A lot has been made -- rightfully so -- of the hyper-partisan history of Bush's choice to head the CIA. Considering the role politics has played in the recent intelligence failures, choosing a man who appears to place politics ahead of professionalism cannot be a good choice. But there is an even more important reason to deny Goss the job of overseeing the CIA: he has already failed at it.
Goss is the Head of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, and has been throughout the 90s. Goss' committee is responsible for oversight of the American intelligence services. The 9/11 Commission called congressional oversight of those agencies "dysfunctional", and highlighted the problem of poor congressional oversight as one of the contributing factor's to the nation's lack of preparedness for an attack. In other words, Goss is the head of an organization that completely and in every way failed in its appointed task of overseeing American intelligence. And because of that failure -- because of Goss' failure -- the intelligence communities in this country were not as prepared or effective as they should have been for an attack like those of 9/11.
Goss has already failed to oversee the intelligence community, and, in part because of that failure, the nation suffered. Given that history, it seems clear that Bush chose Goss solely because Goss would put the Bush's election ahead of the needs of the nation.
Why else put a failure in such an important position?
Delivering the central speech of his 10-day "Solution For America" bus campaign tour Monday, Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry outlined his one-point plan for a better America: the removal of George W. Bush from the White House.
"If I am elected in November, no inner-city child will have to live in an America where George Bush is president," Kerry said, addressing a packed Maize High School auditorium. "No senior citizen will lie awake at night, worrying about whether George Bush is still the chief executive of this country. And no American—regardless of gender, regardless of class, regardless of race—will be represented by George Bush in the world community."
Does being a Republican make you a dishonest dirtbag, or does being a dirtbag make you a Republican? Apparently it's the latter: US Representative Rodney Alexander of Louisiana, one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress, switched parties last week, beginning his (likely short-lived) career as a Republican with one of the most dishonest tricks ever seen.
Alexander had been flirting with changing parties for months, but had assured his colleagues he would remain with the Democrats. (Even as a worthless "Blue Dog" Dem, his presence in the party gives them numerical weight that corresponds to committee seats.) He filed for re-election on the Democratic ticket, and as an incumbent was facing no serious challenge. Then, fifteen minutes before the closing deadline last Friday, he re-filed as a Republican. He now faces no Democratic opposition - because he himself had held the Democratic line on the ballot - and no one can file to challenge him.
As Steny Hoyer put it:
"I cannot recall a more deceitful, more calculated, more treacherous violation of trust, which Congressman Alexander sought and which he received, than what he has done over the past few days and months," the No. 2 Democrat in the House, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, said. "Congressman Alexander has solicited and has received thousands of votes and thousands of dollars based upon his representation that he was a Democrat; that he intended to serve as a Democrat; and, that he would stay a Democrat. Those representations were fraudulent."
Some good news: Alexander's entire office staff resigned in protest Monday morning. Dem-supporting bloggers are encouraging the DNC to find jobs to reward them for their courage. The DCCC is also demanding the return of Democratic-party funds provided to Alexander, and orchestrating demands by donors that he return their contributions as well.
Why, exactly, am I supposed to trust the Bush Administration with the security of the United States? Over the weekend, Condi Rice admitted that the Bush Administration outed Kahn -- perhaps the deepest undercover agent we have ever had in al-Queda -- to the New York Times. The Bush Administration has been facing scepticism about it's most recent terror warning. COnsidering that the last terror warning was based on no new information, and considering that Tom Ridge used the announcement of this warning to stump for the Bush campaign, and considering that the Bush Administration has a history of releasing warnings on the heels of bad news for the Bush Campaign, the skepticism doesn't seem completely unwarranted. In the face of that skepticism, the Bush Administration has been strenuously defending the alert -- despite the fact that Laura Bush attended a campaign event in one of the buildings listed as under threat the day of the warning. Some have suggested that the outing was done as part of the campaign to convince the press that the alert was not based on political considerations. If true, the Bush Administration would have endangered national security in the hope of limiting the political damage of the impression that they damaged national security. The parallels to the Valerie Plame affair are almost sickening.
At the time, the Bush Administration was facing intense criticism from Plame's husband -- Ambassador Wilson -- over its claims that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger. Just as today, the Bush Administration as facing credible accusations that it was placing national security at the service of its own political needs. Just as today, the name of a heretofore secret operative was leaked to the press in what looked very much like an attempt to limit political damage to the Bush Campaign. Just like today, no one has ever been punished for the leak. Two events, obviously, do not make a real pattern. But two events are suggestive. The worst part of the two outings is the pathetic defenses being advanced: no one knew Plame was under cover; the Bush Administration didn't know that Kahn was a double agent when they announced his name. Somehow, those arguments are supposed to make us all feel better.
Excuse me for being cynical, but the notion that the people in charge of my nation's security are so incompetent as to twice reveal the names of undercover operatives is not a comforting one. But that is the absolute best spin to put on the Plame and Kahn cases: incompetence, not malice. That's not good enough. I should be able to expect better than a choice between stupidity and malice from any administration. This isn't a matter of interpretation, or a difference of strategy. Even if you agree with one hundred percent of the Bush Administration's foreign policy decisions, you are still left with the inescapable knowledge that the Bush Administration is, at a minimum, too incompetent to carry out at its plans. At worst, well, at worst, the Bush Administration is placing a temporary bump in the polls ahead of your safety.
The country deserves far better than an Administration that forces it to pray that it's leadership is merely incompetent.
Rodi Alvarado Peña, a Guatemalan woman who for a decade was brutally beaten by her husband while the Guatemalan police and courts ignored her repeated attempts to get help. When she ran away, her husband found her and beat her until she was unconscious. Desperate, she fled to the United States in search of safety. Now, with her case on the desk of the Attorney General and proposed policy-setting regulations soon to be released, her case has become the vehicle by which the U.S. will set forth its position in this area of law.
(snip)
We believe that the Attorney General may be poised to issue a decision denying asylum to Rodi Alvarado. This decision would serve as a precedent and also limit the ability of women and girls to receive asylum based on domestic violence, trafficking, sexual slavery, rape, and honor killing.
And that is the basic issue: if human rights are to have any meaning, then they must protect people who are persecuted because of what they are. If woman who are subject to honor killings, to domestic abuse with the approval of the authorities, to forced marriages and rape cannot be protected, then the US's commitment to human rights is a PR gimmick and nothing more.
Colorado's Renewable Energy Initiative is a project intent on winning the upcoming Colorado initiative on renewable energy use. If the imitative passes, it would require companies that sell electricity in the state to produce a modest ten percent of their energy from renewable source by 2015. In short, it is a small step spread out over a large time period. renewable energy is better for the environment and better for our national security. The search for new energy technologies also stimulate high-tech research, and thus create good paying jobs.
Unfortunately, the primary utility in the state is not that far-sighted or civic minded. visit the link to donate or volunteer your time and efforts to help out. If you are a resident of Colorado, go here to sign the petition asking the utility to rethink its opposition.
