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Monday, November 21, 2005
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Here's something you might not often consider: "[T]he flipside of Moore's law is that consumer appetite means we're junking technology like there's no tomorrow… Ninety per cent of our electronic waste is thrown into landfill, particularly scary when you think that each computer contains several hundred toxic chemicals. According to EU figures, consumer electronics are responsible for 40 per cent of the lead found in landfills." The upside is that, thanks to all this new technology, electronic equipment is usually smaller, meaning less waste, and gizmos like the i-Pod mean that there are fewer CDs we need to throw out. But which effect prevails?
(Via Bradford Plumer.)
9:54:03 PM 
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Steve of Rabid Sanity has suggested that we ask the Iraqis whether they want us to withdraw. I’ve figured that the polls saying 80% of Iraqis don’t want us there were enough proof, but in case they aren’t, we now have an official statement from leading Kurds, Shias, and Sunnis and made public by the Arab League asking for a timetable for withdrawal:
Iraqi leaders, meeting at a reconciliation conference in Cairo, urged an end to violence in the country and demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of coalition troops from Iraq.
In a final statement, read by Arab League chief Amre Moussa, host of the three-day summit, they called for “the withdrawal of foreign troops according to a timetable, through putting in place an immediate national program to rebuild the armed forces.'’ No date was specified.
(Via leftinthewest.com.)
9:48:45 PM
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Vice President Cheney made a striking claim a few minutes ago at the American Enterprise Institute:
Those who advocate a sudden withdraw from Iraq should answer a couple simple questions. Would the United States and other free nations be better off or worse off with Zarqawi, Bin Laden and Zawahiri in control Iraq? Would we be safer or less safe with Iraq ruled by men intent upon the destruction of our country.
Cheney didn’t provide any evidence supporting his claim. The suggestion is that if the U.S. leaves, Iraqi forces would be completely incapable of defending the country against terrorists. Yesterday on ABC, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said people who doubted the capabilities of Iraqi security forces were “flat wrong”:
People who denigrate their competence and capability are flat wrong. They’re making a mistake. They either don’t understand the situation or they’re trying to confuse it, but the Iraqi security forces are well respected by the Iraqi people. They’re doing a very good job.
So Cheney either doesn’t understand the situation or is trying to confuse it. Take your pick.
[UPDATE: Video of Cheney at Crooks & Liars.]
(Via Think Progress.)
9:40:36 PM
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California Voting Machines Emergency?From Dave Johnson of Seeing the Forest:
Apparently the Republican Secretary of State in California may be stealthily REVERSING the previous Democratic Secretary of State's decertification of Diebold paperless voting machines! Raw Story and Brad Blog have stories about this (links below). Here's a summary: Democratic Secretary of State Shelley had decertified Diebold machines as dangerous to democracy. (He also sought to prosecute the company for lying to state officials.) Then, after the recall and Schwarzenegger's election Shelley was forced out of office on contrived charges, with a Republican appointed in his place. Now there is funny business going on and it looks like Diebold may be coming back. I tracked down a new document [Note - PDF] outlining requirements for voting machines, and the previous requirement that they produce paper ballot backups is NOT on the list.
Posted by Avedon
(Via Crooks and Liars.)
9:36:33 PM
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Penn Teller does today’s “This I Believe” essay on NPR. And what Penn believes is that “There is No God“. Here’s a tidbit or two:
I believe that there is no God… Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I’m not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it’s everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more… Believing there’s no God means I can’t really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That’s good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around… I don’t travel in circles where people say, “I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith.” That’s just a long-winded religious way to say, “shut up,” or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, “How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do”… Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.
Read (or listen to) the whole thing here. (And for the other side, check out the earlier — incredibly lame — essay for the “This I Believe” series from William F. Buckley, How Is It Possible to Believe in God?)
(Via Ron's Blog.)
9:27:03 PM
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This guy has had more deaths than you can shake a stick at:
long ago
march,
may,
june september
I wouldn't be surprised if it weren't the first one that's true. Watch, when Bush sinks even lower (come on, George you can do it!) in the polls, they'll probably pull out Zarqawi's body.
9:22:38 PM
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Think we're leaving Iraq? It only happens every now and then, but this time the regularly insane The American "Thinker" actually stumbles across one thing that is not being discussed: We're in Iraq to stay.
