proposition 1 on the Georgia ballot.

I'm sure, thanks to my wonderful neighbors in this state, on November 3 I will be among millions of Americans who live in a state that has chosen to enshrine discrimination in its constitution. I didn't realize it until now, but I think this is the thing that pisses me off the most about this election. It's not just the complete wrongheadedness. It's heartless and dishonest. Take a look at the question on the ballot:

Shall the Constitution be amended so as to provide that this state shall recognize as marriage only the union of man and woman?

What does the amendment actually say?

SECTION IV. MARRIAGE

Paragraph I. Recognition of marriage.

(a) This state shall recognize as marriage only the union of man and woman. Marriages between persons of the same sex are prohibited in this state.

(b) No union between persons of the same sex shall be recognized by this state as entitled to the benefits of marriage. This state shall not give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other state or jurisdiction respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other state or jurisdiction. The courts of this state shall have no jurisdiction to grant a divorce or separate maintenance with respect to any such relationship or otherwise to consider or rule on any of the parties' respective rights arising as a result of or in connection with such relationship.

So, not only will I be a citizen of a state that enshrines discrimination in its constitution, it will be a state that denies gay couples even the chance to join in civil unions. And, the Legislature was too cowardly to put that fact into the ballot question. They aren't just defining marriage as between a man and a woman. They're deny gays every single family-related right possible. Just look at the language: "The courts of this state shall have no jurisdiction to ... consider or rule on any of the parties' respective rights arising as a result of or in connection with such relationship." Yep, they know they have those rights, but they're going to take them away anyway.

Tinfoil hat time

2004-10-30T17:10:00.000-05:00

So, this is apparently the Bush campaign's reaction to the new Bin Laden video:

We want people to think 'terrorism' for the last four days," said a Bush-Cheney campaign official. "And anything that raises the issue in people's minds is good for us."
A senior GOP strategist added, "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush."
He called it "a little gift," saying it helps the President but doesn't guarantee his reelection.

So, if having bin Laden alive and well is so good for Bush's election campaign, is it possible that Bush would actually rather have him at large? I mean, surely if Kerry could actually want Saddam Hussein to still be in power in Iraq, Bush could still want bin Laden to be alive and well.

The nail in the coffin

2004-10-28T20:33:00.000-05:00

Yep, the explosives were there after the war. I guess it's time to switch completely to blaming the troops now.

Blaming the troops

2004-10-28T12:49:00.000-05:00

Bush on the missing explosives:

The senator's denigrating the action of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts.

What did Kerry actually say?

Now we know that our country and our troops are less safe because this president failed to do the basics. This is one of the great blunders of Iraq, one of the great blunders of this administration. The incredible incompetence of this president and his administration has put our troops at risk and put our country at greater risk than we ought to be.

Rudy Giuliani on the missing explosives (video):

The president was cautious the president was prudent the president did what a commander in chief should do. No matter how you try to blame it on the president the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough?

What do the troops have to say? According to General Merrill McPeak, former chief of staff of the Air Force:

The President seems to think Senator Kerry could not possibly be criticizing him since the President thinks he has never made a mistake. Let’s be perfectly clear: it is the President who dropped the ball. Senator Kerry is being critical of George Bush, not the troops. By embarking on the line of attack, George Bush is deflecting blame from him over to the military. This is beneath contempt.

So yes, Bush and his campaign will say and do anything in order to get elected. Even if it means blaming our troops in Iraq.

Was Lincoln Gay?

2004-10-27T22:40:00.000-05:00

One author seems to think so. I have no clue if this is true (so naturally I'm posting it), but even if it isn't, it sure is hilarious. "The party of Lincoln" ahahahahahaha.

OK, I'm done.

They just don't get it

2004-10-27T00:29:00.000-05:00

This pretty much says it all about the administration's attitude:

DICK CHENEY: If our troops had not gone into Iraq, as John Kerry apparently thinks they should not have, that is 400,000 tons of explosives that would still be in the hands of Saddam Hussein, who would still be sitting in his palace, instead of jail.

So apparently the whole thing comes down to putting Saddam Hussein in jail. This is the real problem with Bush/Cheney. They just don't get the war on terra. When we were attacked on 9/11, we weren't attacked by a state. We were attacked by terrorists: people whose loyalties aren't tied to any particular state. Putting Saddan Hussein in jail doesn't do anything about the thousands of terrorists who are out to kill Americans. I'm not saying dealing with terror is an easy thing. But it should be clear that putting one dictator in jail isn't going to do anything about the thousands of terrorists who are out to get us.

When Saddam Hussein was sitting in his palaces, he was a brutal dictator. He starved his people for political purposes. He used rape and torture on a regular basis. He was quite simply an evil person, and most of the people who worked for him were evil as well. But, those hundreds of thousands of tons of munitions (and that's important too... the number Cheney is referring to is munitions, not explosives) were not being used to attack Americans and American allies. The vestiges of the Iraqi nuclear program were not turning up in European scrapyards.

So yes, the war in Iraq did remove an evil man from power, and that's a good thing. But it in no way made us, the Iraqis, or the rest of the world safer. Instead, it created a power vacuum that allowed terrorist organizations to flourish in Iraq. It gave them the opportunity to loot way more weapons than they ever could have bought or manufactured on their own. It gave Bin Laden and his followers a huge propaganda victory and led to directly to hugely increased recuitment. It tied down hundreds of thousands of troops, which more than likely led to North Korea and Iran advancing their nuclear plans safe in the knowledge that the United States lacked the resources to stop them.

The world will be paying for Bush's imcompetence in the rush to and botched execution of the war in Iraq for a long time.

200 billion and counting

2004-10-26T02:19:00.000-05:00

It's official. Bush's recruiting video for Al Qaeda has now risen to a total cost of over $200 billion. Remember, he can afford to spend hundreds of billions on adventures in Iraq, but when it comes to securing American ports, nuclear, and chemical facilities, there's a "tax gap".

Also, take a look at the New Yorker's endorsement of Kerry. It's kind of long, but extremely well written. Apparently it's their first ever endorsement of a Presidential candidate.

More Fuckups

2004-10-26T01:34:00.000-05:00

If you read the news, you've probably heard about the 380 tons of explosives the US let get away after occupying Iraq. The explosives were sealed and monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency prior to the invasion. They repeatedly warned the Bush administration that they needed to be secured after the invasion. The Bush administration ignored the advice. Now, they are almost certainly being used in car bombings against American and Iraqi troops. Why is this a big deal? (A lot of this comes from TPM).

HMX and RDX are the most powerful non-nuclear explosives in existence.
A shit-ton of explosives were stolen. It probably took about 40 trucks to haul it away. Less than a pound was used to take down the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland. So, the amount taken could be used for over 700,000 airplane bombings. According to one estimate, it's enough for somewhere between 2000 and 8000 Oklahoma City bombings.
Not only are they the most powerful explosives, they're also used as the trigger in nuclear weapons. The United States used Saddam Hussein's cache of these explosives as part of its WMD case for invading Iraq.
Contrary to some reports, the explosives weren't neccesarily looted prior to the arrival of US troops. The troops in the CNN/NBC story arrived on April 10, 2003. The first troops actually arrived on April 4, 2003 and according to this report, found lots of explosives. It isn't clear what exactly they found, but no mention is made of the IAEA seals being broken either. According to this report, an official claims the seals were intact. More on that here.

So, we have weapons that were so dangerous that they were part of our case for invading Iraq. Then, once we get to Iraq, we don't bother to secure the weapons and they fall into the hands of terrorists. So how is it that the Bush strategy was better than continued sanctions and inspections? Even if you give them way more of the benefit of the doubt than they deserve and assume that the explosives were looted before the arrival of American troops, it's still pretty clear that the war and occupation has gotten more weapons into the hands of terrorists than Saddam Hussein ever did. Don't forget that this isn't the first time this has happened.

I think Jesus' General has the best take on it:

We didn't have enough troops to guard both the oil ministry and the explosives bunker. One of them had to remain unguarded.

Getting control of the oil was more important. Otherwise, the insurgents wouldn't have pipelines to blow up using the looted HMX and RDX. You see, the oil facilities act as a kind of flypaper for these rebels. One of these days, we'll catch them blowing one up. Then we can bring the troops home.

2004-10-23T14:42:00.000-05:00

I'm guessing an endorsement from the New York Times isn't going to sway most Bush voters to Kerry's side. But take a look anyway. People might quibble with a point or two, but I don't think you can deny that

Bush has displayed a lack of fiscal leadership
Bush has squandered historic opportunities to confront terrorism and has instead managed to turn most of the world against us without making us any safer.
John Kerry has a record of public service in Vietnam, as a prosecutor, and finally as a Senator that suggests a strong dedication

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/opinion/17sun1.html

100 Facts and 1 Opinion

2004-10-22T17:45:00.000-05:00

It's worth reading the whole thing.

Voter Fraud

2004-10-22T17:24:00.000-05:00

So, as if this country wasn't in enough of a fucked up place already, apparently voter fraud is becoming rampant this election.

In Florida, there are numerous reports that people are illegally misrepresenting themselves as being representatives of the election office collecting absentee ballots. It's legal for groups to collect absentee ballots, as long as they deliver them and don't misrepresent their associations. The fact they're lying suggest they're up to no good. The fact it's mainly happening in neighbourhoods with lots of elderly, low income, and minority voters suggests these shenanigans would benefit the Republicans.
In Ohio, there are reports people are calling voters and telling them they're from the board of electors and the the voter's polling places have changed.
A Republican-funded "voter outreach" group has been destroying the registrations of Democratic voters. States affected included Nevada, Oregon, and possibly West Virginia. The Republican National Committee has paid over $600,000 to those responsible. More here. News reports here and here.

John Edwards and the C-Sections

2004-10-21T21:05:00.000-05:00

Something like this is pretty minor just 12 days away from the election, but stupidity like this just really pisses me off.

One of the accusations against John Edwards is that he was a dirty trial lawyer who made his money by bringing groundless accusations against innocent doctors and corporations.
Some of his worse cases are supposedly those where he brought malpractice suits against doctors who had delivered babies that had Cerebral Palsy (the claim was that the CP was caused by asphyxiation during the delivery). You can find such accusations here here and here.

The accusations all have the same pattern: The doctors were innocent, medical science says asphyxiation has nothing to do with CP, and because of John Edwards, C-sections have gone from 6 percent of lives births in 1870 to 26 percent today. Here's a typical wording:

The result of Edwards' lawsuits against obstetricians is that fears of career ruination from malpractice litigation have raised the rate of Caesarean sections in the United States to 26 percent from only 6 percent in 1970.

Here are the problems with these accusations.

First, Edwards was 17 in 1970. He got his law degree in 1977. The first CP case that I've heard of occurred in 1985. So, unless John Edwards was already a terror in the courtroom at 17, using 1970 as a baseline is extremely dishonest.

Second, the rate of C-sections in the United States is comparable to the rates in the rest of the world. According to this report from the University of Manitoba, the rate in Canada in 2000 was 18.7%. According to this paper, the rate in most of the world in the mid-80s was well above 20%. Remember that this is when the CP litigation appears to have begun. The paper also says that the rate in Mexico in 1997 was 32.8%, while in private hospitals in Mexico it was 48.1%. The rate in developed countries has apparently stabilized at around 20-25%. The WHO apparently says that the rate should be no higher than 10-15%. So yes, it does appear that the Unites States has too many C-sections. But based on the limited data I've seen (the Mexico study as well as this one), it looks like that can be traced more to profit-driven private health care than to John Edwards's lawsuits.

Finally, most of the articles seem to confirm that, at the time Edwards started bringing the lawsuits, medical science seemed to agree that many cases of CP were caused by asphyxiation during the delivery that could be avoided with a C-section.

From ABC News:

In a report released last year by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Academy of Pediatrics, scientists now say the disease is seldom caused by anything a doctor does in the delivery room. [emphasis added]

It appears that Edwards's lawsuits were based on many what doctors at the time were saying. Further research seems to have disproved that claim, but it is not at all clear that Edwards wasn't acting in good faith when he brought the lawsuits. None of the accusations I've seen have featured direct evidence from the cases showing that Edwards was litigating cases that didn't deserve to be litigated.

The most laughable accusation is this one from Mona Charen: "Lawyers like Edwards take only the cases that seem winnable." Jesus Christ on a Crotch woman! That's the whole fucking point! Why the fuck would any lawyer waste his, his client's, the defendant's, the court's, and the jury's time and money on a case he doesn't think he can win? The mark of a good trial lawyer is one who can find cases that have merits and then convince juries of the merits of those cases. The fact that Edwards appears to have been quite good at both of those and made a lot of money off of that ability doesn't seem to me to be a good reason to vote against him.

