Wackos for Jacko

Sure, I believe in "innocent until proven guilty," but these people are fucking nut jobs.

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Bogus Money

Looks like people are already counterfeiting the new bills:

Only a month since the rollout of retooled $20 bills meant to thwart counterfeiters, knockoffs of the colorized currency are already starting to circulate, authorities say.

The latest case is that of a Missouri woman whom federal grand jurors accused Friday of passing four fakes of the new $20 bill on Oct. 16 — exactly a week after the revamped notes were introduced nationally.

Yeah, just I passed a $200 bill today. It had Ronald Reagan on it. I chose a store in the, uhh, "backwoods" section of the county, because I knew the shopkeeper would be just delighted.

But seriously, though, I told ya so. The problem wasn't that people would be unaware of the color change, but rather, that con men would play on the public's vague familiarity with the new bills and pass Monopoly money to gullible cashiers.

All of this really leads to one conclusion: Perhaps when the folks at the Treasury Department embarked on their multi-million dollar consumer awareness campaign, they should have actually SHOWN people what the damn dollars looked like.

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Little Smartass

This sounds like something I'd have done as a kid:

James Campbell, 62, received a deferred sentence last week for assault stemming from the Oct. 8 incident. The charge was leveled against Campbell after a 12-year-old passenger on the bus he was driving reported that Campbell slapped him across the head.

Wood said the dispute between Campbell and the student from C.R. Anderson began when Campbell objected to the boy loudly repeating the word "penis" despite Campbell's request to stop.

The boy's response to the bus driver's request was that "penis" isn't a derogatory word, but is in fact, a scientific term.

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Bummer

The beginning of this story brought a smile to my face:

A week ago, in the middle of the night, 20 new Hummer H2's worth about $50,000 apiece were set aflame and destroyed at a car dealership here, part of a wave of vandalism in which 50 other vehicles had been damaged at the same dealership and others in the suburbs east of Los Angeles.

Then, there was this obligatory idiocy:

"They burn gas — so what?" he said. "That's not the way to look at it. A lot of people buy these cars because they're safe. A lot of women buy them for that reason. They've got a patriotic feel to them, especially after 9/11."

There are a few things that really irritate me. And as I've said from the very beginning, SUVs are one of 'em. They are, after all, the dishonest emblem of lazy suburbanites who choose their decadent, overindulgent lifestyles over true patriotic sacrifice.

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Free Will

This New York Times article offers us a glimpse of those last, desperate moments before the Twin Towers collapsed on 9/11:

"After about 15 minutes, Frank returned to the corner office," Ms. Serpe said in a statement she provided to the De Martini family. "He was covered with gray soot — even his hair looked gray with smoke — and his eyes were completely red. Frank then told us he found a clear stairwell, but we would have to climb over to it."

Among those leaving was Ms. De Martini. She said she urged her husband to come along, and he assured her he would be coming down behind her. "How could he come down the stairs and step over his secretary — or anyone?" she asked. "He wouldn't have done that. He did what he had to do."

I've concluded that, had I been in or near the World Trade Center on 9/11, there is probably no sequence of events through which I would have survived.

I've thought about this a lot. Approached it from many angles. Put aside the mindset of invincibility that afflicts most young men, and tried to immerse myself in the scenarios described by survivors.

Sure, I like to believe I can talk, think or fight my way out of any situation, and that cautionary statements such as "it could've happened to you" are only true in the abstract sense. And I want to believe that, whether I was an office worker, a firefighter or just some bystander helping out, some observation or intuition would have led me to conclude at the last moment that it was time to get out.

But reading the story of Mr. De Martini and others adds a dose of realism that brings home the great horror and tragedy of 9/11. Those victims never had any warning. There was no room, in their last moments, for self-serving intuition. Indeed, they were caught following a basic human instinct -- to help one another at a moment of crisis. Theirs were acts of altruistic heroism few people could have avoided.

The helplessness with which those heroes rushed into harms way, and stayed there, coupled with our realization that we would have likely done the same, is truly terrifying.

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OxyMoron

Lou Dobbs on CNN just now:

"Gentlemen, just a second, let me just set the record straight here, and I think we can reach agreement. We can agree that the 10 Commandments are a fundamental element of the Judeo-Christian legal system. Can we not? That's a separate issue from it having religious connotation."

Huh? Judeo-Christian legal system? If that's what our judicial system is, it's news to me.

And talk about media bias. Funny that this is the same guy who accused Wesley Clark of pushing his own agenda.

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Praise Jesus

Funny, you never hear Republicans complaining about this kind of judicial activism:

The Alabama chief justice locked in a fierce battle with a federal court vowed Thursday that he would not remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the state's judicial building's rotunda.

"I have no intention of removing the monument of the Ten Commandments, the moral foundation of our law," he said. "To do so would, in effect, be a disestablishment of the justice system of this state."

