Left of the Dial

A Good Question

The toddler walks in with his new acquisition.

ME: You have a battleaxe?

He nods grimly with a small satisfied smile. His little fists loosen slightly before tightening up again on the axe handle.

I play along.

ME: Don't chop anybody's head off with it.

He looks down at it, then slowly back up at me. He tilts his head quizzically, a disappointed look on his face.

HIM (sadly): Why?

Hoods

The two middle girls return from a long walk. “There’s someone outside who wants to speak with you,” the older one says.

I go out and see a woman standing there. “Hi,” she says. “Your girls were standing at the intersection over there, and they threw something at my car. It hit my window. There’s no damage but I thought you should know.”

I thank her and ask her to wait a moment. I pop back into the house. The girls are standing side by side, perfectly still, on the other side of the room. “Is this true?” I ask.

“Yes,” they both say.

I point towards the door. “Let’s go.”

Without waiting for further instructions, they go outside and apologize quite nicely, the 13-year-old stoic, the 11-year-old’s voice shaking. The woman accepts their apology and tells them they shouldn’t do things like that. I apologize to her again and thank her for being understanding.

I go inside and even though it’s the middle of the afternoon, I send both girls to bed, and tell them they’re not allowed to read or talk, that they just have to lay there. Without a word, they hang up their jackets and go.

I wait nearly an hour before I go in. “I am so sorry, Daddy,” the younger one says, trying and failing not to sob. The older one sits up straight, as though at her arraignment, and says, “It was my idea and I take complete and total responsibility.”

I hold up my hand. “What did you throw?” I ask.

“These little berries that were on the ground.”

I nod grimly, although inside I’m very relieved. That’s it? Just berries?

“Was that the first car you’d thrown them at?”

“No. Just the first one we hit.”

Inside I resolve to step up the number of catches we have in the backyard.

“Why did you do it? What were you thinking?”

The younger one opens her mouth to try to explain but no words will come. She just shakes her head.

The teenager also shakes her head as she says, “It just…it just seemed like a good idea at the time.”

I nod as I stand up. “I’ll be back.”

I wait another hour before returning. The 11-year-old is clearly tormented by her actions and would do just about anything to go back in time and change the past.

I sit down and say, “When your oldest and best uncle was about, I dunno, 12? He and a bunch of the neighborhood kids were playing at someone’s house on the next block. Like a lot of the houses in the New England area we grew up in, it had a gravel driveway. For some reason your uncle and some of the other boys grabbed a handful of rocks and threw them at a passing car. The car screeched to a halt. All the other kids instantly ran away, but not your uncle. He just stood there and waited for the driver. The driver made him give his name and address and then he came and talked to Grandma and Granddad. Your uncle apologized and, as I recall, was given a pretty hefty punishment. But the driver, despite being unhappy about having pebbles thrown at his car, was impressed that your uncle had stood his ground and admitted culpability, and he told your grandparents that. Grandma and Granddad, although probably not admitting it at the time, were impressed too.”

I look at them, and motion for the younger to come sit on my lap. “You guys made a mistake, a big one. But you admitted it and you apologized even without being told to. And I’m guessing you’ve learned from this and won’t be doing it again?”

The older nods seriously while the younger buries her face in my chest as she tries to stop crying.

I tell them they can have dinner in a little while, but that’s it. The rest of the evening and night they’re just going to stay in their beds without talking. And in the morning everything’ll reset.

And I leave and I stop in the hall and I look at what they’d been wearing, the hoodies they’d been wearing, now hung up neatly in the closet.

I think about what might have happened if things had just been a little, and not really all that much different. If they’d been boys instead of girls. If they’d been just a few years older, each. If the hoodies had been grey and black instead of pink and cream. If we’d lived in Florida instead of California. Most of all, of course, I think about what might have happened if they’d had dark skin and hair rather than pale skin and blonde hair. I think about how this is what kids do, they do stupid things—and this dumb little thing they did, throwing something at a passing car, is literally one of the dumbest things they’ve ever done in their entire lives and it wouldn’t have even made the Top 20 dumb things I’d done by their age, not even close.

And if those series of facts, virtually none of which they had anything to do with but which were just the luck of the draw, were each just a tiny bit different, they could very well be lying in the morgue right now and their killer free forever—because, after all, throwing something at a car is without question far more threatening an act than walking down the street with a bag of Skittles. And I think about how insanely lucky I am and how it’s just not fair. 

 

American Skin (1 Shot)

 

12 years after originally written and performed, now with the ghost of Trayvon Martin as well as Amadou Diallo hanging over it, still just as sadly applicable as ever.

 

The Blame Game

The Sanctity of Marriage

One of the few things that gives me at least a tiny bit of comfort is knowing that Ken Starr is going to burn in a lake of fire for all eternity. 

Not sure what the fact that I derive comfort from that says about the state of my own soul, of course. 

Better Than the Beatles

If not bigger. 

One Home Many Hopes

So Left o' the Dialian DT has a lil' brother who helped found the following project. 

After hearing about it, I asked if I could post the info here, since studies have shown the average LotDian has a heart more than three times the average size. And because all they're looking for is ten bucks--that's about two trips to Starbucks, or one fairly cheap happy hour. And you get a better return than the market, at least, so far this century. Top Management and I have already chipped in. So check it out, yo: 

This is a campaign called “One Home Many Hopes,” organized to ask people to consider donating $10 in an effort to raise $20,000 in 30 days.

”One Home Many Hopes” is a charity Jon Tapper, who owns a Public Relations firm in Boston called Melwood Global, helped put together last year after a good friend of his was moved to action by the poverty he saw in Mtwapa, Kenya.

In short, there is an orphanage, Mudzini Kwetu, which takes care of 35 girls, all of whom were rescued from the Mtwapa streets, where they searched through trash piles for food. Mudzini Kwetu not only gives these girls a home they didn't previously have, it has also given them a childhood.

So the gist is that we're trying to raise a lot of money - $20,000 - in tiny donations by November 23. People can become a part of it by visiting http://www.raceto20k.org/ to make a donation; as well as telling friends, families and colleagues about the effort.

They can also visit http://www.onehomemanyhopes.org/index.html to hear and learn more about this amazing organization.

There is absolutely no overhead for this charity -- every last penny you give you will go directly to the girls.

Thanks to everyone who considers participating.

Rocket Fuel in Our Drinking Water

I had planned to write more today about the largest welfare bill in history. For instance, did you know that President Ronald Reagan once said: 

''If you had a stack of $1,000 bills in your hand only four inches high, you'd be a millionaire. A trillion dollars would be a stack of $1,000 bills 67 miles high.''

Really takes the breath away, does it not? And that's pretty much the amount of cabbage they're debating up on the hill today. And that cash money's all coming from you and me, folks. Good times! 

I also thought about writing about the new spider web that appears in my car each morning and what a disconcerting way that is to start the day. 

And I've been meaning to write about my reappraisal of Wilco. 

But then I read this. And I think, to use a term my friends on the right enjoy using, that this goes beyond policy debates. I think the people who make these decisions have entered into the realm of Evil. 

I wish I were kidding. You read that headline and you think it must be from The Onion. 

If only. 

EPA won't limit rocket fuel in U.S. drinking water

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency has decided there's no need to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that has fouled public water supplies around the country.

EPA reached the conclusion in a draft regulatory document not yet made public but reviewed Monday by The Associated Press.

The ingredient, perchlorate, has been found in at least 395 sites in 35 states at levels high enough to interfere with thyroid function and pose developmental health risks, particularly for babies and fetuses, according to some scientists.

The EPA document says that mandating a clean-up level for perchlorate would not result in a "meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction for persons served by public-water systems."

The conclusion, which caps years of dispute over the issue, was denounced by Democrats and environmentalists who accused EPA of caving to pressure from the Pentagon.

"This is a widespread contamination problem, and to see the Bush EPA just walk away is shocking," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate's environment committee.

Lenny Siegel, director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight in Mountain View, Calif., added: "This is an unconscionable decision not based upon science or law but on concern that a more stringent standard could cost the government significantly."

The Defense Department used perchlorate for decades in testing missiles and rockets, and most perchlorate contamination is the result of defense and aerospace activities, congressional investigators said last year.

The Pentagon could face liability if EPA set a national drinking water standard that forced water agencies around the country to undertake costly clean-up efforts. Defense officials have spent years questioning EPA's conclusions about the risks posed by perchlorate.

The Pentagon objected strongly Monday to the suggestion that it sought to influence EPA's decision.

"We have not intervened in any way in EPA's determination not to regulate perchlorate. If you read their determination, that's based on criteria in the Safe Drinking Water Act," Paul Yaroschak, Pentagon deputy director for emerging contaminants, said in an interview.

Yaroschak said the Pentagon has been working for years to clean up perchlorate at its facilities. He also contended that the Pentagon wasn't the source of as much perchlorate contamination as once believed, noting that it also comes from fireworks, road flares and fertilizer.

Benjamin Grumbles, EPA's assistant administrator for water, said in a statement that "science, not the politics of fear in an election year, will drive our final decision."

"We know perchlorate in drinking water presents some degree of risk, and we're committed to working with states and scientists to ensure public health is protected and meaningful opportunities for reducing risk are fully considered," Grumbles said.

Grumbles said the EPA expected to seek comment and take final action before the end of the year. The draft document was first reported Monday by the Washington Post.

Perchlorate is particularly widespread in California and the Southwest, where it's been found in groundwater and in the Colorado River, a drinking-water source for 20 million people. It's also been found in lettuce and other foods.

In absence of federal action, states have acted on their own. In 2007, California adopted a drinking water standard of 6 parts per billion. Massachusetts has set a drinking water standard of 2 parts per billion.

God Angrily Clarifies 'Don't Kill' Rule

Religion 101.

God Angrily Clarifies 'Don't Kill' Rule

SEPTEMBER 26, 2001 | ISSUE 37•34

NEW YORK—Responding to recent events on Earth, God, the omniscient creator-deity worshipped by billions of followers of various faiths for more than 6,000 years, angrily clarified His longtime stance against humans killing each other Monday.

"Look, I don't know, maybe I haven't made myself completely clear, so for the record, here it is again," said the Lord, His divine face betraying visible emotion during a press conference near the site of the fallen Twin Towers. "Somehow, people keep coming up with the idea that I want them to kill their neighbor. Well, I don't. And to be honest, I'm really getting sick and tired of it. Get it straight. Not only do I not want anybody to kill anyone, but I specifically commanded you not to, in really simple terms that anybody ought to be able to understand."

Worshipped by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike, God said His name has been invoked countless times over the centuries as a reason to kill in what He called "an unending cycle of violence."

"I don't care how holy somebody claims to be," God said. "If a person tells you it's My will that they kill someone, they're wrong. Got it? I don't care what religion you are, or who you think your enemy is, here it is one more time: No killing, in My name or anyone else's, ever again."

