Archive for the ‘All’ Category
Support Our Troops (BBA XIII)
A little while back, having read an interesting piece about Bush's imperial dreams and his place in history (which he's imagining a little differently from the rest of us), I realized the place of his own hubris in invading Iraq. ("To Be Seen as a Great Leader (BBA X)".) The conclusion then — and I […]
Almost Right, Karl (BBA XII)
Karl almost got it right. He had nearly all the right words, just in the wrong order: "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war." — Karl Rove "Conservatives prepared for war and saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks as an opportunity." — me Yes, I'm also of […]
Republican Insurgency: Last Throes? (BBA XI)
True, I am a self-avowed "America Hater" (I don't even have a magnetic "ribbon" of any color on the rear of my car) but, among the many events swirling about, I note the following: The Downing-Street Memo story is still remarkably alive The administration's mouths all keep saying that the DSM is not a story […]
When to Adjust Plans in Iraq
"Stay the course"? GWEN IFILL: What is the Achilles heel here? Is the Achilles heel that we didn't study up enough on what to expect from these [Iraqi] paramilitary or as the Pentagon likes to call them, "thugs"? [i.e., the term two years ago for "the insurgency" which, as Donald Rumsfeld has assured us, is […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Splenetics
Real Science is That Simple
Evolution rankles them because it contradicts the Bible which says God made man in his own image and describes specifically how God did it. But cosmology, the study of the Universe as a whole, is even worse for them, since it clearly contradicts the very first passages of that Bible. If you take the Bible […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, It's Only Rocket Science
Polling: "Margin of Error"
This is not a particularly recent poll, although the assertion is still true. But that's not the point. The New York Times > Washington > New Poll Finds Bush Priorities Are Out of Step With Americans The poll was conducted by telephone with 1,111 adults from Thursday through Monday. It has a margin of sampling […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, The Art of Conversation
No Recruiting!
Having read that New York Times Magazine feature story about the zealous anti-gay soldiers marching to protect the sanctity of "traditional" marriage (right here in my home-state of Maryland, no less), Stephanie Sandberg summarizes this way: In sum: the anti-gay-marriage activists in the Times story say they are galvanized by fear of contagion. They claim […]
363 Tons
I can feel pretty jaded, worn down even, by stupendous, jaw-dropping political revelations which arrive with such machine-gun speed that there's no time or energy left for one's jaw to drop. But, this story managed it. It begins with the release of a report from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and his Minority Office of the […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Splenetics
Constitutional Quiz
Which do you think is more important to protect by amending the US Constitution? "Traditional" Marriage The US Flag The Right to Vote Hint: which one have you heard the most about?
Hussein a Gambler?
Be honest, now. Shortly after the US invaded Iraq, would you or would you not have been surprised to find Saddam Hussein playing slot machines at a casino in Connecticut? A tribal court in Connecticut has imposed a $33,070 civil penalty on two New Hampshire men for allegedly attacking a man at the Foxwoods Casino […]
God's Envoy
Since George W. is not only a horse's ass, but vain and platitudinous to boot, it can hardly escape us that he is also serving (with all due inner incandescence) as God's chosen envoy for America. [Norman Mailer, "God's Chosen Envoy for America", The Huffington Post, 21 June 2005.]
gettysburg.ppt
In the fullness of time, even I will finally trip over some otherblog's pointer to a must-see corner of the Web that everyone else has known about for years.* But finally, finally I did: Lincoln's "Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation", brought to us since 2000 by Peter Norvig. I won't excerpt any of it, since 1) the […]
In: All, Such Language!, The Art of Conversation
The War Machine
What was the purpose of this complex organization [the arrangement of conscription, military organization, civilian production, and transportation that was brought to bear to fight the first World War]? Officially it was supposed to save civilization, protect the rights of small democracies, demonstrate the superiority of Teutonic culture, beat the dirty Hun, beat the arrogant […]
Einstein the anti-German
"Antisemitism is strong here and political reaction is violent," Albert Einstein wrote Paul Ehrenfest from Berlin in December 1919. The letter coincides with Einstein's discovery by the popular press, the beginning of his years of internatinal celebrity. "A new figure in world history," the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung described him under a cover photograph on December […]
Theatre of the Absurd
Q Right. What is the evidence that the insurgency is in its last throes? McCLELLAN: I think I just explained to you the desperation of terrorists and their tactics. Q What's the evidence on the ground that it's being extinguished? McCLELLAN: Terry, we're making great progress to defeat the terrorist and regime elements. You're seeing […]
Rest Assured, Nervous Americans
Phew! White House officials acknowledged yesterday that the public's gloomy mood about the Iraq war is forcing President Bush to take a more assertive and public role to reassure nervous Americans and Republican lawmakers about the White House plan for victory. Bush had hoped the successful January elections in Iraq would boost the popularity of […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Splenetics
Traditional Atomic Theory
Reminding us that atoms were "just a theory" until the twentieth century when experiment finally established atomic reality (in some quantum mechanical sense yet to be understood fully): But as late as 1894, when Robert Cecil, the third Marquis of Salisbury, chancellor of Oxford and former Prime Minister of England, catalogued the unfinished business of […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, The Art of Conversation
To Be Seen as a Great Leader (BBA X)
So that we might satisfy the President's delusions of greatness (bold is mine): Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned […]
Atheistic Compulsion
I think the most frequent charge levelled at atheists by the religious, usually evangelical Christians, is that we must be immoral* people without [their] God's laws to guide us. Utter rubish, of course, but these critics are not renowned for applying the brains their God gave them. At any rate, I found the following amusing, […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Splenetics
Joyful Military Weddings
Halifax — The Canadian military is marking its first gay wedding. Two men, who do not want to be identified, exchanged vows in a small ceremony at Canadian Forces Base Greenwood in western Nova Scotia. It was the first time the military has presided over a same-sex union after introducing guidelines in 2003 dealing with […]