Schadenfreude baby, Schadenfreude

2004-10-14T01:56:00.000-05:00

So, Bill O'Reilly is being sued for sexual harassment. From the looks of the lawsuit, it seems the plaintiff has some some great stuff on tape, including O'Reilly jacking off on the phone, and O'Reilly's shower sex fantasy, which includes rubbing her pussy with a "falafel thing" (but in a light, teasing way). For the record, yes I do take great pleasure in this. Bill O'Reilly is an odious man. The fact that as a married man hewould make these kinds of advances on a junior employee at Fox just confirms everything I believe about him.

Take a look here for Jesus's General's take on it.

From the AP:

Besides the attempt for money, O'Reilly charged that his accuser and her lawyer were trying to embarrass him and Fox News Channel three weeks before the election. Morelli, he said, is a contributor to the Democratic Party; "The O'Reilly Factor" is a particular favorite among Republican viewers.

So now, O'Reilly confirms that Fox News is a mouthpiece for the Republican party.

Bush Lies

2004-10-13T22:33:00.000-05:00

Since some people apparently haven't heard about all of the lies Bush tells, I'm making a post collecting them all together. I'll probably be updating this a bunch over the next day or so since I don't have time to do them all at once.

Bush never said he wasn't worried about Bin Laden

Bush on March 13, 2002 (video):

So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you. . . . Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban.

Bush in the 3rd Presidential Debate

Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations.

Kerry voted to raise taxes 350 or 98 times

These are debunked here and here.

Kerry flip-flopped on Iraq

Debunked here.

From the article:

Kerry has never wavered from his support for giving Bush authority to use force in Iraq, nor has he changed his position that he, as President, would not have gone to war without greater international support. But a Bush ad released Sept. 27 takes many of Kerry's words out of context to make him appear to be alternately praising the war and condemning it.
This ad is the most egregious example so far in the 2004 campaign of using edited quotes in a way that changes their meaning and misleads voters.

Kerry wants "Hillary-Care"

Bush in a speech on October 6:

My opponent's proposal would be the largest expansion of government-run health care ever. His plan would put bureaucrats in charge of dictating coverage, which could ration your care and limit your choice of doctors. ... He's putting us on the path to Hillary care.

First, this isn't the largest expansion ever. That would have been under LBJ, when Medicare and Medicaid were first introduced.

But the more important point is the one about government dictating coverage. Kerry's plan does nothing of the sort. It has a few major components, but none of them are anywhere near what Bush suggests.

One is to give people the option of buying into the health plan that federal employees, including Congressmen, are offered. Some people claim that this will somehow lead to government control of health care because everyone will sign up for the plan and private insurance companies will suddenly stop competing. This is complete bullshit. First of all, if the government employee insurance plan is that good, then everyone should have access to it. If the plans offered to non-government workers are so bad that everyone would abandon them, they deserve to fail. To say we shouldn't open up the government plan to non-government employees for that reason is to say that we need competition for the sake of competition, instead of for the (dubious) goal of increasing the quality of health care. Regardless, the most important word here is "voluntary". This has nothing to do with government control. It has everything to do with giving people more options.

Another part of Kerry's plan is a reinsurance scheme. Basically, under his plan, insurance companies will be able to have the government pay 75% of catastrophic costs for a patient over $30,000. In return, the insurance company has to agree to lower premiums. Once again, this has nothing to do with government control of health care. The care is still delivered in whatever manner the insurance company specifies. It just gives insurance companies a way, if they so choose, to lower their risk. It means that insurance companies don't have to spend so much money keeping sick people out of their plans, because if someone gets terribly sick, it won't cost the insurance company as much. It also makes it easier for for small companies to provide insurance, because they don't have to worry as much about one really sick employee bankrupting the plan.

This is also debunked here.

Kerry is the most liberal member of the Senate

This is based on a scorecard produced by the National Journal. In particular, it is based on the scorecard from one year, 2003, a year in which Kerry was absent from many votes because he was busy campaigning in the Democratic Primary. He only tended to return to the Senate for votes that were going to close. Nice and centrist bills with bipartisan vote were obviously going to pass without his vote, so he often didn't bother voting for them. Kerry's lifetime record is the 11th most liberal member of the Senate. Sure, he's left-of-center, but he isn't to the left of Edward Kennedy, as Bush claims.

Bush has gotten spending under control

Bush in the 2nd debate:

Non-homeland, non-defense discretionary spending was raising at 15 percent a year when I got into office. And today it's less than 1 percent, because we're working together to try to bring this deficit under control.

It looks like he might have actually confused himself with the Clinton. From this article by the conservative Cato institute:

But perhaps we are being unfair to former President Clinton. After all, in inflation-adjusted terms, Clinton had overseen a total spending increase of only 3.5 percent at the same point in his administration. More importantly, after his first three years in office, non-defense discretionary spending actually went down by 0.7 percent. This is contrasted by Bush's three-year total spending increase of 15.6 percent and a 20.8 percent explosion in non-defense discretionary spending.

Also take a look at this graph.

Lawsuits are largely responsible for increases in health insurance premiums

Bush claims that "defensive medicine" leads to increased health care costs. This claim is based on a flawed study. The findings of that study have not been replicated in other studies. The Government Accountability Office and Congressional Budget Office both disagree. More here.

More hypocrisy on Iraq

2004-10-13T13:47:00.000-05:00

In September of 2002, Al Gore gave a speech about the run-up to war in Iraq. The speech shows its age a bit now (it assumes that Iraq had biological and chemical weapons, which we now know to be false), but it's still very relevant.

Here's part of what he had to say:

If we quickly succeed in a war against the weakened and depleted fourth-rate military of Iraq and then quickly abandon that nation, as President Bush has quickly abandoned almost all of Afghanistan after quickly defeating a fifth-rate military power there, then the resulting chaos in the aftermath of a military victory in Iraq could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam. Here's why I say that; we know that he has stored away secret supplies of biological weapons and chemical weapons throughout his country. As yet, we have no evidence, however, that he has shared any of those weapons with terrorist groups. If the administration has evidence that he has, please present it, because that would change the way we all look at this thing. But if Iraq came to resemble Afghanistan, in its current depleted state, with no central authority - well, they have a central authority, but their central authority, because the administration's insistence that the international community not be allowed to assemble a peace keeping force large enough to pacify the countryside, that new government in Afghanistan controls a few precincts in one city and the warlords or drug lords control the whole rest of the countryside. What if in the aftermath of a war against Iraq, we face a situation like that because we washed our hands of it? What would then happen to all of those stored reserves of biological weapons all around the country? What if the Al Qaeda members infiltrated across the borders of Iraq the way they are in Afghanistan? Then the question wouldn't be, Is Saddam Hussein going to share these weapons with the terrorist group? The terrorist groups would have an enhanced ability to just walk in there and get them.

