perfidy

James Lileks writes today about Star Trek serieseses as commentaries on the times in which they were made. Hardly a new observation, but it's Lileks and therefore done with unusual grace, elegance, and insight. I suggest you read it.

Buckethead, I respectfully think you're dead wrong on nukes. I would assign a far greater seriousness to the "sentimentality" you so laughingly brush aside. Is (even a tiny amount of devastating) fallout merely sentimental? We can already do 1/100 a Hiroshima, with conventional weapons. Why unearth the revenant that's been so dangerous and troublesome in the past? 
 

So... you brilliant co-bloggers and esteemed readers. Based upon your own innate genius, unique insight, and tarot readings, how shall the United States and its allies best proceed in fostering a republican government in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, is that the best idea for them?

I know what I think. What do YOU think?

Regarding Howard Dean's critiques of Bush's foreign policy towards libervaded nations, a caveat. Whereas it's all well and good for Dean to hope for egalitarian, non-gender-discriminatory, republican/democractic societies in the Middle East, it's quite unreasonable to actually expect such a thing anytime soon. And it may be for the better. I don't like the progress in Afghanistan or Iraq any more than Dean does (tho it's too soon to tell anything sure about Iraq), but I believe that trying to impose such a radical vision of equality in either nation would be a huge mistake.

Change happens in increments, and it's often painful. If it comes overnight, it's often catastrophic. Well, those nations have been through enough catastrophe without having us engineer one of our own for the sake being able to boast of a free election before it's time for one. If democratic government is going to come to the Middle East, the nations so choosing must find their own path. At the risk of sounding paternalistic, our job is to guide them and advise them when necessary, not to create by fiat institutions of democracy where none exist. Democracy must first make sense as a concept within the context of the nation, before it can thrive. That might happen in five years, and it might happen in fifty. But ideally when it happens, it will be because local leaders figured out how to adapt the principles of 1776 and 1792 to the Middle East in 2003. So, Dean riding Bush for not pushing for such a program now is a bit disingenuous, no matter how good it sounds. I hope that, if he is elected President, he has the sense to listen to his foreign policy advisors.

Man, won't he ever stop? Every time I think Howard Dean is about to lose control of his finely-modulated Jekyll and Hyde act and become the vituperative beast he is whenever Kerry baits him, he redeems himself mightily. If he keeps it up, he just might be the next Democratic candidate for Pars-dent. Besides which, the man's incredibly fun! Via Aziz Poonawalla comes this interview. Mr. Poonawalla pulls out the super-money quotes, but I'm going to highlight a few other sections as well that I find compelling.

# On education:" "The people I am running against have mostly voted for 'No Child Left Behind,' which most teachers think should be called 'No Behind Left.' Or 'No School Board Left Standing' from the school board members point of view. It's a huge unfunded mandate and there's an awful lot of bad educational policy in there."
# On Media Regulation: "The media has clearly abused their privilege, and it is hurting our democracy. Deregulation in many areas has simply proved to be bad for America, bad for the American economy, bad for the average working person, and bad for democracy. We need to take a different view. Some deregulation is a good thing. We went too far, and now we need to cut back."
# On Oil Policy and Terror: "We've taken our eye off the ball because of the President's obsession with Iraq. We need a new oil policy, something other than "Let's drill in the national parks," because our oil money is being used to fund terrorism in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria. I might also add that there are these fundamentalist schools set up to teach children to hate Americans, Christians and Jews. That's a real problem for terrorism down the line. "
# On the Patriot Act:" I would do two things. First of all, I would remove the parts of the Patriot Act that are clearly unconstitutional. It can't be constitutional to hold an American citizen without access to a lawyer. Secondly, it can't be constitutional for the FBI to be able to go through your files at the library or the local video store, to see what you've taken out in the last week, without a warrant. The other thing I would do is appoint judges that would uphold the constitution. . . .I hate to agree with anything Dick Nixon said, but Dick Nixon used to say that he wanted strict constructionists for the bench. This President is appointing right-wing judicial activists. We need strict constructionists that believe in the constitution and will uphold it as written."
Zing! Well, if nothing else, this guy always speaks his mind. Even though it scares me a little bit when he talks about gun control at the local level (not excerpted here), at the end of the day, it just means that the barbarians will take the Liberal East, leaving the well-armed people in the middle firmly in control of their destinies. Northeasterner I may be, I can't get too exercised about that. Also, I think he may be wrong about the FBI not needing a warrant to search your files... if I'm correct they just don't have to tell anyone about it. I'll have to check that. I have to say, although he does not have national leadership experience as some of the other Democratic candidates have, neither did Lincoln, Washington, or Reagan. I dig this guy.

But the best part of the interview comes at the end, where Dean is asked about foreign policy and nation-building.

What Bush is doing in Afghanistan is a huge problem, and bodes very ill for what is going to happen in Iraq. The President has taken his eye off the ball in Afghanistan. I supported the invasion of Afghanistan and the elimination of the Taliban. I thought that group was a clear and present danger to the United States, and I supported what the President did. However, there's no follow-up. The best defense policy we could have in this country is not just to have a strong military, but it is to build middle-class nations with strong democratic ideals, where women fully participate in the government. Those countries don't go to war with each other, and they don't harbor groups like al Qaeda.

We're not doing that in Afghanistan. We're making deals with corrupt and crooked and undemocratic warlords in order to pacify Afghanistan. That is exactly the mistake the United States always makes. The notion of 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' is a huge mistake, and this administration is doing that. If they do that in Iraq, we're going to end up with an enormous problem, as we may well have in Afghanistan if the President doesn't add more peacekeeping people. The irony of this is that all the nations the President insulted before going to war in Iraq are the people we need now. We need more troops, which means we need NATO and the United Nations to get involved in rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq in a meaningful way. It has nothing to do with being nice to the French and the Germans. It has to do with protecting our soldiers who are going to be seen more and more every day as an occupiers and less as liberators.

Damn straight. We tried the "enemy of my enemy" approach in the Cold War and we're still cleaning up that mess. Even if he doesn't win the election, he'll have a heck of a career as a talking head if he wants it. Who else besides me wants to see Dean and John McCain together on a show? Hot stuff, you bet!

As Nigel Tufnel said in This Is Spinal Tap,

"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever."

The surprising thing is not that bumfights.com is popular, it's that it's not more popular. I can understand your temptation to draw parallels between the late Roman Empire and the United States, but that would mean returning to the month-long discussion on empire I thought we'd settled. (Dear readers... if you can get the archives to work, look anywhere in late March. If you dare.)

Bloodsports are eternal. Did you know that the most popular sport in Pittsburgh at the end of the eighteenth century was eye-gouging? Well, wrestling, but eye-gouging was an accepted move. There are accounts of travellers from the East pulling into Pittsburgh in the 1780s and '90s, and coming away aghast, not only at the dirt and backwardness, but at the incredible number of one-eyed men. You can read about it too, in Thomas P. Slaughter's excellent "The Whiskey Rebellion." Leaving aside the fact that it was Pittsburgh, the residents of the area were no more than one or two generations removed from their ancestral homes in Northern England, Scotland, and Ireland, where similar traditions prevailed.

Or even the code duello that claimed Aaron Burr's life-- that's a refined and codified version of a knife-fight. Or Andrew Jackson's famous temper-- same dealie. Hell, ever watch amateur hockey or rugby, or friday night fights?