Chief Justice Moore's justification:

"The issue is: can the state acknowledge God?" he said. "If this state can't acknowledge God, then other states can't. ... And eventually, the United States of America ... will not be able to acknowledge the very source of our rights and liberties and the very source of our law...

"When a court order departs from the law and tells you what you can think and who you can believe in," he said, the judge issuing that order is "telling you to violate your oath. And he can't do that. Judges simply don't have that power."

1) Acknowledging Christianity (along with other religions), is different from brazenly thrusting one's own religious edicts front and center, against the wishes of one's colleagues, and then demanding the public accept them as the guiding principles of its governmental institutions.

2) The only person who has told people "what you can think and who you can believe in" is Justice Moore. It is rather shocking that any officer of the court can be so irrational and dishonest.

3) Imagine if, say, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff refused to obey a presidential order because he didn't agree with it. If the Chief Justice cannot fulfill his duties or obey the rulings of a higher court, he ought to resign.

4) The fact that Christianity has historically inspired many laws is part of the problem. For example, how else to explain the laughable yet infuriating laws that prohibited sodomy?

But, whatever. There's really precious little to say in this case that hasn't already been said before. The guiding legal precedent seems reasonable to me: A Decalogue must serve a "secular purpose," and be presented as such that a "reasonable observer" would not view its "primary effect" as "endorsing religion."

But this episode, for all its irritating banality, does raise a serious question. After all, government cannot state "God save the United States and this court," coerce children into pledging allegiance to "one nation under God," and print "in God we trust" on its money, yet still claim that it does not recognize the establishment of religion.

The point, I think, is that government should be agnostic.

That is not to say that government should oppose the expression of religious beliefs in public. It shouldn't. However, neither state-sponsored commandments nor ceremonial gestures toward generic monotheistic entities will do. If government is to serve all the people, then it must be indifferent, in both appearance and practice, to any system of beliefs not derived from the text of the United States Constitution or the practice of secular jurisprudence.

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Perspective

In Iraq, the power goes out every day.

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The Important Stuff

"Storm clouds are gathering for the Bush administration. More and more people becoming despondent about growing joblessness and the stagnant economy, and there's no end in sight."

"Furthermore, American soldiers continue to die in Iraq, as the questions mount over the administration's case for war with Iraq."

"The implications for the president ar-- HEY LOOK THERE'S KOBE BRYANT!!"

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Friends With Benefits

Maybe someone can explain to me, rationally, the straight case against gay marriage.

The statements I've seen thus far have been rather vacuous, characterized more by well-I-just-think-it's-wrong dismissals than serious, thoughtful misgivings. Others put forward self-contradicting arguments that are absurd on their face, unwittingly making the case for gay marriage while underscoring the writer's own ignorance.

Here's what you commonly hear once you get the detractors to cease their frantic, seething, hair-pulling, Bible-thrusting frenzy and articulate their reasons for opposition:

Marriage is an institution between one man and one woman.

A non-argument. Simply re-stating the current definition of marriage does nothing to justify its exclusiveness.

It denigrates the institution of marriage.

I fail to see how husband and wife, upon hearing that the gay couple down the street just got hitched, will subsequently flush their rings down the toilet and call it quits. How does the prospect of someone else getting married make yours any less meaningful? And how does the idea that others can get married make it a less attractive option for men and women who love each other? Another non-argument.

Marriages are for ensuring the continuation of the species.

No, procreation is for ensuring our continuation, and I think nature has that part set on auto-pilot. I've seen some strange arguments against gay marriage, but I don't think even the most extreme conservatives would argue that gay marriage will cause people to stop fucking.

But marriage IS for procreation.

Wow, really? They should require fertility tests, then, when straight people apply for marriage licenses. And no old people, either. They need procreation like they need to be behind the wheel of a car.

Slippery slope: People will want to marry children.

There is an entire body of national and state law that states children do not have the right to make adult decisions until, well, they become adults. Those laws have never been eroded, and they won't be invalidated by gay marriage either.

Slippery slope: People will marry their dogs!

Riiight. Allow consenting adults to marry, and suddenly there will be no defense against inter-species marriage.

This is a silly, flailing argument that nevertheless needs to be addressed so we can move on to more serious discussion. Animals, like children, cannot legally give consent to such pairings. Therefore, I think we're on solid legal grounds when we exclude bestiality. Reductio ad absurdum is the last refuge of those who cannot put forth a rational case.

Slippery slope: Incestuous family members will want to marry!

Please. First, such relationships involving children are child abuse, plain and simple. And as a rule, adult incestuous relationships are discouraged, if not outlawed, because of the danger inbreeding poses to the potential offspring of such unions. Unfortunately for anti-gay zealots, gays don't have the capability to produce deformed offspring.

Slippery slope: Groups of people will marry!

Then why hasn't group marriage occurred in any of the countries that already allow gay marriage?

Besides, there are plenty of legal reasons to limit the number of individuals who can be part of a marriage contract, one of them being the need to prevent fraud -- groups of people getting together and sucking resources from the system like it's some group discount at BJ's.

