Has it? I don't know. The fact that enough people rejected the current political trend and punished the intransigence of the Republican leadership is a good thing. It shows that we're still awake here and, while slow to react, eventually will.
But already the political discourse is changing. Democrats have a real opportunity to show that they can be sane, rational and fair, which is what the electorate hopes they will be, I'm guessing. The last bunch just kept blowing sunshine up our proverbial until people finally saw them to be the fantastical creatures they are, and sent them packing. How awesome to see Rick Santorum sent home with 38% of the vote. Little disturbing that Corrupt Conrad (Burns) ran as close as he did after all his malfeasance, but at least he lost. And George Allen, oh that was awesome. One less blowhard to worry about running in 08.
The best of it was, for the most part, the Reps secret weapon, scurrilous attack ads didn't save them. Maybe in the Tennessee Senate where racist appeals seem to work, but no where else. They lost all the other toss up seats in the Senate. Maybe the end is in sight for these ugly attacks. ;-) Okay, I know better than that.
But maybe some balance has been restored. Can't wait for January.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Wow, I missed all of October
Got so busy at work that I missed all of October here at the ol' blog. Shame. Thought I'd check back in with a link to Keith Olbermann's latest attack on Bush and his ilk. It's a nice counter punch to the attack on Kerry's comments on getting stuck in Iraq in you don't get enough education. Of course, the right wing distortion machine claimed Kerry meant only ignoramuses join the military, when Kerry was talking about George Bush. Unfortunately, the mainstream media covered the right wing spin instead of stepping back and seeing exactly what Kerry meant. A friend of mine even sent me an email in disgust that Kerry had blown the election.
Whoa! No he didn't. Polls out today show Senator Macaca, Talent, and Dewine trending downward along with Tom Kean in NJ. Only Corker in Tennessee had good numbers. Zogby had him up 10 and Rasmussen only 1. Every other Republican Senate candidate is trailing. House polls look good too and 70 percent in a Time poll said Bush had no strategy to win in Iraq. The Kerry thing is a manufactured blip that shows both the power of the right wing distortion machine, and the desperation of Bush whose trying to rerun the 04 campaign by beating on Kerry and mentioned gay marriage. That's an attempt to get the base out volunteering and working hard for Rs in this campaign, as Rove hopes turnout with help the Rs eke out a save Tuesday.
So don't sweat it too much as that story if off the front pages and the Rove noise doesn't seem to be working that well this time around.
Whoa! No he didn't. Polls out today show Senator Macaca, Talent, and Dewine trending downward along with Tom Kean in NJ. Only Corker in Tennessee had good numbers. Zogby had him up 10 and Rasmussen only 1. Every other Republican Senate candidate is trailing. House polls look good too and 70 percent in a Time poll said Bush had no strategy to win in Iraq. The Kerry thing is a manufactured blip that shows both the power of the right wing distortion machine, and the desperation of Bush whose trying to rerun the 04 campaign by beating on Kerry and mentioned gay marriage. That's an attempt to get the base out volunteering and working hard for Rs in this campaign, as Rove hopes turnout with help the Rs eke out a save Tuesday.
So don't sweat it too much as that story if off the front pages and the Rove noise doesn't seem to be working that well this time around.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Senate Caves to President
The Senate passed the President's detention and torture bill. 34 brave Senators (32 Dems, Jeffords (I) and Chaffee (R), voted against this fear-based betrayal of our Constitution. Olympia Snow didn't vote. All the other Republicans voted yes along with 12 shameful, cowardly Democrats, some voting to immunize themselves against Republican attacks in the next 6 weeks (Menendez, Nelson, Nelson, Stabenow). Others live in Republican leaning states (Johnson, Landrieu, Pryor, Rockerfeller, Salazar). Can't figure Lautenberg from NJ or Carper from Delaware. Lieberman was predictable.
Apparently these spineless wonders don't think we can be safe while observing international standards against torture (which we helped write) and Constitutional standards that are the basis of the liberty they claim they are protecting. Of course we CAN be safe and free. This is all about power and the shameless fear mongering needed to seize it.
If Dems do win a majority in the Senate, where will these dirty dozen stand then?
Apparently these spineless wonders don't think we can be safe while observing international standards against torture (which we helped write) and Constitutional standards that are the basis of the liberty they claim they are protecting. Of course we CAN be safe and free. This is all about power and the shameless fear mongering needed to seize it.
If Dems do win a majority in the Senate, where will these dirty dozen stand then?
The Real Path to 9/11
Keith Olbermann puts the lie to Bush administration claims that they couldn't have done more to stop 9/11. They examine the evidence in this report. Catches quite a few of the administration officials in bold faced lies. Enjoy.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Terroristic Threats, Olbermann, NY Post
Never mind that we live in a time when right wing wackos make terroristic threats against commentators for, uh, making comments, this story is a sad commentary on the state of the press in this country. The NY Post, a Rupert Murdoch flagship paper, did a hatchet job on Keith Olbermann when Keith reported to police that he had received a mailed threat with white powder in it. The mocking story is a sad episode but as Keith explains, it just gets sadder and sadder.
Email to Harry Reid
Will Harry Reid and the Democrats in the Senate poised to let the CIA-torture (I mean interrogation) bill pass without a fight, I sent this email to mister Reid:
No topic for Iraq or Terrorism? Odd. (I had to select a topic. Homeland Security was the closest I could find.)
