No Victory

On the Saddam execution

Government in a nutshell

Head of the LAPD Internal Affairs unit had an affair with a subordinate whose job it was to investigate inappropriate sexual relationships.

LINK (use bugmenot.com to login if you really want to read it because you don't believe me since I'm a godless heathen anti-Bush liar)

Also, Jaime Gold is a piece of dooooooooo

Sam Adams Winter Classics Mix Pack

I've become something of a beer snob, but I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Sam Adams (other soft spots include Chipotle, Cal Ripken Jr., Bob Dole, The X-Files, Steve Francis, and my mom), as it was the beer that first started me on the transition towards enjoying good beer. So even though I don't really find the beers in this mix pack to be anything especially wonderful (though my first sip of a fresh cold Boston Lager still makes me weak in the knees) , I'm always excited to pick up the Sam Adams Winter mix.

A few years ago I rated the Winter Lager as probably my favorite beer, but while I still enjoy it, it has fallen far down that list. I really like the Old Fezziwig ale, and would probably now call it my favorite in the mix. I'm always weirded out by the Cranberry Lambic. Sam Adams describes it:

Samuel Adams® Cranberry Lambic is a Belgian-style fruit beer that draws its flavor not just from the cranberries it is brewed with, but also from the unique fermentation character imparted by a rare, wild yeast strain. The result is a flavor rich in fruitiness and reminiscent of cranberries, bananas, cloves, and nutmeg. A subtle cereal note from the malted wheat reminds the drinker that, as fruity a beer as this is, it is still very much a beer. It is made with native cranberries and tastes delicious with traditional holiday favorites such as roasted turkey.

Maybe I'm missing the subtle cereal note.

Jimi Haha?

Is Jimmie's Chicken Shack cool?

Hungry

I already ate a sandwhich at 12, but I'm going to Chipotle anyway. You can't stop me.

I want the new blogger!

The new blogger is somehow out of beta and yet I still don't have the option to switch over. I've been wanting labels for so long, and now google is just straight c-teasing me. My efforts to categorize all of my posts fell apart long ago, but the librarian in me wants to go on an archive labeling binge.

Sigh.

Remember Dennis Prager?

See For Yourself #1 heckler 'check my ip' made his first appearance in response to a post in which I included the words "Dennis Prager" and "brain-dead" in the same sentence. At the time I hadn't mentioned the more well-known proof of Prager's brain-deadness, this brain-dead column about Keith Ellison. (I'm not going to bother responding to it. Here's Ed Brayton on the matter, and I'm sure you can find plenty more criticism of it.)

I bring it up now because the Holocaust Memorial has condemned Prager's remarks. I eagerly await 'check my ip' pointing out how biased the Holocaust Memorial is and saying that it should respect Prager's beliefs.

That's about right

Anyone who criticizes Bush or Cheney should be locked up. This sounds like some people I know. Fascist asshats.

misc 'check my ip' garbage

This entry is to pick at a pair of little bullshit ideas, and should not be confused with my popular series "Rejecting the nonsense from 'check my ip' / part 1 / part 2" which was devoted to tearing down his 5 primary terrible ideas.


Bullshit Idea #1: Everyone who doesn't worship the supreme-alpha-male-in-the-sky is united by some common dogma and/or leadership

'check my ip' says:

In making this useless fight noticeable in every conversation you have just lumps you in another arrogant athiest who wants to shout from the rooftops what he/she belives. Why is this necessary? Why is the lack of respect for any arguments to your contrary necessary? Where did anyone in athiesm teach you this?

Where did anyone in atheism teach me this??? Huh? What on earth is this question supposed to mean? Do you think there's like an atheist gospel? Do you think there's some central leadership? Do I take orders from atheists ranked above me and command a force of lower ranking atheists? Maybe we should set up a goofy little country inside a large European city and command that our blind followers in AIDS-ravaged third world countries never use condoms. Oh wait you already said that because you once bumped into a guy in college who didn't believe in god, it is clear to you that atheism isn't a religion. Clearly.

As Sam Harris has pointed out, "atheist" shouldn't even have to be a word. There are no aZeusists or aThorists or aFlyingSpaghettiMonsterists. But because most of the world is still plagued with superstitious nonsense, we have to have a special word for people who refuse to deny obvious reality. But just because we have a word for people with a common embrace for rationality doesn't mean they all agree on everything.

So let me ask 'check my ip' if I would be correct in assuming that you don't believe in Thor. Assuming that you don't, my next question would be: who in aThorism taught you to spout loads on nonsense on my blog?

Bullshit Idea #2: If you don't do them in a 100% religious way, you shouldn't do holidays at all.

'check my ip' says:

Also, I trust you will be telling everyone at work that you wish to be left out of any holiday activities, right? I mean, even the "Season's greeatings" thing came out of a PC tolerance for other religions. So don't accept any gifts or anything silly like that.

Once again I have trouble even trying to guess what some of this means, but one thing that is clear is that this guy must think that Santa Claus and stockings over a fire and Rudolph and electronics wrapped in shiny paper came straight from the gospel of Matthew. Can you tell me which verse that was?

By the logic of your statement, I should assume that aThorists like you don't acknowledge a weekday between Wednesday and Friday, right? Since "Thursday" is just a tribute to the Norse God of Thunder, I trust you'll be telling everyone at work that you wish to stay at home on Thor's day, right?

Oh wait, things that start out as superstition can become part of culture and gradually lose the original meaning? What an amazing concept!

Virgil Goode (R-VA) = asshole

Greenwald is cutting back on his blogging to work on his next book, but he still knows how to expose a Republican asshole.

SMACK!

Michael Crichton, jurassic prick

The assholes who run this country deserve to be locked up in Gitmo. They'd be among the few people there who actually did anything to hurt America.

Huge obvious jokes

All of these things are absurd hypocrisy or otherwise pathetic:

• "In God We Trust" on US currency
• "Under God" in US Pledge
• Columbus Day celebrated as a national holiday
  
• "Redskins" as the name of the US Capital's NFL football team
• "War on Drugs" but alcohol is legal

They're all so fucking obviously ridiculous. Shouldn't this be embarrassing for everyone?

Best Christmas Song ever

Artist: Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Album: Christmas Eve and Other Stories
Track: Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24

You might recognize it as "that badass version of Carol of the Bells."

Man Beard Blog

Man Beard Blog has taken on an intern and conducted its first product review.

more for 'check my ip'

I've taken a break from rejecting his nonsense, and I'm not sure if I'll continue. But for now, Cara raises some questions for 'check my ip' that I'd also be curious to hear a response about. I kind of doubt I'll get one, but might as well ask.

My rephrasing of Cara's questions for 'check my ip':

1. What is your opinion of the large number of evangelical christians in the US who aggressively seek to impose their faith on others, and who would fully embrace the idea that they're defined by their faith?
2. Are these people worse than adspar? If so, how? If not, how?
3. Do you think they're arrogant ("somehow they know better than all the jews, muslims, other christians, hindus, jains, voodoo-ers, etc and find it necessary to tell us all loudly about it.")?
4. Are these people's actions somehow more defensible because they're trying to "save us"? Do you not think that adspar's intentions are more noble ["warning people that they're wasting their time/money/mind and allowing the "freaks" who do bad things to continue do those things (by not allowing an honest analysis/critique of religion)"]?

As my own followup, I'd be curious to hear what he thinks about the millions of more moderate people who don't actively push their views on others, but who also would say that they are "defined by" their religious views. Are they a problem too?

media sucks

More excellence from Glenn Greenwald as he continues to rip the mainstream media for their Bush-enabling abandonment of their journalistic responsibilities. I particularly love this quote from his link in update 2:

I wonder how the corporate media would react if Bush denied the Holocaust. Maybe something like:

The politically charged controversy over whether Nazi Germany engaged in the large-scale killing of European Jews during World War II, an alleged historical event referred to as the "Holocaust" by those who believe it occurred, became the subject of partisan bickering after a reporter asked President Bush for his view on the subject. Never afraid to take a stand, the president stated firmly that "If the Nazis were really killin' all them Jews, my granddaddy wouldn't have stood for it."

