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Thursday, March 31, 2005
OK, It's Over - NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP Terri Schiavo is dead. And I, for one, am glad that's over. It's been a pointless waste of time trying to calmly explain to the Wingnut & Parrot Brigade that whatever made Terri Schiavo a sentient being died 15 years ago when her heart stopped for 10 minutes. She was without cognitive functions or any chance at having cognitive functions from that day on. I was going to post a breakdown of all the lies and misinformation I'd heard about this case, and realized Majikthise already did it for us. So read up, and take this info out into the workplace, to your churches, to any place you go that is frequented by members of the Wingnut & Parrot Brigade. Not, of course, that I honestly think you'll be able to beat sense into many of them, but we've all got to tilt at windmills at some time or another. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 2:08:00 PM   | Why I Love The Texas Lege Ganked from Marvin: Flub flummoxes Senate into rare silence The verbal misstep occurred as Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, was debating his resolution about the chuck wagon, invented by Charles Goodnight in 1866. Don't worry, Senator Seliger - if you work hard, you might rise to the level of Gib Lewis one of these days. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:25:00 AM | 2 Days Off Taking today and tomorrow off work. I'd hoped to be able to work out a 2-3 day mini-vacation for myself and Melissa sans children, but the kids have soccer games this Saturday, so we'll be out there watching and cheering. My time will, I am sure, be filled with such useful activities as Laundry and Yard and Garage Cleaning. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:19:00 AM | Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Happy Anniversary! Today, Melissa and I celebrate 14 years of marriage. It hasn't always been easy or fun, but we're stronger for all of that. I'm the luckiest guy in the world. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:00:00 AM | More Collegiate Asshattery This time, we look at the column: White folks should not listen to rap by Matt Hayward, published in the University Chronicle at St. Cloud University in St. Cloud, MN. I'll break it up and address Mr. Hayward's points one by one. Why do white people listen to hip-hop and rap music? Oh, there's tons of reasons, Matt. Offhand, I'd guess because they like it, but I'm admittedly drawing on my own experiences and extrapolating from them. Some other possible reasons include a desire to appear "cool" (or whatever term it is the kids these days use), peer pressure and an insidious desire to encourage race-mixing. Last year I lived in a residential hall, As opposed to all the students that live in vans down by the river, I presume? and at first I thought the entire floor was filled with black students. Hip-hop and rap music were played constantly. Did the other residents of your floor only venture out at night, or in body-concealing burquas? 'Cause, it's just me sayin' this, but I think I'd, you know, use my eyes if the ethnicity of my dorm-mates was of concern to me. Ironically though, I was one of only two black students on my entire floor. Ironic to you, perhaps. If I hear hip-hop and rap music being played constantly in a dorm, the first conclusion I would draw would be that it's populated by a bunch of college students, and most likely inconsiderate assholes that don't understand the there are more settings on a volume knob than "off" and "full, ear-shattering blast". I would pass guys in the hall and they would say "wassup bro." I never bothered to respond. Because nothing says "I respect you as a person" like being a rude asshole to someone that's trying to say hello. My comments are not meant to be racist. I just do not believe white people should listen to hip-hop and rap music. Nor do I believe blacks should listen to alternative, heavy metal and rock music. O Arturo, prince of irony! You attend an integrated school, are most likely the end product of an integrated school system, and you're advocating cultural apartheid. I'm sure you don't consider yourself to hold racist ideals, no more than the people in rural Georgia that said things to me like, "I ain't prejudiced, but there oughtn't be mixing of the races. Whites should date whites and blacks should date blacks." I'm reminded of something my father, a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement, said in response to a statement like the quote above: "In this country, the law says you don't have to marry anyone you don't love." You're under no obligation to listen to music you don't like, but you don't have the right to force others to conform to your tastes. You see, I can relate to the music by artists such as Nas, Kanye West and Tupac. Can a white person relate to being harassed by a white cop because they are black? No, but isn't that part of the purpose of the music, to communicate the feelings of the singer to their audience? I mean, I don't know what it's like to be a Valkyrie, but I can appreciate Wagner's Ring Cycle. I'm not a 11th-Century monk, but Gregorian chants can be beautiful things to listen to. Hell, I've never even taken heroin, but I really, really like the music of Janis Joplin. There's a reason some folks call music "the universal language". Do many white people know what it is like to grow up in a public housing project or live in a drug-infested neighborhood? I don't think so. And you'd think wrong. You assume that it's only blacks that have that experience, and it's just not so. While it's lamentably true that the African-American community is disproportionately affected by poverty and drugs, there are whites that have known grinding poverty, that have grown up with drug dealers right outside their door. You start with a faulty assumption and extrapolate to include the entire population under that assumption. That's what's known where I come from as "crappy logic". Yet white students who come from small towns, and probably have never had a black friend in their entire life, seem to think listening to rap music helps them understand black culture. Oy, vey! You state above that listening to rap music is, in part, about the experiences of many blacks in America. Race-based harassment, poverty, drugs - these are (among many, many other topics) the subjects of rap and hip-hop music. Listening to rap and hip-hop, then, gives whites that "have never had a black friend in their entire life" some small handle on the problems the songs describe, and isn't it important that we as citizens have some understanding of the plights of others? I note, also, that you stated you "never bothered to respond" to your dorm-mates when they addressed you. It seems to me that at least some of those whose salutations you scorned might have, conceivably, wound up friends of yours, had you been deigned to respond. You can't bemoan their lack of contact with other ethnicities if you then refuse to respond to attempts at communication. It does not. If anything, white students who attempt to use black slang and wear baggy pants look and sound ridiculous. Maybe no one has pointed that out to white students in America. So I am. But it's OK when African-American students do it? I mean, I'm an old fogey - 37 years old - so I'm not really up on the fashions you kids enjoy, with your weird haircuts and your rock-and/or-roll and hippity-hoppity music, and the drugs and all that. Seems to me that if whites look silly with pants too baggy to stay up, blacks would too. The same goes for incomprehensible slang. I like listening to music I can relate to, and it seems black artists write and sing music that I can relate to. It would only make sense then that whites would relate to music written and song by white artists. I like listening to music that sounds good to me. Most people do, you know. Why you gotta piss in everyone else's Wheaties? Why then are whites listening to hip-hop and rap music? I don't know. *sigh* I'll explain it again: because they like it. I have no right to tell anyone what they should or should not listen to, but I do have a right to express my views on this subject. And, thankfully, I have the right to tell you you're full of it. Seriously, lighten up. The others won't tell you this because they're too polite, but right now? You don't really sound like someone that's fun at parties. Open up to the folks around you, expose yourself to the many varieties of cultural experiences available to you and quit straitjacketing yourself by limiting what you consider acceptable. You'll be surprised how much more interesting and vibrant the world becomes once you do that. And I believe whites should stick to music by white artists. Well good for you! Would you be interested, then, in buying my Erskine Hawkins CDs? How about my Little Richard and Jimi Hendrix? On second thought, I'll hang on to them. I'd rather continue to offend you by enjoying a wide variety of music, from Muddy Waters to Stevie Ray Vaughn, from Little Richard to U2, from Mozart to Wyclef Jean, than be limited to the narrow range of musical styles you seem to think I should hear. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:25:00 AM | Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Wasn't This An Episode Of South Park? Boy Scout director charged with having child porn The national director of programs for the Boy Scouts of America has been charged with receiving and distributing child pornography, the U.S. Attorney's office here told NBC News on Tuesday. But they can't let those atheists or queers like me in the Boy Scouts, nosireebob! They need straight, manly men like in the Catholic Church! posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 12:17:00 PM | Paul Krugman on the dangers religious extremism presents to a tolerant society. Democratic societies have a hard time dealing with extremists in their midst. The desire to show respect for other people's beliefs all too easily turns into denial: nobody wants to talk about the threat posed by those whose beliefs include contempt for democracy itself. Wole Soyinka said in 2004, "The secular ideologue might be largely content with brooking no dissent, through the dictum I am right, you are wrong, but the ultimate ambition of the fanatic within the theocratic order is I am right, you are dead." Salman Rushdie can testify to the truth of that statement. Sadly, Dr. David Gunn, Dr. Barnett Slepian and many others in the US and abroad are no longer able to. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:28:00 AM | Monday, March 28, 2005