Dear Senate staffer (as I'm sure the Senator will never hear of this message much less see it):
As pointless as the gesture may be, it is my only recourse in our political system. I am writing to ask the Democratic Party's leader in the Senate to not only oppose the President's torture, unlimited detention and kangaroo court bill, but to filibuster it.
No Democrat should vote for this abomination to the Constitution. No American should support it. What the President has done in the past with his CIA interrogation program is wrong and un-American. This bill, which can only be called a compromise in the sense the Senate caved in, not only authorizes torture, but exonerates the president, his staff and the CIA of past incidents.
This is outrageous. Dems should stand united against it and filibuster. Far from hurting you at the polls, it will show principle and spine that grass-roots Democrats like me are longing to see you demonstrate. Rove and his minions will attack you as weak on terrorism whatever you do. At least stand for principle so that your base can know you can be trusted to stand against tyranny and other bad ideas. If you vote for this, what is your message to voters in November? We don't have the guts to stand against the President, but vote for us anyway, because we're not quite as bad as the Republicans?
This is wrong. Say so. Go on the offensive. If you do not want to fight for Democratic ideals, then resign. The grassroots need leadership. Provide it. Oppose this President and his extremist moves, or resign so we can find someone that will.
Tom Chamberlain
No topic for Iraq or Terrorism? Odd. (I had to select a topic. Homeland Security was the closest I could find.)
Dear Senate staffer (as I'm sure the Senator will never hear of this message much less see it):
As pointless as the gesture may be, it is my only recourse in our political system. I am writing to ask the Democratic Party's leader in the Senate to not only oppose the President's torture, unlimited detention and kangaroo court bill, but to filibuster it.
No Democrat should vote for this abomination to the Constitution. No American should support it. What the President has done in the past with his CIA interrogation program is wrong and un-American. This bill, which can only be called a compromise in the sense the Senate caved in, not only authorizes torture, but exonerates the president, his staff and the CIA of past incidents.
This is outrageous. Dems should stand united against it and filibuster. Far from hurting you at the polls, it will show principle and spine that grass-roots Democrats like me are longing to see you demonstrate. Rove and his minions will attack you as weak on terrorism whatever you do. At least stand for principle so that your base can know you can be trusted to stand against tyranny and other bad ideas. If you vote for this, what is your message to voters in November? We don't have the guts to stand against the President, but vote for us anyway, because we're not quite as bad as the Republicans?
This is wrong. Say so. Go on the offensive. If you do not want to fight for Democratic ideals, then resign. The grassroots need leadership. Provide it. Oppose this President and his extremist moves, or resign so we can find someone that will.
Tom Chamberlain
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Clinton Fights Back, Olbermann Kick Mas Butt
By now you've most likely heard about the Chris Wallace interview with Bill Clinton on Fox News Sunday. The cowardly Wallace said email from his viewers compelled him to ask why Clinton didn't do more to shut down Osama, again forwarding the proposition or at least implication that 9/11 was Clinton's fault. That's it, hide behind your viewers, Chris.
Bill then launched into a spirited and passionate defense of his policies toward Al Quaeda and lashed out at the ridiculous ABC show Path to 9/11 and at his neo-con critics in general. The right wingnuts have dubbed it crazed. You be the judge and watch it here.
Keith Olbermann then came to Clinton's defense. See that here.
But what kills me is this: Neo-Cons are so sure Clinton should have been able to get Osama when George Bush, with the whole world behind him, and twenty thousand troops, basing rights in countries that never would have provided them before 9/11, failed. And is still failing. But Clinton, with a balky CIA and FBI, a hostile Congress, no basing rights anywhere in the region, should have taken Osama out. Should have been easy. Huh. But then again, the right wingnuts have never let logic and reason come between them and their arguments.
Bill then launched into a spirited and passionate defense of his policies toward Al Quaeda and lashed out at the ridiculous ABC show Path to 9/11 and at his neo-con critics in general. The right wingnuts have dubbed it crazed. You be the judge and watch it here.
Keith Olbermann then came to Clinton's defense. See that here.
But what kills me is this: Neo-Cons are so sure Clinton should have been able to get Osama when George Bush, with the whole world behind him, and twenty thousand troops, basing rights in countries that never would have provided them before 9/11, failed. And is still failing. But Clinton, with a balky CIA and FBI, a hostile Congress, no basing rights anywhere in the region, should have taken Osama out. Should have been easy. Huh. But then again, the right wingnuts have never let logic and reason come between them and their arguments.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
More Olbermann Butt Kicking
Mr. Keith Olbermann is laying it on the President, again. The administration (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld) have said that dissent is helping the terrorists, and that certain "thoughts" are unacceptable. Not actions. Thoughts and expressions of those thoughts. Keith has a response.
Monday, September 11, 2006
5 Years Later... Conspiracy Theories Debunked
Here's a great link to an NPR prgramn that had the Popular Mechanics editor debunking all the conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11, in case the sheer improbability and contradictions inherent in them aren't enough.
Enjoy
Enjoy
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Dueling fiction
No doubt by now you've heard of the ABC miniseries called The Path to 9/11, I was watching a football game last Saturday on ABC when I saw an ad for it. It claimed to be based on the 9/11 commission report. I thought that would be interesting viewing. But it turns out that it was written by right wingnut Cyrus Noratesh and based not on the commission report, which was compiled by folks honestly trying to get at the truth, but on right-wing fictions arguing that we are too free to be safe.
