Monday, July 31, 2006

Bill Maher On Global Warming

New Rule: Nobody can use the phrase "our greatest problem" anymore unless you're talking about global warming. President Bush has been saying we're in a war on terror, and now I get it. He's not saying "terror," he's saying "terra" as in "terra firma," as in the Earth. George Bush is an alien sent here to destroy the Earth! I know it sounds crazy, but it made perfect sense when Tom Cruise explained it to me last week.

Now, last week on "60 Minutes," James Hansen, who is NASA's leading expert on the science of climate delivered the world's most important message. He said, "We have to, in the next ten years, begin to decrease the rate of carbon dioxide emissions and then flatten it out. If that doesn't happen in ten years, we're going to be passing certain tipping points. If the ice sheets begin to disintegrate, what can you do about it? You can't tie a rope around an ice sheet." Although I know a certain cowboy from Crawford who might think you could.

And that cowboy and his corporate goons at the White House tried to censor Mr. Hansen from delivering that message, claiming such warnings were speculative. This from the crowd that rushed into a war based on an article in the Weekly Standard.

This - this from the guy who thinks Kyoto is that Japanese emperor dude his dad threw up on. Global warming is not speculative. It threatens us enough so that it should be considered a national security issue. Failing to warn the citizens of a looming weapon of mass destruction - and that's what global warming is - in order to protect oil company profits, well, that fits, for me, the definition of treason. And codified treason.

The guy in the White House who made the edits was Phil Cooney, who had been an oil industry lobbyist before given this job as head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. That's the office that is supposed to be watching out for us. But that's where Phil busied himself crossing stuff out in scientists' reports, because apparently in Phil's mind, he hadn't switched jobs. He was just doing his old job - oil industry lobbyist - from a different office. You know, in the "people's house."

Republicans have succeeded in making the environment about some tie-dyed dude from Seattle who lives in a solar-powered yurt and eats twigs. It's not. This issue should be driven by something conservatives are much more familiar with: utter selfishness.

That's my motivation. I don't want to live my golden years having to put on a hazmat suit just to go down and get the mail. Those are my Viagra years! When I'll be thinking about having children...

But I wouldn't know what to tell a kid about our world in 20 years. "Dad, tell me about the birds and bees"..... "They're all gone. Now, eat your Soylent Green."

We are letting dying men kill our planet for cash, and they're counting on us being too greedy or distracted, or just plain lazy, to stop them. So, on this day, the 17th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, let us pause to consider how close we are to making ourselves fossils from the fossil fuels we extract.

In the next 20 years, almost a billion Chinese people will be trading in their bicycles for the automobile. Folks, we either get our shit together on this quickly, or we're going to have to go to Plan B: inventing a car that runs on Chinese people.

Other great Maher quotes:

“I don’t hate America. I hate the idiots who have taken it over and made it look bad.”

"When you think about the fact that in the middle of a war with terrorism, homophobia has still trumped it as an issue. I mean, our country needs to get laid."

"The Democrats, they're always trying to be a little bit Republican. It's like a little bit pregnant."

"Suicide is man's way of telling God, 'You can't fire me - I quit.'"

"Iraqis, I think, feel that if we drove smaller cars, maybe we wouldn't have to kill them for their oil."

"A lot of good has come from drugs. I think 'Penny Lane' is worth 10 dead kids. Dark Side of the Moon is worth 100 dead kids. Because a lot of kids wouldn't even be born if it weren't for that album, so it evens out." --- it sickens me to agree with this comment... but seriously, it's Dark Side of the Moon, the most perfect album ever created. twisted logic... haha

I love liberal humor. All the poor neo-cons have for humor is Ann Coulter, "Al Gore... TOTAL FAG!" .... ahardy har har. Good one Ann, I wonder how long it took you to come up with that HILARIOUS joke. [edit]You know things are bad when your dress weighs more than you do. Maybe if you actually eat something, your brain cells might start functioning again and you'll stop blaming all the world's problems on "the liberals"... you know, the one's who aren't in control of every branch of government. Blaming all the world's problems on "the liberals" is akin to nazi propaganda and anti-semitism. It's a deeply held belief for which there is no evidence.