This is especially relevant in light of this article about nuclear materials disappearing from Iraq. These are materials that had been tagged and monitored by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency. Of course, once all of the inspectors were evacuated because of the war, they could no longer keep as close an eye on the materials. Apparently, the Bush administration had no interest in taking over the task of keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists, because they haven't done anything to stop the disappearances.

The equipment -- including high-precision milling and turning machines and electron-beam welders -- and materials -- such as high-strength aluminum -- were tagged by the IAEA years ago, as part of the watchdog agency's shutdown of Iraq's nuclear program. U.N. inspectors then monitored the sites until their evacuation from Iraq just before the war.

The United States barred the inspectors' return after the war, preventing the IAEA from keeping tabs on the equipment and materials up to the present day.

Under anti-proliferation agreements, the U.S. occupation authorities who administered Iraq until June, and then the Iraqi interim government that took power at the end of June, would have to inform the IAEA if they moved or exported any of that material or equipment.

Off topic

2004-10-13T00:20:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how it happened, but apparently I have a regular reader at the University of Pittsburgh. Heck, you might be my only regular reader. So, how are things in Pittsburgh?

Voter registration fraud by... guess who?

2004-10-12T22:53:00.000-05:00

Via TPM.

According to this story, a voter registration outfit in Las Vegas was caught tearing up registration cards from Democrats. And yes, the company was largely funded by the Republican National Committee. From the article:

Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.

"We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me," said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee.

Eric Russell managed to retrieve a pile of shredded paperwork including signed voter registration forms, all from Democrats. We took them to the Clark County Election Department and confirmed that they had not, in fact, been filed with the county as required by law.

It's because of stuff like this that I want same-day voter registration. Someone can register to vote in good faith, and then through no fault of their own, find out on election day that they aren't on the voter rolls. The right to vote is so fundamental that we need to make sure nothing stands in its way. If someone comes up to a polling place on the day of the election who isn't registered, they should be able to register on the spot and cast a provisional ballot. Obviously those ballots need to be checked carefully, and anyone caught cheating needs to be thrown in jail for a long time.

Two other things. Canada managed to solve the voter registration problem quite easily. What's the one thing that almost all eligible voters do each year? That's right, they file income tax forms. You just check a box on your income tax form requesting Revenue Canada to give your information to Elections Canada. Unlike the US, Canada maintains a national roll of electors, but there's no reason each state couldn't do this. It would save a lot of the costs of processing voter registrations, and it would make it incredibly easier to register. Of course, people who don't pay taxes or don't trust their state taxman to forward their name to the state's Secretary of State could continue to register the traditional way.

Yes, I know you can register to vote with pretty much any DMV, but most people don't renew their licenses all that often. Filing income tax forms is something that people do every year. If, for whatever reason, someone decided to not to register to vote when they got their license but then changed their mind, the income tax form approach would make it nice and easy to do so. From what I recall, things have gotten so efficient that the parties don't bother going door-to-door registering people to vote anymore.

Here's how easy it is:

Finally, why the hell should anyone have to declare their party affiliation on their voter registration card. Every state should move to an open primary system. Even better, the whole primary system should be scrapped and the nominations should be dealt as the internal party matters they are.

Politics and defense

2004-10-10T22:38:00.000-05:00

We all know the Bush administration wouldn't play politics with our defense policy, or would they?

Like, they wouldn't spend billions of dollars activating an unproven and un(successfully)-tested missile defense shield just because Bush promised to have it done by the end of his first term, or would they?

Or, they wouldn't let elections in the US dictate their strategy in Iraq, or would they?

From the LA Times:

Although American commanders in Iraq have been buoyed by recent successes in insurgent-held towns such as Samarra and Tall Afar, administration and Pentagon officials say they will not try to retake cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi -- where insurgents' grip is strongest and U.S. military casualties could be the greatest -- until after Americans vote in what is likely to be a close election.

"When this election's over, you'll see us move very vigorously," said one senior administration official involved in strategic planning, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Once you're past the election, it changes the political ramifications" of a large-scale offensive, the official said. "We're not on hold right now. We're just not as aggressive."

2004-10-10T13:15:00.000-05:00

To all the assholes who say we need constitutional amendments banning gay marriage because gay marriage will lead to polygamy: Why don't you push for an amendment banning polygamy? If you can't come up with an argument against gay marriage, shut the fuck up and go home. Talking about "the slippery slope" of gay marriage just means you know you can't defend your position.

The truth is out there

2004-10-09T00:16:00.000-05:00

Anyone else noticed the most unreported story of this election? Both the Kerry and Bush campaigns have now slipped up and admitted to the existence of alien life:

From the Cheney-Edwards Debate:

EDWARDS: It is critical that they believe that when America takes action, they can trust what we're doing, what we say, what we say at the United Nations, what we say in direct conversations with leaders of other worlds -- of other countries.

The debate transcripts say "leaders of the world", but I know what I saw in that debate. Edwards said "leaders of other worlds" and then, realizing he'd let the cat out of the bag, quickly changed it to "other countries".

Then, in Bush-Kerry Round 2:

HORSTMAN: Mr. President, why did you block the reimportation of safer and inexpensive drugs from Canada which would have cut 40 to 60 percent off of the cost?

BUSH: I haven't yet. Just want to make sure they're safe. When a drug comes in from Canada, I want to make sure it cures you and doesn't kill you.

And that's why the FDA and that's why the surgeon general are looking very carefully to make sure it can be done in a safe way. I've got an obligation to make sure our government does everything we can to protect you.

And what my worry is is that, you know, it looks like it's from Canada, and it might be from a third world.

Now normally, I might not have noticed that, but after the Edwards slip up I've started to watch more carefully. I'll be watching closely to see if more evidence slips out in the third debate.

