Me Me Me Me Me

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Teabonics: More Reasons to Fear the Teabaggers

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 19:50:00 +0000

In the past, I’ve posted several sets of photos of signs taken at Tea Party protests to show the hateful, racist, and violent rhetoric. Today, I want to return to the subject of Tea Party signs, but from a slightly different perspective. Now, before looking at the signs, it is important to remember that these protesters think our country is on a downhill slide to socialism, communism, fascism, totalitarianism, and who knows what else. In any event, I think that it’s fair to conclude that they are worried about the future of America. Well, as these signs should attest, we should all be worried about America, but not for the reasons these folks are. The idiocy of the teabaggers has led to a whole new dialect: Teabonics! And yes, Sarah Palin was the first person to actually speak this new dialect. You betcha.

You need to look at the following signs very carefully.

I’m going to keep this simple. If you can’t spell “America” you probably shouldn’t be at the protest in the first place.

Frankly, I don’t know many people who want to drink Socilism, either.

The person wearing this shirt apparently doesn’t want any of that Socilism either.

This lady isn’t worried about Socilism; instead her concern is with “Scholiast Policies”. Do those policies have something to do with scholastics? I “hope” so…

Others apparently worry more about President Obama being a “socialest” and approve of Sen. McCain’s former status as a “mavrik”. And remember: That Confederate flag has nothing to do with racism, either.

Well, at least this person was able to spell “socialism” correctly, even if contractions are a bit of a challenge. Apparently, difficulty with contractions and apostrophes is actually endemic to and a hallmark of teabaggers:

I don’t know Rep. Nancy Pelosi; Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) says that she is a “nice lady”. In any event, I suspect that before you get elected to be the first woman Speaker of the House, you probably learn that “your” does not mean “you are”.

So either he added an apostrophe to “your” or he forget the “e” in “you’re”. In either event, he’s an idiot.

I’m am outraged that you managed to get through school without learning the difference between “your” and “you’re”.

Actually, I suspect that you’ll be fired if you don’t learn to differentiate “your” and “you’re”.

Next up in the Mr./Ms. Teabag America pageant, is Mr./Ms. “Patriotic Resisance”. We’re not sure where that’s located, but it sounds like a nice place for a summer vacation.

So how does this “Wealth Redistribtion” thing work, anyway? Also, should I be more worried about Red Communism than say, Blue Communism, or maybe Purple Polka Dot Communism?

Oh, I see. Redistribtion of wealth involves deviding. Got it. By the way, with regard to his work ethic, I think standing on the street complaining is a terrific example of work ethic, don’t you?

No, “Feedom Doesn’t Come Free” … but a good public education does. This kid might try it instead of standing around protesting. His teachers must be so proud.

Given that the housing crisis was a large contributing factor to the current economic situation, you’d think that this guy wouldn’t be worried about a “mortage”. But his “childs” future should be great without any pesky apostrophes.

“Your are illegal”? Is that supposed to be “You are illegal” or perhaps “Your our illegal”?

I didn’t know that the US was a ship upon which “boarders” needed to be controlled. Ah, but these folks have American flags and mutton chops, so they must know better.

I’m confused. Are “stimulas” a kind of meat or are they something that you cook with? Maybe he meant spatulas?

Clearly Fox News is doing a great job keeping the teabaggers “infromed”. Way to go Fox! Of course if you actually watch Fox News, then this shouldn’t be a surprise:

I’ve worried about “Palin’s Imapct” since she came on the scene.

What exactly is a “theif”? It could be a military term with which I’m unfamiliar.

How embarrassing must it be to spend money to have a t-shirt printed and not use your spell check first? The word “loses” is supposed to appear three times; he spelled it correctly once. Maybe we should add the following line: Remedial: When you have to go back to school to learn to spell!

I think that I’m against amensty too, just on principle. It sounds too much like something you might catch from hanging around teabaggers for too long.

Do you think that amnety is related to amensty? (And is anybody else offended that a parent would have their very young child attend one of these protests and sit behind that sign? I’m sure that little girl will grow up to be a well-educated, tolerant woman.)

Now I’m confused. Is the word amnety, amensty, or amesty? (And note the bonus error in the use of the wrong indefinite article…)

I presume that she has more than one of these “daugters” about whom she is worried. I make the presumption of plural possessive because I know that teabaggers understand, quite well, the proper use of apostrophes.

Two mistakes for the price of one! (How quickly did you spot ‘em?) I’m not sure about dumping “Polititions”. That sounds like it might be environmentally unfriendly. Shouldn’t we recycle or at least put them in a properly maintained landfill?

(I know this one is hard to read. It says “Stop Waisting My Hard Earned Tax Money”.) I didn’t know that the government had been putting her tax money around people’s waists.

I also hope that President Obama has a “Crisis of Competnce”; if so, it might suggest that he prefers competence, instead.

I’ve never seen people “wroking” hard, have you?

I wish the person who made this sign spent more time “useing” spell check and less time making stupid signs.

The culture of dependency may be a problem, but if dependency on your spell check program helps avoid misspellings like “dependancy”, then perhaps it’s OK.

I love this one. Does this person want us to put the peel back on Congress or take the peel off again? I’m not sure. Cute pig.

This sign is sort of a double. First we get the reference to the racist idiot’s “Forefathes”. That must be a term with religious significance with which I’m not familiar. But just in case that wasn’t enough, the guy goes full bore racist with the Kenya reference and the statement “that explains a lot about you”. Nope, no racism in the tea party movement. Move along, move along.

Yep, one “hugh” mistake to let this guy graduate from high school.

For the record, according to The Free Dictionary, “lier” means “[o]ne who lies down; one who rests or remains, as in concealment.” Did the person who made this sign mean to suggest that President Obama is resting or hiding on the job?

We all know that “lobbyest" payoffs” were the primary reason for passage of the healthcare reform legislation.

Funny. I always thought that dissent — you know, things like criticism and commentary — was the highest form of patriotism, not climbing down from places in silly costumes. (And query whether this guy thought that people who criticized President Bush were patriots or traitors…)

I’ve written before about the calls for President Obama’s impeachment without any reason. Now this lady has gone even further and called for us to “Impeah Obama”!

Ooh, scary! “Illegal alliens”! Cute sailor outfit, though.

Either nobody honked at his sign or nobody driving by was able to spell, either. And does this guy think he’s one of the men in black?

They’re right. There is no “Hussien Obama”, just a “Hussein Obama”. But using that oh so scary middle name really helps to convince me that there isn’t any racism afoot.

I had to read this one carefully before I figured out what a “borror” was.

Forget that ACORN is not involved in the census; forget that ACORN has essentially ceased operations; forget that the whole pimp and whore videotape scandal was essentially a hoax; and forget that banning a group like ACORN would violate both the First Amendment (freedom of association) and the provision against bills of attainder in Article I Section 9 of the Constitution. None of that matters if you can’t even spell ACORN!

We better watch out for this “sociazed health care” because it would restrict a woman’s right to choose! (Oh, did you catch the bonus missing apostrophe?)

I’m not even going to try to make sense of the spelling or grammar on this one.

So what exactly is the “sactity of marriage”? Does that have something to do with the man getting to tell the woman what to do, her being barefoot and pregnant, and the two of them having a bunch of kids that can’t spell? The little N with the arrow is a nice try.

What happened in “Gemany” and I didn’t know that 1930 owned this “Gemany”.

Well, really, now. How many of us “were” slaves? I mean, unless you’ve recently immigrated from one of those rare places where slavery is still practiced, it seems really unlikely that you’d be a slave.

Random apostrophes must keep falling from the sky.

Double stupid apostrophe fail (but he got pimpin’ right, for that extra-special racist touch).

Another one that I had to think about for a minute. “Clunkker care”?

He got a Cambodian temple in his refund? Somehow, I don’t think of Camodian wats as being named Chang, though; that seems more Chinese to me.

Try pronouncing “enoungh”. Come on, I dare you!

More fun with (missing) apostrophes and a spotting of the rare “thinkg”.

Illiterate “plummers” of the world unite! At least those plungers don’t look as dangerous as the guns some teabaggers feel the need to carry to these protests.

Much like contractions, the rule regarding whether to use “a” or “an” seems to bedevil teabaggers. (Note the scooter which was almost certainly paid for by Medicare….)

Another theme running through some of the teabag signs is the anti-immigrant (remember, no racism here…) sentiment expressed by the “English is our official language” movement.

Of course, this “English is the official language” movement might have more success if: (a) it weren’t quite so racist, and (b) those espousing it didn’t offer us gems like “Lanaguage”.

After learning that “Lanaguage” isn’t spelled correctly, the folks of Crestwood might want stop and tell us what “excetions” are.

Then the folks of Crestwood can ask this idiot what exactly an “offical” language would look like.

A bit more racism to go with the poor grammar: “Are-country”?

And, as we’re all well aware, the teabaggers have a real affinity for the Constitution, even if they can’t spell it, let alone tell us what it really says:

And finally…

You know what I think is “Rediculous”? The number of teabaggers who can’t spell correctly and who can’t manage to put a simple apostrophe in the right place.

(Note: Many of these photographs were taken from a Flickr stream; others were found elsewhere on the Internet.)

Indiana’s Holocaust Observance and My Closing Remarks

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Today I had the privilege — in my capacity as President of the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council — to offer the closing remarks at the State of Indiana’s annual Holocaust Observance program (this year’s title was “A Holocaust Day of Remembrance: Honoring the Past, Remembering for the Future”). The program is presented by the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Indiana Holiday Commission, and Indiana Civil Rights Commission.

The speakers at the program included Clayton A. Graham, Chair, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Indiana Holiday Commission, and Indiana Civil Rights Commission; Tony A. Kirkland, Executive Director, Indiana Civil Rights Commission; Cantor Janice Roger, Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation; and Phil Lande, son of a Holocaust survivor. The featured speakers were Richard Mourdock, Indiana State Treasurer (who, though I may disagree with him on many things, impressed me with very powerful remarks for which I express my sincere gratitude), and Norbert Krapf, Indiana Poet Laureate. Mr. Krapf spoke of growing up in a German-Catholic community in southern Indiana and his efforts to learn about his heritage and how those efforts, in turn, led to his learning about the Holocaust. He read several very moving selections from his book Blue-Eyed Grass: Poems of Germany. You can read more of Mr. Krapf’s story in A Poet Discovers a World of Complexities in His Background archived from The New York Times.

Of course, given that this blog is about Me Me Me Me Me, I decided to reprint my prepared remarks:

In Indiana, the law requires that Holocaust education be a part of the curriculum. However, teaching about the Holocaust is not the same as understanding the Holocaust. Unfortunately, this distinction was made all too apparent earlier this school year in a central Indiana middle school.

The class was an 8th grade English writing class. Some teachers in other 8th grade English classes were teaching The Diary of Anne Frank; unfortunately, they later explained, they didn’t know much about the Holocaust themselves, especially how to teach it to 8th graders. In the particular writing class, the teacher was focusing on creative writing and wanted to avoid some of the same exercises that she’d used for years. So, with the help of some materials and suggestions that she’d found elsewhere, she tried to get her students to think about bad things. She wanted them to write creatively, and especially to try to find some of the good that might be found in those bad things. While this may have been a laudable goal, in some cases — like the Holocaust — there simply isn’t an easily found silver lining. And thus the assignment went awry.

One of the possible assignments for the students was to sell something. Before I describe how this assignment relates to the Holocaust, let me first relay the first of the two examples of something that could be sold provided by the teacher:

For Sale: America. This 200+ year old country could be just what the medicine man ordered! Nestled between 2 major oceans and bordered on the north and south by 2 friendly countries, the United States of America has already been subdivided into 48 convenient parcels plus a vast tract of land near the Arctic Circle and a few heavenly islands in the Pacific. Though it no longer contains huge herds of buffalo to hunt and crystal clear streams and lakes to fish in, native peoples will still enjoy the vast tracks of farmland and those with Visa cards will be able to buy food and manufactured items to help them forget the pristine beauty which was lost. They could also watch nature documentaries on the Discovery Channel.

Though some may agree with the political viewpoint of that example, one must query its appropriateness as an example for an 8th grade English class. But what about the Holocaust? Here is the second example:

For Sale: Auschwitz. Looking for a place that would make the perfect summer camp? Think about this concentration camp. Poland would like to take the bad reputation of Auschwitz and turn it around! Think of the possibilities! The barracks could be renovated to house thousands of people. We have ovens big enough to bake bread for thousands. The razor wire will prevent students from making a break for it. There is plenty of room for exercise, where role call used to be taken. Railroads can go right through camp, meaning supplies will be at your fingertips at all times.

Yes, you heard me correctly: We have ovens big enough to bake bread for thousands. That is what I mean when I say that there is a difference between teaching about the Holocaust and understanding the Holocaust.

And that wasn’t the only example in the assignment packet. Students could also write a letter of recommendation for a job. One example provided was to have Adolf Hitler write a letter of recommendation for Dr. Joseph Mengele for a job as a plastic surgeon. For those who don’t recall, he was the “doctor” who performed experiments on twins at Auschwitz, including Terre Haute resident Eva Kor and her twin sister. Or students could create a trading card about a historical figure. The example provided was Adolf Hitler. Some of the data on the example Hitler trading card:

Hobbies: Planning New Ways to Rule the World

Pet Peeve: Jews.

You see, so long as we live in a world where people can make jokes about ovens used to destroy the bodies of millions of people murdered for no reason other than their religion, so long as we live in a world where people don’t take seriously evil experiments done upon unwilling human victims, so long as we live in a world where people can look at the evil of the Holocaust and chalk it up to one man’s “pet peeve”, then we remain at risk for the same things happening again and again.

Our world continues to face genocide. From Rwanda to Bosnia to Darfur. We give lip service to learning the lessons of the Holocaust, but it seems clear that we’re not really digesting those lessons. All too often we allow hate to fester and guide our actions.

The issue in the school has been largely resolved and those involved have used the incident as a learning opportunity, so I don’t want to spend time rehashing issues of blame or to even note which school was involved. I’m satisfied that the teacher understands the inappropriateness of the assignment.

We need to continue teaching about the Holocaust, both in terms of the facts of what happened and in terms of the lessons to be learned. And we need to be sure that we give Indiana’s teachers the tools and lessons that they need so that they can tackle this subject with the seriousness and understanding that it requires. For to teach the Holocaust as something other than one of the worst evils the world has ever seen is to teach our children that genocide isn’t a danger and that hate is an acceptable guidepost to life.

The program had a small audience. The Jewish community was well-represented. But those of us in the Jewish community need to do an even better job of attending at and participating in events such as this one (or the Holocaust Observance program being conducted by the City of Carmel on Friday) to demonstrate to the broader community that we really do care about the Holocaust and that we’re appreciative of the efforts of our state and local municipalities to commemorate the Holocaust. More importantly, we need to be sure that more Gentiles are in attendance so that we can be sure that memories of the Holocaust do not become the sole province of Jews.

Warning: Chaos Approaches

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:27:00 +0000

Just a quick note to warn readers that this blog is likely to experience a few hiccups over the next few weeks. Google (who runs Blogger) has decided to stop supporting FTP based blogging (the method used for this blog) in May. So, I’m going to need to convert the blog to Blogger’s “customized domain” format. The only real change that this should require is the end of the URL http://www.wallack.us/blog.html which will be replaced by http://blog.wallack.us (which I’ve been using for most references to this blog for several months anyway). Of course, who knows whether things will run as smoothly as they’re supposed to…

In addition, when I make the switch, I’m probably going to play around with variations on the current layout and design. I’ve wanted to try a few things for a while, but they’ve been too complicated or time consuming and so I keep putting them off for another day. The change to the customized domain format should give me the chance to try some different things. So be forewarned that the blog may look different from day to day as I experiment. Sorry. I’ll try to keep the construction dust to a minimum.

Finally, I don’t know whether the sidebar material (LibraryThing, the flags for visitors, etc.) will be usable on the new system. A while back, LibraryThing totally changed their widgets and I’ll have to see if I can work with those or if I’ll have to play with the old code. On the plus side, there are a whole host of new and cool widgets available under the new system. Anyway, that’s the kind of havoc and chaos that I’m expecting.

When I make the change, I’ll post a notice here. Let me know if the page looks strange or if you have any difficulty reading the posts or navigating the site.

Rachel Maddow: “Let Them Eat Fake”

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 17:07:00 +0000

Everybody should watch Rachel Maddow. Really.

Is it bad form for a married, straight guy to have a crush on a lesbian simply because she’s willing to give voice to thoughts that too often go totally ignored? Hmm.

Is Fox News Helping to Plan a New American Civil War?

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:47:00 +0000

Has a phony patriot yielded American priorities regarding international laws? Foreign ownership of leading stations demeans and yields American sovereignty and just might be aimed at provoking a second American Civil War. It is well known that Fox News is owned by Rupert Murdoch who became an American citizen in 1985. However, what is less well known is that Murdoch became an American citizen because of legislation that prohibited foreigners from owning American television stations. Thus, to paraphrase Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minnesota), one of Fox News’ favorite politicians, we have to wonder whether Murdoch may, in fact, have anti-American views. His true loyalties may still be to Australia. Even less well known is that a major shareholder in Murdoch’s company, News Corp., is Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.

Now query why a TV news station owned by an Australian-American and a member of the Saudi royal family would play host to people like Glenn Beck who appears to advocate for violent uprising against the government or Bill O’Reilly who seems to suggest that people kill abortion doctors or Sean Hannity who couldn’t find the truth if it is was hanging out of his own ass. Might it be that the real goal of Murdoch and bin Talal is to use Fox News to bring American to the brink, and even over the edge, into a second civil war? Might that be why Fox News has so aggressively adopted the Tea Parties and the teabaggers with their violent and eliminationist rhetoric. Just think of it: With the US engaged in a new civil war, an Australia-Saudi alliance would be posed to become a major world power. The petroleum-kangaroo alliance would be powerful indeed, mate.

Don’t think that this plot is too fanciful. Recall that back in 1997, Elliot Carver, owner of London-based Carver Media Group tried to incite a war between Britain and China in order to increase television ratings for his news networks and force his way into the Chinese cable TV market. Violence was averted only due to high level cooperation between British and Chinese military and intelligence officials. Could Murdoch and bin Talal have something similar in mind?

And query further whether the recent demise of several print newspapers might be part of this plot to bring more and more of the news delivery system within the Fox entertainment realm.

Or might their plan be yet more nefarious? For one thing, think about this: Have you ever seen Osama bin Laden and Rupert Murdoch at the same time? I’m not quite sure what to make of that, but when that fact is added to the “coincidence” of bin Talal’s ownership of a share of News Corp. it does make one sit up and take notice. The fact that Glenn Beck hasn’t drawn up all of these relationships on his blackboard only gives credence to the possibility; after all, Beck sniffs out conspiracies better than anyone, so if he missed one this big it must be because he’s in league with those planning the scheme. And given Beck’s ties to gold speculators, the likelihood that chaos in America is the true goal seems almost obvious. Remember, “social justice” is code for “koala bear”.

So far, I have no hard evidence that Murdoch and bin Talal are a part of al-Qaeda, that the Australia-Saudi alliance has actually begun to engage in plots separate from those of the Illuminati, or that they are using Fox News to try to cause a civil war. I’ve heard from a Ranger that is apparently working on this case, but so far the evidence is still a bit flimsy; then again, most of the news aired on Fox is a bit flimsy, too, so I’m not sure what that really means. Anyway, I believe that the Ranger is still digging for evidence and, if he digs up even a bone of truth to the story, I’ll relay it here.