The press conference came as a surprise to humankind, as God rarely intervenes in earthly affairs. As a matter of longstanding policy, He has traditionally left the task of interpreting His message and divine will to clerics, rabbis, priests, imams, and Biblical scholars. Theologians and laymen alike have been given the task of pondering His ineffable mysteries, deciding for themselves what to do as a matter of faith. His decision to manifest on the material plane was motivated by the deep sense of shock, outrage, and sorrow He felt over the Sept. 11 violence carried out in His name, and over its dire potential ramifications around the globe.

"I tried to put it in the simplest possible terms for you people, so you'd get it straight, because I thought it was pretty important," said God, called Yahweh and Allah respectively in the Judaic and Muslim traditions. "I guess I figured I'd left no real room for confusion after putting it in a four-word sentence with one-syllable words, on the tablets I gave to Moses. How much more clear can I get?"

"But somehow, it all gets twisted around and, next thing you know, somebody's spouting off some nonsense about, 'God says I have to kill this guy, God wants me to kill that guy, it's God's will,'" God continued. "It's not God's will, all right? News flash: 'God's will' equals 'Don't murder people.'"

Worse yet, many of the worst violators claim that their actions are justified by passages in the Bible, Torah, and Qur'an.

"To be honest, there's some contradictory stuff in there, okay?" God said. "So I can see how it could be pretty misleading. I admit it—My bad. I did My best to inspire them, but a lot of imperfect human agents have misinterpreted My message over the millennia. Frankly, much of the material that got in there is dogmatic, doctrinal bullshit. I turn My head for a second and, suddenly, all this stuff about homosexuality gets into Leviticus, and everybody thinks it's God's will to kill gays. It absolutely drives Me up the wall."

God praised the overwhelming majority of His Muslim followers as "wonderful, pious people," calling the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks rare exceptions.

"This whole medieval concept of the jihad, or holy war, had all but vanished from the Muslim world in, like, the 10th century, and with good reason," God said. "There's no such thing as a holy war, only unholy ones. The vast majority of Muslims in this world reject the murderous actions of these radical extremists, just like the vast majority of Christians in America are pissed off over those two bigots on The 700 Club."

Continued God, "Read the book: 'Allah is kind, Allah is beautiful, Allah is merciful.' It goes on and on that way, page after page. But, no, some assholes have to come along and revive this stupid holy-war crap just to further their own hateful agenda. So now, everybody thinks Muslims are all murderous barbarians. Thanks, Taliban: 1,000 years of pan-Islamic cultural progress down the drain."

God stressed that His remarks were not directed exclusively at Islamic extremists, but rather at anyone whose ideological zealotry overrides his or her ability to comprehend the core message of all world religions.

"I don't care what faith you are, everybody's been making this same mistake since the dawn of time," God said. "The Muslims massacre the Hindus, the Hindus massacre the Muslims. The Buddhists, everybody massacres the Buddhists. The Jews, don't even get me started on the hardline, right-wing, Meir Kahane-loving Israeli nationalists, man. And the Christians? You people believe in a Messiah who says, 'Turn the other cheek,' but you've been killing everybody you can get your hands on since the Crusades."

Growing increasingly wrathful, God continued: "Can't you people see? What are you, morons? There are a ton of different religious traditions out there, and different cultures worship Me in different ways. But the basic message is always the same: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Shintoism... every religious belief system under the sun, they all say you're supposed to love your neighbors, folks! It's not that hard a concept to grasp."

"Why would you think I'd want anything else? Humans don't need religion or God as an excuse to kill each other—you've been doing that without any help from Me since you were freaking apes!" God said. "The whole point of believing in God is to have a higher standard of behavior. How obvious can you get?"

"I'm talking to all of you, here!" continued God, His voice rising to a shout. "Do you hear Me? I don't want you to kill anybody. I'm against it, across the board. How many times do I have to say it? Don't kill each other anymore—ever! I'm fucking serious!"

Upon completing His outburst, God fell silent, standing quietly at the podium for several moments. Then, witnesses reported, God's shoulders began to shake, and He wept.

Stephen Colbert’s The Wørd: Priceless

So my second-favorite Catholic had a piece last night which was great, even by his standards: 

Folks, everybody knows I’m a huge fan of market forces.  It’s always bugged me when people say you can’t put a monetary value on human life.  Of course you can!

That’s why I demand ransom for the release of my summer interns.  Pay up, mom and dad!

Well, it turns out there is an exact monetary value of human life.  It is a number calculated by government actuaries based on risk assessment and payroll figures that is used to decide whether life saving regulations are worth paying for.  For example, let’s say there’s proposed legislation that will require inspecting possibly tainted Chinese shrimp.  And, let’s further say that regulation would cost $100 million, and if you don’t inspect the shrimp, 100 people could die at a seafood restaurant.

Now, if you value…if you value those 100 people at a million dollars each, the benefit is equal to the cost, so the regulation’s worth it.  But, if you value them at less than a million dollars each, well, the cost outweighs the benefit.  Now, I happen to think—and this is just me—I happen to think tainted shrimp adds an element of danger to the appetizer course.  It’s like skydiving with cocktail sauce.

Now, the Environmental Protection Agency uses numbers like this to decide whether to regulate things like pollution.  And five years ago, they estimated that a human life was worth $7.8 million, but recently they lowered that to $6.9 million dollars.  

That’s right, under the Bush administration, human life has become a million dollars cheaper.   
 This…this is great news. Because the lower the value of human life, the less it pays to protect it with regulations.  That might be why last week the EPA chose not to regulate greenhouse gases.  It’s just not worth it with human life at such bargain basement prices.

But we can get those prices lower.

By devaluing life, they’ve made it less likely to regulate water and air quality.  And the worse the water and air quality get, the less life is worth living, which further devalues life, which makes it even less likely to regulate water and air quality.  It’s like the circle of life.  

And that’s great, that’s great.  You see, while they may have lowered the value of a person, the EPA has given us something worth a lot more.  Because a human life: $6.9 million; gaming the system to protect industry from safety regulations: Priceless.  

Stuff of Life

Just Outside the Big Tent

So. Some discussions on here last week would seem to indicate that things I think are incredibly obvious are perhaps only obvious if you’ve been so tremendously fortunate as to be reading Left of the Dial for some time. Which means when I unexpectedly get linked to and consequently get a couple hunnert new readers, they don’t realize my blistering snark is just a shield I put up to keep the world from realizing what a scared little boy I am deep down inside.

Or something like that.

Anyhoo, here’s a piece I first posted nearly two years ago, but mayhap it bears repeatedly every now and agin, albeit with minor tweaks because our fambly situation has changed slightly and, hey, I’m theoretically two years better at this bloggity thang.

It can be lonely being me.

I know what you’re thinking. How on earth can I, the idol of millions…thousands…hundreds? Okay, scores. Well, dozens. All right. One. The Boy idolizes me. I’ll take what I can get.

Anyhoo, how can I be lonely when my house is never less than seemingly packed to the rafters? It’s because I don’t fit in anywhere.

Now, I’m used to that. I didn’t fit in with my family much growing up. All four of my siblings were a year apart but then I was the youngest, three and a half years younger than brother John, a mighty big gap at that age. They were into sports. I was into reading and music. They were cool. I was a geek. They worked hard in school. I refused to do homework and, on one memorable occasion, simply refused to take a test.

(That one blew Dad’s mind. Looking back on it now, I can see why. But, I mean, seriously, who the hell cared what Uruguay’s major exports were? Other than Uruguayans and those who wanted to import stuff from Uruguay? At the age of thirteen, I most certainly did not fit into any of those categories.)

Later, my remarkable propensity to avoid doing work actually led the Dean of Students at my college to explain that I wasn’t allowed to come back the next semester, largely owing to the 1.2 GPA I’d achieved—that remarkable number translates to three C’s and two F’s for those keeping score at home. The dean "suggested" I take some time off and decide if I really wanted to be a student. After working two jobs, one of them literally digging ditches, something to which I was very much not physically suited, and taking three classes at a branch of UConn, even knowing the credits wouldn’t transfer, and being cut off from all my high school and college friends, I thought, oh yeah—I really, really want to be a college student.

But I digress. My point being that none of my college friends failed out of college. None of my high school friends failed out of college. And my siblings damn sure didn’t fail out of college.

I’ve never had a friend who liked Shostakovich. Or one who really dug Miles. Or Sonic Youth.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’m on some desert island friendically. I’ve had friends who loved the Beatles and Bruce Springsteen and U2. I’ve had plenty of friends who love Monty Python and Batman and Scrubs and going for long drives where you try to get lost and then try to find your way back home again.

But I’ve never had a friend who quite clicked totally. Hell, I’ve never even met someone who did, much less liked them. Although, obviously, if I had, they would have liked me. I mean, that goes without saying, right? Right.

Here’s the thing. I’m about as left-wing a liberal as they come. I’m not just pro-environment (polls consistently show that the overwhelming majority of even Republicans are greener than the Democratic party, never mind their own party), I actually used to work for an environmentalist lobbying group; that’s right, I was one of them annoying folks what showed up at your door at dinner time to tell you how polluted your local river was and can I have some money to help fix it? (And I got it too—and, interestingly, the batting average got way higher the less wealthy the neighborhood; you didn’t need to tell these blue-collar joes their river was polluted since they’d been fishing it for fifty years and had seen the difference.)

I’ve never gotten stoned, never even seen the majority of drugs and yet I’m all for the legalization of them, believing our drug policy is unbelievably asinine, does nothing but hurt innocents and enriches the evil and powerful and all stems historically from a big business playing on racism to achieve their own nefarious ends. I’m for incredibly strict gun control. I’m against any kind of censorship.

I believe there’s not one compelling case to be made for the death penalty, ethically, morally, economically or practically, and at least a half-dozen strong cases against it. I’m for affirmative action, believing that the American Dream isn’t achievable if we don’t all start from the same point and that, alas, at this point in our history we’re still not close to all being there yet.

I’m for higher and progressive taxation believing not just that the more you have the more you owe morally but in addition that the more you benefit economically from others also being raised up. I’m in favor of gay rights which, really, just mean making sure they have the same rights as any other American and not special rights as is sometimes erroneously and maliciously claimed. If I’m leaving any major issues out, it’s probably safe to assume I’m with my liberal brethren on that too.

Except for one. I’m pro-life. I’m all about the civil liberties and who’s more in need of protection than those who can’t protect themselves?

And if you think being a fan of Shostakovich and Sonic Youth can get lonely, it’s nothing compared to being a pro-life Democrat.

All of my liberal friends are pro-choice. All my pro-life friends are conservatives. And the thing is, it’s easy to find pro-choice conservatives: the worst of both worlds, as that means they’re wrong about absolutely everything. The one thing—the one damn thing—their party gets right and that’s the issue they depart on. Never fails. People, man.