I was going to make a plea for sanity, as the post title suggests, and argue that we need to end the era of dueling fictions from the right and left that leaves us scratching our heads and trying to decide which is true. This nonsense does not serve us well. It is polarizing and dangerous, because it makes us suspicious of each other and immediately discount arguments that run counter to our inclinations. What we need is to focus on facts, things that really happened, and then have rational discussions from there. Dueling Joe Goebbels will not do.
I was gonna condemn slanted presentations and fabrications on either side, whether it be from Michael Moore or the yahoo who wrote this ABC nonsense. Actually, I hope I just did that. But as more and more facts come out about this miniseries, it becomes clear that this monstrosity needs to be vehemently condemned. And it is being condemned, roundly, by the folks that are being slandered like the Clinton administration, but also by the 9/11 commission members and counsels, and conservatives like Bill Bennett, not to mention regular people who've responded in huge numbers to protest.
Why? Allegedly, it contains a scene in which a CIA operative in Afghanistan has Bin Laden in his sights and is begging Sandy Berger, Clinton's NSA, for permission to take him out. Berger doesn't give it. Bin Laden lives and a few years later, almost 3000 die on 9/11. Bad Clinton administration, right?
Only that scene is just a right-wing fever dream. It never happened. We didn't have any CIA operatives anywhere near Bin Laden's camps. No one disputes that. Plus, former CIA officials say that Clinton approved every operational request they ever made concerning Bin Laden. Remember the missile attack on his camps following the embassy bombings in Africa? How does one square that attack with a reluctance to act on Clinton's part? If Bin Laden hadn't, on a whim, gone to Kabul that night instead of back to the camps, he'd likely be dead.
Further, and more perniciously, this show argues that Constitutional concerns made us too timid to act, implying that Bush's disregard for Constitutional safeguards is what's needed. We need to be less free to save freedom. Huh?
Interestingly, this "argument" is coming just as Bush is trying to scare the crap out of us again so that we won't kick his corrupt and radical allies out of the house and senate. He needs warrantless surveillance to keep us safe. Nonsense. No one has ever made a compelling argument that oversight of spying programs would compromise them. They say FISA court oversight is too slow and cumbersome even though it allows the spies to seek warrants 72 hours AFTER they spy, so they are not hampered in the heat of the moment. How is that burdensome?
No one says we shouldn't watch the bad guys, or act against them pre-emptively. All we ask is that there be oversight and that the President not claim dictatorial perrogatives to wage war. We can be safe and free. Paranoia is never an engine for sane and rational thought. We must never become a nation that thinks secret prisons, coerced confessions and secret evidence is okay. Those are precisely the things we rebelled against. Defeating the extremists that threaten us is not enough. We must do it the American way, always with respect to inalienable rights. The constitution says no "person" shall be denied due process, not no "citizen" or "American". If we forget that, we are not America anymore. What's right isn't always what's easy, but it is what separates us from other nations and makes us a good example of governance.
Anyway, back to the original theme. Can we please end this era of dueling propaganda and demonization and start acting like we're all in this together?
I was going to make a plea for sanity, as the post title suggests, and argue that we need to end the era of dueling fictions from the right and left that leaves us scratching our heads and trying to decide which is true. This nonsense does not serve us well. It is polarizing and dangerous, because it makes us suspicious of each other and immediately discount arguments that run counter to our inclinations. What we need is to focus on facts, things that really happened, and then have rational discussions from there. Dueling Joe Goebbels will not do.
I was gonna condemn slanted presentations and fabrications on either side, whether it be from Michael Moore or the yahoo who wrote this ABC nonsense. Actually, I hope I just did that. But as more and more facts come out about this miniseries, it becomes clear that this monstrosity needs to be vehemently condemned. And it is being condemned, roundly, by the folks that are being slandered like the Clinton administration, but also by the 9/11 commission members and counsels, and conservatives like Bill Bennett, not to mention regular people who've responded in huge numbers to protest.
Why? Allegedly, it contains a scene in which a CIA operative in Afghanistan has Bin Laden in his sights and is begging Sandy Berger, Clinton's NSA, for permission to take him out. Berger doesn't give it. Bin Laden lives and a few years later, almost 3000 die on 9/11. Bad Clinton administration, right?
Only that scene is just a right-wing fever dream. It never happened. We didn't have any CIA operatives anywhere near Bin Laden's camps. No one disputes that. Plus, former CIA officials say that Clinton approved every operational request they ever made concerning Bin Laden. Remember the missile attack on his camps following the embassy bombings in Africa? How does one square that attack with a reluctance to act on Clinton's part? If Bin Laden hadn't, on a whim, gone to Kabul that night instead of back to the camps, he'd likely be dead.
Further, and more perniciously, this show argues that Constitutional concerns made us too timid to act, implying that Bush's disregard for Constitutional safeguards is what's needed. We need to be less free to save freedom. Huh?
Interestingly, this "argument" is coming just as Bush is trying to scare the crap out of us again so that we won't kick his corrupt and radical allies out of the house and senate. He needs warrantless surveillance to keep us safe. Nonsense. No one has ever made a compelling argument that oversight of spying programs would compromise them. They say FISA court oversight is too slow and cumbersome even though it allows the spies to seek warrants 72 hours AFTER they spy, so they are not hampered in the heat of the moment. How is that burdensome?