My point is, although the modern age makes it easier than ever before for hooligans to entice insane homeless people to fight each other for money, the tendency toward such behavior has always been with us in Western civilization. Whether it's sublimated into fencing, Marquis of Queensbury rules boxing, and football, or out in the open like dog- or cockfights, blood spectacle is an integral part of our culture. For me, the remarkable thing is not that the United States is once again like Rome, but that we've come so far without actually, erm, "civilising." That's spelt with an "s" for full Victorian effect, please note, which is my signal that I don't wish to get into discussions of biological determinism or Whiggish progress.

* A note about the title: you really need to own this album by the Minutemen. Then you will understand. And your life will be changed, forever.

Bumfights.com is either the worst thing, or the greatest thing I have seen this week. Everytime I get revved on American exceptionalism, something like this comes along to remind me of the parallels between us and the Roman Republic in the first century BC.

Just look at this.

According to Knight-Ridder (Michael, I sense danger!), all documents relating to the Department of Homeland Security's involvement in the search for the fugitive Texas legislators last week have been destroyed.

Right. Because the legislators were terrorists. And because what state lawmakers do is the business of the Federal Government. Right. From the article:

One day before Democrats ended their boycott of the Texas House last week, the Texas Department of Public Safety ordered the destruction of all records and photos gathered in the search for them, documents obtained Tuesday show.
A one-sentence order sent by e-mail on the morning of May 14 was apparently carried out, a DPS spokesman said Tuesday. The revelation comes as federal authorities are investigating how a division of the federal Homeland Security Department was dragged into the hunt for the missing Democrats - at the request of the state police agency.
Addressed to "Captains," the order said: "Any notes, correspondence, photos, etc. that were obtained pursuant to the absconded House of Representative members shall be destroyed immediately. No copies are to be kept.

The piece also covers Tom Ridge's defense of the DHS involvement: "We thought it was very appropriate, based on the multiple inquiries that we received from members of Congress, that we deploy the means with which Congress has given us, and that's an inspector-general within our department."

Right. Because there was terror or something. And Congress asked you to.

Jackasses.

I get high speed IN-TER-NET. Yeeeeehaaaa.

If you find yourself completely in agreement with Chappaquiddick Ted, its time to worry. There is no military difference between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons, except for explosive yield. People freak out over nukes, both the explosive and power generating kind. It is not a matter of reason, it is sentimentality. Of course, there are larger concerns over using nukes - but only because others react irrationally. If the military really has a need to develop weapons like this, then fine - there has long been a gap between the largest conventional explosives and the smallest nuclear explosives. The trend for the last two decades has been toward generally smaller explosives, if only because of greater precision. But the interplay between offensive and defensive technology means that people realize that we can drop a bomb exactly where we want, and will redouble their efforts to armor stuff they don't want blown up. Eventually, they will reach a point where an armored bunker target is largely immune to any conventional explosive device, no matter how accurately delivered. (Flip side of that is that armoring is very expensive.) A small nuclear device in a penetrating casing is the perfect bunker buster. The fact that there will be some radiation is not the horrifying spectre that some make it out to be. Chemical explosives have toxic residues. So does rocket exhaust. And car exhaust for that matter.

The daisy cutter of Afghanistan fame was 7.5 tons yield. Hiroshima was 2000 times larger, at 15 Kt. In all likelihood, 1/100 of Hiroshima would be more than adequate.

The Senate today voted to resume development of smaller, more useable nuclear devices, citing as a reason the changing nature of American foreign conflicts and the need for a better bunker-buster.

I will try very hard to keep the sophomoric sarcasm at bay as I ask why this is really necessary. Should we be developing these devices because other nations are? Should we use them as bunker-busters because conventional weaponry aren't getting the job done? Is it worth scaring the hell out of half the world for the sake of some Strangelovian worst-case histogram that says it's a good idea?

Obviously, I would answer "no" to all my leading questions. I don't see the strategic utility of nuclear devices in any conflict except a cornered-rat scenario. Moreover, there's the very real risk that other nations may use this initiative to justify their own renewed efforts at evelopment. And, of course, after everything else, there's the moral issues. Senator Ted Kennedy summed it all up nicely, saying "Is half a Hiroshima OK? Is a quarter Hiroshima OK? Is a little mushroom cloud OK?"

But maybe there's something I'm missing. I urge you to read the article, decide for yourself, and let me know if I'm just doomey-eyed.

[update]: Jeez, I really gotta lay off the Doom 'n Gloom stuff for a while and post about puppies, topless dancers, and stupid hijinks. I'm a fairly unserious person-- I'm sure my compatriots would agree-- and analysis of global issues isn't exactly a market I can corner.

Generated this poem, an ode to this webpage:

Johnny Good idea... Warren Buffett!!
To Johnny I’
already be alien or
more
wrong. No longer be European
and c look hard bitter core
of my fist in
memory to eat a year from
the stinky ones will complete
if it is accounting, and over at the burning
that money gained. Enact a Cleveland
Indians, the war;
people died. no Good idea...

I see in this WaPo column that only $9M are being budgeted to the program this year, and about $20M next year. Though the article refers to this as "serious" cash, that's dead wrong--$9M is chicken change. Many members of Congress are against the program, and it looks like they want it to dangle quietly for a while and die.

Of course, the real question that paranoid types might ask is how many un-allocated funds will end up going to TIA, and whether the slim public budget is only a cunning ruse.

From various sources today I see this report which notes that, over the last five years, Republican legislatures have spent more than Democratic legislatures.

State legislatures controlled by Republicans increased spending an average of 6.54% per year from 1997 to 2002, compared with 6.17% for legislatures run by Democrats. State spending rose slowest -- 6% annually -- when legislatures were split, and each party controlled one chamber. Inflation averaged 2.55% annually 1997-2002.

Let's see... the Republicans spend like drunken sailors, don't like "the gays", are the party of Trent Lott, and are as a group socially conservative. They're my exact opposites!

Until the Lott affair, and the Santorum follow-up, I actually registered very briefly as a Republican (I live in New England, and I'm a contrarian by nature). I justified this decision by arguing that Republican legislatures support smaller government and more judicious spending of fewer funds. I now see I could not have been more wrong. No tent is big enough to hold both Rick Santorum and me.

Daniel Drezner and CalPundit agree with me about the Bush administration, which means I'm right. Or more accurately, it means they're right. I'm always right first.

For your information, as of about five minutes ago we moved to code orange. I discovered this when I found that one of the exits from my building was blocked, forcing me (and any terrorists) to walk an extra 20 yards to get a soda from the nice Eretrian vendor lady on the corner.

The Total Information Awareness network is now the Terrorist Information Awareness network. Riiight, because it was the NAME everyone had trouble with. 

[wik]  And now, meet "LifeLog." If the Pentagon ever get this idea (formerly known as Echelon- above criticism applies) off the ground, just forget about it, move to Tibet, and raise a glass in memory to the Constitution. The article is pretty puffy, and a little shameful. If the worst condemnation you can bring against a project like this is it might mistake Cory Doctorow for Osama bin Laden, you should probably spend some time sharpening your argument. 

[alsø wik]  Why does it worry me that the War people are the ones collecting all the information? Maybe because to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a bashy-thing. 
 