Fresh Voice, Old Politics, and Some Brand New Funk!
Marianne Ilaw - a columnist for the Metro paper, says it right in today's issue. (The Metro is kind of an odd paper - it's distributed free in major cities around the world, and prides itself on being readable in 20 minutes or less. It's basically USA Today for people with even shorter attention spans, if that's possible. They also don't have linkable articles. You can download the entire paper as a PDF, however, here. Her column is on page 10.)
Proud to be a Yellow Dog Democrat
I am a Yellow Dog Democrat. You know, if the only candidate running on the Democratic ticket were a scraggly yellow pooch, he’d get my vote. As a pro-choice woman of color who was raised in a union household and supports stem-cell research and equal rights for all, it’s a no-brainer. Admittedly, the Democrats aren’t perfect, but where else can I turn? Most of the people who look like me at Republican fundraisers are wielding trays and uncorking bottles.
The Democrats advocate social justice, free speech, easy access to health care, family-friendly workplaces, civil rights, job creation and war only as a measure of last resort. And these are the issues I worry about. Truthfully, the Democratic Party is not the egalitarian vanguard some pretend it is. I suspect that many privileged Dems embrace the sly maxim, “Live Republican, Vote Democrat.” Doesn’t matter — I’m cuddling that canine.
That pretty much says it for me, too (except for the "woman of color" bit, that is). There's just no choice. We care about the Democratic candidate and his policies, but it hardly matters. It's hard to think of a worse alternative than Bush.
Ilaw has a flair for a phrase, too:
"Yellow Dogs inhaled [Democratic] convention coverage like coke fiends at Studio 54."
"Hell, I wouldn't vote Republican if Lil' Kim and James Brown were on the ticket."
"My fellow Democrats, stand up and be counted. Let's ride that funky donkey all the way to Pennsylvania Avenue."
She also provides a first-hand look at black Republican sellouts and how shamelessly they are bought off:
As a young newspaper reporter during the Reagan administration — never mind which one — I was approached by a group of wealthy (duhh!) Black Republicans. Earnestly, they presented their quandary. The GOP was seeking bright young minorities to climb aboard the elephant. Problem was, they weren’t getting many takers. (See definition of “bright.”) They stated unequivocally that if I switched parties, they would find a place for me in the White House Press Office.
Pointless Exercise in Grandstanding and Vengeance: Terry Nichols Sentenced to the Sentence He's Already Serving
Terry Nichols - co-conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995 - was convicted on federal charges in 1998; he was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole plus 8 concurrent sentences of 48 years (he was 43 years old at the time). His appeals failed, and he was fated for a life in federal prison with no hope of release. He wasn't going nowhere.
That wasn't enough, somehow. The state of Oklahoma retried him, at a cost of millions of dollars, for the sole practical purpose of seeking the death penalty. Another cited justification was to "honor" the Oklahoma residents who died in the bombing (160 victims were civilians, 8 were federal employees, thus he was tried for only the 8 federal victims at the federal level). In other words, the state of Oklahoma tried an already-convicted criminal, who had no chance of posing any further danger, simply to make a point and to take a chance that they would be allowed to kill him . . . just because they wanted to.
He was already sentenced to 9 terms, any one of which would keep him jailed for the rest of his life. There was absolutely nothing, in any practical sense, to be gained from seeking further sentences. There was nothing in the way of public safety to be gained from seeking a death sentence. They just wanted to kill him, and used the criminal justice system to satisfy their bloodlust.
Along the way, they managed to slip in a bit more grandstanding and point-scoring. One of the charges against Nichols was for the death of an unborn fetus carried by one of the victims. (The parents of the victim had also petitioned to have the fetus listed as an "official" victim on the memorial plaque.) The statute allowing criminal charges for the death of the fetus (an increasingly common tactic by anti-choice activists to slip fetal "personhood" into the law) does not allow for the death penalty. However, the 160 murder charges for the actual persons killed carried a choice of death or life without parole (and, obviously, the charge for killing the fetus would only stick if the charge for killing the pregnant woman also stuck). In other words, the fetal-murder charge added nothing at all to the sentencing - the maximum sentence on that charge was equivalent to the minimum sentence on all the other charges, so a conviction on that charge would be meaningless at least, and unnecessary at most. They simply threw it in to make an anti-abortion statement simultaneously with their pro-execution statements.
And the results? A complete waste of effort. The jury found Nichols guilty on every charge (there was never any question he was guilty), but could not decide on the death penalty, so he was sentenced to 161 life terms served concurrently. That is, the state of Oklahoma spent years of effort, and millions of dollars, sentencing Terry Nichols to the sentence he was already serving nine times over. The reason? Because it "honors" the victims to have a pointless sentence handed down in their name, because it gives anti-abortion activists some minor political points on their pet cause, and because it gave the prosecutors the outside chance that they'd get to kill somebody to show how much they hate killing people.
Nice going.
UPDATE:
My mistake. The judge ordered Nichols's 161 life sentences to be served consecutively. That's tellin' him!
Bush reached new heights of arrogance and frighteningly delusional religious fanaticism in a recent campaign appearance - but almost nobody noticed because the press weren't even there.
In an unscheduled appearance with a group of Old Order Amish in mid-July, Bush bumbled, shook hands, played the fool, and then declared that "God speaks through me." The campaign press weren't present, and the event was only reported by a local Pennsylvania newspaper columnist who got the story from an Amish man who was present.
An Amish woman who lives on a farm across Witmer Road from Lapp Electric [where Bush was making a campaign appearance] that morning had presented a quilt to the president with a card thanking him for his leadership of the country.
Bush said he would like to talk to the quilter and her family.
So the Secret Service invited the family to meet the president. Friends wanted to come along, and the entire assembly eventually numbered about 60. They were evenly divided between adults and children of all ages. . . .
The president . . . shook hands all around, asking the names of all. He especially thanked the “quilt frau,’’ who operates her own business selling quilts and crafts.
“He seemed relaxed and just like an old neighbor,’’ says Stoltzfus [the Amish man who told the story to the reporter].
Bush said he had never met any Amish before and was curious about why the men were wearing straw hats rather than black wool hats. The Amish explained that they wear cooler straw in summer. Bush tried on a hat.
Given a chance to behave like a doofus, you can count on Bush. But it's when he gets a chance to slip into religious visionary mode that things get really scary.
The Amish told the president that not all members of the church vote but they would pray for him.
Bush had tears in his eyes when he replied. He said the president needs their prayers. He also said that having a strong belief in God is the only way he can do his job. . . .
At the end of the session, Bush reportedly told the group, "I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job."
Some of us might consider that, on those grounds, he should resign, since, as he says, he can only do his job if God does it for him and he is obviously the most godforsaken asshole in this hemisphere, at least.
