Ken Starr redux
I was just reading that t California Supreme Court heard arguments on the [constitutionality of Proposition 8 today](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090305/ap_on_re_us/same_sex_marriage_17). If you haven't been following this, you'll be surprised to know that **Ken Starr** is representing the pro-Prop 8 folks. I mean, you'd be surprised to know he isn't living under a rock for the rest of his days after his role in the Clinton impeachment.
How appropriate that the willing tool of the nutjob right in the 90s would continue in this role in the 00s. Outside of the moral issue of Prop 8 denying our gay fellow citizens the right to marry, it would be nice to see the crotchety old fascist lose a high profile wingnut lawsuit. Maybe then he'd get the picture but, like most of the obsolete-and-quickly-going-extinct Republicans, he still hasn't figured out that nobody likes him, and doesn't want him participating in politics anymore. In fact, why doesn't somebody just do the country a favor and pop a cap in his ass, already? Jeez.
The election and everything, pt. 1: Proposition H8 and the Mormons
Well, I purposely avoided blogging right after election day, mostly because I wanted it to sink in for a while before I posted something.
I'll be straight up honest with you: I find myself more saddened by the passage of Proposition 8 in California than I find myself elated by Obama's win. I know that might seem odd to some, and my sadness should, in no way, be a reflection of any lack of enthusiasm I have for President-elect Obama. I just felt really strongly about defeating Proposition 8, and in fact, it was the only political campaign I gave money to (I gave $50.00).
Why would I, a straight, married, father of two in Colorado, give a shit about the legal status of gay marriage in California? Well, it's pretty simple: I believe that discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation is wrong. Writing it into the California state constitution, of all places, strikes me as a great moral failure. The fact that the "Yes On Prop 8" campaign was [massively funded by the Mormons](http://mormonsfor8.com/), of all people, disgusts me.
I'll come right out and say it. I hate Mormonism. I think it is a false religion, a cult of the worse kind. I *do not hate* individual Mormons. I feel pity for them, mostly -- because they are brainwashed. I am also *not saying* that they should not be able to practice their religion; I am a firm believer in freedom of religion. However, I will say that I disagree with their faith and the practice thereof, and that I would like to see the Mormon Church lose their tax-exempt status.
The really sickening thing about the Mormon Church underwriting Prop H8, I mean, besides their own extremely fucked-up views and history with marriage to begin with, is that, in my opinion, it didn't really have anything to do with California residents.
I think the Mormon Church would not give two shits if the gays were marrying each other in California, if they could be ensured that *Utah* would never be forced to recognize gay marriage. But, as they say, "As California Goes, So Goes The Nation". They (correctly) viewed legal gay marriage as a threat to their theocracy in Utah.
Yes, I said theocracy. Anyone who doesn't believe that the Mormon Church controls the state of Utah lock, stock and barrel is delusional. They see Utah as the "holy land", and California's legalization of gay marriage would eventually force Utah to recognize it as well, and given the importance they place on marriage in the Mormon religion, that was just too scary a thought to contemplate.
Non-Mormons probably don't understand how important marriage is in the Mormon religion, but really, in many ways, it is the absolute centerpiece of their spiritual beliefs. When a Mormon couple are "bound together in the temple", it's for this life and the next. Mormons believe that when they die, they'll be given a planet to rule over, and their earthly wife will be "First Wife" in the afterlife (I'm pretty sure plural marriage is accepted in the Mormon afterlife). The whole religion is extremely patriarchal, and the marriage contract puts the man firmly in charge.
Now, given that one can be excommunicated from the Mormon Church for being openly gay, why would the Mormons give a shit about non-Mormons marrying each other? Again, it's because Utah is a theocracy, and if (when) the state is forced to recognize the social contract of gay marriage, it will be seen by the powers that be in that state as an abomination; a defacement of the temple, so to speak.