Gay marriage allows gays to recruit more members.

Ah...now we're getting down to the real reasons people oppose gay marriage: fear and loathing of homosexuals, and a belief that gays simply wish to make their "lifestyle" more attractive to lure more straight folk.

This is the argument implied by Deb, the detractor I linked to above: "To me, being gay for some is the only way that otherwise really awkward people can 'fit in' to a group. Who wouldn't 'choose' that over being isolated, especially now that our entertainment industry has glorified being gay to such a huge extent."

So, all gays started out as "awkward" people who found their true calling in having sex with other men/women. Like I said, absurd.

Next, they'll want adoption.

And then, of course, gays will recruit the children and abuse them, much like the catholic church.

This argument is an appeal against gay adoption, the merits and drawbacks of which can be debated later. It does not directly address the issue of gay marriage, since many straight couples do not have children.

Second, the argument implies that exposure to gays is inherently harmful to children. Deb, the writer I linked to above, made a particularly revealing comment to this effect -- one that goes to her own laughable ignorance:

Case in point...I have a friend who's gay. He has pictures of naked men all over his apartment. He's a great guy, very nice, very responsible and very successful. Should he be allowed to adopt a child if he gets married to his boyfriend? Would you put a child in a hetero home with pictures of naked women (or men) all over the walls?

The none-too-clever insinuation is clear: Gays, while "nice" and "responsible" on the surface, are voracious horndogs whose obsession with sexuality would undoubtedly spill over into their child-rearing. Placing kids with these people is akin to child abuse.

And while I'm at it, I'll offer one final, damning quote from Deb:

I'm fairly sure those with my view are going to lose in the end. Can't put the genie back in the bottle and all...But I'm sad about it. I do see that our society/culture is taking a nosedive in the civility and focus on the common good sense. Not sure it was ever really that strong except for a time in the mid-fifties (if you were white), but still.

Uh-huh.

Overall, opponents of gay marriage can't offer a reasonable case against gay marriage because there is none. They appear to be motivated more by the "yuk" factor than any broader, rational concern for society.

It's been said elsewhere, and I think it bears repeating: "These arguments serve mainly to obscure the issue, not illuminate it. Conservatives say they abhor gay marriage because they value marriage. The truth is they abhor gay marriage because they abhor gays."

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Tales of Separatism

Two stories that appeared in the news recently have a lot in common. The first (from Eric Lindstrom) describes the furor over a white teacher being assigned to teach black history to black students.

NewsChannel5 reported that a scheduling conflict could cause the district to reassign the black teacher who has taught the course for seven years. A group of parents said they will fight a possible decision to allow a white teacher to lead classes in black history at Oberlin High School.

Phyllis Yarber Hogan, a member of the Oberlin Black Alliance for Progress, said a white teacher wouldn't be well-suited to teaching students about subjects like slavery. "When you talk about slavery, students need to understand it is not our fault," she said. "Our ancestors did nothing wrong to be enslaved. How do you work through that when the person teaching it is the same type of person who did the enslaving?

This adds to a long line of incidents that highlight the hypersensitivity of many blacks on the issue of race.

In this case, the subtext is clear: On issues of slavery and segregation, the subject is no longer American History, but rather, Our History, and it should therefore be taught only by Us. The white teacher, being one of Them, must be banished from the classroom.

Indeed, beneath those remarks, one can almost feel the shame and blame on both sides echoing back through the generations: for the blacks, who feel the need to assure youngsters that it's not their fault, and for the whites, who must temper their disagreement because, after all, their kind did the enslaving.

But I think there is, besides that last, damning quote from the article, a valid point to be made. As one commenter put it: With two equally qualified teachers, one black, one white, the black teacher should presumably have an edge because they have a greater understanding of "the nuances of the culture."

Does it follow, then, that only Jewish teachers should be allowed to teach about the Holocaust? Native Americans to describe Manifest Destiny? Teachers with Arab blood to describe the Crusades? No, but here's why: Single-ethnicity American schools for those races are rare. So when we examine those circumstances, we picture a white professor teaching about the Holocaust to a diverse class -- a class in which case the students are much less likely to feel a collective inferiority. The situation changes when, for example, a white teacher is sent to teach Manifest Destiny to an all-Native-American class. In that case, the same furor would have erupted, and understandably so.

The lesson, I think, is that schools composed of a single ethnicity can amplify insecurities and protectionism, and that integration, wherever possible, should be the route taken to diffuse those concerns.

The second story comes by way of Court Schuett at Miniluv:

First public gay high school to open in NYC

The Harvey Milk High School will enroll about 100 students and open in a newly renovated building in the fall. It is named after San Francisco's first openly gay city supervisor, who was assassinated in 1978.

"I think everybody feels that it's a good idea because some of the kids who are gays and lesbians have been constantly harassed and beaten in other schools," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday. "It lets them get an education without having to worry."

