Personal Made Public

The best definition of Creationism I've ever seen:

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Creationism

UPDATE: Someone has removed most of the great content. Too bad...

Posted by Kevin at 10:25 AM | Permalink

Based off my limited knowledge of Bush's Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts, I think that if I was in the Senate I would vote to confirm.

I'm not saying that I agree with Robert's conservative leanings, but the man is smart and appears to think through the consequences of his actions. He isn't an evangelical (he's Catholic), and his decisions to date don't look like those of an ideologue. He has the credentials and experience relevant to this position.

If it comes back to the Supreme Court, would he overturn Roe v. Wade? Maybe, but I think it would be for legitimate reasons. I am VERY pro-choice, but I have never been happy that the right to choose ruling was based on the Fourth Amendment (privacy). I think the real decision that we have not made as a society is the determination of when a fetus gains the same legal rights as a person. It's a grey area. I think Roe v. Wade's argument that the right to an abortion is protected by the Fourth Amendment requires a big stretch to the original intent.

So far, Roberts seems to me to be the kind of judge that believes in limiting the power of government, but who doesn't overturn laws lightly. He also seems to be one for whom the meaning of the Constitution is rooted in history rather than the mood of the country. I think this is actually a good thing. If the country wishes to change the Constitution we should do so -- there are processes in place to allow amending it -- we should not simply reinterpret it to suit the current issue of the day.

I think Roberts could be a judge that everyone can respect. If I am right in my initial impressions of him he will make decisions which are unpopular with both conservatives and liberals. The neo-cons may find him to be a mixed blessing: while they normally like to avoid any stretching of the Constitution's meaning, the also tend to grab power and authority for themselves - activities that Roberts might well rule against. They might when a Roe v. Wade rematch only to find the PATRIOT Act tossed on its ear.

It may be that some dark skeletons or extremist views will emerge, but so far I see Roberts as a good choice. I say hold the hearings, skip the filibuster, and (if all goes well) give him a thumbs up.

He's definitely not the worst we could do and may actually be an excellent choice and one of the high points of the Bush presidency (which, admittedly, isn't saying much).

Posted by Kevin at 07:01 PM | Permalink

Busted Tees. What statement does your t-shirt make? My favorite may have to be the one that says "Greece" under a Union Jack. Of course "Your Retarded" works pretty well, too.

Posted by Kevin at 06:45 PM | Permalink

If you can't answer that question, you are probably in the United States. At least, that's what the National Geographic Society's 2002 international survey of geography knowledge indicates. I noticed this little snippet over at Out Loud (Annatopia):

The National Geographic Society made a survey of young Americans' knowledge of geography. Here are the SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS Among 18- to 24-year-old Americans 87% couldn't find Iraq on a map 70% couldn't find New Jersey 11% couldn't find the U.S.

Ouch! I had to wonder if this could be right or if it was a misquote. You can take a subset of the survey yourself and compare the results for the answers given by people in 9 different participating countries.

The first question dealt with the population of the United States. Of the nine countries to which it is compared in the summary, Americans scored LOWEST on this question.

Less than half of all Americans could find Japan on a map -- and only 16% found Sweden. How about Afghanistan? Remember that we have a war going on there right now! 17%. Ouch.

Oh, for the record, I got 19 out of 20 correct. I learned something from the one I missed, so that was valuable to me as well. :-)

Posted by Kevin at 06:16 PM | Permalink

From the Wikipedia entry on Karl Rove, I bring you a few choice glimpses of the man often called "Bush's Brain". The President also has been known to refer to Rove by several nicknames such as "The Boy Genius", "Turd Blossom", and "The Architect". I'm not kidding about that second one -- look it up!

In 1970, at the age of nineteen and while a protege of Donald Segretti (later convicted as a Watergate conspirator), Rove snuck into the campaign office of Illinois Democrat Alan Dixon and stole some letterhead, which he used to print fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing," and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters. Admitting to the incident much later, Rove said, "I was nineteen and I got involved in a political prank."