This means that I know whenever I post anything other than a cute story about the kids, I’m almost guaranteed to bore or piss off a goodly percentage of Left of the Dial’s regular readers. Pal Dave asked me if that ever makes me nervous. It doesn’t exactly make me nervous but it doesn’t make me happy either. I guess maybe it bums me out a little, but hey. There’re worse things. It is what it is and I yam what I yam. What can I say? As Van the Man said, and Paul Westerberg later echoed, it’s too late to turn back now. (Here we go.)

So. If you sometimes wonder why I’m such a curmudgeonly bastard, maybe this is at least part of the reason. It’s because I don’t really fit in anywhere and never have. There are lots of folks with whom I agree on this, that or t’other thang, but no one in this entire world I match up with perfectly.

Well, except, of course for Top Management. We may and do live pretty damn near the poverty line. But at least there’s one person in this whole wide world who gets me, gets how I can be down with most of the Greenpeace agenda and yet against Planned Parenthood, how I’m with Alito on Roe v. Wade yet wish he weren’t such a lying bastard and wish he hadn’t gotten confirmed because, in general, I think our Supreme Court justices shouldn’t be lying bastards who’ll say absolutely anything to get a gig as this jerk clearly is and clearly did. She groks how I’m all for stem cell research but against embryonic stem cell research even though I’ve got two kids who it’s not inconceivable (no pun intended) could benefit from that research. She understands that our pro-life acquaintances are too religious for my tastes and that our liberal friends are so tragically misguided on this one.

So it’s just the two of us. Which means it’s still kinda lonely sometimes. But at least we get to be lonely together. And since there’s nothing else I’d rather do than be with her, even if it means we’re being lonely together, that’s okay.

So if there’s anyone out there who doesn’t have someone to be lonely with, there’s my Christmakwanzakah Wish for you—that you find someone you can be lonely with. Having someone huddling in the bunker with you makes everything bearable. And sometimes a whole, whole lot better’n that.

Now I just gotta work on getting her to appreciate Miles. Or at least Shostakovich. Sonic Youth, I’m thinkin’, is a bridge too far. But one can always hope. After all, what are the odds I’d have found her in the first place? And what are the odds that she’d be so perfect and yet still have this one weird blind spot and fall for me? If that can happen, just about anything can.

JAGs: Waterboarding Is Torture

Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont isn’t just a big Batman fan—although he’s that too. He’s also the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Which is why he received this letter from four former JAGs:

Dear Chairman Leahy,

In the course of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s consideration of President Bush’s nominee for the post of Attorney General, there has been much discussion, but little clarity, about the legality of “waterboarding” under United States and international law. We write Because this issue above all demands clarity: Waterboarding is inhumane, it is torture, and it is illegal.

In 2006 the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on the authority to prosecute terrorists under the war crimes provisions of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. In connection with those hearings the sitting Judge Advocates General of the military services were asked to submit written responses to a series of questions regarding “the use of a wet towel and dripping water to induce the misperception of drowning (i.e., waterboarding) . . .” Major General Scott Black, U.S. Army Judge Advocate General, Major General Jack Rives, U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General, Rear Admiral Bruce MacDonald, U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General, and Brigadier Gen. Kevin Sandkuhler, Staff Judge Advocate to the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, unanimously and unambiguously agreed that such conduct is inhumane and illegal and would constitute a violation of international law, to include Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

We agree with our active duty colleagues. This is a critically important issue - but it is not, and never has been, a complex issue, and even to suggest otherwise does a terrible disservice to this nation. All U.S. Government agencies and personnel, and not just America’s military forces, must abide by both the spirit and letter of the controlling provisions of international law. Cruelty and torture - no less than wanton killing - is neither justified nor legal in any circumstance. It is essential to be clear, specific and unambiguous about this fact - as in fact we have been throughout America’s history, at least until the last few years. Abu Ghraib and other notorious examples of detainee abuse have been the product, at least in part, of a self-serving and destructive disregard for the well-established legal principles applicable to this issue. This must end.

The Rule of Law is fundamental to our existence as a civilized nation. The Rule of Law is not a goal which we merely aspire to achieve; it is the floor below which we must not sink. For the Rule of Law to function effectively, however, it must provide actual rules yhat can be followed. In this instance, the relevant rule - the law - as long been clear: Waterboarding detainees amounts to illegal torture in all circumstances. To suggest otherwise - or even to give credence to such a suggestion - represents both an affront to the law and to the core values of our nation.

We respectfully urge you to consider these principles in connection with the nomination of Judge Mukasey.

Sincerely,

Rear Admiral Donald J. Guter, United States Navy (Ret.)

Judge Advocate General of the Navy, 2000-02

Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, United States Navy (Ret.)

Judge Advocate General of the Navy, 1997-2000

Major General John L. Fugh, United States Army (Ret.)

Judge Advocate General of the Army, 1991-93

Brigadier General David M. Brahms, United States Marine Corps (Ret.)

Staff Judge Advocate to the Commandant, 1985-88

Pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?

It’s really not complicated. We prosecuted both Nazis and Japanese after World War II for waterboarding Americans. It was illegal then. It’s illegal now.

It’s not complicated.

Balancing

Just read this today and since I'm quite sure very few of my regular readers would have stumbled across it, I thought I'd post it here. Normally I'd excerpt it, but there's really no way to do so and still do it justice.

My Friend Peter
By: Ian Welsh

Peter was the kindest man I ever met. I moved into his old house one winter in the early nineties. Rent was $235/month, there was a shared kitchen and showers and 7 tenants. On the ground floor lived the landlord - Peter, and his Japanese wife.

I lived there three years. They were thin, cold years for me. Sometimes I was employed - as a bike courier; a dispatcher, a mover; a baker; a painter, or anything else I could find. Other times I scrabbled from day job to day job, helping anyone who needed it for cash on the barrelhead. There were some grim months on welfare; some trips to the food bank, even a few meals at the soup kitchen. I was rousted a couple times by rent-a-cops as “undesirable” (read: looking like a bum.)

My clothes were threadbare, and I would look in the mirror and I could already see myself at fifty, living the same hand to mouth, job-to-job life.

Through it all two people helped me; two people stuck by me and never made me feel worthless. One of them was Peter. Peter let me work a lot of my rent off with jobs around the house. I painted this or that, under careful suprvision I did plumbing work; I shoveled snow; and I laid bricks. Peter taught me how to learn - he’d show me how to do something, tell me to “do it right, and take your time, because if you do it fast first you’ll never ever do it right.” And those months when I was late on rent; those months when I was mortified to be on welfare - he cut me slack and he never made me feel small.

Peter was old. He had been born in Germany. And he had fought for Hitler.

He liked to talk about his life; and quite a life it had been. He’d been a spy for the CIA after the fall, till the day his handler cut him loose when he was fleeing from what would become East Germany pursued by Soviet troops. “Not willing to risk an incident” said his handler. “Not willing to keep spying for you,” said Peter. He had been a stage manager; had been Volkswagen’s chief North American tester; had been a translator and had broken codes, among many many other things.

Peter said, and I believed, that his family had been opposed to the Nazis. His father was a VP in Siemens and when Peter was caught, at a youth camp, listening to Allied broadcasts, he was able to save his son and have him assigned as an aide to a prison camp (no, not that type of prison camp) commandant. While there Peter got himself in more trouble and wound up in the camp jail for a couple of days. The cells in that camp faced each other, with a row of bars in between. The prisoner across from him was gypsy man and they spent two days playing cards and talking. At the end of it, the prisoner said, “today I will be hung as a partisan. You seem like a good man so I want to ask you if after the war you will go tell my people.”

Peter agreed, and the gypsy continued. “They think I am a partisan leader - someone other than I am. I haven’t told them I’m wrong. What I want you to do, after the war, is go tell my people that I died for this man.”

As the war ground on, the Germans began to run into severe manpower shortages. Young teenagers Peter’s age were drafted and sent into occupation duties, where they served alongside older veterans. Peter was drafted and sent to France.

He said there was very little real resistance in the district he was in (or, as far as he could tell, most of France) - just one sniper they chased in desultory fashion and never caught - the chasing mostly involving staying absolutely silent and still at night while waiting for a muzzle flash to aim at.

One day he went through a French hospital town. Because it was used to care for injured soldiers it had never been bombed. While there he and a comrade saw Allied bombers overhead. The French pointed up and said “look, our planes!” Peter screamed at them to get into the bomb shelters, but most of them didn’t. After all, they were their planes. Peter and his friend got in - then the bombs started falling. A lot of the French who had wondered at their planes didn’t survive that day.

He also went through Dresden the day after the bombing. But he never described what he saw there to me.

I asked Peter why he left Germany and emigrated to Canada. His reply was “everyone pretended they didn’t know what had been going on. We all knew. I couldn’t live there anymore.”

I lived with Peter for 3 years and when I left he told me two things - one was a piece of advice on living life “never do the same job for more than 5 years, Ian, you won’t be happy if you do.” (He was right, as I found out the hard way. Wisdom, they say, is learning from other people’s mistakes. I’ve never been wise).

The second thing he said was “my family has a custom where ever year we pick out someone to help and do so for the entire year, and sometimes longer. We know we do harm all the time. It’s not balance. But we hope it makes up.”

But it wasn’t just one person. I never saw Peter act meanly, or unkindly. I never saw him treat anyone but with dignity. I never saw anyone who needed a kindness Peter could give who didn’t get it.

That man, who fought for Hitler, might have been the best man I’ve ever met.

Deliberate ambiguity

Or semi-plausible deniability:

The Los Angeles Times was asking the right question yesterday in the editorial, "Do we use torture?" The answer to that question is not something that any American has the luxury of not knowing.

The Times notes that the Bush administration has produced "ambiguity about a subject that cries out for clarity." I think that ambiguity is deliberate. I figure on one end of the spectrum there are X-percent of us who are completely opposed to torture, and on the other end a similar percentage of us who have no qualms about it at all. The rest of that spectrum is a big chunk of people who don't approve of it, but don't want the responsibility of disapproving of it either. They prefer to have, as Col. Jessep put it, "the luxury of not knowing."

President Bush's deliberate ambiguity about torture is partly a matter of legal CYA. The Geneva Conventions are the law of the land -- binding, American law -- so he can't flout them openly. But this deliberate ambiguity is also a bargain struck with that middle swath of the spectrum. "We don't torture," Bush says, winking broadly and crossing his fingers, and that seems to be good enough for them. Maybe they don't fully believe it, but they want to believe it -- or at least they want to live in a world in which they could fully believe it -- so they go back to luxuriously not thinking about it.

The somewhat hopeful thing is this: I believe these folks in the middle can be persuaded to come over to our side -- that if they can be made to acknowledge what it is they're trying not to know then they will come to oppose the perverse use of torture. I do not think they can be persuaded in the other direction. They may now be acting like the citizens of Sunnydale, desperately denying that the monsters are real, but they would never choose, instead, to become monsters themselves. Take away the deliberate ambiguity and Mitt Romney's despicable "double Guantanamo" nonsense won't produce much applause.

Guess what, folks? We use torture. If you don't like it, vote for a change.

Vulture Funds

This is stunning.

