So Much for That Promise

I supported Israel's right to strike back at Hezbollah terrorists who had earlier crossed the border and kidnapped Israeli troops. But, as is so often the case, Israel seems determined to damage its credibility -- this time by breaking its own promise.

As CNN reports:

Despite an agreement to stop airstrikes for 48 hours, Israel dropped bombs in southern Lebanon on Monday.

Israel had said it would stop the raids to investigate its bombing of the southern Lebanon city of Qana on Sunday that killed at least 54 civilians.

The airstrike -- which killed many children and sparked international outrage -- threatened to derail work toward a resolution in the 20-day conflict between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah guerrillas.

In its agreement, Israel had reserved the right to hit targets that it considered an immediate threat. But the Israeli army said Monday's strikes near the Lebanese village of Tayba were meant to protect ground forces operating in the border area and were not aimed at specific targets.

We Wouldn't Want "Findings" to Influence Policy

A couple of weeks ago, in case you missed it, the U.S. Department of Education released a study comparing student performance in public and private schools. According to the New York Times story, the DOE reported July 14 that children in public schools "generally performed as well or better in reading and mathematics than comparable children in private schools."

The report compared reading and math scores in 2003 from nearly 7,000 public schools and more than 530 private schools. Interestingly, the DOE report found that students in conservative Christian schools lagged significantly behind their counterparts in public schools on eighth-grade math.

I know that conservative Christian schools aren't keen on teaching sex ed and evolution, but is it possible that the Pythagorean theorem has been deemed unteachable because a Greek pagan couldn't possibly be right?

Here's my favorite part. The Times article noted that DOE spokesman Chad Colby "offered no praise for public schools" and said he "did not expect the findings to influence policy." Whether the issue is global warming or educational achievement, Bush administration officials are at least consistent: they refuse to allow research findings to influence their policies.

What's the point in funding studies and other research when you have an administration that openly declares its unwillingness to learn from their findings?

Internet Polls Are Just as Trustworthy Here

The Dutch newspaper Trouw has a daily poll on its website. Today's question:

Do you think that the U.S. itself blew up the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001?

When I checked a few minutes ago, 36% had answered "yes."

Introducing Mattel's "Capitol Hill Barbie"

No, this is not a doll. But you'd be forgiven for thinking so. This is actually a live human being.

Her name is Anjulen Anderson, and she's a 24-year-old staff assistant on for Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.). Anderson is one of The Hill's "50 Most Beautiful People on the Hill."

Accessories sold separately.

This must-read article in The Hill also informs us that the Cincinnati Post has dubbed House Majority Leader John Boehner "the Tan Man" for maintaining a skin tone that rivals actor George Hamilton. Reading a daily newspaper in America certainly provides the citizenry with such useful information, doesn't it?

One of the 50 honorees is Melanie Roussell, press secretary to Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.). She's not only pretty; she has the glamorous job of serving as the chief spokesperson for a congressman accused of hiding bribery cash in a freezer.

P.S. -- Check out the photo. Is that a string of popcorn around her neck?

The Psychology of Partisanship

Politically speaking, America is an increasingly partisan land. In this article, the Washington Post cites research that confirms what many of us have long suspected about political partisanship:

Psychological experiments in recent years have shown that people are not evenhanded when they process information, even though they believe they are.

... Partisans who watch presidential debates invariably think their guy won. When talking heads provide opinions after the debate, partisans regularly feel the people with whom they agree are making careful, reasoned arguments, whereas the people they disagree with sound like they have cloth for brains.

... (In an experiment, a group of) partisans was repeatedly shown images of President Bush and 2004 Democratic challenger John F. Kerry.

When Republicans saw Kerry (or Democrats saw Bush) there was increased activation in brain areas called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is near the temple, and the anterior cingulate cortex, which is in the middle of the head. Both these regions are involved in regulating emotions.

(If you are eating an ice cream cone on a hot day and your ice cream falls on the sidewalk and you get upset, these areas of your brain remind you that it is only an ice cream, that not eating the ice cream can help keep those pounds off, and similar rationalizations.)

... Turns out, rather than turning down their negative feelings as they might do with the fallen ice cream, partisans turn up their negative emotional response when they see a photo of the opposing candidate, said Jonas Kaplan, a psychologist at the University of California at Los Angeles.

In other words, without knowing it themselves, the partisans were jealously guarding against anything that might lower their antagonism. Turning up negative feelings, of course, is a good way to make sure your antagonism stays strong and healthy.

"My feeling is, in the political process, people come to decisions early on and then spend the rest of the time making themselves feel good about their decision," Kaplan said.

The Words That So Offended Hoover

J. Edgar Hoover (left) with FBI associate and

suspected paramour Clyde Tolson

Before he became director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover made a name for himself by relentlessly pursuing a host of communists, anarchists and other U.S. residents whose activities or associations left them open to the label of "radical." I came upon an amusingly ironic passage about Hoover in a book I'm reading ("Reds," written a few years ago by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ted Morgan.)

During World War I, Morgan writes:

... (the 22-year-old) Hoover was assigned to the Alien Enemy Bureau, where he handled the case files of German aliens, writing reports on which ones [the government should] intern.

... he sent men and women twice his age behind barbed wire with the stroke of a pen.

When an eighteen-year-old German was arrested in El Paso as he tried to enter the country, he said under questioning that he would help the Kaiser if he could. Hoover recommended detention for the duration (of the war).

When another German, Otto Mueller, called President Wilson "a cock-sucker and a thief," Hoover again recommended internment, but [the] head of the Alien Enemy Bureau ... ruled that "his offense is no more than a failure to keep his mouth shut, and I feel that internment for the (duration of the) war for mere talk is rather severe. Three or four months in jail will be equally effective."

Reassuring News

I can only imagine the excited tones in which the news is being passed from civilian to civilian in Lebanon: Paul Wolfowitz is coming to save us!

Sunday YouTube

Wilco - "Hell is Chrome"

The George W. Bush School of Campaigning

The Washington Post had an interesting article on tomorrow's election in the Democratic Republic of Congo, its first in more than forty years.

Joseph Kabila, the current president and unpopular front-runner, is apparently disliked by pretty much everyone outside of his native eastern section of the country because he is incompetent

Yet voters complain about a shortage of accomplishments from a government that provides few public services. The United Nations keeps the peace. The World Bank builds the roads. Private clinics provide most health care. Few Congolese have access to public water or electricity, and for those who do, the service is erratic. Police are regarded as useless or corrupt. Unemployment is rampant.

Kabila's one claim to fame is that he managed to sign a peace accord that ended the DRC's five year war, though the country is still devestated - earlier this week, UNICEF reported that more than 600 children are dying every day.

So Kabila has apparently taken a page from Rove's campaign playbook

Kabila echoed the idea in a final rally in Kinshasa on Friday. "I can say to you, without false modesty: mission accomplished," he said, according to the Associated Press. "We've reunited and pacified the country."

I wonder if Kabila was dressed-up in a flight suit when he said that.

Running for Office in the Congo

This is not an allegation that gets thrown around very much in US politics

An ex-rebel leader running for president in Congo's historic elections appealed to his supporters on Friday to vote in peace and denounced allegations of war crimes and cannibalism as a slur against him.

Let's just hope there is no blue dress in Bemba's past, because that would be really bad.

(Not So) Deep Thoughts by Zoe Kentucky

On Wednesday the Anorexic Blonde Banashee Who Shall Not Be Named declared while being interviewed on tv that she believes that Bill Clinton is a "latent homosexual" because he's a womanizer. Yesterday while on Hardball with Chris Matthews she "jokingly" said that Al Gore is a "total fag." Apparently she thinks she's discovered a fun new way to get attention.

I think she might be hovering just over the shark now. So I'm wondering what her next move is going to be.

She is a very cunning market manipulator, she manages to say and get away with the most outrageous, vile things, better than anyone else and is still treated by the MSM as a respected journalist/pundit. But with statements like these I'm wondering what she'll do if the shock factor truly wears off-- I think she has a Plan B.

I predict that her next trick is to have a radical left-wing conversion, declare herself a bleeding-heart fag-hag and write a tell-all about the right. Not that I'd want her anywhere near our team and I doubt that anyone would embrace her, but it would be quite the spectacle.

Just to buy herself another 15 minutes I think she'd do just about anything.

Infinitesimal Glimmer of Hope?

Another day, another poll that says that Americans favor Democrats more than they like Republicans right now. Overall it's pretty meaningless because when it comes to mid-term elections national polls may reflect a general mood but are not good predictors for actual races due to the incumbency issue. They cannot tell us much about the odds of, say, the House leadership changing hands.

