Sometimes my liberal friends manage to really pick up the wrong end of the stick. So I got this link sent to me, along with the following comments from MoveOn:

"[...]if you're as amazed, saddened, and angered as we are—pass it on to a friend, neighbor, or co-worker and help make sure people all over the country see it."

Who's amazed or angered?

This was the reply from Bush I when questions were asked why it seemed that we were encouraging the Kurds and Shiites to rebel against Sadam but didn't provide any material support when it came to the smackdown. You may remember stories of Iraqi government helicopters strafing Shiite villages and of Kurds fleeing into the highlands on the Turkish side of the border where they froze and starved. Did we abandon our allies in Iraq?

Under Bush I the answer was that it was not expedient to do more, so we didn't do more.

Under Bush II things had changed a little. We'd looked at eight years of Iraq bashing, with the people of Iraq really getting the worst of it, and regime change didn't look likely, and then there was 9/11. We already had a military operation under way in Afghanistan, so...

I'm not saying that Cheney was wrong both times or right both times or right one time and wrong the other or changed his mind or lied or anything of the sort. I'm just pointing out that comparing the situation in 1992 with the situation in 2002 as if the two situations were identical is not smart.

The present facts of course seem to say that this administration was wrong in invading Iraq. I'm thinking that it was not just wrong in hind sight, but also wrong ahead of time. Not because Cheney was right in 1992, but because there were many other reasons besides those he gave not to go to war. Reasons which were ignored (or considered less significant than reasons to go to war) not just by this administration, but by 90% or so of congress, and perhaps even more of this country's population.

So this "saddened and angered" stuff kind of leaves me cold. Liberals are, of course, just as bad as conservatives. Both ends of the spectrum seem to love the easy stabs at the opposition, even when they completely miss the point.

I think pretty soon we'll hear about a naked exhibitionist standing on the steps of town hall and screaming at people not to look because she wants her privacy.

Seriously, it's gotten that silly.

On the one hand we have people lining up to appear on camera as they eat, sleep, and fight with each other, and are generally obnoxious and unlovable. They take their disputes to court TV, and if they happen to make an appearance on COPS, hey, what price fame, right?

On the flip side there's the latest hurrah over Google's Streetview.

The folks at Google simply drove a van around a few selected cities. The van carried a special camera that took panoramic pictures every few feet along the road. These pictures are now available on Google Maps, where you can see what the city looks like at street level.

The camera was never aimed. The van wasn't driven to selected spots. But, out of thousands of pictures, there are a few interesting ones - for certain values of interesting.

• A man apparently trying to climb over a locked gate.
• A number of bikini clad women sunbathing.
• Someone getting a ticket.
• A woman whose thong is showing.

The resultant uproar in some parts of opinion land has been deafening. "Invasion of privacy." "Creepy!" "Spooky!"

You'll forgive me when I say that we're all losing our minds.

I want that van cruising my home town. I want everyone's browsers to be able to access all street light cameras and security cameras around the city, any time they feel like looking. No, I don't mind if the cameras watch me, too.

I'll be sure to smile and wave.

We aren't talking about an Orwellian police state. Google doesn't carry their cameras into peoples' homes. Google doesn't punish you when you attempt to evade their surveillance. Google doesn't use their pictures to force us to obey the people in power.

If anything, Google must make the people in power distinctly uncomfortable. I wouldn't be at all surprised if DHS dispatched some of their Gestapo to Google headquarters to demand that Streetview be dismantled. They'll demand it in the name of security, of course.

We should all remember that information is an enemy of tyranny. Instead of trying to suppress information, we should applaud the people who provide it.

OK, anyone who reads my posts knows that I despise the current administration's scare tactics and their fascist methods. Now I read this:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's internal network security practices are a mess, according to a report by the General Accountability Office. In a report released on Thursday, the GAO said "certain information security controls over the critical internal network reviewed were ineffective..." (GAO: FBI needs a lesson in network security)

See, this is what I'm talking about. These guys don't really mean it. They tell us to be scared, but they aren't scared. They tell us it's a dangerous world, but they don't protect themselves. They subject us to history's single largest bureaucracy and all of the excesses and outrages that go along with that, but they themselves ignore it all.

It's pretty clear. When you're told the barking sound from the basement is a dog, but you find no evidence of dog food or leash or even so much as a turd on the lawn, then you're probably listening to a foley artist.