If you haven’t heard of this story before or of vulture funds, here’s a basic overview: Vulture funds were set up by our government at around 2000 to assume the debt of poorer countries. They’re called vulture funds because they basically circle a corporation or nation on the ropes. Some time ago, some rapacious pieces of shit like Michael Sheehan and Paul Singer (more on them later) hit upon the ingenious idea to spend a few million buying up their debt then immediately calling in the note and asking for the full debt. So instead of the nation being allowed to pay back a fraction of their debt, they’re instead hauled into court and forced to pay the full amount (in Zambia’s case, $55,000,000) plus interest.

That’s right: Various people are using the government’s program for debt relief for the poorest nations on earth and are taking these same impoverished countries to court under threat of bankruptcy for no other reason than personal greed.

Click through to read the entire piece. If you can. The photo alone—and the heartbreaking story accompanying it—will ruin your day.

As well it should.

Saw a bumper sticker on the way in to work today. “God Bless America.” No surprise there; I suspect most of us see that same one several times a day.

Yes. Yes He did. And what have we done with that blessing?

As far as I can see, sinfully little.

Not Just Un-American

Although he’s certainly that too.

No, arguing that more Americans should be sent over to Iraq, Congressman Virgil A. Goode (R-VA) proved today—as if there was any doubt remaining, that he’s dumb as stump:

In no way do I want to aid and assist the Islamic jihadists who want the crescent and star to wave over the Capitol of the United States and over the White House of this country. I fear that radical Muslims who want to control the Middle East and ultimately the world would love to see “In God We Trust” stricken from our money and replaced with “In Muhammad We Trust.”

They don’t worship Muhammad, you maroon. They worship Allah, as any seventh grader—or anyone who’s sat through a film where Muslim terrorists are the bad guys—knows. And Allah? Yeah, that's simply another name for God. You pinhead.

So, you’re not just a racist and you don’t just hate the Constitution. You’re also an idiot.

Hey, Virgil! You hit the trifecta!

Can you quit now? Because, seriously? You’re embarrassing us.

In Our Names

Maher Arar, as Left of the Dialians will recall, was the guy with dual citizenship, both Canadian and Syrian. We arrested him and hustled him out of the country secretly. Did we deport him to our close neighbor and dear friend Canada, as would be natural with a Canadian citizen?

We did not.

We knew damn well if he went to Canada he wouldn't be tortured. He'd be held, and he'd be investigated. We also knew damn well if he went to Syria, he'd be tortured. And it's beneath the dignity of this country, a country that has always been a beacon of human rights, to send somebody to another country to be tortured.
— Judiciary Chairman Senator Patrick Leahy [D-VT]

Arar has since been cleared of all charges. Good thing we didn’t torture him!

Not ourselves, that is. We just made damn sure he was tortured by someone else.

Is that brimstone I smell?

The Latest Salvo in the War on Religion

Despite being told by a good friend (no pun intended) that he’s a really nice guy, I voted twice to remove this Pal o’ Jack Abramoff from office. Both times, alas, I failed.

And now all religious folks in this great nation of ours have to put up with religion-hating rhetoric like this, from a letter Virgil H. Goode Jr. sent to constituents:

The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.

We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country.

I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.

The Ten Commandments and “In God We Trust” are on the wall in my office. A Muslim student came by the office and asked why I did not have anything on my wall about the Koran. My response was clear, “As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, The Koran is not going to be on the wall of my office.”

Sweet fancy Moses! More Muslims elected to office? Martha, quick! Get the shotgun! Democracy’s a-bangin’ at the door!

and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country.

Oh no! Heavens to mergatroid!

When in doubt, blame Clinton. Because, you know, having been in Congress for ten years now—and in the majority party the majority of the time—Goode’s had no effect whatsoever on national policy. I mean, that would require some accountability, and we know that’s anathema to him.

Hm. Occurs to me that a couple ‘o them nasty people from the Middle East helped save my daughter’s life when she had cancer as a baby. Damn you and your penis that signed the legislation, Bill Clinton! [God’ll strike them foreigners down, fortunately.]

Oh, wait. It’s not Religion that’s the problem—just a religion other than his.

Gotcha.

Incidentally, that Muslim Representative from Minnesota? As Grand Wizard Goode notes, scary Keith Ellison was elected by American voters.

So in addition to religions other than his own, comrade Virgil Goode also hates democracy.

Oh, and that Muslim Representative from Minnesota? Yeah, he was born in Detroit. Quick, Martha, bar the borders! That’ll do it!

Uh…Detroit...that’s…French?

Seems someone’s got his eye set on the GOP nomination for president and figures the way to do so is to try to take up the proud mantle of hating American citizens with skin that’s not all shiny and pink. I mean, what the hell, it worked well for George Allen, right? You go, Virgil!

What a maroon. What a coward. What an embarrassment. Why, why, why do so many elected officials hate democracy?

On the bright side, if he keeps talking this way, he’ll find his presidential aspirations right alongside Senator Macaca's. Maybe they can start a law firm: Noose Legal Services.

Values Voters

So we’ve heard for something like a dozen years now about Values Voters, them folks what vote less for people they think will do a good job than those who they think are Just Plain Good.

Hence our current president.

After all, there’s really no way to look at the fact that he lost the World Trade Center and (almost) New Orleans on his watch and think he’s doing well. His own intelligence agencies have officially said that Iraq didn’t have Weapons of Mass Destruction and that by invading it we merely encouraged global terrorism—and that they can only see things getting worse there over the next year. Meanwhile, given how he allowed Osama bin Laden to attack us on September 11th, invading Afghanistan was a good idea…but then he screwed that up, too, by getting bored and pulling troops out early, thus allowing the mastermind to escape. Heckuva job, Bushie. Heckuva job.

Oh, and it turns out Condi Rice apparently lied to the 9/11 Commission about a previously undisclosed meeting shortly before September 11th. More on that another day.

And, of course, the economy sucks.

And yet that’s not what I’m writing about today. None of that.

No, today I’m writing about many of the most powerful elected officials in Washington D.C. being in on a plot to allow a sexual predator continued access to young and impressionable children.

Pretty amazing, no?

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) and House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) were both warned that Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) had been having inappropriate email conversations with pages.

That’s right, pages. Young high school boys who work for Congressmen.

What kind of inappropriate? How’s about a 50-year-old man telling a 16-year-old boy he’d like to slip the tightie-whities off him?

That pretty much fits the bill, dunnit?

Then there’s the IM where he tells a boy to make sure to measure his penis and report back.

Oh, but that’s not all. No, see, the thing is, the Republican leadership knew this congressmen was a sexual predator—they were warned about him back in 2001, and again in 2005.

And they did nothing.

Because they didn’t want to lose his seat to a Democrat.

How’s them for those good ol’ family values politicians like to crow about?

Actually, that’s not entirely true. They did do something. They had a couple meetings about it. And they warned the pages to be careful around him.

Which, I dunno, somehow, just doesn’t really seem like the appropriate action on their part. Especially since at least one page has said he was afraid to be rude Congressman Foley or tell anyone because many of the pages were hoping to go into politics someday—like when they grew up—and as he put it, “they people in Congress, they’ve got the power.”

Oh, and they did one other thing: they kept the emails and IMs secret from the Democrat on the board which oversees the pages. Further proof that they were concerned about power, and not people.

And because a good story always has a nice dose of irony, there’s this: Congressman Foley was chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children.

And that’s not all. He’s now (finally!) being investigated by the FBI for breaking laws he himself helped pass as the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children.

But that’s not enough. If Foley did indeed commit a crime, it certainly seems to me that those who knew he was bad news and said nothing—and in some cases, took extremely large campaign contributions from Foley, shortly after learning of his misdeeds—then they’re guilty of aiding and abetting.

My question to them Values Voters: what are your values really? Putting Good People into Congress? Or putting people with a little R after their name in?

If You Liked Iraq, You'll Love Iran!

I was talking a few months ago with Top Management and another friend about the phrase “there but for the grace of God go I.” There was some disagreement over its origin and what it really means.

As awful and anti-democracy our current administration, I still thank God often (although, I’m sure, not often enough) that Top Management and I had the incredible good fortune to be born American.

Then again, not too long ago at all, there were lots of folks in Sarajevo who had similar feelings of gratitude. These things can change.

Anyhoo. Here but for the grace of God go I and everyone I love.

BAGHDAD — On a recent Sunday, I was buying groceries in my beloved Amariya neighborhood in western Baghdad when I heard the sound of an AK-47 for about three seconds. It was close but not very close, so I continued shopping.

As I took a right turn on Munadhama Street, I saw a man lying on the ground in a small pool of blood. He wasn't dead.

The idea of stopping to help or to take him to a hospital crossed my mind, but I didn't dare. Cars passed without stopping. Pedestrians and shop owners kept doing what they were doing, pretending nothing had happened.

I was still looking at the wounded man and blaming myself for not stopping to help. Other shoppers peered at him from a distance, sorrowful and compassionate, but did nothing.

I went on to another grocery store, staying for about five minutes while shopping for tomatoes, onions and other vegetables. During that time, the man managed to sit up and wave to passing cars. No one stopped. Then, a white Volkswagen pulled up. A passenger stepped out with a gun, walked steadily to the wounded man and shot him three times. The car took off down a side road and vanished.

No one did anything. No one lifted a finger. The only reaction came from a woman in the grocery store. In a low voice, she said, "My God, bless his soul."

I went home and didn't dare tell my wife. I did not want to frighten her.

–––––

I've lived in my neighborhood for 25 years. My daughters went to kindergarten and elementary school here. I'm a Christian. My neighbors are mostly Sunni Arabs. We had always lived in harmony. Before the U.S.-led invasion, we would visit for tea and a chat. On summer afternoons, we would meet on the corner to joke and talk politics.

It used to be a nice upper-middle-class neighborhood, bustling with commerce and traffic. On the main street, ice cream parlors, hamburger stands and take-away restaurants competed for space. We would rent videos and buy household appliances.

Until 2005, we were mostly unaffected by violence. We would hear shootings and explosions now and again, but compared with other places in Baghdad, it was relatively peaceful.

Then, late in 2005, someone blew up three supermarkets in the area. Shops started closing. Most of the small number of Shiite Muslim families moved out. The commercial street became a ghost road.

On Christmas Day last year, we visited — as always — our local church, St. Thomas, in Mansour. It was half-empty. Some members of the congregation had left the country; others feared coming to church after a series of attacks against Christians.

American troops, who patrol the neighborhood in Humvees, have also become edgy. Get too close, and they'll shoot. A colleague — an interpreter and physician — was shot and killed by soldiers last year on his way home from a shopping trip. He hadn't noticed the Humvees parked on the street.

By early this year, living in my neighborhood had become a nightmare. In addition to anti-American graffiti, there were fliers telling women to wear conservative clothes and to cover their hair. Men were told not to wear shorts or jeans.