Except for this one.

Democrat Stan Greenberg and Republican Glenn Bolger found that, while republicans do a little bit better with these voters than they do in a nationwide sample, the numbers still point to trouble for the party in power.

Midterm congressional elections aren't conducted nationally, district by district, so this poll ignores the districts where the incumbent is safe, and looks only at districts where either party might win.

The poll only surveyed people in the 50 most competitive House districts. Surprisingly the area where Democrats have made the most gains-- or it could be read that the GOP has lost the most ground-- is "values" issues. It looks like all of their paternalistic, "big daddy state" focus on flags, fags, and snowflakes could backfire.

On the question of which party would do a better job on "values issues," like stem-cell research, flag-burning and gay marriage, Democrats prevailed by their biggest margin in the entire poll: 51 percent to 37 percent.

"And when we list values issues like stem-cell research, flag-burning and gay marriage, these are the issues that Republicans took the initiative, used their control in Congress to get on the air to be voting on, to be talking about," Greenberg says. "What this says: By 13 points, voters say they are more likely to vote Democratic because of hearing about these issues. Which suggests that the strategy of using the Congress to get out the base is one that's driving away a lot of voters."

Sweet. Not that we can trust the Dems not to blow it anyways-- they have proven time and time again they have a unique talent for that. But it's not a bad place to be at the end of July, 3 months out from election day.

General Comment No.1: Is the UN Made Up of Complete Idiots?

In searching for something else, I stumbled across this [PDF] recent release from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on "The right of the child to protection from corporal punishment and other cruel or degrading forms of punishment."

Here is what is says

Following its two General Discussion Days on violence against children, held in 2000 and 2001, the Committee on the Rights of the Child resolved to issue a series of General Comments concerning eliminating violence against children, of which this is the first. The Committee aims to guide States parties in understanding the provisions of the Convention concerning the protection of children against all forms of violence. This General Comment focuses on corporal punishment and other cruel or degrading forms of punishment, which are currently very widely accepted and practiced forms of violence against children.

All well and good - but here is the definition it settled upon

The Committee defines “corporal” or “physical” punishment as any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light. Most involves hitting (“smacking”, “slapping”, “spanking”) children, with the hand or with an implement – whip, stick, belt, shoe, wooden spoon, etc. But it can also involve, for example, kicking, shaking or throwing children, scratching, pinching, biting, pulling hair or boxing ears, forcing children to stay in uncomfortable positions, burning, scalding or forced ingestion (for example, washing children’s mouths out with soap or forcing them to swallow hot spices). In the view of the Committee, corporal punishment is invariably degrading. In addition, there are other non-physical forms of punishment which are also cruel and degrading and thus incompatible with the Convention. These include, for example, punishment which belittles, humiliates, denigrates, scapegoats, threatens, scares or ridicules the child.

So while things like burning or torturing children are understandably prohibited, so are things that could "cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light" as well as things that might "threaten" or "scare" them.

Little did I know, back in the day, when my Mom was smacking me with a wooden spoon that she was violating my human rights. She'd better apologize, before I report her to the UN.

Translating the Most Recent News in Iraq

Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported on deteriorating conditions in Iraq. Permit to assist a war-weary public with interpreting the Bush administration's assessment:

Washington (AP) - The U.S. and Iraq are moving thousands of troops into Baghdad to bolster Iraq's war-weary capital in what the White House suggests is an acknowledgment that the six-week U.S.-Iraqi security offensive is not working.

We are in one hell of a fu**in' mess.

.... "It's pretty clear that there's an attempt in Baghdad to create as much chaos and havoc as possible. And it's important to make sure that we address this," White House press secretary Tony Snow said.

The latest spate of violence totally caught us off guard. Naturally, we didn't expect insurgents to employ such clever tactics as "chaos and havoc." Usually, insurgents' M.O. is order and congeniality.

[Snow] said it was clear that the previous plan to bolster security, which Bush praised on his surprise visit to the city on June 13, "has not achieved its objectives."

The previous plan has worked just as masterfully as Napoleon's conquest of Russia.

Snow did not give details of the new Baghdad security plan other than to say it was in the works and would be high on the agenda for the Bush-al-Maliki meetings.

As usual, we're making this up as we go.

Other U.S. officials said [the plan] entails bringing more U.S. troops into Baghdad from elsewhere in Iraq.

And issuing each new soldier a rabbit's foot for good luck.

... Forces are being shifted to meet changing security demands in different neighborhoods "to face the enemy where we think he is," the official said.

We think the enemy is in a shitload of neighborhoods.

Cindy Sheehan, Protester-Cum-Stalker

Cindy Sheehan has managed to (almost) make me feel sorry for President Bush. According to the Associated Press:

CRAWFORD, Texas - War protester Cindy Sheehan has purchased a 5-acre plot in Crawford with some of the insurance money she received after her son was killed in Iraq.

The group she helps lead, Gold Star Families for Peace, says on its Web site that it will return next month to protest the war in Iraq in the small town near Waco where President Bush has a ranch. Like last year, Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004, will again demand to meet with the president.

“We decided to buy property in Crawford to use until George’s resignation or impeachment, which we all hope is soon for the sake of the world,” Sheehan said in a newsletter set to be sent to supporters Thursday.

Losing your son to an unnecessary war gives you a right to publicly criticize the president, but it does not give you a right to a face-to-face meeting with him. (Sheehan should be smart enough to know that even if such a meeting occurred, it would only be used by the White House as an opportunity to portray the prez as so compassionate that he's willing to meet with a hyper-critical mom).

This is starting to reach the obsessive-obnoxious stage.

Does Pelosi Really Get It?

The Boston Globe's Derrick Jackson was among the group of African-American newspaper columnists who recently sat down and talked with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Jackson writes:

The House minority leader said, "This is our moment. I can't answer for how anybody did it before. This is how we're doing it." Pelosi said this, knowing how the party's dentures dropped out in 2000 and 2004.

... "The way they've come at us in the past has been gays, guns, and God: abortion, gay marriage, and guns, and they've had some success with that with people whose personal interests are served by voting Democratic," Pelosi said.

"I maintain that's because they've not heard a Democratic economic message that addresses their needs. They haven't heard anything with the clarity that they need .... With no criticism of the presidential candidates, I don't know if the message they had reached these same people whose interests are served by a Democratic agenda but voted Republican for president."

She added that there were parts of the country in 2004 where voters did not "know anything about the Democrats except Kerry and windsurfing."

She said, "In the absence of a strong Democratic message, they [gays, guns, and God] play bigger. You're down in Appalachia [Kerry lost Kentucky, West Virginia, and Indiana by between 13 and 21 percentage points], you don't hear anything about how you're going to get a job, how your kids are going to get a better education, or how you're going to get health care. So the Republicans come in and say [the Democrats] are going to take your gun away, take their Bibles away. What they did was clever."

It's hard to disagree with these comments by Pelosi. But I still wonder if Pelosi understands that what ails the Democrats is greater than the message itself.

Effective messages require repetition and reinforcement. A political party has to communicate these messages regularly -- not simply every 2 years, between Labor Day and Election Day. Democrats must have a structure in Ohio, West Virginia, Nevada, Missouri and other battleground states that is active 52 weeks of the year. This is why state-level parties are so crucial.

Democrats must define their goal for 2006 in ways that go beyond simply winning the U.S. Senate and U.S. House. Winning more governships and state legislatures has got to be viewed with more importance than it has been in the past.

Messages have to be broken down to soundbites that speak to Americans' core values -- fairness, opportunity, security, etc. And the Dems need to put some real, tangible ideas behind their soundbites. One example: Pledging to launch a major public-private R&D project to make America energy independent by 2018 -- or whatever year seems realistic. Bitching about Exxon-Mobil's profits isn't good enough.

But the Dems are unlikely to get much traction from '06 if they gain seats in Washington while making no progress at the state level.

Maybe This Is Why He Was Biking Faster Than My Porsche 911

On Sunday, Floyd Landis passed the greatest test of professional cycling by becoming the 3rd American cyclist to win the Tour de France. But, according to the New York Times, Landis failed another test.

Forgive Me

I tried to post this comment to the post below, but HaloScan didn't seem to feel like it. On the other hand, given the number of times I tried, the comment probably shows up half a dozen times when anyone else opens the thread; it's invisible only to me. But to feed my own ego, and on the off chance that anyone (i) is interested and (ii) can't read it below, here it is:

It's a bogus argument in any case. Zoe can marry a man, but I can't. Not that either of us would want to, but the point is that she's allowed to do something I'm not allowed to do for one reason only: her sex.

