A physicist, Nobel Prize winner, & from Berkley!

How wonderful!

The presidential race is certainly heating up. This youtube clip is a devastating indictment of McCain by one of my favorite statesmen, Colin Powell. It is heartening to see that Colin Powell actually gives voice to the “disenfranchised” Republican. The Republican party had an opportunity to remake itself in this election cycle, it chose not to. I suspect devastating losses in November as a result.

Colin Powell, his words are wise, enjoy.

“Almost all that any politician says on any topic other than political strategy should be treated with even less respect than would be accorded a professional circus-clown’s speculations about string theory.”

You have to love it when someone gets to the heart of an issue. The rest of the post is pretty good as well.

Great reading and highly recommended.

Carter & Mondale’s re-definition continued through both Republican and Democratic Presidencies. Mondale argues that Dick Cheney has re-defined the office yet again. According to Mondale (& I heartily agree), Cheney’s re-definition has taken the VP office in a disturbing direction, from trusted advisor to a powerful political office that attempts to actually limit the policy options presented to the President.

Yet another scathing examination of a Presidency in tatters. What will be the future ramifications of Cheney’s Vice Presidency? Who knows? The best possible outcome is that it is forgotten, a grimmer possibility is a permanent politicization of the office and for future Presidents the loss of another trusted objective voice.

I am not a big fan of Moore’s work but Sicko is a profound moving movie with an effectively delivered and important message. American healthcare needs to be reformed and it needs to be reformed sooner rather than later. Hopefully our politicians will wake up and do something and if they don’t Sicko may wake up enough people to prompt some action. I highly recommend Sicko and I hope Moore stays out of politics.

Pictures and fun over at japanprobe.

These are strong words coming from me, if you peruse some of my posts from that time you will find that in general I was quite hawkish. (As an aside, how do I feel now? I was lied to, I was manipulated, I was used, so was my country, and our soldiers. The war should have never occurred and the administration did everything in its power to fool its own citizens. I am deeply pissed off and ashamed I didn’t question the party line more. I showed my wrath last election and will show it the next one as well.)

In any case, Bill Moyers “Buying the War” is a stunning first show for the new Bill Moyers Journal series on PBS. Its programs like this that make me glad I have a tv. You can watch is online as well over at http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html.

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What were these men up to? Why the strange behaviour? Was it a publicity stunt or an attempted hijacking? My guess is the former. Wonder why this story isn't getting more play in the traditional media, chalk another one up to citizen journalism. 

UPDATE: Pajamas Media just put up the letter from the passenger, Pauline, and the Police Report. Something smells really rotten. 

Hi Dave–

Last week I went through security at Newark.  I had just put
  my carry-on, pocket stuff, laptop and shoes on the belt
  and was standing in stocking feet waiting to go through
  the metal detection arch.  A dozen people were in line
  for the arch ahead of me.

I looked down.  There was a bin full of discarded bottles.
  Most, but not all, were plastic.

I espied a long, thin bottle of dark fluid.  "Tawny Port,"
  it said, "20 years old."  Unopened.

I picked it up.  Nobody cared.

I opened the plastic.  Nobody cared.

I uncorked it.  Nobody cared.

I took a fine, heady draught of very very nice port.

Other passengers were curious but declined to share it
  with me.

Regretfully I put it back in the bin and strode through
  the arch, feeling for once that I had not been violated,
  but elevated, by the Security Experience.

Maybe that's the solution to make some of the homeland security restrictions more palatable.

Take a few moments today to remember those lost souls, friends, co-workers, family, and strangers who were lost.

Particularly heartbreaking is the story of Bill Biggart as well as his pictures.

Ever since September 11, the subtext of this war could be summed up as something like, “Suburban Jason, with his iPod, godlessness, and earring, loves to live too much to die, while Ali, raised as the 11th son of an impoverished but devout street-sweeper in Damascus, loves death too much to live.” The Iranians, like bin Laden, promulgate this mythical antithesis, which, like all caricatures, has elements of truth in it. But what the Iranians, like the al Qaedists, do not fully fathom, is that Jason, upon concluding that he would lose not only his iPod and earring, but his entire family and suburb as well, is capable of conjuring up things far more frightening than anything in the 8th-century brain of Mr. Ahmadinejad. Unfortunately, the barbarity of the nightmares at Antietam, Verdun, Dresden, and Hiroshima prove that well enough.

I simply love that paragraph. Read it again and digest what it says. Look at history, during the last century far too many barbaric brutal dictators made the same mistake and miscalculated the ability of the west to meet the challenge. For all our problems I don’t believe the west has anything to fear, we are inevitably sliding into a world where many more billions are going to be tormented by trying to decide which iPod to buy. And if you ask me that is far better than any alternative offered by any petty third world dictator.

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