No one says we shouldn't watch the bad guys, or act against them pre-emptively. All we ask is that there be oversight and that the President not claim dictatorial perrogatives to wage war. We can be safe and free. Paranoia is never an engine for sane and rational thought. We must never become a nation that thinks secret prisons, coerced confessions and secret evidence is okay. Those are precisely the things we rebelled against. Defeating the extremists that threaten us is not enough. We must do it the American way, always with respect to inalienable rights. The constitution says no "person" shall be denied due process, not no "citizen" or "American". If we forget that, we are not America anymore. What's right isn't always what's easy, but it is what separates us from other nations and makes us a good example of governance.
Anyway, back to the original theme. Can we please end this era of dueling propaganda and demonization and start acting like we're all in this together?
Friday, September 01, 2006
Clash of Civilizations
Interesting debate on Al Jazeera about why the Muslims are having problems. Go here
Keith Olbermann smacks Rumsfeld down
The admin is laying on the Iraq rhetoric thick. Don Rumsfeld said those who criticize the war are morally or intellectually confused. I would have laid into that nonsense here has Keith Olbermann not done so so articulately on Countdown on MSNBC. Here's the link to the transcript on his blog, but I highly recommend you watch the video, whose link is on the right side of the blog page. Since Keith has taken off the gloves, he's been perhaps the most intelligent and lucid critic of and commentator on this administration. Check him out.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
It's not the drugs, and it's not senility--Nice Rant
My friend Lana sent me this. Don't know who Inland is. A blogger I suppose. But I thought it interesting especially since folks have sent me the dry-drunk and brain-disease theories before. Here's a new take on why Bush sounds like an idiot most of the time. Take it for what it's worth.
"Why Bush Can't Talk:
It's not the drugs, and it's not senility.
by Inland
Aug 24, 2006
Bush's press conferences and unscripted remarks are so painfully bad, it spurs the question: what is his PROBLEM?
People have remarked that he wasn't that way when he was the Governor of Texas, and therefore theorize that he has deteriorated due to premature senility or a lifetime of drug use.
I think the reason George Bush stumbles, ends sentences midway through to jump to another thought, rattles off non-sequiturs, and makes up words, is that George Bush is breaking under the strain of lying almost all the time about almost everything.
It's because lying is hard work, and he's trying to hold several different false scenarios in his head while not blurting out what he's really being told behind closed doors.
Bush looks like a person stumbling over the easiest things, but in fact, he's not a person unable to relate simple facts. He's a person trying hard to NOT relate simple facts. He's a person trying to avoid the pitfalls of saying what's on his mind, and trying to keep his stories straight.
As I lawyer, I see people trying to construct false scenarios all the time. But you don't remember lies the way you remember truth. It's easier to remember how fast you were driving than it is to remember the exact lie you told the police officer about how fast you were driving. People who lie have to put a lot of energy into keeping their lies consistent with each other and, well, consistent with undeniable facts.
My grand theory is that Bush's entire presidency, from the beginnings of his campaign until now, is based on his taking public stances that at least obscure goals and positions shared secretly. He and his Roves have always accepted that the majority of the country wouldn't want him if they knew the promises he made to the right-wing Christians and the rich, if they knew the actual effect of his tax cuts, if they knew the evidence behind environmental damage, etc. Now he's hiding the entire foreign policy fiasco: whom he is holding incognito, whom he's spying upon, what he knew before 9/11, and many other secrets.
If you had so much to hide, you too would only use canned speeches, carefully vetted by speechwriters who don't know the real story anyway, to keep it all straight, and you would stumble and hem and haw in all other circumstances.
Which explains why his problem wasn't so evident as Texas Governor. Bush's brand of crony capitalism and piestic christianism went down well in Austin, at least for a governor with no real constitutional authority: Bush only had to repackage himself for the national race, essentially submerge his real persona and his real ideas and his real goals and pretend to a compassionate, not-asshole conservativism.
You know how they tell you, on a date, just to be yourself? And how you think, no, I don't want her to meet that guy just yet? Bush and Rove have been saying that for six years, and Bush has been schizo, trying to send signals and winks and nods to his fundamentalist Christians and send money to his corporate sponsors while slinging a load of bull at the nation. Add to that all the bodies he has to keep buried, and you've got a guy who is in a state of flop sweat every time he has to open his mouth in public.
Bush isn't senile or drug addled. He's a lying asshole. And it's hard work. Only truly gifted and intelligent sociopaths like Rove and Cheney can rattle it off.
Bush can't."
"Why Bush Can't Talk:
It's not the drugs, and it's not senility.
by Inland
Aug 24, 2006
Bush's press conferences and unscripted remarks are so painfully bad, it spurs the question: what is his PROBLEM?
People have remarked that he wasn't that way when he was the Governor of Texas, and therefore theorize that he has deteriorated due to premature senility or a lifetime of drug use.
I think the reason George Bush stumbles, ends sentences midway through to jump to another thought, rattles off non-sequiturs, and makes up words, is that George Bush is breaking under the strain of lying almost all the time about almost everything.
It's because lying is hard work, and he's trying to hold several different false scenarios in his head while not blurting out what he's really being told behind closed doors.
Bush looks like a person stumbling over the easiest things, but in fact, he's not a person unable to relate simple facts. He's a person trying hard to NOT relate simple facts. He's a person trying to avoid the pitfalls of saying what's on his mind, and trying to keep his stories straight.