Apart from the fact that if I married anyone else it would be bigamy, of course.

On a serious note, there is one plausible argument I could see for why anti-miscegenation laws discriminate on the basis of race but opposite-sex-only marriage laws do not discriminate on the basis of sex. Although the racial laws were neutral on their face, they were universally understood to be part of a larger regime that held black people to be inferior. Opposite-sex-only marriage laws do not carry an analogous message that one sex is inferior.

Still, for conservatives, that's a pretty tough argument to push. If the law is formally neutral, do the proponents of "judicial restraint" (cough, cough) really want judges saying, "Yes, that law looks O.K., but I know what was really in the legislators' hearts, and it wasn't good?"

The fact is that, formally speaking, opposite-sex-only laws do discriminate on the basis of sex. The question is whether they're justified in doing so -- most people don't have a lot of problem with the police keeping men out of women's public bathrooms, after all, so the fact that a law allows one sex to do something but not the other isn't necessarily fatal.

Given the apocalyptic rhetoric around this issue, I'd say that most of the anti-equality crowd does think that "traditional marriage" is extremely important and that banning same-sex marriage is essential to protecting traditional marriage; if that were the case, then this would be one of those unusual instances where sex discrimination in the law was permissible.

A Court's Silly Rationale

As Zoe noted yesterday, in a 5-4 decision the highest court in Washington state upheld a law banning same-sex marriage. The court, writes the Post, "was bitterly divided ... producing six separate opinions ..."

In the Post's summary of this decision, something stuck out like a leather mini-skirt in church:

"Although marriage has evolved, it has not included a history and tradition of same-sex marriage in this nation or in Washington State," the (majority) opinion said. It added that because state law prevents both sexes from entering into a same-sex marriage, it does not discriminate on the basis of sex.

Couldn't the same argument have been made in the 1960s to uphold bans on interracial marriage? (i.e., since a state ban on interracial marriages applies to both races, it's not discrimination.)

If there's a silver lining in this Washington state decision, it's the fact that King County's (Seattle) African-American county executive definitely saw a connection:

"This is an unwise decision," said Sims, who is black and who said that gays must continue to fight for change, just as blacks did. "Sometimes it takes longer than we might like to bring about needed social change."

He Paints a Pretty Awful Picture

His superiors are likely to be pissed off that Army Staff Sgt. Jose Sixtos was as candid as he was when asked by a Washington Post reporter about morale among his troops in Iraq:

.... not until his convoy of armored Humvees had finally rumbled back into the Baghdad military base, and the soldiers emptied the ammunition from their machine guns, and passed off the bomb-detecting robot to another patrol, did [Sixtos] turn around in his seat and give his answer.

"Think of what you hate most about your job. Then think of doing what you hate most for five straight hours, every single day, sometimes twice a day, in 120-degree heat," he said. "Then ask how morale is."

Frustrated? "You have no idea," he said.

The full story is here.

Coulter's Assessment

Last night on NBC's "Tonight Show," host Jay Leno conjectured that the reason Ann Coulter believes Bill Clinton may be gay is because she's the only woman he wouldn't sleep with.

Damn those "Activist Judges"

The Supreme Court of Washington state has upheld the state ban on same-sex marriage, 5-4.

They pretty much went the same direction as the NY court, that marriage is about breeding and raising children that are biologically related to you.

…limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation, essential to the survival of the human race, and furthers the well-being of children by encouraging families where children are reared in homes headed by the children’s biological parents.

In other words, foster and adopted children, children who are raised by people other than their biological parents and all the children of gay and lesbian couples can merrily fuck off.

From Dan Savage at The Stranger:

There’s something perversely stingy about the WA and NY decisions. How does preventing same-sex couples from marrying make marriage a more stabilizing force in the lives of heterosexual couples? How does making my child’s life more insecure make the life of the kid with straight parents next door more secure? As one of the dissenting justices in NY pointed out, there is no shortage of marriage licenses—there are plenty to go around.
...
Dissenting Justice Mary Fairhurst gets it.

The plurality and concurrence condone blatant discrimination against Washington’s gay and lesbian citizens in the name of encouraging procreation, marriage for individuals in relationships that result in children, and raising children in homes headed by opposite-sex parents, while ignoring the fact that denying same-sex couples the right to marry has no prospect of furthering any of those interests.

Because it doesn't. Both of these decisions seem to pretend that families headed by same-sex couples don't exist yet, that they're just a wacky idea people have proposed. They offer no proof that anyone is harmed by the existence of these families, apparently their prejudice against them is enough.

Ann Coulter Has Officially Lost It...

not that she had much of it to lose.

Apparently she believes that President Clinton reputation as a womanizer means that he must be gay on some level, because in Ann's world only gay men have promiscuous sex. From her recent interview with Donny Deutsch.

Ms. COULTER: I think that sort of rampant promiscuity does show some level of latent homosexuality.

DEUTSCH: OK, I think you need to say that again. That Bill Clinton, you think on some level, has — is a latent homosexual, is that what you’re saying?

Ms. COULTER: Yeah.
...
DEUTSCH: …a former president of the United States, and just saying, `You know what? I think he has latent homosexual tendencies.’

Ms. COULTER: No. I think anyone with that level of promiscuity where, you know, you — I mean, he didn’t know Monica’s name until their sixth sexual encounter. There is something that is — that is of the bathhouse about that.

DEUTSCH: But what is the homosexual — that’s — you could say somebody who maybe doesn’t celebrate women the way he should or just is that he’s a hound dog?

Ms. COULTER: No. It’s just random, is this obsession with his…

DEUTSCH: But where’s the — but where’s the homosexual part of that? I’m — once again, I’m speechless here.

Ms. COULTER: It’s reminiscent of a bathhouse. It’s just this obsession with your own — with your own essence.

DEUTSCH: But why is that homosexual? You could say narcissistic.

Ms. COULTER: Right.

DEUTSCH: You could say nymphomaniac.

Ms. COULTER: Well, there is something narcissistic about homosexuality. Right? Because you’re in love with someone who looks like you. I’m not breaking new territory here, why are you looking at me like that?

Do you think she has ever heard of projection? Ann strikes me as someone that is far too in love with herself and the sound of her own voice to be in love with anyone else. The fact that she is a 40-something woman who is presumably still a virgin because she's never been married. (I do so wish someone would ask her.) As a right-winger who emphatically defends traditional family values she sure doesn't practice what she preaches.

Sorry, dear, but the truth is that if you were a man you'd be the bitchiest queen around.

WTF?

You have got to be kidding me

Predictable Collision Course

As Sue from Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents aptly points out, this seemed pretty inevitable-- the ACLU is defending Fred Phelps and his crazy clan and their right to protest at the funerals of fallen soldiers. Specifically, the ACLU has filed against a Missouri law that was designed to prevent Phelps & family from protesting funerals by infringing on their constitutional rights, namely free speech and freedom of religion.

This is one of those cases where the ACLU takes a principled stance and is likely to get burnt from all sides-- the left, the middle and the right. Naturally I don't like the case or what the Phelpses do, but I agree with the ACLU's position. As twisted as it sounds this is one of thoses cases that reminds me why I've been a proud, card-carrying member of the ACLU since I was a teenager.

One more thing, Sue also points out that even the Phelps family reaction to the news reveals just how truly cracked they are.

"I told the nation, as each state went after these laws, that if the day came that they got in our way, that we would sue them," said Phelps's daughter Shirley L. Phelps-Roper, a spokeswoman for the church in Topeka, Kan. "At this hour, the wrath of God is pouring out on this country."

HUH?!? Despite the offensiveness of their general message the Phelps really make very little sense most of the time. It's one of the reasons they don't upset me anymore, they just seem so terribly mentally ill, as if the entire family was raised on daily shots of mercury and lead-based paint chips.

Plus they've been doing this for so many years-- they got their start protesting the funerals of gay people-- so the shock value of their antics wore off many years ago.

Why Did Yahoo Put this Story in "Oddly Enough?"

"Oddly Enough" is Yahoo UK's news category for the funny, quirky, offbeat stories. Apparently, someone at Yahoo UK figured this story was of the "man bites dog" type and thus must belong in Oddly Enough. It strikes me as more serious than that, though my immediate reaction to my fellow breeders' whining is twofold: 1) get a life; and 2) if you don't want to deal with uppity and even aggressive gay people, why the hell are you going to Provincetown when you've got the remainder of Cape Cod, not to mention 99% of the rest of the country, as an alternative?

But I will say that with respect to the local straights, harassment and intimidation of people for signing a political petition is beyond the pale, no matter how much the petition pisses you off.

What's the Point of Cohabiting...

