I have nothing to add to what I said before. Read more →
Category: Head-Explodes
What Will They Be Thankful For?
The biggest risk we now face is that, if the United States withdraws from Iraq, the withdrawal will trigger a regional collapse. Iran will be sucked in from the east, as Iraq succumbs to a Sunni on Shi’ite civil war that threatens Iran’s own western population. Sunni insurgents trained in Iraq will flood the region as a whole, threatening to… Read more →
Torture and the English Language
Well, it’s official now. Bush has signed the Torture Without Habeas Corpus bill into law: Bush Signs Terror Interrogation Law President Bush signed legislation Tuesday authorizing tough interrogation of terror suspects and smoothing the way for trials before military commissions, calling it a “vital tool” in the war against terrorism. If the facts of the story aren’t already chilling enough,… Read more →
Signing Statements
So, once again Bush has declared himself above the authority of the legislative branch: Bush says he can edit security reports President Bush, again defying Congress, says he has the power to edit the Homeland Security Department’s reports about whether it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and watchlists. In the law Bush signed Wednesday, Congress stated… Read more →
Irony: Textbook definition.
Torture anywhere is an affront to human dignity everywhere. We are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, ratified by the United States and more than 130 other countries since 1984,… Read more →
Mission Accomplished
I have been avoiding writing this post for a couple of days. I haven’t been this depressed since the last U.S. Presidential election, and I had to get away for a few days and not think about it. I’m still too angry and upset to write about this clearly, but I can quote a whole bunch of other people whose… Read more →
Stop the continent, I want off.
Only 28% of Americans believe in evolution (and two-thirds of these believe evolution was “guided by God”). 53% are actually creationists. 80% of Americans expect to be called before God on Judgment Day to answer for their sins. 90% believe in heaven. 77% rate their chances of going to heaven as “excellent” or “good.” 83% of Americans believe that Jesus… Read more →
The Disappeared
So, after literally years of denying it, Bush finally admits that there were secret prisons, and that they are being shut down with the 14 people left in them transferred to Gitmo. The AP has a slightly different story, with 14,000 people in the U.S. remote gulags. In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to… Read more →
Saturday Link-blogging
I wish more North Americans had travelled enough to have a picture of how the world really is, outside of North America. Watching the miniature earth movie is a good way to start getting the idea, without spending years travelling. Think that the $8.3 trillion dollar national debt that Bush reports is a sign of absolute unmitigated fiscal disaster? What… Read more →
Head Explodey, Part 3
The lede on this Reuters story seem relatively harmless, or maybe even positive: Americans who question evolution are testing a new tactic in Ohio, arguing that schools should be required to discuss all controversial issues from creation to stem cell research and global warming. In what critics on Wednesday called a new attempt to bring religion into the classroom, the… Read more →
Head-explodes, part 2
Those poll results were the first part of today’s cornucopia of things that make my head explode. You’d think an article entitled “Southern women breaking up with Bush” would be something I’d enjoy reading. But then you hit this section: Still, some Southern women remain stalwart supporters of the president and the Republican Party. At a watermelon festival in Chickamauga,… Read more →
Canada, I am so disappointed in you
It would not be unfair to say that it physically sickens me that there are 15000+ people reading the Globe who think secret prisons are a good and necessary idea. Read more →
Overextended, and under-comprehending
I’ve been watching the housing boom–especially in the crazy U.S. markets like Boston and parts of California–with interest and a kind of schadenfreud-laden waiting for the bust to begin. This most recent Businessweek article just confirms all my basic notions: that people do remarkably stupid things, especially when they are motivated by greed, and that they are happily helped into… Read more →
Has the KKK invented a time machine?
Seriously: what the hell? This is still 2006 right? Black Students Ordered to Give Up Bus Seats to White Children By Vickie Welborn The Shreveport Times COUSHATTA — Nine black children attending Red River Elementary School in Louisiana were directed last week to the back of the school bus by a white driver who designated the front seats for white… Read more →
Screaming at people about what’s going on…
Just a quick list of things that the U.S. are doing that are making me righteously angry (a subset of the full list of things that are making me righteously angry): An utterly forseeable consequence. It doesn’t take a tremendous amount of insight to grasp that an organizational hierarchy will develop a need to justify itself, and its budget. It’s… Read more →