Democrats eagerly pounced on Bush's statement in an effort to score political points by claiming that the "Holocaust" did in fact occur and is well documented. But the president's press secretary countered that some people also believe evolution is well documented, even though the jury is still out. Senator Joseph Lieberman, who is Jewish, said that he personally believes that the "Holocaust" may have occurred, but warned Democrats not to "play politics" with the issue by criticizing the Commander in Chief in a time of war. Lieberman also pointed to Bush's support for Israel as evidence of the president's high regard for Jews, notwithstanding the "honest difference of opinion" regarding the fate of some Jews many years ago.

Also disagreeing with Bush was Sophie Wasserman, 89, who claimed to have personally witnessed the murder of her husband and children in a Nazi "concentration camp" in the German city of Dachau. However, conservative humorist Ann Coulter disputed Wasserman's account. Coulter, using her trademark tongue-in-cheek cleverness, described Wasserman as a "vicious, senile whore" whose husband and children "probably committed suicide to get away from her."
Gator90 | 12.14.06 - 10:46 am | #

Jason Bourne

If you could be any movie at all, you might have some confusion about how to select which movie you'd be. Let me make it easy for you. You should be The Bourne Identity. You'd rather have amnesia than not, right? You'd contain Mr. Eko and Goodwill Hunting, which is the top two characters to contain, by vote of the citizens of 17 first-world democracies. I don't work for the Americans any more, but if we stay here we die. COME ON, WHAT ABOUT THIS DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND??! Remember the homophobic gay neighbor from American Beauty? He's in you. How is this not a good thing? You've got a black-ops agent off the reservation, and we will burn for this. Team up, motherfucker! Matt Damon can carry a movie now; we all know this. Bypass that shit! Tell me what is going on at those locations where Bourne might be at. The only possible confusion would be if you wanted to be Bourne Supremacy or the Bourne Ultimatum. I could respect that if you wanted to be one of those movies. You'd be wrong, but at least I could support it. But you just need to ask Matt Damon. When he was interviewed by Working Moms Magazine (2003), Hebrews for Halloween Magazine (2004), and Mormon Retards Quarterly (2006), he repeatedly asserted that Bourne Identity is the movie that anyone should be if they were to be a movie. How can you possibly argue with that?

Yao Ming!!!!!!

Yao Ming is probably my favorite NBA player now, behind Juan of course. He's 7'6" and 310lbs. What a fucking beast. Plus he's a good shooter and he's Chinese. You know what else? He plays with Shane Battier. I've hated that guy for so long that now I love him. That's another notch on Yao's massive Chinese belt. Yao is a nice guy and he lives in Houston. If you were Yao and you were my friend, you'd be my best friend. Yao likes to shake hands with small white men who seem amused by his massive size. Yao loves to make brilliant passes, using his supreme vantage point to create unprecedented geometrical angular situations. If you were 7'6" tall and you were my friend, you'd create angular situations and be my best friend. Plus you might get dizzy if you stood up too fast. I wonder how much Yao eats. I wonder if Chinese women love Yao as much as I do. Yao's feet bare a massive burden. You know how Denver is like a mile high and that makes it hard to respirate? Do you think that means it is harder for Yao to breathe than for Earl Boykins? Earl is my least favorite NBA player, except for Duke Jason Williams. If I was Yao, I'd smite them both. But Yao is a fucking pacifist, which is why I have so much respect for him. Plus he's Chinese.

Rejecting the nonsense from 'check my ip' / part 2

Someone calling himself 'check my ip' typed lots of words and posted them in reply to this post. I summarized his disorganized ideas into 5 general themes, which I posted in those comments. The purpose of this entry is to respond to point #3. Perhaps I'll have 5 posts eventually, or maybe I'll get bored with this.

I asked him if it would be fair to say that one of his main points is "3.) There is a proper way to discuss such matters and treat other people, and adspar violates it."

His response was that this is "true."

The following quotes from his comments supported this idea. I don't believe any of these quotes are being taken out of context, but feel free to read the original and decide:

1. "This is not a way to have a fair and meaningful discussion."

2. "“Be aware, kind and respectful to others and you will receive such treatment in return."

3. It seems to me that all the quotes in part 1 are also intended to provide examples of the way I violate the proper ways of discussing things.
   

My immediate reaction to this idea of his is that the irony of him telling me how to have a fair and meaningful discussion is so ridiculous that it barely deserves acknowledgement. But since in this context he's 'check my ip' and not someone with a real name and a personal history with me, I'm going to have adspar respond and leave Adam Sparks out of it.

One idea he has that I agree with is "Be aware, kind and respectful to others and you will receive such treatment in return." And I agree with the implication that if one fails to be aware, kind, and respectful, one shouldn't expect to be treated well.

Let's talk about how 'check your ip' has decided to have a "fair and meaningful discussion". He writes:

Nobody wants to hear anyonein your position coming off as a victim of society's distrust. I wonder how that distrust has ever hurt you? I wonder what the heck that has to do with the conversation you want to have with your parents?

One of his main points was about "playing the victim card"and I'll hopefully address that in another post. But for now I'll simply note that of course nobody wants to hear that they've been unfairly victimizing someone else. Nobody likes to think of themselves as a bad guy and nobody likes it when their misdeeds are brought to their attention. But sometimes it needs to be said, and hopefully people who are basically good will be able to swallow their pride and accept constructive criticism. If not immediately, in the long run a good person will appreciate someone who is willing to tell them a hard truth (popularized by the hanging booger theory).

He goes on to obnoxiously wonder how I'm personally a victim, and what that has to do with my looming conversation with my parents. His questions seem to imply that he thinks I'm not a victim and that he thinks it doesn't have anything to do with my conversation with my parents. Well, I am and it does. I find his line of questions so offensive because it is immediately followed with:

I wonder why, if you are an athiest, you can't just let the Christians be. Nope, you have to set out to mock (yes, you do) and try and prove people wrong and defend yourself.

So he seems to be implying that my conversation with my parents is just some part of my greater plan to attack and mock and prove everyone wrong (although I'll allow that there is a possibility that his poor organization had him asking genuine questions and following them with this offensive bullshit, though it seems far more likely that the questions were not genuine and that they were part of this offensive bullshit).

As I clearly laid out in my last post, I only mock or attack people who deserved it based on their words or deeds. A privately held personal belief in a supernatural deity is a bit goofy, but I'm not going to attack someone just for that, although I might lightly mock them. As I said, I don't have to respect everyone's beliefs; respect for someone is a willingness to hear them out, not a guarantee of respect for what they say. What I will attack without apology are words or deeds that violate me or someone else.

Then he gets even more ridiculous and out of line:

DO you think people would really care if John Doe became an athiest? No, they wouldn't.

What a presumptuous asshole 'check your ip' is being here. People do care that I'm an atheist, and they treat me like shit because of it, just based on hearing about my atheism, before I've even said a word to them about it.

A fair and meaningful discussion is characterized by things like intellectual honesty, genuine attempt to understand the other's message, and avoiding words that are primarily intended to provoke or hurt someone. I emphatically reject his idea that I've violated any rules of fair and meaningful discussion, and I assert that 'check your ip' is the one who has violated those rules.

He rejects, out-of-hand, the idea that atheists could be victims. He rejects, before even considering it, that I could have been treated unfairly because of my atheism. He simply assumes that I'm attacking my own parents out of some ego-fueled quest to prove that I'm right and they're wrong.

What kind of person visits someone's personal blog and decides to write such offensive bullshit, and then on top of that has the gall to suggest that I'm the one who doesn't know how to have a fair and respectful conversation? I think it offers great insight into the mind of 'check your ip' that he makes baseless accusations about me in the same post as he demonstrates on of the very same characteristics he is allegging.

Is he so consumed with emotion and his own ego that he doesn't realize this is happening? Does he need to feel like the good guy and need to paint someone else as the bad guy so much that he can't see the obvious projection that is happening here? This is some ugly shit.

Rejecting the nonsense from 'check my ip' / part 1

In case you didn't notice all the excitement in the comments, someone calling himself 'check my ip' typed lots of words and posted them in reply to my last post. I summarized his disorganized ideas into 5 general themes, which I posted in those comments. The purpose of this entry is to respond to point #1. Perhaps I'll have 5 posts eventually, or maybe I'll get bored with this.

I asked him if it would be fair to say that one of his main points is "1.) adspar can't handle when people have different ideas than him and he attacks anyone who disagrees with him. One should have respect for the beliefs of others, and adspar clearly doesn't."

His response was that this is "clearly true."

