Hayes part 2

Go and click on Hayes' statement on terrorists attacks! It's a hoot.

It's on the bottom right column.

THUD! No bounce for bushie.

A new Zogby poll shows

No Bounce: Bush Job Approval Unchanged by War Speech; Question on Impeachment Shows Polarization of Nation; Americans Tired of Divisiveness in Congress—Want Bi-Partisan Solutions

Of course, the right will just say that the numbers are skewed because John wants to get back at the gops for what they did to his brother.

This is good news. It shows that people have awoken from their memorized slumber to realize that what the "liberals" were saying all along is true, and they are seeing all of the gop slime thrown at dems for what it is. Only the staunchest Gop Youth still spits the venom of raunchiness into the eyes of the blind.

The kicker?

Among President Bush’s fellow Republicans, a full one-in-four (25%) indicate they would favor impeaching the President under these circumstances, while seven-in-ten (70%) do not.

Reform Ohio Needs Your Help

Received this email, thought I'd pass it on:

A few weeks ago, you mentioned Reform Ohio Now in your blog—which was great! I wanted to give you a quick update on the campaign and ask if you might help us out by blogging on it again.

We’re down to the wire, and we desperately need volunteers.

As you know, we are pushing to get real reforms on the ballot this November to fight the corruption that’s ruining our state and restore fair elections. But to get on the ballot, we need to gather 450,000 signatures by the end of July—that’s only 4 weeks from now.

Our campaign is gathering steam, but we need to get the word out to more signature collectors. The only way to collect signatures is in person—and the deadline is looming.

As a progressive Ohio blogger, your help is essential. Will you support our efforts with another post on www.ReformOhioNow.org?

You can mention that we’re just over a month away from our deadline, and that we won’t make it without volunteer signature collectors. It’s easy for anyone to do: sign up in the yellow box at www.ReformOhioNow.org, we’ll give them a signature form, and they’ll get a few friends, family, or coworkers to sign it, then mail it back to us.

Together we can ensure fair elections in Ohio in 2006 and pave the way for 2008.

Thanks for your help. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Miniprop says everything peachy keen in Iraq

Rumsfeld says media only shows negative sides of war. You mean all of the people dying? The soldiers who are coming home with missing limbs and no health care? The lack of basic services like electricity and water? The empty schools because it's too dangerous to send your kids? The terrorists that have come from all over the world? The resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan because our resources are focused on Iraq? The stop-loss? The widows/widowers and orphans?

Those "peaceful" parts of Iraq are the ones ruled by the Iraqi Taliban. Anyone who does anything is beaten for their dissent.

Today's Goldstein Award goes to:



For this post.

This is how the gops SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!(TM)

The Bush administration disclosed yesterday that it had vastly underestimated the number of service personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking medical treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and warned that the health care programs will be short at least $2.6 billion next year unless Congress approves additional funds.

So our soldiers who are losing arms, legs, sight, hearing, and minds will come back and not get the treatment they deserve. Why isn't the right outraged? Because they are too busy becoming "police officers, firefighters, businessmen and women, contractors, teachers, lawyers, and scientists" to give a damn about the people who protect them. Support the war, but not the soldiers!

This is sickening. Meanwhile, Congress voted 263-152 to give themselves a pay raise. Of course, the one and a half million dollar total increase is meager compared to the $2.6 billion needed for the health care, but it seems like a slap in the face to our soldiers while they are out there giving their limbs and lives as Congress looks on. (Note: Both gops and dems are guilty, though the vote was actually to block the bid of Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah to force a vote on the issue to stop the automatic increase.)

Miniprop strikes again

State Department Doctors Bono Quote

A State Department release from Monday doctored remarks from U2’s Bono, twisting his quote to mean the very opposite of what he apparently believes. Here’s the State Department paragraph, two graphs below the lede [besides underlining, excerpt appears exactly as published]:

Bono, lead singer of the Irish band U2 and longtime activist for aid to Africa, echoed Geldof’s praise for President Bush as he told an American television interviewer June 26, “[Bush] has already doubled and tripled aid to Africa .… I think he has done an incredible job, his administration, on AIDS. 250,000 Africans are on anti-viral drugs; they literally owe their lives to America.”

In fact, Bono only said the latter half of that quote during his appearance on Meet the Press last Sunday. The first part — “[Bush] has already doubled and tripled aid to Africa” — is deceptively transplanted from an interview Bono did with Time magazine that Tim Russert quoted on the show, and the State Department has taken it entirely out of context. Here’s the full quote:

Question: Which of the G8 leaders do you think remains the toughest nut to crack?

Bono: The most important and toughest nut is still President Bush. He feels he’s already doubled and tripled aid to Africa, which he started from far too low a place. He can stand there and say he paid at the office already. He shouldn’t because he’ll be left out of the history books. But it’s hard for him because of the expense of the war and the debts.

In other words, Bono was relaying President Bush’s claim (which he repeated during his press conference with Tony Blair this month) that his administration has tripled aid to Africa. Yet we know Bono does not believe that Bush has tripled aid to Africa. On Meet the Press, Bono said that while Bush has made a commitment to triple aid, that will only be the case “if he follows through” on that pledge.

From Think Progress.

Saddamn ain't no Hemingway

I doubt this novel will be one of Amazon's top sellers.

It opens with a narrator who appears to be modeled on the story of Abraham warning his grandsons of Satan's hold over Babylon.

The story tells of Ezekiel, a greedy schemer who plots to overthrow the sheik of a tribe with the help of a powerful enemy aiming to conquer and annihilate all Arabs but is ultimately defeated by the sheik's daughter with the help of an Arab warrior. This is viewed as a metaphor for a Zionist-Christian plot against Arabs and Muslims.

"Only those who refuse his nation and are faithful to God can be victorious," the narrator warns of Satan, the superpower.

Yawn.
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Big Brother is in the FBI

Bush sets up domestic spy service US President George W Bush has ordered the creation of a domestic intelligence service within the FBI, as part of a package of 70 new security measures.

So those prison numbers will continue to rise?

1 in 142 Americans are in jail

The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics says America's prison population topped 2 million for the first time in history. And we're claiming that we're trying to fix the problems of other countries while society is collapsing at home? All of those individualists/libertarians won't be happy when the crime moves into their neighborhoods. I can see it now: Their solution would be to create neighborhood militias. Don't like your neighbors? Shoot them!

No doubt the journalists who publish damaging information to the administration will be joining them next week.

A purple view

The New York Times Magazine has an interesting article on religion in the USA.

Yet neither legal secularism nor values evangelicalism has lived up to its own aspirations. Each promises inclusion, but neither has delivered. To make matters worse, the conflict between these two approaches is becoming a political and constitutional crisis all its own. Talk of secession of blue states from red in the aftermath of the 2004 election was not meant seriously; but this kind of dark musing, with its implicit reference to the Civil War, is also not coincidental. It bespeaks a division deeper than any other in our public life, a division that cannot be healed by the victory of either side.

Oh say can you see the censorship?

Just learned about this idiotic Tampa school district that banned the wearing of all flags except the American flag. Guess my EU shirt is too offensive. If they ban one flag, they should ban them all, INCLUDING the stars and stripes. Isn't wearing a flag desecration anyway?

HT: Mustang Bobby via T Rex

Honey, they shrunk my war speech!