But in the meantime, we need to be very careful of the things that we hear on Fox News and take everything said on the network with a giant grain of proverbial pepper.

Update: Happy April Fools Day!

Double Standard in Definition of Terrorism (update) or The Further Acceptance of Political Violence

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 17:57:00 +0000

Earlier this month I wrote about the double standard that is used when labeling some things as acts of terrorism and other things as … well … not terrorism. In the days following the passage of the health care reform bill, this double standard has been in evidence yet again. By now, you’ve certainly heard about a number of Democratic campaign offices being vandalized, several with rocks being thrown through windows. Guess what? It appears that the rock-throwing campaign may have been in response to a veritable call-to-arms from a right-wing blogger named Mike Vanderboegh. Here’s his March 19 post (emphasis added); if reading this manifesto doesn’t give you chills, then I’m even more worried about the slide toward political violence that we seem to be experiencing.

To all free Americans who still hold dear the Founders' vision of a constitutional Republic and who wish to remain free --

Nancy Pelosi's Intolerable Act is within days of passage by devious means so corrupt and twisted that even members of her own party recoil in disgust.

This act will order all of us to play or pay, and if we do not wish to, we will be fined.

If we refuse to pay the fine out of principle, we will be jailed.

If we resist arrest, we will be killed.

They will send the Internal Revenue Service and other federal police to do this in thousands of small Wacos, if that is what it takes to force us to submit.

This arrogant elite pretends that this oppression is for our own good, while everyone else understands that this is about their selfish, insatiable appetite for control over our liberty, our money, our property and our lives.

The majority of the people have made it plain that they do not want this tyrannical transfer of power wrapped in soft lies.

It does not matter.

Pelosi and her ilk apparently do not understand that this Intolerable Act has some folks so angry that they are ready to resist their slow-rolling revolution against the Founders' Republic by force of arms. Why should they? For in the past seventy-five years of being pushed back continually from the free exercise of our God-given rights to life, liberty and property, WE HAVE NEVER SHOVED BACK. Rather, it was we, the law-abiding, who backed up each time, grumbling.

These are collectivists. They do not hear you grumble. They do not, it is apparent after the past year of town halls and Tea Parties and nose-diving opinion polls, hear you SHOUT. They certainly do not hear the soft "snik-snik" of cleaning rods being used on millions of rifle barrels in this country by people who have decided that their backs are to the wall, politics and the courts no longer are sufficient to the task of defending their liberties, and they must make their own arrangements.

The Imperial Democrats do not care what you think. They will not hear you. They are every bit as arrogant and isolated as King George the Third was from the liberty-loving American colonists in 1775.
And yet, if we are to avoid civil war, we must get their attention BEFORE the IRS thug parties descend upon us each in turn -- when we will be forced into dozens of defensive slaughters and then, to end it, forced yet again to call Pelosi and the other architects of this war upon their own people to final account.

We are the law-abiding of this country, yes. We always have been. But when the "law" is distorted and twisted into an unconstitutional means of oppression, backed by the entire weight of the federal Leviathan, it is not "law" at all, but mere illegitimate force.

John Locke said it best:

"Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience."

When the law becomes a deadly tool of tyranny, it is no longer a good thing to be obedient and "law-abiding." It is, in fact, suicidal.

Yet, given the federal mandarins' willful ignorance of our very existence and conviction that we have no opinions that they are bound to respect, is there anything that can be done to prevent civil war?
Yes, there is.

We can emulate the Sons of Liberty of old.

We can break their windows.

These windows are not far away from where you are reading this right now. In virtually every city and county in this land, there is a local headquarters of Pelosi's party -- the Democrat party. These headquarters invariably have windows. When the Sons of Liberty wanted to express their opposition to the actions of the King's ministers, they would gather in front of the homes and offices of his tax-collectors and government officials in Boston or New York and break their windows. Glass was expensive. The King's minions were often the most well-to-do. The Sons of Liberty hit them in their pocketbooks.

Most importantly, however, was the message to the royal functionaries that there are personal consequences for oppressing your fellow citizens. The King is far away, and you are here, among us, the people.

This is the message that modern Sons of Liberty should get across to the Royalists of today. Now. Before we have to resort to rifles to resist their "well intentioned" tyranny.
This is not to say that the GOP (I refuse to call them "Republicans" for that is a misuse of the word) does not bear a large measure of responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in today. However, they have opposed this Intolerable Act. Yet, if we do a thorough job of breaking Democrat windows, I am sure that the GOP will profit from the example.

So, if you wish to send a message that Pelosi and her party cannot fail to hear, break their windows.

Break them NOW.

Break them and run to break again. Break them under cover of night. Break them in broad daylight. Break them and await arrest in willful, principled civil disobedience. Break them with rocks. Break them with slingshots. Break them with baseball bats.

But BREAK THEM.

The time has come to take your life, your liberty and that of your children and grandchildren into your own two hands and ACT.

It is, after all, more humane than shooting them in self defense.

And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of hundreds, thousands, of Democrat party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.

Sons of Liberty, this is your time.

Break their windows.

Break them NOW.

And Nancy, if this be sedition, if this be treason in your eyes, then make the most of it.

Mike Vanderboegh

[I am not providing a link to Vanderboegh’s site because I don’t want to send any more traffic his way; similarly, I’ve removed his contact information from his manifesto.]

Now just for a moment consider the public outcry if this had been a Muslim calling on other Muslims to break windows to show outrage over the Iraq war or the Patriot Act or Guantanamo. Consider the outcry if this had been an employee of ACORN calling on African-Americans to break windows to show outrage over voting rights abuses or disparate treatment in affordable housing. Consider the outcry if this had been a left-wing blogger calling on Democrats to break Republican windows to show outrage over the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore or warrantless wiretaps or refusal to recognize global warming. Do you have any doubt that in any of those cases, the person advocating the window-breaking campaign would have been called a terrorist and treated as such? Hell, Republicans would probably be demanding that the person be tortured to find out who else was involved. But when a right-wing blogger advocates violence? The silence is almost deafening.

At least MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow didn’t let this pass without notice or comment:

It is time for leaders on both sides … but especially Republicans as that is the direction from which most of the current hate speech and violent rhetoric is coming from … to stand up and make forceful and strident denunciations of this kind of behavior. For that matter, it is time for people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh to recognize what their words can lead to. Because if this continues in its present course, how long will it be until we’re confronted by:

or even

If we don’t stop this now, political violence will become worse … or even the norm. And all of this because President Obama wanted to extend health insurance coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go meet my death panel before flying off in a black helicopter to my New World Order meeting about taking away guns so that we can put people in FEMA concentration camps.

And now for something completely different: Cheerleading (update)

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:38:00 +0000

In January 2008, just a few weeks after I started this blog, I posted a brief entry about my daughter’s upcoming cheerleading competition. With that post, I included the following photo of her. I think the photo was from a competition late in 2007 (when she was 8), but as I look at it now, I wonder if it might not have been from the previous spring (when she was 7):

Well, this past weekend, she finished her most recent season of cheerleading (she’s at a new gym this year). At the last competition, we purchased some photos taken by the professional photographer hired by the competition organizer. When I looked at those photos, I recalled the photo above and had to go back and look again. So now compare my daughter age 8 (or 7) to my daughter age 10:

If that’s the difference between 8 and 10, I’m now officially scared of the teenage years…

Just for fun, here are the other photos from the competition:

President Bush: "Ooh, I Touched a Negro..."

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:41:00 +0000

Just as a picture speaks a thousand words, a video can speak volumes. Or, sometimes a video doesn't really really show what it clearly appears to show. Anyway, I couldn't help but post this video of President Clinton and President Bush touring earthquake-ravaged Haiti. Watch President Bush closely at the :13 mark.

Tell me that President Bush didn’t just wipe his hand on President Clinton’s shirt after shaking hands with a Haitian. Actually, it looks like he first started to wipe his hand on the woman to his left and then changed his mind.

I have no idea what really happened or what, if anything, President Bush may have said, and I don’t really think that President Bush is a racist or a xenophobe. But I think that the title for this post bears at least some similarity to what the video seems to show.

To Republican Culture Warriors, Truth Remains Irrelevant

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:36:00 +0000

In Arizona, Sen. John McCain has drawn a primary challenge from former Congressman J.D. Hayworth. Apparently Hayworth views Sen. McCain as far too liberal to represent the citizens of Arizona. Among the issues that Hayworth has raised is the issue of same-sex marriage and the need for a Constitutional amendment to define marriage (and ban same-sex marriage). To that end, here is what Hayworth said during a radio interview on Sunday (audio only; transcript below):

Transcript:

You see, the Massachusetts Supreme Court, when it started this move toward same-sex marriage, actually defined marriage — now get this — it defined marriage as simply, “the establishment of intimacy”. Now how dangerous is that? I mean, I don't mean to be absurd about it, but I guess I can make the point of absurdity with an absurd point. I guess that would mean if you really had affection for your horse, I guess you could marry your horse. It’s just the wrong way to go and the only way to protect the institution of marriage is with that federal marriage amendment that I support.

Now the purpose of this post isn’t to address the pros or cons of the marriage amendment or same-sex marriage. I’ve certainly made my viewpoint on that clear in the past (hint: I support same-sex marriage). Nor is this post intended to discuss the idiocy of Hayworth’s slippery slope argument that same-sex marriage could lead to bestiality (or incest or polygamy or pedophilia or whatever phrase would describe sex or marriage to an inanimate object, all of which are used as a part of the slippery slope argument against same-sex marriage). Instead, I want to look at the way people frame arguments and respond to challenges.

So go back and look at the principal claim made by Hayworth, that the “Massachusetts Supreme Court … defined marriage as simply, ‘the establishment of intimacy’.” That is a statement that Hayworth presents as fact. He encloses the statement in verbal quotation marks.

Last night, Rachel Maddow had Hayworth on her show to discuss his claims and allegations. Watch this excerpt:

To paraphrase a quote that has been oft-repeated of late, people are entitled to their own opinion, but they are not entitled to their own facts. Note how Hayworth just smiles when Maddow notes that the phrase “establishment of intimacy” is not found in the opinion of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. He then tells Maddow that he “appreciates that they have a disagreement” on whether the language is or is not in the opinion. In other words, though he has been proven wrong on something that he presented as a fact, he simply doesn’t care.

For the record, the opinion can easily be found online. Go ahead take a look at the opinion. I did. I searched for the phrase “establishment of intimacy” in the opinion. Guess what? That phrase is not used. So next I searched for the use of the word “intimacy” and found the following uses:

There, the [United States Supreme Court] affirmed that the core concept of common human dignity protected by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution precludes government intrusion into the deeply personal realms of consensual adult expressions of intimacy and one's choice of an intimate partner.
Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family.
Whether and whom to marry, how to express sexual intimacy, and whether and how to establish a family — these are among the most basic of every individual's liberty and due process rights.
Our laws of civil marriage do not privilege procreative heterosexual intercourse between married people above every other form of adult intimacy and every other means of creating a family.
Similarly, the Supreme Court has called for increased due process protection when individual privacy and intimacy are threatened by unnecessary government imposition.
(characterizing "whom to marry, how to express sexual intimacy, and whether and how to establish a family" as "among the most basic of every individual's liberty and due process rights")

I suppose that Hayworth could have been referring to one of these other phrases in which the word “intimacy” occurs; after all, people can make mistakes. But this rationalization fails for several reasons. First, Hayworth enclosed his statement in verbal quotation marks when he used it, thus implying that it was more than just a rough idea conjured up by the opinion or a paraphrasing of the Court’s statement. Moreover, Hayworth used the same precise phrase in both interviews, so he doesn’t appear to have been merely paraphrasing. Furthermore, the premise of his initial remarks followed from the “danger” of the false definition that he quoted. Finally, it would have been easy for him to say to Maddow, “Gee, I was paraphrasing” or “You’re right, and I meant to refer to that other phrase you mentioned” or even “Those words may not be there, but that is the gist of what the Court meant.” But he said none of those things. Instead, he stuck to his bogus phrase and “appreciated” that there was a disagreement as to whether something easily checked did or did not exist. And he smiled all the while, as if to say, “Who cares if I made it up; facts are meaningless!” Hayworth’s “disagreement” is no more genuine than disagreement about whether the sun rises in the east or the west … or whether the health care bill had “death panels”.

And that’s what’s really dangerous. What does it say for our society and our democracy when politicians are so willing to gleefully say “fuck facts” and base their “principles” on lies? We’ve seen it with death panels and the reconciliation “nuclear option” and a whole host of other issues. But when it becomes so brazen that, even when confronted by very simple, easily fact-checked evidence, the response is to simply smile and “appreciate” the disagreement, as if objective reality were no longer objective, then how can we trust much of anything anymore? And what does it say for our society and our democracy when so many people are willing to simply taking smiling politicians or pundits at their word without any effort to think fact-check pronouncements, let alone think independently?

We should make decisions on important issues on the basis of facts. And if a fact offered by one side is proven to be demonstrably untrue, then the point should be surrendered or another rationale to support the argument should be put forth. But simply relying upon lies … well, there be madness.

Finally, is it just me, or does Hayworth remind anyone else of a bobblehead doll?

Double Standard in the Definition of Terrorism

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:27:00 +0000

Sometimes, I’m a bit slow and have a hard time understanding certain things. For example, when a group of Muslim guys get angry at America and demonstrate their anger by flying planes into buildings, including a government building, they’re terrorists. But when another guy, also angry at America (or at least the IRS) flies his plane into a government building, he’s merely a lone delusional nut but not a terrorist. When a white Muslim guy hides explosives in his shoe and tries to detonate those explosives on an airplane, he’s taken into civilian custody, read his rights, and treated as a criminal who tried to commit terrorist acts; yet when another Muslim guy (black) hides explosives in his underpants and tries to detonate those explosives on an airplane, there’s a hue and cry that he should be remanded to military custody, tortured, and treated as an enemy combatant. When a Muslim military psychologist goes on a shooting rampage on a military base, he’s called a terrorist and people cry out for more ethnic and racial profiling. But when another guy walks up to the Pentagon and opens fire on guards, he’s simply a lone delusional nut. When a Muslim guy walks into a US Army recruiting office and opens fire, he’s a terrorist. But when an anti-Semitic, white supremacist vet goes on a shooting spree at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, he’s simply another lone delusional nut. When environmental activists spike a tree or try to release animals from a lab, they’re eco-terrorists. But when an anti-abortion activist with ties to a broader anti-abortion network assassinates an abortion provider, he’s another lone delusional nut. Do you see a pattern here?

Maybe we should ask Fox News to explain the double standard? Maybe Glenn Beck can draw us a diagram on a blackboard.

Just for the record, I think that all of the episodes that I’ve described are most probably classified as acts or terrorism. Whether the perpetrator was an American or foreigner, whether a Muslim or Christian, whether on the left or right, these acts all probably constitute terror and should be treated the same.

IN Touch: A Threat to Our Rights (update)

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:07:00 +0000

Back in January, I posted my most recent entry for The Indianapolis Star's IN Touch blog. In the weeks following the publication of that post on the IN Touch blog, an interesting and heated discussion followed in the comments section of the IN Touch site. I don't know how long The Indianapolis Star keeps those comments, so I decided to copy them here for posterity (note that I deleted a mistakenly duplicated post and corrected a few odd formatting errors that made some text hard to read). Unfortunately, real life and work intervened and I wasn’t able to fully participate in the discussion as it kept going. Nevertheless, the discussion is interesting, especially the chance to see how someone vehemently opposed to gay marriage (or perhaps gay rights in general or even the very concept of “gay rights”) frames the issues and arguments.

First, go back and read my original post. Then check out these comments.

IrishKevin (January 27, 2010)

Michael, I agree wholeheartedly with your post.

No one, to my knowledge, has EVER truly explained how same-sex marriage would destroy traditional marriages, affect their own families or end civilization as we know it.

The proponents (supporters) of SJR-13, I am sure, would NOT agree to amendments such as banning divorce, requiring pre-marital counseling, or other amendments which would "protect" their traditional marriages. They jump up and down about protecting marriage and family while they themselves have been divorced and remarried. It seems to me divorce is a MUCH bigger threat to marriages and families than same-sex marriages are. And after all, these fundamentalist legislators should remember that Jesus did say what God has brought together let NO MAN put asunder. But hey, they only follow the parts of Jesus teachings that are "convenient" for them, yet they call themselves devout Christians. What a laugh.

However, I think we all know that the usually cast of characters are really out just trying to score political points with their fundamentalist base, so they can keep getting re-elected. If they spent as much effort trying to solve the REAL problems facing Indiana and stop worrying about same-sex marriages, maybe they MIGHT actually accomplish something of value, instead of wasting their time on stuff like SJR-13 while they are in session.

But hey, these "family value" legislators just want to bring up this issue every session so they can keep getting elected and keep coming to Indianapolis on the taxpayer's dime, stay in hotels, dine out and waste MORE time accomplishing NOTHING for the citizens of Indiana.

Mick Lee (February 1, 2010)

As usual, supporters gay marriage claim that "No one... has EVER truly explained how same-sex marriage would destroy traditional marriages". And, as usual, the key words are "has ever truly explained". What this means is that they get to decide what is "truly". It would doubt few that our writers don't believe such explanations could exist in the first place.

Well, the truth is such explanations are out there easy to be found. Anyone who claims otherwise is either ignorant or dishonest. Our writers may not like them. They may say they don't meet their approval or their logic. But they are there. Just surf the web.

IrishKevin (February 1, 2010)

So tell us Mike [ed: I believe that IrishKevin meant Mick, not Mike; see below], how does same-sex marriage affect YOUR marriage, YOUR family, YOUR well-being?

Come on Mike, tell us, and be specific. I don't want some generic answer from the groups who go down to the Satehouse but never really say anything relevant. They are the ones who NEVER explain HOW same-sex marriage will affect them, their familes or their well-being.

So, since you take issue with that, I want to know how it directly affects YOU. Come on, tell us.....(if you can).

Michael Wallack (February 1, 2010)

Mick:

Thanks for reinforcing my point. You tell me that explanations are "out there easy to be found". Yet, like the proponents of the proposed constitutional amendment who testified to the Indiana Senate Judiciary Committee, you don't tell us what those reasons are, either. A legislator being asked to amend our constitution shouldn't have to surf the web for a rationale; proponents of the amendment should put their rationale up for scrutiny and debate. In this case, that was not done.

Michael Wallack (February 1, 2010)

IrishKevin:

Are you asking me or did you mean to ask Mick? For my part, same-sex marriage will have absolutely no effect on me, my marriage, or my well-being.

Mick Lee (February 2, 2010)

What has escaped Michael and Kevin is that I had accused the other writers of dishonesty and bad faith. You never "truly" heard how same-sex marriage would destroy traditional marriages? It's because you don't want to. It is easily done with a few clicks on the web and the fact that our industrious writers have little interest in doing so demonstrates they have little curiosity into why anyone would think differently than they do. Our writers really don’t want to debate “gay marriage” at all. In other words, the subject isn't really the subject. Something else is afoot. Our writers' real goal is to leave the door open for some court to decide the whole issue for everyone else. Given the Hoosier electorate, that is the only way "gay marriage" will become legal in Indiana.

