Judicial Oversight

Interesting article from the AP wire here. In what will surely be described as a case of "judicial activism" by administration water-bearers, a court has struck down as unconstitutional two provisions in the Patriot Act that allowed a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment to be purpetrated on an American citizen.

Why is it that when judges do their job, it's called "judicial activism", but when they defer to the President over the Constitution or the rule of law, that's called "strict constructionism"?

Sounds a lot like Orwellian double-speak to me.

Liam.

In Defense of Bill O'Reilly

I REALLY hate being put in a position where I feel I have to defend Bill O'Reilly. I think he's a blowhard who is far too quick to dismiss anyone who disagrees with him as "far left" (as if that alone makes the argument unworthy of even dignifying with a response). And I find him to be symptomatic of everything that's wrong with the neo-conservative led Republican party of the last 20 years or so.

Nevertheless, I feel like I have to weigh in on this latest flap about his "racist" statements on his radio show the other day. Now, granted, the quote as played (out of context) sounds pretty damning, especially the line "I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City... even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship".

In context, though, if you actually listen to the full clip, he's actually presenting a very lengthy expression that he's NOT surprised by it. I think he may very well have misspoken when he used the phrase "I couldn't get over the fact", but the rest of it is actually quite a reasonable statement by O'Reilly that blacks and whites are NOT that different. And in context, my feeling is that the "I couldn't get over the fact" was a phrasing designed to get his message through to his audience, who would seem not to necessarily be the most tolerant of other races. Admittedly, this is my perception and may not necessarily be true, but I'm not sure that the "I couldn't get over the fact" line really indicates surprise.

And the thing that really bothers me about this is that it’s yet more form-over-substance arguing. O’Reilly has been calling Columbia University names for having invited Iranian President Ahmadinejad to speak, then later in the same show admitting that he had also invited him onto “The Factor”. And O’Reilly continues to call people all sorts of names, but try to claim that when he does it he’s merely stating his opinion while when anyone else does it to him, they’re “far left smear merchants”. And O’Reilly continues to beat the drum and carry the water for what many are coming to believe is the worst administration in our lifetimes.

Focus on those things. Focus on the substantive. But if you take these little things out of context and beat him up with them, you’re reducing the validity of the rest of your argument. It becomes just too easy to dismiss your arguments against O’Reilly as just a personal attack instead of a substantive thing.

I may sometimes fall into the same trap, but we all need to try to avoid it, whenever possible.

Liam.

Logical Falacies

Time to get angry at Keith Olbermann again. I respect Keith Olbermann, as readers of this blog will already know. I think he's a fairly lonely voice saying things that need to be said and asking questions that need to be asked. Nevertheless, sometimes he goes too far, and I believe he did so tonight.

Specifically, he was talking about a new bill that's been requested of Congress by the White House which would, in part, convey retroactive protection from prosecution for private sector companies that participate in FISA activities (in other words, AT&T and the rest who supposedly turned over all of our phone records illegally to the government). Keith immediately asks "Did the White House just admit that they lied to us when they insisted that none of these companies did anything illegal, or anything for which they would need protection?

I don't believe this immunity should be granted, but Olbermann's question is a little too black and white for my tastes. Even knowing my opinion of this Administration, I can easily see asking for protections even if you don't think they're needed. Look at it from President Bush's viewpoint: If he believes (as he most likely does) that the things he's doing are necessary for the protection of the United States, then he might honestly believe that all of the investigations now going on in Congress are a partisan witch hunt. They aren't, they are Congress beginning to reassert their required Constitutional advise and consent role that's been lacking for the first six years of this Administration. But to assume that asking for protection is an admission of guilt is like assuming that going to get a lawyer because you're called in for questioning on a police case is an admission of guilt.

No, even more apropos, it's like the endless repetition we get from certain elements of the extreme right that the only people who should worry about the erosions of privacy and civil liberties are those who have something to hide. I don't want anyone listening in on my telephone calls. I'll fight in court anyone who does, if I know it's happening. But by doing so, I'm not admitting that I'm doing anything illegal, I'm merely saying that in a free society, I should be able to discuss private matters without being listened in on.

So do stand up and demand that Congress not give the telecommunications companies blanket immunity, especially not retroactive blanket immunity; Blackwater has proven what a bad idea it is to give anyone free reign to break the law. But it's a bit of a stretch to assume that just by asking for protection for ones allies necessarily means they have broken, or you intend to ask them to break, the law.