The latest reason to go to war

2004-10-09T00:03:00.000-05:00

I thought we were get pretty far from the original justification for going to war. I'm sure everyone knows the drill by now... weapons of mass destruction, weapons of mass destruction related program activities, 9/11, supporting terrorism...

The latest one is corruption in in the Oil For Food programme. As someone (can't remember who) pointed out, saying that corruption by a third world dictator is grounds for invasion is pretty ridiculous. On that basis, we'd probably have to invade pretty much every country in the world.

But now, the latest, the greatest, the most fucked up, I can't believe you actually wrote that bullshit with a straight face you fucking moron I think I lost ten IQ points just from reading that tripe reason for going to war: We had to go to war because Iraq got rid of its WMD. That's right. Apparently, getting rid of the WMD was all part of a big plan to get WMD. Apparently, complying with UN resolutions is grounds for invasion. You heard it here first.

2004-10-07T22:35:00.000-05:00

In this interview Condoleeza Rice made it pretty clear that she's lying through her teeth, but that shouldn't be much of a surprise. Come on, if have no clue how many leaders there were, how can you say you've taken out 75%?

RICE: ... We have broken up 75 percent of the al Qaeda known leadership. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia fully...

BLITZER: Well, when you say 75 percent, of how many leaders are we talking -- 75 percent of a quantity of what? 30, 25?

RICE: Of its known leadership.

BLITZER: But how many...

RICE: I would suspect that that's in the tens to hundreds -- tens to 100.

The verdict

2004-10-07T18:55:00.000-05:00

So, as the New York Times put it, the verdict is in. And, more coverage from CNN.

What's the gist of it? The sanctions were working. Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, did not have the capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, and had not had the weapons or the capabilities for years. Not only that, but his ability to produce those weapons was actually diminishing. The sanctions were working. The UN resolutions were working. There was no gathering threat.

The Bush administration has responded by seizing on parts of the report that said Saddam Hussein wanted weapons. That's a far cry from their reasoning in 2002, when politicians were actually talking about mushroom clouds.

So now we've had a number of reasons for the war. Back in 2002, we were told Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. We were also told they were actively seeking nuclear weapons. After the invasion failed to turn up any weapons, Bush started talking about weapons of mass destruction-related program activities. Some members of the administration tried to link Saddam Hussein to 9/11. That line has been so discredited that Dick Cheney now denies ever having suggested it[1]. Now they're trying to tie Iraq to Al Qaeda in general, but without evidence of Iraqi sponsorship of Al Qeada, that justification doesn't hold up. The 9/11 commission and Donald Rumsfeld have now both said that such a link did not exist. Since they've run out of other reasons, the administration's line is apparently that Saddam Hussein was thinking about weapons of mass destruction-related program activities.

Why is this such a big deal? First, it isn't a case of hindsight being 20/20. It seems that government experts raised doubts about pretty much every piece of advice presented by the administration. A whole number of people, including John Kerry, the French, the Germans, and Hans Blix all said that we needed to give the inspections more time. If we had given the inspections more time, we would have found out that there were no weapons of mass destruction.

"But so what," some people say. Saddam Hussein was an evil man and we're all better off now that's he's in prison. That's only the case if you ignore the costs. 1000 American lives. Many many Iraqi deaths. Well over $200 billion dollars in costs (it hasn't hit $200 billion yet, but nearly that much has been appropriated, and the pace of spending is unlikely to slow anytime soon). A country in such a state of chaos that it's become a breeding ground for terrorists. Resentment among Muslims fuelling recruitment and support for Al Qaeda. An overextended military that would be hard-pressed to respond to any major crisis. A lack of attention to Iran and North Korea, both of whom publicly acknowledge work on nuclear weapons[2].

The war in Iraq was a colossal failure from its inception to its execution. We need a President who's willing to be honest. We need a President we can trust to tell the truth. The last thing we need is a President who thinks stubbornness is strength. We've seen what four years of stubbornness can do.

[1] Dick Cheney has probably never directly made the accusation. But that isn't the point. The point is that he's gone out of his way to connect Saddam Hussein with 9/11. I'm sure he knows that if he says "This isn't conclusive, but we know one of the hijackers met with Iraqi intelligence agents", people are going to remember the second part and quickly forget the first part. When asked if we was surprised that 69% of Americans believe Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11, his response was "No. I think its not surprising that people make that connection." Instead of saying "Yes, it is surprising, because there's no evidence for it", he said he wasn't surprised, and then got as much phony evidence as possible out there so that people would make the connection. His repeated assertion of "We don't know" was cute, but it's pretty clear what he wanted people to believe. If he didn't want people to believe in a connection, he could have said "Yes it is surprising. There's no evidence of a connection and anything else is pure speculation."

[2] And once again, this isn't a case of 20/20 hindsight. Back in 2002, people were predicting exactly the situation we're in now. People were saying, "Hey, Iran and North Korea are both much bigger threats than Iraq". People were saying the North Koreans and Iranians would love to see us distracted so that they could grab the opportunity to push ahead with their nuclear programs.

Dick Cheney's a liar, but what's new?

2004-10-07T00:56:00.000-05:00

We already knew Dick Cheney's a liar. This is just even more proof.

In case you missed it, Cheney said to Edwards, "The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight." But, in February of 2001, Cheney said at the National Prayer Breakfast

Congressman Wamp, Senator Edwards, friends from across America, and distinguished visitors to our country from all over the world: Lynne and I are honored to be with you all this morning.

and there's a picture to prove it. They met on at least two other occasions, and there are pictures from at least one of those to prove it as well.

Furthermore, Cheney's point was that as President of the Senate, he's at the Senate almost every Tuesday, so the fact Edwards wasn't present meant he was slacking. Here's proof that Edwards has acted as presiding officer of the Senate exactly the same number of times as Cheney: twice.

This article has a lot of good material on Cheney's lies about Iraq. Here's some of the best. In the debate, Cheney said "I have not suggested there’s a connection between Iraq and 9/11". Here's what he had to say on Meet the Press Sept 8, 2002 (and there's a lot more like this):

We’ve seen in connection with the hijackers, of course, Mohammed Atta, who was the lead hijacker, did apparently travel to Prague on a number of occasions. And on at least one occasion, we have reporting that places him in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official a few months before the attack on the World Trade Center.

Not only was his statement during the debate a complete lie, but according to the article

That allegation was also debunked by the 9/11 commission after the panel found abundant evidence that Atta was actually in the United States at the time the rendezvous supposedly took place.

