Bush economic policy stinks

An apology from the Buttonwood column in the Economist:

Underlying some of this column’s cheer these few weeks past has been an assumption that President George Bush and his administration were not as stupid, short-sighted, parochial and economically illiterate as they sometimes appear. Buttonwood now realises that this was a mistake and retracts this view as hopelessly optimistic and naive.

Read the article.

Bush is losing his "base"

Even extreme conservatives understand how evil the Bush White House is: Here's what John LeBoutillier of Newsmax says:

We need to reverse things: if the Clinton White House had sold out an active-duty CIA agent as 'payback' for some whistle-blowing article, we would be outraged. This crime is no less serious because it was done in a Republican White House.

He ends his article with this quote: "Yep, 'tis true: payback is a bitch."

Presidential candidate selector

A link from Grandpa John: see which candidates for President share your positions on the issues here. I tried this about 2 months ago, and Kucinich came out as 100% match?
Here are my results today with the August version of the "selector"--

1. Kucinich, Cong. Dennis, OH - Democrat (100%)
2. Dean, Gov. Howard, VT - Democrat (84%)
3. LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. - Democrat (81%) (How does this guy show up?)
4. Sharpton, Reverend Al - Democrat (72%)
5. Moseley-Braun, Former Senator Carol IL - Democrat (68%)
6. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (64%)
7. Edwards, Senator John, NC - Democrat (57%)
8. Clark, Retired Army General Wesley K "Wes" Arkansas - Democrat (57%)
9. Graham, Senator Bob, FL - Democrat (56%)
10. Gephardt, Cong. Dick, MO - Democrat (55%)
11. Lieberman Senator Joe CT - Democrat (53%)
12. Libertarian Candidate (50%)
13. Bush, George W. - US President (39%)
14. Phillips, Howard - Constitution (25%)

Here are Joyce's results. Diebold must use this methodology to insure their favorite candidate always shows up on top, or Dennis Kucinich is really the best candidate and no one knows it?

1. Kucinich, Cong. Dennis, OH - Democrat (100%)
2. Dean, Gov. Howard, VT - Democrat (87%)
3. Edwards, Senator John, NC - Democrat (76%)
4. LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. - Democrat (76%)
5. Moseley-Braun, Former Senator Carol IL - Democrat (75%)
6. Graham, Senator Bob, FL - Democrat (73%)
7. Gephardt, Cong. Dick, MO - Democrat (71%)
8. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (70%)
9. Sharpton, Reverend Al - Democrat (64%)
10. Lieberman Senator Joe CT - Democrat (62%)
11. Clark, Retired Army General Wesley K "Wes" Arkansas - Democrat (54%)
12. Libertarian Candidate (34%)
13. Bush, George W. - US President (29%)
14. Phillips, Howard - Constitution (21%)

How Bush White House Sold War

Read: The Selling of the Iraq War: The First Casualty
By John B. Judis and Spencer Ackerman here. They misused and "sexed up" intelligence in the service of a foregone conclusion. "Bullet-proof" evidence has evaporated, etc.

Bush White House Accused

The Guardian has a good summary of the Plame case here.

Bush Administration Is Focus of Inquiry (washingtonpost.com)

It's not news until WaPo covers it, right? Read the article

Bush White House Blows Cover of Spy

Read more about the scandal and the implications:
here (Body and Soul),
here (Talking Points Memo),
here (Cal Pundit) A sample:

Remember: this is not just some run of the mill political dirty trick. It's perilously close to treason. No truly principled conservative administration would do a thing like this, and the fact that they've been trying to dodge it for two months tells you everything you need to know about them.

and Eschaton (follow link on the left sidebar.)

Even FoxNews knows something's wrong here:

HUME: Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was asked to inquire in Africa about what Saddam Hussein might have been doing there in terms of acquiring nuclear materials, ended up with his wife's name in the paper as a CIA person. There are now suggestions that the name and her identity and her CIA work had been revealed by the White House. What do you know about that?

RICE: I know nothing of any such White House effort to reveal any of this, and it certainly would not be the way that the president would expect his White House to operate.

More Lies from President George W. Bush

Read about them, starting here and also read more about David Corn's book The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers).

Blogs bad for business?

If information is free, how can we make a profit on it? Read about pointless fears here.

Article referred to 2 popular blogs: Dave Winer of the Berkman Center at Harvard University and Beth Goza, Microsoft employee.