For me, as a Christian, it was unacceptable that someone would tell my wife and daughters what to wear. What's the use of freedom if someone is telling you what to wear, how to behave or what to do in your life?

But coming home one day, I saw my wife on the street. I didn't recognize her. She had covered up.

We did this. We tried to wage a war on the cheap (and under false pretenses), and this is the result. Heckuva job, Rummy.

And remember--war with Iran is coming. It is, or at least President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are trying hard to make it so. And Iran is two and a half times the size and has a military far, far, far more formidable than Iraq’s.

If You Liked Iraq, You’ll Love Iran!

George W. Bush Hates Poor People

How else can you possibly explain this?

The Bush Administration’s efforts to end the genocide in Darfur has been plagued by serious errors. Now, the President Bush is appointing Andrew Natsios as special envoy to Darfur to get things back on track.

Who is Andrew Natsios?

– As director of U.S. Agency for Intenational Development Natsios promised that the U.S. contribution to reconstruction of Iraq would be no more that $1.6 billion. Congress has already appropriated nearly $20 billion for reconstruction in Iraq. The CBO estimates the total cost of reconstruction will be between $50 and $100 billion.

– Natsios was the manager of Boston’s “Big Dig,” widely considered one of the most mismanaged public works projects in history.

Sounds like just the guy to help solve the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”

Anyone who was serious about stopping what this administration itself has called genocide would send someone competent to do the job, not merely someone connected.

Who would Jesus send to stop mass murder?

Fallen from Grace

This is a letter written by a Marine who served in Iraq.

I was deployed in my reserve unit (USMCR) as part of operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield. Marine infantry, and we were on the front lines, supposedly to guard a gunship base, but really, though, the gunships guarded us.

Not too much later, it was time to take prisoners. One of the platoons went north, and when they came back, there were stories about how Iraqi soldiers lined the roads, trying to surrender. I spent a week guarding Iraqi men in a makeshift prison camp, a way-station really, and more than I could count. They didn't look like they were starving or dehydrated. Apparently, once the ground war began, they just pitched their weapons and headed south at first opportunity. The more I've thought about it, the more I realize that they knew bone deep that they'd get fair treatment. We gave them MREs (with the pork entree's removed) but almost immediately some Special Forces guys arrived and set up a real chow line for them. We gave each man a blanket, (I kept an extra as a souvie) and I think I saw a Special Forces doc giving some of them a once over.

Once, only once, one of them got all irritated and tried to get in one of the Corporal's faces, loud. (I was a lance-corporal). He wouldn't back down, so the Corporal gave him an adjustment, a rifle butt-stroke to his gut, not hard, but he went down. The Corporal sent me for the medic. The guy was ok, and now calm (or at least understanding the situation), and hand-signed that he was out of smokes and really, really needed one... Not a bad guy, just stressed-dumb and needing a smoke. None of the others prisoners in the camp even registered it.

We went north to mop up not long after that. I saw the Iraqi weapons: rocket launchers a little smaller than semi-trailers, hidden in buildings, AKs in piles, big Soviet mortars and anti-tank mines, everywhere but unarmed. They had food too. Pasteurized milk to drink, but most gone bad by then. Some of the mortar rounds were still in crates. They had long trenches that were hard to see in the dunes, bunkers with maps, fire-plans laid out, and blankets, all placed with decent vantage for command and control. They even had wire laid for land-line communications. The point is, they could have fought. Not won, no they couldn't have won, but they could have fought. Instead, they chose to surrender.

Looking back, I think that one of the main drivers in these men's heads was that they knew, absolutely, that they'd get fair treatment from us, the Americans. We were the good guys. The Iraqis on the line knew they had an out, they had hope, so they could just walk away. (A few did piss themselves when someone told them we were Marines. Go figure.) Still, they knew Americans would be fair, and we were.

Thinking hard on what I now know of history, psychology, and the meanness of politics, that reputation for fairness was damn near unique in world history. Can you tell me of any major military power that had it? Ever? France? No. Think Algeria. The UK? Sorry, Northern Ireland, the Boxer Rebellion in China... China or Russia. I don't think so. But America had it. If those men had even put up token resistance, some of us would not have come back. But they didn't even bother, and surrendered at least in part because of our reputation. Our two hundred year old reputation for being fair and humane and decent. All the way back to George Washington, and from President George H.W. Bush all the way down to a lance-corporal jarhead at the front.

Its gone now, even from me. I can't get past that image of the Iraqi, in the hood with the wires and I'm not what you'd call a sensitive type. You know the picture. And now we have a total bust-out in the White House, and a bunch of rubber-stamps in the House, trying to make it so that half-drowning people isn't torture. That hypothermia isn't torture. That degradation isn't torture. We don't have that reputation for fairness anymore. Just the opposite, I think. And the next real enemy we face will fight like only the cornered and desperate fight. How many Marines' lives will be lost in the war ahead just because of this asshole who never once risked anything for this country?

Sometimes I really can’t believe it. We have a president, a vice-president and a secretary of defense who all want to make torture legal.

Our president wants to make torture legal.

What’s happened to our country?

Never mind the question: how can people who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ attempt this? The real question is: how can people who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ allow this to happen?

For more than half a century the Geneva Conventions were considered rock-solid law by our nation. Through the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the first Gulf War and the Cold War, its basic tenets were never questioned.

Now it’s being questioned. By a president who wants to be able to torture.

Don’t ever believe this administration cares about our military. They don’t. It’s nothing but a toy to them. If they cared, they would have equipped it properly. And they wouldn’t be fighting so hard—against other Republicans!—to enshrine a policy guaranteed to harm our own people by removing any reason for other nations to keep from torturing Americans.

I said before sometimes I really can’t believe it. And sometimes I really can’t. But all too often, whenever I think about 9/11 happening, or letting Osama bin Laden escape, or Afghanistan slide back towards the Taliban, or the Iraq debacle or the Katrina disaster or the sale of our port security or the constant conflating of 9/11 and Saddam or the constant politicizing of 9/11, I can believe it. I wish I couldn’t. But I have no choice.

This really is what our country has turned into.

The terrorists haven’t won. Yet. But they’re getting closer every single day.

Because they knew they could never defeat us militarily. They could never kill even a tiny percentage of us. What they could do, what they wanted and want to do, is to change our basic character.

And they have. Together, Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush have terrorized and terrified our nation into violating the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions. They’ve turned us into a country that ignores the rule of law and a country that condones torture.

But it’s not too late. It’s not a done deal. Don’t let it be. Because we can’t unring that bell. But we can stop it from being rung in the first place.

Money...That's What I Want

I’m not a big fan of my new governor. Liked some of his films, a couple of ‘em a whole lot. Most, though, not so much, and a few, like the egregious True Lies, were just reprehensible.

Admittedly, this commercial did not improve my opinion of the man. But then we all did things when we were young and foolish which were, uh…young and foolish. For some of us, we decided to try to curtail doing such things on a regular basis in our early twenties. Others? Apparently not.

But I hadn’t heard about this latest move of his. Rock on, Ahnold, you sexist pig, you. You done good on this one.

Not everyone agrees, of course.

Why, just take this piece here. [Please.]

It’s awesome. I get the distinct impression I’m supposed to be in agreement with him before reading the editorial, since he certainly doesn’t try to convince me or anyone else that he’s right. He just rants.

Not that I’m in any position to throw stones. On the other hand, I don’t get paid for Left of the Dial. Which is just plain wrong. But that’s a rant for another time.

Anyhoo, what this guy’s whining comes down to is he doesn’t think the government should get to set any conditions for those who take its money. Which is a really odd argument to hear from a conservative. As in, contrary to their most fundamental beliefs, I thought. Basically, he wants the freedom to take the handout without any strings attached.

Well, welcome to the read world, buddyboy. Looks like you might have to start working for a living. Waaah. (Says the guy who’s a professional comic book reader. Isn’t life full of funny little bits.)

Just War

Sometimes I get a glimmer of hope. Oh please oh please oh please.

“On the Left, Catholic leaders are urging religious voters to concentrate on other issues, namely the Iraq War.

By focusing their public criticism on the President, they are hoping to make the congressional elections a referendum on Bush that energizes voters hungry for change.

A group of Catholic sisters meeting in Milwaukee last month made headlines by publicly rebuking the president for policies ‘that continue the war in Iraq, that violate human rights along our borders, that intensify poverty, that pollute our earth, and that deny our interdependence with all peoples.’

On Aug.3, the name of death-penalty opponent Sr.Helen Prejean of Dead Man Walking appeared on a considerably more pointed statement in the New York Times that called for Bush’s ouster on account of his support for ‘a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism,’ torture, ‘a murderous’ war, ‘a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance,’ and attempts to curb abortion.

Prejean later distanced herself from that last criticism — which directly contradicts the teachings of her Church — but she made no apologies for the ad’s vitriolic tone and comparison of Bush to Hitler.

‘I signed the ad because as a follower of the way of Jesus and a U.S.
citizen, I cannot stand by passively and silently as I witness my government wage such grievous oppression and violence,’ Prejean said in a statement published on her website.”

As the article pointed out, Sister Helen has repudiated the statement’s position on abortion. This leaves no moral or doctrinal reason for barring her from speaking in the Diocese of Duluth, unless of course, the Infallibility of the Bushling is now taught as doctrine within that local church. If this is the case, this is a theological innovation and should be brought to the attention of Rome.

And why should Sister offer apologies for her criticism of the Administration? As an informed Christian and an American, it’s her duty and right to do so.

Shall we demand an apology from Saint Ambrose of Milan? From Saint Maria Skobtsova? From Saint Maximillan Kolbe?

Or is making allusions to fascism the sole prerogative of the Secretary of Defense?

Sister is the product of the U.S. Catholic school system, as is yours truly. We were both taught about the “just war” theory as well as the greater body of the Church’s Social Doctrine. I think that I can speak for both of us when I express gratitude for our Christian education. We were taught these things for a reason.

According to Saint John’s Gospel, Jesus attended a wedding, at which he turned water into wine. (This, of course, happened at Cana, or Qana. The vicious bombing of this ancient town was recently perpetrated with enthusiastic cheering from “Christian Zionists” and the connivance of an alleged mystic living in the Washington, D.C. area. )

I find impossible to believe that our Lord would change water into wine for these newlyweds and then insist that they don’t drink it. (Yes, I am aware that some Christians seem to believe just that!)

Why then, is our Church offering the transformative teachings on Social Justice, only to have our Bishops tell us not to speak or practice them?

Who Would Jesus Kill?

Thank Christ—my personal Lord and Savior—that good Catholics Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito (the tie-breaking vote) and Chief Justice John Roberts banded together to unanimously flip the bird to Pope John Paul II’s views on the death penalty.

(At least this time they had the sense of propriety to do so from the bench, as opposed to at a church, like before.)

Damn you heretic liberals who listened to the pope! You repulse me, godless heathens!

My boy Antonin---the single-most-overrated-mind ever—wrote:

"The American people have determined that the good to be derived from capital punishment — in deterrence, and perhaps most of all in the meting out of condign justice for horrible crimes — outweighs the risk of error."

