scottsimpson.net

“The constitutional amendment we’re debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans,” McCain said. “It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them.” (read more)

…McCain for President?

And the Constitution survives another Attempted Battery.

…as reported by FOX ‘News’ and The Miami Herald.

General

First off this morning, I’m trying my hand at censorship. I’m starting to block IP addresses that abuse my comment-posting system. These are bad people. If you want the list so far, perhaps to update your own IP ban lists (or to, say, drop the hammer and dispense some indiscriminate justice) you can grab my IP-BAN list.

That aside, I’d like to say that this morning was interesting in terms of things I saw.

1) A cop going 90mph
1a) A guy passing the cop going 90mph
1b) The cop slowing down to 65mph after the guy passed him

2) A very dignified older black woman in a Bentley with one of those hats with the little half-veil thing. This was my dose of Good Old Culture for the morning. So cool.

3) A couple (I assume… they had three kids in the car as well) that looked so similar they could have been fraternal twins. Not cool.

I’ve added A Declaration of Independence in Cyberspace, a 1996 credo by John Perry Barlow in the left (formerly right… hm, political significance?) link bar. In related news (i.e. where I grabbed the link from), Wired.com reports that hacktivism is becoming a more legitimate form of expression, highlighted by the HOPE conference.

So I went and watched Fahrenheit 9/11 yesterday. Someone else needs to step up and take over the production of that sort of film from Michael Moore. Every time I watch a movie of his, I can’t help but think that given a decent research staff, I could do better. Not to say the film was bad. It was just .. not as good as it could have been, I feel. Yes, it was biased. Yes, it bashes Bush. But I think the video clips especially are very important for the public to see. Sure, it’s edited, but it doesn’t matter that the majority of the clips are taken out of context. Most of them are pretty damning however you frame them.

I take issue, however, with Moore’s treatment of the House of Saud and the Bin Laden family. His (leading) interviews tended toward the opinion that because Osama is a Bin Laden that every member of his (huge!) family should have been detained and questioned following 9/11. I know I’d better not be held responsible or detained and questioned based on the actions of some of my relatives… and I feel the Bin Ladens were rightfully allowed to go (more likely than not simply for their own protection… can you imagine Joe Sixpack coming across a person named Bin Laden two days after 9/11?)

Similarly, Moore (and his ring-in-the-nose interviewees) condemn the House of Saud (and particularly Prince Bandar, the Saudi Ambassador) for being all but responsible for Bush’s rise(?) to the Presidency. Moore cites the vast Saudi investment in the US and the fact that Prince Bandar is a personal friend of the Bush family. Imagine that, leading wealthy families from leading wealthy nations know each other and interact with each other. I can’t imagine that people would have the same problems if the Kennedys and Rothschilds and Carnegies and Gates(es?) and Windsors and Astors and the like got together for tea and to discuss international investment. Yeah, well, the Saudis are brown, right? They and the Bushes are both in Oil, right? Yeah, whatever. Moore’s had his tinfoil hat on for too long. But the film really just goes to confirm my beliefs (formed from information culled from global news sources.. I read BBC, Al-Jazeera, Times of India, Frankfurter Allgemeine and others regularly):

1) Bush is a fool
2) The war is a sham
3) Bush is losing the support of the military
4) The folks that signed up for the Armed Forces got into more than they bargained for
4a) A few (and increasing number of) people aside, the majority of the American public can’t seem to distinguish the war in Iraq from the soldiers in Iraq
5) it’s important to remember Heinlen’s (Hanlon’s/Goethe’s/James’ [:wiki:]) Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity”
and, perhaps most importantly:
6) there’s still time to salvage America’s dignity

Moore engaged, in a latter section of the film, the testimony and support of a family (mostly the Mother, “a conservative Democrat”… which I kind of doubt, but whatever) that has a long military history and recently lost a son in Iraq. I feel that this section bore quite a lot of significance as it illustrated the difference between the War and the Soldiers (Servicemen? Service-persons?). [spoiler alert] The mother goes to Washington to seek closure (initially seeking to see the President, but since they don’t let people that disagree with the President go anywhere near him, she had to be content with walking around outside). There, she met an old [ethnic] woman with pictures from the war proclaiming in her broken English that these terrible things were going on in Iraq. She was (understandably) moved and tried to strike up conversation, or at least commiseration, with the woman (who had apparently lost someone close to her as a result of the War). Presently, another woman walked up and proclaimed that the photos on the [ethnic] woman’s boards were a lie. Enter conflict. Moore’s friend (from Flint, MI, maddeningly enough) couldn’t take it and told Skeptical Woman that she had lost a son in Iraq. You know what S.W. said?

“There are others.”

It’s that sort of person that we ought to be fighting against.

It sounds unfortunately trite now, but we need to ’support the troops’. Especially when they come back. Um, call it the Hug a Soldier initiative I guess. Or the Hug a Relative of a Soldier initiative. There’s a slogan for a sticker. But the sticker on my car will read:

“Republicans for Anyone But Bush”

In other ‘mad-mad-mad-mad-world’ news, someone needs to send a few memos to the Republican and Democratic parties that their platforms are all wonky. Today alone I observed the following: