Dan's Soapbox

What I Learned Watching Fox News

2011-07-24T21:31:00.000-07:00

I've been watching Fox News a bit more lately. Here's some of what I've learned:

Job Creators

Wealthy people are actually job creators. They are just itching to create jobs, but they haven't been lately because they're afraid that some of their tax deductions might go away. While Job Creators love creating jobs, if they have to pay more taxes, they'll just say "forget it" and not create more jobs.

I used to think that jobs were created when lots of regular people wanted buy more stuff than businesses were able to produce, so to gear up production they hired more people, but now I know that all you have to do to create more jobs is to have Jobs Creators pay less tax. And the less tax they pay, the more jobs they'll create. Giving more money to people who don't already have enough to be job creators is useless, because they'll just spend it on products and services. That doesn't create jobs - Job Creators create jobs when they pay less tax.

Redistribution of Wealth

This is about how Barack Obama wants to take all the money away from job creators who earned it and give it away to people who did not earn it. This is Socialism, which is bad. While I never heard Obama say he wanted to do this, many Tea Partiers, Republicans and people on Fox News say he does so it must be true.

At first I thought redistribution of wealth was what the economy was all about. People spend money on products and services. Companies that produce these products and services pay their employees, suppliers and stockholders, redistributing the wealth to all sorts of places. But know I know redistribution of wealth is a socialist evil. People are only entitled to money they already have, whether they earned it though hard work, their parents' hard work, their employee's hard work, by laying off hard workers, or by selling collateralized debt obligation securities composed of mortgages made to people who won't be able to pay them back. You should never ask your boss for a raise because that is attempting to redistribute wealth from job creators to job takers.

Obama's Re-Election

According to Senator Mitch McConnell, his top priority is to ensure Barack Obama is a one-term President. Therefore, anything that makes Obama look good is to be avoided. Since a well functioning government and recovered economy would make Obama's re-election more likely, it is a priority for McConnell and his allies to ensure that the the economy remains stagnant and Congress accomplishes as little as possible. If the debt ceiling talks fail, the economy tanks, unemployment soars and middle class retirement savings evaporate, that can be good news if enough people blame it on Obama.

Other Things I Learned on Fox News.

I learned from Rep Allen West that if someone points out that the policy you advocate would be bad for your constituents, the best response is to call that person names.
When Congressman John Boehner says "moved the goal posts," that means "held the goal posts while I tried to move them."
I learned from Republican presidential candidate Herb Cain that First Amendment Freedom of Religion does not apply to Muslims.
The people on FOX News also say that Obama wants to make America more like Canada or France. I'm not sure what's wrong with that, because Canada seems like a nice place when I visit and France looks great on the Tour de France coverage. Maybe they don't want more people here to speak French.
In addition to the War on Terror and the War on Drugs, there is also a War on Christmas.
If same sex couples are allowed to get married, heterosexual people will divorce in huge numbers, unmarried couples will no longer want get married, and the institution of marriage will then be destroyed.

Socialism No, Racial Dishonesty Yes.

2011-01-27T06:37:00.000-08:00

A Seattle police officer is currently making waves with comments on Socialism and racial policy is the Seattle Police Department.

This is another example of how when it comes to racial issues in our society, there exists certain non-politically correct taboos that hamper honest discussion.

There exists an assumption that all ethnic groups tend to behave in the same manner. therefore outcomes of positive or negative behavior, i.e. success or incarceration, should occur at the same rates among the ethnic group.

But when it comes to African Americans, we see many disparities. African Americans kids receive discipline in schools and adults are incarcerated at higher rates than other groups. There are two possibilities to explain this: 1) There is something in African American culture that condones or encourages anti-social behavior, or 2) Schools and courts are racist.

But it is taboo to suggest the former, so we can only talk about fixing the later. The problem is, examples of racism are relatively rare, especially in a city like Seattle. So the concept of "institutional racism" was invented. This says that although racism is hard to see, we see the results of it, therefore it must be there in forms so subtle we can't put our finger on it. If you dispute this, you risk being labeled a racist. Look what happened to Judge Sanders in the last election, who was branded a racism for suggesting that social-economic factors might cause African Americans to commit more crimes than other groups.

So in order to correct the outcomes, teachers and criminal justice system are given a wink and a nod to apply a looser standard when it comes to African Americans.

Of course, this has nothing to do with Socialism, but Officer Pomper does have a point.

Civility For It's Own Sake

2011-01-12T10:15:00.000-08:00

Following the Columbine High School shooting 10 years ago, the pointing fingers flew free. Blame it on bullying, video games, or Marilyn Manson.   This week following the tragic shootings in Arizona, again the media looks for a blame. This time the popular target is incivility in political discourse in general, and Sarah Palin's infamous "bullseye" graphic in particular.

The truth is, normal people are not moved to commit mass murder by bullying, heavy metal music, violent video games or TV shows, or even political discussion that contains symbols related to shooting.   On the other hand, when mentally unbalanced people act out violently, it usually is not triggered by any influence which makes sense to balanced people.

Still, civility in public discussion is sorely needed to solve the issues that face us.   Let's not attack political opponents using violent metaphors. Let's not attack them at all. Criticize ideas, not people.   This should include discussion of why Jared Loughner did what he did.

When Politcs Became Football

2010-12-31T18:12:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure when it happened. It's been a process that took several years, but in 2010 it became obvious - politics has become much less about how to run our government for the benefit of society than it is a football style game.The problem is that in national politics, there is much more at stake that the egos of the players and the feelings of the fans.

What do I mean? In football, the offense does everything it can to advance toward it's goal, while the defense does everything it can get away with to obstruct the offense from what it wants to do.   Both parties do it, but the Republicans have excelled in making it more about the game than about the interests of the country. A football team "playing dirty" will use head butts, face mask grabbing and other illegal moves when they think the refs won't see it to stop. The Republicans will use distortions and outright lies (remember "Death Panels") to discredit Barak Obama.

Senator Mitch McConnell is pretty transparent about this, admitting that his primary goal is to make Obama a one-term president.

It is conventional political wisdom that strong economies are good for incumbent presidents seeking re-elections, and that weak economies favor the challenger. Indeed, sitting presidents tend to be blamed in many voters' minds for anything bad happening where they caused it or not, just as they tend to be credited for anything good that is happening.

For McConnell, a continued weak economy would serve his goal of blocking a second Obama term, while a strong economic recovery would undermine his objective.   That is why Republicans don't want health care reform and don't want economic stimulus packages, and will oppose anything that will make Obama look good if it passes.   They don't even really care about the deficit and the recent income-tax cut extension deal (which both cuts revenues and increases spending) proves.   If fact, they're all for increasing the deficit, just so they can blame it on Obama!

More on What's Wrong with Health Care

2010-07-08T22:22:00.000-07:00

I feel like I'm a year late with this post, but here it goes, a follow up to a post I made a few years ago:

One of the problems with health care in this country is that no wants to seeing people dying of conditions that can be treated. As Glenn Beck glibly points out, anyone who shows up at a hospital with a life-threatening but treatable condition DOES get treated. But who pays for it? Of course we all do, but some pay more than others. This is why hospitals make ridiculous charges, like $20 for an aspirin, or a $180 "facilities fee" on top of the doctor's fee when all you did was meet with a specialist to ask some questions (this actually happened to my wife & I).

So through absurd pricing, these costs get passed to people who do have resources to pay but are not covered by insurance, and insurance companies. Who do the insurance company's pass these charges to? Not big organizations like governments or Boeing. Large organizations have lots of negotiating power. If the cost per employee is too high, they take their huge contract somewhere else. But small companies and purchasers of individual policies have little negotiating power and get the shaft.

I used to work for a company with fewer than 20 employees. Every year they had to switch insurance providers because every year the provider wanted to increase rates 10-25 percent. So every year we'd switch to different policy which cost only 2-5% more and had only slightly higher deductibles and worse coverage, awful plans compared to what employees at large employers get.

Then comes Obama, who instead of proposing single-payer like many in left wanted, proposes changes to the existing system that keep private insurance companies but attempts to fix many of problems with the current system. At the beginning of the process, as well at end, he invited the participation of Republicans in the process. But Republicans refused to cooperate, called many of the reforms in the plan they had supported in previous years "Socialist" or "taking over heal care," and even spread complete utter falsehoods like "Death Panels."

Many Republicans want "free-market" solutions to the problems, but they haven't come up with ideas that would actually work. In the case of health care, free market solutions won't work because some people just require a lot more health care than others. You wouldn't sell fire insurance to someone if you were 100 percent certain their house would burn down, right? You wouldn't sell auto insurance to someone who is unable to drive without getting in an accident, right? So in a free market, why would a health insurance company sell a policy to a person with a chronic condition they know they'll lose money on? We're OK with people just can't drive safely not being allowed to drive (and so they don't need auto insurance), but we're not OK with people dying of curable conditions.

So if you don't want people dying because they can't pay, if you don't want middle class people selling their homes or cashing out their retirements to pay for a medical emergency or expensive chronic condition, and if you're not confident that charities have the means to cover all of them, then you have to come up with some way of "redistributing the wealth" to pay for it, hopefully one that doesn't make individuals and small companies pay disproportionally for it.

Yes, Health Care is in the Constitution!

2010-07-07T17:22:00.000-07:00

Over the past year, one of the Conservative rallying cries about health care reform has been "The Constitution doesn't give government the power to provide health care!" Well does it?

I've been reading the U.S. Constitution, and Article I, Section 8, which spells out the powers of Congress, states:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States...

So Congress has the Power to provide for the common defense and general welfare. What does welfare mean in this context? Probably not the way modern Americans use the word as a label for government assistance for the poor. Dictionary.com offers the following definition for "welfare":

1. the good fortune, health, happiness, prosperity, etc., of a person, group, or organization; well-being: to look after a child's welfare; the physical or moral welfare of society.

Glenn Beck & Co. love to portray liberalism and progressivism as the antithesis of the Constitution. It is not. Not only does the Constitution say nothing about religion (other than a ban on official recognizance or prohibition), it also says nothing about how the economy should be run. The Constitution guards against tyranny, not progressivism. Despite what Beck & Co. say, they are not the same thing.

Do Our Rights Come From God, or the Government?

2010-06-30T22:17:00.000-07:00

Over the past few years, Fred Thompson, Glenn Beck and Sara Palin have saying something that I've been trying to figure out.

I'll paraphrase:

"Our rights come from God, not the Government. Liberals will have you believe that rights come from Government, but that belief leads to tyranny, because Government can take those rights away."

This week during the conformation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was asked if she felt the Second Amendment was one of the rights granted by God, or a mere Government-created right.

Well, how do we know that rights come from God? Which rights are these? What is the source of this information???   The cited source is the Declaration of Independence, which begins:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

We all like the sound of that, but since we're talking about the Declaration of Independence, not the Bible, where did the Founding Fathers get it?

Did it come from the Bible?   While I'm no Biblical scholar, I'll give it a try.   The First Amendment?   Well, Freedom of Speech is contradicted by at least three of the Ten Commandments. Most Americans would consider taking the Lord's name in vain and dishonoring your parents to be covered by the First Amendment, even if such speech is rude or disrespectful. Even lying is illegal only under oath and other specific circumstances, and legally protected free speech in all others.

And as Kagan was asked, what about the Second Amendment?   There may be something in the Bible about the right to defend one's self and family, but I don't think you'll find the distinction between legal arms like handguns and illegal arms like rocket-propelled grenades anywhere there.

And what about other rights written into the Constitution?   If I have an unalienable right granted by the Creator to travel from my home to Oregon and back without having to show citizenship documentation to authorities, did the Creator not also give me the same unalienable right when I visit British Columbia?

Wait, maybe the Founding Fathers were inspired by God when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, in the same manner that Christians believe the authors of the Bible were. Someone should ask Glenn Back or Mitt Romney if maybe Moroni helped write the Founding Documents a few decades before revealing the Golden Tablets to Joseph Smith.

Seriously, our rights are social constructs, which vary from culture to culture and over time. What the Founding Fathers built was an ingenious multi-tiered system of laws ranging from local ordinances to State and Federal Laws, and finally the Constitution. The Constitution and Bill of Rights are not from God, they are from men.   They are not "carved in stone," but can be altered through the amendment process spelled out in the Constitution itself.   The men who designed the Constitution wisely made the Amendment process very difficult - so difficult that it has happened only sixteen times in the past 200 years. Any proposed change to the Constitution should be so important that two thirds of the State legislatures will ratify it. Even then, it is possible for something loony get get through, as the 18th (prohibition) and 23(repeal of) prove.

The language in the Declaration of Independence was an example of people projecting their own ideas onto their image of God. This was done to invoke a power higher than the authority of European monarchs. The more modern notion that the rights in the US Constitution "come from God not Government" is one of those false truisms that seems true when people repeat it enough times, but has no factual, or even theoretical basis. Or as Stephen Colbert would put it - it has "truthiness."

So the next time someone says "our Rights Come From God," ask them to back the claim up!

Afghanistan: Make Friends or Kick Ass?

2010-06-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

With the departure of General McCrystal from Afghanistan and General Patreus taking his place, many are questioning the tactics recently used in Afghanistan which call for more restraint in an attempt to minimize civilian casualties.

If we dropped what some call "ridiculous rules of engagement" in Afghanistan, then how would what we are doing be different from what the Russians were doing in Afghanistan 30 years ago?

Remember, the reason we originally when into Afghanistan was because Al Quada was based there. But by all accounts Al Quada has not been active in Afghanistan for many years, so the people we're fighting now are the same people the Russians fought a generation ago.

The enemy we're fighting now in Afghanistan has no interest in America at all. They just don't want us there, which is understandable. We certainly wouldn't want the Chinese Army occupying parts of Washington State

The reason we're there now isn't because the Taliban threaten the Freedom of Americans. They don't. The reason is the assumption that they will allow their country to be a base for Al Quada or other terrorists as they did before. So the objective is to install a government that will be friendly to us.

Unfortunately, more aggressive rules of engagement will lead to more civilian casualties, which will make more people hate Americans and more likely to support groups hostile to Americans, like Taliban or Al Quada.

So there's the problem. Our larger objective for Afghanistan is a stable government which is friendly to the America. But the Army is much better at killing people and breaking things than making friends, which is what Obama and McCrystal was trying to do.

I'd like to suggest what the best answer is, but I really don't know. But stepping up the brutality won't work for the Americans any better than it worked for the Russians.

In Defense of AZ

2010-06-11T17:00:00.001-07:00

If you've read a number of my post you'll see that I'm am not normally on the side of Beck/Palin/Fox News, etc. However, I decide my views for myself, and I don't look to what "my side" is saying. For that reason, I resist labeling myself a Liberal or Conservative. I find that these terms are often defined as having a certain view on a range of unrelated issues. Therefore, I have what is viewed as the "left" view on some issues, and the "right" view of others.

One issue where I find myself not jumping to the left is Arizona's new illegal immigration law. At first, I found myself siding with the opposition, after all, we're all against racial profiling aren't we? But as the debate unfolded, I found myself realizing the supporters arguments were basically sound, while the opposition was motivated by mostly speculative fears and hidden agendas.

