Politics

Politically, I’m very liberal — about as far left as one can go without sliding into Libertarianism.

Faux Klingons

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I just heard about this through last Sunday’s ‘Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!‘ show (which I just found out is available as a podcast, since I never manage to remember to turn on the actual radio), and I think this might be the best Iraq War analogy I’ve heard yet:

One Minute Speech by Rep. David Wu, D-Oregon, 1st District, Portland:

Mr. Speaker,

Four years ago, this administration took America to war in Iraq without adequate evidence. Since that time, this administration hasn’t listened to the American people, it hasn’t listened to our professional military, and it certainly hasn’t listened to this congress.

You know, it’s said of a prominent businessman in downtown Portland that he never listened to anybody, and that if he was ever drawn in a cartoon, he would be drawn without ears. Now, this President has listened to some people: the so-called ‘Vulcans’ in the White House, the ideologues. But you know, unlike the Vulcans of Star Trek, who made their decisions based on logic and fact, these guys make it on ideology. These aren’t Vulcans! There are Klingons in the White House!

But unlike the real Klingons of Star Trek, these Klingons have never fought a battle of their own. Don’t let faux Klingons send real Americans to war. It’s wrong.

So. Very. Awesome. I love this.

Apparently, there’s a book out called Rise of the Vulcans focusing on Bush’s core advisors, who have dubbed themselves “Vulcans” after the Roman god of War. Wu just took the Vulcan thing and ran with it. In entirely the wrong direction.

Thomas Jefferson’s Koran

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Heh. This is very cool (that is, cool that a Muslim was elected, and very cool that he’s going to be sworn in on the Koran and not the Bible…not so cool that some idiots are up in arms about this)…

Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, found himself under attack last month when he announced he’d take his oath of office on the Koran — especially from Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode, who called it a threat to American values.

Yet the holy book at tomorrow’s ceremony has an unassailably all-American provenance. We’ve learned that the new congressman — in a savvy bit of political symbolism — will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

[…]

Ellison will take the official oath of office along with the other incoming members in the House chamber, then use the Koran in his individual, ceremonial oath with new Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “Keith is paying respect not only to the founding fathers’ belief in religious freedom but the Constitution itself,” said Ellison spokesman Rick Jauert.

One person unlikely to be swayed by the book’s illustrious history is Goode, who released a letter two weeks ago objecting to Ellison’s use of the Koran. “I believe that the overwhelming majority of voters in my district would prefer the use of the Bible,” the Virginia Republican told Fox News, and then went on to warn about what he regards as the dangers of Muslims immigrating to the United States and Muslims gaining elective office.

Excuse me? The “dangers of Muslims immigrating…[and] gaining elective office?” Just what ‘dangers’ are there? And this guy’s a Representative?

How incredibly sad. I’m glad he doesn’t represent me.

Not in our stars, but in ourselves.

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We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof; and that conviction depends upon evidence, and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. Not from men who feared to write, to associate, to speak, and to defend the causes that were, for the moment, unpopular. This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the results. We proclaim ourselves indeed as we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world. But we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his, he didn’t create this situation of fear, he merely exploited it, and rather sucessfully. Cassius was right: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” Good night, and good luck.

— Edward R. Murrow, as portrayed by David Strathairn in George Clooney’s Good Night and Good Luck

Every time I hear this monologue, it strikes me — and I’m very sure that this was Clooney’s point — just how topical it is. How easy it would be to replace the references to Sen. McCarthy with references to President Bush and have it read just as accurately.

21st Century Terrorism

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Way back when, just after the 9-11 attacks, when the anthrax scares were going on, I was convinced that the people behind the anthrax mailings were going about their job all wrong. Mailing envelopes of powder to major names in major cities was good for immediate headlines, but really, did any of you really worry about coming across a packet full of anthrax? I know I didn’t. As long as they were targeting Dan Rather, it was obvious that most people didn’t have anything to worry about, unless they happened to be along the route of the envelope during its travels.

