Internal Monologue

Stick your hand in a blender, then denounce the blades as terrorists.

Call me a privileged elitist, but barring a drastic change in my financial situation I will never send my child to a school where he or she has to deal with this kind of shit : A school in New York is having problems because their absolute “no bag” policy is a bit anti-female, surprise surprise . As any woman reading this is immediately thinking, the problem with not letting students carry even small bags to school is that female students have a very real need to carry pads and tampons. The danger of bleeding through your pants is statistically much higher than the danger that you’re going to turn out to be a school shooter, but that fact didn’t give the assholes who passed this policy pause. Realizing that it’s a bit problematic to leave female students bleeding from between their legs with no way to plug it up, the school has tried to compensate by allowing students who are currently on their period to bring small bags to school during their period, but no other time. Anyone who wa...

Unfortunately, a lot of Americans think we live in a theocracy , too: Q: A recent poll found that 55 percent of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation. What do you think? A: I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation. But I say that in the broadest sense. The lady that holds her lamp beside the golden door doesn't say, "I only welcome Christians." We welcome the poor, the tired, the huddled masses. But when they come here they know that they are in a nation founded on Christian principles. georgia10 on DailyKos at the link above does us the courtesy of reprinting Article VI of the Constitution: The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but ...

The US Dollar seems to be imploding . The Canadian dollar is now basically even with the US Dollar, which is a very new phenomenon. I don't know what the implications of this are other than the obvious: other nation's stuff is more expensive to us, our stuff is cheaper for them. That's what happens when you have a big trade deficit and big budget deficits for a long time, I guess.

Regular Internal Monologue commenter Mad Latinist (aka Justin Mansfield) gets a mention in this Wall Street Journal article about the Latin Wikipedia, Vicipaedia Latina : Most of the work among the editors is collegial, though now and then debates break out. One involved the proper neologism for "computer." Vicipaedia calls it a computatrum , despite the vehement opposition of editor Justin Mansfield, who says the word is just bad Latin. "You can't use ' trum ' at will to make new words," insists Mr. Mansfield, also a classics grad student. " 'Trum' actually fell out of use around the time of the Punic Wars. It's like 'th' in English. You can say 'warmth,' but you can't say 'coolth.' " Mr. Mansfield lobbied for computatorium but was outvoted. He prevailed, though, with "particle accelerators," the atom smashers used by physicists, which, per his suggestion, are known on Vicipaedia as part...

This is pretty funny. As readers of this blog know, the Unitarian Universalists in the Bay Area have recently launched an ad campaignm. Some of the ads f eature me and my family . (I just saw one of the posters with me on it in the El Cerrito Plaza BART station.) But of course, it's not just BART stations: there are TV commercials , NPR sponsorships, and, this being 2007, blog ads. Including this one I just saw: Congratulations to whoever wrote the Google Adsense placement algorithm. (Though you have to balance this against all the times AdSense thought my readers would be interested in Ann Coulter books.) Unfortunately for the UU campaign, I think my readers have already heard quite a bit about Unitarian Universalism. So although this blog's readership is probably a good target demographically, I bet this ad would do better in front of people who've not yet heard of UUism. Any potentially interested IM reader has probably heard me jabber about it enough anyway.

This Douglas Hofstadter-esque little video demonstrates how to write a fugue using a theme from "Oops, I did it again".

(Apologies to those for whom a lot of this is redundant, but many of my readers aren't regulars at the major blogs, and rely on IM to keep them posted.) Bill O'Reilly makes some shockingly daffy comments about how eating at a predominantly black restaurant in Harlem is surprisingly like eating in any other restaurant. This is yet another instance of making Jon Stewart's job too easy . Those Republicans trying to trick California into splitting its electoral votes by congressional district (absent equivalent action by red states) have apparently given up . Kudos to all those who fought this. Rush Limbaugh calls a bunch of American troops in Iraq " phony soldiers ". We're waiting for Senate resolutions condemning his behavior. UPDATE: Well, there's a House resolution . Now that I think about it, I don't think the House should be criticizing Limbaugh either, annoying as he is. Why don't they actually end the war, or at least give our troops sufficient...

