WeTheSheeples: Ruminations

It was a rough day

2011-08-06T22:04:00.004-04:00

It was a rough day.

dad woke up and saw that someone else was posting some crap on Facebook about a U.S. military unit that had suffered awful casualties, only it was actually from a year ago, and it followed someone else's posting on Facebook about a bunch of Marines who'd supposedly just been killed that week without getting any credit, except some of the people didn't exist, some had their names spelled wrong and others weren't Marines, and all had been appropriately recognized. This isn't the kind of thing to get wrong, but someone with ill intentions spread this, and it got picked up by people with good intentions, and that just rubs dad the wrong way.

It was a rough day.

And just a few minutes later, news breaks that several dozen American soldiers had been killed in Afghanistan.

It was a rough day.

Not long after, Lil' Genghis woke up and didn't have a very easy morning. Then she wanted to leave the restaurant before lunch arrived, just grumpy and impatient. Then we went to the pharmacy and auto parts store, and she threw one hell of a tantrum in the auto parts store, because she really wanted a $4.59 Superwoman keychain fob, and she wanted it then. dad wound up carrying her out of the store, but still had to go into the pharmacy, which led to more screaming and tantrums as she waited in the car, followed by threats of throwing up on people or pouring water on parents.

It was a rough day.

So we got her home, and she napped, and she woke up and went to a movie -- "Pooh" -- with her good buddy Ethan, then ate some McNuggets and played around on the playground. Then threw another fit because Ethan had to go home with his mommy and get some sleep and time with his mom. Big screaming fit again, because Ethan was leaving and she wanted to spend ALL of her time with him, forever, and she wanted to have a sleepover and she just hadn't gotten enough time with him. (Mind you, she's hanging out with him Sunday, and had already hung out with him Thursday and Friday, so we're looking at at least a four-day streak.)

It was a rough day.

And so mom and dad are wondering if the first week of school wore her out, or she's getting a low-grade bug from one of her new classmates (99.1 degrees), or just what the heck is going on, because she's a sweeter kid than this and we can't explain it.

It was a rough day.

And so Lil' Genghis was supposed to be getting ready for her bath, and dad checked the DOD site to see if any more information on those dozens of soldiers had been released, and finds a new press release. In a completely different incident, a man from Lil' Genghis' town had been killed in Afghanistan. A few more phone calls and e-mails later, dad learned the man, Specialist Mark J. Downer of Warner Robins, Ga., had been a daddy.

It was a rough day.

So dad went in and hugged Lil' Genghis, who wouldn't look away from Woody Woodpecker, and kissed her, and told her he loved her, and left the room to walk the dogs, tears on his face. He came back and with mom did a group hug, loving someone so precious, and so innocent, and so wonderful, and maybe not so very different from another child nearby who just lost innocence.

It was a rough day.

A simpler government?

2008-11-11T20:58:00.000-05:00

I think once Obama takes office, we'll miss the smooth days of the Bush presidency, when we always knew he meant what he said. Like this.

Interesting times

2008-11-05T00:35:00.002-05:00

The votes are still being tabulated, but it's a certainty: The race for president of the United States, between experienced Senator and former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, and tough-prosecutor turned 9/11 stalwart Rudolph Giuliani has finally been decided.

Wait, what? I thought they were supposed to be the candidates. Isn't that what everyone was saying when this race kicked into high gear what, a year ago? Interesting how things change.

One note of irony: John McCain said, in his concession speech, that he will never surrender.

Vote

2008-11-04T11:59:00.001-05:00

please.

Yet another celebrity speaks out

2008-10-15T08:11:00.003-04:00

... but at least this one's funny. Transcript over at JustJared, via FunnyOrDie:

See more Hayden Panettiere videos at Funny or Die

Financial meltdown

2008-10-01T07:57:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I read a commentary on the economy by a professional mistress, and it was actually one of the more insightful and useful views of the financial situations. Today I'm back on Fark and discover a post by a Farker named Geekette that really summarizes what's going on in Congress now:

Our nation is retarded. We continue to buy into these false 'tax breaks' that are actually deferrals while we borrow from other countries what we need to run our government as if we never have to pay it back, then we proceed to spend even more money like a college kid with their first credit card.

You want to fix it? Let's pony up and pay our damn taxes NOW, pay off our debt, and reduce spending on pork. Pork, by the way, is not infrastructure, or health programs or education programs, or other truly necessary programs, but cronyism-induced cash-orgies for industries with the most lobbyist money.

Can we send congress to a few credit-counseling seminars and have them cut up their magic credit cards?

The rest of the discussion is here, on a story that a Fark headline writer neatly summarized: "Senate to amend bailout bill to include a massive tax cut. So we're going to fix the financial problems by increasing our spending and decreasing our revenue. Economics professors slap foreheads, wipe hands on pants"

Palin, revisited

2008-09-14T14:10:00.002-04:00

Two posts in one day -- starting to think this blog is coming alive again.

The New York Times article on Sarah Palin is a must-read for anyone eligible to vote in the November presidential election.

I'm won't try to summarize it, offer links to the many discussions/debates/serieses of rants going online, whatever. Please read it if you can vote.

Why Obama's race got much tougher

2008-09-14T11:56:00.002-04:00

David Paul Kuhn, a Politico writer, has written about 5 reasons why McCain has pulled ahead -- highlighting everything from Palin's ability to make the Republican core excited to the Wal-mart shoppers' opposition to Obama. The last I found particularly interesting -- Kuhn's even using the same political guru in 1992 who helped use the economy as a linchpin to get a Democrat into office against a Republican ... and now a poor economy is being held against the Democrat who's running against a Republican with similar outlooks as the officeholder. It's worth a read -- and a fair bit of thinking.

This race never fails to get more interesting.

Innnteresting

2008-09-11T07:29:00.001-04:00

Is Keith Olbermann right that, among other things, the point of the Republican 9/11 video to honor its victims ... was really about terrorism?

It's the economy, stupid

2008-09-06T10:37:00.003-04:00

So many political choices are made based on economic decisions, and they're rarely informed economic decisions. This year, folks are talking a lot about national security experience ... as if Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld's decades of public service had somehow benefited the country in a way that no amateur could ever dream of.

So I found some interesting economic tidbids, too. Click on each chart for more information.

Hypocritical bastards

2008-09-05T23:17:00.004-04:00

It's sad when it takes a comedian to point out the hypocrisy in staked political claims.

Marrying rich?

2008-08-23T14:58:00.003-04:00

One of the latest mini-"scandals" is that John McCain can't say, off the cuff, how many homes he actually has. Of the roughly 300 people in America, it's a fair bet that maybe 280 million can actually talk or otherwise communicate under their own power, and probably no more than a handful of those 280 million people would ever have the slightest problem telling you, without thinking about the question, just how many homes they own.

Is McCain too rich? Is McCain senile? Is he out of touch? Or is this just a latest smear job of a hard-working guy who means well? Oh, that depends entirely on whom you ask.

The Wall Street Journal offers an introduction to HouseGate.

But it'll be interesting to see how this issue gets spun by both sides -- Obama already has an ad -- but particularly by some of the "conservative" establishment. Glenn Greenwald has sort of a pre-emptive strike going on how another politician was attacked for being such an enthusiastic real estate investor. Will people be jumping to McCain's defense? Will any of the people who levied similar attacks four years ago weigh in on this one?

The potential for high-profile hypocrisy is absolutely stunning on this one. Let's see who crosses the losing line first.

Edit: Oh, boy, did I post entirely too soon. It didn't take long.

Rush Limbaugh, circa 2008:

This house business, this is such a nonstory. The rich elitism now is almost entirely found on the left. From the Jay Rockefellers to the John Kerrys to the Pelosis. I mean Pelosi is a multimillionairess with her husband. She's got all kinds of homes. This business that they're still focusing on McCain on this, just classic, just classic the way the media just pumps this stuff up and tries to make a story out of it to try to help Obama, because it's such a nonstory.

And then there's a different point of view in 2004:

Then John Kerry's daddy is his wives. (laughter) I mean, he's a gigolo. Everybody knows this. There's nobody in our party really has much respect for this guy and you can see it last night, but I can't say that. I mean, you got sugar daddy wife back then. You got sugar daddy wife now. He worked his way up from a blue blood to a platinum American Express card, and it doesn't have his name on it.

So remember, the rich elitist people are only problems when they're rich elitist liberals.

It's amazing that some attacks can stand, like the one about Obama being a celebrity. Guess what? The attack dogs on the right have found a way to portray Obama as a bad guy for being popular and inspirational among potential voters. That there Anonymous Liberal suggested a speech for Obama:

So remember, when John McCain and his surrogates call me a "celebrity," they're not insulting me; they're insulting you. They're insinuating that you are a mindless groupie rather than a concerned citizen, a fan rather than a voter.

Will these attacks and counterattacks work? Perhaps. Time will tell. It's a shame that politics has gotten so in the gutter that the most positive things have become methods of attack, the most potentially inspirational things have been turned into a drawback, a chance to involve more voters is a some sort of horrible fad -- when they're those evil liberals.

Here's to hoping American voters recognize this sorta crap for, well, the crap that it is. Judge candidates on true things -- their ability to organize and lead, their positions on specific issues, their experience, all of that, all the things of substance. But, America, please don't let some slimy misguided attack ad turn good into bad.

Ouch ouch

2008-08-17T12:30:00.002-04:00

It's amazing what amateurs can whip up -- and sometimes, how the simplest things are the best:

Damn

2008-08-03T10:50:00.003-04:00

You can argue about the politics, tactics, training, religion, logistics and anything else that led to this story. It just made me want to say, "Damn."

When politics reality

2008-07-22T20:25:00.001-04:00

A question for consideration: Is McCain getting a free ride on his criticism of Obama with regards to the surge?

The surge came at the same time as a significant change in both tactics and strategy. The previous tactics and strategy had actually been creating insurgents and discontent -- as happens when you sweep up every single fighting-age male and put them in jail without consideration as to whether they're actually guilty, and then treat them as such in subpar prisons without legal representation that would allow them to question their consideration. (See, for example, the book "Fiasco" for how badly this backfired.)

Is violence down in Iraq? Absolutely, and that's to be celebrated and praised. Is it due to the surge or the change in leadership, tactics and strategy? I don't know if that question's been addressed. McCain's attacking Obama as being opposed to the surge, which he was; but McCain also got to say Iraq would be a walkthrough.

Independence

2008-05-16T23:56:00.002-04:00

Presidential hopeful John McCain has outlaid his plan for withdrawing the United States from its addiction of foreign oil. Well, not really a plan.

I think that if we’re dependent on any thing outside the United States of America, it has to, it has to enter into any calculations that we make. I mean if we’re dependent on something from some part of the world, then that has to be part of our calculation that we make. But I, it’s obvious that we are dependent on oil from the Middle East and that is something that we have to become independent of, because it’s very unstable part of the world.

Yeah. No plan. Just some stammering.

Is it useful to quit sucking the foreign oil tit? Damned straight. Is McCain the guy to get us there? Oh, hell no.

Maybe the answer is nuclear power for most power generation, which could free up natural gas for transportation until electric cars become practical.

Or we can try McCain's route, which is some stammering and no plan. Don't worry. Vote for the guy and we'll be in Iraq 100 years, but we won't need to be. And we'll have our own oil. And a pony!

Caught in a bald-faced lie

2008-03-22T23:08:00.001-04:00

A Fark headline writer nailed it:

Video of Hillary's dangerous entry to Bosnia as she escapes sniper bullets. Apparently, the 8-year old reading her poetry on the tarmac failed to notice the hail of gunfire

Checks, please

2008-03-03T00:36:00.002-05:00

"The contempt of Congress statute was not intended to apply and could not constitutionally be applied to an executive branch official who asserts the president's claim of executive privilege," Mukasey wrote, quoting Justice policy.

"Accordingly," Mukasey concluded, "the department has determined that the noncompliance by Mr. Bolten and Ms. Miers with the Judiciary Committee subpoenas did not constitute a crime."

Our new attorney general appears to have a functioning memory in some respects, but not one that seems to recall the Constitution's plan for checks and balnces. Here we have the executive branch interpreting a law in its favor. Congress rightly decides this needs to go to a judge. Is this political?, well, yeah, blatantly. But it's also structurally the right thing to do.

Of course, the Wall Street Journal looks for another viewpoint from someone calling for a fair and balanced interpretation and enforcement of the laws:

“This sort of pandering to the left-wing fever swamps of loony liberal activists does nothing to make America safer.”

One commenter offers a sensible view:

Finally doing something to hold this group of criminals accountable for their actions makes you a “Loony Liberal”??? Holding government officials accountable for their actions is called justice. So does this mean that republicans and conservatives are soft on crime??

Washington needs an enema.

This is so worth it

2008-02-27T07:22:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the prolonged absence. It will resume shortly. The baby's almost one year old now, but shows little sign of lifting herself up by her bootstraps. Particularly as her shoes use Velcro ... Hrm.

Anyway, I spent far too long worrying about Georgia's water supplies, and longer than that reading worthless proclamations. This cause is more than enough reason to post one thing back to this blog. (Note: I couldn't find the original online, so this is indeed copied and pasted from that same news site.)

PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS, it has come to pass that the heavens are shut up and a drought of Biblical proportions has been visited upon the Southern United States, and

WHEREAS, the parched and dry conditions have weighed heavily upon the State of Georgia and sorely afflicted those who inhabit the Great City of Atlanta, and

WHEREAS, the leaders of Georgia have assembled like the Children of Israel in the desert, grumbled among themselves and have begun to cast longing eyes toward the north, coveting their neighbor’s assets, and

WHEREAS, the lack of water has led some misguided souls to seek more potent refreshment or for other reasons has resulted in irrational and outrageous actions seeking to move a long established and peaceful boundary, and

WHEREAS, it is deemed better to light a candle than curse the darkness, and better to offer a cool, wet kiss of friendship rather than face a hot and angry legislator gone mad from thirst, and

Whereas, it is feared that if today they come for our river, tomorrow they might come for our Jack Daniels or George Dickel,

NOW THEREFORE, In the interest of brotherly love, peace, friendship, mutual prosperity, citywide self promotion, political grandstanding and all that

I Ron Littlefield, Mayor of the City of Chattanooga, Tennessee,

Do hereby Proclaim that Wednesday, February 27, 2008 shall be known as

“Give Our Georgia Friends a Drink Day”

2007-02-26T19:16:00.000-05:00

The White House is making yet another effort at historical revisionism -- by blotting out the stuff it used to be proud of.

Earlier we posted about how the White House disposed of its Mission Accomplished banner from its video archives.

Now we're seeing that the White House is disappearing old speeches. The truly paranoid folks would say that the next step is airbrushing out those politically unsavory characters from photos, like Josef Stalin did. But, these folks already did do something like that, by getting rid of the Mission Accomplished banner.

This is appalling. Does the truth mean nothing? How is it the White House can ask our soldiers to risk their lives for their ideas, and then pretend it never backed those ideas when things go south? Do our soldiers' lives mean so little?

For those who want a thorough look at what went wrong in Iraq, this is a good place to start.

New revenue model for newspapers

2007-02-02T08:13:00.000-05:00

America's newspapers are struggling: Many are trying to offer 25-percent profits to shareholders while maintaining readership against the tide of the Internet. Pretty much everyone says this is impossible.

Fortunately, new revenue streams have been identified by newspapers in Communist China, of all places, The Associated Press reports. A reporter there was killed while trying to establish a protection racket:

SHANGHAI -- The savage beating death of a reporter has shone a rare light on the corrupt, money-driven underbelly of Chinese journalism, where many reporters take bribes to write good news and extort companies to suppress their dirty laundry.

President Hu Jintao has ordered a probe into the killing of China Trade News reporter Lan Chengzhang, who Chinese media say may have been trying to collect money from the owner of an illegal coal mine in return for not writing about the business.

Yeah, well, it didn't work out well for the media business in this instance, but the potential revenue is there. The story indicates Chinese reporters could be facing even more severe constraints than the American media.

Protection schemes were of course the realm of the American mafia in its earlier years, before it began moving into other industries. Were the American media to follow in the Mafia's footsteps, perhaps next it could improve capitalism in Cuba, found a money-making city in the desert, and even help rebuild decaying American cities through acquisitions in the sanitation and construction industries. To all this, they would owe entrepreneurial Chinese Communists. Just think of the future that could be built!

