Over thirty dead at Virginia Tech. The gunman was a VT student.

And the predictable firestorm over guns erupts amid all the grief around the country. I can’t imagine how the parents of those killed and wounded feel this morning. It’s one thing to have a son in the Army and know that he is in danger every day. How often do you worry about your son or daughter not coming home from a day of classes?

I am going to observe my own moment of silence here, as a tribute. No one will see, no one will care…. It’s just something that I am going to do.

..

..


I am unequivocally pro-gun control. I just do not understand this national love affair that we have with guns. I don’t know if it is the wild, wild west machismo at work, or something else. Sure, there are hunters (which I also don’t understand, shooting small animals and birds for “sport”) who have legitimate uses for the guns they own, and they are law abiding people. But there are many, many people in this country who have guns, both legally and illegally, who absolutely should not have them. And we don’t seem to want to even have a discussion about this, and I can’t figure out why.

Guns are manufactured for one purpose only, to shoot to kill or injure another living being. Not always humans, yes, but they are a killing instrument, however you slice it. Yes, cars can kill, sometimes on purpose. Knifes can be used to kill. So can a piano dropped from a balcony, if your timing is very good and the victim has no peripheral vision. But all of these items have other, primary uses. Guns are the only commercially available product whose primary purpose is to kill or injure something.

My own perception on this is colored, to say the least. Although I feel I would have been pro-gun control anyway, I experienced an event which I will not easily forget back when I was younger. One night I came across my drunk, red-neck angry step father, who felt a burning need to take out his anger on his family, in the kitchen holding a loaded pistol on my younger brother. I was immediately sucked into this drama, as this is not something that you just casually turn your back on. He was raging about how he got no respect, and that he wanted us to “love him”. Yes, threatening to shoot someone is certainly a good way to engender love and respect. Wonderful idea. We both just talked him down, all the while he continued to waved the gun around, sometimes pointing it as us and sometimes not, and continually checking to see that it was indeed loaded, until he finally just passed out on the floor. We then took the gun and hid it. I don’t even remember what we did with it.

So, yes, I am predispositioned to a certain “viewpoint” in this discussion. I admit that. But, for the life of me, I cannot understand the part of this nation that freaks out when anyone even mentions tougher gun control laws. Some gun advocacy group, don’t know which one, put out a statement yesterday even before the dead were officially counted, saying that the problem was not lack of gun control, but too much gun control. I take it their position is if everyone walked around armed all the time, then this would never happen.

Somehow, I doubt that. What I think would happen is that people out drinking in a dive on Saturday night, instead of getting in fistfights, would instead get into shooting matches. Road rage would become target practice on moving targets. Guns seem to give the owner a sense of power, of entitlement, and there are many that would not hesitate to use that power and entitlement. Given how fast we, as a society, take umbrage at the slightest provocation, even unintentional, I would certainly not want to roam the streets while everyone nursing a grudge (and possibly a bottle) is now ready to shoot someone. And that is what it would be, there is no doubt in my mind. The lawlessness of Arizona and Kansas in the 1800’s would not hold a candle to the carnage that would ensue if these people got there way.

If you have any doubts about this, go monitor some of the comments at a right wing or prop-gun blog. You see all sorts of comments from those folks about how the Constitution guarantees their right to own a gun, membership of a militia not withstanding, in addition to the fact that they don’t seem to think too much about the rest of the Constitution, such as freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Many of the comments there are actually rather scary, as it sounds like their position is that their side has the guns, so in a “battle”, they would certainly win. Many comments seem to indicate that they would have no problems shooting the pro-gun control people. Seems to me that they just proved my argument. THAT is why I think many people should not be allowed to own guns. From what I have read, many police apparently think that this is not such a hot idea, either.

I got into a very quick discussion (three comments exchanged, and I didn’t check back for a possible reply) with Taylor Marsh at her web site yesterday. (See the link over at the right.) She’s a pretty liberal blogger and radio personality, very anti-war and pro-Hillary Clinton. I was surprised to see her post on the subject yesterday, that had a statement that went something like “well, once we get over the predictable call for gun control, then maybe someone will do something about this.” How weary, how callous, someone wanting to discussion gun control. I called her on that, saying I didn’t understand why we, as a nation, can’t seem to even have a discussion about the subject. Her position seems to be that criminals will always get guns, if they have a mind to it, so any discussion of gun control is nonsense. My response was “hey, if you can say that, they I can say, with equal validity, that we shouldn’t try to do any emergency planning or protection schemes, because a criminal with a gun bent on doing violence to others will be able to get around those schemes.” She didn’t respond to that, and all I got was a restatement that criminals will always get guns.

For the most part, I don’t disagree with that assertion. Yes, guns are here to stay, sad to say. I am a pragmatist by nature. It’s not any great shakes as a “life’s philosophy”, but it seems to serve me pretty well. So, I have no doubt that we are not ever going to be able to remove guns from our society. They are here to stay. If someone were to actually try, then we might have a general uprising of the population. No, I don’t think that is something that anyone wants to tackle. However, I just don’t understand why we can’t make it harder for people to get guns. There are all sorts of loopholes and ways around the laws. Anyone who really wants a gun can get one very easily. Why not make it more difficult? Especially handguns. Hey, rifles and shotguns I understand are hunting tools. Handguns, no. Handguns are meant to be concealable and to shoot people. You do not go deer hunting with a pistol. Make it harder to obtain those. What is the problem? Yes, you will not prevent all of these tragedies from occurring. But even if we prevent ONE such occurrence, prevent the next Columbine, prevent the next Virginia Tech, wouldn’t that be worth it? Ask the parents of those murdered yesterday what they think, if they can get past their grief to even comprehend the question.

But yet, people freak when we even mention gun control. The NRA is a powerful lobby, yes, but they are a lobby that represents the gun manufacturers, not most of the public. There is one group, I forgot the name, which started their own pro-gun lobby because they objected to the stance of the NRA on certain things. In my mind, the NRA is out of control. They apparently think, along with everyone else (including Mitt Romney) they are instrumental in electing presidents. Yes, they have a lot of clout. But this is ridiculous. In Seattle a number of years ago, a guy with several guns walked into the Seattle City Courthouse and shot his wife who was trying to get a divorce and her friend. Right there in the courthouse, with hundreds of policemen within 100 yards. The NRA actually came out against installing metal detectors in the courthouse, as a way to discourage coming in with a concealed weapon. How insane is that? They were objecting to metal detectors! In my mind, insane groups of people should not be instrumental in electing our politicians.

However, the NRA is not my biggest concern. No, I don’t get them, not at all. But they are predictable in their right wing tendencies. It is people like Taylor Marsh that I don’t really get. I agree with quite a lot of what she says about every other subject she blogs about. However, her argument about criminals always getting guns makes about as much sense to me as saying that there will always be drunks who climb into a car and drive when they are physically impaired, and innocent people will die as a result. So, given that there isn’t any guaranteed way of stopping every single drunk from ever climbing into an automobile, then we should just stop trying. It’s an impossible task. End of story. That is about as much sense as I can make out of her argument. It isn’t even worth the effort that, perhaps, might save another thirty innocent lives sometime down the road.

Yes, let’s work on being proactive. Watch for signs that someone is thinking about doing something insane. Listen to what a friend, co-worker, or fellow student might be telling others or posting on the web, and TELL SOMEONE if you have any suspicions. Better safe than sorry. But why are we not able to even have a discussion about tightening up easy access to weapons? Otherwise, it is going to be very predictable. Every so often, five to ten years if not a shorter period, someone will go off and kill a lot of very innocent people who were just going about their mundane lives. People will wring their hands over how terrible a tragedy this is, and it will be shoved aside in short order so we can concentrate on the next pressing issue, like Anna Nichol Smith.

I have seen some people say things to the effect of “why is it that people want to bring up politics at a time like this?” It is as if, in their eyes, you have just committed some unpardonable sin by trying to discussion gun control when events have shown that we really need that discussion. My response, which usually goes unnoticed or unremarked, is, why do you consider objecting to 30 plus innocent people being slaughtered in cold blood “politics”? I consider it a moral discussion, not “politics”. That is insulting, to say the least. Politics is what Karl Rove does to try to make this country into a one-party system. That is politics. Objecting to, and wanting someone to address, people being gunned down in cold blood is most certainly not “politics”. I am objecting to, and want someone to address, the issue of over 30,000 people killed and injured in this country every single year by guns. That is NOT POLITICS!

There are many things I detest about this country, and this insane love affair with guns is one of them.

You know, I have wondered about the effects of cell phone radiation.