The Hetrick-Martin Institute's Web site says the school will give its students "an opportunity to obtain a secondary education in a safe and supportive environment. ... We believe that success requires the ability to respect and value the diverse human community."

Maybe someone can explain how allowing gays to separate themselves teaches respect for "the diverse human community."

It seems that many blacks and gays have given up on the task of integrating with mainstream America. While they continue to work at gaining positions of cultural influence (hip-hop music, gay-oriented sitcoms, etc.), there is a growing disdain for living and interacting with white or straight folk in everyday life. How else to square their statements of "We're here, diversity is good, accept us," with their actions of withdrawing into their own gay schools and historically black colleges?

In this case, it is no longer enough to root out (or enlighten) the individual offenders. Rather, groups who feel persecuted must band together and, with government help, secede from the mainstream.

These actions do not foster acceptance on either side. Instead, they foster a victim mentality in children, teaching them that they are, by their very nature, persecuted by society. Whenever slighted, they are told, the only recourse is to withdraw to their own kind and lick their psychological wounds in perpetuity.

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Strategery

It was pretty interesting watching the Democrats and Republicans flub the political opportunities provided by tuesday's events. Uday and Qusay are dead, and nobody gets the credit.

The Democrats need to get out in front of events like these. "Of course Uday and Qusay will be found," they should have said, along with Saddam, the WMDs, etc. "But that's not the point. The real problem here is <insert broader problem with president's policies and decisions>." That way, they can blunt the president's momentum before it even begins while keeping their issues in the public eye.

But if the Democrats frittered away a chance to stay in the news, the Republicans did worse. Put plainly, the White House should have told Centcom to shut up. They should have scheduled a late-evening presidential address so that Bush himself could declare this new developement, thereby associating himself with positive progress in the war/occupation. (Sure, it would have leaked all over the place in advance, but the images on the evening news and in the morning papers are more important than live cable news.)

By passing all coverage to the military folks, the White House appeared overcautious, even nonchalant. It squandered an opportunity to rhetorically turn the tables on Bush's Democratic critics and reiterate our broader mission in Iraq -- a mission that Americans solidly support.

Had the Bushies handled this correctly, they could have made the president seem tall again, and his uranium-harping detractors seem small. Republican senators and representatives could have added to the momentum, flooding the airwaves with guest appearances and further turning the issue against the Democrats.

Bush's poll numbers would have spiked, and the public would have found new resolve to tolerate American battlefield losses. Now, though, it already seems like old news, and with more soldiers dying in the same news cycle, the questions will continue.

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"Bring them on"

President Bush yesterday delivered a colloquial taunt to militants who have been attacking U.S. troops in Iraq, saying 'bring 'em on' and asserting that the forces in Iraq are 'plenty tough' to deal with the threat.

So George W. Bush, who fled, cowardly, when his own time came to serve, stupidly and unthinkingly goads the enemy when others are in the line of fire.

Let me reiterate: Bush is a stupid, incompetent man whose macho swagger has put this country at a greater risk of attack. The fact that he still has the approval of most Americans only underscores the staggering ignorance of the American public.

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"Judicial Activism" on Privacy

I'm tired of hearing the press refer to the recent Supreme Court decision solely as "a victory for gay rights." The media, which habitually opts for the salacious and controversial over the serious, is only focusing on the lower half of the story.

The decision was a victory for citizen's rights, declaring that the government cannot interfere in the sexual lives of its citizens -- gay, straight, whatever -- without some compelling state interest.

Enforced or not, it was the sodomy laws themselves that were the abomination, for they strayed so far from any common-sense notion of social good that they were appallingly deviant in nature. In a world that made sense, true Republicans would cheer their downfall.

You see, it used to be that Republicans merely wanted to be able to live their own lives and raise their families as they pleased, unfettered by "big government." They still uphold that philosophy on some issues, as they endeavor to scale back the federal government on a range of issues, including guns, taxes, environmental regulations, health care and others.

Yet when it comes to issues that are the most personal and private in nature, like expressing one's religious faith or choosing who to have sex with (and how), Republicans make a rhetorical about-face, insisting that the government must endorse their own lifestyles and hoist their own so-called morality onto the masses.

(As one observer noted, whenever right-wing ideologues disagree with a Supreme Court ruling, there are cries of "judicial activism." Yet when the rulings go the other way, they are automatically seen as astute judicial wisdom.)

A few years ago, the only time I watched The West Wing, I heard a policy statement that truly made sense: It is pivotal that appointees to the Supreme Court recognize a fundamental right to privacy in the Constitution, because privacy will be one of the pivotal issues of this century. In the 1800's, the key question was the role of government. Throughout the 1900's, it was civil rights. And now, in this century, our dilemma will be privacy -- defining the ever-blurring boundary between our merging public and private spheres of life.

It is important that we clarify these issues now, rather than allow these antiquated laws to form the legal precedent for broader, more insidious intrusions into our private lives.