But stop for a minute and consider the staggering conceit of such a delusion: "I trust God speaks through me." Most people at least pretend to be a bit more humble in the face of their god. (It's only safe.) The few who have the arrogance to proclaim that they are personally directed by God are rightly regarded as fanatics. And here we have the most divisive - and most religiously fanatical - President in history declaring explicitly that he is certain he is God's personal instrument and mouthpiece.
It's been reported before that Bush harbors the delusion that God chose him to be President, but I haven't seen a quote in which he said it in so many words. Now he's said it. Can we afford to have a religious psychotic in the White House any longer?
Bush's handpicked Iraqi stooge, Ahmad Chalabi - source of the fraudulent "WMD" claims and who, some say, snookered Bush into the Iraqi war as his stooge in a bid for the throne - is the target of an arrest warrant issued by the government Bush had originally appointed Chalabi to run. Another US-appointed official - Chalabi's nephew - is also targeted for arrest.
Iraq has issued arrest warrants for Ahmad Chalabi, a former Governing Council member with strong U.S. ties, on counterfeiting charges, and for his nephew Salem Chalabi — head of the tribunal trying Saddam Hussein — on murder charges, Iraq's chief investigating judge said Sunday.
The warrant was the latest strike against Ahmad Chalabi in his removal from the centers of power. A longtime Iraqi exile opposition leader, he had been a favorite of many in the Pentagon but fell out with the Americans in the weeks before the U.S. occupation ended in June.
Both men denied the charges, dismissing them as part of a political conspiracy against them and their family.
Salem Chalabi [was] named as a suspect in the June murder of Haithem Fadhil, director general of the finance ministry . . . .
The warrants, issued Saturday, accused Ahmad Chalabi of counterfeiting old Iraqi dinars, which were removed from circulation after the ouster of Saddam's regime last year.
Iraqi police backed by U.S. troops found counterfeit money along with old dinars during a raid on Chalabi's house in Baghdad in May, al-Maliky said. He apparently was mixing counterfeit and real money and changing them into new dinars on the street, the judge said.
The accusation is not Ahmad Chalabi's first brush with legal problems. He is wanted in Jordan for a 1991 conviction in absentia for fraud in a banking scandal. He was sentenced to 22 years in jail, but has denied all allegations.
As I was driving today, I happened across Sound Money on my local public radio station. They were discussing Lou Dobbs' book (audio link at right), in which he apparently opposes free trade provisions and calls for "balanced trade." Sound Money's economics editor Chris Farrell is less than enthusiastic about Dobbs' arguments, saying that protectionism, even in a limited capacity, isn't the answer.
Now anyone who reads this site knows that we're not big fans of "free trade" here, and I half thought about changing the channel, but I decided to hear him out. A lot of what he was discussing was the whole "economic isn't a zero sum game" thing, that even though a job is destroyed here and created somewhere else, there's often an additional job created here as well. We've discussed the problems with that here before, but it's what he said next that really intrigued me.
He said (paraphrased) that if free trade is going to work, there's going to be a lot of job turnover, and as a result, one of the realities of free trade is that we need to expand the social safety net to help people through the transitions. That's right: a free trader calling for an expanded safety net. Somewhere, a libertarian is looking for his "blankie."
Now while I disagree in principle with a lot of what so-called "free trade" advocates say, this one I have to agree with. If this is really the direction we're heading, then I would absolutely agree that an expansion of the safety net is needed. Of course, this still doesn't address the complex issues of working conditions, environmental concerns, labor laws, etc., that can now be effectively circumvented by moving your facility someplace with less stringent laws. But it's at least a start -- it acknowledges that "free trade" isn't free, that it comes with a cost, and it's a cost we need to deal with.
Today's New York Post carries two stories about recent sentencings in criminal cases, one military and one civilian. They say much about how we run our military, how we account for its misdeeds, and how we are handling the situation in Iraq.
A U.S. soldier who shot a handcuffed Iraqi in the back of the head has been convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to three years in prison, officials said yesterday
Pfc. Edward Richmond, 20, of Gonzales, La., was [also] given a dishonorable discharge from the Army for shooting the man on Feb. 28 near the village of Taal Al Jai.
I have installed an interesting application - BlogJet. It's a cool Windows client for my blog tool (as well as for other tools). Get your copy here: http://blogjet.com
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." -- Pablo Picasso
The gist of this article is that hatred of presidents is irrational -- and that all people who hated Clinton and hate Bush have no good reason, other than personality, to do so.
I came to realize the depth of this hostility a year ago during a discussion about politics with a distinguished social scientist. She explained casually, without preface or embarrassment, that she hated the president. I took it as rhetorical exuberance and called her on it: Surely she meant that she disagreed vigorously with the president's domestic policies, that she objected to the Iraq war, that she found his persona unappealing, that she was offended by his inarticulateness or that she remained vexed by the outcome of the 2000 election. But, no, she insisted that she viscerally despised George W. Bush. She felt nauseated and angry when she watched him. She was not just intellectually offended but morally so.
(snip)
My argument was that presidential hatred developed not from actions the president took while in office but from images of the president as a young adult. The president represented critical cultural divisions of a previous generation, divisions that were never fully healed.
Her then proceeds to highlight positions that Nixon, Clinton and Bush (calling Bush laughingly scandal free. Does the name Valerie Plame mean nothing?) took that should have appealed to the other side. This, apparently, is supposed to demonstrate that hatred comes not from action but from personality.
It is complete and utter nonsense. The problem is that this professor starts with the assumption that politics and morality are completely different realms. That position is so far form reality as to mimic an acid trip. People who hated Clinton had moral reasons -- abortion, affirmative action -- that were reflected in policy. People who hate Bush have much the same -- the global gag order, his support for enshrining bigotry into the constitution, his personal attacks on the patriotism of Democrats, his administrations lies about WMD and ties between al-Queda and Iraq, his neglecting the war on terrorism for his preferred war in Iraq. Frankly, the same could be said of Nixon: secretly expanding the war to Cambodia and attempting to shred the Constitution were moral issues as well as policy issues.
Now, I am not suggesting that personality plays no part. Having had to work for a living and for the money to get through college, it is hard not to hold Bush and his record of failure followed by rescue by his father's friends with an edge of contempt and derision. Similarly, for those on the losing side of the culture wars of the 60s, I can completely understand how Clinton and his life could represent something unattractive. Nor am I trying to suggest that hatred can never go off the rails. The congressman who shot watermelons to try and prove Clinton murdered someone, the nationally syndicated radio hosts who flogged the disproved stories of murder and drug running by Clinton, and the internet message board posters who think Bush either planned or allowed 9/11 to happen are not, after all, completely bound by the constraints of reality.