Speaking ill of the dead

2007-01-26T12:47:00.000-05:00

Howard Hunt, for whom laws, democracy and ethics were obstacles to the American Way, died this week.

Hunt may be best known for his role in recruiting most of the Watergate burglars. MeTheSheeple knows him best, though, for his role in overthrowing a democracy because the elected president (Time's man of the year) decided to buy a company's land ... for what the company said it was worth. That evil travesty of justice is described in a Wikipedia entry but more commonly in an older book, "Bitter Fruit," which is still occasionally read in college courses.

They say you shouldn't speak ill of the dead. Well, if the dead are cheating bastards, what else are you supposed to say? None of this has kept a publisher from trying to cash in on Hunt's death with a post-mortem autobiography:

His Editor, Stephen S. Power, said "For decades Hunt served our country well, and that is how he should be remembered: as an honorable man whose patriotism was misused and whose sense of duty to his president was abused. It was a privilege to work with him."

Yeah, just the poor, babe-in-the-woods, honorable, honest man, taken advantage of by someone else. Never mind he'd had a lengthy career as a friggin spy by then, a group of people not known for being easily dominated and deceived.

It's hard for me to tell now who is the bigger asshole: The bastard dead guy, or the bastard editor? Even today, neither seems willing to face the truth.

Signing statements revisited

2007-01-17T21:02:00.000-05:00

Calvin Trillan offers up a superb response to George W. Bush's use (=abuse) of signing statements.

Trillan writes the following in George W. Bush Explains His Signing Statements, Among Other Things:

They sent me a law against torture.
I signed it, although it was quaint.
I said, though, that I'm the decider
Of if something's torture or ain't.

I'll do what I want when I want to,
Though Congress's will may be foiled.
I've always done just what I want to.
You see, I'm a little bit spoiled.

There's a good bit more to the poem, which only gets better. It's in the current issue.

Showing Muslims what America stands for

2007-01-11T22:11:00.000-05:00

Boston lawyer Melissa Hoffer has an op-ed column in today's Globe that should shock anyone who still believes in this country.

This time last year, Hadj's 6 -year-old daughter, Saaima, died of congenital heart failure. He had not seen her since the fall of 2001, when he and the other five men were arrested by Bosnian authorities under pressure from the United States, which asserted that they were involved in planning terrorist activities in Bosnia. After a three-month investigation, the Bosnian federal prosecutor recommended to the Bosnian Supreme Court that all six be released. But again under heavy pressure from the United States, the Bosnians caved, and as the men were released from a jail in Sarajevo, the Bosnians turned them over to the United States. Hooded, shackled, and packed into waiting cars while their horrified families watched, they began the sickening odyssey that continues today.

Saber's wife was pregnant when he was taken to Guantanamo. He has never met his daughter Sara, whose shiny face framed in pink plastic sunglasses peers out from the photographs we send to him. Mustafa, a former karate champion who suffered months of facial paralysis from a brutal beating inflicted by Guantanamo camp soldiers, worries about his ailing mother in Algeria. With each passing day, it becomes more likely that he will never see her again.

Not one of these men has been charged with a crime.

This is appalling, simply appalling. This is brought to us by an administration that keeps saying, "Trust us!" blunder after blunder. This is the same Guantanamo that beat a baker to the point where he tried to kill himself ... and again ... and again ... and again.

This Christian Science Monitor article from 2001, "Why Do They Hate Us?", seems stunningly prescient today:

And voices across the Muslim world are warning that if America doesn't wage its war on terrorism in a way that the Muslim world considers just, America risks creating even greater animosity. ...
The vast majority of Muslims in the Middle East were as shocked and horrified as any American by what they saw happening on their TV screens. And they are frightened of being lumped together in the popular American imagination with the perpetrators of the attack.

But from Jakarta to Cairo, Muslims and Arabs say that on reflection, they are not surprised by it. And they do not share Mr. Bush's view that the perpetrators did what they did because "they hate our freedoms."

Rather, they say, a mood of resentment toward America and its behavior around the world has become so commonplace in their countries that it was bound to breed hostility, and even hatred.

Meanwhile, our freedoms disappear.

Debate needed

2007-01-10T08:23:00.000-05:00

The Chicago Tribune offers some video and transcripts of Ted Kennedy's speech calling for a true debate before any additional troops are sent to Iraq.

Dan Kennedy's Media Nation rightfully questioned the vocabulary of a "surge". Kennedy's calling for more than that.

Watch it. It's just two minutes, but it's invaluable in showing how far our country has strayed from the idea of a robust democracy that we even need to talk about this.

"The president's speech must be the beginning, not the end, of a new national discussion of our policy in Iraq. Congress must have a genuine debate over the wisdom of the president's plan. Let us here the arguments for it and the arguments against it, then let us vote on it in the light of day."

Good ideas

2007-01-05T12:03:00.000-05:00

There's a lot of doubt about whether new Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick can be an effective leader, not least because his first, ill-executed effort at leadership failed miserably.

There's a lot to be said, on the other hand, for the ideals that Patrick brings to political office. MeTheSheeple would love to see these sort of ideals fueling national politics, where the executive branch once again decided laws and warrants were inconvenient.

Patrick offers some hope for something better:

But really America herself is an improbable journey. People have come to these shores from all over the world, in all manner of boats, and built from a wilderness one of the most remarkable societies in human history. We are most remarkable not just for our material accomplishments or military might, but because of the ideals to which we have dedicated ourselves. We have defined those ideals over time and through struggle as equality, opportunity and fair play – ideals about universal human dignity. For these, at the end of the day, we are an envy to the world. ...

I took the oath this morning with my hand resting on that same Bible [from the Amistad] -- and with my resolve strengthened by that same legacy. I am descended from people once forbidden their most basic and fundamental freedoms, a people desperate for a reason to hope and willing to fight for it. And so are you. So are you. Because the Amistad was not just a Black man’s journey; it was an American journey. This Commonwealth – and the Nation modeled on it – is at its best when we show we understand a faith in what’s possible, and the willingness to work for it. ...

What has distinguished us at every signature moment of our history is a willingness to look a challenge right in the eye, the instinct to measure it against our ideals, and the sustained dedication to close the gap between the two. That is who we are.

Let's hope others share, or come to share, that message.

Happy New Year!

2006-12-31T20:40:00.000-05:00

MeTheSheeple would like to wish everyone a wonderful new year, with success in your plans.

This also offers an opportunity for the most hopeful and/or most deluded person of the year:

CNN's Ed Henry: But now as 2006 ends, Osama bin Laden is still at large. Heading into 2007, how confident are you that he can be brought to justice this coming year?
... You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we're going to get him. Still don't have him. I know you are saying there's successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That's a failure.

Homeland Security Adviser Fran Townsend: Well, I'm not sure -- it's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I view that as a failure.

Arrogance or stutter?

2006-12-11T22:06:00.000-05:00

In the press conference a few days back, Bush seemed to chortle when he was asked what the situation was like in Iraq.

Wars all over but the dying?

2006-12-10T10:38:00.000-05:00

Via that pinko publication The Nation MeTheSheeple finally became aware of a September survey showing just how badly the United States has already lost in Iraq.

(For those who want the thumbnail version, CNN has this report via CrooksAndLiars.)

The full report shows a majority believe American withdrawal would decrease inter-ethnic violence (read: "civil war") but a majority believe it would hurt day-to-day security for Iraqis.

Yet here's the part that tells us how much the United States is seen as an unwelcome, destablizing and occupation force. This is simply appalling. In MeTheSheeples' opinion, there's damned little -- likely nothing -- that could be done. Guerrilla war theorists posit that it's difficult to wipe out insurgencies when public support goes above one-third. Here, we see it's nearly double that:

Support for attacks against US-led forces has increased sharply to 61 percent (27% strongly, 34% somewhat). This represents a 14-point increase from January 2006, when only 47 percent of Iraqis supported attacks.
This change is due primarily to a dramatic 21-point increase among Shias, whose approval of attacks has risen from 41 percent in January to 62 percent in September. A very large majority (86%) of Kurds disapprove of attacks (59% strongly), with only 15 percent supporting them. Kurdish disapproval is up slightly from January, when it was 81 percent, but approval of attacks has held constant. Similarly, Sunni support for attacks has remained relatively constant with 92 percent approving (up only slightly from 88% in January, when it was 81 percent, but approval of attacks has held constant. Similarly, Sunni support for attacks has remained relatively constant with 92 percent approving (up only slightly from 88% in January).

And what of that occupation force?

Naturally the question arises: If only one in three Iraqis favors US withdrawal in the shortest possible time frame of six months, why then is support for attacks on US-led forces as high as 61 percent? Indeed, among those who approve of such attacks, only 50 percent favor withdrawal in six months—though another 37 percent favor it in a year.
It is always difficult to know why people have certain attitudes, but some findings are strongly suggestive. A large majority of Iraqis—and a majority in all ethnic groups-- believes that the US plans to maintain permanent military bases in Iraq and would not withdraw its forces if the Iraqi government asked it to.

Is it possible for the United States to have more badly bungled the political and military aspects of Iraq? Not really. Is it possible to find a way out of here without destroying two militaries and one country, or maybe two?

Today's fine satire

2006-11-17T19:26:00.000-05:00

In response to this MSNBC story, Farkers have torn into the government's timeline and all but proven that torture in secret prisons, at least in this case, produces nothing of value and hurts American standing. I'm going to post the best stuff here, by a guy named jarrett, because it sets the stage for the finest satire I've read in a while:

submitter: Gitmo detainee confession helps nab terrorist. Suck it, libs

According to the article, the so-called informant, Abu Zubaydah, was not even at Gitmo during the Jose Padilla investigation.

So the timeline breaks down like this:

May 8, 2002
Jose Padilla, an American citizen, is arrested on American soil under allegations of planning a "dirty bomb" attack.

June 9, 2002
Bush administration declares Padilla to be an "enemy combatant" citing dirty bomb plan and transfers him to a military prison. Padilla has no contact with the outside world or legal counsel. Padilla later claims he was tortured while being detained in South Carolina.

Nov. 22, 2005
After being held for 3 1/2 years, Padilla is finally indicted for conspiring to kill or kidnap people overseas. The indictment makes no mention of the "dirty bomb" and alleges no plans for attacks in the US. At least one of the charges has already been dismissed.

Today
The government claims that a secret interrogation from a secret prison led the government to capture the "dirty bomber" who apparently, um, wasn't. The informants also claim they were tortured while detained.

A few comments later, jarrett lays in with the satire:

What you guys don't seem to be considering is that these people might kill everyone you know and love if given the chance. So torturing and indefinitely detaining suspected terrorists (one of whom happens to be an American citizen) is very necessary. Sure, there's no "evidence" that Padilla had access to radioactive materials, but why take chances? He's brown. No one will miss him.

Besides that, it doesn't matter what our government does. As long as we're one step above "beheading someone on VHS", the United States maintains the moral high ground.

Also, let's not forget that the detainees get meals and a prayer mat while sitting in a cell for years without indictment or any form of due process. So even though they've lost every freedom and semblance human dignity, they probably have it much better than they did in their homeland with their family.

Finally, we all know our government does everything Good and Right, and is free from human error or corruption. I feel completely comfortable giving our government absolute power over peoples' lives, completely free from the strictures of the Geneva Conventions (which we ratified in the pre-9/11 world), and free from any oversight for those human-rights tree-hugging terrorist-lovers. I don't see why any patriotic citizen would feel any differently.

Any bets on how many people in our administration wouldn't see this as satire?

Iraq, re-visioned

2006-11-15T08:30:00.000-05:00

The Wall Street Journal's opinion site offers a stunningly ignorant and biased view of the war in Iraq. Yes, folks, it's true: Historical revisionism is already coming to a quagmire near you.

The article really needs to be read in full to capture all the nuances, because its very tone is pervasive and astonishingly bad. But let's look at select bits:

We are told by careful pollsters that half of the American people believe that American troops should be brought home from Iraq immediately. This news discourages supporters of our efforts there. Not me, though: I am relieved. Given press coverage of our efforts in Iraq, I am surprised that 90% of the public do not want us out right now.

Note here that this concerns only press coverage. The fact that generals think the war is a debacle, or that 100,000 may have been killed in Iraq's internal violence, or that a militia literally took over a town. Our Mr. Wilson -- not the bad guy with the CIA wife, this one -- is only looking at how the media covers Iraq.

The idea is flawed on its premise. You can't look at how the media covers something without looking at the reality of the something. Wilson does not do that. He wants to say that the negative portrayal of the Iraq war means the media is negative. You can't do that without looking at the reality, which is that dozens of bodies turn up mutilated -- decapitation seems to be a favorite -- every single day. Not, unfortunately, to Wilson:

Naturally, some of the hostile commentary reflects the nature of reporting. When every news outlet struggles to grab and hold an audience, no one should be surprised that this competition leads journalists to emphasize bloody events.

You'd better believe if 30 headless corpses were found in Wilson's hometown, he wouldn't be complaining about adverse media coverage. Perhaps the media should write about all the people who weren't decapitated yesterday?

Then James Q. Wilson runs ahead and assaults the New York Times for its coverage of the wiretapping program -- illegal as it appears to be. Is the media supposed to ignore a huge violation of the law, when a legal remedy would be incredibly easy? (e.g., get a warrant!)

Then he attacks the New York Times and LA Times for covering the international financial monitoring program ... conveniently leaving out his own Wall Street Journal. Nor should it matter that the existence of the monitoring program was bragged upon by the White House shortly after it was created.

There's much more in the column. I particularly appreciate how he says Vietnam reporting turned negative because of weak political leadership and a basis of lies -- without necessarily extending the parallel to Iraq. Instead, he says political leadership in Iraq has been strong.

What? Leadership is the act of leading. If we had strong political leadership, there would be a strong consensus developed by our leader, a common understanding of the facts, a common cause or drive pushing us forward. The simple fact is none of that is happening, and exactly the inverse is true.

James Q. Wilson here is drinking his Kool-Aid, and loving every drop. Let's hope no one else in his cult will follow.

Disappearing civil rights

2006-11-14T14:22:00.000-05:00

Glenn Greenwald offers a lengthy description of a guest in America who has now been held for five years now -- without the right to see a lawyer, or get a trial. It's definitely worth a read. He concludes:

As always, the most extraordinary and jarring aspect of cases like this one is that these principles -- which were once the undebatable, immovable bedrock of our political system -- are now openly debated and actively disputed by our own government. By itself it is astonishing -- and highly revealing about where we are as a country -- that such precepts even need to be defended at all.

How are we supposed to be promoting democracy and civil rights around the world when we fight them at home?

Frightening Vietnam parallel

2006-11-14T11:55:00.000-05:00

There's a new parallel between Iraq and Vietnam, and this one is simply awful: As a Buddhist monk did in Vietnam, a Chicago man immolated himself in protest of the war, reports the Chicago Reader and Pitchfork.

Democracy regained

2006-11-11T09:38:00.000-05:00

With control of Congress returned to another party, we should begin to see the oversight role properly used.

And that's just what the LA Times is reporting.

"The American people sent a clear message that they do not want a rubber-stamp Congress that simply signs off the president's agenda," said Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), who is in line to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

"Instead, they have voted for a new direction for America and a real check and balance against government overreaching."

Conyers and other Democrats say that sort of scrutiny has been noticeably absent over the last six years. Democrats accuse Republicans of being complicit as Bush has led the nation into an unwinnable war and adopted economic polices that favor the affluent and big business.

...But even some scholars say recent GOP oversight has been lax. "This could be remembered as a historically unique period in which an administration got immunity from Congress to engage in errors with impunity," said Charles Tiefer, a University of Baltimore law professor and a former House counsel.

Sure, this wouldn't be American politics without the search for the truth taking on political bents. But that's OK; in fact, that's arguably what the Framers wanted. The three pillars of American government are supposed to be opposed. It's not efficient time-wise, but it worked for a couple hundred years. It's time for it to work again.

This comes on the heels of one branch of government deciding it was inconvenient to stop abdicating its power to another branch. It's pathetic, and it put the Constitution in peril.

Screwing more voters

2006-11-07T19:12:00.000-05:00

Wikipedia is following the latest nitwit to try to screw up voter rights: Talk show host Laura Ingraham, who encouraged listeners to flood voter problem hotlines.

We've also got discouragment efforts from a goddamned cartoon strip, Mallard Fillmore, here and here.

A discussion on Daily Kos offers some radical, but perhaps worthwhile, ideas. One poster pasted in a picture of the coffins of U.S. soldiers flying to the Dover mortuary: "Arlington National Cemetery is full to bursting with those who paid for our right to vote. NO, it is not funny."

Another post:

I've been thinking that perhaps the only way to end voter supression tactics is to seriously up the criminal penalties. It is, in essence, a form of treason, undermining our system of government. If you can disenfranchise people, do a couple years in jail, then come out set for life by the party you put in power, there's no real penalty.

I'd say 20 years is a good starting point. Make sure that when they get out of jail the people who put them in power have long forgotten about them.

--- The path to hell is paved with good intentions. Bush invaded Iraq based on good intentions. Thus we are staying the course on the path to hell.

by sterno

Another poster argued that voter disenfranchisement amounts to sedition.

For whatever party, for whatever candidate, for whatever reason, efforts to strip away the right to vote are abominable.

Screwing history

2006-11-07T17:07:00.000-05:00

Via Fark.com is this truly appalling video, in which an arrogant, stupid White House tried to alter history so it didn't look as stupid and arrogant as it once did.

Screwing the voters

2006-11-07T11:00:00.000-05:00

So, just a few years after the New Hampshire Republicans, who were supported by the national apparatus, decided to screw the voters, the national party is trying, yet again, to screw voters.

The newest is an illegal subterfuge designed to piss off voters. TalkingPointsMemo reports:

The lead into the call starts with the speaker saying 'I'm calling with information about' Dem candidate X. Then there's a short pause.

At this point, you know it's an annoying robocall, so a lot of people just hang up. If you hang up then, you think it's a call from the Democratic candidate.

Second, the repetition. And this part is the key. If you don't listen through the whole message, the machine keeps calling you back, often well in excess of half a dozen times with the same call. It only stops if you listen all the way through.

As you can imagine, that's driving a lot of people through the roof.

In other words, the Republicans behind the calls win either way. If you keep hanging up, you think you're being harassed by the campaign of the local Democratic House candidate. If you give up and listen all the way through, you hear the political attack. The true source of the call, the NRCC, the GOP House campaign committee, is only revealed at the end of the call.

(Federal regulations dictate calls be identified at the top of the call.)

CrooksAndLiars offers links to CNN video. The CNN reporter offers the hard-hitting observation that the FCC requires a phone number and the name of the caller up front and at least one ad "doesn't seem to do either." Hello -- it does or it doesn't. Are you afraid someone's going to find a stage whisper at -30db in the recordings?

Either way, it's interesting, and appalling, stuff. The New York Times offers a link through MediaNation, with a sign that this silly, evil bullshit could backfire:

David Kaplan, a registered Republican in Connecticut who has received more than two dozen of the calls, said he was so annoyed that the Republicans might “have shot themselves in the leg” in terms of winning his vote.

Is it too much to ask someone to follow the law?

Psychotic hypocrisy

2006-11-02T16:25:00.000-05:00

Years ago, MeTheSheeple heard Richard Dreyfuss talk. Someone asked him about what it was like working with Bill Murray in "What About Bob?" Dreyfuss said he'd dodged that question for years, then started telling the truth.

"Bill Murray," Dreyfuss said, "is a psychotic bully."

Bill Murray's political counterpart seems to be running for election, and boy, she can't even keep her story straight.

After a whole series of stories and polls showing Kerry Healey's attack ads are backfiring -- more people dislike her -- the Globe runs a final story, "Doubts are voiced on Healey tactics."

Now, rather than admit she was being a psychotic bully -- and a political moron, to boot -- Healey blames the media. No, really:

In an interview with the Associated Press yesterday, Healey defended the ads that focus on the Democratic nominee's advocacy on behalf of convicted rapist Benjamin LaGuer. One, which features a woman walking alone in a parking garage, has drawn national attention for its negativity.

Healey said she never intended that so much attention be paid to the ad.

"The media has spent too much time focusing on this one issue, and therefore we as a campaign have ended up spending more time talking about this one issue than about . . . the many other substantive issues," Healey told the Associated Press.

Yes. You see? It's the media's fault that this was even an issue. It's got nothing to do with her making it an issue. Yeah.

A lot of teen movies feature scenes in which the bully finally gets his; MeTheSheeple loves the scene in "A Christmas Story" in which Ralphie goes simply ape-shit and begins pounding the school bully while cutting loose with a seemingly endless stream of profanities.

The polls show that, on Tuesday, voters will give Healey the bully exactly what she deserves. It's a shame there will be no place to write in comments like "You'll shoot your eye out! You'll shoot your eye out!"

The reality on the ground

2006-10-29T22:52:00.000-05:00

The Associated Press profiled a city of 30,000, now home to perhaps 3,000, in Iraq. Folks have tried to kill the mayor twice ... since May. The story offers some vivid examples of what can go wrong and what is going wrong. Ironically, the town's balanced religious mix made it a target for both sides. Saba'a al-Bour seems to be the Sarajevo of Iraq:

While sectarian fighting has been far bloodier elsewhere - nearly 100 people were slain in massacres and revenge attacks earlier this month in Balad, just to the north - U.S. commanders say Saba'a al-Bour made an especially inviting target because the tightly packed town is hemmed in by canals that make it hard for soldiers to pursue insurgents.

Thompson said he also believes the town's relatively harmonious sectarian mix attracted special attention from Sunni Arab insurgents, including those affiliated with al-Qaida in Iraq who have sought to spark all-out civil war between Sunnis and Shiites.

Fighting quickly created a "tit-for-tat scenario," with Shiites striking back at Sunnis for attacks on the town, Thompson said, sitting in the joint U.S.-Iraqi coordination center at the fortified police station.

The mayor offers a warm-and-fuzzy answer to the War on Terror: "God willing, the families will come back, the city will be like it was and the terrorism will end," he said. "We hope, we just hope."

Just how many terrorists where there before the invasion? The story doesn't address that point ...

Peace in the Middle East

2006-10-24T19:17:00.000-04:00

If you're worried about Iraq, well, OK. At least we see signs of lasting peace in Israel, via CNN:

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in a bid for political survival, struck an alliance Monday with a hard-liner who has called for stripping Israeli Arabs of citizenship, executing lawmakers for talking to Hamas and bombing Palestinian population centers.

It's nice to know that rational considerations will never take a backseat to political expediency, isn't it?

Yep. Did we mention the Israelis are putting this guy in charge of "'strategic threats,' such as Iran's nuclear ambitions."? Nothing to worry about here:

At the height of fighting against Palestinians in 2002, Lieberman, then a Cabinet minister, called for the bombing of Palestinian gas stations, banks and commercial centers.

More recently, he advocated trading Israeli Arab towns for West Bank settlements -- in effect stripping Israeli Arabs of citizenship -- and called for the execution of Israeli Arab lawmakers who met with leaders of Hamas, which is running the Palestinian government. Such positions have drawn accusations of racism.

I'm not certain why meeting with Hamas is racist. Shouldn't they have gone the "traitor" route? Yeah. Anyway, those uppity A-Rabs are tearing themselves apart over the appointment of such a moderate:

Saeb Erekat, a confidant of the moderate Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, termed the development an internal Israeli affair.

"At the end of the day, what we hoped for is to have a partner in Israel who is willing to revive a meaningful peace process that will end this miserable situation between our two peoples," Erekat said.

What the hell is happening? Stop the world. I want to get off, at least to buy a six-pack.

Dark days

2006-10-22T22:49:00.000-04:00

Forget the Iraq-Vietnam comparisons. Anyone else get worried when the blockade-North-Korea talk starts sounding like something out of the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Sorry for the long absence. I offer an eye-opening piece from the BBC and a Guardian photographer, who spend six weeks with the 101st Airborne in Iraq. Even where the photog doesn't quite know how things are supposed to work, he still gets the idea that counter-insurgency operations aren't supposed to look like this.

Sadly, they do.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/video/page/0,,1927660,00.html

Hail to the King

2006-10-06T13:57:00.000-04:00

As MeTheSheeple has ranted before and before that, the current president's incredibly common use of "signing statement" has already eroded the three pillars of American democracy, wiping out checks and balances and leaving the president with unmatched power.

The Boston Globe reported yesterday that the non-partisan Congressional Research Service reached the same conclusions, saying the chief-king is trying to pursuade Congress and others "to the belief that the president in fact possesses expansive and exclusive powers upon which the other branches may not intrude." As the Globe's Charlie Savage reported:

Under most interpretations of the Constitution, the report said, some of the legal assertions in Bush's signing statements are dubious. For example, it said, the administration has suggested repeatedly that the president has exclusive authority over foreign affairs and has an absolute right to withhold information from Congress. Such assertions are ``generally unsupported by established legal principles," the report said.

In other words, say goodbye to a democratic republic.

Looks like it took the media a few days to catch up from the original notice by the Federation of American Scientists, which offers a direct PDF download to the report.

Wonder what can happen? Witness this AP story, which shows the tip of the iceberg:

WASHINGTON -
President Bush, again defying Congress, says he has the power to edit the
Homeland Security Department's reports about whether it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and watchlists.

n the law Bush signed Wednesday, Congress stated no one but the privacy officer could alter, delay or prohibit the mandatory annual report on Homeland Security department activities that affect privacy, including complaints. ...

Bush's signing statement Wednesday challenges several other provisions in the Homeland Security spending bill.

Bush, for example, said he'd disregard a requirement that the director of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency must have at least five years experience and "demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management and homeland security."

His rationale was that it "rules out a large portion of those persons best qualified by experience and knowledge to fill the office."

Yeah, you're doing a heckuva job, Bushie. Want to send another PR guy to singlehandedly monitor a major disaster scene?

Signs of death

2006-10-04T22:48:00.000-04:00

Today, MeTheSheeple was out walking his dogs when he heard a loud, metallic noise. A beautiful bird of prey was seemingly losing his footing on a third-story piece of white aluminum guttering. He kept shifting and shifting, seemingly nearly falling off, leading MeTheSheeple to think for a moment that perhaps the bird* was hurt or injured. One of the dogs thought it was a great time to start barking at and threatening the raptor, which might have been a falcon. The little dog -- the lunch-sized one -- at least stayed quiet.

Anyway, the wounded deadly bird that couldn't keep his footing ... gracefully spread his wings and lifted off the guttering, with the dead squirrel slung underneath.

Sometimes, it seems, you can look at one thing and get an idea that's simply completely wrong. Someone else can look at the same thing and get an idea that's completely wrong, but in a different way.

Such a problem becomes all the more important when it's a matter of life and death. This is a parabel of more than a squirrel.

The U.S. military is looking at the debacle in Iraq and seeing disaster unless the course is radically changed. That interpretation depends on whether you believe the accounts of senior military leaders passed through a Republican who helped end the draft and the Vietnam War.

If you're a member of Congress, you might just believe that things are going so well that it's time to plan the victory parades. Heck, it's only three years since the mission was accomplished. So just because the military's destroying its equipment, wrecking its morale, unable to budget in the face of political demands ... why not take $20 million out of the defense budget to plan the victory parade? The Associated Press reports:

WASHINGTON // The military's top generals have warned Iraq is on the cusp of a civil war and that U.S. troops must remain in large numbers until at least next spring. But if the winds suddenly blow a different direction, Congress is ready to celebrate with a $20 million victory party.

Lawmakers included language in this year's defense spending bill, approved last week, allowing them to spend the money. The funds for "commemoration of success" in Iraq and Afghanistan were originally tucked into last year's defense measure, but went unspent amid an uptick in violence in both countries that forced the Pentagon to extend tours of duty for thousands of troops.

Stop the world! I want to get off.

Another unscientific method

2006-09-24T11:23:00.000-04:00

To follow-up on the last post here: Politics is creating ever-more creative definitions of science. Yesterday's Boston Globe had this story:

Reading First aims to help young children read through scientifically proven programs, and the department considers it a jewel of No Child Left Behind, Bush's education law. ... In one e-mail, the director told a staff member to come down hard on a company he did not support, according to the report released yesterday by the department's inspector general.

``They are trying to crash our party and we need to beat the [expletive deleted] out of them in front of all the other would-be party crashers who are standing on the front lawn waiting to see how we welcome these dirtbags," the program director wrote, the report says.

(Note: First paragraph actually came later in the story)

To quote our fearless leader:

I believe the results of focusing our attention and energy on teaching children to read and having an education system that's responsive to the child and to the parents, as opposed to mired in a system that refuses to change, will make America what we want it to be — a more literate country and a hopefuller country. (January 2001)

Or, more directly: "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"

Politics is killing you

2006-09-22T22:10:00.000-04:00

The federal government is taking a new tack on scientific evidence, and the tack could be killing you.

Before, it was raising doubt about a "scientific consensus" on issues, as described in "The Republican War on Science." It's not a bad book, even coming from that brother-in-law last Christmas.

More recently, it was industry creating fake "grassroots groups" to spread lies, in efforts to hold off regulation on little things, like things that can kill you.

Today, the Associated Press reports, the federal government may have bowed to political pressure by deferring more stringent health protections, despite the weight of evidence and a near-unanimous recommendation:

Specialists advising the agency had said the science supports tougher standards than the EPA chose. Other air pollution specialists and advocates alleged political tinkering. New England air quality officials said the new rules do not protect public health.

... ``Wherever the science gave us a clear picture, we took clear action," [EPA administrator Stephen Johnson] said. ``There was not complete agreement" by the scientific advisory panel.

But 20 of 22 panel members said the EPA should set tougher standards .

Note carefully, here. 20 of 22 isn't good enough. Apparently, it has to be a large, unanimous panel for the science to be considered firm enough.

Yeah. Or it can let politics creep into picture. You know, politics. Where politicians almost never win more than two-thirds of the vote, or, say, 14 of 22.

What's at stake here? Let's turn back to the AP:

The health-based limits on soot are considered an important part of the Clean Air Act, helping save 15,000 people a year from premature deaths due to heart and lung diseases.

What's a few thousand lives between friends?

Corporate bastards

2006-09-20T11:21:00.000-04:00

It's odd, but it takes the BBC and a British newspaper to highlight some unusual problems with the state of speech in America. The authors report on the efforts of groups with discredited positions (Big Tobacco and the anti-global warming crowds) creating front groups and faking the existence of grassroots support or dissent. The story doesn't get really rolling until past the halfway mark, but it's worth a read.

Corporations do some truly wonderful things in this world, and have on the whole made thing much better. This, on the other hand, is clearly an attempt to pervert the dialogue that is so essential to American democracy.

Find the swastika!

2006-09-17T14:55:00.000-04:00

No, this isn't some sort of half-assed neo-Nazi posting. MeTheSheeple is just a nerd with too much time on his hands.

This International Herald-Tribune article attempts to explore the clouded history of a Nazi-era swastika made with planted trees in Kyrgystan:

This is the so-called Eki Naryn swastika, a man-made arrangement of trees near the edge of the Himalayas. It is at least 60 years old, according to the region's forestry service, and roughly 600 feet across.

Legend has it that German prisoners of war, pressed into forestry duty after World War II, duped their Soviet guards and planted rows of seedlings in the shape of the emblem Hitler had chosen as his own.

More than 20 years later, the trees rose tall enough to be visible from the village beneath. Only then did the swastika appear, a time-delayed act of defiance by vanquished soldiers marooned in a corner of Stalin's Soviet Union.

MeTheSheepl got a little curious and started looking for it.

IndexMundi, whatever the hell that is, gives the location of this town. Wikimapia offers another way to find the town. 600 feet across should be pretty darned visible (note the scale at the bottom). Can you find the swastika?

Curt cartoons

2006-09-16T22:01:00.000-04:00

Browsing Cagle.com, MeTheSheeple went through thirty cartoons about the Iraq war before finding one that was even slightly pro-war -- and that simply suggested that pulling out would spread problems beyond Iraq.

Two 'toons in particular seemed to stand out:
by Kevin Siers of the Charlotte Observer, 9/13

and

John Sherffius, The Daily Camera, 9/11

It'd be much, much better if neither cartoon were true.

Bad editing, part II

2006-09-14T11:43:00.000-04:00

Wikipedia's taken some well-deserved beatings, but a local error last night was particularly pathetic.

The online encyclopedia offers an entry on the 2006 Massachusetts races for governor and lieutenant governor. It notes a little-known contender, one John Hawkins, a Socialist write-in candidate who happens to be a black meat packer.