IrishKevin (February 2, 2010)

Re: Mike Lee. Mike, you wrote "You never "truly" heard how same-sex marriage would destroy traditional marriages? It's because you don't want to."

Then you say it is out on the web. I am not asking that. I am asking YOU. How does same-sex marriage affect YOU, YOUR marriage and YOUR family. You seem concerned that "some court to decide the whole issue for everyone else"...So tell us how it will affect YOU.

So I would like YOU, and the others who scream that same-sex marriage will DESTROY our state and our Nation, to tell me HOW it will destroy your marriage... How will it destroy our state, our nation, our families and civilization as we know it? Those opposed to same-sex marriage make those claims but they NEVER say how their own marriages or lives will be affected. And by the way, they DON'T say that on the WEB either.. they just make the same stupid rants that they have to protect traditional marriage and family values, yet they TRULY NEVER say how same-sex marriage will "destroy" traditional marriage... so please TELL US....

Michael Wallack (February 2, 2010)

Mick:

Actually, I think that you're missing the point. Look at the last paragraph of my original post. You will see that the issue is NOT whether Indiana should allow gay marriage; the issue is whether we should amend our Constitution. Perhaps the issue of same-sex marriage should be open to the courts (just as a lot of civil rights rulings were left to the courts) or to a future legislature. But amending the Constitution would prohibit a future legislature from dealing with same-sex marriage or civil unions.

The other point that you miss is that I said that at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, none of the proponents of SJR 13 endeavored to identify the perceived threat. I'm happy to debate the merits of those perceived threats, but it is the obligation of those proposing a constitutional amendment to come forward with the arguments; it isn't the obligation of the opponents to both "find" the arguments and then defeat them.

Jeff Lint (February 2, 2010)

Mick,

I think it is you who doesn't want to debate this issue. You say the arguments are out there defining how "same-sex marriage would destroy traditional marriages" yet you can't cite a single argument. I have heard and read a lot on this issue and like Irish Kevin I have never heard anyone explain how same-sex marriage harms much less destroys traditional marriage, "truly" or otherwise. If this issue is as clear as you seem to think it is why can't you present any evidence? If you're arguing that some of your fellow Hoosiers should be denied rights belonging to others you need a better argument than no argument at all.

IrishKevin (February 2, 2010)

Michael, I met to ask Mick, (and I inadvertently wrote Mike). In fact, I responded again to him and again wrote Mike instead of Mick.

Based on what you wrote in your original posting, I assumed that you were not affected in any way by same-sex marriage, just like NO ONE ELSE'S marriage, family or well-being would be affected by same-sex marriage, despite what Advance America and the other organizations claim.

Mick Lee (February 2, 2010)

Our writer is certainly right to say that same-sex marriage is already prohibited by state law. The citizens of Indiana have already spoken. So why fool around with the state constitution? Precisely because some court will all by itself constitutionalize the issue and place it beyond public discourse in rendering its own decision. That is, with the right case before it, the judicial branch of government can and will amend the Indiana constitution all by itself.

Many if not most within gay activist community are putting their hopes for these circumstances to transpire. The apprehension of their opponents is that gay activists will attempt an “end run” around the Indiana voters and legislature by appealing to a receptive court.

Michael makes a curious statement when he writes: “do we really want to start amending our bill of rights with provisions that serve to restrict, rather than enhance, those rights?” It the first place, Michael serves up a planted axiom that what is referred as “gay rights” actually exist. This is in the very least debatable and far from a settled consensus. In the second place, Michael misses an important function of the bill of rights.

Rights, as we possess them, protect us from the naked strength government. They serve to protect the Hoosier populace from the coercive power of those who think society should be remade according to their lights. Such “reforms” are always presented as benevolent changes. But the means is tyrannical.

Contrary to assertion of some, marriage is not a vehicle to collect benefits. The sentiment of Hoosiers along with millions over the globe is that marriage is one man and one woman for the nourishment and protection of children. Yes, there are different other kinds of families. But all these possible “family” constellations are not the same nor do they possess the same strengths and weaknesses. Quite frankly, most are maladapted to the needs and demands placed on them--especially in the modern age. It is the accumulated experience and wisdom over the centuries that has shown us what works and what doesn’t. We do not wish to subject ourselves to court imposed social experimentation just to resort to reinventing the wheel. This could only be done by state imposed coercion against the liberty of Hoosiers. The marriage amendment is an assertion of the populace that they are a free and self-governing people rather than witless subjects of a handful of men in black robes.

Yes, social dyads called gay marriages will always exist among us. But the question before the larger society is which family constellation will we recognize and to which will we extend our assistance. Gay pairings will always exist; but the larger society has decided that it is not its job nor is it in their interest to aid in preserving them.

Jeff Lint (February 3, 2010)

Mick,

Please explain how "same-sex marriage would destroy traditional marriages". If you can't explain how this happens I don't see how you can justify denying the same civil rights to your fellow citizens that you enjoy.

Mick Lee (February 3, 2010)

A few years ago, before his "sudden" parting of ways with the Star, RiShawn Biddle and I had a lengthy exchange over several letters on just the subject of how gay marriage would damage (note, I did not say destroy) traditional marriage. I introduced the concept of "social ecology" and Mr. Biddle kept true to his libertarian views and refused to believe that what was going on around him could crack into his life. I view human being very much social beings for whom their culture is very much the air they breathe. Mr. Biddle believes in a radical individualism by which the person is critically separate from society.

On these grounds, Mr. Biddle and I kept going around in circles. I ended my side of the exchange citing empirical evidence from Holland and the Scandinavian countries where gay marriage was established in law.

The evidence revealed that fewer marriages were formed over time and fewer with each passing year. Cohabitation became the norm. Such arrangements are inherently unstable in that they were less likely to culminate in marriage and were prone to dissolve in a matter of a few months to a few years.

For the children, the failure of families to form or to be laid waste often leads to a number of crippling pathologies-often throughout their lives. In theory, these alleged "self contained individuals" should have remained detached from the trash around them. As life is really lived, this just isn't so.

Mr. Biddle granted there may be certain "pychic effects" (a term I rejected) in broadening what is considered as marriage but these were irrelevant to the principle of personal liberty.

My counter is that the Lord gave us our liberties so that we may carry out our duties. Liberty must be "for" something. Liberty doesn't live for itself nor is it an unqualified license to harm others while enjoying one's liberty. It was Abraham Lincoln who championed this concept of liberty and it was for these same reasons he objected to the institution of slavery. Lincoln reasoned that a man who is a slave is a man who is unable to honor is mother and father and thus unable to keep the Commandments.

A sin is often times not a malicous act of evil. Instead, it is often the illicit use of something intended for good. Gay activists often point to all the good things that come out of gay marriages. I this I have no doubt. It of no surprise that good things come out of the wrongful application of marriage — an institution meant for good. What would truly be surprising would be if nothing good came out of it. Yes, marriage is meant of the mutual love and companionship of two individuals. But marriage is also for the issue, nourishment and protection of children. Yes, many gay partners are raising children and do so well. Yes, some heterosexual couples never have children and have no intention of doing so; but they enjoy an intense passion with each other. But these are distinct minorities within the norm. The childless couples are in a marriage because each has bound their generative sexuality to their partner so that it will not be shared with another. Parents for a child are necessary but are not sufficient. Parents are not gender interchangeable. A child needs both and male father and female mother. That family constellation provides the optimum condition for children to grow — especially if both the mother and father are the biological parents. That so many heterosexual marriages are bad does not lend legitimacy to gay couples claiming marriagehood. Most homosexual couples do not have children in the first place. Those gay couples that do raise children lack the complimentary aspects of male and female caregivers.

I well understand the agony and isolation homosexuals continue to suffer in our society. The pain many heterosexuals inflict on gays for the sake of fun and enjoyment of hurting them is a sin against God. But conforming marriage to one's circumstances is not necessary to be a member and conversationalist of the moral community.

I say all these things with my beloved gay son in my heart. I will never reject him and only wish him well. He and his lover will always have a welcome place at our table. Nevertheless, things are as they are.

IrishKevin (February 3, 2010)

Mick, I see you have responded to Michael, but not to me, which is okay, as I really did not think you would answer my question as to how same-sex marriage directly affects YOU, YOUR marriage and/or YOUR family. I still stand behind my original assertion the no one who opposes same-sex marriage TRULY indicates HOW same-sex marriage will "destroy" their OWN marriage, the institution of marriage, or how it affect their families or bring an end to civilization and the human race.

So I guess you will continue to pontificate and avoid direct answers. That is fine, I am done as well as you clearly don't have an answer.

I also could pontificate as to WHY this country is a REPRESENTATIVE REPUBLIC, as opposed to a TRUE Democracy, and WHY Jefferson, Madison and the rest of the Founding Fathers did that to protect the minority from the TYRANNY of the majority. But I guess you don't know or understand any of that. Maybe you and the rest of the supports of SJR 13 should go read Madison's writing on why he feared the tyranny of the majority, and why we ELECT representatives, and have courts to PROTECT minorities from the majority voting away their rights. Maybe you need to go study a little more U.S. History, Civics and Political Science.

I would bet it would have taken a LOT longer for southern states to get rid of the "Jim Crow" laws if the citizens of those states were allowed to vote on them. The State legislatures and courts took the actions necessary to protect the minorities because the "majority" would have voted to maintain the status quo.

Allowing fellow citizens to VOTE on taking away OTHER citizens rights is VERY DANGEROUS and the VERY REASON we have elected officials and courts. This is NOT a true democracy. And as much as YOU and others would like to vote away rights of fellow Hoosiers, I am glad that there are SOME legislators in Indiana who understand the implications of that.

Mick Lee (February 4, 2010)

How shall “gay marriage” impact my marriage? Well, Kevin, I am an old man — married for over fifty years. And I am probably not long for this world. At least in my case, the question is misapplied. I assure you that a certain hardening of the “concrete” that forms the bonds between my wife and myself took place some time ago — long before the notion of “gay marriage” made its first appearance. (Yes, there was a time when even gay activists thought “gay marriage” was an outrageous idea — nothing more than a “red herring” and a fantasy floated by their opponents to divert attention from the real issues of discrimination in housing, employment and peaceable public protection.) . However, I have more than a casual interest in the kind of world I will leave behind and in what happens to my children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and all who come after me.

I am sure you are quite proud of your civics lesson; but, given the maturity of your writing flair, it is my guess that I had written much more multi-layered manuscripts on the Federalist Papers and the Constitution before your father dripped from your grandfather’s seed. But we need not go down those roads. The fact is your discourse begs the question.

You and your compatriots insist on the protection of your right to marriage. You also insist that no majority has the authority to take away your right. The problem, however, does such a right even exist? When the Federalist Papers were written and the Constitution ratified, the rights of Afro-Americans and the franchise for the Jews were subject to active debate — however imperfectly. In other words these questions have a long pedigree going back to the Founding. But at no time until these recent days has the “right” of homosexuals to marriage ever been advanced or argued in any forum. As I alluded to before, for most of the history of gay activism, leaders within the movement regarded the subject of “gay marriage” a phony issue invented by religious zealots to scare off the public. Even they thought the notion of “gay marriage” a contradiction in terms and hardly enviable in pursuit of their rights as homosexuals. It has been only recently that a “right to marry” has been put forward. In addition, many within the homosexual media insist that such a marriage should not be expected to conform to “heterosexist” norms.

You cannot manufacture a “right” nor is it safe to make the attempt. Neither can a majority take away what you never had to begin with. You certainly are right that we heterosexuals have allowed ourselves a lot of crap in our sexual adventures and marriages since the Second World War. But is precisely the point. When the radical liberalization of divorce, it was also argued that why should it make any difference to you and your marriage if the Smith’s down the street separate and divorce? The answer is that divorce was not kept at a small 10-15% as predicted — instead it reached slightly over 50%. This is a matter of indifference to many but it was a crippling disaster for a least one third of the children (many put the figure higher) resulting in a number of pathologies our society has yet to grapple with.

I have made my case plainly. The empirical evidence points out that broadening the legal definition to include gay marriage spikes in fewer marriages taking place and the increases failure of the formation stable families. Many will reply that that is their problem — not mine. I suggest that attitude is short sighted. One way or another it will become your problem.

You may well have gay marriage established in law sooner or later. I would bet on sooner. But we will not be the better for it.

IrishKevin (February 5, 2010)

Mick, it is not MY right to marry that I am concerned about, as I happened to have been married for over 30 years to my wonderful wife, but it the RIGHT of my gay son I am fighting for. He is entitled to the same "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" as I and my wife have had.

The problem with SJR-13 is not that it is trying to "protect" marriage, as its supporters claim, but the wording, if you read it, is also intended to PREVENT civil unions as well. So those who say they are supporting SJR-13 to "Protect" the "sacred" institution of marriage are disingenuous, (as in hypocrites and bigots) since they are also against CIVIL UNIONS, and allowing gay couples who want to commit their lives to each, from enjoying the same CIVIL benefits, such as tax breaks, the right of Social Security benefits, and the over 1500 other state and federal benefits that married couples have that gay couples can NOT have. And please don't use that tired argument that those benefits can be achieved by creating contacts, because most of them cannot.

My gay son did NOT CHOOSE to be gay, he was born that way. So why should he not have the same chance at love, commitment and family as my straight sons and daughter have? Because some people think it is okay for the majority to VOTE away his right to have the committed relationship my straight kids can have? Well I don't happen to think so, even though you don't seem to like my "writing flair". (THAT'S TOUGH, by the way, I don't care.)

The majority CANNOT be allowed to vote on the rights and privileges of the minority. And they SHOULD NOT be allowed to vote DISCRIMINATION INTO the Indiana Constitution.

The Indiana constitution says "The General Assembly shall not grant to any citizen, or class of citizens, privileges or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens."

So you can pontificate all you want. You can criticize my writing style or "writing flair", all you want, but allowing citizens to vote rights AWAY from a group and puting into the constitution WRONG and DANGEROUS. Maybe we should allow the citizens to vote away the rights of those who belong to the Muslim religion as well, since the majority seem to think they are all terrorists anyway.

So I guess you and I will have to agree to disagree, because I don't care if you agree or not, Gays are entitled to have the same long-term commitments, the same loving relationships and receive the SAME benefits from entering into a commitment MARRIED relationship as straight couples do, and NO ONE has the right to simply VOTE that away.

Gay married will NOT destroy traditional marriage, will NOT destroy traditional families will NOT destroy society, not matter what you and others opposed to it claim. And I happen to think this is EXACTLY the kind of tyranny of the majority that Madison warned about, whether you think so not.

SO I will continue to speak out against the phony Christians, who hide behind Bible verses to support their position, and the bigots who simply don't like gays, and the mass of uninformed citizens who won't take the time to educate themselves, but who rely on the bigots, hypocrites and phony Christians to form their opinions on the topic. Your time has passed, as the MAJORITY of those UNDER 30 support the right of a gay couple to get married. So it may not happen tomorrow, but it will happen, and those opposed will see they are on the WRONG side of this issue.

Mick Lee (February 19, 2010)

Mr. IrishKevin

1.) I have pointed to empirical evidence that those nations which have recognized "gay marriage" suffered a numerical decline in the formation of marriages and increases in failure in the formation stable families. This seems to be a matter of indifference to you. One can only assume that the original guest ion of "how would gay marriage effect your own marriage?" is really a matter of indifference to you. Come hell or high water, you are for gay marriage. Period. This qualifies as being a hypocrite.

2.) Marriage is what is known as a "pre-existing" institution. It existed long before any state and will exist long after the disappearance of any nation. No government has the authority to "redefine" marriage and it is an attack on liberty to do so.

3.) You totally fail to account how a "right" that no one--including gays--advocated anytime and anywhere before just recently, suddenly becomes something you merely assert exists as if it were self-evident.

4.) It is well documented that as individuals age they become more conservative. The first such phase occurs upon marriage. It is further compounded with the arrival of children. It is an inescapable phenomenon that people do change their political and social views as they pass through the milestones of life. Don't assume those under 30 will not change their minds on this issue.

4.) You assume the worst about your opponents. You more than clearly indicate that you believe who hold different views on this issue than you do are evil. This is not a mark of the pluralistic society we are supposed to cherish.

5.) Your writings display a serious seething of hatred and bile. You are dangerous. On this basis alone, most people will not listen to you. You should reflect on this. It is only hurting you.

IrishKevin (February 21, 2010)

I have to laugh at your "emperical evidence". You claim that marriages in Holland and the Scandanavian countries are down and that more couples are co-habitating ONLY because of gay marriage. So heterosexual couples are co-habitating because of gay marriage. WHAT A LAUGH! Your "evidence" falls apart Mr. Lee. Divorce is UP and couples are co-habitating here in the U.S. as well, and we don't have gay marriage as law. So the "emperical study doesn't hold water, as they say. The researchers would have had to eliminate EVERY OTHER reason for co-habitation to blame it only on gay marriage.

SO sorry, that research is, as they say, B.S.

While YOU have failed STILL failed to show how gay marriage affects YOU, your family OR society. (As I said, your study is bogus). The fact that more couples are co-habitating in Holland and that Holland allows gay marriage do NOT relate.

So yes I AM angry, when my son gets treated as a second class citizen by people like YOU, Mr. Lee. I have to come to the conclusion that maybe taxes in this country are "unfair", as all those Tea Party loonies keep shouting. So I will join their shouts... No equality, NO TAXES. Maybe the gay community should stop paying taxes until they receive same equal treatment, rights and privledges of ALL citizens. You don't want gay marriage? Then maybe you should pay the taxes of those whose RIGHTS you are denying.

Mick Lee (February 23, 2010)

Mr. IrishKevin

It is typical for pro-gay marriage folk to disparage the Holland studies. What is interesting is in their own way they admit the findings of the study. The error they make is that they assert marriage and co-habitation as equivalent associations. They are not. Cohabitation is inherently instable. Couples who cohabitate are two to three times more likely to break apart. The built in component in cohabitation is the avoidance of commitment. Marriage, in contrast, is a pledge of commit to one another and to provide nourishment and protection to the children they will have.

The pro-gay marriage folk have long worked to decouple child raising from marriage in the public mind. To a large degree, they have succeeded. This denaturing of marriage of one of its central purposes has made marriage simply one of several arrangements two people can make use. An option if you will. Those areas in Holland and Scandinavia which are the most receptive to same-sex marriage also have astonishing rates of out of wedlock births: 60to 80 percent. The simple fact is sociologists in both Europe and North America recognize being born out of wedlock carries a number of social pathologies which we have yet to begin to deal with.

Many such you snort in contempt at such studies. It is simply axiomatic to you that it just canï¿½t be that gay marriage is responsible for any effects on heterosexual marriages. You point to all the other forces in our social sphere the just must be the cause of the destruction of marriage. Yet you produce no studies which refute the Dutch findings. The correlation is there that points to the increased acceptance of gay marriage and the decline in the formation of heterosexual marriages. You casually assert that the correlation is meaningless.

You fail to account just where this so called right to same-sex came from. Gay activists during the 1960’s through the 1980’s ridiculed the whole idea of gay marriage. They said that gay marriage was a scare tactic invented by religious zealots to drive people away from the real issues. Gay activists told us they were interested in nothing of the sort. Were the religious zealots right all along?

