deMoravia

Against Attacking Iraq, But for Attacking Libya

2011-08-31T17:59:00.000-07:00

Some conservatives have pointed out what they believe to be hypocrisy on the part of liberals who support Obama's attack on Libya, while being against the war in Iraq. I am one of those on the left, although only marginally so, who supports intervention in Libya, while still believing that the invasion of Iraq was unnecessary, and I don't think I'm a hypocrite for doing so. When I would argue with conservatives about the merits of the Iraq war, they would ask me, "do you think Saddam Hussein should stay in power?" and I would say no. So then they would ask me how I expected him to be removed if not by other countries invading, and I would say, there was a perfect opportunity for Saddam to be overthrown when Iraqis themselves, Kurds to be more specific, rose against him after having been specifically instructed to do so by George Bush Sr. and CIA operatives. That would have been a great time to take out Saddam's forces from the air, without invading, and allowing Iraqis to gain control of their own country for once.

Now some argue that the war is not constitutional, and they may have a point. Obama did not successfully gain explicit congressional authorization for the attack on Libya, and his defense that American soldiers are not being put in harms way, therefore America is not really at war, is, I admit, quite a stretch. But the same fucking day, a bill that would deny Obama the funds he needs to carry out the operation in Libya was also voted down, and that vote included a significant number of Republicans, some of the very same Republicans who denied authorization for the operation that they then voted to fund. This proves to me that the protest against the attack on Libya is nothing more than an act.

What Exactly Was Original Sin?

2011-08-27T17:52:00.000-07:00

There are many Christians who concede that the Book of Genesis was metaphorical not literal, but I've never heard any Christian explain exactly what this metaphor represents, specifically the whole business with the apple and the expulsion from Eden. Presumably, since they still believe in original sin, there was some kind of event that got god angry at us for which Jesus needed to be sacrificed in order to save us all from hell, but what was this? What does the metaphor of the apple represent? If this was not a historical account, then what event in history actually did result in this original sin?

Why I Am Not Agnostic

2011-08-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

Most Atheists are, in fact, agnostics. They know there is no proof that god does exist, but many will concede that they cannot, in fact, prove that god does not exist either. They simply cite the lack of evidence for god as a reason to not accept the proposition of his existence. I, on the other hand, am convinced of the non-existence of god, or at least they Abrahamic conception of god, because I believe it to be completely incoherent. I, in fact, can't believe it, because it makes no sense.

What I find specifically nonsensical is the idea that god created time, ie. that time and the universe had a beginning, and god is responsible for that beginning. God himself, however, did not have a beginning. This implies that god can exist in a state independent of time. This is incoherent. Time is a necessary condition for existence. Nothing can exist, not even god, in a state in which there is no time. If time had a beginning, then everything that exists also had a beginning, including god.

In order for something to be said to exist at all, it must exist for a period of time. If time had a beginning, how long did god exist before that beginning? Zero seconds, in other words, god did not exist before the beginning of time. The only way the idea of an eternal god, ie, a god without a beginning makes any sense is if time also had no beginning. It is only in an eternal universe that an eternal god makes any sense.

Marriage

2011-08-24T05:34:00.000-07:00

I wince whenever I see someone in their 20s getting married. I've always felt like marriage should be for old people. Getting married is what you do when you figure you're too old to attract any more sexual partners, so you cling to the one that still seems to find you attractive and you don't let go.

Now, I know plenty of people who are married, who, I'm sure, are sincerely in love and will probably stay together, but I just don't see why couples like that bother to get married. If you really love someone, why get the state involved in it? Benefits aside, it just all seems so insecure to have a big party celebrating the fact that you will never have sex with anyone else ever again and sign a legal contract testifying to it. That doesn't sound to me like something you would do with someone you really love. It sounds like something you would do if you're desperately insecure about your ability to attract a mate.

Anti-Natalism

2011-08-23T18:28:00.000-07:00

There is currently a debate among vloggers on YouTube about the merits of anti-natalism, the position that people should not reproduce due to the suffering inherent to existence. I don't consider myself an anti-natalist, but in way this position kinda makes sense. One of the ethical questions raised by the prospect of artificial intelligence is whether, in the event that we create a machine capable of consciousness, and on top of that capable of emotion, we should give it the capacity for suffering. There's something kinda disturbing about deliberately giving a conscious being the ability to suffer. The only reason you would do such a thing is because you wanted this machine to actually experience that suffering. This seems almost sadistic. Even if you also make it capable of pleasure, and ensure that pleasure makes up the vast majority of its experience, to add in the ability to suffer still seems rather cruel. So when we think we've discovered a way to create a machine that can suffer, some will question whether actually doing so is morally acceptable.

But isn't it odd that we never usually ask this question about creating a child? Why do we not feel that creating a child, which is no less capable of suffering or any less likely to actually suffer, is equally immoral?

The best answer I can come up with is that some of us maybe see it a chance to live our own lives again. It's a chance to redo our childhoods but with the knowledge and advice that we never got. It's become a cliche that parents want their children to have all the advantages that they never had. We all think about things we would have done differently and maybe how much better our lives would be had we only known then what we know now. Being a parent is an opportunity to do exactly that, if only vicariously.

Proof the Republicans Are Posturing

2011-06-25T18:17:00.000-07:00

This article proves that all this noise Republicans are making about Obama violating the War Powers Act is just a pretense. They're not actually going to DO anything. They want Qaddafi taken out as much as anyone. They just want an excuse to criticize.

Why Democrats Don't Defend Each Other

2011-06-17T15:46:00.000-07:00

The best example of this is the way Al Gore distanced himself from Bill Clinton. Given that most people did not give a shit about Bill Clinton's personal life and his approval ratings continued to rise all the way through the impeachment process, this was not only unnecessary, it was strategically stupid.

The real question though, is not so much why Democrats won't defend each other as it is why Republicans never seem to get any heat for defending the guys in their own party when they get into trouble. It's clear why Democrats wont defend each other; they don't want the stink of scandal to rub off on them. The real question is why the stink never seems to stick to Republicans who defend corrupt Republicans.

Obama's Interpretation of the War Powers Act

2011-06-17T15:19:00.000-07:00

As I said earlier, the attack on Libya, while arguably justifiable, and legal according to international law, is of questionable constitutionality due to the fact that Congress has not declared war on Libya, nor has an authorization for the use of military force been issued.

Obama's defense is that the War Powers Act does not apply to American involvement in Libya, because American soldiers are not being put in harm's way.

The relevant text of the War Powers Act is as follows:
"SEC. 2. (a) It is the purpose of this joint resolution to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgement of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and to the continued use of such forces in hostilities or in such situations."

Now, I suppose one could interpret the prohibition of unapproved introduction of forces "into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated" to be intended simply to keep soldiers out of situations where they would be harmed. It seems to say "don't go into a war zone, and don't go into a place that is clearly becoming a war zone." The text, however, seems to prohibit more than just being introduced into hostilities. It also seems to prohibit involvement in hostilities. The fact that American forces are not somewhere they can be shot at, does not mean they are not involved.

Of course, if mere involvement in hostilities is that standard by which we should judge whether an action need congressional approval, then there are potentially many other conflicts in which American forces have involved themselves that must now be turned over to Congress.

Two Kinds of American Exceptionalism

2011-06-17T15:06:00.000-07:00

When Republicans accuse the Democrats of not believing in "American Exceptionalism" and when people on the left reject the idea of "American Exceptionalism", it's clear that they are talking about two different things. When Republicans say they believe in American Exceptionalism, they are saying they believe that America is exceptionally awesome. When those on the left criticize American Exceptionalism, they are criticizing the idea that America should be exempt from the rules and expectations placed on other countries. The American Exceptionalism to which these critics are referring is that which says America is right to try the Japanese for war crimes for waterboarding POWs, but should also be able to make an exception for itself when it comes to the same practice.

Why Atheism Is Offensive

2011-04-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

Here's a video of Ricky Gervais discussing his atheism.

http://youtu.be/o1XGTrrZjlI

It is interesting how Christians will get offended if you say you don't believe in god and will often take it as an insult. This isn't something exclusive to religious people, I've noticed. I once ordered a veggie wrap in a restaurant with a friend who gave me a dirty look like I just sneezed on his steak. (I'm not vegetarian, but sometimes I like a veggie wrap.) I didn't scold him for eating a steak, I just decided not to have one myself, and he took offense to that.

This is all irrational, of course, but people find the very idea that others exist who don't think like they do offensive.

I Still Like Trump

2011-04-19T17:29:00.000-07:00

He'll virtually assure a second term for Obama, and he's putting those old Bush cronies in their place. Karl Rove has recently said that Trump isn't to be taken seriously, and Trump's response was basically that Rove is partly responsible for the horror that is the Bush administration and therefore his opinion on political matters has even less credibility.

The Illusion of Escape from the Caprice of Man

2011-04-14T19:28:00.001-07:00

In the upper left of this picture of a London protest against the French burka ban, you can see a sign that looks like it reads, "The Veil: Liberation from Man Made Laws". This is a really good illustration of one of religion's tempting myths. Many people who are drawn to religion hate to have to make up their own mind about right and wrong. They don't trust their own moral judgement, have weak consciences and find great comfort in the simplicity of allowing religion to make moral decisions for them.

Now, what I said above sounds contemptuous, but I don't mean any contempt for those who struggle with guilt, shame, or an inability to hold themselves to a strict moral code. Lots of people are like that; probably even most. I only have contempt for those who condemn people for having the balls to continue the struggle with their consciences rather than submitting their own judgement to the equally capricious, and even more capriciously interpreted rules and regulations of religion.

Libertariansim Is Not Conservative

2011-04-13T19:05:00.000-07:00

Many libertarians consider themselves conservatives, but they really shouldn't. The reason why I think they do this is because people who do have some conservative beliefs also tend to believe in a laissez-faire style free market. Advocating this, however, is not conservative.

For a belief or position to be conservative, I think it should stand for the conservation of something, or at least for the resurrection of something that has been abandoned. Advocating laissez-faire economics does neither of these things. Because a completely free market capitalist system has never existed in all of human history, advocating such is actually very radical. It is anti-conservative. Sure, some people who advocate this also advocate the resurrection of traditional social values and, therefore, can rightfully call themselves conservatives, (although not entirely consistent conservatives). Libertarians, however, who want to do away with both traditional economic systems and with traditional morals, cannot.