The following quotes from his comments supported this idea. I don't believe any of these quotes are being taken out of context, [I've added contextual helpers in brackets] but feel free to read the original and decide:

“You can't even stand when someone thinks different than you. It frustrates you. I saddens you. It angers you. It drives you crazy.

I am not playing the underdog in some big attention-desiring battle to tell everyone what I believe and why I think it is the right thing to believe. [... unlike adspar]


Why is the lack of respect for any arguments to your contrary necessary?

You have zero respect for any ideas other than your own

You have to have respect for what other people believe [;] you clearly do not.

Other beliefs drive you nuts.

My response to this line of criticism it that it simply isn't true. I certainly can handle it when other people have different ideas than me. I don't attack anyone who disagrees with me. And I reject the notion that one simply must have respect for the beliefs of others.

It isn't that someone thinks differently than me that frustrates me, saddens me, angers me, or drives me crazy. To the contrary, I'm eager to hear from people who have different views from me. I like to be exposed to new perspectives.

What I can't stand is dishonesty. What drives me crazy is hypocrisy. What frustrates me is irrationality. What saddens me is ignorance. What angers me is when someone actually takes pride in their dishonesty, hypocrisy, irrationality, or ignorance. And what drives me crazy is when all of that comes from my friends or family.

I don't attack anyone who disagrees with me, though I might challenge their views. I see nothing disrespectful about this.

Except for using the word in the sense of "acknowledgement of their existence" I see no reason why I have to "respect" beliefs that are not worthy of respect. (Belief that the world was created from nothing 6,000 years ago is an example of a belief for which I have no respect. Belief that someone who rejects Islam should be beheaded is another example of a belief for which I have no respect.) Respect for someone's belief is a separate matter from respect for the person who holds a belief. I'm more than willing to respect someone who holds an un-respectable belief, until they start to be dishonest. Then I start to have less respect for them. If they're hypocritical, or if they make irrational arguments, they'll lose a little more of my respect. Ignorance by itself doesn't necessarily mean they'll lose my respect, but if they're proud of they're ignorance that's tough to overcome.

For the record, I also have disdain for when these same faults are demonstrated in those whose views I share. If I start to see a pattern of dishonesty, or irrationality, or hypocrisy in people who share my ideas, that makes me start to question my ideas. In fact this is precisely what happened over the last year or two as I gradually shifted from a position of moderate support for Bush and the Iraq war to an extremely critical view of Bush and the Iraq war. Similarly, if you took the time to search through my archives for all my comments about Bill O'Reilly you'd see a graduate trend from general respect, to "usually I agree with him, but..." to generally disliking him and disagreeing with his views now, all because I saw increasing evidence of O'Reilly's dishonesty, hypocrisy, and irrationality.
----

I find it revealing that 'check your ip' was so eager and enthusiastic (at least 6 different statements on the matter, not to mention the emphatic "clearly" true) to conclude that my attacks and my scorn and my ridicule is aimed at anyone who disagrees with me. He seems quite anxious to cast me as someone who cannot tolerate disagreement.

I would think it should be obvious to any objective observer that my frustration in the specific post (involving the exchange between Prager and Harris) was with Prager's illogic, his dishonesty, his hypocrisy. I would think that anyone who follows this blog generally would be hard-pressed to cite an example where I "attack" someone who disagrees with me who hasn't demonstrated one of the negative traits I've mentioned.

One might perhaps dispute that the subject of my ridicule has been hypocritical, dishonest, or whatever. But I don't think it is difficult to realize that I think those flaws are there, and that is why I'm being harsh in a criticism. One might argue that I'm only claiming hypocrisy or dishonesty because these people have beliefs that I don't share. First, there are examples of posts where I've been quite respectful of differing views. Even if one found many more examples of negative posts than respectful, all that would demonstrate is that I'm more inclined to write about negative things I encounter, not that I react negatively to all opposing views. Even if I saw hypocrisy or ignorance in every single opposing view I've every written about, I generally explain how their words or actions are worthy of ridicule, how they're being irrational or ignorant. And furthermore, if I've slipped into a pattern of just presenting someone's rejection-worthiness as self-evident, I'd always be willing to discuss the matter if someone were to say for example that Prager wasn't dishonest in his responses. The bottom line is that I react negatively to things that deserve negative reactions, and that this should be obvious to any reasonable reader of my blog, or to anyone who knows me fairly well.

So, why would 'check your ip' be so quick to conclude that I shut out all opposing views? Could it be because he himself shuts out all opposing views and so assumes everyone else does? Could it be that he has some psychological defense mechanism where he won't have to confront ideas that challenge his sacred cows if he can find a way to discredit those who voice such ideas? Could it be that he's so deep into the confrontational "us versus them" mentality that is fostered by religion, partisan politics, and even team sports that he's unable to see any disagreement in any other terms?

Perhaps those questions will be further addressed if I respond to his other 4 criticisms.

On the topic of atheist discussion

What I just read, a debate between Sam Harris and Dennis Prager (this page contains links to each of 8 total pages of the back-and-forth debate), makes me so sad, angry, and scared. This guy Prager seems to be completely brain-dead, and yet he has a national radio show that presumably has a large audience or other brain-dead people who live and vote and operate heavy machinery. Over and over and over again Prager takes Harris's flawless logic and ignores it, distorts it, laughs at it, or just falsely calls it illogical. It is painful to read this stuff at times, but for me the most painful was this exchange:

Prager: You are right that this moral clarity and courage among the predominantly religious does not prove the existence of the biblical God. Nothing can prove God's existence. But it sure is a powerful argument. If society cannot survive without x, there is a good chance x exists.

Harris: No, Dennis, this moral clarity is not a "powerful argument," or even an argument at all; please keep your x's straight. If humanity can't survive without a belief in God, this would only mean that a belief in God exists. It wouldn't, even remotely, suggest that God exists.

Prager: You write: "If humanity can't survive without a belief in God, this would only mean that a belief in God exists. It wouldn't, even remotely, suggest that God exists." This statement is as novel as the one suggesting that Stalin was produced by Judeo-Christian values. It is hard for me to imagine that any fair-minded reader would reach the same conclusion. If we both acknowledge that without belief in God humanity would self-destruct, it is quite a stretch to say that this fact does not "even remotely suggest that God exists." Can you name one thing that does not exist but is essential to human survival?

Prager offers pathetic argument, Harris easily refutes it, and Prager repeats his original nonsensical argument without acknowledging that it had been definitively struck down. Whether this is because he's too dumb to understand it, too blind to see it, or because he has no regard whatsoever for intellectual honesty is anyone's guess. Harris' first message contained the following statement, and Prager certainly delivered on the request:

Against these plain truths religious people have erected a grotesque edifice of myths, obfuscations, half-truths, and wishful thinking. Perhaps you, Dennis, would now like to bring some of that edifice into view.

Bring it into view he did.

A related aspect of this so-called debate that pushed my damn buttons was Prager's transparent dishonesty and his inconsistent wavering in his views towards academia. One day he's bowing in reverence to academic achievement, as if a man's scientific accomplishments somehow suggest that he's incapable of irrationality in other areas (despite a book by Francis Collins that proves otherwise), and the next minute he's dismissing all of academia as being full of intellectually confused PhDs who grow more foolish with every year of exposure to higher education. I have a tough time seeing this as anything other than pandering to his ignorant, anti-intellectual fan base, cultivating the kind of "us-simple-folk vs. those-know-it-all-fancy-pants-idiots" mindset that pervades modern discourse, for which George W. Bush is the poster boy.

Need help

Sometime soon I'll be having a conversation with my Catholic parents in which I intend to make my case why my atheism isn't the end of the world. My intent won't be to convince them that my worldview is right; I'm just trying to dispel some of the standard misconceptions about atheists and establish in a positive way that there's way more common ground than they might realize.

I'd appreciate any advice. Also, I'd appreciate if you avoid making the obvious snide comments about how sad it is that I have to have such a conversation at all. There is a small chance they might read this, so try to keep comments respectful.

Topics I intend to touch:

• "atheism = arrogance" fallacy
• morality doesn't (have to) come from religion
• maybe some kind of ATHEISM 101 where I give some history and some different related ideas (strong atheism, weak atheism, agnosticism, deism, etc), and talk about how atheists are the least trusted group in America.
  

