Following Rita

Looks like another major hurricane is bearing down on the Gulf Coast. Rita (a tropical storm now but expected to strengthen once it reaches the Gulf) looks to miss the areas affected by Katrina for the most part. Right now it's aimed at Houston. Which is really obnoxious irony for all the New Orleans evacuees now making their temporary home in the Astrodome.

Speaking of hurricanes, Katrina has turned Bush into something very odd - a tax-and-spend liberal. (Actually, just a "spend" liberal. He still doesn't seem to grasp the idea that taxes generate the revenue needed for the requisite spending.) Not that I'm complaining. It's just amusing to listen to the overwhelming silence from the small-government crowd when it comes to relief spending. I guess economic libertarianism has its limits.

But we have to pay for the hurricane somehow, and Bush seems content just to take us further into debt. Sadly, the most obvious solution - the repeal of tax cuts to the super-rich - doesn't look like it's in the cards. Nor does the other obvious solution - trimming down spending on our Iraq expedition and thus the scope of the occupation. To wit, an intelligent idea has come from the Heritage Foundation, which usually just spews the tax-cuts-to-the-rich-and-cut-programs-for-the-poor gospel. They suggest eliminating all the pork from the recent highway bill, which will produce some $12 billion. They have a point - I think that bridge to Nowheresville, Alaska can wait.

Of course, come Saturday when Rita hits, we're likely to have another big cleanup on our hands. Here's hoping the feds don't screw this one up as bad as the last one. Really, we'd best start preparing now - get the Red Cross ready in San Antonio or Austin, stockpile food within a day's drive of the Texas coast, prepare the National Guard, etc.

Police Brutality

Some looters deserved to be arrested. This one didn't. Hell, the deli's owner doesn't even want her charged with anything.

And why would bail for "theft" of $63 worth of essential goods - like food - for survival during a natural disaster be set at $50,000? Is a 73-year-old woman a flight risk?

When I'm told that Louisiana has a Napoleonic legal system, I didn't think that the 19-years-for-a-loaf-of-bread thing followed with it. Next thing you know, the Kenner police chief is going to be changing his name to Javert. Barricades to follow soon.

Free-Floating Hostility, Vol. 2

More random comments on the state of the world:

The Bush administration, for whatever reason, is refusing to let 1500+ Cuban doctors into the Gulf Coast to help Katrina victims. Apparently Honduran immigrant communities were hit hard, so there's a need for Spanish-speaking doctors in the area. I can't imagine that the Red Cross wouldn't want 1500 extra doctors helping them out. Somebody please point out the sense in putting diplomatic bitterness in front of humanitarian need, because I don't see it.

Speaking of which, British columnist Julian Baggini describes why many Britons aren't sending aid to the victims of the storm: "We don’t want to plug the gaping hole created by inegalitarian American social policy because we want to expose it for what it is, and shatter the US’s self-image as the most fair and free country in the world." So let me get this straight. You're going to teach the U.S. a lesson about how it treats its poor people by refusing to help its poor people. Yeah, that's a brilliant idea.

Both the above pieces are from the Post's World Opinion Roundup.

Stephen Pearlstein writes on the little-noticed news that poverty is increasing in America, and not just thanks to Katrina. Indeed, the only section of America that has seen any "recovery" in our supposed economic recovery is the upper class. You know, the ones getting the tax cuts. Seems like our policymakers have failed to notice that when it comes to the poor, the Invisible Hand of the market is off somewhere picking an Invisible Nose. And the poor get hit by the Invisible Boogers.

Signs that there are more important things on demagogues' minds: the Massachusetts state legislature rejected a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage by the ever-so-close count of 157-39. Last year, during the height of the political furor over the issue, Massachusetts legislators voted for the ban 105-92. However, in Massachusetts, a constitutional amendment must be approved in two straight legislative sessions and be passed by a public referendum in order to become official. One Republican legislator explained why he switched his vote: "Gay marriage has begun, and life has not changed for the citizens of the commonwealth, with the exception of those who can now marry." I hear the Society for the Ridiculously Obvious has decided to award him its highest honor. Read the Post article here.

And finally, in the "here we go again" department, a California court ruled that the mandatory recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in schools is unconstitutional. The suit is being brought by the same guy, but this time he found people who actually have standing to sue with him. This means that the Supreme Court (should the suit get there) can't duck the issue this time. Of course, this case will invariably produce exactly what the world needs: a bunch of paranoid religious conservatives complaining about our collective moral perdition while a bunch of paranoid atheists/agnostics warn us of an impending theocracy. Chance of this issue being handled with anything resembling reasonability: zero.

Shocked! Shocked!

A Florida mother was apparently dismayed to learn that her eleventh grade daughter was assigned a book containing an oral sex scene. Idiotically but not surprisingly, she is not content to opt her student out of the book. Instead, she wants it banned.

She calls the book pornography - apparently failing to realize that this is a book about 1940s India containing oral sex, not a book about oral sex containing 1940s India. Hell, I was assigned a book containing a sex scene in ninth grade, and a play with truck loads of sexual innuendo in tenth grade (Aristophanes' Lysistrata).

Guess what? Your daughter is (presumably) 16. She almost certainly knows what oral sex is. You're not protecting her from anything. That having been said, it is her right as a parent to limit what her daughter should and shouldn't read. However, she's not all the other students' mommy, and she does not need to be given that authority. Nor does the school board.

Worst... Idea... Ever

In the Things No One Noticed That Could Result In Armageddon department, the Washington Post reports that the Pentagon is set to endorse the preemptive use of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, they would recommend that the President have full authority to use this power whenever he damn well pleases. And Congress hasn't heard about it until now - Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner (R-VA) hasn't received a copy yet.

Has anyone seen Dr. Strangelove? Yeah, it's kinda like that.

To be fair, we haven't used nuclear weapons since 1945 - a time period which has seen undeclared and unconstitutional wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq (twice). Back then traditional weapons were often just as destructive as nuclear ones - for example, Tokyo was more severely damaged by a single firebombing run than Hiroshima was by the nuclear bomb. However, nuclear bombs have grown up significantly since 1945 - today's bombs carry at least 100 times the destructive power of Little Boy.

But it's scary to think that Bush could just nuke Tehran tomorrow. Given the state of our ability to tell when someone is about to attack us or not, this policy could mean that we'll end up nuking somebody somewhere for absolutely no reason. "Preemption" is always dangerous, and it just got more so.

And nuclear weapons aren't specific. Lots of people die when a nuke is set off, even one of the small "bunker-buster" ones that were in planning until Congress wisely pulled the plug. The potential for so-called "collateral damage" - by which I mean the death of innocent civilians - is far greater. A scorched-earth policy of warfare is not useful in a delicate fight such as the war on terror, nor should it be a tool for diplomacy. We ought to have more concern for those whose hearts and minds we claim to be pursuing and less for the well being of our nuclear arsenal.

What Was Today, Again?

I was cruising away messages today when I noticed that Zhubin had posted the following (yes, I still away-message stalk Zhubin)...

"There's something important about today...but I can't quite remember it...

Oh, right! Season premiere of Simpsons and Family Guy!"

The most obvious sign that terror has failed is the fact that today's anniversary has gotten scant if any notice from anyone.

All catastrophes fade into memory. It's tough to notice Andrew's mark on South Florida anymore. New York is back to obsessing over how to beat the Red Sox. With time, New Orleans will be back to playing jazz and eating red beans and rice. When we help each other get by, Americans can be a pretty resilient bunch.

Rules of Mankind

From today's Chicago Sun-Times:

"But if high gas prices don't faze you and you're in the market for a car, maybe you'd enjoy the Fine Motor Auction and Luxury Lifestyle Expo in New York this weekend.

A three-day ticket will run you $100, but you can bid on the Batmobile Michael Keaton drove in the movie (estimated at $500,000), or a 1969 Dodge Charger (only $50,000) that was used in promotions by the "Dukes of Hazzard" TV stars.

The auction organizers think a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda might bring $5 million, but if that's too rich for your blood, there will be booths selling cigars, fine wine, Swiss watches and other items living up to the "luxury lifestyle" part of the thing's name.

Keith Martin, publisher of Sports Car Market magazine, described the idea behind the event to Bloomberg News: 'Put sparkly things in front of people who can afford to buy them without thinking twice.'"

Mr. Martin, I think "put sparkly things in front of people who can afford to buy them without thinking twice" describes at least half of all consumption among the upper and middle classes. You should have a law of economics named after you. Perhaps I should construct a plot of sparkliness vs. demand, give it a snazzy name, throw in a few formulas with integrals, and publish it in an economics journal. It's a Nobel Prize winner for sure.

More Hurricane-Related Incompetence

The Salt Lake Tribune brings our attention to another reason why FEMA management should be slapped silly. I have this macabre, Catch-22-style scene in my head right now - a firefighter comes across a family that needs to be rescued, hands them a flier with FEMA's number on them, says something like "if you need anything, that's the number to call, I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to do more," and leaves.

I draw your attention also to this line from the end of the article:

"But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas."

Now I doubt Bush himself is going to be going on any rescue missions in southern Mississippi or Louisiana. So there are fifty less people out there looking for people who need rescuing so President Bush can make himself look good.

