"Dear, sweet, baby Jesus"

"Please give me the strength to drop a couple of nukes on the ragheads in Syria.Amen."

Who elected this guy and what kind of churchpeople cheer the death of millions? Suncreek United Methodist, that's who! Their motto:


CELEBRATING FAITH

BUILDING COMMUNITY

SERVING THE WORLD

BOMBING SYRIA

I'm gonna beat that horse again

Lawyers, Guns & Money has a thought-provoking post today on the meaning of state sovereignty as defined by the Bush Administration. The post starts with the following astonishing quote pulled from the Canadian newspaper, the Globe & Mail:

"We simply cannot understand why Canada would in effect give up its sovereignty – its seat at the table – to decide what to do about a missile that might be coming towards Canada."

This quote comes from our Ambassador to Canada, Paul Celucci, in response to a decision by the Canadian government's decision to end participation in Pres. Bush's missile defense program.

On its face, it's an amazing proposition: by flexing its sovereignty and refusing to partake in another Bush boondoggle, the Canadians are actually giving up sovereignty. As Robert Farley at LGM describes it, in light of this Administration's interpretation of international law, Celluci is basically articulating the point that "nation-states hold sovereignty by virtue of their willingness to go along with US policy."

I could pretend to be astounded by this pronouncement, but I'm not. For the last four years, we've been hearing similar sentiments on the domestic front from Bush's minions in the Republican party. According to these folks, Americans can only assert their patriotism by supporting the Bush party line. In other words, there is only one conceivable choice for people to make, whatever the Administration says is the proper choice. And, as plenty of folks on the right regularly assert, if you don't support that choice, you should lose your right to be heard if not your liberty. Is it that much of a stretch to start applying this same logic to states?

Read this now

A fascinating book review in the New York Review of Books by Brian Urquhart. I think I'm going to have fork over the $30 for the book itself. Yeesh.

Fun with sourdough!!!

On Tuesday I started my first successful sourdough starter. Yesterday, I used it to make a pre-loaf sponge. Today, success! I just pulled two nicely-shaped, crispy, crusty sourdoughs out of the oven. The crumb was tight, the flavor was perfect (for those who don't like too sour a loaf). It would seem that I finally live in a house with wild yeasts conducive to leavening bread. Whoo-hoo!

Cheering for murder.

I watched a movie last night that, for the first time in my life, made me cheer for cinematic mass murder. The move was Dogville by Lars von Trier and goddamn it was weird. It basically consists of watching Nicole Kidman get violated in every possible way by the oddball residents of Dogville and then, in the end, watching her choose to kill them all. What I found weird about the film was the fact that I spent the last 10 minutes before the culminating murder scene hoping that it would occur. Von Trier does a fantastic job of providing the viewer with debased charicatures of human beings. Rather than humans with character flaws, the people of Dogville are character flaws with human form. After two hours of watching these flaws perform, their murder seems like a boon.

So, I was thinking today about the movie. Von Trier used film to convince me that the people of Dogville were evil and worthy of murder. I understand that these characters were fictional, but how hard would it be to do the same thing for real people? By this, I mean, what would it take to convince a normal, basically rational human that a certain group of people are worthy of "culling"? Does it require a couple of effective movies? Does it require the growth of a hateful ideology? Does it require a decade of propaganda and ideology and convincing? I don't know, but after seeing the movie and feeling how I felt, I can't help but worry about the eliminationist rhetoric that's becoming increasingly common (e.g. here, here,here, here, and here)among the radical right. Perhaps the demonization of people is the first step towards complete dehumanization. In any case, my thinking on this is still pretty nebulous, so I'll point you towards a recent series of articles by David Neiwert,The Rise of Pseudo-Fascism. He's done a lot of thinking and research on the subject and provides insight into the growth of right-wing totalitarian tendencies in this country.

Biscuits and Gravy for the high cholesterol crowd

Any southerner worth his/her salt tries to eat biscuits and gravy on a regular (or semi-regular) basis. Most southerners, however, also vote Republican and die at an early age of advanced coronary disease. Because I'd like to avoid both those fates, I've developed a biscuits and gravy recipe for people like myself who wish vote progressively, eat southernly, and live to a ripe old age. Note, that I make no claims to low-fatness, only low cholesterolness....

Buttermilk Biscuits (I took this from The Joy of Cooking)

Preheat oven to 450 and then sift together:
1 3/4 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. baking soda

Cut in with butter knife or pastry knife:
1/4 c. Earth Balance shortening (no cholesterol!)

Mix lightly with fork:
3/4 c. non-fat buttermilk

Put dough on floured board and knead with fingertips for 30 seconds. Pat out to 1/4 to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut with floured juice glass (small) or whisky tumbler (big). Put on cookie tray and bake for 10-12 minutes

Vegetarian, Low-Fat Sausage Gravy

Ingredients
1 tbsp. butter
1/2 tube (i.e. 1/2 pound) Gimme Lean veggie sausage
2 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. flour
1 1/2 - 2 c. skim milk
salt and pepper to tase (I use about 1/2 tsp. each)

Instructions
I use a cast-iron skillet for this recipe. Regardless, it's best to use a non-teflon pan, as you will be whisking the gravy... Anyway, heat your skillet/pan on medium heat and put in 1 tbsp. butter. When melted, add the sausage. As it cooks, break it into pieces about the size of cheerios. Some will be bigger, some will be smaller, but all will become brown and a little crispy. When done, set aside.

Melt 2 tbsp. of butter in pan. Add the flour while whisking. You are browning the flour to take away the flour taste. Cook this for about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes, whisking the entire time. Add about tbsp. of milk while whisking. At first, it won't combine well, but as you continue to mix, the flour will absorb the milk and turn into a thick goo. Add another couple tablespoons and continue whisking. The goo will become more liquid as you add more milk. Continue to cook. After about a cup of milk, add your sausage in and the salt and pepper, continuing to whisk. Continue adding milk. The gravy may look pretty liquidy after all the milk is added. You can cook it until it becomes the consistency you like. When it reaches that consistency, you're done!

Serve over biscuits.

NOTES
I think a lot of folks think it's hard to make gravy. It's not. Likewise, it's not hard to make cheese sauce, bechamel, or a fine roux. Really, it's just a matter of cooking a little flour in some fat, and adding liquid. Try this recipe. If you can make it, you can make any other sort of liquidy treat.

Like I said, this is not totally low-fat. The butter will give you about 300 fat calories and 90 mg of cholesterol. If you use the vegan shortening, fat-free buttermilk, and skim milk, you'll get the full flavors with no cholesterol and lots less fat. If you're one of those disgustingly skinny folk or could give a flying fuck about cholesterol, I HEARTILY RECOMMEND using Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage and leaving out the butter in the gravy recipe. Why? As we all know, fat tastes good and, boyhowdy, don't Jimmy Dean put a lot of fat in his sausage.

P.S.
If you're a right-winger, a fundamentalist, or some other sort of distasteful totalitarian who wants to ship me off to the camps please double the butter in this recipe, use a whole pound of Jimmy Dean sausage, and use both whole milk and whole fat buttermilk for this recipe. Thanks!

Where do they get these people?

My wife took me to her gym this morning, as I didn't feel like running outside in the 28 degree sun. As a result, I was obliged to run 4 miles on a treadmill watching CNN. This, my friends, is not very fun.

Anyway, as I was watching, the Wichita, KS, city government announced they were having a press conference about the BTK serial killer. To fill in the dead time before the conference, CNN had their Atlanta announcer doing color commentary with their Wichita correspondent. For 10 minutes, my earphones were filled with all sorts of newspeak inanity. I had to yank out my earphones and stop running, though, when the following bit of dialogue took place:

Atlanta: Could you tell us a little about the BTK killer for those unfamiliar with this story?

Wichita: Sure, he killed 8 people during the 1970s and early 1980s.

Atlanta: Were there any patterns to these killings?

Wichita: Well, the killer seemed to target women. According to my analysis, these women were mostly in their twenties.

I had to quit listening after this I was so annoyed. I mean, technically speaking, looking at 8 murders and determining the median age of the victims is an analyis. But really? Is that an analysis? Did the guy add anything to our knowledge of the case that a well-trained monkey with a pencil couldn't have? Analysis, as I think of it, entails taking a set of data, finding patterns or subsets of that data, and using those to identify some larger significance for the data set.

NEWS FLASH!

According to my analysis, 5 out of the last 6 breakfasts I've eaten consisted of oatmeal and coffee.

END NEWS FLASH

Is that meaningful? Hell no. But consider the fact that my family has a history of heart disease, that my last blood test showed an LDL cholesterol level of 216, and that I have an aversion to taking unnecessary pharamceutical products. In light of those facts, the oatmeal statistic may have some relevance.

Anyway, we all know that cable news sucks, I'm really just bitching because its Saturday and I spent my morning running on a treadmill.