But that is only part of the story -- and a small part at that. Only by pretending that the moral and the political are completely discreet and separate entities can one even approach the thesis of this article. But I honestly do not see how one can honestly argue that such a separation exists in the real world. Politics, in many ways, is the practical application of the collected worldview of citizens. Morality, obviously, plays a large part in determining that world view. When politicians propose or implement policies that run afoul of that morality, they are going to draw intense feelings, including hatred.Since we don't actually know the politicians, there are very few mitigating factors to overcome our dislike of their policies, reinforcing the negative feelings. Such is life, odd theories of Northwester professors notwithstanding.
And now a word from my father. Obviously, we disagree on some important issues, but I think he is absolutely correct that our political system is not what it could be or should be.
I'M TIRED OF MEDIOCRITY RUNNING THE COUNTRY!
This year's election is probably the most important election this nation has faced since the election in 1968 and boy did we blow it back then. We are a nation that is directly in the cross-hairs of worldwide terrorists, the economy is bouncing like a yo-yo, the debate over global warming is still unresolved, most of the world doesn't have health care, and as a result, the common people (as some call us) are more fearful of their future than they have been for more than 70 years. So,
I ask, why are we settling for mediocre leaders AGAIN?
I have my opinions, and I'm probably going to piss off a lot of people by stating them, but I feel it is time we stop this merry-go-round and start asking the real tough questions and start getting firm answers to them. I believe that this all started in the election of 1948. Governor Dewey was an overwhelming favorite to win the election. So much so he hardly campaigned. The Chicago Tribune was so sure they printed headlines DEWEY WINS and went to bed before the election results were final. Ooops!
In my opinion since we have had a bunch of no accomplishment presidents. We have had a general who as we used to say in the military Retired on Active Duty, a rich kid from Boston, a New Deal wannabe, a crook, a bumbling fool, a peanut farmer, a cowboy, a Texan who was really transplanted from Maine, an Arkansas boob, and a Texas dimwit. What are our choices this year? The Texas dimwit and another rich kid from Boston neither of which has a clue as to what really needs to be done.
When was the last time you actually received an honest answer to a question from a politician? Counting this year's, I can remember 12 presidential elections. I cannot remember anyone running for office actually giving us what their plan was before the election. It has always been "I have a plan. Trust me." After the election none of them really told us anything different. We usually found out by bits and pieces. If we didn't like the plan, too bad it was too late to do anything about it.
Why do we continue to put up with this? Because as an electorate we have become extremely lazy. We elect our officials based on 20 second sound bites from television and radio. Even our newspapers have gone to 20 second sound bites. Yes, even the vaunted New York Times and Washington Post. As a result, all we get during the campaign is each candidate sniping at each other instead of talking about anything. Or, even worse, "I have plan. Trust me".
We have also lost our two party system. We are now forced to select from what is really a one party system. True, that one party has several factions, but it is still one party. The real result is that each faction has become more extreme in their ideology. This has created an atmosphere of divisiveness. Class warfare is the norm in elections today. Titles like Liberal and Conservative have both become dirty words. In 1964 Barry Goldwater during his campaign said "extremism in the name of patriotism is no vice". He was wrong. Extremism in any form is a vice and extremely dangerous to the common good.
We have settled into the way things are and started to believe that there is nothing we can do about it. Just as extremism is dangerous, complacency is just as dangerous. We seem too busy to ask the really tough questions. We seem to like the idea that some news journalist will ask them. Only problem is they never ask the tough questions of the candidate. This is due to the fact that the candidate will never agree to an interview with a journalist who disagrees with them, of if they do, they must have the questions in typed form before they agree to the interview.
So, how do we stop letting mediocrity be the norm for our politicians? Let's start by asking and then demanding answers so some real questions. For example:
If elected president, what explicitly are your plans to develop cost effective non-polluting fuel sources and eliminate our dependence on foreign oil in the next four years? Notice I said the next four years, not the next 10 or 20. This elimination will help on several fronts. The economy since it will create new jobs and reduce energy costs. Globing Warming since it will reduce or eliminate pollutants. The Middle East problems since everyone thinks we are only interested in that area because of oil.
What are your plans to retrain or re-educate the common work force so that they can be better prepared for future jobs as their present "old technology" jobs are eliminated? Do you actually believe either candidate has an answer to that one? If technology changes as it has in the past, jobs are lost because the skills change. If someone is in a low skill job today, you can count on that person being unemployed in the near future.
Exactly what steps are you going to take to ensure that every child in America receives a good education? Also, what is your definition of a good education? We have had a bunch of "education" presidents. But we still graduate students from High School who can't read or do math. Plus, education costs are so high most people cannot afford to send their children to college.
Do you believe that you can enhance education, ensure that everyone has health care, and create an atmosphere of less fear and hate? If so, how will you accomplish this and still balance the budget? Just about everything people want the government to do costs money. Where will that money come from? We cannot continue to run budget deficits, yet high taxes on individuals and businesses wreak havoc on the economy.
These are just some of the questions I want to hear answers to. I have wanted to hear these answers for over thirty years and still haven't heard any. I believe that the true measurement of any government is to establish a atmosphere where the government becomes a secondary concern. We will always need some form of government to establish laws and maintain a national defense. But if a government today is truly successful, it will eventually be reduced to those two functions.
More than a new nation was created in 1776. What we really created was a new race of people. Yes, we are more primitive, more stubborn, and more violent. But I believe we have been more creative, more imaginative, and more innovative. We need to get back to those virtues. Once we embrace them, we will stop accepting mediocrity from our politicians and from ourselves. We might even become more tolerant of others with differing views instead of sniping at each other all of the time.
Employment Situation Summary says 32,000 jobs were created last month. That is no where near what Bush promised his tax cuts would create (in the neighborhood of 340,000 per month). More importantly, it is about one quarter the amount needed to keep pace with the increase in the number of employable people. Bad news all around.
Michelle Malkin has written a book essentially arguing that the internment of the Japanese in WWII was justified, and that racial profiling now is an appropriate response to terrorism. The book has several flaws, apparently, including what appears to be a complete and total lack historical scholarship and what is definitely a lack of imagination regarding potential terrorist tactics. I won't bother with the historical scholarship, as Dave Neiwert and Eric Muller have done a marvelous job destroying her alleged scholarship (Niewert's pieces are here and here. Muller has seven pieces: here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). Malkin also fails to realize that fundamentalism is a belief, not a racial category. If Arabs attract too much attention, Africans, Pacific Indians, and Caucasians can be found to do the deed. Instead of looking for any threat, Malkin is arguing for a policy that would teach security personnel to think of threats in terms of Arab men and only Arab men. Not only would it offend innocent Arabs and play into Bin Laden's propaganda, it is a fundamentally ineffective idea. Racial profiling simply does not work:
Blacks, Latinos and American Indians are more likely than whites to be stopped by police and searched but much less likely to be found with anything illegal, a study of alleged racial profiling by Minnesota law enforcers showed Wednesday.