To date, the invasion of Iraq has been our only real response to the Islamic challenge. The Democrat argument that Iraq is a distraction from the real war in Afghanistan is comically inverted. The war in Afghanistan was a game of whack-the-mole far from the enemy’s center of gravity. Iraq is a major oil-producing nation. It is on the Arabian Peninsula, which is the source of both the wealth and the religious ideology that makes the enemy so dangerous. Doing in Iraq what we did in Germany and Japan would be a major step toward the defeat of Islamofascism.
That is our goal in Iraq and we can only achieve it by staying indefinitely, just as we have in Germany and Japan. For the foreseeable future, the American military will have to be the dominant force in Iraq to make civil war unprofitable. No faction has anything to gain from a fight as long as our troops are there to bolster the other factions and crush any revolt. The Sunni “insurgency” has been busily proving that point for some time. As long as American troops are in Iraq, democracy is the best available deal for all concerned. If they left, the centripetal forces in Iraqi society would quickly tear apart the government we are building. The people in charge of that government, whoever they are, will beg us to stay because their physical survival will depend on us.
It's really one more lie told the American people at the beginning of the war, and still being told nearly 3 years later: this is no temporary invasion of Iraq, it's a way to get permanent bases there so we can work our will throughout the region:
And stay we will. We will secure an ally precisely where we need one most. We will also maintain a powerful military presence in a strategically vital location. In the event that we need to kill people and break things in either Syria or Iran, the bases we are establishing in Iraq will be extremely useful, if not essential. Even if our Arab and Persian War never escapes beyond the borders of Iraq (which seems absurdly unlikely), our military presence within those borders will put pressure on our surviving enemies just as our army in Germany once pressured the Soviet Union.
If America ever left Iraq the terrorists would crow about their great victory. They would announce that we are weakened and vulnerable and call for renewed attacks against us. An attack would come, and the administration that retreated on the verge of victory could not escape the blame for it. Very few politicians in either party are reckless enough to take the kind of political risk that withdrawing from Iraq would entail. All the talk of timetables is empty political posturing.
The whole public debate about Iraq is a frivolous sham. It proceeds on the assumption that we have options which are, in fact, long since foreclosed. We are at war; it is a time to be serious. The foolish whining about withdrawal is profoundly unserious.
They key is that line "if America ever left Iraq the terrorists would crow about their great victory." We're hearing it from the Bushies left and right: so we can get our swagger back now, we have to stay, otherwise it would be defeat. This was an aggressive war. It's easy to see what the talking points are going to be. Here, Obsidian Wings calls John Murtha (and of course, anyone else who wants to get out) a "loser defeatist". But others on the right are saying that Bush planned to get out next year anyway, so by talking about it now, Democrats can take the credit! But watch: Iraq is an inevitable disaster, Americans don't have the stomach -- rightly so -- to maintain the kind of force level a stay in Iraq will take. And the Busies knew that, which is why we went in with too few troops. The pullout will begin next summer, there'll be inevitable disasters, and in the 2008 and 2012 elections the mantra from the right will be "the Democrats and the MSM" (of course, it has to be the MSM whatever that is) "lost Iraq." When really, it was lies that got us in there, and hubris and timidity and stupidity and cupidity that made it such a disaster it's been and will continue to be. So, yeah, in his moronic way, The American "Thinker" gets it right: the plan is to stay there for good.
(BTW, if you want to read an example of what The American "Thinker" actually "thinks", see this piece on "why the left fears Christmas."
8:52:30 PM
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I always get a kick out of these stupid quizes, even though in most cases you can game the system, and make it so that you come off as Gandalf or Obi Wan Kenobe, if that's what you want. The questions on this one are interesting, though, and the results were too.
| You scored as Existentialism. Your life is guided by the concept of Existentialism: You choose the meaning and purpose of your life.
�Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.�
�It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.�
--Jean-Paul Sartre
�It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth.�
--Blaise Pascal
More info at Arocoun's Wikipedia User Page...
Existentialism | | 90% | Hedonism | | 75% | Utilitarianism | | 65% | Justice (Fairness) | | 50% | Kantianism | | 30% | Strong Egoism | | 20% | Nihilism | | 5% | Apathy | | 5% | Divine Command | | 0% |
What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03)
created with QuizFarm.com |
8:27:01 PM
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It's available for perusal at ExtremelySmart.com. Here are some bits I liked:
Agenda: All political objectives you oppose. Democrats, liberals, feminists, environmentalists, and gays have "agendas." Right-wing politicians have "hopes" and "dreams" and "godly plans of action."
