On a Wing and a Prayer

OK, just one more thing I've been meaining to get off my chest, yet again:

For a fairly long while now, I've mostly lived in close proximity to a hospital with a helipad for the local Flight For Life emergency helicopters. And, since I've long been fairly fascinated with aviation of all kinds, when one of those helicopters flies over, I tend to notice and look, wondering whether it's a news helicopter, or a Flight For Life, or something else. When I do look up, if I find that it seems to be a Flight For Life, I usually indulge in yet another habit that goes back even farther, to hearing conventional ambulances zooming past, and I sort of wish the passenger/patient well. It's the kind of thing that, if I were the religious sort, I'd be silently offering up a prayer on their behalf, but I'm not, so a wish or hope or whatever-you-will is all they get.

But of late, I've been finding myself wishing them well as they fly past, and then suddenly wincing, as I start to contemplate how different it must be for people in certain other parts of the world, and I imagine how, when they hear a helicopter approaching, their first thought certainly isn't of praying for a patient (although they're mostly the type much more inclined to pray than I am), but might rather be something along the lines of a prayer that the helicopter isn't coming to blow up their own home more-or-less at random. It really puts a damper on my wishing for any hypothetical patients when I think about how differently the whup-whup-whup noise must be taken elsewhere.

Of late, to make matters even worse, I read about rescues of victims of Hurricane Katrina, and I'll probably be reading more about Hurricane Rita soon enough. And I have much the same thoughts about those folks. Here in the U.S., that sound connotes hope, rescue, safety, and so forth. Yet elsewhere, that same noise likely strikes fear into one's heart, and the only hope it brings is the hope that it isn't coming for you.

It's just one of those things that brings up the bitterness for me, and the cynicism, and the lack of hope for the entire world, and the human race that currently dominates it.

President Remarks on Hurricane Recovery Efforts

President Remarks on Hurricane Recovery Efforts:
"Here's what I believe. I believe that the great city of New Orleans will rise again and be a greater city of New Orleans. (Applause.) I believe the town where I used to come from, Houston, Texas, to enjoy myself -- occasionally too much -- (laughter) -- will be that very same town, that it will be a better place to come to. That's what I believe. I believe the great state of Louisiana will get its feet back and become a vital contributor to the country."

OK, I was originally looking for this quote just to read for myself just what he'd so-wittily said about his visits to New Orleans in the past, but now I'm trying to figure out what the rest of that is supposed to mean. Houston will be that very same town (which very same town?), but a better place to come to? And why (given that this was before Rita started threatening the Lone Star State) should it reassure the residents of Louisiana that Houston was going to be the same?

Pardon me now while my head explodes. And watch out for that penguin on the telly, too.

How poor is poor?

Jonah Goldberg, as quoted on numerous blogs (I'm not sure I'm strong enough to go reading Town Hall myself just yet):

Indeed, the underlying assumption of the War on Poverty (and the New Deal) that government should make sure no one is poor is now widely accepted on both the left and the right.

While I can't speak for all Democrats or liberals, just this one, my own feeling is that he's missing a few words there: government should make sure no one is so poor that they can't escape poverty, with or without "bootstraps". And it seems to me there's still a long ways to go before that can be reasonably claimed to be the case.

Inconceivable!

Copied from my comment at Brad DeLong's blog (and damn, I guess that blows my anonymity here all to hell):

Pacific Views: Who could have predicted 9/11?: From Condoleezza Rice on May 16, 2002: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."