Until last night, Wikipedia had linked the candidate John Hawkins to its sole entry on a man named John Hawkins.

Now, let's compare.

John Hawkins - Socialist Workers Party candidate for governor: a meat cutting worker, Black rights activist, and "promoter of the march on Washington demanding no U.S. intervention in the internal politics of Cuba and Venezuela".[13]

So far so good.

The linked?

Sir John Hawkins (also spelled as John Hawkyns) (Plymouth 1532 – November 12, 1595) was an English shipbuilder, merchant, navigator, and slave trader. ... John Hawkins was probably the first major English slave trader, although some point to John Lok in 1553.

Talk about sharing a name but nothing else in common!

Bad editing

2006-09-14T09:51:00.000-04:00

We started ordering our Christmas gifts last night. It's amazing how much more efficient the online stores have become. Amazon.com is even beating next-day shipping!

In other bits of bad editing, let's look at the math-impaired journalists at the Boston Globe with just one story:

The [rubber] squares are up to three times more expensive than concrete slabs ... (sidebar)

The rubber sidewalks cost about $15 per square foot, compared with about $10 per square foot for concrete ...

.. rubber, which costs about a third more than concrete ...

Some of this can be explained away, as in a case where one number does not include shipping costs. Let's assume the figure for concrete is accurate, at least. Then, for rubber, within the same package, we're facing numbers of

$13

$15

$30

So much for precision journalism.

'New' 9/11 video

2006-09-13T09:08:00.000-04:00

On the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a couple released their home video from the 36th floor of a near-ish building. It's heart wrenching and stomach churning. You were warned.

Prisoners not of any conscience

2006-09-12T13:38:00.000-04:00

The War on Terror continues to be based on values, but they're the wrong, un-American values. It's little surprise that the world's most powerful nation is seen as the world's most abusive. Witness this attack by the White House spokesman:

"There have been some in the Democratic Party who have argued against the Patriot Act, against the terror surveillance program, against Guantanamo. In other words, there are some people who say that we shouldn't fight the war, we should not detain -- we shouldn't apprehend al Qaeda, we shouldn't detain al Qaeda, we shouldn't question al Qaeda, and we shouldn't listen to al Qaeda. In other words, they're all for winning the war on terror, but they're all against -- they're against providing the tools for winning that war.

Either you're for the prison at Guantanamo, or you're against America and winning the war on terror.

This is the same prison, of course, that was declared a home of torture; the same prison that for a time hosted an American citizen, while the government tried to prevent access to lawyers and legal hearings; the same prison in which compliance with international law is considered "special priveleges"; the same prison where inmates are expected to tell the warden of their sins, because neither side knows.

Besides being morally wrong, this is hurting the War on Terror. Witness today's Boston Globe report:

On the Pakistan side of the border the hatred and mistrust of America are , if anything, more bitter and intense. Here, as in Afghanistan, the search for bin Laden and his allies relies primarily on informants and local alliances. Both are hard to come by.

New enemies, on the other hand, seem born every day.

In a tiny hamlet here, a story is told and retold of the suffering of a local baker, Shah Mohammed, who was imprisoned in Guantanamo. He has become part of the local lore that shapes the image of America as a brutal empire and fuels the hatred that inspires militants.

A native son of the village, Shah Mohammed, was a handsome, outgoing man when he set off in 2000 for Afghanistan and ended up working in a bakery for the Taliban government. He was caught up in the chaotic aftermath of the collapse of the Taliban in November of 2001, he says, and US forces picked him up near Mazar-e-Sharif . He was hooded, handcuffed, and eventually bundled off to Guantanamo, where, he says, he was stripped, beaten, and tortured. He attempted suicide four times in the year or so he was at Guantanamo, he says.

Eventually, his US captors researched his stated alibis and deemed him no threat. And so he was released, but his mind and spirit were broken, his family says.

In an interview, Mohammed, 26, spoke in disjointed sentences and repeated over and over, ``I am a baker of bread."

His uncle, Han Mohammed, 40, said, ``This is not the same Shah Mohammed that he was before. People are angry. Why did they do this to an innocent man?"

As a small crowd gathered in his tiny grocery store, the uncle fumed, ``Osama [bin Laden] is a hero for Muslims. That is what we believe. . . . America is no hero at all. If America was a hero, it would have helped this man who they harmed."

This is our way of getting aid in finding bin Laden? This is answering the war on terror? This is developing new allies? This is keeping us safe? This is keeping the War on Terror from looking like a war on Islam?

Let's turn back to that White House spokesman:

"There have been some in the Democratic Party who have argued against the Patriot Act, against the terror surveillance program, against Guantanamo. In other words, there are some people who say that we shouldn't fight the war, we should not detain -- we shouldn't apprehend al Qaeda, we shouldn't detain al Qaeda, we shouldn't question al Qaeda, and we shouldn't listen to al Qaeda. In other words, they're all for winning the war on terror, but they're all against -- they're against providing the tools for winning that war.

argued against the Patriot Act ... Perhaps because portions were ruled illegal? Is it now wrong to disparage unconstitutional laws?

against the terror surveillance program ... Perhaps because it was ruled illegal? Is it now wrong to disparage unconstitutional laws?

against Guantanamo? Perhaps because the United States Supreme Court ruled it illegal as violations of international and military law, and four members of the Supreme Court think it could be unconstitutional? (Read Page 10.) Is it now wrong to disparage illegal and possibly unconstitutional laws?

So, clearly, the White House spokesman's arguments are completely full of shit in re the U.S. Constitution. There have been reports, too, that Bush has argued the Constitution is a "goddamned piece of paper" that shouldn't keep getting in his way.

Let's go back to part of the rest of that White House statement, though:

In other words, there are some people who say that we shouldn't fight the war, we should not detain -- we shouldn't apprehend al Qaeda, we shouldn't detain al Qaeda, we shouldn't question al Qaeda, and we shouldn't listen to al Qaeda.

Really? Which people said we shouldn't question and detain al Qaeda? MeTheSheeple is still waiting, eagerly, to see prison sentences for al Qaeda convicts. Instead, we're seeing Afghan bakers getting beaten and a miserable rate of conviction and prison sentences, with the median prison sentence for terror crimes falling under 20 days. Last time we checked, the Bush administration alone does not have the power to decide that everyone it wants to call al Qaeda is really al Qaeda. This isn't the American justice system.

So what of that last bit of the White House spokesman's attack?

In other words, they're all for winning the war on terror, but they're all against -- they're against providing the tools for winning that war.

How many tools for winning the war did that baker in Afghanistan bring?

Gitmo goners

2006-09-11T09:49:00.000-04:00

Early, MeTheSheeple posted a short bit by John McCain, who argues that we have to be better than them to win the war on terror. MeTheSheeple meant to come back to that, but could never find a way to put it into words adequately enough.

Fortunately, Carl Hiaasen did it perfectly (Miami Herald, free registration required). His conclusions are aptly stated:

Thanks to the bloody debacle in Iraq, our credibility is shot in the volatile Muslim nations, and beyond. Instead of being praised as liberators, we're condemned as arrogant warmongers.

Even if coalition forces bailed out of Baghdad tomorrow, repairing our international image might require decades of delicate diplomacy.

In the meantime, it's futile to present ourselves as the model of a just and civilized society if we throw out our rules of law -- including the presumption of innocence -- when dealing with suspected terrorists.

In theory, what separates us from the monsters we're fighting is a commitment to freedom and human rights. But a model democracy isn't supposed to imprison a person for years without charges or a fair trial. A model democracy isn't supposed to condone beating admissions out of a suspect.

The ranks of al Qaeda are full of truly dangerous people who should be locked up forever, if not executed. The key is to catch the right ones, and prosecute them the right way.

Unfortunately, getting things right has not been a hallmark of this administration's war on terror. Now would be a good time to start, since the whole world is watching.

Iraq war's divides, Part III or IV or something

2006-09-11T07:54:00.000-04:00

America is increasingly divided over Iraq, which is presumably driving a great majority of Americans to dislike President George W. Bush's job performance. Yet we're still missing a lot of the war protest songs that marked Vietnam. True, early on were the Dixie Chicks, but they were blasted after attacking Bush directly. Then we recycled some protesters, with Neil Young.

Today, I stumbled upon Country Joe's Web site. Remember Country Joe and the Fish? 'Twas a pretty good band, it was.

Well, Country Joe, it turns out, still writes a mean little protest song or two, like Support The Troops:

Some day soon, don’t know when
We’ll see the wounded women and men
Lining the walls of American streets
Hands out begging for something to eat.

Support the troops
Support the troops

Forgotten heroes from a forgotten war
Wondering "What were we fighting for?"
World War III around the bend
That’s what we get with the George Bush Plan.

Support the troops
Support the troops

Chorus:
Chicken hawk, draft dodging, son Of A Bush
Look at all the damage you did!
American war in the Holy Land
Blood for oil, not in my name!

There are also Iraq variations on the "Fixin' to Die Rag," apparently submitted by fans:

The USA's the worldwide cop,
And evildoers must be stopped.
Saddam's got nukes and poison gas.
Let's go kick him in the ass.
Conquer the land, sell off the oil.
To the victor goes the spoil.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we searching for?
George said it, it must be true.
I believe in W.
And it's five, six, seven,
Tell me who I should hate.
There's no need to wonder why,
'Cause Presidents never lie.

Interesting times we live in, eh?

Idiocy 9/11

2006-09-04T17:44:00.000-04:00

"Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise."
-- Bill the Bard

There's several new rounds of idiocy involving the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Both are appalling.

According to a Scripps Howard poll, more than one out of three Americans thinks that America either performed the attacks itself, or allowed them to happen:

Suspicions that the 9/11 attacks were "an inside job" -- the common phrase used by conspiracy theorists on the Internet -- quickly have become nearly as popular as decades-old conspiracy theories that the federal government was responsible for President John F. Kennedy's assassination and that it has covered up proof of space aliens.

Just why is it that the tin-foil-hat-crowd is convinced government is completely incompentent, except when it comes to massive, wide-wrought conspiracies? You can't have it both ways. Either government can't buy a toilet seat or ketchup without screwing up, or government can con millions of people easily.

Then again, given the above survey, maybe it's not that hard to con millions of people. Remember how many people -- particularly those who watch FOX News -- thought Iraq had been proven to cause 9/11?

Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.
-- Samuel Johnson, 1758

Also via Fark.com, we have the second recent hint of 9/11 idiocy. CBS has already aired the superb documentary simply called "9/11" twice; it's a movie that started by accident, as two French filmmakers tried to document firefighters being trained on the job. Naturally, this offends some people.

Dozens of television stations are already canning the documentary or delaying it, over fears of increased government censorship through FCC fines and other threats. Witness this nice little touch of idiocy:

"This isn't an issue of censorship. It's an issue of responsibility to the public," said Randy Sharp, director of special projects for the [American Family Association], which describes itself as a 29-year-old organization that promotes the biblical ethic of decency.

Because, clearly, guys fighting for their lives and those of thousands of people they strive to protect ... must avoid the potty mouth when buildings are falling on them. The group is trying to motivate its three million members to file complaints because the way some people die doesn't fit their interpretation of the Bible.

It's not even an absolute interpretation of the Bible, as this scholar points out the Bible's ... literary ... references to copulation, excrement, genitalia, water sports and the like. So, what say we let the Bible speak for the Bible and the heroes of 9/11 speak for themselves?

A great way to get nuked

2006-08-28T11:35:00.000-04:00

The Boston Globe has an interesting story today on the Pentagon's plan to use conventionally armed ICBMs against terrorists.

In a clear call against proliferation, Rumsfeld said it's a great idea for the United States but not a big deal for other countries, because only a few countries can shoot back at the United States. Rumsfeld just wants to let the Russians know about the conversion process, but not actually tell them when an ICBM is being launched.

Besides, he added, ``everyone in the world would know" that the US missile was not nuclear ``after it hit within 30 minutes" of launch.

``Or 10 minutes," interjected Sergei Ivanov, the Russian defense minister who discussed the subject at a joint news conference with Rumsfeld. ... By noting that a long-range missile might hit its target in as little as 10 minutes from launch, Ivanov appeared to be emphasizing the short time frame in which a decision on retaliating would have to be made.

Yeah, it's sure a good thing that, you know, nobody's gotten nervous with nuclear weapons, you know. I mean, it's not as if a Russian colonel dodged his orders to prevent a nuclear war by accident, because he was afraid of an itchy trigger finger and wasn't even sure what was going on himself, or maybe the American lieutenant that effectively hotwired his nuclear missile during the Cuban Missile Crisis(*) so he wouldn't be snagged by any pesky delays. Or, just in those crazy couple of weeks, where were the times when a bear -- the animal, not the Russian -- effectively ordered nuclear-armed planes into the air, some American numbnuts went ahead with a test launch without warning anybody, and the test launch even scared American radar operators, several stations were put on DEFCON-2 without the commanders' knowledge, a training exercise nearly started a nuclear war, ...

So, clearly, it's not as if flinging about ICBMs would cause any additional worries. And if anyone does get nervous -- why, just wait to see if a nuclear weapon goes off before you make any hasty decisions! In the meantime, why not stock up on some SPF 4500 to avoid those pesky sunburns?

* I searched and searched through my old files for the source, but failed miserably. Sorry.

Lessons for Iraq

2006-08-24T20:18:00.000-04:00

One of my buddies is working a short job in Fort Leavenworth, home of the Center for Army Lessons Learned. One of the documents hosted at CALL is found elsewhere online, which led me to another site, which led me to this:

You will enter Iraq both as a soldier and as an individual, because on our side a man can be both a soldier and an individual. That is our strength -- if we are smart enough to use it. It can be our weakness if we aren't. As a soldier your duties are laid out for you. As an individual, it is what you do on your own that counts -- and it may count for a lot more than you think.

American success or failure in Iraq may well depend on whether the Iraqis (as the people are called) like American soldiers or not. It may not be quite that simple. But then again it could.

Great, timely advice from the Pentagon, eh?

Curiously, the opening line from this document might create a different context: "You have been ordered to Iraq (i-RAHK) as part of the world-wide offensive to beat Hitler." Looks like it could be interesting and still-relevant reading.

Law enforcement, Part 2

2006-08-17T08:48:00.000-04:00

The British on Tuesday:

UK transport officials are said to be considering introducing passenger profiling on grounds including ethnic origin and religion. ... But [former Metropolitan police chief Lord Stevens'] comment that "young Muslim men" should be a focus of security attention was attacked as "an extreme form of stereotyping" by the Muslim Council of Britain.

British law enforcement cleared this woman on Wednesday:

A 59-year-old Vermont woman's behavior aboard a trans-Atlantic flight triggered a massive security response yesterday, with Air Force F-15 jets escorting the plane to Logan Airport, where federal agents seized the woman, authorities interrogated passengers, and police dogs sniffed through luggage for explosives.

It must be easier to think that everything in the world is black and white, but it must really suck when reality begins to suggest few things in life are simple. But, as Stephen Colbert has suggested, reality has a liberal bias.

Edit: I just saw this gem, also brought to us by the British police:

LONDON - A 12-year-old boy managed to get around stepped-up security and board a jetliner at an airport outside London without a passport or a boarding pass.

The boy was discovered by cabin crew and turned over to airport police. Officials said they could not explain how he got aboard the plane, especially in light of security checks imposed last week after authorities foiled an alleged plot to bomb jetliners leaving Britain.

So much for profiling.

Law enforcement

2006-08-14T18:49:00.000-04:00

FBI statement on Friday:

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Leaders of the American Arab, Muslim, Sikh and South Asian communities participated in a nationwide conference call today with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other government officials in which both sides pledged to work together to protect our country and safeguard the civil rights of the various ethnic and religious communities. The conference call demonstrated that the American Arab, Muslim, Sikh and South Asian communities are actively involved in helping to secure the country, and that the government is actively engaged with these communities. The DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties led the call.

FBI on Saturday:

F-B-I officials say the men were cooperative, upfront and not hiding anything.
They are being charged with collecting or providing materials for terrorist acts and surveillance of a vulnerable target for terrorist purposes.

The FBI's boss on Sunday:

WASHINGTON -- Homeland security chief Michael Chertoff called [Sunday] for a review of domestic antiterrorism laws, saying the United States might benefit from the more aggressive surveillance and arrest powers used by British authorities last week to thwart an alleged plot to bomb airliners.

