Reflection, not retribution

Obama on his position of impunity for torturers: “This is a time for reflection, not retribution”; “nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.” Because the torturers tortured in, you know, good faith. Good-faith torturing. So that’s okay, then.

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Well-paid, adult men in our government spent their days sending memos back and forth to each other about whether and how to exploit a prisoner’s fear of insects.

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And making up new words for their acts of violence against prisoners: Walling: to slam a detainee into a wall. “A detainee may be walled one time (one impact with the wall) to make a point, or twenty to thirty times consecutively when the interrogator requires a more significant response to a question.” To make a point! More significant response!

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NYT: “Mr. Ahmadinejad warned Wednesday that Washington should adopt a respectful tone toward Iran. ‘The Iranian nation might forget the past and start a new era,’ he said, in a reference to Iran’s accusations that the United States has meddled in its affairs in the past.”

Accusations? Is there some question about CIA involvement in the 1953 coup against Iran’s democratic government? It’s not exactly a he said, she said, is it now?

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Middle East envoy George Mitchell, in Jerusalem today, said that the US goal is “a two-state solution which will have a Palestinian state living in peace alongside the Jewish state of Israel.” What exactly is the American definition of a “Jewish state”? Will Palestinians be allowed to live in it without converting? Will non-Jews have any rights?

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Sigh. Now Clement Freud has died.

Here’s a 6-minute audio clip from a 2006 episode of Just a Minute, on which he performed for more than 40 years, with Freud, Tim Rice, Stephen Fry, and Paul Merton speaking on “How to be irresistible to women”:



Sadly, I was unable to find any of his famous 1960s dog food commercials (with a basset he curiously resembled) on YouTube. The Times quotes some of his columns for the paper. (Update): Like me, the Guardian has been trawling YouTube for his appearances on Just a Minute and elsewhere, and put up a dozen or so here.

Too often, Obama uses the word “too”

As in an editorial he wrote about the upcoming Summit of the Americas.

“Too often, the United States has not pursued and sustained engagement with our neighbors.” So how often should the US not pursue and sustain engagement with our neighbors?

“We have been too easily distracted by other priorities”. So how distracted is just distracted enough?

“The U.S.-Cuba relationship is one example of a debate in the Americas that is too often dragged back to the 20th century.” So how often should the debate be dragged back to the 20th century?

“Too many in our hemisphere are forced to live in fear.” So how many in our hemisphere should be forced to live in fear? In round numbers?

Par-tay!

It’s Tax Day. Right-wingers are celebrating with tea parties, downing cucumber sandwich after cucumber sandwich to protest taxes. Or something.


This picture, which I’m blatantly stealing from Dependable Renegade,


shows one brave tea-bagger who just wants Obama not to be a tranny. I think we all want Obama not to be a tranny.

Baaaa!

AP story: “Dozens of young women braved crowds of bearded men screaming ‘dogs!’ on Wednesday to protest an Afghan law that lets husbands demand sex from their wives. ... Mehri Rezai, 32, urged her countrymen to reject the law. ‘This law treats women as if we were sheep,’ she said.”

Dogs, women, sheep: Afghan men just want to be able to demand sex from them every four days. Is that so wrong?

First do no harm

Yesterday, Obama gave yet another speech on the economy. Not that he had anything new to say, but he did have a nifty Bible story.

DUE TO THE RECESSION, ALL THE WHITE HOUSE POETS HAVE BEEN LAID OFF: “This is going to be prose, and not poetry.”

WELL, WE COULD CUT UP THE KITCHEN TABLE FOR FIRE WOOD: “You see, when this recession began, many families sat around the kitchen table and tried to figure out where they could cut back.”

I THOUGHT IT WAS, FIRST COLLECT THE CO-PAY: “Governments should practice the same principle as doctors: First, do no harm.”


FRUSTRATING OBAMA FOR FUN AND PROFIT: “I promise you, nobody is more frustrated than me with AIG”. Then he explained why he was still giving them lots of money.

OH GOODY, A PARABLE: “Now, there’s a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells the story of two men. The first built his house on a pile of sand, and it was soon destroyed when a storm hit. But the second is known as the wise man, for when ‘the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.’ It was founded upon a rock. We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock.” So if I understand this correctly, we’re switching to a rock-based economy.

DEATH RAYS FOR EVERYONE! “And, by the way, one of the changes that I would like to see -- and I’m going to be talking about this in weeks to come -- is once again seeing our best and our brightest commit themselves to making things -- engineers, scientists, innovators.” So if I understand this correctly, we’re switching to a mad-scientist based economy.