What a clusterfuck.

Thanks to Zhubin for the link.

I Get A Kick Out Of You

Congratulations to goalkeeper/beast Kasey Keller and the U.S. men's soccer team, who qualified for the World Cup by beating Jared Borgetti and fifth-in-the-world Mexico 2-0 in Columbus, Ohio. (The Americans are ranked 6th.)

What excites me is that US-Mexico has the potential to turn into a great soccer rivalry along the lines of England-France and Brazil-Argentina. Since both teams are ranked so highly, a rivalry that gets both sides determined can help both the US and Mexico make the next step to the rarified heights of the soccer elite. Not to mention it would increase interest in soccer here in the States.

Already the words are flying. Mexico's coach Ricardo Lavolpe said that the Americans "play like my sister, my aunt and my grandmother." So Ricky, how does it feel to lose to your sister, aunt, and grandmother? And US forward Landon Donovan said, when asked about Mexico's team, "they suck." Yeah, because you get to #5 in the world by sucking.

Goodbye, Bill

The coverage of Hurricane Katrina has rightly garnered the lion's share of the headlines this weekend, and in the mass of death and destruction left by the storm, it's tough to justify eulogizing just one person whose death had nothing to do with the hurricane.

But I feel the need to say something about Justice William Rehnquist, who died late Saturday night at the age of 80. He spent 33 years on the Supreme Court, the last 19 of them as Chief Justice. I agreed with almost none of his opinions, but I had more respect for him than I did for Scalia and Thomas. With Rehnquist, it's tough to say that he was pushing some sort of ideology like the other anchors of the Court's right wing - he was deciding cases the way he thought they should be decided, and that was that. Sure, his political conservatism made his decisions inconsistent, but show me a judge whose politics doesn't affect his/her decisions and I'll show you a robot.

Of course, now we have to deal with the acrimony of not one but two confirmation hearings. Glorious. Roberts will probably take over as C.J., at least if Bush has his way. Looking at Roberts as Rehnquist's replacement will likely make his confirmation easier since he'll be a conservative replacing a conservative. The next person nominated - who will doubtlessly be as far right as Roberts and Rehnquist - is going to have a tough road, though, especially with Bush's failing approval ratings and the return of Arlen Specter's maverick ways.

Your Daily Amusement

This guy rules. On this site, you will find not only a third theory of how the earth came to be, but also proof positive that a lack of pirates causes global warming.

More evolution crap

This New York Times article, shamelessly mooched from Zhubin's blog, chronicles a poll regarding the increasing appeal of "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution. 42% of people are strict creationists. That means they think that life has always existed in its current form, presumably since God created the earth in exactly six days.

That's not particularly disturbing, though - it just means that some people put more faith in science than others. The most disturbing sentiment revealed by the poll is the following:

The poll showed 41 percent of respondents wanted parents to have the primary say over how evolution is taught, compared with 28 percent who said teachers and scientists should decide and 21 percent who said school boards should.

So basically, 62% of people believe that someone other than the experts should decide how an academic subject is taught. Teachers and scientists know more about evolution and its discontents than your average parent or school board member. Would you want someone with a degree in chemical engineering telling your school how to teach English? I doubt it. Parents and politicians need to realize that, when it comes to science, scientists probably know what they're talking about.

Furthermore, meddling with a subject in order to give it some sort of moral purpose has already ruined the teaching of history (see anything written by James Loewen). I don't want that to happen to science too. The purpose of teaching science should not be to make people feel good about their worldview - it should be to teach state-of-the-art scientific knowledge. And if science troubles your faith in God... well, it ain't science's fault.

Hurricane Post

I don't know what I can post on the hurricane without sounding trite. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour compared it to Hiroshima - and it's tough to argue with him. It's tough to find anything good amid all the destruction, but I just wanted to point out a couple of things that may be signs that everything will eventually be alright again...

Hugo Chavez put aside his anti-American rhetoric for the time being and offered fuel, food, aid workers, and all kinds of useful stuff for the hurricane victims. He was the first foreign leader to do so. Since then, China's Hu Jintao and the Saudis have joined in (even though China just got hit by a typhoon, which is like a hurricane, only smaller and in the Pacific).

Even though 80% of the city is underwater, as of yesterday, beer and gumbo were still being served in the French Quarter.

Texas is opening its public schools to hurricane victims, and universities are trying to figure out how to house displaced Tulane, UNO, and other students.

So my heart goes out to the families of all those killed by the hurricane, as well as all those killed in the stampede in Baghdad that claimed some 900 lives.

On an unrelated note, applause to the lady who quit the FDA over its blatantly political refusal to approve the emergency contraceptive pill. Guess she's frustrated that the FDA seems content to keep that abortion rate in the stratosphere. Seriously, can this pill be any more dangerous than Vioxx?

North Carolina has a lottery now, despite the fact that 26 senators were opposed and 24 were in favor. How did this happen? Senate Majority Leader Marc Basnight cheated. One opponent was on his honeymoon, and another had a staph infection in his leg. Basnight held the vote anyway, and the lieutenant governor cast the deciding vote. So North Carolinians can thank bacteria like staph and Basnight for the lottery. I would have preferred a fair fight, but that's just me.

And Mike points out that Art Garfunkel has been arrested for marijuana possession. I guess upstate New York doesn't have enough real crime to fight. (It is amusing that he was arrested in Woodstock, though.)

Vote for Kinky

I think I've just found my ideal candidate. I don't know anything about his views on the issues. I can't even vote for him. But damn, he just emanates coolness.

I'm referring to Kinky Friedman, Jewish writer and musician, who is running for governor of Texas. You can't help but vote for a candidate whose campaign slogan is "why the hell not?" And one of his policy arguments is "I'm a Jew, I'll hire good people."

If that's not enough of a reason to vote for him, he's friends with Willie Nelson. They're both biodiesel-obsessed (not necessarily a bad thing).

Of course, a Jewish candidate in Texas has about a snowball's chance in, well, Texas of winning. But that's beside the point.

And let's bask in the awesomeness of this campaign promise as well...

“If elected, I would ask Willie Nelson to be the head of the Texas Rangers and Energy Czar and Laura Bush to take charge of the Texas Peace Corps to improve education in the state. I’d ask my Palestinian hairdresser, Farouk Shami, to be Texas’ ambassador to Israel. We’ve worked together to create Farouk & Friedman olive oil. The oil comes from the Holy Land and all of the profits go to benefit Israeli and Palestinian children.”

So those of you who live in Texas - Mike, I'm looking at you - vote for this guy come 2006. Why the hell not?

Wake Up, Wake

In the wake of the lottery collapse, the North Carolina state legislature just allowed counties to hold a referendum in various counties on allowing them to raise the sales tax. Wake County, my home, decided to take part.

I hope this referendum dies a horrible, painful death. A sales tax is the absolute worst way to raise money since it is the ultimate regressive tax. A lottery would have been less regressive than this. I doubt I'll ever be on the same side as ultraconservative Apex representative Paul Stam on anything again, but I have to say he's right when he says "there has to be a fairer way."

I'm not sure what that fairer way would be, though. Property taxes? Income tax? Telethons? Anyone have any suggestions? The problem with my opposition to this referendum is that I don't have any better ideas for raising more money...

Shake, Rattle, and Roll

Apparently, western N.C. was hit by an earthquake last night. Fortunately, no one was hurt in the magnitude 3.8 tremor, and the only thing damaged was one mobile home. I didn't even feel it here, 300 miles away.

Not sure what to blog about. I feel like saying that all this flap over memos John Roberts wrote in the '80s is somewhat misplaced. Sure, he should be asked questions about his controversial statements about pay parity and other civil rights issues at the upcoming Judiciary Committee hearing, and Senators would be amiss if they didn't bring it up. But good judges don't base their decisions on their personal feelings about the issue at hand - they base rulings on law. Someone could believe that all cats should be drowned in turpentine and dropped on Saskatchewan and still be a good judge as long as their rulings are based on a reasonable interpretation of the law. (Presumably, drowning cats in turpentine and dropping them on Saskatchewan is illegal, and laws against it are constitutional, so he would be bound to uphold such laws.)

Furthermore, I don't assume that Roberts feels the same way now as he did twenty years ago. I don't hold Aimee Mann responsible for her atrocious '80s hairdo, and I won't hold Roberts responsible for his opinions from twenty years ago unless he demonstrates that he still holds them.

Also, California is back in black. That sound you hear is former governor Gray Davis cackling maniacally.

Dictators Are Silly

Sometimes, dictators can be cruel, heartless, murderous, and any number of other horrible traits. But sometimes they can have just enough whimsy to be hilarious (when viewed from a distance, of course).

Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan is one such figure. In his twenty years as Turkmen dictator, he has fought moral crusades against some of the worst scourges to befall mankind: opera, ballet, facial hair, and gold tooth caps. Now, he's turned his attentions to lip synching. He says it negatively affects the development of singing (which can also be said for, oh, say, outlawing opera).

So much for Milli Vanilli's Central Asian tour.