In 1986, just before a crucial debate in the election for governor of Texas, Karl Rove announced that his office had been bugged by the Democrats. There was no evidence for this, and it was later discovered that he had bugged his own phone to garner media coverage.

In 1992, Rove was fired from the Bush presidential re-election campaign for leaking information to journalist Robert Novak.

Another example of why Bush, Sr. was a respectable president while Jr. is not. Meanwhile, Rove has some serious conflict of interest issues:

In March 2001, Rove met with executives from Intel, successfully advocating a merger between a Dutch company and an Intel company supplier. Rove owned $100,000 in Intel stock at the time. In June 2001, Rove met with two pharmaceutical industry lobbyists. At the time, Rove held almost $250,000 in drug industry stocks. On 30 June 2001, Rove divested his stocks in 23 companies, which included more than $100,000 in each Enron, Boeing, General Electric, and Pfizer. On 30 June 2001, the White House admitted that Rove was involved in administration energy policy meetings, while at the same time holding stock in energy companies including Enron.

In short, the above biography of Rove casts serious doubts on an any claim that Rove might be the "leak" that Bush promised to fire. Clearly, Rove is just too honorable, respectable and forthright to have a hand in anything this "Rovian". Besides, doesn't the fact that he leaked material to Robert Novak in 1992 prove that he is innocent? I mean, he already did that once, so he would never do it again, right? [ed update: yes, Novak is also involved in the Plame leak]

Right? Anybody?

Posted by Kevin at 07:58 PM | Permalink

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

Posted by Kevin at 07:32 PM | Permalink

From the July 1 Washington Times:

The average U.S. household has already spent almost $1600 on the war in Iraq, according to a report presented in Washington Wednesday. The final bill will be an estimated $3,415, based on the U.S. military's prediction of a three-year military occupation, says the report, citing calculations by economist Doug Henwood.

Bush put it all on CREDIT! You'll need to include interest payments as well.

Of course, if Bush hadn't pushed through big tax cuts which primarily went to the wealthy, you might not have to worry about the big bill coming your way, but that's not how it played out. Bigger and bigger spending combined with tax cuts have led to a staggering debt. That debt looks like it will be the lasting legacy of the Bush Administration.

Posted by Kevin at 06:03 PM | Permalink

George Bush has finally admitted that Global Warming is real and that human activities are at least partly to blame. He suggests that the problem can be addressed by developing new technologies that reduce emissions or sequester carbon. The end result of such technologies would be a reduction in the amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. However, he rejected the idea of setting any emission quotas. To me, that seems contradictory. How can he say he believes we can deploy technologies to reduce emissions while at the same time saying that setting goals wouldn't work because they would kill our economy? If the controls work the quotas would be met. Of course, not taking action is already hurting our economy. Sounds like more double-talk designed to say "we'll fix it, but later".

I thought this made the following pic from Project for the Old American Century Timely:

Posted by Kevin at 07:51 PM | Permalink

Bush has invited just about anyone to have a look at "Gitmo" for themselves. CNN accepted the offer, but had this to say about their visit:

But military ground rules -- including censoring video shot at the facility -- made it nearly impossible for a CNN crew that visited the prison the same day to get a full picture of the prison.

A lawyer for some of the detainees called press tours of the camp "one big charade."

Well, I guess that settles that, eh? Turns out that there must be nothing to hide at Guantanomo. In fact it was all just such boring sameness that there was just no need to waste anyone's time by letting CNN see the rest of it.

I feel so much better now...

Posted by Kevin at 07:45 PM | Permalink

Oliver Willis has a blog of which I am quite fond and visit daily. Of course, any site that has a tagline of "Like Kryptonite to Stupid" has to have some good content.

In any case, Oliver has the following posted:

I wasn’t just talking for talking’s sake here. How many more people have to die until we get it? America was struck in the heart of it’s biggest city, and its capital. Bali was bombed, an attack on Australia. Madrid’s subway was bombed. And now, London, one of the oldest and most pivotal cities on the globe has been bombed.