There's enough stuff to be looking into that has substance. Making these faulty leaps in logic just gives those on the other side something to grab onto and say "See? He's not objective at all! He's just looking for anything he can to hit the Administration with!"

Liam.

The Fairness of Selected Campaign Reform

It's kind of interesting, isn't it, that there's a major push backed by the Republican party to change California's election laws so that electoral votes are given out based on electoral districts, instead of as a lump sum to whoever wins the state.

On its face, this sounds like a good change, stop disenfranchising California Republicans who remain a minority and thus, see their 35-40% of the votes always cast in favor of the Democratic Presidential Candidate.

However, this system has generally ended up giving the electoral win to the same person who won the popular vote nationwide, and in the one recent case where it did not, it was not the Republicans who lost out by it.

It's interesting to note that the people who are pushing so hard for this in California aren't pushing at all for the same reforms in Texas (traditionally a red state), nor Florida (ditto), nor Ohio (more evenly split, but red in the last two elections).

No, the Republicans only want "fairness" in the states where they stand to gain electoral votes and are perfectly happy with the current system where "fairness" would stand to lose them some.

Don't misunderstand, I think it's high time the electoral college went away. It's arcane, occasionally stands to reward one candidate over the will of the masses (mathematically it's even possible for a complete travesty of an election, with one candidate winning while taking half the popular votes that his or her opponent does).

Plus, it serves to change, subtly, the value of each of our votes. My vote in NH is valued less or more than a vote in CA based on the simple calculation of dividing the total population by the number of electoral votes here. For instance, if we had 100,000 voters and two electoral votes, and California had 980,000 voters, then mathematically the closest approximation would be for California to get 20 electoral votes (approximately 10 times the voters), but if you actually do the math, it would mean my vote would be worth 1/50,000 of an electoral vote, while a Californian's would be worth 1/49,000 of an electoral vote.

On top of that, it also changes the value of my vote based on the relative turnout in our states. For instance, NH has a relatively small minority population (traditionally a low-turnout population) so perhaps our state turnout for elections is 65%. Florida has a lot of minorities, and so perhaps their state turnout is 35%. Now, the value of a vote cast in NH (assuming the value per vote is approximately equal based on population) drops to almost half in NH what it is in Florida.

So anything we can do to get rid of the electoral college is, in my opinion, a good thing, but it should be applied equally everywhere rather than in one large state out of 47 that all behave in the same fashion. Otherwise, the results of the next election could easily turn in favor of the Republicans when all current indications are a pretty decisive inclination to swing the pendulum and elect a Democrat this time.

Think about it. Is the California reform really fairness in action? Or just a way to tilt elections unfairly in one direction?

Liam.

Possible Fallout From the Jena Six Incident?

And tonight it's time for another edition of "Liam's brain puts two and two together and comes up with an answer he HOPES turns out to be five".

As anyone who read last night's late night nervous musings on Naomi Wolf will realize, President Bush does now have some extraordinary powers for a President because of the Patriot Act and various other legislative reactions to 9/11. While the conclusion of her article may not necessarily hold true (see the P.S of this message for some additional thinking on that point), it is certainly true that Bush now has the power to ignore Posse Comitatus (the law which forbids using the Army or Air Force as a military or law-enforcement force on U.S. soil). Specifically, in early 2006 the "John Warner Defense Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 2007 (H.R. 5122)" contains section 1076 which provides for the President the power to use the armed forces within the United States on a number of conditions, including to suppress any insurrection or domestic violence as he should deem necessary. By the way, the bill was signed last year and goes into effect on October 1 (yes, next week). (If you want to read the act itself, here is a link.)

So, now we cut to today's news about the Jena, LA racial tension going on, and this nice little article, which seems to indicate that the mayor of Jena, after the African American demonstrators left and the white supremacist demonstrators had their shot, thanked the white supremacist group for their "moral support" and praised pro-white groups for organizing counterdemonstrations. (Note that this is according to that white supremacist group, but the mayor has not denied it).

Nothing sets up a good clash and full on riot like racial tension, and these absolutely stupid remarks by the Mayor of Jena (if true) will only serve to highten the tension.

So here's one way I fear it might play out:

1. Word of this spreads, leading to even more perception on the part of African Americans that Jena is even more racist a place than the new story thus far seems to indicate.
2. African Americans and their supporters return to Jena and a huge riot breaks out between them and white supremacist groups
3. President Bush (probably officially at the request of Governor Blanco) sends in the military to declare martial law and put down the uprising.
4. Regardless of how this is done, one side or the other becomes convinced that the Federal government has unfairly sided with "the other side", leading to larger uprisings, either by African American rights groups or by White Supremacist groups.
5. Full on martial law is declared along with curfews and the whole nine yards, all in the name of safety of course.