Logorrhea

A friend of mine just asked me how I can write so much (i.e. on this blog). In other venues I've been accused of being "verbally diarrheic". In my third post on this blog, I noted that having a blog is pretty much like telling people you like to run your mouth. My friend was joking and I don't take the CafeWatch guy seriously, but doesn't Logorrhea seem like a good name for a blog. Perhaps I'll check and see if it's taken...

Yes, I am a philistine.

Last weekend, my wife and I drove up to New York City to see friends and visit Cristo's "Gates" in Central Park. The visit was nice, as it included lots of eating. In my opinion, one of the great things about New York City is the nearly endless variety of restaurants at which one can sate their wildest craving. Thus on Saturday I was able to eat honest-to-goodness southern cooking for lunch and have fantastic italian food (and opera) for dinner. The next day, it was an argentinian breakfast of coconut-leche pancakes and for lunch, Polish pirogue. All in all, the weekend was a gastronomic delight.

I wish I could say the weekend was also an artistic delight. Alas, I cannot. Call me a philistine, but Cristo's gates did not move me. As an organizational feat, the Gates are truly impressive. Virtually every walkway in Central Park has atleast one orange gate with its waving cloth and there must be 5,000 of them total. The artistry, however, escaped me. Don't get me wrong. From certain perspectives like the Nauburg Bandshell, the rows of orange columns and blowing sheets was pretty. On the whole, though, I prefer walking in Central Park without all that orange. As a friend of mine who felt the same as I noted, "The gates were okay, but the people watching was really the best part."

It may be, of course, that this is just the point. Perhaps installation art isn't so much about the installation itself, but its effect on the community, on the viewer and on how the viewer interacts with it. If that is the case, then I guess the Gates succeed, as there certainly seemed to be LOTS of people interacting there.Anyway, I'll leave it up to you to decide whether you like the Gates or not. Personally, I think I've seen enoug Cristo art. Which brings me to my final point.

Another of my New York friends told me that Cristo would like to drape the Grand Canyon in some sort of cloth something, but has been denied permits by the Park Service. I hope they continue to deny him those permits until his dying day. The Grand Canyon doesn't need Cristo fucking with it, just like it doesn't need the Bureau of Reclamation fucking with it either. I don't care what the manmade intrustion is, it's still an intrusion. The GC is one of the most sublimely beautiful and scary places on Earth, and a bunch of stinking fabric would do nothing but mar its grandeur. So there.

Gone for most of the day

I've got a job interview in Silver Spring, so I'll be gone for much of the day. In the interim, I suggest all you bike types amuse yourself by reading Large Fella On a Bike. He's consistently interesting AND had a recent post that included discussion of wooden wheels, Tommy Lee, Bruce Gordon and wind chimes. How cool is that?

For those of you uninterested in the finer points of the bicycling life, I recommend The Poorman. He/She is a funny gent/gal out of Austin, TX, who just won the Koufax Award for funniest blog post for this hilarious post on playing poker with Dick Cheney.

Finally, if you're tired of my blather and wish to read something especially smart, I'd point you to Lawyers, Guns & Money, a blog which covers two topics near and dear to my heart (as well as others).

Enjoy!

Somebody please call animal control

There's a pitbull trying to hump my leg. Or maybe it's a poodle. Or maybe it's a poobull. I don't know. All I really know is that someone at TownHall.com has gone off the deep end. If you can make heads or tails of this commentary, please drop me a line. Given that it comes from TownHall, can I safely assume that pit bulls are good, Christian red-staters and poodles are the nambsy-pambsy poofter lefties I usually hang out with? Or does his doggy dualism translate into something larger that I've missed. Guidance please.

Anti-semitic or biased?

Yahoo! news has an article reporting that the World Council of Churches has asked its members to divest from companies that "benefit from Israeli policy in the Palestinian territories". The Anti-Defamation League responded here, suggesting that this divestment is a product of anti-Israeli bias. The implication, I think, is that the churches may be motivated by anti-semitism. Other news reports and commentators (here, here, and here) include similar suggestions. I'm not sure I agree.

I think it's important that the WCC has focused on companies that explicitly benefit from policies in the Occupied Territories. In effect, the WCC is saying that they do not support Israeli state policy in one small segment of territory that is NOT Israeli. To me, that sounds eminently reasonable and not at all anti-semitic. Unless Israel's policies are somehow representative of the religion or the "race", I would interpret opposition to them as just another political statement with no racial subtext. No doubt, many would disagree with me.

We could, as many others have done, draw a parallel between this divestment campaign and the anti-apartheid divestment campaigns of the 1980s. Back then, no rational commentator suggested that anti-apartheid divestment was driven by animus against Boers or against white people. Rather, divestment was a means to force South Africa's white government to pay an economic price for their racist policies. Because virtually the entire economy was run by Boers and benefited from apartheid in some way, a broad policy of divestment was necessary. Compare this to the current WCC divestment policy. Rather than a nationwide effort, it focuses solely on those companies that benefit from the Palestinian occupation. Though this may affect some firms within Israel proper, its tight focus is, in effect, a statement that the WCC recognizes the validity of all other Israeli policies. Thus, whereas South African divestment targetted an entire immoral political and economic system, the WCC divestment targets only one small subset of the Israeli political economy. From my standpoint, this is hardly anti-semitic.

That said, the WCC's divestment is certainly a statement that Israeli policy towards the Palestinians is immoral. Perhaps that is biased. But, any claim that the WCC's failure to divest from Palestinian firms is further proof of an anti-Israeli bias is just foolish. Does anyone really think that there are huge, publicly-traded Palestinian firms benefiting from the intifada? I think not.

Either way, I'd welcome comments from anyone wants to explain why opposing Israeli policy is inherently anti-semitic or biased. Is it because all Israeli policies in the Territories are designed to address an existential threat posed by Arab anti-semitism? If so, do you think there is any potential for non-violent policies to succeed and how could those be established?

The danger of atomization

I have not yet read much John Dewey. However, after reading this article by Michael Thomasky at the American Prospect, I decided that I ought to try. To guide my reading, I did a little research on the internet. From my TFA readings, I knew that Dewey had written about education theory quite a bit. Only after my research, did I realize that he also wrote a lot about democracy and the role of the individual, including one book I am going to read titled The Public and its Problems. Anyway, my nominal bit of research suggests that Dewey worried about the atomization of society. If I'm not mistaken, he felt that there was a danger that people would become so focused on their particular individual or socio-economic interests, that they would lose sight of the larger interests of society.

So yesterday, after doing this research, I happened across this article by Andrew Sullivan, in which he makes the interesting point that technology, such as MP3 players like the iPod, contributes to the atomization process. By using such devices, people can isolate themselves from much of their surroundings and the experiences that go with that. More importantly, and he does touch on this, other techonologies like the internet, radio, and satellite TV all allow for increasing individualization of news sources, opinions and entertainment. If we were inclined to do so (and I think we are), Americans could go through their lives with minimal exposure to ideas, theories and opinions that differ from their own.

If my reading of Dewey is correct, this is dangerous because it allows us to focus on our ideologies and ignore society at large. In such a state, for example, I might begin to assume that my personal ideal of maximized individual liberty, severely constrained non-human entities, and limited government is the only proper political goal. Other people, likewise, could harbor other ideals, and none of us would contemplate the larger effects of these ideals. Pragmatically speaking, we might band together with other such believers to form political parties, but should we gain political power we would be unlikely to incorporate other ideologies or theories into our debate and policy making. The end result, I think, is a system in which controlling parties seek to solidify their economic and social interests with little regard for democratic debate or pluralistic ideals.

I think you can see where I'm headed with this. What I'm describing sounds, at least to me, very much like our currently divided country. Blue vs. red states. Urban vs. rural voters. Democrats versus Republicans. These may be traditional divides, but in recent years it seems like they're becoming much more rigid. Compromise and inclusion across these various divisions is increasingly rare. What we have, it seems, is an atomized electorate. The danger, I think, is when that atomization is translated into actual rather than theoretical terms. This is exemplified by this article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Apparently, there are Republicans in eastern Washington State who feel so isolated from the rest of the state that they would prefer to break off into another state than remain part of the whole. Not to seem like Chicken Little or invoke the overused specter of the slippery slope, but where does this stop? Should Austin, TX, break apart from the rest of Texas to form another state? Should Orange County, CA, break off to form its own state? I mean, both places vote far differently than the rest of the state they populate, and the state legislatures of their respective home states rarely embrace the politics of their residents. The answer seems to clear to me: hell no. The breakdown of pluralistic democracy at the state and local level will eventually spread to the federal level. There's been lots of joking about blue state secession, but it should be just that, jokes. At its most basic, democracy is intended to protect the rights of all people. If we break up that democracy to account for the clustering of socioeconomic or cultural differences we are just going to make it that much more difficult for our democracy to provide that protection.