Get that? He admits that it's all about the vengeance. Yeah, who cares about a little thing like the possibility of killing an innocent person? An innocent person who’s several times more likely to be on death row if he’s black? I mean, jeez. Seriously, what’s the big whoop? If were innocent, he’d have been born white in the first place.

Oh, and of course, study after study has shown that the death penalty has no deterrence factor. But even pretending there’s such a thing is given secondary weight because, after all, why bother to interject facts into a case? We’re talking about killing really, really bad guys here! Sure, they may not actually have committed the crime in question, but a terrible crime was committed and someone has to pay the price. And, let’s be honest, it just feels good to kill someone, doesn’t it? Our three good Catholics on the high court sure think so. Bully for them! They’ve got the right stuff!

And I love the rationale. Basically, it’s like in baseball where a tie goes to the runner, only in this case a tie goes to the executioner. That’s just brilliant. Seriously. That’s good stuff. You can’t make junk that insane up.

[Slipping out of ironic mode for just a moment: No, you idiot! Nothing outweighs the risk of error! Nothing! If there's a risk of error—and I truly can't believe I have to point this out to a Catholic—then you don't kill the person.]

Today’s ruling is a vivid reminder that Roe v. Wade isn’t the only important case that ever gets ruled upon by the court, and that the whole sanctity of life issue is nothing but words to the right—pay it lip service and then do your thang, baby.

The culture of death tag, on the other hand, is right smack-dab on the money—the only problem is that it’s been applied to the wrong party. But when you’re raking in those kinds of bucks—the monetary amount of Halliburton’s contracts have increased six hundred percent since the current administration took office and, oh, by the way, the Chief Justice and Antonin and Sammy just got raises this week, whilst the proposed raise to the minimum wage got shot down yet again—who cares what the party’s called, as long as it never stops?

So who would Jesus kill? I dunno, but I know who the GOP thinks He wouldn’t kill—judging by their actions, it’s whoever’s putting the most into His campaign coffers—whoever that might be is perfectly safe. If you ain’t got the cash to pony up, on the other hand…

More on Flag Burning

I forgot to mention this yesterday, but one of the commentators at Unclaimed Territory reminded me of something l learned as a tot.

Every year on Independence Day and Memorial Day and Thanksgiving and President’s Day and at least a handful of other appropriate occasions my dad, a veteran, would hang our flag outside the house. Sometimes, if I promised to be really careful, he’d let me help. Eventually, I even graduated to being allowed to do it all by myself, always being careful never to let the flag touch the ground.

Because we all know that an American flag should never touch the ground. And we all know what happens to a flag that touches the ground.

It has to be discarded.

And what is the officially-sanctioned, proper way to dispose of a flag?

You burn it.

That’s right. In case any of you didn’t know that, if a flag touches the ground, or becomes tattered and torn through years of respectful display, it must be discarded. And burning is the official, sanctioned manner of disposal.

So, you’re probably thinking, they’re proposing an amendment which makes it illegal to legally dispose of a symbol of our great nation? But…but..but that makes no sense!

Welcome to the new world order.

Worry not, because the utterly insane new proposed amendment covers that base. Sort of.

You see, if I’m reading it right, it seems to specificially mention "desecration" of the flag. So burning a flag isn’t a problem, per se. Only burning it in protest. Burning it because it’s tattered or has merely touched the ground is just ducky.

Get that? Same action, different point-of-view. One’s honorable, one’s a crime punishable by a year in jail and a $100,000 fine.

And how is a bystander—such as, say, a cop?—to know which is which? There’s the rub, you see. It’s the exact same action, so the only thing to differentiate them is the actor’s intent. (And, of course, the very act destroys the evidence, so there’s no way to prove it one way or the other.)

And again I say: get that? In other words, this new flag burning amendment is a proposed hate crime bill.

That’s right. A hate crime, that bugaboo of the right, who rails against the notion of, as they’ve been known to call it, thought crimes, are now proposing legislation to outlaw what can only be a thought crime.

Because, you see, if you kill a black man or a gay man simply because he’s gay or black, there should be no additional penalty.

Ah, but if you burn a flag simply to send a message, well, then you’re really screwed.

Jesus wept. He was joined by Ben Franklin. Together they wondered what happened to that city on the hill.

Burning the Bill of Rights

So I’ve largely avoided political posts for the past few weeks for a variety of reasons. One was that I was simply too busy with actual paying work. Another was that I just wasn’t in a bloggy state o’ mind. Yet another was I know what a high percentage of my readers hate it when I do. (Another significant percentage only like it when I do, although why anyone should care what I think about stuff is still somewhat beyond me.)

But today I learned something that made me feel sick to my stomach. Seriously, when I read that the "Flag Desecration Amendment" is only one vote away from passing, I thought I was going to throw up. Two hours later, I still feel ill.

This is one of those topics that just seems to self-evident, like some famous truths, that I cannot believe it ever gained traction, much less has managed to hold anyone’s attention for nearly twenty years now. Like father, like son, obviously. In all the worst ways.

Let’s state some obvious stuff: burning a flag may or may not be odious from your point of view, but it is free speech. As such it is protected by the Constitution of the United States of America. So now we’re trying to pass an amendment which repeals a right specifically listed right up front in the Bill of Rights. Right there, that boggles my damn mind. I cannot wrap my head around it.

The next thing I don’t understand is why the Catholic Church is not throwing all its might behind stopping this ridiculous proposal, nor why every prominent Jewish and Muslim leader isn’t doing exactly the same thing. Because there’s no law against burning a crucifix or a picture of Jesus Christ, nor should there be. So it’s okay to burn a likeness of my personal Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But it’s not okay to burn a bunch of strips of colored cloth.

So. Officially, then, our president is saying that the symbol of our country is more important, more sacred, than a symbol of our God.

Wow. That’s pretty big. I mean, that’s admitting he’s not a Christian. That’s, you know…that’s huge. I mean, it’s a given that he’s not—clearly every one of his major actions since he’s taken office has screamed it from the top of his lungs. But this is the most blatant admission yet, and one that no Christian could honestly look at and manage to come to any other conclusion.

Then there this: how weak are we? How weak is our (I’d previously thought) great nation that we can’t take a little rudeness? Because that’s all it is. Is it distasteful? Maybe. I tend to think it’s both silly and a sign of just how great we are, but if you find it offensive, I understand. I personally find the Lee Greenwood song "I’m Proud to Be an American" incredibly offensive, down to its lyrics which are both awful and, though few others seem to have noticed, really quite derogatory towards this land I love so much. And the music, of course, is hideous. But I certainly don’t advocate banning it, nor punishing those who play it. (Them folks having to listen to it is punishment enough.)

Then there’s the inevitable comparisons: true democracies don’t do things like this. The countries that do/did: China. The Soviet Union. Iraq. Iran. North Korea. Cuba. Nazi Germany. Fine company we’re actively trying to join.

Finally, there’s the simple logic: studies have shown that no more than a handful of flags are burned per year…until such an amendment is proposed. At which point flag burnings skyrocket. So if you really don’t want flags to be burned, don’t talk about anyone doing it, and they won’t. Bing! Flags saved!

But if for some bizarre reason you really want flags to be burned, push this amendment. And then watch the beautiful Stars and Stripes go up in flames.

This is not a problem. Iraq. New Orleans. Health care. The environment. The economy. Korea. Afghanistan. Civil liberties. These, these are all serious, serious problems demanding serious attention.

This is not. This is sheer politics appealing to the basest of the base.

Our nation used to be able to tell the difference. And it used to have the moral clarity and the strength to deal with the real problems.

I feel sick. I think I caught it from the sick, twisted, greedy, power-hungry folks in D.C. desperate to do whatever it takes to remain in power, no matter what it does it our country’s soul.

Please. Contact your senators and tell them you believe in our nation enough that you don’t want this done in your name. Please.

We’re better than this. Please, let’s prove it.

Up Against a Wall

Wow. Senator Elizabeth Dole and the RNC has been trying to raise money for the November elections by warning that if Democrats regain control of either the house of representatives or the senate they’ll hold investigations. I find that an odd strategy, basically admitting that there’s stuff to investigate and that it’ll be bad for conservatives if the truth comes out, but whatever. I also don’t recall her hubband thinking investigations were such bad things when he was senate majority leader and they were investigating whether Clinton had conspired to have Socks the Cat neutered or whatever. Then again, back then Hillary thought there was a vast right-wing conspiracy (she was right, there was), whereas nowadays she just sucks up to them as hard as she possibly. So, you know, whatevah.

But—and if you haven’t heard this, I think you’ll find it very interesting, I truly do—Liddy’s also been warning that Democrats will impeach the president. With his approval rating in the 20s, a mere four points higher than Trick Dick Nixon’s was the day before he resigned, I’m not sure why she thinks that’s such a selling point, but again I say, whatevah.

So, no, here’s the interesting bit: the latest folks to talk about impeachment? The far right-wing.

I kid you not. Hot but heinous hatemeister Michele Malkin has been talking about this the past few days. They say President George W. Bush has failed in his constitutional obligations by failing to protect our borders.

I’m not exactly a fan of GW’s—which may come as a shock to regular Left of the Dial readers—but this seems a bit bizarre. The illegal immigration problem is a serious one, but it’s not more serious than it was a month ago or two years ago. Why the sudden urgency?

There are a lot of theories on why the sudden urgency, but I won’t get into those now. And as I said before, I have a lot of thoughts on the situation but don’t know anywhere near enough to really put them out there yet, if ever.

Except for this: when head of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff was asked a year ago about putting the National Guard on the border, he said it would be prohibitively expensive and ineffective and an all-around bad idea. Now, of course, that’s what we’re doing.

Why, five years after 9/11 do we need the National Guard to protect our borders? Why don’t we have enough border guards already? Perhaps because instead of the 10,000 that were requested, the latest budget the president signed only had money for a little over two hundred. I kid you not. But then today he signed a $70 billion dollar tax break, most of which will go to millionaires. And the record deficits just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger...

I swear, it’s like a parody sometimes. Or an imitation of our credit cards.

Okay, I hate to bring this up—I do—but there’s one other thing before I go: our border with Canada is something like three times as long as our border with Mexico and the only terrorist we know we stopped from entering the country with the intent to blow us up came from that northern border, yet all the clamoring is about the southern one, the southern one, the southern one. I wish I didn’t think so, but I can’t help it: I don’t think that’s just national security concerns talking.

Here’s an editorial from World Net Daily. I used to think of WND as being a really religious news site. Obviously not. At least, I sure hope it’s not. "Dear Jorge"? And we should be looking to the Nazis for tips on the current situation? Let me put it this way: if you click through to the link and look at his picture, you’ll have a pretty good idea where he’s coming from.