Most people think Utah is just one of 50 states, but really, while they pledge fealty to the United States and the federal government in Washington DC, a Mormon's first allegiance is not to the US, but to the Mormon Church. If Utah were it's own fucked-up little country -- hey more power to 'em. But they're not -- they're part of the United States, and subject to our laws and constitution. The fact that they are meddling in the business of neighboring states to protect their religious beliefs is disgusting, especially when the net effect is to enshrine discrimination into the state constitution.
There are three lawsuits proceeding: [According to New York Law School Professor Arthur S. Leonard](http://newyorklawschool.typepad.com/leonardlink/2008/11/proposition-8-challenges-filed.html),
All three suits proceed on essentially the same theory - that because the amendment alters the fundamental equal protection rights guaranteed by the state constitution, as they were identified by the Court last spring in the Marriage cases, it constitutes a "revision" of the constitution rather than a simple amendment. Under the California Constitution, a voter initiative can lead to a simple amendment, but not to a revision. In order for the initiative to revise the constitution, supermajorities of the legislature must propose it to the people for enactment. The idea behind this is that there should be a broad political consensus in the state before revising the fundamental charter of government, not merely a simple majority vote of the electorate as a result of a measure placed on the ballot through the petitioning process.
Let's hope our gay brothers & sisters in California find some relief with these petitions.
And to the Mormon Church, and it's believers I say: you are welcome to practice your religion as you so see fit, but when the free practice of your religion becomes a threat to what I believe is a fundamental right for all Americans, that's when we must say there are limits to how you will be allowed to protect your theocracy.
That's the bottom line: the Mormon Church's opposition to gay marriage in one of the US's most liberal states has nothing to do with "protecting marriage", and everything to do with preserving their right to run Utah as a semi-theocratic state.
I doubt it will happen, but I would love to see the Mormon Church lose their tax-exempt status over this shit.
Like Hope, But Different
Yes We Can
I'm caucusing for Barack Obama on Tuesday. I'm going to allow myself to hope that this man can bring the change this country so desperately needs. I'm doing this for my kids' future.
My mind is made up. Watch this video, and you might make your mind up, too. I feel cheesy for even writing this, but man - this video struck a chord.
Proposed Republican Party bumper sticker for 2008
"Vote Republican. You can wreck a country in 8 years, but it takes 12 years to kill it"
(Hat tip to Sadly, No!)
The Story Of Stuff
The Story Of Stuff
Nothing really ground-breaking here if you've been following this sort of thing for a while, but the presentation packs a punch in it's succinctness. As with any distillations, some things are kinda brushed over, for instance, the part about the computer's motherboard only needing to have it's chip replaced when the rest of it is just fine is a gross oversimplification. It ignores all the supporting technologies needed to realize the speed gains of that newer chip. Also, she might like that she's still using that ole cathode-ray tube monitor but the fact is, LCDs consume way less power and are healthier for one to use than the old CRTs. Those things aside, she makes a good point. We have a linear production-to-consumption process on a planet with finite resources and an ever-increasing demand for consumer goods. It's not sustainable.
Personally, rather than throw out those old shoes, broken lamps, broken monitors, old computers and crap into a landfill, I've been taking them to CHARM, and while it's not exactly cheap, it's way of voluntarily reclaiming the externalization of the price of those things.
Also, when I was growing up I learned to never take anything for granted, and never throw out something useful. I've still got an 9-year-old Dell XPS T600+ workstation, running Ubuntu Linux. Despite the fact that it tends to hang when the room temperature gets too high, or when it's asked to perform a particularly CPU-heavy compile, it still gets the job done. I am a huge advocate of squeezing every last bit of life out of a computer as possible. Before we got the T600+ in 01 (it was originally my work computer when I worked at Active.com, purchased in 99), we were using Missy's old computer, which she got from her dad, and he had purchased it in 1993, I believe. I had replaced the motherboard and put in an AMD K6+ of course, but the PSU, case, etc. were still all the same.