Probably before I do that I'd ask what their perceptions are - what they think about all of those things - to see how far apart we are. A huge goal of all of this is just to get us all to a point where we actually understand where we actually are. I'm very aware that in a very real way to them, they're going through a mourning process. They've lost something that they valued; they're hurting, and I can relate to that. As much as I don't agree with their assessment of the situation from a rational perspective, I am sympathic to their hurt feelings and so I'm hoping that this talk might make them realize they haven't really lost anything, or at least not as much as they think they've lost. I hope to try to convey all of that.

Something else that I'm aware might be an issue that I'm not quite sure how to handle in a positive way (i.e. without crossing the line where I have to start arguing against their beliefs) is if they say that I'm going to hell and that they're worried about my everlasting soul. Any ideas? Any quotes from the pope or something that says that if I'm a good person I'll go to heaven even if I've actively rejected Jesus?

good stuff from The Onion

Bill Walton Spends Entire Lakers Broadcast Gushing About His Son

"Oh, yes! Throw it down, big man! Throw it down!" Walton said in a rare acknowledgment of on-court events as Luke Walton scored two of his 14 points on a wobbly lay-up. "It's just possible that that was absolutely the smoothest and most fundamentally sound shot that I've witnessed yet this decade. Truly, the student has become a master in his own right, and the apple has not fallen far from the gnarled, wizened tree with two bad ankles I've become."



Kansas Outlaws Practice of Evolution

Under particular scrutiny are single-cell microorganisms, with thousands of field labs being installed across the state to ensure that these self-replicating molecules, notorious for mutation, do not do so in a fashion benefitting their long-term survival.

Anti-evolutionists such as Hellenbaum have long accused microorganisms of popularizing "an otherwise obscure, agonizingly slow, and hard-to-understand" biological process. "These repeat offenders are at the root of the problem," Hellenbaum said. "We have the fossil records to prove it."

[emphasis added to highlight such perfect comedy]

links adspar likes 9

My list of links to blog about is getting out of hand, so that means it is time for the 9th installment of a recurring feature, creatively titled links adspar likes. These should keep you busy with good reading material while you're bored at work, and it makes me feel productive because most of the links are educational and/or thought-provoking.

Reading of The God Delusion in Lynchburg, VA
by Richard Dawkins

adspar's quick summary:
Richard Dawkins reads excerpts from The God Delusion (~0:40 video) and answers questions (~1:20) at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia on October 23, 2006. This Q&A features many questions from Jerry Falwell's Liberty "University" students.

why you should watch it:
For that sexy British accent.


A Dissent: The Case Against Faith
by Sam Harris

adspar's quick summary:
A reasonable summary is the tagline of this Newsweek article - "Religion does untold damage to our politics. An atheist's lament."

why you should read it:
I hate it when complicated ideas are compressed into tiny essays, but that is the reality of commercial publishing I suppose. Harris highlights the sweeping irrationality in this country, touches on suffering as a respectable basis for moral reasoning, and questions the leadership of George W. Bush.


Post apocalypse
by Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy

adspar's quick summary:
A response to this post on the Washington Posts's On Faith forum: "Thanksgiving has been transformed into an iconic American event. This leaves us with a fascinating question -- how do unbelievers celebrate Thanksgiving?"

why you should read it:
Read it if you want the answer to that question, and/or if you want to see arrogance and bigotry of the original piece shown for what it is.


INT. BOARDROOM - NIGHT
by Simon

adspar's quick summary:
A play about a Jewish conspiracy.

why you should read it:
Dude, the volcano is going to get you.


Saudi court sentences rape victim to 90 lashes
from the Jerusalem Post

adspar's quick summary:
"A Saudi court has sentenced a gang rape victim to 90 lashes of the whip because she was alone in a car with a man to whom she was not married."

why you should read it:
I think we need more religious law in America! Aside from the obvious 90 lashes for carpoolers (for each offense), perhaps we could pluck out the eyes of any man who covets his neighbor's wife? Or we could stone people to death for adultery! Oh and we should definitely slaughter the entire family of anyone who engages in a homosexual act. That would make god love us, right?


I'll end on that cheery note. These links. Next links.

Dennett's review of Dawkins

I can't get enough of this stuff:

Both Dawkins and I have to deal with the frustrating problem of the game of intellectual hide-and-seek that “moderate” believers play to avoid being pinned down to the underlying absurdities of their traditions. “Don’t be so literal-minded!” they chortle, marveling at the philistinism of anyone who would attempt to take them at their word and ask them for their grounds for asserting that, for instance, God actually answers prayers (here, now, in the real world, by performing miracles). But then as soon you start playing the metaphor game with them, they abuse the poetic license you have granted them, and delight in dancing around the truth, getting away with all sorts of nonsense because they are indeed playing intellectual tennis without a net. Dawkins’ solution is to adopt a rather less patient attitude than I have done.

The books mentioned:

WTFAWII

Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy and Martian Anthropologist make the point that nobody in the media is asking "WHY THE FUCK ARE WE IN IRAQ?" since Helen Thomas asked Bush:

... Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is, why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House, from your Cabinet -— your Cabinet officers, intelligence people, and so forth -— what was your real reason? You have said it wasn't oil - quest for oil, it hasn't been Israel, or anything else. What was it?

This BBC documentary, posted on YouTube in 14 parts of about 10 minutes each, provides an answer to that question. I'd highly recommend it if you've got 3 hours in 10 minute increments.

In light of the information in that British piece, Glenn Greenwald's post today about neoconservatives crying about their lack of involvement in the Baker-Hamiliton Commission is especially on target.

Am I the only one who thinks like this?

Warning: There is no conceivable reason that anyone who doesn't really really love Nash equilibria would want to read this.




I think there is a very clear strategy when it comes to selecting which stall to use in my restroom at work. If you walk into this bathroom with plans to sit down for a while, which one do you pick?

(Assume they all appear equally sanitary. The only other relevant piece of information is that this bathroom doesn't get a high volume of traffic. Usually nobody else is in there when I go in.)

To me the choice is very clearly #2, with a possible preference for #1 from 9am to 10am and 12:30pm to 2pm.

If you're like most people, you pick stall #3. My first instinct the first time I used this bathroom was to go with #3, which I think is an instinct everyone else shares and never considers the matter any further. Maybe it's because they want to do their business as far away from other people as possible - #3 is the maximum distance away from the frequently used urinals, and it leaves stall #1 available in case someone else comes in (who would almost certainly pick #1 in that situation).

If those stalls were all urinals, I'd definitely go use #3. In the situation where you've got your business hanging out in a public place, you want to keep your distance from everyone else. But when I'm sitting on a toilet, my priorities are different. This king is jealous about his throne. There is only one Lord of the Ring, only one who can bend it to his will. And he does not share power.

Intuitively, I would think that #3 would be the most used stall, and #1 the second most used. Indeed, in my experience I'd estimate that when I walk into the bathroom and see that one of the stalls is occupied, 80+% of the time it is #3, and the rest of the time it is #1. Only once have I seen someone other than me in the #2 stall that I use every time.

I suppose that picking stall #1 at peak traffic hours - early in the morning at coffee time, and just after lunch time - to leave a buffer in case someone else comes in (and uses #3) is reasonable. But even then, its not like you're at a urinal with nothing between you and your exposed neighbor. So I think purity is still more important than the buffer when there are tall walls assuring your privacy, but there's room for debate in that situation.

So yes, I'm insane and have created some kind of game theory model for when I poop.

The Worst Congress Ever

While reading Rolling Stone's "The Worst Congress Ever" I decided to pick out some of the most disturbing quotes, and I ended up quoting most of the story. Here are my top 9.

9.
What this means is that the current Congress will not only beat but shatter the record for laziness set by the notorious "Do-Nothing" Congress of 1948, which met for a combined 252 days between the House and the Senate. This Congress -- the Do-Even-Less Congress -- met for 218 days, just over half a year, between the House and the Senate combined.


8.
To ensure that Democrats can't alter any of the last-minute changes, Republicans have overseen a monstrous increase in the number of "closed" rules -- bills that go to the floor for a vote without any possibility of amendment. This tactic undercuts the very essence of democracy: In a bicameral system, allowing bills to be debated openly is the only way that the minority can have a real impact, by offering amendments to legislation drafted by the majority.