...if you can't do so lewdly and lasciviously?

Yet more evidence that the main reason we should keep a few activist judges around is because of pinheaded public officials with no common sense or discretion.

'Cause Everybody's Doing It

Tomahawk - "God Hates a Coward"



I love Mike Patton.

The Gap Between Bush's Words and Deeds

It's one thing to find that an elected official doesn't really care much about an issue that you care about. That can be disappointing. But it's outrageous to hear an elected official claim to care about an issue when, in fact, his policies show he doesn't give one rat's ass about it.

Case in point: In his speech to the NAACP last week, this is what President Bush said about fighting HIV:

... when we see the scourge of HIV/AIDS ravaging communities at home and abroad, we must not avert our eyes.

Today more than a million of our fellow Americans live with HIV, and more than half of all AIDS cases arise in the African American community. This disease is spreading fastest among African American women.

... Congress needs to reform and reauthorize the Ryan White Act, and provide funding to states, so we can end the waiting lists for AIDS medications in this country.

But, based on this analysis, the budget proposal that Bush delivered to Congress last year:

* cut the Housing Opportunities for People Living with AIDS program by $13.7 million.

* cut HIV prevention activities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by $4 million.

* provided no increase in funds for the Minority AIDS Initiative.

In his remarks at the NAACP convention, Bush talked a lot about funding for HIV/AIDS in Africa. But, here again, there's a big gap between Bush's rhetoric and his actions.

Two years ago, the Religious News Service reported:

Shrunken AIDS funding in President Bush's 2005 budget proposal released Monday (Feb. 2) dampened the spirits of Christian groups and aid organizations, who said he is not following through on his promise to combat the disease globally.

... Maureen Shea, director of the Episcopal Church's U.S. government relations office, said her denomination was particularly concerned about Bush's funding cutback for multilateral AIDS organizations such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, for which the president proposed $200 million, down $350 million from 2004.

"We have particular concerns about the Global Fund because once people (with HIV/AIDS) have started on treatment, you have to keep people on treatment or it won't work," Shea said.

Incredibly, Bush proposed cutting contributions to the Global Fund only 13 months after he said in the 2003 State of the Union that America must undertake a major effort to combat HIV and AIDS in Africa -- "... seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many."

Blah, blah, blah.

Lieberman Has Himself to Blame

In the new issue of The New Republic, Jason Zengerle writes that the fundamental reason why Senator Joe Lieberman is in danger of being defeated in the Aug. 8 Democratic primary "is Lieberman himself."

Some excerpts from Zengerle's article:

While many of his friends and supporters admire Lieberman’s willingness to take a principled stand in supporting the war — even if they themselves disagree with that stand — they cannot understand why he hasn’t been more critical of the Bush administration’s handling of the war.

“You can be for the war and be critical of it, and he lost the second half of the equation,” says one former advisor.

“Look at (Senator Joe) Biden. Here’s somebody who voted for the war, continues to say that we should be there, but is absolutely critical of Bush and how he handled it. And so, as a result, he gets a pass. It's how Lieberman talks about the war that people can't stand. He comes across as not necessarily being pro-war but being pro-Bush."

... Exacerbating this problem has been Lieberman's staff. "He's got a staff now that's very knowledgable in their substantive areas," says one Lieberman friend. "But there's not a lot of political smarts there."

A number of Lieberman's friends and supporters cite his November 2005 Wall Street Journal op-ed backing Bush's strategy in Iraq and urging Democrats to do the same — which Lamont said triggered his decision to enter the race — as a perfect example of something that Lieberman's staff should have prevented from happening.

... The (Lieberman) campaign was slow to bring much scrutiny on Lamont himself. And, when it finally did in June stand — cutting an amateurish cartoon (television) ad attacking Lamont for his close ties to former Connecticut Senator and Governor Lowell Weicker — the effort was almost laughably bad.

"That ad was retarded," says one Democratic Senate aide sympathetic to Lieberman.

Campaign Material?

In the run up to the primary election in Connecticut, the Lamont campaign either needs to use this clip or have the children from the Daily Show read the transcript. It's Ann Coulter on FauxNews on Iraq strategy and Joe Lieberman.

COULTER:...I would admire a politician, not as much as basically your run of the mill garden-variety Republican, but as far as Democrats go like Lieberman, who apparently does want to defend America and fight the war on terrorism. He is the one facing a primary fight.

CAVUTO: You know, there is talk about him maybe bolting to a third party. The seeds are there for a third party movement. Do you buy that?

COULTER: I think he should come all the way and become a Republican. He wouldn’t be our best Republican but at least he’d fit in with the party that wants to defend the country.

If Ann Coulter "thinks" well of Joe Lieberman and believes "he'd fit in the [Republian] party" then how does any self-respecting Democrat support him?

Yes, Bill, I'm looking in your general direction. While I honor your loyalty to the former VP nominee, Lieberman certainly doesn't deserve it. For pete's sake, Lieberman is openly threatening to leave the party if he loses the August 8th primary.

Best Headline of the Day

Dog-cooking, tree-taking school-burner may lose job

Thank you, Reuters.

Welcome to Married Life

I realize that as an obedient liberal (or rather, a euphemistic "progressive") I probably shouldn't find this funny - but I do

The lesbian couple whose lawsuit led to legal same-sex marriage in Massachusetts have announced they have separated.

"Julie and Hillary Goodridge are amicably living apart," Mary Breslauer, a local political consultant, said Thursday night on their behalf. Breslauer declined to comment on how long they had been separated or whether the couple planned to divorce.

The Goodridges were among seven gay couples whose lawsuit helped thrust Massachusetts into the center of a nationwide debate on gay marriage. The state's Supreme Judicial Court issued its narrow 4-3 ruling in November 2003 in their favor — saying gays and lesbians had a right under the state constitution to wed.

The Goodridges were married May 17, 2004, the first day same-sex marriages became legal under the court ruling, by a Unitarian Universalist minister. Their daughter, Annie, now 10, served as ring-bearer and flower girl.

Now, Breslauer said, for Annie's sake, the Goodridges want privacy.

Stephen Moore Whines About a "Small Tent"

Yesterday afternoon, CNBC's "Kudlow & Company" program referred to the new poll showing that Senator Joe Lieberman is trailing in the race for the Democratic nomination. The Club for Growth's Stephen Moore was a guest on the show, and Moore whined about how terrible it was that "there is no room in the Democratic Party" for someone whose views are at odds with the party's core voters on issues such as Iraq and capital gains taxes.

This, said Moore, makes the Democrats a "small tent."

Wait a minute. Two years ago, Moore worked hard to make the Republican Party a small tent. He actively raised money for an ultra-conservative primary challenger to Republican Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. The reason? Moore complained that Specter was not conservative enough -- he called Specter "a RINO Republican" (Republican In Name Only).

Moore has the right to try to knock off any Republicans he thinks aren't sufficiently conservative. But he's a total hypocrite when he whines about the Democratic Party not having "room" for people like Lieberman.

The only reason Moore was standing up for Lieberman has nothing to do with allowing diverse views within a political party. (Back in '04, Moore didn't want diverse views in the GOP.) It has everything to do with the fact that Lieberman is more open to tax cuts of various kinds than most other Democratic senators.

Man of Peace (or Man of Pieces)

Eugene has written about Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army and "public enemy number one" at the International Criminal Court, where he (Kony, not Eugene) has been indicted. Kony is now asking for a cease-fire and peace talks with the Ugandan government in exchange for an amnesty from ICC charges (the government is inclined to grant the amnesty, but the international community, including the U.S. and the ICC prosecutor, aren't going along).

The peace talks aren't going exactly smoothly, amnesty or no amnesty. Here's the latest:

The Government yesterday rejected a demand by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) for an immediate ceasefire as it was also revealed that a member of the LRA peace team in Juba led a group of rebels that chopped and cooked people during the infamous Patongo massacre in October 2002....

Sources later told The New Vision that the LRA commander implicated in the Patongo massacre was Sunday Ochaya alias Otto.

Ochaya retorted that he should not be accused since he was in Juba in search of peace.

I hope the revelation didn't hurt Otto's feelings too much.

In New Poll, Lieberman Trails Lamont

According to Reuters:

U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, facing a backlash in his own party for supporting the Iraq war, has been overtaken by a political novice in Connecticut's Democratic Senate primary, a poll showed on Thursday.

The three-term senator and vice presidential nominee in 2000 has support of 47 percent of likely Democratic voters against 51 percent for Ned Lamont, a millionaire who gained on Lieberman by portraying him as too supportive of President George W. Bush, the Quinnipiac University poll showed.

However ....