More Fun With Automated Mailings

Jacob posted earlier on a letter sent by Comcast to one of its many satisfied customers addressing her as "Bitch Dog." Now, banking giant JP Morgan Chase enters the fray by sending a credit card solicitation addressed to Mr. Palestinian Bomber. Apparently, when victim Sami Habbas (a Palestinian-American who has been here for 51 years) called to complain, the ever-so-helpful folks at Chase greeted him, "Yes, Mr. Palestinian Bomber, how may we help you?"

I'm waiting for my "Dear Christ-Killer" letter...

A la Mr. Grier, instant update: apparently a NJ couple got "Jew Couple" written on their restaurant check - story from Daily Kos here. Not quite Christ-Killer, but funny nonetheless.

Election 2008 Preview

So we finally found someone who would seriously challenge Christopher Walken in '08. (He'll be 46, in case you were wondering.)

Let the race begin. It may not be any cleaner than '04, but it'll be a darn sight funnier.

Fun With Kickbacks

Call it poetic justice: in China, American companies are forced to bribe Chinese government officials in order to win contracts. Whereas in America, states bribe companies to locate an operation in their state. If only corporations would bribe me...

Bet On It

North Carolina is five votes away from getting a lottery. It's about the only Southern state without one right now. Certainly the lottery looks good on its face. Georgia's lottery has established the remarkable Hope Scholarships, which send any Georgia high school student whose GPA is above 3.0 to a state school for free (not bad, when your options include UGA and Georgia Tech). Virginia's lottery has contributed immensely to its public school system. Why not try to give North Carolina's schools a boost?

Let's look at who opposes this lottery. The mommies and daddies in the Republican Party say that nice boys and girls don't play at betting games. I don't respect that point of view enough to argue with it. But the objections pointed out by the five Democrats who stand in the lottery's way (including Janet Cowell, my Senator) and the three moderate Republicans who are being lobbied by the lottery (among them Cary's Richard Stevens, who is about three blocks away from being my Senator) give me pause.

Stevens and the Republicans are concerned that the money won't be spent well. One Jones County senator points out that the money his district will be getting will barely be enough to build three portable classrooms. If the money is divided according to the current plan, Jones can forget about the two new schools it needs. (Ironic moment: the legislative building is located on Jones Street, which is named after the aforementioned county.) They also point out that the funds can be diverted from education when the state needs them, which essentially turns an ostensibly education-oriented lottery into just another revenue generator.

Cowell and company say that the lottery is a "poor tax" - i.e. it hits the poor, who need the money, more heavily than the rich. And they have a point. In this legislative session North Carolina has given money away to corporate interests, lowered the top income tax bracket, and raised the sales tax. We don't need yet another revenue generator that acts regressively. But this isn't your everyday tax - no one is forcing people to play the lottery. If you can't afford the ticket but buy one anyway, it's your own fault for being irresponsible. We're getting dangerously close to the "mommy and daddy" philosophy held onto by Republicans.

But the liberals have a point - there are better ways of generating revenue. Not making irresponsible tax cuts when the state is having budget troubles might help too. (And I thought that was just a Republican problem.) A higher tobacco tax - NC's is currently lowest in the nation - would also do the trick, though that might end up being just as regressive as the lottery. Sales and property taxes can be restructured so that they fall progressively instead of regressively.

And the moderate conservatives have a point - don't expect the lottery to magically make our school system better. At its base, it's just another way of making money, and not even a good one.

I still support the lottery. I've never heard of anyone going broke from playing the lottery. Hell, I even support taxed privately-owned gambling since it would tend to take money from the more affluent (N&O columnist Dennis Rogers is with me on this one). But I worry about how much good this lottery's going to do. We can hope it will work the same miracles it worked in Georgia, but don't bet on it. Our trusty state will find a way to screw it up.

Speaking of Georgia, the Washington Post published an op-ed by David Becker that brings attention to an onerous law being pushed by Georgia Republicans. They want to require photo IDs at polling stations. They say it will limit fraud, even though Secretary of State Cathy Cox points out there hasn't really been any fraud in Georgia except by absentee ballot. No, Republicans realize that the harder it is to vote, the less poor people and minorities will vote. And the less poor people and minorities vote, the more Republicans win.

Honestly, I can't believe that people would actually want to make it harder for people to vote. Voting is kind of central to our democracy. The hard work should be in making the decision, not in physically casting the ballot.

If Only...

Words cannot describe the disappointment I felt when I found out that this site was false. Because if we can't have a president that can singlehandedly fight our wars for us, we might as well have someone that could creep the bejesus out other heads of state.

Evolution, Baby

Surprisingly, there really isn't a whole lot to write about this week. The only big story is Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, and the eviction of a bunch of people who are willing to fight to the death for the right to live in a useless patch of desert. Honestly, Israel has useless patches of desert to spare (I'm thinking of the entire southern half of the country here). If you really want to live in the desert, there's room for you. Personally, I'm not sure I understand the problems with the settlements in the first place - or the return of the refugees who inexplicably left during the 1948 wars. (Inexplicably, because thanks to their departure Arab say in Israel's government is all but nil. Ten seats in the Knesset ain't worth crap.) Why not just let people live where they want to live?

And with regards to the security barrier that's mucking up peace talks, I don't have much to say. Robert Frost might, though:

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Thanks, Bob.

On to other things: evolution. Seems the creationists want to get their two cents worth in high school biology classrooms. An article in Time describes their new tactic: creating problems with Darwin's theory, then proposing a new one called "intelligent design" (or creationism lite). They aren't the exclusionists they used to be - they don't want Darwin out of the classroom anymore - but they still want their "theory" given equal time. Never mind that unless you spend a lot of time on evolution, biology doesn't make much sense.

(Time's article is as heavily biased against the creationists as this opinion column. Be forewarned.)

I would like to say a couple of things. First, the next person to say that evolution is "just a theory" is going to be a severe challenge to my pacifism. Sure, evolution is a theory that can't be observed directly. So are gravity, relativity, electricity, magnetic fields, atoms, subatomic particles, wave-particle duality... I could go on. Science IS theory. Making inferences based on observations is what we do. Some theories are weaker than others, but evolution is one of the strongest theories out there. It has withstood, explained, and even predicted some 150 years of new data from paleontology, zoology, and the biological sciences. No observation has posed a significant challenge to evolution yet. We'll never see macroevolution occur (we've seen microevolution), but thanks to Heisenberg uncertainty, we'll never see an electron either. Why don't these "just a theory" people take on particle physicists for a while?

Second, let's not kid ourselves. Intelligent design is creationism and therefore religious in nature. It's constructed cleverly enough to avoid establishment clause critiques. But as one of the leading intelligent design proponents said, if it walks, acts, and quacks like a duck, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck. Sure, intelligent designers could be referring to an alien race who came to Earth and tinkered with DNA for a while until they had finished having their fun (see Parke Godwin's hilarious novel "Waiting for the Galactic Bus"). But who honestly thinks that such things are what intelligent design advocates are referring to?

Intelligent design is not a scientific theory and therefore has no place in our biology classes. It is based on the perceived holes in the accepted theory. Most of all, it is not disprovable. It is the official handwaving operator, the "then a miracle happened" between one part of the math equation and the other. It is not subject to scientific scrutiny because it requires a leap of faith beyond that which is normally required of scientists. It asks scientists, essentially, to give up.

History classes and special seminars can be used to "teach the controversy," if indeed there is one (within the scientific community, there really isn't). But don't ask students to give up on science. It's the last thing we need.

Blogging Gap

Haven't blogged in a while, and won't blog again for a while since I'll be away. But I posit this question for y'all to argue over: iTunes or Napster?

'Skins Fans, Take Note

I'm sure all you hard-core Redskins fans out there are wondering whatever happened to former wasted first-round pick Heath Shuler. Well, wonder no more - he's running for Congress in North Carolina. Unfortunately for Heath, he doesn't have anyone to throw to anymore since Steve Largent retired. But at least he'll have Tom Osborne as a coach.

Revisiting the Farley Flap

Pardon the rambling nature of this post. I don't really have a point here - I just wanted to throw out ideas.

49 comments in fifteen days... that's a hell of a rate for this backwater blog. Sadly, the commenting at the "Blast from the Past" post has ceased to yield new insights and has instead turned into an argument reminiscent of five-year-olds arguing at a swingset, except with naughtier language. I wanted to start an intelligent, reasonable conversation on the merits of advocating violent actions, on when and where it would be appropriate to do so, etc. Instead, it devolved into a discussion about race. Fine then, let's talk about race. It's a conversation we obviously need to have.

Accusations of racism flew at me from the second I picked up the phone on July 3rd. In fact, one of Dr. Farley's messages on my machine started off with "Hi, you're a racist." Commentors lobbed the charges as if they were lobbing hand grenades. This, despite the fact that no one commenting here could reasonably be called a racist. Indeed, no one said anything derogatory about white or black people, nor did anyone imply that racial equality was undesirable, nor did anyone speak about the inferiority of one group of people. So no one's a racist here.

Or are we? Does the very fact that we buy into a classification system that groups people into "white" and "black" make us racist? Is the idea of race itself a racist one?

Anthropologists and historians have long known that race was not an absolute concept. Franz Boas found that the concept of race varied between cultures around the turn of the century. And any scientific doubt that still lingered was destroyed in 1981 when Stephen Jay Gould published The Mismeasure of Man, refuting the idea that "black" people are significantly genetically different from "white" people or from any other people.