First what does the law do? It allows Arizona law enforcement to enforce immigration laws. It doesn't make anything illegal that isn't already illegal in all fifty states already. You may not agree all immigration laws, regulations and procedures, but if you don't, work to change those.

The primary opposition argument against the Arizona law is that Arizona citizens and legal residents of Hispanic will be racially profiled and needlessly harassed. But there is nothing in the law that specially targets Hispanics or any other racial group, so it is not inherently racist. Next, about 30 percent of Arizona's population is Hispanic, and they are no doubt the majority in some communities. So Arizona police have an awful lot of people to harass, and many AZ police officers are Hispanic themselves.

I'm not saying that racial profiling or harassment won't happen, but at this point it is a theoretical problem with how the law might be applied, not a problem with the law itself. Arizona can address the application issues once is becomes apparent there is really a problem.

The hidden agenda is among citizens and legal residents who have relatives who are illegal aliens, or who have relatives in Mexico and other Latin American countries who want to live in the US. Imagine if you had brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles in other countries who could have a better life if they lived here. And if the legal immigration process for them took 5-10 years, wouldn't you be tempted to help them, or at least be supportive of, their circumvention of immigration laws? Who wants to see family members involuntarily returned the poverty of the old country?

Of course, no one in this position will say this publicly, but I feel this a huge motivation to the opposition of immigration laws, and those motivated use fears of racial profiling & harassment and the good intentions of those who don't want to see others profiles & harassed to garner support against the Arizona law.

The reason this is such an issue is that the Immigration and Naturalization Service has a quota for legal immigration for each country. Since Mexico is just south of the US and the economic opportunities in the US are much greater than Mexico, the number of Mexicans who want to emigrate is much larger than the annual quota for emigration from Mexico, the wait is 5-10 years. It's a lot hard to get from Madagascar to the US, so fewer people from that country arrive here and their wait is shorter. That's just geography & math.

So if you oppose the Arizona Illegal Immigration enforcement law, please be honest about your reasons, and be realistic about the validity of your objections to it. And don't be dupped into solidarity with others who have a hidden agenda they aren't being forward about.

The Glenn Beck/Jon Stewart Book Exchange

2010-06-10T09:08:00.000-07:00

Those who lament the ongoing deterioration of public discourse agree a few things:

Not enough people read books anymore.
People insulate themselves, tending to expose themselves only to ideas they already agree with and avoiding information that doesn't fit their preferred world view.
When opposing ideas are discussed, they are too often in the form of shouting matches.

I would like to propose an even to counteract all of these....

On Comedy Channel's The Daily Show, Jon Stewart often interviews authors. He seems to have read most of the books he discusses, which makes the interviews more informative . Among the most interesting interviews are those with authors he disagrees with. These conversations are lively yet cordial, and when they run too long for the time slot, they are available to view in their entirety on The Daily Show's website.

Over on Fox News, Glenn Beck also reads a lot of books, mostly those spinning Conservative/Libertarian versions of history. He has those authors as guests on his show.

I also recall a few years ago the effect that Oprah Winfrey had on the publishing industry. She talks about books she likes, and sales of those books soar.

So in the interests of promoting the reading of books, of people exposing themselves to a wide range of perspectives, and of intelligent political discussion, I propose that Glenn Beck and Jon Stewart do a Book Exchange on their shows. It will work as follows:

Jon Stewart will read a book selected by Glenn Beck which espouses the views expressed on the Glenn Beck Show.
Glenn Beck will read a book selected by Jon Stewart which espouses views that Stewart feels Beck and his audience ought to hear.
The event will be announced on both shows a month or so in advance, with the titles announced, so that viewers will have the opportunity to read both books first.
Stewart will appear as a guest on the Glenn Beck Show to discuss the book he selected Beck to read. On the same day, Beck will appear as a guest on The Daily Show to discuss the book he selected for Stewart to read. I suggest that each host is a guest they discuss their selected books so that regular viewers of each show will hear ideas more likely will challenge their own.
Both shows may edit the book exchange segments to bit their broadcast time slots, but both segments will be available in their entirety for viewing on each show's respective website.

Let's post this on each show's website, make this happen, and stimulate some more intelligent discussion!

Does the First Amendment not Apply to Helen Thomas?

2010-06-07T13:30:00.001-07:00

I'm disappointed to learn that Helen Thomas was abruptly "retired" after recent comments about Israel.

Years ago when I was in college, it was discovered that White Separatist Tom Metzger had been recording public-access cable television shows out of a TV studio in the basement of the campus library. This studio was made available to the local cable company out of an effort to support free speech, but as I learned, free speech applies only if the views expressed fall within the acceptable range.

When this news broke, there were campus protests in which the protesters "stormed" the dean's office to demand that Metzger be no longer welcome on campus. Actually, the dean's staff knew the protesters were coming and pretty much invited them in and showed them to the dean's conference room for a sit-down meeting with the dean.

Not surprisingly, Metzger had to shop for a new studio for his TV show, and the campus was once again clean of hate speech. This episode taught me that while it was OK for someone to be a Ronald Reagan supporter or a Sandinista supporter, any political views you expressed were expected to fall within an acceptable range of political opinion. If they don't, then the First Amendment doesn't apply.

I was never comfortable with the way so-called "hate speech" is dealt with. I'm OK with the label "hate speech" as some speech is indeed hateful, but I object to the use of the "hate speech" label as a way to end discussion and shut someone up. All ideas should be up for intelligent discussion and criticism regardless of if they are hateful or not, and no one should be persecuted for expressing an unpopular opinion.

This past week, opinion Columnist Helen Thomas made some remarks about Israel saying that the land belongs to Palestinian Arabs and that Jewish Israelis should go home to Poland, Germany or the United States. This is a political view which many people strongly disagree with, and one which I personally disagree with, but to fire her and call her a hateful bigot is dishonoring the First Amendment.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
- Evelyn Beatrice Hall, paraphrasing Voltaire

2010 - An Oily Odyssey

2010-06-03T12:08:00.000-07:00

Watching the live BP Oil Spill cam while listening to a Stauss-like waltz on a classical music radio station oddly reminds me of the film 2001 - A Space Odyssey.

Keith Olbermann - Almost Forgiven

2010-06-02T18:06:00.000-07:00

About 20 years ago I was active in mountain bike racing. I was real excited when ESPN started showing up at the major races. The problem was that mountain biking was a bottom tier sport, so the ESPN coverage ran 6 months after the races took place and typically ran between 1-3 am on weeknights. So I programmed my VCR to record them. But if a live baseball game earlier in the evening ran long, that pushed the night's schedule back, and instead of mountain biking I'd have Baseball Tonight, during which Keith Olbermann had to show us one play from every damn ball game in the country. Big plays in baseball may be exciting in the context of the game. But out of context, they ALL look the same: a guy hits a ball and runners come into the home plate. Just what I want to see instead of mountain biking. So I learned I needed to pad the mountain bike recordings by an hour to make sure I got the whole show, which is a PITA when you're trying to make a VHS tape with a whole season of races.

Today I'm a fan of Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, but I haven't quite forgiven him for screwing up my mountain bike race tapes.

Do Consumers Want $1000 Stoppers?

2010-06-02T07:58:00.000-07:00

Last week I came across the following article in the Wall Street Journal Online.

It describes a manufacturer of stoppers for vaccines. The company had viewed it's product as a commodity which could only compete on price. But when they decided to "add value" and market the product in that matter, they were able to improve their revenue and profit by establishing a price range of $5 each for chicken vaccine stoppers to more than $1,000 each for stoppers designed for anti-cancer drugs.

How much value do you have to add to a stopper to sell it for $1,000? According to the company, the anti-cancer stoppers are made to tighter tolerances. The company's stoppers are also color coded to help medical personal avoid errors.

Well, color-coding is fine, but $1000? In a suburban supermarket you'll find hundreds of types of lids and stoppers, most of which are nearly 100 percent effective at protecting the container's contents, and I'm sure none of them cost even $5, not even corks in $200 bottles of wine.

Why does this matter? After all, in a free market the correct price is the one the consumer is willing to pay. Just as a Lamborghini is worth $200,000 if buyers are willing to pay that much for one, the pharmaceutical companies and hospitals buying the vaccines were apparently convinced that $1,000 was a fair price for a stopper.

But the WSJ article fails to mention the real ultimate consumers of this product: families of cancer victims who sometimes have to drain their retirement accounts or sell their homes to pay for treatment, or ordinary people who have to go without raises for another year because the company they work for has to find the funds to cover the 20 percent increase in health care premiums for their employees. I'm sure the $1,000 stoppers are not the only example of price gouging in the medical industry. Yes, the manufacturers of medical supplies deserve to earn a living, but will innovation in medicine really stop if the finances of the middle class weren't being drained so that CEO's, salesmen and shareholders in the medical industry can buy vacation homes in Hawaii?

People shopping for cars can decide for themselves if a $80,000 Mercedes Benz has enough added-value to justify a price $60,000 more than a $20,000 Mazda. For the free market solutions to health care to work, people need to be able to choose which stoppers they want on their anti-cancer drugs.

Stupid Sports Coverage Tricks

2010-05-24T13:33:00.000-07:00

Last week the Versus Network made an unbelievably stupid call at the end of Sage 3 of the Tour of California Bike race. The race, which started in San Francisco and ended at the boardwalk in the California coastal town of Santa Cruz was running late. So at 7.p.m. Eastern time, with less then a mile to go, as the riders in the front were jockeying for position for the final sprint, Versus switched to a previously scheduled NHL Hockey pregame show!

The race leaders were literally less than two minutes from the finish line, but Versus felt that a hockey interview was more important for viewers to see. The actual game did not begin for another 10 minutes, so there was no reason for any fans to miss any action.

The race announcers on Versus did direct viewers to the web site where they could supposedly watch the end of the race online, but viewers who tried to do that reported that the site was difficult to navigate and had greatly slowed due to the increase in network traffic.

Versus issued a statement explaining that it had to switch away from cycling due to "contractual obligations." If that's really true, then the contracts need to be negotiated with a little more common sense.

This incident reminded many of the "Heidi Game" in 1968. With 65 seconds left in a Raiders/Jets NFL game, NBC switched over to the scheduled movie, "Heidi," causing viewers to miss the Raiders come back to score two touchdowns in the final minute.

I'm not complaining for myself since I watched the race coverage on TiVo several days later (my Tivo cut off the recording just as the network switched). But you'd think that under the circumstances Versus would have posted on their website the last few miles of the race as it should have been broadcast. But it's not there - just a 3 minute "highlights" of the whole race.

What about the Coffee Farmers?

2010-05-19T11:51:00.000-07:00

The May 19, 2010 Between Friends comic expresses a question I’ve had for a while:

The sensible financial advice has been to put your many into things you need and savings. But a huge part of our economy is based on things people don’t really need. Even if everyone did allow themselves to buy frivolous things with cash only after paying for necessities and making proper contributions to their IRAs, the market for things people don’t need would still be much smaller than our economy is accustomed to.

This is a paradox I can’t resolve. The number of working people required to meet people’s legitimate needs is much smaller than the number of people who need jobs. Since Tea Party values say you can’t pay people who aren’t working, how can you employ everyone if no one buys things they don’t need with money they don’t have?

American Flags at Cinco De Mayo

2010-05-10T17:22:00.000-07:00

The following story out of California recently made headlines:

Students Kicked Off Campus for Wearing American Flag Tees: Freedom of expression or cultural disrespect on Cinco de Mayo?

On any other day at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, Daniel Galli and his four friends would not even be noticed for wearing T-shirts with the American flag. But Cinco de Mayo is not any typical day especially on a campus with a large Mexican American student population.

Galli says he and his friends were sitting at a table during brunch break when the vice principal asked two of the boys to remove American flag bandannas that they wearing on their heads and for the others to turn their American flag T-shirts inside out. When they refused, the boys were ordered to go to the principal's office.

...

The boys said the administrators called their T-shirts "incendiary" that would lead to fights on campus."What Mexican-Americans were to have a Mexican Flag on July 4?"

The talk shows are asking. Well it is happened. Here's an old journal entry of mine from July 4, 1994:

It was a mild summer evening in Victorville. The smell of hot dogs and the sounds of rock 'n roll filled the air as local residents waited for the Fourth of July fireworks show to begin.

I spotted them in the parking lot as I rode my bike to the entrance. I saw a faded yellow van with a large Mexican Flag hanging out of the window. As I passed it I looked in and thought of asking them just what they were up to. A young Latino man was at the wheel. Rather than being bold, I let them go their way. This may get interesting, I thought.

They walked into the bleacher area, holding their colors high. A young man wearing a black and gray Pendleton, followed by several women and a few other guys. They marched back and forth past the bottom of the bleachers, then found an area at the top of the bleachers to sit. As the rock band finished and began removing their equipment, the man with the flag walked down in front of the stage waving his flag back and forth, provoking a loud chorus of boos, "USA," and "This is a fucking American holiday!"

Next they took the flag back up to their seats high in the bleachers, but every few minutes they took it down to the bottom to wave it some more, provoking more angry shouts from the other spectators.

It almost got ugly, a man with a very serious look in his eyes walked up and tried to grab the flag away. An angry group of men gathered and shouted back and forth. No blows were exchanged, but they were not far from that point.

When they returned to their seats again, families started leaving the bleachers nearby, looking for a safer vantage point to watch the show. When they brought their flag down again, they were stopped by a city representative who told them in no uncertain terms to stop showing the flag.

"But were not doing anything! We have a right to carry this flag!" they protested. Finally they agreed to leave.

As they marched to the front gate, they were met by two sheriffs on mountain bikes and a couple of fair security officers. The shouting continued as the officer tried to explain that the fourth of July was for everybody and they could not wave a Mexican flag here.

An 50ish Latino gentleman was talking about starting a "Latino coalition." As the standard bearers marched toward the gate, I asked him what the point of all of this was. He said that the kids just wanted to celebrate the Mexican soccer team's performance in the World Cup, and that people need to accept the fact that there are a lot of Mexican Americans here. I told him that I have lived in southern California all of my life, and have been around people of Mexican decent all of my life, and I still didn't see the point of angering people in this fashion.

This demonstration was an example of one group's attempts to justify their feelings of victimization. People of Mexican decent have always lived in California, they ARE part of the culture here, other than the illegal aliens they ARE American citizens, and EVERYBODY here knows that. But to compensate for the group's poor self-image, they take the high moral ground of the persecuted victim. To re-enforce feelings of persecution, they need evidence of persecution. What better proof of persecution is there than getting booed, yelled at, and kicked out of a public event just for parading a symbol of your cultural pride?

I should have told the man that this demonstration would cause the EXACT OPPOSITE of his stated purpose. The result was resentment of Latinos, not greater acceptance. But the result was exactly what he REALLY wanted, which was to create "proof" that his group was a despised minority by doing things that cause them to be a despised minority.

Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin

2010-01-14T12:04:00.000-08:00

A curious thing about Glenn Beck when you watch him is how he approaches an argument that will contradict himself, then backs off, apparently unaware that he is about to flip-flop.

I thought he was extremely softball with Sarah Palin – I’d call it nerfball. I believe the Beck & Palin are NOT on the same page in their political beliefs, but you wouldn’t know it from the interview because instead of discussing specifics on any issue it was mostly about vague abstract beliefs projected onto the founding fathers.