7.
Instead of dealing with its chief constitutional duty -- approving all government spending -- Congress devotes its time to dumb bullshit. "This Congress spent a week and a half debating Terri Schiavo -- it never made appropriations a priority," says Hughes. In fact, Congress leaves itself so little time to pass the real appropriations bills that it winds up rolling them all into one giant monstrosity known as an Omnibus bill and passing it with little or no debate. Rolling eight-elevenths of all federal spending into a single bill that hits the floor a day or two before the fiscal year ends does not leave much room to check the fine print. "It allows a lot more leeway for fiscal irresponsibility," says Hughes.


6.
Thomas is also notorious for excluding Democrats from the conference hearings needed to iron out the differences between House and Senate versions of a bill. According to the rules, conferences have to include at least one public, open meeting. But in the Bush years, Republicans have managed the conference issue with some of the most mind-blowingly juvenile behavior seen in any parliament west of the Russian Duma after happy hour. GOP chairmen routinely call a meeting, bring the press in for a photo op and then promptly shut the proceedings down. "Take a picture, wait five minutes, gavel it out -- all for show" is how one Democratic staffer described the process. Then, amazingly, the Republicans sneak off to hold the real conference, forcing the Democrats to turn amateur detective and go searching the Capitol grounds for the meeting. "More often than not, we're trying to figure out where the conference is," says one House aide.


5.
Translation: The Defense Department can no longer account for its money. "It essentially can't be audited," says Wheeler, the former congressional staffer. "And nobody did anything about it. That's the job of Congress, but they don't care anymore."

So not only does Congress not care what intelligence was used to get into the war, what the plan was supposed to be once we got there, what goes on in military prisons in Iraq and elsewhere, how military contracts are being given away and to whom -- it doesn't even give a shit what happens to the half-trillion bucks it throws at the military every year.

4.
At this very moment, as the torture bill goes to a vote, there are only a few days left until the beginning of the fiscal year -- and not one appropriations bill has been passed so far. That's why these assholes are hurrying to bag this torture bill: They want to finish in time to squeeze in a measly two hours of debate tonight on the half-trillion-dollar defense-appropriations bill they've blown off until now. The plan is to then wrap things up tomorrow before splitting Washington for a month of real work, i.e., campaigning.

Sen. Pat Leahy of Vermont comments on this rush to torture during the final, frenzied debate. "Over 200 years of jurisprudence in this country," Leahy pleads, "and following an hour of debate, we get rid of it?"

Yawns, chatter, a few sets of rolling eyes -- yeah, whatever, Pat. An hour later, the torture bill is law. Two hours after that, the diminutive chair of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Sen. Ted Stevens, reads off the summary of the military-spending bill to a mostly empty hall; since the members all need their sleep and most have left early, the "debate" on the biggest spending bill of the year is conducted before a largely phantom audience.

3.
From the McCarthy era in the 1950s through the Republican takeover of Congress in 1995, no Democratic committee chairman issued a subpoena without either minority consent or a committee vote. In the Clinton years, Republicans chucked that long-standing arrangement and issued more than 1,000 subpoenas to investigate alleged administration and Democratic misconduct, reviewing more than 2 million pages of government documents.

Guess how many subpoenas have been issued to the White House since George Bush took office? Zero -- that's right, zero, the same as the number of open rules debated this year; two fewer than the number of appropriations bills passed on time.

2.
It is clear that the same Congress that put a drooling child-chaser like Mark Foley in charge of a House caucus on child exploitation also named Cunningham, a man who can barely write his own name in the ground with a stick, to a similarly appropriate position. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the former chairman of the House Subcommittee on Human Intelligence Analysis and Counterintelligence:
"As truth will come out and you will find out how liablest [sic] you have & will be. Not once did you list the positives. Education Man of the Year...hospital funding, jobs, Hiway [sic] funding, border security, Megans law my bill, Tuna Dolfin [sic] my bill...and every time you wanted an expert on the wars who did you call. No Marcus you write About how I died."

How liablest you have & will be? What the fuck does that even mean? This guy sat on the Appropriations Committee for years -- no wonder Congress couldn't pass any spending bills!

1.
"The 109th Congress is so bad that it makes you wonder if democracy is a failed experiment," says Jonathan Turley, a noted constitutional scholar and the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington Law School. "I think that if the Framers went to Capitol Hill today, it would shake their confidence in the system they created. Congress has become an exercise of raw power with no principles -- and in that environment corruption has flourished. The Republicans in Congress decided from the outset that their future would be inextricably tied to George Bush and his policies. It has become this sad session of members sitting down and drinking Kool-Aid delivered by Karl Rove. Congress became a mere extension of the White House."

The end result is a Congress that has hijacked the national treasury, frantically ceded power to the executive, and sold off the federal government in a private auction. It all happened before our very eyes.

so right

Yes yes yes paulp (and to the Greenwald post he references):

I know I should only be writing (or writing about) the book, but this makes me so sick I have to post it: The Military Commissions Act in action. Do you still have those rosy feelings about the MCA, howard treesong? Is it time to dispense with the entire system of criminal justice and just skip straight to the guilty verdict and detention? This guy was in the US legally and was snatched out of his home, taken away from his family, and has been held incommunicado for years.

I can't take the shame anymore! Stop it, stop it, you weak, WEAK motherfuckers. The Bush administration is "strong" in the same way the most vile bully is strong, in the same way a mob enforcer is strong, in the same way the alpha monkey is strong. The strength that matters, the strength that means something - that being strength of character - does not exist in our leaders. It only took 3000 dead people for them to throw their hands up and surrender everything they've been elected to defend.

In every speech the president reminds us that his chief duty is to protect the American people. Wrong, fuckhead! Did you not listen to your own oath of office? Because I did.

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

See that? It's not to preserve, protect, and defend people in tall buildings. Your job is to protect the CONSTITUTION.

I can't wrap my head around the fact that Clinton was impeached while Bush almost certainly won't be (if only because he's too close to the end of his term.) If you guys want a good belly laugh, look around for quotes from prominent Republicans about why it was so all-fired important to impeach Clinton. For instance, consummate Republican Tom DeLay:

I believe that this nation sits at a crossroads. One direction points to the higher road of the rule of law. Sometimes hard, sometimes unpleasant, this path relies on truth, justice and the rigorous application of the principle that no man is above the law.

Now, the other road is the path of least resistance. This is where we start making exceptions to our laws based on poll numbers and spin control. This is when we pitch the law completely overboard when the mood fits us, when we ignore the facts in order to cover up the truth.

Shall we follow the rule of law and do our constitutional duty no matter unpleasant, or shall we follow the path of least resistance, close our eyes to the potential lawbreaking, forgive and forget, move on and tear an unfixable hole in our legal system? No man is above the law, and no man is below the law. That's the principle that we all hold very dear in this country.

Kinsley has an okay article that makes one point that I think needs extensive belaboring:

The biggest flaw in our democracy is, as I say, the enormous tolerance for intellectual dishonesty. Politicians are held to account for outright lies, but there seems to be no sanction against saying things you obviously don’t believe.

Increasingly they're not even held to account for the outright lies, but yeah, this is a big fucking problem. Hypocrisy ought to be the universal sin - the thing that everyone can agree is wrong, no matter how much their other beliefs clash. Instead, not only is it widely tolerated in politicians, it's taken as a given. I don't think we can operate any more backwardly than that.

The comments are worth reading too.

I'm especially glad that the Democrats have control of Congress because I'm hoping it means they'll use their power to investigate the Bush administration's conduct, especially in regards to the Iraq War. But it might not matter if they do investigate:

It is worth reminding ourselves -- as the Vice President just made quite clear again-- that the pathological individuals who occupy the White House do not recognize the power of the law or the power of the courts to limit what they can do. Therefore, the fact that Democrats now control the Congress will be of little concern to them, because the most the Democrats can do is enact little laws or issue cute, little Subpoenas --- but, as the Vice President just said, they think that nothing can "tie the hands of the President of the United States in the conduct of a war." And he means that.
G. Greenwald

Something I don't quite understand is why Nancy Pelosi has said that impeachment is off the table. Why would you want to take that option off the table? But I don't understand exactly how impeachment works, so maybe that's my problem.

I'm back. Catching up...

I'll have a recap and pictures of my trip to the Philippines up soon, but for now I'll just say that it was an awesome experience. I've spent my waking portions of the last couple days catching up on everything that happened while I was away. Here is some of it.