.... . .... .-.-.- / .. -. - . .-. . ... - .. -. --. .-.-.- - --- --- .-.. .. -. --. / .- .-. --- ..- -. -.. / --- -. / - .... . / .-- . -... / - --- -.. .- -.-- --..-- / .. / ..-. --- ..- -. -.. / - .... .. ... / .-.. .. -. -.- / .-- .... .. -.-. .... / - .-. .- -. ... .-.. .- - . ... / - . -..- - / .. -. - --- / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . .-.-.- .--. .-. . - - -.-- / -. .. ..-. - -.-- --..-- / .... ..- .... ..--.. .. ..-. / .. / .-- . .-. . / .... .- .-.. ..-. / - .... . / .--- . .-. -.- / .. .----. ...- . / -... . . -. / .- -.-. -.-. ..- ... . -.. / --- ..-. / -... . .. -. --. --..-- / .. / .-- --- ..- .-.. -.. -. .----. - / .... .- ...- . / .. -. -.-. .-.. ..- -.. . -.. / - .... . / .-.. .. -. -.- .-.-.- posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 2:45:00 PM | For A Change... I'm not going to be screaming at you today. It looks like the foofraw over Terri Schiavo is winding down - the courts have continued to acknowledge her wishes not to remain on life support, her parents have stopped their appeals and the hypocritical shitbags in the GOP have taken a look at poll numbers and run headlong from their "courageous" stand "in defense of life". This is, and always was, a private matter. Michael Schiavo held on to hope as long as he could, fighting for his wife's wishes despite the interference of her parents. Terri Schiavo had expressed a clear preference not to be kept on life support, and as her husband, he was in the legal position to ensure her wishes were followed. The interference of everyone from her parents to Randall Terry to the US Congress in this decision was unwarranted and unethical. Decisions about the degree of medical care one is willing to undergo to keep themselves alive is a personal decision. In the event someone has not made themselves clear on this, the difficult choice falls to the next of kin - a spouse or parents, in that order. It's not a choice any sane person wants to make, but it's one we're all likely to face. There's a heartbreaking story in the LA Times about two mothers who faced near-identical choices regarding their children. Both mothers feel they made the right choice, but neither would dream of criticizing someone that made a different one. Day after day, year after year, two mothers sat vigil beside their children.The Schindlers have been cruelly used in this case, used by right-wing ideologues that preyed upon their love for their daughter, giving them utterly false hopes while cynically using Terri Schiavo's brain-dead body to advance their cause and feed their monstrous egos. Hypocritical politicians desperate to shore up their credentials with the loony right, hoping to find something to distract the public from failed initiatives or impending criminal charges, jumped on the bandwagon. Media outlets, sensing a "controversy" that could be milked for airtime now that the Scott Peterson case had finally finished, completed the trifecta of manipulation. What was a personal matter, a private choice, became a national hysteria, to hear the punditocracy and mediawhores blather about it. In reality, an overwhelming majority of Americans considered this a personal choice, and felt that additional interference was uncalled for. Just let Terri Schiavo's body die. Her brain died 15 years ago, there is no "there" there any more. Let her die, and hope her family can find it in themselves to let go of what they've been carrying around for the last 15 years. They deserve some peace. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:10:00 AM | Sunday, March 27, 2005
This Is Awful Which is why I feel so terrible for laughing so hard. Terri Schiavo's Blog. I'm serious, it's really tasteless. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 5:10:00 PM | Don't These People Read Science Fiction? It's not like the warnings haven't been gone over in exhaustive detail... New Machines Could Turn Homes Into Small Factories. A revolutionary machine which can make everything from a cup to a clarinet quickly and cheaply could be in all our homes in the next few years.... Von Neumann machines in your home. I can see how that would go horribly wrong. Still, it would be cool to have a maker in my kitchen. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:41:00 AM | Why Am I Not Surprised? Tom DeLay, George and Jeb Bush and Bill Frist have championed Terri Schiavo's cause, insisting that her wishes not to remain on life support are trumped by their desire to gain political points by metaphoically mounting her brain-dead corpse. Of course, the Bush brothers have allowed prisoners in their respective states to be executed. George Bush signed a law in Texas that gave hospitals the legal right to turn off life-support against the wishes of the patients' families. Bush also invaded Iraq, causing tens of thousands of deaths so he could appear more manly than his father. Bill Frist, when he was a practicing doctor, pulled the plug on patients many times. "He certainly has a lot of clinical experience" in the withdrawal of life support, said Frist spokeswoman Amy Call. Now we find that, when faced with the prospect of paying for his comatose father to remain on life support, Tom DeLay opted to save some money. Quelle surprise. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:57:00 AM | Saturday, March 26, 2005
Success! The range is installed, I've cooked some stuff, and nothing exploded. Lookin' good! posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:39:00 PM | Heads Up By this afternoon, we'll either have a new range installed in our kitchen or I'll have somehow destroyed the house in a cataclysmic natural gas explosion. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:06:00 AM | Friday, March 25, 2005
Culture of Life North Carolina man arrested after putting a $250,000 bounty on Michael Schiavo. A North Carolina man was charged by the FBI on Friday with offering a $250,000 bounty for the murder of Michael Schiavo, the husband of a brain-damaged Florida woman dying in a hospice after years of legal wrangling with her parents. Let's hear it for a sense of proportion, eh? Millions of children around the world starve, Africa struggles to combat desertification, AIDS, famine and civil war, Southeast Asia recovers from a tsunami, tens of thousands are dead from a war started with lies, and these nutjobs think that the important thing, the fight that really makes their case for the "Culture of Life", is keeping the body of a woman whose brain has been replaced by spinal fluid alive. What was it the Preznit said? Oh, yes: The case of Terri Schiavo raises complex issues. Yet in instances like this one, where there are serious questions and substantial doubts, our society, our laws, and our courts should have a presumption in favor of life. Those who live at the mercy of others deserve our special care and concern. It should be our goal as a nation to build a culture of life, where all Americans are valued, welcomed, and protected - and that culture of life must extend to individuals with disabilities. Yep, Culture of Life. This, from a man that couldn't be bothered to give death row inmates' cases anything more than a cursory review, if that. Remember the Talk interview in 2000? " `Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, `don't kill me,' " 151 men were executed while Bush was governor of Texas. Where was his "Culture of Life" then? Where was his "Culture of Life" when he signed a law allowing hospitals to take patients off life support when they felt it was getting too expensive? Where the fuck is his "Culture of Life" as he encourages the gutting of Medicare and turns a willfully blind eye to the abuse and torture of innocent men and women at the hands of American soldiers and allies? I'm sorry, I just don't fucking see it. The longer this cretinous sack of shit, this lying, smirking fatcat that's never worked a fucking day in his life, the longer he's in office, the less I want to admit to even being the same fucking species as him. And that goes for scumsucking bugfuckers like Tom DeLay, too. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:32:00 PM | Friday Five - Mind-Killers I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. Dan asks: What are the 5 scariest moments in your life, the moments when you were most filled with fear? Orson Scott Card had a great breakdown of the three main categories of fear: dread, terror and horror. Dread is the strongest - Card's description of it is wonderfully evocative: Dread is the first and the strongest of the three kinds of fear. It is that tension, that waiting that comes when you know there is something to fear but you have not yet identified what it is. The fear that comes when you first realize that your spouse should have been home an hour ago; when you hear a strange sound in the baby's bedroom; when you realize that a window you are sure you closed is now open, the curtains billowing, and you're alone in the house. Terror is next. It's the most fleeting of the three - the bullet's impact, the figure that bursts from behind the door. In the moment of terror, you are able to see the scope of the threat. Horror is the weakest, and in some ways the easiest to exploit. It's the aftereffects; the body oozing blood, the burning wreckage of the World Trade Center - things that disgust or sicken. Horror can dehumanize us, make us numb to the things around us. All of the above is, of course, a long way to go for me to state that I'll be doing a Friday Fifteen this week - the five moments of my life filled with the most dread, terror and horror respectively. Starting with Horror:
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:38:00 AM | Thursday, March 24, 2005
Idunno, Dick - It's Got A Good Beat, And I Can Dance To It! Bunarchy! Spiffy animation and a catchy tune. You will be earwigged, but you'll be OK with that. Yoinked, for the record, from Spidra. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:44:00 PM | What Do You Do When The Whole Barrel Is Rotten? Remember last year, when we were assured that the problems at Abu Ghraib were the work of a few bad apples? Since that time, the soldiers caught on film abusing prisoners have all been charged and a few have been convicted and sentenced, but none of the military intelligence officers or the civilian contractors that ordered the abuse have been disciplined. The individuals at the top that ordered, encouraged or facilitated the abuse and torture have, of course, been left to walk around scot-free. Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, Bush, Cheney - they're just fine, thankyouverymuch. One of the other tidbits that came out of Abu Ghraib was that the CIA and the Army were cooperating to keep some detainees hidden from Red Cross monitors. One prisoner had been placed there at the express request of Donald Rumsfeld, another had been neaten to death in a shower stall at the prison. This, we were told, was more of those darn "bad apples" at work, and it certainly wasn't part of a widespread pattern. Just like the torture and abuse weren't part of a widespread pattern, and don't you even bother looking at other detention facilities in Iraq, or in Afghanistan, and Gitmo is perfectly fine. We've found since, of course, that if torture and abuse are the work of bad apples, someone trucked in a whole bunch of rotten ones, because it's pretty much the rule, not the exception. And now we are... not shocked, really. More like resignedly disappointed to find that the CIA has a whole network of invisible prisoners. They've worked hand-in-hand to violate the Geneva Conventions, US and international law. Senior defense officials have described the CIA practice of hiding unregistered detainees at Abu Ghraib prison as ad hoc and unauthorized, but a review of Army documents shows that the agency's "ghosting" program was systematic and known to three senior intelligence officials in Iraq. and The documents show that the highest-ranking general in Iraq at the time acknowledged that his top intelligence officer was aware the CIA was using Abu Ghraib's cells, a policy the general abruptly stopped when questions arose. and Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top Army officer in Iraq at the time, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last spring that there was no system of keeping such detainees at Abu Ghraib, but he later acknowledged two cases in which it had happened, including that of one detainee who died in custody and another who was kept without registration at the behest of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Now, I don't know if you recall a few years back, when over $40,000,000 was spent to determine that this guy had lied about getting a blowjob at work, but the term "perjury" was bandied about pretty frequently. I'm no legal expert, but it sure as shit sounds to me like Rumsfeld and Sanchez, at the very least, were engaging in what is known in the legal profession as lying their asses off. Is tarring and feathering still legal? There's a whole list of sanctimonious, posturing, hypocritical sons of bitches that need to get tarred, feathered and run out of town on a fuckin' rail. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 3:33:00 PM | Celebrity Necrophiles If, through some mischance, I am reduced to a permanent vegetative state and have lost all higher brain functions and my body (bereft of anything resembling consciousness) has been kept alive, please try to line up some decent celebrities, OK? I mean, it's not that I want my body to be kept alive to suck money through a feeding tube for decades if my brain is so much tapioca, but if it happens, I just want to know I'll have someone cooler than Patricia "Everybody Loves Raymond" Heaton or Pat Fucking Boone involved. It's bad enough that Tom DeLay, the Bush brothers and Bill Frist are all using Teri Schiavo's corpse in some bizarre politically necrophiliac ritual, and the psychotic hangers-on like Randall Terry seriously creep me out, but getting third-stringers like Heaton and Boone is just adding insult to injury. In fact, do me a favor, go ahead and line up William Shatner, Keith Richards and Seth Green as celebrity spokespeople for the "Adam's Dead, Let's Party" campaign. I'd like Kate Beckinsale, Bernadette Peters and Rupert Everett to run the "We're So Desperately Sad Adam's Dead Because We Never Got To Date Him" foundation. Any "pro-life" freakos that show up, you've got advance permission to beat 'em senseless. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:33:00 AM | Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Gravity is a Harsh Mistress Alec's found a new game. He's mastered the "Shove A Chair Around So You Can Climb To Dangerous Places" trick, as well as the ninjalike stealth that allows him to remain undetected until he lets loose a giggle as he teeters on top of the kitchen counter near the knife block or hangs by one arm from the banister rail on the staircase. Yesterday, I was in the living room helping Drew out with a computer game and heard Alec's excited squeal. I ran into the kitchen to find that in the 30 seconds I'd been in the other room, he'd managed to slide a chair across the kitchen, climb up on to the counter, force the window open a little wider and get his head and shoulders out the window. A tug of war ensued, with me winning thanks to Newton's laws involving mass and acceleration. I recieved no thanks from Alec, who decided instead to cry at the top of his lungs, because nothing is meaner than a Daddy that won't let his son dive headfirst into shrubbery, right up there on the "mean" list with cruel mothers that grab their toddlers before they run into the street. At least I'm at least in good company. Later, when Melissa was downstairs, I was recounting this latest development in the life of Danger!Baby when I noticed that our basket of cloth napkins on the window sill was suspiciously empty. Sure enough, a glance out the window showed me that our entire napkin stock was sitting in the dirt between the wall of the house and the roots of the front shrubbery. It was easy to get back to the napkins - there's about 18" between the shrub and the house. Getting back, though, seemed to be a real problem. My feet kept getting tangled, and just as I neared the pavement leading up to the front door, I had that flash of warning you sometimes get - "LOOK OUT! YOU'RE GOING TO FALL, BUT YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!" my brain screamed as I suddenly became aware of the fact that one foot was on top of the other and my center of gravity had inexplicably moved about 2' forward, while my body stayed in the same place. In slow motion, I toppled. "Fuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkk!" my voice bellowed in the slow-motion normally reserved for shots of Mel Gibson outrunning a gas explosion. The pavement shot towards me at an alarming rate, especially considering that everything else was moving so slowly. I thought about the fact that I was, apparently, about to smack my face onto concrete with the full force of 250+ lb falling in a six-foot-one-inch tall arc. The mathematics of the force and acceleration of it were beyond me, save for the careful estimate that I would hit with "A Whole Goddamn Lot" of force and it would hurt even more. Somehow, I managed to flail and get one arm under me (wondering if this was the wisest course) and hit on my right hand, rolling on to my right shoulder and finally hitting the right side of my head on the sidewalk. I lay there for a moment, running a mental inventory.
