Bush doesn't want war:

Not really. What he wants, is to assasinate Saddam Hussein. At least that's the impression one gets from this news story:

Excerpts:

A U.S. war plan calls for the launch in March of three or four hundred cruise missiles a day at the start of a war on Iraq, more than were fired during the entire first Gulf War, according to a televised report on Friday.

U.S. officials and analysts have predicted for months that an attack on Iraq would be swift, massive and designed to catch Baghdad by surprise. ...

... this time the target is the Iraqi leadership and the battle plan is designed to "bypass Iraqi divisions whenever possible" ...

Looks a lot like Ari Fleischer's notion that "one bullet" would be a cost-effective way of removing the threat the Iraqi leader represents.

Targeting the leadership of a country. Now that's a change in policy.


posted by Quiddity at 1/25/2003 04:44:00 PM

Old vs New. With us and not:

The coalition to invade Iraq is shaping up. According to the New York Times, we read that:

Over the past several months, as Mr. Bush has mounted his argument for forcing Iraq to disarm, the president himself has once again become the issue here. In interviews in three capitals over the past week, diplomats, politicians and analysts said they believed relations between the United States and two of its most crucial allies — Germany and France — were at their lowest point since the end of the cold war.   ...

From the French Foreign Ministry to the chancellor's office in Berlin, there is broad acknowledgement that the breach between the United States and its traditional allies in Western Europe has gone beyond the friction that has long been a staple of French-American relations or the misunderstandings that have grown since the cold-war ended. Senior officials insisted in interviews that in France and Germany Mr. Bush had not made the case that Iraq posed a more imminent threat than, say, Al Qaeda.   ...

Mr. Bush has made no secret of ranking his allies by their fidelity to his missions. Britain remains at the center of his universe, with Prime Minister Tony Blair a reliable ally. After that comes Poland, the most gung-ho new member of NATO, whose president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, said in an interview last week, "if it is President Bush's vision, it is mine."

Next in line is Spain, whose conservative prime minister, José María Aznar, "probably talks to Mr. Bush more frequently than any other European leader," a White House official reports. Then comes Australia, Italy — with a third conservative prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi — and Russia, led by a man with whom Mr. Bush seems to have bonded, President Vladimir V. Putin.

Currently the status of Russia is unclear, so we'll ignore it for now. But let's take a quick look at the other countries mentioned. How do they stack up? How substantial are Germany and France, Rumsfeld's "old Europe"? Here's a quick look at population and GDP in trillions of dollars. (Data and country links above from CIA factbook)



Did you know that France, Italy, and the United Kingdom have virtually the same population and GDP? It's almost too perfect.

In any event, it does appear that the U.S. has - for the moment - the support of most of Europe. ("most" being a simple measure of the countries strength)

posted by Quiddity at 1/24/2003 09:11:00 AM

Out!

Under Fire, Conservative Withdraws From AIDS Council (New York Times)

Jerry Thacker, a Christian conservative who has called AIDS the gay plague, withdrew his nomination to the Presidential Advisory Council on H.I.V. and AIDS today ...

Earlier: AIDS Panel Choice Wrote of a 'Gay Plague' (Washington Post & Atrios)

The Bush administration has chosen Jerry Thacker, a Pennsylvania marketing consultant who has characterized AIDS as the "gay plague," to serve on the Presidential Advisory Commission on HIV and AIDS.

Next week, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson is scheduled to swear in several new commission members. They include Thacker, a former Bob Jones University employee, who says he contracted the AIDS virus after his wife was infected through a blood transfusion.

...

In his speeches and writings on his Web site and elsewhere, Thacker has described homosexuality as a "deathstyle" rather than a lifestyle and asserted that "Christ can rescue the homosexual."

Simulated image.

posted by Quiddity at 1/24/2003 03:04:00 AM

Taking it seriously:

Bush has proposed there be a limit when awarding damages for Pain and Suffering. In the worst case (lose all four limbs, hearing, sight, and genitals), the total compensation can't be higher than $250,000. A rational extension of that concept is to award smaller amounts for smaller losses (e.g. "only" one foot). We think the following break-down is about right.