Election

Obviously I'm quite glad that the Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress. I spent several hours yesterday reading everything that Glenn Greenwald wrote about the election and other political matters while I was gone, and I'm repeatedly amazed by how he gets everything exactly right. I can't emphasize my respect for this guy strongly enough. He published top-quality commentary almost every day. One of many great things about his writing is that he's scathingly critical of the media's inept and corrupt coverage of politics, not just the ineptness and corruption of politicians.

I probably have 20+ of his links saved because I want to blog about them, but here are a few samples just from the time I was gone:

Hugh Hewitt shows how Bush followers literally deny reality
Extremely odd behavior from the Washington Post re: the President's Rumsfeld lie
The Military Commissions Act in action
Our wise national security guardians


Television - Lost, The Office, The Wire, Prison Break (spoilers warning)

I also spent some time catching up on tivo.

My first comment is to express relief that they brought Jim back to Scranton on The Office. I complained about the way the season started, but bringing a few new characters back with Jim seems to have a lot of potential. The new guy competing with Dwight is pretty funny, and the new chick is turning out to be way better for the show than Pam alone.

Next, I'm not sure what to think about the format for this season of Lost. No new episodes til February, but then we get 16 in a row. In the first 2 seasons of the show whenever Kate had a romantic moment involving Sawyer, I didn't like it. But I was surprisingly quite comfortable with the recent development. Meanwhile Jack is a fucking badass again, I'm glad that Mr. Eko is dead, and I really hope that Sayid and Desmond start to take some control away from Locke.

Prison Break is my guilty pleasure, but I'll admit to liking it. I think they've been doing a decent job this season with everyone out of prison and on the run. The FBI search guy and the asian Secret Service dude are good additions.

And I'll mention the best show on television last. The Wire is so good in every regard I don't even really know what to say about it. I can't believe what a great job they're doing with the school kids especially, and the scenes with the "corner kids" class have been brilliant. I loved their night out at a nice restaurant.

Sports

It is always nice when you have a few Sports Guy articles available that you haven't read yet. I enjoyed the recent mailbag especially. His NBA column was also good for getting caught up. I'm disappointed with how my NBA fantasy team is looking while I've been away. Looks like buying into the hype on Josh Smith, Steve Nash's bad back, and my lack of frontcourt depth behind Chris Bosh is going to hurt me pretty bad.


Poker

Ugh, the poker world continues its death spiral as Iggy is retiring Guinness and Poker, and Luke is applying to business school. Best wishes to both of them. Life away from the felt is good. I don't really miss Party Poker at all, but I do admit that I miss those $10 buy-in dealer's choice games we played all night in college. That was the poker I loved, and that I never really found while clicking a mouse.

my very own creationist

Check out the comments on links adspar likes 7. I made fun of someone named Alice Benbow who said dumb things about evolution, and now someone claiming to be Alice is saying more dumb things about evolution. She's probably a nice lady, but I have no tolerance for lies and ignorance, so I'm taking a harsh tone.

ps - while I'm gone, feel free to respond to her weird ideas

near-death experience = rededication to atheism

Here's a great essay written yesterday by philosopher Daniel Dennett after a near-death experience.

I was going to quote some of the better excerpts but they're all so good that I'd just recommend reading the entire thing. He touches on the emptiness of good intentions, excuses his religious friends for praying for him, reflects on the rigors of science and medicine and how they represent a higher moral code than any faith-based standard, and explains how "thank goodness" is much more appropriate than "thank god."

I'm glad he made it through the ordeal and hopefully he'll keep writing for us for many more years.

Corrupt Congress, I love America

Remember how I was all pissed off because Bill Frist slipped legislation about online gambling into a bill about port security? Remember how he did it at the last minute before Congress took a recess for elections so that nobody would have time to change the language, and everyone would have to vote for it because the security parts were too important to vote against?

Well maybe you can't get yourself worked up about that because you don't gamble online and you don't care if the government is acting more and more like your nanny. So how about this story (NY Times, login required, just use www.bugmenot.com) to piss you off?

There was an office in Iraq called the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction that monitored corruption in the way US funds were being used and the way contracts were awarded.

"Investigations led by a Republican lawyer named Stuart W. Bowen Jr. in Iraq have sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces."

And a couple weeks ago some huge sprawling bill was signed into law by President Bush, legislation that Congress passed without anyone bothering to read it, and it contained an obscure clause that shuts down that office and their investigations. Somebody, and nobody seems to know who, secretly slipped that provision into a bill knowing that it would never be noticed or debated.

The investigations kept embarrassing the administration by uncovering the rampant corruption in Iraq, so they quietly shut it down. This is how America works. I'm swelling with patriotic pride.

Glenn Greenwald wrote:

"That is as good a snapshot as any of the incomparably destructive one-party Republican rule to which we have been subjected. This small story has virtually every element of how they function."

And goes on to point out that "A Democratic takeover of the House is the one thing that can ensure that Americans will learn of what has been done." He wrote an excellent entry a couple weeks ago on that subject:

In my view, more than anything else, this will be the value of a Democratic takeover of at least one of the houses of Congress. As much wrongdoing as we have learned about on the part of Bush administration already, it is almost certainly the case that there is much, much more that we don't know about, but ought to.

...A Democratic takeover of one or even both houses of Congress is unlikely to result in any new affirmative legislation or policies, since their control will be by only a small margin, dependent on conservative lawmakers in their majority, and subject to a presidential veto. With some exceptions (such as the power to control appropriations and cut off funding), the real power they will have will be to investigate and expose the conduct of the Bush administration and to reveal to Americans what has really been going on.

I really hope that the Democrats win control of Congress on Tuesday, not because I have any love or even respect for their party, but because I know they'll at least be an adversary to the rampant corruption of the Republican regime that has been operating unchecked for the last 6 years.

It just makes me want to sing the national anthem.

Oh yeah, I got married

I got married on November 1, 2006.

Here's the new family.



While I'm off on the honeymoon, feel free to use the comments of this thread to discuss amongst yourselves how ridiculous it is that I was able to lock up such a lovely girl for the rest of my life.

Unfinished

I've been blogging for almost 2 years now. In that time I've occasionally started writing something and never finished it, an occurrence that seems to be increasing lately. Here is the list of topics of unfinished posts sitting in my queue, from oldest to most recent. If you'd like to see what I have to say on one of these topics, feel free to try to heckle me into finishing it.

not smart enough - 5/16/06 - A rant about how on multiple occasions involving different people, I've encountered "I'm not smart enough to debate you" as a cop-out way to avoid an intelligent discussion. I feel like it is a dirty tactic but struggled to express it and didn't want to do a half-ass job on it because I'm afraid it will be too likely to come across as me saying I'm smarter than everyone.

oblivious - 6/1/06 - After reading an O'Reilly column about how various entertainment technologies have everyone avoiding reality, I was writing something about how that seems like an inevitable consequence of the American way. If I were to finish this, I'd probably point out that O'Reilly often seems just as oblivious as those he's criticizing.

influencer - 7/12/06 - This will be a nice one if I ever do it. I want to highlight to a few people who have had a major positive influence on me. It started as a list of my favorite teachers/professors but I felt like I had to include a few others that changed the way I think about the world, hence "influencer." Anyway the idea was to write a little tribute to each of them and then email them to tell them about it. Kinda sappy but I figured they'd appreciate it.

What if I was good at poker? - 8/8/06 - Pretty simple idea for a post but I haven't written anything about it really. I wanted to imagine what my life would be like now and in the future if I was a lot better at poker.

Poker Manifesto - 8/30/06 - Another idea for a poker post where I haven't actually put my thoughts together at all. I wanted to expound on an idea I threw out briefly, of poker as a crappy shortcut for life.

Pat Tillman - 10/21/06 - I want to finish this one more than any other, and yet I think this will be the hardest to finish of any of them. I have a lot I want to say about Pat Tillman, but I always feel like he deserves better than what I've written so far, and I keep trying to hold myself to an impossible standard.

Liberal Bias: Media and Academia? - 10/23/06 - Since I started working on this one, Glenn Greenwald has covered some of the media bias topics that I'd want to address, but I also want to address a general topic of anti-intellectualism. I'll get to this eventually I hope, but there's a lot more work to put in to this.