But the poll ... shows Lieberman prevailing in November's mid-term election if he runs as an independent.

Facing his first tough re-election race since entering the Senate 18 years ago, Lieberman filed papers last week to create a party called "Connecticut for Lieberman" that would put him on November's ballot even if he loses the August 8 primary.

As I've written previously, it should piss off Democrats that Lieberman would publicly express his willingness to run as an independent if he loses the primary.

It's wrong for anyone (incumbent or not) to use the party's primary as merely a "Plan A." Doing so renders the party primary meaningless.

Revokable Freedoms?

Apparently there is a little known clause in the constitution somewhere that in exchange for government/public assistance you give up your right to exercise freedom of speech or air grievances against the government.

Oh, wait, no there's not.

Yes, our dear government has come up with yet another creative way to screw over Katrina victims.

Lovely, just lovely.

Mr. Congeniality in Corporate America

Today's Wall Street Journal (registration req'd) has a front page article on Brocade Communications Systems Inc., a high-tech firm alleged to have fabricated its employment records in an attempt to bolster the value of stock options.

But the article's sidebar description of the behavior of Brocade's former CEO, Gregory Reyes, was more interesting than the rest of the article:

Mr. Reyes was a tough manager who was known for firing questions at any employee who passed him by without making eye contact. ... he could make crude remarks about Brocade's competitors, referring to the main one, McData Corp., as "McDoo-doo."

In a Halloween ritual at the company, (Brocade) employees would gather in a courtyard while Mrs. Reyes stood on a chair, made a speech about the need to smash the competition, then took a baseball bat and shattered a pumpkin with "McData" carved on it.

Another Reyes speciality: He sometimes startled staffers by chewing tobacco during meetings and spitting into a Styrofoam cup or empty mineral water bottle.

The Globe to Milennials: Cut the Chord

The Boston Globe thinks the Milennial generation (and its parents) deserve a good spanking. In an editorial in today's newspaper, the Globe observes:

... the so-called Millennials, born after 1981, are being hailed as the promise generation, history makers who will define the new century.

There's just one problem: At the moment, this is a generation that lacks the common sense to stay off deadly train tracks or campus rivers when they're icy. A generation that can't seem to make decisions without texting home, and whose helicopter parents -- so named for their hovering ways -- have actually begun negotiating salaries with job recruiters on their kids' behalf.

Faced with the most-chaperoned, play-dated generation in memory, as the Globe's Marcella Bombardieri found, colleges are rolling out increasingly elaborate orientation programs. Having long taken for granted a basic set of life skills, schools are having to spell out such dos and don'ts as Boston University's: Don't try to cross the icy Charles River in winter.

Of course, catering to Millennials also means answering to their parents. A University of South Carolina official tells of a mother asking that her photo appear on her child's student ID card. "Because anytime there is a problem, I'm going to be dealing with it."

... [the Milennials] are also making some smart decisions: Smoking, suicide, and teen pregnancy and abortion are all down. ... All in all, it's a relentlessly upbeat crowd, say Neil Howe and William Strauss in their book, "Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation."

... But it's easy to be optimistic when you've never been allowed to fail, when every kid at a swim meet has to win something, and making children feel good becomes as important as ensuring that they do well. It's easy to have a can-do spirit when you've been insulated from the ordinary risks of childhood.

As Howe put it, "This isn't a generation of kids who went wandering in backyards and empty lots and thought of things to play. All their activity was prepared for them."

And that's the problem: Life is not a supervised activity. If those in this group are to fill their grandparents' shoes, they can't continue to be coddled at an age when their grandparents were fighting wars.

D-day didn't come with a handbook. Parents, and colleges for that matter, would do well to do less catering and let their very old kids finally become adults.

A Sentence That Speaks for Itself

By now, you are aware that the House of Representatives voted yesterday to block federal judges from issuing rulings that relate to the Pledge of Allegiance's phrase "under God." I found this paragraph from the AP story quite ironic:

Supporters argued that the "under God" phrase, added to the pledge in 1954, was intrinsic to the nation's heritage and traditions and must be shielded from unelected judges.

I find it interesting that a phrase that has existed for only 52 of our nation's 230 years can be called "intrinsic" to America's heritage.

Washington DC: Where Even the Secretaries Have a Masters

One of the most annoying things about working in Washington, DC is the importance companies and organizations place on advanced degrees for jobs that are basically administrative positions.

Take this job listing from the Council on Foreign Relations for example. They are looking for a Research Associate on National Security and Civil Liberties and want someone with

M.A. degree in National Security, International Relations, International Law or a related field preferred, with high academic credentials or a B.A. degree with coursework in national security, constitutional law, U.S. foreign policy, or international law, and national security; along with a proven interest in civil liberties.

That makes sense. But what about this?

A minimum of one full year of related administrative experience during or post-graduation, preferably including experience coordinating events with VIPs.

Why would someone need both an M.A. and administrative experience? Because they are going to be doing 90% administrative work and 10% research

• Research the following areas: homeland security, national security law, international law, specify areas, and tracking news and data sources.
• Coordinating events, including arranging mailings, preparing invitations, travel arrangements, scheduling, corresponding with participants, helping to prepare materials for distribution, and providing other logistical support.
• Handling writing assignments, summarizing research findings, and business writing.
• Managing budgets, including preparing budgets and tracking monthly statements, creating and updating Excel spreadsheets, and preparing vouchers for reimbursement.
• Providing administrative support to the task force directors, including handling correspondence, filing, and responding to requests for information.

I imagine that those who have forked out the tens of thousands of dollars to get a Masters must just be crawling over each other to get jobs where they can spend the majority of their time filing and answering phones.

"Yo, Angela"

The thing with Blair was funny. Bush's approach to German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G8 summit is a bit more troubling. You can check out the video, but I think the sequence of photos gets the atmosphere right. Click on "vor" to go to the next photo. The other dude whom Merkel is speaking to when Bush swoops is Italian Prime Minister Prodi.

George is 60; it's about time someone taught him how to behave in public.

Vouchers: Theory v. Practice

So vouchers are back, with a vengence.

The Bush administration and Republican legislators yesterday proposed a $100 million national plan to offer low-income students private-school vouchers to escape low-performing public schools. The plan was immediately assailed by Democrats, unions and liberal advocacy groups.

The proposal comes four days after the independent research arm of the Department of Education issued a report showing that public schools are performing as well as or better than private schools, with the exception of eighth-grade reading, in which private schools excelled. The results prompted questions from foes of vouchers about why taxpayer money should go toward private schools instead of toward improving public schools.

I really am of two minds about vouchers. In principle and in theory, I am totally against them. It's a ridicuously myopic solution, it only "saves" a handful of kids and leaves the rest behind. It also gives public funds to private schools that do not have the same standards or accountability, so there is no assurance that the money is even well spent. It's an overused cliche, but vouchers are nothing more than a band-aid, not a cure.

However, in practice, I do have a slightly different POV, one that has been brought into tighter focus as my wife and I get closer to buying our first home. We have managed to find a great house in a wonderful neighborhood at a price we can afford-- the downside is that the school district leaves much to be desired. It's not even a mediocre school district, it's one of the worst, and, of course, it has the highest taxes.

So we're comfortable with the trade-off of raising our children in a progressive, gay-friendly neighborhood where they will know other families like ours and sending them to private school. But if vouchers were on the table would we try to get one? I don't know. It would be especially tempting consider the amount we're paying in taxes, so I can certainly understand the appeal on the level of the parents. But the politicians and public policy folks should be ashamed of themselves for trying to garner votes from inner-city parents by offering them a ticket to win the education lottery. It's just bad public policy, plain and simple.

One fix that I would get behind-- although I know it will never get off the ground because it would be political suicide-- is a centralized tax collection agency in every state along with equal distribution of school funds. All schools get the same amount, per kid, so funds would not be dependent on the wealth (or lack therof) of the local district. I'd truly love to see what would happen then.

Poor Little Fella

Ralph Reed is no longer in the running to be the next lieutenant governor of Georgia.

Boo-hoo-hoo.

Which makes me think of my favorite (and only) personal encounter with Ralph Reed. I was attending a big right-wing conference several years ago. After watching a ballroom-sized crowd slavishly worship Ann Coulter, I decided to take a breather and walk around the lobby. As I turned around to head back to see the illustrious Alan Keyes, I nearly knocked over a very little man. Mid-sorry, I realized it was none other than Ralph Reed. It was then that I developed my theory of right-wing zealots in the vein of Ralph Reed, Gary Bauer and other petite megalomaniacs-- they likely have persecution complexes forged via repeated bullying in high school. I'm hardly a violent person and I certainly wasn't a bully in high school, however, Ralph Reed brought out a latent, hidden urge. I really wanted to push him down and call him a pipsqueak.