As David Horowitz will tell you, Republicans have a big tent, big enough to fit many different ideas. He tells you that to contrast his party with the Democrats. The Democrats do not have a big tent, says David.

Well, I like big tents.

Which is why, when Republicans in Utah required voters to be registered with their party to vote in the Republican primaries I promptly registered. Those close minded Democrats didn't require registration, so I didn't bother with them.

Ever since then I've been getting lot's of love from my friends in the GOP. I get to write editorials that start with "as a registered Republican", and people pay attention. I get Republican newsletters and even Republican spam!

So today I received the annual survey from the Republican National Committee. It is full of opportunities to express my opinion on important GOP matters:

1. If Democrats try to gut the USA Patriot Act...

   Pen in hand I got ready to mark Yes, but then I read the rest of the question:

   ...and other important laws that promote the safety and security of all Americans, should Republicans in Congress fight back?

   Um. Wait. The Patriot Act is that bit of fascist legislation that no one actually read when it was first passed, right? Those of us fighting to retain our freedom from intrusive government were pretty upset about it. So that's bad. We voted out some of those who supported that law, in part because of that support. But what's that about "other important laws"? The Democrats are trying to gut other important laws? Which ones? This is the first time I've heard of that.

   So, no, Republicans shouldn't fight back. They should get behind that effort and push. Aren't we for freedom, and against oppressive government? I know the tent is big enough for a little freedom, at least.

2. Should we stop the Democrats from cutting funding for our intelligence agencies...

   No, that doesn't sound good at all. We need well funded intelligence agencies, otherwise we'll have more disasters like Iraq and Korea. But wait, there's more:

   ...or bringing back Clinton-era restrictions in inter-agency communications?

   It's a funny thing about that Clinton era. It seems to go back about 35 years. I never knew he was in office that long. But I do know why we had those restrictions. One word: Nixon. No, he didn't impose them, but his abuses required them. You know, politically motivated fishing expeditions, targeted IRS audits, warrant less wiretaps. That sort of thing.

   Not that anyone has tried warrant less wiretaps or politically motivated fishing expeditions since then. Right?

   Mind you, the CIA, NSA, and FBI should probably share information where appropriate. Why they're still not doing it, almost 6 years after 9/11, is a mystery, especially since my Big Tent party has been in power all that time, and even created the single largest government bureaucracy ever in the history of the world to do the job.

   OK, one more.

3. Do you support the use of air strikes against any country that offers safe harbor or aid to individuals or organizations committed to further attacks on America?

   Um. No?

   I mean, that sounds like a great idea, except that, you know, we won't be hitting the individuals or organizations who don't like us. Instead we'd be giving them even more reason not to like us, and giving a considerable boost to their recruiting.

   "Look at America," they'll say. "They kill women and children because they happen to be Muslim." Because, you know, it's Muslim countries we're talking about. Not to put too fine a point on it, we're talking about Iran. Anyway, if we do, then people will flock to their cause.

   So. No.

The survey is 23 question long, all along about the same lines. Whoever wrote it was pretty sure of his opinion, and figured no one in the Big Tent could possibly disagree with him. We all see where that lead over the past seven years.

Anyway, I filled it out and sent it in. I'm glad the Big Tent includes me. Otherwise who would set them straight?

When you've put yourself into a bad situation, is it proper to blame someone else for your errors?

Because that's what I think is going on in Congress these days. Because of the way the '06 elections turned out everyone is convinced that they've got to stand up against the war in Iraq.

Even the folks who originally voted for the war.

Hillary Clinton tells everyone who asks that the president lied to us, and that's why she voted for the war.

Well, maybe.

But exactly what would have been different if the president hadn't lied to us?

Wouldn't we still be stuck in Iraq, WMDs safely found and neutralized (if we were lucky), but bedeviled by a culture and a conflict that our leadership seems incapable of understanding, with thousands of our kids in coffins, tens of thousands wearing plastic arms and legs, and who knows how many Iraqis dead or maimed?

From where I'm standing it makes no difference at all. You voted for war, dammit! War isn't a nice, safe prescription for solving problems. If you didn't know that back in 2002, that's not the president's fault. If it's an intelligence failure, its the intelligence of people who were entrusted to make these kinds of decisions which failed. If it was the result of delusion or wishful thinking, it didn't originate in the White House, but in the minds of hundreds of Representatives and Senators most of whom never even served a day in the military, and the vast majority of whom do not have any close family members in harm's way.