Bill Clinton calls Republicans on their bullshit hypocritical outrage over MoveOn.org's ad.

(It's also a much slicker implementation of Flash than the pitiful exercises I've done so far.)

OK, I can now create a primitive animation . And even embed it in my blog:

According to this front page NYT article , apparently some towns are deciding that price is too high: RIVERSIDE, N.J., Sept. 25 — A little more than a year ago, the Township Committee in this faded factory town became the first municipality in New Jersey to enact legislation penalizing anyone who employed or rented to an illegal immigrant. Within months, hundreds, if not thousands, of recent immigrants from Brazil and other Latin American countries had fled. The noise, crowding and traffic that had accompanied their arrival over the past decade abated. The law had worked. Perhaps, some said, too well. With the departure of so many people, the local economy suffered. Hair salons, restaurants and corner shops that catered to the immigrants saw business plummet; several closed. Once-boarded-up storefronts downtown were boarded up again. There are a lot of academic studies on the impact of immigrants, legal and illegal, on a community. But nothing illustrates the impact of people as stark...

Listen to the Columbia audience laugh at Ahmadinejad when he claims there are no homosexuals in Iran. (HT: Sullivan . And no Andrew, you're not the only one who finds that laughter inspiring.)

Quinn & Zac at the Oakland Zoo on Quinn's 1st birthday. (The date stamp on the picture is wrong; it was taken 9/21/07) The pics are up on our family album. Thanks, Sarah! On his birthday, we went to the zoo. We were surprised at how indifferent Quinn was to many of the animals. We were much more into them than he was. There was a lizard that really caught his attention though. The next day (yesterday) we had a big party here. You can see pictures of both at the link above.

Dude, I just noticed that 3 people have registered to vote via my blog! That is awesome and makes me feel not useless. If even one of those people might not have otherwise registered, that will be more civic good than I've done in quite some time. Even if I just made it easier or more convenient for someone who would still have registered anyway, I consider that a worthwhile contribution to our nation's civic life. Even if they end up voting Republican, as foolish and immoral as that is, it's important that people be involved in politics. The more people are paying attention, the less crap politicians will try to get away with.

By the way, I'm no longer giving money to the Democratic party or most individual Democratic candidates. (I'll make an exception for those like Pete Stark (D-CA) who don't shit on the party's activist base.) I'm only giving to activist groups that actually fight for what I believe in. The last several months have been mostly a disappointment, as far as what Democrats have done. I know the Democrats have narrow majorities and limited ability to deal with the Bush administration. But they haven't even been using the weapons they do have (subpoena power, the power of the purse, etc.). I understand it's very hard for a politician to fight for something unpopular. But we're not asking you to do that . We are asking you to stop an incredibly unpopular war and to oppose a president and Republican party whose poll ratings are wallowing in the gutter, and have been for some time. There's really no excuse for weaseling out of that. So Democrats, if you want my...

I've been hearing more and more about how it's on the way . I think think governmental and individual action are both necessary. But of course at this critical time we have Bush in office.

MoveOn.org has managed to raise 1.5 million dollars so far in response to getting condemned by the US Senate. I wonder how much it would cost in lobbyist fees to get a "Sense of the Senate" amendment condemning Internal Monologue . My Google AdSense revenue would go through the roof! ( Atrios wondered something similar.)

I got 57 out of 60 on this quiz about American civics (HT: rubber hose ). I missed questions on the effect of the Federal Reserve purchasing bonds, what just-war theory requires for a just war, and how incomes by class have changed over the past 40 years. You'll have to wait for Quinn pictures. Sorry.

My son Quinn is 1 year old today. Pictures coming later tonight...