Our love of technology and “life’s little conveniences” may be striking us again. Not content with melting the polar icecaps and turning vast expanses of our world into a dustbowl, we now seem to be undercutting one of the major legs in food production (that is, bees pollinating our crops) with cell phone towers. Now, I use the words “seem to be” purposely, as the jury is not even in session on this one yet. This is just a preliminary assessment.

From the U.K. Independent, from HuffPost:

It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.



That’s a lot of bees to be going missing. If 60 to 70 percent of anything in a stable ecosystem goes missing, it is bound to cause some major upsets. Once again, though, I don’t see our society giving up a single piece of technology if it is helpful and some very large corporations can make massive amounts of money on it, even though it may turn out to have some very serious, negative consequences. Doing so would mean, once again accepting some unpleasant news about ourselves, which we seem loath to do. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is ever our fault in the eyes of many in this country. And by giving up something we currently have would mean defeat for us. We are never, ever supposed to go backwards. Onward and upward. More and more. Better and better. Easier and easier.

Well, I suppose that if everything hits us all at once, that is better than drawing it all out over a period of hundreds of years. It looks like to me we are going to run out of cheap, plentiful fuel about the same time climate change will make it very difficult to produce enough food and water for the population. The loss of the bee population is just one more link in the chain on which our society exists that is rapidly falling to pieces.

(Painting "The Bees" courtesy of J. Bartley)

Any bets as to when the Bush Administration tries to bring back the Sedition Act?

For those who may need a brush up on a history lesson from the nation’s somewhat sordid past, here is a bit from Wiki on the Sedition Act.

The Sedition Act of 1918 was an amendment to the Espionage Act of 1917 passed at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson, who was concerned any widespread dissent in time of war constituted a real threat to an American victory. This may have been due to "subversive activity" in Russia that resulted in the overthrow of the Russian Czar in 1917, and contributed to the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916. "Subversive activity" in Great Britain was less successful.

The Sedition Act forbade Americans to use "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, flag, or armed forces during war. The act also allowed the Postmaster General to deny mail delivery to dissenters of government policy during wartime.

The Sedition Act was an attempt by the United States government to limit freedom of speech during a time of war. This is in conflict with the US Constitution's First Amendment, which states, in part: "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or the press". Note that there is no "war" exception (or any exceptions whatsoever) to this freedom stated in the text of the amendment. The Espionage Act made it a crime to help wartime enemies of the United States, but the Sedition Act made it a crime to utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the United States' form of government.

Socialist Eugene V. Debs was sentenced to 10 years in prison under this law. U.S. citizens including members of the Industrial Workers of the World union were also imprisoned during World War I for their anti-war dissent under the provisions of the Sedition Act. Anti-war protestors were arrested by the hundreds as speaking out against the draft and the war was illegal under this law.

In his 1941 book Censorship 1917, James Mock noted that most U.S. newspapers "showed no antipathy toward the act" and "far from opposing the measure, the leading papers seemed actually to lead the movement in behalf of its speedy enactment."

The Sedition Act was repealed in 1921. Although the Sedition Act was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Schenck v. United States, most legal experts view the Sedition Act as being antithetical to the letter and spirit of the United States Constitution, specifically the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights.


So, for those of you who still may be under the impression that, even though Bush and his gang of Constitutionally impaired thugs are currently running amok, things can’t get too out of control before they somehow automatically self correct, you may want to consider what happened to this country during the time that the Sedition Act was imposed.

The country had recently been stampeded into a war with Spain, that really benefited no one other the industries dedicated to manufacturing war materials and those who desired to further this country’s colonial ambitions (re., Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico). This was done by constant warmongering by, among others, the part of the press controlled by William Randolph Hearst. An incident that most investigators now believe was purely an accident was used to further inflame the population when the battleship U.S.S. Maine blew up in a Cuban port, which made war with Spain all but inevitable.

World War I came along and, for a time, the United States was able to refrain from being involved in the actual fighting. But, when we did become involved, we went all-out, both in war and with controlling the population of this country. First came the Espionage Act of 1917. That made it illegal for a person to convey information with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the armed forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies. You could get 20 years in jail for that, plus a monetary fine that was in excess of a several hundred thousand dollars in today’s money.

Not being content with that, the Sedition Act was passed the following year. Anyone uttering or printing a word of dissent against the war effort could now be arrested or fined. The Post Office could legally withhold your mail from you. Think on that for a bit. If you uttered anything that could be construed by anyone to be disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the United States' form of government, you were a criminal. It is also noteworthy that this action apparently had almost full support of the newspapers of the day, even though this was in direct conflict with the First Amendment to the Constitution.

This is about as far “out of control” as our democracy can get without becoming something else entirely, although the forced relocation and internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry during WWII is either on the same level or even worse.

Now, go back over these last few paragraphs and compare them to what has transpired over the last six years. If you sort of lump the Spanish-American War and World War I together, this resembles, to an astounding degree, the country as it is today.

Do I have any doubts that the Republicans would like to attempt something like the Sedition Act today? None at all. What would their definitions of “disloyal”, “profane”, “scurrilous” and “abusive” be? No doubt, whatever suited their needs at that particular moment. Would the news media and a large percentage of the population support these measures? If you were to ask these questions about four years ago, I would say, without a doubt in my mind, yes.

Although I am a bit amazed to find myself actually writing this down, we all may have been handed a lucky break that the Bushies have turned out to be so absolutely incompetent at pretty much everything they attempt. These people probably have trouble installing a new roll of toilet paper in their bathroom dispenser. Just imagine how MUCH more damage these people could have done to this country if they had gone about their plans for the entire makeover over the government of this country with any sort of competence and planning. I keep imagining a government like that of England in the future in the movie “V for Vendetta” (which is truly an astounding, thought provoking and thoroughly creepy film, if you haven’t seen it), where you had intelligent thugs that KNEW they are thugs and would do anything they can (including the murder of thousands of fellow countrymen) to get what they wanted. As much distain as I have for Bush and his cronies, I do not believe they have reached that level of malevolence and evil. These clowns are just that, clowns. Not that their intentions haven’t been despicable, they have. It’s just very fortunate for us, clowns usually aren’t the most capable of folk.

The wit and wisdom of Mystery Science Theater 3000, as it applies to the administration of George W. Bush

With thanks to the Internet Movie Database.

Mike Nelson: I'm sorry, clearly you're not a psychopath.
Tom Servo: That's right! Now get out before my dog orders me to shoot the president!

Dr. Forrester: Oh, hello boobie. Say, do you want to make people's heads explode? Sure, we all do.

Crow: Clowns. Terrifying in any country.

Crow T. Robot: She doesn't have a brain... she'd make a good news anchor.

Crow T. Robot: Oh, stop pretending there's a plot. Don't cheapen yourself further.

Crow T. Robot: Mother Theresa called... She hates you.

Joel: Ambiguity is scary.

Joel: You sound like a manure salesman with a mouthful of samples.

Tom Servo: You have my word of honor that the story I have been telling is the truth... Okay, mixed with a little fiction... Alright, I'm lying my butt off...

Dr. Forrester: I'm the god, I'M THE GOD!


Joel: You know, this has all the continuity of a fever dream.

Tom Servo: Geeze, I hope this works or little Billy will be lunch meat.

Joel: It's a pity we can't kill you and get away with it.

General: Open Fire.
Crow: Kill indiscriminately.

Little Boy: What now?
Tom Servo: Scream, die maybe.

Joel: Action sequences filmed in "Confus-o-vision"

Tom Servo: It's just a simple matter of "What the hell is going on?"
Mike Nelson: Ah. You clever bastard, so the editor is working with you.

Mike Nelson: You know, I'm a little vague on what you are talking about.

Mike Blackwood: There's no reason to fear the worst. All we know is that the plane caught fire and we lost radio contact.
Mike Nelson: But there's absolutely nothing to be worried about.

Tom Servo: I can't believe people call me a psycho, I'm gonna take those people's heads and carve em' into ashtrays.

Joel: Eleanor Roosevelt's PISSED!

Mike Nelson: Apparently the story is none of our business.

[dozens of peasants are fighting to aid Deathstalker]
Crow: We are still fighting bravely for our vague goal.

Crow: I toast your sleaziness.

[singing]
Tom Servo: It's the devil's theme, his stupid little song, even though he's the embodiment of evil he's still got a goofy song, in his tights he brings death, despair, destruction and disease, now let's all join him. Devil.

Crow: Come on Metamucil. Work your magic.

[Starts snowing in movie]
Mike Nelson: This is how much pure cocaine you'd need to enjoy this movie.

Reverend: George wanted to go to the funeral...
Crow: But Baywatch was on.

Crow: Tolkien couldn't follow this plot.