OK, I've always kind of wanted to get this off my chest, so I'm going to spell out just how I was capable of imagining such a thing not too long before 9/11/2001 (not that I suppose many here would call it "inconceivable!", but...):

I was pondering weapons possibilities for the purpose of possibly writing some SF material, which led me to contemplate the question of what, in the broadest sense, makes something a weapon? After some thought, my conclusion was that for the most part, aside from biologicals & chemical weapons, it was the application of energy (always kinetic energy in the old days, in more recent times it could be kinetic or potential) to an area of the target, a small area for maximum penetration, a large area for most widespread damage. Swords, arrows, spears, polearms, maces, warhammers, bullets, cannon, bombs - they all involve application of energy to a relatively small area.
Now, as we all remember from our high school physics classes -right?- kinetic energy is E=mv^2/2 (often expressed as 1/2*mv^2, for reasons unclear to me; mv^2/2 is more direct & mathematically elegant), implying that you have more energy in something twice as fast rather than twice as massive (twice as much energy, in fact), plus a less massive object is likely to have a smaller cross-section, i.e. hit on a smaller area.
So, I pondered (after considering the sci-fi possibilities), what have we got in the modern world that would present a tidy sum of kinetic energy in a readily available package? Preferably going at a pretty good clip, and with a sizeable mass to boot.... One answer was pretty obvious: the airliners.
Then I pondered how one might get one to a target, and it seemed there were two distinct possibilities (not that other means are out of the question): either own & completely control an airline, so thoroughly that you can order your pilots to take up suicide missions (I was ignoring the possibilities of rogue pilots committing solo acts, like in Clancy's aforementioned (in the DeLong comments) Debt of Honor, since that's not exactly a commandable weapon; also note the resemblance of this scenario to the beginning of Red Dawn, of all things, as I dimly remember it), or you can get yourself some willing hijackers and slip them on board, perhaps behaving as though it's just a "routine" hijacking of the "take this plane to Cuba!" variety, and guide it to the target instead.
Now, I didn't go as far with this as to contemplate what a good target would be (after all, I was contemplating in the abstract, and so didn't even bother to figure out who might use this against whom), and I probably misunderestimated the significance of the chemical potential energy in the leftover fuel (basically equivalent to a low-intensity, long-duration warhead, e.g. napalm, in effect). But I like to think that if it were MY job to protect the country, rather than having been contemplating SF story scenarios, I'd have given that some rather full consideration.
And I think it certainly shows that certain administration officials "keep using that word (if not verbatim). I do not think it means what they think it means."

It's always bugged me that that claim was made, when an easily reproducible chain of thought can naturally lead one to just such a conclusion. I just want to make sure it's quite thoroughly refuted. (Not that Clancy alone shouldn't be enough for that.)

Not that I know sleep or anything

I can't help noticing among the left side of the commentary, the popularity of phrases like "stealth candidate" or "stealth nominee" when speaking of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts. But I really think the term "sleeper" suits him much more perfectly. And maybe even has nastier connotations, to boot.

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On an unrelated note, hot off the wires, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd passed away today. With Prince Abdullah having already been running the show for a while, I'm hardly expecting riots in the streets or anything like that, but it could get interesting, if radicals might decide it's a good time to start acting radically. I don't think they would, but I can't rule out the possibility.

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An afterthought: I wonder if the King's deteriorating condition (if he'd been going downhill for a little while) might have had some bearing on the recent recall of Prince Bandar "Bush" as Ambassador to the U.S.? I'll have to look into this.

Later this week, at the White House Press Briefing...

Have I been replaced with an automaton? That's just totally ridiculous. Reply hazy, try again.

FBI says it has files on advocacy groups

I don't have time to edit this for the highlights right now, it's too late already. But this is just outrageous. But what else is new?

I'll try to trim it down to size later today.

The FBI has thousands of pages of records in its files relating to the monitoring of civil rights, environmental and similar advocacy groups, the Justice Department has acknowledged.

The organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Greenpeace, are suing for the release of the documents. The organizations contend that the material will show that they have been subjected to scrutiny by FBI task forces set up to combat terrorism.

The FBI has identified 1,173 pages related to the ACLU and 2,383 pages about Greenpeace, but it needs at least until February to process the ACLU files and until June to review the Greenpeace documents, the government said in a filing in U.S. District Court in Washington.

The FBI has not said specifically what those pages contain. The ACLU's executive director, Anthony Romero, said the disclosure indicates that the FBI is monitoring organizations that are engaging in lawful conduct.