Slacktivist makes a great point about Petraeus' testimony before congress: But set aside the facts and their bias against Petraeus' testimony -- his argument simply makes no sense. One could argue that the surge was not working, and therefore ought to be ended. Or one could argue that the surge is working, and therefore ought to be continued. But to argue, as both Gen. Petraeus and President Bush did, that it is working and therefore must be stopped is just bizarre. The general and the president both came across like something out of Lewis Carroll. [...] Which brings us to the bullshit. President Bush knew that the surge, whether or not it accomplished anything, was scheduled to end by next April. Gen. Petraeus knew this. All of the members of the House and Senate committees before which the general testified knew this. All of the media pundits offering color commentary from the wings knew this. Everybody knew this. Yet Gen. Petraeus and President Bush decided to pretend t...

If you order $100 worth of stuff from Macy*s regular website, you get free shipping. But if you are on their wedding registry site, you have to order $125 worth of stuff to get free shipping. Evil! But apparently the gift box on the non-wedding website costs a dollar more than on the wedding site. Weird.

OK, here's Chuck Hegel (R-Nebraska) criticizing Petraeus' testimony : Maher: Isn’t a dirty trick on the American people when you send a military man out there to basically do a political sell-job?” Hagel: It’s not only a dirty trick, but it’s dishonest, it’s hypocritical, it’s dangerous and irresponsible. The fact is this is not Petraeus’ policy, it’s the Bush’s policy. The military is — certainly very clear in the Constitution — is subservient to the elected public officials of this country.. but to put our military in a position that this administration has put them in is just wrong, and it’s dangerous.” (Emphasis from Crooks and Liars ) Very good, Senator Hegel. But if you can call what Petraeus was doing dishonest, hypocritical, dangerous, and irresponsible, why did you vote to condemn MoveOn.org for saying something very similar? I guess the filthy masses shouldn't be allowed to express their opinions, even if they are the correct ones . Even Wes Clark seems to ...

From Firedoglake : “I commend MoveOn for their ad and for speaking truth to power,” said Stark. “Up is not down, the earth is not flat, and the surge is not working. General Petreaus betrayed his own reputation by standing with George Bush in opposition to the timely withdrawal of all of our brave men and women from Iraq. I thank MoveOn for their patriotic ad and call on Petreaus to help Bush end a war the President should have never started.” – California Congressman Pete Stark If you want to tell the Senate to lay off MoveOn.org, you can sign MoveOn.org's petition here.

The Senate recently voted 75-24 to pass an amendment condemning MoveOn.org (of which I am a PROUD member) for running this ad calling out General Petraeus for the pro-occupation shill that he has been: (click image for .pdf) Here's the text of the ad: General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before the election, he said there was “tangible progress” in Iraq and that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward.” And last week Petraeus, the architect of the escalation of troops in Iraq, said, “We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress.” Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed. Yet the General claims a reduction in violence. That’s because, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. For example, deaths by car bombs don’t count. The Washington Post reported that a...

The next exercise in my Flash CS3 self-teaching regimen is this little text-based Gen Con simulator . I think those of you who have been there or heard me talk about might enjoy this little romp through game geek culture. It requires a Flash plug-in, which your browser probably already has. Pretty soon I'll actually learn how to animate things... Update: The game can also be found here if my Yahoo! GeoCities bandwidth quota gets used up and you can't access the game from the links above.

Contra Costa Times (registration required): Seventeen Bay Area Unitarian Universalist congregations have launched a $300,000 marketing campaign financed by 600 member donors. Its theme: "Imagine A Religion." TV, radio and print spots designed by gUUrilla marketing began airing this week on Comedy Central, The Daily Show and A Prairie Home Companion About 500 signs are going up in BART stations. Mainstream publications and specialty magazines serving Spanish-speaking or gay and lesbian readers will carry ads. The campaign also features sequential billboards, based on the old Burma-Shave ads, meant for passing motorists to read. "Imagine a religion that embraces many different beliefs ... including yours," reads a magazine ad that pictures a middle-aged gay male couple, a young African-American man, a mother holding a young child and a mixed-race family . Emphasis added. Guess who that mixed-race family is? Us ! Of course, I'm a mixed-race family even when ...