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Ocean Acidity


We all know that the Earth is warming. This is the hottest summer I've ever had to deal with and today I was hauling concrete around all day long (fun!). It's going to hit 100 tommorow here in the twin cities and I'm seriously thinking about moving to Canada.

Most people, including almost ALL climate scientists, and all peer reviewed climate studies are in agreement that this warming is caused by the pollution that human's have been pumping into the atmosphere for the last 200 years. But there will always be skeptics, including my friend Matt, who will likely try to debunk this entire post shortly after I write it.

From BBC News Online:

The UK's Royal Society has launched an investigation into the rising acidity of the world's oceans due to pollution from the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
The change could have catastrophic consequences for marine life.

Oceans mop up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, lowering the water's pH value - an effect that may be exacerbated by burning of fossil fuels.

The investigation by the Royal Society, the UK national academy of science, will probe the potential impact of this rising ocean acidity on marine life - which at present is largely unknown.

Increasing use of fossil fuels means more carbon dioxide is going into the air. Most of it will eventually be absorbed by seawater, where it reacts to form carbonic acid.
The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission reports that some 20-25 million tonnes of carbon dioxide are being added to the oceans each day.
Researchers believe such dramatic changes in the carbon dioxide system in surface waters have not been observed for more than 20 million years of Earth history.

Delicate balance
Experts currently predict that if this trend continues, ocean pH could fall by as much as 0.4 units by the year 2100.
"The thing about acidification is that it is happening at the same time that the oceans are warming, so organisms are going to have to deal with two major changes," working group member Dr Carol Turley of Plymouth Marine Laboratory told BBC News Online.
"Whether they balance each other, or whether they double or triple up is not known."

Scientists fear this increasing acidification could have a particularly detrimental effect on corals and sea creatures with hard shells.
Increasing acidity reduces the availability of calcium carbonate from the water - which the creatures rely on to produce their hard skeletons. Juvenile organisms could be most susceptible to these changes.
Acidification may also directly affect the growth and reproduction rates of fish, as well as affecting the plankton populations which they rely on for food, with potentially disastrous consequences for marine food webs.

According to research by Christopher Sabine of the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the ocean has taken up approximately 120 billion metric tonnes of carbon generated by human activities since 1800.
"The same pollution that we believe is heating the world's oceans through global warming is also altering their chemical balance," Professor John Raven, chair of the working group, said.
"This study will look at what impact increased acidity levels might have on marine life and re-emphasise the urgent need to respond to the spectre of climate change, an issue identified by the UK Government as a priority for its Presidency of G8 in 2005."
The issue was highlighted last year with a research paper published in the prestigious journal Nature by Ken Caldeira and Michael Wickett of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, US. Dr Caldeira is also a member of the Royal Society working group.

------
How would you explain this as just a natural fluctuation in the Earth's climate? I'm sure skeptics will bend over backwards trying to explain how this will somehow yield a 'positive' impact on the environment. I'm sick and tired of this debate. We need to change something about the way we live before it's too late.

From the Washington Post:

Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to whether climate change is progressing so rapidly that, within decades, humans may be helpless to slow or reverse the trend.

This "tipping point" scenario has begun to consume many prominent researchers in the United States and abroad, because the answer could determine how drastically countries need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. While scientists remain uncertain when such a point might occur, many say it is urgent that policymakers cut global carbon dioxide emissions in half over the next 50 years or risk the triggering of changes that would be irreversible.

There are three specific events that these scientists describe as especially worrisome and potentially imminent, although the time frames are a matter of dispute: widespread coral bleaching that could damage the world's fisheries within three decades; dramatic sea level rise by the end of the century that would take tens of thousands of years to reverse; and, within 200 years, a shutdown of the ocean current that moderates temperatures in northern Europe.

-----
Whether this is going to happen or not, where is our insurance? Better safe than sorry right? No one has a meteorological crystal ball and no scientist can predict the future. Based on the evidence that climate scientists have gathered thus far, this scenario seems all too likely to happen. We need to push for more realistic caps on CO2 emissions as a safeguard against our uncertain future.