Poor, Poor Marilyn

So, Ms. Musgrave, now that your gay marriage ban is officially dead what other papertiger issue are you going to commit your sad, pathetic political career to?

The House on Tuesday rejected a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, ending for another year a congressional debate that supporters of the ban hope will still reverberate in this fall's election.

The 236-187 vote for the proposal to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman was 47 short of the two-thirds majority needed to advance a constitutional amendment. It followed six weeks after the Senate also decisively defeated the amendment, a top priority of social conservatives.

But supporters said the vote will make a difference when people got to the polls in November.

"The overwhelming majority of the American people support traditional marriage," said Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., sponsor of the amendment. "And the people have a right to know whether their elected representatives agree with them."

Opponents dismissed the proposal as both discriminatory and legislatively irrelevant because of the Senate vote. The measure is "all for the purpose of pandering to a narrow political base." said Rep. Tammy Baldwin, an openly gay Democrat from Wisconsin. "This hateful and unnecessary amendment is unworthy of our great Constitution."

The marriage amendment is part of the "American values agenda" the House is taking up this week that includes a pledge protection bill and a vote on President Bush's expected veto of a bill promoting embryonic stem cell research. Bush has asked, and social conservatives demanded, that the gay marriage ban be considered in the run-up to the election.

The White House, in a statement Tuesday, urged passage of the measure. "When activist judges insist on redefining the fundamental institution of marriage for their states or potentially for the entire country, the only alternative left to make the people's voice heard is an amendment of the Constitution."

Oh, yes, please protect us from people getting married-- it will surely destroy us all!

By the way, I LOVE that anyone on the Hill has the leisure time to vote on this issue considering what is going on in the Middle East right now. Ya'll should be very, very proud of your priorities.

Useless Idiots

I don't have much to add to this other than to say these people are idiots who are more interested in blaming the US for everything and anything than they are in Darfur

A well-attended forum entitled “Darfur, An Open Discussion on Intervention, Regime Change & the Politics of Genocide” was held July 6 at Smith College in Northampton, Mass.

The goal of the event organizers was to answer those clamoring for U.S. intervention in Darfur. According to independent journalist Keith Harmon Snow, the forum was organized in response to a June 21 event, “Witnessing Darfur - A Benefit for the People of Darfur,” which he said raised $10,000 for groups such as Human Rights Watch.

Panelist Sara Flounders, co-director of the International Action Center, gave a historical materialist overview of the underdevelopment of African nations by the U.S., Britain, and European colonial powers. She explained that the word “genocide” is being used for war propaganda, and posed a question to the audience: “How could anyone dare say that they were not against ‘genocide’?” She added that by claiming this as a “moral imperative,” the U.S. corporate media is shaping the issue on Darfur.

Flounders brought up that it is the U.S. that is militarizing the area by funding and arming rebel groups in Chad and Darfur. She went on to say that, in fact, the U.S. caused more than half of the deaths in Sudan—when under President Bill Clinton, the U.S. military bombed the El Shifah pharmaceutical plant in 1998, which supplied 60 percent of Sudan’s medicines.

[edit]

The next panelist to speak, Keith Harmon Snow, emphasized: “People need to know they are being lied to [in regard to Darfur]. ... Sudan and the Darfur region have a lot of oil, and it has two-thirds of the world’s supply of high-quality gum arabic. Corporations such as Coke, Pepsi, and Pfizer rely on cheap supplies of gum arabic.” He went on to say that “The mass media and Hollywood are fooling the public about what’s really happening in Sudan. ... The CIA and USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development] are the real forces who want to overthrow the government of Sudan.”

When asked what he thought was important about holding Thursday’s forum, organizer and panelist Dimitri Oram replied, “For the first time, one of these events on Darfur is really shining a light on the U.S. role in Darfur and other African nations.” He continued, “The Rwandan Defense Forces sent to Darfur are themselves responsible for crimes against humanity and acts of genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and these troops were trained and are highly linked to the U.S. military.” Oram compared the U.S. claims of genocide in Darfur to the war propaganda used to justify U.S. military intervention in Bosnia and in Kosovo.

The last speaker on the panel, Dr. Enoch Page, Associate Professor of Anthropology at UMASS Amherst and expert on the anthropology of genocide, brought up the fact that the people of the United States do not need to look abroad to find cases of genocide. He pointed out that the 1949 United Nations definition of “genocide” has been and continues to be carried out against African Americans here in the United States. He reminded the audience that part of the UN definition includes killing members of a racial group; causing psychological damage to members of the group; and creating conditions of financial hardship for members of the group.

Professor Page raised the “attempt at systematic destruction of African American people by the U.S.” and stressed that, “We must talk about that fact whenever there is a discussion on ‘genocide.’”

Professor Page suggested, “Africa is still being punished for its brave resistance and overthrowing of its colonial oppressors.” When asked what information coming out of the forum he thought was important, Professor Page replied, “That the U.S. is causing the conflict in Darfur, and wants to overthrow the Islamic government there because it has a vested interest in the region, not because of ‘genocide.’”

Yes, the US is responsible for Darfur because we want the oil and gum arabic. We are also worse than the Janajweed because we bombed a pharmaceutical plant eight years ago and supposedly trained Rwandan forces that committed atrocities in retribution for the genocide in 1994. Oh yes, and the US committed genocide against African Americans in this country - so that is relevant, provided you use a superficial and inaccurate definition of "genocide."

It's amazing really - I've been following the situation in Darfur for more than two years now and I didn't know any of these things. And so I thank these brave, committed, informed, unbiased experts for setting me straight.

"Yo, Blair"

Has this gotten much play on American television? I imagine Jon Stewart must have done something with it. Anyway, my European friends are having a bit of fun over the Bush-Blair exchange.

As for me, the best moment of the entire conversation is the first two words. I haven't had a good laugh like that in a while. Thanks, George; I needed that.

Savage's Pet Project

Over the weekend, Kevin Drum linked to this article in The Boston Globe noting that, in his Hamdan dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia

[I]ncluded the text of Bush's signing statement on the law. In the statement, Bush instructed government lawyers to file briefs arguing that the new law stripped courts of the power to hear "existing" detainee lawsuits, although the text of the law did not say it was meant to apply retroactively.

I realize that Charlie Savage, the Globe reporter who wrote this article, pretty much broke the entire "signing statement" story, for which he deserves credit.

But if Savage is going to be the point-man on all things signing statement, it behooves him to actually read Scalia's dissent [PDF] rather than simply searching for the phrase "signing statement" and then writing a misleading article based on the fact that the phrase appeared.

As anyone writing anything about Scalia's views ought to know, he is no fan of using legislative history to interpret a statute's meaning because it is unreliable - a fact that was amply demonstrated by the stunt recently pulled by Sens. Graham and Kyl.

In his dissent, Scalia attacks the majority for relying on floor statements and drafting history while making his point that "the language of the statute that was actually passed by both Houses of Congress and signed by the President is our only authoritative and only reliable guidepost." It is in the context of making this point that he notes that, while the majority relied on floor statements and whatnot to bolster its decision, it notably did not cite Bush's "signing statement" on the bill in trying to determine its meaning, primarily because Bush's view was exactly the opposite of what the majority ruled.

Scalia writes

And at least one opponent of the DTA unmistakably expressed his understanding that it would terminate our jurisdiction in this very case.

He then reprints Bush's statement in the footnote.

Given that Scalia doesn't view legislative history as a reliable source of information, it stands to reason that he probably doesn't view "signing statements" as any more valid. And given the context in which he cites Bush's signing statement, that does not seem to be an unreasonable inference.

Scalia was basically accusing the majority of hypocrisy - not giving weight to signing statements.

But in his article, Savage somehow reaches exactly that conclusion

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia gave a presidential signing statement significant weight in determining the meaning of a statute, marking a milestone in the debate over the Bush administration's expansion of executive power.

This is, it seems to me, a shockingly mistaken interpretation of what Scalia was actually saying.

Another Good News/Bad News Poll

On the one hand, according to the new AP-Ipsos poll:

... (the) survey asked 789 registered voters if the election for the House were held today, would they vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate in their district. Democrats were favored 51 percent to 40 percent.

... Democrats also held the advantage among persuadable voters — those who are undecided or wouldn't say whom they prefer. A total of 51 percent said they were leaning Democrat, while 41 percent were leaning Republican.

But on the other hand:

One bright spot for the GOP is that Republicans hold an advantage over Democrats on issues such as foreign policy and fighting terrorism — 43 percent to 33 percent — and a smaller edge on handling Iraq — 36 percent to 32 percent.