Remember, these amounts are what you get for a lifetime of loss. Assuming a 30-year lifetime, the annual Pain and Suffering award for, say, a lost (1st) hand, you divide $5,000 by 30 and arrive at a payment of $166/year.     Generous!

posted by Quiddity at 1/23/2003 06:09:00 PM

These guys don't even know their Bible:

We read that Bush has appointed Jerry Thacker to serve on the Presidential Advisory Commission on HIV and AIDS. Thacker is a controversial figure. He's "a fire-breathing, Bob Jones University alum" (according to Sullivan), with a distinctive view on homosexuality. Here, for instance are notes from a presentation he gave at BJU:

Mr. Jerry Thacker of Fleetwood, Pennsylvania, spoke today on homosexuality.

The media has programmed us to think a certain way about this sinful lifestyle or, as Mr. Thacker calls it, "deathstyle." Romans 1:16-32 tells how we should think about homosexuality. This passage shows a nation setting itself up for all kinds of bad things to happen, one of those is homosexuality.

Let's take look at Romans. Here is what those verses say:

Paul asserts: (in Romans 1: 16-32)

• "I have complete confidence in the gospel."

About the gospel:

• It is God's power to save all who believe (Jews and also the Gentiles).
• It reveals how God puts people right with himself (through faith).
• As the scripture says, "The person who is put right with God through faith shall live."

Statements about God:

• God's anger is revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of the people whose evil ways prevent the truth from being known.

What can be known about God:

• Is plain for all to see.
• Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen.
  • They are perceived in the things that God has made.
• There is no excuse for not knowing about God.
• Therefore, God punishes those who do not acknowledge him.

Some people know God

But:

They do not give him the honor that belongs to him. They do not they thank him. They refuse to keep in mind the true knowledge about God.

Instead:

Thinking: Their thoughts have become complete nonsense. Their empty minds are filled with darkness. They say they are wise, but they are fools. Worship: They do not worship the immortal God, They worship images made to look like mortals or birds or animals or reptiles. They exchange the truth about God for a lie. They worship and serve what God has created instead of the Creator himself.

Because they do this:

• God has given them over to shameful passions.

1. Do the filthy things their hearts desire, and they do shameful things with each other.
2. Women pervert the natural use of their sex by unnatural acts.
3. Men give up natural sexual relations with women and burn with passion for each other.
4. Men do shameful things with each other, and as a result they bring upon themselves the punishment they deserve for their wrongdoing.

• God has given them over to corrupted minds:

They do the things that they should not do.

1. They are filled with all kinds of wickedness, evil, greed, and vice.
2. They are full of jealousy, murder, fighting, deceit, and malice.
3. They gossip and speak evil of one another
4. They are hateful to God, insolent, proud, and boastful
5. They think of more ways to do evil
6. They disobey their parents
7. They have no conscience
8. They do not keep their promises
9. They show no kindness or pity for others.
10. They know that God's law says that people who live in this way deserve death.
11. Yet, not only do they continue to do these very things, but they even approve of others who do them.

Conclusion:

Paul asserts that

if people do not worship God,
then they will engage in passions that are shameful

Homosexuality is shameful. This shame is God's punishment.

That's it. There is no explicit prohibition of homosexuality. And anyway, this is one man's opinion, unlike other parts of the Bible which contain direct quotes from God (or Jesus).

posted by Quiddity at 1/23/2003 09:40:00 AM

Food for thought:

Excerpts from Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger (chap 9). Here Satan is speaking about the human race:

I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise. Sometimes the noisy handful is right, sometimes wrong; but no matter, the crowd follows it. The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized, are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they don't dare to assert themselves.

Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based upon that large defect in your race--the individual's distrust of his neighbor, and his desire, for safety's or comfort's sake, to stand well in his neighbor's eye. These institutions will always remain, and always flourish, and always oppress you, affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and remain slaves of minorities.

Look at you in war ... how ridiculous!

The loud little handful--as usual--will shout for the war. The pulpit will-- warily and cautiously--object--at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.

Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

posted by Quiddity at 1/22/2003 09:51:00 AM

A quickie:

This week's Troubletown cartoon is pretty good. (Also, see if you can catch the spelling error.)

posted by Quiddity at 1/22/2003 07:43:00 AM

Who is to blame?

In this New Yorker piece by Seymour Hersh, we get a timeline of events surrounding the North Korean nuclear weapons programs - and the Pakistani connection. Unfortunately, we are not told when the Bush (or Clinton) administration first knew what. All we learn is that there was a CIA report issued in June of 2002 that listed North Korean activities that began in 1997. However, there is a case that can be made that when things started to break down in 2002, the administration didn't handle the situation well.

