Biblical Interpretation Quote of the Day
"I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I have you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it OK to call the police? Here's one that's really important because we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you?"


- fictional President of the United States Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) of "The West Wing", trying to explain to a group of reactionary religious conservatives exactly why we do not and should not live in a theocracy defined by a strict interpretation of the Bible.

Aaron Sorkin's last month on the show reminded me why I used to love it. I mean, who can beat John Goodman as Newt Gingrich?

Loose Lips
Here's the ACLU's report on all the various & sundry ways your President and his supporters have tried to squash dissent for their policies.

Artwork, BTW, is courtesy of Micah Wright's "Propaganda Remix" collection.

Getting Out of Dodge
Proof, once again, that, where there's a will, there's a way. When the Republican majority in the Texas State legislature, allegedly under marching orders from U.S. Congressman Tom Delay, decided to redraw the state's congressional districts to the GOP's advantage, in an off-year, without the benefit of a Federal Census to justify it, Texas Democrats walked out.

Of course, you need a quorum to actually hold the vote, and, while there are enough Republicans to pass the bill, there aren't enough of them for a quorum. And, assuming that the Democrats stay across the state line in Oklahoma, outside the reach of Texas State Police, the time to pass the bill will expire and the measure will die.

Checkmate.

Amazing what you can do when your back is against the wall.

"Hold The Line!"
For once, Senate Democrats have managed not to completely cave in to Right Wing demands by preventing a GOP bid to make the All Seeing Eye Powers given to the Justice Department permanent.

The Dean Effect
Howard Fineman of Newsweek tends to be one of the more thoughtful, less partisan, and less shrill of the political pundits that make the cable circuit. In many ways, I think this is why he's dead on with his analysis of Gov. Howard Dean's position in the Democratic primary.

Having said that, I also think that Bill Schneider of CNN made a contrary, yet still excellent point about the 2004 presidential election on the Charlie Rose show this week and it is this: Each election ultimately comes down to a job interview with the American public, where a given candidate has to make a case as to why they should not just hire him but, when running against an incumbent, why they should fire his opponent. Reagan was the Un-Carter. Clinton was the Un-Bush. 2000 doesn't count, in my opinion, because Bush Jr. won on a technicality. But it's not enough to be the opposite of your opponent. You have to offer something he's lacking that the public desperately wants. Reagan was gonna get those Commie bastards because Carter was too soft. Clinton was going to take care of us because Bush didn't care. The question remains: what does the country desperately want from George W. Bush that it's not getting?

One last thing: is it me, of does Howard Dean's candidate profile bear more than a passing resemblence to President Bartlett on The West Wing?

Tower of Babel
And now, a long overdue nerd moment.
Here, on Space.com, scientists debate whether mathematics could possibly be a universal language that we could use to communicate with extraterrestrial beings.

I tend to agree with Sundar Sarukkai - statistically speaking, it seems highly unlikely. Our system of mathematics is an extremely complex universe based on thousands of postulates and assumptions that we cannot guarantee others with different biological, environmental, and sociological backgrounds will share. I'm much more intrigued by the idea of what an alternate, yet equally viable math system would look like.

Evolutionary Path
This is a rather surprising article from The New Republic about the social implications to be found in comparing the movie X2 to the current versions of the X-Men comic books (New X-Men by Grant Morrison & Ultimate X-Men by Mark Millar, among my own personal favorites). In it, the author notes that "X-Men" has always been an allegory for the relationship of minority communities with the majority culture, where Xavier represents integration and Magneto represents violent separatism. But the author laments that, unlike the film, the current comics paint Magneto's POV in a much more fashionable light.

Point taken, but I think the comic writers are less interested in espousing a militant agenda and much more concerned with injecting some emotional realism to these stories. Yes, Xavier is a proponent of integration, but, after literally thousands of stories where various regular humans have tried to commit mutant genocide, some of which include several glimpses into possible future timelines where mutants are enslaved by the majority population, I think any sane man would begin to doubt the viability of peace. The problem, ultimately, with Magneto's view is that it's much easier to maintain in the face of adversity than the view of peace. Just look at the Middle East.

"Take off that uniform!"

"But on this point I differ with the President: I believe that our military forces deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, and not used as stage props to embellish a presidential speech."