Against a fence
By Vox Day
Monday, May 15, 2006

Dear Jorge plans to address the nation tonight, a speech wherein he will almost surely attempt to deceive citizens into believing that he does not wish the mass migration from Mexico to continue unabated. He will likely offer some negligible resources for law enforcement and border security – resources which will never materialize – in return for an amnesty program that will grant American citizenship to the Mexican nationals who have helped lower America's wage rates by 16 percent over the last 32 years.

And he will be lying, again, just as he lied when he said: "Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic – it's just not going to work."

Not only will it work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. 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.

In fact, the hysterical response to the post-rally enforcement rumors tends to indicate that the mere announcement of a massive deportation program would probably cause a third of that 12 million to depart for points south within a week.

The complete absurdity of stating that enforcement of the national immigration laws is unrealistic, while simultaneously insisting that reshaping the entire Dar-al Islam to the liking of the World Demokratic Revolutionists is perfectly feasible, should be obvious. Dear Jorge's deceits are not only transparent, they are downright insulting to anyone capable of considering two concepts at the same time.

Unlike the Libertarian Party, I do not subscribe to a two-way open-borders policy, for reasons I explained previously. I do, however, believe that the chief hallmark of a free society is the freedom to leave it, as evidenced by the "no exit" policies so often adopted by socialist and other totalitarian governments.

The problem with a fence is that it works both ways. As it stands today, the only government agency that objects to an American leaving the country is the Internal Revenue Service, which weirdly attempts to claim income tax for up to 10 years after an American leaves the country and his citizenship behind. This is mostly because apart from the farsighted Fred Reed, few Americans now wish to leave what is still a wealthy and relatively free country.

But that may not always be the case, especially given the increasing probability that the Lizard Queen will be squatting on the Cherry Blossom Throne three years from now. And a government that believes the importation of low-skill, low-income Mexicans is necessary is not one that is likely to smile benevolently upon the departure of high-skill, high-income Americans.

Dialectic has long been the political elite's favored means of manipulating public opinion. They push and the people pull. Action-reaction-synthesis. In this case, the action is government-abetted illegal immigration, the reaction is the massive outcry for a fence and the synthesis is a self-imprisoned people.

A fence is not necessary, for there are other means of efficiently resolving the problem without resorting to such an obviously dangerous measure. Instant deportation policies, employer fines and bounty programs combined with the denial of all social services to non-citizens would suffice to settle the matter without the need to imprison the American citizenry. As the Minutemen have proven, again, unleashing the power of motivated private citizens is far more efficient than relying on government bureaucrats.

Vox Day is a novelist and Christian libertarian. He is a member of the SFWA, Mensa and the Southern Baptist church, and has been down with Madden since 1992. Visit his Web log, Vox Popoli, for daily commentary and responses to reader email.

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

UPDATE: If you click through to the link, you'll still be able to notice the coiffery of Vox but you’ll no longer be able to "enjoy" his Nazi admiration in person, so to speak, because he appears to have just cut that bit out of his piece, several days after it was first published.

So. Not only does he seem to have—and, yes, I’ll say it—some clearly racist leanings (opinions which I find even more abhorrent than usual given that his bio specifically states that he’s a Christian, and I tend to hold us to higher standards), but then he doesn’t even have the courage of his hideously misplaced convictions.

But he doesn't disavow them. He doesn't say he made a mistake in writing that or clarify what his real beliefs are. He simply cuts them out, tries to hide them.

This guy is sorta the worst of all worlds.

Affirmative Action

Watched the series finale of The West Wing last night. Damn. I wasn’t ready for it to be over. Sniff.

And then this morning reality once more mirrors fiction. Turns out President Bush’s own body man, his own Charlie Young, is leaving the White House to go back to school.

Also like Charlie, President Bush’s personal aide, Austinite Blake Gottesman, once dated a First Daughter, in this case the luscious lush known as Jenna Bush. (That’s the blonde one.)

[Tiny and inconsequential spoiler alert.]

Unlike Charlie, young Gottesman isn’t attending Georgetown Law, but instead is going to be attending Harvard Business School.

Also unlike Charlie, not-really-all-that-young Gottesman (he’s 26), never actually graduated college, having only attended world-famous Claremont McKenna College for one year. [Snarkily says the guy who attended—and failed out of—a college that doesn’t even exist any more.]

And yet somehow, amazingly enough, our friend Gottesman got into Harvard Business School.

Huh. I mean…that’s just weird, innit?

I’d always thought Harvard Business School was, you know, considered fairly prestigious. As in one of the very finest schools in the entire world. I wouldn’t have thought they’d so much as glance at a guy who’d never even finished college.

Oh, but wait a second…it occurs to me that there’s a couple famous folks what gradumacated from there. Let me check…yes indeedy, it seems that President George W. Bush himself is an alumnus!

Well, now. What are the damn odds?

Remember: affirmative action is bad, verging on evil. When, that is, it helps out, you know…people of color. When it helps otherwise unqualified fabulously rich white guys and their pals, though, well, that’s just doing things the way God intended.

Just Do It

No, seriously.

Go do it. Now.

Nothing But Nets
by Rick Reilly

I've never asked for anything before, right? Well, sorry, I'm asking now.

We need nets. Not hoop nets, soccer nets or lacrosse nets. Not New Jersey Nets or dot-nets or clarinets. Mosquito nets.

See, nearly 3,000 kids die every day in Africa from malaria. And according to the World Health Organization, transmission of the disease would be reduced by 60% with the use of mosquito nets and prompt treatment for the infected.

Three thousand kids! That's a 9/11 every day!

Put it this way: Let's say your little Justin's Kickin' Kangaroos have a big youth soccer tournament on Saturday. There are 15 kids on the team, 10 teams in the tourney. And there are 20 of these tournaments going on all over town. Suddenly, every one of these kids gets chills and fever, then starts throwing up and then gets short of breath. And in seven to 10 days, they're all dead of malaria.

We gotta get these nets. They're coated with an insecticide and cost between $4 and $6. You need about $10, all told, to get them shipped and installed. Some nets can cover a family of four. And they last four years. If we can cut the spread of disease, 10 bucks means a kid might get to live. Make it $20 and more kids are saved.

So, here's the ask: If you have ever gotten a thrill by throwing, kicking, knocking, dunking, slamming, putting up, cutting down or jumping over a net, please go to a special site we've set up through the United Nations Foundation. The address is: UNFoundation.org/malaria. Then just look for the big SI's Nothing But Net logo (or call 202-887-9040) and donate $20. Bang. You might have just saved a kid's life.

Or would you rather have the new Beastie Boys CD?

You're a coach, parent, player, gym teacher or even just a fan who likes watching balls fly into nets, send $20. You saved a life. Take the rest of the day off.

You have ever had a net in the driveway, front lawn or on your head at McDonald's, send $20. You ever imagined Angelina Jolie in fishnets, $20. So you stay home and eat on the dinette. You'll live.

Hey, Dick's Sporting Goods. You have 255 stores. How about you kick in a dime every time you sell a net? Hey, NBA players, hockey stars and tennis pros, how about you donate $20 every time one of your shots hits the net? Maria Sharapova, you don't think this applies to you just because you're Russian? Nyet!

I tried to think how many times I have said or written the word "net" in 28 years of sports writing, and I came up with, conservatively, 20,000. So I've already started us off with a $20,000 donation. That's a whole lot of lives. Together, we could come up with $1 million, net. How many lives would that save? More than 50 times the population of Nett Lake, Minn.

I know what you're thinking: Yeah, but bottom line, how much of our $1 million goes to nets? All of it. Thanks to Ted Turner, who donated $1 billion to create the U.N. Foundation, which covers all the overhead, "every cent will go to nets," says Andrea Gay, the U.N. Foundation's Director of Children's Health.

Nets work! Bill and Melinda Gates have just about finished single-handedly covering every bed in Zambia. Maybe we can't cover an entire Zambia, but I bet we could put a serious dent in Malawi.

It's not like we're betting on some scientist somewhere coming up with a cure. And it's not like warlords are going to hijack a truckload of nets. "Theoretically, if every person in Africa slept at night under a net," says Gay, "nobody need ever die of malaria again." You talk about a net profit.

My God, think of all the nets that are taken for granted in sports! Ping-Pong nets. Batting cage nets. Terrell Owens's bassinet. If you sit behind the plate at a baseball game, you watch the action through a net. You download the highlights on Netscape and forward it on the net to your friend Ben-net while eating Raisinets. Sports is nothing but net. So next time you think of a net, go to that website and click yourself happy. Way more fun than your fantasy bowling league, dude.

One last vignette: A few years back, we took the family to Tanzania, which is ravaged by malaria now. We visited a school and played soccer with the kids. Must've been 50 on each team, running and laughing. A taped-up wad of newspapers was the ball and two rocks were the goal. Most fun I ever had getting whupped. When we got home, we sent some balls and nets.

I kick myself now for that. How many of those kids are dead because we sent the wrong nets?

Copyright © 2006 CNN/Sports Illustrated.

Scalia Flips

I am so, so tired of "my side" being full of hypocrites and jerks.

Justice Scalia flips the finger in church

BOSTON, March 27 (UPI) -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia startled reporters in Boston just minutes after attending a mass, by flipping a middle finger to his critics.

A Boston Herald reporter asked the 70-year-old conservative Roman Catholic if he faces much questioning over impartiality when it comes to issues separating church and state.

"You know what I say to those people?" Scalia replied, making the obscene gesture and explaining "That's Sicilian."

The 20-year veteran of the high court was caught making the gesture by a photographer with The Pilot, the Archdiocese of Boston's newspaper.

"Don't publish that," Scalia told the photographer, the Herald said.

He was attending a special mass for lawyers and politicians at Cathedral of the Holy Cross, and afterward was the keynote speaker at the Catholic Lawyers' Guild luncheon.

© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Hey, Antonin—you know that Eucharist of which you had just partaken minutes earlier? Yeah, that’s right, that whole Body of Christ thing. That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.

Yeah…seems it didn’t quite take for you in this case.

The next time you think about gettin' all up on your high horse about moral values and the lack of them in other people, take the damn plank out of your own eye, you creep.

You are not part of the solution. You are one big honkin’ part of the problem.

The next time someone talks about the Godlessness of Bill or Hillary or Kerry or Kennedy, give me one damn example of any of them doing something this reprehensible in or around a church. And if you can’t, then just shut up.

I am so embarrassed and horrified and just plain sick and tired of the double-standards.

JC for President!

From the latest issue of Newsweek:

"Right now, I wouldn't vote Democratic if Jesus Christ was running."
Judy Deats, a Texas Republican, who is standing by Rep. Tom DeLay in his re-election bid despite the fact that his association with lobbyist Jack Abramoff has made him vulnerable to political opposition for the first time in more than 20 years.

Well, she's got one thing in her favor, at least: if nothing else, it’s nice that she’s honest enough to admit that, were JC to come back and run for office, He’d clearly be running as a Democrat. I suppose she's also being honest in tacitly admitting she's not a Christian, although I wonder if she's intelligent enough to realize that's what she's saying.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, y’all.