Will it happen that way? Who knows. But tonight, I'm thinking about how I'd feel if I were a black person in or around Jena, LA. The point at which this began to look racist was when nooses hung from a "white tree" where black students had been sitting was considered "a youthful prank". The point at which it began to spin out of control was when a group of white students and a group of black students confronted each other, and one of the white students pulled a shotgun out of his truck, which was wrestled from him by the black students, and a black student was charged with theft of the gun, but the white student who pulled the gun was not charged with anything. It turned absolutely racist when, after a number of clashes back and forth, one such clash in which six black students assaulted a white student (who had reportedly been taunting one of the black students for himself having been beaten up the week before) and charges were brought, including the ludicrous notion that because the black students were wearing shoes when they kicked the white student, they were committing "assault with a deadly weapon", when threats made by white students with an ACTUAL deadly weapon did not result in charges.

Now look, I'm not saying what the "Jena 6" did was right. It was not, and they should absolutely be punished. But what the white students did was not right either, and they should ALSO be punished. And as long as it appears as though there was a fairly equal (although escalating) back and forth between white and black students but an entirely UN-equal response punishment-wise, something is wrong.

And when things get that wrong, race riots have been known to spring up. And when race riots are poorly handled by officials, larger race riots have been known to spring up.

I would estimate that the chances are less than 5%, but I can easily see how this could spiral out of control and we could end up with national martial law declared. I hope I'm wrong.

Liam.

P.S. By the way, as to last night's post, I think I figured out the logical falacy that makes it possible that Naomi Wolf is both technically correct and yet not necessarily right in her conclusions about America: She takes a list of 10 steps which she makes a pretty convincing argument are always followed by open governments looking to close down freedoms, but it's like proving that every single person who ever died in a traffic accident started out their trip by getting into a car and turning it on. Sure, it's true, but it doesn't mean that every person who ever got into a car and turned it on then died in a car accident. The question to be asked is how often have those 10 steps been taken (or partially taken) and yet turned back before going beyond the point of no return? Sure, it's scary to think that perhaps we're closer than we were 10 years ago, she hasn't proven causality, merely sequentiality.

Just A Conspiracy Theory... I Think.

How do I respond to articles such as this one?

There's a problem with conspiracy theories: They aren't always wrong. Usually they are. Usually there's nothing more to them than paranoid delusions on the part of people who want to believe someone is out to get them.

On the other hand, history is rife with examples of conspiracies which turned out to be real and true.

In the link I linked to above, journalist Naomi Wolf lists what she says are the 10 steps invariably taken when those high in the government of a free and open society want to close it down into fascism. She then goes on to detail each of the 10, how they have each been used historically, and detailing examples of how each are being used in the United States today.

Of course, the mark of a good conspiracy theory, a good scare tactic, is that it draws you in and makes itself seem reasonable. And so you sit and you ponder and you wonder. This one goes out of its way to show how as these steps are happening, the vast majority of the society to which it is happening remain blissfully unaware until it is far too late.

And so you don't want to be the poor schmuck who sat by and watched as his great nation crumbled around his ears, but you also don't want to be the sap who got taken in by someone who wrote a batch of reasonable sounding conspiracy nonsense just to increase sales of their book.

The hell of it is, many of the things she's pointing out are things I've mentioned here on this blog and elsewhere, things which I think bode ill for the United States and all she stands for, things which I'm afraid the vast majority of citizens aren't even noticing. So it's not like Ms. Wolf's list is a batch of "Wow, I didn't know that was happening!" assertions, it's a long list of things I already knew from independent sources were happening.

And so I sit here, in my bed, huddled in a ball and worrying. Wondering whether I'm better off avoiding being taken in by a paranoid conspiracy theorist, or whether in the end the potential risks inherent in a world where Ms. Wolf is correct in her conclusions is worth risking looking like another crackpot conspiracy theorist, just in case.

I wish I felt better tonight.

Liam.

P.S. I'm trying to take solace in the notion that if things were really as bad as Naomi Wolf would have us believe, she'd be putting herself in grave danger by publishing this article and her book on the topic. Thus, if she really believed things were that bad, she'd be taking some precautions, not going around in a high profile book tour. My problem isn't that I think she's necessarily right in her final conclusion about the direction this country is headed in, but that it brings up (again) many of the things I find most frightening about our country and our government in the years since my son's 8th birthday (9/11/2001). Whether President Bush is covertly trying to take down America, or simply ineptly eroding the foundations unintentionally, I still see it happening. Does it really matter if it's him or someone else later on that actually knocks the building down?