You are unhappy that I have not stated how the adoption of gay marriage would effect me. The flaw in your challenge is that you want a “micro” answer to a “macro” question. Dramatic social changes effect masses of people and it is only in observing large numbers of people one can assess how changes have impacted the population. Some families will be the epitome of the “new world”. For other families, change will bypass them for one reason or another. What we do know is the liberalization of the divorce laws and the introduction of effective contraceptives were supposed to be business of individuals. Yet in a very short time, these two things became everyone’s business. Marriage became less binding. Contraception made recreational sex outside marriage possible — making sex and marriage less exclusive to each other. You may regard these as good changes; but you cannot deny what was once individual became everyone’s task to deal with.

As I wrote before, your hatred is palpable. I distrust you and can only be suspicious of what more you will want if you get what you want this time. What exactly would you do to us if you could?

As far as withholding taxes, I say go knock yourself out. You will have some interesting conversations with the I.R.S.

IrishKevin (February 24, 2010)

Mick Lee wrote: "As I wrote before, your hatred is palpable. I distrust you and can only be suspicious of what more you will want if you get what you want this time. What exactly would you do to us if you could?"

Do to US? So it is YOU against the world? I think your paranoia is showing.

Actually, the only people I "hate" are hypocrites, bigots and racists. I don't hate those who are "mentally challenged" (i.e. stupid), since they cannot help the fact that they can't grasp reality and basic truths or that they can be influenced so easily by those who have agendas.

However, I am not to fond of liars either actually.

So if you think I hate you, then you can decide which category you fall into. Based on your rants, you should be able to figure it out.

Interesting stuff, no? So what do you think?

Will This Finally Convince People to Stop Paying Attention to Glenn Beck

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:13:00 +0000

Over the past year or so, Glenn Beck has made some pretty wild accusations and statements, whether declaring President Obama to be a racist, fear-mongering about FEMA concentration camps, or any of a host of other wild and often dangerous claims. Yet people continue to watch his program and listen to his rants (though advertisers continue to flee his program). A few days ago, however, he may have finally taken a step to show people how truly deranged he is and, at least to me, that derangement is dangerous.

On his radio show Beck said this (audio available here):

I’m begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words ‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!

For the record, I’m a conservative Jew. So I followed Beck’s advice and looked (I knew what I’d find…) at the website of The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and found a whole page on Social Action including a sub-topic of Social Justice that includes such things as climate change, Civility in Public Discourse, Confronting the Common Enemy: Hatred, Dialogue with Presbyterian Clergy, Jewish Community Budget Priorities, Domestic Violence, Heading Off Bias Crimes Before They Occur, Serving Our Seniors, gay marriage, Judaism and Health Care Reform, Organ Donation, and numerous other issues. Ooh. Scary stuff, right? Well, no. Not really. In fact, those positions are things that make me proud to be a Jew and proud of my affiliation.

My synagogue is also affiliated with Reconstructionist Judaism. Guess what? There is a social justice component to Reconstructionist teaching as well (though sadly the website doesn’t have a dedicated social justice page). Similarly, the website for the Union of Reform Judaism also has a whole page devoted to social action that includes, among other things, Heath Care for All, Economic Justice, and Greening Reform Judaism.

Now according to data that I found on Wikipedia (I know, I know…), there are between 5.1 and 6.5 million Jews in America (the lower number does not include children). Apparently, 4.3 million are “strongly connected” to Judaism. Of those, 46% belong to a synagogue and of those who do belong, approximately 71% are affiliated with either the Reform, Conservative, or Reconstructionist movements, all of which have a social justice component. So by my rough math, Beck has told approximately 1.4 million American Jews to leave their respective Jewish affiliations!

If that wasn’t offensive enough, here’s why Beck wants people to disaffiliate from churches that advocate for social justice:

That’s right, social justice led to the gassing of 6 million Jews. At least it did in Glenn Beck’s paranoid, freakazoid, sleazy, world o’ fear. (For the record, Beck was raised Catholic but became a Mormon.)

I’ll leave members of other religions (especially Catholics) to talk about how offensive Beck’s comments are to them; I can’t and won’t speak on their behalf. But for Beck to attack social justice — which is a central focus of much of modern (progressive Judaism) — is so far beyond the pale it is hard to fathom. But to then tie that social justice to Nazism is … well … frankly, I’m at a loss for words on this one.

Tell Fox News that it is time for Beck to go before he manages to incite his own racial, religious, ethnic, or political civil war. Then again, maybe that’s what Fox wants. After all, a good ol’ fashion civil war or even simple race riots or an assassination or two might be good for ratings.

Why Are Politicians So Willing to Tell Outrageous, Easily Disproven Lies?

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:12:00 +0000

Recently, I’ve been writing (here and here) about the use of reconciliation in the Senate and the willingness of Republicans to lie about the history of prior use of reconciliation. Yet even after the E.J. Dionne demonstrated the falsity of Sen. Orrin Hatch’s claims about reconciliation, Republicans continue to ignore the truth and simply lie.

Here’s a video clip from last Sunday’s Face the Nation. First Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) talks about the healthcare bill. Then Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) talks about reconciliation. Pay particular attention to Sen. Graham’s comments.

Did you happen to notice this one particular statement from Sen. Graham:

We’ve had reconciliation votes, but all of them had received bipartisan support. The least was 12 when we did reconciliation with tax cuts.

Now go back and take a look at those previous posts that I linked to above. As you’ll see, Sen. Graham’s statement is a lie. Let me again quote from E.J. Dionne’s editorial in The Washington Post (emphasis added):

But surely the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, which were passed under reconciliation and increased the deficit by $1.7 trillion during his presidency, were "substantive legislation." The 2003 dividends tax cut could muster only 50 votes. Vice President Dick Cheney had to break the tie. Talk about "ramming through."

If you look at the chart that I posted, you’ll see that Republicans used reconciliation with less than Graham’s claimed 12 Democrats at least 6 times (Balanced Budget Act of 1995, 0 Democrats; Taxpayer Refund and Relief Act of 1999, 0 Democrats; Marriage Tax Penalty Relief Reconciliation Act of 2000, 7 Democrats; Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, 2 Democrats; Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, 0 Democrats; and Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005, 3 Democrats). In other words, there’s no other way to describe Graham’s comments than to say that he was lying; it wasn’t just hyperbole or an error in fact. It was a lie. He knows the history of reconciliation. But rather than admit that Republicans used reconciliation without any bipartisan support at least 3 times and that in 2003 Republicans used reconciliation to pass massive tax cuts and had to rely upon Vice President Cheney to break a tie, Graham simply lies. Tell me which is is worse for democracy: (a) The use of reconciliation to allow for a majority vote on a bill that has already passed with a super-majority or (b) a Senator that is willing to go on national TV, look right at the camera, and lie. It’s bad enough that Republicans are so opposed to trying to help American families, but that they are willing to lie to try to stop Democrats from passing legislation that could help sickens me (pun intended).

One more thing: If the mainstream media was, in fact, “liberal”, then don’t you think that lies like Graham’s would immediately be fact-checked, identified, and subject to editorial scorn?

Graph Depicting Reconciliation Hypocrisy

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:17:00 +0000

The Sunlight Foundation has a terrific graph that shows past use of reconciliation:
The article accompanying the graph is also worth a quick read.

Rachel Maddow Calls Out Republican Hypocrites and Liars (and the Washington Post)

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:18:00 +0000

Wow. Watch this video of Rachel Maddow calling out Republican hypocrites and liars (and going after The Washington Post for enabling the lies). Good stuff.

At least The Washington Post ran columnist E.J. Dionne’s response to Sen. Orrin Hatch’s op-ed (and for the record, am I the only one who finds statements by Republicans that majority rule is somehow a violation of the democratic process to be ridiculous, if not offensive?). Dionne makes a few additional points worth noting:

The health-care bill passed the Senate in December with 60 votes under the normal process. The only thing that would pass under a simple majority vote would be a series of amendments that fit comfortably under the "reconciliation" rules established to deal with money issues. Near the end of his column, Hatch conceded that reconciliation would be used for "only parts" of the bill. But why didn't he say that in the first place?

Hatch grandly cited "America's Founders" as wanting the Senate to be about "deliberation." But the Founders said nothing in the Constitution about the filibuster, let alone "reconciliation." Judging from what they put in the actual document, the Founders would be appalled at the idea that every major bill should need the votes of three-fifths of the Senate to pass.

Hatch quoted Sens. Robert Byrd and Kent Conrad, both Democrats, as opposing the use of reconciliation on health care. What he didn't say is that Byrd's comment from a year ago was about passing the entire bill under reconciliation, which no one is proposing. As for Conrad, he made clear to The Post's Ezra Klein this week that it's perfectly appropriate to use reconciliation "to improve or perfect the package," which is the only thing that Democrats have proposed doing through reconciliation.

Hatch said that reconciliation should not be used for "substantive legislation" unless the legislation has "significant bipartisan support." But surely the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, which were passed under reconciliation and increased the deficit by $1.7 trillion during his presidency, were "substantive legislation." The 2003 dividends tax cut could muster only 50 votes. Vice President Dick Cheney had to break the tie. Talk about "ramming through."

The underlying "principle" here seems to be that it's fine to pass tax cuts for the wealthy on narrow votes but an outrage to use reconciliation to help middle-income and poor people get health insurance.

Keeping Maddow’s and Dionne’s comments in mind, it’s also worth noting how The Indianapolis Star frames the issue. Today, the Star ran a front-page article (apparently not available on the Star’s website) sourced from McClatchy Newspapers that included a “Q-and-A on Reconciliation”. Among the questions and answers:

Q: Why do Republicans object so much? Haven’t they used this tactic before?

A: Yes, many times. However, they say the tactic is intended to be used only on budget-related matters, not to force through substantive policy legislation. While they’ve used reconciliation in the past to cut taxes and overhaul welfare, in many cases with bipartisan support, they say this is different.

Notice anything left out of that answer? The Q&A tells us what Republicans say but doesn’t tell us how Democrats respond or, more importantly, what the truth is. The Q&A cites the oft-repeated not for “substantive policy legislation” and “bipartisan support” talking points. But how ’bout, for example, those 2001 and 2003 tax cuts that increased the deficit by $1.7 trillion (and remember that according to a comparison of the various health reform proposals done by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of the Senate bill at $871 billion over ten years with a net reduction to the deficit of $132 billion over ten years), one of which required Vice President Cheney to break a tie? McClatchy doesn’t fact check Republican statements; they just reprint them and The Indianapolis Star goes along.

Maddow and Dionne are right and the “mainstream media” — despite cries of “liberal bias” — is letting Republicans control the debate with half-truths and lies.

Proof of Republican Obstruction Tactics

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:31:00 +0000

Yesterday, Senate Republicans provided simple proof that their tactics in the Senate are simply to obstruct the Democratic majority and President Obama. Senate Democrats had to call for cloture on the nomination of Barbara Milano Keenan to fill a vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. Recall that cloture is the process by which a filibuster can be ended. While it only takes a simple majority to confirm a nominee or pass a bill, it takes 3/5 (60 votes) to invoke cloture and end a filibuster. Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Kentucky) (the same Senator who filibustered an extension of unemployment benefits and whined about missing the Kentucky-South Carolina basketball game to continue that filibuster) filibustered her nomination. The Democrats sought and were able to invoke cloture by a vote of … get ready … 99-0. That’s right: Every single Republican who voted* — including Sen. Bunning — voted to invoke cloture and end the filibuster.

Sen. Bunning could have ended or withdrawn his filibuster without forcing the invocation of cloture. But by forcing a vote to invoke cloture, Sen. Bunning was able to force the Senate to schedule an additional vote with the corresponding time for additional debate, which in turn delays work and votes on other matters.

So what can we infer about the motives of a Republican filibuster that has no supporters, including that of the Senator who initiates the filibuster? I think that it is safe to infer that the motive had nothing whatsoever to do with the qualifications of the nominee; furthermore I also think that it is fair to infer that the reason for the filibuster, if not based on the nominee’s qualifications, must have been pure and simple obstructionism. Is that really how we want our government to work?

*The only Senator not voting was Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) who was in Texas yesterday for the state’s primaries.

Wine Shelf-Talkers: Consumer Aid or Consumer Fraud? (update)

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:06:00 +0000

Last night I took Fresh Market to task for deceptive advertising. I followed up my blogged complaint by, once again, calling the company. This time I managed to get to the right person. I spoke to Fresh Market’s Merchandising Coordinator for Beer & Wine. He agreed that there was no excuse for the deceptive shelf-talker. Interestingly, he noted that Fresh Market stores are not supposed to use winery-supplied shelf-talkers either. He told me that Fresh Market’s regional or district manager was going to be in the store today and would make sure that the shelf-talkers in place were accurate. He was very polite and clearly understood the seriousness of the issue. For that I give him and Fresh Market credit.

In some ways, this reminds me of my complaint to Regal Cinema (and the follow-up with Pixar).

I admit it: From time to time, I can be a real pain in the ass. But when I see something that is fundamentally wrong, I have no problem saying so and calling to task those responsible. By the same token, when things are fixed, it becomes my responsibility to say so. I’ll try to stop by Fresh Market later this week to see what sorts of changes have been implemented.

Wine Shelf-Talkers: Consumer Aid or Consumer Fraud?

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 02:36:00 +0000

If you’ve ever wandered around a liquor store or the alcohol section of many groceries, you’ve no doubt seen how many different bottles of wine are available for purchase. Unless a consumer has previously tried a particular bottle or had one recommended by a trusted friend, how is a consumer supposed to choose a bottle? After all, from the hundreds, even thousands, of different wines available, there are dramatic differences in quality and taste, not necessarily associated with price.

Better liquor stores (and even more so with wine shops or liquor stores specializing in wine) have employees (or proprietors) who are familiar with as many of the wines as possible and, even if not familiar with a particular bottle, usually have some knowledge of the producer or other information from which they can help a consumer make an informed decision. The best employees of the best wine shops and liquor stores know the right questions to ask of customers to learn their particular palates in order to recommend appropriate wines. But at your run-of-the-mill liquor store or grocery store, there is simply no way to have employees this knowledgeable about the wines and customers or willing or able to devote the time (and expense) to learn about the wines and customers. Try asking an employee at most grocery stores whether a particular bottle of wine is any good and you’ll most likely get a blank stare or a simple “Uh, I dunno”.

My mother used to own a women’s clothing store. One of her strengths was knowing her customers’ tastes (not to mention what they’d previously purchased). Thus, if a husband came into the store and wanted to buy his wife a present, my mother could direct him to something that she knew the wife would like (and look good in and didn’t already own). A similar philosophy must work for a wine store: If the proprietor learns what I like and consistently recommends wines that I do, in fact, enjoy, then I will continue to respect and follow his advice (and shop at his store). By contrast, if the proprietor recommends wines that I do not like or doesn’t take the time to learn my palate, then I have no reason to trust his recommendations (or frequent that store).

But not everyone has the time to develop a palate, to shop at a specialty wine store, to get to know the proprietor (or allow the proprietor to get to know them), or, perhaps most importantly, to spend much money for a bottle of wine. How then can a consumer decide which of the numerous bottles available at the local grocery or regular liquor store to buy? How do you separate the good from the mediocre from the swill?

One method employed by many stores (and eschewed by many others) is the “shelf-talker”. This is usually a small note displayed by the bottle to tell the consumer what to expect from that particular wine. Within the wine community, there is some controversy about the use of shelf-talkers. For myself, I recognize the usefulness of shelf-talkers, but am often wary. A recent incident (discussed at the end of this post) led me to take the time to write about shelf-talkers.

On the positive side, the use of shelf-talkers can to some extent help a consumer with no other information “get into the game”. If the store carries 500 different bottles of wine, there would most likely be no other way for a consumer to make a choice other than buying based solely on price or brand name. But in the case of wine, more so than almost any other product I can think of, there is far, far more than just price or brand that needs to be considered. You can buy a lot of very good wines for $10; but you can buy even more bad wines for that price. You can also buy a lot of very bad wines for far more money. And a winery that makes a very good $10 Merlot doesn’t necessarily also make a good $10 Riesling, so reliance upon brand doesn’t work quite so well, either (and add to this the fact that many brands make only one or two varieties and thus may have no brand recognition beyond wine connoisseurs). Plus, just because that Merlot was good last year doesn’t mean that it will be good this year.

So when a consumer walks into a store that does use shelf-talkers, they can be quite helpful. Knowing that a particular wine won a medal at a prestigious wine competition or was highly recommended or considered a best value by a respected wine magazine can do quite a lot to help a consumer make an informed decision. If there are 20 bottles of $10 Merlot and one of them received a “Smart Buy” rating from Wine Spectator and another has a 92 rating from Wine Enthusiast, then the consumer at least has something on which to base a decision and a reason to choose one wine instead of another. (I’m not going to get into the issue of how various wine magazines make their ratings or whether there is bias; that is a complicated and controversial enough issue for another day.) So, in that respect, shelf-talkers can be a valuable aid to consumers. Similarly, a shelf-talker that helps a consumer know what to expect from the wine or suggest food pairings can also be quite useful (especially for a consumer interested in trying a more “exotic” wine).

Given that, why would a store choose not to use shelf-talkers (presuming that it doesn’t have knowledgeable employees)? Here’s one simple reason: Take two bottles of Merlot, one costing $10 and the other costing $20. Now presume that the $10 bottle gets better ratings (or wins more awards, or whatever) than the $20 bottle. How many consumers are going to choose the lesser-rated, more expensive bottle? Obviously, the store has more incentive to sell the more expensive bottle.

So a shelf-talker can provide good information to a consumer, but not necessarily to the benefit of the store.

But there are downsides to consumers, too (and, unfortunately, these may be to the benefit of retailers).

First, many stores that do use shelf-talkers, use them selectively; that is, only some wines have an associated shelf-talker. How does the store decide which wines will get shelf-talkers and which won’t? One possibility is that poorly-rated wines don’t get a shelf-talker while highly-rates wines do. However, experience suggests that this reasoning is not employed. I’ve seen plenty of stores with shelf-talkers on mediocre wines while very good wines have no associated shelf-talker. Thus, when a consumer sees selective use of shelf-talkers, the consumer should at least consider why the store has chosen to use them only selectively. Why this bottle, but not that bottle? Perhaps the use of a shelf-talker is more indicative of wines that the store is working hardest to sell (perhaps there is a glut in the storeroom or the store got those bottles at a particularly good price). Or perhaps the store has been paid by a particular winery or wholesaler to utilize shelf-talkers for its wines. In some respects, use of a shelf-talker may not be much different than the way the grocery chooses to put a particular brand of cookie or soft drink in its Sunday circular.

The other downsides for consumers are more troubling, sometimes (as we’ll see), even fraudulent.

Many stores use a shelf-talker that recites ratings (usually from wine magazines) for the past several vintages. For example, at Fresh Market or Costco, you’re likely to see a shelf-talker that says something like this:

2007: No rating

2006: 90 Wine Spectator

2005: 91 Wine Enthusiast

2004: 88 Wine Spectator

Generally, that shelf-talker is “fair”. But what if the 2007 vintage has been rated subsequent to the time that the shelf-talker was printed? If the wine got a good rating for 2007, I guess it’s mostly a case of “no harm, no foul”. But what if the 2007 vintage received a poor rating? If the store is trying to sell the wine on the basis of past good ratings, then isn’t the more recent poor rating relevant? Certainly, the store shouldn’t be expected to revise shelf-talkers daily, but shouldn’t a consumer be able to expect that a statement that a particular wine hasn’t been rated is at least a reasonably up to date statement?