I'm convinced that the courts are the best avenue to achieve that, because right now, the privacy platform of the empowered party is so contradictory, it's incoherent.

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Total War

Michael Totten thinks there will not be a chance for peace in the Middle East until there is "a brief and total war" between the Israelis and the Palestinians:

The Palestinian regime will be demolished. The Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas will be killed in battle, hunted down, put on trial, and imprisoned forever. Europeans will scream, and it will be ugly. The Arab street will explode, and it will be frightful. The Palestinians will accept a political solution at the point of a bayonet. They will not say “no” because they will not be given a choice. Then they might get their state.

I think this statement, uncharacteristically, is built more on wishful thinking than the reality of the situation.

First, he states "The intolerable status quo will not be maintained because there will be few in Israel willing to maintain it," yet recent polls indicate that's exactly what most Israelis want to do.

Which regime will be "demolished," in the war? If Totten is referring to the Palestinian Authority, sweeping away Abbas and the parliament along with Arafat's cronies would be counterproductive. As we're seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan, when you destroy a government, you'd better damn well be ready to take its place, or else the terrorists and fanatics will.

In this case, if the P.A. is gone, then it would be replaced by either Israeli soldiers, the United Nations or Hamas. I doubt Israel would even try to govern the Palestinians, and the U.N. has proven useless in volatile situations (just look at Africa). That leaves Hamas, which will be more than willing to fill the void.

It is also naive to think "the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas will be killed in battle, hunted down, put on trial, and imprisoned forever." Let's assume the Israelis invade and quickly smash the terrorist strongholds. How, then, are they to distinguish between 20-something-year-old males and terrorists-in-waiting? Are they to embark upon a Herod-like slaughter in order to stamp out terrorism?

An invasion would meet little initial resistance but quickly become a guerilla war, worse than Lebanon, and Israel would ultimately pay as high as price as the Palestinians. They may succeed in killing the top leadership, but as long as these groups benefit from outside support (military, financial, political), other "martyrs" will quickly step in to take their place.

What really needs to happen is a fundamental change in the surrounding countries. States like Saudi Arabia and Egypt (and France) need to get the Palestinians to look at their society and assess what their three-year Intifada has achieved. Then they need a strong internal leader (Abbas) to lead a "national" dialogue over whether they want to keep waging this futile war, or if they want to build a civilized society for their children. Admittedly, this is wishful thinking on my part, but the time for an invasion would have been before Abbas's appointment, not now.

Abbas is "a chick without feathers," as Sharon said. I believe the United States rushed in too quickly to deal with him, when it should have stepped back and allowed him to gain power and credibility amongst his people first. I don't oppose the current military action, but the Israelis need to make sure they don't delegitimize the first credible leadership alternative to Arafat to come along in decades.

UPDATE: Friedman's column tackles the same topic.

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The Media, The Times

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The Public's Right to Know

Today, repulsed by MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and weary of watching anything on Faux News, I flipped to CNN -- the supposed mature, responsible news network of cable's big three.

What was on? Some bickering talking head show with the following headline: LACI BABY AUTOPSY DETAILS.

Below the headline: PLASTIC TAPE LOOPED AROUND BABY'S NECK, TEAR IN CHEST.

The American news media are a disgrace. An abject disgrace. I feel sorry for the family.

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Split 'Em Up

It seems that more and more schools are turning to single-sex classrooms to increase academic performance and cut down in disciplinary problems:

In math, science, social studies and English, students are segregated into all-boy and all-girl groups. Though the latest testing data aren't back, teachers and students alike say the system has helped them do better work.

It's a welcome change from years past, Jim O'Donnell said, when students were more focused on social studies of a different kind -- interaction with the opposite sex.

"In my mixed classes the boys really dominated the conversation," he said. "Now all the students are really eager to speak. We have fewer classroom problems with more focus on academic performance."

Hey, I'm all for it. When I was in middle/high school, I was always distracted in the classroom. A shapely leg, a budding breast...that's all it took to keep my mind off my schoolwork.

This is different, mind you, from single-sex schools, where kids only interact with their own kind. That's overkill, because it deprives both sexes of needed social exposure (recess, lunchtime, etc.) to one another.

Of course there are drawbacks. For example, the kids may focus better in a single-sex environment, but what about their teachers? Will "Mr. Mader," the math/science teacher, hold the girls to a lower standard or teach them less because he doesn't believe they can grasp advanced concepts like the boys can?

One could forsee a "separate and unequal" argument arising from this, but if so, chances are Mr. Mader is already doing that now. The way to prevent teachers' biases from shortchanging students is to require standardized testing for both classes.

And such an experiment isn't even feasible in overcrowded inner-city schools, where class size is already a huge issue. What are they going to do, double the number of classes? If this works, it will be yet another advantage that grows the gap between wealthy school districts and poor ones.

One other thought: This really doesn't help the gay and lesbian kids, does it? Of course, there's ample precedent for conveniently ignoring them: locker room, anyone?