Sunday's Texts

Isaiah 35:4-7

Say to those with fearful hearts,
"Be strong, do not fear; your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution he will come to save you."

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
The burning sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

James 1:17-27

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. [Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does.]

If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Mark 7:31-37

Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis (that is, the Ten Cities.) There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man.

After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears. Then he spit and touched the man's tongue He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Ephphatha!" (which means, "Be opened!") At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. "He has done everything well," they said. "He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak."

Parents of soldiers in Iraq are waking up

From the Guardian:

Fernando Suarez, whose 20-year-old son, Jesus, was one of the first fatalities, said: "My son died because Bush lied."

Also:

In another sign of the growing protest movement, the father of two soldiers serving in Iraq used a full page advertisement in yesterday's New York Times to demand the sacking of the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

Read the ad here.

George W. Bush's Piety

I can't resist this link to a story about President George W. Bush's faith, told by Al Franken. (from Body and Soul.) Here is Slacktivist's take on this story.

Movies

This Sunday we plan to go to the City to see Luther.

Reviews from Roman Catholics aren't very positive. One Catholic blog includes defenses of Purgatory and Indulgences. Not very convincing, but worth a read, lest you think the Roman Catholic Church has reformed itself since the 1500s.

Assignment to self: review the Peasant's Revolt.

In a virulent pamphlet, Against the Thievish and Murderous Hordes of Peasants, Luther called on the princes to "knock down, strangle, and stab...and think nothing so venomous, pernicious, or Satanic as an insurgent."

In 1525 the princes and nobles crushed the revolt at a cost of an estimated 100,000 peasant lives. The surviving peasants considered Luther a false prophet. Many of them returned to Catholicism or turned to more radical forms of the Reformation.

--from Rich Tatum's Glossary of Christian History. (My emphasis in bold print.)

Movies to record:

Wee hours of Saturday morning: Throne of Blood, directed by Akira Kurosawa.
Sunday morning Oklahoma!, directed by Fred Zinnemann.
Sunday afternoon On The Waterfront, directed by Elia Kazan.

Survivor

We missed Survivor on Thursday, but here's the link to CBS's Survivor Website so you can follow what's happening. Rupert survives!

WMD Report Preview, Part 2

Nothing found. Surprised? (Read story while you can for free.)

Lies of omission from the Brit's sexed up dossier.

The war was fought on false pretenses with no realistic plan for the aftermath, except the no-bids contracts for Bush-Cheney cronies.

Class work

US History post-1865: Today was the multiple-choice part of the first test. I recieved a compliment for my essay work (which is more important in the long run for a history major than multiple-choice tests.)

German: More vocabulary, of course. Study word order. Example: Where do you put nicht? Answer: It depends. Be ready to talk about "Die Wohnzimmer."

US History pre-1865: last lecture cancelled. Reading.

Composition: 2nd essay (evaluative)--3 print advertisements for a particular type of product--describe and analyze--which is most effective? I was thinking about how pens were advertised in the past: gee whiz novelty of ball-points, cheapo Bics, Astronaut space pens (write underwater! Upside down!) to luxury items, status symbols, the return to fountain pens. Today the majority of pens seem to depend on packaging at the point of sale to make the sale, rather than advertising. Or am I just missing it? Branding is most important for cheap, indistinguishable commodities. Now I need to find some good representative ads.

Future posts I am working on and when to look for them:
Advertising is aimed at demographic groups--soon
Sunday's readings--Saturday
Columbus Day special--October 12

What's up?

I'm cleaning up my template. The JavaScript for the cost of the war in Iraq counter was fouling up navigation to the bottom of the page somehow, so I replaced it with a link.
I intend to get comments working again soon. Haloscan's logo is back!

UPDATE

The template is fixed! Comments working! Back up everything! Change nothing! (well, I'll keep changing stuff ... carefully.)

Speaking of cleaning up, here are some stain removing tips (link from Grandpa John.)

Last night we attended our stamp club meeting. We discussed our upcoming stamp auctions. Bob showed us some collectibles from "Chicken in the Rough" restaurants (an old fried chicken franchise.)

Law

Federal court decision stopping enforcement of telemarketing "No Call" list by FTC. I'll post a link to the decision when I find it. I'd guess telemarketers argue that the "No Call" list violates their First Amendment Rights.

UPDATE

I am amazed at the number of articles about this that didn't mention the name of the court involved in this case. Idiot reporters. Here's the link to the case, which I haven't read yet. On to the 10th circuit on appeal?