“MAKE NO MISTAKE” IS THE NEW “IN OTHER WORDS”: “So make no mistake, health care reform is entitlement reform.”

ON THE TELEPROMPTER? “But from where we stand, for the very first time, we’re beginning to see glimmers of hope.”

A very secret Muslimy hopey Easter

Caption contest.

I like to look in and see how the dishes were magically cleaned

Clarence Thomas told some high school students that “I’m one of those people that still thinks the dishwasher is a miracle. What a device! And I have to admit that because I think that way, I like to load it. I like to look in and see how the dishes were magically cleaned.” Oh, and porn, he likes to look at that too.

CONTEST: What else does Clarence Thomas think is a miracle? Antonin Scalia’s ability to divine the original intent of the Founders? Long Dong Silver? The way images of Jesus appear on burritos and pubic hairs on Coke cans? That he got appointed to the Supreme Court entirely on his own merits, with no consideration of his race whatsoever? Hi-tech lynchings?

May 2009 California Proposition Recommendations

Looking for June 2010 proposition recommendations? Click here.


UPDATE: results added below in purple.

After months of legislative stalemate over the budget, they dumped these six hastily drafted, over-complicated initiatives in our laps. Go into the voting booth assured that whatever decisions we collectively make will destroy people’s lives. Can we just go back to voting on gay marriage and whether to ban horse meat?

Prop. 1A. I’m conflicted on the whole concept of a rainy day fund. On the one hand, it’s kind of like a progressive tax system for the economy as a whole, taxing good years to make up for shortfalls when the tax base contracts in bad years. But on the other hand, it seriously weakens the link between taxation and representation. It doesn’t seem entirely democratic to be collecting taxes (12.5% of the budget) for purposes that have yet to be determined. Either way, right now the idea is irrelevant: these are the rainy days, and they’re likely to continue for a while, and when the economy recovers we’ll have to spend a few years attending to all the, um, water damage from our current budget cuts. Maybe the rainy day fund idea should be considered in a decade or so.

Next, taxes. 1A would keep the recent sales and income tax increases until 2012 or 2013 instead of having them expire in 2011. It is definitely necessary to raise some taxes to maintain services, but it is especially vital in bad times that taxes fall most heavily on those who can best afford to pay them – no regressive taxes. California already gets too much of its revenue from a sales tax that is too high. And even the income tax increase in 1A is a flat tax, adding .25% to the existing rates in each tax bracket.

There’s also a lot of stuff in 1A about when money can be transferred from one fund to another, all way too complicated for me to figure out how it would be play out in practice. Which is a good reason not to carve it into stone. And the governor is given way too much discretion over spending, letting him cut, without any reference to the Legislature, all sorts of outlays, including cost-of-living increases for the lame and the halt (but not for state employees, because guess who wrote this thing).

What 1A comes down to is an attempt to create a lot of rules restricting what our elected representatives can do in setting budgets, without addressing the real reason the budgetary process is broken: the ridiculous requirement that 2/3 of the Legislature vote for a budget. I’m just not willing to consider any prop affecting budget-making that leaves intact the ability of a small minority to obstruct the workings of the state. No on 1A.
Result: No, 65.9%.

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Prop. 1B. To pay back – eventually – money the Legislature recently diverted from education (K-12 + community colleges). Yes.
Result: No, 62.6%.

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Prop. 1C. You gotta love the title of this one: “Lottery Modernization Act.” Taking money from the innumerate the modern way, who wouldn’t be in favor of that? Basically, diverting $5 billion in lottery revenue 1) from education into the general fund, and 2) from future years (to be repaid with interest) to the current budget, and making changes to the lottery that would, they hope, bring in lots more revenue in the future (but which would probably fail to bring in enough to repay the $5 billion).

When we first voted to create a lottery, I abstained, figuring that while I had no interest in playing it (and I never have), the people who might want to were adults and could decide for themselves. Then it was implemented, and I saw that with the lottery came advertising, that the state of California was actively enticing credulous people to gamble away their money. To make the Prop 1C Ponzi scheme function, they’d have to work very hard indeed at luring us into throwing away a great deal more than the measly $83 per year that the average Californian evidently currently spends on lottery tickets. I don’t wish to see that happen in my name. No on 1C.
Result: No, 64.6%

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Prop. 1D. would steal money from various early-childhood programs to fund various other early-childhood programs in order to make the budget numbers look better. Short of examining the effectiveness of each one of those programs, there is no way to tell what the impact on children would be, but 1D would move spending decisions from local commissions to the state, and something tells me that the state government is less to be trusted these days. No on 1D.
Result: No, 65.8%

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Prop. 1E would steal money from various mental health programs to fund various other mental health programs to make the budget numbers look better. It could also imperil some federal matching funds. No on 1E.
Result: No, 66.4%. The highest no vote.

