Archive - 2004

I just read Nick Coleman's piece from the other day about the Powerline Blog. I read powerline blog every now and then because it is interesting to see what these folks are up to. They seem to be on the cutting edge of modern conservatism - or at least they and their fans think so. I really can't stand their tone of writing though. They seem to believe that they alone have a direct line to the truth of every matter and that everyone else is either incompetent or evil. I don't know how to describe it really - only to say that out of the many blogs I read which I disagree with, this is really the only one that leaves me with a foul taste in my mouth.

It strikes me that if you want to participate in an open society in which at least some decisions are open to the public, then you have to respect the opinion of others. My opinions now are not what they were yesterday. A few of them have changed ever so slightly. Does that mean I was wrong yesterday? Am I wrong right now compared to how I will feel tomorrow? I know that I am not the only one who changes his mind. What is the big deal with admitting it?

In an open society, you have to cherish the right to discourse and open yourself to competing viewpoints. If you come off as being totally arrogant, few will listen to you and you will be marginalized. Which to be honest, can be nice. We have an underdog tradition. There are perks to being the underdog ... such as second guessing everyone else and never having to really advance ideas will be taken seriously.

The tone of the folks at powerline blog is one that annoys me. It suggests they know everything and anyone who disagrees is both stupid and dangerous. I hope that my blog does not create a similiar environment ... sitting by oneself and writing on a computer makes one bold. Too bold most of the time.

I guess that is why I like having people comment on my site - a reason why I keep comments open (thank god the spammers haven't found me yet). Those who comment help to keep me honest.

People who know everything have nothing to offer in a democratic system.

Continuing my recent theme of Mother Nature is gonna get you: it appears that the U.S. East Coast may have something to fear although probably not. There is a possibility of a massive tsunami wiping out the Eastern seaboard at some point in the next thousand years. Roll those die!

Having seen first hand the devastation of the Red River Valley following the floods in ... was it '97? '96? ... I know the power of water and how quickly people can go from self-sufficient to needing handouts. This is one area in which I think the government does a good job. It could do better, duh. But it does a decent job and people can get some relief. This should not encourage people to live in flood plains and such but when the unexpected happens, I don't think watching people starve to death is a good "I told you so" either.

Currently in Indonesia, many people are suffering and from what I can tell Bush has thus far pledged $35 million, an aircraft carrior (go Lincoln), and a marine force to help with relief efforts. This is not nothing - but honestly, for a country like the United States with the most dire need to show that it honestly doesn't hate Muslims, it can do better. This is a great opportunity for the United States to step up disaster relief efforts which would also help heal the rift between Muslims and the United States.

Of course, the U.S. is overcommitted in Iraq and speeding back into debt which makes disaster relief more difficult to come by. Then there is the simple fact that the United States really does have some serious issues ... there are many people in this country (and they are all either Republicans or to the right of Republicans) who want to see the United States be officially Christian or at the very least, endorse Christianity over other religions (due to what they claim if the Founding Fathers' preference for Christianity which is a whole other issue). This is not to say that the majority of either Christians or Republicans feel this way - but those who do feel this way are overwhelmingly Republican ... do you understand the distinction?

The reason that I bring this up is because while Bush never misses an opportunity to say that he is at war against a faction of Islam and not the faith which sustains a billion earthlings, his actions are not nearly as clear as is his rhetoric. I would like to see that change, but I believe there are far too many people in the government and civil society (R's more than D's, but the D's are bad about it also) who fully understand that Christian wackos who kill doctors do not embody the Christianity in which most Christians believe. Yet they believe that the actions of militant fundamentalist Muslims somehow represent the beliefs of all Muslims.

This brings me to some of the interesting factoids in The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria. On page 126, he is discussing Islam and its perception in the world.