Why Donald Trump Is My New Favorite Republican Candidate

2011-04-05T17:05:00.000-07:00

I was a hardcore Palin supporter for quite some time, because I knew that she might actually get the Republican nomination and, if she did, Obama would slaughter her. Now that her approval ratings among Republicans are starting to sour, it looks like her chances are as good as they once were. When Donald Trump started throwing around the idea of running, I got a little nervous. I thought this guy might have enough popularity to beat Obama, if he were to get the Republican nomination. This was dumb on my part. After having listened to a few interviews, it seems as though he's even dumber than Sarah Palin, and that, while he might be popular enough to get the nomination, he clearly has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to foreign policy and everybody who's not a Republican can clearly see that.

Some people think the whole Trump thing is just a publicity stunt, and it very well could be, but I hope Trump really does run. He's so naive when it comes to foreign policy that he'll make Obama look like Henry Kissinger. Let's just hope that people don't clue in to what a dunce he is until it's too late. Unfortunately, Glenn Beck of all people, already has.

A Point of Order

2011-03-20T13:28:00.000-07:00

While I think something should be done to impede Qaddafi's brutalization of his fellow Libyans, there are a few procedural issues with the enforcement of the no-fly zone. Unlike the Iraq war, this is not a violation of international law as best I can tell. It has security council approval. However, there are problems with regard to US law. While the aerial bombardments are clearly an act of war, no such war against Libya has been declared by Congress. There hasn't even been an authorization for the use of military force like Bush had before the invasion of Iraq, which is itself of questionable constitutionality. The president cannot legally wage war against another country without congressional approval.

It's About Time

2011-03-19T17:40:00.001-07:00

For the first time, polls show that a majority of Americans support gay marriage.

Of course we all know that gay marriage is an inevitability in the US, but this is an early indication that it may come about via legislation rather than judicial proclamation.

Maybe Libya Will Turn Out Better

2011-03-19T15:01:00.000-07:00

Hopefully the humanitarian intervention in Libya will turnout better than the air raids on Serbia, which, looking back, look like they exacerbated rather than mitigated the violence against ethnic Albanians. In Libya, however, nobody will be able to say that the brutality against rebels began only after Western intervention. People have been getting mowed down for days and this looks like the only way to make it stop.

Everything Is Under Control

2011-03-18T12:42:00.000-07:00

Apparently some people are offended that there are books out recommending that women "train their men like dogs" as if this somehow compromises the dignity of men or are sexist toward them. Granted, the fact that you could never get away with publishing a book recommending men train their women like dogs does make it a bit sexist, but were it more equal, would there be any reason to be offended? No!

Just about everybody is under some degree of social control. Subjecting someone to such control is only cruel or transgressive of personal dignity if it is done poorly, because systems of control that do not lead to the contentment and satisfaction of the controlled are unsustainable.

Let This Be a Lesson to Everyone Else Planning on Making a "Family Film"

2011-03-18T08:02:00.000-07:00

Disney spent $175 million on Mars Needs Moms, and it has so far made 4% of that back. There are number of excuses being proposed, like the technology isn't up to snuff or market saturation of 3D CG movies, but hopefully people are just realizing that Disney movies are all fucking garbage and "family films" are nothing but a fascist plot by the Heritage Foundation and other haters of real art to push movies that aren't a bunch of cutesy crap out of the theaters.

Invade Libya?

2011-03-18T07:28:00.000-07:00

Before the Iraq war, and during, I held the position that an invasion of Iraq would be justified if it were mainly to aid an indigenous uprising, rather than imposing a new regime from the top down. In Libya, the West seems to have an opportunity to do just that. This seems to be an ideal situation to take action in support of pro-democracy factions fighting to prevent their own slaughter.

Chomsky disagrees in this interview.

What surprised me was his assertion that the overall attitude of the pro-democracy population was that the West has been "mostly asked to stay away". This seems to contrast with this New York Times article that describes the reaction to the UN resolution to impose a no-fly zone over Libya: "Benghazi erupted in celebration at news of the resolution’s passage. 'We are embracing each other,' said Imam Bugaighis, spokeswoman for the rebel council in Benghazi. 'The people are euphoric. Although a bit late, the international society did not let us down.'"

The Arab League also seems to be in favor of a no-fly zone

Maybe there's a distinction to be made between the West and "the international society" but, given that right now it looks like operations will mainly be carried out by Britain and France, that distinction isn't very clear.

Wisconsin

2011-02-24T20:01:00.000-08:00

Those on the right, who oh so often are quick to denounce anyone who dares to suggest that Tea Party protesters, seem to have no problem condemning the protestors in Wisconsin as "violent thugs". They see no irony in this.

Are there some people among the protestors who've said stupid violent things? Sure? That's true of any large group. Will conservatives admit the same about tea-baggers? Apparently not.

Here's a good video about it.

DOMA Dead? Dun Dun DUNNN!!

2011-02-23T19:53:00.000-08:00

So Obama has decided not to defend constitutional challenges to the Defence of Marriage Act. What practical difference will this make? One reason DOMA was passed was to prevent same-sex married couples from being able to demand that their marriages from being recognized in states that don't want to recognize them. Will people be able to do this now? Will people be able to cite the full faith and credit clause to force states to recognize same sex marriages performed in other states? Will the SCOTUS uphold its constitutionality without the Attorney General defending it?

Qaddafi on Drugs?

2011-02-22T17:09:00.001-08:00

I've just been walking Fareed Zakaria on Parker/Spitzer and they asked him what his impressions of Qaddafi were when he interviewed him before the revolt in Libya. His response: "I seriously thought he was on drugs."

If only Qaddafi were not so brutal, he would be the coolest world leader out there today, with the exception of maybe Berlusconi. He dresses like he's a 17th century European monarch all dolled up for a portrait, and his 40 or 50 bodyguards are all women trained to use high powered weapons. He's like a teenaged boy who's been put in charge of a country.

Market Solution to Global Warming

2011-02-18T09:11:00.000-08:00

Most of the really pro-free market guys say they don't believe in global warming, despite the science. Why is this? They seem to like science when it produces profitable technology, but not in this case. Why? I suspect it's because if they admit that global warming is real, that it is caused by human activity, and that it will cause massive problems very soon, their ideology provides no solutions.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that global warming is real, human caused and soon to do great damage. What is the free market solution to this? If clean energy doesn't become more profitable than fossil fuels in time to prevent catastrophe, how is the market going to address this problem? How do you fix this without state intervention?

You Think People'd Be Used to Snow by Now

2010-12-30T20:27:00.001-08:00

This basically sums up my opinion of people whining about snow. Every time this happens people act like it's the first winter EVER and they have no idea what to do about this bizarre phenomenon that is snow.

They're After Your Women!!

2010-12-29T17:05:00.000-08:00

Rabbis' wives in Israel are telling Jewish girls not to get into relationships with Arab men.

The statement was made in a letter organized by Lehava, an organization aimed at what it calls "saving the daughters of Israel" from assimilation. The group runs a shelter for Jewish women who have left their Arab partners and is calling for a boycott of a supermarket in Gush Etzion that employs Arab men and Jewish women.

And to avoid such a danger, they are telling them "Don't date non-Jews, don't work in places where there are non-Jews, and don't perform national service together with non-Jews". Why, you ask? Because "As soon as you're in their hands, in their village, under their control, everything changes." These sneaky Arabs may even try to disguise themselves as Jews! "In some of the places where Jewish girls might work, like supermarkets or hospitals, 'there are no few Arab workers who use a Hebrew name,' it [the letter] states. 'Yusuf turns into Yossi, Samir turns into Sami and Abed turns into Ami.'"

This is a totalitarian level of paranoia. Fortunately, the ladies who wrote this are on the fringes of Israeli society. A country in which this kind of talk is taken seriously could never be a free one. And it's not like they are talking about some serious epidemic of Jewish girls being whisked away by Arab men. According to the article in Ha'aretz, a paper not exactly known for its liberalism,

A protest in Bat Yam this month previously coupled the real estate issue with warnings that Jewish women should stay away from Arab men, though no convincing evidence was provided to indicate that such a phenomenon exists on a broad scale or that an increasing number of Jews are dating Arabs.

The letter also warns, "Your grandmothers never dreamed or prayed that one of their descendants would commit an act that would remove future generations of her family from the Jewish people". So remember girls, keep your race pure!

Apparently the Guy with $12.7 Billion Is Getting Ripped Off

2010-12-29T16:44:00.000-08:00

Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, is suing AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo, and YouTube for infringing on his patents for "related links", "alerts" and "recommendations".

This is the second time he's tried to file this lawsuit, because the first time the courts wouldn't here it due to the fact he was basically claiming that he invented the majority of the services that every major site on the internet provides. The language of the patents is so vague that one wonders how they even qualified as patents. The patent for "alerts" describes them as "displaying information to a user in an unobtrusive manner that occupies the peripheral attention of the user." In other words, Paul Allen is claiming to have invented putting shit to one side of the screen.

Also, I LOLd when I saw that the site that featured this story had two links below the first two paragraphs labelled "See more of our latest Patents coverage" and "add an alert for future coverage of Patents."

Oopsie Doopsie

2010-12-29T16:37:00.000-08:00

The feds are investigating whether Christine O'Donnell misused campaign money. She denies it of course, but it wouldn't surprise me if the allegations were true. Not because I think Christine O'Donnell is corrupt, but because she seems like the kind of person who would consider getting a manicure before a big political rally should be considered a legitimate expense.

Yay! Death Panels

2010-12-28T17:52:00.000-08:00

When the opponents to Obamacare were trying to come up with ways to make it sound scary, they thought up "death panels". It is the job of these panels, they claimed, to review whose granny gets her plug pulled to save money to care for the next person. What was actually in the legislation is a provision that would pay for a person to consult their doctor about what they would like done should they ever end up a vegetable and unable to make decisions about their own care. They would see their doctor, the doctor would tell them their options, be it staying on life support indefinitely or a DNR, and Obama's health care package would cover that doctor visit.

Opponents of this cite Terri Schiavo as an example of its dangers, but, ironically, if Terri Schiavo had had this option, she could have gotten her wishes down on record, and could possibly still be alive today. Fortunately, it looks like this consultation will be covered by Medicare as of January 1st despite the ridiculous opposition against it.