This last item isn't quite a lie, but it speaks to the administration's absolute lack of credibility on terrorism. According to this MSNBC article the Bush administration three times killed plans to attack Abu Musab Zarqawi's camp in Iraq. Zarqawi was one of the terrorists invoked by Cheney in his latest justification for the war in Iraq. According to the article "Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam". And guess what? Zarqawi got away because, once again, attacking Iraq was more important to the Bush administration than actually doing something about terrorism.

One final link on his lies.

A question and a joke

2004-10-07T00:09:00.000-05:00

Question
Edwards mentioned this in the debate. Here's more background. They've had three years. Why hasn't the Bush administration taken the simple step of creating a single terrorist watch list?

Joke
How many members of the Bush administration does it take to change a light bulb?

None. There's nothing wrong with that light bulb. It has served us honorably. When you say it's burned out, you're giving encouragement to the forces of darkness. Once we install a light bulb, we never, ever change it.

Moving

2004-10-06T22:36:00.000-05:00

I moved over to blogspot. I think I like their interface better (mmmm.... wysiwyg editing), the server seems faster, and it doesn't have that angsty teen feel to it. Of course, no one cares. In case you're wondering, the old blog was here. I had to change the C to a K, but I'm alright with that, because K's are so much Kraazier.

Ahahahahahahaha

2004-10-05T20:42:00.000-05:00

Ok, I have a new favourite blog: Rude Pundit

Rude Pundit on Tonight's Vice-Presidential Debate
Rude Pundit on the Presidential Debate

Lies, facts, and idiots

2004-10-05T20:21:00.000-05:00

Lies on Iraq
Paul Bremer (former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, AKA the occupation, in Iraq) recently made a speech in which he said his biggest mistake was not being insistent enough about requesting more troops.
Here's what the Defense Department had to say about it via CNN:

A senior Defense Department official said that Bremer never asked for more troops and expressed annoyance the ambassador appeared to be second-guessing the advice of military officials. Bremer stepped down after the June 28 handover to an interim Iraqi government.

Here's an article from July, 2003:

The top American administrator in Iraq, confronting growing anti-U.S. anger and guerrilla-style attacks, is asking for more American troops and dozens of U.S. officials to help speed up the restoration of order and public services. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld was reviewing the request from L. Paul Bremer, U.S. officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Just one more example of how the Bush administration will lie in our faces to avoid admitting they screwed up.

The Facts on the Iraq Al Qaeda Connection
The CIA's take on it:

A new CIA assessment undercuts the White House's claim that Saddam Hussein maintained ties to al-Qaida, saying there's no conclusive evidence that the regime harbored Osama bin Laden associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The CIA review, which U.S. officials said Monday was requested some months ago by Vice President Dick Cheney, is the latest assessment that calls into question one of President Bush's key justifications for last year's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Idiots
Apparently 60% of Republicans believe Saddam Hussein personally planned the 9/11 attacks. This, in spite of the fact that there is no evidence of any real relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. As Atrios put it "Republicans: Too Stupid to Breathe".
The link

Quickies

2004-10-05T03:10:00.000-05:00

More on the aluminum tubes (much more compact than the first article):
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/05/opinion/05tue1.html

Corruption in Washington:
Not a big surprise, but the fact that $799,091,391 (that's right, almost 1 billion dollars) was spent on lobbying on the Medicare and energy bills is pretty amazing
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/10/03/back_room_dealing_a_capitol_trend?pg=full

Condoleeza Rice, Serial Liar or Serial Moron?
Either way, she definitely says "I don't know" a lot.
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh100404.shtml
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh062403.shtml
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh041504.shtml
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/04/kerry.global/index.html

Videos

2004-10-04T17:16:00.000-05:00

Ok, it isn't very constructive, but it sure is funny
http://home.earthlink.net/~houval/gopconstrm.mov

Recaps from the debate:
http://www.dccc.org/NR/rdonlyres/C743793B-5D18-4A4D-A057-952882054D8E/0/DebateDesperationDone.wmv

Kinda demagogic, but still on target:
http://www.newdem.org/promise/video.php

Dick Cheney... Liar or moronic ideologue?

2004-10-04T11:35:00.000-05:00

Cheney in 2003: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5145.htm
Cheney in 1992: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/192828_joel29.html

So is Cheney a liar, or has he really just been completely blinded to the truth?

From Cheney's appearance on Meet the Press:

Mr. Russert: If your analysis is not correct, and we're not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?

Vice President Cheney: Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. . . . The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.

From Cheney's 2002 speech:

I would guess if we had gone in there [in 1991], I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home. And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties. And while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war. And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.

Actual, honest-to-god Republican advertising

2004-10-04T05:24:00.000-05:00

I think this stands on its own.

http://www.steveclemons.com/GOPMailer.htm

http://www.lancasteronline.com/pages/news/ap/4/campaign_mail

A quickie on torture

2004-10-04T02:31:00.000-05:00

Amazingly, none of the prisoners in Guantanamo produced useful intelligence. People will say the darndest things if you torture them long enough.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,13743,1318702,00.html

Lies, facts, and a rant

2004-10-04T00:40:00.000-05:00

If you follow the news, you've probably heard about the aluminum tubes by now. If you haven't, it's a story recently resurrected by the New York Times about one of the centrepieces of the Bush administration's justification for going to war with Iraq (before they retroactively changed it from WMD to bringing democracy to the Middle East). In spite of judgments to the contrary from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Bush claimed that Iraq had restarted its nuclear weapons program.

The New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/03/international/middleeast/03tube.html
A good discussion on Legal Fiction: http://lawandpolitics.blogspot.com/2004_10_01_lawandpolitics_archive.html#109684586284713362

One of their main pieces of evidence were aluminum tubes they claimed were being used in centrifuges to enrich uranium. They claimed there could be no use for the the tubes other than in centrifuges. The Iraqis and international experts said they were for use in rockets. It turns out that the US has rockets built from aluminum tubes built to very similar specifications. Not only that, but the tubes were very poorly suited to use in centrifuges, to the point that one American expert said letting the Iraqis have the tubes (the shipment was actually intercepted) would have set any nuclear program back much farther than intercepting the shipment.

It also turns out that Colin Powell knew this when he made his speech to the UN. In fact, he made a bold-faced lie, because he said that the specifications for the tubes vastly exceeded the specifications for any comparable American rockets, in spite of having received a memo from his intelligence staff saying that this was untrue.