Al Qaeda and their affiliated groups have declared war on our civilization, and we’ve responded by being feckless and distracted. Why, 4 years after 9/11, and just hours after 7/7, are we continuing to allow Pakistan’s borders to likely harbor Bin Laden - we allow the Saudis to finance terror.

How many more innocent human beings have to die because our leaders refuse to hunt down these killers and end them?

While we are tied down in Iraq, extremists in Saudi Arabia are still sending part of the money we spend on oil over to Al Qaeda to fund terrorist attacks elsewhere. Clearly the efforts in Iraq have not, to date, made the world ANY safer and in fact have likely done exactly the opposite. At the very least it has distracted us while Al Qaeda continues operating.

So, I'll have to stand up with Oliver and make the same request to our leaders:

Can we PLEASE go get Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda now?

Posted by Kevin at 07:00 PM | Permalink

Pat Buchanan's column speaks about the battle for the Supreme Court:

If conservatives can recapture the court, social and moral issues can be returned to where they belong: elected legislatures and executives. The Left will lose its power to advance its social agenda and see a rollback of a revolution imposed undemocratically upon America over 50 years.

Many decisions of the last fifty years will be overturned. The right to choose, restrictions on police powers and domestic spying, protections for the disabled, civil rights protections, worker safety... the list goes on and on.

Of course, the Supreme Court was MEANT to be an "undemocratic" body. It is meant to prevent the Constitution from being subverted by temporary whims of the majority. It defends due process, the procedural framework of our democracy, and the Bill of Rights.

Pat Buchanan HATES the fact that the Constitution and Bill of Rights cannot be ignored in order to pursue One Nation Under The American Taliban's Hateful Version of God. The Far Right is currently holding the reins of power in DC, but it doesn't represent a majority of Americans, and it CERTAINLY doesn't represent the supermajority required to overrule the the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

The Far Right sees this as a chance to seat extremists on the court that will agree with their ideology. In doing so, they hope to get the court to rule in their favor even when their laws conflict with the Constitution. If they succeed, it will be a dark day for the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Posted by Kevin at 07:40 PM | Permalink

Dear Mr. President:

How about nominating a moderate? Be a "uniter, not a divider" like you promised. Nominate someone I can respect and with whom I will sometimes respectfully disagree with.

Your predecessor, Bill Clinton, consulted heavily with the Republican minority leader when he needed to make a nomination. The Democrats got someone less liberal than they wanted, the Republicans got someone they could stomach, and our country got to keep a functioning government.

Think about it. A little compromise would be good for everyone.

Posted by Kevin at 07:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's getting to be pretty obvious that the situation in Iraq is Not Good even to those that have been big cheerleaders for the war since the beginning. The violence is escalating, basic infrastructure is still a shambles, and we still haven't managed to secure the road from the "Green Zone" fortifications to the airport!

But what about Afghanistan? That's the "easy" war, right? That's over and done, right?

The Associated Press is painting a very different picture when they write Afghan progress in danger of unraveling

If we can't win in Afghanistan, do we have any hope of winning in Iraq?

Personally, I think we had a *chance* in the beginning, but only if we through the kind of massive manpower and money at the problem that it requires. Once you let the situation get desperate, once you let a homegrown insurgency take root, you may be out of luck.

We basically quit before the job was done in Afghanistan so Bush could pursue his dreams of invading Iraq. Once in Iraq, we did the war "on the cheap" since the administration did not want anyone at home to make sacrifices -- that would be unpopular.

Adding insult to the injury of losing a pre-emptive war based on accusations that proved unfounded, Bush financed this war through deficit spending. The bill for American households is currently about $1800 plus interest. Oh, and let's not forget how much damage the trumped-up justifications for war and the use of torture in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo have done to the image and integrity of our nation.

Worst of all may be the fact that Iraq has become the breeding ground for terrorists that Bush claimed it to be when it wasn't.

Now we may have to talk a failed state in Afghanistan as well. Not a happy turn of events.

Posted by Kevin at 07:07 PM | Permalink