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Torturous questions 

Republican candidates at last Tuesday's debate were asked about a now tired hypothetical:

The questions in this round will be premised on a fictional, but we think plausible scenario involving terrorism and the response to it. Here is the premise: Three shopping centers near major U.S. cities have been hit by suicide bombers. Hundreds are dead, thousands injured. A fourth attack has been averted when the attackers were captured off the Florida coast and taken to Guantanamo Bay, where they are being questioned. U.S. intelligence believes that another larger attack is planned and could come at any time.

First question to you, Senator McCain. How aggressively would you interrogate those being held at Guantanamo Bay for information about where the next attack might be?

As an editorial in the Washington Post points out, only John McCain got the answer right: when you torture your prisoners you actually make things worse, both in terms of world opinion and in wasting time on the unreliable information it produces. The trouble is, Hume's hypothetical is actually two questions: a surface question about torture and an emotional question about what the candidate would be willing to sacrifice in the name of security. Personally I'd like to see the second question made more explicit. For example, how about asking one of these:

• "Would you be willing to saw off your left leg with no anesthetic to stop a terrorist attack?"
• "If you could go back in time and murder the 5-year-old Osama bin Laden with your bare hands, would you do it?"
• "Would you be willing to repeal the First Amendment if it would stop another 9/11-sized attack? What about the Second Amendment? Would you raise taxes? Would you give up your immortal soul? How about your chances for re-election?"

Or maybe we should make the whole question less hypothetical. How about this?

"Gentlemen, on your left is Jerry (dressed in an Osama bin Laden mask), who is holding device that in one minute will send a million volts through the chairs of 10 random people sitting in our audience. To your right you see a switch that will disable the device, but will also drop poor Mrs. Grinwald here into this vat of hungry sharks. The decision is yours, but please be prepared to explain your actions.

Our TV audience will then vote for their favorite response via SMS, and the top 5 candidates will go on to the next round of questions."

We can't lose 

President Bush on Border Security, 11/28/05:

And one of the best examples of success is the Arizona Border Control Initiative, which the government launched in 2004. In the first year of this initiative -- now, listen to this, listen how hard these people are working here -- agents in Arizona apprehended nearly 500,000 illegal immigrants, a 42-percent increase over the previous year.

President Bush on Border Security, 4/9/07:

In the months before Operation Jump Start, an average of more than 400 people a day were apprehended trying to cross here. The number has dropped to fewer than 140 a day. In other words, one way that the Border Patrol can tell whether or not we're making progress is the number of apprehensions. When you're apprehending fewer people, it means fewer are trying to come across.... We're seeing similar results all across the southern border. The number of people apprehended for illegally crossing our southern border is down by nearly 30 percent this year. We're making progress. And thanks for your hard work. It's hard work, but necessary work.

(Via Media Matters)

Double or nothing? 

Ouch. A reader of the Talking Points Memo blog comments about the Pentagon's "Double Down" strategy of one last big push in Iraq:

Since the Pentagon has decided to discuss its new strategy in gambling parlance, it should at least use the proper terminology. Today's LA Times article says that a Pentagon official has referred to the option of sending more troops in to Iraq as a "double down" strategy. The reference is to a bet in blackjack when, based on the cards that have been dealt, the player seeks to maximize a payoff that is more likely to occur in that hand, given the probabilities. The double down is a calculated bet, made from a position of strength when the odds are favorable to the bettor.

In Iraq, we are certainly not in a situation where the odds are favorable to winning. Our bet is not a double down. Let's call it what it is: double or nothing. This is is more like the gambler who has been on a bad losing streak deciding to empty the savings account and put all of his chips on red, hoping that the roulette wheel will spin his way and bring him back close to even. Double or nothing is a desperation play. It is an ill-advised way to gamble, with chips or human lives, and such a strategy inevitably leads to another appropriate gambling term. Gambler's ruin: winding up completely broke.

It's scary how many of our political errors can be described in terms of psychological disorders...

Thinking politically with your stomach 

This short "Perspectives" piece by Erik Vance, "Immigration For Lunch" really strikes a chord with me. Life without a large inflow of immigrants just sounds... boring to me.

Rush Limbaugh on last week's election 

Rush Limbaugh, on the results of last week's election:

The way I feel is this: I feel liberated, and I'm gonna - I'm just gonna tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don't think deserve having their water carried.