How Bush Intends To Keep Us In Iraq After He’s Gone
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/25/bush_plan_for_iraq_would_be_a_first/
"President Bush's plan to forge a long-term agreement with the Iraqi government that could commit the US military to defending Iraq's security would be the first time such a sweeping mutual defense compact has been enacted without congressional approval, according to legal specialists.
...
At a House hearing on the pact on Wednesday, Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California and a former Reagan administration official, accused the Bush administration of "arrogance" for not consulting with Congress about the pact. If it includes any guarantees to Iraq, he said, Congress must sign off.
"We are here to fulfill the constitutional role established by the founding fathers," Rohrabacher said, adding, "It is not all in the hands of the president and his appointees. We play a major role."
...
"A commitment that the United States will act to assist Iraq, potentially through the use of our armed forces in the event of an attack on Iraq, could effectively commit the nation to engage in hostilities," Biden wrote. "Such a commitment cannot be made by the executive branch alone under our Constitution.""
It's just one thing after another with these guys. It's not enough to do all the damage they can in the 8 years they hold office. They're gonna try to force their insane policies on the next (likely Democratic) administration as well.
Ultimately it will go to the courts, and how it ultimately winds up will depend on whether Justice Kennedy sides with the Roberts/Alito/Scalia/Thomas unitary executive theorists or with the Souter/Ginsburg/Stevens/Breyer separation of powers adherents.
Hopefully by the time that the Supreme Court hears this case, Clinton or Obama will be in office and the current unitary executive proponents will be having second thoughts about advancing that power to a Democratic administration.
Missing White House emails
There's this article in Time Magazine entitled "Where Are The White House Emails?"
The answer is pretty obvious. They were intentionally destroyed. They were destroyed because they contained information that's either damaging or embarrassing to the White House. This should be plainly obvious to everyone. For all that talk back in the 90s from the Republicans about the "missing Rose Law Firm billing records", their silence on this issue is deafening.
I am so sick of being outraged by this administration. It's just one thing after another. "Ignore it" some might say. If my children's future wasn't being so damaged by the decisions that are being made there, maybe I could - but all I see is the most evil, corrupt and incompetent administration in American history. It's difficult for me to see how people can still justify their votes for Bush.
What are readers of Conservapedia interested in most?
So there's this "conservative" version of Wikipedia called Conservapedia, which describes itself thusly:
Tired of the LIBERAL BIAS every time you search on Google and a Wikipedia page appears? Conservapedia began in November 2006, as the class project for a World History class, meeting in New Jersey, of 58 advanced homeschooled and college-bound students.
So, it's a Wikipedia for conservatives, right?
Take a look at the top 10 "most-viewed pages": http://www.conservapedia.com/Special:Statistics
<Nelson>HA-ha</Nelson>
Wee bit obsessed are we?
(H/T to Atrios)
P.S. Just in case they decide to modify this page so it's a wee less, umm, insightful vis a vis the conservative mindset, here's a screen capture, preserved for posterity.
Quote of the day
From Digby, of course:
"You know, freedom, which in the cramped and self-centered right wing view is defined as your inviolate freedom to use guns, discriminate, pollute, and exploit. Any other kind of freedom, not so much."
Exactly.
Dear Christian Right, et al.
Just for the record, I fully support your possible decision to support a third-party candidate should Rudy Giuliani get the nomination. In fact, I will fully support your decision to abandon the Republican Party en masse and form your own, explicitly fundamentalist Christian, explicitly right-wing third party, should you decided to go that far.
I think it's way past time for this bold action, and I encourage you to make double-time on it.
RIP Steve Gilliard
Steve Gilliard passed away this morning. He was all of 41.
It was about a year ago that I subscribed to Gilliard's blog. I was drawn to his writing the same way I was drawn to folks like Digby -- he was fiercely honest, amazingly brave and wasn't afraid to toss in a "motherfucker" into his writing where appropriate. He pegged this administration for the craven cowards that they are long before it was fashionable, and seemed to be a person of great integrity. At the very least, he was a writer who could distill things down into their base elements and present them for what they were without a bunch of extraneous bullshit.