So why would anyone advocate it? Because they are afraid. I have already spoken about the new phenomenon of the thumb-sucking conservative. Annie Jacobsen -- the panicky twit on the airplane who used a Syrian band talking amongst themselves as a sign of the impending fall of the Republic -- is perhaps the most prominent example of the trend, but it abounds. The conservative talk show callers who were convinced that the innocent Syrians were a "dry run"; the conservatives who defend the PATRIOT Act's restrictions on liberty as necessary to survive terrorism; the conservative commentators who insisted that the Spanish vote meant that we should spend all our time trying to figure out how the terrorists wanted us to vote; the advocates of racial profiling in place of sound police methods; those who insisted, like Thomas Friedman, that Iraq was justified because we need to make the Arab world afraid; those who defend or excuse the torture of prisoners. They are all paralyzed by fear. The see the word as overwhelmingly hostile, filled with legion upon legion dark skinned Muslims coming to kill them and theirs. They have taken an admittedly horrific mass murder and turned it into the basis of a paranoid delusion, in which terrorists are the red Menace, the Nazis and the Yellow Peril all rolled into one primal terror. There is no doubt that terrorists can kill us in large numbers if we are not vigilant. But they cannot destroy our nation or our way of life -- only we can do that.
And the thumb-sucking conservatives are attempting, unwittingly, to do just that. By allowing their fear to overcome their good sense, they are doing more damage to the intuitions of the country than any terrorist could ever hope to. It is only because the thumb-sucking, quiver-in-the-corner contingent in the conservative ranks has so much influence that counter-productive notions like racial profiling, torture excuse, and the abandonment of Constitutional principles are taken seriously. Only because these people have lost the war on terror in their heads could they possibly think that gutting the freedoms we are supposed to defend or acting as if we consider all Arabs the enemy were good ideas. They are not: they are the textbook definition of panic. Malkin's book is just the latest example of how far over the bend, how deeply and completely terrified a significant segment of the right wing has become.
Terrorism is a serious threat, but it is not a mortal one. Panic is not a substitute for vigilance and fear is not a substitute for wisdom. Pretending that giving in to panic and terror is resolute or brave is just silly. The war on terrorism is a war we will win, in time. Throughout history, when people have been given the choice between personal freedom and secular society and religious intolerance and the domination of the personal by the state, they have chosen the former every time. And they will again -- if we do not allow ourselves to become panicked and destroy the very things that will win us the war on terrorism. The Limbaughs, the Malkins and the Jacobsens have already given into their panic. Don't let them panic you. Don't let the thumb sucking conservatives convince you that giving into fear is the solution. Look at the world with clears eyes, with rational thought instead of fear, and we will get through to the other side of the night.
As a side note, I realize that support for racial profiling may stem from racism. It doesn't have to, however, and even if it does, the point holds: at the core of every racist are the fear of the unknown and the fear of the racist's own inadequacy
Anti-Choice Activist Deceives and Manipulates Women Seeking Abortions, Forces Them to Carry Unwanted Pregnancies
I suppose that after years of clinic bombings, murders, blockades, anthrax threats, and personal harrassment, nothing the anti-choicers do should seem surprising - but this is unbelievable.
This asshole fraudulently advertised himself as an abortion service provider and offered abortions at lower cost than local clinics. He also told women who called him that the other clinics were dangerous, and they should deal with him instead. He then systematically misled those women into waiting for an abortion appointment at his "clinic" - which didn't actually exist - making appointments and then canceling them, telling them repeated lies, and continually discouraging them from going to another provider, until they had gotten so far into their pregnancies that they could not afford a (more-expensive) late-term abortion and were forced to carry the pregnancy to term against their will.
To the panicked women who called the number for the Causeway Center for Women, listed in the phone book under "abortion services," William A. Graham was a soothing voice on the other end of the line.
What he offered sounded much better than an abortion clinic: a Saturday appointment with a private physician, in a hospital, at a bargain price. Besides, he warned them, abortion clinics regularly botched procedures and left women sterile.
But the women found it difficult to pin Mr. Graham down to a day and time. Week after week, they say, he would cancel their appointments, always reassuring them with calm explanations.
In a federal lawsuit, seven women now charge that Mr. Graham never intended to refer them for an abortion at all, but was merely stalling until it was too late.
On Wednesday, Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr. of United States District Court ordered Mr. Graham to disconnect his phone because he had caused "irreparable harm" to the women and to Causeway Medical Clinic, an abortion provider that is also suing Mr. Graham. The lawsuit accuses Mr. Graham, who has operated the phone service since 1993, of false advertising, fraud and trademark infringement.
Unknown to the women, said officials of Planned Parenthood of Louisiana and the Mississippi Delta, Mr. Graham is a vigorous opponent of abortion who has picketed doctors' officers and videotaped people attending events for Planned Parenthood, which supports abortion rights. . . .
In 2002, Mr. Graham [also] enrolled in the state's anti-AIDS condom distribution program, picked up 30,000 free condoms and discarded them. He pleaded guilty to theft and is on probation.
His lies and manipulation not only caused women to undergo unwanted pregnancies and deliveries, but stole their personal liberty and demolished their ability to plan for and deal with other difficulties they faced.
Five of the women who sued Mr. Graham said in court affidavits that his tactics had forced them to carry their pregnancies to term, either because they had passed the legal time limit for abortions - generally at the end of the second trimester - or they could no longer afford an abortion, which tends to cost more later in a pregnancy.
One of the women already had a child with hemophilia who required constant care. Now she has two. "I also did not want to bring another severely ill child into this world or be in the position where I am unable to give my children the full care and attention they need," she wrote in an affidavit under the name Jane Doe No. 4. . . .
With no job, no high school diploma, a boyfriend in jail and a mother who is terminally ill, Mary Schloegel, 19, says she is in no position to raise a child. Mr. Graham promised her an abortion for $125, she said in an interview at her home in Metairie, a New Orleans suburb. (The typical cost is about $300 in the first trimester to about $2,000 at 24 weeks.) He would give her a Saturday afternoon appointment, she said, and promised to call shortly before to tell her where to go. But the call never came.
His explanations seemed reasonable: The doctors worked on their own time so no one would know they performed abortions. He could not reveal the name of the doctor or hospital in advance for security reasons. When he failed to call, he would explain later that the doctor had had an emergency, or had been too busy that day. This went on, Ms. Schloegel said, week after agonizing week. Mr. Graham also told her to drink milk and stop smoking, she said.
One day Ms. Schloegel's mother, Elizabeth Nette, tried to call Mr. Graham but dialed Causeway Medical Clinic by mistake. That is when the family learned that he was, as Ms. Schloegel put it, "a fake." But they could not afford the $600 it would cost for an abortion at that late date. Ms. Schloegel, now eight months' pregnant, said Mr. Graham robbed her of her right to make a choice.