I must not think bad thoughts, or the person who writes under that name, has a post up about a supposed smear campaign by the US government against the French. It's interesting, especially in the aftermath of the Private Lynch: Daring Rescue, Or Street Theatre? flap the BBC perpetrated. Not to mention L'Affaire Blaine. The news is practically mental poison half the time anyway, and pretty much anybody can cite a statistic, couch it in a pungent turn of phrase, and throw it out there as "fact," whaver that is. Who believes the news anymore, anyway? Except for American Idol news. We like that.

In a related note, a couple weeks ago, I was out West* visiting some friends. These friends happen to be European and Europhiles, who have spent a substantial amount of time in France. We were arguing as people do these days over just who is the bigger a-hole, France or the USA. Both friends agreed that I would love France and the French, because, after all, I'm just like them.

After I regained my breath, I thought about it, and you know what? (shudder)

they're right.

Arrogant? Check!
Self-Important? Check!
Evangelical about (their particular) republican ideals? Check!
Certain they're right in all things? Oh, check! Check! Check!
Keen fashion sense and refined palate? Why, check, thank you!

Bottom line is, we might hate them, and they us, but it's only because culturally, we're more alike than most other peoples are. Kind of like brothers. They're the stinky ones who play in the band and collect bugs, and we're the good-looking atheletes who also volunteer time at the local shelter and excel at math. Yup, brothers.

*West, in New-England speak, refers to any locale from Worcester, MA, to Los Angeles or Seattle. I was out West.

That sound you hear? That's the universe spontaneously realigning itself to fit my wishes.

Antisocial contrarian that I am, I went with the wife to see the X-Men sequel this weekend, hoping all the fanboys, gamers, and backwards-hat mofos would be engrossed in the Matrix.

Everything really worth saying has already been said by Jacob Levy. I shall only add that it was wonderful to see another Marvel comic book movie succeed at balancing reverence for the material with the demands of the Hollywood script. It was just great, especially the human touches-- each character in the rather large cast was well-drawn, and acted with depth, panache, and a sense of fun. No Gnostic parables, just modern allegory, tight uniforms, and a whole lotta Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and fighting with knives.

I sure hope the bulk of this isn't true. Via Instapundit comes this front-line account arguing that things generally remain pretty crappy in Iraq, with power, order, and food still in short supply. More troops! More engineers! More food, water, and Humvees to carry them! And don't forget the X-Men action figures for the kiddies! Go!

Could it be that the MAGIC COLOR-ALERT TERROR WARNING RAINBOW SYSTEM is a-- no!-- political tool? This person sure thinks so.

I agree. I simply don't understand what is going on. This morning, watching the news with Goodwife Two-Cents, I sat through a featurette on the Saudi bombings that concluded with a note that "further attacks are expected imminently, possibly within the United States. The terror alert system is currently at yellow."

Call me nuts, but if Al Qaeda has just pulled off multiple successful attacks against westerners, doesn't that rate some renewed vigilance? After all, we raised the alert level to Tangerine when we libervaded Iraq, and Iraq isn't exactly sending terrorists out in waves against us. (Disagree? PROVE IT.) So why are we at Yellow, and why has Tom Ridge not yet gone on TV with that oddly cardboard avuncularness he's got and reminded us: a) we are winning the war; b) but buy duct tape anyway just in case; and c) look out for strangers?

Well, if the Terror Alert Rainbow isn't for alerting us about terror, what the hey is it for?

I can see a possible future where the President raises and lowers the Terror Alert every time he needs a campaign boost. Naw.... who would be that cynical?

nota bene: Even if Ridge is on the TV right now, comforting the nation even as I write this, I still don't take it back. I stand by my paranoid rantings, goldurnit!

Folks, even Warren Buffett thinks the tax cut is a bad idea. Warren Buffett!! To wit:

Overall, it's hard to conceive of anything sillier than the schedule the Senate has laid out. Indeed, the first President Bush had a name for such activities: "voodoo economics." The manipulation of enactment and sunset dates of tax changes is Enron-style accounting, and a Congress that has recently demanded honest corporate numbers should now look hard at its own practices. 

Proponents of cutting tax rates on dividends argue that the move will stimulate the economy. A large amount of stimulus, of course, should already be on the way from the huge and growing deficit the government is now running. I have no strong views on whether more action on this front is warranted. But if it is, don't cut the taxes of people with huge portfolios of stocks held directly. (Small investors owning stock held through 401(k)s are already tax-favored.) Instead, give reductions to those who both need and will spend the money gained. Enact a Social Security tax "holiday" or give a flat-sum rebate to people with low incomes. Putting $1,000 in the pockets of 310,000 families with urgent needs is going to provide far more stimulus to the economy than putting the same $310 million in my pockets. 

When you listen to tax-cut rhetoric, remember that giving one class of taxpayer a "break" requires -- now or down the line -- that an equivalent burden be imposed on other parties. In other words, if I get a break, someone else pays. Government can't deliver a free lunch to the country as a whole. It can, however, determine who pays for lunch. And last week the Senate handed the bill to the wrong party.

Zing! 

Y' know? Bush The Younger's presidency will in retrospect be defined for a few main issues. That's usually a good thing, unless you are Jimmy "Stagflation" Carter or Bill "Itchy-Pants" Clinton. In the sense that he sticks to his main themes of war and taxes, Bush has an astoundingly coherent and straightforward plan for the nation. They are, in fact, very important issues that deserve attention. However, overall coherence does not imply internal consistency. 

Just insisting that "this tax cut is for the good of all" over and over won't make it so, if at the end of the day it's going to benefit the country-club set while leaving Joe Sixpack watching Judge Judy because the day-labor center was full up again. After all, I'm not yet Wolverine, no matter how many "snickety-snick" sounds I make while dancing around the apartment. Platitudes may sound nice, but only results matter. And what happened to his "Education Plan?" Unfunded mandates are even worse than empty platitudes. 
 

Well, they did it. A theoretically well-meaning lawsuit has been filed in Belgian court against Tommy Franks, accusing him of war crimes in prosecuting the war in Iraq. The main body of the charges relate to the use of cluster bombs and their landmine-like ability to sit around until a kid blows his arm off. The story is here, and a longer debate is in Counterpunch. The hope is that, since the US is a NATO power, and NATO is based in Brussels, the charges against Franks will have some weight and heft. Fat chance.

And people think an international criminal court is a GOOD idea?

I realize that the world can no longer be easily divided up into discrete nations, if it ever could, and therefore, some see a compelling rationale for a world court. If anything, the multinational nature of terrorism may underscore that need. However, any international court would have to be very narrowly empowered, so as to minimize instances like the Franks Affair. The very last thing the world needs is American-style torts brought by nations against nations, or enclave against enclave, for the sake of publicity.

Moreover, accusing Tommy Franks of war crimes totally undermines the very concept. I will grant that there are many people in the world who object to the US's libervasion of Iraq, and I will even grant that, in the course of the war, people died. That's no shock. But so far, we have totally failed to find the bodies stacked like cordwood, the US-run death camps, the firing squads, the rape brigades, the engineered famines that would amount to actual war crimes. There's enough of that in the world. If Hussein had been doing these things to anybody but his own people, he would have been a war criminal himself. Perhaps then France and Germany would have chosen to act with us. As it stands, he was merely a distasteful dictator of a third-rate country that the international community needn't have bothered with (but I digress.. I'm being unnecessarily bitchy).