Rogered by a sasquatch

Jesus General has another hilarious missive from the frontlines of the culture wars. This time he concurs with the Religious Right about the dangers of permitting homosexual marriage. However, he highlights a danger you don't often hear about. While most conservatives fixate on the idea that the next step after gay marriage is the legalization of buggery, the General points out that it may ALSO send a signal to animals that it's okay to take liberties with helpless humans.

Gratuitous bicycle pictures

After posting something as serious as Darfur, I thought I'd lighten the tone with pictures of my two favorite bikes. Here they are, the Commuter and the Fixie:


The Commuter 


The Fixie 

Darfur

Nicholas Kristof has an op-ed today in which he includes pictures of four dead victims of the janjaweed in the Darfur region of Sudan. This is rare, especially when the pictures are as brutal and graphic as they are. Nonetheless, I think Kristof was right in including, and right in suggesting that they might get people to act. He quotes the late Paul Simon talking about Rwanda in 1994, and I hope it's true about Sudan as well:

"If every member of the House and Senate had received 100 letters from people back home saying we have to do something about Rwanda, when the crisis was first developing, then I think the response would have been different."

I hope that every one of you with Representatives and Senators takes the time to drop an email or, even better, handwritten note to those people telling them about Darfur and indicating that you want the United States to take action to halt the ongoing killing there.

You can find your Senators here and your Representatives here. You can find additional information on Darfur here. You can find the Council on Foreign Relations' Africa site here. You can find the State Department's Darfur publication here.

I know it can be hard to find the time and impetus to write a letter about something as abstract as genocide on the opposite side of the globe. If Sen. Simon was correct, though, that simple act might be one means to stop the murder in Sudan. It's worth a shot, eh?

More useless trivia

As I noted earlier, StatCounter lets me get all sorts of interesting but basically useless data about computers that hit on my site. For example, it provides me the state and country of each IP address that hits on The Public Trust. For your viewing pleasure, they're laid out in a table below. Note that I am my most avid reader...

Update
I had to remove the chart because no matter how I formatted it, it was preceded by 5" of white space. If anybody has a clue as to how to avoid that, please let me know. Suffice to say that the bulk of my readers come from the great state of Texas, with New York running a close second. However, Washington, DC, shows up as first, because the program counts all hits, including those that occur when I publish a post. Oh well. Anyway, I also have had one hit each from Washington state, Sardinia, France, the Phillipines, Ohio, Canada and Colorado. Cool!

Spruce up the gulags.

Last week I wrote a post about Powerline blog's accusation that Jimmy Carter is a traitor and how this is part and parcel of the American right-wing's increasingly dangerous radicalism. Well, as it turns out, John Hinderaker, the guy who runs Powerline, has outdone himself. Whereas, he was once content accusing Jimmy Carter of being a traitor, he has now decided(warning: link is to a movie) that "the entire Democratic mainstream...is engaged in an effort that is a betrayal of America."

Wow! Who knew. My grandmother, an 83 year-old Democrat in New York state, is out to betray America. My dad, a life-long Democrat, retired and living peacefully in north Georgia, is out to betray America. My friends, spread among many states, working in the private and public sectors, raising kids, buying houses, leading their lives, and voting Democrat. ALL of them out to betray and destroy America.

Can I ask one question, please? Here it is: What the fuck do these people smoke?

I'm serious. I've read Richard Hofstadter, I know about the paranoid style in American politics. But please. The entire Democratic mainstream out to destroy America? This isn't paranoid, this is just plain dangerous and crazy. What he is essentially saying is, if you don't buy into the Republican party line, you're a traitor. What else can that quote mean? In the last election, 59 million people voted for the Democratic candidate. Does he serious mean to imply that these people, most of them mainstream Democrats, are out to betray America? If not, what portion of that 59 million people are, and what does he propose to do about it?

This is dangerous, dangerous logic folks. And, as Matt Yglesias suggests, when you start demonizing vast swaths of the population, calls for the gulag can't be far away.

The best there is.

Fafblog provides a handy primer on what is and what is not treason.

Jesus General reports a treasonous leftist no-good to David Horowitz for inclusion in his new database.

The Rude Pundit invokes the spirit of Hunter S. Thompsonon to bid him farewell and provides valuable link to Thompson's 1994 obituary for Richard Nixon.

Freedom Crepes

I've been practicing the art of Freedom Cooking recently. More specifically, I've determined that I really enjoy the Freedom version of the pancake, the crepe. They're light, tasty, and fun to make. In fact, they're so easy and fun to make, I thought I'd post another recipe. Here it is:

Ingredients:

3 eggs beaten
1 c. milk
1/3 c. water
3 tbsp. oil or melted butter
1 c. flour
(2 tbsp. sugar, if sweet crepes are desired)

Directions:

Mix the liquid ingredients together with a whisk, and then vigorously beat in the flour a couple of tablespoons at a time (to avoid lumpy batter). Heat a 9" inch fry pan over medium or medium-high heat until almost smoking (i.e. pretty damn hot). If it is not non-stick, put one or two drops of oil on pan and swirl them around. Pour about 3 tablespoons of batter into middle of the pan and swirl it around to coat the bottom. You should have a thin layer of batter across the bottom of the pan. The batter will cook quickly and turn from white to yellowish. After about 60-80 seconds (more or less), use a fork to lift the edge of the crepe so you can pick it up and flip it over. (This side should be a sort of nearly uniform dark blonde color. If too dark, reduce heat a bit or cook for less time.) Cook the flip side for about another 30-40 seconds. This side will be whiter, with brown circles where bubbles touched the pan. Repeat.

Fillings

Really, you can fill Freedom Crepes with anything you want. For breakfast, though, I suggest one of the following:

Bananas & Honey
Peel a banana and mash it with a fork. Heat it in a fry pan (or the microwave) with a little bit of honey. You don't want to brown it or anything, just heat it up. Fill crepes with mash, roll and serve.

Apples & Mascarpone
One half hour before making crepes peel, core and quarter 2 apples. Slice them thinly into a small saucepan. Add 2 tbsp. brown sugar and a little water. Cover and heat over med. heat, stirring occasionally. Once hot, turn heat down a bit and simmer until apples are tender. Drain liquid into measuring cup. Mix in 4-5 tablespoons (more or less depending on how creamy you like it) of mascarpone, neufchatel or creme fraiche into the apples. Taste. If too cheesy, yer fucked. If not cheesy enough, add more. If just right, fill crepes and roll. Drizzle retained liquid over the crepes and serve.

Notes
This is an easy recipe and a great way to impress members of the opposite sex who may be in your house for breakfast. It certainly impresses my wife... I have a Cafalon 9" non-stick crepe pan, which I usually use for these. I also have an All-Clad 9" stick crepe pan. This works equally well, and gives a more traditional crepe coloring/texture.

Italian Food Alert!!!
If you can make non-sweet crepes, you can make superb manicotti. Prepare a mixture of 1 lb. ricotta, 2 eggs and grating cheese to taste. Make crepes. Fill crepes with cheese mixture and roll. Cover bottom of lasagna dish with marinara sauce. Place layer of manicotti on bottom. More sauce, more crepes, more sauce. Cover with thin layer of mozarella cheese and bake for 35 minutes at 400.

Why David Horowitz is a sack of shit.

David Horowitz has a new website called Discover The Network. It's your usual Horowitzian display of silliness and demagoguery. With it, he purports to reveal the individuals and organizations that make up the left. Riiiiiight.

In the introduction page, Horowitz makes the following statement, "We made a specific pledge not to do what we are now being accused of – smearing individuals through guilty association."

Now, click on this link and tell me, with a straight face, that Horowitz isn't a big sack of shit.

Even better, read this whiny bit of self-righteousness from Horowitz, in which he complains that MoveOn.org compares Bush to Hitler by hosting ads on its website that juxtapose images of Adolf Hitler and George Bush. Once you've done that, tell me, again with a straight face, that Horowitz isn't a big, hypocritical sack of shit.

Basically, David Horowitz is a sack of shit.

Can't regulate, can't sue, what do you do?

Two posts back, I briefly discussed why conservatives, especially of the anti-worker, anti-environmental variety, might seek to have the Constitution in Exile re-instated. I failed to mention that this is part of a larger strategy by these same atavistic elitists to severely limit the American citizen's ability to protect their quality of life. By this, I mean that conservatives are actively seeking to limit our ability to protect ourselves against the depredations, intentional and otherwise, of the ruling economic elites. I know that sounds ridiculous, but hear me out.

Suppose the Constitution in Exile is reinstated and much of the modern regulatory state is done away with. What are the nation's options in regulating corporate behavior? Well, Congress could pass regulatory laws that don't violate a strict reading of the Commerce Clause or the non-delegation doctrine. These laws would, by their very nature, lack the specificity and breadth of most modern regulations, as Congress lacks the professional expertise and the time of our regulatory agencies. Moreover, special interests who make it exceptionally hard to pass very general delegative legislation, would likely make it impossible to pass any sort of meaningful regulatory legislation. Thus, Congress' regulatory efforts, if any actually took place, would likely be less than effectual.