Palin Doesn't Understand Conservationism

2010-12-28T17:44:00.000-08:00

"Where do you think those pencils and paper came from?" Yeah, they came from trees. We all know that. The point is that we'd like to continue to get those things from trees. In order to do that you need to harvest them sustainably. And this doesn't just apply to trees, but everything else that can only be replaced at a finite rate.

Birthers Again

2010-12-28T17:00:00.000-08:00

The newly inaugurated Governor of Hawaii says he wants to change the laws keeping Obama's hospital birth records private. He hopes this will put an end to the conspiracy theories about him being born in Kenya, or wherever.

It won't, of course. The birthers are crazy and will reject any evidence given to them. Obama has already shown his birth certificate, and after the initial wave of accusations that it was a fake, they said, "oh well, that a 'certification of live birth' not a birth certificate! We want the real birth certificate has the name of the doctor who delivered him and the hospital where he was born." Now, I don't know what kind of birth certificates these people have, but my birth certificate doesn't list any of those things. I've never seen a birth certificate that does. What these people want are Obama's medical records. They argue that foreign born babies can get birth certificates issued by the state of Hawaii. This is true, but the way that works is if you were born in a hospital in Wellington and your parents brought you home to Hawaii instead of applying for a birth certificate from the government of New Zealand, you could then get a Hawaii birth certificate that says you were born in Wellington, New Zealand, and they would ask for hospital records to confirm even that.

Chris Matthews wants to know why Obama hasn't just asked the state of Hawaii to release those records. Well, the first reason is that it obviously wouldn't convince them so there's no point. The second is that if people believe your birth certificate to be fraudulent and ask to see your private medical records to prove that it isn't, it is, I think, at that point, perfectly reasonable to tell them to fuck off.

Assange's Extradition

2010-12-16T18:32:00.000-08:00

Having come to terms with the fact that publishing leaked documents is not, in itself, a crime, the US is apparently working on a way to accuse him of having ordered the documents to be leaked, or aided the leaker. Given the breadth of what really counts as espionage, it is conceivably possible for Assange to be convicted if the person responsible for the leak asked if he wanted them and Assange said "yes". He's considerably screwed if he brought it up first, like, "hey, do happen to have any secret or classified documents you can give me?"

Or what they could argue is that WikiLeaks itself, by the very nature of its existence, is an invitation to leak documents, making the whole organization a kind of bizarrely open spy ring. That argument might not fly, but we'll see if Eric Holder has the balls to make it.

Prior Restraint

2010-12-12T16:58:00.005-08:00

Like Nixon's attempt to keep the New York Times from publishing the Pentagon Papers (see New York Times Co. v. United States), no attempt to keep WikiLeaks from publishing the documents they have will be successful. Even if they can find a way to prosecute Assange for publishing what he has, the US government can't stop any of the other documents from coming out unless they contain specific information endangering specific people.

Arguably, some of the documents already released have given away the identities of people working as informants for the US in Afghanistan, but, so far, nobody seems to have been killed because of it. As long as WikiLeaks takes care to keep people who may become targets under wraps, the US really has no way to keep the rest of the documents from coming out.

Is Assange a Spy?

2010-12-12T16:17:00.000-08:00

I think this video sums it up.

It should also be noted that Joe Lieberman believes it may be worth the trouble to investigate the New York Times for publishing the info posted on WikiLeaks.

The Fact That Amazon Is Uncrashable Is the Reason It Hosted Wikileaks in the First Place

2010-12-09T18:55:00.000-08:00

Anonymous has been trying to take down Amazon.com with a DDoS all day for refusing to continue to host space for Wikileaks. This would be quite a blow if it could be done, as it would shut off the flow of all that sweet Christmas shopping money. But because it is prepared for ridiculous amounts of traffic over the holidays, overloading it's servers is next to impossible.

In fact, the reason Wikileaks was being hosted by Amazon in the first place is that it has so much extra server space to handle the extra traffic that rents a lot of it out to other websites.

We'll See How they Like Him When He Gets Some of Russia's Secrets.

2010-12-09T18:48:00.000-08:00

Russia wants Julian Assange to get the Nobel Peace Prize. Normally a guy going around giving away everybody's secrets would not attract the affections of Russia, but

"Russia's reflexively suspicious leadership appears to have come round to WikiLeaks, having decided that the ongoing torrent of disclosures are ultimately far more damaging and disastrous to America's long-term geopolitical interests than they are to Russia's."

That may all change, of course, once he gets proof of Putin's involvement in the poisoning of Yukashchenko, or Litvinenko.

"Harmful" Books

2010-11-10T18:57:00.000-08:00

Wikipedia's article on Human Events magazine has its list of the ten "most harmful books of the 19th and 20th centuries". Here it is, this is great:

1. The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
2. Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler
3. Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, by Mao Zedong
4. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, by Alfred Kinsey
5. Democracy and Education, by John Dewey
6. Das Kapital, by Karl Marx
7. The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan
8. The Course in Positive Philosophy, by Auguste Comte
9. Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche
10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, by John Maynard Keynes

Now, nobody's gonna argue about Mein Kampf, except for the fact that it is below The Communist Manifesto, which, although a lot of grief came from the implementation of its ideas, was not a call for hatred and genocide, so, if I were compiling this list, I'd put Hitler's book somewhat higher than the Marx books and Mao's book. Of course, just behind Nazism and Communism is Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Conservative's hate this book because it put an end to the credibility of claims by conservative males that they never masturbate.

Democracy and Education dared to claim that a person's personality is formed by a combination of inborn inclinations and environmental factors, leading foolish liberals to believe that criminal behavior may be caused by something other than demonic possession.

The Feminine Mystique pointed out that some women may actually have ambitions beyond simply being wives and mothers.

The Course in Positive Philosophy made the obviously satanic claim that belief should be based on reason and evidence.

Beyond Good and Evil annoys everybody by getting into the hands of sophomore arts majors, and the ideas in Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money ended the Great Depression, but did so without advocating tax cuts and therefore must be forever banned.

SUBPOENA POWER!!!

2010-11-07T17:45:00.000-08:00

Now that the Pugs control the House, they can start Ken Starr-style witch hunts against the Obama administration like they did to the Clinton administration. What will they prosecute him for, you ask? Well, "[a]reas ripe for investigation include Obama's health care policy, its response to the BP oil spill, and the multibillion-dollar bailouts of automakers, banks and the troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."

In other words, they're going to throw whatever bullshit allegations they can think of at him until they find something people will fall for.

Fuck the Innocent, I'm running for President!

2010-11-05T07:40:00.000-07:00

Rick Perry, the re-elected Governor of Texas, is rumored to be considering running for President. A scary scenario considering the recent imbroglio involving the investigation of a recently executed inmate, Cameron Todd Willingham. Willingham's house burned down, killing his children, and he was convicted of murder by arson and sentenced to lethal injection. Sometime after the execution,

"the Willingham case has been reviewed by nine of the nation's top fire scientists—first for the [Chicago] Tribune, then for the Innocence Project, and now for the commission. All concluded that the original investigators relied on outdated theories and folklore to justify the determination of arson."

That's from the August 2009 Chicago Tribune.

When an investigation was about to be conducted by the Texas Forensic Science Commission, Governor Perry replaced the Chair of the commission who then cancelled the investigation.

This is scary shit. What kind of evil prick do you have to be to interfere with something like that? Even if the dude turned out to actually be guilty, there is clearly evidence in this case that any person with a conscience should want the state to look into.

Perry, of course denies that he was trying to interfere with the investigation, but he has a lot to answer for. To be fair, the people he replaced were about to reach the end of their term limits, and would have had to be replaced in the middle of the investigation. Perry said that "it makes a whole lot more sense to make a change now than to make a change later." However, the people he replaced asked to stay on for the beginning of the investigation and got no reply. One of the replaced prosecutors even said that "it would be disruptive to make the new appointments right now." The soon-to-be-expired terms seem to be an awfully convenient excuse to block an investigation that is potentially politically damaging.

The Psychological Attraction of Religion

2010-11-04T20:09:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons religion has the power over people that it does is that it not only gives people clear moral instructions, relieving them of the burden of making moral decisions on their own, it forges their emotions into compliance with those instructions through their pretty fairy tales. This is the biggest advantage religion has over secular systems of morality. Although you may be able to convince yourself of the moral rightness of a particular action through your own reasoning, you may not be able to motivate yourself to perform that action through the same kind of rational deliberations.

Here's a nun talking about this very phenomenon. Especially after about 3:30.

John Maynard Keynes FTW!

2010-11-03T17:55:00.000-07:00

Buying $600 Billion worth of debt is probably the right move. Put more money into the economy, people will buy more stuff, and businesses will make more stuff, and have to hire more people in order to do so. This works. The standard right wing response is that pouring money into the economy will lead to massive inflation and we'll end up like Weimar Germany. The important difference, of course, is that one of the problems with this economic downturn is deflation, not inflation. The problem is not that prices are too high, it's that nobody has any money so there is little demand in the economy resulting in prices being too low. Inflation is not what people should be afraid of. We need more inflation.

Sure, the US Dollar has sunk a little in comparison to other currencies, but the fact remains that jobs aren't growing because people aren't spending, and people aren't spending because they are broke.

Compromise on What?

2010-11-03T16:42:00.000-07:00

Now that the Democrats no longer have the House, Obama says he's willing to compromise. "Compromise" to Republicans, of course, means doing everything they tell you to. To Obama it means "to yield to Republican demands on tax cuts," which is bad enough considering it means that in order to get tax cuts for the middle class, he has to give tax cuts to everyone richer than the middle class, thus cutting off the the vast majority of money that could have been used to pay down the deficit.

Well, at Least They Gained a Democratic Governor

2010-11-03T05:04:00.000-07:00

Amazingly, prop19 didn't win. The contributions from the alcohol industry and other interested parties successfully scared people into believing that nurses and school bus drivers would be showing up to work high and their employers would, for some reason, not be able to fire them for it.

But on the bright side, while I actually liked Arnie, I'm glad that the governor of California is now a Democrat.

Creepy NephilimFree

2010-11-01T17:52:00.000-07:00

Nobody's surprised, except maybe at how long it took for this kind of thing to come out.

