Based on the following hint from a post over at Chap's place:
4. Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become ‘Iranians’ it becomes much harder to find them.TheyRodeOn will be Twittering from Iran for a while.
Over at Bearing False Witness, Joel Newmiller has some poignant thoughts about what it means to go through the days while a loved one is wrongly incarcerated. Joel's father, William, maintains the blog. Joel's brother, William's son, Todd, is in his third year of incarceration for a crime I don't think even the prosecutors believe he really committed.
The Freedom March taking place in a number of states on 27 June 2009 is intended to raise awareness of wrongful convictions in our justice system. You'll find more information at the web site for the march.
This really should have been posted yesterday, but I was on the road from Colorado back to Georgia.
I believe these people who talk about peace academically but who never had to dive in a ditch when a Messerschmitt 109 came over, they really don't know what it is.For a longer article on Eisenhower's legacy, click here.
Not so long ago, I mentioned that my canine companion was depressed. The changes in her behavior had come about gradually, but they had finally reached the point where they demanded notice. Despite being fed less than every guide said a dog her size should eat, she was still gaining weight. She was sad. She needed help to crawl up into the floorboard of the Jeep. She had no real interest in walks. A run was out of the question--she couldn't keep up for a hundred yards; whereas, she once drug me along for a mile or two. We'd had her on thyroid medication for a very short while a few years back, but my not-canine companion's verdict was that it made her crazy (the dog, mostly), so we stopped administering it. It was now clear though, that something had to be done.
So, last week I took her (the dog) back to the vet, confirmed that she did have a low thyroid condition, and decided to try again with the medication, but at half the dose of last time.
Wow. She's been on the meds for a week. Already she has more energy and less mass and seems to be converting one to the other at about the rate of a controlled nuclear reaction. She is still big for her breed, but every day she looks a little more like Dwayne Johnson and less like Chris Farley. You could have knocked me over with a feather the other day when I opened the door to the Jeep and instead of needing to help her in, she leapt from the ground to the seat. And on walks now, she's back to leading the way.
She's a little more hungry though. She's begun to show an interest in every Chihuahua and squirrel that she sees, but I realized this morning there could be another explanation for that. When I leave for work each day, I turn on the radio to give her the sound of human voices during the day. For a while it was NPR, then classic rock, then country. But a few weeks ago, I changed her daily radio diet to an FM talk station here in town. Now she gets a steady flow of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, some guy named Schnitt, etc.
This morning it hit me. She may not see those small animals as food after all--maybe she just thinks they're all illegals and tree huggers.
The genesis of this post was a conversation taking place in the comments thread of Tuesday's post that tied together a Hulu Super Bowl commercial and Susan Jacoby's, The Age of American Unreason. I realized, as the conversation progressed, that I may have given the wrong impression of my overall view of Jacoby's thesis. And so, I said this:
I need to be fair here. Though I'm eventually going to take Jacoby to task for a couple of things where she misses the mark in a bad way--namely, e-mail and blogs--I think she's dead on in her indictment of the dumbing down of America and the role of TV, video games, and to a lesser extent, the internet, in that dumbing down. That commercial only appears to be tongue-in-cheek. In reality, it's pretty dead on. Making hyperbolic fun of something that's actually happening as if it's no big deal is a tried and true distraction technique. It doesn't change the fact that it's happening. What it does is try to make you feel silly for worrying about it.Jacoby's book, flaws on those two counts above aside, is frightening, and, I'm afraid, largely accurate.
The severity of damaging human-induced climate change depends not only on the magnitude of the change but also on the potential for irreversibility. This paper shows that the climate change that takes place due to increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop. Following cessation of emissions, removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide decreases radiative forcing, but is largely compensated by slower loss of heat to the ocean, so that atmospheric temperatures do not drop significantly for at least 1,000 years. Among illustrative irreversible impacts that should be expected if atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase from current levels near 385 parts per million by volume (ppmv) to a peak of 450–600 ppmv over the coming century are irreversible dry-season rainfall reductions in several regions comparable to those of the “dust bowl” era and inexorable sea level rise. Thermal expansion of the warming ocean provides a conservative lower limit to irreversible global average sea level rise of at least 0.4–1.0 m if 21st century CO2 concentrations exceed 600 ppmv and 0.6–1.9 m for peak CO2 concentrations exceeding ≈1,000 ppmv. Additional contributions from glaciers and ice sheet contributions to future sea level rise are uncertain but may equal or exceed several meters over the next millennium or longer.Of course, last I'd heard, Rush was busy assuring us all that none of this was our fault and all of it beyond our control. Right. I used to enjoy him before the Oxycontin destroyed the half of his brain that wasn't tied behind his back.