I slowly picked myself up and walked inside, managing to jauntily wave at the neighbor, as if this was part of some well-known exercise program, was nothing to note or remember, and wasn't she jealous that she couldn't trip those pounds away? On the plus side, I made a rather nice spaghetti sauce on the spur of the moment (the freezer container labeled "spaghetti sauce" turned out instead to hold turkey noodle soup) and we were able to watch "The Amazing Race" instead of sit in an emergency room holding an Inadequate Ice Pack to my head. Next time, I'm tying a rope around Alec's waist and making him get the goddamn napkins. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:45:00 AM | Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Dream I'm in a very large, very new grocery store. I am alone, and have only a few small items to purchase. Noting the shiny, freshly waxed floor, I make a decision: I'll skate my way through the store. I take my shoes off and begin gliding through the store in my socks, dodging the carts of other shoppers, leaping over low displays, zooming down the aisles and (somehow) managing to take 90-degree turns without wiping out. In short order, I've got the stuff I needed to purchase (cheese, french bread, a bottle of wine, AA batteries and motor oil) and am headed back to the checkout line. On the way, I see that others have had my idea, and I am forced to veer around several families sliding and skidding their ways across the store, unable to display the brilliant control I manage. All admire my grace and skill. Women swoon, men glare jealously at me. I'll go back to that store for all my shopping, I think. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 5:57:00 AM | Monday, March 21, 2005
Who Elected These Tools? U.S. Misled Allies About Nuclear Export In an effort to increase pressure on North Korea, the Bush administration told its Asian allies in briefings earlier this year that Pyongyang had exported nuclear material to Libya. That was a significant new charge, the first allegation that North Korea was helping to create a new nuclear weapons state.Don't get me wrong here - I think North Korea's a real threat - but we're glossing over the transfer of nuclear material and technology willy-nilly across central Asia and the Middle East just because a dictator we're propping up is pretending to be helping us? Pakistan is a serious threat to peace and order in the entire region - it has nuclear missiles, actively sponsors terrorist groups, has provided some degree of official and/or unofficial protection for Al Quaeda and related groups in the very recent past and the scientist running its nuclear program used official government equipment and transport to sell nuclear technology to Iran and Libya, among others. The Pakistani government supported the Taliban and turned a blind eye to financial activity by wealthy supporters of terrorism within its borders. This doesn't help our credibility (not that we had much left, after all that's gone before). So let's sum up the brilliant diplomatic track record we've built up lately:
Red America, I'd appreciate it greatly if you could all punch yourselves in your fuckin' heads, because I simply don't have the time to go and do it myself. Thanks, morons! posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:50:00 AM | Sunday, March 20, 2005
I Don't Have the Liver I Used To Time was, I'd drink a lot and it wouldn't be a real problem - I'd feel a little hung over the next day, but it'd take a lot to get me there. Those days are gone, apparently. Went to a friend's birthday party last night and saw Dutcher, Julie and Maggie (among others - I'd have linked to 'em, but the other folks there either don't have blogs, or don't have blogs that I know of). Lots of fun, good conversation, lots of bizarre stories were told. Anecdotes were related. Wine and beer were consumed. I had 2 glasses of wine and one beer - time was, that'd be enough to get me a nice buzz I could coast on for the rest of the evening. Last night, when it came time to leave, I got about 3 blocks away and realized I was much worse off than I thought. This necessitated my pulling into a Whataburger and having a burger, fries and a cup of coffee, sitting until my personal Drunk-O-Meter had moved back into the green zone. The positive I get out of this, of course, is that it's much cheaper for a hypothetical date to get me drunk and take advantage of me. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 7:26:00 PM | Saturday, March 19, 2005
Feelin' Butch Today I have:
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 2:48:00 PM | Friday, March 18, 2005
Conservatives or Communists? Found this over at Whiskey Bar: Scenes From the Cultural Revolution It's quotes from conservatives about the supposed "liberal" bias in academic circles juxtaposed with quotes from and about Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution. I'm not saying that conservatives in America are Communists, just pointing out that anti-intellectuallism is shared by any group or ideology threatened by a thinking, reasoning public. I have undertaken the task of organizing conservative students myself and urging them to protest a situation that has become intolerable. - David Horowitz - The Campus Blacklist - April 18, 2003And... It is refreshing that conservative students are increasingly fighting back against academic intolerance. Some conservative students at the University of Texas have begun compiling a "Professor Watch List" to warn students about professors who use their classes for liberal indoctrination. - Phyllis Schlafly - Confronting The Campus Radicals - January 12, 2004Also... Last spring I organized college students to investigate the voter-registration records of university professors at more than a dozen institutions of higher learning. I had them target the social sciences. The students used primary registration to determine party affiliation, although admittedly, it's not always an exact match. - David Horowitz - Closed doors, closed minds - June 20, 2002This is the one that really sent chills through me, though: I believe that the university should check into [professor] David Gibbs. He is an anti-American communist who hates America and is trying to brainwash young people into thinking America sucks. He needs to go and live in a Third World country to appreciate what he has here. Have him investigated by the FBI. FBI has been contacted. - Student evaluation form - Submitted to the University of Arizona - Spring 2004 And who says the kids these days don't learn anything from history? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:10:00 PM | Friday Five - I Dream Of Genie It's my turn this week: You lucked out - you found a lamp with an extremely generous genie. 100 wishes, and all for you! What are the last five wishes you make?100 wishes. Knowing me, I'll run through the usual ones pretty early: an adjustable metabolism so I'll stay at my ideal weight, time to exercise, super powers, Bernadette Peters, Kate Beckinsale and a tub of whipped cream.... The middle ones are easy, too: more wisdom from politicians, more intelligence in the voters, the disappearance of the works of Danielle Steele, Piers Anthony, Terry Brooks, Shania Twain and Madonna from the face of the Earth.... The last five, though - that's where it gets weird. (Gord did the same thing I was planning when he answered today, so I'll have to vamp)
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 5:59:00 AM | Thursday, March 17, 2005
Darn Those Greedy Unions! Related to my posts from yesterday, we have further evidence of how grredy, grasping workers are demolishing our nation's leading corporations: United CEO gets $366,000 bonus, employee pay is slashed. Bankrupt United Airlines paid its top executive a bonus of over $366,000 last year as the company sought salary and other concessions from union workers, but has cut his pay by 15 percent in 2005. Must be nice, getting a bonus for agreeing to a pay "cut". For the record, this is the same United Airlines that recently announced it couldn't pay the pensions it promised its employees, handing that over to the Federal Government to take over, resulting in reduced future benefits for current employees. This is the same United that has whined and screamed about how the pilots', mechanics' and flight attendants' unions are driving them out of business because they make so much money. Pilots accepted huge cuts in their pay following 9/11 to keep the company afloat, but the idiots in the executive offices managed to piss that away, keeping their pay and bonuses intact through fair means and foul. Bruce Lakefield, Tilton's counterpart at the only other major U.S. carrier in bankruptcy -- US Airways -- has a salary of $425,000. That figure is sharply lower than his predecessors, and is in line with counterparts at the low-cost airlines, which US Airways is in many ways trying to emulate. Yeah, those damn unions, sneakily accepting pay and benefit cuts, then using some kind of Jedi Mind Trick to force those executive bastards to accept huge bonuses. I'm just thankful we have a leader annointed by God to save these poor, oppressed fatcat bastards from the naked greed of the workers. Can you imagine what kind of Hell we'd live in if the rich couldn't get richer at the expense of the poor? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:43:00 AM | Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Revised Figures It was pointed out to me at Dispatches From the Trenches that the figures in my post below were not adjusted for inflation. This made it seem at first glance that the increases in the minimum wage have been sufficient to keep abreast of inflation. That ain't so. Courtesy of CJR's Inflation Calculator: (All figures in 2001 dollars) 1971:
1981:
1991:
2001:
In 2001 dollars, then, we find that:
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:10:00 PM | Some Interesting Figures In 1971:
Here's some thoughts that come to my mind:
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:31:00 AM | Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Sane Judges and Crazy Bigots in California Court invalidates California's ban on same-sex marriage Richard Kramer, a Roman Catholic judge appointed to the Superior Court by Republican governor Pete Wilson, ruled yesterday that California's ban on same-sex marriages is a violation of "the basic human right to marry the person of one's choice." Rejecting California Attorney General Bill Lockyer's argument that California is entitled to maintain the traditional definition of marriage, Kramer said the same explanation was offered for the state's ban on interracial marriage, which was struck down by the state Supreme Court in 1948.Already, of course, the know-nothings and the bigots are squealing about it. With a stroke of his pen, Judge Kramer went from being a "brilliant guy", a tough but fair jurist, to being a "liberal activist judge". Already, we're hearing that this ruling oppresses Christians, devalues marriage, that it's "tyranny". "Judicial tyranny is alive and well and reigning in San Francisco," said the Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Anaheim-based Traditional Values CoalitionJudicial tyranny? For offering an interpretation of the law, and applying sound legal and logical principles to a bad law? Puh-leeeeze. A bedrock social issue such as marriage "should be decided by the American voters, not by the court," said Tom Del Beccaro, chairman of the Republican Party of Contra Costa and president of California's county Republican chairs. "A decision about such an important societal institution shouldn't be in the hands of one, twoBy those standards, slavery would still be legal. The whole purpose of the Constitution is to make sure that the rights of minorities are protected along with the rights of the majority. Equal protection and all that, wot? One of the primary functions of the judiciary is to examine laws in relation to previously existing laws, including the constitution (either state or federal, depending, of course, upon the court) and determine if a law is valid. If a law conflicts with existing law, the judges are empowered within reason to rectify it - either issuing a ruling clarifying the law (in cases of ambiguity) or throwing the law out (if there's no way to reconcile it). The California ban was incompatible with the constitution of the state, which was approved by the voters. "If this is unconstitutional, there is another constitution to answer to, and that is the word of God," said [Thomas] Wang, who organized a 7,000-person rally in San Francisco's Sunset District last April against the legalization of same-sexYes, Reverend Wang, there is another constitution to answer to, the United States Constitution. The purported wishes of God(s) do not enter into it - God didn't found the United States, citizens did. They threw of the yoke of kings, they fought, bled and died. Human beings did all the fucking heavy lifting in this country, not God. Wang was particularly disturbed by a portion of Kramer's ruling that rejected the notion that one of the functions of state law was to promote procreation and child-rearing by a husband and wife. Kramer wrote, "One does not have to be married in order to procreate, nor does one have to procreate in order to be married."I bet Wang is wearing poly/cotton blend clothing, and I bet he's eaten shrimp. If you're going to insist that we follow God's law, you sweet-ass better follow it to the letter. God, the Old Testament God, is pretty damn specific about that. "If everyone in the world would follow the same-sex pattern, then there would be genocide," said Wang, who heads the Great Commission Center International, a missionary organization, inMountain View.Hold on - how does the straw man of worldwide homosexual relationships lead to genocide? Genocide is, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.. Billions of men and women engaging in sweet gay lovin' does not strike me as "systematic and planned extermination". No, the only genocide I hear about is from assholes like you and Phelps and Falwell - proclamations that God considers people like me and good friends of mine "abominations" is a step on the road to completely dehumanizing us. First God hates us, then we're a threat to the children, then you've got a pretext to lock us up to protect society and how far are we then from genocide? Yeah, I know - "hate the sin, love the sinner". That's bullshit - we don't feel the love, you dig? Perhaps (and I'm making a wild guess here) it's because there isn't any love at all, save for your own selves. Let's see what else the bigots had to say, shall we? Eva Muntean, who co-organized a 1,000-person march against same-sex marriage last April in North Beach that drew Roman Catholic Archbishop William Levada, said, "We support marriage as between a man and a woman because it is a building block of our society that is designed to give children a mother and a father.Yeah, and accodring to centuries of common law in societies around the world, slavery is OK, and if a wife mouths off to her husband, he's allowed to beat her, 'cause she's his property. Spare me your legal judgement, Eva. You're talking out of your ass. "(Same-sex marriage) is not the equivalent of regular (heterosexual) marriage," said Bill Tam, executive director of the Chinese Family Alliance in San Francisco, a 1,200-member organization that is influential among the region's conservative Chinese Christians. "People say that if people are in love they should be ableAh, the good old slippery slope! Gay marriage today, incest tomorrow! I suppose next week we'll be having the man-on-dog and man-on-turtle marriages so desperately desired by Senators Santorum and Cornyn? When do we get to marry our toasters? The Traditional Values Coalition's Sheldon plans to meet with conservative Christian, Muslim and Orthodox Jewish leaders, hoping they will help to lobby California legislators on twin bills that would amend the Constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage.Man alive, it is good to see fundamentalist Jews, Christians and Muslims working together out of their mutual love for the same God, striving with pure hearts to oppress a group that has done them no harm. Isn't that heart-warming? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 11:39:00 AM | Domestic Disturbance - Home Comforts New month, new column by my wife. Home Comforts. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:51:00 AM | Monday, March 14, 2005
Pravda, Schmavda! The New York Times had an interesting article this weekend: Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News It is the kind of TV news coverage every president covets. The article mentions that this practice began during the Clinton administration, but that it has expanded under Bush, despite his proclamation in January that "There needs to be a nice independent relationship between the White House and the press" in relation to the revelations about the payola offered to Armstrong Williams, et al. ...in three separate opinions in the past year, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress that studies the federal government and its expenditures, has held that government-made news segments may constitute improper "covert propaganda" even if their origin is made clear to the television stations. The point, the office said, is whether viewers know the origin. Last month, in its most recent finding, the G.A.O. said federal agencies may not produce prepackaged news reports "that conceal or do not clearly identify for the television viewing audience that the agency was the source of those materials." As with so many other things from this misAdministration, the words that are spoken bear little relation to the actions taken: It is not certain, though, whether the office's pronouncements will have much practical effect. Although a few federal agencies have stopped making television news segments, others continue. And on Friday, the Justice Department and the Office of Management and Budget circulated a memorandum instructing all executive branch agencies to ignore the G.A.O. findings. The memorandum said the G.A.O. failed to distinguish between covert propaganda and "purely informational" news segments made by the government. Such informational segments are legal, the memorandum said, whether or not an agency's role in producing them is disclosed to viewers. The legality of this practice may be in question, but the ethics - of the government agencies producing these fraudulent "reports", the administration that encourages them and the TV stations that broadcast them - are pretty goddamn clear, to me. It's wrong, and antithetical to the principle of an independent media. Not that much of the Corporate Media in the US seems interested in being independent of late. [EDIT] Thanks to Mike of Comments from Left Field, I've got a link to a piece by Amy Goodman at Democracy Now! on this very topic. Check it out. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:42:00 AM | Sunday, March 13, 2005