Thom Yorke (singer in Radiohead, the best band in the world) is an active member of Freinds of the Earth. He just came out with a beautiful, solo album a couple of weeks ago called The Eraser. Here are the lyrics to the third track, The Clock:

Time is running out for us
But you just move the hands upon the clock
You throw coins in the wishing well
For us
You just move your hands upon the wall
It comes to you begging you to stop
Wake up
But you just move your hands upon the clock
Throw coins in the wishing well
For us
You make believe that you are still in charge

----
Time is running out. Tick, tock, tick, tock....

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Hiawatha Sunset


Tip O' The Hat

I thought I'd do a little media post in the style of Stephen Colbert.

Tip o' the hat to Chris Matthews who went off on a 5 minute rant on the Imus show on Tuesday against the Bush administration:

I don’t know what Bush stood for, except I’m a cool guy and Gore isn’t, and that was our problem. We elected the guy because he was a little cooler than the other guy, and, I hope the next election, it isn’t a problem of who goes to bed with their wife at 9:30 at night, or who knows how to tell a joke on a stage. But it’s who had the sense of strength that comes from having read books, most of their life, tried to understand history.

Every mistake we’re making in the Middle East right now, was made years and years ago by the British, by the French, but the mistakes they made in Vietnam were made by the French before. In Algeria the French made all the mistakes we’re making now. If you engage in an invasion you will face resistance from the local people based upon religion, and that, and nationalism. You will then have to put down that insurgency, and you’re going to have to use cruelty and torture to get information, because it’s the only way to get intel in a counter insurgency. Every single thing that’s happened to Iraq was predicted by history. It’s a standard pattern. Ten, twenty years from now, when kids are reading this in high school–They are going to say, ‘Why were the Americans so dumb?’

They committed the same mistakes that all the Europeans had done before. And it’s like these guys, everything is a surprise. The insurgency was a surprise. The no WMD was a surprise. Everything that happens, now he’s out there now, taking the Arabs side against this, that’s a surprise. Some of these guys are anti-Semitic... That’s a surprise? Everything is known, and the big thing about this crowd that came in around Bush’s.. they must have known it, but they didn’t want to know it, and Bush didn’t have the academic background to challenge them.

Every time we get involved we’re just building up notches on their gun to come after us. And look, all I know is that if we’re supposedly helping Israel out, but what we did in the last four years is we created–We took the number one threat in the world. Back in the old days the number one threat was Egypt, and Jimmy Carter cut that deal. Then their number one threat strategically is Iran. Now look where Iran was when we came in when this administration came in. Iran was a problem. But it wasn’t a country that dominated its neighbor Iraq. Hezbollah, has now been unleashed, so you’ve got Israel fighting this three-headed dragon of Beirut. And they’ve got Baghdad. The guy talking already like one of them. And you’ve got, of course, Ahmadinejad in Tehran. So Israel’s now facing a much enlarged, more dangerous enemy then it faced back in 2001. So you’ve got to wonder if the bottom of line of our foreign policy hasn’t been to enlarge the threat to Israel dramatically. I mean that makes sense to me. I don’t know why we’ve done it, but we’ve done it."

--Welcome to the world of rational thought Chris... You're late.

Watch the clip on crooksandliars.com: Chris on Imus

Thursday, July 20, 2006

WWWIII? Or Just the Middle-East Perpetual Motion Machine?

(great cartoon, besides the fact that arafat died last year)

Most political, economical, cultural issues are extremely complex and hard to fully understand. I like to think that I do a pretty good job at gaining a satisfactory understanding of most of the ones that I'm interested in. This Middle-East-Israeli-Palestinian-Lebanese-Hizbullah-Hamas--Iran and Syria conflict that just erupted a week ago is a LITTLE hard to understand. It seems like most of the people that already think they have it all figured out are the ones that only look at it from one side's point of view.

Extremely Quick Summary: (if you want detail... google it, sit back and start reading): This conflict really stems from the obvious religious tension between the Jewish people and the Islamic extremists representing the Arab people in the region, who interpret the Quran in a way that condones violence against all people that are not Islamic. Historically, this conflict has been going on for a thousand years or more.