Condoleeza Rice is most likely guilty of the exact same lies, although it's harder to prove exactly how much she knew. She had admitted that when she talked about the tubes, she was aware of a debate about the their intended use. Given that admission, she did was at least very misleading when she said the tubes were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs". She claims she didn't know the substance of the debate, but given her role as National Security Adviser, that just makes her grossly incompetent. This is stuff she should have known, especially since she was making public statements about it.

Here's part of what she had to say in an interview on ABC:

Saddam Hussein was a threat. He'd been a threat for 12 years. It was time to take care of that threat. It was not a time to continue the debate about whether you needed an 18th resolution after he had defied 17 of them. It was not a time in the post-September 11 environment to let threats gather.

Compare it to what Bush had to say during the debate:

Saddam Hussein was a threat. He'd been a threat for 12 years. It was time to take care of that threat. It was not a time to continue the debate about whether you needed an 18th resolution after he had defied 17 of them. It was not a time in the post-September 11 environment to let threats gather.

Here's the thing: How the fuck was Saddam Hussein supposed to disarm when he didn't have any fucking weapons to disarm in the first place. That's exactly what people were saying in the run-up to the war. Yes, it was stupid of him to be so un-cooperative when he didn't have much to hide. Yes, it was right of the United States and the United Nations to use the threat of force to force him to cooperate with inspectors. But, given that the threat of force was leading to more cooperation, given that Hans Blix was being given more and more of the access he wanted, and given that he hadn't found any evidence of banned weapons, there was no justification for an invasion. Saddam Hussein didn't disarm because years of sanctions and inspections had left him with nothing to disarm. Bush invaded Iraq because he wanted to fulfill the neo-con wet dreams of Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, and their like so that he could show he wasn't a wimp like his dad was.

And now for the rant:

People complain about Liberals hating Bush. It isn't that we hate Bush, it's that we hate what's he's done as President. We hate having a President who actually lies in order to take the country to war. We hate having a President who ignores the advice of his generals and doesn't send in enough troops to do the job when he does go to war. We hate having a President who lies about how the progress of the war because he's afraid it'll damage him politically. We hate having a President who says that anyone who points out his lies is "unfit to be commander-in-chief". We hate having a President who is so cynical that he undermines the credibility of Iraq's new Prime Minister by bringing him to the United States to give a speech to help in his election campaign. We hate it when the President makes the same charges of unfitness to serve when his challenger points out the lies in that speech, a speech written by the US State Department. We hate having a President who indebts future generations by insisting on giving the rich tax cuts at a time when the country is facing billions and billions in extra expenses to deal with the war in Iraq. We hate having a President who actually says that it's more important to give the rich a tax cut than to invest in homeland security.. We hate having a President who changes position on every important national security issue (the Department of Homeland Security, the 9/11 commission, the National Intelligence Director), but accuses his opponent of being flip-flopper, in spite of massive evidence to the contrary.

One of my points above is so important, that I think I need to include relevant quotes from the Presidenial debate, just in case you missed it:

LEHRER: We'll come back to Iraq in a moment. But I want to come back to where I began, on homeland security. This is a two-minute new question, Senator Kerry.

As president, what would you do, specifically, in addition to or differently to increase the homeland security of the United States than what President Bush is doing?

KERRY: Jim, let me tell you exactly what I'll do. And there are a long list of thing. First of all, what kind of mixed message does it send when you have $500 million going over to Iraq to put police officers in the streets of Iraq, and the president is cutting the COPS program in America?

What kind of message does it send to be sending money to open firehouses in Iraq, but we're shutting firehouses who are the first- responders here in America.

The president hasn't put one nickel, not one nickel into the effort to fix some of our tunnels and bridges and most exposed subway systems. That's why they had to close down the subway in New York when the Republican Convention was there. We hadn't done the work that ought to be done.

The president -- 95 percent of the containers that come into the ports, right here in Florida, are not inspected.

Civilians get onto aircraft, and their luggage is X- rayed, but the cargo hold is not X-rayed.

Does that make you feel safer in America?

This president thought it was more important to give the wealthiest people in America a tax cut rather than invest in homeland security. Those aren't my values. I believe in protecting America first.

And long before President Bush and I get a tax cut -- and that's who gets it -- long before we do, I'm going to invest in homeland security and I'm going to make sure we're not cutting COPS programs in America and we're fully staffed in our firehouses and that we protect the nuclear and chemical plants.

The president also unfortunately gave in to the chemical industry, which didn't want to do some of the things necessary to strengthen our chemical plant exposure.

And there's an enormous undone job to protect the loose nuclear materials in the world that are able to get to terrorists. That's a whole other subject, but I see we still have a little bit more time.

Let me just quickly say, at the current pace, the president will not secure the loose material in the Soviet Union -- former Soviet Union for 13 years. I'm going to do it in four years. And we're going to keep it out of the hands of terrorists.

LEHRER: Ninety-second response, Mr. President.

BUSH: I don't think we want to get to how he's going to pay for all these promises. It's like a huge tax gap. Anyway, that's for another debate.

I'm not sure what a tax gap is, but it's pretty clear that Bush doesn't think homeland security is worth the investment.

Couldn't have said it better myself

2004-10-01T03:29:00.000-05:00

I was trying to come up with an analogy for the whole "changing horses in midstream thing". I thought I had a pretty good one, and then I saw this (patriotboy, AKA "Jesus' General" is usual good for a few laughs):

http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2004/10/staying-course.html

I was working on something along the lines of: When your boat is sinking, you don't stay in the boat, you find another boat that doesn't fucking sink. Now, a boat isn't a horse, but the President of the United States isn't a horse either. The whole point of having a democracy is that you kick a guy out of office when he fucks up. Since Bush has fucked up in Iraq, Afghanistam, North Korea, Iran, the economy, homeland security, and the budget to name a few, he gets the boot. Not has Bush been a shitty president, but Kerry would make a great president (more on that later).

All together now, Flip-Flop, Flip-Flop

2004-09-29T14:06:00.000-05:00

When I saw this, I laughed so hard I cried. Then I thought about it some more and it suddenly didn't seem so funny.

It looks like it all started with a reporter looking into Bush/Cheney flip-flops. He covers the usual things, like Bush being against "nation building" in 2000, Bush being against the 9/11 commission before he was for it, Bush being against the Department of Homeland Security before he was for it, etc, etc.