Which brings me to an interesting point. If war crimes, and "crimes against humanity" are such a big deal for the United Nations and related bodies, why aren't sickos like Mugabe, Hussein, and for that matter the entire government of North Korea busted every time they travel? I'm not sure I understand how such things are decided-- is it merely convenience?

Bottom line: Cluster bombs suck. Here's hoping they never use them again. But to argue that the same law can be used against Tommy Franks that could be used against perpetrators of wholesale genocide is missing the point of such laws.

nota bene: I repeat: I don't like cluster bombs, any more than I like landmines. I don't understand why the US chose not to sign the Landmine Ban, and I hope that the use of cluster bombs will be eschewed in future campaigns. They're horribly inefficient and in practice work against the US military goal of not killing bystanders. That being said, this suit is still horseshit.

also nota bene: tomorrow I'm going to disagree with myself, arguing that it is important that the campaign against cluster bombs gets all the exposure it can, by any means. Tune in to watch the fun!!

God knows, with my luck, I'd end up with degenerate mouth-breathing hellspawn like this one:

"Kelley Marie Ferguson never wanted to take a stupid cruise. A week at sea with her parents? Away from her boyfriend? How boring. As soon as the ship set sail, she felt trapped and miserable.

Then she had an idea.

Ship stewards found the poorly worded notes in two bathrooms. One threatened to "kill all Americanos abord" if the ocean liner made its scheduled stop in Hawaii. "Give this warning to El Capt ion to save all lives," another said. "Do take this serious he sent me from far away land for mission I will complete if port on American soil."

It was only a prank. But it has become another parable of life in a time of terrorist fear."

Rather than return to land, Kelley's notes created a panic and resulted in a $300,000, 100-person total search of the ship. All crew and guests were interrogated at length.

Unsurprisingly, the 20-year-old is now in prison. The best part? Tired of ongoing antics like this one, mom refused to post bail (haw)!

"She promises not to do it again -- but yeah, right," her mother, Debra Ferguson, a nurse, told the Los Angeles Times earlier this month. She said the family felt terrible that so many vacationers on board the cruise ship had been frightened and delayed. She also called her daughter a "brat."

And of course, there's more..."Ferguson had another surprise for them when she pleaded guilty. She said she was pregnant."

That's right. NEVER having kids.

A day late and a dollar short, I want to remark on the passing of one of the greats. June Carter Cash died last Friday after complications from heart surgery. I always though that Johnny would go first, what with his Parkinson's and related infirmities, not to mention that pills-and-booze phase he had back in the 50's and 60's. I always think the good ones will last forever. Guess I was wrong. We'll all miss you, June. 

I need a minute. *choking up* 

I swear to God, I don't know what I'll do when Johnny Cash and George Jones pass on. I'll be a wreck. I loved those two before I even knew how to talk, and their music has been a constant companion in my life. Some of my first memories involve a Fisher-Price record player, an LP that contained "There Ain't No Good Chain Gang" and "I Would Like To See You Again" by JC, and another one that had the Chet Atkins track, "Cloudy And Cool." I listened to those songs for hours. My dad's favorite song in those days was "He Stopped Loving Her Today" so that would place me at about four years old. The themes and lessons of country music were present during my formative years, and every so often something happens to remind me of that fact. It's no mistake that, on the worst day of the worst year of my life (thank you, New York City!), I got drunk on bourbon and listened to Johnny Cash. 

More than religion, more than community, more than anything else days besides my family, those songs were the bedrock pleasures and signposts of my four-year-old life, and they retain power over me. The United Methodist church could fall into a hole and I wouldn't care. The great state of Ohio could disappear, leaving Lake Erie the largest of the Great Lakes and making Wheeling a port city, and I wouldn't care, except to be happy for the citizens of Wheeling. But every time George Jones wraps his car around a tree, and every time Johnny Cash goes back in the hospital because his traitor body is wasting away, my heart sinks as I fear the worst. It's like fearing for an infinitely wise yet mortally flawed twin brother. 

In the sleeve of the "Love" disc from his box set "Murder/God/Love" is a picture of June in Johnny's arms. It's a beautiful photo which captures utterly the deep love they had. But what the picture can only show, the music proved. Johnny Cash has written thousands of beautiful words, and a score of beautiful songs, about his wife. June wrote "Ring of Fire" about him. Not even Shakespeare has been so eloquent about the daily pleasures and hurts of love. I and millions of others grieve with him today. We'll miss you, June. 
 

Stranger things have happened, after all. Not that he's going to win the Presidency, and not that he should, but John Kerry recently unveiled a plan by which high-school students could do community service in exchange for college tuition. Two years would get you four years' worth of state-college tuition. The Boston Globe's detail-feeble coverage is here.

As much as this is an Uber-Democratic plan, in that it purports to improve society through well-meaning massive expenditures of cash, I can find a lot to like in it. In, fact, I would go farther. Kids these days (kids these days!! haw!) seem more cynical yet more pampered than ever before (perhaps the two are connected), and a program that allows young people to donate time in exchange for a concrete open-ended reward seems like a good idea on principle. Hopefully it would force a connection between duty and citizenship.

Mind you, I'm not asking for a program like they have in Germany, where all citizens must serve in the armed forces or emergency response squads, but maybe something close wouldn't hurt.

How about a two-tiered plan, in which all teens must log 400 hours of community service (perhaps sponsored through local high schools) and others may apply for the right to do two years of public service in exchange for a college education? As long as any plan, whether Kerry's or mine, is flexible enough to allow for a wide range of possible services-- such as Habitat For Humanity, Amigos de las Americas, Americorps, and local church groups, homeless shelters, and charity initiatives-- and as long as the bureaucracy could be kept to a minimum, I'm in favor of such a system.

When I was 16, my parents paid a bundle for me to spend two months in Mexico, building latrines and doing basic public health in an extremely poor area, and the experience changed my life. If I'd have stayed in Ohio for those two months, playing Dungeons and Dragons and sneaking Budweisers out in the woods next to the Pee Rock, I would have missed out on one of the most educational, transformative, and important experiences of my life. The time I spent there was the first exposure I had to life outside Ohio, not to mention life outside "Western" Civilization, and it has been the main impetus behind my interest in politics, history, and world affairs. I tell ya, there's nothing better than waiting for the repairs to the brand-new power line to your remote village in the highlands so you can watch Knight Rider in dubbed Spanish ("El Auto Increible") to show a teenager that there's more in the world than you ever imagined.

Of course, not everybody needs such an experience, or wants it. But, not everyone needs to go to college for free, either. A plan like Kerry's, or *heh* better yet, mine, intelligently implemented and run, could add a lot to the quality of life in this country, not to mention the quality of the teenagers.

Now... enough blue-sky theorizing...where the heck is that money gonna come from, John-boy, and how much is this plan gonna cost?

Not that it's anything new, but as I hurtle on into my future as a professional curmudgeon, college kids are really starting to bug me. Don't get me wrong - by and large, they're a great bunch, all shiny-eyed and eager. I especially love the way each new generation rediscovers nifty funtime ideas like Marxism, Eco-Feminism, and Not Bathing and latches on to them like they were their own. 