Alberto Gonzo-lite

Hmmmm. Some less than savory information regarding the nominee to replace Alberto Gonzoles as Atty. General can be found here. Read the article. It won't make you feel proud to be American.

He's also, according to Newsweek, assured certain hard-liners in the GOP that he does not support closing Guantanamo Bay, believes the CIA needs to be allowed to use "enhanced" interrogation techniques (code for "torture"), and does not support naming a special prosecutor to look into any misconduct by the Bush administration (Newsweek link here, although it may change, because I can't find a direct link to the article, only to the front page, on which the article is currently featured).

Liam.

Who Hates America?

Remember a few years ago, when there was a whole flap about the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance? Certain atheists and other non-Christian groups pushed to remove the words, not merely because they are antithetical to the principles of this nation, but also because they are a corruption of the original Pledge (which did not contain the words) and were added as part of one of the more distasteful episodes in our recent history, the McCarthy communism witch hunt.

The common refrain from the Right Wingnuts at the Fox Nuisance Channel, on this and just about every other liberal issue, is to condemn the proponents as "hating America".

Two words, added to the Pledge, but to even dare suggest that perhaps it should be restored to it's original glory (strict constructionism of the Pledge) gets that kind of reaction.

How about the flap over the National Anthem, when certain liberal groups wanted to sing it in Spanish among the Latin-American population? No one even suggested changing the words (except to the extent that the translated words needed to fit the essential rhythm of the song), just translating them into Spanish, and to hear the extreme Right Wing water carriers tell it, to even suggest it was to shake babies, kick puppies and urinate upon the Constitution.

So imagine the response from that crowd if anyone had, even in jest, parodied one of those songs into an anti-war number. Imagine hearing America the Beautiful sung with lyrics of "ebon waves of oil" or references to Abu Ghraib or Haditha. You can just hear Bill O'Reilly screaming at how this just proves that liberals hate America, right?

So why doesn't this get so much as a mention?



That embedded clip is from the so-called "Values Voters" debate about a week ago (the one that got more press beforehand for Giuliani, McCain, Romney and Thompson refusing to attend than it got afterwards for what occurred). A church choir performed the above linked version of "God Bless America", asserting yet again the false meme that America was founded as a Christian nation and has somehow lost sight of that (they even refer to those same recent addition words "under God" I discussed above).

But just imagine if it had been a Democratic Party debate, sponsored by MoveOn.org, opening with the America the Beautiful I posited above. Wouldn't Faux News be ablaze with cries of desecration of one of our national songs? Wouldn't there be further cries for the Democratic candidates to distance themselves from this insult to America? Wouldn't this just prove to the water bearers that thing that they've been endlessly repeating for years now; Liberals hate America?

Apparently it's only desecration if it's done by the other side.

(For those who have any trouble watching the link, I've transcribed the words below, with a little help from a couple of other sites, that filled in words I couldn't quite make out on the video).


Why should God bless America? She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back on everything that made her what she is.

Why should God stand beside her through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America forgive her sins and heal our land.

The courts ruled prayer out of our schools in June of ‘62,
Told the children “you are your own God now so you can make the rules.”
O say can you see what that choice has cost us to this day?
America, one nation under God, has gone astray.

Why should God bless America? She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back on everything that made her what she is.

Why should God stand beside her through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America forgive her sins and heal our land.

In ‘73 the Courts said we could take the unborn lives.
"The choice is yours don’t worry now it’s not a wrong, it’s your right."

But just because they made it law does not change God’s command
The most that we can hope for is God’s mercy on our land.

Why should God bless America? She’s forgotten he exists
And has turned her back on everything that made her what she is.

Why should God stand beside her through the night with the light from his hand?
God have mercy on America forgive her sins and heal our land.

(Spoken) Second Chronicles 7:14. If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land

God have mercy on America forgive her sins and heal our land
God have mercy on America forgive her sins and heal our land
God have mercy on America forgive her sins and heal our land

For me, I'm just going to sit back and wait for the Senatorial condemnation of this unpatriotic attack on one of our national treasures. I'm guessing I'll be waiting for a while.

Liam.

Letter to the Editor

[NOTE: This is a much more concise version of the thoughts in my previous post, which I submitted to the Valley News (www.vnews.com) two days ago as a Letter to the Editor, and which should be printed sometime this week.]