Lisa: It looks like there was a war.
Tom Servo: You'll have to take my word for it, we can't afford to show it.


Tom Servo: The sad thing is, they're trying to tap dance. Hahahaha. Kill me.

Crow: That was an official thing I just did.

Tom Servo: Believe in magic, or I'll kill you.

Teenage boy: Mr. Miller, is something wrong?
Crow: Sit down, pie-face. It's a long list.

Reality really is a bitch sometimes, isn’t it?

"I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." --Vice President Dick Cheney, on the Iraq insurgency, June 20, 2005

"Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries." –Secretary of State Colin Powell, testifying about Iraq's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons capabilities before the United Nations Security Council, Feb. 5, 2003

"British intelligence has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." –President Bush, 2003 State of the Union Address

King Arthur: [after Arthur's cut off both of the Black Knight's arms] Look, you stupid Bastard. You've got no arms left.
Black Knight: Yes I have.
King Arthur: *Look*!
Black Knight: It's just a flesh wound. - King Arthur to Black Knight, 360 A.D.

What are the first steps on the way to becoming a police state?

Control the population. First, controls its communications, control movement of its people. When these have been fairly well established, then you can really start up the next phase, which is Orwell’s “thought control.” Control what people are allowed to say, what they are allowed to read, what they are even allowed to think. We have seen how the Bush administration has been trying its hand out on the first item. Here’s something about how to control movement.

This from Andrew Sullivan, with a clickthrough to a blogger name of Balkin.

For those who do not know, Professor Murphy is easily the most distinguished scholar of public law in political science. His works on both constitutional theory and judicial behavior are classics in the field. Bluntly, legal scholarship that does not engage many themes in his book, briefly noted below, Constitutional Democracy, may be legal, but cannot be said to be scholarship. As interesting, for present purposes, readers of the book will discover that Murphy is hardly a conventional political or legal liberal. While he holds some opinions, most notably on welfare, similar to opinions held on the political left, he is a sharp critic of ROE V. WADE, and supported the Alito nomination. Apparently these credentials and others noted below are no longer sufficient to prevent one from becoming an enemy of the people.

"On 1 March 07, I was scheduled to fly on American Airlines to Newark, NJ, to attend an academic conference at Princeton University, designed to focus on my latest scholarly book, Constitutional Democracy, published by Johns Hopkins University Press this past Thanksgiving."

"When I tried to use the curb-side check in at the Sunport, I was denied a boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list. I was instructed to go inside and talk to a clerk. At this point, I should note that I am not only the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence (emeritus) but also a retired Marine colonel. I fought in the Korean War as a young lieutenant, was wounded, and decorated for heroism. I remained a professional soldier for more than five years and then accepted a commission as a reserve office, serving for an additional 19 years."

"I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. "That'll do it," the man said. "

"After carefully examining my credentials, the clerk asked if he could take them to TSA officials. I agreed. He returned about ten minutes later and said I could have a boarding pass, but added: "I must warn you, they’re going to ransack your luggage." On my return flight, I had no problem with obtaining a boarding pass, but my luggage was "lost." Airlines do lose a lot of luggage and this "loss" could have been a mere coincidence. In light of previous events, however, I'm a tad skeptical."

"I confess to having been furious that any American citizen would be singled out for governmental harassment because he or she criticized any elected official, Democrat or Republican. That harassment is, in and of itself, a flagrant violation not only of the First Amendment but also of our entire scheme of constitutional government. This effort to punish a critic states my lecture's argument far more eloquently and forcefully than I ever could. Further, that an administration headed by two men who had "had other priorities" than to risk their own lives when their turn to fight for their country came up, should brand as a threat to the United States a person who did not run away but stood up and fought for his country and was wounded in battle, goes beyond the outrageous. Although less lethal, it is of the same evil ilk as punishing Ambassador Joseph Wilson for criticizing Bush's false claims by "outing" his wife, Valerie Plaime, thereby putting at risk her life as well as the lives of many people with whom she had had contact as an agent of the CIA. ..."

I don’t know what I find more outrageous; the fact that this event (and others much like it that I have read about) even occurred, or the fact that this will get exactly zero exposure from our traditional media outlets. How in the name of all that is Holy can you ban people, in a supposedly free and democratic country, from getting on a commercial flight because they have attended a “peace march”? Isn’t this the kind of behavior we came to expect from places like Communist China or the Soviet Union? How does the FBI (which I am assuming is the government agency charged with collecting such information about individuals) even come up with a list of people “who have been at any peach marches”? Maybe a person was there with a friend, or was just curious.

(As an aside, my older brother, back in the radical 1960’s, once ended up in a picture on the front page of the local newspaper as being part of the leadership of the radical SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), when in actuality, he was just there because some friend invited him to the meeting and he had no idea what it was really about. He was never part of the movement. If that had happened in the United States of 2007, that may have been more than enough to get him on several lists that the government apparently maintains.)

And, for those of you who may harbor any delusions about whether or not these kinds of “enemies lists” are an incredibly bad idea that might get used in a very wrong manner, consider this. Once your name is on this “no fly” list, your name will pop out every single time you try to board a commercial flight. You will always be “requested” to speak to a gate agent before you are allowed to fly. Your luggage will always be searched. You have no rights in finding out how your name was placed on this list. You have no appeal rights. You have no way of removing your name from said list (unless, no doubt, you have some very heavy political connections with the right sort of friends). You are permanently considered to be a person who deserves to be scrutinized at every turn. If you aren’t an all-out Enemy of the State yet, it is only because you haven’t been trying hard enough.

Something like this MIGHT just be understandable, if it were to be used to keep suspected terrorists from boarding a commercial flight. However, at what point did someone decide that attending a “peace march” was so insidious, so perfidious, that this person should not be allowed on a flight for fear of endangering the public? If anything, I would have thought that someone interested in peace (that is, not being at war) would ALSO be interested in blowing up a jet airliner. As you see, it takes no time at all to undercut the argument that this list is being used to protect the flying public. It is a iron-fisted approach to punishing the Bush administration’s political enemies. There is nothing, at all, in there about protecting the public.

This represents just one of the many heavy-handed, overbearing and totally malicious ways that George Bush and Karl Rove have transformed our government, which is supposed to be “by the people and for the people” into something that is used to punish “enemies” and instill fear into the population of our own country.

Anyone who is not fearful of what this country could become in the very near future is probably part of the group that wants to change it, or else suffers from a congenital lack of imagination.

The Republican Party is melting down in front of our eyes.

Just in the last week or two, we have had:

- In order to pander to potential voters, John McCain declare Baghdad to be safe, and to prove it, he went out shopping. Three blocks from the Green Zone, in personal body armor, with an escort of 100 soldiers and five helicopter gunships. When the media jumped all over this, he said he regretted his remarks, but “that’s life”.
- In order to pander to the NRA, Mitt Romney declaring that he has been a lifelong hunter. Only, it turns out, he was hunting all of twice, once in his teens and once at a shooting range where they raise pheasants and other birds just for the purpose of being released into the waiting gunfights of “big time hunters” like Romney. I suppose this qualifies as "all his life", but I don't think that is exactly what the pro-gun good ol' boys are looking for in a candidate.
- In order to pander to his ever shrinking pro-war, anti-everything-liberal base, Dick Cheney declares that there was a substantial relationship between Al Queda and Saddam Hussein in Iraq before we invaded. The only problem is that the administration’s own CIA agency came out on the same day and said, unequivocally, that there was not any such thing.
- In order to pander to the ever shrinking Republican base, George Bush goes out and savages Nancy Pelosi for journeying to Syria and engaging in dialog. It doesn’t matter that four Republican congressmen were with her, who said that Ms. Pelosi stuck to the administration’s line and who were ever critical of how Bush has been playing this. She also played messenger between Syria and Israel, injected some much needed contact between those two arch enemies.
- Bill O’Reilly goes nutso on his own show when Geraldo Rivera challenges him and doesn’t back down on how Bill views the immigration debate in this country.

What is even stranger is that they don’t even seem to be aware of how complete this meltdown is becoming. “All is well!” It’s getting rather pathetic, actually.

John Cleese's Letter to America

Via tbogg:

John Cleese Letter to America
(Notice of Revocation of Independence)

Variant of 'Notice of Revocation of Independence' purportedly authored by John Cleese (Dec. 2004)

To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up revocation in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up aluminium. Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour', skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix ize will be replaced by the suffix ise. You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up vocabulary. Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up interspersed. There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney,upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as Taggart will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is Devon. If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become shires e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as Men Behaving Badly or Red Dwarf will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American football. There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American football is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays American football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2005. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders,your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called rounders, which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called Indecisive Day.