But I worry. I'm a partial alum of the University of Massachusetts (in that I got my Masters' there), where they just had that ridiculous flap over changing mascots from the evil, bad, gendered and violent Minutemen to the gentle, majestic Gray Wolves (see previous posts). That incident is part of a grand tradition of colleges and universities trying too hard to protect the student body from opinions that may be alien or offensive to them. That's a huge mistake.

The Boston Phoenix, which I pick up from time to time when we're low on cat litter at home, had a decent article this week on this topic. You can read it here. The article argues there is a single

. . . assumption underlying most speech codes: namely, that there is a serious conflict between civil rights and civil liberties, and that members of diverse groups will never have full civil rights to an equal education without muzzling ideas that might make the campus feel less welcoming. 

This "civil rights vs. civil liberties" paradigm rests on the belief that when a person feels discomfort as a result of exposure to racist, sexist, homophobic, or other unpleasant words and ideas, such discomfort is, in and of itself, a civil-rights injury equivalent to being turned away from the lunch counter for being black, denied a job for being a woman, or beaten up for being gay. In this view, emotional discomfort is the essential element of a civil-rights injury. Thus, students have a right not to be offended or hurt by exposure to ideas that could diminish their feelings of self-esteem; they are - as a matter of civil rights - entitled to a comfortable and "safe" emotional environment free of such ideas. 

This bizarre and dangerous expansion of commonly accepted notions of civil rights distorts the debate over free speech on campus. What is at stake here is not, properly speaking, a conflict between civil rights and civil liberties: rather, it is a question of whether protection from emotional discomfort deserves independent status as a "right"  and, if so, whether it is a fundamental right that should compete with or (as has happened at Shippensburg and the vast majority of colleges and universities today) supersede a university's core intellectual mission. When college administrators say that students are entitled to a "safe" environment, they mean something very different from what people in the world outside the ivy walls mean by "safe." Indeed, for at least two decades now, it has been permissible to say things in Harvard Square that would be punishable if said in Harvard Yard. . . .

I'm not yet thirty, and I already feel like I don't understand what kids these days are about. I worry that we are raising a crop of college students who will finish their education without ever having to question or defend their basic assumptions about life. Isn't debate, and the interplay between conflicting points of view, an integral part of education? If so, the current crop American college students run the risk of ending up less educated than any students in recent history. How do you know you hate Republicans, if you've never met one, much less debated them? There is nothing worse than untested beliefs, and nothing more obnoxious and arrogant than a college student who has never had to defend themselves. Except the Norwegians. 

N.B.: Critical Mass (linked in my blogroll to the left) is a great clearinghouse for issues of this kind.

Of the two matrices, the first was clearly the better. Nevertheless, the second installment was well worth the $18.50 ticket price. My only real quibbles, aside from having to wait half a year before seeing the next one, is that the art direction for the zion city scenes was a little, well, over the top; and that at a couple points the change between live action Neo and cgi Neo was too obvious. (And even so, the cgi human characters in Matrix were much better than last year's spiderman.)

The real surprise in the movie is the sense of humor that Agent Smith has developed. In many respects, the new Agent Smith is the most engaging character in the movie. As our cast of heroes soldier through with grim seriousness, the formerly dour Smith is almost whimsical. A+ on that.

But the thing that was most intriguing was the new philosophical underpinning of the movie. This is what kept my friends and I in the parking lot for an hour after the movie talking. The first Matrix had, at its center, the question of reality and perception. At the time, I found the idea of an action adventure movie centered on a question of rather abtruse phenomenology to be delicious. But now, we have an action adventure movie centered on serious questions of free will and predestination. Imagine a Hong Kong style sf action flic starring Cotton Mather and Erasmus, Abelard and Heloise, with a supporting cast of hundreds of genetically engineered Ignatius Loyola/Steven Wright hybrids. This movie is as close as you'll get to that ideal.

The original meaning of the greek root aristoi.

There are many reasons why the House of Lords is groovier than Congress*. First among them is the utter loopiness of many of the exchanges, such as this one, posted yesterday on Slashdot: 

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I totally agree. These statistics on accidents are extremely fascinating; they prove that the British public can use practically anything in this world to hurt themselves with. It is understandable that there are an estimated 55 accidents a year from putty, while toothpaste accounts for 73. However, it is rather bizarre that 823 accidents are estimated to be the result of letters and envelopes. It is difficult to understand how they can be the cause of such serious plight. I agree with the noble Baroness that it would be helpful if people paid careful attention. 

Baroness Strange: My Lords, does the Minister agree that sardine tins and anchovy tins are also very difficult to open with their tin-openers? 

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I think I will just agree with the noble Baroness on that question. . . . . Lord Mitchell asked Her Majesty's Government: What are their plans to reduce the growth in spam (unsolicited e-mails). 

Lord Renton: My Lords, will the Minister explain how it is that an inedible tinned food that lasted for ever and was supplied to those on active service can become an unsolicited e-mail, bearing in mind that some of us wish to be protected from having an e-mail? 

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I am afraid that I have not been able to find out why the term "spam" is used, but that is the meaning it now has. It is a matter that should be taken very seriously because it not only clutters up computers but involves a great deal of very unpleasant advertising to do with easy credit, pornography and miracle diets. That is offensive to people, and we should try to reduce it. 

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I can help the Minister with the origin of the word. It comes from aficionados of Monty Python, and the famous song, "Spam, spam, spam, spam". It has been picked up by the Internet community and is used as a description of rubbish on the Internet. . . .

If you read the whole thing, you get the distinct impression that the entire House knows Monty Python, and what's more, the song. *Not better—I'm not one of those who assumes that just because it comes from Engalind, it must be superior. This fallacy is responsible for Dr. Who, Burberry, and Liz Hurley, who, though she is hot as a thousand suns, still can't act her way out of an open phone booth.

According to CNN.com, a lawsuit against Kraft Foods for devilishly marketing Oreo cookies containing trans fats has been dropped, article here. Good grief. The helmet advocates nearly went off the deep end with this one. People who previously thought that mass produced cookies, fast food, or any food high in saturated fats are healthy, and are now shocked, shocked to find that they are not, are definitely fooling themselves. If you want healthy foods, eat a fucking vegetable. It's the green stuff available at your local grocer; either fresh, canned or frozen. I like fresh asparagus the best. Give it a try. Maybe you'll like it too.

It's also called personal responsibility, people. Start taking some. I think that Stephen Joseph, who brought the suit, had his helmet on a little too tight and it cut off the flow of blood to his brain.

The Treasury Department has unveiled the design for the new $US 20. What a piece of poo! Not that I have any specific problems with a re-design, but I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assert that PEACH and LEMONY-FRESH YELLOW are two colors that should never be associated with the United States of America. Green, yes. Silver, oh sure oh sure. Bloody-red? Why not, hey! But peach? Peach? Peach is for handbags, not what goes in 'em.

Have a problem with the gendered speech inherent in the above? You can bite my shiny metal ass.

Regarding Amina Lawal's impending execution, it is in fact set for 3 June. She was sentenced 19 August 2002. My apologies. In other words, she doesn't have much time.

Over at ESPN, Brian Murphy has observed that the unthinkable could happen: Roger Clemens could win his 300th game at Fenway. From the Murphy's mouth:

Holy looting mob, that will be an unforgettable experience.I was at the '99 ALCS Game 3 when Clemens got rocked at Fenway, knocked out in the second inning as the Red Sox destroyed their former hero turned Benedict Arnold. What a day. The Sox fans were maniacal, foaming at the mouth in their desire to take out the Rocket. . . .[A]fter that game, the fans turned into something straight off the pages of "Frankenstein." Missing only torches, they actually tore down the banner commemorating Clemens' 20-strikeout day in '86.

