UncommonSense

5/17/02

Well, well, well. It looks like all those people in tin foil hats screaming about a government conspiracy of contrails altering world weather turns out to be true. Or, at least the altering the weather part, anyway. So, if jet exhaust really can alter weather, who is to say that the government hasn't been intentionally altering weather patterns, for whatever reason?

A quote from this article does concern me, though. "The skies above the Southwest are typically too dry, and the skies above the deep South are too hot for extended contrail coverage." Obviously, this person has never been to the deep South. Why, two days ago I was outside lighting the grill when I noticed a pair of thick white contrails crossing directly over my house. I went inside and got out my tin foil hat, for obvious reasons. Contrails here are as common as dirt. In fact, you can go outside almost any day and see some planes laying down thick white trails, while other planes hardly leave a mark on the sky. If that doesn't tickle your conspiracy bone, I don't know what will.

I don't think liberals should abandon Dennis Kucinich because of his opposition to abortion. Progressive, intelligent, liberal people aren't required to jump on the abortion-rights bandwagon. There's plenty of reasons to like this guy. Give him a break, please.

Bwahahaha! Great one by David Corn, in response to Condoleeza Rice's inane assertion that the President's briefing contained no specific material. "But CIA daily briefings are supposed to include noteworthy material for the President, not obvious, generalized information. Let's hope the CIA is not wasting the President's time by reminding him terrorists sometimes hijack airplanes."

But Ms. Rice wants it both ways. She wants to say that there was nothing specific in the reports given to the president, she wants to say that only a traditional hijacking threat was being considered, to "take over an airliner, holding passengers and demand the release of one of their operatives," Rice said of the report's reference to al-Qaida." But at the same time, "She said the terrorists wanted to hijack a plane and demand the freedom of the "blind sheik" — Omar Abdel-Rahman, the Egyptian cleric imprisoned for a plot to bomb targets in New York in the early 1990s." So was it general information of a non-specific nature, or was it specific information about which prisoner they would demand be released? Tell us, Condoleeza. We're waiting to know. Did the administration plan to allow a traditional hijacking to occur, so that they could use the event to promote the war or terrorism? Is this why there was no fear of the planes being used as missiles? Inquiring minds want to know... but d'oh! Inquiring minds were driven out of their offices by anthrax from an unidentified source. Wow! What are the chances, Condoleeza?

Things continue to heat up fer Massa Gawge, lies and spins refuted almost as fast as Ari can spew them out. Shoulda said something, suh. Makes you look like you have something to hide. Do you?

Now the Village Voice is asking things that, before now, have been relegated to such fringe sites as copvcia and the excellent 9/11: Unanswered Questions.

Dick Cheney as Bob Boudelang; close your eyes and see if you can tell who is who. "We didn't know so stop saying that!" I suppose this is what Ari meant when he said, "Watch what you say." Unka Dick'll come and kick your ass, Beavis.

Be sure to check out RBHam and Bartcop today.

5/16/02

As the icy water of the North Atlantic filled the bow sections of the RMS Titanic, Captain Smith was initially unwilling to believe that the ship might sink. The first lifeboats were launched half-empty. Passengers were angry at being forced to abandon an unsinkable ship. But eventually, the full horror of the situation could no longer be ignored. If only more people had paid more attention when the water first burst through the ship's seams. Curious piece of reporting by White House boot licker Ron Fournier - three times he states that no one had any suspicion that the hijackers might use the planes as missiles. Nothing to see here, move along, except that this report from 9/13 contradicts everything they are saying (damn this Internet-thingy!). But then again, who cares if they didn't know that the hijackers would use the planes as weapons? They were planning to hijack them. Isn't that enough? Apparently, only if you are in the inner circle, like John Ashcroft, who stopped flying commercial in July due to this information. Mr. President, if the threat was significant enough for the Attorney General, why wasn't it significant enough for the rest of us?

So, Mr. President, I suggest you start looking to your life boats, and you might send out feelers for asylum in some friendly country, like Saudi Arabia, where they like you even though they think you are a spoiled, uninformed ninny.

I have nothing against science. It's technology that gripes my ass. For example, when did it become so damned inconvenient and so damn risky to use your check card to pay for your groceries, that someone would get the idea that paying with your fingerprint would be a good idea? Don't they read science fiction? Or how about the guys who invented a way to manipulate images to make it look like anyone is saying anything they want him to say, even to speak another language. Didn't they see how this could be abused? Did we learn nothing from the atom bomb? No more verbal gaffes from Resident Bunnypants - in fact, they don't need him at all, just create a CGI video and let the old boy retire to the ranchero.