As I lawyer, I see people trying to construct false scenarios all the time. But you don't remember lies the way you remember truth. It's easier to remember how fast you were driving than it is to remember the exact lie you told the police officer about how fast you were driving. People who lie have to put a lot of energy into keeping their lies consistent with each other and, well, consistent with undeniable facts.
My grand theory is that Bush's entire presidency, from the beginnings of his campaign until now, is based on his taking public stances that at least obscure goals and positions shared secretly. He and his Roves have always accepted that the majority of the country wouldn't want him if they knew the promises he made to the right-wing Christians and the rich, if they knew the actual effect of his tax cuts, if they knew the evidence behind environmental damage, etc. Now he's hiding the entire foreign policy fiasco: whom he is holding incognito, whom he's spying upon, what he knew before 9/11, and many other secrets.
If you had so much to hide, you too would only use canned speeches, carefully vetted by speechwriters who don't know the real story anyway, to keep it all straight, and you would stumble and hem and haw in all other circumstances.
Which explains why his problem wasn't so evident as Texas Governor. Bush's brand of crony capitalism and piestic christianism went down well in Austin, at least for a governor with no real constitutional authority: Bush only had to repackage himself for the national race, essentially submerge his real persona and his real ideas and his real goals and pretend to a compassionate, not-asshole conservativism.
You know how they tell you, on a date, just to be yourself? And how you think, no, I don't want her to meet that guy just yet? Bush and Rove have been saying that for six years, and Bush has been schizo, trying to send signals and winks and nods to his fundamentalist Christians and send money to his corporate sponsors while slinging a load of bull at the nation. Add to that all the bodies he has to keep buried, and you've got a guy who is in a state of flop sweat every time he has to open his mouth in public.
Bush isn't senile or drug addled. He's a lying asshole. And it's hard work. Only truly gifted and intelligent sociopaths like Rove and Cheney can rattle it off.
Bush can't."
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Hypocrites
Ted Stevens, that conservative believer in smaller government, also known as the king of pork has been caught with his pants down. Check this out, from Howard Dean:
"Hundreds of billions of tax dollars go to private contractors every year -- a lot of it needless pork barrel spending. There's a bill to create a public database of every federal contract, but a Senator who famously fought for a "bridge to nowhere" won't let it come up for a vote. Demand accountability now and we'll deliver your message to Republican Sen. Ted Stevens.
With your help, we can make real change. Please join me by signing this petition:
http://www.democrats.org/page/petition/publicaccount/fturab
Thanks!"
It's our money, but he doesn't want us to know where it's going. Sounds fair.
"Hundreds of billions of tax dollars go to private contractors every year -- a lot of it needless pork barrel spending. There's a bill to create a public database of every federal contract, but a Senator who famously fought for a "bridge to nowhere" won't let it come up for a vote. Demand accountability now and we'll deliver your message to Republican Sen. Ted Stevens.
With your help, we can make real change. Please join me by signing this petition:
http://www.democrats.org/page/petition/publicaccount/fturab
Thanks!"
It's our money, but he doesn't want us to know where it's going. Sounds fair.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Pluto and the Open Mind
This post harkens back to and is related in spirit to the Sunday post about the tyranny of moral certainty. Today it was announced that astronomers voted to declare the Sun has 8 planets, an untold number of dwarf planets and an other category, which includes asteroids and comets. Pluto, the object formerly known as a planet, is now a dwarf planet (perhaps it prefers to be called "little planet"). And that is how it should be.
How is this related to the earlier post? It makes my point that new data and evidence lead to new understandings, and that science is not about tradition, history or sentimentality. It is about reason. It has long since made sense to include Pluto with the other planets as it is more and more obvious that it more like the other small icy objects of the Kuiper belt than the 8 main planets. All this declaration (which really changes nothing important) does is recognize that fact and that is why it's significant. Pluto was made a planet because astronomy in 1930 didn't know any better. Now we do, and so astronomers have made the correction, and that should lead to a better understanding of the solar system in the future.
The sentimentality of the original planetary definition (trying to preserve Pluto's place as a planet proper) made little sense and was roundly rejected by the main body of the group. Bravo, and a good object lesson to the general public about scientific integrity.
How is this related to the earlier post? It makes my point that new data and evidence lead to new understandings, and that science is not about tradition, history or sentimentality. It is about reason. It has long since made sense to include Pluto with the other planets as it is more and more obvious that it more like the other small icy objects of the Kuiper belt than the 8 main planets. All this declaration (which really changes nothing important) does is recognize that fact and that is why it's significant. Pluto was made a planet because astronomy in 1930 didn't know any better. Now we do, and so astronomers have made the correction, and that should lead to a better understanding of the solar system in the future.
The sentimentality of the original planetary definition (trying to preserve Pluto's place as a planet proper) made little sense and was roundly rejected by the main body of the group. Bravo, and a good object lesson to the general public about scientific integrity.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
War on Trial
Army Lt. Ehren Watada refused to deploy to Iraq with his Striker brigade recently, because, he told his superiors, the war is illegal and he had a duty to refuse to serve. He offered to go to Afghanistan, but was refused the compromise. Why? The Army argues that soldiers don't get to make that determination and if they did, Army discipline would unravel. He is going through an Article 32 hearing now, as an Army judge has to decide whether Watada should go to trial in a Court Martial.