I remember that day. I was driving from Washington to Baltimore to see the future Goodwife Two-Cents, and with every humiliating pitch of those first two innings, I drove faster and faster, beating my fist in ecstasy against the roof of the car like it was being mouthy and needed a fresh one. That was one of the best things I've ever heard on the radio, made all the better because, since it wasn't the teevee, I could imagine for myself the humiliation clouding those piggy little eyes of his, the saddlebags of flopsweat coming through the pinstripes, the cotton holding back his Boomer-like gut like Size-00 support hose on Divine as his shoulder slump in abject defeat. In my head, it was AWESOME. And I hadn't even realized my true calling as a Sox fan at the time and was still attached to the Cleveland Indians, the team of my hometown.

Please give due attention to Windy City's post below about Amina Lawal. I mean, what the hell? Some places just have things too ass-backwards to be believed, and don't you lay any of your culturally-relative sensitivity bullcrap on me about it. I'm so angry about this, I shit in my own Wheaties this morning.

Those IRA dudes are totally screwed. Seriously. As are, I'm sure, several highly placed members of the British intelligence community.

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The unmasking of a British double-agent who penetrated to the heart of the IRA guerrilla army in Northern Ireland has given rare insight into the twisted and murky world of high-stakes espionage. The agent known by the codename "Stakeknife" was paid $128,900 a year by Britain and is suspected of killing 40 people in operations authorized by his handlers to protect his identity. With his name printed in at least four newspapers during the weekend, the blow to future undercover operations is massive, said former British SAS soldier and author Andy McNab. . . .The existence of a highly placed British mole within the IRA has long been suspected, but at the weekend he was identified in British and Irish media as Alfredo Scappaticci.

Holy crow! This is as bad as/much worse than the whole "FBI/Whitey Bulger let-the-innocent-die-it's-ok" flapdoodle of recent years.

On 19 August, Nigerian citizen Amina Lawal will be stoned to death for the crime of adultery. She has recently given birth, and her accusers claim that the baby is evidence of the adultery. The Spanish chapter of Amnesty International has provided an Urgent Action electronic petition here to request that her death sentence be rescinded.

My initial impressions, gathered over almost a week, is that fatherhood involves taking naps whenever the baby is asleep, and doing whatever Mrs. Buckethead tells me to do. Occassionally, I get to hold the baby. The only problem arises when I am instructed to do several things, but given no guidance on how to prioritize these tasks. Nevertheless, I am adapting. When I pause for a moment to consider the glories of fatherhood, the sublime joy of holding my son, I am usually interrupted before I get too sappy about everything. This is probably for the best.

The details:

John Christian was born at 12:37pm on Sunday, May 4 (Quatro de Mayo! Yeah!) and on arrival weighed in at 7lbs, 12oz. He is 20 inches long. If you need metric, screw you, I'm busy. After a remarkably easy labor (Mrs. Buckethead's first comment after JC arrived: "That wasn't so bad.") John slid into the world; messy, purple and coneheaded. These problems soon corrected themselves, and now my mom says he's cuter than I was. Obviously, mom is adapting to grandmotherhood with frightening speed. Since getting home from the hospital on Tuesday, we've been in a fugue state, never quite aware of the time or date, and all activities subject to the whim of my son's digestive system (inbound or outbound or both.)

Nevertheless, I can report with absolute confidence that my son is remarkably advanced; mentally, physically and spiritually. My baby can kick your baby's ass. No, seriously. Belinda will probably not be happy with that last thought, so I will sign off before I get in more trouble. I'll will return to a semi-regular posting schedule as a return to work middle of next week.

In the meantime, here are some thoughts on the last week's posts:

Smoking bans suck, and are completely unjustifiable on any grounds. However, if you smoke around my baby, I'll kick your ass.

Johno is correct in his assessment of the RIAA. If they crash my computer while I'm trying to bid on a Baby Bjorn baby carrier (porta bebe in spanish. heh.) on Ebay, I'll kick their ass.

Ghoulardi broadcast from Cleveland, CBS channel 8. Disagree, and I'll kick your ass.

Johno's biography would run to 37 pages, double spaced in 16 point courier new. Mine would be 42 pages. But that's only because I'm older. Mike's would be 142 pages, but only because he's got to fit all that Marxist dialectical bullshit in. I won't kick his ass, because I can't.

Looks like the NYT has gone through a typical learning curve on the Museum looting. They did a similar phreak out on the melting polar cap a while ago. "Its gone!" "Well, a lot of its gone!" Well, Its not really gone at all, sorry." I should kick their ass.

I want the military to return to its proper research direction - more than lethal weapons. Then they can kick ass.

France. Oil. Heh.

Minutemen kicked ass, that's why PC brigades (brigades - what a military term.) are afraid of them. How about another contest: Most unPC team mascots. You must connect your mascot to a specific college or high school. It must offend at least one protected victim group, preferably all. (Like the "Nuke a gay whale for jesus" bumper stickers.) It should make full use of stereotypes, slurs, and slander. Bonus category: make unPC mascots for groups not necessarily considered victim groups. These should follow the same pattern as the regular entries. Prize is getting your ass kicked, and a lollipop. Heh.

In all likelihood, people associate Massachusetts with political leaders who publicly advocated, worked toward, or voted for initiatives that were left of center. John, Robert, and especially Ted Kennedy advocated or actively supported, at least publicly, civil rights legislation. Ted Kennedy, for example, incensed people in Southie, traditionally Democratic voters, when he supported public school integration. To put it simply, while the people of Southie, in general, did not support integration initiatives, their political representative did. While John and Robert Kennedy were virulently anti-Communist, Robert softened his stance in the late 1960s, and both did publicly support civil rights legislation. In other matters, Ted Kennedy has consistently voted for left of center legislation in the Senate. To mention them here would belabor the point.
Other Massachusetts politicians have similarly advanced left of center policies. Mike Dukakis, the last gasp of the left in the Democratic party, was very left of center publicly. While he was also an elitist who did not support public higher education, he was by and large left of center, and certainly more so than any other candidate to run for President on the Democratic ticket since. Machine Democrats such as Curley were also economically and politically left of center in an American New Deal sort of way, despite the racism inherent in Machine Democrat practices. Bear in mind, by the standard of the times, prior to the 1960s or even Seventies, a politician could be left of center but not a 1990s style diversity advocate. As a side note, advocates of diversity tend to be hypocritical because they don't really advocate diversity, just argue that if it's not white male it's good. But that's another post perhaps.

Beyond politicians, however, the general populace has also demonstrated left of center leanings. In 1972, Massachusetts was the only state McGovern carried. He was also very left of center, certainly by American standards. I wouldn't dismiss the labor aspect of Massachusetts. Labor is the heart and soul of the economic left. Of course, the new faux left doesn't seem to give a rat's ass about economic or political issues; it's all about wearing helmets and not saying bad things that hurt other people's feelings for them. In other words, if labor has remained important to Massachusetts, then the state is truly more left of center than people who think culture is the be-all-end-all of human existence.

