Quote for the day

Lest we forget....

MODERATOR: New question. How would you go about as president deciding when it was in the national interest to use U.S. force, generally?

BUSH: Well, if it's in our vital national interest, and that means whether our territory is threatened or people could be harmed, whether or not the alliances are -- our defense alliances are threatened, whether or not our friends in the Middle East are threatened. That would be a time to seriously consider the use of force. Secondly, whether or not the mission was clear. Whether or not it was a clear understanding as to what the mission would be. Thirdly, whether or not we were prepared and trained to win. Whether or not our forces were of high morale and high standing and well-equipped. And finally, whether or not there was an exit strategy. I would take the use of force very seriously. I would be guarded in my approach. I don't think we can be all things to all people in the world. I think we've got to be very careful when we commit our troops. The vice president and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in nation building. I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. . .

And one more:

[BUSH:] If we don't have a clear vision of the military, if we don't stop extending our troops all around the world and nation building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road, and I'm going to prevent that.

—The First Presidential Debate, October 3, 2000.

Birth Pangs

For those who are paying attention, this week's comment by Condoleeza Rice, on the occasion of her holding out from what would have been a consensus about a call for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon, containing the cryptic phrase "birth pangs of a new Middle East," sends a coded signal to a huge number of American evangelicals that the United States is seeking to become a midwife to the onset of the Great Tribulation.

Disclaimer: "Rapture" is an evangelical technical term, and the entire dispensatonal-millenial belief system that promotes it is a latecomer to Christian theology. Suffice to say here that while I have an insider's understanding of what all that is about, neither I nor the faith tradition that has nurtured me find reason to make use of it. I'll leave for another day all the ins and outs of interpretation involved. However: even though this is rather an intramural discussion among Christians, it has huge implications for how people think about the course of world events.

Some of us would actually like to follow Jesus, and some want a ringside seat at fulfillment of prophecy. Many, no doubt, think the two are the same thing. And since biblical prophecies are replete with predictions of calamity, we have the bizarre sight of followers of the Prince of Peace acting as cheerleaders for more calamity. I wonder if this is what the Master wishes, when he comes, to find his servants so doing.

The Stealth Veto

The New York Times reported this morning that the American Bar Association is issuing a report strongly denouncing the current president's practice of issuing "signing statements" after putting his signature on bills passed by Congress.

In a comprehensive report, a bipartisan 11-member panel of the bar association said Mr. Bush had used such “signing statements” far more than his predecessors, raising constitutional objections to more than 800 provisions in more than 100 laws on the ground that they infringed on his prerogatives.

These broad assertions of presidential power amount to a “line-item veto” and improperly deprive Congress of the opportunity to override the veto, the panel said.

The issue now being revealed has to do with the linkage between the proliferation of these signing statements (more than 800 so far) and the paucity of vetoes (one) in the Bush presidency. It's very simple: If the president doesn't veto a bill, Congress has no way, short of impeachment on grounds of violation of the "faithfully execute" clause, to directly address his refusal to comply with portions of it.

And since Congress wouldn't give him the line-item veto, he just went ahead and took it, on the sly. With no opportunity for Cogress to override. Sweet. When the King finally dissolves Parliament, will anyone even notice?

For further reading: Fellow blogger Tinsel Wing has provided a "top ten" list, first published early this month by the Boston Globe.

Till Death Do Us Part?

Cross-posted.

I’ve seen a lot of people get divorced, some after decades of marriage. I’ve been one of those old-fashioned folks who really would like for the marriage vows “until death do us part” to mean something. Lately I’ve decided that really, they do.

One of the last few conversations I had with the mother of a large family before she died had to do with this topic. She had seen numerous family members go through this painful process of separation from their spouses. She said this to me:

“You know, sometimes I think in the church [meaning, our little congregation] we’ve made a mistake, because we’ve been so anxious not to judge people or condemn them who have been divorced, that we’ve not really talked about what a terrible thing it is.”

I agreed that divorce is a tragedy in every case, even when it seems like it was the right thing to do, even if there’s no blame to be placed on the divorced person, even if later on the parties experience growth and change for the better in their (now separate) lives. We should never pretend that something heartwrenchingly painful and soul-destroying has not occurred.

So I got to thinking again about the wedding vows, and whether or not they mean something that is somehow true even in those cases that end in this tragedy of divorce. And I realized, that divorce itself involves a kind of a death, and that makes the marriage vow true “until death do us part” even in those cases. No one gets a divorce without something dying, or having died. You hear it in the language: “I felt like I had died inside.” “It seemed that there was no life in our relationship anymore.” “I knew it was over.” People in this process go through deep mourning, just as real and severe as when one mourns a loved one’s passing. All the stages of grief apply: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and at the very last, acceptance. The tragedy is real, incontrovertible. The difference is that what has died is not a person, but a relationship: something as real, in the realm of the spirit, as anything can be.