I suppose states could take up regulatory efforts. California, for example, has done a fine job in recent years to address automobile emissions of greenhouse gases. Of course, these are being challenged in federal court. The auto industry and the Bush Administration claim that this amounts to a fuel-economy standard, which is unlawful becuase Congress has already created such a standard and pre-empted state action in that area. This case suggests one reason why citizens might not be able to rely on the states once the Constitution is brought out of "exile": Congress could pass a weak regulatory law like that discussed above and pre-empt state action. We'd be left with no state alternative and an ineffectual federal law.

Having been denied a state and federal regulatory solution, then, how could citizens seek to rectify corporate wrongdoing? The only other obvious solution is legal action, in particular, class actions. Why class action? Because few individuals have the financial wherewithal to challenge deep-pocket corporations in court, and no lawyer is going to take one single case on a contingency basis. However, if a sufficiently large number of citizens were being hurt by a corporate act, they could afford to pursue a class tort in state or federal court. Well, they could until last Friday. Last Friday the President signed a "class action reform" bill that, among other steps, transfers most large multi-state class action suits to federal court. Why do that? Ultimately, because state judges and state juries are more "plaintiff-friendly" and are willing to ding corporations for their bad acts. Federal courts, on the other hand, have greater procedural bars to class actions and judges with fuller dockets, both of which make class actions more difficult to pursue and win. Thus, though this bill doesn't entirely close of class action suits, it makes them far less useful as a tool for individuals to protect themselves against corporate bad acts.

Which brings us to the question, I posed in the title: if we can't count on government regulation, and we can't sue corporate wrong-doers, what can we do when it comes to protecting ourselves and our quality of life? If President Bush and his cronies have their way, we'll just have to bend over and take it.

Death of a paranoid gun-junkie

Hunter S. Thompson shot himself in the head with a .44 on Saturday. I don't know why. The Times seems to suggest that he did so in tribute to Hemingway. The Post offers a number of reasons relating to his paranoia and depression. I like to think that, as in all other aspects of his life, Thompson just chose to give no quarter. Faced with health problems that promised to limit his ability to live in the "gonzo" fashion, perhaps he just chose to die in the "gonzo" fashion. Thompson strikes me as a man whose only true fear was that of boredom. Perhaps his suicide was his way to win that battle. I just don't know. Either way, American journalism is going to be a less interesting place without him.

For all of you who have never read Thompson, I recommend getting "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" , "Curse of Lono" or some other Thompson book, and reading it. Ignore the hype, ignore the popular iconization of him, and just read the goddamn book. For me, reading Thompson is like hiking on a high ridge just before a thunderstorm: an exhilarating melange of power and menace. While on the mountain I can see the building clouds, feel the cooling of the air, and sense the gathering electricity. I'm torn between wanting to flee downwards to safety, and wanting to immerse myself, momentarily godlike, in the storm. Likewise, while reading Thompson, something dangerous lurks behind each word. I feel like forces are gathering to destroy the narrator (and me), but the feeling of speed, the movement in the text make me want to dive in and join the literary fray. I know, it sounds like a lot of rubbish, but it's great fun and worth the read.

Anyway, as a paranoid gun-junkie who is friends with many other paranoid gun-junkies, let me bid adieu to the greatest paranoid gun-junkie of them all.

Regulate this!

A few posts back I linked to this article by Bruce Ackerman concerning future appointments to the Supreme Court. I noted in my discussion of the article that there is a movement among many conservative jurists to reinstate constitutional interpretations that held sway prior to the New Deal. Douglas Ginsburg has called this the Constitution in Exile, but apprently there's some complaining among conservatives that liberals use this term to make conservatives look bad. Whatever. The point is, these people would like to see a radical restructuring of our current Constitutional system to severely limit Congress' ability to regulate under the Commerce Clause in Article 1, Section 8. As I noted previously, much of the regulatory state that Americans take for granted would likely be declared unconstitutional under this regressive change.

The question is, why do conservatives seek this goal? Well, among the eggheads and deep-thinkers, I suspect there is some real concern that the current system, in which Congress delegates authority to regulatory agencies with often conflicting and confusing instructions, is inefficient and counter-productive. Likewise, they may also be concerned that these agencies are undemocratic and that decisions effecting vast swaths of the population are made with virtually no political or popular input. However, I think that's probably a small minority on the conservative side.

I suspect that most conservative idealogues (like every single one of the foaming-at-the-mouth lunatics at Club for Growth) like the idea of Lochner-esque constitutional interpretations because it would return our economy to a state similar to the pre-Progressive era. I suspect that they dream of an economy in which firms would be allowed to operate basically unfettered by anything but the most minimal health, safety and environmental regulations. In short, many conservatives like the idea of the Constitution in Exile becuase it offers the prospect of a system in which Congress has far less power to force American businesses to internalize the negative effects of a modern manufacturing economy. They like the Constitution in Exile becuase it might just be able to do what Reagan/Bush/Clinton couldn't, deregulate the entire American economy.

Supercool new Rivendell

Rivendell Bicycles, my favorite manufacturer of custom, lugged bicycles, has developed a new, light-weight frame. You can see a picture of it here.

It's a beautiful bike, with the Rivendell lugs and a matte gray and white frame. It incorporates a threadless headset (the first I've seen on a Rivendell) and uses a 1x9 Dura-ace drive train. I don't know if they're going to make this a regular item, but it sure is pretty!

Holy Dirt Drops, Batman!!

Way back when in the earliest days of mountain biking (say 1988), there was a enterprising and original company named WTB. They did things their own way, and sold bicycle parts to bike companies that did things their own way. WTB designed a handlebar that looked kind of like a drop bar you'd see on a road bike, but it was used on a mountain bike. They called it the Dirt Drop(fifth picture down). The bars dropped only a little, flared quite a lot, and looked about as cool as cool could be back then in the era of big hair and neon colors.

As with all good, heretical ideas, this one couldn't last. And it didn't. Nobody but Bridgestone Bicycles would spec them, and soon WTB stopped making them. And there was much sorrow.

But now, dear readers, another brave company has started making the much-missed Dirt Drop. The manufacturer calls it the Midge and will charge you and arm and a leg to ship it to you from the UK, but I'll be durned if it ain't the dear old Dirt Drop of yore!

The smartest blog in America

Sadly enough, is not mine. Rather, it is Mark Schmitt's The Decembrist. He is a wonky sort and thus the blog is very wonky. But it's also very smart and full of insight into the modern political process. He's been writing a lot in recent weeks about the article "Death of Environmentalism." In today's post he points out that the article criticizes environmentalists for being ineffectual, but points out specific foundation managers for achieving success in their efforts to fund environmental groups. Mark points out that this rings false, but doesn't point out that it also smacks of a little ass-kissing. I wonder whether the authors of "Death of Environmentalism", however sincere, don't have some ulterior motive in this praise.

In any case, one of the reasons that The Decembrist is so smart is that he doesn't spend much time pondering questions like the one I just posed. Instead, he draws broader lessons from the topics he discusses. Thus, in today's post, he concludes that foundation funding is too often mission-specific or goal-oriented. He suggests that there needs to be some leeway in funding restrictions so as to allow progressives to choose their batttles. This is dead on correct.

I worked in the non-profit management field for 4 years and saw first-hand how restrictive most foundations were in giving grants. As I watched my fundraising peers fill out copious reports and track every dollar spent, it became pretty clear that foundations had crossed a fine line and gone from setting core performance measures into flat out micro-management. Thought its only part of the puzzle, I suspect that greater foundation grant flexibility will be necessary in helping progressive groups succeed in coming years. Instead of funding specific programs, foundations should be giving progressive group operating funds that they can spend on a wide range of legislative and policy-oriented efforts.

Full Disclosure

So I mentioned yesterday that I use StatCounter to count how many hits I get on my blog each day. Yesterday, for example, it tells me that I had 24, with 6 unique users. However, I'm concerned that it also gives me other information. For example, I know that of those users 3 use Interent Explorer and 3 use Firefox. I also know the reader's host's name, their operating system, the location of their host, adn how long they actually stayed for. Honestly, that seems a little excessive and intrusive to me. Why in the hell would I, or anyone else, need to know that information?

Thus, I'm contemplating using a less intrustive counter. Anybody out there in readerland have an opinion, or care one way or the other whether I know all that stuff? Am I worrying about something basically unimportant? There seems to be merely a difference of degree between the information I get and the information folks like Equifax (or the Pentagon) get and keep. Is it the gathering of information that's problematic or the sharing and use of that information that's the problem? Feedback, people, feedback!

Eat more.

I use StatCounter to track how many people hit on my site in a day. This is a free service, but they advertise upgrades that involve extra costs. At the bottom of my summary page, there is the following upgrade advertisement:

Increase The Size Of Your Log!

