Reagan wins a draw! Oops, I meant Palin

I remember the Reagan/Mondale debates of 1984. After Reagan tanked badly during the first one (eerily similar to Palin's word salad babble to Couric) everyone thought he was through. Then the talking heads speculated that if he could hold his own in the second debate then maybe he could still win the election. I thought he sounded pathetic and possibly suffering from some sort of progressive degenerative brain disease (he was -- Alzheimer's). But before the second debate someone stole Mondale's briefing book (which turned up in the Reagan camp's hands). Reagan held up better in the second debate, not great, but at least he didn't grind down into a long garbled run-on sentence as he did in the first debate.

What do you think the headline was the next day? "Reagan wins a Draw!" (How does one "win" a draw? Oh, nevermind).

Already the talking heads are going on about how great Palin did because she could make subjects and verbs agree and speak in more-or-less clear sentences. Somehow this proves she's a viable candidate and is supposed to erase from our memories the word salad and the inability to name a newspaper or to describe a single example of McCain's "Maverick-ness" or, oh, nevermind. This is all sadly predictable. Has nothing changed in 24 years? Oh, and the media is run by a bunch of liberals. Right.

Habeas Corpus

Although I probably recall reading about the vote in question two years ago when it happened, Greenwald's summary of this (pasted below) gave me my first LOL of the day.

The paragraph below comes from Glenn Greenwald's blog entry about the Supreme Court's recent decision upholding Habeas Corpus :

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 was -- and remains -- one of the great stains on our national political character. It was passed by a substantial majority in the Senate (65-34) with the support of every single Senate Republican (except Chafee) and 12 Senate Democrats. No filibuster was even attempted. It passed by a similar margin in the House, where 34 Democrats joined 219 Republicans to enact it. One of the most extraordinary quotes of the post-9/11 era came from GOP Sen. Arlen Specter, who said at the time that that the Military Commissions Act -- because it explicitly barred federal courts from hearing habeas corpus petitions brought by Guantanamo detainees -- "sets back basic rights by some 900 years" and was "patently unconstitutional on its face" -- and Specter then proceeded to vote for it.


Is Specter the devil? "It's bad. It's evil. It's wrong. I LIKE it!"

What Children do matters

Editorial

When the topic of diversity in the workplace comes up, I often mention that I do not think my own profession has the best record. That prize goes to truck drivers. I worked (very briefly) in a number of different low-skilled jobs when I was younger. One of them had me on a loading dock for the summer of 1979. I met numerous truck drivers then. I have met others now and then since. I have never encountered a more diverse profession. Anyone, all colors, all religions, from a Ph.D. to a 3rd grade drop-out, can be found behind the wheel of a big-rig. The Queen of England was once a truck driver. I'm not kidding.

During World War II the royal family considered it their duty to set an example. The war posed a threat to all of Great Britain. All of Great Britain would serve, somehow, someway. Any member of the royal family who came of age during the war joined the military. At that time the English Army had a female branch called the WTA -- The Women's Transport Auxiliary. Then Princess Elizabeth joined in 1944. She learned how to drive and repair trucks and drove a truck carrying military supplies throughout southern England. The male royals served in combat roles. Looking at this example, one wonders about the ethos of those in power who advocate most strongly for war.

In particular, consider John McCain and Hilary Clinton. I understand and accept that one can not order one's grown children into the service. During World War II King George VI had no authority to compel his daughter Elizabeth to join the WTA, nor any male family members to serve in combat. He did manage to instill in them the sense of duty and the sense that they could not hold themselves "above" serving Great Britain. I would put to you that any candidate for President, or any member of Congress, who has voted to authorize or has supported the Iraq War but who can not convince his or her own grown children of the importance of the war, fails to show the leadership needed to remain in elective office. If you can not even convince your own kids of the importance of the continued U.S. presence in Iraq, what do you expect the rest of us to think? If your own military age offspring do not see the war as a crisis requiring sacrifice for a greater good, why should anyone else?

Just as a side note, I omit Barack Obama because he has not supported the war. Although he did not come to the Senate until after the War began, he repudiated the rush to war at the time (and the people of Illinois elected him anyway - think about it) and has opposed the war since.

Also, I realize this is a side-note to the election campaign. I would not change my position on the war (against) even if all the sons and daughters of all the candidates and all the members of Congress who voted for this mess joined up. I am only pointing out an elitism, an arrogance of privilege, to which even the British royal family did not sink. (And do not even mention President Bush's daughters, nieces and nephews. Arrogance and privilege along with a sense of entitlement sum up all they have to offer. And one or more of them will run for office some day). Does no one else notice this?