Chertoff said no American links to the London plot have been uncovered, but added that the top priority for US counterterrorism officials is to identify any possible connection between the suspects in Britain and Pakistan and individuals in the United States.

FBI on Monday:

The credibility of an alleged terrorist plot targeting Michigan's landmark Mackinac Bridge was undermined today when the FBI said there is no evidence linking the arrested men with terrorism.

Were the agents from the Friday conference calls all picking up their skirts at the dry cleaners' over the weekend?

Moving away from monarchy

2006-08-09T13:28:00.000-04:00

Up front: This post isn't about Bush. This is about moving our country farther from monarchy, back toward balanced democracy, and reversing dumb decisions made by many presidents.

The Boston Globe reports that a strong majority of the American Bar Association's delegates opposed growing efforts that allow the president to overrule Congress and the Supreme Court, effectively overturning the three-pillared government that this nation is supposed to have.

``We're not saying a president doesn't have the right to express his opinion about what is constitutional," [ABA President Michael] Greco said. ``But what he doesn't have is the awesome power of declaring something unconstitutional and not enforcing it -- of accruing under himself the powers of all three branches."

The article makes it clear that signing statements have been used for centuries, but the (ab)use has greatly increased in recent decades. The current president has signed a single veto, yet effectively used hundreds of signing statements to veto portions of bills. In some cases, the signing statements trumped the clear direction of the Supreme Court and Congress.

The Senate is delaying activity on a bill backed by its Judiciary Committee chairman, who wants this basic threat slowed:

"If the president is permitted to rewrite the bills that Congress passes and cherry-pick which provisions he likes and does not like," said [Arlen] Specter, "he subverts the constitutional process designed by our framers."

The effort would at least begin to allow some court supervision.

Curiously, the bill does not go far enough. In essense, it allows the courts to review the signing statements, but it still allows the president to continue offering signing statements that restrict the executive branch departments regardless of Congress' intent with the law. This is akin to saying the President can do whatever the hell he wants, but Congress wants to reserve the right to ask the courts to look it over. A much better idea would be to strip all signing statements of any interpretive power. As we remember from civics classes:
-- Congress creates and passes the law
-- The president follows the law
-- The courts interpret the law

Even if Specter's bill passes, this system still isn't restored.

In introducing the bill, Specter said he was trying to restore the system of checks-and-balances with the separation of powers:

The Founders had good reason for constructing the legislative process as it is: by creating a bicameral legislature and then granting the President the veto power. According to The Records of the Constitutional Convention, the veto power was designed by our Framers to protect citizens from a particular Congress that might enact oppressive legislation. However, the Framers did not want the veto power to be unchecked, and so, in article I, section 7, they balanced it by allowing Congress to override a veto by two-thirds vote.
As you can see, this is a finely structured constitutional procedure that goes straight to the heart of our system of check and balances. Any action by the President that circumvents this finely structured procedure is an unconstitutional attempt to usurp legislative authority. If the President is permitted to rewrite the bills that Congress passes and cherry pick which provisions he likes and does not like, he subverts the constitutional process designed by our Framers.

Hear, hear.

Lost in translation

2006-08-07T09:39:00.000-04:00

However you feel about Cindy Sheehan, MeTheSheeple would hope you have a view of the First Amendment different than this:

Sheehan told the group "our hearts are connected," regardless of people's races, countries or religions.

As she spoke, a man disrupted the service with loud questions and shouts of "This is unpatriotic!" before he was asked to leave.

"I believe Bush is doing what he should be doing," said the man, William McGlothlin of Marked Tree, Ark. "Freedom of speech is good until it gets out of whack."

Is this guy actually arguing that freedom of speech is great until it involves life-and-death matters? Isn't that the time it's needed the most?

One of America's finest patriots argued that patriotism requires dissent. He actually argues it's treasonous to shut up at important times; witness those who say it's treasonous to talk during important times:

No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The questing before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

The author, Patrick Henry, fought to have the Bill of Rights passed.

Never again?

2006-08-04T19:29:00.000-04:00

MeTheSheeple lives in a town with a number of Armenians, who have spent the last 90 years trying to get Turkey to admit it committed genocide when it wiped out maybe a million Armenians.

Last night, MeTheSheeple watched the stunning film "Conspiracy," a superbly acted movie. It looks a lot like a company board meeting, with the principals talking about making tweaks to their products. Instead, they're talking about best way to dispose of millions of people, in this case, Jews.

"Never again!" cry those who want to mark the Holocaust, which killed some 6 million Jewish people. Often lost in the debate is the idea that the Holocaust also killed some 6 million other people deemed "undesirable." Ignored, too, are the millions who perished under equally barbaric-but-organized efforts by the Japanese that killed 9 million civilians in China alone. "Never again!" the cry grew.

Yet even as the Jewish Holocaust of World War II is marked as something that can never be repeated, and has been unprecedented in its scope, the cry of "Never again!" rings more and more falsely.

Just a few minutes ago, MeTheSheeple walked past a sign advertising a "Dollars for Darfur" campaign at a local grocery store. "Never again!" In Darfur, it's three years and counting.

Surely after things quiet down in Darfur -- or, simply and sadly, die out -- someone will make a movie about it. Likely, it'll involve an outsider, possibly white, through whom we can interpret the events.

"Never again!" Just like the time a Nazi traveled east, hung out with the Dalai Lama, and witnessed the start of another crackdown that at least hints of genocide. It's a good thing we had the white guy to help us tell the story, regretable as it was. Maybe people came out of the movie theaters thinking "Never again!"

Not so many years after that movie, the world witnessed another genocide, but all-but-failed to act to stop it. Then, too, we got a movie with an outsider to tell us what it was like. At that point, of course, a million people were dead, many killed by machete or fire.

"Never again!" came the belated cry. And yet, just the next year, thousands of people were slaughtered.

"Never again!" rose the cry.

You guys ever hear that joke about languages? The great linguist is up at the lectern and says that, in every language a single negative makes the sentence negative. In most languages, two negatives make the sentence a positive. In a few languages, such as Russian, two negatives leave the sentence as a negative. But, he says carefully, in no language does a double positive ever make a negative. Then, from the back of the room, a kid piped up: "Yeah. Right."

"Never again!" Yeah, right.

Avoid the heat!

2006-07-31T19:26:00.000-04:00

The weather is going to be hot. Very hot. So hot the media, as a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist noted, is going to send reporters all over the region to say that, yes, it's hot over here, too!

In the spirit of our helpful smoke-detector PSA, WeTheSheeples would like to bring you some useful tips for staying cool and safe. Other agencies can offer you some generic heat tips, but it's really up to us to share some useful ones.

First off, don't leave your kid or your dog in the car "for five minutes." It's always more than five minutes. Plus, because your wrists will sweat, the handcuffs will be far more uncomfortable.

Generally speaking, most white folks don't regularly encounter 110-degree heat. If you're of the melatonin-deprived variety, you really ought to look to other clueless white guys who made a habit of hanging out in dusty, baked regions. We see that most of the American health agencies' tips must be descended from the British experience:

Wear light-colored, loose-fitting headwear. Just as in winter, the head carries a huge amount of the body's blood flow. Get your head hot and the rest of you will get hot, too.

Drink lots of clear fluids. Some people recommend plenty of water, or stuff like that VitaminWater stuff. Others say the clear fluids may include Tanqueray gin, Gilbey's vodka, Martini & Rossi vermouth, and some Seagram's tonic water. With a wet spring and hot weather now, there's a bumper crop of mosquitos; the tonic water contains quinine, which can help prevent malaria.

Avoid particularly hot regions, like South Africa and India.

So, in conclusion: The best ways to beat the heat are to stay out of former British colonies (presumably including this one), wear a pith helmet, drink lots of gin-and-tonics, decide appropriate levels of force against peasant uprisings, and offer understated expressions: "A wee bit of warmth today, eh, guvnor?"

It's the media's fault

2006-07-20T08:20:00.000-04:00

The Associated Press focuses only on the bad news from Iraq, showing another clear example of how the media is losing the war there:

Assailants slit the throats of a mother and her three children Wednesday in southern Iraq, where the family had fled to escape threats that they had cooperated with the Americans.

The mother's sister was also slain in the savage attack, which occurred in an apartment in the southern city of Basra, police said.

Just the bad news up front. But then we get a tiny, tiny taste of the good news from Iraq:

Five other family members were rescued before they bled to death.

It's all about the five people who died, but the five people who didn't quite die barely get a mention. Is this the fair, neutral and objective reporting that the media claim to prize? Apparently not, because the AP immediately dives back into the bad news:

Officials said the family had fled Baghdad for Basra after receiving threats because they had cooperated with U.S. forces. The officials gave no further details and spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals by sectarian militias that have infiltrated Basra's police.

Well, helllooooooo! Why not emphasize those members of Basra's police who do not belong to the sectarian militias? They might even be the majority of the cops. Instead we focus only on those bad eggs.

The only thing missing from the top of this story is the hint of impending civil war. These guys even effectively claim that, in June, as many Iraqi civilians died in violence, as Americans died in the Twin Towers? Stephen Colbert has such an accurate sense of truthiness: Reality must have a liberal bias.

A national common cause?

2006-07-17T16:06:00.000-04:00

Decades ago, this nation fought raw evil: A genocidal, megalomaniacal dictator in Europe, and a megalomaniacal nation filled with genocidal soldiers in the Pacific. To win, America united. Nearly everyone was affected by the war effort. Children participated in scrap drives, women entered the work force en masse as "Rosie the Riveter"s, people bought war bonds in quantities that are simply amazing today. The war effort at least led people to encourage others to work together. The economy was transformed.

Today, America is disunited in wars on two continents. The United States spent the equivalent of $428 billion in World War II. One projection of Iraq is $2,600 billion. The White House fired a financial adviser who projected expenses of $100 billion to $200 billion, but his worst-case figure has already been passed: It's now $293 billion. (Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4,
5.)

The United States will have to figure out a way to pay for these wars. Why, then, can it only do a terrible job in preventing wars and even nuclear attack?

What this country needs is something to unify it. To win World War II, workers united with industry united with government. Such unification would be appropriate and possible if the United States truly sought to free itself of its reliance upon oil, which of course comes from politically unstable countries, dictators and simple nutjobs in South America, Africa and, of course, the Middle East.

The great majority of France's electrical needs are supplied by nuclear power. That's a relatively easy, relatively safe answer to supply issues.

Conservation is even cheaper. My neighborhood hardware store now sells compact fluorescent lightbulbs for $0.99. They'll save many times that figure in electrical use, and nearly last forever.

America is the land of ingenuity. Yet more engineering jobs are shifting off our shores, more Americans are dying in far-off lands to support the oil thirst, and some borderline fuel-efficient vehicles are ridiculed. America can, and must, do better. Why not cut our oil entanglements?

America the broke

2006-07-11T09:53:00.000-04:00

The hosers are worried America's financial problems will bring down the economy of the northern suburbs:

THE NUMBERS are staggering -- a US$43-trillion hole in America's public finances that's getting worse every day. And the stakes are almost inconceivable for a generation of politicians and voters raised in relative prosperity, who've never known severe economic hardship. But that plush North American lifestyle to which we've all grown accustomed has been bought on credit, and the bill is rapidly nearing its due date. If the United States can't find a way to pay up, the results will spill beyond national borders, spreading economic misery far and wide. In Canada, the country whose financial well-being is most tightly tied to trade with the U.S., there wouldn't be a single region or industry left untouched by a fiscal shock south of the border.

Worth a few minutes of your time, eh?

A man of the ages

2006-07-10T22:13:00.000-04:00

The Richmond Times Dispatch printed an obituary honoring a most unusual man, Federeric Arthur Clark. MeTheSheeple feels as if he must honor this man. The obituary opened:

Frederic Arthur (Fred) Clark, who had tired of reading obituaries noting other's courageous battles with this or that disease, wanted it known that he lost his battle as a result of an automobile accident on June 18, 2006. True to Fred's personal style, his final hours were spent joking with medical personnel while he whimpered, cussed, begged for narcotics and bargained with God to look over his wife and kids.

My favorite passage:

During his life he excelled at mediocrity. He loved to hear and tell jokes, especially short ones due to his limited attention span. He had a life long love affair with bacon, butter, cigars and bourbon.

Let's take a minute to honor a man who obviously had been so full of life.

The site's getting pounded by Fark.com users, but the original link is here.

Bastardization

2006-07-10T21:44:00.000-04:00

I was appalled to read today's Boston Globe with a mention of how the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo Bay detainees is being spun into "special privileges for terrorists." The Washington Post has more.

What the hell happened to those freedoms the terrorists hated? Following international law in just a handful of cases isn't anything too terrifying. This is coming on the backs of earlier reversals of the administration, which wanted to keep lawyers and evidence from U.S. citizens.

It was this sort of junk that led American colonialists to rebel against Britain, making these lands a beacon for freedom and basic human rights. Now, just a couple of centuries later, we Americans are flipping those ideals and ideas on their heads, then insulting anyone who supports them.

Some of the Gitmo detainees are undoubtedly bad people. Some of them are undoubtedly not bad people. It's up to a fair trial to determine, in a process that treats them as humans with some native rights. America is in a war of ideas, and the other side thinks we persecute Muslims unfairly. Isn't it a better idea to follow our nation's founding ideals, show the world a better method, and reduce the hatred for being a bunch of hypocritical bastards?

Ironic and moronic

2006-07-09T08:33:00.000-04:00

Two great bits of irony from the news this morning:

A man heads to Iraq to create a video documentary about Iraq's long history of human rights advances. The man, reportedly a well-trained American veteran, is arrested, locked up for two months, and beaten. An American general declares that "This case highlights the effectiveness of our detainee review process." The "detainee" was never charged.

Massachusetts' Democratic Party wants to stop people from using negative publicity to attack candidates. A special panel will review advertisements. If panelists find offenders, they'll use negative publicity to attack candidates.

Womb with a view

2006-07-07T22:01:00.000-04:00

MeTheSheeple is proud to announce that MrsSheeple is back-ordered on delivery of LilSheeple, who is still in production. LilSheeple is expected to arrive in about eight more months.

Reasonable?

2006-07-07T22:00:00.000-04:00

Our president said that the United States had a "reasonable chance" of shooting down a North Korean missile. Now, imagine someone living in San Francisco, aware of North Korea's efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Want to bet your idea of a "reasonable chance" is different than the president's?

High-stakes stuff.

Freedom

2006-07-04T09:10:00.000-04:00

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Digital terrorism? Military and congressional intelligence?

2006-06-29T09:38:00.000-04:00

A friend posted a link to this ABC News story offering a rare peek into a Congressional intelligence committee hearing. Pentagon officials offered some interesting testimony about how terrorists are taking good, strong, patriotic American games and twisting them to their nefarious uses:

"Any video game that comes out, as soon as the code is release, they will modify it and change it for their needs."

Yikes! Scary stuff. Another Pentagon official testifies that

"Nowhere is this more evident than the computer games they're using as they target the youth. This is made by an American company, but they've created a new trailer and plug-in where if you register and send $25 you can play it. ... You can see how they use humor first to evoke emotion and then to evoke a response and then to direct that response in a direction that they want."

Yeah. The problem is that it's complete bullshit. The game is off-the-shelf, not modified in any way by anyone but the manufacturer. The trailer was reportedly made by a Dutch-born Muslim, a guy with a master's degree working in as a hospital quality manager in Europe. He just compiled his own clips from his gameplay. The humor he's evoking? Well, the soundtrack came from a PUPPET MOVIE made by the SOUTH PARK GUYS. All this, of course, comes under a $7 million contract to Science Applications International, which is monitoring the insurgents' Web sites.

I found an Australian ABC page discussing this in greater depth. GamePolitics features another interview with the trailer's author:

[[Trailer Author]]: It's not everyday that they label you part of al-Qaeda... and a Jihad recruiter. They demonised me by directly labeling me to someone from al-Qaeda who's trying to recruit innocent children that are playing this game, by using a mod [modification of an existing game].

[[GamePolitics Guy]]: What did you think when you heard the claim that you had "modded" the game? Isn't the character in the footage just the "Insurgent" faction from the "BF2: Special Forces" expansion pack?

[[Trailer Author]]: It is just in game footage from SF, no self made mod at all. I can't get even my own computer to work. So you can see programming isn't on of my strong points As a matter of fact my computer crashed just a few days ago, and for a month now I cant get BF2 to work...