After WWII and the horrible acts of the Nazi's against the Jews in the Holocaust, the United Nation's attempted to create a nation specifically for the Jewish people. Israel was formed in the land of Palestine, which is regarded by Jews, Muslims and Christians to be the holiest land on Earth. Depending on who you ask, this was done with or without the consent of the Arab people who were already settled there (from what I've found, the U.N. proposal to create two states, one Jewish and one Arab, was rejected by the majority of the Arab population at the time). This act by the United Nations in 1948 triggered a war against the nation of Israel and has fueled half a generation of anti-semitism and hatred for the western world in the middle-east. This fundamentalist attitude towards Israel has boiled over on and off several times since 1948 in the form of military conflict.

The biggest problem that has faced the nation of Israel is that it's surrounded on all sides, by people bent on it's destruction.

One thing that is clear is that the two extreme Islamic groups, Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas (the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people) started this particular conflict.

From Newsweek:
On June 25th, a corporal in the Israeli army was taken hostage by Hamas guerillas. Then [the violence] exploded across the region last week after Hizbullah guerillas crossed into Israel to snatch two more soldiers, killing eight. Israel's reaction was swift, brutal and massive. Its forces took the whole of Lebanon hostage, treating the state on its northern border just as it treated the Palestinian terroritory to its south, tearing apart highways, blockading porst, blowing up the runways and fuel dumps at Beirut's international airport-setting out not only to free the hostages but to eliminate Hizbullah once and for all.

Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah: "You wanted an open war, and we are ready for an open war... Our homes will not be the only ones to be destroyed, our children will not be the only ones to die. You wanted to change the rules of the game? You don't know who you're fighting."

Hizbullah has been firing rocket missiles into Israel, killing innocent civilians (rockets that were given to them by Iran), and Israeli bombing, which has been much more intense, has caused even more destruction. --it should also be noted that Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid in the world. Their bombs are our bombs in the minds of the muslim world.

Death Toll As of Today
In Lebanon: 244
In Israel: 24

I'm not a military commander, but the death toll so far seems to be just a tad bit unbalanced. Israel absolutely has a right to defend itself, but how far do you have to go before justice is served?

New York Times: Israeli Troops Battle Hezbollah
International pressure mounted on Israel and the United States to agree to a cease-fire.
The destruction and rising death toll deepened a rift between the U.S. and Europe. The Bush administration is giving Israel a tacit green light to take the time it needs to neutralize Hizbullah, but the Europeans fear mounting civilian casualties will play into the hands of militants and weaken Lebanon's democratically elected government.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour criticized the rising toll, saying the shelling was invariably killing innocent civilians.

' 'International law demands accountability,'' she said in Geneva. ''The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control.''

Great graphic explaining the whole Arab-Israeli conflict: Guardian Graphic

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Pro Life.... Right Up Until Birth

Rant 7/18

Stem Cell Research Bill
The Senate passed a stem cell research bill today, with republicans crossing party lines in a vote of 67-33.

Yahoo! News:
--The Senate also passed two related measures — 100-0 in each case — that Bush was expected to sign into law.
One would encourage stem cell research using cells from sources other than embryos in an effort to cure diseases and treat injuries. The other would ban "fetal farming,"(WHAT?!?!?) the possibility of growing and aborting fetuses for research.

Unfortunately, the main part of the bill that allows federal funding to go into embryonic stem cell research will be vetoed by our Prez, "the decider"; because he decides what's best. This will be the first time that Bush has ever vetoed anything. Here's what Tony Snow had to say about it today:
"The simple answer is he thinks murder's wrong... The president is not going to get on the slippery slope of taking something living and making it dead for the purposes of scientific research."

Here are some basic facts that everyone should know about embryonic stem cell research:

  • The stem cells that are used are derived from human embryos that have been donated from in vitro fertilization clinics, are created for the purposes of fertility treatment, and are in excess of the clinical need of the individuals seeking such treatment. Prior to the consideration of embryo donation and through consultation with the individuals seeking fertility treatment, it was determined that the embryos would never be implanted in a woman and would otherwise be discarded (keyword).
  • The individuals seeking fertility treatment donated the embryos with written informed consent and without receiving any financial or other inducements to make the donation.

