Critical Apprehensions & Intemperate Discourses

Kip Manley, proprietor

The Gang of 25.

So I’m standing here covered in website dust as I try to plug all the leaks and I’m not paying too much attention to the events of the day and I was tempted, sorely tempted, to make a crème brûlée joke, and then I read Digby and I felt better.

The last time we had a serious outpouring from the grassroots was the Iraq War resolution. My Senator DiFi commented at the time that she had never seen anything like the depth of passion coming from her constituents. But she voted for the war anyway. So did Bayh, Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Kerry and Reid. The entire leadership of the party. Every one of them went the other way this time. I know that some of you are cynical about these people (and, well, they are politicans, so don’t get all Claude Rains about it) but that means something. Every one of those people were running in one way or another in 2002 and they went the other way. The tide is shifting. There is something to be gained by doing the right thing.

I know you’re tired. So am I. Chop wood. Carry water. Repeat.

—Filed 7326 days ago to Squawkbox; Comment.

This is what they have made of us. This is what we have become.

There’s this inch—

An inch. It’s small and it’s fragile and it’s the only thing in the world that’s worth having. We must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us. I don’t know who you are, or whether you’re a man or woman. I may never see you. I will never hug you or cry with you or get drunk with you. But I love you.

—and it’s a really lovely thing to think about but ultimately, you know what? That inch is nothing.

They take it as easily as they take the mile and what do you do when it’s done?

Joe Sacco talked to a couple of men we picked up off the street in Iraq and tortured and interrogated and then let go without ever explaining why, and he sees just how easy it is to take that inch away. —Via the Beat.

—Filed 7334 days ago to Squawkbox; Comments.

Our liberal media at work.

Who can forget your President Clinton’s immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he “made a mistake” after which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind of event for which your name will go down in history and remembered by nations?

—Osama bin Laden

I mean he sounds like an over-the-top Ann Coulter here, if not an Ann Coulter.

—Chris Matthews

We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honor, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication [and] homosexuality…

—Osama bin Laden

Asked whether bin Laden had expressed “almost the same” sentiments that [Sen. Rick] Santorum did during an appearance on [Bob] Schieffer’s Face the Nation broadcast, the CBS anchorman told WABC Radio’s Mark Simone: “Well, he did. That’s exactly right.”

Ha ha! Had you going there, didn’t I. Just kidding! —You can slag on Matthews for his inept dissection of rhetoric here, and I’d send you here to snarl at Schieffer, only they yanked the software that processes your comment sometime yesterday after Think Progress posted the link, and haven’t gotten around to fixing it, yet.

(Damn. All these fine, first-world, top-flight media organizations that can’t keep their commenting software in fighting trim. —Programmers! I smell job opportunities!)

—Filed 7334 days ago to Squawkbox; .

“Not comfortable.”

The Democrats have chosen Tim Kaine, the newly elected Democratic governor of Virgina, to rebut President Bush’s State of the Union address. Presumably, selecting a Marine who’s tough enough to tell his Swift Boaters where to shove it would demonstrate the Democrats are weak on national security; Kaine, after all, unlike a solid majority of America, supports the war in Iraq.

Tim Kaine is also against same-sex marriage. He’s even against civil unions. Unlike a majority of America.

Virginia’s House of Delegates just passed House Joint Resolution No. 41 by a margin of 73 to 22. House Joint Resolution No. 41 proposes to amend Article I of the commonwealth’s constitution, its Bill of Rights, by adding Section 15-A. Section 15-A would read as follows:

Section 15-A. Marriage.

That only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this Commonwealth and its political subdivisions.

This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage. Nor shall this Commonwealth or its political subdivisions create or recognize another union, partnership, or other legal status to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of marriage.

Governor Kaine has stated he’s “not comfortable” with the breadth of this amendment’s language. He’ll sign it, should Virginia’s Senate approve likewise, turning it over to a commonwealth-wide referendum on whether it should be pasted into the constitution. But he won’t be comfortable when he does it.

