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September 29, 2006
More precious than rubies
Here is a partial list of things which have gone missing since the Republican Party took control of all the elected branches of the Federal Government:
The budget surplus
The World Trade Center
Osama bin Laden
Habeas Corpus
Our allies’ unquestioned willingness to work with us
New Orleans
The Assumption of American moral Authority
America’s ability to frighten the world’s bad guys into not being quite so bad
Low interest rate loans
A vote for any Republican is a vote for all these things. In fact, since we live in a two party system, a vote for anyone other than a Democrat is a vote for all these things. Even when they supinely bend over and allow these things, at least the Democrats don’t initiate them. Right now, that would be a huge step up...
Posted by Andrew at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)
September 27, 2006
Read Matthew Yglesias, Read him now
Well, on 7 November 2006 we will have the chance to begin taking back our nation. America can still be liberated at the ballot box. Put enough "D"s into office, and we no longer have to watch as the Senate and House vote on whether "torture is A)totally, B) mostly or C) somewhat awesome". Put enough "D"s in the house, and we can begin debate on whether or not to impeach a president who thinks torture is just groovy...
Posted by Andrew at 08:22 PM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2006
Shopping time.
So, welcome once more to my annual Banned book shopping list! The American Library Association has once more put out their annual list of "most challenged" books. This is a wonderful service. What they’ve failed to do is create an easy way of buying these books...
I’ve fixed that problem. Listed below are the top 10 most challenged books of 2005 with links to Barnes and Noble and Amazon. Remember: buying a banned book is penance for one venal sin. Donating a banned book to a library lets you go strait to heaven when you die. So what are you waiting for? Clicky click!
"It's Perfectly Normal" by Robie H. Harris (Amazon)
"Forever" by Judy Blume (Amazon)
"The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger (Amazon)
“The Chocolate War” by Robert Cormier (Amazon)
"Whale Talk" by Chris Crutcher (Amazon)
"Detour for Emmy" by Marilyn Reynolds (Amazon)
"What My Mother Doesn't Know" by Sonya Sones (Amazon)
Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey (Amazon)
"Crazy Lady!" by Jane Leslie Conly (Amazon)
"It's So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families" by Robie H. Harris (Amazon)
You can find the all-time top 100 list here. Remember! "Liberty" and "Library" come from the same same root word...
Posted by Andrew at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)
Torture...
So, the US government wants to be able to torture people. The fear-- they claim-- is that they might need information quickly. Ticking time bombs and all that. Fine…
If an investigator is certain that torture is necessary, so convinced that without his trusty alligator clips an American city will be lost to nuclear fire, let him go to jail for it. If it turns out that he was right, it’ll be a nice club fed sort of environment. If he was wrong, it’s San Quentin…
Unless… you don’t think the administration just wants to torture people for the sake of torturing them do you?
Posted by Andrew at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)
September 25, 2006
The Ladder and the Barn
“Confound it!” he said “A thousand times DARN!
my nifty new ladder won’t fit in my barn.
The barn’s forty feet, from front to back end
while the ladder is fifty and never will bend.”
The farmer despaired, you could tell by his look,
when out of a tree fell a skinny red book!
The book hit his head and when he stopped squirmin’,
he saw it was written by N. David Mermin.
“A gift from the Gods! This Mermin’s a sage!
It must be an omen….I’ll read every page.”
But try as he did, he could not read it through;
He couldn’t read nothin’ past page thirty-two.
“I needn’t read more!” he said feeling tall,
“Perhaps that new ladder will fit after all!
As objects speed length-wise at velocities steady…
this book claims I’ll witness some changes quite heady!
All fast moving objects, is says, will contract
by a factor specific-Dave proves this as fact.
If I take the square root of one minus (v squared
divided by c times itself, which is c squared)…
I now have the factor by which fast things shrink!”
The farmer grew quiet, and started to think.
This old man was simple, but perhaps somewhat wise:
He figured that ladder could be shrunk in size.
“Right now this here ladder’s too long by ten feet,
but should it zip by, its length would deplete!!!
“My prayers have been answered,” cried the jubilant man,
“I’ve done all the math, so this is my plan:
To speed up this ladder to a frame that’s inertial,
at three-fifths of c!!!!...I’ll need my son Herchel.”