Don't trust Diebold Voting Machines

Paperless electronic balloting? Just say NO if you want real elections.
Read about them here.
Here's Diebold's website. When I read their slogan "We won't rest," I think they mean "We won't rest until Republicans win every election."
And here's Blackbox Voting.org that's critical of Diebold; Diebold's attorneys removed access to that site because of purported copyright violations. When copyright blocks free political speech, it's time to change copyright law.
We'll have to resort to a New Zealand website to read about "Blackbox Voting." Read it while you can. Many more links here.

UPDATE

Apparently the Digital Millenium Copyright Act is responsible for the removal of Blackbox Voting.org. What insanity--we are up against some evil people.

Morale in Iraq

It isn't good. With No Plan Apparent, GIs in Iraq Slowly Becoming Frantic

If retention for the Army National Guard is of any importance, current members need to have faith in our government and our leaders. Right now, where we are, we can't see anyone taking a stand for the soldiers (as it isn't just us being treated this way but many, many soldiers).

Maybe the soldiers will realize the chickenhawk Republicans are responsible for the problems they're facing?
Nah. Not likely.

Template bollixed again

Older posts are not available? And comments have disappeared.

UPDATE

I restored to an earlier version of the template plus a few more links, but lost the comments function. I will re-install tomorrow and clean up the links. Haloscan must be down tonight.

WMD Report Preview

Nothing found. The war was fought on false pretenses with no realistic plan for the aftermath. The Bush Administration is incompetent.

Law

California recall election is going ahead as originally scheduled, says the 9th circuit court (again, probably a temporary link. I'll update when it's more permanent.)

Do you remember the 11th circuit court's decision that removed the 10 commandments monument from the Alabama Supreme Court rotunda? Buried in the decision is a humorous gem, which I have highlighted below:

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
Nos. 02-16708 & 02-16949
D. C. Docket Nos. 01-01268-CV-T-N
01-01269-CV-T-N

STEPHEN R. GLASSROTH,
BEVERLY J. HOWARD,
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
versus
ROY S. MOORE,
Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court,
Defendant-Appellant.
-----------------------------------------------------
MELINDA MADDOX,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
ROY S. MOORE, in his official capacity
as Administrative Head of the Alabama
Judicial System,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________
Appeals from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Alabama
_________________________
(July 1, 2003)
Before EDMONDSON, Chief Judge, CARNES, Circuit Judge, and STORY*,
District Judge.
CARNES, Circuit Judge:
[blah blah blah ... to page 17 & 18]
During argument about the cross-motions for summary judgment, and before the view took place, counsel for the Chief Justice contended that summary judgment was improper because the district court needed to view the monument as part of the necessary "inquiry into the facts and circumstances":

[T]he issue with regard to how a reasonable person would view the monument would require an examination of what you might call social facts, which would require at least an examination of the monument itself. This is why we believe it’s important for you to go into the rotunda and view that monument and view the setting itself. Unless you see it yourself, and since the reasonable person test is a test that’s supposed to be applied by the judge, it would be difficult for the judge to apply that particular test unless there was an inquiry into the facts and circumstances with regard to this matter.

Rec. Vol. 13 at 43-44. So eager was he to have the district court judge conduct the view "just like a juror would," that counsel for the Chief Justice volunteered his help in arranging parking for the district court judge at the Judicial Building. Any conceivable error was not just invited error, but invited error with a parking space.

I believe this will prove to be the most memorable court decision of 2003. "Invited error with a parking space."

Giant Guinea Pigs

Rodents as large as bison lived 8 million years ago, say scientists. Alas, no free online access to the current issue of Science for more information.

Here's the headline from der Spiegel:
Biologen entdecken monströses Meerschweinchen

Es war das wohl größte Nagetier aller Zeiten: Forscher entdeckten die acht Millionen Jahre alten Überreste eines Säugers, der sich kaum von heutigen Meerschweinchen unterschied - bis auf sein Gewicht von 700 Kilogramm.

News Flash! Vacuum Cleaner Sucks Up Budgie!

Heroic kangaroo to the rescue.

What's Up?

While adding links, I inadvertantly lost a big chunk of my template and had to rebuild it. Back up more frequently!

UPDATE

Monday, I'm still fine-tuning the links and getting a little compulsive about backing up before making any changes to the template.