New Jersey Uber Alles!

Read the NYT story about the town of Riverside, NJ and how it banned illegal immigrants. Then it's economy tanked. You would think they never even heard about the movie A Day without a Mexican. Or maybe they thought it only applied to California?

“I don’t think people knew there would be such an economic burden,” said Mayor George Conard, who voted for the original ordinance. “A lot of people did not look three years out.”

As quoted in the blog Bitch, Ph.D. "DUH." (Thanks, also to Bitch, Ph.D. for brining this one to my attention).

There's numerous laugh out loud bits in this article. It's worth a look. One last delicious quote from the mayor: "[the ordinance] put us on the national map in a bad way,” Mr. Conard said.

Well what did you think would happen?!

Disaster capitalism

There's an interesting interview with Naomi Klein in salon.com

In particular, this stood out:

There is a new level of integration between homeland security companies and media companies. General Electric, which owns NBC, has been in the weapons industry for some time but has become very active in the homeland security business. They recently purchased InVision, which provides bomb detection for airports. Since 9/11 InVision has received $15 billion in contracts from the Department of Homeland Security -- more such contracts than any other company. A company like that gains from the atmosphere of crisis and fear that is spread through media outlets. It's war against evil everywhere with no end. That's a war that can't be won, and you couldn't ask for a more profitable business plan. The only thing that threatens it is peace.

This reminds me of the media coverage of the Soviet Union and Nicaragua in the 1980s. No conflict of interest when the news and the arms producers are the same company. We trust them! Right.

I'm not sure how to verify this next passage, but I find the attempt to connect the dots between the events hard to dispute:

I look at torture in two ways in the book. The first is as an enforcement tool used by states that are trying to push through an economic transformation of a country that is so wildly unpopular that terror -- including torture -- must be used to control the population. Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay in the 1970s are classic examples of places where very real shocks to bodies were used to spread terror, making it possible to impose economic shocks. China is another example. And I argue that the use of torture by U.S. forces in Iraq was related to the huge social unrest sparked by Paul Bremer's attempt at an extreme country makeover. Many analysts agree that his decision to dissolve the army, to fire huge numbers of public sector workers, to push through investment rules that decimated Iraqi industry, and to cancel local elections all contributed to the rise of the armed resistance. And it was at that point that the war moved into the jails and torture spread.

The whole interview is worth a look, even if Salon.com makes you sit through an ad first (sorry). I find Klein gives some concrete verifiable examples of the idea that the so-called "free market" relies on government intervention, bail-outs, and various tricks to "rig the game."

Numbers

I just read several blog entries on This Modern World concerning the number of Iraqis killed as a result of the war. The posts discuss the Lancet study and its contested results, as well as a new study and its methodology. You can read the original posts here, and here.

But the most revealing part of the story comes from what no one mentions anymore: the U.S. military has actively interdicted attempts to count civilian casualties. In November of 2004 the assault on Fallujah started with the capture of the cities hospitals. According to the Salon.com story at the time:

One unnamed senior American officer acknowledged that the hospital had become a "center of propaganda," reflecting the military's frustration at the high death tolls doctors frequently announce after American bombing raids.

The Pentagon does not report "collateral" casualties. The Iraqis can not. So what does that mean? If you do not count them, they're not dead?

I am not surprised by the attack on factual information. Truth is, after all, truly the first casualty of war. What surprises me is the success.

Cholera comes to Iraq

Yes, a disease unknown in the parts of the world with functioning public services has now arrived in the place the Bush Administration claims has improved lately. According to the Associated Press the epidemic remains only in Northern Iraq. This is a pre-20th Century disease that literally has not been a problem in the region for over a century.

From the AP story: "As of Sept. 10, 6,000 have been reported with symptoms such as diarrhea and vomiting in the province of Sulaimaniyah, another 7,000 in Tamim province, and 3,000 in Irbil province, the WHO said in a statement."

Diebold edits away computer scientists' concerns

According to a database that tracks the sources of anonymous edits to Wikipedia, Diebold, the manufacturer of defective and easily hacked touch-screen voting machines has had someone heavily edit a Wikipedia article about these voting machines. According to Virgil Griffith, a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology, someone from Diebold deleted "wholesale a 15-paragraph section describing computer scientists’ concerns with the devices."

Read the Chronicle of Higher Education article that alerted me to this rather unscholarly editing job.

Here's a link to Wikipedia scanner the database of the origin of edits.