- Senator Robert Byrd (D-WVa) expressing his outrage over the President's "Independence Day" photo-op last week.

Tune in next week as I continue my ongoing examination of the death of shame....

Untouchable
OK. Now I'm satisfied.

Since there clearly aren't stockpiles of anthrax-tipped Scud missiles aimed at the "Children of America"(tm) like Bush said justified razing Iraq to it's foundation, and since the Shiite majority seems to have a difference of opinion on this whole "Democratic American puppet" thing, some people in the Administration are finally coming clean as to the point of this war.

It's "Shock & Awe", but not the way you think. It's entire purpose was to let potential terrorists know that America operates by the Chicago Way, - "you pull a knife, we pull a gun. You send one of ours to the hospital, we send one of yours to the morgue".

Hey, it worked for Nixon in Vietnam and Reagan with the Soviets, right?

Dixiecrats
A Country radio DJ in Colorado got suspended and was threatened with being fired for playing the Dixie Chicks against station programming orders last week.

What strikes me as the most interesting is that, according to the article, the majority of the fans actually want them to get airplay, but it's management/business that is keeping them off the air.

Could this whole thing just be an organized smear campaign from uber-Nationalist radio bohemoth ClearChannel? After all, they were the money behind a bunch of pre-war rallies across the country back in March.

Thieves In The Temple
Turns out ancient Mesopotamian artifacts weren't the only things that grew legs and walked out of Iraq last month. In this report from the Global Security Newswire, a team from the U.S. defense department found an Iraqi nuclear facility had been looted two weeks before they'd arrived on site.

Cutting The Gordian Knot
I was amused and somewhat saddened when Michael Bloomberg became the mayor of New York City. Talk about buying an election, right?
Well, I'm recanting every negative thing I have to say about Mayor Bloomberg, because he's demonstrated that he's all about handling the business of the city.

Case in point: Bloomberg has publicly stated that the people of New York should judge his entire career on his ability to overhaul the city's failing public school system by applying business techniques and cutting out the red tape. For starters, Bloomberg has eliminated ALL of the regional school boards, making all the school principals directly accountable to him and his new School Chancellor. He's replaced the 40 different math curricula and 30 different reading curricula across the city's 1200 schools with one of each, which allows them to standardize the programs and buy textbooks for the entire city at bulk rates. And he's fired over a thousand people.

What stones.

I'm impressed. I just hope it works.

As a side note, I can't help but notice some similarities in tactics between Bloomberg and President Bush. I suppose I'd be willing to cut Bush some more slack if he applied said tactics for policies I agreed with. But I digress.

"Step One - Assign Blame"
Proving once again that the GOP can't even win gracefully, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says that if Colin Powell & the State Department hadn't screwed up so bad diplomatically, we wouldn't even needed to go to war in the first place.

Gingrich, who's been sitting behind the curtain as part of a Pentagon advisory board, has clearly never heard that you can't blame the messengers. State can only do so much when the White House tells them to sell lemons.

"Which way did he go? Which way did he go?"
Not only has the American coalition not found any substantive storage of WMDs in Iraq, flying in the face of that whole "imminent danger" thing Bush talked about, BUT, as this Washington Post article suggests, even if there were any, the way we mishandled security in Baghdad may have actually helped put them into the hands of terrorists. The words "strategic looting" should concern alot of people.

Go See "Better Luck Tomorrow", now in limited release
The two guys in the picture above are cousins. Best friends. High school honors students, bound for the Ivy League School of their choice. Model examples of the "Model Minority".
They also happen to be members of the most feared group of cheats, thieves, drug dealers, and all around thugs in the most lilly-white Orange County suburb you can possibly imagine. Proving the motto that, if you get good grades, you can literally get away with murder.

This is the set up for "Better Luck Tomorrow", a small indie film directed by relative newcomer Justin Line that is, simply, the best film I've seen so far this year. What's even more surprising is that this is a co-production of MTV Films, which may have finally graduated from the sugarcoated simplicity of "Save The Last Dance" and "Varsity Blues" to finally show the first, true teen drama I've seen in a very long time. It's in limited release, so check the website and see if it's in your town. Catch it before it flies away. It gets my strongest possible recommendation.

Ex-Presidential Quote of the Day

"You cannot kill, jail or occupy all your adversaries, sooner or later you have to make a deal."