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time,you will go metric with immediate effect and conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer,and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. The substances formerly known as American Beer will henceforth be referred to as Near-Frozen Knat's Urine,with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as Weak Near-Frozen Knat's Urine. This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen,Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or Gasoline, as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon- get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation and have a great day.

John Cleese

I truly don’t understand the current conservative mindset that lying is now an acceptable approach to politics.

I don’t get the conservative particular brand of politics, which seems to be “every man for himself, as long as I am taken care of and get everything I have ever wanted.” But that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about this infuriating characteristic (it’s no longer just a “trend”, it is now a full blown epidemic) of conservatives, when arguing whatever it is they are trying to promote or tear down, just make shit up. They feel they don’t need any factual backups or documentation. They just flat make it up, and they expect everyone else to just accept their assertions without question. When they do get questioned, which didn’t happen much in the last six years but is now starting to happen with increasing frequency, they either get very blustery and self-righteous or else pretend you never said anything.

Here are some very recent examples.

Last month, some organization calling itself “A Gathering of Eagles” formulated a plan to protect the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C. for what they termed as some sort of immediate threat of being defaced by anti-war activists. They drummed up some non-existent threat to the memorial, which no current rational anti-Iraq war protestor would ever think of even touching much less defacing, and then declared victory when they declared that over 30,000 had shown up at their march and saved the day. They are in the process of “taking back the country”. What an overwhelming defeat for all scum-sucking, terrorist loving liberals everywhere!

The problems with the scenario, of course, aren’t too hard to find. I already mentioned that the initial “threat” was drummed up in the first place. No one ever threatened to deface the Vietnam War Memorial. The second is with the “30,000” number that was constantly being trumpeted around to confirm their huge success. To give this number the proper sheen of validity, it was quoted as coming from “the National Park Service”. This flush of victory didn’t have much of a chance to last, however, as the National Parks Service came out and said, without any equivocation, that they do not give out crowd estimates and certainly hadn’t in this case. In addition to the rug of validity being pulled out from under these fine Eagle Gatherers in regard to their quoted number, no one could produce any photos of this event that showed any more than several hundred people. To repeat, there is absolutely no evidence that there was anywhere near the 30,000 that they were trumpeting.

They make shit up, and expect everyone to buy it.

Another recent example; a report from Matt Drudge (conservative hack extraordinaire) claimed (via an “anonymous source” that CNN reporter Michael Ware openly mocked and laughed at John McCain at a recent press conference, and then insinuated Ware had some sort of drinking problem. Drudge went on to inflate his moral indignation, where he called the entire episode one of the most unprofessional spectacles he had ever seen, and I believe called on Ware to be fired. (I can’t find the exact words Drudge used, as this whole story has been scrubbed from his web site.)

The problem, as you may have guess, is that this never happened. Ware vehemently denies it happened. Then video from the press conference surfaced, which showed that, not only did Ware not heckle McCain, he never even asked a question. This entire episode was fabricated. I don’t know if Drudge had a hand in the fabrication or not. At the very least, he took an unsubstantiated story from some source and just ran with it because he could use it to bash the “liberal press” over the head. And then, when the video showed, without a doubt, this event did not happen, Drudge just removes the report from his web site, and pretended it never happened. No apology, no explanation, nothing.

They make shit up, and expect everyone to buy it.

Another fine recent example is the “shopping trip” that John McCain and Lindsey Graham made in Baghdad, in an effort to show how “safe” the city is and how the press is not showing “the real story”. Yes, it is true that those two actually did go shopping. (Graham later bragged that he got five rugs for five bucks.) What ol’ “Straight Talk Express” McCain didn’t explain that he went shopping three blocks from the heavily fortified Green Zone, he was wearing body armor, was accompanied by over 100 troops and several helicopter gunships and the next day, the very market he was shopping in was struck by bombs. Yet, this little jaunt out into downtown Baghdad was supposed to prove how wrong the “liberal press” is about how dangerous Iraq is.

This story was immediately debunked by some major television news outlets, which is refreshing.

They make shit up, and expect everyone to buy it.

There are many more examples that appear every week. Just recently, Michelle Malkin charged that the UPI news organization is feeding us false information based on her unsupported/insane theory that a person quoted in a story that talked about some Sunnis being burned alive did not exist. Once this story proved to be false, that the person is question actually did exist, she just shut up and pretended the entire thing never happened. Over and over, this happens. Scooter Libby lies in front of a Grand Jury about his role in outing an undercover CIA agent. Bush lies when he said, right before the 2006 election, that Donald Rumsfeld’s job was safe and then, right after the election, Rumsfeld was gone. Bush knew he wasn’t telling the truth, and later admitted it without any shame whatsoever. There appears to be no end to the lies being generated in the current scandals regarding the firing of the U.S. Attorneys, the deplorable conditions at Walter Reed hospital and the death by fratricide of Pat Tillman.

I just do not understand this madness. I can understand people not seeing the world in the same way. I can understand different points of view. I can understand not getting along. However, how did this new approach come about that apparently says that you can make shit up and use it against your “enemies”, and then ignore the entire controversy when your lies blow up in your face? Do these people not have any honor or self-respect? How can they live with themselves? This is, according to them, the party of “family value”, of “patriotism”, of “the Christian religion”.

How can they live with themselves?



UPDATE (before it was even posted): Ah, Bush just lied again in public. He said that his military commanders came up with the idea of “the surge”, and he was just following their recommendations. In fact, it is very easy to see, if you have any computer skills at all (e.g., “the Google”), most of his military commanders were dead set against the idea. Bush fired some, and put people in place who would follow his every order. And yet, here he comes out and says this crap. Liar.

George Bush’s America.

I have reached the following conclusions about Bush and his followers. “Democracy” is only a word that means there are elections held every so often. How one goes about winning them, and keeping in power once one wins them, is not the prevue of a democracy. The rule of thumb seems to be “anything goes, just don’t get caught doing it”. And when someone does get caught, the order of the day is Attack, Attack, Attack! Never admit wrongdoing, always find someone else to blame. Democrats and liberals are the best targets, but if that doesn’t work, find anyone you can to throw under the bus, even if it happens to be someone that has been “the loyal party member” for as long as anyone can remember.

I am not the only one that has been thinking along these lines this past week. Here is just a sampling of some other posts that go into this subject at a greater depth than I am able.

From Glenn Greenwald in Salon.com (Free site, although you have to watch a commercial to get a free day pass.)

THURSDAY MARCH 29, 2007 08:59 EST

Neoconservative radicalism has reshaped our political spectrum
David Brooks' column in The New York Times this morning contains several important observations. It would maximize clarity in our political discussions if journalists could just ingest Brooks' central point: the dominant right-wing political movement in this country that has spawned and driven the Bush presidency has nothing to do with -- it is in fact overtly hostile to -- the ostensible principles of Goldwater/Reagan small-government conservatism. Though today's so-called "conservatives" exploit the Goldwater/Reagan mythology as a political prop, they don't believe in those principles in any way. That movement is the very antithesis of those principles.

Brooks comes out and explicitly declares the twin icons of "conservatism" to be every bit as quaint and obsolete as the Geneva Conventions: "Goldwater and Reagan were important leaders, but they're not models for the future."

Brooks admits what has been crystal clear for some time -- namely, that so-called "conservatives" (meaning the contemporary political "Right") no longer believe (if they ever did) that government power should be restrained in order to maximize freedom. That belief system, says Brooks, is an obsolete relic which arose out of the the 1970s, and has been replaced by the opposite desire -- for expanded government power on every front.

Deceitfully purporting to speak on behalf of what he calls "normal, nonideological people" (the dishonest tactic he constantly uses), Brooks says:
In short, in the 1970s, normal, nonideological people were right to think that their future prospects might be dimmed by a stultifying state. People were right to believe that government was undermining personal responsibility. People were right to have what Tyler Cowen, in a brilliant essay in Cato Unbound, calls the "liberty vs. power" paradigm burned into their minds — the idea that big government means less personal liberty.

But today, many of those old problems have receded or been addressed. Today the big threats to people’s future prospects come from complex, decentralized phenomena: Islamic extremism, failed states, global competition, global warming, nuclear proliferation, a skills-based economy, economic and social segmentation. . . .
Normal, nonideological people are less concerned about the threat to their freedom from an overweening state than from the threats posed by these amorphous yet pervasive phenomena. The "liberty vs. power" paradigm is less germane. It's been replaced in the public consciousness with a "security leads to freedom" paradigm. . .

The "security leads to freedom" paradigm doesn't end debate between left and right, it just engages on different ground. It is oriented less toward negative liberty (How can I get the government off my back?) and more toward positive liberty (Can I choose how to lead my life?).