Bible-based: Anything in the Bible you agree with. (Anything that contradicts your beliefs, like Jesus's command to love your enemies, should be ignored.)
Compassion: The feeling you say you are expressing when you attack people you hate (especially homosexuals), so that you don't have to feel guilty. See "gay bashing," "death penalty."
"I learned my lesson.": "I got away with it."
Persecution: Suffered if your position on an issue is actively opposed. Examples of "persecution" include investigative journalistic reporting, any lawsuit filed against your church organization by the ACLU, or being yelled at by people whom you have harassed by fax or phone or whom you have misrepresented in your fund-raising materials.
Putting wings to prayers : Really means political activity, but call it this in order to retain your tax-exempt status.
Subversive elements of society: Bookstores, coffeehouses, art galleries, and other liberal hangouts, especially those in major cities.
Victim of society: Any conservative white male, because no one in human history has ever suffered as he is now suffering. Tip of the helm to Wordlackey.
(Via The Green Knight.)
8:20:48 PM
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And Speaking of Crazy . . . WorldNetDaily reports that "Gingrich sees Iran threat to U.S. like Nazi Germany." The threat posed to the national security of the United States by Iran was likened only to the one posed by Nazi Germany in the 1930s, by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who suggested Tehran could be planning for a pre-emptive nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack on America that would turn a third or more of the country "back to a 19th century level of development."
Gingrich made the stunning statements, which echo warning of other congressional leaders and national security experts, in testimony before a subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last week. [...] The U.S. has no option but to seek regime change in Iran.
Yes, we have no option but to invade. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a third of our country turning Amish.
(Via World O'Crap.)
8:12:59 PM
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Yet another protestation that the Bush administration supports dissent, this time from Dick Cheney:
[Cheney] said he respected the right of Murtha to form his own opinion. Murtha has served in Congress for three decades, is a decorated Marine combat veteran from Vietnam, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee and has long been an ardent defender of the armed forces.
"Nor is there any problem with debating whether the United States and its allies should have liberated Iraq in the first place," Cheney said. "Nobody is saying we should not be having this discussion."
Um, yes they are.
(Via Brendan Nyhan.)
8:03:27 PM
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Return with us to those amazing days of yesteryear -- but this time it's not stills, but rather full movies rendered in ASCII. There are certain scenes in the matrix that would be really fun to see.
3:46:34 PM
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Bill Amend is on top of things -- Sony's stupd DRM rootkit virus made Foxtrot this morning.
11:39:05 AM
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Texas Hold 'Em is an almost perfect game. With just a little information sometimes you can tell exactly what what one or more of your opponents are holding. And sometimes you get fooled. Sometimes you can fool everyone else. An evening of tournament play is intense, and gives you a kind of rush you don't get very often -- it's creative, confrontational, aggressive, funny.
I'm still on a high from our monthly tournament-style game Saturday night. We had 19 players, and for the first time I took the tournament. The money's nice -- my $20 buy-in got me $220 that night. I used to think that Mike Sexton was nuts to say so, but when you get down to it, it's the winning that's the important part, not the money. The money makes it real. I was really on a roll the other night, pushing people around, being pretty aggressive, especially towards the end. It's easy to see where the addiction to gambling comes from; it puts you in a place psychologically that's hard to hit other ways, gives you a certain kind of rush.
This morning, listening to the radio before I got out of bed, I heard a bit about the Alameda County Food Bank, and how donations were down from last year. Since I now have some money I didn't expect to have, I figure there are lots of folks who don't have money they expected to have, so I gave half my winnings to them. It's probably not right to brag about this -- it was, really, unexpected money -- but I usually do give them at least a bit at this time of the year. At any rate, remember there are those around us who don't get to feed their kids what they deserve, and whether you have unexpected money or not, remember them and see what you can do to help. And also remember there are hundreds of thousands likely to die in Pakistan this year as the result of the earthquake. I sent some money for them to Doctors Without Borders and Unicef. Again, I hate to bring this up because it sounds like bragging; instead I'm just trying to encourage even one of my readers to do the same. Thanks.
8:54:48 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Steve Michel.
Last update: 12/2/2005; 7:09:53 PM.
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