Take this fun erotic personality quiz (HT: punkythecat [NOT WORK SAFE EITHER]). I did, and it was fun and seemed accurate. I'll spare my readers my results. (Punkythecat is not so shy.)

This news a few days old I know. But I like what Majikthise has to say: It will be interesting to see how this one plays out. Blackwater has a $300 million contract to provide security to the State Department alone. I doubt they're going anywhere. It's delicious to think that in order to keep Blackwater, the U.S. will be forced to abandon the pretext that Iraq is an independent state. I don't know if "delicious" is the word I'd use, but I am interested in how the administration resolves its split personality disorder on Iraq. One the one hand, there's this pretense that Iraq is a sovereign nation, that we're helping them get on their feet and we'll "stand down as they stand up", etc. But then there's the reality of the permanent military bases, the largest embassy/fortress complex on the planet, the withdrawal that always gets pushed off another six months, etc. This Blackwater incident will be indicative of which reality is the more...

It's the fish wars all over again, except this time with book cover designs and titles: I'm not sure how much this is advancing the debate, but then it seems pretty futile to attempt to do so. It's amazing how people can come to believe very different things.

My wife filed her dissertation this morning, and she has the lollipop they give you to prove it. Congratulations, Dr. Taylor! w00t !

Warning: the details of this are pretty stomach churning : A federal prosecutor was charged yesterday with flying across the country to have sex with a little girl. Our cousins at Detroit Free Press quote police who say John David Roy Atchison, 53, arrived at the airport in Detroit "with a Dora the Explorer doll, hoop earrings and petroleum jelly for a 5-year-old he planned to have sex with" following a series of online conversations with an undercover investigator. "Atchison reassured the sheriff's deputy who was posing as the child's mother that he would not hurt the 5-year-old because he goes 'slow and easy,' and 'I've done it plenty,'" The Detroit News reports. This Kos diary claims the suspect is a Republican, but we all know that federal prosecutors are non-partisan, right?

The New York Times has apparently decided to climb out from behind its subscription wall . Sullivan : The NYT reverses one of the dumbest moves in the history of online journalism. This is not the benefit of hindsight. It was obvious at the time that this kind of gambit would never work for online opinion, and anyone with a pulse and a modem could see that, including many of the columnists themselves. In some ways, it was less a business decision, it seems to me, than a sheer assertion, by slightly desperate men, that somehow Times opiners merited a fee in a way no one else did - least of all those - shudder - bloggers. Two years ago, they could still assert that with a straight face, even if the rest of us were snickering. No longer. The NYT has some great columnists and some unreadable ones. But they are not a class apart. They are merely part of a much larger and better conversation than any Sulzberger could ever own. Welcome to the blogosphere, guys. It's free .

This Michael Kinsley article taught me a great deal about how federally subsidized student loans work. Basically there are two kinds: one where the government gets banks to lend money to students by guaranteeing the loan and paying some or all of the 7-8% interest, and another where the government lends directly to students, and can borrow money to do so at 3-4% interest. Why would the government pay more money so that banks can do the lending rather than the government? Because those banks have been very cozy with Republicans (and are now getting cozy with Democrats now that they control Congress). This seems to be another example of how Republicans screech with outrage when the government spends money to help people, but cheer with glee when the government spends ten times as much money to help a large corporation. Blank checks for war, miserly penny-pinching for health care and education. Not a good way to maintain an economically competitive nation in the 21st century, in my opini...

From Time : (BEIJING) — A man in southern China appears to have died of exhaustion after a three-day Internet gaming binge, state media said Monday. The 30-year-old man fainted at a cybercafe in the city of Guangzhou on Saturday afternoon after he had been playing games online for three days, the Beijing News reported. Paramedics tried to revive him but failed and he was declared dead at the cafe, it said. The paper said that he may have died from exhaustion brought on by too many hours on the Internet. The report did not say what the man, whose name was not given, was playing. Aw, c'mon! The only thing anyone wants to know is which game it was. Some reporter wasn't on the ball. Marketing departments of computer game companies everywhere are waiting with baited breath: which game was so great someone actually died rather than stop playing? Humor aside, I suspect the cause of this addictive behavior will be found as much in the psychology of the person afflicted ...