Now, you might say, well, why have you been doing it? Because the stakes are high. Even though the Republican Party let us down, to me, they represent a far better future for my beliefs, and therefore the country's, than the Democrat [sic] Party does, and liberalism. And I believe my side is worthy of victory. And I believe it's much easier to reform things that are going wrong on my side from a position of strength.

Now, I'm liberated from having to constantly come in here every day and try to buck up a bunch of people who don't deserve it.

It's not often I complement Limbaugh, but good on him (and about damn time). I think Limbaugh is a buffoon, but I also think the country is a lot better off with a cacophony of buffoons all speaking their minds than a bunch of ditto-head water-bearers all marching in lock-step. It's something citizens of all political leanings need to keep in mind.

(Limbaugh quote via On The Media... in case you were wondering whether my radio taste had changed recently.)

Today's news from Iraq 

In today's news, US soldiers lifted their cordon around Sadr City after an order from Prime Minister Maliki, essentially accepting that their search for a captured American soldier had failed and was not tenable given the increasing backlash from Moktada al-Sadr supporters. We also just ended the fourth deadliest month for American soldiers in Iraq, with 101 105 U.S. service members killed. Meanwhile, security company Kroll and engineering company Bechtel both announced they were pulling out of Iraq due to deteriorating security, and a briefing prepared by the US Central Command indicates Iraq has been rapidly sliding into chaos since the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February.

So with all that and the mid-term elections less than a week away, I guess there's no question why the President hopes we'll just forget the past two years and think it's still election 2004, huh?

Last day to register to vote in California 

Today's the last day for Californians to register to vote in time for the November 7th election. If you've not yet registered, download the registration form and mail it directly to your county elections official. Forms must be postmarked by today's date.

It's the reality, stupid! 

Haven't we heard this song before?

Some senior Bush administration officials and top Republican lawmakers are voicing anger that American spy agencies have not issued more ominous warnings about the threats that they say Iran presents to the United States.

Some policy makers have accused intelligence agencies of playing down Iran’s role in Hezbollah’s recent attacks against Israel and overestimating the time it would take for Iran to build a nuclear weapon.

No more kings... 

From today's district court ruling that the NSA warrantless wiretapping program is illegal:

The Government appears to argue here that, pursuant to the penumbra of Constitutional language in Article II, and particularly because the President is designated Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, he has been granted the inherent power to violate not only the laws of the Congress but the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, itself.

We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all “inherent powers” must derive from that Constitution.

...

The President of the United States, a creature of the same Constitution which gave us these [the First and Fourth] Amendments, has undisputedly violated the Fourth in failing to procure judicial orders as required by FISA, and accordingly has violated the First Amendment Rights of these Plaintiffs as well.

Now 86% Reality Free! 

According to recent polls, 50% of Americans believe that weapons of mass destruction were actually found in Iraq, and at least back in December 24% of Americans believed that several of the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11 were Iraqis. And a presumably different 36% of Americans believe it is either "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or deliberately took no action to stop them, and another 16% of Americas speculate that the World Trade Center collapsed because of government-planted explosives rather than as a result of burning jet fuel.

So on the right we have fundamental ignorance about the facts (no doubt encouraged by scurrilous politicians) and on the left there's a rising belief in ill-supported conspiracy theories (no doubt fanned by the Loose Change video). To the remaining 14%, please hang in there — you're all we've got left in an increasingly reality-free nation.

(Links via On The Media.)

Lack of imagination 

The phrase all the newspapers have picked up about the recent foiled terrorist plot:

"Put simply this was intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale."

OK, so say their plan was to blow up 12 US-bound flights simultaneously, and say that by some stroke of absolute genius and/or luck they actually managed to succeed in every single case (fat chance, but humor me). If you assume around 259 people onboard each flight (the same number of people as were killed on Pan Am 747-100), that's 3108 deaths. That would be a tragic loss of life. It's roughly equivalent to the number killed in the WTC attacks, three times the number of civilians killed so far in Lebanon in the past few weeks, 7.5% of the number of civilians killed so far in Iraq, a third of the number killed every day in Rwanda in from April to July 1994, and only slightly fewer than the number of people killed in the US in auto accidents every month.

That's a lot, and I'm glad they've arrested these guys. But unimaginable? That sounds like a serious lack of imagination.