He definitely got a few I hadn't heard before. I've ranted before about how Bush's stupid diversion in Iraq took the pressure off of Al Qaeda and, among other things, probably led to to our failure to capture Osama Bin Laden. Here's what Bush had to say about Bid Laden on a press conference on March 13, 2002: "I don't know where he is. I have no idea and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." This from the guy who told us he wanted Bin Laden "Dead or Alive".

But, here's the best part. Here's what Cheney had to to in 1992 about Iraq:

And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.

There's lots more like that in the article: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/192908_cheney29.html

And some commentary from campaigndesk.org who always have great coverage of the coverage of the campaign: http://www.campaigndesk.org/archives/000966.asp

And if you try to say, "Well 9/11 changed everything", all I have to say is, that's complete horse-shit. Yes, 9/11 did change a lot. It made us realize that we had to make a serious effort to confront radical Islam. It made us realize that the Clinton administration was right, Al Qaeda was the greatest threat confronting the country (Clinton had a mixed record on confronting Al Qaeda, but at least he was trying. Bush's first defense priority when he came into office was resurrecting Star Wars). Before I get sidetracked more, the point is that IRAQ HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH RADICAL ISLAM. Saddam Hussein's government had a lot of faults, but it was not run by a bunch of radical islamists. Tariq Aziz (Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister under Hussein) was a Christian. What use of Islam Saddam did make was pretty much on the level of the cynical bible-thumping employed by many American politicians. In spite of what Bush/Cheney will tell you, there was no cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. Cheney was right in 1992. Taking over Iraq wasn't worth it then, and it certainly wasn't worth in 2002 when everyone with half a brain knew it would become Al Qaeda's best recruiting ad ever.

I wish Bush and Cheney really had provided "Steadfast leadership in times of change." Maybe then they would've stuck with the original plan of taking out Al Qaeda. Maybe then they wouldn't have changed their mind on Iraq to try to score cheap political points. Maybe then we wouldn't have spent $150 billion, over a thousand American lives, and many more Iraqi lives so that Karl Rove could have a "wedge issue" to use in the 2002 and 2004.

I think progressives need to make a deal with Bush. We need to tell him we'll pretend his opposition to gay marriage is based on a sincere wish to defend the American family (as opposed to being a politically correct way to say "I hate faggots") if he'll promise that he'll stop playing politics with our defense policy.

Kerry isn't a flip-flopper you fucking morons, Part II

2004-09-28T17:05:00.000-05:00

Part II brings us more on Kerry's supposed flip-flop on Iraq. This one comes from factcheck.org, who probably have the fairest and most balanced coverage of the election (and no, that isn't a dig at Fox News. OK, maybe now it is).

Here's some of what they have to say

Kerry has never wavered from his support for giving Bush authority to use force in Iraq, nor has he changed his position that he, as President, would not have gone to war without greater international support. But a Bush ad released Sept. 27 takes many of Kerry's words out of context to make him appear to be alternately praising the war and condemning it.

and

This ad is the most egregious example so far in the 2004 campaign of using edited quotes in a way that changes their meaning and misleads voters.

http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=269

2004-09-28T04:58:00.000-05:00

Hudson made me a flag. The flag of Canuckistan:

Progress and ... not-progress

2004-09-28T00:36:00.000-05:00

Progress
Not-Progress

Pussies

2004-09-28T00:12:00.000-05:00

First CBS botched the Bush national guard story by including questionable memos. The kicker to that story is that with the exception of those memos, everything in the story was pretty much true. Bush did get help from his father's friends in getting into the Guard. Bush didn't complete his five year tour. Bush didn't take the medical exam that is required of all pilots. There is no proof that Bush completed the drills he said he completed in Alabama. Now, of course, because of the two or three fake memos, people think that the whole thing was made up.

But, anyway, now CBS has decided to be a bunch of pussies and kill a report about how the Bush administration relied on fake documents in the runup to the war on Iraq. Sigh.... I guess it's ironic or something, but I'm not really seeing the humour right now.
http://www.campaigndesk.org/archives/000957.asp

And, for all of your Bush campaign lies goodness:
http://bushcampaignlies.blogspot.com/

And, some Bush spin (along with some Kerry spin as well):
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/federal/20040924-2302-bush.html
http://www.campaigndesk.org/archives/000955.asp

Steadfast Leadership....

2004-09-27T04:25:00.000-05:00

The first in an occasional series called "Kerry isn't a flip-flopper you fucking morons (in the RNC)".

Part 1: "Kerry isn't a flip-flopper on Iraq you fucking morons (in the RNC)"

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9743513.htm

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/archive/2004/09/23/KERRY.TMP

http://mediamatters.org/items/200409270001

Alright, so I gave in

2004-09-27T03:35:00.000-05:00

OK, so I gave in and made myself a Live Journal. I'm telling myself it's OK because I'm not going to be all narcissistic and actually talk about myself. Instead, I'm going to be completely un-original and mostly post the links to the blog entries and news stories I stick in my away messages. Since I know everyone I know is hungering for more reasons to vote against Bush this November, I figured this would help if you just don't have enough time to check my away message every few hours. I'd post stuff explaining why you should vote against Kerry this November, but then I wouldn't have anything to say :-).

In case you're wondering, the user name refers to a comment Pat Buchanan made, where he called Canada "Soviet Canuckistan" because the Canadian government complained about a U.S. policy that would subject certain Arab-born visitors to extra screening, even if they were Canadian citizens. Given my opinion of Pat Buchanan, I think I'm glad to have him insult Canada. Oops, there I go talking about myself again.

So yeah, the first link:
Conservatives whine about liberal bias in the media. It's complete horse-shit of course. Here's a nice look at the shift toward conservative bias in the media. (The media, being a bunch of corporate whores, will tend to say whatever they think will get them the most money. Even if the reporters tend to skew a bit liberal, the people in charge know where the money is.)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/26/INGAG8T2FR1.DTL

And the second one:
Since I pretend to know everything, I've been asked what needs to be done to fix things in Iraq. My usual answer is: Bush fucked things up so badly there isn't any hope, so let's cut and run before we lose more soldiers, spend more money, and make more people hate us. I still think that's the case, but in case you're looking for something a bit more constructive, here's an idea of what the solution needs to look like:
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9610438.htm
The guy also makes an excellent comparison between body counts in Vietnam and body counts in Iraq.