If it does go to trial, Watada and his defense intend to put the war itself on trial. Go here for more info.
If it does go to trial, Watada and his defense intend to put the war itself on trial. Go here for more info.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
The Tyranny of Moral Certainty
It is distressing to me that I even have to write this.
The title of this post is self evident. Dogmatic, ideological loyalty must lead to tyranny. Either you are an adherent or an apostate. And the apostate inevitably becomes seen as evil or in league with it.
And yet many Americans have been seduced by the siren song of "moral certainty," as the neo-cons have labeled it. Good vs. Evil. We are good. Our enemies, evil. Everything we do is good, by definition. Everything they do is evil, by definition. That is why we can torture people, or at least hold them indefinitely without charge in maddeningly cruel solitary confinement. We are good and they are evil. We are protecting the good by any means necessary. And if you question this, you are abetting evil and standing against good. By definition.
That's the problem. Contradictory facts from the real world have no place to go if the mind is closed and the question already settled. Reason based on rational synthesis of the facts has no place. Minds cannot change if they are closed. Nor can they even understand the alternative way of thinking. Dogmatists believe in big unchangeable truths and the little truths that every day life reveals therefore have to fall in line to support the big idea already affirmed. The Earth is the center of the universe. Period. Never mind that evidence from new technology (telescopes) and mountains of data from observation required more and more tortured explanations to make the two fit. Some of these were admittedly pretty remarkable in their cleverness. But those who we free from the big truth were able to come up with a much simpler explanation (the Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun). One proponent, Galileo Galilei was called an agent of the devil for this heresy and tortured into recanting.
Even to this day, people reject ideas only because they conflict with a big truth. Public radio quoted a man as saying, "science is about facts, and evolution is only a theory, so it should not be taught as a fact." His mind can't even understand the alternative way of thinking. Science isn't about facts. Science rejects the idea of Dogma and Big Truth. Instead it focuses an open, sometimes called skeptical, mind on the little facts, tries to come up with a explanation that fits the facts best, and then makes predictions that can be tested and either confirmed or denied. Further, these test must be repeatable. So the tester has to reveal his methodology as well as the resultant data so that others can scrutinize it and evaluate it. That way, flaws can be found and corrections suggested. Scientific theories therefore are not written in stone, but are simply the best explanation given what we know at the moment. If new technologies bring about new discoveries and the new data doesn't fit the old explanation, scientists propose new theories that fit both the old and new data. Newtonian physics worked great for it's time, but as astronomy and physics revealed new data about the very large and massive parts of our universe that defied Newtonian predictions, it was clear his mechanics had limitations. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, superseded Newton because it explained the old AND the new data better than Newton's theory. That doesn't mean Newton was wrong. NASA used Newtonian physics to make all the calculations necessary to send Apollo astronauts to the moon and back. It just didn't work on the truly massive scales we ecountered after Newton's death.
The idea is that nothing in science is the final word. You don't have to believe in science. You can demand and get an explanation for any scientific theory. And you must remain open to new data and be ready to accept new explanations that explain things better. Despite what the dogmatist say, there is no alternative scientific theory to evolution. In fact, the new discoveries in genetics are fully consistent with Darwin's ideas. Intelligent Design is merely dogma dressed in pseudo science. It is merely an untestable assertion and therefore is not science.
This is basic. Every student should understand this. The fact that they don't is an indictment of our educational system. Science is not magic. It is not the proclamation of someone called a scientist. It is simply a system of observation, prediction and repeatable testing. It must convince the open minded. Democracy requires that our political discourse follow those same ideals. Truth needs to come from the bottom up and not from on high. Hitler was morally certain. So was Stalin and Mao and Franco and Mussolini. That is the way of the tyrant. A democrat has to be willing to adapt to the truth as it is revealed to his or her open mind.
So questioning policy rationales cannot be evil. Good rationales must have good evidence behind them and should convince the open mind. Indeed, questioning is exactly how we find the weak rationales and root them out. Moral certainty is an illusion and worse, it can only lead to tryrany, which I would argue to your open mind, is bad.
The title of this post is self evident. Dogmatic, ideological loyalty must lead to tyranny. Either you are an adherent or an apostate. And the apostate inevitably becomes seen as evil or in league with it.
And yet many Americans have been seduced by the siren song of "moral certainty," as the neo-cons have labeled it. Good vs. Evil. We are good. Our enemies, evil. Everything we do is good, by definition. Everything they do is evil, by definition. That is why we can torture people, or at least hold them indefinitely without charge in maddeningly cruel solitary confinement. We are good and they are evil. We are protecting the good by any means necessary. And if you question this, you are abetting evil and standing against good. By definition.
That's the problem. Contradictory facts from the real world have no place to go if the mind is closed and the question already settled. Reason based on rational synthesis of the facts has no place. Minds cannot change if they are closed. Nor can they even understand the alternative way of thinking. Dogmatists believe in big unchangeable truths and the little truths that every day life reveals therefore have to fall in line to support the big idea already affirmed. The Earth is the center of the universe. Period. Never mind that evidence from new technology (telescopes) and mountains of data from observation required more and more tortured explanations to make the two fit. Some of these were admittedly pretty remarkable in their cleverness. But those who we free from the big truth were able to come up with a much simpler explanation (the Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun). One proponent, Galileo Galilei was called an agent of the devil for this heresy and tortured into recanting.