Political - 10/28/06 - In my recent post I covered a tiny bit of what I want to address here. Back when I avoided all politics out of a combination of laziness and disgust, whenever I heard someone criticize a politician or a political party, my instinctive response was "well the other guys are just as bad." I understand why I made that ignorant generalization, but sometimes it just isn't true, and now I think it is pretty important to recognize differences. This post by Glenn Greenwald was the inspiration to finally make me want to write more about it.

I hope she writes back!

From: %%%%%% <%%@marketology.net>
To: adspar
Date: Oct 31, 2006 5:52 AM
Subject: How can I advertise MyLotto on your site?

Hello,

How are you? I hope everything is fine. I'm happy to inform you about new project that we are launching - MYLotto.com.

MyLotto Is the widest global lottery agent Online, where users can check lottery results and participate in all kinds of lotteries form all over the world. MyLotto is the only service providing you with the free and unlimited purchase of tickets from all the world's official lotteries through the web.

MyLotto is the most perspective project ever launched. No law restrictions, no age limitation, hundreds lotteries available to chose and measureless opportunities for making business.

I will be very happy to see you joining our growing community of partners.

Thank you and looking forward,

%%%%%
MyLotto.com
%%@marketology.net

-----

From: adspar
To: %%%%% <%%@marketology.net>
Date: Oct 31, 2006 1:35 PM
Subject: Re: How can I advertise MyLotto on your site?

%%,

I'm doing pretty well, all things considered. I've been ill recently, but I'm recovering from the nasty infection that ravaged my throat and lungs. Hopefully I'll be at full health for my wedding tomorrow and my honeymoon trip to an exotic Asian location. I think we all know how important full health can be in such situations!!!

MyLotto.com sounds like quite an interesting project indeed! Free lottery tickets from all over the world? Oh my. And you provide them to me for free? How do I get the free lottery tickets sent to me at my office? Do you have lottery tickets from exotic Asian countries? Do they print the numbers in English, or are they written in a fancy glyph script?

I'm curious about your claim that MyLotto is the most perspective project ever launched. I recently launched a project to repair damaged grout in my shower that I think had a great deal of perspective, possibly more than MyLotto. How would we measure which project had more perspective? My project also had no law restriction and no age limitations of any kind. Unlike MyLotto, the opportunity for making business in my shower grout project was measurable and small, but I feel this is balanced by the opportunity for personal hygiene provided by the completed project. Perhaps we should find an impartial arbitrator to settle this for us, and see which could truly claim to be the most perspective project ever launched.

Once these questions are resolved, I hope you'll tell me how to join your growing community of partners.

Thank you and looking forward,

adspar, Reagent of Perspective

p.s. - Does our growing community of partners include anyone from exotic Asia? I hope so!

An email exchange about free speech and altruism

I mentioned recently that I'd like to publish some conversations I've had on email recently. A friend of mine who has political views that differ from mine recently wrote a very long and thoughtful email to a group of our friends summarizing and defending his positions on various interrelated issues that we'd been discussing recently. Tonight I responded to 1 of his 5 sections, and I post it here with his permission.

Date: Oct 30, 2006 9:56 PM

Subject: Re: Presidential Powers discussion

I love it that you wrote all this, and I'd like to respond to all of it, but that's going to take a lot of time. Much respect for the effort it took, and for your desire to make a positive case for your side of important issues. I disagree with some of it, and I'd like to respond to all of it, but that's going to take a lot of time.

Tonight I'm addressing the part that I think is easiest to respond to, your 3rd section called "Trying to bridge the gap to countries/cultures that hate us." As I've put this response together, it turned out that it took a lot longer than I thought it would, but all of my ideas flowed pretty easily as I'd done most of this analysis before. I think I've got a tight case here, but we'll see what you all think.

Your section 3 is fairly short compared to the rest, so I'll reprint it all here:

For my next trick, I would like to speak about trying to win the favor
of countries or cultures who do not like us, or who we piss off.
You've mentioned before that we should be more altruistic to win the
favor of other nations. Especially those who hate us or have
grievances. Well, here I would like to bring into discussion the
recent scandal involving the cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed
in the Danish newspaper. If we (America) were to try and use this
situation to our advantage, then it seems plain as day what we should
have done. We should have publicly spoken very harshly about the
decision to publish such insensitive cartoons. We should have
criticized the Danish newspaper's disregard for Sharia law and
proclaimed our own acceptance of such a proclamation of said law.
Now, I think its pretty obvious my point here centers around pleasing
Muslims around the world while keeping the freedom of the press.
Afterall, I wanted to see the cartoons to see what the fuss was about,
should I have been able to see them? This was/is an affront to
Muslims everywhere. And around the world, there were protests saying
that this was an Isreali and US plot to humiliate Muslims. These
cartoons were clearly an insult to Muslims, and here we are, not
listening to their gripes or making amends. And not only that, many
newspapers here in the States were reprinting those cartoons. How
much more insensitive can you get? We were rubbing salt on the wound.
So now we have angered even more Muslims and reinforced in their
minds that America is anti-Islamic, and all by just practicing one of
our most defining freedoms, Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the
Press. What's the long term answer to be found in this situation? I
think it's safe to say there isn't any one solution that will solve
all these cultural differences. Not even with a trillion dollars to
throw at the problem, but that doesn't mean we aren't trying to made
headway in extending our hands. Look at all the money we give to
Egypt, we influenced them to have democratic elections two years ago.
We don't get oil from Egypt, but here we are sending billions of
dollars to them to help stabilize their country and bring democracy to
its people. Why? Probably because they are an influential nation who
doesn't hate us too much, so that we can actually change some opinions
there.

plus:

Also, the whole Egypt thing, here's a link detailing a little about
what we're doing there.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0412/p07s01-wome.html Yes I know its
from the Christian Science Monitor website, but the facts are still in
there damnit!

My values, America's values, and Danish Cartoons

First I'd just like to voice my own personal opinion about the Danish Mohammad cartoon issue, which leads into how I think the US should respond.

I strongly believe that the right to free speech should be jealously protected and staunchly defended. Voltaire is (falsely I believe) attributed with saying "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." I think that is the attitude a free country should have. People must always been given a safe environment in which to express their opinion, because suppressing the voice of dissent is a powerful tool for tyranny.

But there are situations where "speech" can and should be regulated, the classic example being you can't loudly yell "fire!" in a crowded room. We don't want to endanger lives with what people say, but we do want to allow people to voice their opinions. But it isn't as if the prankster's opinion is that there's a fire and he's being repressed from voicing an opinion.

I think that is what tends to confuse people on the Mohamed cartoon issue, is that peaceful, mildly pro-free-speech, aware people know that printing such a cartoon will lead to violence. But there is a huge difference between yelling "fire" and printing a cartoon, and that difference I think leads to very clearly different appropriate responses to each situation.

Yelling fire causes undue panic, which can result in harm, and it also could lead to a "boy-who-cried-wolf" effect of numbing people to the sound of alarms. Regulating such "speech" is acceptable because while it is a vocal deliverance, there is no actual content to that speech - it is simply a verbal act of violence. There's no opinion, no political commentary, no complaint, nothing. It is just vandalism. Yelling fire in a crowded place is condemnable.

But, drawing a satirical cartoon has a message. There's a political point, a criticism, being made, and violent reaction to it has one logical purpose - to silence that criticism. As a religion, Islam has built into it these mechanisms to silence opposition, calling for the death of anyone who insults their prophet. They might call it pride or honor or religious expression, but its only logical purpose is to stifle dissent. Islam is intolerant and repressive in this regard (as was Christianity in the middle ages, so I'd speculate that it could be possible for a similar liberalization of Islam to happen, where they start to see the more violent parts of the Koran as metaphors or something. Of course you know I think we'd all be better off if all religion was forgotten.)

Consequently, I condemn anyone who calls for violence in response to a peaceful expression of an opinion, including anyone who does it in the name of a religion. And I think that as a nation, one of our defining core values is freedom of speech. And so as a nation, we should uniformly voice our condemnation of violent response to an cartoon.