Fascinating analysis of the current Israel - Hezbollah conflict 

My friend Yonatan Zunger has posted a very cogent analysis of what's going on between Israel, Hezbollah, Syria, Lebanon and Iran right now. Well worth the read.

What does cloning do to the stem-cell debate? 

OK, so the whole stem-cell debate in congress mostly revolves around the fac that, as Bush put it, "...extracting the stem cell destroys the embryo, and thus destroys its potential for life,” and opponents of embryonic stem-cell research suggest scientists should focus on adult stem cells that don't have that potential. Which just makes me wonder, what happens if (or when) science advances to the point where human cloning is possible? Would adult stem cells be verboten as well? What happens when blood cells and dead skin have the "potential for life?"

The case for fraud in the 2004 election 

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. summarizes the huge amount of evidence of malfeasance and outright election fraud that led to Bush's "win" in 2004, including a whopping 208 footnotes ranging from newspaper reports to court decisions to official investigation findings. The article is the result of a four-month investigation by Kennedy and Rolling Stone magazine (to echo my friend Judith, why the hell do we have to go to Rolling Stone for in-depth political reporting?).

Most of the findings will be old news to those who followed the story at the time, and it's clearly just one side of the argument, but seeing the case laid out all in one place is still maddening. (I'm actually still reading it, because I can only read about a page at a time before getting too mad to continue.)

Update 6/3/06: As Death comments, Farhad Manjoo responds in Salon that Kennedy's article has "numerous errors of interpretation and... deliberate omission of key bits of data."

Science bashing in politics 

Leonard Susskind has a nice quote on the recent anti-science frenzy we've seen the past few years. This is from his chapter / essay called The Good Fight, published in Intelligent Thought: Science Versus The Intelligent Design Movement:

What is the reason for the recent upsurge of antiscientific passion? My own view is that it is, in part, a result of the anger, fear, frustration, and humiliation suffered over the years by the losers in the culture wars: those who would have kept women in the kitchen, blacks in the back of the bus, and gays in the closet. It is also a consequence of the deep and terrible universal fear of old age and death. But I don't believe these emotions, by themselves, could have created the antiscientific backlash of recent years. The fault may well lie in the ease with which these emotions can be cynically manipulated. It is pretty clear that the battle was engineered by provocateurs who may not even have wanted to win the battles they provoked. What seems much more likely, in view of the gingerly way that politicians have skirted such issues as Roe v. Wade, is that the provocateurs want to lose the battles and in that way keep the anger and humiliation at fever pitch.

Making English the nation's lingua franca 

As I'm sure everyone knows, last week the US Senate voted to make English our "national" language. All through this debate I keep thinking back to when my dad was a professor at Georgia Tech Lorraine, Georgia Tech's campus in Metz, France.

Back in 1997 Georgia Tech Lorraine was sued for violating a French law forbidding the sale of "goods and services" in France in any single language other than French. The lawsuit was brought by two French organizations, the Défense de la Langue Française and Avenir de la Langue Française Defense de la Langue, because the campus (which taught classes only in English) did not have a French version of their website. I remember smugly thinking how idiotic it was that the French had organizations dedicated to the "defense" of the French language, and how much more sensible we Americans were. Of course, I should have realized my smugness would be short-lived: the French may be known for their jingoism and petulant national pride, but the US has always envied that title.

So now I have to wonder — how would the Senators that voted for "defending our English language" react to the accusation that they're acting, well, French?

Two quotes by Justice Antonin Scalia 

Comments by Justice Antonin Scalia on whether Guantánamo Bay detainees have protections under the Geneva or human-rights conventions, as quoted by Newsweek (March 8, 2006):

"If he was captured by my army on a battlefield, that is where he belongs. I had a son on that battlefield and they were shooting at my son and I'm not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial. I mean it's crazy."

Confirmation Testimony of Hon. Antonin Scalia, To Be U.S. Supreme Court Justice (August 5, 1986):

Senator Mathias: "...if a reasonable litigant actually believed that your judgment would be distorted because of some strong personal bias or belief, would that dissuade you from sitting on a case?"

Judge Scalia: I think the statute reads that way, Senator. I have the statute somewhere. I am quite sure that the way you put it is about the way the statute reads, requiring disqualification. If I may, title 28, United States Code, section 455: "Any justice, judge or magistrate of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned."