'I know for an absolute fact that we have not been involved in anything related to promoting terrorism, and yet the government has collected almost 1,200 pages on our activities,' Romero said. 'Why is the ACLU now the subject of scrutiny from the FBI?'

John Passacantando, Greenpeace's U.S. executive director, said his group is a forceful, but peaceful, critic of the Bush administration's war and environmental policies.

'This administration has a history of using its powers against its peaceful critics. If, in fact, the FBI has been deployed to help in that effort, that would be quite shocking,' Passacantando said.

Justice Department and FBI spokesmen declined to comment, citing the ongoing case. The FBI has denied singling out individuals or groups for surveillance or investigation based solely on activities protected by the Constitution's guarantees of free speech.

Officials have said agents adhere strictly to Justice Department guidelines requiring evidence of criminal activity or indications that a person may know something about a crime.

The ACLU has sought FBI files on a range of individuals and groups interviewed, investigated or subjected to searches by the task forces. The requests also are for information on how the task forces are funded to determine if they are rewarded with government money by labeling high numbers of cases as related to terrorism.

The government did release one document it gathered on United for Peace and Justice that Romero said reinforces his concerns. The organization describes itself as a coalition of more than 1,300 anti-war groups.

A memo from September 4, 2003, about Internet sites that were promoting protests at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York was addressed to counterterrorism units in Boston, Los Angeles and New York.

"Why is this being labeled as counterterrorism when it's nothing more protests at a political convention, a lawful First Amendment activity?" Romero asked.

Slashdot: Politics: Does Voting Technology Affect Election Outcomes?

"Two economists have just posted a paper online, showing a small correlation between counties' use of paperless electronic voting systems and voting results in the recent presidential election (after controlling for other factors). They found no evidence for systematic fraud by testing several potential indicators. Rather, the voting method seems to affect the relative turnout of different voter demographies. Thanks to Election Law Blog for the pointer.'"

Amazing New Hyperbolic Chamber Greatest Invention In The History Of Mankind Ever

The Onion endorses Liberal Hyperbole!

Added 2007/01/31: Update links as The Onion changes their archives. Old link here, for future reference.

Ah, sweet irony!

CNN.com - Ashcroft: Nuclear terror greatest threat - Jan 28, 2005: "'If you were to have nuclear proliferation find its way into the hands of terrorists, the entire world might be very seriously disrupted by a few individuals who sought to impose their will, their arcane philosophy, on the rest of mankind,' [Ashcroft] said."

OK, aside from the grammatical badness which is the idea of "nuclear proliferation" per se finding its way anywhere, might he be able to think of any other such few examples? Or is he truly that nearsighted?

Matt Towery: The NBA's decline

The gall of promoting a CD rather than answering tough but fair questions about his fight with Detroit fans suggested a raw ignorance to the seriousness of the matter. But therein may be the source of the public's dislike for the NBA.

Or perhaps that alleged role model just learns from the alleged role models in the White House & Capitol.

Elevated comment

A comment from Prof. DeLong's weblog that I found worth repeating, from a post on the subject of the administration's difficulties in hiring replacement members of their economic team:

This just in from the wires:

>>In a surprise announcement, President George W. Bush today nominated Berkeley economist J. Bradford DeLong to be his new Secretary of the Treasury. In prepared remarks, the President complimented Professor DeLong on his intelligence, his integrity and his devotion to family.

In the brief question-and-answer session that followed, reporters peppered the President with insolent and childish inquiries, harping on Dr. DeLong’s being not only a Democrat from a Blue State but one who calls the economic policy making of the Bush Administration "a clown show” and the war in Iraq "a disaster" (Professor DeLong has indeed reportedly gone so far as to call on more than one occasion for the President’s impeachment – Ed.).

Out of pity, the President explained the obvious to the White press corps:
“You have to have dissent if you want to crush dissent. If I filled the cabinet with yes men or folks with neutral positions, I wouldn’t have the fun of crushing the life and spirit out them…and when I say “I” I mean me and the Vice President, of course.”