The trouble with thundering declarations about 'Islam's nature' is that Islam, like any religion, is not what books make it but what people make it ... the most populous Muslim country in the world, Indonesia has had a secular government since its independence in 1949 ... As for Islam's compatibility with capitalism, Indonesia was until recently the World Bank's model Third World country, having liberalized its economy and grown at 7 percent a year for almost three decades ... After Indonesia, the three largest Muslim populations in the world are in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India ... Not only have these countries had much experience with democracy, all three have elected women as prime minister, and they did so well before most Western countries.

... If there is a fundamental incompatibility between Islam and democracy, 800 million Muslims seem unaware of it.

I'm sitting on my couch watching the end of BioDome on TV with my roommate. Pauly Shore. Starting to wrap up an interesting day. Worked at the bookstore and got called a prick by a lady that thinks she can use our over-crowded parking lot while working her job at the bar next store. I had the temerity to ask her to move her car. I suppose it would have been less rude to just tow it. I'm sick and tired of people assuming that because they chose to drive somewhere, they have a right to a parking spot. Take the damn bus. Do not drive someplace and then park illegally when you cannot find an inconvenient spot. You are not the only person on this planet.

I'm done being negative. Good things happened recently. I just finished wrapping up 4 care packages for soldiers - my co-worker G and I have been collecting some books from the store to send to soldiers. We contact people from booksforsoldiers.com and find people who want common books that we often recycle - popular authors in pocket paperbacks generally.

It looks like the earth will not experience regional devastation from asteroid 2004 MN4 on April 13, 2029 as I previously discussed. The chances are now quite small.

In one of my last posts, I condemned the Iraqi insurgents who have been targetting Iraqi civilians. Given the high number of Iraqi civilian casualties as a result of insurgent attacks, I was dumfounded to read an article from the LA Weekly this morning by Nancy Youssef of Knight Ridder which says that U.S. forces and the Iraqi police have killed twice as many Iraqis as the insurgents. Wow. The supposedly liberal biased media has done a poor job of reporting that. I do not use this as evidence that the media is biased in a conservative direction. More importantly than any supposed bias is the simple fact that the media does not do much of anything helpful for democracy - it excels at making money for its owners instead.

In other news, Reggie White died today. Reggie White, the Minister of Defense and former Eagle, was an interesting guy. I was always inspired by his sportsmanship and love of the game. I continue to believe that he was a great athlete and role model for young athletes. He did show his ignorance by making a few racist statements about Asians and by encouraging others to adopt his homophobic beliefs. These issues are complicated - and while I condemn his beliefs against gays, I will miss him. In many ways, he embodied the best of what we should expect from our athlete/heroes. The fact that making professional athletes into heroes is stupid doesn't enter into the fact that they are. And so long as they are, people like Reggie White have done a fairly good job.

An update on the 2004 MN4 asteroid which may strike the earth on April 13, 2029: the current calculations suggest a 2.4% chance of collision. This is a level 4 on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale which would mean regional devastation if it hits. The asteroid is 380 meters across and would not cause global devastation if it impacts. However, it is larger than the one which hit Siberia in 1908 and flattened thousands of square miles of forest.

So it would appear that the actions of the Bush Administration in Iraq have actually made celebrating Christmas harder for Christians in Iraq. Juan Cole offers interesting observations about the situation.

I write this at about one hour to Christmas, geek time (that means counting midnight as the new day). I'm listening to Martin Devaney's latest album and relaxing after a really fun, relaxing day. My friends Lisa, Russ, and Russ' family joined my family for a day of football (sorry Tice, you still suck), food, and games. Played some Cranium and Apples to Apples. Good games.

It was the first time our families had met and we had some fun times, sharing old stories with a new audience. Very nice. We came to the conclusion that although Favre is a very good quarterback, he is not the best all time even though every announcer on the planet seems to think so.

I logged in to the computer tonight and the first story I read was this one announcing a possible asteroid striking earth in the next 30 years. Interesting. I hope Bruce Willis will still be alive if it looks like it will hit us because he can stop things like that at the last second. Best response in the thread of the above link: a suggestion that the only bomb large enough to stop it would be if Ben Affleck and J-Lo make another movie. Ouch.