So if race isn't an absolute, what is it? Michael Omi and Howard Winant posited the idea that races are formed by underlying power structures - a society's hierarchical structure determines what people will be classified into a race. In America, "white" and "black" developed as a way of justifying the slave trade, and has stuck around despite the death of slavery. Indeed, as the power structure changed, so did the meanings of "white" and "black."

This is why we feel threatened by liminal characters like those in Philip Roth's The Human Stain or Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist. When someone challenges the assumptions that go into racial formation, they necessarily challenge our power structure. And that makes us nervous.

So it would seem that race is indeed a racist idea. But it cannot be denied that the idea of race has fostered a certain sense of pride in the "black" community that kept people going in the face of oppression. George Wallace and Orval Faubus were products of the ideology of race, but so were Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. It's more effective to fight oppression as a group rather than as a bunch of individuals, and race, however shameful its history, provided the framework for that. Racial formation taketh away, but it also giveth. (We can see something similar when we look at the Jews in Europe - the sense of otherness that caused the horrors of the Crusades and the Holocaust also kept Judaism alive throughout the Diaspora.)

Is there a way to look at race as a positive ingredient in our social construct? Or do the negatives of the idea of race outweigh the positives? Is it time to move beyond race to a more meaningful social construct? Can we? One thing is for certain - we must avoid lobbing charges of racism when we ourselves subscribe blindly to an arbitrary classification system. If we start seeing "black" and "white" as labels society gives us rather than absolute parts of our identity, then we can have a conversation on race that rises above the invective. But don't hold your breath.

Also, go here. It's hilarious, and has nothing to do with what I was just rambling about.

And The Winner Is... Some Guy

So President Bush has nominated CBS Evening News correspondent and sometime anchor John Roberts to the Supreme Court. How... odd.

Wait, there's a different John Roberts? And he's actually a judge? Imagine that!

Some people will inevitably complain that Bush didn't nominate a minority or a woman. Democrats should avoid that fallacy. Why? My colleague Alex points this out - reject Roberts because we want a woman, and we get Justice Coulter. Shiver.

Seriously, who is this guy? And why was the John Roberts I've heard of not nominated? I, personally, would have liked all the Court's opinions to end with "For the Supreme Court, I'm John Roberts. Good night."

Post Completely Unrelated To Politics

So when you type "search engine" into Google, Lycos is the first search engine to come up. Google is fifth. I find this amusing.

Now This Is Ridiculous

Reasonable people can disagree over whether or not sex offenders who have served their time should be treated differently from other ex-convicts. But this doesn't just cross the line - it leaves it in the dust.

Tsk Tsk, China

Here's a note to the Chinese leadership: Communism is the most extreme pro-labor philosophy out there. It thrives on labor protesting against capital. So if you're afraid that labor protests threaten your regime, you should probably quit with the charade of calling yourself "Communist."

Another Short Post

There are many factors contributing to juvenile delinquency. Poverty. Lack of education. Uninvolved parents. But someone should tell Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman that a video game played by rich suburban people isn't one of them. Guess it's easier to attack video games than fix a broken education system, eh?

Dispatch From The Other Washington

"Just sex with an animal per se, you'd have to prove some sort of animal cruelty out of that and that's why we've got more investigating to do." - King County (WA) Sheriff's Dept. Sgt. John Urquhart, on a farm that apparently brought people in to have sex with animals. Bestiality is legal in Washington.

I'm picturing some guy in a sheriff's uniform going up to a cow and asking, "Did you enjoy it or do you feel violated?" "Mooooo."

The Plame Game

So then Susie told Marla that Johnny was going to dump Beth, but then Alison got all mad because she had told Susie that she liked Johnny and Beth found out and, like, it was so crazy...

Why is it that Washington seems to function more and more like middle school every time I turn around?

Seriously, with today's developments in the who-blew-the-CIA-agent's-cover sweepstakes, the method by which Valerie Plame's identity became known to the general public is starting to resemble a gossip chain. And then somebody told Robert who told Karl who was like, well, duh, and then Karl told Matthew and then Judith found out, and then Valerie and Joseph were really mad because, like, well, obviously...

This whole flap leaves me with two questions. First, how the hell is the CIA so godawful at keeping secrets? Those "undercover operations" that were supposed to be secret? Chile? Iran? Cuba? Guatemala? Yeah, we knew about them ten seconds after they happened. And if they can't keep their undercover operatives safe from politically motivated sabotage, something is horribly, horribly wrong. Is there an online database of this kind of thing? Can you type "undercover CIA agent list" into Google and get a response? No wonder we thought there were WMDs in Iraq - we can't keep people undercover, so I think the intelligence involved some guy somewhere flipping a coin.

Second, what possessed Novak to print something like the name of an undercover CIA agent? For now, let's ignore the fact that somebody was, to paraphrase Billy Crudup in Almost Famous, telling secrets to the one guy you do not tell secrets to. If you have a secret that you should probably keep for fear of endangering someone's life and the security of your nation but could tell to gain a really trifling political advantage, what would you do? To pose the question is to know the answer. In my opinion, Novak isn't getting anywhere near the amount of heat he deserves for this. It was his decision to make the information public. The least he could do is offer an apology.

We're not leaving middle school anytime soon, sadly. Here's the next Washington gossip chain: Then George told Harry he was thinking about going with Alberto, and Harry said okay, but then, like, Bill got all upset, and all his friends started, like, going nuclear and stuff, and then...

Not A Good Way To Run A Nomination Campaign

A note to the Conservative Caucus, whoever you are - if you want perennial gadfly Roy Moore to be nominated to the Court, the first person you should probably tell is Roy Moore. Or at the very least, the Washington Post shouldn't know before he does - which, apparently, is the case.

By Popular Demand

Here's a list of those much-ballyhooed sixteen intelligence agencies everyone talks about. Actually, there are seventeen on the list.

* US Air Force Air Intelligence Agency
* Army Intelligence
* Central Intelligence Agency
* Coast Guard Intelligence
* Defense Intelligence Agency
* Department of Energy: Office of Intelligence (!)
* Department of State: Bureau of Intelligence and Research
* Department of the Treasury: Office of Intelligence Support
* Federal Bureau of Investigation: National Security Division
* Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate
* Marine Corps Intelligence
* National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
* National Reconnaissance Office
* National Security Agency
* National Intelligence Council
* Office of Naval Intelligence
* United States Secret Service

That doesn't mean the government isn't hiding an intel agency here or there. It just means that because we don't know about it doesn't make it secret.

A Campaign I Can Get Behind

So who's going to be nominated to replace O'Connor on the Supreme Court? Personally, I think the President should listen closely to Richard Cohen and Kurt Vonnegut (second item down) and see what judicial luminaries lie unappreciated by the groups concerned with this nomination...

Man, this woulda made a great Slant article.

This Just In: Your Government Lies

In what is possibly the best court opinion ever, Judge Royce Lamberth ordered Interior to let Native Americans know that they're a bunch of lying scumbags who can't be trusted. Seems Interior has been letting fat cat miners and loggers use Indian lands and mismanaging funds generated from it. It's not just the Bush administration - Clinton interior secretary Bruce Babbitt was held in contempt for a while in the case (as well as Bush's Gale Norton). And the trust funds go back to 1879 - I'll bet Interior's delinquency goes back just as far.

My dad had to deal with the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs, the bureau in Interior that deals with this stuff) on a daily basis while he worked for the Navajo, and told me in no uncertain terms that they were slimeballs. Also, I've read a few other Post articles on the mistreatment of Indians and Indian lands by the government. So I can't say I'm surprised. At least now, Native Americans will know exactly what the BIA thinks of them.

"Therapy And Understanding" For This, Bitch

Apparently, Karl Rove has no problems calling liberals traitors while carelessly blowing a CIA agent's cover. So who's weak on national security again?

Blast From The Past

Vanderpeeps, you'll appreciate this. The rest of you, just play along.

A long, long, time ago, at a small private university far, far away (about 500 miles or so), a professor named Jonathan Farley was very angry about a building called "Confederate Memorial Hall." Traitors such as the Confederates, Farley thought, should not be memorialized in stone on such a great campus. He wrote a piece in the city's main newspaper, the Tennesseean, decrying the hall's name (article here from a small SF-based paper). A young commentator read this piece and found it interesting and sensible, except for one little part - sentences that stated that Confederate soldiers should have been summarily executed at the end of the Civil War. In agreement with the thrust of the article but disturbed by such a casual statement of destructive anger, the young commentator included a sentence about Farley's irresponsible comments in an article commemorating Martin Luther King Day.

Farley, unfortunately, became a victim of subtle censorship and was forced to move on (ironically, to a better job at Harvard). The commentator graduated and moved to North Carolina, assuming the whole issue was behind both he and Farley.

So the commentator was surprised when, on July 4th, 2005, he received a phone call from Dr. Farley. The professor, it seems, was irate about my description of his article as being "imbued with a violent rage." (One wonders why he didn't bring it up in the two and a half intervening years.) He was seeking a retraction to that sentence. Apparently, he feels it has been damaging to his reputation.

