Win Friends and Influence People

Well, congratulations to Israeli army for single handedly pissing off the most people with the most ruthless efficiency yet this year.

By bombing a - no, let me rephrase that - the power station in the Gaza Strip they turned off the light, refrigeration, AC and possibly the water pumps for over a half a million people living in a desert in the middle of the summer. This is an action that is so self-destructive to the Israeli’s desire to live with a modicum of security that it simply defies logic.

Yes, I know they are searching for a soldier kidnapped from a checkpoint last week, and I know that Hamas is a terrorist organization and they are crazy to boot, but what strategic advantage could the Israelis possibly gain by plunging a half a million people – who already hate their guts - into the stone-age?

Actions like this undercut any moral authority that the Israelis have ever had. They justified their own nation in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Since then, especially in recent years, they have squandered their own legitimacy by taking some very Nazi-like actions. The Gaza Strip doesn’t look all that different to the Warsaw Ghetto to me.

It would also not be inappropriate to point out that under internationally accepted definitions an action like this would also qualify as either a war crime or genocide (A decent definition of both is available here: http://www.slate.com/id/1008071/ ), take your pick.

I’m not sure what else you can say about this situation. This is just insanity.

Thank God I don't Have a TV

Well, they've started it. More than four months before this year's U.S. Senate election in November at least one of the candidates has begun running campaign ads on TV. So now, instead of the regular ebb and flow of some crappy local news about a house fire followed by a soap powder that is going to make your life more fulfilling followed by Regis and whatever blond foil he has this year followed by impotence drugs warning of side effects that may include a four hour erection.... .You were wondering how TV was going to get any better, huh? Oh yes folks! Campaign Ads!

Thank God I don't have a TV in the house.

Come to think of it, this is precisely why I don't have a TV in the house.

Kicking off the campaign with an appearance in Pittsburgh, Little Ricky came out with an add stating his position on an issue of vital importance to folks in the Iron City: immigration. I'd have to question the brilliance of this choice. The city is still losing population and immigration here seems to be limited to non-native graduate students attending Pitt and CMU, many of whom leave town when they graduate anyway.

Anyway, this all led to dueling press appearances and news coverage of course, sparring about who's tougher on illegal immigrants and how we should handle them, or in Ricky's case, deport them.

I suppose it might be a greater issue in Philly, but then, why torture us here with it? At least have the courtesy to pitch an issue relevant to us here in Western PA.

Before and After Part I

Big Ben before the accident.....

Before and After Part II

Big Ben after the accident.......

The Objector Takes a Holiday

I'm sure both of my regular readers are distraught, but I haven't had too much to say the last couple of weeks. In fact, I'm on holiday. If I come across anything funny I'll toss it up on here, but I'm going to give the diatribes a rest for a while. Its hard to be a grouchy malcontent ALL of the time.

Western civilization may indeed collapse due to my absence but I don't want to see anyone getting corked over it. No tearing out of hair or rending of garments. Get a hold of yourselves.

I'll be back.

This is Just Weird!!!

Missouri Breeder Beaten With Dead Puppy

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 9, 2006

A St. Peters woman angry that her new puppy had died pushed her way into a dog breeder's home and repeatedly hit the breeder on the head with the dead Chihuahua, the authorities said. The woman, 33, went to the home early Wednesday and tried to get another puppy, but the fight ensued, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. The police said they were considering burglary and assault charges against the woman.

I swear, I found this in the New York Times.

A Front Page Sendoff

Over the last few weeks my most regular commentator has been a Republican who has generally been reasonable and thoughtful. Then he drifted into Limbaugh-land with this comment posted on the screen saver of Bush falling through all of the balls. I’m not suggesting that he was being vicious or anything, but the quality of the comment was disapointing. It read:

"Funny that your blog promises that some people are never happy yet I expect you and other libs are happy to see Bush floating in freefall. But what about today when al Zarqawi is dead and his brother in law has been arrested in Jordan? Are you happy or are you torn? Imagine what will happen if bin Laden is captured or killed between now and November. Will you be happy or sad? Some say that libs are happy whenever things go badly for the country."

Jeez. This conversation is starting to feel like a bad episode of Crossfire.

Do I enjoy watching this president take some licks? You bet. I didn’t vote for him in 2000 – I thought he was weak-minded tool of the c-right and I never vote for that – and I think his presidency was in trouble right from the get go. Politically September 11th was the greatest gift this guy could have asked for. Then, wallowing in his own incompetence and lack of vision, he squandered the good will of the entire world on this misguided Iraqi crusade.

As for Zarqawi; This nut was a nobody-terrorist-wannabe until Colin Powel erroneously – erroneously - declared him to be Bin Laden’s man in Iraq. Then, in a bizarre self-fulfilling prophecy, we invaded Iraq and created a power vacuum that allowed him to become the terrorist he had always dreamed of being. We gave him legitimacy by linking him to Bin Laden and then we gave him a playground to play in. Am I torn about it? No. The absurdity of the situation is mind numbing.

I am from the New York area. Someone flying a plane into a building in my home town really pisses me off. I didn’t sleep for six months after it happened. I would take great satisfaction in seeing Bin Laden either brought to justice or simply killed. He doesn’t deserve American justice, but if he were captured alive we would be obligated to make it available to him because that sense of fairness is part of who we are as a nation. It would not matter to me when or before what election he was killed or captured. But to your point, could to the administration resist the temptation to use the death or capture of Bin Laden as a political victory flag? The gloating would be endless BUT we’d still be stuck in Iraq.