Ahmed Amr of NileMedia has this to say about Bush's blabbering last night:

Under the roof of the White House, George Bush has assembled what appears to be the most lethargic unimaginative group of speech meisters ever to gain government employment. The amount of redundancy in his smoke and mirrors show at Fort Bragg was astounding. Virtually every sentence in the speech was plagiarized from previous Bush pep talks, and whole paragraphs were plagiarized from other parts of the same speech. Are we paying these guys? I want a refund. If this is government work, privatize speech writing or outsource it to China.

Dude, the answer is simple. The guy doesn't know many words, so he is forced to use the same ones over and over again. Have you ever played the Bush drinking game? You write down five words and have to drink every time he says one of them during his speeches. If you choose words like freedom, fear, and liberty, you can really get trashed. Amr manages to shrink his speech down to seven minutes in his article.
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The gops in peanut heaven

A few weeks ago, I was involved in an argument with Nationals fans who were gops on the day after George Soros announced his intention to join an ownership group to buy the Nationals. The Nationals blogs were lit up with anger. The gops said they would demand refunds for their season tickets and would stop attending games. Today, Sally Jenkins of Wapo discusses the issue.

Some Republican lawmakers don't think George Soros should be permitted to purchase a Major League Baseball team because he's too liberal and he has some wacky notions. I must have been napping, and that's why I missed the part where we became a country in which Democrats are no longer allowed to buy things.

If lawmakers start banning people from owning ballclubs just because of their politics or because they have a few woo-woo ideas, there are going to be a lot of shuttered ballparks. Anybody who tries to say that MLB owners should meet a certain standard of political correctness will get knocked back on their butts every time by two simple words: Marge Schott.

It was all right for Schott, the racist collector of Nazi memorabilia, to own a baseball team for years, but it's not for Soros, the billion-dollar philanthropist and Nobel Prize nominee?

That's exactly what some Republicans on Capitol Hill are suggesting, led by Tom Davis, the Republican from Virginia who is trying to steer the sale of the Nationals and who says Soros is just not the kind of person "we need or want in the nation's capital."

I don't much care about George Soros, and I don't care at all which rich guy gets the privilege of spending $400 million in heavy sugar on the Nats. But I do care when members of a ruling party start pushing people around, because next, it could be me. This is supposed to be the party that doesn't believe in government telling business or private citizens what to do. So here's what I have to say to Davis about that: Get your boot off my front porch, mister.

...

An even nastier abuse came from Rep. John Sweeney (R-N.Y.), who actually suggested baseball's antitrust exemption might be in trouble on the Hill if MLB let Soros have the Nats. It's one thing to threaten MLB for failing to govern drug usage -- Congress was quite right to do that. It's quite another to threaten it over one prospective owner's politics. In doing so, Davis and Sweeney just cost themselves all credibility.

...

Okay, Soros is a convicted felon in France. George Steinbrenner is a convicted felon in this country. A pardoned one, but still.

Lest gops forget, Soros was a major player in the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe. (I know they like to give Reagan all the credit, but I sometimes question whether Reagan even knew the Soviet Union was collapsing.) He has spent millions (billions?) on philanthropy. Though he's had shady deals in the investment world, he's not exactly a heartless, evil guy. He certainly doesn't deserve all that righty hatred.

"I don't think I'll be getting good season tickets if he gets the team," Davis admitted.

Aww... you may just have to stand in line like the rest of us instead of getting special privledges. Wanker.

The only thing we have to fear is Bush himself

I'm not sure what was more nauseating last night, Bush trying to reinstill fear into Americans or Rick Santorum telling the story during the Pirates - Nationals broadcast (on MLB TV.)about how a dog peed on his leg right before he met pitcher Kent Tekulve.

Mark Levine has a perspective on Why Withdrawal is Possible.

And more freedom of press breach stories: Court Orders 4 Reporters to Reveal Sources in Lee Case

Sigh....
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Why isn't Novak in trouble, part 2

From Falwell's Laws of the US:

Under the threat of war with France, Congress in 1798 passed four laws in an effort to strengthen the Federal government. Known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts, the legislation sponsored by the Federalists was also intended to quell any political opposition from the Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson.

The first of the laws was the Naturalization Act, passed by Congress on June 18. This act required that aliens be residents for 14 years instead of 5 years before they became eligible for U.S. citizenship.

Congress then passed the Alien Act on June 25, authorizing the President to deport aliens "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States" during peacetime.

The third law, the Alien Enemies Act, was enacted by Congress on July 6. This act allowed the wartime arrest, imprisonment and deportation of any alien subject to an enemy power.

The last of the laws, the Sedition Act, passed on July 14 declared that any treasonable activity, including the publication of "any false, scandalous and malicious writing," was a high misdemeanor, punishable by fine and imprisonment. By virtue of this legislation twenty-five men, most of them editors of Republican newspapers, were arrested and their newspapers forced to shut down.

One of the men arrested was Benjamin Franklin's grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, editor of the Philadelphia Democrat-Republican Aurora. Charged with libeling President Adams, Bache's arrest erupted in a public outcry against all of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Many Americans questioned the constitutionality of these laws. Indeed, public opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts was so great that they were in part responsible for the election of Thomas Jefferson, a Republican, to the presidency in 1800. Once in office, Jefferson pardoned all those convicted under the Sedition Act, while Congress restored all fines paid with interest.

Under the threat of war with Islam, Congress in 2001 passed some laws in an effort to strengthen the Federal government. Known collectively as the Patriot Act, the legislation sponsored by the Republicans was also intended to quell any political opposition from the Democrats, led by Tom Daschele.

Keep in mind that those who opposed the Sedition/Patriot Act were/are labelled as traitors by the whacked out Federalists/Republicans.

Now, punishing any journalist for protecting sources is unconstitutional, but punishing some left-siding journalists while letting go the rightwinger who did it first is just malicious.

You see, Congress shall make no law, but the Bushies can do what they want.
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I hate the RIAA

I am a huge music fan, but my days of buying music may well be over, thanks to the Supreme Court ruling against filing sharing companies. I suppose I should have downloaded all of the songs I wanted last week before the sites shut down.

Music and film companies say they lose as much as several billion dollars a year to piracy.

Bullshit. People don't buy music because most of what the music corporations puts out is crap. Simple as that. Have you SEEN the Top 40 recently? It's full of bumbling idiots who can't spell and certainly can't read music. Also, albums are not affordable. Who can pay $20 for them? I used to download music to listen to new bands, and if I liked them, I'd buy the music. Money is too precious to waste on an album with one or two good songs.

This is another example of media consolidation in this country. The Supreme Courts ruling for cable companies, which already have monopolies on the cable industry, is an outrage. Contemporary America is NOT a capitalist country. Capitalism thrives on competition. Without competition, corporations are free to dictate whatever they want, and consumers can do nothing about it. Remember anti-monopoly laws? They are "burdensome" on "economic growth," aren't they?

I really can't believe that libertarians side with gops. Gops are all about monopolies and creating a corporate super state. I don't mind libertarians who live up to their stated principle, "The Party of Principles." (They are, after all, HALF right!) I DO mind when they support the Corporate State.

How can the court rule that government can take away peoples homes, but when it comes to music, the media industry is allowed to dictate what you can and cannot hear? Music is something that cannot be owned (unless you don't have a soul and can't feel- a common gop ailment, I've heard.) It is one thing to protect intellectual property when people are making money off of it. It is another to prevent people from enjoying your work for greed. People like Sheryl Crow, who continue to put out crap for albums, should focus their energy on producing quality music rather than fighting 12 year old kids, many of whom can't buy music for lack of income. If you build it, they will come, but if you're going to put together some shithole and expect people to play there, they'll just go elsewhere.