Taking the Credit

2010-11-01T17:43:00.000-07:00

Well, the election is tomorrow, and with the economy beginning to look up, the Republicans seem poised to get into power just in time to take credit for the recovery. Here's a good New York Times Article about it.

Of course if the Democrats hang onto power, the Republicans will still try to take credit, but fewer people will fall for it. This seems to be standard Republican sophistry. They still like to tell you that the economic boom of the Clinton administration was all because of Reagan's policies, even though he was two presidents prior.

Frustrating

2010-10-20T16:02:00.000-07:00

Obama's justice department is trying to get a stay on the injubction against DADT. Why? Because, "changing the policy immediately as ordered by a federal court in California 'risks causing significant immediate harm to the military and its efforts to be prepared to implement an orderly repeal of the statute.'" How is an injunction less orderly than a repeal? If the military can handle a repeal, they can handle an injunction overturning the policy.

The Social Network

2010-10-15T19:59:00.001-07:00

I mainly went to see this movie for the score. I had read that David Fincher told Trent Reznor to "make it cheesy sounding" and I love cheesy music, so I was curious. I was especially curious what "cheesy music" made by Trent Reznor would sound like. I'd also read that he recorded a version of In the Hall of the Mountain King, which I correctly predicted would be awesome.

Here it is:

I had been reading through the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and it seems like the 3% of reviews that are negative aren't really reviews of the movie per se. They read like they were written by people who are close personal friends of Mark Zuckerberg who got all butt hurt that the movie wasn't very flattering. This is not only lame because it has nothing to do with the quality of the movie (although I must say, I've never seen Mark Zuckerberg make the pouty faces that Jesse Eisenberg makes), it is also lame because it is actually not all that unflattering. This movie made me really like Mark Zuckerberg. Sure, he may not be pleasant company, but I like people who ditch the warm, fuzzy routine in the name of efficiency.

Also it's nice to see that Jesse Eisenberg has proven than he can be more than just a poor man's Michael Cera.

To Appeal, or Not...

2010-10-13T18:28:00.000-07:00

While a legislative repeal of DADT would be preferable for a few reasons, appealing Judge Phillipsè ruling seems rather silly now that that avenue has proven futile. Obama seems more afraid of being accused of slipping a repeal in through the legislative back door.

Given that the logic of the decision hinged largely on whether keeping gay troops in the closet harmed troop cohesion, the Justice department will now have to argue the opposite. This puts them in the very odd position of having to argue the opposite of what they argued when campaigning for repeal.

DADT Overturned by Republicans!

2010-10-12T14:16:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log_Cabin_Republicans_v._United_States_of_America

Israel's Settlement Offer

2010-10-11T15:53:00.000-07:00

The Palestinian Authority just offered to freeze the expansion of settlements in exchange for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. This is a convenient way to paint the PA as not willing to bargain, but given what accepting the offer entails, it's hard to blame them for turning it down. Recognition of Israel as a Jewish state would basically be conceding that Jews deserve more rights in Israel than non-Jews. Granted, one would not expect Palestinians or any other Muslim community to grant equal rights to non-Muslims, but either way, ethno-states are ugly, ugly arrangements.

Take THAT WLC

2010-10-11T11:02:00.001-07:00

I was kinda disappointed when I saw this video, I was going to do one making roughly the same criticisms.

Waiting For Armageddon

2010-07-17T19:26:00.000-07:00

I’m watching Waiting for Armageddon. It’s pretty entertaining for the most part, though it’s a little boring due to the fact that it’s mostly shit that I’ve heard before. What you can get out of this movie, you can get out of pretty much any other footage of fundamentalist Christians: they are not interested in being reasoned with. These people cannot be defeated by mere refutation. They must be marginalized. Making movies like this one and Jesus Camp are good steps toward that. The more people see how foolish and dangerous these people are the better.

Mmmm, Drinks

2010-07-16T15:15:00.000-07:00

Today I'm drinking a Moscow Mule.
1 part lime juice
1 part vodka
3 parts ginger ale.

Yum!

Now Let's All Forget About Robert Byrd

2010-06-28T17:37:00.000-07:00

Robert Byrd was one of those Democrats with a bit of an odd past that Republicans like to bring up when they need something shady sounding to smear Democrats in general. Like Ted Kennedy, who, whenever he did something that Republicans didn't like -- which covered practically everything he did -- would be reminded of that time he got into a car accident at Chappaquiddick that ended up killing the girl in his passenger seat (even though you never hear an elected Democrat bring up the fact that Laura Bush killed a guy -- that's right, Laura Bush killed a guy), Robert Byrd could never live down his membership in the KKK, his opposition to desegregation, and the fact that he filibustered against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Also he was getting really old and every speech he made sounded increasingly senile and non-sensical. While he may very well have helped out with some decent legislation here and there, he was kind of an embarrassment, and now that he's dead I'm relieved that I'll no longer have to hear Republicans whine disingenuously about his personal history.

Protests and Coherence

2010-06-27T14:26:00.000-07:00

News coverage of the G20 meeting in Toronto, like that of most coverage of protests by the mainstream media, has been condescending and dismissive. And although I'd like to say that there's a plain, commonsense message that the protesters are trying to get across that is just being ignored or suppressed, the truth is that there really is no one simple point that this multitude of people is trying to convey. The protesters are made up of representatives of a number of different interests. While all of the protesters are presumably opposed to the G20 and their policies in some fashion, among the various interests being represented there may be a few that are not only inconsistent with those of the other protesters, but possibly even a number that contradict each other. I don't doubt that there may even be a number of tinfoil hat, Alex Jones, anti-New World Order types who are protesting what they think is a global elite trying to wipe out half the world's population by promoting the homosexual agenda, and doing so in the same general vicinity as people advocating greater recognition of gay rights.

Among the issues the protesters wish addressed are debt amnesty, rights of indigenous peoples, corporate globalization, workers' rights, women's rights, and environmental degradation. It's essentially a grab bag of concerns held by those suspicious of anyone who has more money and power than they do. That's not to say that there's anything necessarily wrong with being suspicious of the wealthy and powerful, and it's not that these aren't legitimate issues. The problem is that when so many groups come together at once you can't expect the media to be able to get a complete message across. The best they can do is pull a few quotes from random people in the crowd which will rarely be fairly representative of the positions of all the people that those giving quotes intend to speak for. These protests produce little more than an inarticulate cacophony.

Geert Wilders

2010-06-14T19:55:00.000-07:00

This guy has gotten a lot of attention lately, as has Dutch politics in general since Theo Van Gogh was murdered. The fascination, it seems to me, is partly inspired by the fact that the Netherlands is known for its tolerance, but they have a growing nationalist movement lead by people like Wilders who calls for a recognition that the Netherlands are based on "Judeo-Christian values". That does not sound like the position of a prominent European leader, but rather of an American southern Baptist.

This is unfortunate and a little scary. Scary, not because we are seeing people who wish to resist some Muslims in Europe who wish explicitly to Islamize the West, but because the people leading that resistance are no longer libertines like Pim Fortuyn, or or religious skeptics like Ayan Hirsi Ali, but, increasingly, it seems, people like Wilders.

On the Flotilla

2010-06-13T20:49:00.000-07:00

The first thing I have to say is that it is a bit silly to expect Israel to not have (or to have but not enforce) its blockade against Gaza. Sure, the anger of the people of Gaza is in many ways understandable, but nothing justifies taking their frustrations out on civilians living on the Israeli side of the border, even if the people their rockets are hitting are supporters of the blockade. Despite what some Palestinian apologists argue I do believe there is such a thing as an Israeli civilian, and Israel should be permitted to do something to protect its civilians. Much of what Israel does in service of this goal is excessive, but I think there is a decent case to be made for the blockade.

Secondly, the people on these boats would have scored more points in public sympathy if they had allowed the Israelis to arrest them without a fight. Muslims have done this in the past, and it's gotten results. Palestinians, in many ways, have the upper hand. They're the ones who are the underdogs. They're the ones who seem to have the greatest public sympathy in much of the West. If they were to take a few lumps from Israel without retaliation, they could gather enough sympathy to put significantly greater pressure on Israel.

That being said, arresting people in international waters and killing nine people armed only with knives chairs and metal rods does nothing but strengthen the perception that the IDF are a bunch of trigger happy sociopaths. I see no reason why these ships had to have been boarded. If the IDF had found these boats near the Gaza coast, they could have turned them back at that point and prevented them from landing. I know, those ships were carrying nothing but wheelchairs, food and medicine, but the IDF had no way of knowing that without inspecting them.

The Real Value of Multiculturalism

2010-05-06T19:27:00.000-07:00

It is ironic how much those who advocate multiculturalism and acceptance of foreign cultures in the West would also be appalled were they to go to Mumbai and see a Wal-Mart. This gives them away. They are not so attracted to multiculturalism as they are repulsed by the dominant culture in which they were raised. The word "multiculturalism" gives the impression that its proponents advocate the free mixing of various cultural elements -- that the more different kinds of culture there are in one place, the better. In practice, however, they seem more interested in diluting the Western culture that they see as vapid.

Westerners bored and disillusioned with the superficiality of Western culture. They see depth and meaning in most other cultures. Sometimes it's really there. It's not hard for a culture to have more meaning than Western culture does. But a lot of the time it's just a different kind of superficiality. And whenever they do spot that superficiality, they blame it on Western influence.

Ironically enough, multiculturalism is a predominantly Western value. Slavoj Zizek once pointed out that one of Western civilization's greatest achievements was to question the value of Western culture. You don't hear about movements in non-Western civilizations to be tolerant of immigrants and the cultural practices they import. There may be the occasional marginalized activist, but not movements as large as what you see in the West.

Western multiculturalism occasionally goes in unhealthy directions, giving undue deference to alien traditions merely because they are alien. Cosmopolitanism is great when it helps us realize where our own culture can improve, but is foolish when it compounds unhealthy practices onto other unhealthy practices, degrading all cultures involved.

Fluff

2010-05-03T23:17:00.000-07:00

Quite regularly I go online looking for something interesting. Often I have nothing specific in mind, but I guess I'm mainly looking for something to excite me. I'm not looking for something to entertain me. I'm looking for something about which I can form an opinion, or better yet, make me want to learn more about something, or create something in response. These things I rarely find.

