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Tuesday, Feb 27, 2007
1st Lt. Watada
I've been reading about Ehren Watada, an officer who refused to deploy to Iraq on the basis of the illegality of that war. His first court martial ended in a mistrail -- a mistrail orchestrated by the judge and prosecution. Now the Army is refiling, and the defense is claiming double jeopardy.
While reading, I came across a Malkin post with this delightful bit of wingnuttery from a "retired military reader" of Malkin's blog:
First, he stated, "It is the duty, the obligation of every soldier, and specifically the officers, to evaluate the legality, the truth behind every order — including the order to go to war." This is wrong It is not the duty of every soldier to evaluate the legality of every order. It is the duty of every soldier is to follow all LAWFUL orders.
Saturday, Feb 24, 2007
Militaristic Authoritarianism
The Santa Cruz Sentinel carried OpEd columns by Amy Goodman and David Brooks today. They offer starkly different world views, and help paint a picture of what's at stake in the upcoming elections.
Goodman writes about a topic that a few bloggers have commented upon, and that I have been thinking about how best to articulate. Goodman saves me the trouble by pointing out concisely: Clinton does not want the anti-war vote.
The key Clinton quotation, from an appearance at Dover, N. H., is this:
Dick and Dubya never make mistakes! Having never made a mistake, they don't have to change! Ever! This is not a club that Clinton should be eager to join.
Goodman also points out Clinton's militarism, as exemplified by her speech to AIPAC about those evil Persians.
Meanwhile David Brooks has advice for GOP aspirants to the presidency [scroll down], including this gem:
The protagonist is Winston Smith. Thre is something about rats at the end, but it is confusing. The end is probably supposed to be ambigous.
Patience is a Virtue
I've gotten through 7/8ths or so of the CDs around the house, and I'm up to 21k tracks on the computer. Since I'm ripping at low compression, I can fit maybe 60% of that at any one time on the big iPod. So I spent some time grooming my play list down, and down again, and down again to get things to fit. (The 1 TB portable MP3 player can't come soon enough for me.)
I just did a sync for the first time in a couple of weeks, and I was mightly pissed off at Apple. Itunes would get started, and then just go unresponsive. I'd wait and wait, and then kill it and start over. This went on several times, and included some pretty long wait periods to see if it would resolve on its own.
Finally I decided to start a sync, walk away, and go to bed. This morning ... success.
Note to Steve Jobs: when your app is busy for a loooooooooooooooooo ... oooooooooooooooooooooooo ...oooooooooooooooooooooooo ...oooooooooooooooooooooooo ...oooooooooooooooooooooooong time, you might want to do a couple of things: progress bar, and chit chat with the OS every so often. Just a thought.
Nice One
From the Merc ...
Instead of raising money and campaigning for the 2008 GOP nomination now, Rudy Giuliani should volunteer to serve as the mayor of Baghdad and bring order and safety to that troubled city. That would validate his claim to be an effective crisis manager and earn him the trust of not only the GOP voters in the primary but also the electorate-at-large in the general election. Instead, Giuliani has unfortunately joined the chorus of GOP presidential aspirants, including Sen. John McCain, who are all promising more of the Bush era by trying to milk the Sept. 11 tragedy for their political benefit, including justifying a misguided detour to Iraq in the war on terror.
Rameysh Ramdas
San Jose
Wednesday, Feb 21, 2007
Chirac Was Right; Feinstein Was Wrong
In a comment thread, a discussion arose about who was right and who was wrong about the war. This prompted me to dip into the archives.
On March 17, 2003 I posted this quotation from a March 16, 2003 edition of 60 Minutes. On March 20, 2003, President George W. Bush launched the clusterfucktacular invasion of Iraq.
Jacques Chirac, President of France
How's it going? I noticed you're working on identity theft. That's an important issue. Please be thorough. But, now to the point of my letter.
Do you now regret writing a blank check to Mr. Bush on October 11, 2002? Seriously Diane, didn't you get a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach last August when Bush sent some low level policy functionaries to the Sunday talk shows espousing the opinion that Mr. Bush needed no further authorization from anyone to proceed with an invasion of Iraq?
On February 26th, you raised doubts about Mr. Bush and his policies. You're an experienced politician. Why did you fail to foresee the arrogance and unilateralism that you now deride?
The likely outcome was clear, as noted in my letter to you of September 26th, 2002. Please re-read this letter now. It's one of my better ones. You should also take time to re-read the words of Senator Byrd.
You had the power to stand up to Bush. You failed to use it. You were granted by the constitution a power of fundamental importance, the power to declare war. You gave that power away.
Did you spend time at the recent CDP [California Democratic Party] convention in Sacramento? Do you have any idea just how pissed off people are? Do you have any plans to redeem yourself to the state of California before the 2006 primary? And finally, have you given any thought to joining the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party?
cheers,
-Mark
I contacted my elected representatives to declare that this war a mistake in September of 2002, four months before the bombs began to fall. And I was not alone in this sentiment. The voices of reason were too often drowned out by the voices of bloodlust, but they were there to be heard. For those who are turning anti-this-war now, welcome on board. But you might want to take a pause to recognize.
Sometimes foresight is 20/20.
Tuesday, Feb 20, 2007
Jurors Gone Wild
I didn't think very highly of the jurors who convicted a Connecticut teacher for being a victim of malware. After reading comments from a juror in the case, OMGWTFBBQ? This guy should be condemned to use a heavily infected Windows 3.1 machine for the rest of his days.
Deepak Chopra is Deeply Stupid
Tristero over at Hullaballo and the commenters at HuffPo have dismantled Chopra so well, I have little to add. I particulary enjoyed the commenter who pointed Chopra to a introductory text on logic, and another who pointed out "then the Renaissance happened". I do have this small offering ...