Clearly, a major threat to our nation.

Amusingly, the House Intelligence Committee isn't intelligent enough to properly link its own files. If you mess with the URLs to change the slashes and remove some extras, you can find valuable things, such as this RAND official's testimony on the use of the Internet or comments on how the media is releasing classified information.

MeTheSheeple failed to find a working transcript of all the Pentagon testimony in re: video games "created" by extremists. The ABC video, that first link I posted, includes some voice-overs to the effect of the game desensitizes the bad guys to killing Americans. The reporter may have put that in there himself. Yet it likely was a condensed version of the testimony.

Now, the idea of the Pentagon criticizing the desensitizing of youths toward violence through video game mods is funny, because the Pentagon created a custom video game from scratch as a recruiting tool. Yes, presumably the Pentagon supports the idea of more "good guy" soldiers and fewer "bad guy" soldiers. But to cast it in tones of moral superiority only when the other team does it, and then to advocate, sponsor and push for it when our team gets interested, is a bit on the hypocritical. Where does the moral superiority come from? Why is it generated? Why does no one realize that hypocrisy like this wrecks American credibility?

For the record, MeTheSheeple plays his own two video games. The latest is Red Orchestra: Ostfront, a historically based simulation of two armies that in their own ways ... well, could both be considered the bad guys. Just to pick one country, Poland: The Russians created Katyn and waited patiently while the Germans crushed the Warsaw Uprising, while the Germans committed a slew of atrocities that included the creation of Auschwitz. Just for the record.

And for the record, there, MeTheSheeple's the Russian with the DP-28. You know, the dead guy. Don't you love how the screen shot includes the German grenade in the air, though?

Sound and fury

2006-06-26T19:16:00.000-04:00

MeTheSheeple is ever-intrigued at just how polarizing a force the Iraq war is becoming.

There's the ongoing debate about whether to "cut and run" in Iraq. There's this Boston Globe analysis piece about how the Republicans are trying to make the label stick to those wimpy Democrats. There's this Boston Globe opinion piece about how how, historically, it's the Republicans who are advocating the cut-and-run stance. Now it looks like the White House might just be studying something that looks a lot like the cut-and-run approach. However this shakes out, MeTheSheeple offers one of his favorite sets of campaign promises involving the cut-and-run approach:

1968: Richard M. Nixon: Elect me and I'll get you out of Vietnam.
1972: Richard M. Nixon: Elect me and I'll get you out of Vietnam.

Despite everything even known then about Nixon, and the obvious lack of follow-up on Nixon's campaign promise, and even the use of CREEP as an official campaign committee name, Nixon still made it.

That sort of leaves open some questions about what could happen, politically, in the fall. Expect political casualties, of course. Here's a good starting idea of Iraq's great divides:

Here's one example MeTheSheeple found intriguing. One of the concluding comments:

And anon, I'm pretty sure I have a pretty good idea about what service to my country is, and Murtha has given such service in the past. That doesn't give him a free pass to say and do whatever he fancies now.

That sounds remarkably as if a military veteran and U.S. Congressman has no freedom of speech.

The Iraq war's divides aren't just to be found in blogs, either. A retired brigadier forwarded an e-mail to me that questions Murtha's credentials and honesty. Whatever the facts are, however objective analysis would influence anyone's views, it's obvious that the subjective divides in Iraq are only growing deeper.

The real shame, of course, is that all these political conundrums, attacks, slanders, misdirections, misinformation and the like will create political casualties that will influence real casualties. While the debate continues, real people on all sides or on no sides of the conflict are dying, while countless others are suffering. These are very real, not theoretical, problems. Here's to hoping some concensus will form, soon, over some good answers.

An aside: A year ago, MeTheSheeple was riding in a car to a gun range with a military veteran. Said veteran had a then-wacky idea: If all these Iraqis are so sure life was much better under Saddam Hussein, why not drop him back in power and then see how the fighting really goes? ... Now, Hussein himself seems to think maybe the Americans have that idea. Yeah, OK, he's more than a few fries short of a Happy Meal ... but as the months go by, I wonder if that family friend wasn't maybe on to something.

What was that old line? "There's a time to think and a time to act. Gentlemen, this is no time to think!"

Second Amendment insanity

2006-06-25T19:28:00.000-04:00

In honor of this weekend's Oklahoma Full Auto Shoot, I feel obliged to post my favorite sound track from last year's shoot. Your sight will likely focus on the guy with the big Browning up in the foreground. You're really just trying to listen in. That little vibration kinda deal is 100 bullets flying downrange.

This was posted using Google video. First time. Hope it works.

For the record, here's my favorite photograph from the shoot. Before you ask, the kid was under heavy supervision; yes, the field was on fire from tracer rounds and explosives in some junk cars; that particular gun was semi-auto only; and, aside from a few cases of heat exhaustion, the only casualties with untold thousands of rounds of ammunition fired were ... some cars and some washing machines. The washing machines were great shooting with an MP-40.

Computers are evil

2006-06-20T15:12:00.000-04:00

MeTheSheeple's laptop just got a bonafide Blue Screen Of Death, something rare on Windows XP. The crash came as he finished reading a book in a record 2:20 and decided to take a break. The break came with a buggy game with massive memory problems (Red Orchestra: Ostfront) combined with a buggy Web browser with massive memory problems (Firefox, with extensions including Forecast Fox).

This'd normally be the time some jackass steps in to levy the usual bullshit about "This is better" or "That company is evil." You know the one -- like when the Mac guys supporting an abusive monopoly rail against the abusive monopoly of Microsoft. Then the Linux/open-source guys do the same -- forgetting, of course, that Firefox is largely responsible for this.

Almost no one argues the absolute truth: Computers are evil.

Yeah, they let us get work done. But they're also evil.

Fortunately, they're slowly becoming less evil. Years ago, MeTheSheeple bought a computer with NT 4.0 on it. The computer crashed every _12 minutes_ with all sorts of weird colors on the screen, making him think it was a video problem. Turned out to be a mouse driver -- and for a Microsoft mouse, if memory serves. Once the mouse driver was updated, the computer only crashed, on average, every 75-90 minutes. The answer was in Windows Millenium Edition, which everyone else thought was too buggy to use. Are we better in 2006? Yeah. Are computers still evil? Hell yeah.

Which laws to enforce?

2006-06-19T21:51:00.000-04:00

Years ago, I worked alongside some deputies in a smallish Georgia city. One morning, two of 'em were bitching about a coworker, "that moronic MP," or something to that effect. I overheard, and interrupted: Didn't you guys used to be in the military? Yeah, the sheriff's sergeant had been an engineer in Vietnam and the sheriff's corporal hadn't changed his haircut since he left the infantry.

At issue was the actions of a third deputy, who was the former military policeman. He'd seen a guy stumbling along the street -- Georgia calls it "pedestrian under the influence" -- and arrested him, bringing him to jail to sober up and presumably have his family bail him out.

The other two guys were irked. The guy was stumbling home because he'd had too much to drink in a bar, decided not to hop in his car and risk killing someone else, and tried walking home. The one deputy investigated and arrested the guy, giving him a ride to jail. The other two guys would have investigated and offered him a ride home, because he'd been trying to do the right thing. The two guys predicted the next time the guy would just risk the drive, breaking more serious laws and threatening more lives and property.

Something in the Washington Post this morning made me recall this. At issue is of which laws to enforce, for which ends. The story is on immigration law enforcement:

Between 1999 and 2003, work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants dropped from 182 in 1999 to four in 2003, and fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212,000, according to federal statistics.

In 1999, the United States initiated fines against 417 companies. In 2004, it issued fine notices to three.

This is, of course, the same subject addressed by the president, who was trying to walk a fine line between two widely separated groups: "We're a nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws. We're also a nation of immigrants, and we must uphold that tradition, which has strengthened our country in so many ways. These are not contradictory goals."

Enforcement of some laws brings unintended consequences. Fark.com linked to a story on Georgia's near-ban on registered sex offenders, who will be prohibited, across the state, from living within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop. To many people this will immediately sound like a good idea. Think, though, just how many bus stops there are, and what a 1,000-foot distance would mean. Very few places would thus allow sex offenders, and they have to go somewhere, right? In an ideal world, there wouldn't be child rapists, but, well, there are. And they have to live somewhere.

One Iowa city tried strict sex-offender laws, and they backfired, according to the New York Times.

Authorities say that many have simply vanished from their sight, with nearly three times as many registered sex offenders considered missing since before the law took effect in September. ... "The truth is that we're starting to lose people," said Don Vrotsos, chief deputy for the Dubuque County sheriff's office and the man whose job it is to keep track of that county's 101 sex offenders.

The statute has set off a law-making race in the cities and towns of Iowa, with each trying to be more restrictive than the next by adding parks, swimming pools, libraries and bus stops to the list of off-limits places. Fearful that Iowa's sex offenders might seek refuge across state lines, six neighboring states have joined the frenzy.

Sometimes, laws are passed, praised for their effectiveness, and only half-assedly enforced. MeTheSheeple can't seem to find authoritative, comprehensive statistics through the end, but notes that tens of thousands of convicted felons may have been prevented from buying guns under the Brady Bill. A felon's attempt to buy a gun is illegal. However, such laws were almost never prosecuted. Isn't that great?

Seems to me that in an ideal world we'd train officers in appropriate discretion (e.g., driving the drunk home instead of pushing him to become a drunk driver). We'd be careful not to enforce laws with any bias. And we'd pass laws with the intent of enforcing them a large part of the time. Then, if there are political pressures, legislators would be encouraged to revise, revoke or amend those laws.

Instead, we've got biased interpretation, broad lack of enforcement, and political pressures coming in the wrong ways. Yech.

Another view of Iraq

2006-06-17T09:23:00.000-04:00

Ralph Peters wrote this interesting column in the New York Post, in which he wrote that Iraqi insurgents themselves are saying they're having a hard time recruiting, a hard time operating, a hard time getting weapons, and a hard time getting money. Peters goes on to write:

Desperate, Zarqawi's butchers laid out a program to try to regain the initiative they'd lost. Here's what the terrorists hoped to do:
In their own words, "use the media for spreading an effective and creative image of the resistance." That is, exploit the prejudices of the Western media, the terrorists' last allies.
Infiltrate Iraq's army, which was pinning them to the mat (if you can't beat 'em, join 'em).
Unify the resistance - which was falling to pieces amid squabbles over tactics, over turf and even over who was the real enemy.
Most ambitious, the terrorists hoped to spark a war between the United States and Iran, to "create a second front" that would take pressure off them. To that end, they planned to implicate Iran in staged terrorist events and to provide disinformation about Tehran's having ties to terrorist groups targeted by the United States.
Just in case that didn't work, the terrorists also hoped to ignite civil wars between Sunni and Shia, Americans and Shia, Shia and Shia, Kurds and Shia - and even between different Sunni factions. A Vietnam-era U.S. officer was ridiculed for saying, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it," but al Qaeda is willing to destroy all of Iraq in order to save it for a fanatical vision.

The whole column's interesting reading.

A few things are worthy of note. Interpret as you will. Peters was an experienced United States intelligence officer. One military consultant I knew said Peters should have been tried on treason charges for one of his novels, "Red Army," because it gave away so much of the American strategy. And Peters has been criticized for his view of the media, which purportedly is that reporters are combatants who should take the side of their country.

Most importantly, the column is based off a single insurgent document. MeTheSheeple would be very interested to see more. In the meantime, he recommends reading the column.

Bill Gates is retiring

2006-06-16T09:17:00.000-04:00

Bill Gates is trying to retire from Microsoft but simply can't afford to live; open-source advocates have set up donation Web sites here and here. Yeah, just kidding.

It's easy to focus on all the bad things that Microsoft has done under Bill Gates' control: Some sneaky deals at the beginning of DOS, abuses of its monopoly, a lack of innovation in recent years, ungodly delays in software releases (remember Windows NT 5.0? Yeah.), and certainly Microsoft's opposition to open standards that makes today's Excel file tomorrow's Lotus 1-2-3 or VisiCalc file that you won't be able to open.

All of that said, Microsoft under Gates has brought intuitive, powerful computers to desktops around the world. The world has changed a great deal in the last few decades, and much of it has been because of Microsoft.

Gates is retiring to spend more money with his charity work. With his huge fortune and focus on philanthropy, Gates is on a parallel to Andrew Carnegie. Gates has rightly brought a focus to problems long neglected by the rich nations, like malaria. This is, undoubtedly, a great kind of innovation.

No one likes us ... dunno why

2006-06-15T07:18:00.000-04:00

With the accuracy and speed both readers have come to expect of WeTheSheeples, MeTheSheeple brings this fresh report. Yep. Ran in the Globe yesterday, ran in the IHT two days ago, based off this study. The short story of the summary: One of Randy Newman's songs remains current.

Remember Spain, our ally in the war on terror, sufferer of its own terrorist strikes? Yeah. They like the United States less now -- just one out of four is in our fan club. Iraq as a new front in the war on terror? Not exactly working:

Support for the U.S.-led war on terror, with few exceptions, is either flat or has declined; confidence in President Bush has fallen ever lower in Europe; and majorities in most countries believe that the U.S. will not achieve its objectives in Iraq. ...
Majorities in 10 of 14 foreign countries surveyed say the war in Iraq has made the world a more dangerous place. In Great Britain, 60% say the war has made the world more dangerous, compared with 30% who say it has made the world safer.

None of this is terribly surprising, as this old entry shows. The downward spiral, though, is not a good sign.

Someone out there could say, "Yes, but some of these countries never liked us." Not always true, but sometimes is. But if the overall population of a country we consider an ally grows to dislike us, what do you think is happening with the radical populations in those countries, the ones that could become terrorists? What about the radical populations outside those countries? What, then, would this say for the War on Terror?

Destinations

2006-06-14T14:10:00.000-04:00

Jon Stewart on The Daily Show had a hilarious riff about some pretty serious business, the suicide of three American-held not-quite-prisoners-of-war, but maybe-not-criminals at Guantanamo Bay.

Now, there's some debate about just how many Gitmo prisoners are actually "enemy combatants," a phrase that has no basis in law. Nevertheless, these guys are being held in the war on terror, which, from the bad guys' side, resembles a guerrilla war. Without a doubt, those guys recognize the value of publicity, such that they target reporters for kidnappings because they know it will get disproportionate coverage.

All that said, that same idea can be taken to an extreme -- and, unfortunately, was, by an American bureaucrat: "Taking their own lives was not necessary, but it certainly is a good P.R. move to draw attention." All this, of course, comes from Colleen Graffy. A deputy assistant secretary of state. For public diplomacy. Who works for the person appointed by the American president to improve America's image abroad. It ain't working:

In Britain, where Graffy made her remarks, the reaction has been particularly negative, and calls for the closure of Guantanamo have gotten louder. A Reuters-UK article on the subject noted, "Nine British citizens have been held in Guantanamo Bay. All returned to Britain and none has been charged.

Several appeared in media interviews over the weekend in which they said they were not surprised that inmates had killed themselves."

If only as a "good PR move", it's time for the Bush Administration to close Guantanamo down.

A Washington Post columnist cites the case of one of those British prisoners, Moazzam Begg:

"It is considered a sin in Islam to despair," he writes, but after he was transferred to a solitary cell at Guantanamo in 2003, Begg began to crack. The guards seemed obsessed with preventing suicide. Begg received an odd plastic blanket, for example, and later learned that it was a "suicide blanket" that couldn't be torn up to make a noose. When guards found paint chipped in his cell, they worried that he was trying to poison himself.

A prison psychiatrist explained to Begg that there had indeed been suicide attempts: "She told me there were people who'd lost all sense of time, reason, reality; people who had been kept in a solitary cell, completely blocked off with no window, eight foot by six, like mine, but with absolutely nobody to speak to, nobody. She said some of them just ended up talking to themselves." A despairing Begg writes at one point to his father back in England: "I still don't know what crime I am supposed to have committed. . . . I am in a state of desperation and I am beginning to lose the fight against depression and hopelessness."

This doesn't do much for the arguments that the terrorists hate us for our freedoms. The Washington Post's David Ignatius sums up Gitmo:

When I hear U.S. officials describe the suicides of three Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay last Saturday as "asymmetric warfare" and "a good PR move," I know it's time to close that camp -- not just because of what it's doing to the prisoners but because of how it is dehumanizing the American captors.