Dr. Farley, you're not getting your retraction. Even though, in the intervening years, I have come to understand that the neo-Confederate push to honor the Southern rebellion is almost always accompanied by a healthy dose of racism (read anything James Loewen wrote for a good overview of this). Even though I agree that Jefferson Davis, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and most other Confederate leaders were traitors and worthless bigots of the worst sort. Even though I understand that the black person in America is dealing with a system that is stacked against him, and even though I understand the rage that such a situation would engender.

Sure, it feels good to want to go back in time and kill the people who fought to keep you in chains. But what positive purpose does it advance? What point is there beyond simple revenge? And what about the 75% of Confederate soldiers who didn't own slaves? Or the fact that white Northerners were really just as racist as white Southerners? And what about Confederates like James Longstreet, who was involved with the Republican reconstruction of Mississippi after the war and who stuck his neck out for the rights of African-Americans at the expense of his own reputation?

I'm not saying there's no cause to be angry, or even that we shouldn't be angry. But there are two types of anger - constructive and destructive. Farley's anger, and the anger of those like him, is destructive. It serves only to divide further, to alienate those who would otherwise agree with you. But the anger of Dr. King, and of late-in-life Malcolm X, was constructive anger. Both channeled their anger into generating positive change, be it instilling pride within the black community or winning respect in the larger community. Some black militants didn't like King, but it's hard to argue with his results. I doubt segregation would have ended had Elijah Muhammad been in charge.

I understand the urge to seek revenge, to talk and act violently. I feel it whenever I see a neo-Nazi, or whenever I hear someone talk about vast Jewish conspiracies and the like. But if change is our goal, if we want to turn our world into something more just and better for all, then we must push aside those urges. We must realize that you rarely change someone's mind by insulting them, but you can by engaging them. Sadly, Farley failed to understand this. And that is why I cannot retract what I have written about him.

Let us now bury these little hatchets of ours and work on convincing people, not through words of violence and hate but through arguments, through facts, and through helping to uncover the truth.

Another Reason Why Sex Offender Registries Are A Bad Idea

Sure, sex offender registries seem like a good idea. Were I to be a parent, I would certainly like to know when someone who committed a sex offense moved into my neighborhood. But when cases like this get caught up in the dragnet, you have to wonder about how wise it is to brand with a scarlet letter all those charged with a certain crime. Rape, I'll give you. Child porn, yeah. Unlawful restraint of a minor? That could be anything. Why should someone like this be hit with the same stigma as a rapist?

Baby, You Can Drive My Car... Please

So the official safe driver study is in. It should come as no surprise to anyone who grew up driving there that Washington, D.C. is the most dangerous city to drive in.

It makes me feel somewhat better that Phoenix is the safest large city to drive in, though.

And it should also come as no surprise to any Northern Virginia driver that Marylanders are the fourth most clueless drivers (tied with D.C.ers and New Yorkers). Virginians are tied for 15th best.

O'Connor Retires

Sandra Day O'Connor, first woman on the Court and perpetual swing vote, is retiring. Personally, I expected Rehnquist to retire before O'Connor - and I think I would have preferred that. Since Rehnquist's retirement (and Bush's subsequent right-wing nominee) wouldn't have changed the balance of the court at all, the confirmation fight would be a little bit less of a circus. But now, Bush gets the opportunity to replace a "moderate" with a Scalia-Thomas conservative.

A reasonable President would look at the poisonous partisan atmosphere on the Hill and attempt to win a little goodwill by nominating a moderate. Pounding a conservative through the inevitable filibuster threat will only create more bitterness and disaffection from the people. Sadly, we don't have a reasonable President. Bush will probably take the bait, since he has no sense of compromise. (He seems to have forgotten the "advice" part of the "advice and consent" doctrine.)

I'm not sure I like anyone that is poised to be nominated. How could anyone like a short list where Alberto Gonzalez is the moderate choice? My guess: Bush will go with Michael McConnell, a judge who ruled (along with the Court) that city governments should not be liable for failing to enforce their own restraining orders. He may try to nominate a woman to serve on the Court - but I have this dread that he'll pick Janice Rogers Brown, who is quite possibly the most egregious conservative judicial activist since the pre-New Deal courts.

Watch out, folks. This confirmation battle ain't gonna be pretty.

DC Gets The Shaft, Again

So conservatives are all for federalism and local governments and non-interference from above. Except when it serves their own ideological purposes. Then it's time to repeal a popularly supported law without asking anyone.

Pick a side, Republicans. You can't be small-government and micromanagers at the same time.

You Knew This Would Happen...

If you were naive enough to think that Washington's baseball team would be left out of pointless political squabbles just because they weren't named the Senators anymore, you're wrong.

And to think, I used to respect Tom Davis...

Proof That NC Is Better Than VA

See, while the Virginia governor wrecks bicycles and gets injured, our governor wrecks cars and escapes unscathed. Twice.

Finally...

Thanks to Big Al, the world's most ridiculous drapes are now history. Read about it here.

Let's Hear It For Free-Floating Posts

First, the Ten Commandments. The majority in Van Orden v. Perry: Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist, Kennedy, and Breyer. "One of these things is not like the other ones..." Also, I might add that Texas and Alabama have to be the only places on Earth convinced that it's a good idea to make a graven image of something that says "Thou shalt make unto me no graven images." Biblical literalists my ass.

Second, restraining orders. In one of the weirder - and scarier - Court decisions, the justices decided that it's an onerous infringement on constitutional rights for a local government to actually enforce a restraining order. Which makes restraining orders meaningless, unless I'm completely misunderstanding the case (a likely scenario). The case is Town of Castle Rock, CO v. Gonzales, and the opinion is available here from SCOTUSblog.

Third, file-sharing. The Court ruled that file-sharing services can be sued if people use them to trade music illegally. That's like a burglary victim suing GM because the getaway car was a Chevy. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The case is MGM v. Grokster. (Also, where in the ever-lovin' hell is the legislative branch on this issue?)

Fourth, NC's goofy tax system. We're keeping a half-cent increase in the sales tax that was supposed to be temporary. That's a ridiculously high 7% sales tax and a 2% tax on groceries. And we're not raising the cigarette tax. We're giving cushy tax incentives to Dell and to movie-makers (the latter was, sadly, introduced by Wilmington's Julia Boseman, whose election was one of Democrats' big coups). If you're gonna raise a tax, here's two tips. One, don't raise the regressive taxes. Two, don't use the proceeds to pay off corporations and developers. It makes me wonder whether the people downtown who claim to be Democrats really are Democrats. Or if they're elephants in donkey clothing, as it were.

Fifth, it occurred to me today that Bush's theory about how everyone wants freedom is total crapola. Because no one really wants freedom. Everyone values something above absolute freedom, except the anarchists, and everyone makes fun of them. Think about it. Liberals (like me) don't want people to have the freedom to force laborers to work 15-hour days. Conservatives don't want people to have the freedom to marry someone of the same gender. And so on.

Any viable political philosophy, in short, has a value above freedom. For liberals, it's equality. For conservatives, it's order. For libertarians, it's property. The thing about America is that "freedom" is a shared value. We all justify our policy stances using the argument that equality/order/property rights/whatever is essential to freedom. The truth is that all of these things detract from true freedom - so no one in America wants complete freedom. The difference is that we tend to moderate our desire for these superimposed ideals - no American liberal values equality so much as to be Communist, and no American conservative values order so much as to be Fascist.

But what about other cultures? Take China. They have Confucius and Lao-Tzu to our Emerson and Thoreau. Their culture is built around obedience and order, as opposed to ours which is built around individualism. Therefore, is it fair to say that they "desire freedom"? To the average Chinese person, is freedom truly desirable above a well-ordered society? (Someone who's more familiar with modern Chinese culture would have to help me out.)

So when we talk about other countries and how they want to be free, we have to consider carefully what this means. Is it fair to Iraqis to project our own conception of freedom on to them? Certainly very few people want an autocrat and a tyrant like Saddam. But in the Muslim world, we must not underestimate the desire many people have to establish a state that God would be proud of. (Come to think of it, we probably shouldn't underestimate that urge here either.) If we try to impose our brand of individualistic freedom on a highly communalistic society like Iraq, it might not go over so well.

And there are certainly those out there who prefer the safety of stability to the unpredictability of freedom. We certainly valued stability over freedom in our foreign policy for a long time (even when dealing with populations that came close to sharing our ideas of freedom, such as those in Latin America). My point is that people, when given a choice, don't always choose freedom. In fact, they almost never do. So we need to stop conflating democracy and freedom, and we need to realize that states that look like dictatorships to us may enjoy wide popular support. Our foreign policy needs to be a lot more case-by-case than the Bushies want us to think it should be. (They're conducting it case-by-case, but they want us to think it shouldn't be done that way. Of course, they're also screwing it up case-by-case.)

Your paradoxical statement of the day: Sweeping generalizations never work.

Woohoo! Four Posts In A Day!

So how would you like to live on this street?

Update: Screwing the Poor, Court Style

Of all people, Neal Boortz - who I usually hate - wrote a good rant on the Kelo v. New London case. He points out something that I didn't think of - will this have an effect on our booming real-estate market? So much of our real-estate boom is based on people buying houses as investments. If your hold on the property is tenuous at best, that might drive down prices and screw a lot of investors. (On the plus side, it'll make housing more affordable for low-income Americans.) Either way, I wonder if this case will be, as an unintended consequence, the needle that pops the housing bubble...

