Friday, April 17, 2009

Sarah Palin's excellent adventure on speed.

The lawyer who vetted Sarah Palin spoke out at the National Press Club today. I think most of what he said is bullshit. But a couple of revelations are interesting. First, apparently campaign spokespeople seemed caught off-guard when asked about Bristol's pregnancy because they really were caught off-guard.

But far more intriguing (and scary) are the three questions that the McCain campaign thought ultimately determine a person's capacity to serve as Vice President:
* Why do you want to be vice president?
* Are you prepared to use Nuclear [sic] weapons in the defense of the homeland?
* Osama bin Laden is identified in the FATA, the CIA is ready to take a shot, but if they take a shot there will be multiple civilian causalities, will you take the shot?
Homeland? For real?

And, I don't know about anyone else, but when I read that third question I hear it in Dennis Hopper's voice (who of course adds a "hotshot" at the end). And I keep expecting Keanu Reeves to say "Shoot the hostage."

Excellent.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Today's Awesome Quote of the Day (and no, these aren't the only things I'm posting from now on)

Jason Linkins at Huff Post:
During an appearance on Your World with Neil Cavuto yesterday, [RNC Chair] Michael Steele told the host that he was "open to" punishing Senators Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Specter for their votes on the stimulus package, by withholding RNC monies for their re-election bids. He then said he was "open to everything, baby," because that's his bold schtick: inserting the word "baby" into everything.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Awesome Quote of the Day

Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana (on Gov. Sarah Palin dropping out of an energy policy talk she was supposed to co-lead):
"I don't know where she's going to be. You'll be stuck with me. There will be no glamour, certainly no snappy dressing. I brought my best two pairs of jeans. There's a little bit of a horse shit stain by the knee. But I've been washing that stuff out."

Monday, February 16, 2009

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Closing Guantanamo.

This article by Dahlia Lithwick at Slate does important work in cutting through the bullshit enveloping the Guantanamo debate, and re-focusing the public on the facts.

Her main point:
"[W]hether we are looking to answer questions about where to repatriate the last Guantanamo detainees, where to hold them until we try them, or how to try them, let's attempt to get past the undifferentiated orange jumpsuits, which tell us what they have always told us: virtually nothing at all."
The money quote for me, though, is:
We also know that among the remaining prisoners at Guantanamo there are several who clearly come under the definition of child soldiers, including Canadian Omar Khadr, who allegedly threw a grenade at an American soldier and was first taken to Guantanamo when he was 15. Khadr, we learned this week, allegedly identified, under abusive interrogation, another Canadian, Maher Arar, as a visitor to an al-Qaida safe house in Afghanistan. The problem here is that there is no dispute that Arar was in Canada at the time. Mohammed Jawad is another prisoner at Gitmo, and like Khadr he was also a child soldier (between 15 and 17; his birth date is unknown) when he threw a grenade and injured U.S. soldiers. As Glenn Greenwald chronicles here, Jawad allegedly suffered such brutal abuse and torture, his chief prosecutor resigned and is now a witness for Jawad in his habeas corpus proceeding. As Greenwald writes, the centerpiece of the government case against Jawad is a confession he " 'signed' (with his fingerprint, since he can't write his name) … and yet, it was written in a language Jawad did not speak or read and was given to him after several days of beatings, druggings, and threats—all while he was likely 15 or 16 years old."

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Amen.

I'll admit it: Alone in my room, watching on tv, I found myself mouthing the word when he called for it.

The Reverend Lowery may not have stolen the show (don't think that was possible), but he sure brought it home. I'm not with his lord, but I'm sure with his message. Let's have at it, people. Yes we can.



(See here for a transcript. But please ignore the comments at the bottom of the page.)

Monday, January 19, 2009

On this new morning, new morning...

I can't wait to go to sleep...so I can wake up tomorrow morning.

It feels like Christmas Eve.

If I were 5.

And.

You know.

Cared about Christmas a lot.




And for your musical enjoyment, some under-rated Dylan:

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

[MUSIC] Honky Tonk blues.

My current music obsession:



(And yeah, if you think you recognize it, the song played at the end of an episode of House.)

Thursday, January 01, 2009

[UPDATED] The Children of Hamas.

Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God say, "No." Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin' you better run"
Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61."

This was the lead in a story I came across this morning:
Israel dropped a one-ton bomb on the home of a Hamas strongman Thursday, killing him along with two [actually, 4] wives and four [actually 9] children in the first attack on the top leadership of Gaza's rulers.
Really hard to read. Euphemisms are a wonderful thing, and "collateral damage" is a great one, but the wrenching specificity of assassinating a leader in such a way that you take 9 of his children with him is terrible to contemplate. And I am so certain it must be condemned.

And then I read further in the same article, and I learned:
[The assassinated Hamas leader] was closely tied to Hamas' military wing and was respected in Gaza for donning combat fatigues and personally participating in clashes against Israeli forces. He sent one of his sons on an October 2001 suicide mission that killed two Israeli settlers in Gaza.
And in a world where that is possible, the need for euphemisms (not just "collateral damage," but "suicide mission," "settlers," and especially "sent") starts to overwhelm. Starts to seem like the rules I live by (consciously recognized or not) are...well...quaint.

Starts to. But then: I just cannot believe that son would have killed himself to murder others without the encouragement of his father (understood broadly). I don't like writing children off as delinquents, much less as terrorists. And so I'm left struggling to find the rationalization for their innocent deaths.

In various philosophy courses, I've always been troubled by the doctrine of double effect -- that is, essentially, judging an act not based on the results of the act but based on the intent (on "the risk posed," as Alan Dershowitz argues in today's WSJ). My tendencies toward consequentialist ethics rearing up, I suppose. I closed a poem once: "the doctrine of double effect is/ no venial sin, it is/ an abattoir of lifetimes." I still believe that -- despite my sympathies for its various expediencies. The lack of particular intent to murder the 9 children (in exchange for 1 Hamas leader) just isn't enough.

I am generous with abstract sympathy -- I feel it, at various times, for all sides in this interminable conflict. I suppose, in the end, all I'm saying is that I find the strategic choice Israel made in this instance to be deeply awful and readily condemnable -- as is, I understand, the fact that it was faced with such a choice. But, here, I think, the decision was worse than the choice (if language holds up that far).

Fittingly, I'm not sure how to end this post. So bookends will have to suffice:

Now the rovin' gambler he was very bored
He was tryin' to create a next world war
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor
He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before
But yes I think it can be very easily done
We'll just put some bleachers out in the sun
And have it on Highway 61.

[UPDATE: Apparently, the final death toll was 4 wives and 9 of 12 children. I've changed the numbers throughout.]

[NOTE: Various other updates/changes were made throughout since the original posting, and are not marked.]