- Fomer President Clinton, giving his feelings on the current administration's foreign policy.

I guess Bubba's stood all he can stand. See what else is on his mind.

"Bush Doctrine In Practice" Quote of the Day

"We have a much better case to go for pre-emptive action against Pakistan than the United States has in Iraq."

- Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha, who seems eager to follow the example set by the United States, but with no such compunctions as a concern for Pakistani civilians.

Thank you for what you've wrought, Mr. President.

Truly Patriotic Quote of the Day

"In this time when a citizenry applauds the liberation of a country as it lives in fear of its own freedom, when an administration official releases an attack ad questioning the patriotism of a legless Vietnam veteran running for Congress, when people all over the country fear reprisal if they use their right to free speech, it is time to get angry. It is time to get fierce."

- Tim Robbins, from a speech he gave at the National Press Club after the Baseball Hall of Fame cancelled a celebration for the 15th anniversary of "Bull Durham" because of the anti-war stance taken by Robbins and his wife/co-star, Susan Sarandon.

Next In Line
Of course the U.S. Army didn't have enough guys to stop looters from robbing Bagdad of 7000 years worth of historical artifacts. While no one else was looking, they were far to busy bombing the shit out of the armed militia formed to oppose the current Iranian dictatorship, who'd taken refuge in Eastern Iraq.

Now, if the leaders of Iran are truly part of the Axis of Evil, why would the U.S. take out their strongest opposition? Some speculate that it was a pay-off to keep Iran out of our invasion of Iraq.

Didn't we learn our lesson from Iran-Contra about backdoor deals with these people?

Insider Trading
Why are the vast majority of the government contracts to rebuild a country we just destroyed without provocation being given away to companies with ties to the Bush administration without going to a public, open bid that might, at least, shield the American taxpayer from paying $30 for toothbrushes? A bunch of U.S. senators want to know, too, which is why they've introduced the "Sunshine in Iraq Reconstruction Contracting Act of 2003".

And people wonder why the world is suspicious of Bush's motives? What are they hiding? Isn't their cause righteous?

The Phantom Menace
The man pictured above is Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States of America. And his relevance in these proceedings will become apparent if you read it to the end.

According to this essay from The American Prospect, there are competing political traditions in the American body politic. One that is progressive, inclusive, welcoming, expansive, & supportive. The other that is provincial, exclusive, and, above all else, ambitious. Consider the notion of Manifest Destiny.

Favorite Quote: "In an administration determined to free American power from all constraint and business power from most regulation, Cheney's particular contribution has been to keep power as unchecked -- and often as unseen -- as possible."

Bulletproof
Just saw this recently on Bill Moyer's PBS show, called, oddly enough, "NOW".

So, let's see if you can keep up:
* Robert Ricker, a former lobbyist for the gun manufacturing industry, recently jumps ship and files an affidavit against his former employers in a pair of lawsuits, one brought by the NAACP, that would hold gun manufacturers libel for injuries caused in crimes committed with their guns. Ricker points out that the AFT compiles statistics on an annual basis on what percentage of guns from a given distributor are used in the commission of a crime. More often than not, trends in the data compiled by the ATF can show that the guns from very specific distributors have an abnormally high probability of being used in a crime, which probably means that said distributors are essentially legalized gun runners and should be prosecuted as such. However, the ATF is far to overstaffed to prosecute (it would be like prosecuting every liquor store that sells to minors) and has asked the gun industry to help police itself. The ATF report that outlines all this can be obtained for the nominal fee of $50. The gun makers contend that there is no way for them to determine which dealers are selling to criminals. Coincidentally, the dealers in question can comprise up to 20% of the gun industry's annual revenue. The lawsuits move forward.

* The House of Representatives passes a bill (H.R. 1036 - dubbed "The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act") that will limit the amount of money someone can get out of a gun manufacturer when they sue them after someone is hurt in a crime committed with one of their guns on April 9th of this year. It's now being considered by the Senate.

* Under the Homeland Security Act, the ATF is moved under the jurisdiction of the Justice Department, headed by Attorney General and all-around NRA buddy, John Ashcroft.

* When approached by Bill Moyers to comment on the Rickers affidavit, the ATF & the Justice Department declined.

