Happy Birthday, Bernard!

Sir Bernard Lovell was born today in 1913 (and he's still alive - hooray!)

Lovell was the driving force behind the construction of the Mark 1 Jodrell Bank telescope, which was the world's first large radio telescope and the first steerable one. He showed that M31 was a radio source and for all practical purposes created radio astronomy.

Many happy returns of the day!

Happy Birthday, Mary

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, born Aug. 30, 1797 and married to Percy, she's best known for Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus although The Last Man (about the end of humanity due to a plague) is probably a better book.

The best solar systems ...

The perils of listening to the radio in the morning while doing other things, like running around trying to find the book you promised to lend your coworker which isn't where you thought it was...

I came into the living room this morning and heard a guy on NPR saying

The best solar systems are competitive.

Immediately, of course, I thought of poor Pluto. Was that why it lost its spot on the team? The big guys, like Uranus and Jupiter and that show-off Saturn, didn't think it could pull its weight? The smart-aleck rocky planets in close to the sun, they didn't want some iceball hanging around? They didn't any of them want to have to let in the even-less-impressive Ceres and Charon and that one that doesn't even have a name yet, just a number? And who are they competing against, anyway? 51 Pegasi? Come on! You can whip them even with Pluto on the bench.

Of course, it turns out the guy on NPR was talking about solar-powered energy-generating systems. But it was a nicely surreal start to the day...

Looking through the asylum window

In a discussion at Pharyngula about the damage lead pellets and bullets do to the ecology - like the condors, whose food supply is lead-tainted - and the venison hunters bring home, an Australian posted this:

I wouldn't've thought they'd be allowed to buy lead shot at all. Don't you let small children handle all your guns over there?

Sometimes outsiders have a clearer look at how wacky we really are. That is exactly the kind of thing we'd do: ban bullets in case little children eat them.

Carnival of the Liberals #20

Welcome to the 20th Carnival of the Liberals. It's the end of August already - the end of summer. The days are getting a bit shorter and the nights a bit longer, the kids are back in school, and there's an indefinable something in the air that promises autumn is on the way, with its cool, crisp weather - I can't wait. For today's entertainment I had thought to take you on a hike up Black Oak Ridge along the greenbelt, but decided against it. It's still hot - very hot - and that's a steep climb. So instead, we'll amble out to the river instead, taking in the Liberals along the way. They've come from all over for this Carnival - an eclectic bunch who want to entertain you and, just possibly, make you think. Okay with you? Great! We'll start from the historic Alexander Motor Inn, where I hope you had a good night's rest. Put on a good pair of walking shoes - we've got a lot of ground to cover.

Across the street is Jackson Square, where one of our overseas visitors (he's from the actual Liberal Party! Whoo-hoo! Balloons and funny hats all around!) is set up, so we'll start by having a cup of coffee at The Daily Grind and listening to Cicero's Songs on the topic of interconnectivity, James Burke's "Connections", and the law of unintended consequences as related to that concern of our time - Security.

Leaving Jackson Square, we'll head on down to the Turnpike, via a right turn on Georgia Avenue... where we'll see another of our overseas visitors - way overseas - the fortuitously named No Right Turn is set up to tell us about new laws on secular education - and what that does or doesn't mean for mentioning religion.

Heading out the Turnpike we come to the Elza Gate to the city, and to Melton Hill Lake, and the rowing course. Across the lake you can see - you can't help but see - the houses Jake Butcher built for himself and his mother-in-law: the first huge houses in the area. Ebon Musings is set up here, with a gorgeous view at these earthly mansions, and an "argument on the dangers of trusting in charismatic absolute leaders, rather than trusting in the democratic process." (You know who the example is, right? Well... maybe you do.)

Moving down the greenway alongside the lake we can stop for lunch at The New China Palace. On the TV we might get a chance to watch that new "documentary", "Darwin's Deadly Legacy", the one claiming that there would have been no Holocaust if there were no people who believed in evolution. Instead, let's take out lunch outside and listen as The Atheist Ethicist tells us about a "number of moral shortcomings in those who would produce, distribute, or stand to be convinced by such a video."

After lunch (oooo, my fortune cookie says "The star of riches is shining upon you." Let's hope it doesn't get demoted...) we'll continue along the greenway. On our left is the lake, and as we walk we can watch the ducks and geese, the occasional rowing team sculling along the straightaway, and the ever changing clouds in the water. On our right is Melton Hill Drive, and up ahead, where Emory Valley Road t-intersects with it, another chance to rest a moment and listen, this time to some Perspectives from a Nomad, who'd like to tell us how "hybrids could pay for themselves -- if Bush let them."

Enough sitting and debating - onward, my friends! We've got a lot of ground to cover yet. Ahead is Haw Ridge Park and its incongruous companion, the Bull Run Steam Plant. (I have to pause here to tell you that my late mother was instrumental in getting the thing built tall enough not to pollute the river. She was a feisty and articulate woman, who knew how to fight for what was needed.) And what better place could there be to rest again, look out over the Clinch River, and listen to that reasonable conservative Jon Swift telling us how "Mark Noonan at Blogs for Bush has declared science is dead and I haven't been so happy since we reached the End of History."

After the general rejoicing dies down a trifle, we can head on down Hardin Valley Road along the river towards the Solway Bridge - because what's a river without a bridge? And what's the use of a bridge without ... no, not a troll. This isn't Scandinavia, after all. What a bridge needs is, of course, another side. So let's take another break (it's a long walk) and listen to Etaraz, who wants to know - reasonably enough - what center Muslims are to do when they don't want to be co-opted by the Right, but aren't sure the Left is even listening.

Bridges are great, aren't they? Beautiful and practical ... There's an old Welsh proverb, A fo ben, bid bont: Let him who would be a leader be a bridge. Because they don't just have opposite ends - they have middles, too, and Dr Biobrain is stuck in the middle, asking a simple question: Maybe both sides deserve to win? Sometimes? Maybe?

Well, those are both hefty questions, so we'll ponder them a while as we head back into the city. Our route, the old Oak Ridge Highway, takes us past the golf course and the cemetery - and the latter can raise some interesting speculations if you let it. In fact, a little bit further on, just over there at the UT Arboretum, drinking in the view, is the aptly named Rigor Vitae, with easel, paints, and canvas. He's been in the desert recently, looking at lizards, and he has a lot to tell us about saurians and "a dynamic that has probably been the basis of more Warner Brothers cartoons than any other, and has always been an important factor in political history." Good stuff.

Up ahead the road gets a new name (Illinois Avenue) and the city starts up. You're booked into the decidedly non-historic Garden Plaza for this evening, and we'll stop there for a bite and something nice and chocolaty to end up the day. We've got one last speaker as we watch the sun go down over the mountains - Rennypolis, who's going to help us "explore how The Colbert Report reflects new trends in political expression that are driven by appeals to feelings and emotion rather than reason and logic."

And that wraps it up for this Carnival of the Liberals. You don't know how much I wished we had time for another five or ten speakers - but then again, smaller is good, and you're probably worn out from the walking as it is. Have a good meal at Ezra's, a nightcap, and maybe a dose of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (you can watch with a whole new appreciation now), and a good night's sleep. In the morning the good fight awaits you.

Just one last thing before we head off into the worl: don't forget the next edition of the Carnival of the Liberals will be at Archy on September 13.

Good night, ridges; good night, river. Good night, trees and bridge and ducks and geese, rowers and walkers and readers... Good night, all.

edited to change James Burke's name from the original-but-incorrect Edmund who, though a great guy in his own right, did not have a television show...

Lie by Lie: a run-up to war

Mother Jones has put together a complete timeline of the run-up to the Iraq war, from August 1990 to March 2003.

It's an indispensable resource for anyone interested in how we got we we are now.

Hat tip to Chris Mooney at The Intersection.

The Republican War on Science

Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science is being published today. This book is fabulous. I can say that even without having read it - because I did read the hardback, which I bought in January.

I admit that I'm so geeky I'm buying the paperback from Powell Books because they're selling signed editions!

There's not much point in my reviewing this: better bloggers than I have already. But you can go to the book's website or Chris's blog, The Intersection and check it out if you haven't already realized you need to buy it, read it, and lend it out.