Alternet: Stem cell research "could lead to treatments that save millions of lives and improve the quality-of-life for millions more." In fact, the benefits are already evident. Two weeks ago, scientists were able to transform embryonic stem cells "into immune cells known as T-cells -- offering a way to restore immune systems ravaged by AIDS and other diseases," and last month, "a team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore transplanted stem cells from mouse embryos into paralyzed rats and helped them walk again."

Nineteen Republicans voted for it and only one Dem voted against.
The Terminator: "Mr. President, I urge you not to make the first veto of your presidency one that turns America backwards on the path of scientific progress and limits the promise of medical miracles for generations to come."

This debate is over. The argument against stem cell research is completely ignorant of the facts. There has to be a distinction between embryo's and actual human fetus's. Embryo's have no brain cells and no organ systems. Everyone's belief in "when life begins" is different. But regardless of your stance on the destruction of embryo's you have to remember that these embryo's are going to be literally thrown away if they aren't used for anything else.

Hypothetical: If you ran into a burning building and you found a refridgerator with embryo's in it and a baby laying on the ground crying, which one would YOU save?

"World War III"
For the last week, I've been reading everything I can find online regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I haven't really learned anything I didn't already know, but it's amazing how many different opinions are out there on the subject.

If your talking strictly in terms of the death toll on both sides, here are the statistics:

--In six days of fighting, 170 people have been killed and 415 wounded in Lebanon, Lebanese internal security sources said.
Twenty-four Israelis have died in the conflict, including 12 soldiers, and more than 300 have been wounded, Israeli military sources said. --CNN.com

Meanwhile, talking heads like Newt Gingrich are very quick in labeling this the start of WWIII. This particular string of violence has been going on for a week and already many Republican's are jumping to the conclusion that this won't be able to be settled peacefully. So much for diplomacy.

Bush has said that he's going to send Condi over there to engage in talks "at the appropriate time".
When is the appropriate time exactly? Is it when 300 people die?.... 1,000? What is with this administration and not openly engaging in peaceful talks? It seems so immature to me, I thought people got over that kind of attitude after high school. "I'm not going to talk to you until you do what I want you to do."

I'll have another post on this once I sort through all of the information.

Iraq
U.N.: More Than 3,000 Iraqi Civilians Died in June --BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 18 — An average of more than 100 civilians per day were killed in Iraq last month, the highest monthly tally of violent deaths since the fall of Baghdad, the United Nations reported today.

The death toll, drawn from Iraqi government agencies, was the most precise measurement of civilian deaths provided by any government organization since the invasion and represented a dramatic increase over daily media reports.

United Nations officials also said that the number of violent deaths had been steadily increasing since at least last summer. In the first six months of this year, the civilian death toll jumped more than 77 percent, from 1,778 in January to 3,149 in June, the organization said.

CNN.com
Killings of civilians are on "an upward trend," with more than 5,800 deaths and more than 5,700 injuries reported in May and June alone, it says.
The report, a bimonthly document produced by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, covers May and June, and includes chilling casualty figures and ugly anecdotes from the insurgent and sectarian warfare that continues to rage despite the establishment of a national unity government and a security crackdown in Baghdad.

This is what I found on the White House website for the "new plan" to secure Iraq.

The Iraqi Government Has A Plan To Move Iraq Forward
Prime Minister Maliki Is Focused On Taking Immediate Actions In Three Areas:
1. Improve security by both military and political actions; secure Baghdad; eliminate armed gangs; and promote national reconciliation and the rule of law.
2. Immediately build economic and government capacity; increase production of oil and electricity; and build a foundation for prosperity.
3. Engage the nations of the region and the world in Iraq's democratic and economic development. http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/

I thought we'd been doing that very thing since 2003, even before Bush declared "mission accomplished" three years ago. Where are the new ideas, the strategic policy changes that are needed to combat these terrorist groups? They obviously haven't been working so far. Any FACT based person can see that.

I'm sick of all this optimistic talk. Is it bad over there or are we "together moving forward"? Which one is it? It's hard to trust your political leaders when they're telling you one thing, and the "free" american press is telling you another. If they're moving anywhere, it looks a hell of a lot like backwards to me. Right now it's worse than it was under Saddam. I haven't seen a real argument against that statement... only assumptions and predictions of the future. "It's going to get better, we promise."