It is possible that nothing will help. The nation's memory and attention span may already have sustained so much damage that they cannot be revived by the best efforts of America's best minds. I too am nibbling at the edges by talking about the need for political leaders who address Americans as thinking adults; for intellectuals willing to step up and bring their knowledge, instead of a lust for power, to the public square; for educators devoted to teaching and learning rather than to the latest fads in pop psychology. None of these suggestions addresses the core problem created by the media--the pacifiers of the mind that permeate our homes, schools, and politics. There is little evidence to indicate that Americans have either the desire or the will to lessen their dependency on the easy satisfactions held out by the video and digital world . . . . (315)I doubt, though, that it will ever be entirely too late. There will always be intelligent and deeply thoughtful people out there, the question will be how they are valued by society at large. In the time of Thomas Jefferson, we revered them. But in the time of Galileo, we placed them under house arrest. Perhaps this, like all things, is cyclical. Let us hope so. Idiocracy wasn't a movie I enjoyed.
Ayn Rand is one of the few authors whose works can make something by Leon Uris look like a quick read. On my bookshelf, few works other than Boswell's, Life of Johnson can compete with hers for the breadth of their spine. I was, until sometime in 2003, what Stephen Moore calls below, a "virgin." That was the year that a friend recommended Rand to me. He would have been one of those who responded to the Library of Congress survey that her work had changed his life. He is, unless I'm mistaken, a subscriber to this blog, though he has never left a comment.
I must confess though, that my reaction to her work was likely colored by the lenses of an English professor. Her characters are all types. So much so that she almost may as well have given them names like those of Bunyan and just made it an allegory outright. As I remember it, the absolute purity with which each character represented his or her philosophical ideal frequently made the willing suspension of disbelief more challenging than necessary.
And yet, I also remember agreeing with the philosophy itself, with the ideas that Rand set out to expound. But I had forgotten how apt they were to our current times. It took Stephen Moore, writing in The Wall Street Journal, to remind me of that:
Some years ago when I worked at the libertarian Cato Institute, we used to label any new hire who had not yet read "Atlas Shrugged" a "virgin." Being conversant in Ayn Rand's classic novel about the economic carnage caused by big government run amok was practically a job requirement. If only "Atlas" were required reading for every member of Congress and political appointee in the Obama administration. I'm confident that we'd get out of the current financial mess a lot faster.As always, the whole essay by Moore ("Atlas Shrugged: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years") is worth the read.
Many of us who know Rand's work have noticed that with each passing week, and with each successive bailout plan and economic-stimulus scheme out of Washington, our current politicians are committing the very acts of economic lunacy that "Atlas Shrugged" parodied in 1957, when this 1,000-page novel was first published and became an instant hit.
Rand, who had come to America from Soviet Russia with striking insights into totalitarianism and the destructiveness of socialism, was already a celebrity. The left, naturally, hated her. But as recently as 1991, a survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club found that readers rated "Atlas" as the second-most influential book in their lives, behind only the Bible.
For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
David Kelley, the president of the Atlas Society, which is dedicated to promoting Rand's ideas, explains that "the older the book gets, the more timely its message." He tells me that there are plans to make "Atlas Shrugged" into a major motion picture -- it is the only classic novel of recent decades that was never made into a movie. "We don't need to make a movie out of the book," Mr. Kelley jokes. "We are living it right now."
The difference between Afghanistan when I was there in 2002-03 and now? Then, we owned it, and were trying to figure out how to give it back to a more friendly government than the one we'd taken it from. Now, fight's on. We're trying to figure out how best to help the government we gave it to keep it.
For a sobering photo essay about the war we're now fighting in that country, pay this site a visit.
In Colorado Springs, people walk or run up the Manitou Incline for exercise.
In Afghanistan, it's how the troops get to work.
Hat tip: Lex
Okay, this falls in the category of LMFAO. Stolen from Buck, this is too good not to pass on. Be sure to pay attention to the text that changes in the lower corner of the screen as the video progresses. Oh, too funny. Way too funny. All my conservative friends who have been beating me up for the last couple of months will love this one.