Even to this day, people reject ideas only because they conflict with a big truth. Public radio quoted a man as saying, "science is about facts, and evolution is only a theory, so it should not be taught as a fact." His mind can't even understand the alternative way of thinking. Science isn't about facts. Science rejects the idea of Dogma and Big Truth. Instead it focuses an open, sometimes called skeptical, mind on the little facts, tries to come up with a explanation that fits the facts best, and then makes predictions that can be tested and either confirmed or denied. Further, these test must be repeatable. So the tester has to reveal his methodology as well as the resultant data so that others can scrutinize it and evaluate it. That way, flaws can be found and corrections suggested. Scientific theories therefore are not written in stone, but are simply the best explanation given what we know at the moment. If new technologies bring about new discoveries and the new data doesn't fit the old explanation, scientists propose new theories that fit both the old and new data. Newtonian physics worked great for it's time, but as astronomy and physics revealed new data about the very large and massive parts of our universe that defied Newtonian predictions, it was clear his mechanics had limitations. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, superseded Newton because it explained the old AND the new data better than Newton's theory. That doesn't mean Newton was wrong. NASA used Newtonian physics to make all the calculations necessary to send Apollo astronauts to the moon and back. It just didn't work on the truly massive scales we ecountered after Newton's death.
The idea is that nothing in science is the final word. You don't have to believe in science. You can demand and get an explanation for any scientific theory. And you must remain open to new data and be ready to accept new explanations that explain things better. Despite what the dogmatist say, there is no alternative scientific theory to evolution. In fact, the new discoveries in genetics are fully consistent with Darwin's ideas. Intelligent Design is merely dogma dressed in pseudo science. It is merely an untestable assertion and therefore is not science.
This is basic. Every student should understand this. The fact that they don't is an indictment of our educational system. Science is not magic. It is not the proclamation of someone called a scientist. It is simply a system of observation, prediction and repeatable testing. It must convince the open minded. Democracy requires that our political discourse follow those same ideals. Truth needs to come from the bottom up and not from on high. Hitler was morally certain. So was Stalin and Mao and Franco and Mussolini. That is the way of the tyrant. A democrat has to be willing to adapt to the truth as it is revealed to his or her open mind.
So questioning policy rationales cannot be evil. Good rationales must have good evidence behind them and should convince the open mind. Indeed, questioning is exactly how we find the weak rationales and root them out. Moral certainty is an illusion and worse, it can only lead to tryrany, which I would argue to your open mind, is bad.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
More Good News from Iraq
Well, the Austin Illiterate Spaceman probably won't print my letter to the editor because it prefers to give space to regurgitated, uninformed drivel like the letters I responded to. At least it's published here, where hundreds, nay, thousands, will never see it.
More good news from Iraq that you won't hear on the mainstream media. The sectarian violence that has wracked that poor country since February has created 180,000 internal refugees. That's people forced from their home inside their own country. 20,000 registered in the last two weeks of July alone. Mixed areas are being homogenized in what one could imagine is the prelude to a partitioning of Iraq. Lucky the Coalition is there to provide stability, huh? We can't leave or there will be chaos, just like what is happening now. Brilliant logic. We are powerless, but we can't admit that. We're like a pathetic semi-functioning addict in that regard.
I want America back! Don't you?
More good news from Iraq that you won't hear on the mainstream media. The sectarian violence that has wracked that poor country since February has created 180,000 internal refugees. That's people forced from their home inside their own country. 20,000 registered in the last two weeks of July alone. Mixed areas are being homogenized in what one could imagine is the prelude to a partitioning of Iraq. Lucky the Coalition is there to provide stability, huh? We can't leave or there will be chaos, just like what is happening now. Brilliant logic. We are powerless, but we can't admit that. We're like a pathetic semi-functioning addict in that regard.
I want America back! Don't you?
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
My letter to the Austin American-Statesman
Here is the text of my letter to the Statesman in response to letters decrying Lieberman's defeat, dissent being unpatriotic, and Cheney claiming Connecticut's decision helped Al Quaeda:
Patriotism is Dissent
Re: Kevin Birdsell's and Rick Hill's letters to the editor, Tuesday, August 15, I thought Dick Cheney's comments about Ned Lamont's defeat of Joe Lieberman ties them together nicely. To paraphrase, Cheney said that by defeating Lieberman, Connecticut voters helped Al Quaeda. It is that kind of outrageous charge that folks who oppose the war object to. It is nonsense and polls show more and more Americans-Democrat, Republican and Independent-are seeing it as such, Mr. Birdsell. (By the way, a fact, by definition, is not arguable.)
Joe Lieberman wasn't rejected by his party because he was strong on defense as Mr. Hill says. He was rejected because he supported a war of adventure against a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, and continued to support it long after it was irreparably botched. The US military presence has long been irrelevant to how things will turn out in Iraq. The 300 bodies that show up daily in Baghdad morgues aren't victims of insurgents. They are victims of sectarian assassinations our military is powerless to stop. The situation there is in Iraqi hands now and we are pretty much irrelevant.
That's why we want the troops home as soon as possible. They're presence can no longer help matters and only makes them targets. Their absence won't fundamentally change the balance of power there, where militias are acting with impunity even now.