This example above also illustrates another frequent problem. Note that the 2004 and 2006 vintages cite Wine Spectator while the 2005 vintage cites Wine Enthusiast. Why? Maybe the 2005 vintage wasn’t rated by Wine Spectator; if not, it is certainly fair to cite another source for a rating. But what if Wine Spectator’s rating for 2005 was 82? In this case, is it fair to cite good ratings from one source but when that source gives a poor rating to change to a source that gave a better rating? On one hand, as long as all of the sources are reputable, what’s wrong with choosing the source that gave the best rating? On the other hand, something just seems “wrong” with changing sources mid-stream, when the only reason is to avoid noting a poor score.

Shelf-talkers like that in the above-example are also known to employ an additional bit of deception. Occasionally, you’ll see the list of vintages omit a particular year. In my experience, that is almost always a sign that the store is trying to hide a bad rating for a particular vintage (rarely it is because that particular wine was not produced that particular year). This practice also seems “wrong”; moreover, I don’t really understand this practice given that the store is not trying to sell the wine that received the bad rating anyway.

Another thing to look for on these kinds of shelf-talkers is the use of lots of different sources for ratings, especially sources not usually considered among the “usual suspects”. Different people have different opinions about the ratings of different sources, but generally Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, and Wine Advocate (Robert Parker) are reasonably well-respected. Wine & Spirits and Steven Tanzer are also reasonably well-respected, though not used as commonly as the first three. But there are numerous other sources that you may see on shelf-talkers from time-to-time. Unfortunately, most consumers who don’t read wine trade magazines have no idea who these sources are and have no reason to respect one more than another. So query the “fairness” of using the lesser-known sources. It’s a bit like when a newspaper prints a movie review by the reviewer for the North Podunk Post rather than a review from the New York Times or one of the well-known reviewers from one of the major papers or magazines. Why should a consumer give any credence to that reviewer’s opinion? This issue may be exacerbated in the case of wine magazines where there is a lot of speculation (maybe even evidence) that some sources (maybe even the well-respected sources) employ a “pay-for-play'” methodology; that is, wineries who advertise with that periodical tend to get more favorable treatment. Maybe yes, maybe no. But certainly it would be improper for a shelf-talker to quote a periodical where the reviews are not presumed to have some degree of impartiality and independence.

Another common “trick” employed on shelf-talkers is to mention awards that a particular wine has won. “Gold Medal at 2008 Santa Fe Wine Competition” for example. Here’s the problem: Is the Santa Fe Wine Competition a good competition? Is it even a real competition? If I tell you that a film won an Academy Award, you know what that is and you know that’s an impressive achievement. Of course, if I failed to mention that the award was for editing, rather than for best picture, you’d probably be a bit miffed. And what if I tell you that a movie won the Journalist’s Guild Achievement Award (no such thing as far as I know…)? In the world of wine, there are hundreds if not thousands of contents and awards a wine could wine, but how many are really important? But if you don’t follow wine closely, how would you know which of those awards are meaningful? Recently I was shopping at a reputable wine store with good, knowledgeable staff. I asked about a particular bottle and the clerk laughed and told me that it had recently won a gold medal. But then he laughed again and told me not to get too excited; the gold medal, he told me, came at the San Antonio Rodeo Wine Festival.

One of the more troubling practices (though I’ll admit that it may be a function of carelessness) is having a shelf-talker that doesn’t match the vintage of the bottle being sold. I’ve seen that at Kroger with some frequency. Kroger’s shelf-talkers do tell the vintage of the bottle that the review applies to (well, at least usually), but it is not always easy to find the vintage on the shelf-talker. Many times I’ve seen a shelf-talker telling me that a particular wine had a good rating only to discover that the shelf-talker and rating were for the previous vintage, not the vintage actually for sale. If both vintages received good ratings, then again, “no harm, no foul”. But if the vintage being sold received a worse rating, especially a much worse rating, then is it fair for the store to use that old shelf-talker? I wonder the extent to which the average consumer recognizes the difference in quality from vintage to vintage and that a 91 rating for 2007 may not translate to another 91 rating for 2008. I suspect that in most cases this is a case of carelessness; the original shelf-talker was printed when the wine was first put on the shelf and nobody took the time to replace that shelf-talker when bottles of the new vintage were added. But is that kind of carelessness acceptable? After all, we don’t accept it as acceptable carelessness for a store to continue to sell meat or other products beyond their expiration dates. And we certainly wouldn’t view it as acceptable for a store to put a false expiration date on a loaf of bread or carton of milk.

I’ve also seen the inverse of this problem. Recently at Costco, I saw a shelf-talker that mentioned the 2006 and 2007 ratings (both of which were good). The problem was that the wine being sold was the 2005 vintage. Hmm. That doesn’t strike me as the same kind of carelessness. Is it simply an effort to provide the consumer with some kind of information upon which to base a decision? Or is it something less noble?

Finally, I want to address a very specific instance of the use of a shelf-talker that I recently encountered that was, in my opinion, the most deceptive use of a shelf-talker that I’ve ever seen. In fact, this particular shelf-talker went beyond mere carelessness or somewhat deceptive sales practice to outright consumer fraud.

On February 13, 2010, I visited the Fresh Market at 2490 E. 146th Street in Carmel, Indiana. I enjoy taking a few minutes to look at the wines that are available. In the rear of the store, just across from the seafood counter, was a freestanding display stand with several wines. What I saw caused my jaw to drop. Here’s a photograph of the shelf-talker that I saw (note that this photo was actually taken on February 26; the display had changed slightly [more on that below], but the shelf-talker appeared to be the same):

So what’s wrong with this shelf-talker? Here’s a photo of Wine Spectator’s #1 Wine of the Year for 2008:

Do those bottles look the same? Nope. The wine for sale at Fresh Market is the Casa Lapostolle Cabernet Sauvignon Rapel Valley 2007. Wine Spectator liked the wine and gave it rating of 86 (the link may be password protected; sorry). But it wasn’t the 2008 Wine of the Year. That honor went to another wine from the same Chilean winery: Casa Lapostolle Clos Apalta Colchagua Valley 2005 (a blend of Carmenère, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petit Verdot). That wine received a rating of 96 and has a suggested price of $75. While an imperfect analogy, it’s a bit like telling a consumer that the Chevy Cobalt available at the local dealer is the car that won the Daytona 500! A Chevy may have one, but it certainly wasn’t the one on the dealer’s lot.

How many people bought a bottle of that 86-rated Cabernet Sauvignon thinking that they were getting an incredible buy on the 2008 Wine of the Year?

When I saw this shelf-talker I was furious because I worried about how many people would be mislead. (I knew what the 2008 Wine of the Year was because I happen to read Wine Spectator and enjoy reading about the top wines that I’ll most likely never get to try.) I walked over the store’s main wine section to see if the misleading shelf-talker was repeated. It wasn’t. Instead, I saw this shelf-talker:

Note that while this shelf-talker (obviously produced by the winery or its distributor, not Fresh Market) is being displayed on the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, it clearly highlights the Clos Apalta. So a customer who was shopping in the main wine section of Fresh Market would have seen this piece of advertising as opposed to the clearly false shelf-talker at the other side of the store. One other thing to be noted: If you look at the first photo above (which, recall, was taken on February 26, not February 13), you’ll see a bottle (at the far right) with the advertising shelf-talker displayed above (along with another advertising shelf-talker). However, when I first encountered the misleading shelf-talker on February 13, it was the only shelf-talker in use for the Casa Lapostolle wine on that display.

Before I finished my shopping that day, I encountered saw a Fresh Market employee that I guessed to be the manager. I asked him if he was the manager and he confirmed that he was. I explained the problem with this particular shelf-talker to the manager. He seemed to understand, but didn’t seem to take it too seriously. I then asked him how many customers might have bought this wine thinking that they were buying something else entirely and whether that was fair. Then he seemed to get it. He said that he’d “look into it” but told me that “these things” are handled by the “wine guy” at the corporate office.

Last weekend (February 20 or 21) my wife was at that Fresh Market. I asked her to look for the misleading display and she confirmed that it was still in place. So twice this week, for no good reason other than the fact that I was angry, I called Fresh Market’s corporate number to complain. Each time, the voicemail system directed me to a mailbox that was full. On February 26, I went back to the Fresh Market. The misleading display was still present (though the display stand had been rotated) and the additional advertising shelf-talkers had been added to a few of the bottles. In addition, back in the main wine area, another large display had been set up:

The misleading shelf-talker is not used on this larger display. What is worth noting (remember the discussion above changing sources) is that the big shelf-talker in this photo refers not to Wine Spectator (which gave the wine a rating of 86), but rather to Wine Enthusiast which gave the wine a rating of 90. Gee, I wonder why Fresh Market used Wine Enthusiast here instead of Wine Spectator?

I’m not sure what more to say (I know, I know; I’ve said enough already). Fresh Market is advertising a product in a highly deceptive, even fraudulent way. The store manager has been told about the problem, but it has not been remedied. I can only wonder whether there are other similar issues at Fresh Market; can I believe anything that they tell me or is a lie an accepted part of the Fresh Market business model? I understand that mistakes happen. Perhaps the shelf-talker was a originally a mistake. But for the deceptive shelf-talker to remain for two weeks after the manager was told about the problem takes this out of the realm of mistake and into the realm of … um … something else, something far worse.

On the whole, I still like shelf-talkers. They give me some ideas and help me compare one wine to another. However, I’m always very, very cautious because of the frequency that they are untrustworthy. I think that retailers should use shelf-talkers judiciously, but they should be careful that the shelf-talkers that they use are accurate. The goal should be to help the consumer, not mislead; to sell, without cheating. On the whole, I think that retailers will, in the long run, make more money by treating consumers fairly and providing helpful information rather than by failing to provide information, providing incorrect or deceptive information, and making the quick buck at the expense of customer trust.

What do you think of shelf-talkers? Do you read them? Do you rely on them? Have you seen deceptive shelf-talkers? Let me know.

Analysis of a (Real) Spy Movie

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 04:03:00 +0000

Let me preface this analysis with two preliminary points.

First, anybody who knows me knows that I read lots and lots of espionage novels (and even some intelligence and espionage-related non-fiction). Just take a look at my LibraryThing catalog and you’ll see that a large proportion of my reading is in the area of espionage fiction (and a favorite series by Daniel Silva involves Israeli assassin Gabriel Allon). And that’s been the case since my early teens. Thus, I think that it’s fair to say that I’ve read a lot of espionage novels (not to mention seen quite a few movies, too) and have, over the years, built up a casual knowledgebase (though no actual experience). For that matter, I’ve also tried my hand at writing espionage fiction (though with the exception of a short story written in college, most of my efforts have bogged down, much to my own disappointment).

Second, I’m a student of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In college, I studied extensively in the area (including writing my senior thesis on “Use of Israel as a Policy Surrogate for US Actions”; I got a very good grade from a very pro-Palestinian professor). In addition to the espionage books that I read, I also read a fair number of history or political science books on Israel and the conflict, and a far, far larger set of scholarly (and not-so-scholarly) articles on the subject. I’ve also used this blog to write quite a bit about Israel and the Israel-Palestinian conflict. So, here too, I think that I can legitimately claim to have at least a decent working understanding of the issues, the players, and the objectives.

Anyway, by now you’ve probably seen (or at least heard about) the video posted by police authorities in Dubai that claims to show an 11-member assassination squad stalking and eventually killing Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a high-ranking member of Hamas, who had traveled to Dubai (on a false passport) allegedly to purchase arms from Iran. As I watched the video I thought back to my understanding of how operations like this are or should probably be carried out. I also thought about what the respective players had to gain from this particular assassination carried out in this particular way.

So get yourself some popcorn and watch the video (be aware that the video is 27 minutes; that’s why I suggested the popcorn). If nothing else, it is entertaining. As you watch, see if anything strikes you as odd or if there are any issues that you think are left curiously unresolved. Come back when you’re done and I’ll walk through an analysis of some of the more interesting parts of the video. [Update 2/24/2010: The video link from Gulf News TV that was embedded below and all across the web has, without apparent explanation, been shortened from 27 minutes to 1:46; it now consists just of a few “highlights”. I’m trying to find a new link to the full video. In the meantime, it may be worth asking why the full video has disappeared, especially given the attention that the original video and the assassination have garnered.]

Are you back? Good. Did you “enjoy” the video? Any quick thoughts on whether you agree with the analysis of Dubai’s police authorities? Any problems jump out at you?

One more thing before I jump into the analysis itself. Do I feel bad for al-Mabhouh? Nope. He was a known and wanted terrorist. If you play in that particular sand box, you should pretty much know that those whose wives and kids you try to kill probably don’t think real highly of you and might kick a little sand your way. Do I think that this kind of assassination is wrong? Again, nope. A clinical and clean operation like this is much better than dropping a bomb on al-Mabhouh’s house and risking harm to innocent civilians. Targeted assassinations have their place.

With that all having been said, let’s look at the video:

0:10: It is worth noting right away that the video uses the word “murder” throughout. Later in the video, we are told that there is “proof” that al-Mabhouh was murdered and did not die naturally (as was initially reported). However, that proof is not clearly identified (at least not in the video; other sources have since had more to say). Moreover, to the extent that al-Mabhouh was, in fact, a terrorist (or member of a terrorist organization), then might it not be more accurate to describe his death as a “killing” (in the military sense of the word) rather than ”murder”? If a solider shoots at another soldier and kills him, is that a murder? So if an intelligence organization (and we’ll presume for the moment that the “killers” are from an intelligence organization) kills a terrorist who is trying to buy arms to kill civilians, then why should that death be “worse” than the soldier killed in combat?

0:28: At least the Dubai police acknowledge that al-Mabhouh was a “senior Hamas military commander” and a founder of the al-Qassam Brigades (the charming chaps who launch rockets from Gaza into southern Israel). The claim is also made that there were failed attempts to assassinate al-Mabhouh in the past and the clear inference, without it being said outright, is that Israel was responsible for these failed attempts. Apparently, this information comes from al-Mabhouh himself in an interview with al-Jazeera (and if a terrorist said it, then it must be true, right…), though one wonders how exactly al-Mabhouh knew that it was Israel that had tried to kill him.

0:42: While the film does show quite a few interesting things, it is permeated with conjecture. For example, we are told that the “murder was carried out by a professional team that is highly skilled in these kinds of operations”. The basis for this allegation is the “fact” that “there were no traces left behind that could help uncover their identities”. Um, really? First, didn’t we just watch 27 minutes of video where we can see the faces of the members of this “highly skilled” team? And didn’t the Dubai authorities manage to track down their respective passports quite quickly? You’d think (and I’ll come back to this theme regularly) that if these assassins were so good at their job, that the Dubai police would never have been able to pick them out from the crowd in the first place. Plus, it is worth noting that just because a group is able to successfully accomplish a complicated plan, doesn’t necessarily mean that the group is either professional or highly skilled. All it means is that the plan worked.

0:50: We’re told the team used “special communications devices”. Like, what? Cellphones? Walkie talkies? How do the Dubai police know that the “devices” were in any way special and not just toys from Radio Shack? The fact that this claim is made repeatedly seems designed to lend credence to the “highly skilled” and “professional” allegation at the heart of the analysis of the Dubai police.

1:06: Remember about 20 seconds ago when we were told that the “professional team” that was “highly skilled” left no traces? Then how is it that Dubai’s police were able to “track the killers and identify them within 24 hours” (emphasis added)? That seems to call into question that whole “professional” and “highly skilled” allegation, not to mention the claim that no traces were left. Note too that this is being referred to as a “crime”.

2:00: Have you ever read any kind of espionage novel written in the last 10 years or so? One thing that you will almost always read about is the efforts that the protagonists (or antagonists, as the case may be) go through not to have their faces visible on cameras. They will wear a hat, or turn their head slightly, or raise a hand to cover a “cough” or raise a newspaper in front of their face; anything to avoid having their face clearly seen on camera (but while still managing to look natural). Watch Michael (or is it James?) right at the 2:00 mark. He almost looks right at the camera; he certainly does nothing to avoid the camera. Ah, but maybe he didn’t know the camera was there, you say. Well, if this team was as “professional” and “highly skilled” as Dubai wants us to think they were, then shouldn’t they have known where the cameras were? If they were so professional “in these kinds of operations” don’t you suppose that they would have done a “dry run” to try to learn about the type of security (including cameras) that would need to be avoided? It seems to me that one of the distinctions between highly skilled and … um … amateurish? … is the advanced knowledge and planning put into the operation to be sure that simple mistakes like being seen by a camera are minimized.

2:03: Gail allows her face to be clearly seen by the video camera at the airport not once but twice.

2:12: Michael and James again allow their faces to be seen by the video camera. They make small efforts not to look right at the camera, but it would have been easy for them to simply turn their backs to the camera so as not to be so easily seen. I don’t suppose that some of the members of this team actually want to be identified, do they?

2:33: It would have been hard for Gail to do a better job of looking at the camera without being obvious about it. So, at 2:38, she does it again, just in case.

3:01: What made the phone calls “suspicious”? The mere fact that they went to Austria? Note that Dubai’s police only speculate as to what those numbers were. Given the other detail presented, it seems somewhat strange that no more information about those telephone numbers was readily available. In addition, if the team were so “professional” and “highly skilled” why would they make numerous calls to different numbers in the same country? If it was to some kind of command center, couldn’t the destination of those calls be traced? Wouldn’t it make more sense for the calls to have been placed to vastly different destinations from which they were routed to their actual destinations? Dubai’s police also tell us that it is “probable that highly encrypted systems were used to communicate” but no explanation regarding this statement of probability is provided. I wonder if this statement was designed simply to make us wonder about the ability of Dubai’s police to monitory regular communications in the emirate.

3:19: This is the first time that we’re shown Gail’s passport photo. Does that look like Gail to you?

3:55: When Peter arrives, we’re told he is carrying a “suspicious bag”. What about the bag was suspicious?

4:33: We’re shown Peter returning to the airport and we’re told that he “meets with a team member”. Look closely at what you see on the video. Peter indeed returns to the airport (though it is impossible to read the time stamp to know for sure that this clip of Peter in the airport indeed follows the previous clip). But note that at 4:41 (when we first see Peter again) he appears to be reading a piece of paper in his hand and the other man (identified simply as a “team member”) seems to stop and point at the paper. I suppose that one interpretation of this could be that Peter met with a team member; then again, it is just as likely that Peter was looking at the paper for information about, say maybe, the name of his hotel, and a helpful passerby stopped to aid Peter. Who knows? But it is important not to read operational activities into every single movement of every single person, especially as that can lead to snaring people who may not even be related to the operation. Does is seem likely that two operatives would meet in plain view of a camera, especially a rotating camera that would have missed their meeting had they waited just a few seconds more (unless that is they wanted to be seen together)? It is also worth noting that we’re next told that the suspects left in different directions; wouldn’t that also be consistent with unrelated people leaving the airport?

5:11: Here we see a photo of Peter entering a hotel. One thing jumped out at me in this photo. Notice that sweater tied around his shoulders? I went back and looked at the video of Peter in the airport where he is also wearing the sweater. If an agent was trying to look inconspicuous, would tying a brown sweater around a white shirt in a desert country accomplish that goal? In fact, Peter’s outfit makes it quite easy to spot him. I wonder why? At least he appears to look a little bit away from the camera as he enters the hotel (and at 5:24 he does a good job of looking down as the camera takes his picture).