Everyone who voted for the war bears full, entire responsibility for all of the misery that has resulted from it, and all of the misery that is sure to result from it in the future.

It's time they started admitting it, starting with, if you please, presidential candidate and Senator from New York Hillary Clinton.

Why are we stuck in this politically correct hole? Do people really believe that the sons and daughters of our privileged citizens are seriously considering the military for a career choice? Especially at this time?

Because they aren't.

You don't need a college degree to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan. I know, because my son has already spent a year there. He joined the National Guard to help pay for college. Most of the kids dying or getting maimed over there are in the same boat.

This politically correct bullshit, trying to suggest that they are all highly educated people serving out of sheer patriotism, or because they actually think getting shot at for Burger King wages is a good career path, that's truly stupid.

Yes, I think Kerry really said that: If you don't get an education, then the only job you'll be able to find is signing up with one of those recruiters who are desperately trying to fill their monthly quotas. I also think Kerry is wrong in trying to correct what he said. I've never liked that asstard.

A man should have the guts to stand by his convictions.

Gun violence seems to bring out two kinds of fools.

One kind of fool are the people who use the opportunity to call for more gun control. I am one of those who don't really see any legitimate reason for a private citizen to own fire arms (yes, I'm aware of the 2nd Amendment - are you?), but gun control laws are at best a tool to keep guns out of the hands of sane people - most of whom don't own guns in the first place. As long as people make and sell guns and ammunition someone who wants to badly enough will be able to get his hands on the means to kill a bunch of people for no apparent reason.

Of course, the other kind of fool are the people who use the opportunity to argue about how much better things would have gone if there had been more people in the crowd packing heat. "If armed students had been there, then Gill (the shooter at Dawson College) would not have been able to injure or kill so many people."

Yup, I can just see it. In response to Gill's first few shots, armed students in the vicinity draw their trusty "equalizers" and start blasting away in Gill's general direction. The results would make the evening news a lot more interesting.

Please shoot me. Ann Coulter and I have agreed on something.

Her recent editorial is titled, Terrorists Win: Deodorant Banned from Airplanes.

It's what I've been saying for some time. We are doing exactly what the terrorists want us to do by succumbing to the vague threat of someday being attacked in some unpredictable way. We are surrendering our sanity, and our leadership is aiding and abetting the terrorists by creating rules and restrictions that don't make us any safer.

Mind you, after the headline, it's all downhill for Ann. In addition to her blatant racism (implying Arabs don't use deodorants), her completely fact free writing is all vintage Coulter.

So I guess you don't have to shoot me. Even a stopped clock is right twice in a day.

So in what category would you suppose the USA is worse than former Soviet client states or extremely conservative religious cultures? Visit this graph on the National Geographic website.

When it comes to evolution, folks in the USA are less likely to accept it as correct than folks from most other Western nations. Only Turkey is worse, and the others that are near the bottom of the list are former Soviet client states or countries distinguished by very conservative religious cultures.

However, liberalism vs conservatism isn't a universal predictor. The Netherlands, a country which is notorious in the USA for its liberal drugs policy, has about 1/3 indicating they either don't accept evolution or don't know about it. On the other hand the UK, a country that in many respects echos USAn conservative values, ranks 6th highest as accepting evolution.

Curiously, Japan was included in the list. Since when is that a Western country? Not surprisingly, evolution is accepted by more people in Japan than in all but four Western countries in the list. Which kinda makes me think that the predictor for this result might be effective public education. I bet if you lined up test scores for science and engineering with this chart, they'd be a pretty close match.

LiveScience.com has another article about this situation.

Did Dubya think he was doing the right thing?

Why does it matter if Dubya thought he was doing the right thing? It's possible that Dubya thought he was doing the right thing. So did the Son of Sam serial killer. Whether or not Dubya thought he was doing the right thing misses the crucial point that Dubya and his cronies lied to the world to convince us that we needed to invade Iraq. Tens of thousands of Iraqis, and almost two thousand American soldiers, have so far died as a consequence, and the killing seems to be far from over.