Are they sure that's what they want to say?

One reporter speaks his mind.

This link will take you to the transcript of a LiveTalk session on MSNBC with Rod Nordland a Newsweek reporter currently working in Iraq. It's well worth your time to read the entire transcript, as the questions and answers are pretty interesting. A full reading will also reveal that the participants represent the gamut of opinions in American politics, up to and including the usual percentages of right-wing and left-wing loonies. Thus, you get one question asserting that Ted Kennedy is pro-Saddam and another question asserting that the CIA has a role in the Iraqi insurgency. This is to be expected I guess.

Regardless, it's interesting to see a reporter answer truthfully and without hesitation. I got the feeling that this guy, after having spent a lot of time in Baghdad, doesn't care to suffer the fools. It makes for good reading.

The ultimate freerider

That would be us. America. Really, I mean it. Today, the Kyoto Protocol goes into effect and America hasn't signed it.

The fact that we haven't signed the Protocol, however, is not the most important point in the Times article linked above. The important point, in my estimation, is that American companies are already starting to take steps to reduce their C02 emissions. What's important about that is that they are doing so voluntarily because they think they'll be forced to do it sooner or later anyway. They are NOT reducing emissions because of market forces. They are NOT reducing emissions out of the goodness in their hearts. They are NOT reducing emissions because the President asked them to. Nope. American firms are reducing emissisions because one day we, America, are going to sign onto a global warming treaty and American firms are going to have their asses handed to them in a hat by foreign corporations if they don't keep up on technological advancements.

President Bush and his myopic cronies can bitch and moan about the burdens of Kyoto, but, like most of what pours out of their mouths, it's all fucking bullshit. Kyoto applies to every other developed country and if it were going to add deadweight to our economy, it would have done so to theirs too. Moreover, I suspect that the "loss of 5 million jobs" assertion is pretty much bullshit as well. Here's an idea you corporute asshats, why not put in the stinking emissions controls, cut your profit margin by 1% and keep all those folks employed? Clearly, if folks can afford to do it voluntarily and with no adverse economic effects, then the risks of Kyoto were likely overblown.

Whatever the case, we're going to sign a protocol one day, and so will the Chinese and the Indians. Until that time, I guess we'll just have to enjoy the free ride.

Rosemary-Olive Bread (easy recipe)

Time again for another recipe. I made this last night in lieu of buying rosemary-olive bread from Firehook. It's a different taste and texture then theirs, but then it's not made on a sourdough base.

Ingredients:

3 tbsp. dried rosemary
1 c. chopped olives
1.5 tbsp. active dry yeast
1 tbsp. sugar
1.75 c. boiling water
.25 c. olive oil
1 tbsp. salt
5-6 c. flour
cornmeal

Directions:

Place 1 tbsp. (or so) rosemary in tea ball and pour boiling water over it. Let steep until water is just warm (100-100 degrees). Remove tea ball and add olive oil to make 2 c. liquid. Pour oil/water into large bowl with yeast and sugar. Let proof. Once yeast is proofed, mix in 1 c. flour with wooden spoon. Add 2 tbsp. rosemary and chopped olives. Mix well, then continue adding flour until too hard to mix with spoon. Turn onto floured table and continue kneading in flour until the dough is no longer sticky. Knead a little longer. You can tell that you are done when you poke the dough with your finger and it springs back. Place dough in a greased bowl, cover and let rise until about double in size.

Remove dough from bowl and form into two longish loaves. Sprinkle cornmeal over baking sheet and lay loaves down. Slash top diagonally in couple places and put in cold oven. Set the temperature to 400 degrees and bake about 30-35 minutes. The top should become golden brown. The best way to test yeast breads is to turn them over and knock on them with your knuckles. If the bread sounds hollow, it is done.

Remove, let cool for 10 minutes and slice.

Comments:

This is a very easy bread recipe I've adapted from James Beard's "Beard on Bread". You can make an egg white/water wash to put on the bread before baking. You might also sprinkle the loaves with crushed rock salt or rosemary after brushing the loaves with the egg wash. Replacing 1.5 cups of the flour with semolina gives some depth to the flavor. Decreasing the amount of oil and replacing it with water will give you a brittler crumb if you don't like your breads to be soft. This bread is fantastic toasted. Finally, don't take the measurements of rosemary and olive to be writ in stone. You might like lots of olives in your loaf. I don't see why that won't bake just as well.

Jimmy Carter, International Terrorist

Matthew Yglesias has a post today in which he notes that a certian wing-nut blogger has basically accused Jimmy Carter of being a traitor. I followed the link to that blog and the blogger bases his conclusion on the fact that in September 2004, Carter went on record as saying that he thought the security sitation in Iraq was too unstable to have an election in January. That, my friends, is what it takes apparently to be accused of "going to the other side": stating one's opinion about a national security issue after analyzing the facts. Nice.

Matt raises the question whether these sort of broad accustions, which are increasingly common among the wingnuts on the internet, have a debasing effect on our national debate. One of his commenters concludes that very likely it does not, noting that there's always been a lunatic fringe in American politics. On that point I would agree, but overall I would not.

If you go to the 6th Floor of the Book Repository in Dallas, you can visit the museum dedicated to JFK's assassination. Among other exhibits are samples of letters to the editor of the various Dallas-area newspapers in the early 1960s. The level of vitriol, hatred and ignorance in those letters is remarkably similar to that you hear now on right-wing talk radio. When I first read these letters in 1991 or 1992, I was just amazed that people actually believed those sorts of things. Almost 15 years later, I have to say that it no longer surprises me. The Limbaughs and Savages of this world have been ranting, whining and spewing their hate for so long, that it seems to have become an accepted part of political milieu. I would not go so far as Matt's commenter (The Navigator) as to conclude that this has no effect on our political system, though.

Perhaps in the 1960s or even the early 1990s the lunatic fringe had little or no effect on national politics. Today, I'm afraid it does. This effect, generally in the form of polarization of political interactions, is especially evident in Congress. Starting in 1994 and continuing until today, many Republicans in the House (and a few in the Senate) have embraced the sort of maximalist radicalism that drives the far right wing in this country. In the last century Congress has typically worked on a system of cooperation and compromise. My impression is that laws were often passed with large majorities after extensive committee and conference work. The two parties and two chambers worked together to find mutually agreeable legislative positions. This system is long gone. Laws are now passed with bare majorities, generally split on party lines. Dennis Hastert has enforced a rule that no legislation will come to the floor for a vote in the House unless it has a majority of Republicans on its side. Thus, bills that might garner bi-partisan majority support in the House will never see the light of day. Cooperation is dead and Republicans have adopted the politics of domination instead. Why? I suspect that as long as they don't alienate their moderate wing, Republicans know it's the lunatic fringe that wins them elections.

So what does this portend for American politics? I don't have a clue. I would suggest, though, that radicalism has never been good for governance and the people governed. Ultimately, radicalism is the rejection of reason and reason, my friends, is what this country was built upon. The Constitution is an Enlightenment document, predicated on the idea that citizens are basically reasonable, but when they are not, the separation of powers in government will serve to hinder their basest instincts. When the people who make up our government lose sight of that fact or, even worse, reject that idea for the sake of short-term political expediency, then we are in trouble. It is a short step from foresaking the ideas and values underlying our Constitution, to foresaking the Constitution itself.

An invitation to wrestle.

Jesus General has another of his hilarious missives on his website today. Today he writes to Jeff Gannon/Guckert asking him for an interview and inviting him to wrestle. For those unfamiliar with the General, it's a great example of his oeuvre.

Roasting chestnuts in February

I walked out of Pawticulars on 8th Street today and was greeted by the sound of Nat King Cole crooning about chestnuts. 'Twas an incongruous moment: early spring, sunny sky, and a Christmas song. Across the street, a gentleman in a GMC Jimmy with his windows open was singing along to the illustrious Mr. Cole blaring from his speakers. Weird.

Gauging the spread of ignorance

The Washington Post had a short article this morning about a Maryland school district that recently adopted, by 6-0 vote, a biology textbook that discusses evolutionary theory. I find it strange that this is considered newsworthy, even if the school board did have a debate over whether it should adopt books that also discusses creation theory. I mean, what's so odd about adopting a standard scientific text that teaches standard scientific theory?

What I find really strange, however, is the tone of the article towards the text itself. The title of the article is, "Cecil County Adopts Text Stressing Evolution". In the first paragraph of the article, the journalist states that the textbook "emphasizes the significance of Charles Darwin." Does that strike anybody else as odd? I don't see articles noting when schools adopt a physics text that "emphasizes" Newtonian Mechanics, a chemistry book that "stresses" Boyle's Law, or a geometry book that "includes material" on Euclid's Elements. I know, of course, that many people feel that Darwin threatens their fundamental belief systems. Nonetheless, has the fundamentalist worldview so saturated our civic culture that it becomes newsworthy when universally accepted scientific theories are taught in science classes?