The American officials spoke of the dead prisoners as if they inhabited a different moral universe. That's what war does: People stop seeing their enemies as human beings and consign them to a different category. It was discomfiting to see this indifference stated so bluntly, and subsequent U.S. statements tactfully disavowed the initial ones.

Speaking about a different context, Sen. John McCain argued that the United States needs to keep a true moral superiority: "If they could, Islamic extremists who resort to terror would destroy us utterly. But to defeat them we must prevail in our defense of American political values as well. The mistreatment of prisoners greatly injures that effort. The mistreatment of prisoners harms us more than our enemies."

America's future

2006-06-13T15:22:00.000-04:00

America's colleges are respected worldwide. America's lower schools, on the other hand, compare most unfavorably.

This Rocky Mountain Times story captures some of the challenges and tribulations faced by high school students. It's got plenty of the human element to keep you moving through the story, but is also supported by a wealth of statistics and some bonafide statistical analysis.

Among the data cited is that the average dropout costs society about $200,000. MeTheSheeple remembers looking through some Georgia Department of Labor job offerings years ago and noticing that even forklift drivers had to be high school graduates. The fact that so very many Americans never make it out of high school is appalling, and is awful for their future and for the country's. Maybe the Rocky Mountain Times story can get more people thinking about these challenges -- and solving them. Either way, the package is worth a read.

The Rocky Mountain News story is one of the winners of the Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism. MeTheSheeple guesses some of the other stories in the group are worth a read, too.

Police state

2006-06-12T19:35:00.000-04:00

The AP reports:

PROVIDENCE, R.I. --The Rhode Island General Assembly is considering legislation that could give police access to Internet and phone records and credit card and bank information without a warrant or other court review, civil libertarians said.

The state police said the legislation would help track down the increasing instances of Internet-based crime, including fraud and child exploitation. They say they are only seeking expanded access to Internet records, not phone or banking records.

MeTheSheeple's favorite part is the justification:

State police say going before a judge to get a warrant can be time-consuming and cumbersome.

Cpl. John Killian, the state police's computer crime specialist, said it can take three to four hours of work to obtain a warrant.

"There's a balance between privacy and police authority," Killian said. "The current situation is weighted too far on the side of privacy."

So obviously the key to balky warrant procedures is to get rid of the warrants. I don't know what's scarier -- that law enforcement agencies are redrawing the lines so far, or that it's highly controversial when someone expects a search warrant.

Brightening your weekend

2006-06-10T08:48:00.000-04:00

Just when you thought some things couldn't get any worse:

EL FASHER, Sudan -- Tribal leaders on Friday rejected the possibility of U.N. peacekeepers replacing African Union forces in Darfur, with one chief threatening a "holy war" if non-African troops deployed to the Sudanese region.

... If a U.N. force comes to Darfur, Jalaladin said, "we are declaring jihad against it. . . . It means death. It means defending Sudan and Islam."

This apparently is a Muslim unfamiliar with God the merciful and compassionate, who encourages his followers to protect the weak.

'Course, other blogs have pointed out Ann Coulter's latest ravings. That makes this old article from The Nation particulary interesting in retrospect.

MeTheSheeple seems to recall that while the development of the religions took different paths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam all share common roots -- and thus a common God. At least 1.4 million Web page authors have the right idea. Where do these morons come from? Is there a remedial religion school we can kick 'em off to?

Some rights for some?

2006-06-09T23:08:00.000-04:00

Media types -- heck, Americans in general -- generally advocate equal rights for everybody. The Boston Globe's Brian McGrory bucked the trend in this little tatterous ribbon of stupidity.

At heart is the recent rejection of a standard police operating procedure. Let's look at the first paragraph of the original Boston Globe story:

Police officers cannot stop and frisk people on the street based solely on observing suspicious clothing, hairstyle, walk, or body posture, the state Court of Appeals ruled yesterday.

Hardly sounds revolutionary, eh?

McGrory disagrees. Because, in this instance, the guy getting frisked on the street really did have a gun:

Who's protecting the civil rights of the elderly residents who would never dare venture outside after dark? The teenagers who can't shoot baskets in area parks because they're too dangerous? The young adults who aren't ever really told that there might be a better way?

In the abstract, the state Appeals Court is absolutely right. Civil rights are critical in a society like ours, and a criminal's rights are no less important than those of the most God-fearing citizens.

Apparently, you have to be a good, honest person to have rights. The insanely stupid part of this is those very seem teenagers shooting baskets in the park ... are just as likely to be frisked on their way home.

Let's really look at this argument here. Haircuts? Dangerous streets? Most people don't move more than once a year. Most people keep a haircut for at least a month. McGrory's arguing, really arguing, that police should freely be able to frisk the same guy every night for a month, walking home on the same street with the same hair cut.

He's really incensed the case was thrown out because the guy was guilty of having a gun. OK, but what if he wasn't? What if he were the kid coming back from the basketball court getting stopped by the cops every night for a month?

This isn't to take anything away from the police officers' sense of judgment, but on the whole that same sense of judgment is imperfect at best. Heck, the same newspaper reported just that last week. Some Fark.com submitter summed it up perfectly:

Police search minorities more often than whites, even though crackers are more likely to be carrying contraband

How many more guys with guns were searched by cops tonight? How many innocent guys with a "bad guy" hairdo and a "bad guy" walk?

Bullet points

2006-06-08T20:29:00.000-04:00

MeTheSheeple loves it when several of his interests converge. Thanks to CBS News and other outlets, we've got that.

"CBS News Investigates" just aired this relatively lengthy package about the effectiveness of the 5.56mm bullets being fired by Americans. This fresh investigative story, unfortunately, is cast almost verbatim as this two-year-old story on "The American Thinker" -- whatever that is. One of the chief arguments made by the main source involves a three-year-old incident. And the guy making the claims has been arguing the same thing for several decades.

That's not to say there's no worthwhile story here. Clearly, the effectiveness of the U.S. military is incredibly important. If our soldiers can't kill or disable the bad guys, more of the good guys will get hurt.

Yet MeTheSheeple is appalled at how CBS likely was approached by a source who has consistently said the same thing for two years, and then bills it as an investigative piece. Worse, CBS News offers an uncut interview with the one source (see sidebar there, "Are these bullets duds?") but no uncut interviews with sources with opposing viewpoints. There's also no apparent effort to contact troops in the field or troops who have returned from the field, some of whom might just have something to offer.

MeTheSheeple won't pretend to be an expert, but he will point out several things. First, the M-16 was designed to fire high-velocity rounds that tumbled and fragmented. Early on, the rifle was changed with tighter rifling that reduced the tumbling. Then the United States developed a different bullet with a solid steel core -- to penetrate protective armor -- that didn't really fragment. Then the United States adopted the M-4 carbine, which has a shorter barrel length, which reduces velocity. Suddenly, it's no longer such a high-velocity, tumbling, fragmenting bullet.

True experts can better say what all this means. The reading isn't very pleasant but you can get an idea of what's going on.

Whatever happens, the current United States 5.56mm round is the same basic bullet used by other NATO countries, plus countless others. It's also not drastically different from the round used by Russia since the 1970s. People can argue about "the better bullet" back and forth ad nauseum, and have, for years. One classic example is this Usenet thread, which reached 119 messages. Amidst all the technical stuff, MeTheSheeple was amused by this opinion favoring 7.62x51mm bullets over the 5.56x45mm bullets:

However, if you're involved in more serious social interacting with people who hold views which differ radically from yours, at 500m the 7.62(mm) makes for a more convincing argument.

Add: Via a Fark.com discussion, this link.

Damned lies and statistics

2006-05-30T22:20:00.000-04:00

Fark.com linked to this NewsMax story in which a Congresscritter from Iowa proclaims the relative safety of Iraq. I found a similar piece about the Congresscritter in the New York Sun.

As we all know, Iowa is home to an enormous number of experts in urban crime, insurgency, civil war and statistics, making this a particularly insightful piece. No, really. Well.

Basically, U.S. Rep. Steve King took some Pentagon estimates about civilian deaths and compared the civilian death rate of Iraq to the civilian death rate of select American cities, and found "Iraq" is safer. MeTheSheeple immediately screamed "WHAT?!?" on the realization that there's a real apples-to-oranges comparison here. MeTheSheeple is sure that the civilian death rate in some Kurdistan villages will compare nicely with, say, Switzerland. But you can't compare countries with cities. He could try it the other way, too: Why not compare the civilian death rate in Baghdad with the civilian death rate in Iowa? Yeah, let's find out how that one turns out.

Farkers are busy tearing apart his statistics, finding his calculated death rate may actually be only about half of the real rate. It's interesting reading for those inclined. For those not inclined, just think twice before accepting any statistic at its apparent face value.

Add: A quick Google search turned up earlier debates about Iraq's death toll. In 2003, one guy claimed -- very erroneously -- that the frequent availability of guns made Iraq a safe place to be. There, too, the comparison was with Washington, D.C. MeTheSheeple won't open any gun-control argument right now, but the point is the claim of relative safety was utter bullshit -- by a factor of about 20. Another 2003 story here compares the experience of a Baghdad coroner.

Little may have changed, with deaths in the Baghdad region running about 1,000 per month, or dozens of times D.C.'s rate.

Sad. So sad.

Follow-ups

2006-05-30T14:14:00.000-04:00

Good news and bad news.

First, the Catholic Church greatly limited its payout to a man accused of serial sexual harassment while leading the Boston-area Catholic hospitals. Sorry for the late news; this was a follow-up to the previous post here.

Second, WeTheSheeples previously posted about the national debt using a story several years old. USA Today recently followed up to find the average American household owes $510,678 for these public liabilities. As pointed out by one political cartoonist, word of such liabilities could deter illegal immigration.

Business-like approaches

2006-05-24T14:38:00.000-04:00

I've never heard of politicians running on a "Bureaucracy is great!" platform. Normally, when politicans describe changes in service, they talk about a more business-like approach. These days, that's not always a good thing.

MrsSheeple was irked by reports about Fannie Mae, a quasi-private company founded by the United States government that has embraced some accounting practices used by other companies. Said accounting practices today resulted in a $400 million fine over a saga of deceitful practices that also helped get top executives much larger bonuses.

MeTheSheeple is glad to see such entrepreneurial spirit, but wonders why they didn't take it farther. Perhaps there could have been some Enron-style shell games? Or maybe some almost-off-the-books debt like U-Haul? If Fannie Mae's core business is moving money around and working with debt, then such accounting seems ideally suited. Yeah. That's the ticket.

Other business-like activity is brought to us by a charitable division of the Catholic Church. After finding out that the head hospital honcho may have sexually harassed several hospital employees, the church is now finding out ... oh, maybe it's at least a dozen women. So now the church is trying to figure out whether it can pay the guy $3 million to go away. Boston Globe columnist Eileen McNamara suggests that for the church the only effective regulation is litigation.

Corporations have many amazing, wonderful things for people all around the world. Of course, not everything is perfect. Next time someone says they want to run a charity more like a business, or run a government agency more like a corporation, you might want to ask just what they mean.

Efficiency expertise

2006-05-16T13:34:00.000-04:00

MeTheSheeple hasn't written a whole lot about the immigration debate. What a great time! (Disclosure: MrsSheeple wasn't born here, but she speaks much better English.)

So, Shrub yesterday backed a plan that may lead to amnesty for the immigrants here, possibly a ploy to get on their good side and convince 'em to become lifelong Republicans.

He's also proposing sending thousands of National Guardsmen to the border. Word is the commitment could eventually reach all three of the Guardsmen not already in Iraq, recuperating from Iraq, or who won't say bad things about the lack of federal coordination in New Orleans.

In actuality, he proposed last night as many as 6,000 troops on the border with Mexico. This is kind of funny, because last year he chopped nearly 10,000 border-patrol guards from his own budget proposal -- likely on forced austerity because of expenses like, oh, I don't know, maybe IRAQ ... where so many of the Guardsmen are. Bush also called for an increase in the number of ... border-patrol agents. Pat Paulsen could have made this funny, yes; unfortunately, Bush is trying for a different effect.

There's nothing quite like an obvious election-year ploy (a one-year commitment, no less) in the face of high levels of organization by immigrants, many of whom are here illegally.

In completely unrelated news, MeTheSheeple must turn back to WorldNetDaily, which in fact help start this ~~utter waste of time~~ blog. One of the latest posts backed massive deportation procedings in a highly unusual argument that must be read to be believed, albeit at the cost of stomach churning. In fact, the writer Godwin'd his own writings:

If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn't possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don't speak English and are not integrated into American society.

Unfortunately, the WND nuts (not to be confused, necessarily, with the WMD nuts) often make their way into the popular media as so-called experts. For proof, just wander over to this blog's first real post.

Mortgaging the future

2006-05-09T14:22:00.000-04:00

The grandchildren that MeTheSheeple does not yet have may be paying for mistakes that may have started on a cocktail napkin.

The napkin was the infamous napkin supposedly drawn upon by economist Arthur Laffer, who sketched the "Laffer curve" that theorized tax collections could increase as the tax rate decreased. Laffer has since said he doesn't remember the napkin and disavowed the theory.

Just last year, the Congressional Budget Office studied the results of a 10-percent tax cut. Assumptions varied, but the CBO decided that growth due to tax cuts would make up only a small fraction of government's economic losses due to the tax cuts: about one quarter, and quite possibly less. In other words, cutting taxes really cuts tax collection. It doesn't stimulate the economy nearly enough to make up the difference within a decade.

Today, Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby argues that efforts to cut taxes -- and thus government revenue -- backfire and actually increase the size of the "beast," or government.

Everybody knows that the Reagan tax cuts did not actually cause spending to come down in the 1980s; most people have surely noticed that the Bush I and Clinton tax hikes were followed by spending constraint in the 1990s; and the Bush II tax cuts certainly have not stopped Congress from spending like a drunken sailor recently. But then the plural of anecdote is not data, and until the starve-the-beast theory is conclusively discredited, tax cutters won't stop hiding behind it.

Well, now it has been discredited. Rauch cites William Niskanen, an economist who worked in the Reagan White House and now chairs the Cato Institute. Niskanen has crunched the numbers between 1981 and 2005, testing for a relationship between tax cuts and government spending, and controlling for levels of unemployment, since these affect spending and taxes independently. Niskanen's result punctures his own party's dogma. Tax cuts are associated with increases in government spending. The best strategy for forcing cuts in government is actually to raise taxes.

Mallaby said the interesting thing to watch will be the Republicans' reaction.

Forget partisan politics as a spectator sport. MeTheSheeple's reaction is to worry about his yet-spawned grandchildren. Talk about the "national debt" comes and goes in cycles, but even less talked about are the government's obligations to Medicare, Social Security and other entitlement programs that are running out of money. And remember: These are the same entitlement programs facing a surge of demand from Baby Boomers. At the same time, we've decreased our ability to pay (tax cuts) and increased the obligation and debt (prescription coverage). Is any of this new? No, take a look at a story from 2004:

A USA TODAY analysis found that the nation's hidden debt — Americans' obligation today as taxpayers — is more than five times the $9.5 trillion they owe on mortgages, car loans, credit cards and other personal debt.

This hidden debt equals $473,456 per household, dwarfing the $84,454 each household owes in personal debt.

The $53 trillion is what federal, state and local governments need immediately — stashed away, earning interest, beyond the $3 trillion in taxes collected last year — to repay debts and honor future benefits promised under Medicare, Social Security and government pensions. And like an unpaid credit card balance accumulating interest, the problem grows by more than $1 trillion every year that action to pay down the debt is delayed.

"As a nation, we may have already made promises to coming generations of retirees that we will be unable to fulfill," Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told the House Budget Committee last month.

Think of your grandchildren, or their grandchildren. Encourage your legislators to quit playing partisan poltics and mucking around in the feces-strewn sandbox of pet economic theories.

Judge, jury and non-executioner

2006-04-30T15:20:00.000-04:00

The Boston Globe has this must-read story in today's paper. It's about how a chain of presidents going back two decades has decided to increase the president's powers. The system has de-volved so far that more than one-tenth of Congress' laws can be ignored, and evidence suggests long-passed and -enacted laws can and already are being ignored without judicial oversight.