Cost of Iraq and Afghanistan War vs. Terror

A caller on C-SPAN this morning claimed that if you take the entire amount the US Govt. is spending on this war and divide by every man, woman, and child in Iraq and Afghanistan, you get a per capita cost of about $3 million. That sounds awfully high. How many people live in these countries? How much is going to be spent? Another caller said a fairer way to portray the cost of the war would be to divide the amount it costs by the rest of the world's population (that will be safe from terrorism.)

Food for Thought, and Grounds for Further Research.

I'll update this post with some ballpark figures when I get around to looking them up.

UPDATE

The cost of the Iraq war ticker to date is roughly $76 billion. (Iraq alone, not including Afghanistan.) The combined population of Iraq and Afghanistan is about 50 million. So the per capita figure is about $1520. So where did the C-SPAN caller come up with $3 million each?

Movies (and TV)

I watched the first half-hour of Bound for Glory while taping it last night. It starts so slowly I kept dozing off. Maybe it'll be better when I'm more awake.

This afternoon, the boys and I watched The Sea Hawk, from 1924. It was a little difficult keeping track of the characters--most of the men wore goatees and dressed in those ridiculous frilly Elizabethan era costumes. Pirates, an 'honor killing,' brother betrays brother, fiance taking sides with the guilty brother, revenge. The music score is by Robert Israel, who I remember performing for several silent movies in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s (both at the Nu-Art and UCLA's Melnitz Hall.) He is a master of the forgotten art of movie accompaniment.

We also watched Saving Private Ryan. Every good war movie is ultimately an anti-war movie. (Although the makers probably thought they were quite 'patriotic.')

Tonight, we'll record Charlie Chaplin's The Circus, which I don't remember seeing before.

The boys want to catch the beginning of the new Survivor. My favorite is Rupert: he's about my age and has a bushy beard. He looks like a pirate.

Movies

I recorded The Seventh Seal in the wee hours of the morning. We haven't watched it yet, but we did check the first few minutes to see if it recorded properly. It has two things in its favor:

1: It starts by quoting chapter 8 of Revelation.
2: It starts with a knight challenging Death to a game of chess (with very high stakes.)

Tonight, we'll record Bound for Glory, which is about Woody Guthrie.

Sunday's Texts

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, [3-5], 6-8

Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.

[You saw with your own eyes what the Lord did at Baal Peor. The Lord your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed the Baal of Peor, but all of you who held fast to the Lord your God are still alive today.

See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it.] Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.' What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?

"

Ephesians 6:10-20

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes form the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.

Mark 7:1-8, [9-13], 14-15, [16-20], 21-23

The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were "unclean," that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they giver their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)

So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, 'Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with "unclean" hands?

He replied, 'Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites, as it is written:

These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men. (Isaiah 29:13)

You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.

[And he said to them: 'You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, 'Honor you father and mother' (Exodus 20:12, Deut. 5:16) and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' (Exodus 21:17, Leviticus 20:9) But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.']

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, 'Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a man can make him "unclean" by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him "unclean."

[some early texts add: 'If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.']

[After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 'Are you so dull?' he asked. 'Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him "unclean"? For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.' (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.")]

He went on: 'What comes out of a man is what makes him "unclean." ' For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man "unclean."

What's Up?

I've been adding favorite Christian links to the left side of the page.

Books

Man Booker Prize 2003 Shortlist

Author - Title - Publisher
Monica Ali - Brick Lane - Doubleday
Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake – Bloomsbury
Damon Galgut - The Good Doctor - Atlantic Books
Zoë Heller - Notes on a Scandal - Viking Penguin
Clare Morrall - Astonishing Splashes Of Colour - Tindal Street Press
DBC Pierre - Vernon God Little - Faber & Faber

I recently read Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey, which was awarded the Booker Prize in 1988.

News Flash: US Delivers Afghanistan to Opium Warlords

Also from the "Marketplace Morning Report."

Click on link "Afghan warlords get big money off opium crops" on this page.

Also check out the declassified documents about the Taliban on the left side of the page. I haven't had time to read any yet...

Krugman

Paul Krugman appeared on the "Marketplace Morning Report" on Wednesday, September 17 and today, September 18.

For the 17th, click on link to “Economics and politics go together”
For the 18th, click on link to "How would you write economic policy today?"

BBC Book of the Week

Toast - The Story Of A Boy's Hunger

Written and read by Nigel Slater.
The well known cookery writer and TV chef tells the hilarious, and at times heartbreaking story, of how it all began.

Producer Jill Waters.
Five 15-minute episodes. Listen on demand before it goes away by clicking on the link "Book of the Week: BBC Radio 4" and clicking on "Listen to Monday" etc.