* Under orders from Attorney General Ashcroft, the ATF no longer makes it's gun sales statistics available to the public.

Bill Moyer's show has really effectively used the web, offering every conceivable link in this story to additional info. Check it out.

Reaping The Whirlwind
Smarty-pants conservatives have totally missed the point of those who, like me, continue to oppose the war in Iraq, despite it's apparent successes. Sure, the Iraqis deserve to be free, just like the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the Chinese, the Palestinians, and every other group of people living under totalitarian conditions. Sure, the Baath Party should be bereft of WMDs, just like the North Koreans. But to choose to achieve both of those aims, without the support of the international community, removes the umbrella of international law and reintroduces social Darwinism on geopolitical levels, where might makes right. If you assume you're the mightiest, it's all gouda. But, for the countries who's very existence depends on the threat of global reprisals, like Taiwan, or South Korea, or Pakistan, or any number of African states, President Bush's actions have signalled to their potential oppressors that it's OK to do what they want as long as they don't get in the big American dog's way. He's effectively rolled international diplomacy back one to two hundred years, to the ages of, depending on your favorite metaphor, Kaiser Wilhelm or Napoleon, where entire nations just took what they wanted without any framework to deter them from agression as a legitimate means of conflict resolution. And, unlike the days of 1800's warfare, the technology has advanced to the point where it's no longer necessary for each of our guys to individually stab or shoot each of their guys to have war. Mass murder is now an industrialized process, capable of generating corpses with an efficiency that would make Henry Ford proud and shamed in one single posthumus breath. If they were truly interested in preventing the distribution of WMDs to terrorists, there were proposals on the table at the UN that could have backed measured inspections over time with military force. But the White House never wanted just disarmament, so of course they hampered more effective efforts at every turn, while declaring Iraq an imminent threat to America with 10 year old evidence that predates the work of previous UN inspectors. And, since liberating the Iraqi people also seems to be just a secondary justification to support the predetermined goal of open warfare, I'm left wondering what was the point of dragging humanity back into this retro-fitted, definitively more dangerous world.

But, according to this article from the Washington Monthly, apparently I've missed the point as well. The more dangerous world was not the means, but the end itself.

Don't fall asleep just because the Marines are chilling in Bagdad. Those boys aren't coming home for a long time if this article is right.

"No, I'm not a dictator. HE'S a dictator!!!"
This is beautiful.
In the ultimate, geopolitical example of the pot calling the kettle black, the Chinese government has issued a report rating the human rights record of the United States. Needless to say, it's a litany of every societal ill in this country, from overcrowded prisons to the preponderance of sexual assault to the proliferation of gun violence.
I love how George W. Bush has managed to bring out the "inner cowboy" in all the rest of the world's heads of state. The new Chinese president, Hu Jintao, might actually start thinking he's running a superpower.

Fight Night
Amiri Baraka.
On "The O'Reilly Factor."
I think this transcript speaks for itself.

Military Strategy Quote of the Day

"The highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans. The next best option, he continues, "is to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces. The next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field. And the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities. The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided."

- Sun Tzu, from "The Art of War"

Consider this article from the L.A. Times on the history of sieges on cities as The Coalition of the Willing begins to encircle Bagdad. It's not pretty, and not for the reasons you might expect.

Battle Hymn
According to the Austrialian Broadcast Company's news wire, an evangelical Christian organization, In Touch Ministries, has been distributing pamphlets to U.S. Marines in Iraq. The pamphlet contains instructions on how to pray for George W. Bush, and a tear-off response card that they can mail to the White House to indicate that they have been appealing to the Almighty on behalf of their commander-in-chief.
My first question, which the Aussies don't answer, is this: HOW are these things getting to the Marines on the battlefield, and who is responsible?
But, barring that, as both a Christian and a baby libertarian, I'm always very troubled by the people who want to associate religious significance to military actions. On the surface, it would seem as comical as the Holy Hand Gernade of Monty Python fame, but, it runs dangerously close to becoming the New Millenium Crusades. Then again, it's not like anyone ever needed an excuse to unleash the dogs of war. Consider Rage Against The Machine's "Killing In The Name Of": George Bush actually has large chunks of the American people deluded into believing that our forces are killing to preserve peace.