Focus on the music, people. Fix the recording industry. Don't punish us for your artistic failures.
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In Search of Pro-Americanism

Anne Applebaum writes an interesting article in Foreign Policy Magazine. Some excerpts:

There has never been a more popular time to be anti–American. From Beijing to Berlin, from Sydney to São Paulo, America’s detractors have become legion. But not everyone has chosen to get on the anti–American bandwagon. Where—and among whom—is America still admired, and why? Meet the pro–Americans.

In January 2005, a poll published by the BBC showed that 54 percent of French, 64 percent of Germans, and 50 percent of Britons consider the United States a “negative influence” in the world.

Some 38 percent of the French, 27 percent of Germans, 40 percent of Chinese, and 42 percent of Brazilians remain convinced that the United States exerts a “positive influence on the world.” Who are they?

In the Philippines, for example, the BBC poll shows that 88 percent of the population has a “mainly positive” view of the United States, an unusually high number anywhere. In India, that number is 54 percent, and in South Africa, it’s 56 percent, particularly high numbers for the developing world.

Here is a page on the phenonmenon of anti-Americanism.

It is an interesting analysis. I'd like to think that this phenomenon will fade with the election of a President who is not divisive and who does not snub the world when it comes to international law and cooperation. Gops will say, for example, "Oh, well, no one is complying with Kyoto, anyway." Whatever- that is not the point. The point is to cooperate and to develop solutions to problems in a way that will correct as much of the problem as possible. So most of Europe is failing to comply with Kyoto- It's not like they are out there saying, "Ha, HA! I am going to purposely not comply with Kyoto because I think it is a waste of money."

COOPERATION- n 1: joint operation or action; "their cooperation with us was essential for the success of our mission" [ant: competition] 2: the practice of cooperating; "economic cooperation"; "they agreed on a policy of cooperation"

I know the right doesn't understand the meaning of the word, most likely because they can only see "competition." What's more, they'll rub it in your face. Ideological capitalists are blind to the fact that PEOPLE make up the world, and without PEOPLE, there can be no competition. It's kind of like those species of insects who eat their young.

Regardless, it is a sad state of affairs when a country whose founding fathers have inspired leaders and freedom fighters throughout the world can be viewed as a negative influence on the world, when writers have to pen articles in search of pro-Americans, and when its own citizens question the security of liberty and democracy within its borders. I often think of the story of the Russians imprisoned in the Soviet gulags who would pass around battered copies of the US Constitution to read at the risk of punishment or death. That, my friends and enemies, is what this country is about, not flag burning, not gay marriage, and definitely not Paris Hilton.

gOD BLESS aMERICA

If you use these napkins, would you go to jail under the flagburning prohibition? Just think of the economic devastation this country will undergo if the thing passes. You couldn't buy any flag paraphernalia. Spill something on your flag shirt? Go to jail. Scratch your flag sticker on your SUV? Go to jail. Eat one of those flag cakes? You get the idea.

Is it not odd that the same people who want to ban flag burning are the same ones who are outraged that the Supreme Court ruled that the Ten Commandments couldn't be displayed in Kentucky? I mean, after all, the Ten Commandments ban the worship of graven images, yet the flag is a graven image. Something that is desecrated by definition has to be holy, so if the flag is holy, then it is a graven image. Then again, if one sees this photo...



I'm sure it has caused many a righty a tear, for God truly does love America best.

Update

No nation can negotiate with terrorists. For there is no way to make peace with those whose only goal is death.

George W. Bush
Remarks to Reporters
April 4, 2002

Ummm...

HT: Whisky Bar

I AM THY LORD GOD

So the issue isn't solved. There will still be bitter confusion about what courthouses can and can't display. You know, who really cares if the Commandments are up? It's not like they aren't good laws to live by, for the most part. I mean, things like lying and stealing are generally bad (unless you're a gop.) I do think, however, that if you are going to put them up, you should also put up other facets of our legal history, like the Magna Carta, Roman Law, British Common Law, Hammurabi Code, you know, the non-religious laws that provide more of a basis for our laws than a bunch of words carved into stones that were subsequently broken when a guy threw a tantrum. (Ooh, blasphemy! My apologies.)

“The Court’s second-guessing of the hidden purposes of the Kentucky commissioners smacks of judicial tyranny,” said Crampton. “The Court has tightened its grip on every aspect of our lives. These five unelected people in black robes are not declaring law; they are arbitrarily setting social policy for the entire country,” Crampton continued. “The Court missed a tremendous opportunity.”

“We are obviously pleased with the Court’s upholding of the monument in Texas,” Crampton said. “But the fractured nature of the opinion loudly underscores the utter lack of any clear rule of law in these matters,” Crampton noted.

Read the American Family Association's press release. Nothing is good enough for them except full fledged theocracy. Can't they all just move to Kansas?

Congress shall make no law, but the Bushies can do what they want!

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

American journalists moving closer to jail time. No, they are not in some Muslim country. They are right here in the good old U.S. of A, where the above quote is supposed to ring true.

Why the hell isn't Bob Novak in trouble? He's the one that started all of this.

Despite initial appearances, Novak will likely play an incredibly small role in the Plame Affair from here on out. Sure, the information he published in his July column about Wilson demonstrates that two senior administration officials may have broken the law. But that's been known for more than two months, and until Sunday, most of the carping was confined to the left-leaning portions of the blogosphere and to liberal publications such as The Nation. The Plame Affair didn't take off until a second leak: On Sept. 28, the Washington Post reported that "a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife."

Don't answer that question. We all know the reason.

Read this blog!

Taking the Fight to Karl- American Service Men and Women Mad at Karl Rove.

HT: Silt 3

I wish I could say this is unbelievable, but...

General admits to secret air war

The American general who commanded allied air forces during the Iraq war appears to have admitted in a briefing to American and British officers that coalition aircraft waged a secret air war against Iraq from the middle of 2002, nine months before the invasion began.

He tried to kill my daddy!

Meanwhile, Winstead is busy retyping this article for an American audience.

"Democracy" in Iraq

Iraqi students say arrested for wearing jeans

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Students in the Shi'ite Muslim religious Iraqi city of Najaf said that police recently arrested and beat several of them for wearing jeans and having long hair.

"They arrested us because of our hair and because we were wearing jeans," said student Mohammed Jasim, adding that the arrests took place two weeks ago in the city, the spiritual heart of Iraq's newly dominant Shi'ite majority.

"They beat us in front of the people. Then they took us to their headquarters, beat us again, shaved our heads and tore our clothes.

"When we asked what we had done, they said that we had no honor," he told Reuters this week.

We will not negotiate with terrorists- unless we can't defeat them

Ahh, the ones who call us liberals traitors for saying we should try to understand what causes people to be terrorists are actually meeting with terrorists to negotiate. But then again, evil has never gotten in Rummy's way of doing business:

Socialists win in Bulgaria

Turnout was reportedly low, despite attempts to encourage people to vote - including a lottery.

Open to those casting ballots, this offered prizes include a car, TVs, DVD players and mobile phones.

Sounds like capitalism to me.

Who Are Americans to Think That Freedom Is Theirs to Spread?

