Author: VD

Gordon Prather on the war drums:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated, “It is obvious that if Iran cannot be brought to live up to its international obligations, in fact, the IAEA Statute would indicate that Iran would have to be referred to the U.N. Security Council.”

OK, what “international obligations” is Condi talking about? Well, it’s not clear. But Condi does refer to the IAEA Statute. So, the House assumes she must be referring to the safeguards agreement that Iran concluded with the IAEA way back in 1973.

Whereas on Feb. 4, 2006, the IAEA Board of Governors reported Iran’s noncompliance with its IAEA safeguards obligations to the Security Council …

But, the House is mistaken. The IAEA Board didn’t report any such thing. In fact, the Board didn’t “report” anything.

So, again it appears that the administration is knowingly being deceitful about its reasons for acting. What I don’t understand is those who believe ANYTHING the administration says, given that it has repeatedly demonstrated its disdain for the truth. There is a long and ignoble list of the president’s deceptions dating back to his first presidential campaign, why does anyone put any more trust in him than they would in Bill Clinton? It’s pretty clear by now that Bush is the better liar.

I just wonder if Three Monkey Republicans are as eager to accept a similar level of dishonesty in their friends and family members.

Highlights from the Wash Post’s online forum with Vanilla Ice:

Minneapolis, Minn.: Yo Vanilla — do you still rock the mic like a vandal?

Vanilla Ice: Oh, of course, that’ll never stop. A lot of people don’t remember anything since Ice Ice Baby, but I’ve got 3 records out since then and they’re all successes — but not commercially…

There’s a lot of people in Minneapolis, but I know a White Buffalo when I see one.

From the Washington Times:

The White House is obviously not listening to the congressional uproar over Dubai Ports World. Lawmakers want to know why a federal panel allowed a state-owned United Arab Emirates shipping firm to pay $6.8 billion to acquire six major American ports — including critical ones in New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia — despite its home country’s glaring ties to international terrorism. But the White House is yawning.

The issue interrupted this week’s House Ways and Means Committee hearings on the budget, and Treasury Secretary John Snow’s non-answer — he explained to curt questioning from Rep. Mark Foley, Florida Republican, that the Commission on Foreign Investment in the United States followed its regular processes — simply won’t cut it. Yesterday, Stewart Baker, an assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security, asserted flatly that “We came to the conclusion that the transaction should not be halted.” National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said that it was “rigorously reviewed.” In other words, the White House considers it a done deal.

But why? Why must the United States let a state-owned firm from a hotbed of radicalism own the major ports of the Eastern seaboard? No one has answered this to our satisfaction.

Occam’s Razor states that the simplest logical answer is usually the correct one. In this case, it would indicate either that the adminstration is in favor of terrorism in the United States, presumably because it would allow the government to speed up its current centralization program, or that it knows for a certainty that turning over the ports to the Islamists will create no genuine risk to the American people.

In an old essay published in his Apocalypse Postponed collection, Umberto Eco wrote about the symbiotic relationship between government and terrorist. He was writing about the European governments and the Red Brigades at the time, but the same logic appears to be increasingly at work here in the United States.

I’m not impressed by those who aren’t willing to at least consider the possibility that American presidents are less than perfectly loyal to their country. Clinton was in bed with China, Bush appears to be even more closely bound to his Wahhabist friends. I’m quite open to listen to alternative explanations, but instead, all I ever hear are assertions of how impossible it is that the current administration could possibly have anything but the best interests of the American people at heart. Even the most staunch Three Monkey must admit, in the face of overwhelming evidence, that the president has proven to be utterly disloyal to the Constitution he swore to defend.

This is, of course, laughable to anyone who has studied a decent amount of history and knows how unusual it is for any government of any type to harbor even a minimal amount of concern for its population, so long as they remain passive.

Only the sexy people:

Not only are physically unattractive teenagers likely to be stay-at-homes on prom night, they’re also more likely to grow up to be criminals, say two economists who tracked the life course of young people from high school through early adulthood.