“He’ll run with the ladder as I stand and look on,
and I should see that ladder fit right in the barn!!
While it’s fifty feet long as it lays here at rest,
if it moves three-fifths c it will just pass the test!”
For the barn will not move, so its length will STAY forty,
while the fifty- foot ladder will SHRINK down to 40.”
“When the ladder’s front reaches the barn’s farthest wall,
A super strong door will instantly fall
“When the ladder’s rear reaches the barn’s closer side
A front door will seal my new ladder inside!
He explained this to Herchel (a very smart lad)
Who instantly questioned his cup-half-full dad:
“Father, I fear you’ve not thought this scheme through.
You’ve only considered your own point of view.
From my frame of reference, at rest I shall be
And the barn will rush towards me at three-fifths of c.
I and the ladder will not shrink an inch,
While the barn will get smaller an even worse pinch!
“Father!” he sobbed, “you’ve become so elated
you’ve forgotten that you and your son are related!”
-Joshua M. Kershenbaum,
(Amherst College, 1996)
Posted by Andrew at 09:37 AM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2006
Healthcare Blues
I have long believed that the American system of health care is nuts. Basically, Americans go to a bookie (called a "health insurance agent") and make a bet that they won't get sick. If they do, the bookie pays out. The bookie has absolute incentive to pay as little as possible-- and has the discretion on what to pay for. Americans don't have the discretion, doctors don't have the discretion, the bookie has the discretion. Does that seem crazy to anyone else?
Worse than that, when the bookie does lose their bet, they have the power to decide that they weren't actually covering you anyway. Crazy crazy crazy...
(Link stolen from Ezra Klein, who said:
We rely almost exclusively on private insurers whose primary business imperative is not to pay when we get sick. They do that by seeking to deny coverage before the fact, or reject claims afterwards. They pay for platoons of employees who have no job other than scrutinized thousands of policies a week to find sufficient cause for cancellation. Say what you will about the inefficiencies of the public sector, but can it really match the ruthlessness and absurdity of insurers spending large amounts of money so they don't have to insure? Is that sort of profit motive really what you want underlying your health care coverage?
Posted by Andrew at 12:30 PM | Comments (1)
Tuesday on C-Span: Rousing Rhetoric
Today’s topic: Voter ID requirements.
To recap the Republican argument:
When they sneak over here to work, that’s bad
Then they try to have kids here: that’s bad
Wanting to send those kids to American schools? No way, Jose
Finally, they want to vote here: that’s just awful...
I dunno; to me it sounds like people want to come here, put down roots and become part of our civic society. Indeed, it’s these very things which define citizenship. Perhaps not legally, but certainly morally. When someone stands up and says “I am here, I have roots here, I wish to take part in the process of deciding how we behave as a society”—that’s what it means to be a citizen
Maybe it’s the idea of anyone feeling like a responsible member of American society which scares the hell out of the Republican Party. After all, if no one feels responsible, no one will care what they do...
Posted by Andrew at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2006
This land is Thailand
The Standard - China's Business Newspaper
I don't have any idea what to say about this. Apparently, neither does the Bush admin...
Posted by Andrew at 07:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 17, 2006
How American Torture costs American Soldiers' lives
Andrew Sullivan | The Daily Dish: What We've Lost
Thinking hard on what I now know of history, psychology, and the meanness of politics, that reputation for fairness was damn near unique in world history. Can you tell me of any major military power that had it? Ever? France? No. Think Algeria. The UK? Sorry, Northern Ireland, the Boxer Rebellion in China... China or Russia. I don't think so. But America had it. If those men had even put up token resistance, some of us would not have come back. But they didn't even bother, and surrendered at least in part because of our reputation. Our two hundred year old reputation for being fair and humane and decent. All the way back to George Washington, and from President George H.W. Bush all the way down to a lance-corporal jarhead at the front.
Read, of course, the whole thing...
Posted by Andrew at 09:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 14, 2006
Don't Download this song
Posted by Andrew at 11:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Shaking in their stockings
John Weidner asks why we on the Left think that those on the Right are terrified of terrorists. It’s quite simple, really: they think that we ought to give up some freedom, we don’t...