This is an article by Michael Ignatieff that is worth reading. I would post the entire article, but it is rather lengthy. I would encourage anyone who reads this post to click on my link, read the entire article, and then comment, as it is a good discussion piece. It is a rather gloomy, yet hopeful article. The theme:

the paradox of Jefferson's dream: American liberty as a moral universal seems less and less recognizable to the very democracies once inspired by that dream

An excerpt:

The fact that many foreigners do not happen to buy into the American version of promoting democracy may not be much of a surprise. What is significant is how many American liberals don't share the vision, either. On this issue, there has been a huge reversal of roles in American politics. Once upon a time, liberal Democrats were the custodians of the Jeffersonian message that American democracy should be exported to the world, and conservative Republicans were its realist opponents. Beginning in the late 1940's, as the political commentator Peter Beinart has rediscovered, liberals like Eleanor Roosevelt, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Adlai Stevenson realized that liberals would have to reinvent themselves. This was partly a matter of principle -- they detested Soviet tyranny -- and partly a matter of pragmatism. They wanted to avoid being tarred as fellow travelers, the fate that had met Franklin Roosevelt's former running mate, the radical reformer Henry Wallace. The liberals who founded Americans for Democratic Action refounded liberalism as an anti-Communist internationalism, dedicated to defending freedom and democracy abroad from Communist threat. The missionary Jeffersonianism in this reinvention worried many people -- for example, George Kennan, the diplomat and foreign-policy analyst who argued that containment of the Communist menace was all that prudent politics could accomplish.

The leading Republicans of the 1950's -- Robert Taft, for example -- were isolationist realists, doubtful that America should impose its way on the world. Eisenhower, that wise old veteran of European carnage, was in that vein, too: prudent, risk-avoiding, letting the Soviets walk into Hungary because he thought war was simply out of the question, too horrible to contemplate. In the 1960's and 70's, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger remained in the realist mode. Since stability mattered more to them than freedom, they propped up the shah of Iran, despite his odious secret police, and helped to depose Salvador Allende in Chile. Kissinger's guiding star was not Jefferson but Bismarck. Kissinger contended that people who wanted freedom and democracy in Eastern Europe were lamentable sentimentalists, unable to look at the map and accommodate themselves to the eternal reality of Soviet power.

It was Reagan who began the realignment of American politics, making the Republicans into internationalist Jeffersonians with his speech in London at the Palace of Westminster in 1982, which led to the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy and the emergence of democracy promotion as a central goal of United States foreign policy. At the time, many conservative realists argued for detente, risk avoidance and placation of the Soviet bear. Faced with the Republican embrace of Jeffersonian ambitions for America abroad, liberals chose retreat or scorn. Bill Clinton -- who took reluctant risks to defend freedom in Bosnia and Kosovo -- partly arrested this retreat, yet since his administration, the withdrawal of American liberalism from the defense and promotion of freedom overseas has been startling. The Michael Moore-style left conquered the Democratic Party's heart; now the view was that America's only guiding interest overseas was furthering the interests of Halliburton and Exxon. The relentless emphasis on the hidden role of oil makes the promotion of democracy seem like a devious cover or lame excuse. The unseen cost of this pseudo-Marxist realism is that it disconnected the Democratic Party from the patriotic idealism of the very electorate it sought to persuade.

God! Some on the left despise Michael Moore! He is an idiot! Anyway, I find this analysis interesting, because it presupposes that the Bush admin is anything like the Reagan admin. Bush is not Reagan incarnate. (Check out CATO's "Bush is no Reagan.") What Ignatieff fails to realize is that many liberals DO share the vision, but they don't believe that bombs are the way to go about doing it. And since Ignatieff seems to use "liberals" and "democrats" interchangeably, I will do the same. Clinton propagated the Jeffersonian ideal. Yes, he "reluctantly" ordered military action in Bosnia and Kosovo, but he didn't "reluctantly" pursue peace and democracy in Palestine/Israel. He didn't "reluctantly" pursue peace and democracy in Northern Ireland. He has a world vision of democracy. Unfortunately, there were some on the right whose only goal was to destroy him, as he was getting in the way of total Republican dominance. These people have no respect for democracy. All they care about is power. It is no wonder that liberals today distrust the gops. They are not the party of Jefferson; they are the party of Nixon, the party of cheaters and power hungry, corrupt warmongerers who use "democracy" in the same way they used WMDs in the finally famous Downing Street Memo. Do they have so little faith in the American people that they have to lie to us to justify what has been termed "democracy promotion?" If this is the case, they need to do a little work on American democracy first, and if it is not the case, then those who say these people just want access to oil are right. With the connections these people have to energy companies, I think the latter is more probable.

Of course, Ignatieff is not talking about the common folk, you know, the ones who benefit from democracy. He is talking about the academic and policy elites who think what they do is in the common folk's best interest. John Kerry was a failure because he, like the rest of the Democratic elitist dinosaurs, didn't have a clear vision for anything, unlike the neocons, who have the next two hundred years already planned out. The neocons do not hold Jeffersonian ideals. They do maintain that democracy is good for the US because it is stable and it makes us more secure. That is self-interest, and that, my fellow democrats (small "d") is NOT a Jeffersonian ideal.

There are many remaining Clintonites hanging around, people who believe that peace is a universal, democratic value. They'll be back soon. We're waking up from our slumber, and when we are ready, the gops aren't going to know what hit them, because we are the party of Jefferson, and we would like to give him some peace so he doesn't have to roll around in his grave anymore.

A last interesting yet WRONG aspect of this article is Ignatieff's discussion of "American values." What are "American values?" Last time I checked, only 51% of the country voted for Bush. Can't be that we all hold the same values. Some of us actually LIKE freedom, peace, and civil liberties like free speech.
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Insecure about everything?

Watch Clean Films!

Moral censorship at its finest.

No one died when Clinton lied

I have to write again about the Downing Street Memo. I just find it fascinating that there is documented proof of deception, yet many people just don't care. Let me repeat that, just so I can see it again... DOCUMENTED PROOF THAT BUSH & CO LIED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE about going to WAR and killing our troops. Those same people who are not outraged are the ones who have those damn ribbons on their SUVs and who claim to SUPPORT THE TROOPS!(TM) Obviously, they don't care if the troops are dying for no reason. I sure am glad I don't have their "support."

Speaking of those ribbons, I found this in the blogosphere, although now I can't remember where. What a hoot!

Anyway, when did lying become a "moral value"? I mean, why is there such a big deal with the religious right about the Ten Commandments if they don't live by them? "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour." Maybe they just don't understand the language here. The eighth commandment forbids misinterpreting the truth in our relations with others. This moral prescription flows from the vocation of the holy people to bear witness to their God who is the truth and wills the truth. Offenses against the truth express a refusal to commit oneself to moral uprightness by word or deed: they are fundamental infidelities to God and, in this sense, they undermine the foundations of the covenant. So, the religious right should be up-in-arms about the lie that justified the war that killed 25,000+ people.

I'm not saying in my title that I don't disapprove of Clinton's lie. I do, however, disapprove of the right's outrage about his lie while they sit silent about Bush's lie that led us to war.
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Obama 2016!

To the cheers of thousands of librarians, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama on Saturday called for the Senate to rewrite the USA Patriot Act to prevent investigators from scanning library records and bookstore sales slips.

Libraries should be "sanctuaries of learning where we are free to read and consider what we please without the fear that 'Big Brother' may be peering over our shoulder," Obama said in the keynote address at the American Library Association's annual conference.

Last week, despite a White House veto threat, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to restrict investigators from using the anti-terrorism law in libraries and book stores. Obama said he hopes the Senate follows suit.

"I hope we can pass a provision, just like the one that the House of Representatives passed overwhelmingly, that would require federal agents to get search warrants from a real judge in a real court, just like everyone else does," Obama said.

The conference, which runs in Chicago through Wednesday, drew more than 13,000 attendees, some of whom will discuss strategies for amending the Patriot Act, which was passed by Congress in the days following Sept. 11, 2001.