One should, perhaps, ask him—and the commonwealth’s Senate—how comfortable they are with the idea that this amendment could strip unmarried couples throughout the state of basic domestic violence protections. Ohio’s similar amendment has been causing confusion on just that score.

One should, perhaps, ask him—and the strutting 73 members of the House who ignored their colleague’s stirring denunciation—how comfortable they are with the idea that this amendment will strip property from people like Sam Beaumont because of a legal technicality.

One should ask him, and the commonwealth’s voters, how comfortable they are with the idea that this amendment will ensure that people like Laurel Hester will never see justice in Virginia.

Look: I have some appreciation of the political realities. Tim Kaine isn’t in a comfortable place right now. His legislature’s in the hands of power-mad, scapegoat-hungry radicals. Shooting down a resolution that passed with a 73 – 22 margin is suicidally stupid for a rookie governor who just barely won a hard-fought campaign, and Democrats everywhere owe him for a breath of hope this past November. And there’s many a slip yet betwixt this poisonous cup and lip: the Senate could be compelled by vociferous national outrage to reject its cameral compadre’s bigotry. If it ends up as a referendum, that vociferous national outrage, along with some very public boycotts, might could motivate enough decent human beings (and shame enough bigots) to shoot it down before it’s scribbled permanently in the margins. Kaine could even step in to water it down to a less horribly divisive and discriminatory measure, though what a weak thing that would be to call victory. —So, yes: there’s no reason to believe his refusal to sign would do any good, and enough to believe it would actively harm, to allow as how one might sympathize with how not comfortable he is.

Doesn’t mean we have to be comfortable with him speaking for us this year. Doesn’t mean we have to be comfortable with the folks that think we should.

—Filed 7334 days ago to Squawkbox; .

Lay down the mony upon the nail, and the business is done.

Oh, even-the-liberal-Kevin-Drum.

First, at the very least, trust but verify; it’s a long way from “ABC News has learned that Pakistani officials now believe” to the blithe assertion that “we did get one of al Qæda’s big fish in the attack on Damadola last week.” Remember: never assume, for if you do, you make an ass out of you and me.

But.

Even if one were to grant the shockingly naïve assumptions available, each in their particulars, you’ve got the question wrong, all wrong: it is not up to us to tell you whether the death of a 52-year-old master bomb-maker and the disruption of an “apparent terror summit” are worth the deaths of 18 genuinely innocent bystanders. The question on the table is and always has been: how many genuinely innocent bystanders must die before you say enough? Would twenty make you uncomfortable? How about fifty? Maybe if they weren’t “genuinely” innocent? If ironclad proof of each of those assumptions were, somehow, available, would you go as high as a hundred bystanders, wedding guests, in-laws, kids? Were it possible to claim on the nightly news that Midhat Mursi and Khalid Habib and Abdul Rehman al Magrabi would convene no more terror summits, and Ayman al-Zawahiri now slept with “his eyes wide open,” “wondering who handed him up,” would it be worth your death?

War is wrong. It may sometimes be necessary, or at best unavoidable, but it is wrong. It makes monsters of us: soldiers, pundits, commenteers all.

—Filed 7338 days ago to Squawkbox; .

Still a uniter, not a divider.

You learn a lot whenever you visit wood s lot; today, I learned I agree with the John Birch Society.

NORRIS: Generals Edwin Walker and Clyde Watts both attacked MAD; calling it Communistic. FACT magazine made it out that you counter-attacked the John Birch Society, in the article “MAD Interviews A ‘John Birch Society’ Policeman” from MAD #97, September 1965, because of the Generals’ statements. Was this true?

FELDSTEIN: No! Anti-Communist panic… Red-baiting… and the Cold War with Russia was going on at that time, reaching a peak… and like every other era, including today!... contained serious, frightening reactionary organizations and movements in support of those causes that were beginning to infringe upon our basic Constitutional Liberties and Freedoms. The John Birch Society was one of the more infamous and outstanding of those organizations… and invited, no, begged for a biting, critical, MAD satirical treatment… hence the article, “MAD Interviews a ‘John Birch Society Policeman’”... an extreme point of departure that stressed how the “John Birch Society” thinking… in the hands of a Law Enforcement Officer… could be devastating and dangerous to our Civil Liberties, etc.