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Bury Your Head In The Sand

q
In order to accomplish the pointless and nearly impossible space exploration goals that President Bush has been boasting about for the last couple of years, many other programs under the direction of NASA have been shelved. The Bush Administration is looking to colonize the solar system by building a permanent space station on the moon and by eventually sending men to mars. Sounds nice doesn't it? Nevermind the fact that it is now technologically impossible to send a human being to mars and back alive. It is however technologically possible to monitor and study the planet that we're living on NOW, but for some reason conservatives aren't too crazy about learning more about our Mother Earth.

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The Boston Globe
The space agency has shelved a $200 million satellite mission headed by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor that was designed to measure soil moisture -- a key factor in helping scientists understand the impact of global warming and predict droughts and floods. The Deep Space Climate Observatory, intended to observe climate factors such as solar radiation, ozone, clouds, and water vapor more comprehensively than existing satellites, also has been canceled.

``Today, when the need for information about the planet is more important than ever, this process of building understanding through increasingly powerful observations . . . is at risk of collapse," said Berrien Moore III, director of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire.
Moore is cochairman of a National Research Council committee that will recommend NASA's future earth science agenda later this year. It is unclear, however, whether NASA will follow those recommendations.

``NASA has canceled, scaled back, or delayed all of the planned earth observing missions," he said.

Despite NASA's best-known role as a space agency, one of its key missions is to study the earth. Scientists collect data through ground- and space-based observatories using instruments that can sense heat and through which they can see with exquisite detail from many miles up. In recent years, these missions have increased in importance and visibility as global temperatures rise and scientists rush to better understand the phenomenon and the role of humans in it.
-----

Something smells a little fishy here. When scientists have been warning us for years and years of the dangers of global warming and the debate about climate change is far from over, you would think that our leaders would want to try and somehow obtain as much comprehensive information as they possibly could on the subject.

Forget about the problems we have here, we're going to put a man on mars! There's no doubt in my mind that these cuts are politically motivated and they're an obvious ploy to stall scientific research into the warming of our climate. I guess that's what you get when your country is run by a bunch of oil-tycoons and big business buddies.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Captain's Quarters

It's not often that you see this on the conservative blog captainsquartersblog.com, but a commenter named Jack had this great insight in a thread that I've been frequenting, trying to stir up debate on the Iraq War. Jack put up a much better argument against the war than I did. Here it is:

I want Bin Laden. I might have supported a campaign in Iraq after we finished in Afghanistan but not in 2003 and not today. Splitting our objectives wasn't justified. Destabilizing the region when we did wasn't justified. My buddies and I can't spin a pretty picture on this no matter how hard we try. When we left Iraq after Dessert Storm, we knew why we left Saddam behind. Nothing changed in that region 10 years later. Nothing. W doesn't have the good grace and genius senior had. He went into Iraq knowing he was going to destabilize and with no plan on getting us out again. Saying "we're replacing tyranny with a democracy" is no exit strategy. It's a commitment and now we're committed and Bin Laden is still out there encouraging more recruits.

We all know by now what makes radical Islamic terrorists: (1) worldview: their strict religious beliefs, hatred of all things American, our lifestyle, our music, our diversity, our women's freedoms, etc.; (2) culture: economic despair, poverty (for most of them, not Bin Laden), a general culture of despair giving them the idea they have nothing to lose by martyrdom; (3) the means: opportunities for aggression through financing and territorial support.
Our campaign in the middle east is only addressing getting rid of the opportunities, the safe havens, financial support and so forth. We're not getting at terrorism where it lives, AND BREEDS, in ideology, in the minds of Islam.

In Iraq in the 90's we learned that Islamics hate each other more than GOPs and DEMS, way more. I know. It's hard to believe. The liberals and moderates in Islam are choking under the fundamentalists; they hate their violence, their holier than thou attitudes, everything. You fight a war on terror supporting the liberal and moderate Islamics, and through other means that create cultures of opportunity for Islamics. If they've got something to lose in this world, they don't become martyrs. That's the theory. I've seen it work. Really.