Earlier this week, President Bush labeled a newspaper advertisement purchased by MoveOn.org "disgusting", and he should know. This is the same man who has sat happily by while his campaign or his supporters have run ads falsely implying that Ann Richards (then his opponent in the Texas gubernatorial race) was a lesbian or that John McCain (then his opponent for the 2000 Republican Presidential nomination) had an illicit black baby.

This was the man who managed to skip out on all but the most cursory of military experience while many of those of his generation were dying overseas, and then was all too happy to malign (or have maligned on his behalf) the records of true military heroes such as John McCain, Max Cleland and John Kerry.

This was the man who, while trying desperately to hold on to a do-nothing rubber-stamp majority in Congress, allowed with nary a comment ads equating a Democratic win with support for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and who, after failing for 6 years to catch Osama bin Laden while distracting us from that true goal with irrelevant quagmires in Iraq still has the temerity to tell us that his party is the only one that can keep us safe from terrorism.

President Bush knows disgusting. I guess MoveOn should be ashamed.

Liam Johnson

Spineless, Gutless. Get 'em Out!

Evil on the one side, spinelessness on the other. We need a third alternative.

Let's start right out by saying that I'm not particularly defending the MoveOn.org “Generay Betray Us” ad in the New York Times. If nothing else, it smacked (as Stephen Colbert so elegantly showed) of elementary school playground name calling. I also don't entire fault it in today's political arena where even the pretense of civility has pretty much entirely disappeared.

But I am absolutely ashamed of the Democratic Party for allowing themselves to be dictated to by the GOP, the same GOP that has used the same tactics year in and year out since early in Bill Clinton's Presidency. The GOP spin machine continues unabated, and a significant fraction of the Democratic Party in the Senate rolled over and did their bidding, as though they were still an ineffectual minority in that body.

Where was the outrage or the Senate condemnation when, in the run-up to last year's elections, the Republican Party politicized YET AGAIN the horrible attacks of 9/11, running a television spot with Osama bin Laden prominently featured and the clear implication that the party which has been so completely ineffectual at capturing or killing bin Laden is the only one that can prevent another 9/11? I've heard lots of talk on both sides of the aisle about how horrible it is for anyone to politicize 9/11, but not a peep out of the Senate over that ad.

Where was the outrage when the GOP and its various candidates impugned the war heroics of Max Cleland, a man who left major portions of his body on the battlefield for this country? To say nothing of the demonstrably false allegations of the so-called “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” against Senator Kerry in 2004? Or the same group under a different name making similar statements about John McCain (another Republican even!), who suffered torture for his service to our country, and making those statements in support of a man who has never experienced even a moment of combat.

Where was the Senate condemnation when, in 2006 again, Bob Corker (R) smeared Harold Ford (D) during the campaign over Tennessee's Senate seat by running an add which carried the thinly veiled message “Harold Ford is not up to the job because he's black” and with strong misegenistic overtones. Or when during the 2000 Presidential campaign John McCain's adopted Bangladeshi baby was portrayed as “McCain's illegitimate black child” in push polls in South Carolina and elsewhere? Or when in that same campaign, Al Gore's statements were selectively parsed and intentionally mis-construed to portray him as a compulsive liar?

Or heck, since the President himself weighed in on how “disgusting” the MoveOn ad was, where was the outcry when during his campaign for Governor of Texas, he falsely accused incumbent Governor Ann Richards of being a lesbian, knowing that would not play well for her in Texas?

Come to think of it, where was the Senate condemnation when Ann Coulter has repeatedly used the term “faggot” as derogatory, both maligning those who she falsely portrays as gay AND all gay people by using that pejoritive term. If the Democrats need to condemn the most radical fringe of their own support group, why the Republicans embrace theirs? Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and indeed most of Faux News have all made extreme and prejudicial statements, and rarely have the Republicans come out to register their disapproval with or condemnation of the statements.(1)

Those who support the condemnation of the MoveOn ad will, of course, point out that one major difference between all of my examples and the MoveOn ad is that the other examples were ads against political targets, not military ones. But I submit that at the moment General Petraeus decided that his testimony to Congress would consist largely of cooked numbers and half-truths in order to make the conflict in Iraq look better, he crossed the line from military leader to political hack himself. And at least the MoveOn ad dealt primarily with that group's opinion of General Petraeus' testimony, they honestly believe he was betraying this country and the soldiers under his command. How, exactly, does the word “faggot” or false implied allegations of lesbianism or illegitimate babies or appealing to racist voters with charges of misegeny relate at all to the merits of any of the targets of those slurs?