That is exactly what the right-wing movement in this country is now -- an authoritarian movement animated by the Orwellian slogan that "security leads to freedom" which embraces and seeks ever-expanding government power based on the claimed need to protect people from all the scary, lurking dangers in the world -- dangers which are constantly stoked and inflammed in order to maximize the craving for "security," derived by vesting more and more power in the hands of our strong, protective Leaders.

And it's notable that Brooks specifically cites the limited-government views of Cato to disparage, since Cato itself has amply documented that there are few, if any, factions more hostile to limited government principles than the Bush-supporting right-wing movement that has dominated our country. As Cato's comprehensive report concluded:

Unfortunately, far from defending the Constitution, President Bush has repeatedly sought to strip out the limits the document places on federal power. . . . President Bush's constitutional vision is, in short, sharply at odds with the text, history, and structure of our Constitution, which authorizes a government of limited powers.

But neoconservatism -- which is really what the right-wing pro-Bush movement has become -- doesn't believe in any of that, and Brooks' column demonstrates that they are admitting that more and more explicitly. Instead, it touts a radical and authoritarian nanny-statism that seeks, at its core, to provide feelings of protection, safety, and moralistic clarity -- "security leads to freedom" -- all delivered by political leaders using ever-increasing federal government power and limitless militarism. Whether one believes in that radical and warped vision of the American federal government is, more than any other factor, what now determines one's political orientation.

I have argued several times before that the radicalism of the Bush presidency and the neoconservatism on which it is based has resulted in a fundamental political re-alignment. As Brooks points out, the issues that shape our political spectrum and determine one's political orientation have changed fundamentally -- Brooks contrasts today's predominant issues with those of the 1970s in order to demonstrate this shift, but the shift is just as drastic even when one compares today's predominant political issues to those that drove the key political dispustes as recently as the 1990s.

There is one principal reason for this shift -- the Bush presidency and the political movement that supports it is not driven by any of the abstract political principles traditionally associated with "liberalism" or "conservatism." Whatever else one wants to say about the Bush presidency, it has nothing to do with limiting the size, scope and reach of the federal government. The exact opposite is true.
On every front, the Bush administration has ushered in vast expansions of federal power -- often in the form of radical and new executive powers, unprecedented surveillance of American citizens, and increased intervention in every aspect of Americans' private lives. To say that the Bush movement is hostile to the limited-government ends traditionally associated (accurately or not) with the storied Goldwater/Reagan ideology is a gross understatement.

But none of this expansion of government power has been undertaken in order to promote ends traditionally associated with liberalism either -- none of it is about creating social safety nets or addressing growing wealth disparities or regulating business. Instead, federal power is enlisted, and endlessly expanded, in service of an agenda of aggressive militarism abroad, liberty-infringement domestically, and an overarching sense of moralistic certitude and exceptionalism. This movement is neither "liberal" nor "conservative" as those terms are understood in their abstract form, but instead, is radical in its attempt to fundamentally re-define the American government and the functions it serves.

That is the central point of our current political predicament: the Bush presidency, and more importantly the right-wing movement which created and sustained it (and which will survive Bush's departure), are not adherents to any mainstream American political ideology. And many people, including neoconservatives themselves, have acknowledged this, and that is also the critical insight of Brooks' column today.

George Will previously called the "neoconservatism" which drives the right-wing movement in this country "a spectacularly misnamed radicalism." One of America's most influential neoconservatives, Robert Kagan, previously admitted -- just like Brooks -- that the current right-wing ideology has nothing to do with the Goldwater/Reagan limited government mythology; in fact, it is overtly hostile to it:

This is where Bush may lose the support of most old-fashioned conservatives. His goals are now the antithesis of conservatism. They are revolutionary.
That is the whole point of Andrew Sullivan's book, and Pat Buchanan founded The American Conservative based principally on the same observation: namely, that the right-wing, Bush-supporting movement has nothing to do with the political principles they manipulatively tout (of course, the federal-government-expanding, rule-of-law-ignoring Reagan presidency itself frequently deviated from these lofty, abstract "Goldwater/Reagan" conservative principles, but those deviations, for the Bush-led right-wing, have become the animating principles themselves).

And now here is Brooks, very explicitly repudiating the Goldwater/Reagan template and admitting that this movement is devoted to large expansions of federal power -- justified in the name of "protecting" Americans -- all devoted to what that movement claims is promotion of some objective Good. The central tenets of the right wing movement in this country -- which has seized and now defines the term "conservative" -- are easy to see. They're right there in plain sight -- they want to expand government power in pursuit of mindless, bloodthirsty warmongering and empire-building abroad, and the accompanying liberty-infringement at home.

As a result, to be considered "liberal" or "leftist" now means, more than anything else, to oppose that agenda. All of the people now deemed to be on the "left" -- including many who have quite disparate views about the defining political disputes of the 1990s -- have been able to work together with great unity because all energies of those "on the left" have been devoted not to any affirmative policy-making (because they have had, and still have, no power to do that), but merely towards the goal of exposing the corruption and radicalism at the heart of this extremist right-wing movement and to push back -- impose some modest limits -- on what has been this radical movement's virtually unlimited ability to install a political framework that one does not even recognize as "American."

Regardless of what other beliefs one might have, opposition to endless warmongering in the Middle East (and the wonderful tools used to promote it, such as rendition, torture and indefinite detentions) -- combined with a belief in the rule of law, along with basic checks and balances, as a means of modestly limiting the power of the federal government over American citizens -- is now sufficient to render one a "liberal" or "leftist." That's because the political movement that dominates our country is radical and authoritarian -- "security leads to freedom." Our political spectrum is now binary: one is either a loyal follower of that movement or one is opposed to it.

That is the re-alignment of our political landscape brought about by the extremism of the right-wing political movement in our country. Brooks' column (like those of Will and Kagan before it) makes clear just how radical it is, how unmoored it is to any principles which previously defined the political mainstream. The terms "left" and "right" do not mean what they meant even ten years ago, though they still have meaning. At least for now, until this movement is banished to the dustbin, those terms have come to designate whether one is loyal to, or whether one opposes, this government-power-worshipping, profoundly un-American right-wing cultism that has been the dominant political faction in America for many years.

-- Glenn Greenwald

From the Los Angeles Times:


Bush's long history of tilting Justice

The administration began skewing federal law enforcement before the current U.S. attorney scandal, says a former Department of Justice lawyer.

By Joseph D. Rich, JOSEPH D. RICH was chief of the voting section in the Justice Department's civil right division from 1999 to 2005. He now works for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

March 29, 2007

THE SCANDAL unfolding around the firing of eight U.S. attorneys compels the conclusion that the Bush administration has rewarded loyalty over all else. A destructive pattern of partisan political actions at the Justice Department started long before this incident, however, as those of us who worked in its civil rights division can attest.

I spent more than 35 years in the department enforcing federal civil rights laws — particularly voting rights. Before leaving in 2005, I worked for attorneys general with dramatically different political philosophies — from John Mitchell to Ed Meese to Janet Reno. Regardless of the administration, the political appointees had respect for the experience and judgment of longtime civil servants.

Under the Bush administration, however, all that changed. Over the last six years, this Justice Department has ignored the advice of its staff and skewed aspects of law enforcement in ways that clearly were intended to influence the outcome of elections.

It has notably shirked its legal responsibility to protect voting rights. From 2001 to 2006, no voting discrimination cases were brought on behalf of African American or Native American voters. U.S. attorneys were told instead to give priority to voter fraud cases, which, when coupled with the strong support for voter ID laws, indicated an intent to depress voter turnout in minority and poor communities.

At least two of the recently fired U.S. attorneys, John McKay in Seattle and David C. Iglesias in New Mexico, were targeted largely because they refused to prosecute voting fraud cases that implicated Democrats or voters likely to vote for Democrats.

This pattern also extended to hiring. In March 2006, Bradley Schlozman was appointed interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Mo. Two weeks earlier, the administration was granted the authority to make such indefinite appointments without Senate confirmation. That was too bad: A Senate hearing might have uncovered Schlozman's central role in politicizing the civil rights division during his three-year tenure.

Schlozman, for instance, was part of the team of political appointees that approved then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's plan to redraw congressional districts in Texas, which in 2004 increased the number of Republicans elected to the House. Similarly, Schlozman was acting assistant attorney general in charge of the division when the Justice Department OKd a Georgia law requiring voters to show photo IDs at the polls. These decisions went against the recommendations of career staff, who asserted that such rulings discriminated against minority voters. The warnings were prescient: Both proposals were struck down by federal courts.