At one point, Beck brought up the current discussion in the media about Wall Street bankers who “make too much money” to drive the point about the Federal Reserve also making a record profit. Palin replied that she had dealt with this in Alaska with oil companies who were also “making too much money.” What she did was tax the oil companies to redistribute the wealth to Alaska’s citizens. Now according to Beck, “redistribution of wealth” is an Obama socialist plot, but neither of them acknowledged that this was exactly what she had been doing this in Alaska and in fact even bragged about it during her vice-presidential campaign.

So Glenn & Sarah, please explain why wealth redistribution from Big Oil to Alaskans but not OK from Wall Street and other wealthy companies and individuals to Americans in the other 49.

Blog Ressurected

2010-01-14T09:12:00.000-08:00

Has it really been three and a half years?

Well so much has happened and there is so much to talk about: The Economy, Barak Obama, health care, Republicans, FOX News. I plan to cover them all asking questions that aren't being asked by others, and looking at perspectives others aren't looking at. Stay tuned.

The Ugly American

2006-06-22T12:02:00.000-07:00

Last week we saw a film that, although seldom viewed these days, was very prophetic and relevant for both the time in which it was made, and these times as well.

I'm talking about 1963's The Ugly American, starring Marlon Brando. Filmed in Thailand, the film is set in a fictional country in Southeast Asia that bears a startling resemblance to Vietnam. Brando plays Harrison MacWhite, the newly appointed US Ambassador to that country, who immediately finds himself walking a personal and profession tight rope between populist movement within his host country that opposes the local US-backed government and his Bosses back in Washington who consider any opposition to the Amrican agenda to be Communist inspired.

The film aptly predicts some of the mess that happened in Vietnam during the years immediately following, and still applies today to the mess that is US foreign policy. The best part of the film is the very end, in which Ambassador MacWhite delivers the following speech on television. If you change the references of "Cold War" to "War on Terror," they apply today.

WARNING: I'm describing the end of the movie. I'm leaving out some context that explains some the comments that refer to events in the film, but the political comments should still make sense:

NBC News reporter Tyler: A couple of hours ago Senator Brenner called you tenure here a total failure. Would you agree with that?

MacWhite: Yes it certainly was a partial failure Mr. Tyler. When I said that a misunderstanding killed Deong, I meant my own misunderstanding. Deong had a kind of passion that maybe all revolutionaries have. It’s a kind a feeling that’s easy for us to misinterpret. We forget the men who started our country had that same kind of passion that Deong had and that these other new leaders have. And unless we recognize their fight for independence to be part of our own, then we drive them to seek understanding in some other place.

Tyler: Are you saying that America is losing the Cold War because we’re pushing these countries into the hands of the Communists?

MacWhite: I’m not saying that. I’m saying we can’t hope to win the Cold War unless we remember what we’re for, as well as what we’re against. I’ve learned in a very personal way, Mr. Tyler, that I can’t preach the American heritage and expect to be believed if I act out of impatience, or sacrifice my principles for expediency. I’ve learned that the only time we’re hated is when we stop trying to be what we started out to be 200 years ago. I’m not blaming my country. I’m blaming the indifference that some of us show to its promises.

(Scene switches to a TV set in an American living room)

If the Cold War disappeared right now, the American people would still be in this fight against ignorance, hunger and disease, because it’s right. It’s right to be (Brando mumble). And if I had one appeal to make to every American, it would be that--

(A hand from off-screen appears and the TV set is turned off! The dark TV is shown with the ending notes of America the Beautiful.)

Well, the Cold War as it was known when the film was made has disappeared in the years since. The American people are still in this fight against ignorance, hunger and disease. And despite what we're told, the biggest dangers we face are not the makers of roadside bombs!

Evil Films!

2006-06-19T14:32:00.000-07:00

I hope Netflix doesn’t report its subscribers' choices to Homeland Security. We recently watched two historic motion pictures that are enough to put us on any one’s political undesirables list, regardless of which side of the isle they sit on. Our two forbidden films are the silent Klan epic Birth of a Nation and the Nazi documentary/propaganda feature Triumph of the Will.

Shot in 1915 by early Hollywood director W.D. Griffith, Birth of a Nation follows a white Southern family from the pre-civil war period though a few decades after. The film is notable for it’s depiction of the Ku Klux Klan, not as villainous white-hooded murderers, but as heroes defending the Southern way of life!

Whoever said that history is written by the victors has not seen Birth of a Nation or even Gone with the Wind for that matter. I’m not sure why most movies about the civil war are told from the Southern point of view. Maybe a lot of displaced Southern whites moved to Hollywood, or maybe Americans love stories about the underdogs, I don’t know. But I can say that this film shows blacks in the demeaning ways that Hollywood has often been accused of but I’ve rarely actually seen.

First of all, slavery, and even the words slave and slavery, are never mentioned. Before the war, happy black people are shown dancing in the street. Key black roles, such as a mulatto abolitionist leader and “Gus,” a freed slave who stalks young white women, are not played by black actors, but by white actors wearing blackface makeup.

Once the Klan starts riding, the film actually feels creepy. It’s hard not to feel guilty when you’re supposed to be cheering for the hooded men capturing and tying up a black guy!

On a positive note, the film had a huge budget for it’s time, with hundreds of extras, and expansive battle shots filmed in what is now Burbank and Universal Studios in Southern California.

At the time the film was made, the KKK was pretty much dead. But in subsequent years, the film toured the nation, fueling a resurgence of the Klan during which most of its infamous history was made. This is a powerful example of how film not only reflects history and society, but can also shape it.

**********************

The Triumph of the Will, 1934, is a documentary shot by Leni Riefenstahl, the subject being non other that the Third Richt and Adolph Hitler himself. We’ve all seen excerpts of this footage, but this is the first time I saw a film about Nazis by Nazis.

For nearly two hours military parades of Nazi soldiers goose-step past cheering crowds, and stadiums full of cheering soldiers and Hiltler youth listening to speeches by the Fuhrer and other infamous Nazi officials, including Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Josef Goebbles and Heinrich Himmler.

The film is beautifully photographed, with wide crane shots panning across full stadiums and the grand stages from which the Nazi elites delivered their speeches, complete with English subtitles.

Some thoughts while watching the film…

There’s a sequence that shows several close-ups of small children’s faces. These children would be in their 80s now. Surely they knew throughout their adult lives that their young faces fill the screen in this film, even if for a brief moment. How do they feel about it? What do they tell their children & grandchildren about it?

There is a sequence where ordinary working Germans are shown working at various jobs while saying thing in unison: “We are Germans! We are proud to be working for the Fatherland!” etc. To an American born in the late 20th century, this sounds a lot like Monty Python’s Life of Brian where the crowd says in unison “Yes, we’re all individuals!”

The people lining the streets as the Nazi soldiers goose step by look happy and proud. How bad were the post-war (World War I) years that this sight would be comforting to them? Are these people such lemmings to watch this and not be frightened or concerned? But on the other hand, Some of them put themselves and their families at great risk by hiding Jewish families in their homes. Not everyone was a “good German.”

Most disturbing were the stadiums full of the Hitler youth – thousands of 12-14 year old German boys. I shuddered while wondering what percentage of these young men ended up blown to bits all over Europe over the next dozen years.

Just like when I was a college student reading The Communist Manifesto, I felt a small twinge of excitement watching something forbidden or evil. But without the cultural experience of living in Germany in the years following the Versailles Treaty (or strong desire to shock & offend others) it’s not very convincing.

Coffee Thoughts

2006-04-26T07:53:00.000-07:00

Last weekend the CEO of Starbucks was on 60 Minutes. Correspondent Leslie Stall asked about the anti-Starbucks protesters we see on TV from time to time, who seem to be upset that Starbucks is putting local mom & pop coffee purveyors out of business.

I think these protesters should find a better target for their anger, such as getting us out of Iraq. Starbucks doesn;t have the ability to destroy any business that sells coffee drinks that are actually worth the $2-4 it charges for them.

You want proof? There are lots of coffee places in the greater Seattle area that are not Starbucks, and almost all of them serve great coffee and espresso drinks. They have to in this market. I like the idea of having a variety of coffee outlets, so when I'm in Seattle, I seldom go to Starbucks, except when people give me Starbucks cards.

But when I travel outside the Seattle area, getting a good espresso drink can be a crap shoot. Even in places that you'd think would be great espresso towns like Vancouver, BC or San Francisco, you might get stuck with bitter latte made with over-extracted beans and over-heated milk. Sure there are great coffee places outside of Seattle. The Los Gatos Coffee Roasting Company in Los Gatos California comes to mind. Their lattes are better than Starbucks, and they always have a huge line. But if you're traveling in Canada, don't be fooled by the tasteful decor and comfy sofas at Blenz. I've been to a few of these during my visits to BC, and the worst latte I ever got in Seattle was much better than the swill they serve at Blenz.

Because Starbucks tries to have a consistent product throughout the chain, you'll get a predictably good drink from them where ever you are. You have to give them credit for that. If those protesters are worried about their local espresso hangouts, all they need to do is insist that they make better coffee.

Super Bowl XL

2006-02-06T08:12:00.000-08:00

I wasn't an athlete in high school, and I resented the expectation that owning a penis requires one to spend several hours a week watching people throw a ball, catch a ball, run with a ball, and get all excited as if we haven't seen the exact same thing a million times before. My wife once called be the anti-jock because of my resistance to getting cought up in sports hysteria.

But after a few years working next to Qwest Field, my wife making me watch a couple of near-flawless play-off games, and two weeks of running a gauntlet of hungry ticket scalpers every time I stepped out the back door of my office, I decided to give it a shot.

Super Bowl XL was probably the first NFL game I ever watch while paying attention throughout, without wandering off during the 2nd or 4th quarter, if the score isn't close.

And what do I get for that?

Nevermind, I'll become the anti-jock again.

May The Force Be With Us

2005-11-28T08:10:00.000-08:00

This past weekend Sonya & I did a Star Wars marathon, starting with episodes I and II (The Phantom Menace & Attack of the Clones) on Thanksgiving evening and episodes III-VI (all the rest) on Friday.

I feel the Star Wars films are a cultural background of my life. They were made over a period of my life ranging from when I was 14 to when I was 42, so I experienced the wonder of each installment as they were released. It is interesting watching the series in the order of the story timeline rather than the order in which they were made. They say great films are those that you get something different from each time you see them, and this time watching the last three films (the first three film made), I appreciated more than before the interactions between Darth Vader, Obi-Wan and the Emperor, this time knowing more of the backstory.

Here are some other observations one makes when seeing all six movies over a 30 hour period:

George Lucas must have grown up with fears of having his hands & arms cut off. Appendages are sliced off left and right in all six films. He also has a fear of high, exposed places.

Sonya is more of a Star Wars nerd than I realized. During a break in Revenge of the Sith, we had a visit from her friend, her brother and his girlfriend, and Sonya excitedly explained to them what she had figured out regarding the metaclorians.

The light saver fight between Qui-Gon, Obi Wan and Darth Maul is the best such fight in all six films. This was due to the cool double bladed saber, Darth Maul's Satanic makeup, and the apocalyptic choral score.

The Phantom Menace and Empire Strikes Back have the best original music. Considering how dramatic and memorable the music is in these two films, the themes from the other films (A New Hope aside) is surprisingly forgettable.

In the Empire Strikes Back DVD version, the original Emperor was replaced with Ian McDiarmid, who was the Emperor in Return of the Jedi and Palpatine in episodes I-III. I think I watched this DVD when we first bought it, but I don't recall noticing the switch.

I'm wondering if any of the dialog referring to the backstory in episodes IV-VI and been re-edited or re-looped to conform better to episodes I-III. I'm sure someone who's a bigger SW geek than I has watched the DVDs and VHS versions side by side and posted notes on the Internet. Ah.. found it here!. The only such change noted here is from Empire where the Emperor indirectly refers to Luke being Darth Vader's son, prior to the Big Reveal at the end of the film.

I love the politics of the first three films, which address how a democracy can be led by the nose into a dictatorship. The Revenge of the Sith DVD contains deleted scenes that deal more with the politics of the Chancellor Palpatine's ascension to the evil dark emperor. If those scenes had been left in the film, it would have been a stronger film. Some people have read comments about George Bush into this, but I believe Lucas's inspiration was the rise of Adolph Hitler. Episodes IV, V, an VI mostly lack this political depth.

I don't find Jar-Jar so annoying now, but I'm still turned off by the Ewoks.

I'm predicting that the norm for future generations will be to watch them in sequential order rather than the order they were made. The Star War fans of the future will experience the story in a very different way than those of the current generation.

Who's trying to"Revise History?"

2005-11-22T07:49:00.000-08:00

In a speech given to the American Enterprise Institute, Vice Predident Dick Cheney said:

Any suggestion that prewar information was distorted, hyped or fabricated by the leader of this nation is utterly false. This is revisionism of the most corrupt and shameless variety. It has no place anywhere in American politics.

Who does he think he's fooling? Isn't this the same Dick Cheney who said on Meet the Press in 2002 that "We know for a fact" and "We have confirmed" that Saddam had all sorts of frightening weapons, including a reconstited nuclear weapons program, and when asked if Iraq was involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, shrugged his shoulders and said "We just don't know!"

If he were asked if the Nazis, the Pasadena PTA, or space aliens were involved in 9/11, would he say "We just don't know"?

Is there any way to reconcile his statements other than by concluding that Cheney is the most brazen liar ever to hold his position?

Bush's WMD Fraud Finally An Issue

2005-11-20T08:39:00.000-08:00

The Bush Administration has reached a new low over the past ten days.

Back up three years. Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld take reasonable suspicions and concerns over Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction and exaggerate them into “a growing and gathering threat.” Mobile biological weapons labs, unmanned drones capable of spreading them over the US, and a reconstituted nuclear weapons program were described in great detail in speeches and Sunday morning programs. These statements were prefaced with phrases like “We know for a fact that..” or “We have confirmed...”

In fact, these intelligence reports with neither known for a fact nor were they confirmed. They were based on unreliable informants, forged documents, assumptions based on past behavior, and vague information such as satellite photos given the most alarming interpretation possible. Non-sequitor references to the 9/11 terrorist attacks were thrown in so that those not listening too closely would believe there was a connection. There is no doubt that Congress and the public were mislead into supporting an war as part of an agenda that was not being articulated.

Now, three years later, the Bush Administration is being called on their words and feels compelled to respond. Unable to answer these charges other than by admitting “the intelligence was wrong, they resort to name calling and nonsensical accusations.

“They’re trying to re-write history!” No, you’re trying to rewrite history by claiming that you didn’t mislead us!

“They’re supporting the terrorists” So dissent or discussing the truth means supporting the enemy?

“We’re going to throw (the critic’s) words back in their face.” Pointing out that democrats erred by believing Cheney was telling the truth certainly doesn’t absolve him. During the pre-war period, many democrats were afraid of becoming a 21s Century version of Neville Chamberlain, the British political figure infamous for appeasing the Nazis in the 1930s. They may have had doubts about Iraqi WMDs, but didn’t want to minimize the threat in case the threat turned out to be real.