One attendee, Merryll Penson, executive director for library services for the University System of Georgia, said librarians "are not people who want to help terrorists," but want to see reading lists protected from automatic surveillance.

"For a lot of librarians, it's the principle," she said.

Ooh... maybe librarians ARE terrorists... that's why they don't want to turn in their terrorist buddies who are trying to learn more about the life of Bin Laden. They really hate America, don't they? Librarians belong in Gitmo, don't they? Why don't they all move to Canada?

Express your outrage at librarians protecting civil liberties at their website:American Library Association

Express your outrage at Senator Obama protecting civil liberties here.
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Another repercussion of Bush's idiocy

Iran President-Elect Vows to Pursue Nukes

Rafsanjani is certainly no angel, but at least he was willing to engage in the international community. He was all but assured of a victory in Iranian presidential elections because many Iranians were going to boycott this farce of an election. Then Bushie had to come in and tell the Iranians how bad their system was, and that pissed them off, so they actually went out to vote. Those jaded by Rafsanjani's first presidency voted for other candidates, which gave Rafsanjani a narrow majority and forced a runoff vote. He lost to the hardliner Ahmadinejad, who vows to continue Iran's scary nuclear program.

Of course, Bush is not entirely to blame. They also had militant thugs out and about making sure that people voted for the right candidate, they meaning Ahmadinejad's posse. However, he should have just kept his inarticulate mouth shut. We'll see what Ahmadinejad's Iran holds for the world.

Question: If I compared the Iranian regime to the Nazis, would I be criticized for "desensitizing" the term?

The Gop of Abraham

Republican principles "more closely parallel the moral vision of the God of Abraham than those of anyone else," Rabbi Daniel Lapin says. (By Helayne Seidman For The Washington Post)

One whose friends include Abramoff, Rove, and DeLay doesn't know the meaning of moral values. Then again, the God of Abraham was a wrathful, jealous god, so maybe he's right.

Of course the ethics are missing

House Ethics Report MIA- It was "lost in the mail," according to gop staffers (all certified evil.)

This of course, comes at no shock to anyone, except, perhaps, that select few in Middle America who still believe Bush is God.

Speaking of King George, he and Condi were at the Nationals game last night. They were protected by the box, so I couldn't spill my beer on them. I wonder where Laura was. It was strange, because there weren't snipers on top of the stadium, and no motorcade brought them in. They didn't even hang the Presidential Seal on the box like they did during the home opener. It was as if they were pretending to be normal people. I guess the Emperor is losing his clothes.

Sign the petition to fire Karl Rove

Sign John Kerry's petition to kick Rove out of power. Hat tip to Upper Left

Individualism = Selfishness

Ok, so that was not all of what I wrote, yet EU Rota decided to leave off the last part, which was "= Hobbes' state of nature."

Individualism = Selfishness = Hobbes' state of nature

Now, this may not seem like a big deal, because technically, since I have equated all of these items, the two he wrote are equal and his statement is true. However, since this is not mathematics and I was using the equation as a literary device, it was entirely unfair that he left out the last item, which was the exclamation point of the equation. The point is that government is created to combat the state of war in which man lives in his natural state. Hobbes says:

So that in the nature of man, we find three principall causes of quarrel. First, Competition; Secondly, Diffidence; Thirdly, Glory...Out Of Civil States, There Is Alwayes Warre Of Every One Against Every One. Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man, against every man.

As those who hate government (excluding anarchists, who hate everything) want to get rid of it in their lives, we are left to wonder if they have truly thought it out. Without government to alleviate the inequalities resulting from "Social Darwinism", the fierce competition that ensues leads to a lust for more- more property, more space, and more power. Man's lust for power is the most frightening of all human attributes, as demonstrated in the rise of such dictators as Saddamn and Stalin. (That and also dictators have had a strange tendency to have been nerds in high school.)

People who promote the "war on individualism" farce should realize that it is not hatred for individualism, per se, but a promotion of law and order so that we may not fall into the Hobbesian state of nature. "Individualists", if I may so call them, are like the brats in the classroom who won't share the toys at recess. There aren't enough balls in the world for everyone to have one. We are forced to live together; we might as well make it as easy as possible for all of us.

However, once government starts encroaching upon essential and basic rights, like the right for a place to live, that is when it has gone too far. EU Rota is right to criticize the Supreme Court's decision to expand

the right of local governments to seize private property under eminent domain, ruling that people's homes and businesses -- even those not considered blighted -- can be taken against their will for private development if the seizure serves a broadly defined "public use."

Now, this is a strange predicament the right faces. On the one hand, there are the corporations pushing for the rights to take this land, waterfront property, and use it for "economic development." The corporations just want to make a profit; we know this. The development of the land will bring economic development to the community; we know this, too. On the other hand, there is the libertarian faction of the right that is able to look through the greed of the corporations to see how wrong this is.

I could say, "Why don't the people just take their compensation and move? Isn't that what the right tells people to do who don't have health insurance at their jobs? Get a new job?" but I won't, because I just can't get over the fact that people are losing what is theirs. Honestly, I can see tearing down abandoned warehouses or rat-infested dumps, but people's homes? Really, though, why are people entitled to property but not to health insurance? Isn't their health more important than owning something? I mean, you can't own something when you're dead. But I digress...

The Supreme Court has made a serious mistake in this decision. I think it is something both the right and the left can agree on.

Your tax dollars at work

Today, Senator Kennedy, Senator Corzine and Congressman Anthony Weiner will hold a press conference with Joe Hansen, President of the United Food & Commercial Workers announcing the introduction of the Health Care Accountability Act (HCAA). The Act will help determine the extent to which taxpayers are subsidizing the health care costs of our nation's largest employers. Most importantly, this legislation marks the beginning of our campaign to make Wal-Mart pay its fair share for health care.

Of course, Wal-Mart announced it is hiring 14 new high-priced lobbyists to combat the bill. So rather than forking out the money to give its employees health care, it is going to spend it on more lobbyists.

You see, righties don't get the idea that if irresponsible corporations such as Walmart would provide health insurance, we wouldn't need to suggest that government take care of it. Unfortunately, the corporations won't do the right thing, so we use what tools we have to try to fix it. And no, people don't always have a choice in working at Walmart. If they did, no one would be working there. Life circumstances don't always give us the freedom to follow our dreams, or, at least, to choose where we want to work. I want to work in Europe right now, but I can't find a single place that will give me a work permit. Not my fault.

Laws were broken today, folks

Representative James Senselessbrenner, gop from Wisconsin and Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, did not make a unanimous consent request or motion to ajourn in a hearing on Patriot Act abuses today. Took his staff, cut the mics, shut off the lights, threatened the court reporter, Dems were shoved into a basement to continue, CSPAN coverage cut, CSPAN didn't know what to do...

Brad Blog has great coverage of this blatant disregard for the democratic process that includes a video clip.

Honestly, this makes me ill. The fact that there is NO protection for the minority in this country is frightening. The great thing about deep-rooted American democracy is that there are checks on those who would try to gain absolute power. However, when Congressmen are breaking rules to silence those who seek to promote truth, we must jump on it, scream from the mountainlaptops, and correct the wrong.

Look at the big picture, people. Do unto others... you gops won't be the majority forever, you know. How can you have such disrespect for our system of government? I encourage everyone to email Rep Sensenbrenner and express your outrage.

Help the War on Terror (TM)!