In the past, physicians who improperly intervened in a woman's decision about her pregnancy (by simply not providing fetal diagnostic tests) have been held responsible for the cost of raising the child. This shitbag should be jailed, and his assets and future income should be seized to partially reimburse the costs of raising the children he forced these women to bear. (Massive punitive damages should follow if there's anything left over.)
The gall of anti-choice harrassers knows no bounds. It's time to put some bounds on them.
Bruce Springsteen has a certain kind of eloquence, beyond question. It's just not the kind you normally associate with New York Times Op-Eds. Yet The Boss has an opinion piece in today's paper, describing his gradual shift from a non-partisan, generally populist/liberal stance to one of unambiguous opposition to the Bush Administration, and his decision to participate in the MoveOn-supported rockers' tour for Kerry this fall. He makes good points about fundamental American values, the obligations of government and citizens to support the most threatened or weakest among us, and the travesties of the Bush administration.
Over the years I've tried to think long and hard about what it means to be American: about the distinctive identity and position we have in the world, and how that position is best carried. I've tried to write songs that speak to our pride and criticize our failures.
These questions are at the heart of this election: who we are, what we stand for, why we fight. Personally, for the last 25 years I have always stayed one step away from partisan politics. Instead, I have been partisan about a set of ideals: economic justice, civil rights, a humane foreign policy, freedom and a decent life for all of our citizens. This year, however, for many of us the stakes have risen too high to sit this election out.
Through my work, I've always tried to ask hard questions. Why is it that the wealthiest nation in the world finds it so hard to keep its promise and faith with its weakest citizens? Why do we continue to find it so difficult to see beyond the veil of race? How do we conduct ourselves during difficult times without killing the things we hold dear? Why does the fulfillment of our promise as a people always seem to be just within grasp yet forever out of reach?. . .
Like many others, in the aftermath of 9/11, I felt the country's unity. I don't remember anything quite like it. I supported the decision to enter Afghanistan and I hoped that the seriousness of the times would bring forth strength, humility and wisdom in our leaders. Instead, we dived headlong into an unnecessary war in Iraq, offering up the lives of our young men and women under circumstances that are now discredited. We ran record deficits, while simultaneously cutting and squeezing services like afterschool programs. We granted tax cuts to the richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs, well-to-do guitar players), increasing the division of wealth that threatens to destroy our social contract with one another and render mute the promise of "one nation indivisible."
It's just hard to grasp that the man who wrote that also wrote:
Madman drummers bummers and Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat
In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat
With a boulder on my shoulder feelin' kinda older I tripped the merry-go-round
With this very unpleasing sneezing and wheezing the calliope crashed to the ground
Some all-hot half-shot was headin' for the hot spot snappin' his fingers clappin' his hands
And some fleshpot mascot was tied into a lover's knot with a whatnot in her hand
And now young Scott with a slingshot finally found a tender spot and throws his lover in the sand
And some bloodshot forget-me-not whispers daddy's within earshot save the buckshot turn up the band
Still, we all have our moments. Here's another one:
It is through the truthful exercising of the best of human qualities - respect for others, honesty about ourselves, faith in our ideals - that we come to life in God's eyes. It is how our soul, as a nation and as individuals, is revealed. Our American government has strayed too far from American values. It is time to move forward. The country we carry in our hearts is waiting.
Republican Gov. [of Minnesota] Tim Pawlenty said he's "heartbroken" that Bruce Springsteen plans to rock against President Bush. Opening his weekly radio show Friday with "Born to Run," the 43-year-old Pawlenty called Springsteen one of his musical idols.
Today is my wife's birthday. She is not only beautiful, intelligent, passionate, caring and a wonderful mother, she is the best friend I have ever had.
This morning, I was flipping through the channels, I ran across a 1975 movie on TCM called The Wilby Conspiracy, just in time to hear one of the characters say this:
You fanatics shout "national security" whenever you do anything immoral or illegal."
Two of the Iraqi delegates were robbed at gunpoint last night on Main Street in Downtown Memphis. The thieves got away with some cash, travelers checks and a camera. No one was hurt.
The robbery comes one day after City Council Chairman Joe Brown slammed the door in the delegates' faces at city hall. The group was here to learn about democracy, freedom and civil rights in America.
It is no secret that Kerry has gotten enormous support from firefighters this year. A lot of firefighters are former veterans, and so feel an affinity for Kerry. other firefighters feel betrayed by Bush's funding decisions regarding first responders -- particularly in light of his post 9/11 promises. So, does the Bush campaign try to convince firefighters that Bush shares their concerns, or does it try to convince firefighters that its spending priorities were correct for the current situation? Nope. It links to an article that attempts to bully them:
Generally speaking, the likelihood that a firefighter will vote for John Kerry is inversely proportional to the number of fires he has actually fought. Witness all those T-shirted "Fire Fighters for Kerry" you saw at the convention. A little soft around the middle some of them were, weren't they? Do you think some of them could haul a hose pack up 50 flights of stairs? I'm not betting on it. I'm guessing the only fires many of them have seen lately were at IAFF barbecues.
This is pretty typical behavior from the modern Republican party. From their cry of anti-Americanism, to Bush's public insinuation that Democratic senators weren't concerned with the safety of the country, to Karl Rove's warning to the press to watch what it says, to Dick Cheney's foul language on the Senate floor, the Republican leadership has constantly resorted to the tactics of the bully. Firefighters supporting Kerry? Don't try to convince them -- mock them and question their courage and dedication! They gleefully admit that the RNC convention will be one, long insult directed at Kerry. Whenever someone dared to criticize them, they went after that person personally. Ask Richard Clarke what he thinks of their honor and integrity. This is just more of the same. In their hearts, the modern Republican leadership are thugs and bullies.
Fortunately, they have the same weaknesses as all thugs and bullies -- thin skins and oversized inferiority complexes. No one in their right mind could have thought the above article could do anything other than infuriate Kerry supporting firefighters and make the author look like he was challenging the courage and dedication of those firefighters. The fact that a right wing magazine would print such a childish diatribe is telling enough. The fact that the Bush campaign would associate itself with it is hard to believe. Apparently, the challenges Kerry issued in is acceptance speech and the firefighters on stage and working in his campaign represent have pushed the Bush campaign over the edge. This really reads like an insecure punk who cannot stand even the hint of his manhood being threatened. I can almost hear their thoughts: "We are supposed to be the tough guys. If the firefighters support Kerry, then they must not be real men."
Someone should probably point out to them that real men don't build a campaign on cheap insults and denigrating people who put their lives on the line for all of us.
As if the horrible abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo weren't enough, we now find that almost two billion dollars worth of Iraqi money went straight to Halliburton -- despite being promised to the Iraqis
For the first 14 months of the occupation, officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority provided little detailed information about the Iraqi money, from oil sales and other sources, that it spent on reconstruction contracts. They have said that it was used for the benefit of the Iraqi people and that most of the contracts paid from Iraqi money went to Iraqi companies. But the CPA never released information about specific contracts and the identities of companies that won them, citing security concerns, so it has been impossible to know whether these promises were kept.