Carnival of the Liberals tomorrow

The roustabouts have arrived on the Greenbelt and the attractions are going up. The next Carnival of the Liberals will be here tomorrow. It's my first carnival and the one thing I didn't really expect was how hard it would be to choose the ten posts to include. As of this moment (six and a half hours before the entries close) I have 30 to look at ... a few marginally related to the subject matter, but only a few, and all worth reading - I've added a few blogs to my sidebar. And there's still a chance that another post will arrive in my inbox that makes the cut.

What I'm saying here is - if your post wasn't chosen, it's not because I didn't like it, or thought it wasn't worth reading. Definitely try again next time.

Happy Birthday, Preston

Preston Sturges was born today in 1898. The first man ever to write and direct a film - and boy howdy, what films. Classics still funny today:

The Great McGinty
Christmas in July
The Palm Beach Story
The Lady Eve
Sullivan's Travels
Hail the Conquering Hero
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek

Happy Birthday, Johann

Born today in 1749, Germany's great man of letters, Johnan Wolfgang von Goethe

Night Thoughts

Stars, you are unfortunate, I pity you,
Beautiful as you are, shining in your glory,
Who guide seafaring men through stress and peril
And have no recompense from gods or mortals,
Love you do not, nor do you know what love is.
Hours that are aeons urgently conducting
Your figures in a dance through the vast heaven,
What journey have you ended in this moment,
Since lingering in the arms of my beloved
I lost all memory of you and midnight.

What color should your eyes be?

I saw this at Grrlscientist's place...

Your Eyes Should Be Hazel

Your eyes reflect: Intellect and sensuality What's hidden behind your eyes: Subtle manipulation

What Color Should Your Eyes Be?

As it happens, my eyes are green. "Your eyes reflect: Striking attractiveness and danger - What's hidden behind your eyes: A vivid inner world". I don't know about the danger bit, but I prefer the "vivid inner world" to the "subtle manipulation"!

The Week in Entertainment

Film: finally caught National Treasure on cable - not really a bad movie but there is something really odd about Nicholas Cage all throughout the movie, isn't there? And Sean Bean is so cool, even if his name looks wacko.

TV: the usual - looks like SG1 is kicking into high gear.

Read: Brookmyre's Country of the Blind and utterly brilliant Not the End of the World. Began deLint's Someplace to be Flying.

Happy Birthday, Master Kung

K'ung-fu-tzu, or Kǒng Fūzǐ - Confucius to the West (his name was Latinised by Matteo Ricci when his teachings were introduced to Europe - everybody's name was; think of Copernicus) - was born this day in 551 BCE

The man who in view of gain thinks of righteousness; who in the view of danger is prepared to give up his life; and who does not forget an old agreement however far back it extends - such a man may be reckoned a complete man.

A study that needs to be done...

Echidne of the Snakes blogs a bit about the JonBenet Ramsay case - and as is her wont, comes at it in a sideways manner. And makes a good point while doing it.

After musing on why we're (as a nation) so fascinated, she notes:

Horrible, but also atypical. Most children who die young don't die in this way, and most children don't die young at all. This is a truth that is worth repeating for the simple reason that the rare and shocking abduction stories that we get in the media have made some parents dreadfully frightened of letting their children play outside.

Just drive or walk around in any middle-class neighborhood. What you will notice is the absence of children playing outside. Instead, children have arranged playdates and arranged activities, all necessitating driving by some adult. The more you drive the more likely you are to die in a traffic accident. What do you think we might find in a study which looks at the extra traffic deaths of children caused by parents' fears of pedophiles? I doubt that we have the data for such a study, but I'm willing to bet that the overall impact of the pedophile panic is to cause more children to die prematurely.

Or to cause more childhood obesity. Playing outside with other children consumes a lot of calories, and so does walking or biking to school. But it is exactly these sorts of activities that parents curtail when they fear pedophiles.

What is the media responsibility in all this? If parents confuse the stories about something rare and shocking with information announcements about how to keep their own children healthy and safe, should the media work to correct this misconception?

Check it out.

Random quotations

They're all doing it ... I thought I would too. What you do is "Go here and look through random quotes until you find 5 that you think reflect who you are or what you believe. Go with the first five that work for you (i.e., don't worry about getting global optima)."

So here are mine... Not necessarily quotes I live by or love (see the sidebar), but the first five from that site that fit the criteria...

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.
--Martin Luther King Jr.

I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.
--Groucho Marx

The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession.
--Mark Twain

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
--Hubert H. Humphrey

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
--Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

PIGDID

Over at The Panda's Thumb they're taking apart Jonathan Wells' astoundingly dishonest The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. As they say:

Jonathan Wells is one of the most notorious activists of the political ad campaign known as “intelligent design”. He is most well known for his attacks on modern biology, specifically his 2000 book, Icons of Evolution, which was panned by the scientific community for its fraudulent presentation of modern biology.

Does Jonathan Wells, aiming once again at the popular market, restore his scientific and academic reputation with his latest book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, or is it just old trash in a new bag? To find out, you will need to read our multi-part review, which begins tomorrow.

One thing is for sure, Jonathan Wells is too modest. His recently published, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, is not only politically incorrect but incorrect in most other ways as well: scientifically, logically, historically, legally, academically, and morally.

Various experts are dismantling this book chapter by chapter. This is one of the advantages the IDer's have: any liar can gallop through a diatribe of unethical assertions, mined and mis-quotes, logical fallacies, and outright lies. It's hard to go through and tackle each sentence.

It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it - and for once, that's a serious statement. I'm grateful to the guys at PT for being willing to wade through the muck.

NPR misses a golden opportunity

NPR has spent a distressing amount of time this week discussing "what Pluto's demotion to 'dwarf planet' means - to astrologers".

Of course, the answer should be "not much" no matter what - I mean, the sun and the moon aren't planets, and yet they count. Or, as astrologer Robert Hand said on Wednesday's All Things Considered program,

"Yes. Our definition of planet is actually the original one, that is, a body that can be seen to move with respect to the fixed stars."

Oh? That's fascinating. In other words, every little thing in the system is a "planet" - everything but Earth - since, obviously, by "can be seen" he doesn't mean by the naked eye, else they wouldn't use Neptune or Uranus let alone Pluto. And the stars aren't all that "fixed" except from Earth (not even then, but at least they (appear to) move across the sky as a unit, fixed in relation to each other as seen from where you are standing...) So, all the comets, all the asteroids, all the moons ... You name it. The signs themselves don't match the actual constellations, so it's clear that at best astrology is a formal system with little agreement to the real world, one whose symbols mean something else.

Hand himself went on to admit, er, state, that

"You should know that there are astrologers who experiment with all manner of orbiting bodies. Some people use comets, a minor body called Chiron that orbits between Uranus and Saturn is in widespread use. It's really a matter of whether astrologers feel they can get meaningful symbolism out of a thing rather than strictly speaking any kind of physical reality."

No wonder there's so much wiggle room in astrology! How can they possibly account for it all?

Hand has his own theory about Pluto's status, or lack thereof, though:

"Historically, Pluto is not an independent body. Throughout all of recorded history, its orbit with respect to the orbit of Neptune has been, relatively speaking, fixed. Every time the two planets have come together in the last several thousand years, they've come together near the same fixed star in Taurus. So, my theory - and this is my theory - and I'm not saying that by way of bragging, I'm saying that by way of taking responsibility for it," he chuckled, "is, that Pluto and Neptune are two aspects of a single entity, and Neptune is what gives it the status."

Today on Morning Edition, we got an astrologer who, we were told, didn't care that astronomers didn't think it was a planet any more (and why should she?), although to be accurate, her statement didn't include any reference to Pluto's status, only its effects. She was asked about that infamous horoscope that told an NPR caller he "shouldn't get married" because of Pluto, a horoscope that Hand repudiated on Wednesday, first by saying

"No planet is capable of indicating absolutely that a person can't get married; all a planet can do is indicate what a person has to do in order to get married. Sometimes that requires so much work on the part of a person that they aren't likely to do it. But it isn't the planet that's preventing it, it's the person's own inclinations. I consider a forecast like that to be malpractice," adding, after a pause, "and I have a lot of company."

Today's astologer - I'm sorry I didn't catch her name, and the clip isn't on the NPR website - didn't agree with that. She had two definite statements to make about Pluto:

"Pluto is often the culprit when a relationship goes bad for no apparent reason."