DeLong, who refused to appear alongside the President at the press conference announcing his appointment, issued a cryptic message to readers of his Internet-based thought crime experiment or “weblog”:
“Help, the Secret Service has already surrounded the building! They have built some sort of barrier around the perimeter out of printed copies of the 2003 and 2004 budgets. There is no way out. If anyone knows or is related to a member of the Senate, tell them I will not come to the hearing. I will not answer questions--even by email. Wait, a car is pulling up. Someone is being taken out of the car. Oh, God! It’s John Taylor. They seem to be holding him at gunpoint. I…I can’t quite make out what he is saying but he looks very agitated and I do not think it’s about the yuan peg. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no! They’ve [Error 404]” <<

Countering the Religious Message

(note: Sporkeypost)

How on earth do we counter the right wing fanaticals? We should stop reacting to them and start to spar with them. They are good Christians, at least, their church tells them so, and they voted not for Bush, but for God.

It is sad that this is their way of thinking. But it can be countered. We can't igore them, because the powerful will get their way by selling the souls of their flocks. And I am angry that so many people don't discuss God, or their beliefs, because that only reinforces their notion that "Democrats" and "Liberals" are "godless".

About the only way we'll do that is to use the most powerful and influential book in our arsenal: the Bible.

This may seem pretty bad to an atheist or an agnostic, but to tell you the truth, wouldn't it be fun to watch the heads expolde if a "Homo" says, "But didn't Jesus say that you should love the sinner, but hate the sin?" or someone who doesn't believe in God say, "Well, the bible also says that women should be sequestered in a room, given her food and drink there by other female family members, during her period." or, better yet, "Didn't Jesus tell us the parable of the man who made clear to his congragation that he was fasting, and of the man who kept himself clean and did not make a show of it?"

We need people to throw Jesus into their face. They've been propping up the cardboard cutout of the Savior and have actually convinced people that it's really Jesus. Not only am I scared, but I find it morally repugnant (repeat those words often, and make an icky face) that they would think a vote for Bush is a vote for God. And no amount of "saving" is going to help them...they are sinners. It's the commandment of Moses: "I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods but me." And by voting because someone who says that God talks to them told them to, or that they believe that Bush is godly, or by pledging faith in Bush, they've just broken that commandment. And God is a jealous God; his wrath will crush them. You are only to have faith in God, and His son Jesus, and if you're placing the faith of that kind elsewhere, you're being idolatrous. That will get them to think. Do they really like Bush that much so that they go to hell for Him? It may take some convicing, but I think they'll get the point.

Another point: The parable of the goats and sheep. "For whatever you didn't do for the least of my brethern, you did not do for me." Which means that if you don't take care of the needy, then you'll end up in hell, or at least flames licking your ankles as demons poke at you. Remind them of the parable and ask, "Are you a sheep who's helped your neighbor? Your friends? The poor people at the shelter or in prison? Or are you a goat, stepping over the homeless on the way to buy yourself a new car?" That's as simple as it gets... goats or sheep. (I'd say also to use the very famous example of "The Good Samaritan"... the guy who had helped a man who lay in ditch bleeding after being robbed and passed by by a priest and a merchant... but most people don't understand what was known at the time of Jesus: Samaritans were considered horrible people, they wouldn't help someone unless it was to their wallet. So Jesus' tale of the "bad" person helping the injured man instead of the "good" people helping him had more of an impact. We can, however, update that parable so that modern day people can truly understand it....)

There are many examples, and this with me just writing off of the top of my head. And these are ideals rooted in religion that benefit everyone. And I'm quite sure that the Koran has words like these in it somewhere. The famous Sporkey, giving a speech at which thousands clawed their way just to get into the auditorium, said, "There are many people who contend that Islam is the opposite of Christianity. Some people even go so far as to say that Judaism is the opposite of both Christianity and Islam. I don't really agree with that. There's many names for our respective deities: Yahweh, Jehova, Lord, Allah -- but they are all one God. When I look around me today at all of the faces, at all of the colors, at all of the faiths and beliefs, I am reminded of Genesis, Chapter 1: 'God created man in His image'. God truly must be a sight to behold, a being of great proportions. To include all of us, even those who don't believe in God -- I tell you, it makes my faith so strong I want to hug the world with open arms, regardless of the world's belief. That is my God, a God who understood through Jesus that we are merely mortals and imperfect. It just takes my breath away. I do apologize to non-Christians for this outburst, but I do offer you this: If I believe that God loves you and respects you even though you don't believe in God, and I try my hardest to follow the words of God, would you rather speak with me or with someone who believes that God is vengeful, angry bigot? I can only offer myself as a person, and if you are only so kind, you will excuse my emotional outburst...."

