November, 2007 archive
Drumbeats 0
Kevin Drum (I know there is a wisecrack in there somewhere, but I haven’t found it yet):
Ratcheting down the “war of civilizations” talk isn’t some magic bullet that will suddenly make the Iranian regime feel secure enough to give up their nuclear program. But it’s one step in that direction, and smart foreign policy is all about putting together lots of little steps and pushing on lots of little levers to get what you want. Obviously this isn’t George Bush’s style — or Dick Cheney’s — but they won’t be in office forever. The question is: what are they going to do in the time they have left?
Via (in a quite roundabout way) Mithras.
And All for a Lie 0
One day this might turn out to be my son.
I certainly hope not.
And it was all for a lie.
Via Will Bunch.
Conversations with God 1
I do not claim to be a Biblical scholar.
My conversations with God tend to rather one-way–my trying to figure out what would be the right thing for me to do, and, frankly, too often making the wrong choice.
I have read the Bible through a few times–not the King James Version (but, then again, God did not spake in Elizabethan English), but, rather, the Jerusalem Bible, which, as far as I am concerned, is the only modern translation to combine facility of language with poetry worthy of the KJV).
Thanks to my Baptist upbringing, I do know the scriptures pretty well. That doesn’t mean I understand them.
There’s the old joke about the pastor who was asked what he thought of his wife. “Well,” he said, “she’s sort of like the King James Bible.” He paused. “She’s beautiful, but I don’t always understand her.”
As I recall, the Bible recognizes that God spoke directly to three persons: Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.
It is noteworthy that the number of white right-wing Christianist clerics who claim that God spoke directly to them within the past five years rivals the number of persons that the Bible reports God spoke directly with in two thousand years of biblical Old Testament history.
Such as Pat Robertson. Or was that Oral Roberts? Or Ted Haggard?
It must be good to be a white right-wing Republican “Christian” and to know that God is on your side.
That way, you do not have to worry about trying to be on God’s side.
Fatigue 0
I was thinking today about why I haven’t been posting all that much.
Part of it, of course, had to do with visits to the E. R.
Part of it had to do with racking up billable hours.
And part of it is just fatigue.
Fatigue with corruption.
And with lies.
And with flip-floppers.
And with buffoons.
And with organized hypocrisy.
And with distortion.
Depravity fatigue.
It’s a NeoCon thing.
New Cell Phone 0
Not much posting lately. Real life has sort of intervened. In the mean time, I’ve been learning about my new phone.
I think it’s all set up.
I’ve added this, and this, and this.
Oh, yeah, and some proper wall paper.
What Digby Said 0
This has been another edition of What Digby Said.
Surf’s Up! 0
Yesterday, when we came home from the hospital, the prescription counter at the local drug store was experiencing Christmas Eve type rush.
So I just fired up Opera Mobile and started surfing the web.
Opera rocks.
The Result of Torture Is Lies 0
(Because persons who will say anything, anything just to make it stop will lie.)
And the result of lies is evil.
ASZ has more.
It’s No Secret 0
was a Jefferson Airplane song.
It’s also the policy of the Current Federal Admnistration.
As regards you and me, that is, not as regards their own conduct.
Learn more at Senator Dodd’s site.
Strike! 0
The Writer’s Guild of America is on strike.
Frankly, I think they have cause. Their employers are denying them revenues from electronic versions of the shows that they have written.
But let us look at the larger picture.
While my girlfriend was in the hospital, we looked at the hospital television (full cable). That reminded us why our television life consists of Law and Order, CSI, and M*A*S*H reruns and Forensics Files.
Gosh! There might be no new television shows.
Aww, shucks!
The Path to Barbarity 0
John McLaughland in the Guardian:
Torture and “humanitarian war” are similar in many ways. Both involve the inflicting of violence in order to force a change of behaviour. Both are predicated on the assumption of guilt: torture is justified because the victim is said to be a terrorist, or an “illegal combatant” who has committed or is about to commit a terrible crime, while pre-emptive war is justified because a state is said to be “a rogue state” violating international law (Iraq) or committing crimes against humanity (Yugoslavia). It is therefore no coincidence that the US administration that justifies its wars in the name of claims about humanity and its right to liberty also advocates the use of torture to protect these.