And

"There is a Pluto-type of person: Charles Mansing [sic], John Dalton, Madame Curie."

Madam Curie? John Dalton? and Charles Manson? So Pluto makes you a chemist ... or a wacko mass-murderer. (Unless there is some chemist out there named Charles Mansing who doesn't show up on Google - who helpfully suggests I might have meant "Charles Mansion", in which case Pluto makes you a chemist or a stately house-turned-hotel).

So NPR should have summed the whole thing up in one succinct statement:

The change in Pluto's status means nothing because astrology is bunk.

But to do that would require a certain willingness to take a stand, to come down with a judgment on the factuality of the competing viewpoints - to be willing to say that one of them just doesn't cut it in any provable, measurable, or sensible fashion, instead of presenting both as though their simple existence is enough to make them equally worthy of time and consideration. What do I think I'm listening to: The Daily Show?

Irn-Bru

Yes, it's orange. A sort of day-glo, neon, nuclear, not-found-in-nature orange.

And yes, it does have iron in it. Or at least ammonium ferric citrate.

Also citric acid, caffeine, and quinine.

Wow. And no wonder they say it's good for hangovers!

I had some in London (my friend's husband is Scottish). It's amazing stuff. Billed as "Scotland's other national drink", it's one of the few indigenous soft-drinks to hold off Coke on its home turf.

I'm glad I encountered it before beginning Brookmyre's Country of the Blind - I might have mistaken it for a beer and wondered when the cop starts drinking one on duty!

Yes.

It's about time. Plan B was held hostage to politics for far too long, and even now it's not as available as it ought to be.

But at least it's available.

Thank you, Senators Clinton and Murray, and everyone else who worked so needlessly long and hard to get here.

Happy Birthday, Robert

Robert Herrick, the great Cavalier poet, born today in 1591


WHENAS in silks my Julia goes
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free;
Oh how that glittering taketh me!

Call for Submissions - Carnival of the Liberals

Carnival of the Liberals #20 is coming soon - Aug 30- and it will be here. I don't have a theme (like parody poetry), so feel free to send in anything (including parody poetry!).

Well, anything as long as it's been written after Aug 15 and is in some way connected to liberalism: celebrating it, explaining it, defending it, practicing it, demonstrating it ... you get the idea. It certainly doesn't have to be an angry political rant (though the way things are going, it's likely to be, I'd say). Poetry or prose or even a photo essay, all are welcome.

How to submit? Use the form at Blog Carnivals, or send the following information to the carnival (cotl DASH submissions AT carnivaloftheliberals DOT com). What I need is

• Author's name or handle (e.g., The Ridger)
  
• Blog's name (e.g., The Greenbelt)
• Post name (e.g., Treason - who's really committing it?)
• Post's permanent url (e.g., http://thegreenbelt.blogspot.com/2006/08/treason-who-is-committing-it.html )
• a very short idea of what it's about, or teaser (e.g., why those who contradict the president aren't the traitors here)

Deadline for submissions is noon Eastern August 29th.

Thanks! I'm looking forward to hosting!

Not The End Of The World

When I was in London last month, my friend's husband lent me a book called One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night by a Scottish writer named Christopher Brookmyre. He warned me the Scottish slang was a bit thick - it is, a bit, but I didn't have much trouble figuring out what it meant and where I did miss a line, well, it didn't hamper the story - and that it was a bit bloody. It is that, but it was funny. It was also full of brilliantly realized characters and a tense situation that kept building like a very cliched train out of control. I loved it. read it on the train up to Cambridge and back, and the next day I borrowed another - you know, in case it was a case of 'loved that one book'. This one was Quite Ugly One Morning: not quite so funny, somewhat bloodier, interesting characters and situation... I ordered his other three* as soon as I got home.

And I just this afternoon finished reading Not the End of the World.

It is brilliant. In one way, it's not my favorite book (it's not as funny as One Fine Day...) but it's a hell of a read. It is funny, not as violent (though I should mention there are murders and bombings), but the subject matter is more, if I may use the word about a "rollicking thrill ride", important.

Fundamentalists.

No, it's not about them. Exactly. What it's about is the people who are in their way. You know: the sinners in that old chestnut "hate the sin, love the sinner" (which, as the book points out, is so hard it always turns into just plain hate). An LA cop (mentioned in Quite Ugly...), a Scottish photographer, an oceanographer, and a porn star - well, an ex-porn-third lead. They're the heroes, and they're in that large group of people the bad guys - led by a charismatic fundamentalist preacher who once ran for president - decide can be sacrificed to save the world. Because

What they needed was an act of God.

He knew that it was not for God to prove Himself to man; it was for man to have faith in God. God would not act, would not perform before man in order to get his attention. But that was why He was calling upon Luther, his servant.

God did not need to act. Man only needed to believe that He had.

An act of God, and not some kind of wondrous work, either, but a long provoked act of rage: punishment for the guilty and a warning to those who were spared.

And the innocents who are not spared? Well... Are there innocents?

There were people who called themselves atheists, but Luther knew there was no one who really - deep down - didn't believe, didn't know the truth.

And if there were, then ... omelets and broken eggs, guys. Or, as Luther puts it:

"The loss of a few more lives to save millions of souls."

Yes, this book is about the lengths of murdering terror to which ostensibly God-loving people will go to bring the fear of God to those who don't have enough of it, the justifications they feed themselves when they recognize the conflict, and the huge number of them who don't.

There are a lot of insightful moments, and oh, yeah lines. Like this one:

Cumulatively, the world's religions could provide a God-given justification to hate anything about anybody. Steff had decided some years ago to hate them all back.

And

Trouble is, there's a fine line between imagining someone's eternal soul is condemned and thinking their earthly life is worthless.

This isn't a mystery - you can guess what's going on before the good guys do, mostly because you have much more information than they do. It's a thriller - the question isn't 'What is Luther St John planning?' but 'Can he be stopped?' And it's a thrill ride - lots of action, likeable characters, bombs, swearing, sex ... and an examination of intolerance and media feeding frenzies and the relativity of morality - when the bomber demands one porn star commit suicide to save the 88 people on the boat with a bomb (hey, it's a sub-plot), the media dialog isn't about this demented Christian terrorist's murdering, it's about who deserves to die least: Maddy or the godless film-makers on the boat? There's also the various roads the various characters have taken to get to their religious positions - atheist or True Believer™ because there aren't many in the middle in this book (some, a few, not many) - and what they think about where they are. The difference being, of course, that the fundamentalists are obsessed with what the others are doing, while the atheists only get bothered when they, well, get bothered.

It's excellent on both levels - the philosophical and the thriller. I can't recommend it highly enough.

I'll leave you with this thought:

When Larry found himself helpless, impotent and alone, the option of begging divine intercession seemed no option at all because, quite simply, he realized he had no faith. When it was playing-for-keeps time, when life was drawing a line in the sand, he suddenly knew which side he stood. It was cold, dark and scary that side of the line, and there was nobody there to help you, but once you're there you can't return. Once you've seen behind the backdrop, you can't walk out front again and believe that what's painted on it is real.

The world this side of the line is indeed a more foreboding place, but even though you have to tread with more caution, you walk with more dignity.

Indeed.

* err, that's his other three available in the States - I've ordered five more from amazon.co.uk...

Happy Birthday, Ray!

Ray Bradbury is 86!

Afarensis is asking for our favorite works. Let him know.


I said Something Wicked This Way Comes and "Dark They Were And Golden-Eyed".

He fully believes

Ken Herman asked a good question at the White House press conference (unscheduled, by the way, and called in a hurry) - and more importantly, he asked the followup (emphasis mine):

Herman: "A lot of the consequences you mentioned for pulling out seem like maybe they never would have been there if we hadn't gone in. How do you square all of that?"

Bush: "I square it because imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein, who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who had relations with Zarqawi. Imagine what the world would be like with him in power. The idea is to try to help change the Middle East. . . . You know, I've heard this theory about, you know, everything was just fine until we arrived and -- you know, the stir-up-the-hornet's- nest theory. It just doesn't hold water, as far as I'm concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East. They were. . . . "

Herman: "What did Iraq have to do with that?"