Bush Sr. knew this. W' doesn't get it. And now he's stuck, doesn't want to eat humble pie. He's trapped us all. He should have listened to his Dad. I could get behind Sr. 100%. Now we got an occupation that's depleting our military with Iran and N. Korea thumping their chests and threatening nukes.

You got to pick your battles. This is hard to say, hear and read but, W screwed up big. We needed to stay focused in Afghanistan. Iraqis now need to take over and show they want their democracy.

I'm a John Wayne admirer, quiet authority. Senior Bush had that. W's more like Aldo Ray on Meth. We've got to stop buying into W's "cut and run" criticism. He's going to look worse when he's left with no choice but to pull out. I want to see a clear-headed strategist over the next two years.

Anyway, the Dems are starting to circulate a plan. Something they're calling "Real" Security. I read it. Here's the link. We need to be prepared 'cause this is what they're going to be running with in November and again in 2008.
http://democrats.senate.gov/pdfs/RealSecurity_web.pdf
Posted by: Jack M. at July 13, 2006 11:33 AM

Monday, July 10, 2006

Gotta love Tim Dickinson over there at Rollingstone. Still working on my next post, so I thought I'd put up something else:

Of Treason and Tunnel Vision



An honest question:
Why did the New York Times get the “treason” treatment for revealing the administration’s not-so-secret surveilance of international banking records, but when the FBI’s covert monitoring of Jihadi chat rooms was leaked last week . . .

Officials say the plot was uncovered more than a year ago by U.S. and Canadian intelligence agents watching a jihadist internet chat room. Officials say the suspects communicated freely, thinking that no one could track them.

. . . nobody made a peep?

Indeed, Why wasn’t Dick Cheney “offended” by this leak too? Perhaps it’s because the disclosure of could hardly have harmed our anti-terror efforts.
Because let’s get serious: Anyone who is cunning enough to represent a true threat to our national security isn’t going to be broadcasting the details of his incendiary plots on Jihad.com.

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There's another post that's an exchange between a lib and a con concerning a tim dickinson edit that questioned the motives of the administration's 'leak' of a terrorist plot that had been foiled up to 6 months earlier. On the anniversary of the london bombings coincidentally. It's a good one:
------

Comments of the Day: Tunnel Terror
My post suggesting a political motivation behind the decision to leak the “largely aspirational” Tunnel Terror plot, months after it was broken up, on the first anniversary of the London bombings no less, landed on the front page of GoogleNews, and caught the attention of both the left-leaning Raw Story and the right-brained Little Green Footballs.

(The latter may have just given me a new tag line, btw:
“Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson — late to the lefty blogosphere but making up for lost time with sheer ostrich-like moonbat lunacy.”)

The influx of new readers of all ideological stripes gave rise to a righteously roiling reader debate. A flavor:‘Ian’ writes:

I love the game: because the Democrats are perceived as weak on national security issues, they attempt to make anyone who suggests that there is a very legitimate terrorist threat into a fearmonger and political manipulator. Let’s see — the 1993 WTC bombing, the plot to attack NYC landmarks, the plot to down US commercial airliners over the Pacific, the Millenial bomb plot, the embassy bombings, the attack on the Cole, that minor incident on 9/11, not to mention the bombings in Spain and London, and the shoe-bombing incident. Yep, no terrorist threat here. Thank you for bravely exposing another Rove consipiracy.

‘Pug’ offers:

Tim didn’t say preventing innocent deaths was a bad thing, he said telling us NOW that they prevented innocent deaths months ago shows an alterior motive. Nuance? In an argument? Run. Fast. Go cry in the arms of Papa Bush, so he can reassure you how simple the world’s problems are, and how he’ll protect you from all those dangerous things you don’t understand, as long as you let him tap your phone. Have fun with that.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Violence begets Violence?

I found this post on a blog called everythingiknowiswrong.com... this guy thought he had a good counterpoint to the violence begets violence argument that those "lefties" always use.

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Violence begets violence?
James Taranto has this brilliant insight regarding those who offer up the "violence begets violence" excuse for terrorist atrocities.

