Archive - Jun 2005

Or beating women. Yeah - I know, 15% of domestic abuse victims are men. That leaves 85% as women. Mother Jones magazine's current issue deals with domestic violence. I will likely write more when I have more time, but this quote really struck me.

Twenty years ago when the military did its domestic violence training, it was not unusual to call it a "relationship issue" and hand it over to therapists to sort out. Even today, batterers in the military are typically ordered into anger-management classes and couples counseling—both considered largely ineffective by most civilian experts.

"These anger-treatment models are not very successful because this is not an illness, it’s an attitude. It’s about people feeling like they’re entitled to do this to their wives," says attorney Juley Fulcher, who worked on the issue for years at the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. "The day you start seeing these guys go after their commanding officer because they’re pissed off and they can’t control their anger, we’ll rethink our theory," she adds.

Google Earth is one heckuva parlor party app. Last night, Kim, Steff, Nicole, Gabe, and I hung out in Kim's apt having a really good time chatting it up and occasionally looking up stuff on Google Earth. Found Gabe's house in Kenosha and his current apt in Minneapolis (possibly in Uptown, we never did decide).

If you haven't tried it yet, download it and give it a shot. It is basically a 3d model of cities and terrains using satellite photos. Clarity in some areas is amazing. The zooming in and out is quite cool too. It's more fun if you ignore how scary it is to contemplate what the military satellites can do.

I'm hoping the rendering will become faster over time as the servers are not burdened by millions of people trying it out because it is brand new (like me).

The folks at Centerfield and Moderate Republican are blogging against both a timetable for leaving Iraq and the thought of leaving Iraq. I have opposed thoughts of early withdrawal during most of the occupation, but the past several months have changed my mind.

I always like to begin discussions about this by noting that it did not have to be this way. The war (which most people now acknowledge was not necessary) could have ended in an occupation aimed at benefitting Iraqis as well as the region but the Bush Admin decided to go for the Grand Slam of building a perfect Iraq (in the neocon view) while lining the pockets of Halliburton et al and using as few troops as possible with no advance post-war planning. Shockingly it failed and we now find ourselves with no solution in sight.

Well, no politically feasible solution in sight. I suppose if we could find thousands of engineers (in addition to those already there) to go and work at building infrastructure in Iraq while using a true coalition of troops to provide security (while taking significant losses) then perhaps we could talk about winning hearts and minds. But that is unrealistic, even if we had a President that could admit an error - and when was the last time we had one of those?

What we are left with is a bunch of bad options. Let's face it. The Bush Admin messed up and the U.S. presence is only making the situation worse. Talk about the terrorists taking over Iraq ignores the very real possibility that the U.S. presence in Iraq is the only reason terrorists have gained a foothold there. I don't think the Iraqis will welcome Jihadists any longer than they are perceived to be fighting the occupier.

This is not to suggest that the Iraqis will immediately kick out fanatical terrorists upon the end of the occupation, but that will be the desire of most of the people and the semi-functional government. Hell - if we are claiming Afghanistan as a success story, then leaving Iraq now ain't a whole lot different, is it??

The fact is that there are no easy answers but we can be sure of several things.

• Bush has made the world a less safe place by removing Hussein. Ain't that a bitch? Somehow this brutal bastard gets the last laugh. I hope they gas him.
• The American presence in Iraq is very likely causing more problems than it will solve. I choose "will" rather than "can" because with competent leadership in Washington (unlikely regardless of party) who know what would be possible.
• Leaving now could condemn Iraq to increased terrorism activities. It may - but at least we could begin separating the terrorists from the nationalists and the Baathists from both - then we would start to know who forced us from Iraq. And we are pretty sure they don't have WMD ...
• All of this totally ignores the fact that most of us have no idea what the Iraqi government truly wants us to do ... at least I have not heard anything from a reliable source on the matter.

Americans cannot deal with a situation that has no good answers. Before starting this war, Bush had no easy answers with regard to Iraq. Continue starving Iraq with sanctions? No good. Normalize relationships with the Baghdad Butcher? Ha. Engage in a poorly thought out war against the dictator? Tried that and here we are.

These choices are not easy. Removing the troops is hardly a good choice. But given all the problems we are facing, I think it is the least heinous option and will at least solve the problems of our boys getting maimed and killed while the Armed Forces are unable to recruit replacements.

Bring 'em home. The Americans have spoken ... not so much as in polls as in the number of people willing to join up and occupy. We lose. Or rather, Bush lost it for us.

Even those who hated Bush from the start should note that all paths were difficult after 9-11. The fact that Bush chose an exceptionally stupid path among many bad paths doesn't change that. It's a difficult world in which to run an empire.

Good news from a recent Sports Illustrated "Inside the NFL" article ...

Here's why disgruntled wideout Terrell Owens will report to the Eagles before the season starts: TO loves the spotlight, and Philadelphia's first three games are the Monday Night Football kickoff, in Atlanta, his adopted hometown; a home game against his former team, the 49ers; and a home date against the Raiders and Randy Moss, whom Owens fancies himself better than.

As I've said before, I don't think you can compare Owens and Moss. They may both be headcases, but Owens does not have nearly as deleterious an effect on the Eagles as Moss did with the Vikes and TO plays every single play to win.

Looking forward to the kickoff regardless.

Last Wednesday, I went out with Randy n Anna to take some photos of their coed sand volleyball league. Fun stuff - hard to shoot. I hope to try again.

Come July 4, the eyes of science geeks will be trained on the sky - looking for something beyond the fireworks. July 4 is the date picked for NASA probe "Deep Impact" (who says geeks don't follow pop culture) to collide with a comet, hopefully giving scientists greater insights into the nature of comets.