Finally, Bush has a plan for victory... 

After three years of bloody war in Iraq, President Bush has finally announced his hitherto super-secret plan for victory. Step 1: elect a more competent U.S. president...

President Bush said yesterday that future administrations will have to grapple with how and when to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, indicating that he doesn't see an end to U.S. commitments until at least 2009.

"That'll be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq," Mr. Bush said at his second press conference of the year, during which he also said Iraq is not in the middle of a civil war and defended his continued commitment of U.S. troops.

Frist pulling out all the stops to avoid Senate oversight of NSA wiretaping 

Wow. Glenn Greenwald has the skinny on how Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is so determined to make sure the Intelligence Committee doesn't look into Bush's secret domestic wiretapping program (the vote was already delayed once by the Committee Chair after it became apparent that three Republican committee members were going to vote to hold hearings) that he's threatening to end the special bipartisan power-sharing arrangement the intelligence committee has had since it was created 30 years ago. Sounds like a smaller version of the so-called Nuclear Option the Republicans were threatening over filibuster.

"If I can't have my way, I'm just going to take my Democracy and go home..."

(Thanks to Judith for the link.)

Newspeak update 

Back to their roots... 

The Vatican weighs in on the cartoons of Muhammad:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican, commenting on a series of satirical newspaper cartoons that have outraged Muslims, said freedom of expression does not include the right to offend religious sentiments.

...The Vatican suggested, however, that where free speech crosses the line and becomes offensive to a religion, national authorities "can and should" intervene.

Pretty strong words for a religion that only a few centuries ago was being oppressed by various national authorities because their very existence was considered offensive.

(Link by way of The Volokh Conspiracy...)

Congressional staffers try to whitewash Wikipedia 

The Wikipedia community is trying to respond to whitewashing of politically-sensitive articles that appear to be coming from congressional staffers themselves (with the staff of Marty Meehan (D, MA) being one of the biggest culprits).

I'm always amazed that Wikipedia works as well as it does — hopefully the bad press Meehan and other congress-critters get over this flap will outweigh any good press specific staffers may have hoped to achieve.

Detailed coverage at Lowell Sun, C|net and Slashdot.

You are at Witts End 

How many dead? 

Today we're marking the 2000th American military death in Iraq. It's important to recognize landmarks like this, even though 2000 is an arbitrary number and even though counting only American deaths is rather parochial of us anyway. But lest we get too caught up on numbers it's also important to remember that this doesn't count contractors and other "outsourced" military functions: men and women who were just as involved in fighting the war as their enlisted partners. That adds a minimum of 105 confirmed American casualties, but the simple fact is that nobody knows even how many contractors are working for us out there, much less how many casualties they've suffered. Landmarks are important times to reflect on where we are and the price we paid to get there, but let's not lose sight of the fact that the cost has been more than just what is easily counted.

Report card on Karen Hughes 

I don't get it. With all the credentials Karen Hughes has, including managing Bush's already stellar communications, ghost-writing his autobiography and of course her Bachelors in Journalism and 7 years as a local TV-news reporter, how could she be having such trouble mastering the subtle diplomacy and cultural differences involved in Middle-Eastern politics?

Maybe if she had more experience with Arabian horses...

(Thanks to Dorothy for the link.)

Why have the Senate confirm Supreme Court nominations? 

Here's what Alexander Hamilton had to say on the purpose of Senate confirmations:

To what purpose then require the co-operation of the Senate? I answer, that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though, in general, a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the President, and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. In addition to this, it would be an efficacious source of stability in the administration.

It will readily be comprehended, that a man who had himself the sole disposition of offices, would be governed much more by his private inclinations and interests, than when he was bound to submit the propriety of his choice to the discussion and determination of a different and independent body, and that body an entier branch of the legislature. The possibility of rejection would be a strong motive to care in proposing. The danger to his own reputation, and, in the case of an elective magistrate, to his political existence, from betraying a spirit of favoritism, or an unbecoming pursuit of popularity, to the observation of a body whose opinion would have great weight in forming that of the public, could not fail to operate as a barrier to the one and to the other. He would be both ashamed and afraid to bring forward, for the most distinguished or lucrative stations, candidates who had no other merit than that of coming from the same State to which he particularly belonged, or of being in some way or other personally allied to him, or of possessing the necessary insignificance and pliancy to render them the obsequious instruments of his pleasure.