I become more concerned on a daily basis that the people prosecuting the war in Iraq (from the U.S. side) are totally oblivious to how poorly the U.S. is faring. They keep saying things like if we just do this, then the insurgents will fade away. They are not going to. I hate saying things like that without offering some course of action that will solve the problem. I'm a problem-solver.

I originally refused to protest this war because I felt that for as bad a President and corrupt his Administration was, that Bush could not make the situation in Iraq worse. I was wrong. The original problem we faced with Iraq was that we were strangling it economically but not impacting Hussein (or so everyone thought). It turns out that the sanctions and inspections were working, but no one noticed. Regardless, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis - mainly the children and elderly - died as a result of the sanctions. Without Hussein dying, the U.S. was never going to change policy toward Iraq. That worked well in Cuba. Ha. So I thought...sure...invade. Take it over, kill some innocents, set up a puppet gov. It would be bad, but certainly not as bad as Hussein and sanctions. Wrong.

Now Rumsfeld says that we cannot leave because the terrorists who cut off hostages head on TV will take over. He has a point. A better point would be that he has totally bungled the occupation which resulted in a large insurgency which has now totally derailed any of Iraq's chances for a brighter future.

Point: Not all the insurgents are terrorists. Most of the insurgents are simply rebelling against an occupational power which has proven to be both inept and corrupt. Then there are the few who collaborate with al-Quaeda and saw the heads off of hostages. That being said, it seems as though most of the insurgency operates with little regard for the lives of their fellow Iraqis - operating without irony on par with President Bush's line: You are either with us or against us. I find this to be inexcusable. I have supported both successful and failed insurgencies in the past. Those who indiscriminately kill their fellow citizens as part of an effort to get at the occupation tend to succeed only at creating more problems.

These people are attacking U.S. troops - the occupational power. I don't like to see this because I do support our troops. In fact, I have sent a few care packages of books when I am able. That being said, I do believe in the international law concepts that say people under an occupational power have the right to rebel against that power. So I am torn. I sure as hell don't want to see more U.S. troops die. For each one that dies, I grow more frustated with the Washington Administration which does nothing to create a better situation.

The simple fact is that you cannot end an insurgency while the locals loathe you. U.S. policies in Iraq have created more terrorists than it has taken out of action. This should give pause, but the administration is far too righteous to listen to the body count or ... well, logic. The only positive endgame I can envision is for the U.S. to take a herculean effort to improve the lives of Iraqis. This would mean increasing the U.S. soldiers presence there - a policy that is not guaranteed to work but will increase the number of U.S. casualties - and sending in many engineers whose lives would be in great danger.

Improving the quality of life there will not strangle the insurgency, but it will lessen it. Those who saw the heads off of hostages will remain - but with considerably less support. They are extremists whose visions only appeal to a desperate populace. Of course, the current Washington Administration will not follow this course of action because they do not think outside of their no-bid contract box. Especially when they appear to not even recognize the obvious problem in front of them now. I hold out hope that they are secretly aware of how bad the situation is there, but I'm afraid that they truly believe we are about to win. The tide is turning right?

It looks like some of the Iraq insurgents wanted to see Bush re-elected. I don't really find that surprising given what Bush has done thus far. In other totally unsurprising news, returning residents of Falluja are unhappy that the U.S. destroyed Falluja (in order to save it, of course). Some U.S. families of soldiers who died in the Falluja fight have raised $600,000 for the Iraqi Fallujans who have suffered at the hands of both insurgents and the campaign to drive them out.

What a topic for Christmas. What can I say - these are the things I think about. Even on Christmas.