Finally, when Vietnam veteran and 30-year Marine Rep. John Murtha called for the withdraw of US troops from Iraq, he’s called a coward in Congress and Scott McClellen accused him of adopting the policies of Michael Moore.

This presidency is certainly the most dishonest, disingenuous presidency in my lifetime, and possibly the history of the country, and polls show that people are finally starting to notice.

But for those of us paying attention, this is all old news. Why the hell was the official disinformation campaign no more than a background issue during last years election?

The Great West Wing Debate

2005-11-08T12:56:00.000-08:00

Those watching The West Wing saw last Sunday the TV debate between Democrat Matt Santos and Republican Arnold Vinick, played respectively by Jimmy Smitts and Alan Alda.

I thought it was great fun for the candidates to drop the normal rules and make more of a loosely-moderated free-for-all. Real presidential candidates are too cautious, but this is TV, and this change made the debate much more fun to watch.

When one of them referred to President Bartlett, it broke reality for me, as I was really looking forward to voting for one of them. I’d pick either of them over George Bush, so the Bartlett reference was a disappointing reminder that I can’t pick either of them for that.

Here’s a few interesting things I noticed:

In The West Wing alternate universe, the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Iraq war didn’t happen.

But they are experiencing record high gasoline prices.

The Enron collapse also happened.

Santos made a pledge to never start a war for oil, which drew an enthusiastic response from the studio audience. But since the Iraq War isn’t happening in the West Wing universe, I’m not sure what this was in reference to.

Vinick responding, explaining that oil is a world commodity and that there’s no reason to go to war for it because any country that has it will want to sell it. This is a good retort to the “No Blood for Oil” slogan that the more simple thinking anti-war people like to chant, but it’s still not clear what Santos and Vinick are referring to.

And the winner? People tend to perceive their own guy as the winner of these debates, and I will make no exception: I’d still vote for Arnold Vinick to succeed Bartlett, providing the show with a more relevant forum to explore current events & issues, as well as to provide an example that one can be a Republican without trying to impose a religious-inspired agenda on the whole country.

Setting the Clocks Again

2005-11-01T08:49:00.000-08:00

Can anyone explain to me the purpose of changing our clocks twice a year? Allegedly it is to save energy, but it seems to me that any energy you save on one end of the day (by getting up later or going to bed earlier) just gets burned on the other end of the day.All the shift to Standard time means to me is that for a few months during the winter, I live on the dark side of the world - at least during the week. It is dark when I leave the house in the morning, and as of yesterday it is getting dark when I get home. And I'm fortunate to end my workday earlier than most commuters.

The Problem with Health Care

2005-10-26T08:21:00.000-07:00

The problem with health care is that prices are not really based on free market capitalism. Free market capitalism is based on consumers making their own purchasing decisions based on price and perceived quality. This is why McDonalds can't charge $20 for a Big Mac & fries. People would quickly decide go to Burger King or Wendy's instead.

But many restaurants do charge $20 a plate for entrees. This is because the quality of the food and atmosphere is deemed to be worth $20 by the people who dine at such establishments.
But wide-spread health insurance has distorted the health care market. Patients don't pay attention to price because insurance companies do the paying, and people's employers usually pay the insurance. This is why health care costs increase at many times the rate of inflation. Insurance companies pass the costs in the form of higher premiums. The companies that employ the patients then pass the costs in the form of higher prices, smaller raises for employees, or making employees pay part of the costs.

The real losers in this game are people who don't work for large companies that can provide health insurance. In America, not everyone drives a Mercedes or a Porsche as we have no notion that everyone is entitled to a Mercedes or a Porsche. But we do feel that people are entitled to the best health care available.

Because of that, I do support biting the bullet and implementing a national health insurance plan to cover catastrophic events. I would make this a high deductible plan ($1000-2000). This would then put routine, low cost procedures back into the free market where they would have to be lower cost, but people in traffic accidents and cancer patients would be covered without bringing financial ruin to their families. Optional insurance could then be purchased to cover costs below the deductible.

2000

2005-10-26T07:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we reached another milestone in the Iraq War: 2000 Americans dead. That's 1,030 to go until the toll equals that of the 9/11 attacks. Unless things in Iraq improve quickly and dramatically, by the end of his term, George W. Bush will be responsible for more American deaths than Osama bin Laden.

Despite what some may think from reading this blog, I don't necessarily support and immediate pullout from Iraq. Once we invaded and removed the Baathist regime, America became responsible for Iraq's immediate future. Like Colin Powel is reported to have said "You broke it, you bought it!" We have the moral responsibility to ensure that the next government of Iraq is kinder and more respectful of its people than the last one. See my earlier post Iraq: not Black or White for more of my thoughts on this.

I do believe that the constitution that was just passed is what Iraq needs, and I hope the Sunnis will come around and support it. One of the interesting things about America is that while it is always easy to find people who don't support the President, and it is easy to find people who don't believe in God, you never talk to anyone who doesn't support the US Constitution. This document, the basis of our laws has the virtual universal support of all Americans. While it can be amended, the amendment process is so difficult that when it is amended, it is almost always for a damned good reason (prohibition excepted). Our Constitution represents our ideals. It is what defines America. The universal support it has from Americans is what has made our country as politically stable for more than 200 years.

While I haven't yet read the new Iraqi Constitution, I would hope that it similarly protects the rights of all Iraqis, as well as the sensibilities of the Muslim religion. I would hope that Iraqis would recognize that and work within their new constitutional processes for change rather than through IEDs and suicide bombers.

I would hope that I don't come back in two years or so to report that Bush has exceeded bin Laden in the toll of American deaths.

The WMD Debate Continues

2005-10-18T08:11:00.000-07:00

Last week I came across a conservative religious blog called The Week in ReVU which contained a post accusing Clinton's people of "revisionist history." Any defender of Bush accusing someone of revisionist history is like a fan of Bill "Romo" Romanowski accusing the Oakland Raiders of playing dirty.

I posted a brief comment referring to the Bush administration selling the Iraq war with WMD speculation presented as confirmed fact. This drew a second comment from "Scarlett" with the usual "blood for oil" hyperbole. The blog author, Infomaniac, chipped away at Scarlett's exaggerations while ignorning my comment.

Here is my new response.

The West Wing: Vinick Strikes Back

2005-10-10T07:58:00.000-07:00

I seem to get a lot of search engine traffic here from The West Wing queries, so here's another post.

I was very close to quitting the show due to Jimmy Smitt's Matt Santos character being the dullest candidate ever. What’s the thinking behind Leo as the vice-president character? Give me a break! If Santos winds the election, I'm quitting the show.

The only thing that's keeping me watching is Alan Alda as Republican Senator Arnold Vinick. He's a Republican I would vote for, preaching the common sense facets of Republican philosophy while doing his best to keep the religious right agenda at bay.

The current story arc is drawing many parallels to the 2004 election. Santos is a real military veteran from the first Iraq war who was photographed in a flight suit, but actually had business wearing one, while Vinick never actually served. But then Santos says into a reporter’s tape recorder "I voted for the Central American Trade Agreement before I voted against it."!!!

The producers are stringing us along, not telling us who will win this election. But I do predict a close election that comes down to one state. Lawrence O'Donnell, if you're reading this, Vinick is a much more interesting character, and offers the show a much better platform to explore the political issues that we'll face in the next three and a half years.

VINICK 2005 ALL THE WAY!

Number Two in Pre-Teens

2005-09-13T21:57:00.000-07:00

I just found out that the post I did on the Michael Jackson verdict a few months ago is number 2 in MSN Search for the terms "michael jackson preteen boys."

I'm not sure that's something to be proud of.

Is This the Straw That Breaks the Camel's Back?

2005-09-08T17:40:00.000-07:00

A talking head somewhere, I think it was on the McLaughlin Group, said that this may be the crisis that wakes up America. It is obvious to anyone paying even superficial attention to the news that local agencies in New Orleans were overwhelmed by Tuesday until army & National Guard finally arrived Friday and Saturday.

The media is asking a lot of hard questions, and Scott McClellan's evasive tactics do little to hide the fact that the administration was caught with it's pants down.

Slow Response in New Olreans

2005-09-02T07:09:00.000-07:00

Today's headline is President Bush complaining that the slow federal response in New Orleans is "unacceptable." It's about time he realized this.

I can forgive the lack of response on the first day. On Monday the message from the media was that "New Orleans had been spared." But on Tuesday morning the breaking news was threat the levees holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain from city had been breeched.

Now I am no genius, and I've never even visited New Orleans, but when I heard that I knew that this would be very, very bad.

As the week when on, there were reports of wide spread looting - both from citizens and by members of the rapidly disintigrating police department, shootings, and general lawlessness. Citizens are told to go to the convention center, yet no transportation or aid is available there. It wasn't until Thursday afternoon that there were reports of the National Guard entering the city.

So where was the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard, composed of citizens with personal connections to the affected areas, who signed up for the Guard to assist in exactly this sort of crisis? Well, about 6,000 of them are stationed in Iraq, accomplishing little more than the justification of the Bush Administrations misguided policies so that we'll forget about the Iraqi WMDs and 9/11 connections that don't exist.

Donald Rumsfeld boasts of his restructuring the military to be highly mobile and quick to respond. While the effectiveness of this strategy in Iraq is debatable, it seems that these capabilities would be exactly what New Orleans could have used this week. If an armed presence and supplies entered the city by Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, this would have been a much different story.

Many people are asking why helicopters were not used more extensively to drop in supplies. Forget helicopters, except in areas inaccessible by road. As far as I can tell, Interstate 10 from Baton Rouge to downtown New Orleans is passable by trucks and busses. If I-10 can accommodate the transportation of much the food eaten in New Orleans in normal times, then why isn't food available in those parts of the city that can be accessed from I-10?

Here are my predictions:

Questions about why effective disaster response was so delayed will become a major scandal. Many people will come to the conclusion that the amount of resources sent to Iraq depleted the amount of resources available for disasters at home.

The federal government will be accused of racism because the large majority of affected people seen in the media are black. I personally don't believe there is a racist motive, but such rumors may cause additional civil unrest in affected areas.

Finally a positive prediction: New Orleans will recover, and within a few years, I'll visit Bourbon street for some jazz, a shot of bourbon, or maybe even an absinthe frapp.

Where's the National Guard?

2005-09-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

This morning's breaking news is about gunfire and other mayhem following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

The National Guard and police are trying to keep up, but are spread too thin. National Guard units are coming in from all over the country to restore order.

Just last July, a group of state governors expressed concern over the readiness of their national guard units to respond to natural disasters.

For Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana, the major concern was with hurricanes. She and three other states in the hurricane belt - Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi - have agreed to help one another in the case of the threat, hurricanes or other disasters, as they tried to adjust to tighter circumstances in their states.

"Jeb Bush already called me once this year to say, 'I'm just checking in,' " said Ms. Blanco, a Democrat, referring to Florida's governor. Mr. Bush, a Republican, did not attend the conference.

Yesterday the Washington Post revealed that more than 6000 National Guard troops from Louisiana and Mississippi who ought to be available to provide desperately needed help to their neighbors are instead overseas perusing the President's fantasy of eliminating terrorism and creating friendly western-style democracies by invading and occupying foreign countries.

In Louisiana, which took the brunt of Katrina, some 3,000 members of the 256th Combat Brigade are in Iraq, while 3,500 members of the Guard were deployed to help hurricane victims and another 3,000 were on standby.

In neighboring Mississippi, the Guard had 853 troops on hurricane duty _ a small slice of the more than 7,000 Guard troops in the state's ground and air components. Some 3,000 National Guard troops from Mississippi are in Iraq, another 300 in Afghanistan.

Instead of making us more secure, our foreign policy based on lies and deceptions is making our nation and people less secure by reducing our ability to respond to both man-made and natural disasters at home.

US To Pay $2.2 Billion For Gaza Pullout?

2005-08-19T09:12:00.000-07:00

According to a story on defensenews.com, Israel is asking for $2.2 billion in aid to assist with the removal & relocation of settlers from the Gaza Strip.

Israel will ask the United States for $2.2 billion, one of the largest aid requests by the Jewish state, to pay for its planned withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip, Israeli political sources said on July 11.

The special funding would be used to pay for the evacuation, slated to begin in mid-August, of all 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four of 120 in the West Bank, and the relocation of the 9,000 settlers to underpopulated areas of Israel.

Asked about the aid request, a senior U.S. administration official said in Washington: “They have not asked for any money and we have not made any commitment to provide any.”

I'm told there are about 2,000 families affected by the pullout. That comes out to about $ million per family from the taxpayers. The families of the 9/11 victims got $100,000 each. And let's not mention the thousands of Palestinian families who were forced out of their homes over the years who never got a dime in US aid. Let's hope this administration official is correct, and US taxpayers will not pay for Israel’s mistakes.

On the other hand, the pullout didn't have to happen at all. The Israelis living in Gaza could have been offered the option of staying in their homes, and terminating their Israeli citizenship following the creation of a future Palestinian state and become Jewish citizens of Palestine.

Hypocrite Gaza Settlers

2005-08-17T12:14:00.000-07:00

Last night on NBC news there was a clip of a female Jewish settler in Gaza strip who said in a perfect American accent,

God gave us this land and now we have to turn it over to strangers!

So she came from New York City or where ever to settle in the land that she believes god "gave" to her, but the people who have lived there for generations are strangers. They are crying at seeing their homes bulldozed and being displaced, but never had sympathy for Palistinians whose homes were bulldozed and were displaced.

That quote sums up the attitudes of the Isreali settlers in Gaza and the West Bank: God gave this land to us, so screw the people who lived here before!

Dark Prediction

2005-08-10T07:47:00.000-07:00

According to this morning's Iraq story on CNN, the US forces death toll is now 1,840.

I'm making the sad prediction that by the time George Bush leaves the office, his foreign policy will be responsible for more American deaths than Osama bin Laden.

Don't Kill Our Feedoms To Save Them!

2005-07-28T07:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday in Seattle, Al Quada terrorist Ahmed Ressam was sentenced to 22 years for an attempted bombing of Los Angeles International Airport.

This proves that we can fight terrorism without compromising the freedoms and ideals that make America great.

US District Judge John Coughenour made the following comments:

The message I would hope to convey in today's sentencing is two-fold: First, that we have the resolve in this country to deal with the subject of terrorism and people who engage in it should be prepared to sacrifice a major portion of their life in confinement.

Secondly, though, I would like to convey the message that our system works. We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, or detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant, or deny him the right to counsel, or invoke any proceedings beyond those guaranteed by or contrary to the United States Constitution.

I would suggest that the message to the world from today's sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart. We can deal with the threats to our national security without denying the accused fundamental constitutional protections.

Despite the fact that Mr. Ressam is not an American citizen and despite the fact that he entered this country intent upon killing American citizens, he received an effective, vigorous defense, and the opportunity to have his guilt or innocence determined by a jury of 12 ordinary citizens.

Most importantly, all of this occurred in the sunlight of a public trial. There were no secret proceedings, no indefinite detention, no denial of counsel. The tragedy of September 11th shook our sense of security and made us realize that we, too, are vulnerable to acts of terrorism. Unfortunately, some believe that this threat renders our Constitution obsolete. This is a Constitution for which men and women have died and continue to die and which has made us a model among nations. If that view is allowed to prevail, the terrorists will have won.