Bush: "What did Iraq have to do with what?"

Herman: "The attacks upon the World Trade Center?"

Bush: "Nothing. Except for it's part of -- and nobody's ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a -- Iraq -- the lesson of September the 11th is: Take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. . . . I fully believe it was the right decision to remove Saddam Hussein, and I fully believe the world is better off without him."

Wow. A flat-out admission that Iraq had nothing to do with the September 11th attacks. Nothing. Ignore for the moment the immediate disingenuous (at best) aside about 'ordering' the attack, and realize that Bush has just admitted that Iraq had nothing to do with it.

Nothing.

I'm not at all sure that I can find the words...

Fortunately, Fred Kaplan over at Slate does: What a moronic presidential press conference!

Carnival of the Godless!

Yes - It's the Carnival of the Godless! Coralius over at Revolvo Inritus has put together a tasty menu of godless, godfree, and otherwise freethinking pieces to please the most discriminating palate.

It's a wide choice - head on over; you're bound to find something you like. (My Cognitive Dissonance? Try Cognitive Cacophony is on the menu, along with many more good things.)

The Week in Entertainment

Film: A Toni Collette double feature: Little Miss Sunshine - what a brilliant movie! So funny... I heartily recommend it - and The Night Listener - totally different, but also very good.

DVD: Dr Who!

TV: The usual - loved the SG1 200th episode, especially when the marionettes' strings broke - snerk. Atlantis was actually boring, though...

Read: Endless Forms Most Beautiful - wonderful book, well-written and fascinating - a great introduction to all the new stuff coming out of evo devo. Also Back When We Were Grownups, one of Anne Tyler's usual lovely novels

Happy Birthday, Ogden

Born this day in 1902...

Everybody knows his funny stuff, but he also wrote more poignant things. This is one of my favorites (and there are a few more here:

Old Men

People expect old men to die,
They do not really mourn old men.
Old men are different. People look
At them with eyes that wonder when...
People watch with unshocked eyes;
But the old men know when an old man dies.

Treason: who is committing it?

Yesterday I wore my Warrants Not good enough for us tshirt to work (couldn't resist it). Nobody commented negatively, several grinned or laughed, and a couple asked where they could buy one (Cafe Press, but they don't seem to carry the shirts any more, just the bumper stickers).

In the old building, I'd have gotten more nasty looks and possibly comments. (Ah, the groves of academe - not, I like to think, removed from the real world, only from the less thoughtful parts of it. But I digress.) Nonetheless, the always-turned-on wall o'tvs managed to annoy me every time I walked past (they're in the eating area and on the way to the rest rooms - hard to avoid). Now, granted that not every time I walked past were they talking about that decision - no, actually most of the time they were talking about JonBenet Ramsey, proving once again that there is nothing that fascinates this country - or at least our media - like a dead white girl. But the rest of the time they were, including an appearance by Bay Buchanan. (And isn't that typical? A four-second film clip of John Edwards, followed by Bay Buchanan saying whatever she felt like with a sycophantic CNN anchor nodding seriously. Balance. When exactly did CNN turn into Fox Lite, anyway?)

And the whole time it was the same old story: repeating the administration's line that the TSP is important and necessary and well-administered and that the only people who could possibly be against it are - you guessed it - traitors.

Or, if not your actual traitor, then cowards and weaklings and idiots and people who'd rather back down in front of the enemy than stand up for all that is good and true.

Well, I'm not taking that any more. I actually almost hoped to get a comment on the shirt, because I have a new response prepared.

"No, I believe you're wrong. In fact, I believe that if you take the trouble to actually investigate the matter, you'll find that you and your fellows are the traitors. Subverting the Constitution of the United States is treason; following it is not."

After all, one of the President's duties, as stated in Article II of the Constitution, is "take care that the laws be faithfully executed". Not issue little signing statements explaining why he doesn't think he needs to follow this or that law.

And then there's this:

Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

"Preserve, protect and defend" - not violate, subvert and ignore.

I would never argue that wiretapping isn't a useful tool against crime in general, not just terrorism. Nor would I argue that we shouldn't eavesdrop on foreigners' phone calls (with perhaps some exceptions as to which foreign states are or might be excluded, or sometimes excluded) - of course we need that ability.

But the TSP isn't legal. The President saying it's legal isn't enough. And it's not constitutional.

As I've said before, it's also not necessary that it be conducted illegally. Getting warrants is not that hard. It's not like the FISA court has been denying them to the administration - the administration hasn't been bothering to ask.

And that's subverting the Constitution.

And that, gentlemen, is treason. Real treason. Disagreeing with the president is not and never has been, despite what right-wing pundits and wannabe-pundits say. Theodore Roosevelt, a president himself, put it neatly: "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." [see the sidebar for the full quote]

I'm not going to remain silent any longer when this goes on. Sure, snapping back at the talking heads accomplishes nothing, but writing letters might. Contradicting people who say such things in public might. Remain silent accomplishes the wrong things, as 'silence gives assent'. Will I change anybody's mind? I don't know. If I get them to shut up, it's a step in the right direction.

Whoa! I'm less girly than GrrrlScientist.

You Are 8% Girly

Um... you're a guy, right? If not, you're the most boyish girl in the world. And for you, that's probably the ultimate compliment.

How Girly Are You?

Jeepers. I mean - I know I'm not "girly" but I never thought of myself as "boyish" either...

Cognitive Dissonance? Try Cognitive Cacophony

You want your head to hurt? I just read a survey* done with Orthodox Jews - ones who were students at a secular college in New York. This likely means that they're among the most indoctrinated as being exposed to secular influences is considered dangerous verging on heresy, and is only permitted to those who need to go.

Now, get this: one question asked about the age of the universe. 48 respondents said 15 billion years, and 123 said 7000 years. Remember that. 81 said Hebrew was spoken universally everywhere up to 4000 years ago; 88 said no, it wasn't. 22 said the earth revolves around the sun; 151 said it didn't - everything revolves around the earth. And then there was a question with three possible choices about the dinosaurs: lived at the same time as humans; extinct millions of years before the first humans; never existed at all. The numbers were: 68, 70, 31.

Yes. Of the 176 respondents, 24 of them actually manage to believe, simultaneously, that dinosaurs went extinct millions of years ago even though the universe is only 7000 years old.

I don't understand how people can do this. Let their 'faith' so completely overwhelm their ability to think that things which are so painfully self-evidently impossible are nonetheless accepted without, literally, a second thought. Possibly without a first thought.

This is what is truly scary about religious fundamentalism. (Well, this and the fact that many of them want to force it on the rest of the world.) These people have the ability to hold two diametrically opposed ideas in their minds at the same time - two ideas which cannot possibly both be true - and apparently not even notice it.

These students, many of them, were studying science.

Yes. Think about that for a moment. Science students who apparently perceive no conflict whatsoever in believing that things can exist on earth for millions of years before the earth even existed.

This will, I suppose, explain how it is that people who do in fact believe such nonsense can become doctors or whatever - they honestly don't see the problem. They are have moved beyond cognitive dissonance (Merriam Webster Unabridged: psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes (as a fondness for smoking and a belief that it is harmful) held simultaneously) - they experience no conflict. Both things are true and that's that.

It seems to me that they can only do this if they make no attempt whatsoever to examine one set of their 'beliefs'. These students (and many like them) have chosen what's true, and what they learn that conflicts with it they simply memorize, parrot for grades or acceptance or whatever, and move on; it never dips below the surface of their mind.

And the set of beliefs they've chosen to relegate to meaninglessness is the set that derives from science - knowledge of the world. Instead, they hold as Truth what others who claim to know tell them, no matter how much it conflicts with observable, provable, reproducible facts - and they can do this because they literally don't think about it.

And yet they're going to be important people in their community (possibly in the larger community - certainly so for non-Orthodox people with the same sort of mind-set, people like politicians we hear from on a daily basis); they're going to be holding positions of authority and making decisions that will affect people in the real world, not just the little part of it that resonates with their faith.

Hypocrites are bad enough, but with them there's always a chance they'll come around. With people like these students, and those like them - it's hopeless. And that's scary.

* Survey reported in Skeptic Vol 12 No 3, 2006: 'Orthodox Jews and Science' by Alexander Nussbaum

ummmm.... No. You're wrong. Again.