How much comedy can you pack into your Emmy nomination clip, which must include reading a long, boring list of writers? I think they do a pretty good job.

Iceland has announced it will withdraw its one guy from Iraq. Here's the story, via Heraldblog: Foreign Minister Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir has decided to remove an Icelandic Crisis Response Unit (ICRU) member from a NATO training program for the Iraqi army in Baghdad next month, causing disappointment among NATO leaders. The ICRU member has been working in Baghdad for the last two years, primarily as a media representative, and will cease working there October 1, Morgunbladid reports. John Craddock, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe for NATO and the US European Command, said at a press conference in Iceland yesterday that Iceland is an important and active NATO member and that he was disappointed with Gísladóttir’s decision. I'm glad they're not giving even fig-leaf appearance of participating in this disaster. Every country that has even one person there enables Bush to tout how many nations are participating in this disaster. Most people aren't fooled, as they k...

Via Sullivan : Economics professors have a standard game they use to demonstrate how apparently rational decisions can create a disastrous result. They call it a "dollar auction." The rules are simple. The professor offers a dollar for sale to the highest bidder, with only one wrinkle: the second-highest bidder has to pay up on their losing bid as well. Several students almost always get sucked in. The first bids a penny, looking to make 99 cents. The second bids 2 cents, the third 3 cents, and so on, each feeling they have a chance at something good on the cheap. The early stages are fun, and the bidders wonder what possessed the professor to be willing to lose some money. The problem surfaces when the bidders get up close to a dollar. After 99 cents the last vestige of profitability disappears, but the bidding continues between the two highest players. They now realize that they stand to lose no matter what, but that they can still buffer their losses by ...

Ian Welsh at Firedoglake isn't buying Greenspan's after-the-fact criticism of Bush policies: For him, now, to say that he somehow didn’t mean it, or that he was, behind the scenes, urging caution, or that he was hoodwinked, is sophistry of the most pathetic kind. He was not economically naive. He had the skills not to be taken in. If he was taken in, he was taken in because he wanted to be taken in. And right up to 2004 he can be seen, having not learned his lesson, even as Bush had vetoed no spending bills at all, still using his reputation to try and help push through Bush administration policies. There have been a lot of people writing books and articles of late, in which they throw Bush over the bus in an attempt to save their reputation. (Colin Powell, are you listening?) In almost every case, they did nothing when they had the power; had the influence; had the opportunity to actually made a difference. Greenspan is nothing but another rat fleeing the sinking S.S. Bush ...

This is pretty funny. From Feministing : Apparently this made CNNMoney.com's list of 101 Dumbest Moments in Business 2003 : Shortly after Mattel releases its Nimbus 2000 broom as part of its line of Harry Potter toys, the vibrating device begins getting the wrong sort of customer raves. "I'm 32 and enjoy riding the broom as much as my 7-year-old," says one enthusiastic mother on Amazon. "My only complaint is, I wish the batteries didn't run out quite so quickly." Mattel stops making the toy, but denies that the unintended value-add is the reason. Says a spokesperson: "It's just not a continued product in our line." I don't see what was dumb about it. It seems to me the dumb move was stopping production. A Harry Potter quidditch broom seems like the perfect "cover" for selling a sex toy. The company has plausible deniability to keep the prudes at bay. And the sales roll in. What could be better? Heck, why doesn't Rowling l...