It is my sworn duty, and as long as there is breath in my body I'll perform it, to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

We will be in recess.

Can we nominate Judge Coughenour to one of the upcoming Supreme Court slots?

Not So Fake News

2005-07-21T09:40:00.000-07:00

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer posted this letter today:

Bush enters familiar phase of presidency
So now we've entered the "I-am-not-a-crook" phase of this president's administration. Why do we have to rely on Jon Stewart to call a spade a spade? With all the outlets for news today, isn't it ironic that the straightest talk comes from a fake news show?

Steve Garber
Seattle

Without the burdon of appearing "objective" Jon Stewart exposes every Bush administration hypocracy by contrasting their recent statements against what they said last month, last year or three years ago.

Iraq: Not Black & White

2005-07-13T16:37:00.000-07:00

In over simplified media discussions of Iraq, it seems like there are only two possible positions:

1) Support Bush 100 percent, or
2) The war is wrong, and our troops should be withdrawn immediately.

I don't agree with either position, since both are wrong. Here's why...

Bush does not deserve our support. The Bush administration has NEVER been honest with anyone about the real reasons for persuing this war. Instead, they used various rationals that have proven to be irrational:

Weapons of Mass Destruciton. This whole rationale was based entirely on worst-case interpretations of intelligence data, mis-information accepted unquestioningly, outright fraud, and pure speculation. When Saddam Hussain agreed to admit weapons inspectors in the last few months before the war, there existed an opportuinity to verify this intelligence theory, but when the inspections did not produce the desired results, they were cut short by the commencement of the war.
Remember 9/11. How many times do people have to be reminded that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11!!! How many more times will our government insult the intelligence of thinking people by trying to confuse us by talking about 9/11 and Iraq in the same context?
"We fight them there so we don't have to fight them here." This slogan may have poetic rhythm, but it is logically stupid. The bombers in London apparently didn't know they were supposed to go to Iraq if they wanted to blow something up. Apparently Al Quada is supposed to not be smart enough to know that you attack your enemy where they are vulnerable, not where they are well-defended. The insurgents and terrorists in Iraq are persuing their objectives in Iraq. Anyone who wants to hurt Americans will do it here. And since we're persuing a war that plays into Al Quada's message to the Arab world that the USA wants to oppress them, they'll have plenty of reqruits.

But on the other hand, it would be detrimental to withdraw troops at this point. Here's why:

We broke it, we bought it. Since we actually did remove an oppressive governement from Iraq, it is now our responsibility to ensure that the next goverment of Iraq is kinder to its people than the last one. It would be irresponsible and a betrayal of the Iraqi people to allow their country to fall back into control of Saddam Hussein's cronies or people who put beheading videos on the Internet.
Premature withdraw sends the wrong message. It would send the message that insurgency and terrorism actually does work against the USA, which would encourage more terrorism and insurgency.

So the correct course of action at this point is to

1) Stay the course in Iraq until there is a democratic goverment stable & strong enough to retain power, and

2) Elect someone in 2008 who can hopefully repair all of the messes created by George W.

Independence Day

2005-07-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

As a male, I have fond memories of growing up with July 4th being about family time and lighting things on fire. As for acknowledging what the holiday is supposed to be about, I had thought about hanging an American Flag over a John Kerry poster to make it clear what we do and do not support and celebrate, but that didn't happen.

Instead, we went down to a beach near by where we could enjoy fireworks set off be people around us, as well as two professional shows in Seattle. It was very nice, a contrast to two years ago when we hung out near the "war zone" next to an Indian fireworks stand where they sell the dangerous & insane stuff.

Iraq and 9/11 WTF???

2005-06-28T18:19:00.000-07:00

Tonight George Bush layed out the latest justification for the Iraq war. No more mention of the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein was poised to unleash on the US or hand over to Al Quada.

No, it's about fighting the 9/11 terrorists. He made no less than nine references to 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, neither of which had any connection to Iraq, and whose current connection is vague at best.

It has been said that if you repeat a lie enough times, people will believe it. Tonight it is the link between 9/11 and Iraq. While no one in the Bush administration ever explicitly said that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in 9/11, it was strongly implied in the rhetoric.

And the process continues tonight. He speaks of terrorists terrorists terrorists, as if everyone you can call a terrorist is a member of one big terrorist family. Terrorists attacked New York City and Washington. Terrorists are exploding car bombs in Baghdad - one and the same. There were at least four references to terrorists as dehumanized murdering monsters.

Creating democracy in the Middle East is a noble cause, but must we build democracy on a bed of lies?

What should be more frightening to us than "terrorists" in Iraq is how sucessfully Bush is using peoples anger and fear from 9/11 to persue his policy of remaking the Middle East in his own image.

Just Like Adolf Hitler

2005-06-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

This week, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show did one of his most poingnat segments ever, about politicians and media personalities, both liberal and conservative, who innapropriately compare people they disagree with to Hitler.

This should be required viewing by all thinking people.

Red State Stupidity

2005-06-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Joel Connelly of the Seattle P.I. wrote the following in his column:

"Whenever Fox News shows footage of Iraq, it is labeled 'War on Terror.' They tell troops that they're protecting the homeland. They justify the war in Iraq as self-defense. They evoke fear of further attacks here. Fear evokes a strict-father understanding of the world, which favors the conservative way of thinking."

Boos and hisses have greeted such justifications of the Iraq war at public forums in Seattle. The Emerald City voted 75 percent for John Kerry in November.

On a quick trip back to a battleground state wedding last fall, however, I heard the Bush position resonate among fellow guests. Several, while disagreeing with the president on social issues, identified him as the man who would keep terrorism away from America's shores. Pollsters labeled them "security moms." They helped decide the election.

Do they really believe that other men who have been President or have come close to that office would welcome terrorists into our country with open arms, or would have not done just as good of a job at protecting us from them?

Also, yesterday the House passed a proposal for a anti-flag burning Constitutional Amendment, as if we were facing a real threat from flag burning protesters.

Folks, there is a reason why Congress doesn't pass a law against flag "desecration." It is unconstitutional! Since they proper way of dosposing of a worn out American flag is to ceremonially burn it, it's not the act thay are banning, it is the message behind the act, and any ban on a message being conveyed violates the First Amendment. So the only way to ban flag burning is to amend the Constitution to scale back First Amendment Freedoms.

What planet do these people live on?

History shaking events

2005-06-21T08:13:00.000-07:00

My sister-in-law worte in her blog:

I realize that the two major time markers in my life are awareness of aids and the world trade center yuck. Both are events that stirred up enough fear to change the worlds I touched forever. Try as I might I can't think of anything that is as powerful a force with a positive motivator...

I do try to pay more attention to the positives, and I *do* believe that great events have happenned in my life.

My thoughts run more along the theory that there are only two motivators: fear and love. You have lots of sub-motivators (e.g. greed, agape, need for stability), but they all can really be brought down into these two catagories.

If AIDS made my world afraid of intimacy at its heart and the WTC thing made us afraid of exposure - and thereby freedom - where is the major change that was brought on by a 'love' motivation. You could even say that our child-centered society is often motivated by the love of our children. However, I would argue that much of that motivation is actually from fear of being found out as the not-perfect parent.

I've got a couple other time markers in my life: The JFK assassination (I was too young to be aware of it at the time, but it was a 9/11-magnitude event for the people who do recall it), Watergate, and a few others. The only positive event of this scale in my lifetime was the Apollo 11 Moon landing. Just like on 9/11, every living person who had access to a TV stopped whatever they were doing to watch the live images. They even rolled out TVs at Disneyland and inside Las Vegas casinos. At the time, it seemed that science and technology would be the unifying force that would bring the world together and solve all of mankind’s woes.

Now, 35 years later, science and technology have advanced, but they have failed to improve human nature. "Islamic Extremism" is the new Communism threat used by the forces of hate and fear to encroach on civil liberties and justify wars and fat government contracts for the friends of government officials. But when I look around, there really is a lot of positive energy in the world, but it seems to be very difficult the positive to capture peoples' attention like the negative can.

Michael Jackson

2005-06-13T16:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know this isn't a weighty issue what affects all of our lives but here it goes.

I don't really know if MJ was really guilty or not. I didn't follow the trial very closely, but here's what I have to say about it...

A guilty verdict is supposed to mean that the defendent is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Not beyond any possible doubt, but beyond a reasonable doubt. This means that if there is a reasonable explanation that explains the evidence where the defendent is not guilty, this is the explanation the jury is supposed to accept.

Now a 40-something man who has preteen boys over for sleepovers is certainly unusual, but that doesn't prove that Jackson had sex with them. Our dog sleeps in our bed sometimes, but that doesn't mean we practice beastiality.

So it all comes down to he said/he said. And of course there may be a fanancial/blackmail incentive. Without DNA or other proof, then is there really evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?

The New Man Emerging?

2005-06-09T08:13:00.000-07:00

According to a news story on Yahoo, a new kind of man is emerging:

Move over Rambo, you're cramping new man's style -- PARIS (AFP)

Macho man is an endangered species, with today's male more likely to opt for a pink flowered shirt and swingers' clubs than the traditional role as family super-hero, fashion industry insiders say.

A study along these lines led by French marketing and style consultants Nelly Rodi was unveiled to Fashion Group International during a seminar Tuesday on future strategy for the fashion industry in Europe.

"The masculine ideal is being completely modified. All the traditional male values of authority, infallibility, virility and strength are being completely overturned," said Pierre Francois Le Louet, the agency's managing director.

Instead today's males are turning more towards "creativity, sensitivity and multiplicity," as seen already in recent seasons on the catwalks of Paris and Milan.Arnold Schwarznegger and Sylvester Stallone are being replaced by the 21st-century man who "no longer wants to be the family super-hero", but instead has the guts to be himself, to test his own limits.

"We are watching the birth of a hybrid man. ... Why not put on a pink-flowered shirt and try out a partner-swapping club?" asked Le Louet, stressing that the study had focused on men aged between 20 and 35.Sociologists and other experts spent three months analyzing some 150 magazines and books and 146 Internet sites, as well as interviewing a dozen experts from Europe, the United States and China.

The traditional man still exists in China, Le Louet said, and "is not ready to go". But in Europe and the United States, a new species is emerging, apparently unafraid of anything.
"He is looking for a more radical affirmation of who he is, and wants to test out all the barbarity of modern life" including in the sexual domain, said Le Louet, adding that Reebok with its "I am what I am" campaign had perfectly tapped into this current trend.

The emergence of this new male beast who wants to look and feel good, and who will also have an impact on the role of women, presages a new potentially lucrative market for the European fashion industry.

"All those labels which have adapted to this freedom of expression are on the up, all those which are too rigid will suffer in the future," Le Louet said, pointing to the growing success of sports and casual wear manufacturers.

Europe's economic downturn and stiff competition from China have left the industry -- which accounts for 7.0 percent of employment across the European Union or some 2.7 million jobs with an annual turnover of 230 billion euros --
in the doldrums.

The EU has already stepped in with new initiatives and with an aid package to support small and medium enterprises, particularly in the field of technical textiles.But the search for new markets is also driving research to profile the new European consumer -- the theme of the debate held by Fashion Group, which unites some 6,000 fashion industry professionals.

The answer is not simple, as culture and changing demographics make it hard to pin down the typical European, especially with the growing population of elderly.
But even though society is changing, Jean-Pierre Fourcat, a director with consultants Sociovision specialising in discerning social trends, believes there are some common threads.

"There is an increasing desire for people to be in charge of their own lives, and an intolerance for any lack of autonomy," he told the debate.

"We are also moving into a different situation. We no longer need what we are used to, rather we need what is new. But a motorway without any signs is total panic. So we need some beacons ... and we need a little bit of fun."

Today's consumer wants to feel pampered, but also to be able to take time out, feel good and feel alive. "We have to help people to create their own look.

And we absolutely must help people to dream, and if we help people to dream perhaps the world will be a little bit better," he said.

Observations:

The fashion world is a world unto itself. Every year a small group of designers decide among themselves what the look is going to be and parade that look in fashion shows. Clothes based on these designs may show up in department stores, but they may or may not catch on with real people.

A good example of this was in the late 1980s when fashion designers declared that short skirts in womens officewear to be the current look. But real women didn't want that, and headlines like "Women reject today's fashions" appearded in the media. This sounds like an oxymoron, like "nobody buys bestsellers," but in clothing, this can happen.

The yahoo article actually contains some references to men truly being themselves rahter than slaves to fashion & popular culture:

Arnold Schwarznegger and Sylvester Stallone are being replaced by the 21st-century man who "no longer wants to be the family super-hero", but instead has the guts to be himself, to test his own limits...

... in Europe and the United States, a new species is emerging, apparently unafraid of anything."

He is looking for a more radical affirmation of who he is, and wants to test out all the barbarity of modern life" including in the sexual domain, said Le Louet, adding that Reebok with its "I am what I am" campaign had perfectly tapped into this current trend.

However, I've noticed that people attracted to counter-culture fashion statements, (goth, hemp smoker, etc.) believe that they are rejecting conformaty and being individuals, but what they are really doing is choosing an alternate conformity.

As for myself, I'm more into wearing what is comfortable & appropriate for the activity than what the latest fashions are. But I am OK with those those who want to make bolder statements with their clothing. But those choices should come from within, not by taking cues from fashion magazines or what the people you perceive as "the cool people" are wearing.

Flushed Korans and WMD

2005-05-27T14:30:00.000-07:00

Newsweek is currently being raked over the cols by the consevative media for publishing an unconfirmed report that a copy ofthe Koran had been flushed down a toilet by Guantanimo prison guards. But is thi really that different from the Bush Administration's accusations in 2003 that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction and was well on its way to producing a nuclear bomb?

Compare the situations:

Newsweek published a story that was plausable given other information that has come out about Guantanimo, but could not be poperly confirmed. People Rioted and some people died as a result.

The Bush Administration spend months playing up Iraqi WMD's, but what was behind it?

Iraqi WMDs were plausable because:

Iraq had chemical weapons in the 1980s and used them on Iranians and Kurds.
Iraq could not account for the destruction of all of them (translation: the proper paperwork could not be found or did not exist.)

And the evidence that they did exist in 2003?

A discredited report of an Iraqi attempt to purchase plutonium cake (used after the Administration was told the evidence was forged).

Satillite photos of industrial activity that don't tell by themselves what the activity is.

An informant in Germany who talked about vast stockpiles of chemical and biological agents and unmanned planes to spread.

Based on a mix of weak evidence and speculation, Bush, Cheney, Rice and others talked about how "certain" they were and how they knew "for a fact" that these purported weapons constituted a "gathering threat."

Was there an opportunity to confirm this inteligence? Of course! But when the returning weapons inspectors threatened to undermine the case for war, the invaion was quickly launced, directly leading to the deaths of more than 1500 Americans and untold numbers of Iraqis.

Newsweek has retracted the story of the flushed Koran. When will Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld going to retract their stories?

Condi the hypocrite

2005-05-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

"People lost their lives. People are dead.... People need to be very careful about what they say, just as they need to be careful about what they do."
- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

Oh really? Is this the same Condi Rice who two and a half years ago was warning us about the "gathering threat" of Iraqi biological weapons stockpiles and nuclear weapons program, and implied Iraqi involvement in 9/11?