This rhetoric about "cycles" appears to reflect a theory of moral equivalence, but in fact it is something else. After all, if the two sides were morally equivalent, one could apply this reasoning in reverse--excusing, for example, the alleged massacre at Haditha on the ground that it was "provoked" by a bombing that killed a U.S. serviceman--and hey, violence begets violence.
But America's critics never make this argument, and its defenders seldom do. That is because it is understood that America knows better. If it is true that U.S. Marines murdered civilians in cold blood at Haditha, the other side's brutality does not excuse it. Only the enemy's evil acts are thought to be explained away by ours.

Implicit in the "cycle" theory, then, is the premise that the enemy is innocent--not in the sense of having done nothing wrong, but in the sense of not knowing any better. The enemy lacks the knowledge of good and evil--or, to put it in theological terms, he is free of original sin.
Blaming America for the violence done to it is like blaming a rape victim of having brought it upon herself.

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The violence begets violence argument first of all is not made in order to "excuse" any person's actions. No one is innocent when killing is involved. If it wasn't for this cycle of violence, there wouldn't be a war, there wouldn't be an insurgency. When us liberals talk about the "cycle of violence", were not talking about specific parties of people, or for that matter, the United States and international terrorists. We're talking about something that's much bigger and broader. We're talking about the history of violence and warfare. As long as there is disputes between groups of people, plenty of weapons on hand, and the overriding notion (especially here in the U.S.) that might is right and that war can always be somehow justified, there will be violence.

It's that hypocritical pro-war + pro-life mentality that really drives me crazy. How can you be one and the other simultaneously? If you are a Christian, you are saying that FORGIVENESS is God's greatest gift. Yet still, many Christians in the U.S. today work hard to promote a justice system that throws everyone and their mom in jail, the death penalty, and worst of all, war.

And where is the "moral equivalency" measuring stick? Do you mean the values of your religion as opposed to theirs?

People resort to violence for reasons that they think justify their horrible act. The main issue in the violence begets violence argument is: "Who started it?"

When terrorists attacked us on 9/11, they felt as if they were doing the right thing. They thought that the United States had become too powerful and had been bullying and stealing the resources of the Middle-East for too long. No matter how completely and utterly twisted and evil this act was, terrorists saw it as justifiable because of America's aggressive economic foreign policy and need for oil.

So where do you draw the line? Who started it? Well, that depends on who you ask... it's all about perception, and reality really doesn't factor into situations that involve an almost infinite number of different viewpoints and opinions.

Al Qaeda punched us in the eye, but we'd been poking them with a stick for a while. Now, don't get mad at me... I'm not on the side of the terrorists, but I see fundamentalism and extremism everywhere I look, not just in the Middle-East. I can sort of see how an uneducated, impoverished, and vengeful kid in Iraq might be easily brainwashed into thinking that killing Americans is okay. Kind of like how Marines sometimes lose their minds and start shooting everything that moves because they're wearing 50 pounds of equipment in 120 degree heat, and don't have a clue who the enemy is.

War is the worst of all human experiences. It promotes mindless acts of violence from both sides of the conflict. Blood and guts, blown off arms, pieces of skull, babies full of lead, heads exploding, bombs dropping, decapitation, raping, torturing and pillaging. THIS is the reality of WAR.

We as American's do know better. We have free speech in this country, and I, along with millions of other American's are standing up and saying, "This war does not reflect the values of ordinary Americans".

In the end, why does it really matter who started it? Why do we need to constantly seek revenge for horrible acts of violence? What does it accomplish? Does it bring the dead back to life? Does it make us any safer?

I will not post any pictures of what war looks like on this page, although I should. If I don't, I'd be a hypocrit, but if I do, people will think I'm sick. The rest of the world sees these images and it takes a toll on their overall opinion of the war that we started on false premises.

"This is a war the Bush administration does not want Americans to see. From the beginning, the U.S. government has attempted to censor information about the Iraq war, prohibiting photographs of the coffins of U.S. troops returning home and refusing as a matter of policy to keep track of the number of Iraqis who have been killed. President Bush has yet to attend a single funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq." -Salon.com

REALITY OF WAR: afterdowningstreet.org