5:28: Next we see Peter leaving the hotel and going shopping. Boy that striped shirt is inconspicuous, too. I will say that Peter does a pretty good job of keeping his face away from the cameras.

5:48: “Three suspects” arrive at the shopping center. I do find it interesting that some of the subjects are named (and later 11 passport photos are shown) but several times we’re simply referred to subjects. How do they link these random people to the 11 passports? And note that none of the 3 seems to do anything to avoid the camera, especially the “suspect” on the right in the blue shirt who almost looks right at the camera.

5:53: Next Kevin and Gail arrive at the shopping center. This seems like a good place for another quick aside: Would you have been able to identify that woman as Gail if you hadn’t been told it was her? She seems to be wearing a scarf (as Gail was when she checked into the hotel) but her pants are now white, her hair is now loose, and it appears lighter (maybe). The real issue to take note of is the quality (or lack thereof) of the facial recognition software being used by the Dubai police. Clearly the police could not (certainly not in 24 hours, and probably not even in a month) have looked at every second of every piece of CCTV (closed circuit TV) footage from throughout Dubai. So either the police had information of which camera feeds to look at or relied upon facial recognition software to help identify suspects on different video feeds. Of course the question then becomes how good that software is and how many false positives (or negatives) are generated? Is that really Gail? Who knows?

6:01: Gail leaves the shopping center. Again, is that Gail? How do we know? We don’t see her face. And to me it looks like her hair is slightly different again and the color of her top seems to have shifted slightly (though her purse looks like it might be the same). Maybe it’s just the light; maybe that isn’t Gail at all.

6:10: Kevin leaves with a suspect. But all we really see is two men leaving the shopping center at the same time. Are they together? And is the fact that the guy in the blue shirt leaves at the same time as Kevin the reason he was targeted as a suspect in the first place? If so, doesn’t that call into question whether the two men he walked in with are actually suspects themselves? Note that the video clip stops before we see where Kevin and the other man go. Do they both get in that cab? Do they walk different directions? We’re not shown that piece of information.

6:15: Two suspects leave. I note that when these two leave, we do see their faces, but we didn’t see the faces of Gail, Kevin, or Mr. Blue Shirt. Whys is that? One more question: Why did five alleged suspects go to the mall? Remember, they supposedly have “special communications devices” that are probably “highly encrypted”; so why would they need to meet up in the first place? Unless, of course, the goal was to be seen together.

6:23: When Kevin checks out of the hotel, note the inconspicuous shopping bag that he carries. Yep, if I’m off to do dirty spy stuff, I’d carry around a big white shopping bag with a bright stripe on the side. One other thing to take note of and this is a pretty good time to do so. We see quite a lot of interaction between the “suspects” and hotel staff members. What language did the suspects speak? Did they have accents? Those seem like pretty important bits of information and nothing is said about any of that. Hmm.

6:52: We’re shown “before and after” photos of Kevin. Is the dark-haired man actually Kevin? It’s hard to tell. I mean a light blue shirt and blue blazer are pretty unusual clothing choices, right? How many of you reading this have a blue shirt and a blue blazer? If Kevin really wanted to change his appearance, don’t you think it likely that he’d change shirts? Or lose the jacket (or even have a reversible jacket)? Is this “disguise” really the best these “highly skilled” “professionals” can do?

6:58: At least these guys manage to avoid looking right at the camera.

7:15: “Two of the suspects” … again with the unnamed suspects whose faces we can’t see. But hey, they did walk into a hotel that Kevin walked into, right? I mean, that is suspicious…

7:18: This is one of those little jumps in logic that we’re expected to simply accept: “A suspect from the surveillance team [how do they know he’s a suspect or part of the surveillance team] arrives at another location [um, isn’t this the same guy that just walked into the hotel that Kevin walked into? same blue hat…] anticipating the arrival of the victim [note: not terrorist, but “victim”], as he was known to frequent this hotel [how and why was he known to frequent this hotel; for that matter, why was Dubai allowing a known terrorist to “frequent” anywhere in Dubai?]. He leaves after it is confirmed to him that the victim has checked into another hotel.” OK, wait one minute. How do the Dubai police know that he left “after it is confirmed”? And how do they even know that “it is confirmed” in the first place? This is one of those places where Dubai’s police have made guesses — perhaps educated and perhaps correct — but guesses nevertheless for which no evidence is offered.

7:55: Now this is interesting. Gail checks out of her hotel room. OK. But note that her hair has now been pulled back again and she’s apparently changed from the brown top and white pants she wore to the mall back to the pantsuit that she wore when she arrived. Odd? It also seems like somewhat unusual behavior for people to be checking in and out of hotels so quickly. That seems like the kind of thing that authorities might actually be monitoring (especially for foreigners who have to show their passports).

8:05: Another of those mysterious, unnamed suspects whose face is not seen.

8:08: Peter arrives in a rented car with a driver. First, why hire a driver? Doesn’t that add another person with whom the operative would have come in contact with? Did the Dubai police interview the driver? What did he tell them about Peter?

8:30: Let’s go with the presumption that this is a surveillance team at the airport. But if my job is to surveil, shouldn’t I be inconspicuous instead of wearing a colorful shirt and (at 8:48) kicking my legs in a way bound to draw attention to me? This guy couldn’t possibly be just another bored person waiting at an airport…?

9:15: Gail’s “disguise” is even worse than Kevin’s. All she did was put on a black wig. Same clothing, same bags. Ooh, I’m so confused. Go read an espionage novel. Read about agents doing all sorts of subtle things to change appearance (from cotton in their gums, to slightly different walks, to holding their shoulders differently, and the list goes on). And if the Dubai police were able to figure out these disguises so quickly, one might wonder what the point of the disguise was in the first place. And why is it that only Kevin and Gail use disguises?

10:00: This is one of the more interesting segments of the film and one of the few that really does look like surveillance of al-Mabhouh. It is hard to identify any other purpose for what these two tennis players are doing wandering around the second floor elevator lobby. But note that at 10:30 we can only presume that the blue-shirted tennis player walked past al-Mabhouh’s room to try to find the room number. That seems like a good guess, but still. The Dubai police have interestingly not told us that these two tennis players were staying in another hotel or another floor of this hotel. If they were staying at this hotel (especially on the second floor), might the entire sequence here be viewed differently? And note that the video skips when blue-shirt he walks out of sight. How long was he gone? You’re analysis might be different depending on whether he spent 10 seconds or 10 minutes further down that hallway. How long does white-shirt spend in the elevator lobby waiting for blue-shirt to return?

10:36: The surveillance team uses “special communications devices”. OK, first, what makes the device special? To me, presuming white-shirt guy is holding a communications device, it looks like a light-colored cell phone. Or maybe it was an asthma inhaler. It looked like he held it up to his face, not his ear. Maybe. And if he is a “highly skilled” “professional” why would he ever use that “special communications device” in any place where it could be seen on video?

11:15: Wait a minute! Are the tennis courts or athletic facilities on the same floor as al-Mabhouh’s room? Did the Dubai police do an investigation of whether white-shirt and blue-shirt played tennis at the hotel or whether they had even reserved a court? Again, those are the kinds of little facts that a “highly skilled” team would have thought through and which a thorough investigation would have examined.

11:18: “The room number and the one opposite is communicated to the rest of the team.” And we know this how? I thought that it was probable that those special communications devices were highly encrypted.

11:25: OK. So blue-shirt hangs out while white shirt goes outside and back in. Once again, look how inconspicuous that blue shirt is (not to mention the really ugly socks).

11:42: Um. If this is a surveillance team, why are they leaving?

12:39: Peter makes some phone calls from a hotel business center. I’m having a bit of trouble with this one. First, why use a hotel business center? If any phone is likely to be bugged by Dubai’s police, I’d rank that one pretty high on the list. And why use the same phone to make two calls that can then obviously be linked together? And what happened to throw away cellphones or those special communications devices? Furthermore, does anybody else find it odd that with CCTV virtually everywhere, there doesn’t appear to be a camera in the business center? Finally, I note (from the time stamp in the bottom left) that it only took Peter 8 minutes to make a hotel reservation (for a specific room; how did the team know it would be unoccupied?) and airline reservations including a stop. Have you ever tried to make a hotel reservation by phone? How about an airline reservation? How long did it take? 8 minutes for both?

13:04: I can’t think of a more inconspicuous set of outfits for a surveillance team to wear when standing around a luxury hotel lobby. That bright blue shirt and bright red shirt with great big bags would never be noticed by anybody. One of the basic concepts is to blend in, but it’s more than just blending in. The agent has to be so plain looking that if you were to see him (or her) now and again in 15 minutes, you wouldn’t recognize that you’d seen the person before. Now, would you recall seeing two guys hanging out in bright blue and bright red shirts?

13:45: Here is one of the most interesting (though very subtle) moments in the entire video. Kevin gets into a taxi. OK. Fine. But look at the guy who walks out of the hotel behind Kevin (in a black jacket and blue shirt). Why is his face blurred? The face of the doorman isn’t blurred. We’ve seen lots of “man on the street faces” so far, but why is this particular guy’s face blurred? As Arsenio used to say, “Hmm”.

13:48: Gail leaves with the “other suspects”. Are we convinced that these “other suspects” are people that we’ve seen before?

14:29: “The description of the victim’s car is communicated to the rest of the team.” Again, we know this how? First, there is nothing in the video to indicate time so we have no idea how long after al-Mabhouh left the hotel that red-shirt walked out the front door. Yes, red-shirt uses a cellphone (what happened to the special devices?), but in and of itself, I don’t think that tells us much.

14:36: We’re told that red-shirt “returns to his original position”. Again, how do we know? What was his “original position”? How do we know that is where he went? At least he does a decent job of keeping his hat low enough to obscure his face.

15:22: So how did the team make sure that the room opposite al-Mabhouh’s would be vacant? And would anybody really be so bold as to make a request for a particular, apparently non-descript, room? Wouldn’t that set of all sorts of red flags? “Um, gee, Mr. X, why is it that you want room 237”? And what would have happened if that room was occupied?

15:36: We’re told that Peter gives the room key to Kevin. But we don’t actually see this, do we?

15:54: Gail arrives with two big (inconspicuous) shopping bags. But she didn’t appear to have those bags when she got in the cab at 13:48. So are we sure these are the same person?

16:21: A “suspect” walks into the hotel with a blue hat. We’re told that he goes up to the room wearing a wig. On what basis do we know that he’s wearing a wig? Are we even sure it’s the same guy?

16:50: Gail leaves the hotel. OK, I can see that. But we’re told that she leaves to deliver bags to other team members in the parking lot. Again, we know this how? All we see is that she walks down the sidewalk and then returns without the bags. Sure, it’s a good presumption, but without additional video I’m not quite sure that all other possibilities are eliminated.

17:23: Oooh, the first “execution team”. You know the question to ask. By the way, note how casual these guys look but they do seem careful to keep their heads turned away from the camera.

17:45: Here’s team two! Again, watch how they keep their faces away from the camera (one guy even raises his hand to briefly cover his face). They look a lot more professional that the rest of the “highly skilled” team.

18:05: A new surveillance team arrives. One thing interesting about this is the fact that one member of this team appears to be a woman, yet the passports and information released by Dubai keep referring to an eleven member team with one woman. She manages to keep well hidden with that hat, but her “partner” is quite recognizable.

18:26: Those special communications devices are back. Do you see anything special? Go back and look in the woman’s hand when she walks through the revolving door. There’s something right there in her palm. Would she really hold her special communications device that obviously? And when the camera zooms in on her a few moments later, all I see is a woman on a cellphone who then adjusts her shirt or bra while her partner shields her from view. This is Dubai, after all. But anyway, would they really use their special communications device in the middle of the hotel lobby?

20:39: Another person with their face blurred. And this person spends some time talking to Kevin.

21:01: “Kevin signals the team”. Sorry, missed the signal. But what is it that Kevin is holding in his hand? Was this the attempt to change the door lock for al-Mabhouh’s room? In the elevator lobby?

22:15: I’m certainly willing to acknowledge that Kevin and Gail appear to be up to something as they loiter around the elevator lobby. But is that really the kind of surveillance and monitoring that you’d want? Wouldn’t it have been easier to put a small wireless camera in that plant in the corner? Certainly there have to be better ways to surveil an elevator lobby than having two operatives wander around talking on cellphones right in front of two cameras. And for that matter, shouldn’t they know where those cameras were and take steps to remain out of sight of the cameras?

22:30: “As the execution team acts”. Again, that’s one of those pretty big presumptions.

22:38: The Dubai police suggest that a way to gain access was by reprogramming the lock. But if the lock was reprogrammed, wouldn’t the report say that instead of an “attempt”? Second, if the team could reprogram the lock don’t you think that they’d be able to cover their tracks of having done so? And why just Kevin or Gail posing as hotel staff? Why not one of the other people allegedly in the room across the hall? For that matter, how do we know that the people in the room across the hall (if that' is where they were) didn’t just barge their way into the room as al-Mabhouh was opening his door? This whole thing about how to get into the room seems a bit overly complex, not to mention subject to a whole bunch of things that could go wrong. What if al-Mabhouh wasn’t alone; what if he refused to open the door; what if someone else was in the hallway; what if al-Mabhouh was on the telephone when the door was opened?

22:55: The murder has taken place. OK. And how do we know such an absolutely precise time of death? And it appears that things happened pretty quickly; I find it interesting to note that the alleged execution teams didn’t seem to take any time to interrogate al-Mabhouh before killing him. You know, maybe ask him questions about those arms purchases he was making in Dubai?

23:10: Did you notice that one member of the “execution team” is now wearing a glove or bandage on his hand? Don’t get too worked up over that; he was wearing it when he entered the hotel. I went back and looked.

23:19: Both execution teams wind up riding the same elevator. Sloppy. Very, very sloppy.

24:34: Does Gail look the same here as she did at any other point? Are we sure that Gail isn’t really an amalgam of several women?

24:43: Did you note that when the hotel staff opened the door to al-Mabhouh’s room it "was locked from the inside with the latch and chain in place” (emphasis added)? Interesting, no? What special device was used to accomplish that little trick?

24:51: Also, the initial cause of death was an “increase in blood pressure in the brain”.

25:33: Results “proved that it was a murder and not a natural death”. But all we’re given of that “proof” is a letter from a hospital in Arabic. Moreover, unless it’s just a case of poor wording, it appears that the General Department of State assigned teams to find out “how it was carried out” before they had the proof that anything had been “carried out” and that al-Mabhouh’s hadn’t died of natural causes.

26:00: This is another of the most interesting moments in the entire video (if not the most interesting). Remember how I’ve been talking about the operatives not doing a very good job to keep their faces away from the camera? Right. Watch Gail look directly at the camera and smile! And then, look closely at the face of the woman in the passport photo. Are those the same woman? (For that matter, I’m not sure that the woman in the passport photo isn’t really a man!) And why is this the only time that we see that particular camera angle (presumably of the hotel hallway). Did that camera never see any of the other members of the team? If not, why not?

27:17: A few things to note about all of those passport photos. First, while some of the photos looked like the people in the videos, several did not. Where, for example, are the guys in the “execution teams”? Maybe they’re pictured; maybe not. But where was that third surveillance team, you remember the one with a man and woman? I didn’t see their pictures. And some of those passport pictures were really clear photos. I guess that would be OK if you were wearing a really good disguise when the photo was taken.

Whew. I know. Quite a bit to digest. So what do we make of all this? I suspect that some kind of team of operatives did indeed go to Dubai and kill al-Mabhouh. I’m much less convinced that the entire operation was conducted in the way that Dubai’s police suggest and I’m really not terribly convinced that all of the people shown were involved and/or that others not shown weren’t also involved.

But the bigger question is not whether or how but, obviously, who. Who killed al-Mabhouh? The obvious answer is Israel and certainly that’s where fingers are pointing. But there are other possibilities, starting with the Palestinian Authority and/or Fatah not to mention Hamas itself or maybe even Egypt or Iran. So let’s take a few minutes and examine the possibilities.

First let’s start with the obvious choice: Israel. Clearly Israel has something to be gained by killing al-Mabhouh; after all, he’s wanted by Israeli authorities and he’s a known terrorist who has allegedly been involved in illegal weapons purchases to be smuggled into Gaza. That certainly seems reason enough for Israel to want al-Mabhouh dead. But query whether that is simply too obvious? A Hamas commander is killed, so who else would be the obvious assassin? But why would Israel go through the effort and risk to assassinate al-Mabhouh in Dubai? It would seem a lot easier to get him in, oh, I don’t know, maybe Gaza? Why put 11 or more Israeli operatives at risk, not just in a foreign country, but in an Arab country (and a fairly moderate Arab country friendly to the West), in order to assassinate this one guy? Imagine the problems that Israel would have faced had one of its operatives been captured or killed in Dubai? Imagine if al-Mabhouh had gotten off a lucky shot and killed a member of the team. Al-Jazeera would have loved that one.

We also (on the basis of books and films, not to mention history) have a picture of Mossad as being quite competent. Yet this operation, as I discussed above, was riddled with odd behavior if not outright errors. Is Mossad slipping? Or was this operation intended to look like it was carried out by Israel but actually conducted by operatives without the skill that has given Mossad its reputation?

Here are a few things to think about:

Why did the Dubai police look into al-Mabhouh’s death in the first place; after all, he was found dead of apparently natural causes in a locked room.
How were the Dubai police able to focus on the 11 alleged members of the assassination squad so quickly? It’s almost as if they were told where to begin looking (or simply to begin looking). Remember, they didn’t open his door until the next day, yet they claim to have discovered the 11 members of the team within 24 hours!
Why did so many of the agents (especially Gail in that last scene) seem to make such an effort to look directly at the cameras, rather than trying to keep their faces covered?
If Israel was behind the plot, why would the Mossad have used false passports bearing the names of real Israelis? After all, Israel goes to quite a lot of effort to keep its own people (not just Mossad agents) safe. Frankly, I find it odd that Mossad would use stolen identities in the first place (rather than well-crafted false identities that would stand up to initial scrutiny), let alone identities stolen from Israelis.
Why would Israel allow 11 agents to be subject to such scrutiny that they can likely never work outside Israel again? After all, Peter, Kevin, and Gail are probably pretty famous and well known to police around the world by now.
Was al-Mabhouh really such an important target that Israel would put together this kind of operation, taking these kinds of risks, making these kinds of mistakes, and risking the international condemnation that will no doubt follow?

So, if not Israel, who else might have something to gain from al-Mabhouh’s assassination? As a starting point, it is worth considering whether al-Mabhouh’s assassination was the goal of any other organization or country or whether he was simply the McGuffin to use to frame Israel as having done a “bad thing”. Nobody’s going to believe Israel bombing a plane or a bus, but people are certainly willing to believe that Israel might assassinate a terrorist.