"Those who herald this decision simply do not understand the nature of the world we live in." So just said Bush as I walked past the wall o'tvs.

No.

We understand the world.

What we don't understand is why you can't go to the FISA court and say, "Hey, we're listening to these foreign terrorists and they called a US number. We need a warrant to find out why, because when they talk among themselves they're up to no good."

The FISA court will give you the warrant. You know they will. And then you're legal.

Hell, you have up to three days to get in touch with this 24/7 court after you've started listening...

This is what we don't understand.

Not what you want to do. Not why it's important.

Why you think you don't have to follow the law to do it.

um, er, what? Didn't that piss him off?

From Dr. Francis S. Collins's book The Language of Ignorance

I believe in a different model, which I call BioLogos. It's a model that I find entirely consistent with what I know scientifically and what I believe about God, which is the following: If God decided to create the universe and his purpose was to populate it with creatures in his image, with whom he could have fellowship and to whom he would give the knowledge of right and wrong, an ability to make decisions on their own free will and an immortal soul, and if he chose to use evolution to accomplish that goal, who are we to say that's not how he would have done it? It's an incredibly elegant means of creation. And because God is outside of time and space -- at least, I think that would make sense, given that he's not part of the natural world -- he could, at the very moment of creation, at the instant of the Big Bang, have this entire plan completely designed right down to our having this conversation. And it would seem perhaps a bit random and long and drawn out to us, but not to him.

Ooookay.

I mean, yes, okay, this is a fairly harmless bit of theistic evolution, or evolution-as-creation, or whatever we're calling it. Yes, given that God is "outside of time and space ... not part of the natural world" then sure. He could have done it this way. It's not like there's any way to say, one way or another.

What's boggling my mind is that little clause "his purpose was to populate it with creatures in his image, with whom he could have fellowship and to whom he would give the knowledge of right and wrong".

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but ... doesn't Genesis explicitly tell us that acquiring the knowledge of right and wrong was what pissed God off at us? Isn't that the Fall™? Isn't that what got us expelled from Eden (whatever that might represent to Dr. Collins)?

Redecorating

I finally got around to adding some things to the sidebar - all worthy causes in my opinion. Take a look, maybe give them a hand?

On the Merits?

So, I was heating up lunch, and the CNN channel on the wall o'tvs (as usual) is the one that had sound on it. A guy called Ed Henry (at least, that was the name on the screen while he was talking) was telling us that a federal judge in Detroit had ruled the federal government's wireless wiretapping program unconstitutional.

He had a few things to say, such as that there was "no doubt this will go to the Supreme Court", and that it's now "the law of the land, but surely administration lawyers will be asking for a stay pending appeal."

He also said that "what was odd was that the administration's lawyers didn't defend it on its merits", so that the program was "described by the ACLU and the plaintiffs". They only asserted that it "was necessary".

Hmmm... why do you suppose they didn't defend the program "on its merits"?

Hmmmmmmmmmm

Why we're angry...

From Mike the Mad Biologist comes this pointer to an excellent summary of why Joe lost and why others better take heed: It's the Treason, Stupid by Anonymous Liberal Staffer at MyDD.com.

The whole article is excellent, and I recommend you read it. But here's the main thing - the thing I whole-heartedly agree with:

Since 9/11, Republicans from the White House to backbenchers like Jean Schmidt have mercilessly implied that Democrats are traitors who are undermining their country every time they question the President -- and it was in joining them that Joe Lieberman lost it all...

"We undermine the President's credibility at our nation's peril," Lieberman said last year of war critics.

To point out that it is not too many questions that have imperiled our nation, but rather far too few, is almost besides the point. And to be sure, "the point" has been made before. But perhaps the most glaring omission from the "inside the beltway bubble" mentality that Josh Marshall and so many others discuss is this: for years, from late 2001, straight through 2005, virtually the entire Democratic base -- the very same Democrats who show up for primaries -- were tarred and feathered as traitors in every corner of their country and daily lives. Turn on CNN, and there it is. Read the editorial page of the local paper, there it is. Listen to the President of the United States give the State of the Union address, there it is:

You are a traitor.

Now this talking point has certainly been given plenty of ink and pixels, but for myself and, I believe, many other primary voters, there is no single issue with more emotional impact. To hear one's own government accusing you of treason, to sense that the President and his party are infecting one's entire society with that accusation, simply because one truly believes what the president says he believes himself -- "war should always be a last resort" -- is one of the most visceral experiences one can have in the political arena.

...

All of those day-to-day experiences from ordinary Americans came down from the top, the result of an all-consuming political media blitz meant to make Americans hate each other courtesy of the Republican Party, their conservative echo chamber, and yes... Joe Lieberman. For pundits who ask what the difference between Lieberman, red state Dems, or even Hillary Clinton is, well, this is the difference. Never once did any of them actively partake in pushing this fundamental shift in the very fabric of our society.

But while that is a vast difference, it does not mean that Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, or any number of other Democrats and Democratic presidential contenders can ignore this issue. While they did not actively promote this climate of hate, nor did they stand up to stop it. The Democratic base, the primary voters, were utterly hung out to dry. And while this culture has dissipated somewhat as President Bush's deceit and incompetence have been exposed, there can be no question that the refusal to fight back on behalf of their base against these most despicable of charges haunts the entire Democratic party politically to this day, and likely will for years to come.

I am not a traitor. And I resent being called one.

And I won't support anyone who did that. Ever again.

Carnival of the Liberals

Yes, it's the Carnival of the Liberals! It's over at One Flew East this time, and it's a parody poetry edition - something new and different. My post About those Hummer ads (a Fab Fourwheel medley) made the cut, and so did quite a nice assortment of others. Check it out.

And while we're on the topic, next time the Carnival is here!

Birth Pangs

Listening to Condi babble about "the birth pangs of the new Middle East" all I can think of is Yeats:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of "Spiritus Mundi"
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Language Quiz

Here's the new quiz - and always remember, maybe nothing is wrong!

From an interoffice memo:

The team is developing a list of skills and knowledge's needed by the analyst of the future.

And here's the previous one:

From the Biography Channel's ad for Sherlock Holmes:

He thrives on the dizzying, delights in the bizarre, and relishes in the puzzling.

The answer here is:

Their love of parallelism (thrives on, delights in, relishes in) has led them to make what's called 'an argument error' - the verb relish doesn't use the preposition in - or any preposition, for that matter. You don't 'relish in' something, you just 'relish it'.

This should read:

He thrives on the dizzying, delights in the bizarre, and relishes the puzzling.

If they really wanted to keep up the parallel structure, they need another verb, perhaps 'revel':

He thrives on the dizzying, delights in the bizarre, and revels in the puzzling.

If you're ever uncertain about the arguments (that is, the way the words that go with the verb, or noun for that matter) that a verb takes, I recommend using a good dictionary such as the Longman Advanced American Dictionary (it even has a CD version with pronunciation and grammar tips). Such a dictionary does more than merely define words; it gives usage and argument structures as well.

Remember, previous quizzes can be found here.

How Cool Is That?

I've been meaning to mention this since I was in London:

They have Charles Darwin on their money!!

The Week in Entertainment

DVD: First disk from Sushiko (eps 1-5)

TV: The Stargates, of course; some Midsomer Murder; Serenity (yes, I own it but apparently I'm incapable of flicking past it on the tube, not that that's a bad thing)

Read: James Rollins' Deep Fathom and Ice Hunt; reread The Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos when I had to move it looking for something else...

How geeky am I? Not so very, as it turns out.

Refusing to change

Anne McFeatters writes in the Sacramento Bee (free subscription required) that Bush is "unchanged by presidency". Describing the last press conference before Bush headed off to Texas she says:

Bush's demeanor was interesting. Beset with problems that daily get worse, he was as jovial as ever. He laughingly referred to former TV newsman Sam Donaldson as a "has-been." He sparred with the press regulars, prickly disdain mixed with arm's-length bonhomie.

But what was most striking is how little the world's most onerous office has changed him. Fresh from his annual physical, Bush is one of the healthiest, fittest presidents we've ever had. Sure, his hair is grayer. But he has aged far less than most of his predecessors.