Of course, if the president has no shame then all bets are off...

(Thanks to Jay for the quote.)

What is scientific data? 

Q: What is scientific data? A: Whatever the Secretary of the Interior says it is.

At least that'll be the case if congress passes HR 3824, now headed for the floor of the House. From the bill:

The term `best available scientific data' means scientific data, regardless of source, that are available to the Secretary at the time of a decision or action for which such data are required by this Act and that the Secretary determines are the most accurate, reliable, and relevant for use in that decision or action.

Given that this administration defines "best available scientific data" as "that data that supports the president's life-in-a-bubble view of reality," as a political appointee the Secretary of the Interior is probably far more qualified to judge the scientific merit of a study than any scientist.

Beyond Satire 

I've just come across a new blog called Beyond Satire (beyondsatire.us):

For years, we've been observing that truth has moved beyond satire. We created this site to highlight news that would be unbelievable as satire but is nevertheless true. Please help us by submitting comments and stories.

I can tell from the first dozen or so posts that this is going on my short list. (It reminds me of the "No Comment" feature that Ms. Magazine runs — things that are so over the top they supply their own punchline.)

As a side note, it took me two-thirds of the way through reading it till I realized the author is Ellen Spertus, a CS professor in San Francisco that I know from back when she was at the MIT AI Lab. Small world syndrome strikes again...

(Thanks to Andrea for the link!)

Running the country on fantasy and wishful thinking... 

Population Services International is a great nonprofit organization — they've got all the business skill you'd expect from a creative and up-and-coming company, especially when it comes to brand management and culturally-appropriate marketing. But instead of making the big bucks here in the states these people dedicate their skills in the poorest regions of the world — distributing and convincing people to use safe-water solutions, nutrition supplements, mosquito nets and bedding to prevent malaria, and safe-sex education material and condoms to prevent AIDS. They've had an incredible track record over the past decade, applying the practical, level-headed thinking more often found in business than in a field where people often think with their hearts more than their heads. As a PSI spokesman puts it, "We're dealing with the world as it is. It's not always pretty."

Unfortunately, the Bush administration is not long on practical, level-headed thinking. Ultra-religious conservatives have been accusing PSI of "supporting prostitution" because they host educational games to teach prostitutes about safe sex and how to use a condom. These groups no doubt think a better way to stem the world-wide flow of AIDS is to simply convince prostitutes to accept Jesus as their savior and recognize that anything but abstinence before marriage is a sin. Well, it looks like these groups will soon get their chance: the Baltimore Sun reports that USAID decided to cut large amounts of funding for PSI in favor of faith-based organizations:

Contract decisions had typically been made by USAID officials with expertise on the topic, but the July 19 withdrawal decision was made by a high-level political appointee, said a public health official familiar with the region. "It was surprising to yank a [proposal] that was so far advanced," said the official, who asked not to be named because of the political sensitivity and fear of reprisal.

On Aug. 11, USAID reopened the bidding process, but with significant changes. The agency reduced funding by $3 million, altered selection factors to put less weight on experience, and eliminated the goal of increasing condom usage. It also added language noting "the strength of community and faith-based organizations and their advantages in the fight against HIV/AIDS."

Michael Magan, deputy assistant administrator for Latin America, declined to comment on the changes in the request. Magan took the post after working in Ohio on President Bush's 2004 campaign. Previously he was head of the agency's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, established by the president.

Not all Republicans are on this crusade — in particular Larry Craig (R-ID), Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) have all asked USAID to reconsider. Let's hope these senators can speak loud and strong for the part of the Republican party that still believes in reality over fantasy and what works over wishful thinking.

(Thanks to my favorite well of truth for the link!)

Newspeak update 

Finding evidence to support our theories 

According to some psychologists, people subconsciously try to find evidence to support their own theories. It's more than just the optimist seeing the glass half full and the pessimist seeing it half empty — the pessimist will actually go out of his way to find an empty glass and then say "see, I was right." I think that's the main explanation for why some people always sabotage themselves just when things are about to go well, while others always land on their feet.