I had been following Jen's posts for the last few months after Steve collapsed and was put into the hospital, and when Jen announced a couple weeks ago that Steve's family has asked her to not post any more updates, I felt a sinking feeling in my gut that his condition had taken a turn for the worst.
Steve was one of my favorite writers in the blogosphere, and I had been looking forward to his return. I am stunned and greatly saddened to read of his death. He will definitely be missed.
Mission Accomplished: The Fourth Anniversary of Dumb
Dumb as in (as Atrios would say): "TEH STUPID! IT BURNS!"
Media Matters has a nice roundup of the amazingly dumb things major media figures were saying and writing about that day. I'm sure you'll find favorite moments in pundit stupidity on your own, but my favorites were definitely Chris Matthews & G. Gordon Liddy going on and on about Bush's manhood and crotch bulge. Of course, it was a noteworthy enough event that day that I even blogged about it here.
At the time, I said it was "textbook, Chinese-style propaganda". I think that assessment holds up pretty well.
(H/T to Atrios for the link)
Why stupid pride will be the downfall of this country
Stephen of the Thinkery pretty much hits the nail on the head here:
"Millions of people have been duped by the modern GOP, and instead of rising up to hold them accountable, they now actively participate in deceiving themselves. They intentionally choose to believe the talking points distributed through the rightwing media, because it would damage their God damned pride to face the truth. And long after George Bush and Karl Rove are merely unhappy memories, this nation will still be stuck with those who would rather use a lie to soothe their troubled psyche than act like grownups and face the truth."
Man, this statement is so true. Instapundit's whole raison d' etre these days is to find whatever little scrap he can grab and cling onto to avoid coming to the terms that he was about as wrong as you get on the most important foreign policy issue of our generation. It's hard to overstate how much trouble this ill-begotten war has gotten our country into, yet millions of people won't accept that simple truth that's right before their eyes, because damnit, they'd have to admit they were fucking wrong.
I've seen members of my family, people whom I love and respect on most things, twist themselves into the most absurd knots, because they simply don't want to admit that everything about this war was a huge fucking mistake, because to admit a mistake is to admit weakness, and they can never never do that. It's amazing to me how many people share the same mindset that Bush does in that regard. One really has to wonder what it's going to take for them to figure it out.
Revisiting The Democrat’s “Weak Start”
Back on November 15th of last year, just a little over a week after the Democrats took back control of Congress, Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds opined:
Meanwhile, Betsy's Page looks at Murtha's candidacy for Majority Leader and thinks Pelosi has gotten herself in a box...The New Republic is criticizing Pelosi's effort to put the impeached-for-corruption Alcee Hastings in as Chair of the Intelligence Committee...So far I'd say the Dems are off to a weak start.
I responded to Glenn's foolish, rantish link frenzy with my own post, pointing out the obvious. I mean, it was lunacy to suggest the "Dems were off to a weak start" when they hadn't even taken office yet.
Of course, now it's January 24th, and the Dems have been in office for a couple weeks. Glenn spends most of time bitching about Jimmy Carter, and linking to fatass blowhards who think Jim Webb gave a shit response to last night's SOTU. He's also calling it "political suicide" for Republican senators to oppose Bush's escalation (Glenn might be a very nice guy, but politically, he's a fucking idiot. Suicide, Glenn? Suicide is any politician continuing to support this war. Of course, Glenn's been pushing this disaster of a war since the beginning. Fact is, he's married to this war, and he'll say or write anything to avoid coming to terms that not only was he on the wrong side of the greatest strategic mistake this country has ever made, he was the chief cheerleader in the so-called blogosphere for it. There's blood on his hands, and he knows it.).