Not only did the US government allow months of torture to go on -- including torture of children -- it also pillages the natural resources of the country for the benefit of American companies. American companies, it should be added, that were largely backers of Bush -- one of which had even been headed by Cheney. The Iraqi people are not stupid. If we know that these things have happened, so do the Iraqis. In what fantasyland do you have to live in to think that anyone would be grateful for a liberation that has ruined the infrastructure of their country, tortured their children, turned their country into a killing field, and transferred several billion dollars of natural resource wealth into the hands of politically connected companies form the "liberating" nation.
The reason that the insurgency continues to grow in strength has nothing to do with gloomy press or discussions about troops leaving, or countries removing their troops, or dead-enders, or any other right wing fantasy. The reason the insurgency continues to grow is because of the Bush Administration. Starting the day after Baghdad fell, they have done nothing to earn the trust of the Iraqis and everything to convince them that the Us was there as a colonial thief. At this point, it is simply laughable that anyone would think that the Iraqis would ever trust the US in any capacity. And that can be laid directly at the feet of George. W. Bush.
The Stakeholder is running a series of posts that attempt to explain their decsions and decison making process as much as possible. It is nice to see them using their blog to keep party activists informed.
...except that these idiots seem to have lost my car. Well, my wife's car, actually. On Monday, she noticed that the temperature gauge was running hot, so she called me. I went and checked, and the coolant reservoir was almost empty. Filled it with a 50/50 mix, figuring that would get her through until Wednesday, when she had a car appointment anyway. By mid-morning on Tuesday, whatever leak or problem there is had already dumped the entire contents of the reservoir again, so I met my wife, abandoned the car, and took her to work.
Once she was safely at work, I called AAA (I'm a member) to have the car (it's a Dodge Stratus) towed to the Dodge dealer. They told me the tow truck would be there within an hour, and it was actually closer to ten minutes. Quick response! The tow truck driver asked me to put the car in neutral and make sure all the valuables were removed (they were), made small talk about the heat (it was upper 90's at the time), and drove off with the car.
That's the last anybody's seen it. About an hour and a half later, the dealer (who was about 6 miles away) called to say they haven't seen the car. A call to AAA confirmed that it was their contract driver who showed up, and that the driver had dropped it off at the dealership, parking the car in spot "D-12." Call the dealer back, they walked the entire lot, no sign of the car, and they don't even have spots marked like that.
After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and several calls between myself, the Dodge dealer, AAA, and the towing company, we determined that the driver didn't know where Joe Blow Dodge1 was, so he just dropped the car off at Joe Blow Chevrolet, about a half a mile down the road from Joe Blow Dodge. Speaking with the towing company directly by now, they inform me that there is no Joe Blow Dodge, only a Joe Blow Chevrolet and a Joe Blow Oldsmobile. I assure them that there is indeed a Joe Blow Dodge, having been there myself, and having turned up their website in less than 5 seconds of googling, and I gave them the address.
By the time this was all resolved, the service departments of both dealers had closed, but the truck driver was supposed to go collect the car from Joe Blow Chevrolet and drop it off at Joe Blow Dodge (address included, with specific instructions to remove the key from the car and drop it in the night deposit in a labeled envelope). Because I'm anal about such things, about an hour later, I took a drive through the lots of both Joe Blow Chevrolet and Joe Blow Dodge. No sign of the car in either lot. I did not check Joe Blow Oldsmobile. How much you wanna bet...?
1 Not the actual dealer name, but you probably already figured that out.
UPDATE: Roughly 24 hours later, the correct dealership finally received the car.
According to three Britons recently released form Gitmo, torture is a common occurrence.
Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were subjected to Abu Ghraib-style torture and sexual humiliation in which they were stripped naked, forced to sodomise one another and taunted by naked female American soldiers, according to a new report.
Some of the abuse has been captured on videotape.
Based on the testimony of three former British prisoners who spoke with other detainees, the report details a brutal yet carefully choreographed regime at the US prison camp in which abuse was meted out in a manner judged to have the "maximum impact". Those prisoners with the most conservative Muslim backgrounds were the most likely to be subjected to sexual humiliation and abuse while those from westernised backgrounds were more likely to suffer solitary confinement and physical mistreatment.
In addition to the sexual and physical humiliation, the report based on testimony provided by Rhuhel Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Safiq Rasul the so-called Tipton Three also details how prisoners had their religion mocked. "There was a clear policy to try to force people to abandon their religious faith," says one extract of the report, obtained by The Independent. The report also details how prisoners were injected with unknown drugs during interrogation sessions and were told they would only receive medicine if they co-operated with interrogators.
It was also reported that elsewhere in the report, Mr Ahmed claims he was questioned for three hours by a British interrogator claiming to be from the SAS while an American colleague held a gun to his head.
If these accusations are true, no one can even pretend to argue that the problem isn't systematic. Two prisons separated by an ocean and thousands of miles used the same vicious techniques on prisoners -- many of whom were innocent. In both cases, General Miller was commanding or consulting. This is a system wide problem. It is not the result of circumstance, or pressure, or "bad apples". This is the result of policy. Either the policy was to implement this type of abuse, or the policy was to be so irresponsibly hands-off as to allow this kind of abuse to take place. Either way, it is a massive failure of this Administration's leadership ability -- a failure that has proven a boon to terrorist recruiters the world over.
These men were innocent -- as were many in Abu-Ghraib, as were most of the children abused in that awful prison. The US military has handed the terrorists a recruiting video: come see how Americans hold Muslims in contempt! Come see how they treat children and the innocent as if they were animals! Are you going to let them do that to your friends, your neighbors, your countrymen, your brothers in Allah? Bin Laden could not have designed a better recruiting tool himself. Abu Ghraib -- and the pathetic official reaction to the scandal -- has already turned a large portion of Iraq permanently against the US. These new revelations out of Gitmo could do the same for the rest of the world.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Iraqis visiting on a civil rights tour were barred from city hall after the city council chairman said it was too dangerous to let them in.
The seven Iraqi civic and community leaders are in the midst of a three-week American tour, sponsored by the State Department to learn more about the process of government. The trip also includes stops in Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago.
The Iraqis were scheduled to meet with a city council member, but Joe Brown, the council chair, said he feared the group was dangerous.
"We don't know exactly what's going on. Who knows about the delegation, and has the FBI been informed?" Brown said. "We must secure and protect all the employees in that building."
Elisabeth Silverman, the group's host and head of the Memphis Council for International Visitors, said Brown told her he would "evacuate the building and bring in the bomb squads" if the group entered.
The article goes on to say how interesting the visitors found the civil rights museum. Apparently, Joe Brown could profit form a visi there himself...
Despite some disappointments, Tom Cruise is not giving up on love and marriage. "I will never be down with love. Ever. I'm the guy who loves relationships. I love women," the 42-year-old star was quoted as saying . . .