Post 9-11 America is showing this symptom on a societal level. The Bush administration's obsession with Iraq is a prime example, of course, but it's also pervasive in society at large. The Terrorist is the perfect boogyman — he's so ill-defined and inscrutable that we can and do project anything that scares us onto him. And then we go out and find the evidence to support that fear, be it a glitch in airport security or the arrest of someone who once visited an Al Qaeda training camp. Some of that evidence is real — this week's attack in London is just the latest reminder that there is some basis to our fear — but most of it is simply driving ourselves into a panic playing games of "what if?".

The Hemant Lakhani case, featured on this week's This American Life radio show, sounds like a perfect example of finding (really, manufacturing) evidence to support a theory. Here's somebody that the FBI approached and asked to supply a missile to terrorists. Lakhani agreed, but couldn't actually deliver. After waiting 22 months for him to actually commit the crime, the FBI provided the missile to him themselves, and then arrested him. The guy is clearly amoral, but also pretty clearly incompetent, and he didn't even have the idea to provide terrorists with weapons until the FBI suggested it. Setting him up like this so we can throw him in jail is like airport security confiscating grandma's nail clipper — it was never a big threat to begin with, but when they find it we all breath a sigh of relief while we visualize the horrible things that might have happened had we not gotten lucky this time.

Kennedy on the vaccine/autism link 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a good overview on the potential link between mercury-based preservatives used in vaccines from 1981 to 2003 and the simultaneous huge increase in autism. I'd sort of bunched this theory in with fluoridation paranoia, but it looks like there's a lot of concern among level-headed people who have looked at the data and have the expertise to understand it. If what this article implies is accurate, this whole thing could blow into another Thalidomide.

Downing Street Memo slow burn? 

The Times Online has just released a transcript of an official Cabinet Office brief that presumably was the basis for the discussion later detailed in the Downing Street Memo they released last month. Unlike the previous leak, this transcript is missing the last page and has been anonymized by the Times to protect the source.

Given that the Downing Street Memo story is just now getting traction in the US media (a month after being leaked) it'll be interesting to see how this new story is handled here, especially given how understandably gun-shy the US media is right now about criticizing the administration without being damn sure the sources can be verified. According to an interview USA Today's Mark Memmott gave On The Media (MP3), the main reason they delayed so long in talking about the first leak was that they couldn't verify the memo themselves.

2000-page report on Afghanistan abuse leaked to NYT 

The latest abuse report leaked to the New York Times is absolutely medieval. Beating prisoners to death, chaining them to the ceiling... and now it's suspected that at least one of those murdered was just an innocent bystander arrested by an Afghan guerrilla commander who wanted to win the trust of the US by handing over insurgents.

Can our military chain of command really be so dysfunctional that higher-ups didn't have an idea of what was going on? And after they did know what was up, why on Earth did they wait so long to do anything about it:

Even though military investigators learned soon after Mr. Dilawar's death that he had been abused by at least two interrogators, the Army's criminal inquiry moved slowly. Meanwhile, many of the Bagram interrogators, led by the same operations officer, Capt. Carolyn A. Wood, were redeployed to Iraq and in July 2003 took charge of interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison. According to a high-level Army inquiry last year, Captain Wood applied techniques there that were "remarkably similar" to those used at Bagram.

Redefining language 

Apparently Republican spindoctors have tried no fewer than six different names for their immanent parliamentary rules change to block Democrat filibusters. Is this just because no one can keep a straight face when Bush calls it the Nucular Option?

War on faith... by those of faith 

Something to remember as the far right tries to rile up their Christian base with talk of a War on Faith is that about 80% of Americans* are Christian, compared to only about 15% non-religious, atheist or agnostic. So when they say there's a war on faith, especially in the broader context of a "culture war," they don't mean a battle between the faithful and the non-faithful. They mean a battle between their conservative orthodoxy and moderate people of faith.

*American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) 2001. Percentages are out of the 196,734 people who agreed to answer the question.

Understanding people different from yourself... 

Understanding people different from yourself. That's supposed to be on the "Blue State" side of the big stereotype slate that's written in somebody's guidebook, isn't it? (You know, the one that says if I'm in favor of gun control then I have to be anti-Israel, and vice versa?)

Heather Hurlburt at Democracy Arsenal has a nice short post on 10 steps Democrats can take to get back on the map WRT national security. Kevin Drum at Political Animal quotes one particular example:

Step 6. Every progressive takes a personal vow to learn something about our military, how it works, what its ethos is, and how it affects our society at all levels — as well as what it does well and less well in the wider world.