I don't know how one could calculate the value of human life against the value of political stability in the Middle East, even supposing that stability can be attained by waging war. This calculation is particularly difficult when I take into account the small problem that by political stability we (the USA, certainly, but other countries as well) have meant in the past that the interests of the powerful and wealthy were protected by conserving the current state of affairs. I see no sign that these priorities have changed.

I know that Saddam Hussein and his cronies were very bad people, and perhaps their removal means that they'll have no more opportunities to create misery. However, the war and the way Dubya and his cronies are chosing to fight it have created an endless opportunity for people who as a group are just as awful as Saddam Hussein to come and make at least as many people miserable. I don't believe there is any way for our military to stop them, not because our military can't fight effectively, but because terrorism is not a problem that can be solved by military force.

If everything goes well, then the Iraqi government will remain stable and will eventually, in one or two years, be able to invite the last of our soldiers to leave the country. This was the scenario that Dubya hoped for, back in May 2003, when he declared "Mission Accomplished." Nothing that has happened in Iraq since then has justified that optimism. Instead, it's likely that our military will be stuck there for the next two years, until our position has become politically so unpopular that we're forced to pull out. After that all hell is likely to break loose.

Some of Dubya's fanboys want us to compare Iraq to WWII. "We spent four years fighting Jerry and the Japs," they say. "We lost over 100,000 soldiers in that war. Compared to that, Iraq is a walk in the park!" We're told that German Nazi insurgence during the occupation was just as deadly as the terrorism and insurgence in Iraq, but that's an awfully thin stretch. The postwar insurgence in Germany barely rates a footnote against a backdrop of a country completely devastated by war and at the verge of mass starvation, and was pretty much over by the end of 1946. When they write the history books on Dubya's little war, the terrorists won't be a footnote. (Well, this is the War on Terror, you say. I say, suppose we fought the War on Drugs by handing out free samples of crystal meth?)

Of course, the chicken hawks who were beating the war drums back in 2001, and who have been cheering on the current state of affairs, will then loudly proclaim that it was the liberals who lost the war on terrorism. If all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.

Father's Day is upon us, and I still don't know what to get my dads.

It's a sorry world, I know. Check the ads for Father's Day, and apparently dads love ties and golf balls. Well, both my dads are retired, so they don't wear ties much anymore, and they don't play golf. The pressure is on.

Kathleen Parker doesn't help. Each year about this time she saddles up her Father's Day clydesdale, a horse about twelve feet tall at the shoulders, to drag a fair dozen strawmen around the block a couple times. To hear her tell it, fathers are an endangered species, and we should all worship the few men who condescend to this most maligned post.

"... the diminution of Father in our culture may be the single stupidest turn in human history yet," she writes in her editorial. That fathers have been diminished in our culture came as a surprise to me. I considered the possibility that this is Parker's personal problem, but then I realized that this drivel was yet another example of the Orwellian poison that conservatives have been spewing for the past few years. It's a remarkably effective technique, and consists of about four steps.

First, you declare a social ill. It doesn't matter if it exists or not, nor if it really is an ill. In Parker's case, she's suggesting that fatherhood and fathers no longer matter in our society. Others will lament the lack of patriotism, the demise of marriage, the loss of our children's innocence, or declining test scores.

Second, trot out the evidence. Typically these are mere bald assertions, but, as does Parker, you might toss out some numbers and imply that they mean something, like "40 percent of children live in homes without their fathers," or "studies show that women file the majority of divorces." Note that actual citations are pretty rare, though you can make your bald assertions sound supportable by adding that "studies show."

Third, leave the reasoning that connects the evidence to your argument to your reader, because if you try to put it in words it'll just sound specious. For example, 40 percent of children live in homes without their fathers is evidence that our society does not value fathers because, um, well we have to assume that there are no fathers in those homes, and that the father's absence is the fault of society, and not of, say, the father's misbehavior, or of the father's demise in some ill-advised military adventure, or perhaps in a traffic accident, or of a family torn apart by the stress of job loss to globalization, etc. (There are lots more like this in Parker's editorial.) Conservatives call this "getting picky." Ronald Reagan blazed the way when his response to a difficult question was, "there you go again."