Busy over at the WLA blog today.
Cannot possibly express how glad I am that I will no longer (please, please) have to sort through all the warnings from my conservative friends that an Obama victory will herald the end of days. With luck, they'll be too busy now filling their fallout shelters to fill my inbox. For the record, I'm not in favor of all the man's positions. But I greatly prefer someone earnestly wrong to someone hysterically so. The former can be reasoned with. The latter can only be sedated or ignored.
Not that this synchronized video contributes anything new (its point is that neither do the candidates, for the most part), rather, it's just fun to watch. Especially now that it's almost over.
Hat tip: Buzzard.
It stands for "Relative Work." It means getting 2 or more skydivers together in the air to build formations.
That said, here's a political cartoon a skydiver can really appreciate:
A couple in New Mexico plan to vote for opposing presidential candidates for the first time in their 25-year marriage, and they've posted "his" and "hers" campaign signs in their front yard. Both campaigns are making a big push to get their supporters to the polls on Tuesday.
Lead photo from an article on getting out the vote. I should think if ever there were a place for a secret ballot, especially this year, the bedroom might be it.
Over at Enrevanche, Barry's post today struck a nerve. What follows is my comment, posted over at his place.
See? See, Buck especially? See? This is why I'm fed up with my former party. This is the same BS as claiming that Obama wants to teach kindergartners about sex. Low, dirty, shameful lies. Anyone who allows, "I'm (insert name here), and I approved this message," to go on the air with something like that can't be trusted to wash windshields at a stoplight, let alone serve in public office.
What shall I do? I dislike Obama's policies just slightly less than I despise McCain's, and now Dole's, tactics. Sitting on my file cabinet is a flag flown over the capital for me by Dole. Like Tommy Lee Jones's character from In the Valley of Elah I am tempted to fly it . . . upside down.
God help us all.
Apparently, reaction of Dems to this skit was so strong that NBC pulled it and is exerting every effort to make it disappear. But this is not 1984. Yet.
Click on the link. Go see it while you can.
Hat tip: JPL
This post pretty much duplicates one over at Buck's place, but I don't think there's a whole lot of overlap in our readers, so hat tip to Buck and here goes.
The following two clips from last night's dinner in NYC are worth watching. McCain's is worth watching because if he gives up politics, he could have a job as the next Bob Hope. His writers are awesome, and his delivery not only does them justice, but makes good lines even better.
Obama, not so much. Obama had decent lines, though probably none so good as McCain's, and then his delivery was just off--as if he were reading the stuff for the first time, and getting it with the crowd.
At any rate, here are both clips. Compare and judge for yourself. Heck, McCain's is funny enough to watch twice.
Riiiight.
From the Colorado Springs Gazette:
An art piece that combines the face of President Lincoln with the face of Sen. Barack Obama can remain on the walls of local businesses.
. . . . . . . .
After a short investigation, the department decided that "Abraham Obama" is art and not a political endorsement, which would have violated city sign ordinances.
"It was decided that it was a mural," said Sue Matz, revocable permits coordinator for Colorado Springs.
Leaning, mind you. Much can change in the next few weeks.
There is an axiom that goes, “Show me a young conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains.” (And it was not Winston Churchill who said it, though he’s frequently given credit.) If it’s true, that axiom, then like most of my life, my politics are backwards.
I’ve been a lifelong Republican. I think, for the most part, I still agree with most Republican principles, though these days, I consider myself an Independent, sick to death of the false dichotomies which rule two-party politics. Politicians of either major party I find to be a lot like too many evangelical Christians I know, backed by a philosophy and principles I can understand and appreciate, but that have too little effect on their daily conduct.
I know that some people stress that a vote for party rather than person is, in effect, a proper vote for those principles. I’ve bellied up and bought into that in the past. I don’t think I can this year. As much as I find myself on the side of Republican principles, I don’t think I can find myself on the side of Senator John McCain. I think that probably, once upon a time, there was a man and warrior named John McCain who would say exactly the same thing about the person the politician has become.