Hey Chopra, regarding your discussion on the value of SSRIs: fuck you and the Tom Cruise you rode in As were Cruise's, your contributions to the topic are irrational, ignorant, and dangerous.
Gosh, I can't wait for Part II.
Update: More from Norm Doering.
Wednesday, Feb 14, 2007
Fire is Hot; Water is Wet; G.W. Bush is an Incoherent Idiot
Norbiz captures the inanity that was today's presser in abridged form.
Here's a snippet from the actual transcript ...
THE PRESIDENT: You know, victory in Iraq is not going to be like victory in World War II. It's one of the challenges I have to explain to the American people what Iraq will look like in a situation that will enable us to say we have accomplished our mission.
First, the -- Iraq will be a society in which there is relative peace. I say "relative peace" because if it's like zero car bombings, it never will happen that way. It's like -- the fundamental question is, can we help this government have the security force level necessary to make sure that the ethnic cleansing that was taking place in certain neighborhoods has stopped.
Look, there's criminality in Iraq, as well as the ethnic violence. And we've got to help the Iraqis have a police force that deals with criminals. There is an al Qaeda presence in Iraq, as you know. I believe some of the spectacular bombings have been caused by al Qaeda. As a matter of fact, Zarqawi -- the terrorist Zarqawi, who is not an Iraqi, made it very clear that he intended to use violence to spur sectarian -- car bombings and spectacular violence to spur sectarian violence. And he did a good job of it.
But, oh, he's not done.
The reason I described that is that no matter what you call it, it's a complex situation, and it needed to be dealt with inside of Iraq. We've got people who say civil war, we've got people on the ground who don't believe it's a civil war. But nevertheless, it is -- it was dangerous enough that I had to make a decision to try to stop it, so that a government that is bound by a constitution, where the country feels relatively secure as a result of a security force that is even-handed in its application of security; a place where the vast resources of the country -- this is a relatively wealthy country, in that they've got a lot of hydrocarbons -- is shared equally amongst people; that there is a federalism that evolves under the Constitution where the local provinces have got authority, as well; and where people who may have made a political decision in the past and yet weren't criminals can participate in the life of the country; and is an ally in the war on terror. In other words, that there is a bulwark for moderation, as opposed to a safe haven for extremism. And that's what I would view as successful.
Uh, no. How about another run at that.
THE PRESIDENT: I can only tell you what people on the ground, whose judgment -- it's hard for me, living in this beautiful White House, to give you an assessment, firsthand assessment. I haven't been there; you have, I haven't. But I do talk to people who are and ...
Techno Fetish
D wanted a stereo with a dock for her office. I've looked at a whole slew of these, and concluded that they're all overpriced and are almost all crappy. My preferred solution is to use a separate dock with a conventional stereo or even with decent quality "multimedia" self-powered speakers+sub, but I understand the appeal of an integrated solution.
So, I picked up the one that doesn't suck.
Although, it is overpriced. A lot. And doesn't come in black.
What many people miss is that low frequency sound waves are really, really big, and require a transducer with some physical volume and stiffness to it The designers of the Apple system recognize that. Even Bose fails that simple physics exam. Mids and highs are much easier to reproduce, but many systems fail at that. Apple does a reasonable job. (There's a 3.5 mm line-in jack on the rear so that "other" MP3 players (you know, Shuffles) can be used.)
My "MP3 hifi" in the garage is built around D's old Advent speakers. I think I got the better system, despite the extra wires, but the Apple HiFi would do.
Monday, Feb 12, 2007
Wow, he allowed a comment
Update: the comment was allowed.
Salvage over at Hairy Fish Nuts has picked a new wingnut to pick on -- a non-combatant who styles himself as ... er ... Sniper One.
He has bravely allowed comments on a post about how we're not going to invade Iran because the US government is saying that we're not going to invade Iran. You can always trust the government.
On Tuesday, Bush said that "one option, of course, is the military option." The president added, however, he had no plans to attack.
June 5, 2002
“I think that that presumes there's some kind of imminent war plan. As I said, I have no timetable.”
G. W. Bush, Aug. 10, 2002 while golfing
The State Department asserted today that President Bush had not decided on a military campaign against Iraq, and that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had not been enlisted to marshal international support for a military operation.
NYT August 27, 2002
[Pentagon spokeswoman Tori] Clarke added that it's way too early to be discussing postwar options since President Bush "has not said that military action will occur."
October 11, 2002
You said we're headed to war in Iraq -- I don't know why you say that. I hope we're not headed to war in Iraq. I'm the person who gets to decide, not you.
G.W. Bush, December 31, 2002
I've not made up our mind about military action. Hopefully, this can be done peacefully. Hopefully, that as a result of the pressure that we have placed -- and others have placed -- that Saddam will disarm and/or leave the country.
G.W. Bush, March 6, 2003 White House press conference
(For the record, Saddam was disarmed [of WMDs] by the G.H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations.)
Sunday, Feb 04, 2007
Who's the good puppy?
Electronical Letter to a Native of Boston
I hope you weren't caught up in the chaos over the ATHF terror alert in Boston. I know some people are pointing and laughing at Boston and, by extension, the entire New England region for all the conniption over two-dimensional cartoon characters on home-made Lite Brite displays -- but, jeez, the Mooninites are complete assh*les! I mean, just look at the way
I think we can all be relieved that this event involved Aqua Teen Hunger Force rather than those degenerate Squidbillies. That would have been truly horrific -- unless, of course, Homeland Security had called in some beer batter and hot oil.
Anyway, I hear that the terror alert level in New England has been lowered from "Mooninite" to "Meatwad", so life should be back to normal.
cheers,
-Mark
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