And he remains absolutely convinced he is "the decider" making the right faith-based decisions - staying in Iraq, supporting Israel even as the world interprets his words and actions as anti-Arab, increasing the budget deficit, keeping Donald Rumsfeld on as defense chief, working to transform the world by spreading democracy or rather his version of it through military force. To Bush, being president means never having to say he's sorry. To tell him he might be wrong or bring him bad news or cause dissonance in his serene world is to antagonize him and be thought disloyal.

It's now well acknowledged that Bush is happy in his bubble of self-imposed isolation. He meets with foreigners but without true give-and-take even in crisis conversations. Foreigners visit the White House as they used to go on bended knee to ancient Rome. Bush travels but sees few real people. All is scripted. He talks with advisers but rarely interacts with members of Congress, even senior Republicans.

He seems to care nothing about winning hearts and minds in other countries. Foreign leaders say he lectures but does not listen. He does not have the long telephone conversations late at night that former President Clinton loved to keep him in touch with what others were thinking. He seems indifferent to what experts think.

Bush's self-proclaimed model was Ronald Reagan, not his own father, George H.W. Bush, who fought against the bubble, learned to compromise and surrounded himself with people who drank with him, squabbled with him and fished and played golf with him. Reagan was a loner, happy spending weekends at Camp David or his California ranch, cutting brush and riding horses. (This Bush does not ride horses but he does drive around his property and clear brush.) But Reagan transformed the world by working hard to persuade others and by compromise.

We're in one of those periods that will cause future historians to complain that Bush should have spent less time with trees and more time seeing the forest.

There comes a point where consitency and refusal to see the world as it is and to adapt to reality ceases to be a virtue by anybody's standards. We are well past that point.

But, of course, Bush won't see that, either.

Nothing is New

I said this long before the blog:

Okay... I've taken a deep breath. But [insert name of whatever Deity or Virtue you choose] - how can anyone be surprised that Abu Ghraib happened? The Resident and his cronies have been fostering a "we're above the law of nations" mindset for a long time now. And maybe we can see why W & Co are so dead set against the International Court, maybe they've always had war crimes on their minds.

Look. Americans are not angels. We're "a little lower than angels" to quote W's favorite book. Maybe a lot lower. We've a long and inglorious history of turning our enemies into something not quite human, something we can kill and maim and rape and torture ... look at how many patriots treated Tories during the Revolutionary War, to start with, and move on up through My Lai. "Constitutions are chains with which men bind themselves in their sane moments that they may not die by a suicidal hand in the day of their frenzy," says Robert Stockton, and he's right. And so are treaties and conventions.

We know how badly we can behave. Usually, we try to behave better. This administration encourages us to behave as badly as we wish, because we're afraid. Or because our enemies are bad.

Well, that doesn't cut it. We're meant to be better than that. Than them.

Than this.

So it begins to look like I was right (damn it!). Why else is the White House scrambling to rewrite laws to protect themselves against prosecution?

As R. Jeffrey Smith writes in The Washington Post:

"The Bush administration has drafted amendments to a war crimes law that would eliminate the risk of prosecution for political appointees, CIA officers and former military personnel for humiliating or degrading war prisoners, according to U.S. officials and a copy of the amendments. . . .

" 'People have gotten worried, thinking that it's quite likely they might be under a microscope,' said a U.S. official. Foreigners are using accusations of unlawful U.S. behavior as a way to rein in American power, the official said, and the amendments are partly meant to fend this off."

Smith explains: "The amendments would narrow the reach of the War Crimes Act, which now states in general terms that Americans can be prosecuted in federal criminal courts for violations of 'Common Article 3' of the Geneva Conventions, which the United States ratified in 1949. . . .

"Common Article 3 is considered the universal minimum standard of treatment for civilian detainees in wartime. It requires that they be treated humanely and bars 'violence to life and person,' including murder, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture. It further prohibits 'outrages upon personal dignity' such as 'humiliating and degrading treatment.' And it prohibits sentencing or execution by courts that fail to provide 'all the judicial guarantees . . . recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.' . . .

"Former Justice Department lawyer John C. Yoo . . . said that U.S. soldiers and agents should 'not be beholden to the definition of vague words by international or foreign courts, who often pursue nakedly political agendas at odds with the United States.' . . .

"But [retired Army Lt. Col. Geoffrey S.] Corn, the Army's former legal expert, said that Common Article 3 was, according to its written history, 'left deliberately vague because efforts to define it would invariably lead to wrongdoers identifying 'exceptions,' and because the meaning was plain -- treat people like humans and not animals or objects.' "

I really wish those guys would do something to surprise me for once.

(And speaking of "naked political agendas" ... Have these people no shame?) (And yes, I know the answer. It was rhetorical.)

Irate ... Moderates? You Bet

A New York Times editorial discusses the Lamont win. The last sentence especially rings true:

"Mr. Lieberman’s supporters have tried to depict Mr. Lamont and his backers as wild-eyed radicals who want to punish the senator for working with Republicans and to force the Democratic Party into a disastrous turn toward extremism.

"The rebellion against Mr. Lieberman was actually an uprising by that rare phenomenon, irate moderates. They are the voters who have been unnerved over the last few years as the country has seemed to be galloping in a deeply unmoderate direction. A war that began at the president's choosing has degenerated into a desperate, bloody mess that has turned much of the world against the United States. The administration's contempt for international agreements, Congressional prerogatives and the authority of the courts has undermined the rule of law abroad and at home.

"Yet while all this has been happening, the political discussion in Washington has become a captive of the Bush agenda. Traditional beliefs like every person's right to a day in court, or the conviction that America should not start wars it does not know how to win, wind up being portrayed as extreme. The middle becomes a place where senators struggle to get the president to volunteer to obey the law when the mood strikes him. Attempting to regain the real center becomes a radical alternative.

"When Mr. Lieberman told The Washington Post, “I haven’t changed. Events around me have changed,” he actually put his finger on his political problem. His constituents felt that when the White House led the country into a disastrous international crisis and started subverting the nation’s basic traditions, Joe Lieberman should have changed enough to take a lead in fighting back."

What did you do in the war, Daddy?

No comment - none needed.



Although, Stephen Colbert did make sort of the same joke when he told people to join up so when their grandchildren asked them "Where did you fight in the Great War on Terror?" you could answer, "The same place they're fighting now..."

I know. Not really funny either time.

Warrants Work

While I'm far from being the first person to mention this, I would like to.

The Brits who cracked that bombing plot applied for and complied with warrants every step of the way.

The investigation started with a tip: a worried Muslim Briton called the police. Months of urveillance, wire-taps, and infiltration of suspects followed. Warrants were obtained all the way. And finally arrests were made, and no planes blew up.

Extraordinary and unconstitutional methods are actually not necessary at all.

And just one last time: that straw dog won't hunt. Nobody's against necessary surveillance. Just illegal surveillance.

Star Trek Inspirational Posters

You have one of those offices that puts up those 'inspirational' posters? Here's a whole new source: Star Trek!

These are great! There are lots! Check them out!

About those Hummer Ads...

This fortnight's Carnival of the Liberals wanted parodies ... I don't know if this will make it into the carnival or not, but here goes:

The Fab Fourwheels Medley
Celebrating
The New Hummer Campaign

(cue the music)

In the town where I was born
Lived a man who sailed the seas,
And he told us of his life
In the land of SUVs.
So we drove across the turf
Till we reached an empty beach
Now we drive down through the surf
In our yellow SUVs

We all drive in a yellow SUV,
A yellow SUV, a yellow SUV,
We all drive in a yellow SUV,
A yellow SUV, a yellow SUV,

And our friends are all around
Many more of them drive up and down
And the shore begins to fray …

(toot toot toot hoooooooonnnnnnk)

So we live (so we live)
A life of greed (a life of greed):
Every one of us (every one of us)
takes what we need (And need is relative)
Road of black (asphalt black), clear of trees (who needs trees?):
Room for us and our SUVs!
(out of the way!)

There's plenty of room for us:

Empty town.
As I drive the streets both up and down,
There is no one as I look around,
Oh I drive in an empty town.

Suddenly,
It's not half the work it used to be,
There's no traffic here annoying me,
My empty town is just for me.

Why they had to go, I don't know:
And I don't care.
I've got an SUV and I'm free
To drive anywhere!

Empty town -
Driving on this flat and level ground
In my SUV I drive around
My fantasy, my empty town....