During a recent surprise visit to Bagdad, Condi said to the troops, "We didn't bring this war to them. They brought it to us."

I have no doubt that Condi is a very smart women, but how dumb does she think we all are. Do we not have a memory that goes back forther than a month? Or is she tying 9/11 to Iraq again?

So What!

2005-04-26T08:31:00.000-07:00

There were two consecutive news items on the TV news crawler that caught my attention.

1) Elton John plans wedding with an artist David Furnish.
My reaction: So what?

2) PETA blasts Kellie Osborne for dying her dog pink.
My reaction: So what?

Both the right and the extreme left seek to regulate people's private behavior. As far as I know, a dog will not care if it has pink fur, so there is no harm done provided the coloring agent is not toxic and the dog's owner is not too embarrassed to take it for a walk in public. And as far as I know, no one has explained in a logical manner how same sex marriages would or could cause the dissolution any heterosexual marriage, or prevent heterosexuals who love each other and want to start a family from getting married.

PETA's discomfort with pets of unnatural fur color makes as much logical sense some people's discomfort with same-sex couples solidifying their relationship the same way heterosexuals do. If you don't care for unusually colored pets, don't color their fur. And if marrying someone of the same sex doesn't appeal to you, don't marry someone of the same sex. But unless you can show that these actions are somehow harmful, don't impose your preferences on others.

Hooking Up - New or Not?

2005-04-20T21:16:00.000-07:00

I've been hearing in the media recently that college age people don't date any more. They "hook up," which is having sex with someone without even buying dinner. Or people have "friends with benefits," the benefits being booty-call on demand minus the hassles of relationships.

Well these stories triggered my BS alarm. I highly doubt human nature and male-female dynamics have changed that much since I was that age in the 1980s.

Here's what I think:"Hooking up" is a new name for what was known in the 1970s and 80s as "one night stands."

"Friends with benefits" is a new name for what used to be called slutty, loose, promiscious or free love, depending on how judgemental you want to be about it. Further, I doubt the majority of young people hook up or have friends with benefits, and most who do only do it a few times. The men who are hooking up are mostly the fortunate few with the same traits as those guys I used to know who got laid easily.

Everyone else is probably just dating or trying to date, but that doesn't sound in the media as good as "hooking up."

I have the same suspicion about reports that junior high school girls are having oral sex all over the place. When I see these stories on TV, kids are not talking about what they've done. They are tlaking about what they've heard other kids have done. Junior high gossip now replaces sound research.

Comments from those under 30??

The Civil Unions Comprimise

2005-04-13T09:19:00.000-07:00

What it really comes down to for most people is what sort of couples they are comfortable applying the term "married" to. I have no issue with the label being applied to same sex couples, but many people do. However, I have to admit I'm not comfortable with siblings and other couples among immediate family members being referred to as "married."

However, among the benefits of marriage are the legal rights and responsibilities. It is my understanding that same sex couples wanting to establish these legal arrangements have to hire an attorney and pay several thousand dollars. I can understand why they feel discriminated against.

Also, a brother and sister wanting to get married could respond to the birth defects argument that people with genetically transmitted medical problems can still legally marry, despite the risk of passing medical problems on to children.

Therefore, I would be happy with the establishment of civil unions that allow any two people to establish marriage-like legal relationships between each other, available with the same cost and convenience as marriage licenses. Same-sex couples could still have weddings in churches that are willing to perform them, but the legal term "marriage" would still only apply to opposite-sex couples who are not related. I have heard of people getting married for the legal reasons who but have no interest in sex or children with each other, and this arrangement would suit them as well.

As for siblings and other immediate family members, this might make sense if both are single and want the other to speak for them critical medical situations, or pass assets in case of death outside of probate. Civil unions don't have to presume the partners are having sex together, so if they do that's their own private business (as it is now).

As for polygamy, current family law is not adequate to address all the issues that may arise. For example, is one or more of the wives divorce, then what are the child visitation rights among wives and ex-wives? Unless such issues can be sensibly ironed out, polygamous relationships will just have to exist outside of legal recognition for now.

So I would think that civil unions would satisfy most reasonable people. But there are some that oppose civil unions, as well as company health plans that offer benefits to same-sex partners. I still see that as little more than bigotry.

Morality and Pragmatism

2005-04-08T09:08:00.000-07:00

I consider morality and pragatism to be the same. My view is that morals developed in ancient cultures as people discovered what rules were necessary for people to live together without ending up killing each other. The ancient communities that survived and prospered in the long term are those that devopled successful rules. Those communities and their rules evolved into the modern culture & morals we have today.

However, as cultures and techbology develops, what was pragmatically moral then may not be so pragmatic now. For example, I understand the Old Testiment says that if a man dies, the man's brother should marry the widow. This may have been pragmatic in ancient Judea, but in the modern age of life insurance, employment opportunities for women, and opportunities for second marraiges, this rule is no longer pragmatic.

Also, ancient cultures did not have to confront issues like persistant vegitative states, embryonic stem cell research or downloading copywrited music and movies from the Internet. Modern cultures have to decide what is most pragmatic from a long-term societal view, and that becomes part of our morality.

But some things don't change. Murder as a means to settle disputes and theivery always have and continue to be disruptive to smoothly running human communities, so they continue to be both immoral and non-pragmatic from the community persepctive.

I've often heard that people who lie, cheat, steal, abuse drugs and cheat on their partners are taking the "easy path." I disagree. It may be easy in the immediate momment, but it makes life more difficult. These people end up living in fear of and dealing with consequences of being fired from jobs, jail terms, broken relationships and increased health problems. I think my life is easier because I don't worry about these things so much. For me, that's both pragmatic and moral.

24: The President is not a terrorist

2005-04-05T12:14:00.000-07:00

Well, 24 has proved me wrong. When President Keller declined to divert Air Force One to Palm Springs I thought I was right. But with next week's preview, I'm now fairly certain that my earlier prediction is wrong and the President is not a terrorist. Instead, Marwan seems to be after a briefcase or laptop containing nuclear codes.

I guess if our government has a device built that can take control of 130 nuclear power plants away from the crews manning them, our nuclear weapons could also be launched by anyone possesing the President's secret case.

Should we expect a surprise appearance by Dr. Strangelove in an episode or two?

Nature or Nurture? Liberal or Conservative?

2005-04-05T12:01:00.000-07:00

An irony recently occurred to me how "political correctness," from either a conservative or a liberal perspective can affect the views one holds.

How many of the observed differences between men & women is due to socialization, and how much is innate?

Some liberals will argue that personalities differences, such as preferences for sports vs. playing with toy weapons vs. toy home appliances, playful roughhousing vs. sharing of feelings is due entirely to socialization and expectations that parents and society have for boys & girls. An infant is a blank slate.

Many conservatives on the other hand, believe that these are innate and due to cerebral and endochinogical differences between the sexes.

But when talking about sexuality, whether one is innately heterosexual or homosexual, the views are reversed. Liberals insist that sexuality is set at birth. This view is politically motivated because if sexual preference is not innate, then homosexuality can be classified as a disorder and reversed through treatment, or prevented through protecting children from influences that might cause them to become homosexual.

Many conservatives argue that sexual preference is largely due to nurture. This justifies discrimination against gays & lesbians under the guise of "protecting children." But if sexuality is innate, that makes discrimination against gays & lesbians the moral equivalent of racial discrimination.

So for Nature or Nurture, both sides of the culture war need to make up their minds? Personally I'm not emotionally invested in identifying myself as liberal or conservative, so strattle the fence. My belief is that 60-80 percent of the personality characteristics associated with gender, including sexual preference, is innate, and maybe 20-40 percent influenced by environment.

When Left is Right

2005-04-04T08:45:00.000-07:00

The Schiavo case illustrates that the old definitions of Conservative and Liberal no longer apply.

Traditionally, Conservatives favored a small government that stays out of people's personal affairs, while liberals are more willing to legislate private behavior to acheive sociatal goals. Do you want to hire only white Christian heterosexuals for your business? You can't. Want to drain some wetlands you own to build a vacation home? Sorry!

But in this case, it's the Conservatives that are sticking their noses and second-guessing private decisions, while liberals say "hands off!"

Johnny Got His Gun Trailer

2005-03-30T12:10:00.000-08:00

On Monday I posted a link to the IMDB page for Johnny Got His Gun.

Now here's a link to a trailer for the film anyone with a decent Internet connection can view. I recall the film being more grim and disturbing that the trailer suggests.

So if Terri Shiavo is not in a persistent vegistative state (as many are suggesting), is this the fate anyone would wish on her?

Terri Schiavo Got Her Gun

2005-03-28T08:43:00.000-08:00

I haven't written much about the Terri Schiavo case since I haven't taken the time to inform my self on all the facts and alleged facts flying back and forth, but the whole thing reminds me of a film I saw more that 20 years ago, Johnny Got His Gun.

In this highly disutrbing movie, Joe Bonham comes back from World War I with a functioning mind, but no arms, legs, eyes, ears or mouth. The viewer follows Bonhams's thoughts, dreams, and perceptions of the doctors and nurses around him as he is trapped as a prisoner in his own hopelessly ravaged body.

Of course, this film doesn't reveal the thoughts or wishes of Terri Schiavo, or even if she's even had a thought or wish in the past decade, but I don't know how anyone who's seen this movie could wish a fate like Bonham's on anyone.

West Wing: Vinick '05!

2005-03-24T10:26:00.000-08:00

The March 23 episode shows a taste of what the West Wing could become if Arnold Vinick, played by Alan Alda, is selected to be the President next season. By putting a Republican in the driver's seat, the show can better explore the issues raised in current events and the conflicts among different factions of the Republican Party.

Vinick '05!!

West Wing: Polls favor Santos

2005-03-18T08:39:00.000-08:00

According to Zogby, West Wing viewers favor Santos over Vinick with a 16-point lead.

Darn, it looks like I haven't backed a winner in a real or fictional presidential race since 1996 (except Bartlet's relection, the outcome of which was never in doubt). But it's hardly been a fair race since Santos has gotten at least five times as much air time on the show than Vinick.

But at least 19 percent are still undecided. Oh,... and the fact that NBC isn't really a democracy.

Irrational Arguments Against Gay Marriage

2005-03-16T13:05:00.000-08:00

The religious right is in a tizzy due to this week's ruling in California which stated "It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners."

While opponents of same sex marriage (SSM) claim to have rational reasons for banning it, the arguments are irrational because none of them connect to the stated goals:

1) "The institution of marriage will be destroyed." No, it won't. There is no logical reason to believe that heterosexuals will get divorced or stop marrying because of legal SSM.

"But look at Scandinavia!" Marriage rates may be dropping there, but no one has rationally explained how this is caused by SSM.

2) "Every child deserves a mother and father." True, but SSM would not threaten this goal. In fact, it may further it. Here's why:

Due to the widely held beliefs that homosexuality is immoral and wrong, many people who are natually lesbian and gay attempt to "cure" themsleves by marrying (or just having sex with) the opposite sex. If they have children in these marriages and later divorce to enter same sex marriages that are more appropriate for them, then the children may spend raised at least part of the time in a same-sex led household.

On the other hand, is SSM is legalized and the stigma against them is removed, then gays and lesbians won't attempt to cure themselves with insincere hetersexual relationships. The long-term result is FEWER children in same-sex led households and a HIGHER percentage of children with mothers and fathers.

Curiously opponents of SSM do not advocate banning divorce for parents with children, despite the fact that it would prevent children from being separated from their mother and father.

3) "There is no tradition of SSM." So what? There was a tradition of slavery for a long time, but there were some very rational reasons for letting that tradition die, so that's what we did. There is also no tradition of the Internet or email, but that doesn't make them immoral.

The argument that is rational for some people is "My religion teaches against it." If your religion prohibits SSM, then you don't have to enter one. But this country was founded on the value that the government should not impose the views of a religion on those who don't practice it.

Government "News" stories: NON-ISSUE!

2005-03-15T09:25:00.000-08:00

I was as flabbergasted and frustrated as anyone at last November's election results, but I have to point out that this whole issue of "government produced new stories" is a NON-ISSUE!

For decades PR people representing their clients have written press releases in the style of news stories and sent them to media outlets in hopes that all or part of them would be published. It is standard public relations procedure. What most newspapers do is use the press released as one source of information, add other information and perhaps and opposing view, then publish the story. Only lazy journalists publish press releases verbatim.

VNRs (video News Releases) are just the video version of press releases. Private companies have been supplying VNRs to TV stations since the 1980s. Broadcast journalists know what they're getting, and use the information accordingly, usually by using video clips they can't get themselves or as one source of information for a story they produce themselves. If a TV station runs them unedited, then blame the TV station.

Besides, no one ever complains about government propaganda in the form of PSAs (public service announcements) against things like cigarettes or drunk driving!

Ironically, the "advertising links" section of the CNN story linked above lists ads for companies that produce VNRs, some with more than 20 years experience!

24: The President is a Terrorist

2005-03-10T15:34:00.000-08:00

For those watching 24 on Fox: President John Keeler is a terrorist!

I'm basing this prediction on

1) They replaced President Palmer. Why?? Because after the first three seasons, Palmer has impeccable credentials as a good guy and Jack Bauer's buddy.

2) President Keeler has been in the air for 12 hours now. Where is he going and where is he coming from? It is rather convenient that his schedule called for him to be in the air while terrorists engineered multiple nuclear meltdowns, as well as whatever Madwan is planning at the air force base.

You read it here first folks - stay tuned!

West Wing: It's Santos vs. Vinick

2005-03-10T15:16:00.000-08:00

We're down to only political junkies watching The West Wing. But looking at my page load stats, it appears that the audience for this blog is also the audience for The West Wing. So here it goes...

Hoynes is out. After last weeks "coming next week" trailer, my wife & I thought vice president Buffalo Bob would be struck down by the sex scandal, but instead it is Hoynes, which is not surprising, since he resigned earlier in the show due to a loose zipper problem.

I think its shaping up to be a race between Vinick (Alan Alda) and Santos (Jimmy Smits) to see who will replace Bartlett as the next President. I'd vote for Vinick. As a moderate Republican, it will be easier for the show to explore current events, and the conflicts between conservative dogma and common sense. But on the other hand, virtually the entire cast would be replaced over a single summer, which is an unprecedented risk for a network TV show.

We will see. Stay tuned....

Dumb Thinking Part 2: Projecting Your Experiences on Others

2005-03-09T20:54:00.000-08:00

You’re an adult, right? As an adult, you’ve had certain experiences, and from those experiences you’ve drawn certain conclusions. So people who have experienced similar circumstances should see things they way you do. And if they don’t, they’re wrong. Right? Wrong!

The second form of dumb thinking I’m writing about is projecting one’s experience and views on others. It is the expectation that people in similar situations to your own ought to see things as you do.

However, different people come from different upbringings. Different people have different experiences that affect how they experience new situations. And finally, different people are just plain different – they have different personality traits. This causes them to, well, be different.

Homemakers vs. Career Women

An example of this that comes up in the media every few years is the so-called “proper role of women. " That is, do women belong in the home, or in the workplace?