The AP-Ipsos poll was conducted after the divisive Democratic debate in the Senate over setting a timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq. Potential voters were paying attention to the GOP complaint that Democrats want to "cut and run."

Dems should counter this message right away or else they're going to be put on the defensive in the months ahead. They need to offer voters a soundbite like this: "Republicans have a plan to stay, but no plan to win."

Speaking personally, I don't think the Iraq's war winnable at this point. Of course, no one in Washington — not even Dems who think likewise — is willing to say that.

Interesting Quotes, Even More Interesting Sources

I'm just now going through a few back issues of The New Yorker, and I found an interesting article called "The Hidden Power" in the July 3 edition (the article's not accessible online). It profiles David Addington, whom the magazine identifes as Vice President Cheney's chief of staff "and his longtime principal legal adviser."

Addington, writes The New Yorker's Jane Mayer, "has played a central role in shaping the Administration's legal strategy for the war on terror." And the article includes the following quotes about Addington and/or the legal strategy he helped develop for the White House to assert unprecedented legal authority:

1) "It's Addington. He doesn't care about the Constitution."

2) "[Bush has] said that there are no restraints on his ability, as he sees it, to collect intelligence, to open mail, to commit torture, and to use electronic surveillance. If you used the President's reasoning, you could shut down Congress for leaking too much. ... he could kill someone in Lafayette Park if he wants! It's got the sense of Louis XIV: 'I am the State.'"

3) "The Administration's lawyers are nuts on this issue."

4) "There is no [legal adviser for this Admin.] of legal stature, certainly no one like Bork, or Scalia, or Elliot Richardson, or Archibald Cox. It's frightening. No one knows the Constitution — certainly not Cheney.”

These are pretty damning statements, but what makes them especially damning is that all four of these quotes are attributed to Republicans and/or conservatives — (in order) Colin Powell, Bruce Fein, Richard A. Epstein and Fein again.

Things Could Get Interesting in N.H.

From today's Washington Post:

New Hampshire Democrats hoping to uncover who knew about plans to jam their phone lines on Election Day 2002 are free to seek depositions from senior Republicans in a civil lawsuit flowing from the controversy, a state judge ruled yesterday.

The judge said the state Democratic Party could ask for White House phone records for then-White House political director Ken Mehlman, now chairman of the Republican National Committee, and seek to question former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie, former RNC political operations director Terry Nelson and others.

... The ruling is part of a civil suit filed by the state Democratic Party against the state Republican Party and other Republicans that seeks damages for the phone jamming incident, in which the GOP allegedly tied up phone lines of Democrats and a firefighters union trying to turn out the vote in 2002. Sen. John E. Sununu (R) eventually won by 19,151 votes.

Three former GOP officials were convicted after a criminal investigation. Documents released by Democrats show that former RNC official James Tobin -- one of the men convicted -- had contacted the White House more than 20 times as the phone jamming operation was carried out. Later, the RNC spent millions on Tobin's legal defense.

Is a House Subcommittee Guilty of Treason?

Conservatives have used some angry and hyperbolic words in the last week or so to describe the New York Times. Are they prepared to use the same labels against a GOP-chaired House Subcommittee that aired details about the government's financial monitoring program years ago?

The Washington Post reports:

At a House subcommittee hearing five months after the Sept. 11 attacks, plans were openly discussed to give the government a highly secure, real-time electronic capability to request and receive data from financial institutions about suspected terrorists or terrorist organizations. The approach was closely similar to the effort described in news reports last month, which the Bush administration has said endangered national security.

In February 2002, Jeffrey P. Neubert, president and chief executive of the New York Clearing House Association LLC, described ... (how) government agencies would electronically send the names of suspected terrorists or terrorist organization to financial institutions "seeking account and/or transaction 'hits' which would be returned to the respective [government] organizations."

... The testimony was one of several examples where government and industry officials have publicly described how counterterrorism agencies access financial records to track terrorists and shut down their funding, leading some lawmakers and counterterrorism specialists to doubt assertions that the most recent revelations have significantly helped al-Qaeda or other terrorists by disclosing valuable new information.

Great Line

Justice Bedsworth, noting that almost all of the judges who are publicly punished for misconduct are male:

Very few women make the Judicial Conduct Reporter. Apparently there is a glass floor beneath the glass ceiling.

The rest of it is worth reading as well, especially if you have an interest in imaginary mystic healing Filipino dwarves.

Veterans and Pathology

My post about Stand Down provoked a debate about the extent, if any, to which combat veterans really are at increased risk of homelessness.

I'm still not sure about homelessness in particular, but the CDC, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Archives of Internal Medicine, and other scientific sources do suggest that combat veterans are at increased risk of various physical and mental pathologies and that combat veterans with PTSD are at higher risk still. A study in 2004 by Walter Reed Army Hospital concluded that approximately 15% to 17% of Iraq veterans could be affected by various mental illnesses.

If you're interested in more information of a scientific nature (rather than polemics from one side or the other), check out:

This:

The prevalence of a history of post-traumatic stress disorder was 1 percent in the total population, about 3.5 percent in civilians exposed to physical attack and in Vietnam veterans who were not wounded, and 20 percent in veterans wounded in Vietnam....Although some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, such as hyperalertness and sleep disturbances, occurred commonly in the general population, the full syndrome as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, third edition, was common only among veterans wounded in Vietnam.

This:

Design, Setting, and Participants Population-based descriptive study of all Army soldiers and Marines who completed the routine postdeployment health assessment between May 1, 2003, and April 30, 2004, on return from deployment to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan (n = 16 318), Operation Iraqi Freedom (n = 222 620), and other locations (n = 64 967)....

Results The prevalence of reporting a mental health problem was 19.1% among service members returning from Iraq compared with 11.3% after returning from Afghanistan and 8.5% after returning from other locations (P<.001)....Thirty-five percent of Iraq war veterans accessed mental health services in the year after returning home; 12% per year were diagnosed with a mental health problem....

Conclusions ...The high rate of using mental health services among Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans after deployment highlights challenges in ensuring that there are adequate resources to meet the mental health needs of returning veterans.

This:

Adjusted attributable fraction estimates indicated that the following were significantly attributable to combat exposure: 27.8% of 12-month posttraumatic stress disorder, 7.4% of 12-month major depressive disorder, 8% of 12-month substance abuse disorder, 11.7% of 12-month job loss, 8.9% of current unemployment, 7.8% of current divorce or separation, and 21% of current spouse or partner abuse.

Those interested in looking at this topic from a position that is skeptical of "the culture of victimhood," and who are interested in learning some fascinating history at the same time, could check out A War of Nerves : Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Twentieth Century.

Abduction for Thee, But Not for Me

This is ironic

THE top leadership of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army rebels declined to join the talks in the Southern Sudanese City of Juba because they fear abduction, the Chief mediator and Vice President Riek Machar has said.

Considering that the LRA continues to exist only by raiding villages and abducting children, hearing LRA leaders complain about fearing abduction is laughable.

If there was any justice in this world, Kony and his ilk would indeed be abducted and have their lips and noses cut off.

Chickenhawk Shame

Among the numerous inevitable consequences of going to war are the vets who, whether or not they are physically intact, are mentally and emotionally ruined. While President Flightsuit says "Bring them on" and pretends to be a soldier, he shows no signs of caring about actual soldiers. Even though it happens in every war--in one era, it might be called "shell shock," in another "combat fatigue," and more recently "PTSD"--this, like civilian casualties and war atrocities, is one more human cost that Shrub doesn't seem to have taken into account.

Hence an event that was started two decades ago for homeless Vietnam vets shows no sign of becoming obsolete.

Except for the tradition itself, much is changing in the homeless-veteran community, said Darcy Pavich, coordinator of the local Stand Down and chaplain of Veterans Village of San Diego.

Most of the the veterans attending Stand Downs across the country are no longer from the Vietnam War era, she said, but from the Persian Gulf War. In addition, “Iraq and Afghanistan veterans (are) a small but growing segment,” Pavich said.

More and more veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will become homeless after serving multiple tours of duty, she said.

And George "Support the Troops" Bush cuts veterans' medical benefits. For shame.

Putin and Foreign Policy "Haste"

Yesterday, President Bush and German Chancellor Angela Merkel made public statements calling on Iran to rethink its resistance to a proposed accord over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Speaking on the same issue, Russian premier Vladimir Putin issued a statement to a German TV station that included these remarks:

"We believe that the situation should not be brought to a deadlock to deteriorate it. .... We, of course, would like Iran (to) react quicker. But we also have negative examples of how haste in seeking solutions to other, no less sensitive or difficult issues, also in the same region, led to a situation that no one knows how to get out, that is emerging, say, in Iraq."