For the believer in the living God, however, it is necessary to go through that mourning, and receive the promise: blessed are they that mourn. It is possible to acknowledge the depth of the tragedy, without imposing a rigid requirement that the person live the rest of their lives in its shadow. We bury our dead; we say goodbye, and turn to the next task of life. We don’t pretend there has been no loss, but neither do we devote our existence to building monuments to that loss. We look for new life, new joy, beyond this death a resurrection. We comfort one another, and are comforted. We remember the good. We create new relationships. We live again.

The Calculus of Death

News reports at the hour of this writing indicate that the attacks by Hezbollah rockets on Haifa and the towns of northern Israel have resulted in 24 Israeli deaths, while the retaliatory barrage of Israeli airpower on targets in Lebanon have killed at least 170 human beings. What I see no one asking is this:

In the deadly calculus of war, are we prepared to accept that a lethality ratio of a little better than 7 to 1 deaths, in the name of a right to self-defense, is acceptably proportional, so long as the seven are somehow associated with the bad guys?

By that calculus, America should be perfectly happy to kill about 21,000 Saudis and Yemenis and whatnot in retaliation for 9/11. Except, oh, wait: we substituted Iraqis, didn't we, and raised the ratio by another order of magnitude.

Remember, it's the bad guys who have no respect for human life. That's why we have to kill so many more of them, than they ever do of us.

Or maybe I just never was that good at math.

Lies, damn lies and FUD

This is SOOOOOOOOO evil!

An outfit calling itself "Hands Off the Internet" has just fielded a television spot opposing Net Neutrality. In 30 seconds it makes a series of utterly false claims and even more twisted buzzwords, designed to have the following effect:

1. Convince the viewers that some nutcases out here are trying to get congress to ENACT something called "Net Neutrality" thus preventing "progress" and "competition" on the internet.

2. Pretend that when a major newswpaper such as the Washington Post editiorializes that Congress should "stay out of cyberspace," this supports the goals of the backers of the ad, when in fact it does just the opposite by supporting the status quo, which has been assigned this label of "Net Neutrality."

Thereby,

3. Stirring the emotions of an unthinking public to bring an outcry that in fact is contrary to the interests of that public's actual opinion, which is generally that, yes indeed, rules governing how internet access is distributed SHOULD NOT CHANGE.

I am about willing to pay a hundred bucks cold cash* to anyone who can demonstrate that this "Hands Off the Internet" organization is not a wholly-owned or fully-funded creature of the telecommunications giants, whose goal is to get congress to ACT by enacting NEW arrangements that would allow those companies to impose control of bandwidth based on content, and control of content based on the payment of big money. This corporate control of the flow of information is what is referred to in Orwellian style, in the ad, as "competition." Make no mistake: The opponents of so-called net neutrality want to make it less likely that the average surfer will ever see what YOU post to the internet.

Expose them. Please.

(a public service rant.)

* [edit: I get to keep my cash. See the page listing supporters of handsoff.org, including AT&T, Cingular, Bell South, etc... According to Sourcewatch.org,

The bulk of HOTI's financial support comes from the newly re-formed AT&T, which has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into HOTI ad campaigns, including extensive advertising buys across the blogosphere and in mainstream and beltway press. Nowhere throughout these ads is it disclosed that the effort is funded by the nation's largest telecommunications companies and lobbyists. Instead, HOTI ads are fashioned to look and feel like genuine grassroots efforts, backed by broad popular suport.

]

[EDIT as of August 1, 2006]: There is a slashdot discussion today rehashing the arguments, and buried deep within is a link to an excellent summary of the issues involved.

A quote for today

[War] is instinctive.  But the instinct can be fought.  We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands!  But we can stop it.  We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today.  That's all it takes!  Knowing that we're not going to kill today!

                -- Kirk, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.0

Nine Dollar Gasoline

Had a dream last night.  It seems the federal government had finally decided to get serious about the dependence on fossil fuels, and announced a program for alternative energy transportation to be put on the fast track.  I don't remember the details of that program, but in conjunction with that came another announcement:

Effective immediately, the retail price of gasoline, nationwide, would be set and frozen at nine dollars ($9.00) a gallon.  

Presumably this would serve as consumer protection on the high side (to keep the price from going to, say, twelve).  But in the immediate effect, there would be two consequences:  

1.  Short-term decrease in demand, some of it permanent as people adjust to different ways and schedules of getting from place to place.

2.  An immediate revenue stream to fund the change to alternative energy sources, presuming that the difference between this madated price and what the market would bear is forfeit to the government for that purpose.

Good thing I woke up when I did, eh?

Infallible presidency?

We know that the claims for papal infallibility extend to formal occasions only, when the senior pastor of the world's Roman Catholics speaks "ex cathedra." Apparently our Chief executive is on more sure footing than that, at least according to this lawyer whose salary is paid by your taxes:

The President Is Always Right

A real slogan to fight for?

What if people started upholding the values espoused by Jesus and his apostles? Check this link to the One Commanment campaign.