Read the Boortz rant here. He does prove himself to be the partisan flack that he is towards the end when he starts insulting liberalism (even though liberals, for the most part, are on his side here). But it's fun otherwise.

Econ Nerds, This One's For You

For all of you out there who salivate over supply-demand curves and speak in terms of externalities - you know who you are - I present to you this fun little article from the London Times.

Now if we can only figure out who stole the middle part out of the bagel...

A Book Review, and Random Hilarity

First, I want to draw your attention to this article from the N&O about how Southern Baptists want people to monitor the actions of gays and their allies in schools. All politics aside, I think this leads to some hilarious Photoshop opportunities. Like a reverend running down a beach with the word "GAYWATCH" emblazoned on the bottom. Anyone who wants to take a crack at that, go right ahead.

Second, I want to introduce you to a book I just finished reading. It's called Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. In it, Perkins reveals the dark side of our foreign "aid" programs and how they're used to manipulate governments throughout the Third World. Perkins concentrates on the cases of Saudi Arabia, Panama, and Ecuador.

The premise of the book - that our economic interests trump our concern for Third World peasants - is an obvious statement. It's very interesting, though, to see how American organizations entrap Third World governments in deep debt, thus ensuring that we have complete influence over them.

Perkins takes pains to point out that there is no conspiracy at work here. Instead, Perkins blames our takeover of Third World governments on two things: our desire to ruthlessly protect our economic self-interest, and our mistaken belief that all economic growth is good for everyone.

The book is published by a small publisher, and it shows - it is not well edited at all. But it's still worth a read for all those concerned about the plight of the developing world.

"No Shit" Headline of the Day

From the Post: "Intolerance Found at Air Force Academy."

What? Intolerance against non-Christians? In America? I'm shocked! Shocked!

Screwing the Poor, Court Style

The Supreme Court has just ruled that your home can be taken away so some fat cat can have his precious office building. Looks like property rights are limited only to those who have lots of it. The rest of you have no right to own anything whatsoever. Read about it here.

Yup, now the government can take all your toilet paper so Bill Gates can wipe his ass.

You can all go back to your homes now. Provided, of course, that they're still there.

By Request

I am a monkey's ass.

Yup, It's Congress

Good to know that, with all the problems our country is currently facing, Congress still found time to engage in the annual Flag-Burning Clusterfuck. The only difference is that it actually has a shot at passing this time around.

Read about it in the Post here.

More Congressional Hijinks

So it appears that the Senate wants to give out loan guarantees to coal-gasification projects. This leads to one obvious question:

Why is the government guaranteeing loans to anyone? If their little venture fails, shouldn't they have to clean up the mess?

Giving out money for research and development is one thing. Assuming the risk for entrepreneurs is another. Note to businesspeople: entrepreneurship is risky business. If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Don't ask Uncle Sam to turn on the A/C. I'll do your research, but I'm not your insurance agency.

Oh, did I mention that the bill is aimed at two groups - one of which consists of former Enron execs?

Apparently, to qualify for the loan, the plant must be in a "western state at an altitude of greater than 4,000 feet." Of course, there's no reason to build such plants in, say, West Virginia or Kentucky. Nope, none at all.

Geek Town

Behold, the first nerd 'hood! I thought a place like this existed... but I thought it was called "MIT".

Mary Jane's Last Dance

So the Court has decided that federal laws against marijuana use trump states' own laws regarding the legality of the drug for medicinal use. They used the Commerce Clause, which is perfectly logical since marijuana grown in-state and consumed in-state has a lot to do with interstate commerce. The decision was 6-3 - even Antonin Scalia, who usually tries his damnedest to work the phrases "states' rights" and "federalism" into his opinions, sided with the immoral majority here. (It's worth noting that this is the only time I know of where Scalia and Thomas disagreed.) Apparently, Scalia doesn't mind when states invade someone's bedroom, but when states try to let desperately ill people smoke up, he draws the line. So much for any inkling of consistency that existed in Scalia's nonexistent judicial "philosophy" - he just proved himself a mindless pawn of the far right.

What bothers me about this decision is that the Court has gotten into the business of taking away rights. Rehnquist and other conservatives have held that states should decide what rights their citizens have, and not the federal government. Liberals generally say that if states overstep their bounds in restricting rights, the Court can step in and tell them to stop. But never has a Court held that a state had overstepped its bounds in protecting rights. That's scary. (ConLaw scholars out there - you know who you are - feel free to contradict me on this point.)

On to other things:

The New York Times has shown that under the Bush tax cuts, someone making $50,000 a year will be taxed at the same rate as someone making $87,000,000 a year. Never mind that most of that $50,000 a year will go to necessities like food and shelter and the like. I guess most of that $87,000,000 a year will go to necessities too. Like yachts.

A Post poll has shown that Bush has completely ignored the issues that people care about. You mean no one cared about judicial filibusters? I'm shocked! Shocked!

Banditos Theorem Proof #386

Some New Jersey legislator with nothing better to do is in an uproar about the name of his state's hockey team, the Devils. Next thing you know, diminutive New Jerseyans will respond by asking that the NJ-based New York Giants get rid of their name too. Part of me secretly hopes that a Satanist responds by going to Anaheim and challenging the Angels' nickname.

The sad part is, this guy's from Newark - a place with a lot more problems than a stupid hockey nickname.

What Is Free Trade?

Looks like the Trade Wars are about to heat up again. The Central American Free Trade Agreement, a NAFTA-esque treaty involving six developing Latin American nations and the U.S., is headed for a hell of a battle in Congress. Prepare to have esoteric economic models hurled at your head at light speed.

But there's a more significant question to consider when we talk about CAFTA. The question is this: are we really dealing with a "free trade" agreement? Or are we talking about a sham meant to benefit corporate interests under the guise of free trade?

Take NAFTA for example. After NAFTA was passed, Mexico had to do away with its grain subsidies. However, as we all know, the US retains its export subsidies. The result was that cheap grain was dumped on Mexican markets, ruining the Mexican farmer. A real free trade agreement would have eliminated both our agriculture subsidies and theirs and allowed the market to work its supposed magic. But US agribusiness dictated the terms of the agreement, and so we got an agreement that ravaged Mexican subsistence farmers, driving thousands of peasants off their lands and into the cities. The resultant migration resulted in an increase in food demand that raised prices (since less people were growing their own) and a decrease in labor costs.

Fast-forward to now. With CAFTA, we are currently refusing to eliminate our barriers to sugar imports. CAFTA is supposed to open North American markets to Central American exporters - but not if they're selling sugar, apparently. As a result, "free trade" in the strictest sense of the word will be a casualty to U.S. agribusiness interests, just as it was in NAFTA twelve years ago.

It isn't just CAFTA, and it isn't just the U.S. government, that reveals "free trade" for the political power play that it is. Governments use trade agreements to jockey for power on the world stage at the expense of pretty much everyone. Take China. China has used its government to require laborers to work hours no Western worker could possibly work. China enables its manufacturers to sell at cost - something no profit-based business could do. China represses labor agitation for better hours and more pay - unions must be approved by the Chinese government. (Not that our government doesn't have anti-labor policies, but that's another story.)

Possibly worse than all that, though, is China's egregious currency manipulation. In theory, if a nation runs a trade surplus, it would drive the value of that nation's currency up, thus encouraging more imports and less exports. But China has pegged the value of its currency to that of the U.S. dollar - the currency of a country with a massive trade deficit. The result is that China has inoculated itself against the surplus-lessening effects of currency fluctuation. Meanwhile, since much of our trade deficit is with China, it prevents us from reaping the export benefits we're supposed to reap from a devaluing currency.

And now China is threatening to lodge a grievance against us with the WTO for daring to reinstate some textile tariffs to offset the currency manipulation. Ridiculous.

Your eyes are glazed over now, so I'm going to wrap it up and open the floor for comments. My point is that "free trade" is often nothing but an illusion when governments are instating it. (The free market is a similar illusion.) We don't have any free trade now, and probably won't in the future. As a result, I have no idea what the real effects of free trade would be.

Or Is It Too Little, Too Late?

So after a couple hundred years of unprovoked wars, broken treaties, and out-and-out genocide, the Senate is finally prepared to say "my bad." Kudos to Sen. Brownback (R-KS) for bringing this up. (This will likely be the only time I will ever congratulate Sam Brownback for anything, so take note.) Now all we need to do is get Congress to recognize the Anishinabe discovery of Italy...

Irony of the Day

Interesting how conservatives love to bash "judicial activists," yet seek the approval of justices who follow a philosophy that centers around using broad strokes of judicial activism to repeal progressive legislation... thanks to Ben for this link from the ACS on the Constitution-in-Exile philosophy.

(Note: here, ACS stands for American Constitution Society, not American Chemical Society.)

Proof That Iraq Will Be Alright After All

So what if things are getting more violent by the second in Iraq? At least there are enterprising souls over there who know opportunity when it explodes in their faces. Read about Iraq's new booming industry - glass sales - here.

Hooray for the House!

The House of Representatives does something right for a change. So now embryos that would otherwise be destined for the garbage can will now be used for scientific good. I'll be interested to see how far stem-cell research can go.