And speaking of playing around:

I met a boy named Jakie, how he loved to slide
On the playground
Then a girl she cut in line, into his pride:
She cut him down
His mom was ashamed, she was ashamed….
But she set him straight…

Mommy Big Hummer
Mommy Big Hummer
Mommy Big Hummer
Drive!

I saw them in the parking lot, it was yesterday
She was so proud
She spoke with tears how for seven years he’d given way,
Been pushed around
Girls cut in line, they cut in line
And all that she could do was grieve….

She said she roars now past their house and she guns it loud
And crushes their bikes,
She takes two parking spaces and intimidates
She does what she likes:
She bought a Hummer, and as she got in her Hummer
I heard Jakie ask her please:

Mommy Big Hummer
Mommy Big Hummer
Mommy Big Hummer
Drive!

She's savin' him from this, 'cause she's a real woman...

He’s a real nowhere man
In the grocery line he stands,
Buying all his tofu cans
For somebody
Doesn’t have a pair of balls
Scurries every time she calls
Doesn’t walk, he only crawls
He’s nobody…

Nowhere man, please listen
Take a look at what you’re missin'
You in fact are not a man in any way!
Nowhere man, you’re dyin’
And your balls she is fryin’
Nowhere man, buy a Hummer, quick today!

He’ll buy a Hummer and he’ll see
He can be an SOB
He can drive a yellow SUV...

A yellow ...
A yelllow ...
S. U. Veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Thank you!

We'll be here a lot longer than we should!

Thoughts while listening to World Update

Listening to World Update this morning I heard two excellent quotes, and had a couple of thoughts.

First, Jim Sheridan, a Labour MP, has resigned his Defence Ministry post in protest over the current British administration's handling of the Lebanese crisis.

By the way, when was the last time an American official resigned over something? My first thought was back in 1996 Peter Edelman left the Clinton adminstration over Welfare "Reform"... (That was a resignation with immediate corrective effects.) But actually, no. It was just last year: Susan Wood, assistant FDA commissioner for women's health and director of the Office of Women's Health, resigned over delays on Plan B. (Boy, that lit a fire under them...). In 2003, three Foreign Service officers - John Brown, John Brady Kiesling, and Mary Wright - resigned because they could not "in good conscience support President Bush's war plans against Iraq." (That prompted a lot of soul searching at State, I'll bet...) Then, back in 2002 Eric Schaeffer, head of the U.S. EPA's Office of Regulatory Enforcement, resigned to protest White House and Energy Department attempts to weaken federal clean air policy. (Another move which sent shockwaves through the administration).

Yeah, such resignations may not change policy. But at least you can look at yourself in the mirror. (Possibly many of this administration deal with that like Londo did on Babylon Five: "There comes a time when you look into the mirror and realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. Then you accept it, or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking into mirrors." Or, possibly, they can't see their reflections any more...)

Anyway, among the things Mr Sheridan had to say: "We have to remember that we as a nation have a history of fighting terrorism. We fought the IRA but it didn't prompt us to bomb Dublin, or Belfast."

Second, a Palestinian Authority member whose name sounded to me like Sabar Bagadi asked: "How can people who are under occupation be expected to provide security to the occupying forces?"

I haven't said much about Lebanon, but I do think the Israeli response is out of proportion. Even with thousands of Katyusha rockets landing in Israeli, the death toll there - after a month of it - is less than 20 civilians. How many Lebanese civilans are dead? How many millions, hundreds of millions, of dollars' worth of damage has been done to Lebanese infrastructure? How long will it take Lebanon to rebuild - and what are the odds that it will rebuild into something the slightest bit friendly to Israel? How many more Lebanese children have to die before the Israelis rein themselves in? The "worst day ever" in Kiryat Shemona has "several civilians" wounded; meanwhile, thirty children die in Qana... And the Israelis bomb anything that moves, meaning aid workers can't get in and refugees can't get out.

It's time to stop. Just stop. Any moral high ground you ever had is long since gone.

And finally, there was a fairly weak protest by a Pakistani official about how all the British bombers and would-be bombers were really not connected to Pakistan in any way... Sure. The problem the Pakistani government has right now is they can't keep their madrassah-trained terrorists in Kashmir any more.

Happiest of Happy Birthdays, Robert!

Today is the birthday of Robert Ingersoll. The great freethinker was born in 1833. As Ebonmuse says,

Both in his professional career and his personal life, Robert Ingersoll was a steadfast defender of the Bill of Rights and the true ideals of America, and a friend to those struggling for liberty everywhere. He spoke out tirelessly not just against religion, but against all evils that oppress the mind and chain the spirit. He was, for example, a fierce foe of slavery and of racism, which was still extremely common in his day; a tireless opponent of corporal punishment and child abuse; and an unapologetic advocate of female suffrage. In the 1800s, it need scarcely be noted, all of these were radical positions.

Ingersoll's lectures blended profound wisdom and courage with a warm, friendly charm and knowing humor, and his positive vision of a human future undergirded by reason and suffused with happiness stands out like a beacon. Thankfully, his eloquence has not been lost to us. His complete works, most of which he had committed completely to memory for his public lectures, are freely available on the Internet. We even have a few rare recordings of his voice, among the first sounds ever recorded on the prototype phonograph built by a prolific young inventor named Thomas Alva Edison.

Though Robert Ingersoll has long since passed on, the flame of freethought kindled by his words has never gone out. From generation to generation, through the darkest depths of fundamentalist resurgence and the bright dawnings of reason's victories, the torch has been passed from hand to hand. And everywhere it has passed through, it has kindled new lights in turn. There is more truth, beauty and wisdom in his works than in the Bible, the Qur'an and the Book of Mormon put together; and although we cannot and do not worship him or his writings, we can and do draw a powerful example from them. In times such as ours, we need a hundred more like him.

Here are a quick couple of excerpts of Ingersoll's writings:

It is far better to give yourself sometimes to negligence, to drift with wave and tide, with the blind force of the world, to think and dream, to forget the chains and limitations of the breathing life, to forget purpose and object, to lounge in the picture gallery of the brain, to feel once more the clasps and kisses of the past, to bring life's morning back, to see again the forms and faces of the dead, to paint fair pictures for the coming years, to forget all Gods, their promises and threats, to feel within your veins life's joyous stream and hear the martial music, the rhythmic beating of your fearless heart.
And then to rouse yourself to do all useful things, to reach with thought and deed the ideal in your brain, to give your fancies wing, that they, like chemist bees, may find art's nectar in the weeds of common things, to look with trained and steady eyes for facts, to find the subtle threads that join the distant with the now, to increase knowledge, to take burdens from the weak, to develop the brain, to defend the right, to make a palace for the soul.
This is real religion. This is real worship.

—"What Is Religion?" (1899)

We have no master on the land —
    No king in air —
Without a manacle we stand,
    Without a prayer,
Without a fear of coming night,
We seek the truth, we love the light.

We waste no time in useless dread,
    In trembling fear;
The present lives, the past is dead,
    And we are here,
All welcome guests at life's great feast —
We need no help from ghost or priest.

—"Declaration of the Free"

Check out Robert Ingersoll's Complete Works

Harsh words, well-earned

Over at Pooflinger's place, Matt, who recently celebrated his blog's first anniversary, was feeling all chuffed because he'd gotten himself his very own troll. Her name is Annie, and she has to be read to be believed. Matt dedicated an entire thread to Annie, and she responded like the creationism-spouting intolerant bigot she is. She quite rapidly became so vitriolic that she was getting no slack at all. You can check it out if you want, but I thought I'd give you what is at this moment the last post. Scott calls Annie on her rabid equation of fundamentalist Christianity with USA-patriotism:

And as an atheist with two children, Annie STFU, now. Please.

Oh yeah, I'm also a veteran. During Desert Storm I was an atheist in a foxhole. Well, actually a four duece mortar pit, but same thing. So play the un-patriotic card if you want but try and get this through your thick fucking skull. I WAS THERE! Where were you? My ass was on the line, not yours. My atheism grew stronger driving down the highway of death. You know why? All I saw were dead people. Not Iraqis. People. People like me. Sons, fathers, husbands, people that were loved by somebody. You know who I didn't see? god. It's called experience, Annie. Get some. At this point, I've forgotten more than you know. Moron.