Talk About Discomfort One of Drew's classmates had a birthday party this weekend. I had transferred the details of the party to the calendar in our kitchen, clearly marking it for Sunday the 13th. Imagine my shock when I looked at the invitation this morning so I could get directions to the party before we left - the party was on the 12th, not the 13th. I felt like utter crap. Drew and Alec and I went out this morning to run some errands, and I stopped at his friend's house to apologize for my error but no one was home. We left Drew's gift for his friend at the door, along with a note in which I apologized profusely. This evening, I was finally able to talk to the kid's parents and apologize personally, and they seemed OK with it - Melissa will be taking Drew and his friend to the Texas Memorial Museum this week, and the gift Drew had picked out for his friend seemed to be a hit. Still, I feel like a Bad Person. I know I'm not the first person to brain-fart about something like this, so I shouldn't feel bad, but I just hate the thought of making an RSVP and then missing the party. I've received some degree of absolution on this, so I don't feel as bad as I did earlier today, but I still don't feel great. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:19:00 PM | Saturday, March 12, 2005
More Potemkin Meetings It looks like Bush learned one thing from the last campaign: Staged "meetings" with carefully screened The White House follows a practiced formula for each of the meetings. First it picks a state in which generally it can pressure a lawmaker or two, and then it lines up panelists who will sing the praises of the president's plan. Finally, it loads the audience with Republicans and other supporters. We saw this during the campaign as well. Hand-picked audiences, pre-screened questions and comments, quick action to hush any voice that even sounds like it might disagree. Actual contact with the press is limited, although the occasional bone is tossed to local media that appear receptive to the message. Pastor Andrew Jackson of the Faith Temple Ministries Church of God praised Bush for tackling the issue and lamented what he described as some of the false charges made about the president's plan. "That's called political propaganda," Bush said. And if anyone knows about propaganda, it would be you, Mr. President. Don't know about you, but I'm getting dizzy thinking about all the other wonderful innovations BushCo can pull from good ol' Uncle Joe and Cousin Vladimir! Bread lines! Gulags! Purges! The pageantry of the One-party rule! What fun we'll have! posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:40:00 AM | Friday, March 11, 2005
Friday 5 - When Pigs Fly Dan asks: What 5 events or things would you like to see in your lifetime but are skeptical that you will?
Honorable Mentions: Another Decent Star Wars Movie Harlan Ellison's I, Robot Aristotle's Second Poetics The other Friday Fivers and their flights of fancy are listed here. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 6:08:00 AM | Thursday, March 10, 2005
What kind of pirate am I? You decide! posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 6:53:00 PM | Man-Hating and Hairy Armpits I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat. - Rebecca WestAccording to the American Heritage Dictionary (4th Ed, © 2000), Feminism is 1. Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes and 2. The movement organized around this belief. Seems pretty straightforward to me. In a recent discussion, I heard a young woman state that her political and social beliefs probably made her a feminist, but that she didn't like that label. It brought to mind "bra-burning and mullets". Other young women chimed in - man-hating, and especially the impression others would have of them if they declared themselves "feminists", were cited as reasons to eschew that label. This bothered me - the images they brought up were ones that, to me, don't reflect the feminist movement. The other thing that bothered me were the ways those negative images of feminism were veiled slaps at lesbians. Man-hating, mullet-wearing, hairy-armpitted bull dykes out to castrate the men and institute a tyrranny of the pussy over the world. I know the women I was talking about aren't homophobic - they're intelligent, well-educated, articulate and open-minded, and have in the past made some pretty clear statements opposing racism, sexism and homphobia. What fascinated me, though, was the way in which they had let the debate be framed by the other side. It's not just the women I was conversing with (and no, I won't name names. I'm not going to publicly shame them, and this isn't an attack on them), either. It happens at colleges, universities, on TV, in the newspaper - It's all over the place. We hear talk radio hosts whine about "feminazis" and holding up the most extreme, fringe members of the feminist movement as "leaders" within the movement and daming the entire movement based upon their wildest statements, or (more commonly) mischaracterizations of those statements. Andrea Dworkin is frequently invoked. The way in which our society has seen the real meaning of "feminist" gradually replaced over the years in an Orwellian fashion with the most negative, ugly stereotypes possible, such that for many Americans "feminist" is equivalent to "man-hating bull-dyke", is beyond bothersome. The assumption that to be a feminist is to hate men and maintain cartoonish opinions about the "phallocentric society" is antithetical to our purported values. It's certainly true that some feminists are of the extremist mindset that a totalitarian gynocracy is the ideal system, but the number that believe that way is tiny. There are several things that need to be made clear here:
posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 12:55:00 PM | Wednesday, March 09, 2005
What's the Point of This? Recently, I got some wine shipped to me via UPS (Many thanks to the wonderful Mojave 66!). I still haven't decided which bottle to open first, so I've been spending time staring at the bottles and dithering, occasionally contemplating opening both and drinking them in one sitting, first the white and finishing it off with the red. I think I'll wait until I've got some good cheese to eat with the wine - maybe even bake a loaf of bread this weekend and savor some wine, fresh bread and stinky cheese. Mmmmm, I like stinky cheese, me. Looking at the box the wine was shipped in, the first thing I noticed were the nifty styrofoam holders for the bottles. They cradled the bottles perfectly, definitely one of the simpler and more clever ideas I've seen in shipping containment. The second thing I noticed was a label outside the box: ADULT SIGNATURE REQUIREDMost of that made sense. Sure, you don't want to deliver it to some kid that might have used Mom's Visa card to order himself some booze online. You also don't want the driver just leaving the package outside your door for one of those dang Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses to gank when they come wandering through the neighborhood to tell folks about their particular flavor of diety. What puzzles me, though, is the stipulation that wine can't be delivered to an intoxicted person. WTF? Home is the best place for intoxicated people, when you think about it. Once they're home and have a good drunk going, they're not likely to leave the house, especially if there's an Iron Chef marathon on Food Network and no one else is home and they're in their underwear and have a big bowl of hot buttered popcorn to munch on. At least, that's what I've heard. So bringing alcohol to a drunk is really, when you think about it, doing a public service - you're making extra sure they stay off the road. Is this ban on deliveries to the intoxicated based upon the supposition that they were drunk when they ordered the booze online and have stayed drunk since then, and requiring a non-drunk person to sign for it makes sure that they have time to sober up, lose the hangover and see what all they ordered during this binge drinking episode? They really ought to change that rule, then, and make it a rule that drunk people can't order stuff. That would've saved me from having to pretend I wasn't home when they came to deliver all the Pocket Fishermen I ordered that one time when I'd been drinking the tequila. Seriously, though, it just doesn't make sense. I understand why bars and liquor stores aren't supposed to sell alcoholic beverages to the obviously intoxicated - it makes sense to take steps to make it difficult for someone too pissed to piss straight to get behind the wheel of a motorized vehicle. Once the drunk's home, though, who cares? It's their body, their home - if they want to court liver failure and those weepy, maudlin late-night phone calls to old friends to tell them they "really, really love you, man, an' not jus' because I'm drunk, but 'cause you're a wonnerful person and I really love you, an' i's great to have a friend like you and oh, God, my life sucks and I'm sitting here drunk in my underwear and keeping you up in the middle of the night and I'm crying and oh, God I think I'm gonna puke I'll call you back lat-HUUURRRGGGHHH", that's their business. Not, of course, that I've ever done that. Nope. Nosiree-bob. (By the way, honey, don't freak out about the long distance bill this month. I'm sure there's some mistake, and I'll get it sorted out. I mean, there's no way I'd call LA and talk for 5-6 hours in the middle of the night. Must be a mistake.) So, Dear Readers, I'm wondering - which bottle? The red or the white? And what to serve with it? Note to readers: I don't really want to know why UPS won't deliver to drunk people. Nor do I want you to worry that I'm an alcoholic. I just want to know which wine I should drink first and what I should have to eat with it. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:40:00 AM | Tuesday, March 08, 2005