Think about it:
Your tax dollars at work.
I’m in the Show Notes (Geek Alert) 2
Last week, Todd asked his listeners to tell him how many computers they have.
I sent him this email:
Subject: How many machines do I have in my home?
I have seven.
Actually, I’m quite proud of my little home network:
Webserver (White Box P3 1000 running Slackware 10.1)–it used to be the family computer (surplussed from my previous employer).
File server (IBM PC 300 running Slackware 12.0)–it used to be the webserver. (Gift from someone shutting down a business rebuilding and reselling computers surplussed by a nearby university–he would buy them for $5 and resell them for $50).
My laptop (Dell Inspiron 6000 running Slackware 12.0)–this is my primary machine (bought new from Dell almost four years ago).
Family computer (Dell P4 desktop running WinXP) (this one I actually bought, second hand, from a local shop).
Son’s laptop (Dell Dimension Centrino running XP) (second hand from the
same shop).SOSO’s computer (Dell Inspiron running XP) (wireless).
My work computer (belongs to my employer) (Acer laptop running XP)
(wireless).Oh, yeah, and there’s also an XBox on the network.
There is a diagram of my network here:
http://www.pineviewfarm.net/weblog/?p=1557
I haven’t listened to today’s show yet, but I made it into the show notes.
Water, Water, Everywhere 0
And all the boards did shrink.
Dana Milbank reports:
“Our nation,” agreed psychiatrist Stephen Xenakis, a retired Army general, “has regarded waterboarding as torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment since the late 19th century.”
Nor did Vann Nath, a survivor of the Khmer Rouge’s Tuol Sleng torture chambers, agree with Cheney’s view that the technique is a “no-brainer.” With a translator, he described it by teleconference from Cambodia: “They would pour the water to the level of the prisoner’s head. The prisoner would have been choked, could not breathe.”
Alternatively, Nath explained: “The prisoner was tied up both hand and leg and laid on his back on a slanted table. His face was covered by a cloth. . . . The interrogator poured water on the face and the prisoner could not have the chance to breath. They started to get convulsions.”
And finally, Nath described: “He would hang upside down into the water tank. When the water was filled up to the nose of the prisoner the prisoner wasn’t able to breathe. . . . After the interrogation finished, they were taken away and shot.”
Another water-torture survivor, Henri Alleg, called in from France. Alleg has written a book about being tortured by the French in Algeria describing how a wooden wedge was put in his mouth and water poured in. He lost consciousness and one of his interrogators “was hitting my stomach with his fist to make me throw out the water I had swallowed.”
“They went on with electricity, burning with torches of paper, and so on,” Alleg explained yesterday. But the waterboarding was bad enough. “For people who have undergone this treatment, the question is how was it possible for it to be used by people who put themselves as a civilized people?” he said.
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
Soooooo . . . . . . ? 1
Bet they still can’t tell us what’s going in that furry little mind.
Political Discourse and Why It’s Off-Course 2
Some thoughts from the Demon Princess(emphasis added):
The question was prescient.
In fact, I now think that our complacence as liberals & our willingness to tolerate the pernicious effect of corporate money in politix as well as our inattention to other matters such as how easy it is otherwise to jerry-rig voting machines, & to jerrymander voting districts, has come back to bite our asses, big time.
Worse, & I hate to even think it, much less say it out loud ~ our high level of tolerance & blind adherence to 18th Century Enlightenment principles, based on calm, rational discussion & belief that if we provide a “marketplace of ideas” and conduct ourselves appropriately, “the truth will out,” and a sort of rational sanity will prevail.
That was before the Neocons snuck up on us, consolidating their power slowly, & now, in the full flower of the Bush years, our own liberal brand of tolerance has allowed the rabid neo-cons to storm us like the radical bunch of Berserkers they are, hell bent on undermining every legal underpinning of democracy here at home and wreaking untold havoc on the rest of the world.
The problem is that the “marketplace of ideas” paradigm only functions well where accurate information is shared in transparent fashion. We’re fed only propaganda, shallow jingoism, lies, distortions & cover-ups, & it’s getting mighty hard to defend our core principles in the face of all that noise.