5/15/02

June 28 - the day the US Government runs out of money. The clock is ticking, and meanwhile Bush keeps giving away more tax dollars to his corporate buddies. We need to end last year's disastrous (non-event, as it didn't cut my taxes by a dime) tax cut and slash spending on such luxuries as a missile defense system that does not, nor will it ever, work. Meanwhile, a thorough audit of government spending might just discover a couple trillion dollars collecting 7 percent in the offshore tax havens of the thieving bastards at DOD, HUD and elsewhere. Retrieve that, Mr. Bush, or does some of it belong to you?

I said last Friday that Tony Blair would be getting an angry call from the White House. Sounds like he did. He's changed his tune to a minor key in a supporting harmony.

Some days, I don't hold out much hope for the human race. I guess being able to destroy the earth twenty times over with nuclear weapons isn't good enough. We need new and better ways to spend billions of dollars to destroy ourselves.

The cost of college tuition continues to rise, as this excellent article shows. This gives me a chance to pronounce upon my prediction about the future of higher education.

As the article states, the cost of higher education is rising at a rate that far outstrips both inflation and earnings. At the same time, colleges and universities continue to cut tenured staff, filling vacated positiongs with part-timers and slave-wage grad students. The concept of the full time student is vanishing. More and more, students have to work full time jobs just to be able to afford college, and even so, they incure massive debt that takes years to pay off. My small family is a perfect example of this. We are still paying off credit cards from school, and we have another 3 years or so before we are debt free.

At the same time, we are encouraged to begin saving for our childrens' education now. We began investing before our son was even born. But chances are, unless we win the lottery or write a best seller, we'll never be able to save enough for him. Money is just too tight. And if we have more children? I guess they're shit out of luck.

It can't continue. As things are, a bachelor's degree isn't worth as much as it used to be. I know a woman with a degree in sociology who has a job delivering car parts. Before he retired, my father (without a degree) trained new hire, newly graduated electrical engineers to do their job. This training period lasted a full year. And he was of the opinion that a reasonably intelligent person with good basic math skills could be trained to do the same job in the same amount of time, but without the expensive and time-consuming electrical engineering degree.

In computer science, the best work often comes from people without any formal training. New journalists must have a degree in journalism, but a degree is journalism is gained largely through participating in 'pretend' journalism removed by several degrees from the reality of print publication. My English degree, to my mind, is of less value than what I have learned through my own reading, exploration and experimentation. I can count on one hand the classes that made a real difference to my world view and appreciation of literature - all but one were first or second years courses and half of them were not even in my degree field!

This can't continue. Sooner or later, corporations will learn that investing in talented, gifted, intelligent, driven individuals straight out of high school will profit them more than relying on the universities to spew out a trainable work force. Sooner or later, a university degree will only be within the reach of a very few wealthy individuals, and even then, the degree will be almost worthless without a graduate degree to back it up. Sooner or later, a system will arise to replace this awful university jack in the box.

In other words, by the time my son graduates from high school, a university education will either be free or obsolete. That doesn't mean we aren't saving for him. I could be wrong. The university system will die a slow and noisy death, but it might take decades longer than I suspect. But whether it dies sooner or later, he'll need that money for something.

5/14/02

Budget deficit actually a half-trillion, as reported on the US Treasury website. Holy Cow, I sure am glad Antonin Scalia decided a Gore victory in Florida would undermine Bush's legitimacy as president. I was afraid my children might enter adulthood in a properous debt-free country. If Reaganesque deficits and withering recession was good enough for me, it's good enough for them, too.

This is, of course, partially a result of the Bush administration literally bending over backwards to provide tax breaks for corporations, including circumventing Congress and using methods so arcane that even veteran tax legislators in the Capital were unaware of them. How many hours did Bush staffers put in to discover non-Congressional methods of reducing corporate taxes?

It doesn't get much more disgusting than this. Makes you wonder who comes up with these things. Will they sell the above pic, as well?

Be sure to check out Peggy Nooner's Latest, as mentioned by Buzzflash and Bartcop E!

We know what Peggy did, but how did you celebrate Orgasm Day?

Jimmy Carter blows Bush's cover story on Cuba bioweapons. You get the feeling that if a country tries to develop drugs to fight a biological attack, they could be labeled as developing bioweapons?

Dennis Kucinich for President?

US officials fear belt bombs worn by suicide bombers who are virtually impossible to track, trace or prevent. They fear anthrax and other biological weapon attacks. Likewise, they fear a chemical weapon attack. They fear a nuclear attack from a suitcase bomb, and balistic missiles from rogue states. They fear a dirty bomb attack, and attacks against nuclear facilities that could result in another Chernobyl. They fear more hijackings, truck bombs and car bombs, boat bombs and mail bombs, poisoned water and infected food supplies.

The methods of terrorism are myriad and always evolving. The methods of preventing terrorism are but one. Terrorism cannot be defeated with more terror, because it is terror that creates the terrorist in the first place. Terror, hunger, hopelessness, grief, jealousy, ignorance and injustice - these are the catalysts of terrorism.