During its final moments, the impactor will take the closet images of comet's surface ever. The kinetic energy that will be released by the collision is estimated to be the equivalent of nearly 5 tons of TNT. However, this will only change the comet's velocity by about 0.0001 millimeters per second (0.014 inches per hour). The collision will not appreciably modify the orbital path of Tempel 1, which poses no threat to Earth now or in the foreseeable future.

The resulting collision between comet and impactor will likely punch a crater, anywhere from the size of a Sport Utility Vehicle to a football stadium, into the comet's nucleus. Before, during and after impact, the flyby spacecraft wil be observing events from a safe distance, imaging the crater formation and resulting ejecta. The flyby will then turn away to protect itself from possible damage from the ejecta.

I am sometimes confused about the mail I receive. I've given money to a number of odd causes - some of which might land me in trouble giving the wording of the PATRIOT Act - and have ended up a number of mailing lists I suppose.

I now find myself being cajoled by the NRA (yeah, the National Rifle Association). This is odd, not because I am an opponent of the 2nd Amendment (I am not, I think it is a lovely amendment in fact - and possibly the main reason we haven't been invaded by those militaristic Canucks of the North) but because I find them a reprehensible, heinous, and generally dishonest organization prone to grander, more irrational fits of passion over political issues than Green Party members. Sorry - that was cruel ... but a little bit funny.

At any rate, we were told that Bush had a mandate (I'll conveniently ignore the fact it was Bush and crew that told us about that mandate) after he won the last election. Republicans have the Executive Branch ... the Legislative Branch ... and will soon have appointed a rather conservative Judicial Branch. The NRA spent some $20 million in 2004 to make sure "the most anti-gun candidate ever" (Kerry) lost.

So what do I find in my mailbox? I will reproduce this verbatim.

Today I'm sending out this "Final Notice" to gun owners and freedom-loving Americans across the country to let you know that time is running out -- unless you act now, your Second Amendment rights are certain to be dismantled and destroyed by anti-gun politicians.

Whoever is coordinating their election donations needs to be fired. From what I can tell, their candidates seem to be winning of late while the NRA becomes more desperate.

Who exactly is dismantling these rights? Well it turns out that "they" have an ambitious strategy.

They are trying to end the sale of guns and ammo forever ... By filing an avalanche of bogus lawsuits against the American firearms industry blaming gun makers for the actions of violent criminal thugs.

I cringe when I think of who this is targeted toward. People around the country (more in certain areas that others) opening this and freaking out because "they" are going to end the sale of ammo FOREVER! Shit! Gotta stock up at Wal-Mart this weekend before the liberals have an ammo-burning party.

This sort of fear mongering is just bloody pathetic. And effective. I wonder how many people decided to send in their money after reading about the treaty which would "place every firearm you own under the thumb of anti-gun U.N. operatives." I'm not making this up. The thumbs of U.N. operatives? Aren't they too busy flying their black helicopters??

Many of these people are probably the same ones who think there is not enough evidence for global warming. Ahh the amazing power of faith.

I have just posted photos from Russ's Morris Dancing Group when they visited Macalester.

Mark Bowden interviews Paul Wolfowitz in the current Atlantic (subscription required). I have long agreed with those who find Wolfowitz a possibly brilliant but definitely deluded man. I change my opinion little on the first page of the interview as it turns out Wolfowitz still believes the insurgency to be the work of brutal Hussein loyalists rather than a hodge-podge of nationalists, jihadists, people just generally pissed at the occupation, and perhaps a sprinkling of the aforementioned loyalists.

Turning to page 2, I find an Wolfowitz making an observation I have long danced around without ever finding a way to put it succinctly.

When a Polish interviewer suggested that his policy was about "exporting democracy," Wolfowitz objected. "'Export of democracy' isn't really a good phrase," he said. "We're trying to remove the shackles on democracy."

Democracy is not a Western invention - I believe all people have wanted more power/control over their own lives perhaps since the beginning of civilization and definitely since the birth of tyranny.

It's odd to get major insights from a person with whom you could not disagree more (although I might be willing to try).

In other "War on Terror" related news, an Italian Judge is looking for some CIA folks who abducted a Muslim as part of the CIA's rendition program. I have discussed this program in the past.

In Iraq, it seems that the CIA now believes Iraq is creating more jihadists than Afghanistan -- and more brutal ones. Duh. I have no doubt we will soon see a book by Regnery Press that explains why Democrats / liberals / Hollywood is to blame.

It seems like each issue of The Atlantic is better than the previous. Fallows has an article in the current issue (subscribers only) which does a better job of explaining the current and future problems of the American economy in easily accessible ways. His explanation of the problems between U.S. / China trade relations simplify the concepts to such an extent, I have to wonder why others complicate it so. Perhaps he has oversimplified, I am in no position to make a judgement on that. Here is a sample:

In normal circumstances economic markets have a way of dealing with families, companies, or countries that chronically overspend. For families or companies that way is bankruptcy. For countries it is a declining currency. By normal economic measures the American public was significantly overspending in the early 2000s. For every $100 worth of products and services it consumed, it produced only about $95 worth within our borders. The other $5 worth came from overseas. Normally an imbalance like this would push the dollar steadily down as foreigners with surplus dollars from selling oil or cars or clothes in America traded them for euros, yuan, or yen. As demand for dollars fell and their value decreased, foreign goods would become more expensive; Americans wouldn't be able to afford as many of them; and ultimately Americans would be forced to live within the nation's means.

He goes on to say that China has gone out of its way to make sure Americans are not forced to live within our means - and explains why. I think this article alone is worth the year's subscription.