Schlozman continued to influence elections as an interim U.S. attorney. Missouri had one of the closest Senate races in the country last November, and a week before the election, Schlozman brought four voter fraud indictments against members of an organization representing poor and minority people. This blatantly contradicted the department's long-standing policy to wait until after an election to bring such indictments because a federal criminal investigation might affect the outcome of the vote. The timing of the Missouri indictments could not have made the administration's aims more transparent.

This administration is also politicizing the career staff of the Justice Department. Outright hostility to career employees who disagreed with the political appointees was evident early on. Seven career managers were removed in the civil rights division. I personally was ordered to change performance evaluations of several attorneys under my supervision. I was told to include critical comments about those whose recommendations ran counter to the political will of the administration and to improve evaluations of those who were politically favored.

Morale plummeted, resulting in an alarming exodus of career attorneys. In the last two years, 55% to 60% of attorneys in the voting section have transferred to other departments or left the Justice Department entirely.

At the same time, career staff were nearly cut out of the process of hiring lawyers. Control of hiring went to political appointees, so an applicant's fidelity to GOP interests replaced civil rights experience as the most important factor in hiring decisions.

For decades prior to this administration, the Justice Department had successfully kept politics out of its law enforcement decisions. Hopefully, the spotlight on this misconduct will begin the process of restoring dignity and nonpartisanship to federal law enforcement. As the 2008 elections approach, it is critical to have a Justice Department that approaches its responsibility to all eligible voters without favor.


This is just so disheartening. Everything in our government is just a tool in which to further the aims of the Republican party; the FBI, the Constitution, the Department of Justice, everything. Karl Rove’s very nature is to politicize absolutely everything. Governing is a concept that is beyond him. All he knows is how to manipulate every single arm of the government into a tool that can be used to further the aims of the Republican party, and to cement its hold on power forever.

If Bush, Rove and Cheney were allowed to follow their dream to its logical conclusion, this country would very much resemble the Soviet Union or Communist China. There would be a single party, where dissent is not allowed, must less an opposition party. All facets of the media would be a propaganda tool for the Republicans. The police and the FBI would be used to control the population. The elite class would flourish while the great majority of the country would toil away for their benefit, and a larger and larger percentage of this country would find themselves encased in crushing poverty. And we would be at constant war, which would mostly serve to keep the economy on its feet, however artificially.

I just cannot understand how these supposedly intelligent men can devote such a large part of the being into changing our system of government that has worked so well for over two centuries. It has survived a civil war, an invasion in which the White House was burned, two world wars, the civil rights movement, and countless other strains on the fabric of our government. And here we now have a handful of fanatics determined to foist off their particular view of our country and the world on the rest of us, regardless of what we think about it.

How have we even gotten to this point? How did these people hijack this country? Did the events of Sept. 11, 2001 scare us that badly? Are our minds now so numbed that we cannot see anything beyond video games and the latest episode of American Idol?

If that is the case, maybe this country does indeed deserve the kind of government that it will get.

Physical Theories As Women You Have Dated?

O.K., this may be a TAD sexist, but it is a very novel comparison. I have a Master’s degree in physics, which I have never used and never expect to other than it looks very good on a resume which I am hoping never to have to write again, so I have known for some time that some of the deep sciences are Very Deep. Therefore, I have some “credentials” in this area, otherwise known on the “street” as “a piece of paper”. So, via Andrew Sullivan, I bring you:


P H Y S I C A L T H E O R I E S A S W O M E N .

BY SIMON DEDEO
- - - -
0. Newtonian gravity is your high-school girlfriend. As your first encounter with physics, she's amazing. You will never forget Newtonian gravity, even if you're not in touch very much anymore.

1. Electrodynamics is your college girlfriend. Pretty complex, you probably won't date long enough to really understand her.

2. Special relativity is the girl you meet at the dorm party while you're dating electrodynamics. You make out. It's not really cheating because it's not like you call her back. But you have a sneaking suspicion she knows electrodynamics and told her everything.

3. Quantum mechanics is the girl you meet at the poetry reading. Everyone thinks she's really interesting and people you don't know are obsessed about her. You go out. It turns out that she's pretty complicated and has some issues. Later, after you've broken up, you wonder if her aura of mystery is actually just confusion.

4. General relativity is your high-school girlfriend all grown up. Man, she is amazing. You sort of regret not keeping in touch. She hates quantum mechanics for obscure reasons.

5. Quantum field theory is from overseas, but she doesn't really have an accent. You fall deeply in love, but she treats you horribly. You are pretty sure she's fooling around with half of your friends, but you don't care. You know it will end badly.

6. Cosmology is the girl that doesn't really date, but has lots of hot friends. Some people date cosmology just to hang out with her friends.

7. Analytical classical mechanics is a bit older, and knows stuff you don't.

8. String theory is off in her own little world. She is either profound or insane. If you start dating, you never see your friends anymore. It's just string theory, 24/7.

What I hate about CBS's coverage of the NCAA basketball tournament.

Commercials. Lots of commercials, and even worse, lots and lots of commercial breaks. During every single time out, there is at least one commercial, but more likely three. And it is invariably one out of the set of about fifteen that keep getting run over and over and over.... And at the end of a game, where coaches tend to call time outs frequently, there is the same commercials for the same damn products or services that we have seen probably several hundred times over the past two weeks, if you are a NCAA junkie. I don't know about other people, but seeing the same friggin' commerical forty times in the span of six hours is N0T going to entice me to buy the product any more than if I had seen it sixteen times. In fact, I may be so annoyed that I might just BOYCOTT the damn product just because they are being so intrusive. And CBS absolutely has to shove in promos for their own programming IN BETWEEN FREE THROWS! Sweet Jesus.... They interrupt very intense and sometimes anguishing moments that could have been used to drawn the viewer in or fit in some commentary or analysis, just to fit in another 30 second spot for an ad we JUST SAW 30 SECONDS AGO!

They are destroying the emotional continuity and suspense of the game. It's hard to recapture the intensity of what just happened before this stupid commerical for Kentucky Friend Chicken (sorry, that is what KFC stands for, even if they now disown it the name) or Scott's lawn food. What possible studies have shown these marketing geniuses that inundating the viewing audience over and over with the same stupid commericals will make the product sell any better?

God, I hate commercials and the not-very-subtle attempts at behavior modification. I predict that, within the next 10 years, they will just figure out that they should be showing continuous commericals at the bottom of the screen, or in the corner, JUST BECAUSE THEY CAN AND BECAUSE SOME IDIOT MARKETING PERSON AT THESE CORPORATIONS WILL BUY THE COMMERCIAL TIME! Continuous commercials that you can't escape from if you want to watch the tube. At which point, TiVo becomes not as useful, as you cannot "fast forward" through them. They are on all the time!

I wonder if they will ever realize that they are already very close to saturation and the viewer's mind will just "tune out" the ads on a permanent basis. Any more and ads will become so much static that the mind just shuts out.

Or else gets a movie from NetFlix.

Ancient technology as exhibited by the Antikythera Mechanism.

One of the more egocentric views of the world, including past civilizations, that our Western Civilization holds to is that our technology is far superior to anything that has ever come before us. Yes, that is a true statement in many respects. Our technology never ceases to amaze. Our scientists, engineers, and technicians continue to find new, amazing methods to do just about anything the human imagination can come up with. We can now peer into the bizarre world of sub-atomic particles with the help of giant particle accelerators. We can see photos beamed directly back to us from the surface of a moon orbiting Saturn. We have devised clever of looking inside the human body in ever-increasing detail, without the obvious and dangerous use of surgery. And “amazing” isn’t limited to the realm of the esoteric. Advances in computer science, materials, robotics, communications and transportation have given us the ability to achieve things that were regarded as science fiction as little as a single generation ago.

However, this ever-increasing upward spiral of technological development has skewed the way we look at other societies that do not possess such technology. We regard them as “backward” or “ignorant”. Technology feeds our smug little egocentric view of the world. “We are the best that exist now and the best that has ever been.” Never mind that 95% of the population of the United States has absolutely no concept about how some of these devices actually function, much less be able to design them or repair them, or that many of these advances were actually made by people other than Americans.

This disdainful view of other societies isn’t limited to present day. Our view of ancient cultures is also one of conceit. “The Romans didn’t have electricity, so they must have been backwards. Likewise, the Greeks, Chinese, Egyptians, Mayans, etc., etc. Certainly, they made some large pyramids and very nice buildings with beautiful carvings and ornate columns. But really, technologically advanced, they were not.” We have been shown so many pictures of huge pyramids in Egypt since we were young that we just “roll over” the fact that we do not really understand how the ancient Egyptians actually built them, how the two-ton stones were transported, shaped and then placed on a structure rising hundreds of feet in the air within a tolerance of tenths of an inch. We are clueless about how the city of Machu Picchu in Peru was constructed at an altitude of 6000 feet by people that seemed not to have a written language, or how a Bronze Age culture transported the stones which make up Stonehenge over a distance of hundreds of miles. This list goes on and on: the Colossus of Rhodes, the Coliseum in Rome, Nan Madol in the Pacific. Even something as seemingly mundane as how ancient people constructed swords of Damascus steel is now beyond us.