There are lots of things to complain about, but complaining doesn't feel particularly productive. Like what I'm doing now. This isn't filling me with much of a feeling of accomplishment.

Picking a Culture

2010-04-16T18:48:00.000-07:00

I heard someone once ask, “Why would you limit yourself to one culture, to identify with that solely and exclude all other cultural influences?” The fact that value has a lot to do with exclusivity aside, picking just one and sticking to it relieves you of the burden of having to pick any others. One does not have to choose between cultural practices and traditions when one adopts a particular lifestyle. One can devote oneself exclusively to the traditions and rituals of the chosen culture. Now this is seen by contemporary liberals as kind of icky, because so many people have historically been forced to conform to a particular cultural tradition when a mix and match approach of various cultural elements is what is best for them. There are still many people, however, who identify with one monolithic cultural canon and wish to stick with it. Often these people are simply ignorant of what other cultures have to offer, but there do exist people who devote themselves to one culture because they identify with it more than they do any other set of practices, rather than because they don't know any better.

Palin's Prospects

2010-04-16T17:19:00.001-07:00

I have long been hoping that Sarah Palin will not only run for the Republican nomination in the next presidential election, but also that she'll succeed. I have also been quite sceptical of her prospects. Given that she has the far more coherent and far less annoying Mitt Romney running against her, I've always assumed that her prospects were dim. However, given that Obama, and people at the Cato Institute are pointing out how extremely similar Obama's health care reform bill was to Romney's own health care program in Massachusetts, and given that those on the right seem to be looking for someone who is entirely opposed to Obamacare, Romney will be severely handicapped.

On the other hand, Ron Paul has been getting increasingly impressive poll numbers. Either way, if either a retard like Palin, or a crackpot like Ron Paul get elected, it will mean the end of the Republican Party for quite some time. Hopefully, if Ron Paul gets elected, he'll at least legalize weed.

Well...

2010-04-16T16:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted. I haven't run out of things to say, but my mind always seems to go blank whenever I sit to write something. It's the intimidation of having to make it all coherent. I have lots of thoughts, but they're often disjointed and it's always a chore trying to get them to come together into something readable.

Veritas48

2010-01-07T13:33:00.000-08:00

This is a Christian apologist on youtube who tries to make some logical sense and seems to actually understand a lot of the arguments made against believing in god.

In this video, and the other in the series of videos, however, he seems to be doing something kinda sneaky.

He began the project trying to remove what he calls "negative atheists" from the debate. These are people who do not affirm the non-existence of god, but are nonetheless not convinced of the existence of god. In removing them, he eliminates the burden of justifying belief in god, and then focuses on taking on the "positive atheists" who affirm the non-existence of god. Positive atheists are a much softer target because they onus proof can be turned on them, and they have the very difficult task of proving a negative.

I think he's doing away with negative atheists a little too easily. Because they are not stating a position about the existence of god, he says, negative atheism is "not justified" because it is a "non-view". The first problem I have with this statement is the notion that you have to justify a non-view. If you must abandon non-views because you can't justify them, then nobody could ever be on the fence about anything. A person, when given a proposition, must either affirm or deny it according to this view. Nobody is ever justified in saying they are not convinced one way or another. I think this is pretty clearly problematic. As a negative atheist, this means that I either have to adopt positive atheism, a position that I think is impossible to prove, or I must accept the arguments and evidence for theism that I do not find convincing. This seems to me to be clearly unreasonable.

Now I can understand why he wants to do this. When engaging in what is ostensibly a debate about the existence of god, from his point of view what it looks like the negative atheist is doing is simply throwing up his hands and saying "well, I'm not convinced, therefore I win". This is understandably frustrating.

In order to avoid this, both the negative atheist and the theist have to realize that what is really being debated is not the existence of god, but rather the question of what constitutes legitimate grounds for being convinced there is a god. This is a subject that perhaps has not gotten the attention it deserves.

A popular epistemological stance of negative atheists is naturalism. Epistemological naturalists are convinced of things observable and measurable in nature and, because they are not able to grasp anything about entities outside of nature, (that is, supernatural things) they can have no belief one way or the other regarding the existence or nature of those things. And I think what Veritas expects of the negative atheist is an explanation of why things outside of that which is observable and measurable in nature are unworthy of belief. Or at least why, if we can have no knowledge of the supernatural, as the the naturalist believes, we should go through life under the assumption that there is nothing there. As I believe he pointed out, negative atheists, while not being convinced one way or another, most often operate under the assumption that there is no god.

Now I can't speak for all negative atheists, but the reason why I personally limit my beliefs to that which is observable in nature is largely pragmatic. When I try to apply beliefs that I can test to practical circumstances, they have a pretty good track record of giving me reliable results. When I try to apply beliefs that I have not tested, or have no way to test, the results are most often quite unreliable. Now there are plenty of beliefs I hold that I can't test, of course, but they're also beliefs in which I hold little stake because I have no way to practically apply them. I don't know for sure that Socrates existed, but I operate under the assumption that he did because I've been given some evidence and not much, if anything about the way I live my life would change if I were to find out that this belief were false. The existence of god has corollary consequences, especially if the Abrahamic god really exists. These consequences, are, however, untestable, as is the this god's existence. And if Christians want me to believe in something that has practical consequences, those consequences must be demonstrable. Because there are many propositions that are non-demonstrable, many of which are contradictory, not all of them can be adopted. How are we to decide which propositions are the correct ones if the only means of judging correctness that has shown to be reliable, that of observation and experimentation, cannot establish their truth?

Anarchists

2009-12-30T21:20:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of hardcore anarchist types out there, but the most irritating have to be the anarcho-capitalists. These guys believe that you can have a functioning economic system without a state to guard people's private property and enforce contracts. Let's assume for a moment that you could. This kind of community is one in which, if you hit hard times, say you end up in a wheelchair, or are otherwise disabled and cannot work, or there is a structural level of unemployment and there is simply no work for you to do, and if you can't find anybody willing to help you out of the kindness of their hearts, you're basically fucked. There's nowhere for you to turn.

Now the anti-statist will say something like, "well if you can't work, and nobody wants to support you, what right do you have to burden the wealthy and productive?" Well, none. But I'm definitely glad I live in a country that is willing to support me if I happen to ever become so unfortunate, and I will support any government that ensures that, at least in the most extreme cases, there's always a safety net.

Now I'm not some hard core leftist that believes that taking from the rich is or should be the solution to the problems of the poor, and I think it should be harder to get welfare than it currently is, but I would still prefer to live in a country in which people who may happen to have had some really bad luck have some to fall back on.

Those who believe all taxation is theft find the idea of taking even the smallest amount from the wealthy and productive, in order to help those who are not able to be as productive absolutely unconscionable. They are sickened by the idea. People this far right basically want to be freed from any responsibility for anyone but themselves.

FUCK Generation Y

2009-12-29T04:09:00.000-08:00

I was born in 1981. I know this only barely qualifies me as being a member of Generation X, if at all, but in spirit, I'm more Gen X than anything else. All the best shit was made for Gen Xers. We had Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Alice in Chains, Fight Club, and the first Matrix movie (which was the only good one).

What does Generation Y have to claim as their own? Panic at the Disco. Purity rings. The Jonas Brothers. The Star Wars prequels. Twilight. Harry Potter. What the fuck happened between these two generations?

It's Generation X that's supposed to be nihilistic, but it seems like Generation Y is so nihilistic they can't even be bothered to rebel against their parents anymore. When I was a kid, the things kids did scared the shit out of their parents. Now what do they do? Listen to emo music and wear really tight jeans that make them look like a really pansy version of Patrick Swayze in Road House. What the fuck is wrong with kids today? Why are they so lame all of a sudden? Is it because their parents are Gen X slackers and the only way they can piss them off is to get white collar jobs and do what the nice corporations tell them to do?

Is it because Christians have been running everything for the last eight years? Is it because goths lost their balls and turned emo? Why is there nothing subversive anymore? Why are so many kids so content to consume such saccharine pablum?

Shoe Bomber Two

2009-12-27T21:09:00.000-08:00

I'm sure there are a few people who are jumping on this story about the guy who almost blew up that plane from Amsterdam to Detroit as an example of Obama's inability to protect the country and that, although it failed, it should count as a terrorist attack. If that's your standard of failure, then Bush's failure to keep the shoe bomber from getting on a plane should count as a refutation of the belief that Bush is to be credited with "keeping us safe" for so many years.

Schwang Wang Wang

2009-12-26T15:16:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure Debbie Schlussel has absolutely zero friends.

Truthers

2009-12-26T14:59:00.000-08:00

I was watching a "documentary" made by 9/11 Truthers and noticed that they go after Republicans, Democrats and even some pretty anti-Bush congressmen like John Conyers and thought, "Hmm, Chomsky thinks the truthers are full of shit. Why don't you see Alex Jones and his ilk go after him?" It is rather strange that these guys seem to go after everyone who says they think they're crazy (like The Young Turks) but I've never seen any of them say a thing about Chomsky. Is it because they know that if there were ANY evidence that 9/11 was an inside job that could be taken seriously, Chomsky would be all over it? Is it because they know that if there were any reason to think the Bush administration could have anything to do with the commission of 9/11, he'd be the first to point it out?

Here, by the way, is Chomsky's view of why 9/11 happened and who was responsible.

Left and Right

2009-12-24T12:28:00.000-08:00

I consider myself a left-leaning moderate. Philosophically, I'm a skeptic, so I don't choose my political allegiances based on which position I consider "true" (I don't know if there is such a thing as truth, and, even if there is, I don't know if I would recognize it), rather, since one's politics are, at least in part, an extension of one's moral positions, I base my own politics on what my conscience will allow, and I expect many other people do the same. People far to the left and far to the right differ not so much about matters of fact, but rather have consciences that allow or disallow different and sometimes opposite things.

Ideal Worlds
Here are what I think the ideal communities for those on the most extreme left and right would look like.

The ideal world for a leftist is, I think, perfectly articulated by that John Lennon song. You know the one. Don't make me say it. The one about people not believing in heaven and shit. This song talks about a kind of perfect equality between everyone, "nothing to kill or die for" etcetera. In this kind of world, people get along, they enjoy each other's company, nobody has to put a lot of effort into anything, take orders from anyone or give orders to anyone. There is no competition, so nobody has to worry about losing face or strain themselves trying to get ahead.