No Worries, Right? Wrong. According to the LA Times (use bugmenot.com to log in), our intelligence services are pretty damn concerned about moles. With Arabic speakers in short supply, every branch of the intelligence service is scrambling to hire anything remotely resembling an expert. Problem is, the best candidates tend to have plenty of red flags in their backgrounds. During the Cold War, the FBI had about a quarter of its staff assigned to counterintelligence, and even then Aldrich Ames at the CIA and Robert Hanssen at the FBI, among others) managed to relay information on hundreds of agents and secret projects to the Soviets. And that was before the internet and cheap data storage made it so darn easy to get lots of information from one side of the planet to the other. The most interesting thing in the article above, though, is from the very end: Former President George H.W. Bush, whose presidential library is at Texas A&M, opened the weekend conference with a fervent defense of the CIA. He headed the agency from November 1975 to January 1977. So let's get this straight - Poppy Bush is upset that the CIA got nailed for its involvement in such things as spying on American citizens, assassination attempts on foreign leaders and military coups in Chile, Guatemala, Honduras and other nations? Not only that, but "untutored little jerks" had the audacity to insist upon civilian oversight of his precious CIA? "Unmitigated gall" is the descriptive term that comes immediately to mind. It's something that seems to run in that whole family of spoiled, snobbish fatcat shitbags. His statement, though, should make it clear where his priorities lie - and it's not with the people. Why does George H. W. Bush hate America, I wonder? posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 12:46:00 PM | What A Surprise - Not Alberto Gonzales lies some more to protect his boss. Speaking to reporters, Gonzales defended the policy of "extraordinary rendition", in which suspects are handed over to goverments willing to do the dirty work for BushCo, like Uzbekistan (known for boiling suspects alive) and Egypt (they prefer pulling out fingernails and electric shocks). ...Gonzales, speaking to reporters at the Justice Department yesterday, said that U.S. policy is not to send detainees "to countries where we believe or we know that they're going to be tortured." Back in January, of course, Gonzales claimed "It is my understanding that the United States does not render individuals to countries where we believe it is more likely than not they will be tortured." See how the definitions keep changing for these guys? Back before Abu Ghraib briefly shoved its way into the consciousness of the American public, the Bushistas requested some "clarification" on torture, and came up with a definition that made all kinds of abuses A-OK:
As we learned yesterday, Bush gave blanket approval to the procedure of handing suspects over to despotic governments nominally allied with the US in order to get them to do the hard-core torture for us (it apparently having been decided that while some "bad apples", properly guided, might bring great enthusiasm to the work of torture, it was really a matter best left in the hands of less expensive foreign subsidiaries) in 2001. Is this part of "restoring honor and dignity" to the White House? Which part of "compassionate conservatism" is asking someone to rip out a suspect's fingernails? Will the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith be able to get a faith-based initiative grant to apply the strappado or the Spanish boot to Once again, my hat is off to Red America for their ability to see through all that smokescreen being put out about "human rights" and get to the root of the matter: George W. Bush is a real man, and is unafraid to lie about having someone else do his dirty work for him. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 6:54:00 AM | Monday, March 07, 2005
Liar, Liar Redux ...torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture. - George W. Bush, interview in the New York Times on Jan. 27, 2005. Bush gave CIA authority to outsource torture. The Bush administration gave the CIA extensive authority to send terrorism suspects to foreign countries for interrogation just days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, The New York Times reported on Sunday.This isn't really a surprise, of course. Only the most vapid and intellectually comatose Faux-News-watching couch potato could claim not to know that torture has become the official unofficial policy of this administration. From Abu Ghraib to Afghanistan to Guatanamo Bay, the US Military has been implicated in dozens of cases of abuse, torture and more than a few deaths. Our Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, helped craft the opinion papers justifying the use of torture, for which he was rewarded with his current position. This administration has determined, like their cronys in the business world, that it's cheaper to ship the torture overseas to nations like Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Pakistan. The administration views this as a win-win situation. It gets Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, ratified by the United States and more than 130 other countries since 1984, forbids governments from deliberately inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering on those within their custody or control. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit. Beating, burning, rape, and electric shock are some of the grisly tools such regimes use to terrorize their own citizens. These despicable crimes cannot be tolerated by a world committed to justice.Maher Arar, Muhammad Zery, Ahmed Agiza, Mamdouh Habib, Jamal al-Harith and Hadj Boudella respectfully beg to differ with the truth of your avowed opposition to torture, Mr. President. As do I. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:11:00 PM | Sunday, March 06, 2005
Hey Ya'll! It's me, Darryl Simpson again. I was over to the computer department here at the Wal-Mart yesterday and used my employee discount to buy me one on the installment. It's a nice one, and I got me one of them AOL free trial disks so I could connect to the internet's from home instead of borrowing Adam's computer all of the time. It's neat being on the internet's. I already got 4 e-mails offering to hook me up with hot women looking for sex with no string attached and another one that'll get me in at the ground floor of a new thing called multi level marketing, whatever that is. I'd tell you about how this guy in South Africa is going to help me get millions of dollars, but he said I have to use discretion. Don't worry, Barrister M'kele! I'll keep your secret! I saw that it's been almost 2 years since Adam started this blog. He's talked about a lot of stuff, and he's an alright guy except he used to be more patriotic and supported the troops. May be now that the election is all over and George BUsh is going to get us all millions of dollar's on the stock market for our retirement he'll see that George BUsh is right because he's a godly man and won't make us all have gay marriages like John Kerry would have done. I better go, becausae a truck full of fishing supplies is coming in today and I got to go unload it. Plus that means I can hide a good reel and buy it with my discount once I pay off the computer. I hope Adam doesn't mind I borrowed his credit card to sign up for AOL but it's free and they just need it to verify the account. And I used it to sign up for the dating service, and I'll get me a fourth wife who'll be nicer than the first 3 and won't run off with the guy from the Kwik-ee Mart or burn down my trailer or get drunk and crash my dodge charger. God blee you guys and god bless AMERICA! posted by DarrylSimp at 10:00:00 AM | Saturday, March 05, 2005