The stereotype of the 1950s was that the role of women was to stay at home to be mothers and homemakers. If a woman went to college, it was to find a college-educated man to marry. The only acceptable careers for women (according to the stereotype anyway) were teaching and nursing.

But some women did not find the home life fulfilling. Some longed for the stimulation of adult companionship during the day, a need not satisfied with knitting circles with other women. To some women, the role of homemaker felt more like a prison.

During the 1970s the women’s liberation movement cast off the shackles of housewife-hood and promoted the image of career woman. From the 1970s into the 1990s, women were supposed to have it all – husband, children, and career – and love it. Women that did not have paid employment outside the home were viewed as old-fashioned -- behind the times.

But in recent years there has been a backlash. If what the media says is to be believed, more women than before are rejecting the workplace to become full time home-makers and moms. On TV talk shows, new homemakers accuse career women of being selfish and neglectful of their children and husbands. On the others feminists see the new homemakers as representing a step backward for their cause, as if providing women with fewer options means more freedom for women, not less.

Folks, not all women are the same. Some women are completely fulfilled by devoting themselves to their children and the immediate needs of their family. Other women crave adult company during the day, enjoy the challenges provided in the workplace, or gain satisfaction that they are making a positive contribution to the world within in the career they have chosen. Other women would like to raise their children full time, but sincerely believe that they are best serving their families by bringing home a paycheck.

Why must women be negatively judged because their individual path to fulfillment differs from that of someone else?

Gay Recovery

Another heated area where people project is the “gay recovery” controversy. For gay rights and anti-gay rights activist, this is a political powder keg. If homosexuality is a natural, innate state, then conservatives who are uncomfortable with homosexuality must learn to accept gays and lesbians and their personal lives as they except other people to accept their own. But if homosexuality is a condition that can be “cured,” then it may mean the end of gay and lesbian culture, as homosexuality again becomes a condition to be treated. Both gay activists and anti-gay activists have much to lose if either position is proven true.

For these reasons, there is a lot of flack going back and forth between the two sides. I even found a web site for “ex-ex-gays!”

But both positions assume that that everyone who is gay or lesbian is gay or lesbian for the same reasons. The cause or causes of homosexuality have never been conclusively shown. Also, this is America! Can we not respect the personal preferences and choices or our neighbors? Data also shows that a number of people are bisexual to a certain degree. A person who is bisexual may very well be in a gay relationship at one point in life, and be married to a member of the opposite sex later in life. They may be successfully establish a relationship with the opposite sex the same way a man that likes a variety of female body types may be married and willing give up sex with different kinds of women. Other people may be 100 percent innately gay. To shoehorn them into heterosexual relationships serves the interests of no one. The fact that some gays appear to “change,” or than others cannot does not mean that all gay and lesbians would have the same experience. Everyone is an individual. So both sides should stop projecting their own experiences onto others, and respect others for the life choices they make for themselves.

No comment on Jeff Gannon

2005-03-07T09:01:00.000-08:00

No comment yet from the homophobic Family Policy Network on whether admitting Jeff Gannon to the White House Press Corps is yet another example of the Bush Administration advancing the homosexual agenda.

I love the WARNING: Pro-Homosexual News Site warnings on this site. Are people afraid they will contract AIDS from reading a pro-gay web site?

If It's OK for Jack Bauer...

2005-03-03T08:01:00.000-08:00

When I watch news reports about prisoner treatment in Guantanimo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison, I think how aweful it is that they mistreat prisonors. Yet when I'm watching Fox TV's 24 and coercive pressure/torture is used when interrogating terrorists, my reaction is "You go, Jack!"

Yes, one is real life and the other is fiction. But I still feel that my reactions to real and fictional situations ought to be the same. I guess one difference is that on 24, we know most of the time who the terrorists are because we see their activities.

Actually, I'm not really concened with how 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed or would-be hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui were treated in custody. The people I empthize with at Guantanimo and Abu Ghraib are often innocent bystanders who became suspects only by an accident of circumstance. When the United States locks up people for months or years and subjects them to torture and mistreatment based on the thinest is suspicions, it makes it difficult to argue to much of the world that we're better than the dictatorships we're trying to save them from.

Casting Seattle

2005-03-02T12:04:00.000-08:00

I've always found it fun to take a workplace or other environment I'm familer with and decide which actors to cast as which characters were Hollywood to make it into a film.

Today in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, columnist Joel Connolly selects his cast for "Emerald City - The Movie"

Our unanimous choice to play Mayor Greg Nickels was Fox Sports host and sometime actor Tom Arnold. Tough-guy Tommy Lee Jones is cut out to play Deputy Mayor Tim "the Shark" Ceis. Having roomed with Al Gore at Harvard, Jones can draw from observation on how to play a political character without becoming a droning bore.

My comments to his choices:

I find Tom Arnold a little too dumb for Greg Nichols and Tom Sellick a little too smart for Rep. McDermott, but Tom Arnold as Rep, McDermott is a perfect match.

Instead I find Sellick to be a perfect Sheriff-turned-congressman Dave Richart. I'd cast Jeff Bridges as Nichols instead.

Eddie Murphy doesn't have that "mountains out of molehills quality that Carl Mack shows so strongly. I'd recommend Spike Lee.

I'd cast the multi-talented Matthew Broderick as talk show host Dave Ross.

Finally, is Bob Denver available for the role of Dino Rossi?

"But Gays Can Marry Too!"

2005-02-24T09:26:00.000-08:00

Another response to Dust in the Light, Febrruary 23, 2005:

OK, so opponents of SSM (same sex marriage) are consistent in that gays and lesbians are free to marry persons of the opposite sex just as heterosexuals are.

But this ignores the fact that gays are lesbians are not allowed to marry the person who serves the same role in their lives as spouses do for heterosexuals. In this sense the marriage laws are discriminatory and inconsistent.

I understand that from a religious point of view, many religions don't recognize SSM. OK, so respecting the First Amendment, no church shall be compelled to perform a ceremony it does not approve of.

But from a governmental or legal standpoint, marriage is a set of legal relationship between two people that assigns certain rights and responsibilities between two people. Some of these rights and responsibilities concern children resulting from the marriage, but there is no requirement that married couples actually produce children. Heterosexual couples who cannot conceive children due to medical reasons are not prohibited from marrying in any way. So the inability of SSMs to produce children without the help of a third party is not a valid reason to prohibit them.

In America, we respect the rights of all to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In general, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness should not be impeded except when it interferes with the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of others.

While opponents of SSM repeatedly claim that "marriage will be destroyed" by SSM, no one has explained exactly how heterosexual marriages would be destroyed, or how heterosexual couples who want to create the healthiest possible family environment in which to raise their children would be prevented from doing so.

Can Atheists be moral?

2005-02-23T12:58:00.000-08:00

Today I posted a response to a posting on Dust in the Light, which claimed that self-interest as a moral compass is not as viable as a belief in God. Here is my response:

Self-interest or what I call "expanded self-interest" can certainly be a viable moral compass for non-theists.

Self-interest is not just interest for the self. The urge to procreate extends self-interest toward our spouses and children. This is why parents willingly give up a great deal, including body organs in some cases, for the well being of their children. Beyond the immediate family is interest toward the person's clan, or whatever group they belong to. This is why soldiers give up their lives for their countries.

During World War II, thousands of Russian soldiers gave up their lives to liberate their homeland from the Nazi invaders. While it is impossible to know how many of these soldiers subscribed the official atheist beliefs, certainly many of them were, and they didn't require a belief in God to give up their lives for their families and communities.

The problem with using only religion as the moral compass is that there are almost as many versions of religious morality as there are religions. The assumption that many people arguing in favor of theism make is that important moral values are derived from religion, and can only be derived from religion. But what happens when a religion, or someone's interpretation of it, interprets moral values differently. Osama bin Laden's religion interprets the death of 3000 people on 9/11 as God's plan. It's ALL moral relativism, and in the case of religious believers morality is relative to one's religion and one's interpretation of it. That's why I believe religion is a reflection of the person who practices it.

Another way of looking at this would be what I call "moral maturity." A morally immature person acts in narrow self interest only. If he wants to do something, the question is "Is it allowed?" If not, he asks "What are the chances of getting caught?" For the morally immature, the only factor moderating behavior is the fear of punishment.

Religion is useful for moderating the behavior of the morally immature. If you parents, teacher, or the police are not watching you, but you believe in an omniscient God that watches you all the time, you may think twice about doing something forbidden, even if punishment may be deferred until the afterlife.

But for the morally mature, behavior choices are not on fear of punishment, but on principals. For me, these principals are based on respect for others, and acting as much as possible as if the world was the way I'd want it to be. If I find a lost wallet containing cash, I will make every possible effort to return it to it's owner, because in my vision of the perfect world, that's what anyone finding my lost wallet would do. If I kept the cash and threw away the wallet, I wouldn't fear God's wrath, but I would feel hypocritical for not extending a courtesy to others that I expect them to extend to me.

Protecting the Value of Marriage

2005-02-14T08:11:00.000-08:00

What are the folks who are working to defend the sanctity of marriage from the threat of same-sex marrages and civil unions doing to protect the sanctity of marriage from Mary K. Letourneau and Vili Fualaau?

Dumb Thinking Part 1: Averages Don't Apply to Individuals

2005-02-11T08:27:00.000-08:00

A lot of public discussion on various issues is logically faulty due to thinking mistakes. This is not a right/left, blue state/red state issue. Both sides are guilty. I'll describe them in a series of posts. The first: Averages don't apply to individuals.

Havard University President Lawrance Summers recently created a controversy with comments suggesting that the reason most science and math professors are men was because of innate differences between men and women.

The people upset Lawrence Summers are forgetting that statistical averages don't apply to individuals. It is a statistical fact that men are on average a few inches taller than women. But that information isn't useful if you're talking about actor Danny DeVito and actress Gina Davis. Recent research has shown that boys tend to excel at math and spatial skills, while girls score higher in language skills. But just as there are tall women and short men, there are women who excel in math, engineering and science, and men who excel in language. If most science professors are men, and most English professors are women, it's not discrimination or anybody's fault. I'm surprised that Summers' comments are controversial.

Another example is the continuing battles over affirmative action programs to correct past racial injustices. These programs are justified by the generization that minorities are "disadvantaged" and need an extra boost to achaive eqaulity. This puts to the supporters of affirmative action into the uncomfortable position of supporting racial discrimination (treating people differently according to race) to avoid racism. They claim that to not discriminate according to race (by treating people of different races equally) is actually racist!

While it is true that on average, white people continue to have higher incomes that black people, at this point in American history plenty of well-educated black people earning good incomes, and there are still lots of poorly educated, low incoming white people. And the fact that most of the top one percent wealthiest people are white is of little help to poor white people.

And as for access to education, it is true that some segments of society have easier acccess to higher education than other segments. But are these differences based on race? I don't think so. I have a hard time believing that a young black person whose parents hold graduate degrees and earn a six-figure income would have a difficult time getting into a university. He or she would certainly would find getting into a good colledge easier than a white young person raised in a poor single parent household who has no relatives who made it past high school.

I am not against affirmative action programs that make college admission easier for people who have the odds stacked against them. But base the programs on factors that actually stack the odds against the applicant. The affirmative action program would weigh factors such as

The applicant comes from a low income household, especially one led by a single parent.
The applicant would be the first in his or her family to attend college.
The applicant comes from a low-income community where relatively few people attend college.

Such a program would certainly enable many black and other minority students who otherwise not have such an opportunity. But it would not discriminate according to race against white applicants who are disadvantaged by the same factors.

B-List Caveman

2005-02-09T13:40:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesing blog about celebrity worship.

B-List Caveman

The TRUTH about the GAY AGENDA!

2005-02-09T08:20:00.000-08:00

Here it is folks, the GAY AGENDA revealed!

BTW folks, I am not gay myself. I just can't stand stupidity in public discussions, and the proposed "protection of marriage' amendment (as if same sex marriages will cause hetersexuals to get divorced) is the stupidest idea since the anti-flag buring amendment (as if flags were becoming an endangered species)!

Elvis Protects Marriage

2005-02-04T07:01:00.000-08:00

My wife runs a Las Vegas travel web site, travel2vegas.com. A few years ago she received an email from a lesbian asking for Vegas wedding venues that would perform tasteful and touching though non-legally binding ceremony for her and her partner. To answer this question, my wife made a few calls. One prominent Las Vegas Strip wedding chapel responded coldly and curtly to her question. "Gay marriages are NOT legal in Nevada. We do NOT perform them."

Isn't it comforting to know that folks who will perform your wedding in Elvis or Star Trek costumes are refusing to cheapen or make a mockery of the sacred institution of marriage?

Manzanar 2001

2005-02-03T21:51:00.000-08:00

Here on Bainbridge Island, the contraversy over the Japanese internment during World War II continues to this day. A curriculum given in schools is criticized by some as making inapropiate comparisons to more recent events.

Tonight, we saw a documentary on the Sundance channel called "Persons of Interest." The film of a series of interviews of some of the several hundred Arabs in this country who in the weeks following 9/11 were randomly arrested and detained for weeks or months until investigators could determine that they were not terrorists. Ironically, many of them came to America to escape the kind of persecuition.

While the post-9/11 Arab internment was less organized and shorter lived than the one experienced by the Japanese, there is certainly a parallel worth discussing.

The Iraq Election

2005-02-03T21:33:00.000-08:00

While the Iraqi election may represent a significant historical milesone, it is a bit premature for the Bush fans to gloat over the success. Success will be when Iraq has a stable government that is better to its people and its neighbors than the previous one. George Bush's vision of the beacon of freedom inspiring democratic movements in other Arab countries may come to pass, or it may elect leaders who establish an Iranian-style theocracy. Or cival war may erupt.

Prisoner Torture

2005-02-02T13:03:00.000-08:00

I haven't seen anyone discuss one of the main reasons for Geneva Convention was that the countries signing it were concerned about the welfare of their own prisoners held by the enemy. You can't torture enemy prisoners and expect the other side not to.

Remember April 2003 when American prisoners were questioned on Iraqi TV? Many of the people who were so upset at the treatment of Americans are now trying to justify the way prisoners in Iraq and Guantanimo are treated. I don't buy that. Can you imagine the reaction of the insurgents captured Americans and posted pictures of them laying naked on each other on the Internet? Yes, beheading is worse, but If we are to maintain a moral high ground, then the standard for treating prisoners has to be the minimum standard we would expect for our soldiers held by the enemy.

Supporters Only At the Parade!

2005-01-20T11:51:00.000-08:00

This morning my wife told me that somene she knew tried to get tickets for Gearge Bush's Inaugural Parade, and discovered that only supporters who donated at least $1000 were allowed to get tickets!

This Washington Post article seems to confirm it.

People answering phones at Ticketmaster yesterday said callers needed an invitation and identification number to buy a ticket. "As of right now, the onlyway you can get a ticket is if you get an invitation," one said. "We haven'theard anything yet, but I don't think they're going to release any to the public."

But there are also a lot of ticket agencies selling parade tickets. The order forms have no unusual required fields.

I also read that - like rock concerts - large blocks of tickets are allotted to people with connections, including congress members and campaign people. Maybe the Bush was campaign was using Ticketmaster distribute their allotment.

How many tickets - if any - were truly public? We'll see.