What about the Palestinian Authority or Fatah? The PA and Fatah are practically in a state of civil war with Hamas. Might this have been a part of that civil war? Might this have been a veiled statement to Hamas that the PA and/or Fatah are willing to take the fight global? Then again, perhaps the assassination was part of a power struggle within Hamas. We know that the Syrian-based wing of Hamas and the Gaza-based wing don’t quite see eye-to-eye (especially after the Syrian leaders had the chance to watch their brothers in Gaza get pummeled by Israeli in January 2009). Egypt is itself struggling with Islamic extremism (the Muslim Brotherhood) and has been making a few half-hearted attempts to stop weapons smuggling through Egypt into Gaza. Might this assassination have been an attempt by Egypt to warn Hamas? Finally, Iran stands to gain from any further incitement to violence in the Middle East, both in terms of actual conflict between Hamas or Hezbollah and Israel and in terms of the focus of world attention on Israel and away from Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Or perhaps Iran and al-Mabhouh had a falling out over the arms sales.

One other point worth noting: It has been reported by several sources (though curiously the report is not repeated anywhere near as often as the claim that Israel is responsible) that “[t]wo Palestinians alleged to have provided logistical support to the operation are in custody in Dubai”. Palestinians providing logistical support to an Israeli assassination team? Interesting.

Right now, it seems that there is a rush to judgment to presume that the operation was carried out by Israel. Perhaps it was, though if so, I must say that I’m less impressed with Mossad’s operational skill and technique than I’d anticipated I would be. On the other hand, there are just enough little questions floating around to make me wonder whether this whole operation was put together either by someone else who wanted al-Mabhouh dead or who wanted Israel to take the fall for an assassination. Of, if we want to get really cynical, the operation could have been undertaken by Israel in a way that would divert suspicion off of Israel and onto someone else (“Gee, if we’re real sloppy, no one will seriously believe that we did it…”). Of course, once you start down that road of reasoning there is no stopping.

I’m not saying that Israel didn’t do it. I don’t know; maybe Israel did. But there are just enough odd things, just enough questions, just enough sloppiness, to make one wonder whether Israel is responsible and sloppy or whether someone else wants us to think that Israel was responsible.

It will be interesting to see how this whole investigation plays out. It will be interesting to see how forthcoming Dubai is with additional facts that “prove” the case. If nothing else, it makes for a pretty interesting spy movie.

[updated February 24, 2010]

Hate and Fear of Homosexuals in Iowa

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:46:00 +0000

In April 2009 the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously ruled that same-sex marriages were permissible in Iowa. Apparently this ruling has caused several Iowa legislators to lash out in their hate and fear (not to mention idiocy, but more on that in a minute).

Iowa has a Safe Schools Law to protect students in Iowa schools from harassment and bullying. At present, Iowa’s law apparently provides that it is illegal to harass or bully another student because of that student’s “age, color, creed, national origin, race, religion, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical attributes, physical or mental ability or disability, ancestry, political party preference, political belief, socioeconomic status, or familial status”. (Note that I have not read the entire statute, but I do wonder why it might be acceptable to bully or harass another student because of the student’s favorite football team, musical preference, style of dress, or any of the host of other non-protected class reasons for which kids are bullied.) However, Iowa Republican state representatives Jason Schultz and Matt Windschitl apparently thinks that harassing or bullying gay students is a good thing. So, they’ve introduced a bill (HF 2291) that would delete the words “sexual orientation, gender identity” from the statute.In other words, it would apparently be OK to harass or bully a student as long as you did so because the student was gay. And just so that you don’t think I’m being creative in my description of the bill’s effects, here is how the bill’s sponsors describe the purpose of the draft legislation (emphasis added):

This bill strikes sexual orientation and gender identity from the definition of the term "trait or characteristic of the student" used for purposes of protecting students in public and nonpublic schools from harassment and bullying.

What a lovely lesson to be taught in our schools: Go ahead and harass and bully those gay kids!

But in case that wasn’t enough, Rep. Schultz has also introduced another bill (HF 2313), that appears designed to prevent Iowa courts from ever issuing another ruling like that which permitted same-sex marriage:

602.1100 Judicial authority.

1. A judicial officer shall not use judicial precedent, case law, penumbras, or international law as a basis for rulings. A judicial officer shall only use the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Iowa, and the Code of Iowa as the basis for any ruling issued by such judicial officer. The only source material that may be used for interpreting the Constitution of the United States by a judicial officer in this state shall be the Federalist papers and other writings of the founding fathers to describe the intent of the founding fathers, and if such source material is used, the full context of the source material must be used by the judicial officer.

2. This section is not reviewable by the court.

3. A violation of this section by a judicial officer shall be considered malfeasance in office and subjects the judicial officer to impeachment under chapter 68.

Unfortunately, it is probably difficult to explain how incredibly stupid this bill really is, but I’ll try.

To begin to illustrate the problem, let me relate a story. Shortly after beginning my career as a lawyer, I was downtown with my girlfriend (now wife) and several other friends. For reasons that I don’t remember, one wanted to see where I worked. So we walked over to the building where our office was and rode the elevator up to take a look. For some reason, this girl was fascinated by the firm’s law library (which was actually rather small…). She asked me why we needed so many books. My first few attempts to explain how the “law” works fell on deaf ears (or, perhaps more precisely, went in one ear, flew through the vacuous emptiness, and exited the other ear). So I tried a different route. I pulled out a volume of the Indiana Code and looked up the statute dealing with murder and showed it to her (the key language was “knowingly or intentionally kills another human being”). Then I asked her whether it was a murder if a police officer shot a criminal who was holding a gun to a victim’s head? What if the criminal wasn’t holding a gun to a victim’s head, but rather, was running away from the police officer? What about a doctor, I asked, who had to make an emergency decision of whether to save the life of a near-term fetus or the mother following an terrible traffic accident? What about two kids playing with their father’s gun when it accidentally goes off? What if one of the kids had been pointing it at the other, thinking it wasn’t loaded? What if the person who pulls the trigger was drunk or under the influence of drugs or medication? What if the person who pulls the trigger was acting in self-defense? What if the person who pulls the trigger thought he was acting in self-defense, but no real danger existed?

Now most lawyers can easily see through and address these examples, but they served their purpose with my friend. I explained to her that statutes could only handle so many issues. The legislature could try to think of events that might occur and decide whether they should be crimes or what the law should say about them, but it is impossible to imagine every single possibility. That, I explained, was what case law (common law) was for. Of course murder probably wasn’t a very good example to use, but for someone with no experience with the law it worked very well.

But I think that this story illustrates the point of the importance of common law as a supplement to statutes and constitutions: There is only so much that the legislature can address in advance. Filling in the gaps and applying the law to particular situations is the job of judges and, under our system, has been for hundreds of years (predating the founding of the United States). People complain about lawsuits, but most of the issues that make it to the Courts of Appeals or Supreme Court deal not with issues that are clearly set forth in statutes (or constitutions), but rather with the trickier issues that aren’t subject to such readily obvious answers. That is one of the main reasons that we have an independent judiciary.

But think what else this proposed Iowa bill would do. First, how well do either the US Constitution or the Iowa Constitution address the advances in modern society or the changes in public attitudes. For example, what does either Constitution say about the right to privacy on Facebook? What does either Constitution say about ownership of a frozen embryo following a divorce? Does either specifically address whether the police need a search warrant to train heat detecting equipment on a house to see if the house might have heat lamps commonly found in marijuana operations or whether the police can track a GPS unit in a cellphone? With this proposed bill, Iowa courts and the law of Iowa could never adapt and grow. The law would always be stuck in 1789 (and whatever year the Iowa Constitution was adopted) plus whatever statutes the legislature adopted. And just think of the inconsistencies that could cause. One Iowa court might say that Iowa’s Constitution allowed something while another court might disagree. Without resort to case law and precedent, there would be no way for anybody, courts or citizens, to anticipate what the law would be. This law might actually lead to more litigation; after all, if there is no case law to look to for guidance, each and every issue not clearly set forth in statute will need to be relitigated over and over and over. If judge’s are bound by precedent (as they are now), then we have a pretty good idea of what the law should say about any given subject, though with the understanding that as society and our world change, the law can change and grow with it.

One other thing about this bill is worth noting: Why the reliance upon the Federalist papers and other documents about the intent of the Founding Fathers? (And who, precisely, are the founding fathers?) Why do we need to look to their intent if the Constitution is supposed to be able to stand up on its own? We don’t look outside of a contract unless there is an ambiguity (of course that rule is from common law…), so is the Iowa legislator suggesting that the Constitution is ambiguous? But if it is ambiguous, isn’t it then appropriate to look to common law? And how, I wonder, do we decide which documents of the Founding Fathers may be used? Is Jefferson’s letter setting forth his opinion that the First Amendment erected a wall of separation between church and state one of those documents? I suspect advocates of prayer in school would disagree; after all, they’ve contended for years that what Jefferson may have said in a private letter has nothing to do with the Constitution.

I could probably go on at length (as if this hasn’t been long enough already…). In the end, these two bills simply provide ample evidence of the fear (and hatred) of some on the right toward gays and toward the possibility that court’s might view gays as being a protected class subject to equal rights, just as African-Americans were in the Civil Rights era. Plus, the second bill demonstrates just how profoundly stupid some legislators really are and how little they understand about how American jurisprudence really works.

Caribou Barbie and the Cult of Stoopid

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:03:00 +0000

I’d hoped that when John McCain conceded the 2008 election, his running mate would fade back into the wilds of Alaska and spend her time looking out upon Russia and pardoning turkeys. And then I hoped that when she quit as Alaska’s Governor, she would fade off into the lecture circuit and people would grow tired of her. Unfortunately, while she has gone on tour, she’s hasn’t faded away. Instead, she’s continued to bring her populist form of stupid to the right wing and they seem ever more willing descend to her level. Her following has begun to exhibit a cult-like fascination with her where she can or say no wrong. The past few days have provided ample examples of Palin’s “appeal”.

First, let’s take a brief look at her speech to the first Tea Party convention (note that, unlike a traditional political convention, the Tea Party convention was a for profit endeavor with a very high ticket price [not quite as much as a Super Bowl ticket, but close] and Palin was paid $100,000 to speak). Now, if she wanted to be a real leader, and a responsible leader at that, she would spoken out against some of the racist, xenophobic, and homophobic rhetoric that preceded her at the convention (not to mention the “birther” rants from some of the featured speakers). For example, former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo opened the convention and his speech included the following:

Every year, the liberal Dems and the RINO Republicans turned up the temperature ever so slightly. It seemed after awhile that we'd all be boiled to death in a cauldron of the nanny state.

And then something really odd happened -- mostly because we do not have a civics literacy test before people can vote in this country.

People who cannot even spell the word "vote," or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. Name is Barack Hussein Obama.

These comments were punctuated with applause from the teabaggers. I guess these folks either don’t remember Jim Crow laws (um, what about that civics literacy test) or they want to return to the days of Jim Crow laws.

Sarah Palin could have shown real leadership by taking on these sorts of comments directly and trying to drive the right wing away from what Sen. McCain’s daughter Meghan referred to (on ABC’s The View) as “innate racism”.

What did Sarah Palin do? Besides repeating the very broad themes that lost the 2008 election, she criticized President Obama for being a good orator that uses a teleprompter (and it’s worth noting that when giving her speech to the 2008 Republican convention — the speech that brought her to prominence and made her into a conservative hero — Palin used a teleprompter, too). Now I think that particular criticism of President Obama is simply silly. Most speeches these days are given from a teleprompter so that the speaker can look out at the crowd and not down at notes. It may be fair to compare use of a teleprompter to a politician’s ability to speak extemporaneously, but the use of a teleprompter isn’t any different than resorting to written notes. Nevertheless, for some reason, this criticism from Palin has gotten some positive attention (at least on the right), so I want to note two additional things: First, during her speech to the Tea Party convention, Palin read her speech from paper on a lectern (she also criticized President Obama for lecturing from a lectern); second, when President Obama met with House Republicans and spent over an hour responding to their questions (and taking them to task if not eviscerating them), he didn’t use a teleprompter. But he was very, very conversant on the issues. (For that matter, it’s worth comparing President Obama’s interview with Katie Couric before the Super Bowl to those infamous interviews that Couric did with Palin.) But to the Cult of Palin, President Obama is “bad” because of his use of a teleprompter and Palin is the “common American” standing up against President Obama’s socialist/elitist ability to string a bunch of words together coherently.

Anyway, the idiocy of the teleprompter criticism leads directly into the next example of Palin’s stupidity. After giving her speech, Palin sat on the stage for a brief Q&A. Watch:

So what exactly was written on Palin’s hand?

Energy

~~Budget~~ cuts

Tax

Lift American Spirits

Wow! Those are some pretty tough things to remember, aren’t they.

Here’s Keith Olbermann’s view (offered here for the humor):

But Faux News saw it differently:

Note what Gretchen Carlson says:

I think she did it on purpose. I think she did it on purpose, yeah. Because it’s an exact opposite of reading off the teleprompter with a script written for you with every word in a sentence and here’s she’s just taking crib notes on her hand. It makes her look like she can just talk off the cuff and that she just she jotted down a few couple notes before she went out to give a big long speech.

She must have been really impressed then, when President Obama talked to Republicans for over an hour without a teleprompter or crib notes, right? Or how about Brian Kilmeade:

I think that is — like you said before Gretchen — folksy, absolutely, down-to-earth, I can identify.

Leave it to Faux News to be quick to jump to Palin’s defense; she’s not dumber than a box of Alaskan rocks; she’s folksy and did it on purpose to make that big bad Obama guy look too smart! And we know that smart is just a synonym for “socialist”!

Of course John Stewart couldn’t let this go without comment, either:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
AmeriGasm
www.thedailyshow.com

But the idiocy doesn’t end here. Nope.

The next day in an interview with Chris Wallace on (you guessed it) Faux News, Palin said in response to a question regarding how difficult it would be to defeat President Obama in 2012:

Say [Obama] played, and I got this from [Pat] Buchanan, reading one of his columns the other day. Say he played the war card. Say he decided to declare war on Iran, or decided to really come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do.

Now remember that Palin famously told Katie Couric, in response to the question of what newspapers she reads, “all of them”. Well, it appears that she only reads headlines. You see Pat Buchanan’s column doesn’t seem to suggest playing the “war card” at all. Had Palin read to the end of the article (hey, can we blame her; I mean it is 800 words long and they won’t all fit on her palm) she would have seen that Buchanan was actually rebutting a proposition set forth by neocon Daniel Pipes in an article in the National Review (and Pipes is now touting the fact that Palin endorsed his strategy). The point of all this seems to be twofold: First, Sarah Palin can’t see Iran from Alaska, so she has no knowledge or expertise on the issues; second, she can’t quite manage to take the basic concepts away from articles on the subject without getting things, at least somewhat, backward. And besides all that, do we really want someone who may aspire to be President to take her foreign policy advice from Pat Buchanan (or Daniel Pipes, for that matter)?

But we’re still not quite done with the “week in stupid”. Nope.

It seems that last year, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel scolded a group of liberal activists for alienating lawmakers from whom they needed help. On February 1, 2010, Palin weighed in via Facebook.

I would ask the president to show decency in this process by eliminating one member of that inner circle, Mr. Rahm Emanuel, and not allow Rahm’s continued indecent tactics to cloud efforts. Yes, Rahm is known for his caustic, crude references about those with whom he disagrees, but his recent tirade against participants in a strategy session was such a strong slap in many American faces that our president is doing himself a disservice by seeming to condone Rahm’s recent sick and offensive tactic.

The Obama Administration’s Chief of Staff scolded participants, calling them, “F---ing retarded,” according to several participants, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

Just as we’d be appalled if any public figure of Rahm’s stature ever used the “N-word” or other such inappropriate language, Rahm’s slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities – and the people who love them – is unacceptable, and it’s heartbreaking.

A patriot in North Andover, Massachusetts, notified me of Rahm’s “retarded” slam. I join this gentleman, who is the father of a beautiful child born with Down Syndrome, in asking why the Special Olympics, National Down Syndrome Society and other groups condemning Rahm’s degrading scolding have been completely ignored by the White House. No comment from his boss, the president?

As my friend in North Andover says, “This isn’t about politics; it’s about decency. I am not speaking as a political figure but as a parent and as an everyday American wanting my child to grow up in a country free from mindless prejudice and discrimination, free from gratuitous insults of people who are ostensibly smart enough to know better... Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

Mr. President, you can do better, and our country deserves better.

As a general matter, I actually agree with Palin’s criticism of Emanuel. I think his use of the word “retarded” was inappropriate and offensive. However, it is worth noting that Emanuel had issued at least one apology before Palin made her remarks and has agreed to host a delegation of advocates for people with disabilities. But I don’t begrudge Palin her outrage at Emanuel for his offensive comment, especially given that she is the mother of a special needs child. But… (You knew there’d be a “but”, didn’t you?)

In response to this whole issue, Rush Limbaugh (leader of the Republican Party) chimed in:

Our political correct society is acting like some giant insult’s taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards. I mean these people, these liberal activists are kooks. They are looney tunes. And I’m not going to apologize for it, I’m just quoting Emanuel. It’s in the news. I think their big news is he’s out there calling Obama’s number one supporters f’ing retards. So now there’s going to be a meeting. There’s going to be a retard summit at the White House. Much like the beer summit between Obama and Gates and that cop in Cambridge.

Now keeping in mind Palin’s criticism of Rahm Emanuel, you can probably imagine her outrage at Limbaugh, right? Here is what Palin’s spokesperson had to say:

Governor Palin believes crude and demeaning name calling at the expense of others is disrespectful.

Wow, what a smackdown that was. But, it turns out, that wasn’t what Palin really thought about Limbaugh’s comments. Nope. In that same interview with Chris Wallace, Palin discussed Limbaugh’s comments:

Here’s the key quotation:

I didn’t hear Rush Limbaugh calling a group of people whom he did not agree with ‘f-ing retards’ and we did know that Rahm Emanuel has been reported, did say that. there is a big difference there.

Now go back and read Limbaugh’s statement again: “[B]y calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards”. The only difference is that Limbaugh didn’t punctuate his statement with profanity. So not only is Palin stupid, she’s also an unrepentant hypocrite.

Here’s Stephen Colbert’s thought on the subject (with a bonus discussion of palm-gate), starting at about 3:00 (stick around for the penultimate punch line … it makes my point):

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sarah Palin Uses a Hand-O-Prompter
www.colbertnation.com

At the end of the day, we really have to wonder about people who believe not only that Palin is qualified to do much of anything, but that she is qualified to be a prime spokesperson for an ideology, let alone, to be President of the United States (and remember the survey that I wrote about a few days ago: only 14% of self-identified Republicans believe that Barack Obama is more qualified to be President than Sarah Palin).

Palin may have some kind of mass appeal and “street smarts” but, in fact, she and those who slavishly fawn upon her and follow her every word (almost like a cult), are stoopid. The time has come for Caribou Barbie to go back to Wasilla, look after her kids, and leave politics and governance for those who can remember their core principles without cheating.

How Do You Compare to the Wingnut … er … Republican Population?

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:43:00 +0000

Research 2000, a “nonpartisan full service research firm” just finished a poll on behalf of Daily Kos. The poll was conducted in late January 2010 and asked just over 2,000 self-identified Republicans a series of questions. The results are … well … staggering. But before diving into the results, let’s play a little game. Below, I’ll reprint the most interesting questions. Take out a piece of paper and write down both your answer and the percentage of those polled who you think answered the same way that you did. Let’s see if you’re a wingnut or sane.