Putin is half-right and half-wrong.

Did the Bush administration have a clear, pre-determined agenda to invade Iraq? Absolutely. In this respect, the White House acted in "haste." But the Bush administration's decision to invade was, in many respects, facilitated by the unwillingness of France, Germany and Russia to broker any reasonable compromise. Their reluctance helped to provide political cover for Bush's decision.

Essentially, these three countries sat on their hands and were not prepared to do anything worthwhile to enforce the key UN resolution concerning Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

Perhaps Putin is proud that Russia is stopping the UN from acting in "haste" to stop the suffering in Darfur.

So long as Putin, the Chinese and others continue to block or undermine every effort to exercise meaningful UN action, unilateral action will be encouraged. Multilateralism cannot succeed if the UN remains a toothless tiger.

Yes, haste in foreign policy is a bad thing. But so is the opposite of haste.

First, Stop the Gays; then, Peace and Brotherhood in Israel

Is it just me, or do the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders mentioned in this article have their priorities screwed up?

The Day I Have Feared Is at Hand

Men may soon become completely unnecessary, as opposed to being mostly unnecessary as we are now.

Professor Herman Tournaye of the Free University in Brussels is trying to develop synthetic spermatozoa. It's worked in mice, but Tournaye says there's a long way to go before man-made (or not man-made?) sperm cells will be available for clinical IVF usage.

This man must be stopped.

The Suicidal Doctor's "Conservative" Impulses

National Review's John Derbyshire has called attention to this story in today's New York Post. The story quotes a patient of Nicholas Bartha, the physician who apparently committed suicide Tuesday by setting off an explosion inside his New York City townhouse. Derbyshire writes:

This story about the Manhattan doctor who blew up his town house is fascinating. The guy seems to have had some conservative impulses:

"If I felt anything remotely wrong, I'd drop in. But before I could get a word in about my health concerns, he'd sit me down and go on about Hillary Clinton and lawyers being the scourge of the United States. ... America was the best place on Earth -- the land of opportunity -- [Bartha] always said, and he really was convinced that liberals had a plan to undermine the future success of the United States, that Hillary Clinton was going to bring down the country."

However, [these impulses] were mixed with more peculiar stuff, as is often the case with unbalanced personalities:

"He praised Hitler while slicing me with a scalpel, but I thought he was just an interesting character."

Far be it from me to defend conservatives, but what Derbyshire describes as "conservative impulses" seems to do a disservice to conservatives.

Sure, the vast majority of self-identified conservatives don't like Hillary Clinton and wouldn't vote for her in 2008. Still, I doubt that most of them would be strange enough to tell business clients or customers "that Hillary Clinton was going to bring down the country."

That seems to go well beyond the mere status of "conservative" and enter the realm of irrational, conspiracy-buff alarmist. And the fact that Derbyshire describes the Hitler statements as "more peculiar" suggests that even he believes that the Hillary-will-destroy-America views are somewhat peculiar.

The GOP's Latest Scapegoat

In this column in The New Yorker, David Remnick examines the "ideological noise machine" that has taken its cues from the Bush administration's attacks on newspapers and journalists. Remnick notes this irony:

Curiously, it was (Republican Congressman Peter) King who, in September of 2004, co-chaired a hearing so that a Treasury official could tell the world how the department’s programs were driving terrorists out of the banking system; now [King] speaks of employing the 1917 Espionage Act to investigate and try journalists.

Last week, the House approved a resolution condemning the newspapers that published the banking story for placing “the lives of Americans in danger.” The resolution passed 227–183, almost completely along party lines.

On the airwaves and in the blogosphere, it got uglier.

Melanie Morgan, a shouter on northern California’s biggest talk radio station, told the San Francisco Chronicle that if Bill Keller, the executive editor of the (New York) Times, “were to be tried and convicted of treason, yes, I would have no problem with him being sent to the gas chamber.”

The Bush Administration can’t really believe that these newspaper stories have undermined the battle against Al Qaeda; what’s more, it knows that over the decades papers like the Times have kept many stories and countless particulars secret when editors saw that it was in the interest of national security and military safety to do so.

The Times banking story disclosed no leads, named no targets. To say that it risked lives is like saying that an article revealing that cops tap phones to monitor the activities of the Mafia is a gift to the Five Families of New York.

"You Can Tell Just How Important This Cloth Is ..."

I doubt that this essay, written in 2002 by a Maine 6th-grader, was quoted by anyone during the recent debate over the flag amendment -- courtesy of Bill at Daily Kos.

Halliburton's "Always Low Prices"

From today's Washington Post:

The Army is discontinuing a controversial multibillion-dollar deal with oil services giant Halliburton Co. to provide logistical support to U.S. troops worldwide, a decision that could cut deeply into the firm's dominance of government contracting in Iraq.

... Under the deal, Halliburton had exclusive rights to provide the military with a wide range of work that included keeping soldiers around the world fed, sheltered and in communication with friends and family back home. Government audits turned up more than $1 billion in questionable costs. Whistle-blowers told how the company charged $45 per case of soda, double-billed on meals and allowed troops to bathe in contaminated water.

... Army officials yesterday defended the company's performance but also acknowledged that reliance on a single contractor left the government vulnerable.

The Pentagon's new plan will split the work among three companies, to be chosen this fall, with a fourth firm hired to help monitor the performance of the other three.

Halliburton will be eligible to bid on the work.

Naturally.

Why Don't They Just Meet Outside a Bar and Fight?

The war of words between Dick Cheney and Russian leader Vladimir Putin continues:

President Vladimir Putin lashed out at Vice President Dick Cheney ahead of this weekend’s G-8 summit, calling his recent criticisms of Russia “an unsuccessful hunting shot,” according to a television interview being broadcast Wednesday.

The remark, from an interview with 'Today' show anchor Matt Lauer, referred to (a) shotgun blast by Cheney on a hunting trip that accidentally wounded a companion.

Cheney, in a May speech in the ex-Soviet republic of Lithuania, accused Russia of cracking down on religious and political rights and of using its energy reserves as “tools of intimidation or blackmail.”

In The Face of Genocide, Debate is Needed

Frederick's previous post reminded me that I wanted to comment on this piece in the National Review, ostensibly on Darfur.

I say "ostensibly" because, while the hook is Darfur, the purpose is really to simply berate the UN and those who support it

Yet the same establishment voices, angered by America’s war on terrorism, have doggedly defended the U.N. as a check on American power. They’ve denounced the Bush White House for its “neocolonialism,” “imperial hubris,” and its “cowboy” approach to confronting threats to international security. Now they want the cowboy to ride into Darfur on a helicopter gunship (with U.N. approval, of course).

This is the corrosive logic of a political dogma: an almost religious devotion to a U.N. solution to human-rights abuses, despite the institution’s repeated and spectacular failures. Under this doctrine, the Security Council alone retains credibility to confront genocidal regimes. The 15-nation body—a gaggle of dictatorships, theocracies, and democracies—is somehow expected to disown powerful economic and political interests to defend society’s weakest members.

Personally, I am no fan of the UN - one can only watch so many genocides unfold in full view before concluding that the UN is inherently unable to respond effectively.

But be that as it may, if you are going to write a piece (rightly) savaging the UN for its inability to respond, you ought to at least try to offer up some alternative course of action - one a little less vague than this

We need a serious debate about the formation of an alliance of democracies, working through NATO, which can act to prevent genocide when the United Nations refuses to act. Except for self defense, the U.N. Charter disallows military action without Security Council approval. Yet the architects of that document, the generation that survived the fires of the holocaust, could hardly have intended to create an international legalism to enable another one.

The many victims in Sudan — the women and children sleeping tonight in refugee camps, wondering if they'll be alive in the morning—have nothing to lose from such a venture, and everything to gain.

Yeah - what the victims of Sudan really need right now is some sort of "debate" over the "responsibility to protect" and maybe the creation of a NATO rapid response force.

Bush Doesn't Ignore the UN Enough

At least not enough to please Bill Kristol. In the current issue of Weekly Standard, the conservative gadfly is practically apoplectic that President Bush is trying to work through the United Nations to address concerns about North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

It's hard to argue with Kristol's contention that China is likely to block the kind of resolution we'd like to see passed by the Security Council. But is giving it a shot such a bad thing?

Quite ludicrously, Kristol tries to blame the "decline in the president's credibility around the world" on the White House's willingness to work more closely with the European Union and the UN. Where's the evidence to back up that outlandish claim?