Spurious Reasoning

Okay. So I spent a fair amount of space here on Left of the Dial attacking the hypocrisy of the religious right, pointing out that they’re certainly to the right (which is not necessarily the same as being right, of course) but that they fall way the hell down on that there religious part.

It’s only fair, therefore, that when a truly ridiculous meme begins ricocheting around most of my favorite blogs on the left, I then take them to task for fuzzy thinking. Because I hate few things as much as I hate the ol’ double-standard—in fact, I think, in all seriousness, it’s one of the main causes behind the hideous state our nation finds itself in today. Folks on one side of the aisle scream about something the folks on the other side of the aisle are doing but then when they get a chance to do it themselves, well, hey, suddenly it’s just fine and dandy.

So here’s what happened. firedoglake, I believe, started by posting this hypothetical scenario:

I brought up one of my favorite forced birth conundrums the other day, guaranteed to make wingnut "life begins at conception" heads explode. If a fire breaks out in a fertility clinic and you can only save a petri dish with five blastulae or a two-year old child, which do you save?

I suspect most us, being sane, would either grab the child or, if we had time, a free hand and were thinking clearly—I mean, given that the joint’s on fire, a bit of panic doesn’t seem unlikely—we’d grab both. I mean, jeez, it’s a petri dish. It weighs, what, half a pound? Doesn’t seem to me like there’s really much of a dilemma here.

But to get back to the point she was trying to make, if for some unexplained and pretty much inexplicable reason you could only choose one, what or who would you choose? And the obvious answer is the two-year-old.

A-ha! she and much of the rest of the leftwing blogosphere then screamed. See? There is a difference! You don’t really and truly believe that life begins at conception!

Then, if I’ve got this sequence of events right, a blogger named Mike Stark called in to a local conservative talk radio show host named Andrew Wilkow. He posed the question to Wilkow and then, according to reports from blogs, Wilkow went nuts. The phrase "his head exploded" is frequently used.

Apparently, Stark then emailed Wilkow to let him know how he’d been set up. And Wilkow responded with a relatively civil response, all things considered, albeit one that showed a notable lack of basic grammar and spelling competence.

Now, I assume there’s a recording of the "head blowing up" available somewhere online, although I haven’t heard it. My experience with these sorts of things is that if someone says a host on CNN, say, went "absolutely stark raving insane," that it turns out that, yes, the host got really, really upset. Absolutely stark raving insane? Well…probably not; a bit of hyperbole tends to enter into these things. So do I suspect Wilkow got really, really upset? I do. Did his "head blow up"? I dunno. Maybe. But that’s not the point.

The point is this: you’re in a hospital visiting your 90-year-old grandmother. She’s been in a coma for five weeks and the doctors aren’t sure she’ll ever pull out of it. A fire suddenly breaks out. Who are you going to save, your grandmother in the coma or your two-year-old daughter who’s there with you?

Pretty freakin’ obvious, isn’t it?

Here’s another: you’re in a toy store. Suddenly a fire breaks out. Who are you going to save, your two-year-old son or the, let's say, little two-year-old Iraqi kid that was in that same aisle with you?

What?! You’d save your son rather than the Iraqi? What are you, a racist?
What?! You’d save the Iraqi rather than your own flesh-and-blood? What kind of inhuman monster are you?

You get my point.

Look, I actually tend to like hypotheticals: at their best, they can inspire some soul-searching and provoke some rigorous intellectual debate. But at their worst, they’re just silly little traps designed to put an opponent in an unwinnable position and then use that as a basis to show your own innate moral superiority. I’m a huge fan of snark. But when talking about a topic as important as we all agree this one is, snarkiness does nothing but turn up the heat without the benefit of any extra illumination. It’s counter-productive. It makes you feel good temporarily but does nothing to actually move towards any kind of a solution at all.

But that’s not even this kind of hypothetical. Because it doesn’t matter how many talk show hosts can’t answer this particular hypothetical when put on the spot (something talk show hosts themselves love to do to others, of course, and I’ve got no sympathy for this yutz). Just a few moments spent analyzing this particular one shows it’s paper-thin and simply silly. These kinds of hypotheticals masquerade as a difficult moral conundrum when it reality it’s no conundrum at all.

Does life begin at conception? Yes. Is all life sacred? Yes. Does that mean that a zygote can feel terror? Obviously not, nor can a 90-year-old in a coma (as far as I know, of course—never having been a 90-year-old in a coma, I can’t actually swear to that; for that matter, it's been a mighty long time since I was a zygote). Is killing someone wrong? Generally. If that person is about to murder another person—say, your mother—all the major monotheistic religions say it’s acceptable to then kill the would-be assassin. Does that mean that person’s life wasn’t sacred? No.

These things are obvious and well-known and are being discarded by many of my favorite blogs simply because they see a chance to score a few points against the other side. And that’s exactly what they complain so often about the other side doing. And yet here they are doing it themselves.

Y'all are better than that, remember? So act like it.

Let's Go to the Videotape

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did appreciate a serious storm but these levees got breached and as a result much of New Orleans is flooded and now we're having to deal with it and will."
—President George W. Bush
September 1, 2005

Remember that quote? That’s what the president said to Diane Sawyer. Most of us have probably seen him say it. I barely watch television, don’t even have cable, and even I’ve seen him say it several times. In case you've forgotten, you can view it right here.

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

Some folks did indeed anticipate the breach of the levees, of course. In fact, a lot of folks did.

And some of those folks briefed the president on exactly that possibility. The day before it happened.

This isn’t hearsay or innuendo or rumor. This is on videotape.

The Associated Press has just discovered videotape of the president being briefed about Hurricane Katrina while he was on vacation down in Crawford.

Because I’m all about the transparency—perhaps because I’m neither an elected official nor a journalist bound by silly and easily-discarded notions of ethics and integrity—here are the links to the two main articles, both of which I’ve pulled from, The Washington Post and The Associated Press.

A top hurricane expert voiced "grave concerns" about the levees and then-Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren't enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome.

Heckuva Job Brownie is emphatic.

"This is, to put it mildly, the big one," Brown said. "Everyone within FEMA is now virtually on call."

Brown warned that thousands of New Orleans residents were gathering in a shelter of last resort at the Louisiana Superdome, which he said was about 12 feet below sea level.

"I don't know what the heck we're going to do for that, and I also am concerned about that roof," Brown said. "Not to be kind of gross here, but I'm concerned about [medical and mortuary disaster team] assets and their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe."

Wow. Sounds like maybe, just maybe, the size and scope of Katrina wasn’t quite as unexpected as we’d been led to believe. Videotape’s a tricky thang, ain’t it? Not only does it prove conclusively that the president had, in fact, been warned, but Heckuva Job Brownie actually comes off looking way better than expected, all things considered.

Mayfield cited the 1992 storm that inflicted $20 billion of damage on South Florida.

"This hurricane is much larger than Hurricane Andrew ever was," Mayfield said. "I also want to make absolutely clear to everyone that the greatest potential for large loss of life is still in the coastal areas from the storm surge."

Not a lot of ambiguity there.

Here’s what President Bush said:

"I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm," Bush said, gesturing with both hands for emphasis on the digital recording. Neither Bush nor Hagin asked questions, however.

No. I mean, it was all pretty clear. I don’t see any need for any pesky questions, right? I mean, what could possibly go wrong? We’re just discussing the possible destruction of a major American city within the next two days. The president assured them all that he had their backs. Mission freakin' accomplished, baby.

"We're going to need everything that we can possibly muster, not only in this state and in the region, but the nation, to respond to this event," Brown warned. He called the storm "a bad one, a big one" and implored federal agencies to cut through red tape to help people, bending rules if necessary.

"Go ahead and do it," Brown said. "I'll figure out some way to justify it. ... Just let them yell at me."

Hm. Well, there goes that whole thing about FEMA not being able to help because Governor Blanco hadn’t officially requested help. The day before the damn storm, Heckuva Job Brownie was already saying he was going to do whatever was necessary. President George W. Bush was already briefed and said they would provide whatever was necessary.

It’s amazing. Indisputable proof that George W. Bush lied when being interview by Diane Sawyer. I know, it's considered impolite to call the president on the United States a liar when he lies. But there's no other way around this one. He claimed no one anticipated the levees being breached. Yet we have him on videotape, five days earlier, being told that the levees might be breached.

Or. There’s another possibility. Maybe while he was being briefed on the possible impending destruction of an American city, he just wasn’t paying attention. I mean, hell’s bells, he was on vacation.

But there’s no other conclusion. Either he knew and he stayed on vacation and did nothing while Americans died. Or he was simply daydreaming whilst his advisors were warning about a storm of Biblical proportions.

Either way, that’s completely reprehensible. It’s inexcusable. It’s immoral.

And yet, incredibly, that’s not all. Hard as it is to comprehend, it gets even more unbelievable.

The White House was understandably concerned about the political fallout sure to follow when the American people discovered indisputable proof that the president lied about not knowing the scope of the danger New Orleans was in, or was actually even less interested in the job of protecting the American people than was already obvious. So they leaked transcripts of the daily FEMA updates Bush received during and after Hurricane Katrina.

Only thing is, those transcripts they leaked to Newsweek? Yeah…when Congress was investigating the Katrina debacle, the White House refused to turn those transcripts over. They claimed one transcript in particular didn’t even exist.

[T]he administration initially told Congress that the transcript for the Aug. 29 call -- the call congressional investigators were most curious about, given that it occurred as the hurricane was actually battering the Gulf Coast -- did not exist, with officials initially telling Capitol Hill that someone at FEMA or Homeland Security forgot to push the button on a tape recorder.

"Everybody has been looking for that transcript," former FEMA chief Michael Brown said Wednesday.

A White House official unexpectedly e-mailed the transcript to NEWSWEEK earlier today Wednesday morning—initially without explaining that it was the missing transcript. Two officials familiar with congressional investigations said that the document was turned over to Capitol Hill investigators Tuesday night. Administration officials told both Congress and NEWSWEEK that FEMA officials in Atlanta had taped the Aug. 29 conference call by aiming a video camera at a TV screen rather than following the usual recording procedure. The videotape was subsequently discovered and transcribed.

So. Congress investigating you? Refuse to turn over the requested paperwork, lying about its existence if necessary. Truth might make you look bad? Suddenly "discover" that same paperwork and leak it.

Say…how did we start talking about Valerie Plame Wilson and half-truths (at best) about Weapons of Mass Destruction and Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda?

Amazing, isn’t it? Imagine the dilemma they must have felt they were in. To try to cover for the lie that the president was out of touch, they have to admit that they lied when they said they didn’t have a transcript.

So. Did he know and do nothing? Or did he not know even though he should have, given that we have video of him being briefed? Really, either way is beyond unacceptable.

George W. Bush is trying damn hard to capture the title of Worst President Ever.

And other than make his friends extremely rich and most of the rest of the world hate us, that’s the only thing he’s really done well so far.

But he has done it very, very well indeed. Too well.