Yesterday morning started off normally enough. Got up, walked to the corner grocery for some milk and ran into my upstairs neighbor from our 4 unit apt building. He said Phylis, my neighbor next door, has not been getting her papers and her radio has been left on. This is odd because she always lets Walchka and I know before leaving on vacations and is very good about stopping mail and paper while gone. She is an older lady, so we were concerned. I tried to get in, but while her door was ajar, the screen door was locked. I looked in several of the windows but couldn't see anything.

So, being on better terms with the landlord than the upstairs neighbor, I called and left him a message stating our concerns. I later got in touch with him and found that someone had been able to get in and she had passed away. Phylis was one of the best neighbors I have ever had. Having a love of gambling, she always had quarters we could borrow for laundry. She even slipped notes under our door when it was a snow emergency - which Walchka appreciated more than I since they tow cars but not bicycles. She would also help people who couldn't figure out how to walk around the building to get to our apt entrance. I will definitely miss having her around here.

The interesting thing is that while she and the upstairs neighbor never had a nice word about each other, when he became concerned about her health, he would often check on her. He would collect her papers and put them by the door and be genuinely concerned. I don't know if this phenomenon is disappearing or not. I like to think that while I do not like certain people that I would still help them in a time of need. I like to think that because I do act that way - it is very important to me. There should be some things that tie us together as humans, beyond politics and disagreements.

There are times today when I hear people talking about others - be it lefties talking about right wingers or right wingers talking about the French or whatever, when I wonder if they are so jaded that they have stopped seeing the humanity in others? Even if you really dislike someone, I think it is important to realize that they are capable of doing both good and bad. This is something I learned while in Jerusalem at a hotel which I shared with a number of Californian Russian Orthodox monks. Yeah, really.

Each one of us has the capacity to do all the evil in the world and all the good. The fact that these words are relative doesn't change that. We are free agents who can be destructive or constructive (or both at the same time). Before any one of us can make the world a better place, I think we have to come to grips with that. Once you understand this, you are in a better position to act because you can better appraise your own actions. Being convinced that you are right or good is a sure path to wandering blindly into bad situations. Doubt is not a negative as long as you can keep it from leaving you paralyzed.

In photo news, I have just posted photos from Kate and Ben's wedding which was back in September. Some good shots of a couple of co-workers, and some turtles.

One other thing - I have 6 more gmail invites if anyone would like to get in early to google's new email system. It has great spam catching. Drop me a line if interested.

There I go taking another stand. Some interesting torture related stories today regarding U.S. military interrogators. Sigh. Torture is not a good idea - even ignoring the obvious moral qualms a free society should have with torture, it is just not a good idea pragmatically. The information you may get is not trustworthy and it encourages your enemies to up the ante and become more brutal. No one wins. This lesson is apparently less than obvious to several people in the U.S. military.

A judge's ruling will prevent the U.S. Gov from denying CIA docs to the ACLU regarding the allegations of torture in Iraq and Cuba. In a related story, the L.A. Times reported some additional forms of torture that have been used against Arab detainees: wrapping them in the Israeli flag. Way to be creative folks.

Browsing the web tonight reminded me of one of my pet peeves: the use of childish names to insult famous folks. The first example that comes to mind is progressives who think it is somehow helpful to call Bush Shrub, or Commander in Thief, or a million othing things. While a select few of these might be creative, the vast majority are just stupid.

They do not help to remove Bush from office - if that is the goal of these games. I think some might defend it as being a way to dishonor a person who does not deserve respect (in their opinion). I truly wonder if hearing Bush called the Resident of the United States will sway anyone's opinion - further, if that person is so easily swayed - do you want them representing your point of view to other people? Not likely.

It goes without saying that this adult childishness is used by the right wing as well. The most obvious example in my mind is the trend since Bush the elder of deliberately mispronouncing the name of Saddam Hussein. It is not Sa-Damn as so many say it (I believe that is actually an insult) but rather Sah-Dom ... it is hard to write the appropriate pronounciation as the d's are pronounced with an arabic accent that is not commonly found in english. At any rate, if you are being paid to talk about people on TV or the radio, you certainly should be capable of correctly pronouncing the names of the people you are discussing. From what I can tell though, only public radio cares enough to actually sound like they know what they are talking about.