No, if these terrorists really wanted to get under people’s skins, they should have chosen anywhere from one to five small, out of the way, podunk little towns in the midwest. Some little burg in the middle of Nebraska, or Idaho, or Kansas, or Oklahoma. Pick one of those, grab the local phone book, and do a mass-mailing for whatever you can come up with, and dust all the mailers with anthrax (or your weapon of choice). It’s not immediate headlines, but once people realize that an entire town (or a few towns) in the middle of nowhere has been targeted (and potentially decimated) by a bioterror attack…that’s the kind of thing that is likely to get people’s attention.

Because that would be truly random. That would have been an American analogue to the bombings in the mideast — random, unpredictable, and deadly to anyone, not just Big Names.

And for the past week, that little mental exercise has been running through my head over and over as the current E. Coli spinach scare continues on. Each day more people get sick and reported contaminations pop up in more and more places — according to CNN, we’re up to 111 people ill, one dead, and cases reported in 21 states.

When the news reports started breaking, I thought that, while unlikely, this would be the perfect sort of terrorism attack. Don’t worry about having to get your ‘sleeper cells’ set up with bombs, pilots licenses, or anything that’s already been tried. Instead, just figure out enough biology and chemistry to mix up an effective E. Coli solution, put together some simple form of distribution mechanism (heck, today’s Super Soakers can be fitted with water-filled fanny packs…it doesn’t seem terribly hard to adapt a rig like that) with a tube running along the arm, then send your agents shopping. All they have to do is shop like they normally do, only as they’re handling the produce, they’re spraying a fine mist of bacteria over everything they touch or get near.

Simple. Effective. Random. And nearly untraceable.

Obviously, I have no idea if such a thing is actually what’s happening now, and it’s probably rather unlikely. The news reports briefly mention bioterror, only to say that it’s currently not a likely source (but it hasn’t entirely been ruled out, either). Still…it’s a possibility, and one I find a lot more likely than someone mixing their shampoo and conditioner into a high explosive that gets triggered with their iPod.

Keith Olbermann to Bush

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I avoided saying much of anything yesterday, preferring to spend a quiet day wandering the local zoo with Prairie, rather than participating in either a maudlin celebration memorial of the 9/11 attacks or yet another caustic condemnation of the Bush regime and their conduct in the last five years. For us, it was the perfect way to spend the day: gorgeous weather that was neither too hot nor too cool, the animals were nice and active, and the zoo wasn’t very crowded at all.

Today I’ve been working on uploading the rest of the photos from the zoo, sending them up in small batches, and bouncing around the ‘net while photos upload. I checked out Apple‘s new announcements (the ‘Cover Flow‘ eyecandy in iTunes 7 is slick, and the newer, smaller iPod Shuffle is incredible), started a silly little group on Flickr called the Googly Eyes Project, and other random oddments.

While skimming over my LiveJournal Friends Page, sirriamnis led me to this ‘Special Comment’ by Keith Olbermann. It’s one of the few things I’ve found worth using YouTube‘s embed feature for — this is good. For the bandwidth challenged, the transcript is under the jump (courtesy of Crooks and Liars).

Read more

Same-Sex Marriage Still Banned in Washington State

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Meh. Not a happy thing.

Reports on the decision:

  • Washington Courts: Press Release

    This morning, the Washington Supreme Court issued a decision in Andersen v. King County, a consolidated case regarding Washington’s Defense of Marriage Act.

    The Court’s lead opinion was authored by Justice Barbara Madsen, holding the Washington Defense of Marriage Act does not violate the Washington State Constitution. This decision overturns trial court decisions in King and Thurston Superior Courts in this case.

  • Seattle PI: State’s high court upholds ban on gay marriage

    The state Supreme Court today upheld Washington’s law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, rejecting the argument of 19 same-sex couples that they’ve been unfairly denied the right to wed.

    In a splintered decision, Justice Barbara Madsen wrote that the state’s marriage law was enacted to “promote procreation and to encourage stable families.”

    “The legislature was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers the State’s legitimate interests in procreation and the well-being of children.”

  • Seattle Times: State Supreme Court upholds gay marriage ban

    The decision came as a sobering defeat for gays and their advocates, who’d hoped the court would strike down the so-named Defense of Marriage Act — DOMA — which restricts marriage to one man and one woman.

    Writing for a 5-4 majority, Justice Barbara Madsen said DOMA is constitutional because in establishing DOMA “the legislation was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation, essential to the survival of the human race and furthers the well-being of children by encouraging families where children are reared in homes headed by children’s biological parents.”