—Filed 7340 days ago to Squawkbox; .

Don’t waste good iron for nails, or good men for soldiers.

Ten thousand years of human history was as nothing to us when taking the steps to safeguard it might have interfered with the safety of our troops, or inconvenienced our operational parameters.

But embarrass a Republican donor, like David H. Brooks? Whose DHB Industries manufactures Point Blank Armor? Which is insufficiently supplied to our troops through a 500 million dollar contract? Whose product failures are at the heart of a leaked, top-secret study that found 80% of our dead troops might have survived with adequate armor? Whose main competitor, Dragon Skin, is favored by nine of the generals currently serving in Afghanistan? Embarrass the likes of a man who can hire and fire the likes of Aerosmith and 50 Cent for his daughter’s bat mitzvah by working with your parents to scrape together the $6,000 you need for the safer, better, non-issue stuff?

Well. Fuck you, soldier. The order has come down from on high: drop the non-issue armor, or your family will lose your death benefits. Fuck your safety; fuck your people; fuck the op. Some things in this world are more important than your brief life, rounded by a sleep.

—Filed 7340 days ago to Squawkbox; Comments [9].

Ceci n’est pas une prom dress.

Yes, that’s a real prom dress. No, it’s not on backwards. Here’s a photo from its native environment:

It bubbled up into the froth of the Zeitgeist about a year ago; you can read more about it in this Wizbang! thread, or this thread over at Go Fug Yourself, and one might find a diverting yet instructive ten minutes or so in comparing the tones and tenors of the two. (One might also find a diverting yet distractive ten minutes or so in perusing the catalog, if only to appreciate the way the bridal models are each paired with a tastefully naked hunk.)

Now, the reason I posted the picture back then was bubbling next to it in the froth: the story of Kelli Davis, who wanted to wear a tuxedo top for her high school senior picture, and not the drape-and-pearls the girls were supposed to wear; “She said she was uncomfortable to have her chest exposed in the photo,” as one news report put it. (And those who find the juxtaposition of the two a tad hyperbolic—

—are invited to ponder the designer’s koan: “He openly admitted that he would die before he let his own daughter out of the house like that, but said that ‘prom styles are very sexy’ these days and ‘girls want to look sexy like their favorite celebrities.’”)

Anyway: tough, said the principal, who banned the photo. Tough, said Clay School Superintendent David Owens, who went on to say, “There’s a dress code to follow—a dress code expected for senior pictures in the yearbook, and she chose not to follow them. It’s just that simple.”

Apparently, the use of tasers in schools is also just that simple; corporal punishment, however, not so much, because “We’re living in a sue-happy society these days.” —Kelli Davis threatened to sue, by the way, and even if she didn’t get her senior picture, Clay County girls from here on out can wear the tux, and boys the drape; the settlement reached mandates the school board “change its senior portrait policy, add sexual orientation to its non-discrimination policy for both students and teachers, distribute a copy of the new non-discrimination policy to all secondary school students, provide annual non-discrimination training that includes sexual orientation to all faculty and staff, and provide diversity training that includes sexual orientation to all junior high and high school students in the district.” —Which is maybe why a Clay County high school subsequently banned a student editorial called “Homosexuality is Not a Choice.” (Aw, cut ’em some slack. Rome wasn’t unbuilt in a day.)

As to why I’m bringing this up a year later? Beyond the fleeting pleasures of follow-up (and schadenfreude)? —Go to Google, bring up the image search, enter “prom dress.” You’ll see something like this:

Which is maybe why since I restarted the stat counter hereabouts, I’ve discovered that searches for “prom dress” constitute forty freaking percent of my traffic.

Anybody know how to unjuice Google?

—Filed 7343 days ago to Squawkbox; Comments [1].

It takes a heap of licks to strike a nail in the dark.

From Michael Schwartz at Mother Jones to Body and Soul to me to you:

Here is the Times account of what happened in the small town of Baiji, 150 miles north of Baghdad, on January 3, based on interviews with various unidentified “American officials”:

A pilotless reconnaissance aircraft detected three men planting a roadside bomb about 9 p.m. The men “dug a hole following the common pattern of roadside bomb emplacement,” the military said in a statement. “The individuals were assessed as posing a threat to Iraqi civilians and coalition forces, and the location of the three men was relayed to close air support pilots.”

The men were tracked from the road site to a building nearby, which was then bombed with “precision guided munitions,” the military said. The statement did not say whether a roadside bomb was later found at the site. An additional military statement said Navy F-14’s had “strafed the target with 100 cannon rounds” and dropped one bomb.

Crucial to this report is the phrase “precision guided munitions,” an affirmation that US forces used technology less likely than older munitions to accidentally hit the wrong target. It is this precision that allows us to glimpse the callous brutality of American military strategy in Iraq.

The target was a “building nearby,” identified by a drone aircraft as an enemy hiding place. According to eyewitness reports given to the Washington Post, the attack effectively demolished the building, and damaged six surrounding buildings. While in a perfect world, the surrounding buildings would have been unharmed, the reported amount of human damage in them (two people injured) suggests that, in this case at least, the claims of “precision” were at least fairly accurate.

The problem arises with what happened inside the targeted building, a house inhabited by a large Iraqi family. Piecing together the testimony of local residents, the Times reporter concluded that fourteen members of the family were in the house at the time of the attack and nine were killed. The Washington Post, which reported twelve killed, offered a chilling description of the scene:

“The dead included women and children whose bodies were recovered in the nightclothes and blankets in which they had apparently been sleeping. A Washington Post special correspondent watched as the corpses of three women and three boys who appeared to be younger than 10 were removed Tuesday from the house.”

Because in this case—unlike in so many others in which American air power utilizes “precisely guided munitions”—there was on-the-spot reporting for an American newspaper, the US military command was required to explain these casualties. Without conceding that the deaths actually occurred, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, director of the Coalition Press Information Center in Baghdad, commented: “We continue to see terrorists and insurgents using civilians in an attempt to shield themselves.”

Notice that Lt. Col. Johnson (while not admitting that civilians had actually died) did assert US policy: If suspected guerrillas use any building as a refuge, a full-scale attack on that structure is justified, even if the insurgents attempt to use civilians to “shield themselves.” These are, in other words, essential US rules of engagement. The attack should be “precise” only in the sense that planes and/or helicopter gunships should seek as best they can to avoid demolishing surrounding structures. Put another way, it is more important to stop the insurgents than protect the innocent.

And notice that the military, single-mindedly determined to kill or capture the insurgents, cannot stop to allow for the evacuation of civilians either. Any delay might let the insurgents escape, either disguised as civilians or through windows, backdoors, cellars, or any of the other obvious escape routes urban guerrillas might take. Any attack must be quickly organized and—if possible—unexpected.

update— And then I wake up to this:

Pakistan on Saturday condemned a purported CIA airstrike on a border village that officials said unsuccessfully targeted al-Qaida’s second-in-command, and said it was protesting to the U.S. Embassy over the attack that killed at least 17 people.

Thousands of local tribesmen, chanting “God is Great,” demonstrated against the attack, claiming the victims were local villagers without terrorist links and had never hosted Ayman al-Zawahri.

Two senior Pakistani officials told The Associated Press that the CIA acted on incorrect information in launching the attack early Friday in the northwestern village of Damadola, near the Afghan border.

Citing unidentified American intelligence officials, U.S. news networks reported that CIA-operated Predator drone aircraft carried out the missile strike because al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenant, was thought to be at a compound in the village or about to arrive.

“Their information was wrong, and our investigations conclude that they acted on a false information,” said a senior Pakistani intelligence official with direct knowledge of Pakistan’s investigations into the attack.

—Filed 7343 days ago to Squawkbox; Comments [4].

Yanking cranks.