Scott: I applaud you. And I agree with you (though my military service was in Germany in the Cold War, not Iraq in a hot one).

It is to laugh ...

Or else to weep and rage.

Or perhaps, just to rage...

Once again, Jon Stewart and The Daily Show give us what they said, not what they said they said. Rumsfeld claiming "you'd have a dickens of time" finding any time he'd ever been optimistic about Iraq followed by three clips of ... Rumsfeld being optimistic. Rumsfeld claiming the war might last "six days or six weeks." Rumsfeld announcing that American troops were "being greeted not as invaders but as liberators". Rumsfeld lauding the fact that "these people are free".

Then Alberto Gonzales getting what Stewart called "an unexpected softball from McCain": "Do you think that testimony obtained by inhumane means should be inadmissable?" Alberto froze, like a jacklighted deer, for what seemed an interminable pregnant pause ... and then said that we need to have a consensus on what "inhumane" actually means.

And then Condi refused to speculate on what Bush would do "if" Iraq became a civil war: "I'm not going to discuss hypotheticals." (As Stewart said, "to be fair, the last time the White House acted on a hypothetical we invaded Iraq.")

(She then trotted out that tired old story about the Chinese character for crisis. As Mark Liberman said on Language Log months ago

millions of business pep talks have used this rhetorically-convenient deconstruction of wēi+jī as danger+opportunity. Unfortunately, they're all wrong about the linguistic facts.

As Victor Mair put it, in an essay on pinyin.info more than a year ago,

While it is true that wēijī does indeed mean "crisis" and that the wēi syllable of wēijī does convey the notion of "danger," the jī syllable of wēijī most definitely does not signify "opportunity." ... The jī of wēijī, in fact, means something like "incipient moment; crucial point (when something begins or changes)." Thus, a wēijī is indeed a genuine crisis, a dangerous moment, a time when things start to go awry.

Victor goes on to explain that

Aside from the notion of "incipient moment" or "crucial point" discussed above, the graph for jī by itself indicates "quick-witted(ness); resourceful(ness)" and "machine; device." In combination with other graphs, however, jī can acquire hundreds of secondary meanings. It is absolutely crucial to observe that jī possesses these secondary meanings only in the multisyllabic terms into which it enters. To be specific in the matter under investigation, jī added to huì ("occasion") creates the Mandarin word for "opportunity" (jīhuì), but by itself jī does not mean "opportunity."

Thus wēijī is roughly "incipient moment of danger", while jīhuì is roughly "occasion of incipient moment". These decompositions should not be taken too literally, since such compound words acquire their own particular meanings over time. Looking at additional combinatoric possibilities of jī underlines this point. For us English speakers, it might help to consider the role of the core meaning of script in the modern English words inscription, description, prescription, transcription, ascription, conscription. Prescription can mean "medicine", and has script as a slang reduction. But this hardly licenses us to analyze con+scription as with+medicine , and to use this as a rhetorical device to introduce the idea that reviving the military draft would be a healthy thing for the American body politic.

But that's beside the point - she's not the only one who's said this - even Al Gore did.

The point is that once again, The Daily Show is showing us actual footage of what they actually say.

This isn't that hard, obviously. If the fake news can do it, why on earth can't the real news?

Happy Birthday, John... I guess

Today in 1631 John Dryden was born.

Hidden Flame

I FEED a flame within, which so torments me
That it both pains my heart, and yet contents me:
'Tis such a pleasing smart, and I so love it,
That I had rather die than once remove it.

Yet he, for whom I grieve, shall never know it;
My tongue does not betray, nor my eyes show it.
Not a sigh, nor a tear, my pain discloses,
But they fall silently, like dew on roses.

Thus, to prevent my Love from being cruel,
My heart 's the sacrifice, as 'tis the fuel;
And while I suffer this to give him quiet,
My faith rewards my love, though he deny it.

On his eyes will I gaze, and there delight me;
While I conceal my love no frown can fright me.
To be more happy I dare not aspire,
Nor can I fall more low, mounting no higher.

A wonderful poet, Dryden also almost single-handedly created the "you can't end a sentence with a preposition" rule.

According to CGEL (p. 627), "this 'rule' was apparently created ex nihilo in 1672 by the essayist John Dryden, who took exception to Ben Jonson's phrase the bodies that those souls were frighted from (1611). Dryden was in effect suggesting that Jonson should have written the bodies from which those souls were frighted, but he offers no reason for preferring this to the original."

It's a shame that Jonson had been dead for 35 years at the time, since he would otherwise have challenged Dryden to a duel, and saved subsequent generations a lot of grief. As CGEL explains (footnotes omitted):

There has been a long prescriptive tradition of condemning preposition stranding as grammatically incorrect. Stranded prepositions often, but by no means always, occur at the end of a sentence, and the prescriptive rule is best known in the formulation: 'It is incorrect to end a sentence with a presposition.' The rule is so familiar as to be the butt of jokes, and is widely recognised as completely at variance with actual usage. The construction has been used for centuries by the finest writers. Everyone who listens to Standard English hears examples of it every day.

Instead of being dismissed as unsupported foolishness, the unwarranted rule against stranding was repeated in prestigious grammars towards the end of the eighteenth century, and the from the nineteenth century on it was widely taught in schools. The result is that older people with traditional educations and outlooks still tend to believe that stranding is always some kind of mistake. It is not. All modern usage manuals, even the sternest and stuffiest, agree with descriptive and theoretical linguists on this: it would an absurdity to hold that someone who says What are you looking at? or What are you talking about? or Put this back where you got it from is not using English in a correct and normal way.

In this case, the artificial strictures of prescriptivists have apparently had a significant effect on the history of the language, partially reversing the historical loss of pied-piping in written English:

"In the course of their history, English wh-relatives are known to have undergone a syntactic change in their prepositional usage: having originally occurred only with pied-piped prepositions, they came to admit preposition stranding as an alternative pattern. The present article presents an overview of this process, showing a modest beginning of stranding in Late Middle English, an increase in Early Modern English, and then a clear decrease in the written language of today, against a more liberal use in spoken English, standard as well as nonstandard. The drop in the incidence of stranding is thus not an expression of a genuine grammatical change but due to notions of correctness derived from the grammar of Latin and affecting written usage. [Gunnar Bergh, Aimo Seppänen. "Preposition Stranding With Wh-Relatives: A Historical Survey". English Language and Linguistics, v. 4 no. 2 (2000).]"

By the way, here's the passage from Ben Jonson that is said to have started the whole silly thing off. It's from Catiline his conspiracy: A Tragoedie, which LION dates at 1616. The passage is part of a hyperbolic description of the slaughter that took place at the end of the Roman civil war in 82 B.C., when the forces of Sulla (aka Sylla) captured Rome.

Cethegvs:
The rugged Charon fainted,
And ask'd a nauy, rather then a boate,
To ferry ouer the sad world that came:
The mawes, and dens of beasts could not receiue
The bodies, that those soules were frighted from;
And e'en the graues were fild with men, yet liuing,
Whose flight, and feare had mix'd them, with the dead.

I haven't been able to locate Dryden's critique yet.

In his 1668 essay Of Dramatick Poesy, Dryden discusses Jonson many times, including this somewhat left-handed compliment in the course of a recommendation of classical literature

In the mean time I must desire you to take notice, that the greatest man of the last age (Ben. Johnson) was willing to give place to them in all things: He was not onely a professed Imitator of Horace, but a learned Plagiary of all the others, you track him every where in their Snow: If Horace, Lucan, Petronius, Arbiter, Seneca, and Juvenal, had their own from him, there are few serious thoughts which are new in him; you will pardon me therefore if I presume he lov'd their fashion when he wore their cloaths. But since I have otherwise a great veneration for him, and you, Eugenius, prefer him above all other Poets, I will use no farther argument to you then his example: I will produce Father Ben, to you, dress'd in all the ornaments and colours of the Ancients, you will need no other guide to our Party if you follow him; and whether you consider the bad Plays of our Age, or regard the good ones of the last, both the best and worst of the Modern Poets will equally instruct you to esteem the Ancients.

Note: the bulk of this post is from a Mark Liberman post on Language Log; follow the link to see their whole series of posts on this 'rule'