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Prop. 1F. No pay increases for elected officials in years when the state is in deficit. Look, the problem with the budget isn’t (just) that legislators are assholes who refuse to do their jobs, it’s that 2/3 requirement, which rewards assholery. The idea behind 1F, that legislators should be prodded into compromise by negative financial incentives is just as unethical and cynical and antithetical to democracy as bribing them would be. Any politician this would work on is not worthy of public office. 1F is populism for infants, and polls say it’s more popular than ice cream and puppy dogs and probably the only one of these that will pass. No on 1F.
Result: Yes, 73.9%. Let it never be said that Californians don't fall for cheap populism. Hey, I've got an idea: let's just elect politicians who don't need salaries that keep up with inflation, rich people, like, I don't know, maybe movie stars. I'm sure nothing could go wrong with that.

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A warning: there are no good choices here. A-E all involve some form of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Someone gets screwed no matter how you vote, and if the majority of Californians follow my recommendations, terrible things will happen, though a different set of terrible things than if they vote the other way. For example, hocking future lottery revenues, taking from future years in order to plug holes in the 2008-9 budget, is short-sightedness of the first order, but if 1C fails, there will be a $5 billion gap that will require some combination of taxes and spending cuts.

And that choice exemplifies how these 6 initiatives have made an already broken budgetary process downright deranged. I mean, we know what we get if 1C passes but not what the Legislature will do if it fails – how can voters make an informed decision? We’re voting on whether there will be a 3rd year of increased sales tax, but not on years 1 and 2. And since the 6 initiatives are meant to be a package, interesting but unpredictable things will happen if some of them pass but not others.

Comments, rebuttals, and the wailing of the damned are welcome in the comments sections.

(Update: see also the SF Bay Guardian's well-explained recommendations (no on everything).

Beware, beware

Republican chair Michael Steele has sent out a fundraising email that warns of an insidious plot, “the Obama Democrats’ misuse of power and plans to end free and fair elections.” Evidently they plan to “falsify the U.S. Census and manipulate elections in their favor” and “create permanent liberal control of the federal government.”

How will they do that? “President Obama’s old friends from ACORN, the leftist, urban ‘community’ organization with a long history of promoting vote fraud, has been chosen by the Administration as a ‘partner’ with the Census Bureau to determine population counts in cities around the country. ... If the Democrats and their friends at ACORN have their way, the Census will only ‘estimate’ state populations and therefore be subject to political calculations. And surely their estimate will be far higher than the actual number of people, and voters, present.”

“Our democracy, and the principle of ‘One Person, One Vote’ are in jeopardy.”

So, you know, keep an eye out for that.

In front of the children?

A study in the Annals of Internal Medicine shows that while Bush’s AIDS initiative in Africa (PEPFAR) reduced the numbers of people dying from AIDS by 10% 2003-07 (compared to non-PEPFAR African countries), averting 1.2 million deaths, at a cost of $2,450 each. Hurrah. The bad news, however, is that it did nothing at all to decrease the number of people who became infected with HIV. So can we stop wasting 1/3 of the PEPFAR funds on worthless abstinence-only programs already?

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So this year the White House is inviting gay families and their children to the White House Easter Egg Roll. Must... resist... double... entendre.........

Surprise!

Obama made one of those “surprise” trips to Iraq, where he gave a speech to some of the American troops occupying that country in which he complained that the Iraqis “need to take responsibility for their country and for their sovereignty.” For some reason, they responded “Oo-ah” instead of “So we can go home now?”

Obama declares lack of war

In 1944 Eisenhower’s chief of staff told de Gaulle that French troops could lead the liberation of Paris only if they used only white troops and not colonial ones.

Barack Obama was in Turkey today, giving that “major speech in a Muslim capital” he’d promised. He told the Turkish parliament, “The United States is not, and will never be, at war with Islam.” Of course not, it’s an “overseas contingency operation.” Police action?

The other word he avoided, even when prodded by reporters at a press conference, is genocide, as in that little local unpleasantness in 1915. This is the guy who said last year, “America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian genocide.” He seemed to think that the factual matter of whether a genocide did or did not take place should be decided by negotiations between Turkey and Armenia, and “I’m not interested in the United States in any way tilting these negotiations one way or another while they are having useful discussions.” Heaven forfend that the US in any way tilt for or against genocide deniers.