There's certainly an appeal to this kind of community. You don't have to deal with people who are arrogant or full of themselves. If you need help, people will be there for you, presumably, and there's nothing to feel jealous about.

The ideal world for people on the right is one in which there is constant activity and effort. There is hierarchy, and, depending on what kind of right winger you are, you can climb the social ladder or you can enjoy your position of high status if you're lucky enough to have it, and you can look upon those above you with awe and appreciation if you're not. It is a world in which there are things of immense value that people devote their lives to achieving or protecting. This kind of community likely has a God to which everyone bows. This God is an object of ultimate value that gives value to everything else, and everything and everyone is judged by their proximity to or from this ideal. All activity is judged by this standard. All things that are not oriented to this standard are worthless and to be shunned and condemned.

This ideal world has its appeal as well. People in this community enjoy an awe that those in the leftest ideal world do not. People have something to look up to and a standard by which value can be measured with certainty.

Both of these ideals also have a pretty grotesque side as well. While the leftist ideal world, is harmonious and comfortable, it is also pretty boring and stifling like a straight jacket. If there is nothing to kill or die for, there's not much to live for if you ask me. The conscience of someone on the far left is severely perturbed by the idea that someone may gain advantage over anyone else, regardless of the effort invested. In fact the very idea that someone would expend effort to place themselves ahead of anyone else seems to be indicative of some kind of pathology to the leftist. Anyone who chooses to do that is seen as selfish and evil. Wanting to better oneself or one's lot in life is only permissible if you can bring everyone else with you. Otherwise it is a despicable vice.

The world of the right winger has an unmistakable glory to it, but is contemptuous of deviants and intolerant of dissent. While in this community, one is not made to feel guilty for wanting to be greater than one is, one is also not made to feel any responsibility or compassion for the lot of others. Everyone is where they are because they either earned it, or happened to be born into a class that entitles them to their fortune or misfortune. No tears are to be shed for the indigent, and nobody in a position of privilege should ever be asked, let alone forced, to ever be inconvenienced in the slightest to provide even the most basic of needs to those who happen to find themselves in a desperate situation. Not for any reason. The conscience of someone on the far right is disgusted by the idea that the great and mighty would ever be called upon to sacrifice any of their wealth for the sake of the lowly.

I obviously fall somewhere in between. Most people fall somewhere between these two extremes, and someone reading this who is far left or far right may accuse me of making a caricature of their political position. Well, for the purposes of illustration, that is exactly what I am doing. I've constructed these extremes not because I think they represent the ideals of most people, but rather because I want to show what each extreme end of the left/right spectrum looks like.

My conscience finds the rejection of all stratification horrendously stifling. There's something contemptible to me about people who are disgusted by the notion that some people may be better than others in at least some respects and deserve more wealth and social status. Some people are better than others and deserve more. This "betterness" is, however, not absolute. No matter how talented or charming you are, you don't get to turn you're back on those who are struggling just to get by while you have more wealth than you know what to do with. Now, I know not every poor person is poor because of factors outside of their control, and yes, there are welfare cheats. Regardless, there are some very hard working people who make all the right decisions in life and still can't get by. To affirm that the wealthy, even the most hard working thereof, are more entitled to their ivory back scratchers than these unfortunate people are to food and medicine is not something my conscience can allow. This, I think, makes me a left-leaning moderate.

VenomfagX

2009-12-24T11:36:00.000-08:00

It looks like he's making videos again. This should be entertaining. I wonder if anyone will even bother with him anymore though. I mean, really, he just keeps repeating the same shit over and over again. No matter how convincing an argument you make against one of his points, he'll throw it back at you in another video like it was something new that he just though up. Is thunderf00t going to want to go over the same points again ad nauseum? Is TJ?

Maybe it'll be entertaining, though. Maybe he'll show more of his dorm room hijinks and Kassie Dill will keep talking about how faggy she thinks he is and we'll all have a good laugh. Maybe he'll embarrass himself even more by false DMCAing yet another set of atheist videos. Maybe he'll get on FOX News like Howtheworldworks did and the whole world will get to see what dink he is.

I suspect it'll just be boring videos and boring responses to his obvious nonsense.

Christmas

2009-12-24T11:27:00.000-08:00

I can't really say I go to the effort of boycotting Christmas so much as I refuse to spend any effort on it. I didn't buy anybody any presents, though some probably bought me some. I didn't decorate, and I'm spending the day working. I'm taking the opportunity to be productive.

I cringe at all the people who are able to compartmentalize the excitement over presents and separate it from the ridiculous amount of debt they are in and refuse to connect the two. Only a grinch would point out the inevitable nuisance those Playstations and Xboxes are going to bring when they're being hounded by the credit card company.

People are baffled by the fact that I'm able to pay all my bills while only working 25 hours a week and have never been in debt. "How is this possible in a recession?! How do you do it?!" I don't spend all my money on stupid shit, that's how.

Why I Support Sarah Palin

2009-12-12T14:32:00.000-08:00

Who is most likely to run against Obama in 2012? A lot of people seem to think Mitt Romney might, and Romney's not unelectable. He might have a decent chance against Obama if the whole Mormon thing doesn't turn off the other Christians who don't think Mormonism is a legitimate religion. Interestingly enough though, while Romney might have a chance against Obama, he clearly isn't as popular as Palin among conservatives, and it looks like she could take the Republican nomination.

And let's all hope she does. What I delightful catastrofuck that would be. If you thought John McCain's campaign was a train wreck, wait 'til you see Palin's. I can't wait for the first debate between Palin and Obama! It'll be like that Kids in the Hall skit when Bruce McCulloch keeps picking a fight with this really huge guy and he knocks him out with one punch and he keeps getting back up again thinking he can really take him the next time around.

But what if she wins? Well, that would be a painful 4 years, but, in the long run, it might be the best possible scenario, because it would destroy the Republican Party forever. There was a time when we all thought that Bush couldn't discredit the Republicans any more than he did, but Palin is a whole new class of stupid. If we survive the nuclear winter that is the Palin presidency, maybe enough people will finally wake up and smell the fallout. Democrats have for too long stood in the way of letting conservatives experience first hand what happens when they get the government they really want.

A Social Technology

2009-12-09T16:18:00.000-08:00

While it is clear that people are spending less time with each other than they did before TV and the internet, I've found more people to whom I can relate on YouTube than I ever have in real life.

Disinfo

2009-12-09T10:58:00.001-08:00

If you consider yourself enough of a member of the "counter-culture" to be into Richard Metzger, you should check out his YouTube channel. He obviously doesn't have the budget that he used to, but god bless him, he's trying.

Why?

2009-12-09T10:47:00.000-08:00

I've long wondered, why is it that Alex Jones doesn't quote from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? You'd think that kind of thing would be right up his alley. He's certainly had ideas just as incredible as the Protocols. What keeps these truthers and birthers from drawing the line just before they cross over into the totally unpalatable? It's things like that that make believe that Jones and Glenn Beck may be faking it and they don't really believe the shit they say. If they are faking it, however, they're absolute geniuses, which I don't think is the case.

Kick Ass

2009-12-04T04:23:00.000-08:00

Here's a great video about those hacked e-mails and why people who think they're evidence of fraud are too lazy to actually read them and find out the truth of what these quotes mean.

Darnit to Heck!

2009-12-03T09:03:00.000-08:00

I missed another day. No worries, freespeechvids.com looks like its doing well since TJ decided to take his frustrations out on Christians again. Check it out. The site's down right now due to the excess traffic, but there's a link to the first of his "pwnage videos".

Also, here's an interview with Charles Johnson about "parting ways" with the right.

Gror!

2009-12-01T15:14:00.001-08:00

I missed a day of posting. Sorry about that. I had a paper due today that I wanted to finish.

Not much going on today. Charles Johnson says he's not right-wing any more. I'm surprised to see that a lot of the first few comments are supportive.

Desperate People

2009-11-29T12:20:00.000-08:00

It just occurred to me that all these 911 truthers and people who follow Alex Jones around are all just really desperate for a metanarrative. These are people who may well be smart enough to know that the things they believe are fucking crazy, but what would they do with their lives then? The feel like they're doing something really important by handing out fliers to people on the subway and protesting at their tea bagger parties. Without that, they'd have to go back to their depressing, pointless lives.

Our Need for a Metanarrative

2009-11-29T11:10:00.000-08:00

In the later part of this lecture, Chuck talks about how we don't have a really powerful story that grabs everyone's attention these days. We have no underlying struggle or aim to our culture nowadays. The Cold War is over, too many people think the war on terror is bullshit to really take that seriously and the environmental movement has yet to gain enough strength to inspire that many people. Things may get more interesting if global warming starts to really have some impact, but until a few more major cities are flooded and there are heat waves in Scandinavia, global warming isn't going to get people out of their chairs.

In all likelihood, things will remain painfully boring unless the Singularity hits.

The Mind of the Anti-Semite

2009-11-28T14:39:00.000-08:00

People who hold the view that Jews are untrustworthy, or are part of some conspiracy to control the world, etc. seems to be based in one or another of two beliefs about Jews. Anti-Semites do not believe merely that Jewish culture is bad, or that Judaism as a religion is the problem, but rather that Jews, as an ethnic group, are constantly scheming against gentiles. This implies either a) that Jews are all organized against gentiles, and their organization is well constructed that not one single Jew has ever spilled the beans about it to a non-Jew, and no person of Jewish blood has ever avoided involvement, or b) that Jews are genetically predisposed to behavior that advances the interests of their own ethnic group at the expense of the interest of non-Jews. This seems to be the majority view among anti-Semites (Kevin b. McDonald for example).

What must one believe about genetics in order to base one's anti-Semitism on this second view? One must believe that it is possible to have a genetically endowed, innate understanding of ethnicity. Now, you could argue that we may be genetically inclined to favor people who look or act more like us than those who do not, but is every Jew so disconnected from the gentiles amongst whom they live that this would justify such a claim that all Jews are an inherent danger to gentiles? And what if a Jewish person were raised by gentiles and unaware of his ethnicity? Would he or she be somehow able to magically determine that his parents and friends are gentiles against whom he must constantly be plotting? This is what the most committed anti-Semites would have to believe in order to justify their prejudice.