On the whole, though, I think it's a good idea. If separating the sexes encourages girls to participate more, and lets the boys concentrate on their schoolwork, then it's worth it. And with any luck, schools will reinstate school uniforms, too.

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Retards in Red States #5

In a rare redeeming act, the Supreme Court rejected Kentucky's attempt to place a huge granite replica of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the state Capitol. This story hit a nerve because my county practically did the same thing.

The governor in 2000 signed into law a resolution adopted by the state legislature that required placement of the monument, which is more than six feet tall and almost four feet wide, outside the Capitol. At the top of the monument are the words, "I AM the LORD thy God" followed by the commandments, a sacred and religious text for Jews and Christians. At the bottom are two small Stars of David and a symbol representing Christ.

Why are people so insecure about their own beliefs that they feel this deep-seated desire to have the government endorse those views? And what is it that they don't understand about the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

There is no plausible argument for displaying the Ten Commandments that does not violate the Constitution. Here's Kentucky's argument:

The states said the permissibility of governmental displays of the Ten Commandments raised a question of "national importance." They urged the high court to hold that governments may have such displays to acknowledge the Ten Commandments' historical role in American culture and law.

Hello? Isn't that the problem?

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Rambling Retard

Straight from the transcript:

SANTORUM: Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because society is based on one thing: that society is based on the future of the society. And that's what? Children. Monogamous relationships. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality--

AP REPORTER: I'm sorry, I didn't think I was going to talk about "man on dog" with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking me out.

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Hypocrisy

Sorry, lost the link. You'll just have to trust me.

A Republican fundraiser who once said Bill Clinton was "a lawbreaker and a terrible example to our nation's young people" has pleaded guilty to production of child pornography. Richard Anthony Delgaudio took lewd photographs of a 16-year-old girl and had sex with her.

You gotta love it.

Politics | 57 Words | Comments (0)

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In Kansas?

Okay, why don't we have classes like this?

Offbeat | 9 Words | Comments (0)

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A Museum Massacre?

Looters have apparently smashed and stolen many artifacts in the National Museum of Antiquities in Baghdad.

As employees returned today to survey the damage at one of the world's greatest repositories of artifacts, they encountered devastation that defied their worst expectations. The floor was covered with shards of broken pottery. An extensive card catalog of every item the museum owns, some of which date back 5,000 years, was destroyed. A cavernous storeroom housing thousands of unclassified pieces was ransacked so badly that an archaeologist predicted it would be impossible to repair many of the items.

After reading this story, I'm convinced the destruction of the museum's wares is a devastating loss that is too significant to be casually dismissed as a regrettable consequence of war. No -- it must be assessed and reflected on by itself, broken out from the greater conflict like so many human interest stories. And one can only hope that, as order is restored, residents will be enticed to give or sell the items back.

A friend wrote that the loss was "truly traumatic," while others concurred that they were "grieving." Then he said this: "Notice I'm not saying it's America's fault, but we can't get away from the fact that our invasion of the country is what prompted the loss of the artifacts."

I was speechless. Well, almost.

Excuse me? If that's not blaming America, then I don't know what is. Why even make that observation?

There is a need, I think, for priority and perspective. Here is a scenario:

Your extended family has been taken hostage by thugs. Some of them are raped. Others are tortured. Some are executed outright. After a protracted standoff, police storm your home and free your family from their captors.

But rather than happily greet your family and thank the police, you enter the house and begin obsessing over the fact that they made a mess of your house and trampled priceless family heirlooms. You turn to the police and, with nary a word of gratitude, say "I'm not blaming you, but your action was the cause of this."

This is the behavior of those who have been roused from their silence not by the images of jubilant Iraqis celebrating their liberation, and not in sorrow over the many thousands lost to a regime whose time has happily ended. No -- they have only now found their voices, because, of course, we wouldn't have lost these priceless treasures if America had just stayed away.

I say this not to deride the focus on the loss of artifacts. Rather, I only attempt to compare the "traumatized" grieving of these individuals to their despicable silence on virtually everything else.

It makes you wonder: what has happened to the Left, when the grieving of irreplacable inanimate artifacts takes precedence over the loss of irreplaceble human life?

News | 476 Words | Comments (1)

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Retards in Red States #2

This is the kind of stupidity I've come to expect from politicians in heavily Republican districts:

Bill would ban aid for students from terrorist nations

...The proposal was drafted by state Rep. Dick Kravitz, who said he doesn't like the idea that the United States is educating people who will return to regimes that oppose America.

Kravitz argues that students from terrorist dictatorships aren't poor and may even be related to government officials. "It is naive to think that any of them are not well-to-do or connected to the regime in power," he said."

I can just see the ignorant, blubbering southern redneck seeping out in those words. His proposal would be laughable if it weren't so malicious.

Oh yeah...and I love the part about how Cuba was amended out of the bill, even though it's on the list of terrorist-supporting states. I mean, we are talking about Florida, and the idea is to go whoring for votes, not lose them.

