Don’t forget, if you want to join in a general-purpose snarkfest during the debate tonight, tune your IRC client to irc.freednode.net and join #johodebate. (Details here.)

2 Comments »

I missed Vietnam by virtue of the quirky granting of conscientious objector status, but reading Britt is like remembering what I never lived through. His review of Going Upriver within our political context and his Vietnam experience is reality-based and remarkable.

Be the first to comment »

I enjoyed chatting with a bunch of you during the previous debate. So, let’s do it again. I’ll set up a channel at irc.freenode.net called johodebate, starting around 8:45pm (Boston time). You’re all invited

If your chat software works the way mine (HydraIRC) does, you go to File -> Connect, and then click on Freenode as your server. Beneath that you should see irc.freenode.net. Click on that one. Once the window opens indicating that you’re connected, in the type-in field at the bottom, type “/join #johodebate” except without the quotes.

Play nice. No trolling. And I get to decide who to kick.

12 Comments »

I don’t know much about country music, so I can’t tell if this song is any good, but I like the idea of it…

And here’s a one-minute remix of Bush’s performance at the first debate. The remix is called “Hard Working George.” (Thanks, Mike O’Dell for the first link and John Driscoll, for the second.)

8 Comments »

Kerry says that we need to do everything we can so we can return to a time when terrorism is merely a nuisance. Bush says that Kerry thinks terrorism is merely a nuisance. Both quotes are getting play on the media. So, will this be the time when Kerry says, “Are you so unconstrained by truth and decency that you will say anything to get re-elected” … and America listens?

Kerry says we need to return to a time when terrorism is merely a nuisance. Bush says we’re going to win the war against terrorism. Is this the time that Kerry says, “We will hunt down and kill every terrorist we can find, but the day you, Mr. President, stand on an aircraft carrier and declare ‘Mission Accomplished’ in the war against terrorism is the day you let down America’s guard” … and America listens?

The UN International Atomic Energy Agency reports that nuclear materials have vanished from Iraq:

The U.S. government prevented U.N. weapons inspectors from returning to Iraq — thereby blocking the IAEA from monitoring the high-tech equipment and materials — after the U.S.-led war was launched in March 2003.

Yup, we had the foresight to guard the Oil Ministry but not the nuclear materials. It makes me sick to my stomach.

1 Comment »

I’m in SF for half a day to keynote an e-learning conference. Since I’m in a hotel room, the TV is on. I’m watching a rerun of Sunday’s Meet the Press featuring the two candidates for Senate from Colorado, Ken Salazar (D) and Pete Coors (R). Man, it makes me glad I’m from Massachusetts. Based on this joint interview, they are a sorry pair.

(Here’s The Advocate‘s coverage of the show.)

2 Comments »

Outlandish Josh reports that Viacom is refusing to run ads (see one here) from Compare, Decide, Vote that compare Kerry and Bush on some Youth-Oriented Issues and find Bush wanting. Viacom has not said why they’ve rejected the ad. Sumner Redstone, the owner of Viacom, is a Bush supporter.

Be the first to comment »

From Friday’s debate:

MICHAELSON: Mr. President, if there were a vacancy in the Supreme Court and you had the opportunity to fill that position today, who would you choose and why?

BUSH [pleasantries snipped]: I would pick somebody who would not allow their personal opinion to get in the way of the law. I would pick somebody who would strictly interpret the Constitution of the United States.

Let me give you a couple of examples, I guess, of the kind of person I wouldn’t pick.

I wouldn’t pick a judge who said that the Pledge of Allegiance couldn’t be said in a school because it had the words “under God” in it. I think that’s an example of a judge allowing personal opinion to enter into the decision-making process as opposed to a strict interpretation of the Constitution.

Another example would be the Dred Scott case, which is where judges, years ago, said that the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights.

That’s a personal opinion. That’s not what the Constitution says. The Constitution of the United States says we’re all — you know, it doesn’t say that. It doesn’t speak to the equality of America.

And so, I would pick people that would be strict constructionists. We’ve got plenty of lawmakers in Washington, D.C. Legislators make law; judges interpret the Constitution.

Clearly, Bush considers the Dred Scott case to be a bad decision by an activist judge who is not a strict constructivist. Actually, the case wasn’t about whether slavery was legal; that was not only taken for granted, it was written in the Constitution. The case was actually about whether slaves had enough standing to sue in a federal court. Chief Justice Taney said not only didn’t they have the standing, but the Missouri Compromise unconstitutionally violated the right of property owners to transport their property — whether it’s a chair or a slave — anywhere they wanted. Scott’s legal owner could not be denied his rights as a property owner, Taney wrote, basing his opinion on the Fifth Amendment’s promise of due process. This is from Taney’s decision:

…Thus the rights of property are united with the rights of person and placed on the same ground by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, and property without due process of law. And an act of Congress which deprives a citizen of the United States of his liberty or property, without due process of law, merely because he came himself or brought his property into a particular territory of the United States, and who had committed no offense against the laws, could hardly be dignified with the name of due process of law…

Note that in this passage, the person being deprived of property is not Scott but Scott’s owner. That Taney didn’t need to explain that shows just how embedded was the Blacks-as-property “frame.”

Then we get this mind-twister of a sentence from Bush:

That’s a personal opinion. That’s not what the Constitution says. The Constitution of the United States says we’re all — you know, it doesn’t say that. It doesn’t speak to the equality of America

Here’s what I think happened in Bush’s brain:

Dred Scott= slavery ok. Dred Scott decision bad.

US Constitution says “All men created equal.”

ALARM! ALARM! ALARM! Is that in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence? ABORT THE SENTENCE! ABORT!

Go for safety: “It [the Constitution] doesn’t say that.”

Ditch the entire thing. Go back to “Dred Scott bad”: “It [Dred Scott decision] doesn’t speak to the equality of America.”

Taney was an activist in that he could have ruled narrowly on whether Scott had standing to bring suit. Instead, he ruled on the issue that Scott was raising, in effect saying, “No, you can’t sue, but we’re ruling against you anyway.” That’s not a very good example of what it means to be an activist judge. Worse for Bush, Taney’s decision was based on a narrow, literal and strict construction of the Constitution’s meaning.

Anyway, I, like all Americans, was impressed that this shard of 8th grade American History class had remained lodged in Bush’s brain.

Paperwight adds another dimension when he points out that the anti-abortion movement often thinks of itself as modern-day abolitionism. To them, Dred Scott is to slavery what Roe v. Wade is to abortion rights.

3 Comments »

Geodog, in a comment, points to Cryptome‘s investigation of the Unidentified Rectangular Object under Bush’s jacket during the first debate. Not only does he conclude it was probably a receiver, he has photos of possible devices and lists the frequencies that could be used to provide one’s own commentary direct to the presidential tympanum. Cryptome also links to a site with 28 photos that make it pretty clear that the appearance of a URO is not due to, say, a solar flare.

Now the NY Times has noticed, so it’s an Official Item.

6 Comments »

About 10-15 of us had a grand ol’ time in a chat room during the debates. Frankly, we were much more entertaining than the candidates.

I’ll set up another chat room next Wednesday for the final debate before the apocalypse. See you then?

7 Comments »