Should Barack Obama be impeached, or not?
Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, or not?
Do you think Barack Obama is a socialist?
Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win?
Do you believe ACORN stole the 2008 election?
Do you believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be President than Barack Obama?
Do you believe Barack Obama is a racist who hates White people?
Do you believe your state should secede from the United States?
Should openly gay men and women be allowed to serve in the military?
Should same sex couples be allowed to marry?
Should gay couples receive any state or federal benefits?
Should openly gay men and women be allowed to teach in public schools?
Should contraceptive use be outlawed?
Do you believe the birth control pill is abortion?
Do you consider abortion to be murder?
Do you support the death penalty?
Should public school students be taught that the book of Genesis in the Bible explains how God created the world?
Do you believe that the only way for an individual to go to heaven is though Jesus Christ, or can one make it to heaven through another faith?

Well, how would you classify yourself after answering those questions? Do you think that your answers are similar to the majority of self-identified Republicans or do you think that you found yourself in the “minority”?

Let’s take a look at the results (for full crosstabs [results], take a look at the detailed information at Daily Kos):

Should Barack Obama be impeached, or not?

Before telling you the percentage of self-identified Republicans who answered this question in the affirmative, it is worth remembering what the Constitution says about impeachment: “The President … shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. (Article II Section 4.) Just out of curiosity, what treason, bribery, or other high crime or misdemeanor has President Obama committed, other than trying to push forward the agenda upon which he campaign and for which he was elected by a majority of Americans?

Anyway, 39% of self-identified Republicans believe that President Obama should be impeached and another 29% of self-identified Republicans aren’t sure! Only 32% of self-identified Republicans do not believe that President Obama should be impeached. Too bad the survey didn’t also ask respondents to identify the grounds for impeachment. But think of what those numbers mean and then tell me how in the world bipartisanship is supposed to work. How is an elected Republican expected to work with President Obama or Congressional Democrats when this is what the Republican base believes (and maybe the elected Republican agrees…)? Also, think about the fact that President Clinton was impeached for lying about a blowjob and Republicans want President Obama impeached for … um … something. But President Bush got a free pass for torture, imprisoning people without right to counsel, warrantless wiretaps, going to war on the basis of a lie, ignoring intelligence that warned of an impending attack against the US, perhaps using aircraft, and the list goes on and on. What does it say about people who (I presume) did not want to impeach President Bush but do want to impeach President Obama?

Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, or not?

Now don’t forget that, despite everything you may have read, President Obama did release his birth certificate and it was fact-checked by the non-partisan Factcheck.org. Nevertheless, 36% of self-identified Republicans do not believe that President Obama was born in the United States and another 22% aren’t sure. Add to this the fact that much of the “birther” community argues that President Obama is not a natural born citizen on the basis of his father’s British (Kenyan) citizenship, not that President Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii (though a segment continues to argue that he was born in Kenya [and has offered several obviously fake birth certificates to “prove it”] or even Indonesia [on the basis of nothing more than sheer idiocy…]). The point is that if President Obama was not a natural born citizen then he would be ineligible to be President. If only 42% of self-identified Republicans do believe that President Obama is the legitimate President, then what does that say about his ability to govern or the ability of Congressional Republicans to work with him.

It is worth comparing the “birther” conspiracy to the 2000 Bush v. Gore election. Despite ample evidence that President Obama is a natural born citizen, Republicans don’t believe it. In 2000, despite evidence of electoral shenanigans and a hotly disputed court case, once President Bush took office, Democrats didn’t refuse to work with President Bush on the grounds of “illegitimacy”. How many military officers did we see refuse to serve because they didn’t believe President Bush was the lawful Command-in-Chief? So what is it that gives the “birther” conspiracy the strength to endure even after it has been repeatedly debunked? To me, the fact that so many people are so willing to believe the “birther” theories in the face of contrary evidence says much more about the “birthers'” themselves than anything else. “We don’t need no stinkin’ facts; we know the truth, goshdarnit!”

Do you think Barack Obama is a socialist?

I still wonder how many Republicans (or Democrats for that matter) really understand what it means to be a socialist or really understand what policies are socialist. Anyway, 63% of self-identified Republicans believe that President Obama is a socialist and another 16% aren’t sure. Only 21% don’t think that he’s a socialist (though I wonder if a percentage of those answered “no” because they think that he’s either a fascist or a Marxist). Of those who believe that President Obama is a socialist, what percent do you suppose would be willing to forego Social Security, Medicare, public education, interstate highways, NASA, and a whole host of other government programs?

Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win?

Before I tell you the results of this question, go back and read it again. And again. Think about what you’d have to believe to answer this question in the affirmative. Well 24% of self-identified Republicans do think that President Obama wants the terrorists to win and another 33% aren’t sure. Less than half of Republicans believe that President Obama does not want the terrorists to win. Query why so many Republicans think that President Obama wants terrorists to win. Is it because he doesn’t want to torture them? It is because he wants to close Guantanamo and have trials? Is it because his middle name is “Hussein”? It can’t really have anything to do with Afghanistan or Pakistan given that President Obama has increased troop levels in Afghanistan and increased the number of drone strikes against suspected terrorists in Pakistan. But next time you hear a Republican complain about trials for suspected terrorists or the refusal to torture those in custody, think about those complaints in the context with the fact that it appears that those policy differences mean that President Obama “wants the terrorists to win”.

Do you believe ACORN stole the 2008 election?

21% of self-identified Republicans believe that ACORN stole the 2008 election and another 55% aren’t sure. Think about that, three-quarters of Republicans either believe that ACORN “stole” the 2008 election or aren’t sure. Again, one has to wonder what the basis for this belief (or inability to decide) could be. Could it be the thousands of prosecutions in formerly red states against ACORN for procuring fraudulent votes? Um, wait. There haven’t been prosecutions for procuring fraudulent votes. The only thing that really makes sense here is the sense that ACORN = BLACK and African-Americans turned out to vote in 2008 and helped elect President Obama. And of course President Obama’s election must have nothing to do with the financial meltdown, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Sen. McCain’s policies, President Bush’s unpopularity, or Sarah Palin. Nope, none of that could have been a factor. It must have been ACORN. But it is interesting to note the extent to which, among Republicans, a largely African-American community organizing group has become the bogeyman for what they perceive as the ills of America.

Do you believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be President than Barack Obama?

I’m going to answer this one in the reverse first: Only 14% of self-identified Republicans believe that Barack Obama is more qualified to be President than Sarah Palin. 14%. Please go back and read my previous essays American Idol Candidate and A Victory for Thought. I don’t really have much more to say about this issue; between those essays and other things that I wrote during the campaign, I think that I’ve pretty well exhausted the subject. But for those who didn’t read my previous posts, let me just say this: I believe that being educated at some of the finest schools in the country, including law school, lecturing at one of the finest schools in the country, acting as a highly successful community organizer, and serving (even if briefly) as a state legislator and in the United States Senate makes Barack Obama far more qualified than Sarah Palin who served as mayor of a town with a population of just over 5,000 and governor (until she quit) of a state with the 47th largest population. Then again, we do have to give Palin credit for discovering those non-existent “death panels” and publicizing them on Facebook, don’t we?

Do you believe Barack Obama is a racist who hates White people?

Don’t forget that President Obama was raised by his white mother and white grandparents. Well, 31% of self-identified Republicans still think that he is a racist who hates white people and another 33% aren’t sure. Barely one-third of self-identified Republicans don’t think that President Obama is a racist who hates white people. I wonder what percentage of that 31% are themselves racists? Just for fun, go back and take a look at my posts about some of the tea parties from last year (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) and think about the issue of racism and who (President Obama or the Republicans who think that he’s a racist) might better be characterized as the racist. And for those who do think that President Obama is a racist who hates white people … um … why?

Do you believe your state should secede from the United States?

Before I tell you the results of this question, query how many of those who answered “yes” would also identify themselves as patriots. Anyway, 23% of self-identified Republicans think that their state should secede from the United States and another 19% aren’t sure. While it is true that 58% percent don’t think that their states should secede, that still leaves an awful lot of “patriots” who favor secession or who haven’t ruled it out. Can you imagine the outcry from Republicans if a single Democrat were to favor secession or even discuss the issue of secession? Anne Coulter would write a a book; Glenn Beck would cry; Rush Limbaugh would give himself a coronary; and Sean Hannity would … what the hell is it that Hannity does anyway? But the Republican Governor of Texas openly talks about secession as a legitimate option. How very patriotic.

Let me quote Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos, about the responses to this particular question:

42 percent of Republicans aren't really patriotic. They pretend to love America only when they approve of the president. These traitors don't believe in democracy, in our nation's founding ideals, or in our flag. To them, those colors run. They are cowards.

Note, secession sentiment is MUCH stronger in the South than elsewhere -- 33 percent want out, compared to just 52 percent who want to stay. In the Northeast, "just" 10 percent want out, in the Midwest, its 18 percent, and in the West, it's 16 percent. Can we cram them all into the Texas Panhandle, create the state of Dumbfuckistan, and build a wall around them to keep them from coming into America illegally?

I guess I should feel good that “only” 18% of Midwestern Republicans want to secede.

Should openly gay men and women be allowed to serve in the military?

Republicans still favor a “big tent” philosophy, right? Um, not so much. 55% of self-identified Republicans don’t think openly gay men and women should be allowed to serve in the military and 19% aren’t sure. I wonder how many Republicans will change their mind now that Admiral Mullen has come out in favor of repealing “don’t ask don’t tell”? After all, in their proposed purity test, Republicans wanted to follow the advice of military commanders (“We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges”). Nevertheless, I recognize that repeal of “don’t ask don’t tell” and the issue of gays in the military is hotly debated, not just among Republicans, so let’s look at Republican views on other “gay” issues.

Should same sex couples be allowed to marry?

While the general outcome of this question probably won’t come as a surprise, the “margin of victory” as it were was somewhat surprising. Only 7% of self-identified Republicans believe that same sex couples should be allowed to marry. 77% do not believe that same sex couples should be allowed to marry! It is worth noting (though I’m not sure what it means) that 80% of men oppose same sex-marriages, but only 74% of women oppose same-sex marriages. It is also worth noting that while only 5% of self-identified Republicans aged 60 or over favor same-sex marriage, 11% of Republicans aged 18-29 favor same-sex marriage. There appears to be a direct correlation between age and support for same-sex marriage. That, in part, explains Republican efforts to amend state constitutions. They see that the demographic tide is shifting in favor of gay marriage, even among Republicans (though by a much smaller majority); thus, they want to amend constitutions now so that more socially open generations that follow can’t easily have their state laws adapt. I still wish that I understood what these people are really afraid of…

Should gay couples receive any state or federal benefits?

Well maybe Republicans who oppose same-sex marriage would be more comfortable with something “less” than marriage. Or not. 68% of self-identified Republicans oppose state or federal benefits for gay couples. So much for civil unions, I guess.

Should openly gay men and women be allowed to teach in public schools?

Ooh. Scary. A homosexual teaching kids. Well, it apparently is scary to self-identified Republicans: 73% are opposed to openly gay men and women being allowed to teach in public schools.

Just to recap, no gays in the military, no gay marriage, no state or federal benefits for gay couples, and no gay teachers. Do you suppose that it would be fair to say that Republicans are opposed to gay rights? Or, said another way, given that some Republicans would argue with the phrase “gay rights”, is it safe to say that Republicans are opposed to gays? It seems to me that the Log Cabin Republicans really need to think about who they’re associating with and why.

Should contraceptive use be outlawed?

Before diving into this question, remember that it is Republicans who talk about keeping government out of our lives, who were scared of “death panels”, and are usually opposed to “on demand” abortion. So you’d think that Republicans would support the use of contraceptives to avoid unwanted pregnancies and would be opposed to laws restricting what people can do, right? Um, not so much. 31% of self-identified Republicans believe that contraceptive use should be outlawed and another 13% aren’t sure. Remember, the question isn’t whether Republicans think that they shouldn’t use contraceptives, but rather, whether the use of contraceptives by others should be outlawed.

Do you believe the birth control pill is abortion?

Now that we know that nearly one-third of Republicans want to outlaw the use of contraceptives, can you begin to guess why? Yep. 34% of self-identified Republicans believe that the birth control pill is abortion and another 18% aren’t sure. In other words, less than half of self-identified Republicans disagree with the statement that the birth control pill is abortion. Given that, how in the world is any pro-choice or family planning advocate supposed to find any kind of common ground with Republicans? But it gets better…

Do you consider abortion to be murder?

Only 8% of self-identified Republicans answered “no” to this question. Less than 1 in 10! 76% of self-identified Republicans do believe that abortion is murder and another 16% aren’t sure. No wonder people like Dr. George Tiller are killed (well, that and people like Bill O’Reilly egging on those pre-disposed to anti-abortion violence). I do wish that the survey had asked a few deeper follow-up questions to gauge whether this opinion moderated in the case of rape, incest, or danger to the health of the mother.

Do you support the death penalty?

Well, at least we know that the vast majority of Republicans recognize the sanctity of life. Except that 91% of self-identified Republicans support the death penalty (with another 5% not sure). I don’t think that I’ve really addressed my views on the death penalty in this blog previously and I don’t really want to get into a long discussion of that now. Broadly speaking, I support the death penalty in a limited number of truly heinous crimes when we really, really, really know that the defendant is guilty; but I temper that support with the belief that as new technologies become available we need to make every effort to utilize the technology to confirm guilt before putting someone to death. I’d much rather have guilty people rotting away in jail than innocent people being killed. I don’t know if Republican support for the death penalty has any sort of nuance, but if I had to guess, I’d wager that Republicans would probably say, “hey, if they’re guilty, fry ’em”. Of course, I suspect that those same Republicans would also be willing to eliminate Miranda warnings, right to counsel, and a whole host of other protections afforded to criminal defendants.

Should public school students be taught that the book of Genesis in the Bible explains how God created the world?

Think about this question for a moment and what a response really tells us about someone. First, if you answer in the affirmative, doesn’t that mean that you perceive your religion as right and all others as wrong? After all, we would only be teaching the “truth” to our kids and another religious tradition that disagreed with that truth must, by implication, be wrong. Second, think about what an affirmative answer to this question says about your view of science. If Genesis explains how God created the world, then doesn’t that mean that not only evolution but also anthropology and astronomy are wrong? Note that this question isn’t even asking if Republicans think that “intelligent design” should be taught instead of or alongside evolution; it is asking if the Bible should be the source material for certain aspects of the science and history curriculum. Third, those answering in the affirmative need to address which creation story from Genesis should be taught in schools to explain the creation of the world. Read Genesis 1:25-27 and Genesis 2:18-19 and then tell me whether God created man or animals first. Then read Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:18-22 and tell me whether man and woman were created at the same time or if woman was created after man. I continue to marvel at the ease with which people will assume that the Bible is the inerrant truth and ignore obvious problems that interfere with that belief.

Anyway, with all of that out of the way, let’s look at the results. Drum roll please… 77% of self-identified Republicans believe that public school students should be taught that the book of Genesis explains how God created the world. Another 8% aren’t sure. Thus only 15% of self-identified Republicans do not think that we should be using the Bible as the basis for certain history and scientific curricula in public schools. The obvious antipathy toward science evidenced by the desire to teach the Bible instead of science is worth remembering next time you hear a Republican talking about the lack of “evidence” for climate change or evolution.

Which, of course, brings us to the real heart of the matter, the question that helps to explain so many of these previous answers:

Do you believe that the only way for an individual to go to heaven is though Jesus Christ, or can one make it to heaven through another faith?

67% of self-identified Republicans believe that the only way for an individual to go to heaven is through Jesus. 18% aren’t sure. I wonder what portion of the 15% who answered negatively aren’t Christians? I’d certainly presume that any Republicans who are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or any faith other than Christian would have answered “no”. But what this response really tells us is how Republicans view everyone who isn’t a Christian. At least 67% of Republicans, if not substantially more, think that I’m going to hell. Wow. Moreover, it is worth remembering the response to this question when you next hear a Republican demonizing a political opponent; after all, why bother to humanize or cooperate with someone who you believe is going to hell anyway. And perhaps this answer helps explain why Jews identify so strongly with the Democratic party.

Whew. I know that there’s a lot to digest here. There were several other questions in the poll that, frankly, didn’t interest me that much or for which the responses weren’t particularly revealing or meaningful.

It seems to me that asking Republican candidates some of these questions in upcoming elections might be a good strategy; their responses might shore up support with their base, but might also further alienate them from the moderate center of the American electorate.

The main thing that I take away from the results of this poll is that a large percentage of self-identified Republicans really are bigoted wingnuts.

Fear of Sex Leads to More Book Bannings

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:54:00 +0000

You'd think that by the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century, book bannings, especially for matters involving ... gasp ... sex ... would be ancient history (or at least history). But no. Parents of middle school students are still demanding that books be removed from school libraries and curricula because of references to sex or, even worse, descriptions of actual, real, honest-to-goodness female body parts.

First, we have the events in Menifee, California, reported in the Press-Enterprise:

After a parent complained about an elementary school student stumbling across "oral sex" in a classroom dictionary, Menifee Union School District officials decided to pull Merriam Webster's 10th edition from all school shelves earlier this week.

School officials will review the dictionary to decide if it should be permanently banned because of the "sexually graphic" entry, said district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus.

Think about that one for a moment. A dictionary had a definition for a sexual act that a parent found offensive, so the dictionaries were removed from the classrooms. Really? Come on. Who didn't look up "bad words" in the dictionary when they were a kid? Besides, wouldn't you prefer that kids get a clinical, correct definition for certain terms than the more likely (and probably wrong) definitions that they'll undoubtedly learn from classmates? But more troubling is the fact that, after a complaint by a single parent, the school removed the dictionaries. In wonder if that dictionary included definitions of words like penis or vagina. Speaking of which...

According to the Culpepper, Virginia Star Exponent, The Diary of a Young Girl (The Diary of Anne Frank) is being removed from the Culpepper school system's curriculum. Why? According to The Washington Post, it was removed because of the following passage:

There are little folds of skin all over the place, you can hardly find it. The little hole underneath is so terribly small that I simply can't imagine how a man can get in there, let alone how a whole baby can get out!

So, because one parent complained about two sentences in one of the most important, most beloved books of the twentieth century, the school system pulled the book. To that one parent, the perceived harm of his or her child reading about a teenage girl, who knew she would probably die, wondering about her vagina, sex, and birth, is reason enough to prevent the rest of the children in the school system from reading a book about hate and love, heroism and hope in the face of the Holocaust.

I'm curious how the parents that complained about the dictionary or The Diary of Anne Frank would feel if their child had access to a book with the following:

He shall lie all night between my breasts.... His left hand under my head, and his right doth embrance me.... Thy young breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lillies.... Come, blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out.... My beloved put his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him. Thy stature is like a palm tree, and thy breasts are clusters of grapes. I will go up the palm tree, and grasp the boughs. I am a wall, and my breasts are as towers.

Um, no wait. Those descriptions of sex are probably OK. After all, they're from The Bible (Song of Solomon). I guess it's only non-Biblical sex that probably drives these parents to demand censorship.

Expressions of Anti-Semitism Becauase Israel Helps Haiti

blog@wallack.us (MSWallack) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:10:00 +0000

Israel has sent doctors, a field hospital, and medical supplies to Haiti. Anti-Semites can't let good deeds like that go unpunished. Please take a few minutes and read this article from blogger Andrew Holland: Israel's Haiti relief elicits both praise and condemnation. That is what we're fighting against.