Including Turkish President Abdullah Gul, who was standing right there, responded with some tilting of his own, equating the massive state-sponsored genocide against ethnic Armenians with the much smaller number of Muslim Turks: “And unfortunately, some citizens of the empire then were provoked by some other countries and there were many internal clashes and many people lost their lives. And we share the sorrow of all those who lost their lives, but we have to remember that the Muslim population also suffered greatly at the same time. ... But unfortunately, these issues politically, especially by the diaspora, have been brought to the agenda as a way to perhaps cling to their identity.” Don’t you hate it when people keep bringing up past genocides as a way to perhaps cling to their identity?

Tops in taps

Truer words were never spoken: “Peanuts are really a bipartisan issue.”

Karzai claims to be reconsidering the new marriage law (which my previous posts should have made clear apply only to Shiites, who are a smallish minority in Afghanistan). Today Obama finally spoke out about it (in response to a question at a press conference), calling it “abhorrent.” I could have done without him adding a cultural sensitivity caveat (“And we think that it is very important for us to be sensitive to local culture, but we also think that there are certain basic principles that all nations should uphold, and respect for women and respect for their freedom and integrity is an important principle.”), since I can’t think of any instance in which being “sensitive to local culture” about the position of women in society is not likely to be at the expense of equality (and you’ll notice he talked about respect for women, a rather elastic term – the Shiite fundies would claim to have nothing but respect for their chattel women – and freedom and integrity, but did not mention equality.)

It’s interesting that Western news stories have focused almost exclusively on the marital rape aspect, with many reports leaving out the requirement for wives to get their husbands’ permission to set foot outside the family home, and even fewer mentioning the legalization of marriage of girls after they menstruate for the first time.

From the Strasbourg NATO summit, the tap-dance stylings of Sarko and the O Man:



Some world leaders, sadly, simply cannot tap.

Obama and Sarkozy and Berlusconi

Now Iowa has gay marriage, and California does not. Something is seriously askew in the universe.

Pictures from the G-20 and NATO summits. You can caption them, or compare and contrast Obama and Sarkozy’s ears, whatever. I’ve got a headache.

Emphasis on the “force”

John McCain twitters: “SenJohnMcCain: America has been and remains the greatest force for good in history.”

We’re bigger than Jesus!

Barack Obama and the Chinese naval mooning episode

This is not transparency we can believe in: on the White House website, the transcript of a “background readout to the travel pool by senior administration officials on President Obama’s meeting with Chinese President Hu” identifies the briefer only as “senior administration official.” I could do without the secretive bullshit – and the press corps that enables it.

From that briefing: “Tibet was discussed. ... And he made clear our concerns about human rights in Tibet and our hope that China would make progress and (inaudible).” I don’t know about progress, but China is certainly working on making Tibet inaudible.

Also from the briefing:

Q: The Chinese naval mooning episode, where the two ships came awfully close last month, was that discussed at all?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Military-to-military relations were discussed and President Obama referred to the episode, yes.

I wonder if Obama used the phrase “naval mooning episode” when speaking to Hu.

The Obamas meet the Windsors

But what did they say? CAPTION CONTEST!



(Update: I’m sure my British readers who saw this picture and thought, “Please don’t let Prince Philip say anything racist, please don’t let Prince Philip say anything racist” will be pleased to hear that the stupid things he said were not racist. From the Indy: “As the first couple exchanged small talk with the Queen about their gruelling schedule, the prince swung into action, declaring: ‘You’re just trying to stay awake!’ Then as President Obama listed his meetings with Gordon Brown, the Russian president and David Cameron, Prince Philip cut in again, asking: ‘Can you tell the difference between them?’”)

Not an add-on or an afterthought

Yesterday I said that I awaited Hillary Clinton’s condemnation of the new law relegating Afghan women to the condition of chattel. Well, at the International Conference on Afghanistan today, an Afghan reporter asked her about the conditions for women, though unfortunately not specifically about the law, allowing Clinton to respond entirely in meaningless generalities. Since I asked what her response would be, it seems only fair to reproduce her comments in full:

Well, there’s a continuing commitment to women and girls, to their well-being, to their education, their healthcare, to their full integration into society that I am very committed to, as is President Obama. So this is an area of absolute concern on the part of the United States. We’re looking for ways that can produce even more opportunities for women and girls in Afghanistan.

I’ve briefly met with some of the women parliamentarians who are here at the conference. And my message is very clear: Women’s rights are a central part of American foreign policy in the Obama Administration; they are not marginal; they are not an add-on or an afterthought.

I believe, as does President Obama, that the roles and rights of women in any society is a key indicator as to the stability and potential for peace, prosperity, and democracy of that society. So I would be committed to women’s roles and rights because of my lifelong concern about women. But as Secretary of State, I am equally committed because it’s absolutely the smart strategy for the United States and other nations to pursue.