None of these mysteries seem “immediate” enough to break into our complacent, self-satisfied view of our place at the top of the evolution of technology. They are all so familiar, we fail to comprehend that we don’t actually understand them!

However, on occasion, something is discovered that just makes us sit up and gape in astonishment. Such is the case of the Antikythera Mechanism. (See the picture at the top of this post.) It was discovered in the year 1903, in a Roman shipwreck off a Greek island of the same name. It was viewed as an oddity, given the nature of what remaining details could be seen. Concentric cogs and gears didn’t fit in with our understanding of that time period. Therefore, it was shuttled aside, forgotten until “rediscovered” in the 1970’s, when people started to realize how extraordinary this find was and how we must adjust our way of looking at ancient civilizations.

The following description of the device is from Wikipedia.

The Antikythera mechanism (Greek: O μηχανισμός των Αντικυθήρων transliterated as O mēchanismós tōn Antikythērōn) is an ancient mechanical analog computer (as opposed to most computers today which are digital computers) designed to calculate astronomical positions. It was discovered in the Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete, and has been dated to about 150-100 BC.

The device is remarkable for the level of miniaturization and complexity of its parts, which is comparable to that of 18th century clocks. It has over 30 gears, with teeth formed through equilateral triangles. When past or future dates were entered via a crank (now lost), the mechanism calculated the position of the Sun, Moon or other astronomical information such as the location of other planets. It is possible that the mechanism is based on heliocentric principles, rather than the then-dominant geocentric view espoused by Aristotle and others. The heliocentric view proposed by Aristarchus of Samos (310 BC - c. 230 BC) did not receive widespread recognition, but provides for the possibility of the existence of such a system at this time.

The mechanism has 3 main dials, one on the front, and two on the back. The front dial is marked with the divisions of the Egyptian calendar, or the Sothic year, based on the Sothic cycle. Inside this there is a second dial marked with the Greek signs of the Zodiac. This second dial can be moved to adjust, with respect to the Sothic dial, to compensate for leap years.

The front dial probably carried at least three hands, one showing the date, and two others showing the positions of the Sun and the Moon. The Moon indicator is ingeniously adjusted to show the first anomaly of the Moon's orbit. It is reasonable to suppose the Sun indicator had a similar adjustment, but any gearing for this mechanism (if it existed) has been lost. The front dial also includes a second mechanism with a spherical model of the Moon that displays the Lunar phase.

There is reference in the inscriptions for the planets Mars and Venus, and it would have certainly been within the capabilities of the maker of this mechanism to include gearing to show their positions. There is some speculation that the mechanism may have had indicators for the 5 planets known to the Greeks. None of the gearing, except for one unaccounted gear, for such planetary mechanisms survives.

Finally, the front dial includes a parapegma (a precursor to the modern day Almanac) used to mark the rising and setting of specific stars. Each star is thought to be identified by Greek characters which cross reference details inscribed on the mechanism.

The upper back dial, is in the form of a spiral, with 47 divisions per turn, displaying the 235 months of the 19 year Metonic cycle. This dial contains a smaller subsidiary dial which displays the 76 year Callippic cycle. (There are 4 Metonic cycles within 1 Callippic cycle.) Both of these cycles are important in fixing calendars.

The lower back dial is also in the form of a spiral, with 223 divisions showing the Saros cycle. It also has a smaller subsidiary dial which displays the 54 year Exeligmos cycle. (There are 3 Saros cycles within 1 Exeligmos cycle.)

Practical uses of this device may have included the following:
- Astrology was commonly practiced in the ancient world. In order to create an astrological chart, the configuration of the heavens at a particular point of time is needed. It can be very difficult and time-consuming to work this out by hand, and a mechanism such as this would have made an astrologer's work very much easier.
- Calculating solar and lunar eclipses. However, the device would probably only have indicated days when eclipses might occur, and a more accurate calculation of the time of day would have to be done by hand.
- Setting the dates of religious festivals connected with astronomical events.
- Adjusting calendars, which were based on lunar cycles as well as the solar year.

Whatever the purpose of this device, its very existence is a rude slap in our collective faces regarding our “innate superiority” regarding all things technological. Common wisdom told us that machines of this complexity just didn’t exist in the ancient world. How could it be that the Greeks had a machine that rivaled anything that Europe produced in the 1800’s? Someone invented a computer that accurately predicted celestial movements and relationships over 100 years before the birth of Jesus. It boggles the mind, but only when viewed from within the egocentric bubble of our supposed superiority.

I also find it a bit ironic that the marvels of this fascinating bit of ancient technology are being unlocked with the assistance of modern technology, such as X-rays and CT scans.

As interesting as this device is by itself, a fascinating tangential thought is this. Discoveries in technological societies do not exist by themselves. They are almost always built on something that preceded them. The cell phones of today did not just spring out of nowhere. Alexander Graham Bell is first credited with sending recognizable voice patterns over a long distance via electrical signals. The invention of radio showed that these patterns could be sent without the use of a physical medium, such as copper wires. Vacuum tubes evolved into discrete transistors, which then spawned an entire revolution in microelectronics that continues unabated to this day. When these elements are combined, the culmination of all these developments, and others, over the past 100 years just happens to be a portable cellular phone that you can hold in the palm of your hand.

What were the predecessors of the Antikythera Mechanism? Engineers and technicians, not to mention the astronomers and mathematicians necessary to develop the astronomical knowledge behind the Mechanism, did not just develop their skills and knowledge overnight. What other astounding machines did the ancient Greeks have that we do not currently know about? Did this knowledge and technology continue to develop? What other amazing inventions did ancient civilizations produce that are now lost to us?

The irretrievable loss of knowledge is always rather sad to contemplate.

Valerie Plame Wilson WAS a covert CIA agent.

And she was outed, first by Robert Novak but confirmed by a lot of government officials, including Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Armitage, and Ari Fleischer. She was outed for the sole purpose of trying to discredit a political critic of the administration’s handling of the Iraq war. Taylor Marsh has some GREAT writing about this.



"He did it."

Of course, Valerie Plame is talking about Robert Novak printing her name in his column. That's what her husband Joseph Wilson said when he came in on the morning Novak's column was published, July 2003. Today, Valerie Plame Wilson spoke in public before Rep. Waxman's committee, describing the day her husband came in and dropped the newspaper on the bed and said: "He did it."

When Rep. Dennis Kucinich questioned Ms. Plame, one answer jumped out. He asked if covert agents were identified very often. Plame said, not that I'm aware, especially not by their own government.

Chilling.

Rep. Diane Watson expressed propper outrage when she indignantly rebuffed notions that Plame only had a desk job. That seems to be the only thread on which the loyal Bushies, Scooter Libby and his puppeteer, Dick Cheney, are hanging their disgrace. That a vice president of the United States would play any part whatsoever in the outing of a C.I.A. covert agent is something I never dreamed we'd ever talk about. I never could imagine the cover of a C.I.A. agent would be outed over ideology and that either political party would play a part. There was a time when this was unthinkable. In the era of Bush, it is not only thinkable, but now a tragic, even potentially treasonous, part of history.

However, nothing could keep Republicans from spewing their venom and ignorance as to whether Valerie Plame was covert. Let us now put it to rest: Valerie Plame was covert. There is no excuse for Sean Hannity, Mort Kondracke, Robert Novak, Brit Hume and Victoria Toensing for casting doubt, except that their comments are politically motivated. Everything is political in the Bush White House, even the C.I.A.
We can never make up for what the Bushies did to Valerie Plame. Even speaking today Valerie Plame's testimony and the questions being asked were under strict guidelines, due to the open nature of the hearing. One thing is clear, as Rep. Elijah Cummings took great pains to point out.

Covert, classified or undercover? Classified wasn't used among the undercover agents. The videos of Valerie Plame speaking about it explains it all.

Rep. Paul Hodes brought up what Karl Rove told Chris Matthews, "Valerie Plame is fair game." Now imagine that it's not Valerie Plame, but another covert C.I.A. agent. Is anyone fair game? Or is it just people who get in the way of Mr. Bush? Is it just whistleblowers who have information proving the president lied in the SOTU speech?

Let's also remember that this whole event stemmed around Joseph Wilson deflating the Bush administration's case for war. Nothing is clearer.