The General has developed OPERATION YELLOW ELEPHANT "to recruit College Republicans and Young Republicans to serve as infantry. They demanded this war and now viciously support it. It's only right that they also experience it. The 56th College Republican National Convention (June 24-26) and the Young Republican National Convention (July 6-10) are the settings for most of the ops."

Help Us Recruit The 101st Fighting Keyboarders! (Thanks to Andy for gathering the resources for us to take action!)

Republican criminal whines on House floor

Remember the religious bigotry at the Air Force Academy? Democrats are now "denigrating and demonizing Christians" because they are trying to do something about it. Anyone who has been in the military knows what it is like when superiors make you do something you don't like. One professor forced cadets to pray before tests. An order is an order, right? Wrong. No military officer should be allowed to order students to pray. Religion is a very personal and private thing, and one cannot force another to believe something. It must come from the heart. Besides, I doubt God is going to be whispering the answers to test questions into the ears of cadets.

The long war on Christianity in America continues today on the floor of the United States House of Representatives.

Please, give me a break. I haven't seen anyone running around killing Christians. In fact, the only warlike actions I've heard about are when Eric Rudolph killed some abortionists and bombed the Olympics in the name of Christ. Does Congressman Hostettler honestly believe there is a war going on? And people were outraged with Senator Durbin? ("If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime-- Pol Pot or others-- that had no concern for human beings," Durbin said. Durbin made the comparison during a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday after reading an FBI agent's report describing detainees at the Naval base in Guantanamo Bay as being chained to the floor without food or water in extreme temperatures.)

For the record:

Hostettler, a Christian and social conservative, made headlines last year when he was caught carrying a loaded handgun in a carry-on bag in the Louisville, Ky., airport. He pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed weapon and received a 60-day sentence, which he will not have to serve unless he has other criminal troubles before August 2006.

If he had been black he would go to jail for most of his life. If he had been Arab, he'd be in Gitmo now.

Outraged? email: john.hostettler@mail.house.gov

email which prompted Durbin comment here
If you hadn't known it was Gitmo, you really would think it was some prison in a dictatorship. Step outside yourself for a sec.
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Dems and World 2, Bushies 0

The Senate yesterday refused for a second time to confirm John R. Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, prompting his supporters to urge President Bush to bypass Congress and give the controversial nominee a recess appointment, which would last 18 months.

The vote was a setback for Bush, whose party controls the Senate, and the latest in a string of partisan impasses that also have stymied his efforts to appoint judges and restructure Social Security. Some senators said a recess appointment now appears to be Bolton's only hope, even though it would be politically contentious and would send him to the United Nations under a cloud. That action could come as early as July 2.

Give it a rest, Bush. You've had two blocks, blockhead. The people don't want him, either. Why not appoint someone to the post of United States Ambassador to the United Nations who is not hostile to the UN and who actually represents America? What a novel idea.

Voinovich moves up another notch on my scale of good Republicans.
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Big Brother Watch

Law enforcement officials have made at least 200 formal and informal inquiries to libraries for information on reading material and other internal matters since October 2001, according to a new study that adds grist to the growing debate in Congress over the government's counterterrorism powers.

In some cases, agents used subpoenas or other formal demands to obtain information like lists of users checking out a book on Osama bin Laden. Other requests were informal - and were sometimes turned down by librarians who chafed at the notion of turning over such material, said the American Library Association, which commissioned the study.

Dear federal law enforcement officials,

I own many books that you would find scary. If you read my post from the other day about banned books, you will find that I own a number of these. In addition, I own the Communist Manifesto, Lenin's Red Book (in Arabic, too!), various Nietzsche books, On Liberty, a Quran, a book about Clinton, a couple of Al Franken books, a book on Islamic terrorism, a book on Iran that throws the revolution into a positive (or at least, not negative) light, and a host of philosophy books that Evangelical crackheads would find offensive. I also bought a couple of anti-Bush administration books while in Cairo. They are in Arabic, but I am sure you can tell which ones they are by the pictures on the covers.

If you come to my house to snoop, may I ask that you please leave it in order. If you have some extra time, the floor could use a good shining, as the hardwood is looking a bit dull and dusty. Also, I don't have a phone, so there is nothing to bug.

Sincerely,

Daedalus (that's not my real name, but I'm sure you already know that.)

42% approval rating- that's a mandate!

Increasingly pessimistic about Iraq and skeptical about President Bush's plan for Social Security, Americans are in a season of political discontent, giving Mr. Bush one of the lowest approval ratings of his presidency and even lower marks to Congress, according to the New York Times/CBS News Poll.

Forty-two percent of the people responding to the poll said they approved of the way Mr. Bush was handling his job, a marked decline from his 51 percent rating after of the November election, when he embarked on an ambitious second term agenda led by the overhaul of Social Security. Sixteen months before the midterm elections, Congress fared even worse in the survey, with the approval of just 33 percent of the respondents, and 19 percent saying Congress shared their priorities.

Nicolle Devenish, White House communications director, dismissed the significance of the poll, saying Mr. Bush believes that following polls is equivalent to a dog chasing its tail. "We have advanced a broad agenda, and will continue to advocate the people's priorities," she said.

Nicole- the poll is telling you what the people want, but you aren't listening. People DON'T like Bush's social security plan, yet he keeps pushing for it. We don't want it! Give it up.

Oh, dear Zach, please come home

Cry for me, for my eyes have gone dry.
My tears tread no path through the dust on my cheeks
Life means so little to many back home
But let your son go, just let your son go

Tell him you promise to come back with Godspeed
Kiss your daughter in the dead of the night
Tell them goodbye with no tears in your eye
You must be a better man than me

Pick up your bag and walk out that door
It's the hardest walk you will ever make
To leave all you love for your honor and pride
Praying that you won't be lied to this time

Get on that plane and try not to look back
Now try to do it all over again
This time knowing what you have seen
With blood on your hands that will never come clean.

Zach is an awesome writer. He is currently serving his second tour in Iraq, suffering from the incarceration of stop-loss. I hope he comes home to his wife and two children soon.

انشأ اللاح

Good story

I received the following email today:

Hopefully you all will give this info maximum dissemination........
> Subject: Denzel Washington
> - Brooks Army Medical Center
>
Don't know whether you heard about this but Denzel Washington and his family visited the troops at Brooks Army Medical Center, in San Antonio,Texas (BAMC) the other day. This is where soldiers that have been evacuated from Germany come to be hospitalized in the States, especially burn victims. They have buildings there called Fisher Houses. The Fisher House is a hotel where soldiers' families can stay, for little or no charge, while their soldier is staying in the hospital. BAMC has quite a few of these houses on base but as you can imagine, they are almost completely filled most of the time.

While Denzel Washington was visiting BAMC, they gave him a tour of one of the Fisher Houses. He asked how much one of them would cost to build. He took his check book out and wrote a check for the full amount right there on the spot. The soldiers overseas were amazed to hear this story and want to get the word out to the American public, because it warmed their hearts to hear it.

The question I have is why does Alec Baldwin, Modonna, Sean Penn and other Hollywood types make front page news with their anti-everything America crap and this doesn't even make page 3 in the Metro section of any newspaper except the base newspaper in San Antonio.

Now, why does the sender have to end a good story with hatred? I did some research and found that the story was exaggerated. My response:

Please look up the facts before widely circulating these types of chains. While what Denzel did do was a great thing, it was also exaggerated. He did not pull out his checkbook on the spot and pay for the whole thing himself, although he did make a substantial donation. For more on this, click here.

Also, a quick LexisNexis search pulls up zero front page articles on Sean Penn, Madonna, and Alec Baldwin.

