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.