The claim that Jews are all plotting against gentiles also becomes unfalsifiable when one dismisses the fact that individual Jews will hold vastly differing political and economic views, many of which are even contradictory, by saying they are all methods of advancing their power and undermining non-Jews. It's amazing that in much of the most significant anti-Semitic literature of the 20th century, both capitalism and communism are condemned as Jewish inventions. One wonders what kind of economic system the anti-Semite recommends if it must involve neither a centrally planned economy, nor the use of capital to establish businesses. They also accuse Jews of profiting unfairly from the businesses they run and finance, but also, whenever an economy is doing poorly, of gaining political advantage from destroying the economies which they were accused of exploiting.

I challenge any anti-Semite to describe something a Jew could do that would not be evidence of their supposed scheming against gentiles. Until they can do that, they have to realize that their prejudice makes absolutely no fucking sense.

What Is Religion and Why Does It Persist?

2009-11-27T06:12:00.001-08:00

I'm not convinced of most of the propositions offered by most religions. I haven't been since I was very young. Although, there's little I can say about why this is the case that hasn't been said by so many others over and over again. There is one element that seems to be missing from most of the arguments against religious dogma, though. What's missing is a rigorous understanding of their psychological bases.

Most apologists for atheism of course understand that there are neurological causes behind religious experiences. There was a good article in h+ Magazine not too long ago that mentioned the part of the brain that is being affected when one feels the intuition of "oneness" that is so commonly spoken of by those professing to have had these experiences. Most atheists also understand that religious belief is based not on being convinced of facts in the way one becomes convinced of every day propositions, but rather on a desire for religious propositions to be true.

Few, if any of them, however, seem to understand the psychological utility of religion. Religion brings comfort and a feeling of salvation or liberation not just by giving people a comforting imaginary friends, but because religious experiences have a profound impact on a person's psychology such that it reorients that person's desires in such a way as to significantly ameliorate a problem that most if not all human beings have, that problem being conflict of will.

The liberation or salvation offered by religion is not just from eternal damnation. Those who are religious merely because they are afraid of going to hell are not getting the best out of their beliefs. The horror from which religion can, in fact, deliver a person is guilt, shame and internal conflict. Now, of course, there are religious communities and governments that, rather than saving a person from these things, in fact make them all the more likely. People who practice their religion in this way are easy targets. They are motivated by hate, shame and disgust. Those who get the best benefit of religion are those who had painfully weak or divided wills but were able to overcome it through religious conversion. It is from oneself that religion offers liberation and salvation. And it is those who don't feel they need such a thing that are most likely to do without religion.

Atheists are right to point out the hypocrisy of so many self-proclaimed religious people. Christianity stands out in that it does not offer salvation in return for being good or doing good things. Being good is instead the consequence of salvation. It is once you have truly "accepted Christ into your heart" that you will naturally have the will to do good things. Any part of your mind that was pulling you away from the way of living you feel is best is supposed to be eliminated by the acceptance of Christ. Billy Graham said that if you're still struggling with sinful desires and occasionally giving in to them "you need to rethink whether you're really a Christian or not".

While religion has done more than enough to reinforce the shame and guilt people feel over desires that may not at all be harmful in many instances, a truly effective response to religion has to address the problem of personal conflict of will. Fortunately, this is a psychological problem, and all religions offer psychological solutions, although dressed up in mystical ideas. The reason secular Westerners gravitate more toward Buddhism is that it offers solutions rooted in psychological principles that can be separated from its mysticism more easily than can the methods of other religions. The most vocal atheists resist religion because religious people often try to impose upon everyone solutions to problems that they may not really have. And even if they do have the problems that religion was created to solve, religious people articulate those problems using metaphorical myths that they expect people to take literally. And of course, in taking them literally, the religious themselves very much miss the point and end up exacerbating the guilt and shame from which their religion was designed to liberate everyone.

Religious irrationalism will not be eliminated until there is a secular way of bringing about the religious experiences that can relieve the internal conflicts that so many people have. Scientologists think L Ron Hubbard formulated one, but that's a whole other story altogether.

Senate Reconciliation

2009-11-26T08:38:00.001-08:00

I didn't realize, until today, that there was a way to prevent a Senate filibuster. Apparently, if you go into reconciliation, you can "limit debate" which I guess overrides the rule that says nobody can vote until everyone has said what they want to say. If you can tell people to sit down and shut up, they can't keep talking to prevent the vote.

But they say Harry Reid won't go for it. He's still trying to get 60 votes despite the fact that, like, four senators refuse to pass the bill with the public option and a few others won't pass it unless it does have the public option.

This Boring Decade

2009-11-25T09:50:00.000-08:00

The thing I miss most about the 90s is that kids listened to music that scared the shit out of their parents. Maybe there wasn't much going on that was all that subversive, but at least the squares thought something scary was going on.

Nowadays, what are parents afraid their kids are doing? The biggest squares are the ones afraid of the government, and the scariest thing one of their kids could do is support the establishment. Is this what we've come to? Were's the moral panic? What concerts are being protested by Christians these days? Have they all just become too jaded?

Why Cities Are Greener

2009-11-24T09:53:00.001-08:00

A lot of environmentalists have a very knee jerk objection to cities. They see that they are more distant from nature than rural communities and conclude from this that they must be unnatural and hence unhealthy for people and the environment. That cities keep people separate from nature, however, is precisely why they are good for the natural environment.

Here's a great article about cities and their environmental impact.

These are my favorite quotes:
"To most people, big, densely-populated cities look like ecological nightmares, wastelands of concrete and garbage and diesel fumes and traffic jams. But, compared to other inhabited places, cities are models of environmental responsibility. By the most significant measures, the greenest community in the United States is New York City, the only American city that approaches environmental standards set elsewhere in the world."

"Moving people closer together reduces the distances between their daily destinations and limits their opportunities for reckless consumption, as well as forcing the majority to live in some of the most inherently energy-efficient residential structures in the world: apartment buildings."

"New York’s highly concentrated population and comprehensive public transit system enable the majority of residents to live without owning automobiles, an unthinkable deprivation almost anywhere else in the US. Some 82% of employed Manhattanites travel to work by public transit, bicycle, or on foot. That’s 10 times the rate for Americans in general, eight times the rate for workers in Los Angeles County, and 16 times the rate for residents of metropolitan Atlanta."

If you think it's easy to get around without a car in any other city, keep in mind that even David Suzuki owns a car.

"I spoke with one energy expert, who, when I asked him to explain why per-capita energy consumption was so much lower in Europe than in the US, said, 'It’s not a secret, and it’s not the result of some miraculous technological breakthrough. It’s because Europeans are more likely to live in dense cities and less likely to own cars.'"

"Urban families live more compactly, do less damage to fragile ecosystems, burn less fuel, enjoy stronger social ties to larger numbers of people, and, most significantly, produce fewer children, since large families have less economic utility in densely settled areas than they do in marginal agricultural areas."

A Word on Rationing

2009-11-23T13:05:00.000-08:00

Here's a blog that thinks it has found proof that the House health care bill will end up rationing care. Here's the quote it cites:

"If the Secretary estimates for any fiscal year that the aggregate amounts available for payment of expenses of the high-risk pool will be less than the amount of the expenses, the Secretary shall make such adjustments as are necessary to eliminate such deficit including reducing benefits, increasing premiums or establishing wait lists. [emphasis added]"

Wow, so if the publicly run health insurance company can't collect enough in premiums to pay for its expenses, it will reduce benefits, increase premiums or establish wait lists. In other words, with the exception of wait lists, it will do exactly what every private insurance company does when dealing with the same problem. The horror.

No matter what system you have not everybody is going to get all the care that they need and you'll have to prioritize. You can do this by triaging people according to need and first come first serve or you can give the most and best care to those who have the most money. If prioritizing based on need is "rationing", than I would gladly have my health care rationed. The above quoted section, however, is not rationing. It's a way of handling costs that's pretty much identical to how private companies handle costs, yet you never hear anyone calling the HMO actuarial deliberations "death panels" do you?

The Power of Negative Thinking

2009-11-22T20:27:00.000-08:00

Writing a self help book is an easy way of making a few bucks, especially if you're a charismatic writer. You don't really need to make sense. Just don't make things too complicated. Oh, and tell people they can use magic to get what they want. Chicks dig it when you tell them you can teach them how to do magic. And that's why The Secret is popular. But even before The Secret there was this law of attraction bullshit, and The Secret seems to be based largely on that.

The gist of the law of attraction is that when you think of shit, it happens. So if you think about bad things, you're making them happen and if you think happy thoughts they come true too. And in The Secret, they tried to say this is all about quantum physics, which of course is a convenient way of giving yourself credibility by referencing something scientific that people are too lazy to look into and too stupid to figure out if they ever try to look into it.

So, yeah, in a nutshell, the really hocus pocus self help stuff is pretty much garbage, but there are some psychological principles behind them that are worth understanding. While you don't "send out waves to the universe that make your thoughts into reality", pessimism does encourage procrastination and discourages effort. You don't need quantum physics to explain that. Every day experience makes that pretty clear. Positive thinking doesn't necessarily ensure that you'll get what you want out of life, but if you're more confident than your actual abilities warrant, and you're good at making others have the same irrational confidence in you, you're going to be more successful than someone who is more talented but less "unrealistic". It's a sad truth, and it's why Michael Bay gets to keep making movies. As long as you're not doing things that are obviously insane, foolish or dangerous, having a bit more confidence than your abilities than your abilities really warrant is an advantage more often than not.

The main thing to remember is that negative thinking will weigh you down more than positive thinking will help you out.

Palin and the Republican Nomination

2009-11-21T03:41:00.000-08:00

I really, sincerely hope that Sarah Palin runs for president and gets the Republican nomination. Can you imagine Sarah Palin in a debate with Obama? Even she is coached enough to be able to give a bunch of canned answers, it's unlikely that she'll be able to spit those out without fucking them up, like she did in this interview with Sean Hannity.

Sadly, I don't think she'll hold her own in a debate with Mitt Romney either, and doubt she'll get the nomination unless a bunch of bible bangers who don't like Mormons come out in favor of her candidacy.