Once again, we found that presenting the material in a table format helps understand the relationship between the events and the actors.

when	who	what
1980's	Pakistan	nuclear program flourished military and intelligence forces were working closely with the U.S. to repel Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
1985	North Korea	signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty opened of most of its nuclear sites to international inspection
early 1990's	American intelligence and international inspectors	North Koreans were reprocessing more spent fuel than they had declared Might have separated enough plutonium to fabricate one or two nuclear weapons
1994	North Korea	Entered into an agreement with the Clinton Administration: Stop the nuclear-weapons program. Obtain economic aid and the construction of two light-water nuclear reactors
1994	North Korea	Unknown if it had begun to build warheads
1997	North Korea	Trying to produce weapons-grade uranium from natural uranium-with Pakistani technology
1997 and later	Pakistan to North Korea (As outlined in CIA report below. Unclear when U.S. intelligence first knew about these activities.)	Economy had foundered "No more money" to pay for North Korean missile support Paid for missile systems in part by sharing its nuclear-weapons secrets Provided data on how to build and test a uranium-triggered nuclear weapon Helped North Korea conduct a series of "cold tests," simulated nuclear explosions, using natural uranium, which are necessary to determine whether a nuclear device will detonate properlyGave the North Korean intelligence service advice on from American satellites and U.S. and South Korean intelligence agents. Centrifuges: Sent prototypes of high-speed centrifuge machines "Chopped many years off" the North Korean development process With a few thousand centrifuges, could have enough fissile material to manufacture two or three warheads a year Pakistani centrifuges: Slim cylinders, roughly six feet in height, that could be shipped "by the hundreds"
	A. Q. Khan Director of a Pakistani weapons-research lab	At least thirteen visits to North Korea
2001	North Korea	Began to enrich uranium in significant quantities
	Pakistan	There are close ties between some scientists working for the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and radical Islamic groups
~25 Sep 2001	Bush	Lifted the sanctions that had been imposed on Pakistan because of its nuclear-weapons activities
Jan 2002	John Bolton Under-Sec. of State for Arms Control	Declared that North Korea had a covert nuclear-weapons program and was in violation of the nonproliferation treaty
Feb 2002	3 members of Congress	Urged Bush to withhold support for the two reactors promised to North Korea
May 2002	John Bolton	Accused North Korea of failing to coöperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency
Jun 2002	CIA report: National Intellegence Estimate	Separate and contradictory estimates from C.I.A., the Pentagon, the State Department, and the Department of Energy regarding the number of warheads that North Korea might have been capable of making Provided no consensus on whether or not the Pyongyang regime is actually producing them Predicted that North Korea, if confronted with the evidence of unanium-enrichment program: Would not risk an open break with the 1994 agreement Would do nothing to violate the nonproliferation treaty
5 Jul 2002	Condoleezza Rice	Letter to the congressmen: Bush Administration would continue providing North Korea with: Shipments of heavy fuel oil Nuclear technology for the two promised energy-generating reactors
early Oct 2002	James A. Kelly Assistant Sec. of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs	Flew to Pyongyang with a large entourage for a showdown over the uranium-enrichment program Kelly authorized to tell the Koreans that the U.S. had learned about the illicit uranium program No room for Kelly to negotiate. Scripted message: Written in the N.S.C."-the National Security Council-"by hard-liners. North Korea must stop the program before any negotiations could take place Former intelligence official: "When it came time to confront North Korea, we had no plan, no contact-nothing to negotiate with. ... but we let it all fall apart."
	Kang Suk Ju First Vice Foreign Minister of North Korea	Seemed to confirm the charge when he responded by insisting upon his nation's right to develop nuclear weapons. Sccused the United States of "threatening North Korea's survival" Produced a list of the United States' alleged failures to meet its own obligations under the 1994 agreement Offered to shut down the enrichment program in return for: An American promise not to attack A commitment to normalize relations
	James A. Kelly	Constrained by his instructions, could only re-state his brief: the North Koreans must act first
16 Oct 2002	Bush admin.	Informs the public about North Korea situation, five days after Congress voted to authorize military force against Iraq
late 2002	American policy	Alternated between tough talk in public-vows that the Administration wouldn't be "blackmailed," or even meet with North Korean leaders-and private efforts, through third parties, to open an indirect line of communication with Pyongyang
	North Korea	Expelled international inspectors Renounced the nonproliferation treaty Threatened to begin reprocessing spent nuclear fuel Insisted on direct talks with the Bush Administration
2003	North Korea	Still unknown if it has begun to build warheads
early Jan 2003	Bush	Agreed to consider renewed American aid in return for a commitment by North Korea to abandon its nuclear program Still resisting direct negotiations with the Kim Jong Il government

posted by Quiddity at 1/21/2003 10:44:00 PM

Location, location, location:

The Washington Times brings us this story:

Spiritual film a big hit near Sundance festival

An Alexandria filmmaker's documentary on the German theologian and Hitler foe Dietrich Bonhoeffer crashed the Sundance Film Festival in Utah this week and made a splash with packed showings at three churches.    ...    The 11-day Sundance festival, founded by actor Robert Redford, brings critical and financial success to many of its selections, ...

Near Sundance festival?

Well, that's one way to get some cachet for your project. The possibilities are endless. Do it right, and the Washington Times will help you out:

• Scrapping missle defense program gains more support near Pentagon.
  
  
• Tax-raising speech warmly recieved near Heritage Foundation headquarters.
  
  
• Wild sex is catching on near fundamentalist churches.

posted by Quiddity at 1/21/2003 09:03:00 AM

Simply amazing:

If you can stomach it, Slate's Chatterbox has been following the Wall Street Journal's Lucky Duckies meme. The latest news is that the WSJ is complaining that Bush's most recent tax cut is "redistributionist" (i.e. too liberal), and that the rich are getting kicked in the teeth yet again. This view is expressed in their most recent editorial titled, "Lucky Duckies Again"

We're surprised that the WSJ has taken such a tame position. After all, conservatives claim that the rich invest, start companies, and provide jobs. That's what trickle-down theory is all about. So why tax the rich at all?

The Journal should forthrightly call for a return to the economic arrangements of 1000 years ago, when peasants gave annual tributes to their lord of the manor, for it was he who had control over their economic fortunes.

posted by Quiddity at 1/21/2003 07:55:00 AM

On a lighter note:

Music, not politics. This site   (click on image)



lets you control a Brazilian Bahianese combo. (Flash animation. Appears to work only/best with Microsoft Internet Explorer and is a major CPU hog.)

posted by Quiddity at 1/21/2003 01:40:00 AM

Bummer:

Al Hirschfeld has died.

Also this:

It was announced in 2002 that Mr. Hirschfeld would get perhaps the ultimate tribute from the Broadway theatre community on his 100th birthday, June 21, 2003: The Martin Beck Theatre will be renamed the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on that day.

posted by Quiddity at 1/21/2003 01:31:00 AM

Fuzzy Wuzzy is Rush's mathematician:

This is a couple of weeks old, but still topical.

The Daily Weasel had an essay about Rush Limbaugh's claims for the Bush and Democratic tax/stimulus plans. One of the reference links is to this page on Limbaugh's website, which is a sterling example of casuistry, and a must-read. Excerpt:

... tax cuts don't "cost" anything, because it's money the government never gets.    ...    Besides, tax cuts aren't a "cost."    ...    If Bush's tax cuts increase revenue up to the $674 billion price tag – and it will – there will be no cost, and bye-bye deficit!

If that kind of thinking is standard-issue over on the right, we might as well give up hope of using reason in political debate.

posted by Quiddity at 1/20/2003 05:29:00 PM

USA Today on Social Security:

In Monday's edition of USA Today, there were two useful essays about Social Security. An alarmist "our view" (i.e. USAT's) and a more reassuring "opposing view".

The hot quote:

" ...Congress, with the administration's blessing, taps an estimated $2.5 trillion in Social Security surpluses over the next decade to pay for other programs."

Either way, the issue should get more coverage than it has recently - especially in light of Bush's proposed additional tax cuts.

posted by Quiddity at 1/20/2003 08:50:00 AM

How to do it:

Josh Marshall (of TalkingPointsMemo.com) examines the connections between the Sons of Confederate Veterans and George Bush. As part of that exercise, Marshall reveals what he calls "ridiculous and arcane procedures" SCV members must follow when reporting a heritage violation. Ridiculous and arcane? We diagram it, you decide:





posted by Quiddity at 1/20/2003 03:01:00 AM