Also, please see this: It shows just how much the left "hates America." There was discussion on the Denzel donation story on Air America Radio on June 8, you know the evil liberal radio network.

Please. Truth is good. Whole truth, not partial.

I have posted this message at www.washingtonrox.blogspot.com for all to see and discuss.

Why haven't we heard of this?

Cab drivers could do wonders by passing out info to riders. If you are an Ethiopian cab driver, I would encourage you to inform your riders about this. Seriously. I can't believe I haven't heard this.

Where I've Been...

create your own visited countries map



create your own visited states map

It doesn't seem like a lot now that I look at it... Guess I better get out my bags.

Books are terrorists, part II.

I thought of a couple more books that are harmful to the world. They can be found here , here, and here.

Ten Commandments go to War

I hadn't realized Roy Moore's popularity in Alabama until I started reading the Red State Diaries. Turns out that Moore has aspirations to become governor, and he has a good chance. One would think that bad; however, it is looking better everyday.

Moore, a Republican who enjoys widespread support in his home state, is poised to run against a vulnerable Republican governor. If he wins, some party strategists speculate, he could defy a federal court order again by erecting a religious monument outside the Alabama state Capitol building. With the 2008 presidential race looming, President Bush would then face a no-win decision: either call out the National Guard to enforce a court order against a religious display on state grounds or allow a fellow born-again Christian to defy the courts.

Those extra votes the gops got from the zealots may not come again in 2008. Score a point for Hillary! Thank you, Governor Moore. You have my sympathies, non-fundamentalist Alabama.

For more on Roy Moore, see this command brief Maj. Gen. William A. Flatt from the Indiana Militia.

In other, sort of related news, World O'Crap has a great post about Randall Terry's "human side."

Seed from time of Jesus grows into tree

This is real. I should notify the Rapture Index people. Seeds from an extinct date tree were found in the desert in Israel.

Planted on Jan. 25, the seedling growing in the black pot in Solowey's nursery on this kibbutz in Israel's Arava desert is 2,000 years old -- more than twice as old as the 900-year-old biblical character who lent his name to the young tree. It is the oldest seed ever known to produce a viable young tree.

This makes me think of all the possibilities, like making a Jesus clone from the DNA of His blood on the thorns still in existence. It'd be the Second Coming. I am surprised there isn't some sort of movement for that, although I guess it would have to rely on science, which is opposed by the type of zealot who would conceive such a plan.

Maybe we could get some DNA from fossils and recreate dinosaurs. How about a nice T-Rex running around? We could develop thousands of them and use them as military weapons. Just release them in the towns of our enemies and watch them rip bodies to shreds. Insurgency problem? Call T-Rex. Hey, remember that story of Noah and how he had to build a great big ark and take two of every animal? How did the animals survive with T-Rex on board?

Hate bad news? Pretend it doesn't exist!

More Americans are getting all of their news from Christian news sources. Move over, FAUX News, you are too "liberal" for FamilyNet!

Owned by the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and seen in more than 32 million homes, FamilyNet pledges that it won't report stories that parents would be uncomfortable watching with their children.

So that pretty much leaves out war, hunger, and politics. What other news is there?

That sensibility attracted Andrea Clemmons to Christian news. The accountant from Midlothian, Texas, who attends Grace Church of Ovilla, Texas, said that mainstream media outlets seem consumed with blood, gore and assorted bad news.

"There are children missing, children being killed by their parents, killed by each other," she said. "I know it goes on, and I know we shouldn't be blind to it, but it kills me to watch it."

Once a regular reader of CNN.com, Clemmons said she now listens to Christian radio - a source she deems "more pleasant" - and frequents an online Bible forum.

"I'm a little too tenderhearted, and when I do watch the news, I get really upset," she said.

She is just going to pretend that everything is rosy. And these people are going to be walking around and voting for policymakers...

I support Texan independence

The Outrage:

Even for Texas, the scene was remarkable: The governor, flanked by an out-of-state televangelist and religious right leaders, signing legislation in a church school gymnasium amid shouts of "amen" from backers who just as well could have been attending a revival.

The Hypocrisy:

Perry, a United Methodist, did not refer to the death penalty, which his denomination says devalues life and should be eliminated from criminal codes. The governor, a capital punishment proponent, presides over the nation's most active death penalty state.

The Info

Countdown till the stakes come out: T minus 50 and counting.

Call me rebel

The following is a list of the top 110 banned books, courtesy of minivandad. The ones in bold are those I've read. Two under half- looks like I have some reading to do.

#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Quran This is only partial.
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 The Prince by Niccola Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Das Kapital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding#47 #47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Ãmile by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Ãmile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Another few years of Focus on the Family, and you won't be finding these anywhere.

I guess I have my summer reading list.

Can Oprah save America?

So now Faulkner is on Oprah's book list. I can imagine going into a book store and seeing the big "O" sticker on the cover of The Sound and the Fury. I've tried reading Faulkner, but I just can't get into him. (This coming from a fan of stream of consciousness writing.) I would certainly take him over Dean Koonz any day.

People worship Oprah. They hang on her every word. If she says, "READ FAULKNER", people will read Faulkner. Perhaps this is just a start. Next, "O"s will be popping up on Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Soon, the whole house-ridden country will be diving into War and Peace. Hallelujah, the country's saved! Americans may learn to actually think! No more American Idol! No more Paris Hilton! No more Focus on the Family!

Alas, this is nothing but a dream, as an over-intelligent America seems beyond Oprah's reach. A land full of green parks with readers sitting on benches beneath the trees and the sunshine is a land that cannot exist with standardized testing, a gop controlled Congress, and corporate controlled publishing. Sigh...

Get all three books in the Oprah's Book Club Summer of Faulkner box set from Random House Vintage International and receive a special Readers Guide —with a message from Oprah!

This just in! Clinton and Kerry caused 9/11!

I've written before about WorldNetDaily. You can see it in the "Religious Hoots" section of my links. I shouldn't give it the time of day, yet I just can't get over my fascination with it. I honestly cannot comprehend how these people get through their daily lives. What makes a person incapable of living in reality? Is it Evangelical blindness? Is it stupidity? Is it a mental illness?

What's worse is when rational beings on the right (yes, they do exist) begin to repeat these idiocies without thought. Many of them just like to piss off the left because they're just jerks. You could see them on this blog in the comments if my addition of Haloscan hadn't erased the comments.

The founding fathers, deists despite the Christian right's denial, believed that

Man is the rational being; no authority, human or otherwise, can demand blind obedience from such a being — not in the realm of thought or, therefore, in the realm of action, either. By his very nature, they said, man must be left free to exercise his reason and then to act accordingly, i.e., by the guidance of his best rational judgment...And because man is basically good, they held, there is no need to leash him; there is nothing to fear in setting free a rational animal. This, in substance, was the American argument for man’s inalienable rights. It was the argument that reason demands freedom.” Deism is defined in Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1941, as: "[From Latin Deus, God Deity] The doctrine or creed of a Deist." And Deist is defined in the same dictionary as: "One who believes in the existence of a God or supreme being but denies revealed religion, basing his belief on the light of nature and reason."

This country was founded on rationality, yet current American political discourse leaves rationality to be desired, even among seemingly educated policymakers. (The revelation that Kerry's grades were as bad as Bush's should say something about how the overachievers aren't dominating the policymaking these days.) More time is spent on bickering than thinking. It's no wonder that Americans aren't interested in their own government, which explains why they are allowing this government greater encroachment on individual rights. Following this line of logic, it is no wonder why organizations like Focus on the Family have a voice in policymaking. Average Joe isn't really paying attention. After all, there is nothing negative about the word "family", right?