Fourth, blame it all on liberals. This last step is essential, because by defining as a liberal anyone who does something bad or something silly, you create the dichotomous conclusion that conservatives are those people who don't do bad or silly things. Parker's editorial is clever in that she pretends to stay above the mudslinging of partisanism by hiding her accusations in codewords, like traditional marriage, or old-fashioned masculinity.

And that's all there's to it. Using this technique conservative commentators are currently busy blaming on liberals everything from global warming to ugly children. Even though it appears innocuous at first glance, Parker's editorial on fatherhood is just another example of this Orwellian tidal wave.

It's not that I don't appreciate both my step-dad and my father. Each man worked hard to support his family. Each man, in his way, has passed on to me qualities of which I'm proud. The point is that Parker's assertion that in our liberal society fatherhood no longer matters is just not true. Not only is American society one of the most conservative societies of all first-world nations, but fatherhood is by no means maligned or denigrated.

None of which gets me any closer to finding Father's Day presents for my dads, of course.

Newsweek reported that at Guantanamo Bay Muslim prisoners were subjected to some sort of mental torture by showing them the Koran, the Muslim holy scriptures, placed inside restrooms, or even flushed down the toilet. Nevermind that the reports may have been premature.

Now, that's pretty reprehensible. First, the USA is in a fairly precarious position as far as world-wide public opinion is concerned. Second, it's been well established for over fifty years that these methods of interrogation do not work. Not one bit. Nothing. So what's the point? But my diatribe against the idiots currently running the USAn government must wait for another time.

Muslim clerics and national leaders around the world protested and called upon the USA to respond. Cool. People around the world should call each other to account more frequently.

The USA said they'd investigate. Eh. It's not as if we hadn't known about garbage going on at Gitmo. It's not as if anyone in our administration seems to really care, or they wouldn't have promoted Alberto Gonzales to US Attorney General: Gonzales, who masterminded the USAn policy on torture. (Yes, I know that a lot of people are arguing that the policy didn't say torture was OK. Tell it to the Marines.)

The Muslim world erupted in riots. Dozens were killed.

My reaction?

Hey, Muslims! You're a bunch of assholes!

Yes, yes. That's not very conciliatory, and not very polite. And perhaps the riots involved a mere 1% of the Muslim world. If I were in a position where my opinion made any difference at all, I might not be quite so blunt. But here we have a bunch of people who seem to riot at the drop of a hat. How immature is that? Are we dealing with an entire culture composed of manic depressives? Instead of sending soldiers, perhaps we should dose them all with Prozac?

It's not as if Muslims have any sort of respect for non-Muslim religions. While it hasn't always been that way, most Muslim countries these days place little to no value on protecting the sensibilities of Christians or Buddhists. Hindus better keep their heads down, and let's not even talk of Jews. Not that any of these religions have the sort of rabid reaction to perceived disrespect as we've witnessed on the part of Muslims these past couple of days. (Perhaps devout Jews might get equally excited at reports about a Torah intentionally left in a bathroom.) Still, by and large Muslims' behavior strikes me as amazingly irrational.

It's not to say that there aren't irrational people in other religions. There are certainly lots of irrational Christians here in the USA. Lucky for the rest of the world they are comparatively few, so that their misbehavior is mostly limited to a few raped teenage girls and a Waco type situation about once a decade. It's not pretty, but it seems managable. It's certainly nothing compared to what passes for normalcy in Muslim contries.

My theory of the human mind says that all people (barring disease or debilitating environmental conditions) are pretty much alike when it comes to how we think, what our emotional responses are to stress, etc. It just seems to me that I can't explain what goes on in Muslim countries without resorting to unflattering stereotypes. Is it possible that the lack of education, borderline starvation, miserable healthcare, whatever, for the past few decades might have created entire generations of mentally unfit individuals in these countries? What bothers me about such a supposition is that it comes close to suggesting that countries like the USA should always intervene in other countries if it seems that their social institutions are likely to create populations of socially unfit individuals. (Not that the USA is likely to bother, unless our corporations smell a profit to be looted. Witness Iraq.)

So I'm wondering: can anyone explain this behavior, in terms other than what I've already used?

What's really screwy is when you go to try something new you found on the web, and you discover that, some years earlier, you already found it. That's what happened when I was poking around in Google, discovered Blogger, and decided, heck, why not, let's sign up for one of these. Then the username I typically use for stuff like that was already in use. Maybe that's me? It was...