    As such, DOMA does not violate the state Constitution’s privileges and immunities clause, which requires that any benefit granted to one group must be granted equally to all. “Allowing same sex couples to marry does not, in the legislature’s view, further these purposes,” she wrote.

It’s all about the children. Meh. What a crappy argument. Admittedly, I haven’t read the official arguments yet (the court documents are linked to in both newspaper articles), so maybe there’s a bit more to it than that, but from what the papers boil it down to…meh.

So marriage is about procreation and the survival of the human race? What about married couples who either cannot or choose not to have children? Does this mean that according to our state Supreme Court, it’s better to be in an unhappy, unfulfilling, loveless relationship that’s pumping out another child every ten months than it is to be in a happy, committed, healthy, loving relationship that happens to be childless?

And if we’re “encouraging families where children are reared in homes headed by children’s biological parents,” then shouldn’t we be outlawing adoption? Sorry, you had the kid, it’s better for the kid if you raise it, even if you’re a teenager, unable to support yourself, on drugs, or any number of other reasons why you might not want to raise the child you just bore. Don’t even get us started on gay couples adopting children!

Sorry gays. We don’t care if you love each other. You don’t have children, and marriage is all about the children, so you can’t get married.

Meh. What a stupid, weak, cowardly cop-out. I expected better.

Only in Alaska…

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Apparently, my hometown has been in the midst of a Mayoral campaign. Since I don’t live in Anchorage anymore, I didn’t know anything about this until today, when a short post on my Dad’s site listed the current vote tallies.

I have to admit, I’m a little bummed. It looks like current Mayor Mark Begich has won re-election, with 55% of the vote — and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.

What disappoints me is that while the runner-up got a fairly respectable 41% of the vote, by not electing him, Anchorage, Alaska (the largest city in a state known primarily for the ice and snow of its winter months) has lost the opportunity to have Jack Frost as a mayor.

You know, you couldn’t introduce an Alaskan mayoral candidate with the name of Jack Frost in a fiction novel without your editor kicking the manuscript back to you with his name circled in bright red permanent mark and a “you’ve got to be kidding me” notation in the margin. And yet here we are, with the real thing.

Now I just have to figure out which Anchorage political race amuses me more: the 2006 Mayoral election with Jack Frost as a candidate, or the 2002 Republican primary for Turnagain district 26 which gave voters a choice between Strait and Gay.

I’m glad I don’t live there anymore — but as I often say, Anchorage really is a wonderful place to be from.

iTunes “There Must Be an Angel (Playing With My Heart)” by Eurythmics from the album Eurythmics Greatest Hits (1985, 5:22).

Weapons of Mass Destruction

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Aaron Kyle Huff's weaponry (photo (c)2006 Greg Gilbert/The Seattle Times)

  • A semi-automatic assault rifle.
  • A pistol-grip shotgun.
  • An aluminum baseball bat.
  • A machete.
  • Over 300 rounds of ammunition.

All but the shotgun were recovered from Aaron Kyle Huff’s truck after the massacre on Capitol Hill; the shotgun is one similar to the one Huff used during the shooting. Not pictured is Huff’s semi-automatic handgun, also used in the attack.

All legal to own.

For God’s sake, why?!?

NRA members and “right to bear arms” wingnuts, feel free to brand me as a gun-control nut. I’m fine with that.

There is NO good reason why this sort of weaponry (specifically, the assault rifle and pistol-grip pump action shotgun…obviously, it’s a bit hard to get worked up over a baseball bat, and while I personally find a two foot machete pretty damn creepy, it’s nowhere near the same league as the guns) needs to be openly available to the general public. You want to hunt? Fine, hunt. Buy a hunting rifle and go slaughter as many deer as you want. But this kind of stuff?

Seattle Chief of Police Gil Kerlikowske has it right:

As many as 30 people were in the house when the man approached, draped in bandoliers of ammunition and armed with a handgun and a pistol-grip, 12-gauge shotgun — a weapon Kerlikowske pointedly said was “not for hunting purposes, but for hunting people.”

What actually happened was bad enough. It makes me ill to consider what could have happened if a police officer hadn’t been in the area and on the scene after only five minutes of shooting.