“We find that unattractive individuals commit more crime in comparison to average-looking ones, and very attractive individuals commit less crime in comparison to those who are average-looking,” claim Naci Mocan of the University of Colorado and Erdal Tekin of Georgia State University.

Mocan and Tekin analyzed data from a federally sponsored survey of 15,000 high-schoolers who were interviewed in 1994 and again in 1996 and 2002. One question asked interviewers to rate the physical appearance of the student on a five-point scale ranging from “very attractive” to “very unattractive.”

These economists found that the long-term consequences of being young and ugly were small but consistent. Cute guys were uniformly less likely than averages would indicate to have committed seven crimes including burglary and selling drugs, while the unhandsome were consistently more likely to have broken the law.

So much for that “you are beautiful, no matter what they say” theory. Then again, pop music has never been the most reliable of life guides.

Houston’s police chief is suggesting putting surveillance cameras in apartment complexes, downtown streets and even private homes.

So, you still think the police are on your side? Do you still think it’s just a problem of “a few bad apples”? Never forget, one can’t have a police state without the police.

Sure, the good ones may be dedicated to fighting crime. But who defines what is and is not a crime? And at the end of the day, the “good” policeman is going to follow his orders, regardless of what they might be.

From the Washington Times:

Commercial photos show Chinese nuke buildup

Commercial satellite photos made public recently provide a new look at China’s nuclear forces and bases — images that include the first view of a secret underwater submarine tunnel. A Pentagon official said the photograph of the tunnel entrance reveals for the first time a key element of China’s hidden military buildup. Similar but more detailed intelligence photos of the entrance are highly classified within the U.S. government, the official said.

This reminds me of our 9/11 response. After being attacked by Saudi jihadist led by a wealthy Saudi, we invaded Iraq. Now the second-largest military power and a self-declared enemy of the United States is building up its nukes, so naturally we’re preparing to attack Iran.

I never thought I’d say it, but this administration makes the Clinton administration look almost sane.

It’s beginning to look like someone is planning to take advantage of an occupied American military, doesn’t it? No doubt if we do attack Iran and the attack goes awry thanks to China pulling something, the media will be full of stories about how no one could possibly have seen it coming and so forth.

Whatever.

A good Frater drinks to the deceased:

Interesting news. A pill designed to kill is doing just that–to the women who take it. The unusual and sudden deaths of four California women after they took the abortion pill RU-486 has prompted the federal government to hold a daylong scientific meeting on the topic in May.

So they are trying to off their baby and get offed themselves in the process?

(Seinfeld voice) That’s a shame. *takes swig of juice*

I wonder if the federal government would also be moved to hold a meeting if other filicidal killings went similarly awry, a partial-birth abortion, for example. “Yah, I meant to jab the scissors in the kid’s head, but I slipped and got her femoral artery by mistake. That’s a shame!”

I find the whole “coathanger” theme that one still occasionally sees at abortionette rallies to be downright amusing. I feel less sympathy for the largely mythical pre-1973 “victims” than I do for those Waffen SS death camp guards who were lined up against a wall and machine-gunned by American soldiers in clear violation of the Geneva Convention. At least the Waffen SS were acting on orders, the abortionettes simply want to kill children on behalf of their momentary desires.

Anyone who thinks that God is inclined to bless America these days can’t be paying much attention to His attitude towards those who sacrifice children and otherwise abuse them. I’m no prophet, but if I had to place a bet, it would be a heavy one on the side of judgment, not blessing.

Chris wonders about the line:

OK, I have a question, or maybe more of an issue that I think is somewhat worth addressing…I love Vox’s irreverence, however I sometimes wonder if it crosses the line into unwholesome talk. I’ve witnessed it in the posts of others claiming to be Christians, and I’ve been guilty of it myself, both here and in the daily verbal conversations I have….

I’m just wondering out loud what is the line, for a Christian, between healthy irreverence and unwholseome talk. Do we do damage to our credibility when we cross the line?