Why I don't ride carbon.

I'm not old enough. An absolutely hilarious post.

Vetting the new Supremes

Bruce Ackerman has an excellent article in the most recent volume of the London Review of Books. He outlines three basic choices the President has in nominating the next Supreme Court justice: a traditional conservative, a radical neo-con, or a stealth candidate. Ackerman points out that a traditional conservative (e.g. Justice Kennedy) would likely get an easy pass, while a radical neo-con (e.g. Robert Bork) would engender a vicious battle. Stealth candidates, he suggests, are the biggest danger. These are the candidates, like Clarence Thomas, who have no track record and no obvious judicial philosophy. Like the Thomas nomination, future stealth candidacies will result in further partisan fighting during nomination hearings, as well as the ascendency of radical interpretive philosophies if consent is given.

Ackerman explains that one reason these radicals are dangerous is because they seek to do away with the constitutional doctrine of substantive due process. This doctrine has its roots in the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, which provides that no state shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Radical neo-cons and stealth nominees (most likely drawn from the ranks of the Federalist Society) argue that this clause protects one, and only one, individual right: the right to some procedural process before life, liberty and property may be taken by the government. What is procedural process? There's a long history of cases trying to define what it is, but suffice to say that it is some kind of fair hearing before an impartial decisionmaker. Traditional conservatives and moderate jurists, meanwhile, argue that the due process clause encompasses a broader ideal. Though the clause requires procedural due process, it also protects substantive rights such as freedom of speech and religion. If government seeks to take away a person's life, liberty, and property, it must have a proper justification for doing so. In essence, the substantive due process doctrine says that not only is government limited in how it may deprive individuals of their rights, but also that government is limited as to why it may take away individuals' rights.

Perhaps as importantly, Ackerman points out that radical neo-cons and their stealth candidate brethren also wish to return to an older judidical era when the Constitution was read very narrowly so as to limit Congressional power. This goal is explicitly anti-regulatory and is known as the Constitution in Exile, a name intended to imply that proper constitutional norms were illegimately forced to the wayside when the Court shifted away from its laissez-faire jurisprudence in 1937. These new nominees could very likely go even further than recent cases like Lopez and Morrison and, instead of limiting Congressional powers, begin ruling that statutes previously authorized under the COmmerce Clause are unconstitutional. If this were to happen, vast swaths of the regulatory state, from the Clean Water Act to the Occupational Safety and Health Act could very well be gutted.

In essence, the country is faced with the prospect of radical neo-conservative activists taking over the Supreme Court. Radical conservatives may argue that they only wish to undo 70 years of liberal activism. Maybe that is their only goals, but we should be very clear on what that means. They are basically arguing that they wish to undo 70 years of Constitutional doctrine that has increased the power and liberty of individual Americans, and limited the ability of entrenched economic and political elites to control our lives. Certainly, not all Supreme Court jurisprudence of the last 70 years has been perfect, but I would suggest that Americans are better off than they would have been without it. I hope that Americans, Republican and Democrat, recognize that fact and make their opinions clear when Bush finally gets to nominate justices to the Supreme Court.

My bourgeoning readership

I'm proud to announce that my readership has grown 300% since this blog's inception two weeks ago. Whereas I once only had one reader, I can now count 4 confirmed readers. Amazing! With growth rates like this, I'll soon have a readership equal to The Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion Fan Club!!!

Further proof of my dorkiness

My wife asserts that the older I get, the dorkier I get. I have not been inclined to believe her...until today. I recently acquired three sets of Nitto dirt drop-style stems. These are the old-school stems that form something like a 120 degree angle with the head tube of your bike. Their purpose is (or, in the pre-Lance world, was) to raise your handlebars so they're even with or higher than your saddle. Anyway, today, I installed the stem on my commuter. Originally, my handlebars, in true "racer" fashion, were somewhat lower than my saddle. Today, they are even with the saddle.

The effect? My bike looks like a holdover from the bike boom years of the 70s; a geriatric steed suspended in time. Truly a dorky ride. And the effect on me? I love it! I can't wait to get the thing fully together and ride it around. I foresee a daily commute free of shoulder pain and numbness. I foresee long rides through bucolic fields while bluebirds nest on my towering bars. I foresee many a speedy roadie laughing quietly to himself while I toodle along on my tricked out commuter.

My new credo: embrace my inner dork. And I have. Pictures will follow if I can figure out how to post them.

The sterile, moonscape of Wahhabi life

I was listening to NPR this morning while making coffee and they had one of their 10 second news blurbs. These blurbs usually point out some absurd or amusing bit of news; something that you will likely also read in "News of the Weird." Today's blurb was about Wahhabi enforcers in Saudi Arabia banning the sale of red roses around Valentine's Day. I don't find that amusing or absurd, I find it just plain scary.

According to this article from Reuters, these morality police or mutawwaeen, confiscate red roses, cards, hearts, etc. and will throw vendors in jail for a night. Call me crazy, but what kind of messed up world do these people want to live in? I'm no fan of Hallmark holidays, but celebrating love is a good thing. I understand that different cultures have different conceptions of individuality and love, but the article makes it clear that there is demand for roses and the like in Saudi Arabia. Clearly, the fundamentalist mutawwaeen are not representative of the entire nation. I guess, though, that if you think that life is an arid, passionless waste and that women are nothing but another bit of property to be exploited as a resource, then perhaps Valentine's Day is something to be shunned.

Of course, nothing like this could ever happen in America, where even our evangelical citizens embrace our pluralistic democratic republic.

Protecting our "rights"

As I noted in a previous post, I've been wasting a lot of time of late responding to various posts on a blog called CafePress Watch. In doing so, I've actually been thinking a bit about how most Americans conceive of their rights.

One often hears people claiming that they have "rights". This often occurs on TV cop shows, but I frequently here it in reference to situations where there is no government action involved. When I hear this, I'm given to wondering what the person means when they say "I have rights."

For example, in the context of criminal procedure, when a person asserts that they have rights, they aren't really asserting the existence of those rights. The fact is, rights can be denied to a person by any other person with sufficient power. A right does not protect itself, so the person asserting their rights must be relying on some other protective power. When an individual is being held by police and asserts their rights, what they are really asserting is: "I have rights and the Constitution of the United States prohibits you from infringing upon them." Really, the assertion of rights is a reminder to the police (or other G-man) that there is a higher legal power (i.e. the federal government, the courts, etc.) to which they must answer if they violate an individual's rights. In the context of private interactions, though, what rights does any person have?

I bring this up because I constantly hear people invoke their right to free speech. According to our Constitution (and Declaration of Independence), there is a fundamental right to free speech. I don't deny that and, in fact, believe the right to free speech is one of our most important. However, as codified in the Constitution, the right to free speech is only protected against government intrusion. While this ensures (with some exceptions) against government limits on speech, it provides no protection against private limits on speech. Any person's ability to say what they wish, when they wish, is ultimately a function of their ability to protect themselves from the consequences of their speech.

That last sentence seems to suggest that Americans exercise their rights in some Hobbesian state of nature. Obviously, this is not the case. I suspect that for most people in the United States, they can say what they want, when they want with relative impunity. The issue, of course, is that freedom of speech is most meaningful when speech is employed against power that infringes on other individual rights. In our civilized society, while the freedom to speak openly and randomly is imporant, it is not the ultimate expression of the right of free speech. Freedom of speech is fully actualized when it is employed to limit the abuse of individuals and the erosion of individual liberties by powerful people or entities.

This brings us back to the question, therefore, of who or what protects a person's rights, such as free speech? In the United States there is actually very little - except, perhaps, for a civic culture that values individual expression - to protect the freedom of speech against private intrusion. Employers may place all sorts of limits on their employee's speech. Service providers, such as Cafe Press, may place limits on the speech of parties with whom they contract. Even between individuals, some parties may find themselves silenced by fear of retribution. Free speech it seems, is either a very cramped idea or it can take a great deal of personal sacrifice to protect it.

So what am I trying to say? To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. First, that I think lots of folks in this country have barely a clue about what the Constitution does or does not do. Second, that I think this ignorance is dangerous. I suspect that regular invokation of generic "rights" weakens our concept of fundamental rights and, more importantly, weakens our desire to protect those fundamental rights when it really matters. A solution for this? I don't really know. Civic education in high school? Constitutional law classes in college? Less grandstanding by politicians and more discussion of shared, fundamental values? Whose to say. Regardless, I would very much like to see more reasoned consideration of the content and meaning of our Constitution than I do today.

Scott was framed.

I know it's cruel and heartless, but check out this t-shirt I saw on the Internet.

ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH!

I just spent an hour writing a post on the Endangered Species Act which I then promptly lost when my computer locked up as I went to publish it. Stinking technology.