At any rate, I was pleasantly surprised to read about the "real start" the Dems are off to, this time from the Evans-Novak political report (which is decidedly Republican-leaning):
"The 'hundred hours' program of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has been a success beyond all anticipation. The passage of poll-approved measures came with a unanimous Democratic vote and heavy -- in some cases majority -- Republican support. This performance shows the error and futility of Republican expectations that Pelosi as speaker would fall on her face, though they still hope that she will fail now that the set pieces of the 'hundred hours' have been completed...
"Meanwhile, Republicans are divided and disorganized. Senior Republicans in Congress refer to President George W. Bush and his staff as irrelevant and out of touch. Younger conservative members are going their own way, feeling that neither the White House nor the party's congressional leadership shows the way for the GOP. Republican House aides, even in the leadership, complain that they are so completely shut out of the legislative process they have no idea what will be on the House floor next week."
Weak start indeed. Glenn Reynolds - grotesquely wrong on the war, the Dems' start and just about everything else. Shit, even his technology posts, usually the one tolerable thing I can read on his blog anymore, have gone bat-shit insane.
The fact is, the right's ascendancy in this country is over, ground to a stop by the sheer incompetence and idiocy of unchecked Republican power. Honestly, I'm glad Glenn and his ilk continue to live in their bubble where opposing the surge is "political suicide" for anyone. The public has turned massively against the war, and Glenn & Hugh Hewitt are threatening Republican senators not to vote against escalation.
You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say that Glenn & Hugh are actually deep Democratic plants, designed with the intention of making the coming 2008 blowout even more massive. Of course, I do know better, and I know that these warmongers are fucking crazy, and growing even more so the more their fortunes continue to sink. It'd be fun to watch if so many hadn't lost their lives due to these evil fucks.
Wingnut Josh Trevino’s response to Bush’s Speech: Build Concentration Camps!
This is really unbelievably awful. Redstate.com co-founder Josh Trevino says the way we can win in Iraq is by dragging off all the Iraqi women and children to fucking concentration camps and laying waste to the rest of the country. I'm not kidding:
Make no mistake: those means were cruel. I have stated previously that I endorse cruel things in war - to eschew them is folly. The British achieved victory over the Boers by taking their women and children away to concentration camps, by laying waste to the countryside, and by dotting the veld with small garrisons in blockhouses at regular intervals. The men who remained were hindered in their movements by the wire stretching from blockhouse to blockhouse (a phenomenon that the Morice Line experience has shown would be massively more effective now); they could either surrender or die. Absent women and children, the rules of engagement were lax. From implementation to victory took under 18 months. To accomplish this required over one-quarter million soldiers.
Consider the Boer-era strategy for victory as it might apply in Iraq. Consider it because in doing so, one considers the course of action that arguably maximizes efficacy per soldier, thereby yielding a plausible figure for needed soldiery.
Let me ask you this Josh -- concentration camps, laying waste to the country, making the "rules of engagement" even more "lax" -- what the fuck are you talking about? Are you out of your fucking mind?
We're supposedly fighting this war to create a free and democratic society in Iraq. Hey, I might not fucking believe it, but that's Bush's rationale and he's sticking to it. For people who get awfully sensitive when someone compares our loss of civil liberties to Nazi-era German fascism, some elements of the right certainly let their awful little imaginations get away from themselves when daydreaming about how to win an unwinnable war.
The Age of Horrorism
There's a lot to agree and disagree with in the essay "The Age of Horrorism" by author Martin Amis that appeared in the Observer last week. His contention that Western liberalism is in denial about the "Islamacist cult of death" is a bit hard to swallow, especially his complete discounting of the horrible economic and social conditions many of the Jihadists grow up in being a factor. He tends to place the blame completely on the Imperial ambitions of Islam, dreams of the caliphate, etc. However, when he takes aim at the crippling effect of sexism in Islam - "The connection between manifest failure and the suppression of women is unignorable.", and his rationale that the United States "walked into a trap" when it invaded Iraq - his essay soars. One of the most eloquent things I've read about terrorism in a long time, even if I disagree with much of what he has to say.
Definitely worth the 30-40 minutes you'll spend plowing through it.
Part One Part Two Part Three