Whacknoodles Galore! Educate-Yourself.org is your one-shop stop for everything from Bioelectrification to Zuerrnnovahh-Starr Livingstone. Lotsa fun, lotsa craziness. Been wondering what that pesky NWO is up to? The best way to get your Colloidal Silver? These folks will tell you. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:49:00 AM | Friday, March 04, 2005
Damn, O'Reilly is One Big Ol' Titty-Baby I mean, if you think the frickin' ACLU is "terrorizing" you, then you're too chickenshit to live. We know O'Reilly's a serial liar and falafel-lover, but this pushes him all the way out into Whacknoodle territory along with the flat-earthers, the creationists and the Supply-Side economists. It seems that because the ACLU had the audacity to file a lawsuit charging Donald Rumsfeld with complicity in the ever-widening, unofficially sanctioned and ongoing torture scandal - specifically that he, as Secretary of Defense, permitted and encouraged the use ot torture and abuse to attempt to elicit information from detainees - they are terrorists. This blatant support of the anti-American scrap of paper called the "Constitution" and freedom-hating concepts of "human rights", apparently, qualifies the ACLU as "terrorists". Media Matters has a good breakdown on this latest asshattery. Here's a trascript of his statements on his radio show March 1: O'REILLY: This ACLU has no strategy to fight the war on terror at all. Everything the United States government does -- everything -- they oppose. Everything! Nothing they like in defending ourselves against terrorists -- nothing. ...Back in June, he had some more to say: From the June 2 broadcast of The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:Wow! Terrorists and fascists! Hating Christmas, apparently, is just icing on the cake. I'm just wondering - when did the ACLU make terroristic threats? Surely they've gone on the record with a desire to nuke the State Department, see Supreme Court justices dead, or to blow up the New York Times, right? They must've made some specific and actionable threat against Mr. O'Reilly and his falafel, but repeated googling hasn't pulled anything up yet. One does wonder, though, who is responsible for keeping Falaf'O'Reilly on his meds, and why that person has been sleeping on the job of late. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:53:00 PM | Friday Five - Mirror, Mirror Rob, fronting for the APA, asks us: one for the navel gazers. five times you've looked in the mirror and thought 'who the bloody hell are you?'.Every freakin' day, baby. Every freakin' day. But, in the interest of being a good sport, I'll come up with 5 specific instances.
The other Friday Fivers, or their Evil Twins from the Alternate Universe, can all be found here. Remember - goatee=Evil Twin! posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 9:30:00 AM | Passing Along a Meme I've so far resisted the "10 Things" meme, but I'll probably succumb right after it becomes passe. In the meantime, My Emergency Backup Sibling Abby posted this one: bold the states you've been to, underline the states you've lived in and italicize the state you're in now... Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C / Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you. I've covered the former Confederate states, oughtta hit more of them Yankee states one of these days. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:33:00 AM | Thursday, March 03, 2005
Collegiate Asshattery and Some Snarky Amusement First, this: Uproar over posting of red stars on office doors of professors deemed to have "left-leaning bias" A student at Santa Rosa Junior College in California took it upon herself to tape red stars to the office doors of ten humanities faculty members she felt had a left-leaning bias in their lectures, along with a copy of a portion of the state of California's educational code that stated, "No teacher giving instruction in any school ... shall advocate or teach communism with the intent to indoctrinate or to inculcate in the mind of any pupil a preference for communism." The student, a political science major, claims that the red stars were not intended as a personal attack against the professors, just to start a discussion about the personal politics of those instructors. You'll pardon me if I have trouble distinguishing between the two, considering the form her efforts to start a discussion took. Had a student concerned about a perceived right-wing slant pasted swastikas on the doors of the professors, I'd be just as perturbed. The most disturbing part of this story, though, is that the state of California's education code specifically prohibits in the first sentence the teaching of Communism. Surely if academia were the hotbed of communism the right claims it to be, that clause would have mong ago been quietly removed. I'm willing to give the student the benefit of a doubt and chalk this up to ideological fervor combined with a lack of boundaries and common sense, but one hopes that the state of California will at some point recognize that the commies are hardly the threat they used to be, and that a code that specifically prohibits the teaching one idea can always be expanded to prohibit another. Imagine the fun the creationist wingnuts would have if they could replace "communism" with "darwinism" in that statement - or put your favorite -ism in place of communism, and ponder that. No, that clause needs to go, and quickly. In a related topic, through a chain of referring blogs (of which I am but the latest member, having picked it up from Brad DeLong, who got it in turn from John & Belle), I give you Aaron Swartz' concerns about intellectual diversity at Stanford: A shocking recent study has discovered that only 13% of Stanford professors are Republicans. The authors compare this to the 51% of 2004 voters who selected a Republican for President and argue this is “evidence of discrimination” and that “academic Republicans are being eradicated by academic Democrats”. Dunno about you, but I think that's some funny stuff. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 8:21:00 AM | Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Well I, For One, Never Expected This Result Thanks to Adrienne for this little time-waster.  You are 'Gregg shorthand'. Originally designed to enable people to write faster, it is also very useful for writing things which one does not want other people to read, inasmuch as almost no one knows shorthand any more. You know how important it is to do things efficiently and on time. You also value your privacy, and (unlike some people) you do not pretend to be friends with just everyone; that would be ridiculous. When you do make friends, you take them seriously, and faithfully keep what they confide in you to yourself. Unfortunately, the work which you do (which is very important, of course) sometimes keeps you away from social activities, and you are often lonely. Your problem is that Gregg shorthand has been obsolete for a long time. What obsolete skill are you? brought to you by Quizilla posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:51:00 AM | Tuesday, March 01, 2005
For Those That Were Wondering... Abe Vigoda is still alive! Thanks to a nifty little Firefox extension (and have I mentioned lately that I love Firefox?) called "Abe Vigoda Status 1.1", my browser gives me up-to-the-minute status reports from Abe's website. This is the coolest browser EVAH! posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 1:59:00 PM | A Step in the Right Direction Supreme Court throws out death penalty for kids under 18. The US is one of five nations that has executed minors in recent years. Since 2000, 21 minors were executed by such bastions of freedom and liberty as the Peoples' Republic of China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran and Pakistan. 13 of the 21 were executed in the United States. Correction: I wasn't clear in this, as Dan pointed out below. The 13 executed in the US were executed as adults for crimes committed as juveniles. I have wavered on capital punishment for a long time - there are some individual crimes that I find so abhorrent that I want to believe that executing the responsible party is the only way to achieve closure and exact punishment. Rationally, though, it's clear that the degree of punishment does not have much impact on the crime rates. Murder is still, by and large, a spur-of-the-moment crime. It's born of poor impulse control, complicated by personal histories laced with physical or emotional abuse and drugs and alcohol. When someone is murdered, there is immense pressure on the authorities to catch someone. This has resulted in dozens of individuals being sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit - a result that, in my mind, calls the validity of the capital justice system into question. The quality of legal representation one can afford to hire has more to do with staying off Death Row than the actual facts of the case. My feelings on the matter are at odds with my reason. This is why, as a general rule, I don't hammer the Right too hard for their opposition to abortion and support of the death penalty. I can be tarred with the mirror of that brush. So please, don't try to point out the inherent contradictions in my beliefs - I'm well aware of them already. posted by Adam C. Lipscomb at 10:44:00 AM | |