Anyway, I was writing in reference to this article in the Bend Bugle, out of Bend, OR. The article basically reports that 2 Republican Senators and 2 Republican Representatives are starting a new effort to change the Endangered Species Act, purportedly to improve it. In effect, I argued that given that at least one of them, Greg Walden of Oregon, has a long history of unflinching support of the water users in the Klamath Basin, I suspect that he likely has little concern for endangered species. The Klamath basin is an excellent example of the many ESA cases that involve zero-sum conflicts between natural resources users and endangered species. Given a limited amount of water to serve the needs of irrigators and endangered fish species, one has to lose.

If Republicans want to make sure that its the species that lose, then why don't they just say so? If they want to gut the ESA, then say that. If they merely want to put in ESA exemptions for rural communities then say that. I'm an adult, and so is every other voting-age American. Tell us the truth about what you'redoing, and let us decide. This bullshit about selling people an idea is just that, bullshit. Sell them (and me) on the merits of a legislative proposal, not on pretty rhetoric.

Highway living

There's one benefit that comes from living 100 feet from the highway: you can listen to truckers on your computer speakers. I'm serious. I don't know why, but the E-machine speakers I have hooked up to my laptop regularly begin broadcasting snippets of CB conversations. Atleast that's what it sounds like; guys talking to each other in the vivid trucker patois I usually associate with movies like "Convoy".

Wasting my time

It's so easy. I just spent an hour writing a response to a foolish posting on the blog CafePress Watch. I usually wouldn't spend that much time, but sometimes I just feel like a pedant. Perhaps more importantly, the blogger chose to attack my all-time-favorite blog, Jesus General. Which brings me to my real question: Are right-wingers born lacking a sense of humor, or was it beaten out of them at an early age?

How many right-wing comedians do you know? Dennis Miller used to be funny, but apparently September 11th changed him into a hectoring, humorless scold. It's hard to call him a comedian these days. Any others? None that I can think of. Except maybe Ben Stein, and his humor, appropriately enough, comes from the role he generally plays as a humorless bore. Anyway, if you can think of humorous right-wingers, please send me some names. I'd like to check them out.

Tables in Blogspot?

I just published that last post and noticed that the tables don't look like they did in preview mode. Moreover, I can't get codes like border="1" or width="100%" to work in blogspot. Anybody out there have any clue on how to make tables work? Thanks.

The brave new world of "transition financing"

Yesterday's New York Times had an article about the President's new magic show (i.e. proposed 2006 federal budget). The article presents a number of very large costs the President has omitted from his budget which, if included, would make it impossible for him to keep his promise of halving the federal defecit by the end of this term. The best quote of the entire article comes at the very end in reference to the $775 billion the government will have to borrow to "transition" Social Security into a privatized system. According to Josh Bolten, the head of OMB, the new SS borrowing is not included because,

"Transition financing does not represent new debt."

Why is that? Well, according to Mr. Bolten, as long as projected future sources of revenue that will be used to pay back the money borrowed exceed the amount owed, then there is no debt.

This, fair readers, is an amazing opportunity waiting to be seized! The old, outdated norms of personal financial accounting should be renounced, and the new methods of Bush Accounting adopted! This is a revolution waiting to happen, and one that will benefit nearly all of us. Consider the following chart showing my personal net worth under the old methods:

Old Accounting Method

Debts		Assets		Net Worth
$109,300		$16,700		-$92,600

What a buzzkill. Under the old methods, I was just another 30-something with a negative networth Sure, most of that was due to law school loans, but try telling that to finance companies when you're trying to get home financing, a car loan, or even a new credit card. Under the new, easy accounting methods of the Bush Administration, behold the miraculous transformation:

Bush Accounting Method

Transition Financing		Debt		Assets		Net Worth
$107,000		$2,300		$16,700		$14,400

Thanks to President Bush, I'm no longer burdened with troublesome school debt. Instead, what I used to call "school debt" is now merely "transition financing" enabling me to move from a low-paid non-profit management job into a medium-paid public interest law job. As a result of incurring this "transition financing", my future earning increases and voile, my current net worth is suddenly positive. Sure, all you freedom hating demonrats will point out that I still "owe" $107,000 to my school loan providers, but who cares? I've got good evidence to suggest that my income will exceed my "debt level" at some point in the future. Consider the following comparison of my projected annual income (i.e. revenue) as a government attorney against my transition financing plan (i.e. payoff schedule of consolidated school loans at 4.25%):

Income/Debt Comparison

Year	Transition Financing	Projected Income
12/31/04	$107,000	$5,000
12/31/05	$101,847	$58,070
12/31/06	$96,472	$60,006
12/31/07	$90,864	$69,054
12/31/08	$85,012	$71,357
12/31/09	$78,907	$73,659
12/31/10	$72,538	$81,602
12/31/11	$65,892	$84,323
12/31/12	$58,959	$87,043
12/31/13	$51,725	$89,764
12/31/14	$44,177	$92,484
12/31/15	$36,302	$95,987
12/31/16	$28,086	$99,186
12/31/17	$19,514	$102,386
12/31/18	$10,571	$105,586
12/31/19	$1,240	$108,785
2/28/20	$0	$111,985

This chart clearly shows that by no later than 2010, my annual income will exceed my transition financing levels and my adoption of the Bush Accounting will be justified. I highly recommend that each and everyone of you jump on this bandwagon and account yourself into immediate financial viability!

A recipe

Ginger Beer (non-alcoholic)

Obtain a one-gallon glass jar (e.g. Whole Foods apple juice) and the following ingredients:

1 hand-sized piece of ginger root
1 tbsp. whole cloves
6" of cinammon stick
2 c. sugar
1 g. filtered water
1/16 tsp. baker's yeast
1 c. filtered water at about 100-110 degrees (i.e. warm to the touch)

Peel the ginger and whir it in a food processor or blender with 2 tbsp. of water. Pour the resultant slurry into a large pot with the gallon of water, sugar and one-half of the cinammon and cloves. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the other half of the cinammon and cloves and boil for another 5 minutes. Take the pot off the heat and place in a sink filled with cold water.

Rinse the apple juice jar with tap water or, if paranoid about potential contaminants, with boiling water. Add the yeast and 1 c. of warm water. Put the lid on tightly.

When the ginger beer mixture is cool, unscrew the jar lid. You should hear the rush of escaping gases, which signifies that your yeasts are alive and well. If no gas emerges, you may wish to proof the yeast again. Place a funnel lined with cheesecloth into the mouth of the jar and add your ginger beer mixture. Top off the jar with filtered water until only about 1-1.5 inches of air remain in the bottle. Cap tightly and put out of the way.

In about 1-4 days you should see bubbles begin to emerge from the sediment at the bottom of the jar. When the little pressure button in the lid cannot be depressed, the "beer" is ready to be enjoyed. Recap after pouring and it will likely continue to carbonate. If you wish to halt or slow carbonation, place the jar in the refrigerator.

Explanation

Very briefly, for those who may not already know this, the yeast in the beer mixture is added to carbonate it. Yeast releases carbon dioxide and alcohol as a bi-product of its metabolization of sugar. Baker's yeast is used here instead of brewer's yeast because it will produce very little alcohol and leave lots of sugar. In beer brewing, a yeast that did this would be said to have low degree of attenuation. In this recipe, it produces a virtually no-alcohol brew with very little residual yeast flavor. Even better, because the jar is air-tight, the carbon dioxide remains in solution in the brew, thus carbonating it.

I added the cinammon and cloves because they are flavors I like. You could, however, add any number of things to the mix, including:

• 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar (to reduce acidity)
  
• coriander seeds
  
• cardamom seeds or pods
  
• star anise
  
• lemon juice
  
• brown sugar (instead of white sugar to give a darker color)
  
• all spice
  
• honey (instead of sugar)
  
• pepper corns
  
• ground chili pepper or cayenne pepper
  

God and the Constitution

Whether the 2004 election was determined by the reactionary religious right in this country is still up for serious debate. What is not up for debate, I think, is the power that the religious right weilds in our current federal government. Most of the Republican leadership, including the President, are born-again Christians of one variety or another, and reactionary evangelicals like James Dobson or Albert Mohler have the ear of the White House.

In this climate, it is pretty common to hear the assertion that America is a "Christian Nation". Now, statistically speaking, that is absolutely correct. A recent ABC/BeliefNet poll shows 83% of respondents self-identifying as Christian. However, the people who assert that we are a Christian Nation do not do so in reference to our religious make-up. Rather, these people seek to assert that our historical, legal and political background is fundamentally Christian. In other words, our Founding Fathers and the charter documents they drafted are explicitly Christian in nature. At least some of these people, including Tom Delay, assert that our Nation is (or should be) governed by their God's law. They embrace the idea of theonomy and envision America as a theocratic republic, in which only the "godly" will be able to vote and "non-believers" will be punished according to biblical mandate (i.e. stoning homosexuals).