Similarly, I will never condemn someone for the act of expressing their opinion (except when they're loudly expressing their own opinion to drown out the voice of another - like protesters storming a stage recently at Columbia University. Or when they disrupt a quiet solemn occasion, like when the God Hates Fags people hold up anti-gay hate signs and yell nasty shit at military burials. Both of those groups have the right to express their opinions in some other way, just not in the manor they've chosen - a manor that interupts other people's rights. Muslims who call for violence in response to cartoons offer no opportunity for criticism of Islam. I think there are clear principle differences that make these cases unacceptable while other hurtful speech is acceptable, so if you think I haven't adequately made that case, please tell me why.) even if I find their opinion in poor taste. And I admire the courage of someone who has the courage to express a reasonable message even when they know it might bring unjustified violence in response.


Conflict Resolution

I'm pretty sure you're not saying that the US should have been condemning the Danish newspapers, but what you're saying is that if America is supposed to be out there trying to mend strained relations, than condemning the Danish and sympathizing with the Muslims would have been in line with that intention. Given my stance on free speech, I think the US would be dead wrong to criticize Danish papers for publishing those cartoons.

My general approach to conflict resolution is to find common ground. There is always common ground, and you really can't resolve any differences between people or groups unless you both start from the same place.

So you find a few quotes in the Koran about valuing peace or something, and then you say how Americans also value peace. Then you build a reasonable and logical case why, given the value of peace, violence in response to a cartoon is wrong. Then you say that America values free speech, but that doesn't mean we endorse every view that is allowed to be said, etc.

Reasonable, logical people would respond positively to that message.


Sad Reality

Of course, there's no guarantee that people will be reasonable and logical, but you have to start there. If people refuse to respond reasonably, then they become a problem, and you have to figure out how to deal with them. (And one way you have to deal with them is to understand WHY they aren't being reasonable and logical, which I'll get to shortly.)

There's no guarantee that our message will reach people in its proper form. We''ll probably be quoted out of context and our position would be distorted. We'd say "we support the free expression of Danish papers" and they'd report "Americans hate Mohamed" and "America insults Islam." (But if a sacred tenant of Islam is that you kill people who say bad things about Islam, then the United States is and absolutely should be, against Islam. And we should say that, as should every other free country. And we should also say that if Islam would just drop that one part, we'd be cool again, at least on this issue.)

And yes, there is a reality that voicing a reasonable opinion is likely to make an insane person behave violently. But we can't live in fear of that, and we can't cave in to bullies. We're strong enough to stand up to such bullying. If ragtag colonists can stare down the British Empire, the free countries of the modern world can stare down some insane desert lunatics.

Beyond Common Values

If I read your views right, I think you probably agree with most of what I've said, and probably are agreeable to the part about finding common ground as a key to acceptance between different cultures. But a problem with stating that you share common values is that if what they see of you in the world doesn't fit with your message, they have no reason to believe you.

So, to use your Egypt example, what do Egyptians see of America? (I'm going to start speculating wildly here. If you don't think these speculations are reasonable, please explain why. Keep in mind I'm describing what people see, not necessarily what is real, although I think the people have very legit reasons to see it as reality. Some of these ideas are supported by the link at the end of your message.) They see American corporations working with the few rich Egyptians who own the oil fields to suck as much oil out of the ground as possible. They see that the vast majority of that wealth doesn't benefit the Egyptian people, instead going to a tiny elite class. They see us helping the rich controlling class to set up a sham of a democracy, with rigged elections that make it seem like they rule with the consent of the people, when everyone knows that it was all bullshit to begin with, and that the same people would stay in control. And they see that America is the most prosperous nation in the world, that we're fat and happy and drink a glass of refined oil with all our meals, oil that they break their backs working 12 hours a day to pump out of the ground and get paid only $5 a week.

They see us sucking up to the people with the oil, and spitting on the peasants. They see us oppressors and vultures and opportunistic greedy bastards.

I think there might be an important reason that the 9/11 hijackers were Egyptians and Saudis, and it is because those governments work with the US to do business that doesn't benefit the people of those countries. If you're in Saudi Arabia, and you're pissed about being poor and you think America is to blame because of all the stuff you see them doing, you probably think your only option to fight America is to join Al Qaeda. A pissed-off poor Iraqi who hates America could always join Saddam's army because they know Saddam hates America too (although pissed-off poor Iraqis are more likely to blame Saddam than America, in the Saddam era of course). So a person whose government doesn't represent him against a perceived oppressor is more likely to go the terrorist route.

[That's the end of my speculation about what's going on in a place like Egypt, an Arab country that we purportedly are "helping" or reaching out to bridge a culture gap, but that you could much more realistically/cynically make a case that all we're doing is trying to prevent the poor from rebelling against the rich and compromising our oil supply.]

I have this general idea that I haven't expressed much in these emails because I don't have it quite worked out yet, but the general idea is that uneven (more specifically uneven which is seen as unfair - you can say "fair" is subjective, but people more readily identify when they've been slighted than they identify when they've slighted others , so there's always going to be a disparity in perception of "fair") distribution of wealth, economic inequality is the main driver of most human tension (with religious ideology being a primary enabler - offering a way for otherwise good people to justify to themselves the bad things that they do - "kill the dirty infidel" is noble because you're defending the honor of god, instead of defending your right to profit from your nation's oil). Countries where anti-American sentiment is highest are probably countries where our "imperialist" international policy is harming local people, somehow perpetuating economic inequality, perhaps without most of America even being aware of it (not to mention that there is a positive relationship between poverty and religiousness).

The trillion dollar idea

Getting back to cultural differences, the reason I sometimes have juxtaposed spending a trillion dollars on a war vs using that money for undeniably humanitarian purposes is that you really can buy friendship in most cases. If you give water to a thirsty man, you become his friend. If you give food to a starving family, they love you. If you heal the sick and clothe the naked, you've got friends for life, assuming you don't proceed to rape their wives and burn down their homes. If you've crossed them in the past, they might refuse your aid, and you should respect that refusal and don't insist. But you help their neighbors if they accept it, and you help everyone else around them. And soon the hold-outs are fewer and farther between and more powerless, and hopefully their grudge doesn't last into the next generation.

There's some saying about how America has never had a war against a country with a McDonald's in it, or something like that. The point being that if you do business with people, you're much less likely to fight them, because fair economic transactions are supposed to create value - both sides win. So to the extent that we're out there internationally doing fair business where both sides win, we're generally going to make friends, or at least avoid making enemies. But if we do unfair business, we don't make those friends, and probably make enemies.

I've never said that we SHOULD have spent a trillion dollars on humanitarian aid, I've simply posed that we'd probably be better off if we spent the money that way than by fighting the war (but I'll address the Iraq war portion of your comments another time, so for the purposes of this discussion I'd ask you not to engage the merits of my comparison.)

So in regards to our cultural differences, the ones where finding common ground would be helpful in resolving, it is a lot easier to establish that common ground if we're conspicuously doing those people some good and aren't conspicuously doing them harm. You're a lot less likely to hate me for saying things you disagree with than to hate some random loudmouth for saying the same things, only because you know me and we have a history of being friends. We've had good times together, so you'll cut me a lot more slack than a stranger, and way way more slack than someone you're already prone to hating, like a fat chick wearing a yankees hat.

Some have pointed out that some forms of aid would be criticized as culturally inappropriate, as trying to advance some agenda, and I agree. You probably can't offer a starving Muslim a BLT and expect gratitude. But there has to be some kind of aid that they'd like. Give them clean water and penicillin and band-aids. Or give them pencils and math textbooks. Do your cultural homework and give aid that won't offend. Teach them how to build bridges or plumbing. And then you work the diplomatic side, offering incentives to government that is fair to its people. You be a good friend to the people of the country.

This isn't to suggest that winning the affections of different cultures is easy, but I think there is a reasonable way to proceed. There will be challenges along the way, and some of them will relate to other aspects of what you've written about. Hopefully my response to some of your other points will address some of these issues (like what if they just don't want anything to do with you and then they seem like they probably have nukes that they want to use.)

I'd conclude with a specific response to the problem you've identified, which I think summarizes this rant of mine. You wrote: "You've mentioned before that we should be more altruistic to win the favor of other nations. Especially those who hate us or have grievances." and then you went on to highlight problems with cultural differences related to free speech. I think we'd agree that sticking to our values in the face of opposition is the right thing to do. And hopefully I've shown that the relationship between altruism and cultural differences is that people are more inclined to peacefully resolve their cultural differences when they have a good relationship, and that altruism is a powerful first step towards establishing good relationships.

Peace.