Poem in paraphrase from German

not a translation!

To a Child
that shows me a ripped out Lock of Hair

My Child, in which War must you
Lose your yellow Hair?
A Rosebranch has sprung at you to snatch it!
You scarcely show it and even laugh.
God grant, that in future Time
Never any Loss, nor another Sorrow
more bitterly in young Hearts
May hurt you more than this light Robbery!
--Eduard Mörike

This reads like a Japanese attempt at English. (Ugh) But I still like it.

A link from my sister S'Anne

Music

Click here: JACKSON-MUSIC.COM

What's Up?

Tonight I'm adding links to the left side of the page,

and experimenting with the formatting.

Science

Nature Science update Capuchin umbrage suggests sense of fairness extends beyond humans referring to a study published in 18 September 2003 issue of Nature

Of course, this sense of fairness is genetic. Inequity aversion (as they term it) is hard-wired. It couldn't be sin. See Matthew 20:1-16.

Homework

Classwork: next up--
German: vocabulary "Adjektive." Practice, practice, practice. (I make tapes that I talk along with in the car--a good use of part of the 45-minute drive.)

US History post: 10 minute Jane Addams essay tomorrow.

US History pre: good work on test 1! (but what did I miss?) start reading; test 2 covers 18th century to 1815 (end of War of 1812)

Comp II: essay 1, revise and edit, + editing logs, due Tuesday; Arguments of Evaluation (Intro to Essay 2)

Colombus books

Notes from The American Census
to try to figure out statistics on representation in Congress--whose vote is most diluted? whose vote counts most?

Schwarzenegger Bashing: Good for the spirit.

More about Schwarzenegger:
Another snippet from Lewis Lapham's Notebook:
“How better to express the abiding hatred of government, any government, than by sending to Sacramento a robot with a gun?”

Here's a link to "Arnold the Barbarian"by John Connolly from Premiere magazine March 2001. Caution: bad language and behavior.

I hesitate to link to Arnold's interview in Oui magazine: worse behavior and language. The man should not be idolized by anyone. How can he be a serious candidate?

Wholesome Bush Bashing: Good for the spirit.

From Lewis Lapham’s Notebook: “The Golden Horde” from the October, 2003 issue of Harper’s. (no online link--yet)

“The political ship of state designed to the specification of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment sailed over the horizon in 1980 when Ronald Reagan was elected to the White House on the strength of his heart-warming sentiment and his talent for striking an heroic pose. How different Schwarzenegger’s shameless gall from the shameless gall of President George W. Bush, who offered as his credentials for admission to the White House little else except a famous name, a record of failure and probable fraud as both a business executive and as a soldier, a friendly state of wholesome ignorance, and a desire for applause?”

I returned the two Jane Addams books today; no US History class today (lovely day to drive 70 miles round trip with no lecture!)

I borrowed 2 books for inspiration for my Christmas woodcut:
The Woodcut Art of J. J. Lankes by Welford Dunaway Taylor
Woodcut; Step-by-Step Lessons in Designing, Cutting, and Printing the Woodblock by David L. Oravez

Lankes used a white-line technique in his woodcuts--very beautiful.
With the Oravez book I will not have to re-invent the wheel. Trial-and-error works, but why not learn from other artists?

I'd like to try Lankes-type designs with some color. Hey, let's colorize those Ansel Adams snapshots!

Here's the heart of the 9th circuit court's decision in the
California recall election postponement--based on the
"equal protection" clause of the 14th amendment:

"Plaintiffs argue that the use of defective voting systems creates a substantial risk that votes will not be counted. In addition, they claim that the use of defective voting systems in some counties and the employment of far more accurate voting systems in other counties denies equal protection of the laws by impermissibly diluting voting strength of the voters in counties using defective voting systems. In short, the weight given to votes in non-punchcard counties is greater than the weight given to votes in punchcard counties because a higher proportion of the votes from punchcard counties are thrown out. Thus, the effect of using punchcard voting systems in some, but not all, counties, is to discriminate on the basis of geographic residence.

This is a classic voting rights equal protection claim. As the Supreme Court explained in Bush [v. Gore, 2000], “‘the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise.’” 531 U.S. at 105 (quoting Reynolds, 377 U.S. at 555). Further, the “‘idea that one group can be granted greater voting strength than another is hostile to the one man, one vote basis of our representative government.’” Id. at 107 (quoting Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U.S. 814, 819 (1969)).