In any case, it occurred to me the other day that most self-described evangelicals and religious conservatives also purport to be strict constructionists. Though these folks rarely make the distinction between the different forms of strict constructionism (i.e. structural, historical, or textual), most tend to argue from the textual standpoint. In light of that fact, any discussion about the constitution of our governing system must begin with the Constitution itself. A quick read (or even better control-F word search) of the text shows one and only one reference to God, Christian or otherwise, in the Constitution. That one mention appears at the very end in reference to the date of its signing:

...done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven...

That's it. One mention. The Declaration of Indpendence, of course, has multiple references to "Nature's God" or "the Creator". But, as any strict constructionist will tell you, the Declaration has no substantive weight. Like the preamble to the Constitution, it's basically windowdressing. This might seem like a silly and inconsequential question, but if our Founding Fathers had, indeed, intended to establish a nation ruled by God's law instead of the laws of men, wouldn't they have atleast made some reference to him in that Nation's founding charter?

Embrace lyrical violence

The Guardian had an article yesterday about the sport of K-1 and its reigning champion, Bob Sapp. K-1 is a 3-round melange of martial arts and boxing which the author describes as a "spectacular synergy of several disciplines". Is that another way of saying that competitors have multiple means by which they can mash each other into pulp? Sounds like more of the same to me, but the author predicts it's going to take over the world.

A game theoretic approach to choosing a religion

Matthew Yglesias, my second favorite blogger, had a post yesterday in which he argued that in a Christian world-view, the only rational choice is to behave morally because the benefit in the afterlife is infinite while, presumably, the benefit of immoral behavior in the current life is finite. He said:

"...morally good behavior is strictly rational because God's judgment will reward goodness with an infinitely large benefit after death. Bad behavior must always result from akrasia, "disordered virtues," short-sightedness, or some such other thing."

I've never thought of religion in this way, but after some reflection it does seem like this could be a model for Christians' rational decisionmaking. After even further reflection, though, I'm not sure that it actually is. The problem, I think, is that the flip-side of infinite benefit (Heaven) in the afterlife is infinite pain (Hell) in the afterlife. If you act morally you're fine, but one slip-up and you're metaphysically fucked.

In this rational actor model, because the post-death benefit of moral action on Earth is actually infinite, there could be no possible way that rational actors would ever do anything but that which was moral. The problem lies in morally ambiguous situations which, though our President might argue otherwise, are not uncommon in the real world. In those situations, rational actors would be unable to determine the correct moral choice. How then to act? Any choice in which the probability that you'll act morally is less than 100% would be rationally untenable, as it would then sentence the actor to a fate of infinite pain. There would seem to be no solution to this quandry.

What does this mean, then? Well, either you can't be religious and rational OR, rational people need to choose a religion that has a non-binary eschatology. I know next to nothing about theology, but it seems like Catholicism solved this problem by inventing Purgatory. I'm not sure whether Protestants have a similar intermediate realm, but it must, as I know plenty of rational folks who are also devout Protestants.

More on gun control, the farce that is H.R. 3193

If you read the entire article I talk about in the previous post, you will come to the following choice quote at the very end:

"Harry Reid needs to make sure his boys in the Senate don't throw up a filibuster to block [H.R. 1036 & H.R. 3193] from going through."

This little beauty comes from Larry Pratt at Gun Owners of America and has been making lots of DC residents very angry. Here's why:

H.R. 3193 is a bill introduced in 2003 by Mark Souder from Indiana and sent to the Senate for a vote in September 2004. Its title is the District of Columbia Personal Protection Act and it seeks to repeal the District's gun control law. This law is the most restrictive gun law in the country, banning ownership of all handguns not registered before 1976 and severely restricting the ownership of longguns and shotguns. It was passed in 1976 and remains overwhelmingly popular in the District, where gun-related crimes are quite frequent.

This bill disgusts me. It's a classic example of right-wing demagoguery that has the potential to cause great harm in the District. I've lived here for 5 years and I've been mugged twice at gunpoint. Last year something like 24 kids below the age of 18 were shot to death. There are, it seems, already plenty of guns in DC. Mr. Souder presents no evidence suggesting that more guns will make us safer.

Of course, Mr. Souder has claimed that he offered this bill to protect DC citizens. His silence in recent weeks belies that claim. Last month the District hosted the Presidential Inauguration and last month the District incurred $17 million in extra security costs. Traditionally, the city would be reimbursed. This year, it won't. The Administration is making the District take that money out of its homeland security appropriation. Now, if Mr. Souder were really all that concerned with my safety perhaps he would have agitated to have the Administration reimburse those costs. Did he? Nope. And thus, this year, the District has $17 million less than it normally would to provide security to me and every other District citizen.

Ultimately, this bill is detestable because Mr. Souder has taken it upon himself to expressly deny the popular wishes of the people of DC. Twenty-eight years ago citizens elected to severely restrict gun ownership. Since that time, nothing has changed. When Souder first offered the bill, every member of the DC Council, Mayor Williams and our non-voting member of Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, sent him a letter asking him to table the idea. He did not. This is NOT, mind you, an example of him valiantly protecting some repressed minority against majoritarian mistreatment. This is strictly an issue of one man (or group of men) using their legislative powers to circumvent the democratic process in Washington, DC. We have no say when it comes to federal taxes and policy and now, it seems, Mr. Souder wants to ensure that we have no say when it comes to local policies too.

The death of gun-control?

The Hill has a pretty fascinating article today discussing how the leadership in the Democratic party is becoming more gun-rights oriented. As a Democrat, gun enthusiast and former gun owner, I have to say that I find this trend heartening.

Growing up, I was taught to use and respect firearms. They were not toys, but nor were they something to be feared. It wasn't until I moved to Washington, DC, in 2000 that I came across something I believe to be an urban, definitely liberal, phenomenon: knee-jerk anti-gun attitudes. By this, I mean the uniformly, often violently, negative response I've heard when discussing guns and gun laws with people with whom I usually agree (i.e. urban, East Coast Democrats). These folks, usually my friends, are often shocked when I mention that I think the 2nd Amendment encompasses more than just a collective right, and that I don't think gun bans are good policy. Generally, after this revelation, we never discuss gun control again. Usually, I think, because my friends don't think we have common ground on the issue.

What I find heartening about the article is the suggestion, however faint, that the Democratic party might be working to find a middle path and articulate that common ground. I think that for too long the Handgun Control, Inc. crowd has had too much influence on the party's approach to gun control and dictated too much of the internal debate. With any luck, Howard Dean, Harry Reid and others will be able to bring a moderating influence into play. I don't know the mechanism by which this might occur, but maybe then progressives and liberals might be convinced re-consider their absolute aversion to firearms.

Cover letter hell...

They (the mysterious mavens of career counseling) routinely argue that job hunters need to tailor each and every cover letter they send to the particular requirements of the recipient. Since I've been job hunting, I've attempted to do just that. Using my basic "template" I state how I heard about the job, briefly explain my qualifications, outline a couple of relevant experiences, and then close. Here's the problem: I'm applying for many very similar jobs. They want 0-3 years of legal experience in environmental and administrative law, or some variation on that theme. Which makes me wonder how tailored these letters actually have to be. Really, there's only so many different ways I can describe writing a brief on the deliberative process privilege. At some point it begins to seem like a waste of time and resources. I wonder whether the employers reading my applications can actually tell that I've spent good time writing them that letter?

Endangered Species: Ethical Republican

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has an interesting article this morning about changes made yesterday to the House Ethics Committee. It seems that Dennis Hastert (R-IL) canned the chairman of the Committee, Joel Hefley (R-CO). He also purged Kenny Hulshof (R-MO) and Stephen LaTourette (R-OH). The three members, it turns out, were the Republicans on the committee who voted to admonish Tom Delay (R-TX) in the fall for unethical conduct. No doubt, the fact that each also voted against the Delay Rule, which would have allowed indicted House leadership to remain in their leadership positions, didn't help their cause with Mr. Hastert. The money quote from the Post-Dispatch article comes from Haster's spokesman, John Feehery:

"The speaker doesn't like to have people who are such talented legislators like [Hefley] have to spend so much time on ethics."

Yes. God forbid we should have talented legislators working on ethics issues in the House. I guess this explains why Hastert appointed Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Tom Cole (R-OK) to the committee. We can all rest easy now, knowing that these gentlemen will be doing their super, very best to hold Congress to tight moral and ethical standards.

An Asbestos Economy

A disclaimer: I couldn't watch the state of the union address last night because I was at bookclub being a good liberal elitist. Instead, I read a transcript of the speech in this morning's Post.

As a lawyer, one particular quote caught my attention. It came early, while the President was talking about the economy. He said:

"Justice is distorted, and our economy is held back by irresponsible class-actions and frivolous asbestos claims..."

Did the President just assert that asbestos claims in our courts play a significant role in the current state of our economy? Why yes, I believe he did. This, no doubt, was news to most Americans who, like me, were under the misconception that the US has a highly-diversified, information economy. Nope. It turns out that America's economic strength is (and was) built on asbestos. Who knew?