West Wing: CJ's cop-out

2005-01-06T08:20:00.000-08:00

That night's West Wing had a storyline about bloggers speculating that chief of staff CJ Craig was a lesbian. This was based not any relationships with women, but on her sports record in high school and college. When she finally resonded to the question "Are you a homosexual?" she gave the "None of your damn business" answer.

Unfortunately, that response is seen by many as a "yes." But a direct denial would be calling more attention to the rumor-mongering bloggers than they deserve. A better response would be as follows:

It has come to my attention that some people on the Internet are apparently buying and promoting the stereotype that any woman with athletic ability must be a lesbian. If you feel that your job as journalists is to report erronious rumors based on dated stereotypes then you will report this story. But if your job is to file stories based on substantiated facts, you will ignore this one.

Israel and Democracy

2005-01-04T15:06:00.000-08:00

Today the Drudge Report posted an article about British attitudes toward Isreal.

While Israel is far from the "least democratic country" in the world, it may the least democratic of those countries that claim to be democratic.

In the Untied States, as well as most democracies, full citizenship is based on where one is born, not ethnicity. In Israel it is the opposite. Jews born in Brooklyn can easily obtain full Israeli citizenship but Arabs who were born in what is now Israel but happened to be on the wrong side of the front when the 1947 war ended cannot. This is not democracy as most westerners understand it.

I've read quite a bit about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and I still not sure what Israel had in mind when it occupied the West Bank & Gaza more than 35 years ago. If the intention was to make these areas part of Israel, then the people living there should have been granted citizenship a long time ago. If not, they should have been given independence a long time ago.

Another Red vrs. Blue

2005-01-02T17:41:00.000-08:00

For Christmas this year, my wife & I purchased the Star Wars Troligy DVD set.

We noticed that when Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker fight Darth Vader, Kenobe and Skywalker use blue light sabers while Vader fights with a red saber.
Was Lucas making a statement 25 years ahead of time?

Media Coverage of Tsunami vrs. Sudan

2004-12-29T09:38:00.000-08:00

The biggest factor in media interest (at least for TV news) is dramatic images.
The video clips of waves washing into costal cities and luxury resort hotels are very dramatic. There is no video of the Sudanese holocaust (does this word apply?)

Another factor is familiarity. In two years, the death toll of Americans from car crashes is about the same as the tsunami death toll. More Americans died in car crashes in Sept. 2001 than from the WTC attack. In two years the death toll of Americans from car crashes is more than the number of Americans killed in Vietnam. I would guess that nearly every adult has lost at least one friend or relative to a car crash. Yet people are fairly blasé about it.

The last factor is the ability to identify with victims. The Isreali-Palistinian conflict is controversial because different people identify with different sides. Tsunami victims who are American or European decent get more attention than victims who were born there. The Sudanese massacres involve Arabic speaking black Africans and non-Arabic speaking black Africans. Most Americans don't identify with either group so people care less, as shallow that may seem.

Choosing the Blue

2004-12-26T21:07:00.000-08:00

The Website Choose the Blue is a handy guide to companies and their political affiliations as measured by their political campaign contributions.

While the authors of the website would prefer that you put your money were the Blue is, it could just as easily be called Choose the Red, because Red-leaniong folks can use the guide to find companies who express aggrement with their values through the political campaigns they contribute to.

One interesting note: Fox News and the Fox Cable Network is listed as Blue companies.

Go Figure.

Christmas is not completely Christian

2004-12-22T09:48:00.000-08:00

Christmas is both a religious and a secular and a religious holiday. I don't think Jewish children and other non-Christian children should be subjected in school to songs about the birth of Jesus, but songs about winter weather, decorated trees and Santa Claus don't infringe anyone's rights because these are not religious symbols.

I'm an atheist, but I have a Christmas tree in my house, and I exchange gifts with family members. Show me decorated trees, Santa Claus, Rudolf the red-nose reindeer or family gift exchanges in the Bible and I'll change my mind. But I agree that banning all Christmas symbols is an over reaction.

The Defense of Marriage Amendment

2004-12-22T08:48:00.000-08:00

Here's one version of the proposed Defense of Marriage Amendment from a religion website called First Things:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred on unmarried couples or groups.

From the both the text of the Amendment, and from the explanation on the same page, it is clear that the aim is to disciminate against gays because gay sex doesn't appeal to them.

Well speaking personally, gay sex doesn't appeal to me either, but neither do pickles or anchovies. But I'm not trying to pass laws making it illegal to eat pickles or anchovies. While such laws will protect me from the unpleasent surprise of biting into a pickle slice hidden in a deli sandwich or fast food burger, it infringes upon the rights of people who enjoy pickles needlessly.

It would be a protection against a nonexistant danger. While I don't care to taste pickles in my food, pickles don't cause me any harm. And the long essay on the page linked above never actually states what harm would come if Adam and Steve got legally married.

And by denying "the legal incidents thereof," civil unions are banned and the Constitution is modified to limit civil rights, rather than expand them.

If the concern, as some supporters of the Amendment claim, is that they don't want Judges redefining marraige for them, then here's an alternative constitutional amendment.

Each State shall have the right to define marriage and who may enter into marriage. Legal incidents granted between persons by any State shall be honored by all other States.

This version of the Amendment transfers the power to define marraige from judges to the people, while protecting the rights of couples to establish relationships as they choose (as Vice President Dick Cheney said ought to be allowed). While same-sex couples may not be considered "married" in certain states, their rights & responsibilities with respect to each other would be protected wherever them may travel or choose to live.

On Gay Marrage

2004-12-21T15:36:00.000-08:00

The objections to gay marrage don't make any sense. Most anti-gay marraige arguments warn of terrible consequences for the institution of marraige and the well-being of children.The seem to beleive that if society allowed same-sex couples to marry, then all married people would divorce and re-marry same sex partners, and dump their children in the street. I'm not sure why they think everyone would do this, but if they fear that is what they would do, then they're not that committed to heterosexual marraige in the first place.

Not Moving to Canada

2004-12-20T21:27:00.000-08:00

While other talk about moving to Canada, that's not for me. I'm a patriotic, red-blooded American, even when I vote blue. In fact, in my mind that's WHY I voted blue. If I'm going to have any part in changing America for the better, I not going to do it from north of the border. Canada is a fine place to ski, but it ain't home.

DO they all look the same?

2004-12-16T13:23:00.000-08:00

One of my secret hobbies is to identify people's ethnic backgrounds by how they look, talk, etc.

I don't think most of us are as good at this as we think. There is a young woman who works at a shopping mall in downtown Seattle I was sure was Russian based on her appearance and accent. But when I asked, she was Greek.

Here's an online test to test your ability to identify if an asian person is Chinese, Japanese or Korean. I didn't do well here either.

Alan Alda for President!

2004-12-09T08:03:00.000-08:00

On NBC's The West Wing, it appears that rather cancelling the show after the Bartlett presidency leaves after its second term, the cast will be repaced by a more topical Republican administration lead by Alan Alda as Arnold Vinick.

The Vinick character is being positioned as a moderate Republican from California who seems to offer honesty and integrety despite being a Republican. Josh Lyman seems to be impressed by him, and it looks like he may switch sides and stay in the cast as an aid in the Vinick administration.

Switching The West Wing to a cast of Republican characters led by a moderate and likeable character may make the show more topical to current events, and allow discussion of issues the Republicans debate amonmg themselves. I'm looking forward to shows discussing issues like flag burning (addressed in last night's episode), teaching creationism in public schools, and other goofy positions taken by some Republicans.

Also: Penn & Teller did NOT burn a flag at Zoe's birthday party. We didn't actually see flames rising off the flag, nor did any ashes fall to the floor. Magicians are always inserting objects into other objects which then turn out not to be where you throught they were. This is slight-of-hand and proabably more than 70 percent of professional magicians' tricks are variations of this. You'd think someone who saw the trick would have explained that to the media.

Drugs: Legal, Not legal and ????

2004-12-06T06:22:00.000-08:00

The other story on 60 Minutes was about "Adult ADD." When Pharmicuitical comapies are allowed to promote the chemical solution for such gerneral and vauge problems in life, then why is it so shocking that athletes would want to improve their performance through chemistry. Can you really then argue that it is immoral to use marijauna or anything else they beleive makes their life easier. Is there really a difference between doctors/pharmacists/pharmicuitical companies and street drug dealers other than that the former group is licensed?

60 Minutes: Bush's First New Broken Campaign Promise

2004-12-06T06:16:00.000-08:00

Last night 60 Minutes shows a segment called Old Soldiers Back On Duty. One of Bush's campaign promises was that we would continue to have an "all volunteer Army."

But when service people have have completed their contractual service several years ago are called back and compelled to serve in Iraq, is it really an "all volunteer" military force?

A Common Sense Approach to Election Recounts

2004-12-03T09:23:00.000-08:00

The point of doing a recount should be to get the most accurately count possible. Here's a common-sense approach on how to do it.

Machines are going to count more accurately than people, for the ballots that machines are able to count. The recount for machines readable ballots should be by machine, and any ballots that cannot be counted by machine should be examined by people to determine if the intent of the voter is discernable. The examination should be done by a two person team representing the parties of the two candidates in contention. If the democrat and the republican representative agree that the voter intended to vote for a specific candidate, did not vote on the race in question, or did not mark the ballot in a conclusive manner, then the ballot should be counted that way. There should be no alteration of the ballots except for the initials of the two examiners and how they agreed the ballot should be counted.

Recounts should include all ballots cast in the race, not specific counties or percents, as any geographic selective recounting will favor one candidate or the other and will not create the most accurate possible count. There should not be incremental or country-by-county results announced. All results of the hand count should be secret until the entire process is complete. Having a daily "horse race" of announced results only creates a media circus and increase the likely hood for lawsuits to interfere with the process.

This way, there is only one recount. It will represent the most accurate count possible, so unless a box of uncounted ballots is discovered, there is no reason for further recounts. This is what should have happened in Florida in 2000, and what Washington should have been doing in the past month.

Is Anyone Out There?

2004-12-01T08:15:00.000-08:00

OK, It's one thing to start a blog, it's another if anyone reads it. With a million blogs out there, is anyone reading this one? Honestly, I don't have all day to sit around and read blogs, and the majority of them aren't that interesting anyway. So is anyone reading this one? Is this even worth it when there's no audience?

If you're out there reading this, please either post a comment or send me an email to let me know you're out there.

The Fur Flies Again

2004-11-30T08:32:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again when the animal rights people are out protesting department stores for selling fur coats while at the same time wearing leather shoes or even jackets.

Will someome please explain how fur is different from leather? Is it more immoral to wear the skins of cute furry animals than the skins of ugly dumb cows?

Another Bumper Sticker

2004-11-25T21:50:00.000-08:00

Here's my bumper sticker:

Bush/Cheney 2004
Fooling Enough of the People
Enough of the Time

Bumper Sticker

2004-11-24T15:32:00.000-08:00

Seen last week in Bend, Oregon:

10 of 10 Terrorists Agree:
Anybody But...
BUSH/CHENEY 04

So, when was this poll of terrisists and their presidential preferences?

E-mail to talk show host Dennis Prager

2004-11-23T08:00:00.000-08:00

Here's an email I sent to conservative talk show host Dennis Prager shortly after the election. No response yet...

Dennis:

I am a Kerry voter who listened to a few hours of your show this week on the recommendation of a Republican friend of mine. I hope you will find this message to be intelligent rather than an irrational rant.

First, answers to some of the questions you've asked some Kerry-supporting callers: I consider myself a political independent. I vote according to the merits of each separate person and issue, not according to which party sponsors them. I did vote for two Republicans this week running for offices in Washington State because I thought they were better qualified than their opponents. I may have voted for George HW Bush in 1988, although I may have voted for the Libertarian. I know I did not vote for Dukakis.

This week I am finding it fascinating that different groups of people can view the same situations 180 degrees opposite. I found that I agreed with much of what you said, but the names of the candidates were reversed. As I see it, this DOES represent the triumph or lies & irrationality over reason. But you seem to be logical in your thought processes, so I will address you in the same manner.

By the emotions I heard in your voice November 3rd, one might think it was the Nazi party that was narrowly defeated rather than the Democrats. I am completely baffled about how Bush can be seen as the candidate of moral reason, and that Kerry was the opposite. My biggest objection to the Bush record is the deception surrounding the Iraq war. I feel that Bush violated the trust of the nation and the world by painting a fictional picture of a threatening Iraq by overstating weak, exaggerated and false information.

I just read your response to "Things you have to believe to vote Republican" and I have never been comfortable with the accusation that Bush lied about Iraq. That would mean that Bush new the statements about Iraqi WMD were false when he said them, and I cannot be certain that he did not believe them to be true. However by prefacing these statements with "We are certain that..." or "We know for a fact that.." he was at best, deceptively overstating his confidence in this information.

As an intelligent person such as yourself knows, the data intelligence people work with is often not clear. Some is inconclusive, such as satellite images of manufacturing plants that don't real what is being manufactured. Some can be interpreted a number of ways. Some information is just false, fed to intelligence organizations in an attempt to influence the policy of the nation that makes decisions with it.

All of the specific claims about Iraqi WMD proved to be in the categories described above. The stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons didn't exist. The unmanned planes capable of spreading these agents over the US didn't exist. The mobile WMD weapons labs didn't exist. The attempt to buy uranium from Niger never happen.

Of course, if Bush believed these to be true when he said them, that's not technically lying. But he prefaced these claims with "We are certain that/We know for a fact that." If I tell you, as I sit here in Seattle, that I believe it is now raining in Denver based on weather forecast I saw yesterday, that is no lie. But if I say that "I know for a fact that it is now raining in Denver" when my only information is yesterday's weather forecast, that would not be ethical, even if it is in fact raining in Denver. I don't consider it ethical to ask people to make a decision potentially affecting thousands of lives based on rumor, conjecture and speculation described as confirmed facts. I don't understand why Bush supporters consider this deceptive behavior to be moral.

Once the UN weapons inspectors re-entered Iraq the opportunity existed to settle the WMD question without putting the lives of American servicemen and women at risk. But tragically, this opportunity was cut short when Bush decided to invade before the inspections could be completed. I don't understand why Bush supporters consider this to be moral.

Further, although Bush and his senior officials never explicitly said that Saddam was partially responsible for the 9/11 attacks, the implication was repeatedly made. I know this point is debatable, but by constantly talking about 9/11 and Iraq in the same breath, many people who do not listen too closely connect the two in their minds. I see the Administration's talk about the War on Terror, Iraqi WMD and 9/11 as being remarkably similar to Michael Moore's speculations about Halliburton, Carlson and the Saudis.

Also, Bush in fact DID lie following the first debate with Kerry when he described Kerry's concept of the "global test." Bush has no excuse for describing Kerry's words as the exact opposite of what he really said. How can anyone who listened to the debate view this as anything other than a lie?

Regarding Kerry's use of the F-word in Rolling Stone. Is using that term in the sense of "bungle" or "mismanage" worse than Cheney's use of the same word in the context of verbal abuse aimed at a member of Congress?

During the next four years I will judge Bush on an action-by-action basis. I expect he will do some things I agree with as he did in the first four years. But if should propose a new military operation based on intelligence, I don't know how I could trust him.