Now, don't get me wrong on so-called profiling: I don't think it's wrong that, for example, airport screeners will be more on guard when a young Arab male with no luggage is passing through security than they would be with, say, someone's grandmom. That's to be expected (as long as they don't hassle the man because of his nationality).

But the congressman's proposal targets minorities while doing little or nothing to stop terrorism. In fact, it achieves the opposite effect, sending a signal to young Arabs that we hate them because of where they were born.

This bill reeks of political opportunism and xenophobia. I hope it doesn't become law, but with a Republican congress, you never know.

Politics | 279 Words | Comments (0)

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A Wrenching Injustice

This is why I only support the death penalty in cases of DNA (or other forensic) evidence. Sadly, this is just one in a long line of cases where individuals have lost their best years because of unreliable witnesses and corrupt and/or inept police work.

I wouldn't go as far as sparing the lives of known criminals out of some naive regard for the sanctity of all life. But I don't think a society that's unwilling to address serious problems in its justice system ought to be putting people to death.

I find it ironic that many people who rabidly support the death penalty also call themselves "pro-life." To satiate their hunger for societal vengeance, the "pro-life/pro-death" crowd is willing to let innocents "slip through the cracks" of a corrupt and fallible justice system and be executed. Amazing. Sad.

News | 139 Words | Comments (0)

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Connie Chung is a Goner

First Donahue, now Chung. Things may be getting better in the world of cable news.

What can I say, other than how pleased I am that her show was canceled? I couldn't stand her stupifying, "oh-dear" kindergarden teacher manner. Or her weak interviewing skills, replete with awkward, irrelevent questions and pregnant pauses.

Her show was a daily parade of gruesome crime stories, occasionally broken up by human interest fluff -- hardly appropriate for a network like CNN, which is trying to build on its reputation of being a trustworthy source of hard news. Sure, CNN has plenty of shortcomings, but it still provides a much-needed respite from Republican propaganda outlet Faux News and that desperate, scandal-mongering ratings whore MSNBC.

Media | 121 Words | Comments (2)

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Check the Facts

This was a headline flashed at the bottom of the screen on CNN:

"TURKEY FEARS IRAQIS WILL CREATE A TURKISH STATE"

And then, this one:

"TURKISH SEPARATISTS HAVE LONG FOUGHT FOR AUTONOMY"

CNN is usually on the ball, but that was hilarious pretty funny.

News | 44 Words | Comments (0)

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Enough Already

If I hear the term "shock and awe" one more time, I'm going to take a hammer to the TV set.

At this point, it's clear that we're not only targeting the top leadership, but also covertly using special forces to secure oil fields in the north and south before Saddam can blow them up. It's the "rolling start" before the full attack. "Shock and awe" will take place (if necessary) on Baghdad after much of the rest of the country is secured.

The more the press harps on the missing "shock and awe," the more they give people the impression that nothing is happening, and that's just not true.

Man, I wish I could translate Al Jazeera.

This is helpful, too. Shows when to expect nightfall and sunrise across Iraq.

News | 132 Words | Comments (0)

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Shouldn't they be stopping terrorists?

I found this incident laughable, yet infuriating.

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Yay...ad nauseum

She's alive! She's alive! Thank God she's alive!!!!

Now shut up about it.

There should be a rule: After any major event, the media will have 48 hours to report it, hype it, spin it, and do whatever they want. Then, they must be silent on the issue for a full week, during which journalists must gather the facts and revelent details to be reported later. That information can be reported for one day only, then the media must be silent and repeat the cycle.

It was heartening watching the press conference where it was announced Elizabeth Smart was found alive and in (physically) good condition. Indeed, the enthusiasm of the detectives and relatives was contagious.

But now comes the spectacle, where reporters ask stupid questions like "Was she abused?" Please. We know the answer, yet I don't want (or need) to know the answer.

In case you couldn't tell, I'm really sick of the wall-to-wall coverage of this story and those like it. Elizabeth Smart. Laci Peterson. Chandra Levy. JonBenet Ramsey. Robert Blake. Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill. Shark attacks. O.J. (guilty)

At the risk of sounding like a callous, heartless bastard (in other words, my true self), I really don't care about any of these stories, except insofar as the issues raised are larger and more important than the subjects in the story.

Like many other people, I find myself in a quandry when it comes to news. Local news is, well, just too damn local. The evening news is serious and covers inter/national events, but it's too dumbed down, it's too short to discuss the issues in any depth, and by the time it airs the story is usually several hours old.

Cable news is, in many ways, at the opposite end of the spectrum. Viewers are constantly bombarded with "Breaking News" on events momentous and trivial alike. This is especially true for desperate, viewer-hungry channels like MSNBC.

Now, cable news producers could buttress their coverage of major events and fill in the air time with substantive stories (tips to protect your child, pending legislation on the subject, etc.). Instead, they opt to entertain us with the scandalous and salacious, as every new detail is followed by the obligatory 24 hours of speculation and punditry. Journalists, it seems, are just our immature, sniping, gossiping selves, but with notepads and cameras.