A note - Bush's defense of his policy is quite asinine. I guess he didn't notice that the supply of frozen embryos far outpaces the demand for adoption of said embryos.

I also want to bring up how we seem to be ignoring our commitment to science where it matters most. Sure, Bush is giving lip service to alternative energies, but instead of funding research on alternative fuels, he decides to spend money on drilling in ANWR. And he's looking for excuses not to fund research that could cure Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and paralysis. I recently discovered that the NSF is pretty much flat broke. Good budgeting there, buddy.

(Yeah, this post is a little bit self-serving. I don't care - scientists do good work. Most of the time.)

More Useless Stuff

First let me regale you with my thoughts on the filibuster compromise. I think it's interesting that it was judicial appointments - which the media and conservative Christians have made into an outcropping of the overhyped "culture wars" - that sprung the whole debate. It was not some important piece of legislation like, say, a heinous bankruptcy bill.

I'll admit that judicial nominations are somewhat important, especially when it comes to the Supreme Court. Judges have had great effects in the past - civil rights historians can point to several key court cases that changed the face of the country (for better or worse) with regards to race relations. And the fact that Bush believes he doesn't need the Senate's advice and deserves its consent anyway is proof of his inefficient and misguided leadership style (not to mention his misunderstanding of the Constitution).

But throughout this debate, it was all "culture war" all the time. I didn't hear a word about the "Constitution in Exile" philosophy supposedly avowed by these judicial nominees (unless it was from Ben). Barely a peep about Justice Brown's public longings for a return to the days of Lochner, when activist courts declared popularly-backed minimum wage laws unconstitutional. No, it was all about abortion and homosexuality, as if that's all that matters nowadays.

Folks, there's a lot more out there than these so-called "culture wars." I admit, I've been seduced by these issues before. They're ripe for demagoguery, they're of a cosmic scale, and they're certainly more interesting than the ins and outs of the budget. But where's the liberal indignation over Bush's ridiculous budget? Why aren't we filibustering Bush's irresponsible tax cuts? Why aren't we attacking Bush's proposal to give MTBE manufacturers protection from lawsuits? These are all issues that affect us more than any government action in the "culture wars" ever could. I haven't been writing very much in the past weeks; I probably won't in the future since I actually have a job now.

I guess my point is this - I would like to see the outpouring of rage and strategizing and whatnot to materialize on economic issues, on quality of life issues, and on foreign policy issues. The "culture wars" are there to distract us from what the government can and does do to affect our lives. We need to channel that anger somewhere where it'll do us some good.

And now onto something less serious - music. Mike has passed me the Musical Baton. So I have to answer a bunch of questions that I don't know the answer to. Also, I'm at work, so I don't have music on my computer and am not currently listening to anything. So I'll make up answers to those questions. Anyway:

Total volume of music files on my computer: At home, about 1GB. That's not counting some 220 CDs.

The last CD I bought: The Essential Josh White. White is a bluesman who was a favorite of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt. This is a disc of his early blues recordings, before he recorded the stuff that made him super-famous ("Free and Equal Blues," "One Meatball," etc.)

Song playing right now: I heard U2's "New Year's Day" on the way to work. I think that's the closest I can come.

Five songs I listen to a lot, or mean a lot to me: Geez. My apologies for the two country songs that materialize here (actually, one of them sounds more gospel, and one sounds more folk, but whatever).
1. "Your Song," Elton John. Our song.
2. "Simple Man," Lynyrd Skynyrd. Good advice for life and a kick-ass guitar solo.
3. "We Shall Be Free," Garth Brooks. It's odd to think that the normally conservative Brooks would sing a song that basically puts liberalism in a nutshell. And yet, there it is.
4. "The Walk," Sawyer Brown. A song about a man's relationship with his father through the years. It's obvious to anyone who's heard it why this one's on here.
5. "Sparkle," Live. Lyrically one of the best songs I know of.

Five people to whom I'm passing the baton: I'll let Andy and Danielle take a crack at it, as well as Lindi and Pierce if they have blogs. Miguel is also invited, if he still reads this.

Another Social Evil

In my last post, I talked about societal trends that lead towards violence. School administrators in Bend, Oregon have latched onto one that may cause horrible, awful consequences if it gets out of control... hugging.

Sing along with me now... "Everybody knows that the world is full of stupid people..."

Here's the link.

This Will Anger A Lot Of People

Actually, this won't anger a lot of people, since not a lot of people read my blog. But you catch my drift.

The world, it seems, is captivated with the sad story of Laura Hobbs and Krystal Tobias, two girls who were murdered in Zion, Illinois on Mother's Day. I am not. I had heard vaguely about the case, but I don't think it stuck in my mind. Danielle seemed incredulous that I hadn't heard much about it. (For those of you out of the loop like me, Hobbs and Tobias were stabbed to death on Mother's Day. Hobbs' father was arrested for the murders. From what the Post said, the evidence seemed weaker than a virgin daiquiri, but I'm sure the media will waste no time convicting him.)

You say it's horrible. You'll get no argument from me. But why, might I ask, is the story of Demarcus Williams not getting national attention as well?

You probably don't know who Demarcus Williams is unless you're a fanatical Post reader. He was a four-year-old kid who made the grave mistake of annoying his daddy while he was watching television. So his daddy hit him. Then hit him again. And again. When it was over, Demarcus was dead, and his daddy - after confessing - was in jail. What's more, Demarcus was only one of seven people to be murdered in Prince George's County, MD this past weekend.

A Google search on Laura Hobbs turned up stories from Denver, Chicago, Washington - everywhere. A similar search on Demarcus Williams turned up old stories about basketball players.

So why the focus on Laura Hobbs/Krystal Tobias and not on Demarcus Williams? The conspiracy theorist in me wants to say that it's because Hobbs and Tobias lived in the posh Chicago suburbs and Demarcus Williams lived in the working-class environs of D.C. Maybe it's because the Hobbs case has more mystery around it. There are any number of reasons why the national press would latch onto one and not the other. But the truth is that these kids all deserve national attention. Every murdered child does, and I think we all understand that. And that's the problem.

Here's my theory as to why only Hobbs and Tobias are getting national attention. To treat the Laura Hobbs case with such national fanfare is to say that her case is somehow exceptional. Thus, we delude ourselves into thinking that violence against children is rare by making a big deal out of only the occasional case. In creating this delusion, we create along with it a complacency that allows us to maintain our faith in mankind.

Think about it. How would you feel if, every time you opened the paper, you discovered that another child had been murdered, that yet another smiling, happy, innocent face had been ripped unfairly from this world? In the back of our minds, we know it happens, but we simply don't want to believe that children other than Laura Hobbs and Krystal Tobias are the victims of brutal acts. By pouring our hearts out for just these girls, we avoid the draining, gut-wrenching process of having to do it for every murdered child.

But I refuse to buy into it. I won't follow the Hobbs and Tobias case because I know the truth - things like this happen every day. And as torturing as it may be, I'll let my heart bleed for every child that dies, whether by the hand of their father or by a misplaced bomb. Because this illusion we create has a darker side - it causes us to give short shrift to the sociological trends that cause people to murder children. It ignores the flaws that run deep in our society that allow such sick, disgusting acts to occur.

Our society is one that looks upon the creation of life with shame, but upon the taking of life with pride. We are consumed with our wants, and we allow ourselves to get angry when we don't get exactly what we want. We value the actions - and therefore the lives - of the rich and powerful over those of everyday people. We think of what's best for us before we think of what's best for those around us. All these things, I think, contribute to people's willingness to kill children. I may be wrong. But how will we know if we don't confront the problem?

And if we continue to convince ourselves that the murder of children is a rare, freak occurrence, what impetus will there be for change? What will cause us to do the soul-searching we so desperately need? Complacency is the friend of the status quo. Violence against children is not something that we can ignore and hope it goes away. We must confront the demons in our society, and confronting the truth - that children die violent deaths in appalling numbers every year - is the first step. We must do it for Laura, for Krystal, for Demarcus, for all the children who have ever died violently. And if not now, when?

Tasks Completed Belatedly

Mike has passed me the Caesar's Bath Meme. This happened a long damn time ago, and I've been ignoring it. But right now, I'm waiting for a simulation to finish, so I guess I'll do something about it.

I'm supposed to name five things that are big within my circle of friends that I don't really care about. Hmm... well, I can think of at least one...

1. The Caesar's Bath Meme. I don't like chain letters where there isn't at least a vague hope of getting a postcard from Mongolia.

Oh yes, and there's also:

2. Corn syrup. This needs no explanation.

I could come up with a 3, 4, and 5, but I don't want to. I pass this on to... well, whoever wants it. Just claim it in the comments section.

Bush Undermines His Own Point

While visiting Georgia (the country) this week, Bush credited the current president Mikheil Saakashvili with leading the movement that began the recent wave of democratic revolutions in Ukraine and Lebanon. This former Russian republic erupted in mass demonstrations after dictator Eduard Shevardnadze rigged elections. Saakashvili famously burst into the Georgian parliament bearing a rose and demanding Shevardnadze's revolution.

Bush made a point of saying that Georgians' actions in 2003 encouraged Iraqis to go to the polls to elect their National Assembly.