When people like Dean are criticized by their own party for telling it like it is, an alarm should go off. Why is anyone outraged? The gops are a party of white Christians. The gops are a party of white Christians. The gops are a party of white Christians. When did truth become a victim of outrage?

Clinton and Kerry caused 9/11. Why not throw in Dean, Reid, and hell, Obama in there? They're all Dems, after all. Nevermind that the Bush administration hired a National Security Advisor who specialized in Russian studies (proof that they still can't get over the fact that the Cold War is over.) Nevermind that the attacks happened on Bush's watch. George Soros caused 9/11. How about the Soviets?

I am sick of ridiculous.

O Canada, land of the free, home of the brave

You know there's a problem when Canadians form a group to protect their sovereignty from the United States. Which is worse, that the Canadians are insecure about themselves or that the US policies are bad enough to make people think they need to protect themselves from the US?

I find this strange and fascinating. It reminds me of the Canadian that posted angry comments when I put up the photo of Saddamn in his underwear saying it was justice. He blamed me for King Bushie's policies, like I didn't do my damnedest to get him out of there. These Canadians are not liberal. Their politically correct focus borders on fascism. You can't say anything or else you are a human rights violator. You wouldn't want to hurt people's feelings, ay?

WASHINGTON—His name is Travis Biehn, a teenager transplanted from Newfoundland to Pennsylvania's upper-middle-class Bucks County.

But two radically different portraits of the 17-year-old have emerged.

According to an aggressive media campaign abetted by the district attorney's office in the Philadelphia area, he is a dangerous young man who was intent on blowing up his high school — because he didn't like Americans.

To his family, friends, some classmates and his lawyer, he is a bright, techno-savvy prankster who is being tried publicly because he was proudly wearing an "I am Canadian" T-shirt when he was arrested.

One thing both sides can agree on — Biehn is in trouble and remains in custody, facing serious charges of making terroristic threats and possessing an incendiary device.

Police found some of the components that could be used to build a bomb in his bedroom, but not all the components for such a device, even though the district attorney is quoted as saying he had enough material to level the house.

It has raised the question as to whether Biehn is being accorded the same rights guaranteed an American or is being overly demonized because he is not from this country.

So he wants to blow up a high school because he hates Americans, yet it is not fair that he was arrested???

Liberalism can be taken too far. It's too far when you start destroying property in the name of some cause. It's too far when you start name-calling and bashing the other side when you don't know what the hell you are talking about. Liberalism is about freedom. It's not only about freedom of speech, thought, and mind, but also freedom from poverty, inequality, and injustice. People forget that sometimes when they are slapping the liberal or "progressive" label on themselves.

I really hope that this is not the dominant line of thinking in Canadian society. It really is pretty blind to think that all Americans are like those in middle America. Honestly, I am a little hurt by these people. It's not my damn fault that this country has turned out like this.

Book tag

George of EU Rota calls me a "completely irrational US leftist" in his book tag. Seeing as Mr. George feels that clean air, peace, and government are bad things, one would assume there would be some anarchist literature in his list. Alas, we are presented with a rational set of books, thus squandering our hope for amusement.

Number of books I own: 300+

Last book I bought: 99 francs (6 euro) by Frederic Beigbeder at Charles de Gaulle returning from Amman, Jordan to DC. An excellent portrayal of life in the new Europe.

Book I am currently reading: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (again). Where do you think Daedalus comes from?

Five books that mean a lot to me:

Ulysses by Joyce (my favorite writer) A day in the life of an average Joe. Read for the first time in various pubs in Dublin over a three month span. That's a lot of Guinness. Rats, vats. Well, if we knew all the things.

The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. The Grand Inquisitor points out the hypocrisy of religion, only to have Dostoevsky leave us with the impression that he is wrong. So the question remains, why am I here?

The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. Made me fall in love with Europe before I had ever set foot there. The characters are kindred spirits. I think I may have been a wannabe writer living on absinthe on the Left Bank in a past life. Inspires me to pick up a pen every time I read it.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Exposed me to the phoniness of the world, ruined the last couple years of my childhood.

The End of History and the Last Man by Fukuyama. My freshman year paper ripping this bullshit to shreds gained the attention of the political science department and got me nearly three free years of college.

Tag goes to Robbie, Zach, Third Ave, Andros, and Howie.

Reality is reality

For the first time since the war in Iraq began, more than half of the American public believes the fight there has not made the United States safer, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

While the focus in Washington has shifted from the Iraq conflict to Social Security and other domestic matters, the survey found that Americans continue to rank Iraq second only to the economy in importance -- and that many are losing patience with the enterprise. (It's the economy, stupid!)

Nearly three-quarters of Americans say the number of casualties in Iraq is unacceptable, while two-thirds say the U.S. military there is bogged down and nearly six in 10 say the war was not worth fighting -- in all three cases matching or exceeding the highest levels of pessimism yet recorded. More than four in 10 believe the U.S. presence in Iraq is becoming analogous to the experience in Vietnam.

Perhaps most ominous for President Bush, 52 percent said war in Iraq has not contributed to the long-term security of the United States, while 47 percent said it has. It was the first time a majority of Americans disagreed with the central notion Bush has offered to build support for war: that the fight there will make Americans safer from terrorists at home. In late 2003, 62 percent thought the Iraq war aided U.S. security, and three months ago 52 percent thought so.

Overall, more than half -- 52 percent -- disapprove of how Bush is handling his job, the highest of his presidency. A somewhat larger majority -- 56 percent -- disapproved of Republicans in Congress, and an identical proportion disapproved of Democrats.

There were signs, however, that Bush and Republicans in Congress were receiving more of the blame for the recent standoffs over such issues as Bush's judicial nominees and Social Security. Six in 10 respondents said Bush and GOP leaders are not making good progress on the nation's problems; of those, 67 percent blamed the president and Republicans while 13 percent blamed congressional Democrats. For the first time, a majority, 55 percent, also said Bush has done more to divide the country than to unite it.

And my favorite:

For the first time since April 2001, Democrats (46 percent) were trusted more than Republicans (41 percent) to cope with the nation's problems.

So while the gop sheep continue to run around saying, "America is moving right! America is moving right!", America is showing that it is exactly where it has always been- in the center.

The right likes to say, "perception is reality." I hope they continue to stick with their "reality," because it's going to hit them hard when they wake up and realize they've pissed off enough people to lose what they had. Reality is reality, and a majority of Americans fall somewhere in the center of that reality.

Great plan

The DeLay Effect

You can do it, Ohio!

ZANESVILLE, Ohio -- After enlarging their majority in the past two elections, House Republicans have begun to fear that public attention to members' travel and relations with lobbyists will make ethics a potent issue that could cost the party seats in next year's midterm races.

The other thing is that gops are so full of themselves that many of them are in denial. They think they are untouchable. They think that half equals overwhelming majority. They have this fantasy that the whole world is turning right and point to a few examples, usually the increased vocalization from the religious right. The fact is, most people are somewhere in the middle and aren't really concerned with the right or the left and their passionate disgust for one another. Most people don't like bickering partisanship, gridlock, and mudslinging. The elitist right has snubbed the masses, and the masses, in turn, will snub them back.

American politics is pretty cyclical and balanced. No one party holds power for too long, and often that is because a party loses power when it begins to abuse it. That is what we are seeing now. The Dems aren't going to take over in 2006, but they are going to get closer, and by 2008, people will be sick of the gops. Go Hillary.