The reason an ad hominem argument is considered a logical fallacy is that it substitutes attacks on an opponent’s character for worthwhile disputation on the issue(s). Admittedly, in a presidential race, character is an issue. Sadly though, every attack I’ve seen thus far (in mainstream ads or chain mails) on Obama’s character has done more to turn me against the attacker than against Obama. The end result has been to make me a somewhat reluctant Obama defender. And in those instances where the attacks have come from the official McCain campaign apparatus—the ones that finish with “I’m John McCain, and I approved this message”—those have convinced me, in the end, that McCain made a conscious decision at some point that honor was a thing he could dispense with in order to win the White House.
Earlier today, I got a link to a video from a good friend. I’ve not hyperlinked the foregoing phrase because I want to qualify the video before anyone heads off to it. About the most insightful thing you’ll find on the page with the video may be this comment left by someone who had seen the video earlier: “Just one more proof that racist, idiotic ideas are not the province of one race or gender. This guy is a nutcase and his momma was a nutcase if she instilled vicious racism into her son. Sickening.” I couldn't have said it better. While certain historical facts contained in the video rant you’ll find there may be truthful, the interpretation of them, laden with prejudice, name calling, and utterly despicable inferences about the character of a woman the speaker never knew, are worse than sickening.
And, as near as I can tell, a number of the historical assertions made about specific events are true, but the conclusions one draws from those events can vary widely. I don’t recommend watching the video, but if you do, and if you’re curious to know more about the facts behind it, I would suggest going here, to a January 2007 article in the Daily Mail. The gist of that article is that most of the assertions in the more recent video are true. So? (Of course, the Daily Mail itself deserves some qualification as a source. I had thought of lamenting that journalism is not what it used to be, but then I decided, more likely, it is exactly what it has always been. See here for information on the Daily Mail, including details of more than one episode of its having been sued for running stories that were less than factual. So it goes.)
I can hear some of my friends already protesting a double standard. “How can I take McCain to task,” they ask, “for furthering falsehoods about Obama, and yet let Obama off the hook for being less than truthful about his father?” Well, how shall I answer? Like so: In the one case the falsehoods are designed to make a political opponent appear a less decent, less admirable person than he probably is, and to attribute to him actions he didn’t take and views he doesn’t hold; in the other, the falsehoods are designed to cast a family member, the teller’s own father, in a better light than he probably deserves. Can you seriously question the difference in degree of these two falsehoods? For me, they are telling.
The argument can also be made that, in some ways, the somewhat mythical construct of father that Obama has offered to the public has more relevance to his character than does his true sire with all of his human flaws. Obama appears to have had a loving mother who, for whatever temptation she may have had to give Obama the brutal truth about the man who sired him (and I’m sure there were moments when she was tempted), gave him instead an image of a father that gave us the Obama whose fate voters will decide in November. The truth is that both are relevant: the real Barack Sr. and the maternally constructed absent-but-better man each had a role to play in the creation of Barack II.
The Daily Mail article offers two good reasons to suspect this, both equally related to the roots of Obama’s ambition:
A family friend said: "He is haunted by his father's failures. He grew up thinking of his father as a brilliant intellectual and pioneer of African independence only to learn that in Western terms he was basically a drunken lecher."And the article's observation on a passage from The Audacity of Hope:
This ugly truth, say friends, has made Mr Obama ruthlessly determined to use every weapon that he has to succeed, including the glossily edited version of his father's story.
This tome contains one telling paragraph, in a section in which he fumbles to try to justify his abrupt leap into the national political arena: he is, he says, chronically 'restless'.So, bottom line, while I might be a Republican at heart, in another month, I’m likely to cast a vote for character, and I find Obama’s more admirable, in the end, than McCain’s, or, more accurately, less suspect than what McCain, whatever he may once have been, has become. Because let’s face it, American politics of late has become even more a science of what to vote against than what to vote for.
"Someone once said that every man is trying to either live up to his father's expectations or make up for his father's mistakes, and I suppose that may explain my particular malady."
It seems only fair, if I'm going to post Tina Fey's genuinely wonderful skits as Palin, to also post this video, edited for The Huffington Post, of some of Palin's own genuinely solid moments in past debates:
I think this is likely to be one of the most, if not the most, widely watched debates in American political history. It may be that there is nothing less than the election itself at stake. I don't believe the McCain/Palin ticket can win it tonight, but I think they could see it slip completely beyond their grasp if Palin doesn't redeem herself. High stakes.
Tonight's debate will no doubt either help dispel this image or seal it for good. In the meantime, enjoy:
Hat tip: Barry