Instead of supporting the Iraqi adventure, Joe should have stood with other Democrats who pointed out we should finish the job in Afghanistan. You know, the place where the actual perpetrators of 9/11 were sheltered. Maybe if we had focus our efforts on wiping out Al Quaeda and the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar would be dead or captured, and then we could have disarmed the warlords and controlled the opium trade. Instead, those criminals are strangling that poor country.
The Iraq war, far from making us safer, is a recruitment poster, swelling the ranks of radicalized young Muslims who want to kill us. Democrats wanted their leaders to be the loyal Opposition. Instead, Joe was a blind follower. That's why he was defeated. That democracy in action. McGovern has nothing to do with it, Republican propaganda aside.
We used to be the nation the world looked to for unbridled, even cockeyed, optimism. This administration and Congress has made us purveyors of the fear and smear propaganda campaign. Patriots should stand in opposition, remove these scoundrels, and get ready for the long hard work necessary to repair the damage they have done.
Here's the text of the letters I responded to:
The Fall of the Democrats
When U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman lost the Connecticut primary, the Democratic Party became the official anti-war party. The last time it wore this mantle, George McGovern was soundly defeated by President Nixon in the 1972 election.
A Democrat who supported a strong defense, Lieberman could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other great Democrats such as Hubert Humphrey and Ed Muskie. Now after 30 years of public service, Lieberman has been kicked to the curb and the party has been taken over by the MoveOn.org fringe. President Lyndon B. Johnson and Sam Rayburn would roll over in their graves if they could see what has happened to this once-proud party.
RICK HILL
Buda
Free speech goes both ways
I am amazed when I hear on the radio, watch on television and read in the American-Statesman liberals and people who oppose this war using the unpatriotic card.
I did not realize exercising First Amendment rights is a one-way street. Somehow it is OK to call this president a liar, racist, war-monger, etc. But if a Republican dares to question their facts, opinions, etc., well, we must be questioning their patriotism.
If someone wants to question patriotism, they have every right to do that, too.
Quit crying about your patriotism being questioned, because that person has the same rights that you do to call President Bush a liar, racist and war-monger.
KEVIN BIRDSELL
Hutto
Patriotism is Dissent
Re: Kevin Birdsell's and Rick Hill's letters to the editor, Tuesday, August 15, I thought Dick Cheney's comments about Ned Lamont's defeat of Joe Lieberman ties them together nicely. To paraphrase, Cheney said that by defeating Lieberman, Connecticut voters helped Al Quaeda. It is that kind of outrageous charge that folks who oppose the war object to. It is nonsense and polls show more and more Americans-Democrat, Republican and Independent-are seeing it as such, Mr. Birdsell. (By the way, a fact, by definition, is not arguable.)
Joe Lieberman wasn't rejected by his party because he was strong on defense as Mr. Hill says. He was rejected because he supported a war of adventure against a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, and continued to support it long after it was irreparably botched. The US military presence has long been irrelevant to how things will turn out in Iraq. The 300 bodies that show up daily in Baghdad morgues aren't victims of insurgents. They are victims of sectarian assassinations our military is powerless to stop. The situation there is in Iraqi hands now and we are pretty much irrelevant.
That's why we want the troops home as soon as possible. They're presence can no longer help matters and only makes them targets. Their absence won't fundamentally change the balance of power there, where militias are acting with impunity even now.
Instead of supporting the Iraqi adventure, Joe should have stood with other Democrats who pointed out we should finish the job in Afghanistan. You know, the place where the actual perpetrators of 9/11 were sheltered. Maybe if we had focus our efforts on wiping out Al Quaeda and the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar would be dead or captured, and then we could have disarmed the warlords and controlled the opium trade. Instead, those criminals are strangling that poor country.
The Iraq war, far from making us safer, is a recruitment poster, swelling the ranks of radicalized young Muslims who want to kill us. Democrats wanted their leaders to be the loyal Opposition. Instead, Joe was a blind follower. That's why he was defeated. That democracy in action. McGovern has nothing to do with it, Republican propaganda aside.
We used to be the nation the world looked to for unbridled, even cockeyed, optimism. This administration and Congress has made us purveyors of the fear and smear propaganda campaign. Patriots should stand in opposition, remove these scoundrels, and get ready for the long hard work necessary to repair the damage they have done.
Here's the text of the letters I responded to:
The Fall of the Democrats
When U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman lost the Connecticut primary, the Democratic Party became the official anti-war party. The last time it wore this mantle, George McGovern was soundly defeated by President Nixon in the 1972 election.
A Democrat who supported a strong defense, Lieberman could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other great Democrats such as Hubert Humphrey and Ed Muskie. Now after 30 years of public service, Lieberman has been kicked to the curb and the party has been taken over by the MoveOn.org fringe. President Lyndon B. Johnson and Sam Rayburn would roll over in their graves if they could see what has happened to this once-proud party.
RICK HILL
Buda
Free speech goes both ways
I am amazed when I hear on the radio, watch on television and read in the American-Statesman liberals and people who oppose this war using the unpatriotic card.
I did not realize exercising First Amendment rights is a one-way street. Somehow it is OK to call this president a liar, racist, war-monger, etc. But if a Republican dares to question their facts, opinions, etc., well, we must be questioning their patriotism.
If someone wants to question patriotism, they have every right to do that, too.
Quit crying about your patriotism being questioned, because that person has the same rights that you do to call President Bush a liar, racist and war-monger.
KEVIN BIRDSELL
Hutto
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