I’m sure it does cross that line from time to time. It’s not something that I do intentionally, and I definitely find it annoying when my chance use of a vulgarism immediately inspires ten or twelve comments remniscent of elementary schoolkids thinking that they’re getting away with something. Everyone draws their line in different places, mine tends to involve literal curses – evil maledictions and wishing ill on others – and not taking certain names in vain.

As for the question of credibility, that bothers me not at all. The reason is that when I consider those that the Christian community finds credible, I’d just as soon remain without it. If you believe that George Bush is a fine, upstanding leader, anointed by God, that Me So and the Littlest Chickenhawk are the leading voices of a new political revival and that Rick Warren is doing God’s work by leading the Christian community into battle against a dire threat to the planet, well, there’s almost nothing that I’m going to write that you’ll find credible, the occasional crassness notwithstanding.

Ironically, the leaders of the Bible were seldom the sort of men that we consider fine and upstanding citizens today, who provide a clean and credible example to the casual observer. Jesus Christ himself was remarkably sharp-tongued and critical; as a child I always wondered who the Sunday School leaders were talking about when they would laud how nice and meek he was. It made me wonder if they’d ever read the words in red.

Is it worse to describe someone as a “son of a bitch” than a “son of a viper”? I don’t think so. Is there something about the word “fuck” that is inherently awful? I rather doubt it. All I know that when I’m harboring great contempt for someone I am addressing, I am not the least bit crass but extremely polite instead.

From the New Oxford Review:

…why waste thousands of dollars on books that no one was going to buy? It was clear from the large “on sale” section that only a pitifully small number of books were ever purchased at their original price. The owners of Lobo’s were apparently wasting a lot of money on gay novels and works of gay history, when all the real money was in pornography. But the money spent on books wasn’t wasted. It was used to purchase a commodity that is more precious than gold to the gay rights establishment. Respectability. Respectability and the appearance of normalcy. Without that investment, we would not now be engaged in a serious debate about the legalization of same-sex “marriage.” By the time I lived in Austin, I had been thinking of myself as a gay man for almost 20 years. Based on the experience acquired during those years, I recognized in Lobo’s a metaphor for the strategy used to sell gay rights to the American people, and for the sordid reality that strategy concealed.

After spending two years in the music industry signed to a record label run by a gay couple and often working out Friday nights in a downtown gym prior to hitting the night clubs, I am probably a little more familiar with gay culture than most straight Christians. The VQPF are no doubt more informed on the issue, but I suspect they will likely agree with me that the portrait painted by Ronald Lee is, by and large, an accurate one.

The problem of the Christian is how to meet this challenge. I suspect it is easier for many Christians to accept a repentant murderer or an adulterer than a thief or a homosexual, because the first two sins speak more of a momentary action while the latter two tend to be seen as states of being. But if homosexuality is viewed as a specific temptation towards which an individual harbors a prediliction rather than an identity, it is perhaps easier for both the tempted and the one who does not endure that temptation to understand and deal with.

Of course, the problem does not solely lie with the Church. Unrepentant sinners are neither asking for forgiveness and acceptance, nor do they merit it. This is as true for queers as it is for thieves or adulterers. But this necessary refusal to condone behavior does not require hate or even dislike, indeed, I find it much more reasonable to loathe those forms of sin which destroy others than those which are predominantly self-destructive.

As Camille Paglia points out in Sexual Personae, the world of the male homosexual is a coldly Apollonian one, cruel and proud in its devotion to youth and beauty. Those subject to its harsh chains may deserve our disapprobation, but they merit our pity as well.

The recently departed, unlamented Soup attempts to comment post-ban:

“It’s a bit amusing that you would attempt to ban me from your blog simply for being honest.”

I’m not attempting anything. As Scintan correctly predicted, I’m doing it. The mysteries of dynamic IP are not beyond me, but rather than deleting comments that are made using a different IP address, I prefer to line them out in order to bear witness how one is attempting to patronize a place where it has been made abundantly clear that one is unwanted.

Soup’s fevered imagination notwithstanding, he was not banned for being honest. He was banned for being boorish and boring, for repeatedly ignoring warnings about cross-posting and for repeatedly insulting Spacebunny.