See, the president has asked us to allow warrantless wiretapping of American Citizens. We, um... don’t. They’d like all your records to be wide open to the government. We.... wouldn’t. They think that dealing with terrorism ought to be the number 1 priority of America. We think that—strictly on a fatalities/year bassis—that bad traffic ought to be a bit higher on the list...
All life entails some risk. We can, if we wish, do everything we can to eliminate all possible risk from our society. We could make cars go 20 miles an hour, put all passengers in ultra thick padded suites and remove the glass. We could outlaw double-bacon cheeseburgers. We could even say that bungi jumping carries too much risk and therefore ought to be outlawed. We could--- we could do many things. But we don’t...
Americans say that they’d rather run the minor risk of dying than do any of these things. Americans stand a minor risk of dying from terrorism. The ordinary means of law enforcement and our military/diplomatic abilities suffice to keep us by and large safe...
So, if Mr. Weidner wishes to convince me that he’s not terrified of the terrorists, he can repeat after me: “I [your name here] am an American, damn it. I would rather take an infinitesimal chance of dying on an airplane than wait around an airport in my socks.” Do that, John, and I’ll believe you’re man enough...
Posted by Andrew at 10:54 PM | Comments (0)
September 11, 2006
9/11 posting:
5 years and 1 day ago I, and the rest of my classmates, literally laughed at the idea that the United States would ever again be involved in a serious war. Or at least, never in our lifetimes. 5 years ago, my second thought was not nukes, oh god please not nukes. My first thought, of course, was a very hazy why would Bay Area traffic guys be talking about the Pentagon being on fire?...
That day, and in the days that followed, there built within me a rage. Osama done it. Osama must die. That rage burns within me still. In one outrageous moment, Osama slaughtered thousands of my fellow Americans. In years to come he would butcher hundreds of my fellow human beings. Their crime—our crime—was and is to live in a culture of Choice. Atheists, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims... Zoroastrians can all live here without taking up arms to defend our gods. Osama hates that...
That rage has turned again and repeatedly to disgust. Not merely at bin Laden-- that rage will never go away—but my disgust is reserved for our political leadership. 10 years ago Bill Clinton created a CIA group to find bin Laden. A couple months ago George Bush disbanded that group...
Terrorism is a tactic employed by the weak against strong democracies. As long as there are strong democracies and weak non-democratic entities, there will always be terrorism. Winning a war against this tactic is well neigh impossible. Finding bin Laden, trying him for his crimes, and executing him is entirely possible. George W. Bush, and the Republican party have shown no evidence that they want bin Laden’s head on a pike. And so I’m pissed...
Posted by Andrew at 06:06 PM | Comments (0)
September 09, 2006
Silly fundementalists
(click here for the original at xkcd)
Posted by Andrew at 01:12 PM | Comments (0)
September 06, 2006
Guess who gave Lieberman money?
The Republican Party. This may not make Lieberman a Republican, but it certainly destroys him as a Democrat. If Lieberman really does believe that he is a Democrat, he ought to take a long look in the mirror and try to figure out why it is that only Republicans seem to like him. If he really is a Democrat, he won’t like the answers...
Joe, we need all the Democrats we can get. Stop hurting our country. Step aside and let Lamont represent Connecticut. Let Lamont be a strong voice against the excesses of the Republican Party, or at least let Connecticut be represented by someone who won’t cheerlead for the worst side of American politics...
Posted by Andrew at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)
September 04, 2006
Labor Day Funnies
It usually goes without saying that the middle-class doesn't understand the plight of the working poor. Having recently escaped (by all of one paycheck!) the clutches of poverty myself, I feel that I have some insight in these matters. Working at a retail job means a 1500 calorie per day diet. This is a problem that needs fixing...
Before the problem can be fixed, though, we need to do a better job educating people as to the existence of the problem. I didn't realize how deep the ignorance until I read a comment over at Random Jottings which assumed that WalMart workers started at US$9 per hour! For unskilled workers!
It took me a few minutes to get my laughter under control, as you might imagine. I've had some friends work for WalMart-- none of them has ever made that much. A quick search tells me that WalMart starts between US$6.25 and US$7 per hour. With luck, this bit of ignorance has now been corrected, and we can all go back to figuring out how to make US$9/hr the actual starting wage at WalMart, and similar companies...
Posted by Andrew at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)