You cannot expect a country to develop if half its population are underfed, undereducated, under cared for, oppressed, and left on the sidelines. And we believe strongly that that’s not in the interests of Afghanistan or any country, and it certainly is not part of our foreign policy or our strategic review. So we will continue to work very hard on behalf of women and girls in Afghanistan and around the world.

Evidence that Guantanamo is still part of the universe

Miss Universe, Dayana Mendoza of Venezuela, visited Guantanamo Bay last week (along with Miss USA), and blogged it (not a perm. URL) (Update: in fact, the Miss Universe people have made her take down the post): “we had a wonderful time, this truly was a memorable trip! ... it was a loooot of fun! ... We visited the Detainees camps and we saw the jails, where they shower, how the recreate themselves with movies, classes of art, books. It was very interesting.” The two Misses didn’t actually meet any of the prisoners, who were thus deprived of another opportunity to recreate themselves, possibly in the shower.

In other prisoner news, the Israeli government has decided to punish all Hamas prisoners in retaliation for the continued captivity of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, stripping them of access to newspapers, education, family visits, etc etc. That’ll teach Hamas not to capture and mistreat prisoners in order to get their demands met.

A new Afghan law signed by Karzai, though not made public yet, will (probably) ban wives leaving their homes without their husband’s permission, including for medical treatment. Oh, and they can’t refuse sex. And only men get custody of children. And child marriage will be allowed. Freedom, ain’t it grand? Condemnation from Hillary Clinton should come any.... minute.... now....

An Army sergeant is convicted by a court-martial of executing four disarmed and handcuffed Iraqi prisoners and dumping the bodies into a canal in Baghdad in 2007. Joseph Mayo offered the excuse that the murders were “in the best interests of my soldiers,” who would have been in danger had he released the prisoners. He didn’t mean immediate danger but rather that given the lack of evidence that the prisoners were up to anything, they’d have been released in a few days. Mayo himself could be released in 10 years.

Obama’s new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan

Today Obama spoke about his “new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan,” which looks an awful lot like the old strategy, just with the war in Pakistan more openly acknowledged.

The justification for the war(s) isn’t exactly daisy fresh (poppy fresh?) either: “So let me be clear: Al Qaeda and its allies -- the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks -- are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. ... Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the United States homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan.” He didn’t say that they hate us for our freedoms, but you could hear the Bushian echo in the air.

Sometimes not even an echo, but a direct quote: “Al Qaeda’s offers the people of Pakistan nothing but destruction. We stand for something different.”

“So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan...” (Also discombobulate, defenestrate and dehumidify it) “...and to prevent their return to either country in the future.” He added, “That is a cause that could not be more just.” Although curing cancer would also be a pretty good cause. Oo, and stopping global warming.

Pakistan will be thrilled to hear that Obama repeatedly lumped it in with Afghanistan, blurring the two countries together (indeed, he mentioned Richard Holbrooke’s new job is “Special Representative” for both countries) (to both countries one would have thought but Obama said “Special Representative for both countries” – a slip of the imperialist tongue?). “For the American people, this border region has become the most dangerous place in the world.” “[W]e must recognize the fundamental connection between the future of Afghanistan and Pakistan”. That future? Filled with rubble, the wails of survivors and calls for revenge.

He did reassure Pakistan: “The United States has great respect for the Pakistani people.” Predator drones being the highest form of respect.

“To avoid the mistakes of the past, we must make clear that our relationship with Pakistan is grounded in support for Pakistan’s democratic institutions and the Pakistani people.” Assuming, of course, that those democratic institutions and those people do exactly what we tell them to do: “Pakistan must demonstrate its commitment to rooting out al Qaeda and the violent extremists within its borders. And we will insist that action be taken -- one way or another -- when we have intelligence about high-level terrorist targets.”

He also expressed respect for Afghanistan: “We are not in Afghanistan to control that country or to dictate its future.” Scolding, however...: “Afghanistan has an elected government, but it is undermined by corruption and has difficulty delivering basic services to its people. ... We cannot turn a blind eye to the corruption that causes Afghans to lose faith in their own leaders.” It’s especially hard to turn a blind eye to corruption when you’re the one who bribed them and put them in power in the first place. He talks as an occupation lasting if more than seven years has nothing to do with the current condition of the Afghan polity.

He promised “clear metrics” for Afghanistan, although he did not say what they will be. He did not say anything about American troops returning with honor; indeed, he did not say anything about American troops returning, ever.