You cannot end terrorism with violence. You cannot end it by starving people, by repressing them, by killing their children and parents, by flaunting your wealth and power, or by telling lies or hiding the truth. There is only one answer. It is an answer that will change the world, an answer that will require us to redefine who we are as human beings and how we relate to other human beings. The answer?

End violence and repression, share knowledge and resources. Personal wealth at the cost of world poverty is a crime against humanity. There is no excuse in this world for a starving child, no excuse for a death from a disease curable by the most basic antibiotics. When you see this,

do you see a Palestinian woman, Palestinian children and an Israeli soldier? If so, then you cannot see the way to end the terror.

You must look at this picture and see yourself shielding your children with your own body, see yourself hiding behind your mother, see yourself looking down the barrel of a gun at a child.

I am the woman, and as long as my children are threatened, I will defend them. I am the child, and if my mother is slain, I will avenge her. Stop threatening my children, and the terrorism will stop. Stop killing my mother, and the terrorism will stop.

I am the soldier, and if I see a child in my gunsights, I must not pull the trigger, because I am also that mother, I am also that child. If I kill them, I kill myself, I kill my children. How can I look my son in the face with the blood of someone else's son staining my hands?

How else do you define madness?

5/13/02

Today is Senator Bill Frist (R-TN) Day. We'll start with a recent comment of his...

"Let's face it. Nobody even knows Clement is running (for Fred Thompson's Senate seat), and the primary contest is a good way for both of our guys (Lamar Alexander and Ed Bryant) to get their message out and build up their momentum," said Frist. source

He's absolutely right. Nobody even knows that Clement is running. But Bob Clement is the only Democratic candidate for this Senate seat.

Ed Bryant and Lamar Alexander are weak candidates. As a former governor, Lamar is well-known throughout the state, but face it, the man is a dish rag. On the other hand, Ed Bryant is a nobody, a small-time House Republican toady, only good for a reliable party-line vote. Yes, Mr. Delay, whatever you say is fine by me. In the Senate, this tune (or should I say toon?) will change to Yes, Mr. Lott, whatever you say is fine by me.

Bob Clement will lose to either one of these guys. That's how bad it is. That's how EASY it would be for the Dems to grab this Senate seat, and Bob Clement is how little they are willing to invest in the effort. It's like they want to lose.

In other news, Senator Frist recently stated that he supports H.R 3895, the Ten Commandments Defense Act, which would protect public displays of the Ten Commandments in government buildings. Also, H.Con.Res. 315, the Ten Commandments Public Display Resolution of 2002, would require that the Ten Commandments be put on public display in both houses of Congress.

These sorts of bills are the legislative equivalent of asking someone, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" They are do-nothing know-nothing bills, most often proposed during election years to drive a wedge between progressive candidates and their more devout constituents who really want to believe in easy solutions to society's ills, even if they know deep in their hearts that there are no easy solutions. For candidates in religiously insane districts, such bills are difficult to oppose on moral and ethical grounds, thus allowing their opponents to usurp the dialogue.

What we need is a tag, an easily-identifiable word association that will instantly disqualify such efforts in the minds of the listeners. Something simple, to the point, and with extremely negative connotations that allows you to retake the dialogue without getting bogged down in the usual Founding Father arguments.

Here is my nomination: call it a Wife-Beating Bill. After a brief period of introduction and explanation, this could come in to such common usage that it no longer needs explaining. For example:

Senator Frist: I support H.R. 3895, a bill that will protect the right of Americans to place the Ten Commandments in their local schools and courthouses. But my opponent is against the very moral laws on which this country is founded, as he has opposed similar bills in past votes.

Rep. Ford: It is true that I refuse to support another Wife-Beating Bill. House Resolution 3895 is nothing more than a bill to force people of conscience to vote in favor of a popular but blatantly unconstitutional law that will immediately be struck down in the courts. Personally, I think there are better ways to spend the tax dollars of working Americans. Of course I support my constituents' right to worship however they believe, and of course I realize that without a firm moral foundation, this country is headed the wrong way. But H.R. 3895 will do nothing to change that direction. It is a dog and pony show that actually diverts resources needed to find ways to make a real difference in people's lives. If Senator Frist was truly concerned about the moral foundation of Tennesseans, he wouldn't have opposed legislation that would have made it easier for impoverished working mothers to provide a quality education for their children.

As for HR. 3895 and its ilk, I am not personally opposed to this, just so long as they are also willing to erect marble stela inscribed with the 72 poems of Lao Tzu, the Code of Hammurabi, the writings of Confuscious, the teachings of Budah, the oral history of every Native American nation, L. Ron Hubbard's Dyanetics, the entire content of the Koran, and a statue of Jim Jones and David Koresh next to a plaque listing the names of every one of their victims as a warning against blindly following the religious teachings of any one person or faith.