Also, I suspect that those of us to the left don’t do anymore gleeful hand-rubbing over Bush’s foibles than those of you on the right did when Clinton got busted getting a hummer. You could hear the drool dripping off the fangs during the impeachment.

Are we happy when things are going badly for the country? No. If we were happy we wouldn’t be complaining all the time.

Here’s the thing. The GOP is very good at telling us how great everything is when the facts on the ground don’t support the optimism. Do lefties bitch more? Sure, but in general, our perspective is to see what is broken and then try to fix it through a perspective that views the lives of average people as worth improving through public policy. We see problems where they exist and I’d like to think our desire is to address them in a meaningful way. Are we naïve? Maybe. Are we misguided do-gooders? Sometimes. Does every Democrat act with noble motives all the time? Of course not. But I’d rather be in that camp than adhere to a political philosophy that thinks exploding deficits caused by tax breaks for billionaires is sound public policy, or any of the other inane Republican favorites.

I’m sorry to say that this conversation is over. Like any editorial page, I reserve the right to publish or not publish comments based on whether I believe they add anything constructive to the conversation. In this case I can see that this just heading into an endless, pointless morass of rhetorical questions and political dogma. You want that, go listen to Rush. I try to have a little fun with this blog and I’m going to keep it that way.

Thanks for your participation though. I really do appreciate it.

Just Desserts in Alabama

Former Alabama chief justice Roy Moore lost the GOP primary for Governor yesterday. Moore was in the news over the past year or so as the fellow who had a three ton granite carving of the Ten Commandments installed in the lobby of the Alabama Supreme court. He then defied a federal court order to remove the statue on the grounds that the Ten Commandments superceded any laws of man. He was finally removed from his position as Chief Justice because by that point he had broken the law he was sworn to uphold by defying the court order. He made a big deal about being sacrificed on the alter of secularism and all that.

He's kind of crazy.

Anyway, he ran in the GOP gubernatorial primary on biblical platform and lost to the sitting governor. I don't know anything about the guy he lost to, but from the few articles I did read, it seems that people in Alabama just found Moore to be sort of embarrassing. They felt he was reinforcing the state's image as a backwards Klan filled redneck paradise. Go figure.

On the other hand, Alabama did pass a 'defense of marriage' referendum, so I guess the Moore thing wasn't really a sign of any creeping progressivism.

Fourteen Steps to Fascisim

I'm reading a book by the Rev. Robin Meyers called Why the Christian Right is Wrong. The author is trying to offer scriptural repudiations for virtually every position of the C-right. Its pretty good, but very knee-jerk leftist. There is one very interesting passage where he quotes a political scientist, Lawrence Britt, who has compilled a list the characteristics of fascism.

1. Powerfull and continuing nationalism;
2. distain for the recognition of human rights;
3. identification of enemies and scapegoats as a unifying cause;
4. supremacy of the military;
5. rampant sexism;
6. controlled mass media;
7. obsession with national security;
8. religion and government intertwined;
9. protection of corporate power;
10. suppression of labor power;
11. distain for intellectuals and the arts;
12. obsession with crime and punishment;
13. rampant cronyism and corruption and
14. fraudulent election.

I've often joked that I thought the first American Emperor would be a Republican. I hope I'm not right.

And Now For Some Real News......

The New York Times had an article in yesterday about the British Government's travel suggestions for English soccer fans travelling to Germany for the World Cup. Apparently there is some concern that the Man-U crowd might offend their hosts with lots of Third Reich references. Here are some highlights:

"It's not a joke," Charles Clarke, then the home secretary, warned at a pre-World Cup briefing earlier this spring. "It is not a comic thing to do. It is totally insulting and wrong."

That means, basically, no getting drunk and goose-stepping in a would-be humorous manner. No Nazi salutes. No shouting "Sieg Heil!" at the referees. No impromptu finger-under-the-nose Hitler mustaches.

"Doing mock Nazi salutes or fake impersonations of Hitler — that's actually against the law in Germany,"

Getting the English to refrain from obnoxious references to World War II should be easy enough. The war ended more than 60 years ago. The Germans themselves seem to have moved on.

But for some perverse reason — intellectual laziness; the tendency of British schools to teach German history through the prism of the Nazi era; a yearning for a simpler time, when Britain had an empire and a clear set of enemies — many England fans seem stubbornly unable to let go of Germany's past.

During Germany-England matches, for instance, the fans like to sing the theme from "The Dam Busters," a 1954 film about how English bombers destroyed German dams during the war. Employing accompanying hand gestures, they perform a song called "Ten German Bombers," the upshot of which is that all the airmen are shot down.

They also shout "Stand up if you won the war!" and "Two world wars and one World Cup!" at the German fans. The second is a reference to the last (and only) time England won the World Cup, in 1966.

The argument we've been having with the fans is, 'If you want to go to Germany and all you want to do is sing "The Dam Busters" and "Ten German Bombers" and the rest of it, then don't be surprised if you're not the most welcome guest at the party.

Ah, you have to love the English.