In other words, I don't think that Massachusetts has been associated with Communism. I think it's been considered more liberal by the modern American definition. Of course, some John Birch types and other right of center folks did call modern American definition liberalism Communism. But they were wrong. Know why? Everyone I've mentioned above, including McGovern, was still a capitalist and an upholder of American representative democratic governmental systems. But even those MADLs of Massachusetts were from urban Massachusetts. There has been an urban/rural divide in American society pretty much from the get-go, and everywhere in the western world urban areas tend to be more progressive and rural areas conservative or reactionary. Therefore, it's mostly urban Massachusetts where MADLs can be found. So, as you correctly point out, the characterization of Massachusetts as Communist is way off the mark, but there is some justification for looking to urban Massachusetts for left of center politicians, and in some cases, populace.

Mike, here's a case in point about the PC brigades, and it involves Amherst, Massachusetts. Convergence, yes!

From the Amherst Republican (which I have never heard of, and I used to live there, so this may be total hearsay... which won't stop me), comes this story:

"By September, the UMass Gray Wolves men's and women's teams may be charging onto the field, while the gun-toting, single-gender Minuteman - a UMass symbol since 1972 - is sent to the showers for good...."Am I for the change? I'm for the process," UMass Athletic Director Ian J. McCaw said. That process began with the hiring of Phoenix Design Works of New York City, which introduced the Gray Wolves to eight focus groups involving 85 people.... Gray Wolves would be unique in Division I college sports, and it's indigenous to the area," McCaw said. "The design company expressed some concern with the single-gender ethnicity of the Minuteman, and the fact he's carrying a firearm (in the logo) is also a concern." McCaw said social and practical reasons exist for change. For one thing, the women's teams are called the Minutewomen, even though no colonial Minutewomen ever actually existed.

OH FOR CRISSAKES. If I had money, and I ever gave it to my alma mater, I'd stop doing that. I am ever so incensed! Some effing marketing team from New Effing York City thinks they know Massachusetts well enough to capture its essence in the beautiful and majestic Gray Wolf.

Luckily, some people get it. Also from the article:

According to Springfield Republican outdoors writer Frank Sousa, however, the portrayal of a cuddly wolf is ridiculous. "Wolves attack only the sick, injured and helpless," said Sousa, one of the region's foremost outdoors spokesmen. "Besides, the last gray wolf sighting around here was in the late 1890s, in a barrel outside Thompson's Clothing Store in Amherst after being shot in Northampton," Sousa said. "And those were skinned."

As Glenn Reynolds might say: Heh.

I'll be away for the next few days, at a wedding in the Berkshires. We're all going to dance barefoot under the moon and give thanks to the Earth-Spirit. No, no, no, we're going to sip champagne cocktails and look through our monocles at each others' Bentleys.

Actually, neither of those. I'm going to have a bitchen time with some friends, and they're going to get married. It'll be cool as hell.

The Washington Times (I know...) has this story about how the French government recently helped Iraqi Ba'ath Party officials escape through Syria with the aid of French passports. Thanks a lot, guys. Big help. Big help.

I'm curious: does anyone have an idea as to how Massachusetts came to be identified as Communist Central, Bastion of The Bleeding Heart? 'Cos I don't see it. Cambridge is liberal. Amherst and Northampton are insanely liberal. And granted, these communities are some of the most nationally prominent areas of the Commonwealth. But, outside of that tiiiiiny portion of the populace, the huge majority of Massholes think just like the red states in the middle of the country. They vote Democratic not out of support for liberal social policy or because they like giant spending initiatives. They vote Democratic for two reasons: labor is king here; and they just always have. Memories are long here-- very long, and that peculiar breed of Yankee contrarian conservatism is strong. May I remind you that our current governer is a Republican and a Mormon?

Public smoking bans do fall under a different set of ethical issues than most personal liberties. As public smoking is possibly a public health nuisance or threat, it's not like free speech or freedom of the press. But part of my point was that public smoking bans are just one of many objectives of the Neo-reformists. In antebellum America, reformists initiated movements to abolish slavery. They also initiated temperance movements and rabid Protestant Christian Evangelicalism. While abolitionism was a noble cause in that it demanded an end to slavery, temperance and evangelicalism sought to force everyone else to live their lives the way that Evangelical reformers did.

I'm drawing an analogy here. Public smoking bans might be the parallel to abolitionism as an effort to create a greater good. But beneath those efforts for the greater good, or right alongside them, are efforts to make everyone else live exactly the way these present-day reformists, who are frequently guests on Oprah Winfrey's talk-show, live. In addition, public smoking bans are part of an effort to make everyone safe in a world where life turns on a dime, nothing can be predicted, and anything can happen.

If the neo-reformist and pro-safety camps are indeed coming together and pulling their resources, they will not stop at public smoking bans. They won't be happy until everyone has a helmet and everyone lives they way they think people should live. In addition, lots of abolitionists were just as racist as the people who owned slaves. Maybe Neo-reformists pushing the public smoking ban don't really care about public health. Maybe they just want to legislate their narrow vision of morality. When it comes to a moral issue on which we cannot agree, it's best to leave it out of the legislation. Permit it for those who want it, by not outlawing cigarettes altogether, but don't subject people who don't want it to it. A public smoking ban is a way to do that, perhaps. A counter-argument is that non-smokers could simply stay away from bars, but that's not fair.

Of course the problem is that the Neo-reformists don't want to permit naughty things to the people who want them and keep it out of sight for those who don't. Neo-reformists think, "Well, I live my life this way so everybody else has to live their life that way too." Neo-reformists want everyone to wear drab clothing without hooks or fasteners (because they're flashy), not smoke, not drink, not eat red meat, not barbecue, not eat baked potatoes because they're carcinogenic. Of course this brings in the pro-safety camp who agrees with most of the above (except maybe the clothing), and wants everybody to put on a helmet, and wants potential terrorists or people they can paint as such, even though they aren't herded into camps, where they can't hurt the people with helmets on.

The public smoking ban is one thing. It's not the same kind of personal liberty issue. But the pro-safety types want helmets on non-smokers, too, just to be safe. And no baked potatoes, either. The Neo-reformists want to ban cigarettes altogether, because their god told them cigarettes are evil tools of the devil. They have the souls of smokers to save.

In response to Windy City Mike’s comments a couple days ago:

Mike is right to point out that passing legislation against certain behaviors based on what is good for people is dangerous and usually wrongheaded. He's also correct that it's the "in thing". I would like to extend his analysis a little, and bring up the deeper issues that may or may not be at stake.

I see in the Boston Globe today that a total ban on smoking in Massachusetts is in the offing. Whaaaaat? Are those bastids on Beacon Hill caving to the tiny liberal enclaves in Cambridge and Amherst? Do the squint-eyed Puritan moralizers carry the day? Quite the contrary! Check this out:

Two days after Boston outlawed smoking in taverns and nightclubs, momentum quickened on Beacon Hill yesterday to extend the ban statewide, as pivotal adversaries from past years abandoned the fight while surprising new backers emerged in force. . . .

The groundswell of support comes at a time when more cities and towns than ever before - 78 - have adopted local prohibitions against all workplace smoking, covering one-third of the state's population. Politicians and restaurant owners from those communities have become vocal supporters of a statewide law, in part to prevent bars in communities without a smoking ban from poaching customers.