Title 47, Chapter 5, Subchapter II, Part I, §223, “Obscene or harassing telephone calls in the District of Columbia or in interstate or foreign communications,” used to read as follows:

• a) Prohibited acts generally
• Whoever—
  • (1) in interstate or foreign communications—
    • (A) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly—
      • (i) makes, creates, or solicits, and
      • (ii) initiates the transmission of,
    • any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person;
    • (B) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly—
      • (i) makes, creates, or solicits, and
      • (ii) initiates the transmission of,
    • any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene or indecent, knowing that the recipient of the communication is under 18 years of age, regardless of whether the maker of such communication placed the call or initiated the communication;
    • (C) makes a telephone call or utilizes a telecommunications device, whether or not conversation or communication ensues, without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the called number or who receives the communications;
    • (D) makes or causes the telephone of another repeatedly or continuously to ring, with intent to harass any person at the called number; or
    • (E) makes repeated telephone calls or repeatedly initiates communication with a telecommunications device, during which conversation or communication ensues, solely to harass any person at the called number or who receives the communication; or
  • (2) knowingly permits any telecommunications facility under his control to be used for any activity prohibited by paragraph (1) with the intent that it be used for such activity,
• shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

Of course, you’ll want to know what a “telecommunications device” is.

• (h) Definitions
• For purposes of this section—
  • (1) The use of the term “telecommunications device” in this section—
    • (A) shall not impose new obligations on broadcasting station licensees and cable operators covered by obscenity and indecency provisions elsewhere in this chapter; and
    • (B) does not include an interactive computer service.

Clear enough?

Ah, but now, thanks to H.R.3402, the (otherwise estimable and indeed highly necessary) Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005, we get to take up our red pens and amend the above. Turn with me to Sec. 113 for the changes:

• (a) In General- Paragraph (1) of section 223(h) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 223(h)(1)) is amended—
  • (1) in subparagraph (A), by striking ‘and’ at the end;
  • (2) in subparagraph (B), by striking the period at the end and inserting ‘; and’; and
  • (3) by adding at the end the following new subparagraph:
    • ‘(C) in the case of subparagraph© of subsection (a)(1), includes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet (as such term is defined in section 1104 of the Internet Tax Freedom Act (47 U.S.C. 151 note)).’.

Now are we clear?

—No: it’s not illegal now to post anonymously to the internet, on the grounds that someone somewhere might be annoyed. Then, Declan McCullagh never said it was. He was if somewhat alarmist nontheless pretty clear up front that the intent to annoy (or abuse, or threaten, or harass) was key. Those who pooh-pooh the idea this law would ever be used against the colorfully pseudonymous commenters at Eschaton or Daily Kos or TBogg (or Little Green Footballs, or the Free Republic, or the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler) underestimate, I think, what a target-rich environment comment threads have become for abuse and threats and harrassment, and sheer downright intentional annoyance; miss, in fact, the very raison d’etre of the internet troll. —The most recently celebrated eruptions of accusations of abuse (and annoyance) depended, it’s true, on mendacity, or at least a criminal inability to parse satire and provide context—but while that might get you acquitted, it won’t pay your legal bills.

Atrios—I mean, Duncan Black—has it pretty much right, I think. Unless His Imperial Presidency signed one of Strip-Search Sammy’s backsie specials, this law will either be interpreted in basic good faith, following the spirit of its context and intent (“Preventing Cyberstalking,” says the subsection’s title)—or it will be adjusted drastically, following a nasty and otherwise unnecessary legal battle. Or both. It (as ever) remains to be seen. —Meanwhile, here’s grounds for one of those perennial conversations we all ought to keep having, about moderation andd politesse and community, and speech, and the illusory freedoms thereof. Annoying, I know, we’ve been over it all before and will again, but chop the wood and carry the water, okay?

(Oh, who are we kidding. We’re all going to have to keep identity affidavits and political permits on file whenever we want to blog about anything more inflammatory than knitting. We’ll be like porn stars with those USC 2257 statements at the bottom of every page. Bots will ping us in IM: “Papers, please.” What a brave new world! If only those dam’ libertarians hadn’t made libertarianism so selfishly stupid…)

—Filed 7348 days ago to Squawkbox; Comments [1].

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