But wait a second. If you buy this sort of domino-theory idea that political movements are contagious across regions, would it have been necessary to invade Iraq to create democracy there? According to Bush's own logic, the Georgian, Ukrainian, Lebanese, and Palestinian democratic movements would have certainly created the stirrings of democracy in Iraq. Iraqis might have even risen up in full-scale demonstrations or rebellion themselves.

It seems, then, that Bush doesn't hold as much faith in the spread of democracy as he claims publicly. If we accept, as Bush has apparently done privately, that democracy will not spread from one country to the next, then we should be attempting to destabilize other dictatorships around the world in order to spread democracy. But if that's the case, why haven't we invaded Uzbekistan or Belarus? Both are ruled by neo-Stalinist dictators and both are strategically important former Russian republics. (Not to mention genocide-ridden Sudan, where we choose to engage in failed diplomacy instead of sending troops.) If Bush says that we shouldn't invade them for fear of ticking off Russia, then it follows that we shouldn't have invaded Iraq for fear of further provoking al-Qaeda.

But if Bush did believe in the spread of democracy, why would we have invaded Iraq? It's obvious that a democracy movement hatched in Iraq would have been far more successful than one born of a US invasion. If Georgia was the catalyst that Bush claims it was - and if Ukraine and Lebanon are continuations of a single "wave," as it were, - a strong democracy movement would have been inevitable in Iraq. Making it work, would have required only small-scale aid similar to that given to Ukrainian winner Viktor Yushchenko.

The irony, of course, is this - by positing a somewhat dubious "domino theory" of democracy and placing Georgia at the center, Bush has made the most convincing argument against the invasion of Iraq that he launched. Of course, expecting Bush to see that is too much to ask.

Welcome to the World of Blog

We welcome two new bloggers to the Blogosphere this week. First, my fiancee, the lovely Danielle Bray, has created The Hole In The Fence. And Mr. Ben Stark has come up with What Would People Think? So go eat, read, and be merry.

Ethics Rules, Lobbying, and the Real Problem Here

Much has been made recently over the ethics of House members, especially a certain majority leader from Texas. It tends to center on the practice of accepting perks from lobbyists - free trips and the like. It's not just DeLay - influential politicians from both sides of the aisle accept free or almost-free trips on corporate jets, according to this Post article. The question arises, though: are these gifts are an attempt by corporations to "purchase" helpful policy from pliable legislators, or are they attempts to help out a Congressperson who has been helpful to them in the past?

Sometimes it's obviously in the former category. Of course, it's debatable that such tactics had a lot of success. Huntsman Corp., a major manufacturer of MTBE, flew around Harry Reid and Tom Daschle a lot, but both ended up supporting restrictions on MTBE in gasoline anyway. Some might point to Huntsman's gifts to DeLay, and similar gifts from anti-regulatory lobbying interests such as BellSouth, as influencing policy. But DeLay tends to be ideologically anti-regulation, and would probably vote the way BellSouth or Huntsman wants him to regardless of gifts.

So how much does corporate money influence politics? Certainly at campaign time it matters a lot. Corporations benefit from having elected officials with a certain ideological bent, and can bolster the campaigns of these officials significantly. They can also bring to lawmakers' attention issues of importance to them. But I posit to you that corporate money generally isn't changing the minds of congresspeople, so it's tough to argue that corporations are buying votes. I doubt it's fair to anyone on the Hill - DeLay included - to say that they're "in the pocket" of Corporate America.

It seems to me, then, that corporate influence is truly felt in the power to introduce issues, to select Congress' agenda. And here, it's not the money that's directly driving this phenomenon - it's the access lobbyists have to certain members of Congress. Corporate lobbyists can get the ear of Congresspeople and introduce issues to powerful lawmakers who share their ideology (such as DeLay). As a result, corporations can get things considered that would otherwise be ignored by the legislative process. Why else would Congress have taken up bankruptcy and Social Security when far more looming, troubling questions exist? The answer lies in the massive access to the legislative process enjoyed by the banking and investment industries. In a way, this is more insidious than the direct purchasing of votes. But I got news for you - it's not going away. It's not unethical to tell your friends on the Hill what's ailing you, and asking them to find a solution, and then giving money to them because they do a good job. Instead of whining about it, liberals should work to become more effective at lobbying, at getting access to Congresspeople. In the end, this will be far more effective than all the ethics rules we could come up with. Even with stricter ethics rules, access isn't going to be given to us; we have to take it.

An Attempt At More Regular Blogging

The problem with a political blog, as opposed to other excellent blogs out there, is that an intelligent topical rant a day is tough to pull off. Even the best op-edists out there only write two columns a week - and it's their forty-hour-a-week job. Of course, their columns are far better researched than this little ramble. And then there are some days that are just slow news days.

Anyway, I've been receiving curiosity regarding my recent hostility towards corn syrup. Turns out corn syrup is off-limits for Passover - which eliminates about 95% of all food items out there from gastronomic intake for eight days. Passover is famous for its hijinks - I've asked people at burger joints to hold the bun on more than one occasion. This year, I had to ask someone behind the counter at Whole Foods if their barbecue sauce had corn syrup in it before buying a barbecue dish. (It did.) We also had to quiz them on what "canola oil" was. But we get macaroons, so it all evens out.

But it's hard to go eight days without mass-produced junk food - I doubt I'd be able to do it voluntarily. This is a segue, however strained, into a topical discussion. Turns out that here in North Carolina, legislators are debating a new school food policy that would limit junk food in NC's schools. I wrote about a similar proposed Texas policy some time ago. To rehash briefly: the upside is that eliminating vending machines will go a long way towards fighting the important problem of youth obesity (fueled by all that damn corn syrup). The downside is that vending machines are cash cattle for schools, and removing them would likely mean a loss in revenue that would have to be covered by a tax increase or spending cut. (And here in NC, it'll most likely be a regressive tax increase.)

This policy coincides with the release of the new "food pyramid," which will go roundly ignored by most Americans - especially those under 20 who aren't thinking of the long-term ramifications of that little package of donuts. Watch how much good it'll do. The FDA can put out pyramids all it wants to, but they'll continue to do nothing. The more the government advises against eating junk food, the more people will do it.

Junk food is marketed exceptionally well, especially to kids. There's no advice the government can give to prevent kids from wanting that candy bar. And kids who eat candy bars turn into adults who eat even more candy bars. In years past, the only thing keeping me from the junk food was Passover - but Passover has taught me how easy it is to go without junk food. So I guess what I'm trying to say is this - without some sort of legislation separating kids and junk food, obesity will continue. And, I dare say, kids will get used to spending eight hours a day without junk food. It may even spill over into the rest of their lives.

(I might also add that such policies, if effective, will probably save us money in terms of long-term health care.)

Random Ramblings Again

First things first - I'd like to invite y'all to check out Andy's blog at lastricksresort.blogspot.com. It's certainly a lot more amusing than the dry bullshit you read here. And Andy correctly used the word "dingleberry" in a sentence, which gives him 50 official "cool points."

Now, a little complaint about the new budget. I hear there's some sort of deficit afoot. So, of course, Republicans propose cutting taxes by $108 billion (or so). Apparently, in their love affair with absurd economic models, they seem to have forgotten their third grade math - subtract from a negative number and you will always get a negative number. And the cuts in programs are understandable, but keep in mind that the deficit is about equal to the entirety of our discretionary spending budget. So unless we cut all discretionary programs and leave ourselves with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and defense, we're still in the red. Bush started to take money out of Medicaid, but didn't bother attacking widespread waste in defense and is ignoring Medicare. Oh, and his Social Security "fix" will cost an extra $3 trillion or so. My suggestion to Bush - learn to add.

I might add that the economy sucks now because we have a deficit, and will continue to suck until we don't have a deficit. So the economists on Bush's side seem to have forgotten that tax cuts don't fix the underlying problem (and indeed will exacerbate it), and thus won't produce more revenue. You can sell tax cuts on ideological grounds all you want. Just be honest about what they'll do to the economy.

Second, as I badmouth Bush's private accounts plan, he just did something intelligent . (Save this remark - I may never make it again.) He backed "progressive indexing" - that is, a change in benefit structure that will keep benefits to the poor intact while cutting them for the middle and upper classes. It's not the ideal solution - I'd still like to see a hike in the payroll tax ceiling. But at least Bush is recognizing that the poor are far more dependent on Social Security than the middle class and the rich, who tend to have pensions and 401(k)s to fall back on.

Of course, Democrats oppose this plan. This puts Democrats in the odd position of defending a welfare payment to the middle and upper classes. You know, sometimes I wonder if my party is really serious about policy at all.

(Critics do point out that Social Security has such strong support precisely because it pays to the rich and middle class as well as to the poor. Thus, all Americans feel like they're getting a slice of the program. But I think Americans will be more sympathetic to the needs of those less fortunate than Democratic critics expect them to be. Call me naive, but I don't think everyone is George Will.)

Lastly, Adolf Hitler knocked himself off 60 years ago yesterday. Before you start cheering, realize that the further into the past World War II slips, the easier it will be to be anti-Semitic again. People sure forgot the Crusades and the Black Plague genocide in a hurry.

And one more thing... fuck corn syrup.