But just as important as the voices being raised in favor of smoking prohibition are those that have fallen silent under the golden dome of the state capitol. The Massachusetts Restaurant Association, a muscular presence against the smoking ban in earlier debates, sent no one to testify yesterday at a hearing about the proposed ban before the joint health care committee. And tobacco company representatives offered no public statements at the hearing. Veterans of the smoking wars in Massachusetts could identify only one or two lobbyists present with ties to the tobacco industry.

Though it’s not perfect, the proposed ban is the result of a grassroots movement that has spread throughout the state.

The difference between the New York and Boston cases is that New York brought the dancing ban down from on high, and the proposed Massachusetts smoking ban springs from a general popular movement. That is the essence of federalism, and it creates a conflict for me. On one hand, I favor smoking bans in bars and restaurants because I prefer to go out for a night and come home free of smoke-reek and a headache. If the people of Massachusetts decide this is the way they should go, I applaud it. It's a local issue, settled locally. Many issues are best decided this way.

But on the other hand, what if Massachusetts also outright banned assault weapons, gay marriage, or abortion? Each of these issues raises serious questions of individual liberties versus public interest. Just this week the Ninth Circuit Court revived the question of whether the Second Amendment provides for an individual right to gun ownership. Gay Marriage may or may not threaten the Full Faith And Credit Clause, since couples joined in Vermont could return to Utah and apply for spousal benefits. Abortion pits the liberties of mothers against the liberties of the unborn, and extends the debate over citizenship into totally new arenas.

Where does the line fall between the right of a community to legislate behaviors to maintain public order, and the liberty of citizens to act freely where they are not injuring others? Do smoking bans really address these same fundamental issues, or is smoking in public subject to a different set of ethical and (pseudo-)legal tests?

What I'm saying is, I like the smoking bans where I live. I just can't find a way to justify them.

Read 'em and weep. The TotalElfFina scandal just gets worse, the more the company's ties to the Hussein regime come out. Aside from the multi-billion dollar extraction contracts TEF had with Iraq under Hussein, there is growing evidence of massive corporate corruption up to and including government payoffs. Blech. The Guardian has this story:

An Iraqi-born British billionaire told a French court yesterday how he had paid millions of pounds in kickbacks to French oil executives. Nadhmi Auchi, 65, reputedly Britain's seventh-richest man, is one of 37 company administrators and business partners accused of being involved in France's biggest postwar financial scandal in which the oil firm, now TotalFinaElf, allegedly paid out huge sums in bribes and backhanders to expand its empire.

N.B. Auchi is a native Iraqi who has had ties with Saddam Hussein in the past, and whose brothers were murdered by said dictator.

Also see this story, from last month:

The former head of Elf admitted yesterday that the French oil giant had secretly paid out millions of pounds to political parties of both right and left in an illegal campaign to buy backing. In testimony that will shake France's political system, Loik Le Floch-Prigent, one of 37 defendants on trial in its biggest postwar sleaze scandal, said nearly all the cash had gone to Jacques Chirac's conservative RPR party until the former president Francois Mitterrand demanded it be spread more evenly.

Even better (worse), Auchi is also on the board of the French Bank that holds $13b in Iraqi Oil-For-Food money, funds that are now suspected of being misused by Iraq. Good news! Here's the NY Times abstract from April.

I'm not going to claim that France's anti-Iraq-libervasion stance was purely about the oil-- it was also about sticking it to the USA, and also about living by their EU-European collectivist ethos. But stories like these make the picture rather darker, and bring the underpinnings of Chirac's stance into question.

Side note: France are one of the leading vendors to Iraq under the Oil For Food program. That program goes away if economic sanctions are lifted, as the USA wants. Let's sit back and watch! This'll be fuuun!

Popular Science is running an article about the latest advances in "less-than-lethal" weaponry at the Pentagon's Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate. There is some very excellent analysis of the pros and cons of nonlethal crowd-control weaponry (after all, guns all look like guns, no matter what they are firing), some suitably awestruck descriptions of the improbable sci-fi devices currently in beta testing, and even a self-test of one of the farthest out of the weapons. Why do I suddenly feel like I've stepped into a James Bond film? From the piece: 

Broadly speaking, the directorate slots nonlethals into three categories, depending on their intended strategic use: counter-personnel, counter-materiel and counter-capability. Counter-personnel objectives, naturally enough, include controlling crowds, incapacitating individuals, denying areas to personnel and clearing people from buildings or battle areas. Counter-materiel systems are used to deny areas to vehicles, vessels or aircraft, and to disable or neutralize equipment. Counter-capability objectives include disabling or neutralizing facilities and systems, and denying use of weapons of mass destruction. As you ascend this scale, from humans to systems, from soft targets to hard, there are bumps along the way at which on-the-ground reality seems likely to strain the semantic tolerances of the word nonlethal. Take, for instance, the high-tech end of the counter-materiel category, where we find supercaustic agents designed to rapidly corrode metals; depolymerizing agents that dissolve or decompose plastics; and, most impressively, the Advanced Tactical Laser, which will produce a four-inch-diameter beam of energy that can slice through a tank from a distance of 9 miles, presumably counting on the quickness of enemy soldiers to maintain its nonlethal credibility. (Indeed, in recognizing that no weapon or confrontation can be controlled well enough to justify the term nonlethal, the directorate prefers the phrase "less than lethal.") 

On the counter-personnel front, the technology is only marginally more tame. Nonlethal, after all, does not mean nonviolent. Although information here remains scarce—and the directorate won't share details—the pulsed-energy projectile rivals the Active Denial System pain beam in its sci-fi promise. The weapon will fire a pulsed (in brief shotlike bursts) deuterium-fluoride laser that will produce an ionized plasma on whatever surface it hits. That in turn will cause both pain and a kinetic shock, and could literally knock people off their feet.

Later in the article, the author takes a couple shots with the "pain beam" right in the back!! It hurts!! Cool!!

Live from Baghdad, Salam! Pax! Is! Back! 

(for those of you who don't know, 'Salam Pax' is an Iraqi twentysomething(?) who has been posting to a weblog from Iraq since February or so. He just coughed up about six weeks' worth of posts that have backed up since Baghdad lost internet connection. Sweet! And, incredibly interesting. Read it! Read it! Read it! 
 

[cue finger-wagging] Speaking of revising stories, here's a story about why I'm not a professional card-carrying historian. 

[cue bug-eyed ranting]According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, (via Volokh) the AHA will no longer investigate claims of plagiarism or other professional misconduct by historians, citing an inability to bring sanctions against offenders. 

Thanks, guys! You're already a bunch of bedwetting little pansies, and now you've admitted it. Well, acceptance is the first step toward healing. Why not just disband, now that you've proven you have no power to police the mores of the profession? Ohhhhh right the American Historical Review. Because that's such an excellent publication. Y' know? I'm an historian. That's my training, and part of how I identify myself. It's not a very encouraging sign when I cannot stand to read through even a single issue of a leading journal in my chosen field. Well, it's still better than the Journal of American History. Every quarter that bumwipe features stuff like "The New England Bean Farming Community, 1790-1820: Capitalist Hell or Proto-Marxist Paradise?" or "Roundtable: Interrogating The American Family-- Four Centuries Of Unrelenting Patriarchy" or "Rethinking Marx: How the Revolution Can Still Happen If We Wish Really Hard"

(I'm making these up - barely.)