I just got an email from Wes Clark that he's endorsing Hillary Clinton for president . I'm not sure what I think of this. Obviously, it means Wes Clark isn't running. But what do I think of his Clinton endorsement? I want someone firmly anti-occupation, firmly progressive, and more people-powered than establishment powered. I don't think Clinton fits the bill. Obama, Edwards, Dodd, Richardson, Gravel, and Kucinich have offered pieces of what I'm looking for in a candidate. But none of them have broken out of the pack for me. Of course I'll support Clinton if she's the nominee. But I do hope that as the public starts paying more attention to the nomination process, the Iraq occupation issue will bring another candidate to the fore. I wonder if Clark is getting anything in return for this early endorsement. Secretary of Defense or something? VP? Who knows. Maybe he thinks she's the right person for the job. UPDATE: Over at MyDD, Jerome Armstrong is thinki...

Duke and Earl, the evil lobbyist father-son team in Doonesbury , have some great advice for Senator Craig .

There seems to be a pattern: Upon leaving the Bush administration, a Republican stooge voices trenchant criticisms of that administration completely at odds with their previous water-carrying behavior. It makes one wonder why the hell they didn't do anything when they were in a position to do so. Colin Powell is the prime example of this, but Alan Greenspan seems to have joined the ranks . Why didn't he come out against Republican fiscal recklessness when he was Chair of the frickin' Federal Reserve? I seem to recall him giving his stamp of approval to Bush' giveaway to the rich, despite the fact that the deficit was growing and we were fighting two wars. (We still are, by the way. How's Afghanistan going? Not so well I hear.) Update: Hey, Sullivan agrees with me: I await the right-wing blogosphere's description of Alan Greenspan as a convert to leftism because he has recognized the fiscal policies of Bush and Cheney for what they are and were. The arguments m...

This is one of those anonymous quotes, so take it with the requisite sprinkling of NaCl crystals. Here's Time magazine: But Bush's trumpeting of what he called a "return on success" could end up backfiring. Bringing the war into America's living rooms is never a safe political bet. And if news of a slow drawdown may be popular, Bush himself still is not. Some key Hill Republicans, in fact, were upset that he returned front and center on the issue at a time when the White House had so carefully ceded the selling of the surge to Petraeus and Crocker. "Why would he threaten the momentum we have?" says one frustrated Capitol Hill Republican strategist with ties to the G.O.P. leadership. "You have an unpopular President going onto prime time television, interrupting Americans' TV programs, to remind them of why they don't like him." Devilstower on DailyKos comments: Bush did more than remind the American people that this is his war, and t...

Quinn's upper front right incisor has arrived! As always, you can get your fill of Quinn pictures from our family album .

Central Kings Rural High School students David Shepherd and Travis Price bought 75 pink tank tops and other pink items for students to wear after a new student at the school was bullied for wearing a pink shirt. (IAN FAIRCLOUGH / Valley Bureau) Image and caption from Nova Scotia News Some students in Nova Scotia decided that they'd had enough of bullying : Two students at Central Kings Rural High School fought back against bullying recently, unleashing a sea of pink after a new student was harassed and threatened when he showed up wearing a pink shirt. The Grade 9 student arrived for the first day of school last Wednesday and was set upon by a group of six to 10 older students who mocked him, called him a homosexual for wearing pink and threatened to beat him up. The next day, Grade 12 students David Shepherd and Travis Price decided something had to be done about bullying. "It’s my last year. I’ve stood around too long and I wanted to do something," said David. They ...

Quinn and his friend Kieran, from back in July. ARRR! They are baby/toddler pirates!

According to this poll , enough people have changed their minds about Lieberman (CT-CT for Lieberman) that if the election were held today, Ned Lamont (Real D) would win. Lieberman claimed he wanted to end the war during the campaign season, but has since reverted to being leading pro-escalation, pro-occupation voice. Note: the poll was paid for by DailyKos, which has had it in for Lieberman for a long time. But the results aren't particularly surprising: CT is a pretty blue state, so it's to be expected that it's pretty anti-occupation. So no one should be too surprised if CT voters are now annoyed with Lieberman.