This story is frightening. It overturns everything you learned about the Constitution in that high-school civics class. That's simply because it overturns major portions of the Constitution. The executive branch is free to say it'll ignore laws appropriately passed by the legislative branch. No appeals process is implied, anyway, but it doesn't matter: The executive branch has already declared it will interpret laws in direct contradiction of judicial branch rulings. Remember those old movies about checks and balances? Forget 'em.

This story is a must-read for anyone who believes in America or the Constitution.

Jose, can you see?

2006-04-29T12:41:00.000-04:00

(1)

George W. Bush, who can't see any disasters in his procedures in Iraq, has quickly seen a disaster-in-the-making at a Spanish-language version of "The Star-Spangled Banner," the American national anthem.

I found a link to the audio recording via the San Jose Mercury News -- ironically, with a newspaper that draws only half of its name from the English language. Artistically, it sounds "icky" to MeTheSheeple, but what does he know. His major phrases in Spanish are "Dois quesadillas, por favor" and "Tu madre tiene un pene pequeno."

To get slightly back on track, "The Star-Spangled Banner" seems to be a highly visible scene of the divide in America over immigration and, well, immigrants. The Spanish-singing performers even changed the lyrics in some places, adding, for example, "we are equals, we are brothers, it's our anthem."

What's ironic about this whole thing -- the taking of "The Star-Spangled Banner" away from its American roots -- is it doesn't have American roots. The song -- written during a British attack on those uppity "American" colonialists -- was actually just Francis Scott Key's words drafted to a British song -- and a British drinking song at that. One of the few things that could be said is the original lyrics were as challenging to sing as the actual melody. The melody we made worse by changing the key.

Wikipedia notes that the song became the national anthem only in 1931, some 70 years after it was translated into German. (Were these the guys that "dat fite mit Siegel" in the Civil War?) Wikipedia also notes that Jewish immigrants translated it into Yiddish, while Louisiana's Acadians translated it into French. American Somoans translated it this year.

Clearly, this idea of a purebred version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" is absolute malarkey. That isn't to say that the Spanish-language singers are absolutely right, or the new lyrics are perfect. But, as with much of much of what revolves around the long history of this song, everything's sort of a compromise. And so, I propose:

And besides I'll instruct you,
Like me, to intwine
The Myrtle of Venus
With Bacchus's Vine." *

Or we can stick with the American version, even though most people only know -- and some poorly -- just 25 percent of it.

O thus be it ever when free man shall stand
Between their lov'd homes and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'r and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation!

But if all that's too much, I say we should all learn a different song: When some Americans, fighting to preserve the very nation itself, couldn't speak English worth a flip. The ensuing struggle claimed more casualties than the rest of America's wars combined. This song, then, may say more about America's heritage:

Ven I comes from de Deutch Countree,
I vorks somedimes at baking;
Den I keeps a lager bier saloon,
Und den I goes shoemaking;
But now I was a sojer been
To save de Yankee Eagle;
To Schlauch dem tam Secession volks,
I'm going to fight mit Sigel.

---

(1) Title for blog post ... inspired ... by http://noapostrophe.blogspot.com/

Priests molesting priests

2006-04-27T08:18:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post has this unusual story that began in the Boston area, where seminarian James Moran was molested by a priest but then went on to become a priest himself. The Catholic Church didn't exactly stumble over its own feet investigating. The truth came out years later:

In 2002, he told then-Boston Archbishop Bernard Law about the 1970 incident and received an offer of financial support for counseling and later a $90,000 settlement from the archdiocese, but not what he wanted. "There was no validation of me as a good person," he said of his meeting with Law, who resigned later that year.

Since then, the Catholic Church has tried to make right, doing its best to honor a long-serving good priest while acknowledging there is no way to make up for the 1970 horror.

Just kidding. The church stripped away his priesthood six weeks before his retirement.

Moran feels he is being punished for speaking out: "My gut feeling is that I have been raped again."

It's funny, how in any dealings vaguely involving the Boston Archdiocese, the Catholic Church always seems to miss the core message of Christianity. Take a look over at 1 John:

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.

Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.

In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.

In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another.

Does the Catholic Church love James Moran, a man who served the church for 35 years?

Lobbying for government unfriendliness, incompetence and inefficiency

2006-04-26T22:08:00.000-04:00

Lawrence Lessig praised the tax man in 7">his latest column for Wired Magazine. This odd maneuver provides an all-too poignant, more recent example of assaults on government's attempts to make tax collection easier, something described in here.

Lessig's example hails from California, where the state Republican Caucus attacked a state effort that actually prepared simple returns for some taxpayers when the state had all the needed information. Taxpayers could review the proposed returns, and about 30 percent accepted them. The result was less hassle for the citizenry and for the government, which presumably didn't have to do much further processing and typing.

In short, it sounded too good to be true for all involved. And it was. The problem was, the tax-preparation people were not involved. These, of course, are the same moronic jerks that can't get their own taxes right on the first, or even second, try (see earlier post, in re H&R Block).

The result was a lobbying effort through the Senate Republican Caucus, which seems to have obeyed its masters. Check out their public-relations effort here. Many of the arguments would be laughed at by a high-school debate team. In their absence, MeTheSheeple will begin the ridicule:

ReadyReturn confuses simplicity with simplification. The program does not address the underlying need to simplify our tax code. Just as automatic withholding made the impact of income taxes less visible to taxpayers, the ReadyReturn program will diminish the public pressure to simplify the tax code.

Umm. What? Changes to the tax code would be the legislature's responsibility, which is to say, in part, the responsibility of the Republican Caucus that wrote this crap. This is a legitimate effort on the part of an administrative agency to ease the way for taxpayers, which is to say these legislators' constituents. The state agency itself cannot change the tax code. Sorry. Are these guys actually arguing that the government shouldn't make it easier for the people who elected them? Yep.

And what of this claim of decreasing the pressure? Maybe there's something to it. Yet if the legislators can take the time to begin public lobbying against this ReadyReturn program, surely one of them can take the time to begin studying the tax code, while another one can begin lobbying for a true simplification. Nobody's stopping them. They talk about "pressure," but the legislators are the ones increasing the pressure -- against a government reform that actually works, and helps.

The second claim, that ReadyReturn could miss some income and thus taxes, is legitimate and acknowleged as such by the state. Fine. But what about number three?

The third claim is that taxpayers may accept the ReadyReturn forms without adding all the exceptions, such as charitable deductions:

But, provided with the option of a tax return already prepared by the government, a taxpayer may just sign it and send it in as a convenience. The result is that the taxpayer may never consult a tax preparer, tax preparation software, or even the instructions included with the tax form and realize his or her ability to reduce his or her tax liability.

Wow. Is this actually a Republican effort to undermine a sense of personal responsibility? Yes, indeed, it is. Nitwits. And God forbid they accept a convenience without first A) paying someone; B) paying someone; or C) actually taking the responsibility to read the instructions. But, importantly, people should be inconvenienced and encouraged to spend more money to figure out what they owe, when a free service may at least give 'em a head start. Who is pulling the strings? Ah, "some":

Some have articulated concern that ReadyReturn violates the proper role of government. In his testimony before the FTB, Bernard McKay, Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Intuit, provided perspective on this issue ...

Intuit, of course, being the people that write popular tax software. "Some have articulated concern"? Nice use of passive voice. Mistakes were made, too.

The basic claim that follows is that government has spent 50 years making income taxes hard, and now has an easy way out. The irony is this claim against history is utter bullshit. For much longer than 50 years, the government determined your taxes and collected them. Centuries ago, it was a sheriff, who could be incredibly abusive in every sense of the term (see, for example, the excellent historical novel "Pillars of the Earth" for an idea). Ever since then, the government has assessed property values and collected taxes accordingly, with no substantive input from the taxpayers. The government assesses sales taxes and collects them, too, with no substantive input from the taxpayers. This evil shift against income taxes doesn't go against tradition as much as bring it back into line.

The Senate Republican Caucus' fifth argument doesn't even make coherent sense in English. It is, of course, drafted almost entirely in the words of a tax-preparation businessman. Presumably the senators would have rather kept the incoherent argument verbatim than risk offending such an important donor, who seems to suggest that everyone that gets a ReadyReturn will have to pay someone to do their taxes a second time, while they'll do it themselves a third time. There is no explanation for this argument, although MeTheSheeple wonders about links to California's long history of methamphetamine production.

The sixth argument is that ReadyReturn may not be easily understood by people who don't speak English well. Sadly, neither will any tax documents. These folks are still free to puzzle over their taxes on their own or pay someone else to do the taxes. The only reason to make this argument, then, is that the professional tax people are afraid more people might not turn to them. They're not actually worried about these immigrants; they're worried about their bottom line while pretending to be worried about them.

This whole op-ed piece is pathetic in its logic, and filled with nothing but contempt for the hard-working taxpayers who elected this nimrods. MeTheSheeple hopes this comes back to haunt the senators at election time.

The Iraqi war's divides

2006-04-24T07:35:00.002-04:00

Earlier this month, I posted about a conservative criticizing the Iraqis for being ungrateful. I found, in a round-about way, more insight into how the war in Iraq is dividing more Americans. Bear with me for a second.

The Washington Post wrote about Iraqi bloggers, leading me to the Baghdad Burning blog by "Riverbend," who won a book award and is up for another. This, in turn, led me to look up the book on Amazon.com, where I found it: "Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq."

What I also found were a bunch of customer reviews that suggest the increasingly broad division over America's role in Iraq, and, in MeTheSheeple's view, an increasingly unwillingness by some to objectively view the facts. "Baghdad Burning" -- the book, not the blog -- gets incredibly polarized reviews: Nearly all are either five stars, two stars or one star. In short, people love it or hate it.

The reviews, it turns out, are less about the writing of the book and more about the viewpoint. I'm fascinated by the comments, but this one just sticks out:

Starts good but ends up being a rant, November 30, 2005
Reviewer: Thomas J. Villars "Tom Villars" (Ann Arbor, MI USA) - See all my reviews
I read Riverbend's blog entries as she was posting them and the impression I have are probably different from those who read everything in all at once. Like many of the Iraqi bloggers the best part is the honesty that comes across in her writing. Her descriptions of the killings, bombings and other hardships endured by the previously privileged residents of Baghdad were griping.

Unfortunately as time passes Riverbend becomes overly cynical and starts sounding like a western journalist covering the story. When she decided, along with most Sunni, not to vote in January 30th, 2005 election, it becomes clear political ranting is all that's left of the once semi-objective "Girl Blog from Iraq."

For a balanced view of the situation in Iraq, including blogs like IraqTheModel and HealingIraq is a must.

You have to wonder what "overly cynical" means when your country is spiralling toward civil war. The reviewer also questions her objectivity, while noting she is a blogger and once only semi-objective. Now that the review disagrees with her posts, she is apparently no longer allowed to have an opinion ... ? So much for freedoms.

Another reviewer critizes the Iraqi blogger for biting the hand that feeds her. Curiously, a look at the "Quality of Life" measures on the Brookings Institute's Iraq Index shows little progress in many measures, from unemployment to electricity available to oil production (the presumed base of an Iraqi economic revival).

Other reviewers simply fawn over the book. One guy is buying it for all of his grandchildren:

This chronicle of what really happened and continues to happen with America's well intended invasion of Iraq will be a case study for generations. Truthful reporting always brings detractors with vested interests, some of them venomous. But Riverbend's work will be treasured for the understanding it brings among peoples meeting for "hearts to heal and souls to mend."

You almost have to check twice to see if they're writing about the same book, don't you?

Sadly, that suggests you have to check twice to see if Americans are even thinking about the same war.

Florida: The new California

2006-04-21T10:34:00.000-04:00

There's a wacky free-speech and political honesty case being fought in Florida. A congressional candidate named Nancy Detert hit a bit of a snag when her campaign finance manager apparently disappeared with about $94,000 -- two-thirds of the money she had raised -- and left for Argentina. About $27,000 is now missing, Florida papers report. (For those who don't know, she was incredibly "poor" for a Congressional race before this, and largely screwed now.)

One part of the story, with interesting free speech implications: She is now fighting with the Federal Elections Commission, which will not let the guy's family replace the missing money because it exceeds federal limits on contributions.

The other part of the story, with interesting free speech implications: She talked a reporter out of doing a story, saying it would be inaccurate when, in fact, it matched the facts.

What's even more stupid is that the logistics aren't that complicated. The campaign manager's parents want to make up the difference; they can individually "gift" a majority of the missing $27,000 to the son, who can pay it as restitution. Most of the rest of the money they could give back directly as campaign donations to Detert. In the end, Detert's campaign might be out less than $1,000, if MeTheSheeple remembers the figures right.

MeTheSheeple has to wonder if Detert's campaign is really ready for the big leagues. Most people wait until they their boss gets elected before pilfering the money. Most candidates wait until they win the election before beginning to flagrantly lie and insult the intelligence of the media. It's not yet clear whether Detert and her cohorts are merely eager to get off to a good start, or don't have the maturity to make it all the way. Stay tuned.

OfficeSpace: The documentary

2006-04-20T15:03:00.000-04:00

While wandering around the Web to relieve stress, MeTheSheeple found a curious reference and followed it to "Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Assessing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments" (500k PDF), a work that matches "The Peter Principle" in clarity of thought, boldness of claim and humor between the lines.

It's tough to find someone who thinks they're a craptacular driver. Nearly every driver on the road things he's above average. This study tries to quantify that through a series of four tests. Simply put, the driving thing carries over in other areas. The one-quarter of the worst-performing people think they do a better job than two-thirds of the people.

One explanation advanced by the authors is that the incompetent are so incompetent they don't know how incompetent they are. Ignorant and talentless, they lack the means to compare with others the quality of work that they, themselves, cannot do.

This explains so much.

Nothing else to say

2006-04-20T14:39:00.000-04:00

Romanesko linked to this Wall Street Journal story citing some of outgoing White House spokesman Scott McClellan's greatest hits. It's worth a read, just to see how weasely a PR flack can be. A great one is February 2006, after the Cheney hunting accident.

MeTheSheeple is simply going to paste his favorite interchange below:

Sept. 6, 2005

Q: Scott, the reality at hand right now is that the president said that we still live in an unsettled world. This is an administration that has told us since 9/11 that it's not a matter of "if," but "when" that we could be struck by a terror attack and, obviously, other disasters that are the result of Mother Nature. So at this point, where is the accountability? Is the president prepared to say where this White House, where this administration, went wrong in its response to Katrina?

McClellan: You know, David, there are some that are interested in playing the blame game. The president is interested in solving problems and getting help to the people who need it. There will be a time --

Q: Wait a minute. Is it a blame game when the president, himself, says that we remain at risk for either another catastrophe of this dimension, that's not manmade, or a terrorist attack? Isn't it incumbent upon this administration to immediately have accountability to find out what went wrong, when at any time this could happen again?

McClellan: This is a massive federal response effort that we have under way. We've got to stay focused on helping those who are in need right now and help them rebuild their lives and get back up on their feet. It's a time of many challenges, enormous challenges. We've got to stay focused on the task at hand. That is what the president is doing.

Now, in terms of addressing threats, we've made a lot of progress since the attacks of Sept 11. And one of the most important things we're doing is staying on the offensive abroad. There are important priorities that we have to continue to address and we are working to address those priorities, too. But we have a major disaster that has occurred over a 90,000 square mile [sic] here in the United States. There are people --

Q: Right. And there are people who want to know why this government couldn't respond --

McClellan: Hang on. There are people who are suffering, and we've got to respond to their needs, and that's what we're going to keep our focus.

Q: So no one is prepared to say what went wrong?

McClellan: We will look back at the facts and we will get to the bottom of the facts and determine what went wrong and what went right. But right now --

Q: Will the president support an outside investigation, or does he want to do it himself?

McClellan: -- but, David, right now, we've got to continue helping the people in the region.

Digital wrongs management

2006-04-20T09:16:00.000-04:00

There's a growing concern among consumer groups about digital rights management, which allows publishers to control how their products are used -- after they're bought by consumers. The companies are scrambling over each other like a bunch of snakes to control what plays on hardware that you own.

Now Phillips has taken the DRM issue to a new low.

A patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said researchers of the Netherlands-based consumer electronics company has created a technology that could let broadcasters freeze up a channel during a commercial, so viewers would not be able to avoid it.

Some DRM schemas are so restrictive that the hardware will not play much of the content otherwise available. (MeTheSheeple confesses this was a small part of the reason he didn't get an iPod; the major reason, though, is that iPods are unreliable POSs.)