And how can anyone still believe that we have a liberal media when the Democrats in a majority position feel that their political fortunes are better served by condemning their own radical fringe rather than by following years of Republican precedent and letting the event blow over without comment?

Liam.



(1) Note that as much as I dislike the tone in Washington, no one should be required to explicitly denounce something said by someone else, just because they happen to share the same ideological group. That's become one of the biggest straw-man tactics in American politics today, and it isn't fair any time it is used.

Principles vs the Presidency

Why do the principled ones never stick around?

I'm still lamenting Chuck Hagel's announcement last week that he is NOT going to run for the Presidency and that he is in fact going to not run for public office any more.

Hagel is the kind of candidate I could be proud to vote for. Not because of his politics, he's a lot more conservative than I am on social issues, but because everything I've read about him shows he's more concerned with his princples and what's best for America than politics.

Of course, that's probably why he could never win the Presidency. Two examples of principles over popular politics:

• his repeated breaks with the President in favor of ACTUAL support of the troops, instead of joining is fellow Republicans in filibustering the new law to force troops to have at least as much time at home as they had in a war zone before having to back, he actually stood up and co-sponsored the bill.



• his reason for not running for another term in the Senate: He said when he first ran that two terms was enough, and that the country was best served when there was a regular infusion of fresh blood, and that he promised not to stay long enough to become part of that problem. Along comes the end of his second term, and lo and behold, he's keeping to his word.

You have to be popular to win elections. You have to play politics to be popular (anyone who claims otherwise is lying to you like the used car salesman who confides in you that some of the other car dealers in town rip people off, to try to distract you from the fact that he's trying to do the same to you). And rare is the person who can play that game well and not lose sight of their principles in the vortex of pandering and political maneuvering.

But damn, it'd be nice to vote for someone like Chuck Hagel for President. Not because he'll do exactly what I want him to do, but because I believe he'd honestly do what he felt was best for the country, not what was best for himself, is friends or his party.

Liam.

Underreported Stories

An interesting link here to a list of un- and under-reported stories in the news.

I'll write more later (I'm at work), but I just wanted to post it quickly before I forgot.

Liam.

How, exactly, do you define "rights", Mr. Romney?

Mitt Romney says he supports equal rights for gay people, but vigorously opposes gay marriage and civil unions, even going so far as to call for a Constitutional amendment banning either practice.

So tell me how that differs from if I were to say "I support equal rights for Mormon republicans, but I believe there should be a constitutional amendment banning them from being allowed to vote"?

Mr. Romney, if you're going to be a homophobic bigot, go whole hog. Embrace your inner bigot. Show us all who you REALLY are.

Liam.

Thestrals

I know this blog has traditionally been for matters political, but it's called "Thoughts on Life" because it's really just a place for me to throw my thoughts and questions out into the winds of the internet, and this is one such:

In the Harry Potter books, why was Harry no able to see Thestrals (the invisible skeletal horses that pull the Hogwarts carriages) until Cedric Diggory died? It is explained within the book that Thestrals were only visible to those who had seen death, but didn't Harry's journey begin with his witnessing (at merely a year old) the death of his mother at the hands of Lord Voldemort?

Shouldn't he have been able to see the Thestrals from day one?

Just my nagging thought of the day, apropos of nothing.

Liam.

Same Old Song, New Words.

Iraq, Iran, you only have to change one letter and about 5 years, and the rhetoric is nearly identical.

And now, there's this article from The Times of London, purporting that the Pentagon is drawing up plans for "massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran", on the theory that Iranian response will be the same to so-called "pinprick strikes" as to an all out assault, and so (the reasoning goes) we should take out the entire Iranian military in one strike.

Show of hands from all of those who believe the same folks who told us the Iraq conflict would be over in 3-6 months and cost us a total of 3-4 billion dollars are actually capable of estimating correctly this time.

Or do we all think it much more likely that this massive strike would end up with us fighting an even larger "Global War on Terror" as even more Muslims decide that we're not at war with terrorism, but with Islam?

We've lost far more of our best and brightest in our fools errand in Iraq than we lost on the day of the supposed precipitating event, the 9/11 attacks. We've stretched our military to the breaking point, and our leaders are even CONSIDERING starting yet another war?

We need new leaders. Now. New President, new VP, and a new Congress if this one doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to stand up and say "No more!".

Liam.