There seems to be no means the Administration will not use to hurt those who disagree or who have knowledge that will harm the Administration. It's chilling when all the energy of the White House and the federal government are focused on private citizens, through the press. But when one of those people works as a classified C.I.A. agent working on WMDs it's especially shocking.

Finally hearing from Valerie Plame in her own words brings the whole sorry behavior from Bush administration into bright light. Congressman Waxman, my former representative, makes us all proud by holding these hearings. It gives you faith that democracy under the Democrats actually represents what our Founders had in mind. It's called checks and balances. It's called oversight.

But once again, let us never forget that the leaking of Valerie Plame's covert C.I.A. identity revolved around one subject, the case Mr. Bush and his Administration made for war. Joseph Wilson punctured that case. It launched the Bush administration into damage control that would end with the leaking of a covert C.I.A. operative's name in order to show the war whistleblower who was boss.

One final note, if Democrats weren't in the majority in Congress, Valerie Plame would never have been heard.

How close have we really come to a fascist state in America?

The more we learn about how the Bush White House (including the subsidiary of Cheney’s OVP and his shadow intelligence agency), the more we understand how close we came to a complete meltdown of the American system of representative and democratic government that has been in place for over 200 years. We are still on the precipice, but at least now many people are paying attention and are not afraid to ask questions.

I don’t even know where to begin with highlighting what Bush and his cronies have either accomplished or attempted to accomplish in the years since Bush’s inauguration in 2001. But even an incomplete list like this makes it very clear to me that, without calling it by name, Bush and his minions and enablers have tried to do nothing less than change the type of government we have from a democracy to some flavor of fascist/totalitarian state.

- The liberal use of Presidential “Signing Statements”, in which Bush gives himself the power to ignore or interpret any laws that Congress passes, even though this position is not supported by any possible legal interpretation of the Constitution.

- The suppression of data that does not support the White House’s position, such as the case in the run-up to the Iraq war, and the secret dissemination of cherry-picked data which is seen to support their position. This include selective declassification of data, whose declassified status might be known to only three persons in the entire country.

- The tactic of destroying, on a personal level, all political opponents and critics, even if they happen to be a member of the Republican party. The Scooter Libby trial is a very recent, very illustrative example of how Dick Cheney was intent on not only discrediting Joe Wilson, but destroying him and his wife for no other reason than punishment for dare questioning the trumped up reasons we are now in Iraq.

- The makeover of the Department of Justice from an independent office into a purely partisan one, which does the bidding of the White House. The purge of political appointees in the positions of U.S. Attorneys that wewre not sufficiently partisan is a blatant example of this. Included in this is the new “paradigm” that it is acceptable for Republicans in power to lean on U.S. attorneys to do the bidding of the Republican party.

- FBI abuses in monitoring U.S. citizens, bypassing all laws regarding such activity. Even if this monitoring was done legally, at times it was very suspect, such as monitoring religious groups who were protesting the Iraq war that obviously posed no threat to the nation.

- The existence of a rubberstamp Republican-controlled Congress that enabled everything that the White House desired to do while obstructing all inquiries and oversight proposed by the Democrats, even though oversight of the Executive is one of the primary jobs of Congress.

- The use of all tactics possible to minimize and totally eradicate, if possible, the effectiveness and input of the Democratic party when there was a Republican majority in both Houses of Congress. This runs the gamut from the policy to never allow to the floor a bill introduced by a Democrat to small things, as not assigning a meeting room in which Democratic members of Congress can hold meetings.

- Liberal use of redistricting as a means to ensure a Republican majority, such as Tom Delay’s Texas.

- The expressed position of the White House and the Republican party that the supposedly independent press in America should actually use its power to be a cheerleader for the United States. The other side of the coin is the Republicans’ belief that the media should never criticize Bush or any action he takes, as it might “embolden” the enemy.

- The planting of fake “news stories” in the media, either by paid members of the media who do not disclose their interests in trumping up whatever subject they happen to be writing about. Additionally, the White House routinely uses “anonymous sources” to plant information in credible sources (such as Scooter Libby using Judy Miller to plant information about Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction) and then quoting those self same stories in support of their argument.

- A subservient news media which sees its job, up until recently, as to pass along any information it gets from the White House without questioning its validity or the motive the White House might in disclosing such information.

- The final maturation of Fox News as an organ of the Republican party, whose aim is to manipulate stories and add political spin to ensure that each story maximizes gain to Republicans and attempts to humiliate Democrats while reaching millions of Americans. In other words, it’s job is to deliver propaganda.

- The existence of a very large, effective Republican “echo chamber”, whose self-appointed job it is to echo every Republican talking point that comes out, to “dry run” possible talking points, and to magnify each other, over and over, until an initial tiny squeak becomes the conventional wisdom of the day. This echo chamber is also used to shout down anyone who raises any objections or criticisms to their methods. See Ann Coulter, Mike Medved, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh and a whole host of others of the same ilk.

- Torture has become a normal, legal tool to be used for whatever reason, even though Japanese military personnel were tried for war crimes for using those same tactics (such as waterboarding). Torture can now be done on behalf of the United States by third parties, such as Syria (who is on our potential “hit list”), Egypt, Saudi Arabia (who supplied 19 of the 9/11 hijackers) or private “contractors” (i.e., mercenaries for hire).

- The suspension of Habeas Corpus, even though the Constitution of the United States specifically states that Habeas Corpus cannot be suspended unless in times of invasion. Anyone the White House designates as an enemy can now be jailed for an indefinite period, without access to a lawyer or being shown the charges against him.

- The blatant appointments of cronies as a means of repaying political favors, even if those being appointed have no qualifications for the post. Examples include “Heckofajob Brownie” to head FEMA, a veterinarian as head of the department overseeing women’s health issues, and 23 year old relative of a political friend to head up the process of rebuilding the banking system in war-ravaged Iraq.

- The liberal use of scare tactics during election cycles, such as raising the “Alert Level” for possible terrorists attacks to Orange on 13 different occasions during the 2003 presidential campaign. Keith Olberman put together a good story that showed that almost every instance of this increase came immediately after some newsworthy event about Kerry or the Democrats, or to change the subject about some topic that the White House didn’t want discussed. At one point, three-year-old information about a possible hit on the NY financial district was used as justification for the jump to Orange.

- The suppression of scientific input for political reasons, usually by Bush or party appointees. An example is the editing of several NASA scientific reports by a 23-year-old Republican college dropout who somehow managed to get himself appointed to a NASA oversight post and who felt it was his job to suppress any discussion of global warming and to insert language to make it appear that any scientific conclusions were under some dispute.

- The use of voter suppression techniques and possibly outright manipulation of voting tallies in order to gain Republican wins. There have been attempts that have been proven, such as the New Hampshire phone jamming scandal and yet to be investigated thoroughly episodes involving intimidation of black voters in Florida and questions that have yet to be answered regarding Diebold voting machines that leave no auditable paper trail.

- The use of lobbyists, who represent the very people the government is attempting to regulate, to write laws regarding the regulation of those same companies, and then withholding the information from the public about who was involved.

- The sale of political “favors” by members of Congress, such as Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who had a specific price list of how much each type of favor would cost.

- The casual but liberal use of lying in public, sometimes under oath, when deemed helpful to Bush and the Republican party. This includes statements by Bush that anyone found being involved in leaking Valerie Wilson’s name as part of the effort to discredit her husband would be fired (Rove is still on the job with his Top Secret security clearance) and that Rumsfeld would not be replaced, made two before the 2006 midterm elections when Bush knew for certain that Rumsfeld would resign immediately afterwards. Then there are Scooter Libby’s lies in front of a Grand Jury and the FBI, for which he has just been convicted. And it appears that Alberto Gonzales, our so-called “Attorney General”, just let loose a big one while under oath in front of Congress. Lying is now the norm, without any misgivings or second thoughts.

There are many more. But what I have compiled here illustrates exactly HOW the Bush administration and his rapidly shrinking legion of followers do NOT “love freedom”. Or, if they do, I am hard pressed to figure out what exactly they mean. Freedom for just “their kind”, who think and act exactly like they do and everyone else be damned? Is that what they mean? Or is it even more unsubtle than that? “Winners get everything?” Personally, I think that is what Bush means when he speaks of freedom. He has not the slightest concept of how a democratic, representative form of government is actually supposed to work.

I know this. When I look at the Big Picture, and not just the myriad of individual scandals that seem to be cropping up on a weekly basis nowadays, I am scared. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that, if Bush and Cheney got to do exactly what they want without interference, somewhat like they have been doing in the last 6 years, our form of government that has served us so well since 1776 would be a thing of the past.

Here are a some good columns and stories worth reading.