Here it is. I of course followed the long and noble tradition for what the first program you write in a new language should do . UPDATE: OK, here's another one. It's called " Relationship Game ". This one has buttons . Notice the different colors when you hover over the button and when you press the button. Cool, huh? Cut me some slack, I've been working with Flash for like only a few hours! (Please note that this is not to be construed as a comment on any current relationships I might be in. A "married to Sarah game" wouldn't be any fun to play because it would just have a "She's wonderful; you're happy" screen and no action. Drama requires conflict.)

Here's another bit of info that supports my "fish out of water" thesis, i.e. that human beings and our instincts are not designed to handle the modern world. It turns out that human empathy is good for getting you to care about the suffering of one person, but the greater the number of people who are suffering, the less empathic we feel : In one recent experiment, Slovic presented subjects with a picture of "Rokia," a starving child in Mali, and asked them how much they'd be willing to give to help feed her. Then he showed a different group photos of two Malinese children -- "Rokia and Moussa." The group presented with two kids gave 15 percent less than those shown just one child. In a related experiment, people were asked to donate money to help a dying child. When a second set of subjects was asked to donate to a group of eight children dying of the same cause, the average donation was 50 percent lower. (HT: Sullivan ) The column then goes on to ...

Here's how it might be advertised (from DailyKos ): (Subjunctive correction courtesy of my wife.)

John Stewart takes on Petraeus and the media lionization he has received. Much needed. Wait to the end of the segment to see the M. C. Escher Iraq drawing: no matter which stair you take, you're still in Iraq!

Think Progress quotes IPS News , whose story opens: WASHINGTON, Sep 12 (IPS) - In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting. Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior. That extraordinarily contentious start of Fallon's mission to Baghdad led to more meetings marked by acute tension between the two commanders. Fallon went on develop his own alternative to Petraeus's recommendation for continued high le...

Here's video of Petraeus saying he doesn't know if fulfilling our objectives in Iraq will make America safer or not. He later tried to walk back from that statement. But I like Sullivan's take on it: But it was a genuine gaffe - the truth blurted out by a general who could not help himself. This exchange may be - and certainly should be - the turning point of the Iraq debate. Wars that make us less secure are not wise endeavors. In fact, this week has been unexpectedly revealing, it seems to me, of the rapidly rising stakes now involved. Unfortunately, there are many things that should have been the turning point of the Iraq debate, but they never were. This administration isn't interested in debates. To them the truth isn't something you have to have a debate to get at. They're convinced they know the truth a priori . So many times, sane people in this country have seized upon some statement or incident or scandal and thought, "At last! This will bring p...

As they would say in Apollo 13 , Houston, we have a problem. According to this recent poll , Osama bin Laden has a 46% approval rating in Pakistan (officially an ally in the struggle against bin Laden and his ilk). This approval rating increases to 70% in the northwestern province where it is possible bin Laden is hiding. No wonder we can't find him. He can just ask any random dude he runs into for help and has darn good odds of getting a friendly reaction. George Bush has a 9% approval rating in Pakistan. Our president has managed to lose a popularity contest with a mass murderer, and lose badly. Of course if you tally civilian deaths from our invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, then I suspect bin Laden has a lot of catching up to do in the killing innocent people department. Could that have something to do with why people around the world don't like us much these days? I sort of see these approval numbers as the current score in the struggle against Islamist te...

Here's a tiny quote from a New York Times article (about Britain and Ireland being able to keep using pints) that made my blood boil: ...the United States, one of three countries, including Liberia and Myanmar, that have not officially adopted the metric system. What glorious company we keep these days. The metric system will never feel as comfortable and natural to us who grew up with inches and ounces, but there's no reason the next generation has to feel such awkwardness. Comfort with the metric system would be a great gift to pass on to our children. Given the crap we're handing off to them in other areas (climate change, national debt, etc.) it's the least we can do.

It's stuff like this that makes me deeply ashamed of the current administration. We owe so much to the Iraqis. Taking in a decent number of refugees seems like a bare minimum for decent behavior. Syria and Jordan have had to deal with hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees. Maybe we could end our occupation, and spend a tiny fraction of that money resettling Iraqis here. We owe a special debt to Iraqis who worked for us and now face retaliation for their association with the United States.