"I'm the guy who's going to get married again. I'm not going to give up on that. I really love that kind of friendship and intimacy". . .
"I know I'll get married again one day. I know I'll meet someone sometime and I'll have another go at it."
How is it that the fact this clown is "not going to give up on love" is headline news? You mean he doesn't even have to do anything to make the news - his general mental states are reported in the press? ("FLASH!: Tom Cruise 'feels kind of hungry'!") Why don't we just stick a Bluetooth colonoscope up him and monitor his asshole on a streaming-video Web site?
On the plus side, it's gratifying to know that my level of desperation over relationships is equal to that of Tom Cruise. I've never been this successful before!
FURTHER: Note the ethnic bifurcation of the meaning of "down with". In the black community, it means "approving of" or "dedicated to". ("I'm down with Obama!") In the white Hollywood community, it has come to mean "disapproving of" - I think as a result of the movie "Down With Love!", where the title was a catch-phrase used by a woman who claimed to reject romantic relationships. As a usage note, in the latter case "down with" was an imperative command. ("Down with love!" "Down with Big Brother!" You see my point.) In the black sense, "down with" is a report of one's emotional state. ("I am down with love!") Thus, one declares "Down with love!" as a condemnation, but "I am down with love!" as an endorsement.
Cruise, interestingly, screwed it up by saying "I will never be down with love" - using the phrase to report his (presumed future) emotional state, not to issue a command. Within the accepted usages, he was saying: "I am a black man who rejects love", which is not, presumably, what he intended.
Fox News reports on hidden dangers of the illegal drug-production trade:
A Georgia man's experience only goes to prove what most people take as common sense: Don't try to mix dangerous chemicals in your pants.
According to newspaper reports, three Walker County social workers were visiting Daniel Gabriel Doyle, 39, of LaFayette, last Tuesday. As he sat in their car filling out paperwork, his pants exploded.
"He kept fiddling with his front right pants pocket," Patrick Stanfield, commander of the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force, told the Walker County Messenger. "All of a sudden, a loud bang happened, and fire shot from his pocket. It damaged the inside of the state vehicle and burned clothing on the case workers."
Apparently, Doyle had combined red phosphorus and iodine, two chemicals used to make methamphetamine, in a film canister. He then stuck the canister in his pocket when the social workers showed up.
"He didn't know what he was doing, and it started boiling on his leg," Stanfield said. . . .
The case workers were treated for minor injuries in LaFayette. Doyle was taken to Erlanger Medical Center (search) in nearby Chattanooga, Tenn., with second- and third-degree burns to his testicles and leg.
By Friday he was in the Walker County Jail, charged with manufacture and possession of methamphetamine.
This story - by Bruce Schneier, who does a creditable job on the security beat - reports a flight attendant who must have been reading Annie Jacobsen's hysterical natterings and picked up the symptoms by osmosis.
Ninety minutes after taking off from Sydney Airport, a flight attendant on a United Airlines flight bound for Los Angeles found an airsickness bag - presumably unused - in a lavatory with the letters "BOB" written on it.
The flight attendant decided that the letters stood for "Bomb On Board" and immediately alerted the captain, who decided the risk was serious enough to turn the plane around and land back in Sydney.
Who are these morons? What possible rational process produced that conclusion?
Schneier runs through a number of more-reasonable explanations, including that it was "common flight attendant jargon" for "Babe On Board," or that - most obviously - it was someone's name. It's not obvious why anyone would write anything on an air-sickness bag and leave it in the lavatory, but it's not obvious why most people do most things. As Annie Jacobsen usefully proved, most of the "suspicious" things most people do are actually quite benign.
One problem with hysterical idiocy is that the world offers too many opportunities for panic. Anything that catches your attention is a potential disaster, and anything that doesn't look like a disaster is an even more certain disaster ("It's always the quiet ones . . ."). If you're working up bizarre acronyms for explosive devices (yeah, right . . . terrorists put bombs on planes, then mark them with cryptic signs written on airsick bags and left lying around . . . this is about the equivalent of the burglar who wears a black-and-white striped shirt and black eyemask and carries a big bag marked "SWAG"), you could interpret any three letters as a sign of the apocalypse. ("ABC": "Assembled Bomb in Cockpit"; "DEF": "Deadly Explosives Finalized"; "GHI": "Great Hot Incendiaries"; "JKL": "Just Kill on Landing"; "MNO": "Much Nitroglycerine Onboard"; "PQR": "Placed Quantity of RDX"; "STU": "Shock The Unbelievers"; "VWX": "Vast Weapons of . . . um, X-something"; "YZ": "You're Zapped!") The point to security is not to identify anything that could be dangerous (that includes anyone and anything, explaining why the Annie Jacobsens of the world are afraid of everyone and everything); it's to identify what is (or, is even probably) dangerous. That doesn't include vomit bags with the word "Bob" on them.
As Schneier put it:
Why in the world would someone decide that out of all the possible meanings that "BOB" scribbled on an airsickness bag could have, its presence on this particular airsickness bag on this particular flight must mean "Bomb On Board"?
And why would the captain concur? . . .
The flight attendant who discovered the airsickness bag didn't react from reason, but from fear. And that fear was transferred to the captain, who made a bad decision.
Fear won't make anyone more secure. It causes overreactions to false alarms. It entices us to spend ever-increasing amounts of money, and give away ever-increasing civil liberties, while receiving no security in return. It blinds us to the real threats.
Speaking about the person who wrote those three fateful letters on the airsickness bag, Transport Minister John Anderson called him "irresponsible at the least and horrendously selfish and stupid at the worst." Irresponsible for what? For writing his name? For perpetuating common flight-attendant slang? It wasn't the writer who did anything wrong; it was those who reacted to the writing.
We live in scary times, and it's easy to let fear overtake our powers of reason. But precisely because these are scary times, it's important that we not let them.
Prime Minister John Howard praised the crew for their quick reactions, diligence, and observation skills. I'm sorry, but I see no evidence of any of that. All I see are people who have been thrust into an important security role reacting from fear, because they have not been properly trained in how to sensibly evaluate security situations: the risks, the countermeasures, and the trade-offs. Were cooler and more sensible heads in the cockpit, this story would have had a different ending.
Unfortunately, fear begets more fear, and creates a climate where we terrorise ourselves. Now every wacko in the world knows that all he needs to do to ground an international flight is to write "BOB" on an airsickness bag. Somehow, I don't think that's the outcome any of us wanted.
Today, my dog Buster got his first rat. My neighbors don't take care of their property, and they have rats, and sometimes they migrate onto my property. Now they have something to fear. Good dog!
So, as you have already seen, I was in NYC last week, cut off from news and information. I am still catching up at work, so things will be slow today and maybe tommorrow, but I will begin posting more regularly starting today and slowly ramping up.
New York was great, as was meeting Kevin T. Keith.