Space Supremacy
This post combines a recurring Macroscope themes of "interstellar kewlness" and "fear of your shady government", all in one fell swoop.

Here's a very interesting article from Space.com about the plans of DARPA, the United States' Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and their mandate from Donald Rumsfeld to help extend America's air superiority up about several thousand kilometers into low Earth orbit. They're working on everything from long distance energy transmission for both industrial and offensive military purposes to drone starfighters to defend orbiting satellites.

Wisdom from the Peanut Gallery
I was patrolling Robert Ebert's section of the Chicago Sun-Times site, trying to find what in his background could have warped his sense of humor so much that he only gave Beverly Hills Cop II a single star. Imagine my surprise when I found this little essay, in which Ebert pinpoints the greatest danger to America in G.W. Bush's war strategy: Bush is thoroughly convinced that God saved his soul to do the good work of re-making Iraq into a democratic state, and that any kind of withdrawal from that course would be a sin.

Can you imagine a scenario where the war has gone badly (e.g. high U.S. casualties with no indication of an end to hostilities, plus escalating retaliatory terrorist strikes on American soil), where the country has stopped supporting the invasion, but the President refuses to heed the word of the people he says he's sworn to protect?

I can.

And it's not pretty. For anyone.

New World Water: The Sequel
According to the most optimistic estimates, 1 out of every 4 people on this planet will not have access to usable drinking water within the next 40-50 years if current trends of contamination & draconian industrialization are not reversed. With that in mind, the United Nations has declared 2003 as the International Year of Freshwater to raise awareness of the looming crisis. You see what people are willing to do over the possibility of an oil shortage. Can you imagine the blood that will be shed if the United States is forced to start rationing out water?

Impeachment: The Next Generation
You know, if I was prone to conspiracy theories, I might suspect that there might be more than a glitch involved when the ONLY post missing from my archive just happens to be the one suggesting an American regime change. But, I'm certain it's just an unfortunate mishap and that Blogger would NEVER stoop to censoring one of it's users.

So, for you're viewing pleasure, here is the whole post from March 7, reprinted for your amusement......

Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark thinks he has enough of a case to impeach Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, AND Ashcroft.

Clark also claims to have turned water into wine in his spare time.

Of course, if the Republicans can try to undue a presidential election over a blow job, then I think "instigating World War III" could conceivably fall into the category of high crimes & misdemeanors. "What's good for the goose", etc. etc. It at least warrants a little thought.

Angry White Men
So, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore is, if nothing else, confrontational. But, in today's climate, where dissent is equated with treason in the eyes of more than a few, his ability to raise a voice in opposition to this 2nd Gulf War on one of the world's biggest stages is definitely appreciated by yours truly. Here, in an op-ed piece he wrote for the L.A. Times a few days after he was booed off the Oscar stage, Moore starts out by letting us know that his own religious faith is the beginning of his outrage. Is he grandstanding? Probably. But at least he's talking.

Incidentally, Variety has indicated that Moore's next film, "Farenheit 911", will be an expose on the relationship between two powerful, aristocratic families:

The Bushes and the Bin Ladens.

Here's hoping more doesn't find himself in a freak plane accident before it's finished.

Calm Like A Bomb
Yes, Tom Morella is a musical genius with the electric guitar, but we all know who was the REAL heart and soul of Rage Against The Machine. And, while Chris Cornell & Audioslave are a heck of alot of fun, in the end, they're just dancing around the issues like so many angels tiptoeing on the head of a pin.

By contrast, Zack De La Rocha busts out a pair of steel-toed combat boots, stomps a mudhole in the issue, walks it dry, then spits on it to make it mud again before stomping some more.

Favorite Zack lyric from favorite Rage song "Ashes In The Fall":

A mass of promises
Begin to rupture
Like the pockets
Of the new world kings
Like swollen stomachs
In Appalachia
It's the priests that fuck you
As they whisper holy things


Of course, Zack is probably too mad at the world to actually take the time to finish a solo album (rumors of collaborations with Trent Reznor abound). In the meantime, he and D.J. Shadow have ALOT to say about Gulf War II on this solo track, "March of Death".

Paranoia
Courtland Milloy, an African-American columnist for the Washington Post, was milling around the Jefferson Memorial and asked some Park Service folks about some contraption stuck onto the monument. Within minutes, he was surrounded by 10 cops, demanding to see his identification. Read for more details on how quickly you can become a suspect these days.....