Popular Support for Gay Marriage

2009-11-20T05:23:00.000-08:00

While the setbacks in Maine and California may be disheartening, and the conservatives believe that the 37 popular referenda that have all banned gay marriage are proof that people don't really want gay marriage, or that the trend is moving away from further gay rights in the United States. I feel confident, however, that there's really no reason to panic. If you look at the demographics of who votes for and against gay marriage, it's clear that the people pushing against it are old, decrepit and will all be dead soon. I would go so far as to say that there will be a popular referendum ratifying gay marriage in one or more states within the next ten years, perhaps even the next five.

Here's a chart outlining support for gay marriage broken down by state and age demographic:

Is it possible that all these misguided youngsters could grow up to hate fags just like their grandparents do? Sure, but how many people who grew up favoring civil rights for blacks in a climate that was largely against it eventually grew up to be bigots?

Fact Checkers

2009-11-20T05:16:00.001-08:00

Some conservatives are all butt-hurt because the AP sent 11 people to fact check Sarah Palin's new book. Apparently a potential presidential candidate is not worthy being scrutinized. 'Cause it's not like conservative journalists went after everything that came out of Obama's mouth from the moment people started speculating that he would run for president, amirite?

Eric Holder's "Conflict of Interest"

2009-11-19T07:16:00.001-08:00

Michelle Malkin says that Eric Holder is an example of the "culture of corruption" due to the fact that he's "senior partner with Covington & Burling — the prestigious Washington, D.C. law firm, which represents 17 Yemenis currently held at Gitmo," and is therefore in a conflict of interest.

First of all, the very first sentence of her blog entry is a lie. He's not a partner C&B. He hasn't been since he became Attorney General. And if the fact that he used to work for C&B makes it a conflict of interest, than the fact that Dick Cheney used to work for Halliburton makes his appointment of that company to run Iraq's oil industry is also a conflict of interest.

Clinton in Afghanistan

2009-11-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

When there was suspicion of widespread corruption and fraud in the last Afghani election, the consensus seemed to be that, if Karzai does not acknowledge that the election was obviously fraudlent, the Obama administration should withdraw its support. In a sense we got what we wanted; Karzai agreed to a run off election. However, the guy running against him in that election made a few (very reasonable) demands about reforming the election process and throwing out some of the guys who oversaw the elections. When his demands were not met, he withdrew from the race and Karzai was declared the winner.

So while Karzai did, technically, agree to a run off, he set it up in such a way as to prevent anyone running against him from winning, and his opponent, recognizing that, withdrew, and now he's somehow considered a legitimately elected leader. Legitimate enough, at least, to deserve a visit from the Secretary of State at his inauguration.

Now, while I think, at this stage, trying to set up a functioning democracy in Afghanistan is a futile effort, the Obama administration should not be pretending that this is what their goal is, when their goal is obviously just a reasonable degree of stability. Afghanistan is not a democracy, and will not be until they develop a working civil society. They won't develop that until they have a reasonable amount of physical and economic security. So let's drop the pretense, not bother with continued fraudlunet elections for now, and do what needs to be done to lift the people of Afghanistan up to a decent standard of living.

When people have comfort, stability and security, they are more likely to demand and practice democracy.

Heh

2009-11-17T18:27:00.001-08:00

Stephen Colbert just reminded me of how conservatives didn't complain when Bush was holding hands and walking through the rose garden with the Saudi prince. Apparently bowing to Al Saud is groveling, but having a quasi-homoerotic experience with him is just fine.

Bowgate

2009-11-17T09:15:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, some people pointed out the hypocrisy of conservatives who criticized Obama for bowing to the Saudi prince, while, around the same time, also criticizing Michelle Obama for breaching protocol by hugging Queen Elizabeth. They can't seem to make up their mind about whether the POTUS is supposed to show respect for all the silly little formalities that people commonly go through when they meet with a monarch or not.

The reason for this seems obvious to me. They don't really care about proper protocol. They just want a reason to find fault with Obama.

The people who really hate him, and think that he hates America, see this as further evidence of his contempt for his own country. They see the bowing as an expression of how he sees non-western governments as superior to western ones.

I personally don't think he should have bowed to anyone. I also don't think people should be so upset about Michelle Obama hugging the Queen. Why? Not because I think it shows disrespect for the US, but rather because it looks like pandering to these foreign leaders. He comes off to me as someone who is not trying to show respect, but as someone who is patronizing them. Now, I don't really think that Obama intends to patronize these leaders, but when he tries to behave according to customs he doesn't really seem to understand, he is embarrassing himself AND the leaders to whom he is trying to show respect.

KSM

2009-11-17T06:44:00.000-08:00

Could it be more appropriate to KSM in a military tribunal rather than a civilian court? Perhaps. It is very possible that some of the intelligence that was gathered is sensitive information from sensitive sources that should probably be kept under wraps.

Still, one way or another, this guy has to be tried. The US afforded even the Nazis a fair trial. If the US wants anybody to believe they are carrying out the war on terror in a way even remotely resembling justice, they need to try the people they capture.

As for the fact that he's being tried in New York, what's the problem? Are they worried that he's going to escape and tear down the Empire State Building with his bare hands? Some people are concerned about other Guantanamo detainees being brought to the US because they will attract supporters who will try to break them out of prison, but Zacarias Moussaoui has been in a prison in Colorado for years, and nobody's tried to break him out. He hasn't put the community around the prison in any greater danger than any of the other inmates of that prison.

A Moderate View of Health Care

2009-11-16T09:05:00.001-08:00

As a Canadian, I greatly appreciate that I don't have to worry about going bankrupt paying for medical bills. I think it is in everyone's best interest to have a system in which there is a public source of funds for medical treatment, as it is in everyone's best interest that there be publicly funded education. Everyone gains an advantage from living amongst literate people, and everyone should enjoy the advantage of living amongst healthy people.

That being said, a single payer health care system that does not allow individuals to pay for quicker access is not the best way to tackle the issue. While there are reasonable criticisms of a two tier system, I believe that it is very possible to come up with a way of allowing private health care and taxing it that funnels extra money into the public system, making those who rely on it better off than they would if everybody waited in the same line in the public system rather than draining the public system of the best equipment and doctors.

The threat to the public system is not, however, the only criticism of a two tier system in Canada. People who are opposed to it, are also adverse to the idea of a rich person being able to get better or faster care than a poorer person, even if you could work out a way to improve the care the poorer person would eventually get. It is not unreasonable to ask, "why does a person with more money deserve better or faster care?" A wealthier person is not more deserving of care than a poor person, so I can understand why they would find this repugnant. Nonetheless, I see it a different way.

My question is, why should the public be paying for the health care of Irving family? They're billionaires, but if they get treated in Canada, some of the tax dollars of a person barely above the poverty line goes to pay for that. How is that fair? Why should we have to pay for the health care of those who are perfectly capable of paying for it on their own, especially if we could tax their treatment in a way that adds extra revenue to the treatment the rest of us would get?

The Evolutionary Double Standard

2009-11-16T08:54:00.000-08:00

A common criticism of possible or proposed genetic experiments, especially those involving humans, is that many attempts to improve the human genome may result in error, or that we may fuck it up and end up creating human beings worse off than if we had not altered their genes. But how does evolution happen? What is the "natural" process by which organisms adapt to their environments. Trial and error. The "natural" process is not guided at all. There are countless random mutations in random organisms, most of which make no difference or turn out to be harmful to the organism, and sometimes an organism gets lucky and ends up with a gene that gives it an advantage.

Is this how we want to continue to change and adapt to our environment? The "natural" way? A way in which we have to suffer through who knows how many horrid and grotesque mutations until we get lucky and end up with a few beneficial mutations every several generations? Is that really the more humane way to proceed as a species?

Sure, we may make mistakes as we try to guide our own evolution, but at least we'll be pushing it in the direction we want, and changes will be changes we design into ourselves. We will not be randomly rolling the genetic dice and hoping something good comes of it. To continue to subject humanity to that process doesn't sound very humane to me.

Mama T

2009-09-10T17:16:00.000-07:00

I just found this great video Christopher Hitchens did about Mother Theresa. Fabulous stuff.

It's amazing how this chick was praised by just about every person who had ever heard about her, when all she did was herd a bunch of dying homeless people into some dumpy old ruin full of cots and proselytized to them until they kicked the bucket. I'll bet most people thought she actually did something to help the sick and dying like providing them with medical treatment, when in fact she did no such thing. Given the millions of dollars she was given by charities and wealthy individuals, she could have filled at least one of those nasty old shacks she "worked" at in the slums of Calcutta with doctors, but did she? No. She used the money to build convents.

Obama's Speech

2009-09-10T16:27:00.000-07:00

It seemed to me (although others dispute this) that Obama made it pretty clear that he was still going for a public option. Which I think is good news. The only thing that did sound kind of scary is the part about health coverage being mandatory like car insurance. Now, this makes sense if there is a public option. It means more people paying into that program. Without a public option, that could mean trouble.

About the guy who shouted "liar" during the part when Obama said the program would not cover illegals, well, officially it will not cover illegals, so calling Obama a liar is pretty stupid. The trouble is that when applying for the program, some would like more rigorous steps to be taken to identify the immigration status of the applicant. Now, I don't know how easy it would be for an illegal immigrant to sneak through the application process, as it is currently formulated, but I doubt it's just that simple to sign up without showing some kind of citizenship or landed immigrant status. Even if it were that easy, how hard could this possibly be to fix?

Japanese Election

2009-09-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

The Japanese have elected a new party to power for the first time in about 50 years and it looks like the most striking difference is their foreign policy. The New York Times says that the party sees a "need to reorient Japan toward Asia" and that they may even come to terms with Japanese history. A significant obstacle to closer relations with China is Japan's long-standing refusal to make any satisfactory apologies for war crimes committed during their occupation of mainland Asia during WWII. This new party "seeks to reverse Japan’s growing isolation in the region under decades of right-wing Liberal Democratic rule."

Another trend that has stood since the end of the war is Japan's near total reliance on the US for its security. At first this was because the Japanese constitution forbids them to have a military, but after a while the US realized that in order for Japan to be an effective ally, they needed to have some kind of defense forces at least, so that's all they've had (although they were deployed in the Iraq War for a time, pushing the concept of self-defense). This is supposedly a more left wing party, so it's hard to imagine that they would expand their military in order to be more self-reliant, so that may mean they have to get closer to China. The obvious advantage to this is there may be a significant thaw in Sino-Japanese relations. On the downside, this may come at price of further marginalization of Taiwan.