Seriously. We need to combat the "Moral Majority".

"Fundamentalism isn't about religion. It's about power." -- Salaman Rushdie

Liberal? HA!

(note: Sporkeypost)

Forget "Liberal".

Let's start really screwing with the wingnut's heads. How about "socialist"?

First, we need to change the meaning of the word. And repeat it, reapeat it, reapeat it.

Religion?

"No, I'm not a Liberal. I'm a Neosocialist. I believe in God, but the real, true God, and I believe in Jesus, the real, true and everlasting words of Jesus. 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Is that such a horrible rule to live by? Decency? Respect? Love? I don't think so. And every American, both Christian and non-Christian, can abide by those simple words of Jesus. 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.' I don't put myself above God, nor do I claim to know what God will do. To do so puts you on God's level, and weren't the first man and woman booted out of Eden for that? I'm not God and to tell the world that I am, or to know God's will, well, that just is plain sinful. You're an idol then, and God doesn't want that. And the people who believe you are...well, they're just as sinful. We've all committed sins, and we'll pay our price for them. That's not my department...that's God's. To judge someone as God does is asking for the Lord to judge you the same way. And by the way, let's not forget 'What you do for the least of my brethern, you do for me.' So, in that vein, I believe in socal programs that truly uplift those in poverty, like funding education so that no child goes through life illiterate, or programs that actually can help the sick and needy. Homosexuals and abortions? I'm not going to pretend that those are truly that important. Joe America's being played for a fool, and rich are winning."

Class Warfare?

"I'm a Neosocialist. Yes, there is class warfare. Joe America may not realize the depth of it. The rich control the media, and Joe hears he needs this, he needs that, and above all, don't pay attention to the rich laughing at him. All Joe America wants is to feed his family. And the rich are stealing his money...he pays far more taxes than the rich. Of course, it's in the rich's interest that Joe America votes for candidate who wants tax cuts...it benefits them. Joe may get a few more pennies that, if he puts them in a jar for the next four years, may buy him a gumball. They tell Joe that it's the poor people's fault because they're on welfare, scamming him, and that's why his paycheck doesn't cover all of his bills. That's just a load of hooey. The real reason Joe can't pay his bills? The rich want to be richer. They want to be so rich that they can roll around in money, fill swimming pools with their pocket change, and would rather Joe be a slave so that they can eat caviar and drink champagne and laugh at him. Frankly, I'm sick at millionaires laughing at everyone else, like we're completely stupid. Aren't you?"

Tax and Spend?

"Well, think of it like this: I go a to job, I get paid for my work, and that money goes to my bills. That's what taxes are like. We need a military, a good military, and to fund it, because we as a people need it, we tax. It benefits everyone to have a military. Same with schools. Same with a lot of things. I mean, how many fighter craft can you really shoot down with a hunting rifle? And would you rather have someone recieve money to go to school, so that you don't have to come home to find your house robbed of everything? And would you like the police to show up if they did?"

Well, that's all I can think of now. I'm sure I'll come up with something more.

All around us, it was as if the Universe were holding its breath, waiting.
All of life can be broken down into moments of transition, or moments of revelation. This had the feeling of both.
G'quon wrote: "There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos, and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender." The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us; we know only that it is always born in pain.

Tuning back in...

I believe regular blogging will resume again soon, with a couple of rather longish posts of my own material (no blockquotes!). Not tonight, though, but probably Monday at the latest.