Sadly Ironic Quote of the Day

"The missiles are flying, gentleman. Hallelujah. Hallelujah."


-Nero-like future President of the United States Greg Stillson (played by uber-peacenik Martin Sheen) as he launches a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union in "The Dead Zone", based on the book by Stephen King, now a weekly TV series on the USA Network.

Shock and Awe
blitz·krieg ( P ) Pronunciation Key (bltskrg)
n.
A swift, sudden military offensive, usually by combined air and mobile land forces.

[German : Blitz, lightning (from Middle High German blitze, from bliczen, to flash, from Old High German blekkazzen. See bhel-1 in Indo-European Roots) + Krieg, war (from Middle High German kriec, from Old High German krg, stubbornness. See gwer-1 in Indo-European Roots).]

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

This essay from Common Dreams, which draws some unnerving parallels between pre-Nazi Germany and modern America may seem exploitative on the surface. But the point is clear: wars of agression are always cloaked in the veil of imminent national security.

Hearst Would Be Proud
According to this report on Common Dreams, a progessive news outlet, the recent pro-war rallies around the country have all been organized by Clear Channel, the massive radio conglomerate. Doesn't this get dangerously close to manufacturing news?

Into the Darkness
Now that the die are cast, here's an editorial from Truthout.com, on just how bad things might get.

Remember, conservatives: this is what you wanted. Enjoy it.

Hurts So Bad
I'm a child of the '80's, so he'll always be John "Cougar" Mellencamp to me. But he, like The Boss, The Besties, & The Material Girl, has thrown his artistic talents into the anti-war soundtrack. Check out his latest, "To Washington". During his last concert tour, he'd taken to projecting the following words from Albert Einstein behind the band:

"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war."

Collateral Damage
While I was passing time today, someone on Micah Wright's forum reminded me of "Johnny Got His Gun", which, right now, ought to be required reading for anyone who is even thinking about joining the army and serving his country. Micah Wright, incidentally, is the guy who writes "Stormwatch: Team Achilles", the comic book about a team of United Nations peacekeepers specifically designed to thwart superhuman violence around the world. Great stuff.

Anyway, Johnny Got His Gun is about a kid named Joe who's recruited to join the U.S. Army during the 1st World War. He gets hit by a mortar and, as a result, loses both arms, both legs, both ears, both eyes, his nose, and his mouth as far back as his neck in the explosion, but does not die. He doesn't have identification so, instead of being sent home, he's kept alive in a military hospital in France up until the 2nd World War. Needless to say, he can't talk. He has no way to speak to the outside world except by nodding his head in Morse code, and he can only receive messages from the outside world when people trace letters on his chest. Needless to say, he only learns this over the course of years, where he winks in and out of consciousness and sanity, remembering his past life, his dream life, the life he could have had, and how he ended up in this place ("serving his country"). In the end, he asks the generals who finally figure out who he is 30 years later to please kill him as a mercy. They reject that idea, keeping him on life support and restricting access to him so that none of the nurses who treat him ever communicate with him. It ends with him nodding his head, over and over again "S.O.S......S.O.S........S.O.S........"

It's written by Dalton Trumbo, who was, I believe, blacklisted from Hollywood during the HUAC hearings for being a communist. I saw the movie about 4 years ago and it really left a mark on me. Metallica has a song called "One" which is inspired by the movie and actually contains clips from the film in the video. It's also EXTREMELY heavy. The song ends with these verses:

Darkness Imprisoning me
All that I see
Absolute horror
I cannot live
I cannot die
Trapped in myself
Body my holding cell

Landmine Has taken my sight
Taken my speech
Taken my hearing
Taken my arms
Taken my legs
Taken my soul
Left me with a life in Hell


Anyway, it's a great, dark song. I started reading the book years ago and I had to stop. It put me right there inside what was left of that man's body. It was too much. Too horrifying.

Like I said: Should be REQUIRED high school reading.

Now, this is not to say that no one should join the Armed Forces. Clearly, these are the people that help create a world where people like me can criticize leaders who senselessly waste the sacrifices they're willing to make. And we are all eternally in their debt.