As the Court stated much earlier in Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 8 (1964), “To say that a vote is worth more in one district than in another would . . . run counter to our fundamental ideas of democratic government . . . .” Plaintiffs’ equal protection claim is much the same as the one in Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368 (1963). That case involved a Georgia county unit voting system that weighted rural county votes more heavily than urban county votes and weighted the votes from some small rural counties more heavily than larger rural counties. The Supreme Court held that this constituted a violation of the Equal Protection Clause, writing that “once the class of voters is chosen and their qualifications specified, we see no constitutional way by which equality of voting power may be evaded.” Id. at 381. As the Court put it: “Every voter’s vote is entitled to be counted once. It must be correctly counted and reported.” Id. at 380. Gray echoed Reynolds’ admission that “the basic principle of representative government remains, and must remain, unchanged – the weight of a citizen’s vote cannot be made to depend on where he lives.” Reynolds, 377 U.S. at 567. As the Court noted: “A citizen, a qualified voter, is no more nor no less so because he lives in the city or on the farm. This is the clear and strong command of our Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.” Id. at 568. In short, the Equal Protection Clause requires “the opportunity for equal participation by all voters in the election . . . .” Id. at 566."

Of course, I could use findlaw to look up all these cases, but I'll leave that to you, dear reader.

We're starting up choir again: we just had
our first practice. A rather sparse group tonight.
I am the only bass. It appears we need to
recruit some more singers.

Check out Liberal Pieties
by JOANN WYPIJEWSKI in the September 22, 2003 issue
of The Nation
Reviews of
Catholicism and American Freedom: A History
by John T. McGreevy
The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice
by Philip Jenkins
Here is the beginning of the review:

"John McGreevy begins his book with an emblematic story. The year is 1859; the place, Boston. The public schools, dominated by the Protestant elite who also write the law, start each day with obligatory reading of the King James Bible and recitation of the Ten Commandments. Glorious as the King James version is, it is not taught as literature but, with the commandments, is intended to build moral fiber in the students, a great many of whom are Catholic. It disturbs twenty-first-century assumptions to imagine Catholics opposing school prayer, but the church doesn't subscribe to the Protestant Bible, or to private Bible reading in general, and was even more hostile to it in the nineteenth century. Nor are Catholic and Protestant versions of the Ten Commandments the same, the latter proscribing "graven images," an affront to the whole Catholic rococo of crucifixes and icons, Virgin shrines, reliquaries and sacred art.

Returning to our story, one day a 10-year-old Catholic boy at the Eliot School, Thomas Whall, is instructed to recite the commandments. He refuses. Days of urgent meetings follow, but the school committee decides it will not compromise. Again the boy is asked to read the commandments and again refuses, upon which an assistant to the principal declares, "Here's a boy that refuses to repeat the Ten Commandments, and I will whip him till he yields if it takes the whole forenoon." A half-hour later the child's hands are ripped and bleeding from the blows of a rattan stick; by one account he faints during the torture. All boys unwilling to recite the commandments are ordered out of the school; hundreds leave. Because they had been urged in church to resist Protestant conformity, to "recite their own Catholic prayers" and "not to be ashamed," they are seen in some quarters as mindless slaves to priestcraft. The most important Republican Party newspaper in Boston (Republicans were the liberals then) editorializes: "We are unalterably, sternly opposed to the encroachments of political and social Romanism, as well as to its wretched superstition, intolerance, bigotry and mean despotism." When Whall and his father sue the assistant for excessive force, the court vindicates school authority, ruling that the child's disobedience threatened the stability of the school, hence the foundation of the state."

Why does anyone question the need to maintain the separation of church and state?

Read further down for intriguing moral advice for confessor-priests.
A book to look for: Innocent Ecstasy: How Christianity Gave America an Ethic of Sexual Pleasure by Peter Gardella

Paul Krugman's interview on Calpundit.

Here is a selection from the introduction from Krugman's new book:

"In fact, there's ample evidence that key elements of the coalition that now runs the country believe that some long-established American political and social institutions should not, in principle, exist....Consider, for example....New Deal programs like Social Security and unemployment insurance, Great Society programs like Medicare....Or consider foreign policy....separation of church and state....The goal would seem to be something like this: a country that basically has no social safety net at home, which relies mainly on military force to enforce its will abroad, in which schools don't teach evolution but do teach religion and — possibly — in which elections are only a formality...."

Here is a link (probably temporary) to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that postponed the California recall election.