So thinking back, the above seems too petty to bother writing about, but then, it is. If you disagree with Bush and want to show disrespect, then stop paying your taxes. Calling him names is just lame. If you are talking to someone who does not already hate Bush, and you start calling him juvenile names, they are going to be less likely to listen to you because you will sound more childish than knowledgeable.

In a similar vein, hobby scholars of the middle east like I are going to continue laughing at people who think they can understand what is going on in the Middle East without even having picked up the proper way of referring to it.

Chuck, my favorite anarchist librarian, offers some insightful commentary on the whole issue of Fox News' coverage of "Christmas under Siege."

The Eagles just lost T.O. and with him a bunch of morale. Does morale come in bunches? The Eagles are clearly still capable of winning it all. But it will be much harder. McNab has been scrambling a lot less this season, but after T.O. left the game, McNab looked like his old self ... taking the ball down the field himself when he couldn't find a receiver.

Last night we had our Christmas party from Half Price Books. Good times. One of our most loyal customers came by and I got a chance to talk to him for a long time. He brags that he has never had a job that allowed him to sit down - he's a manual labor kinda guy. The reason I mention this is that he offered an interesting observation about the whole armored humvee fiasco.

He pointed out that our industrial base during World War II allowed the United States to rapidly build up an effective war machine. However, in the age of profit-making out-sourcing, do we have the ability to do things like rapidly upgrading the armor on vehicles. I have long assumed that it was just a matter of money and priorities that has delayed the process. But he pointed out that our shrinking industrial base could be a major factor as well.

In other news, I am going to have to hold a Trivial Pursuit party one of these nights. I had mentioned this to a few people who are all very excited about the prospect. So now I am going to do it - hopefully before the new year.

I recently read the Iraq on the Record: The Bush Administration's Public Statements on Iraq" report which I found out about through my friend's Sky-Tinted Water Blog. It was prepared by the Special Investigations Division of the U.S. House O' Reps Committee on Government Reform ... whatever that is.

The report is quite interesting - and a quick read at 30 repetitive pages. It documents 237 misleading statements by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Powell in 125 public appearances. The statements were judged based on information available at the time to those making the statement - this is n't a report of hindsight gotchas. Some highlights:

• 30 day period with greatest number of misleading statements was right before Congress voted on the Iraq war resolution
• Rice had the fewest public appearances but the most false statements (as opposed to merely misleading)
• Many of the misleading statements were issues where the Bush Administration basically suggested that the intelligence community was unified in its belief of something (like the Aluminum tubes and Nigerian uranium) when there were major differences of opinion.
• They lied, lied, lied, and lied again about how Bush's State of Union Address lies regarding Iraq's attempts to import uranium made it into the speech.

The report contains many direct examples (more available from the database). I would be curious to know how common this is though. Factcheck.org afterall documented stuff like this all year from both campaigns (factcheck continues even though the election is mercifully over). At any rate, I see no reason why the Bush Administration will (or should!) change its policies regarding the low regard in which it hold the truth, given they can get away with saying whatever they want.

I have been trying to be disciplined about running this winter. Last night I went out to REI and bought some cold weather gear in which to run. Thanks Kim for the gift certificate =)

Went running today. -5 degrees ... -17 if you are into wind chill. I have to say that winter running technology is pretty funky. Pretty much all the fabric touching my body wicked moisture. Wearing a fleeze hood. Good time running - about 25 minutes I guess. CD player worked the whole way without freezing.

I wish I could say the same thing about my ears. Frozen. Frostbite. My first time. It sucks. They hurt. Much. Not black skin though, which is nice. But I think they are forming blisters now. Owie. I guess I need to wear something over them under the hood cuz the hood didn't cut it. So it goes.

Yesterday, I posted photos from the Macalester V University of Chicago soccer game this past fall.