But, by the same token, EVERYONE should understand what, at a very human level, "going to war" really means. It's not just the coolness of smart bombs and stealth fighters. It's broken bones. Shattered bodies. Torn flesh. Eternally shattered lives.

And lots and lots of blood.

My point is, clearly there are things worth losing a leg or your capacity for speech over. But "freedom" and "liberty" have become such overused terms that they've almost lost meaning in the public discourse, especially when they're used to justify atrocities that fly directly in the face of their meaning. This entire country is so collectively distanced from the juicy side of war that it's almost anticeptic for everyone except the poor bastards on the "tip of the spear". We're only a few steps away from Eminiar VII in the Star Trek episode "A Taste of Armaggedon", where they let computers do the fighting and the people who are selected as casualties just step into a disintegration chamber so they can be neatly filed away as a confirmed kill. Without the horror of war, we have no incentive against war.

After all, why do you think the French and the Germans are so opposed to this war? Yes, the British suffered under the Blitzkrieg, but being bombed is a far cry from having you entire country overrun and enslaved, or, in the case of German towns like Dresden, completely reduced to a pile of cinders. Horror is a palpable, vivid, living memory in the minds of "Old Europe". We should learn from them rather than scorn them for not being as "bold" as we are. After all, "fools rush in...."

Blackout
On the anniversary of Dr. King's murder, this group is hoping to organize African-Americans to stage a mass work stoppage in protest of the war.

Not a bad idea. And maybe we shouldn't limit it to Black people.

Remember this guy?

In his own words, he sees the acquisition of a nuclear weapon as a religious obligation, to inflict a "Hiroshima" on the United States.

According to this essay from The Nautilus Institute, had The U.S. not overthrown the Taliban and scattered Al Qaeda to the four winds, they would probably have a nuclear weapon by now. Of course, they would have had help from some very naughty nuclear scientists from Pakistan and from Islamic extremists in former Soviet republics that still house nuclear material.

Still at large.
Still looking for nukes.

Now, remind me again why Iraq is the most dangerous threat to American security?

Fall Down. Go "Boom".
Three years ago, while Time Warner stock was still flying high, Ted Turner was, for reasons known only to himself, very concerned about the global insecurity of the world's stockpiles of weapons grade nuclear material and the fact that the government didn't seem to be doing enough about it. So, being the egregiously rich guy that he is, with access to just about anybody, he sat down with former Senator Sam Nunn and, beginning with money from his own pocket, founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative, an independent organization dedicated to helping to contain the threat through lobbying, policy papers, and financing non-proliferation efforts around the world.

Proof, yet again, that there are more ways to contribute than we usually think.

The NTI just published a report that basically says shooting up Iraq & North Korea are barely the tip of the nuke iceberg and that there are literally dozens of sights around the world where decommissioned, yet active, nukes exist that aren't accurately secured because, for instance, it's cold and the guards don't have properly snug uniforms. And if these guys can figure this out, you can bet Al Qaeda did a long time ago.

This editorial from today's New York Times tries to find a reason why the government isn't doing anymore about this. One factor: there is no large industrial concern that stands to make money from cleaning up old nukes.

Another factor: the idea of a nuke going off in an American city is just too horrible for most people in power to even want to think about, let alone discuss in a concrete fashion.

Voice of Reason, Part Deux
In typical, Clinton-esque fashion, Bubba suggests a third way, that straddles the need to disarm Iraq and the desire to avoid a pre-emptive and divisive war, following the guidelines set down by the British. When G.W. Bush says he's a uniter, not a divider, he should take some lessons from the master first...

Fight For Your Right
The Beastie Boys are offering a brand, spanking new, anti-war song on their website, called "In A World Gone Mad". Proof, yet again, that there is such a thing as "conscious rap". Airplay, of course, is another matter.

The Voice of Reason
Our 39th President tries to talk some sense to our 43rd in this NY Times Op-Ed piece. Of course, Mr. Carter only hints at, what I think, is the most compelling reason why the Bush doctrine of pre-emption is a bad idea: Invading a sovereign nation without direct provokation is a war crime. What's to stop India from preemptively dropping a nuke because they're afraid of Pakistan? What's to stop North Korea from preemptively dropping a nuke (because they almost have one) on the United States for fear of being next on the "Axis of Evil" hit list?