Here's a PDF of General Patraeus' 1987 Princeton PhD dissertation . (HT: HNN via Sullivan ) What's it called? The American military and the lessons of Vietnam: A study of military influence and the use of force in the post-Vietnam era Hmm, sounds like it may have some relevance to Patraeus' current job. Let's see what's inside... Soldiers are often less hawkish than civilians when it comes to advocating the use of military force...yes how prescient. OK I'm not going to read all 343 pages of the PDF. Here's the quote everyone's bandying about: "The Vietnam experience left the military leadership feeling that they should advise against involvement in counterinsurgencies unless specific, perhaps unlikely, circumstances obtain -- i.e. domestic public support, the promise of a quick campaign, and freedom to employ whatever force is necessary to achieve rapid victory. In light of such criteria, committing U.S. units to counterinsurgencies appears to ...

When this ad appeared on my blog, I did a double-take: My first thought was: I don't think enough prominent Republicans read my blog to make advertising prostitutes here an optimal choice. And if you're getting them for " Unfortunately, my agreement with Google AdSense prevented me from clicking on my own ads to investigate them, lest I try to game the click-through counters to inflate my ad revenue. But upon further inspection it's clear that this is an ad for a jewelry rental service. Why Google AdSense's algorithm thinks Internal Monologue readers would be interested in "surging" their bling I have no idea. Fo' shizzle yall are already pimped out.

I suppose it would be remiss of me not to comment on the Patraeus testimony that happened today. I actually caught some of the hearing on NPR. I was listening to a female Republican representative (I didn't get her name) and I was flabbergasted at the gulf between her reality and mine. In her view, any questioning of Patraeus' objectivity was tantamount to anti-Americanism. She's clearly fallen into the "let your enemies pick the battlefield" trap as evidenced by her quoting jihadists who say that driving the US out of Iraq is one of their primary goals. (Never mind that it's also a goal of the majority of American people and the majority of Iraqi people.) Then there was Patraeus' testimony. He sounded so wise, so assured, so reasonable. But I have now idea how he's coming to the conclusion that we should stay there longer. (Well actually I do: that's the conclusion he's supposed to come to.) Here's a roundup of some of the evidence that co...

Is it because of our amazing professional accomplishments? Our brilliant minds? Our humble demeanors? No! It's because we are poster children for the Bay Area Unitarian Universalist advertising campaign! Check out this poster, soon to be appearing in BART stations: What a nice looking nuclear family we are! You can click on the image to get a larger version. Or go to uuba.org to see us in the little banner at the top (but it's the same picture, and smaller). Or go there to actually learn about Unitarian Universalism. The Bay Area UU churches decided to get together to do this marketing campaign because we were tired of people coming to our churches/fellowships and saying "Gosh, if we'd known a church like this existed, we'd have shown up a lot sooner!" While I suspect Unitarian Universalism will never be a mass movement (too intellectual, too willing to say "we're not really sure" or "well, UU's disagree on that" in response to the...

Nah nah nah boo boo! We got our Iowa gay marriage license! The rest of you were too slow! Actually, I bet the couple wishes others could follow in their footsteps. Photo by Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press and stolen from the NYT . When you're gay and gotta get married RIGHT NOW before the judge issues a stay prohibiting further gay marriages, count on the Unitarians to come through : DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Same-sex marriage was legal here for less than 24 hours before the county won a stay of a judge's order on Friday, a tiny window of opportunity that allowed two men to make history but left dozens of other couples disappointed after a frantic rush to the altar. At 2 p.m. Thursday, Judge Robert Hanson ordered Polk County officials to accept marriage license requests from same-sex couples, but he granted the stay at about 12:30 p.m. Friday. By then 27 same-sex couples had filed applications, but only Sean Fritz and Tim McQuillan of Ames had made it official by getting mar...