Sounds like good advice. Also reminds me of a great piece that NPR's On The Media did last month about how journalists, in general, just don't understand gun issues or gun owners, and how they really need to start.

Same-sex marriage ban struck down in CA (step one) 

A SF Superior Court judge just ruled that California's ban on same-sex marriage goes against the state constitution — now it goes on to the state Supreme Court. From the SF Chronicle blurb:

Rejecting California Attorney General Bill Lockyer's argument that California is entitled to maintain the traditional definition of marriage, Kramer said the same explanation was offered for the state's ban on interracial marriage, which was struck down by the state Supreme Court in 1948.

The judge also rejected arguments by opponents of same-sex marriage that the current law promotes procreation and child-rearing by a husband and wife. "One does not have to be married in order to procreate, nor does one have to procreate in order to marry," Kramer said.

Update 3/18/05: updated the title to no longer mean the opposite of what I meant (by adding the word ban).

Moon-Mars mission a poison pill? 

Bob Parks over at What's New suggests it is...

So what’s really behind "The Vision"? Why is the administration pushing so hard for a science initiative that scientists scorn, and which won’t take place on Bush’s watch? Ah, but that’s the plan. It will be up to the next administration, stuck with a huge deficit, to decide whether to go ahead with a meaningless but staggeringly expensive program to see if humans can do what robots are already doing. As one well-informed NASA watcher put it, "Moon-Mars is a poison pill. It hangs responsibility for ending the humans-in-space program on the next administration."

Of course, the same could be said of Bush's tax cut on the one hand and all his red-ink on other — it might just be a mixed blessing to the Republicans to not have at least one Democrat majority to blame by the time all the chickens are back home to roost.

ACLU and Human Rights First Sue Rumsfeld Over U.S. Torture Policies 

The ACLU and Human Rights First are suing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, seeking "a court order declaring that Secretary Rumsfeld's actions violated the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes and international law."

"We believed the United States could correct its policy without resort to the courts. In bringing this action today, we reluctantly conclude that we were wrong."

A few months ago I attended a panel discussion about the rule of law in light of recent prisoner abuses a few months ago, sponsored by the Stanford Law School and the International Red Cross, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. After the legal experts detailed abuse after abuse things looked pretty bleak, so I asked the obvious question: With all the egregious abuses you've listed, is the rule of law dead? I was surprised to hear the three panelists (law professors from the U.S. Naval War College, Santa Clara University and Stanford) all agree the answer was "no." Their assessment was that the President and his administration was clearly abusing the law and Congress had rolled over and played dead, but the Judicial Branch was still doing its job to interpret the law. It's just that the judicial branch is slow, they explained, and so when the other branches abuse their power it takes a while to rectify.

It looks like this, plus the ruling that the government must either charge or release Jose Padilla, are both small steps showing that slow progress at work.

Case against Rumsfeld Timeline

Complaint against Rumsfeld

...and you'll go blind too! 

Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) office has come out with a report on The Content of Federally Funded Abstinance-Only Education Programs (pointer via the SJ Mercury News). These are federally-funded (though not federally supervised) programs to teach teenagers the importance of not having sex before marriage — often by scaring the bejesus out of them. I'm all in favor of teaching teenagers (and adults) to think twice and three times before having sex, but it would seem quite a number of the programs have found that it's easier to scare people with opinion, distortions and outright falshoods than to let kids think for themselves with all the facts on hand.

From the report's executive summary:

The report finds that over 80% of the abstinence-only curricula, used by over twothirds of SPRANS grantees in 2003, contain false, misleading, or distorted information about reproductive health. Specifically, the report finds:

• Abstinence-Only Curricula Contain False Information about the Effectiveness of Contraceptives. Many of the curricula misrepresent the effectiveness of condoms in preventing sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy. One curriculum says that "the popular claim that 'condoms help prevent the spread of STDs,' is not supported by the data"; another states that "[i]n heterosexual sex, condoms fail to prevent HIV approximately 31% of the time"; and another teaches that a pregnancy occurs one out of every seven times that couples use condoms. These erroneous statements are presented as proven scientific facts.
• Abstinence-Only Curricula Contain False Information about the Risks of Abortion. One curriculum states that 5% to 10% of women who have legal abortions will become sterile; that "[p]remature birth, a major cause of mental retardation, is increased following the abortion of a first pregnancy"; and that "[t]ubal and cervical pregnancies are increased following abortions." In fact, these risks do not rise after the procedure used in most abortions in the United States.
• Abstinence-Only Curricula Blur Religion and Science. Many of the curricula present as scientific fact the religious view that life begins at conception. For example, one lesson states: "Conception, also known as fertilization, occurs when one sperm unites with one egg in the upper third of the fallopian tube. This is when life begins." Another curriculum calls a 43-day-old fetus a "thinking person."
• Abstinence-Only Curricula Treat Stereotypes about Girls and Boys as Scientific Fact. One curriculum teaches that women need "financial support," while men need "admiration." Another instructs: "Women gauge their happiness and judge their success on their relationships. Men's happiness and success hinge on their accomplishments."
• Abstinence-Only Curricula Contain Scientific Errors. In numerous instances, the abstinence-only curricula teach erroneous scientific information. One curriculum incorrectly lists exposure to sweat and tears as risk factors for HIV transmission. Another curriculum states that "twenty-four chromosomes from the mother and twenty-four chromosomes from the father join to create this new individual"; the correct number is 23.

The report finds numerous examples of these errors. Serious and pervasive problems with the accuracy of abstinence-only curricula may help explain why these programs have not been shown to protect adolescents from sexually transmitted diseases and why youth who pledge abstinence are significantly less likely to make informed choices about precautions when they do have sex.

My Nightmare 

It's 2008, a constitutional amendment has been passed to allow immigrants who have been US citiziens for more than 20 years to run for president, and in a surprise move Rupert Murdoch beats Arnold Schwarzenegger in the primaries and at age 77 becomes the nation's oldest president.

I gotta stop eating rich foods right before bed...

(As a side note, that constitutional amendment makes a lot of sense to me in this day and age. I've been pretty impressed with Schwartzenegger this past year too, for that matter...)

Guantanimo in New Jersey? 

NPR just did a 5-month investigative report on how Homeland Security is jailing non-citiziens without trial for up to two years, where they're being threatened or attacked & bitten by guard-dogs, beaten by guards and then eventually deported.

Guantanimo? No, New Jersey. It's all in response to a Clinton-era law calling for the deportation of non-citiziens who have ever in the past been convicted of a crime — even people like Hemnauth Mohabir who had been fined $250 for carrying about $5 worth of drugs, had a steady honest job, is married to a US citizien and has a child with her.

Salute to the Honorable Republican Of The Day 

Cuddos to Representative Christopher Shays (R-CT) for speaking out against the Republican repeal of their own Gingrich-Revolution-era rule that would require Tom DeLay to step down as Speaker if he's indicted for violating state campaign finance laws.

"This is a mistake," said Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut.

When the Republicans gained control of the House in the elections of 1994, "we were going to be different,'' Mr. Shays said.

But "every time we start to water down what we did in '94," he said, "we are basically saying the revolution is losing its character."

Talk on health care tonight in SF 

For you locals, there's a potentially interesting talk tonight at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco: U.S. Health Care in Crisis, by the two Time Magazine investigative journalists who just wrote Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business -- And Bad Medicine. The interview on KQED's Forum was good — if I can somehow make it to The City in time I'll probably attend...

Ex-pat Democrat on Kerry's concession 

From an interview with Donna Ducarme of Democrats Abroad, in the November 5th issue of The Amsterdam Times:

I'm physically wiped and sore all over and mentally tired. I'm so angry I can hardly breathe. Those of us who fought for Kerry are very disappointed and frightened that he lost. We're worried for the future of America. I'm so angry that he conceded before all the votes were counted.

My thing was to register all the voters we could possibly register; one of the reasons we got them registered is that we promised that their votes would matter and then he conceded before any of our votes had been counted. Kerry has created a problem amongst individual members but he's also cut us overseas voting activists off at the knees because not only will potential voters not believe Kerry anymore, they won't believe us.

I personally believe he has disenfranchised every overseas voter. We're all voting by post and, when he conceded, all of our ballots were still sitting there in the boxes waiting to be counted. It's a betrayal of a sort I've never experienced in my political life. We galvanized voters who'd not been involved in politics since the Vietnam years because they thought they could make a difference. Are we supposed to wait another thirty years before we rally those troops again and what happens to our country in the meantime?