I need a respite from all this madness. It looks like I'm stuck watching lions and crocodiles on Animal Planet until the war starts.

Media | 416 Words | Comments (2)

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A Crisis Ignored

It is maddening to see the Bush administration downplay the North Korea crisis because of its singular focus on Iraq. We might not even be in this predicament if it weren't for Bush's attitudes and policies toward North Korea in the first place.

If we don't refocus our diplomatic and military resources on the Korean penninsula immediately after securing a military victory in Iraq, we could be powerless to stop the selling of nuclear weapons to other countries in the future.

But at the same time, the North Korea situation also shows us how important it is that we disarm Iraq. Unlike Kim Jong-il, Saddam has a history of armed aggression toward his neighbors, designs on dominating the region and a demonstrated eagerness to use unconventional weapons when it suits him. That makes him just as dangerous, if not more.

One could certainly argue that North Korea should be our focus first because 1) its nuclear program is more advanced, and 2) it will likely sell its arms and/or technology to another country.

However, disarming Iraq cannot be put off indefinitely. Like North Korea, Saddam continues his weapons development programs and will press forward with nuclear armament as soon as he thinks the United States is too preoccupied to attack him.

Just as we would not trust in the sanity and restraint of Kim Jong-il to remain "contained" and not proliferate WMD throughout the world, we should not engage in wishful thinking and assume Saddam can be "contained" once he gains a nuclear deterrent. And as we're painfully learning with North Korea, deterrence works both ways; we might not have the option of attacking later without putting ourselves and his neighbors in great peril.

The point, I think, is that we must be ready to deal with both countries, forcefully if necessary.

Politics | 302 Words | Comments (0)

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Axles of Evil

A group called The Detroit Project is running advertisements that copy the tone and style of the government's latest anti-drug campaign. You know, those commercials that state "Drug money supports terrible things. If you buy drugs, you might, too."

The Detroit Project's ads aren't about drug money, but rather, oil money. "What's your SUV doing to our national security?" they ask. The ads feature actors in the roles of SUV owners saying things like "I gave money to a terrorist training camp in a foreign country," "I helped hijack an airplane" and "I helped teach kids around the world to hate America." Video and transcripts are here.

Contrary to what the cable media would have people believe, the ads are not meant to insult SUV owners, but rather, to appeal to the U.S. automaking industry for more fuel-efficient vehicles. ("Detroit, America needs hybrid cars now" reads a plea at the end of one spot.)

My goal in writing this is nowhere near as noble. After all, someone has got to ridicule those intellectually lazy folks still rushing to join the SUV crowd. They're the "patriots" who talked tough on terrorism after 9/11, but somehow remain blithely unaware of how their own needless decadance supports the very groups we're at war with. No, the current situation is too rich with irony to let it pass without comment.

If our president had been more courageous, he would have used some of his post-9/11 political capital to push for stricter fuel efficiency standards, which would have spurred investment in hybrid engines in the short term as well as alternative fuels for future vehicles. Americans, for once, were ready to make genuine lifestyle sacrifices and would perhaps even pay more for such vehicles if they became available. But the Bush administration, of course, would have none of that. Oil men themselves, Bush and Cheney told the country to shop rather than sacrifice. "Keep America Rolling," the automakers chimed in, encouraging Americans to go out and buy another 12MPG Ford Expedition to replace that aging 14MPG Dodge Durango.

And what about the actual consumers? Yes, it's true that everyone uses petroleum to some extent and therefore enables our partnership with terrorist-supporting states. Hell, lots of people drive sports cars that get even worse mileage. And it's hard to find fault with folks who actually do go off-road, or who tote five kids around, or who purchased SUVs before 9/11 and simply aren't ready to go buy another vehicle.

But there's a whole other demographic driving the current SUV trend. These are the people who need a light TRUCK for all their daily duties, like going to the shopping mall or the movies. They continue buying them, even after 9/11, because they're fashionable, everyone else has one and, of course, it's so nice sitting up high. They sit in their gigantic vehicles, all by themselves, in the rush-hour traffic to and from work each day. You know how treacherous those suburban freeways can be.

But maybe I'm missing the point entirely, so let me see if I can grasp their logic: Terrorists who spring from a region sustained by oil wealth use that money to repeatedly strike out against our country and its interests. Therefore, I'm going to answer them by buying myself another 14mpg, gas-guzzling monstrosity. Then I'll slap an American flag onto the back of my SUV to let the motorists I'm muscling off the freeway know that yes, I am a patriot who supports our country in a time of war. And contrary to what the Insight-driving, bleeding-heart liberals are saying, I can't change my lifestyle by echewing the SUV for an fuel-efficient car, because then, of course, the terrorists win.

Mmm-hmm.

Culture | 623 Words | Comments (1)

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