More Carnivals: Early Modern...

Carnivalesque is a lot of fun; this edition is quite straightforward, but link-rich: read it carefully or you'll miss something interesting.

And, though the host is still sulking about the last time I linked to her (and there's a fair bit on these lists that was and is extremely popular, so that's not the problem. Did she read Rowling's recommendations there or is nobody permitted to suggest an actual curriculum when reading is concerned?), the Carnival of Literature is out. The entry on LabLit is definitely getting forwarded....

It's not technically a "carnival" but it's certainly a roundup: Betty Friedan has passed, and Avedon Carol has tributes to a great lady.

And: the First Radical Women of Color carnival is up. Eventually, there will be a carnival for everyone....

Anne Zook for...Anything!

Anne Zook is ranting again. In parts:

1 - Damn Those People -- In which Swiftian Sarcasm is applied liberally

The importance of humans in human society has been grossly over-exaggerated over the years and mindless corporate consumerism is what we all really aspire to anyhow.

We don't care if you tap our phones and read our e-mail as long as we can choose between four kinds of Bounty paper towels for our kitchens.
...
We can have a Federal government that's responsible for killing people overseas, spying on people here at home, and making sure the wheels stay greased for corporate donors interests everywhere. And, you know, transportation. But only if the unions get busted.

Education, healthcare, the environment, the poor, the elderly, animals, agriculture, civil rights, food safety, the FDA, energy research and safety, the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Labor, mine safety, national parks services, the EPA, and all of those other unimportant things can just...take care of themselves.

And individual states and communities can have what they want and can afford to pay for.

If Missouri doesn't have high-tech industry, they don't need internet access. If Mississippi doesn't have any jobs, they don't need labor rights. If Wyoming has more cows than people, they probably don't need any social services. If Kansas doesn't have any trees, they shouldn't have a say in logging issues (regardless of what deforestation does to the climate in states east of the west coast). If Oklahoma doesn't have any rain, they're not contributing to the country's water resources and don't deserve water rights.

Everyone who thinks Oklahomans should die of thirst because it hasn't rained there, raise your hand....

2 - What About Me? -- in which Anne discusses a positive platform for Public education, Right to privacy ("Even if I die in a brutal "terrorist attack" later today or tomorrow, never, ever torture anyone in my name." -- yeah, what she said), Labor and abortion and religious rights, open government (oh, yeah!) and isolationism (which I'd modify slightly to "non-imperialism" but I suspect I'm going to have to split a few hairs to make this case. Last time I tried that with Anne, she buzz-cut me, so to speak.).

3 - Operation Clean-Sweep -- In Spanish, that's Que Se Vayan Todos: They All Must Go.

We hire representatives to go to Washington and work on our behalf every day so that we have the time and leisure to take care of our personal lives.

We're angry. If they're not angry, they're not representing us.

They're representatives. If they're not representing us, they have to go.

Go read the whole thing.

Disability Roundup

Penny Richard's monthly disability blog roundup has some interesting stuff. Mostly troubling, but there's some fun stuff there, as well.

And congratulations to Anne Zook, for her return to full employment. Also, her comment on the shallowness of a lot of small government thinking is good.

First they came for the power companies...

...and nobody objected, not even when the bastards played games with prices and pollution controls.

Then they came for the schools, and nobody (but teachers) objected, not even when the students they turned out were no better and access got harder and harder.

Then the number of private security officers exceeded the number of uniformed police officers, and nobody objected because everyone wanted one of their own.

Then they came for the roadways and nobody objected because "it seemed like a good deal" mortgaging transportation access for three-fourths of a century in favor of some infrastructure now.

What's next, privately operated Courts?

What does it mean to "Support the Troops?"

Chris Bray was making fun of Michelle Malkin's call to support the troops, and the more I looked at it the more ticked off I got. Take this description from the non-profit Operation Air Conditioner

Operation AC has raised $2,876,392.00 and has sent 9,400 air conditioners, 14,500 heaters and $1,901,960.35 in Morale, Welfare and Recreation supplies to US troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not too bad for a soldier's mom and his family and YOU our contributors.

Operation AC has suspended sending air conditioners to our troops as of 9/1/05. We send combat boots, socks and wicking t-shirts now.
...
Logistics and Delivery of Air Conditioners is now a danger to our troops. I can not risk the lives of the civilians delivering the air conditioners nor can I put safety of our troops at risk by allowing the chain of custody of these electronic items to be compromised.

A. The US military can't or won't supply its own soldiers with adequate combat boots? Or socks?
B. The security situation is such that shipping air conditioners is a hazard? What does that mean?

Remember the old bumper sticker? "It will be a great day when schools have all the money they need, and the military has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber." Turns out it's not a great day: they never run out of bombers, but those who serve get turned into charity cases. I don't usually recommend that someone read Michelle Malkin, but look at her list. Bray's right that most of it doesn't really amount to much in the war effort, but I think that list itself is a deep indictment of the state of the US military.

A New Metric of Success: Iraq

What I said over at Anne Zook's place (with link and emphasis added):

I recently heard a report on NPR that heads up my (as yet uncompiled) personal "Most underreported stories" list: over a million Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries since the invasion, as a result of the civil war we won't admit is already going on. The brain drain alone -- someone's been targetting professsors, doctors, engineers, so they're getting out in large numbers -- will cripple Iraqi society for a generation. So WorldNuts can talk all they want about hours of electricity service in Basra: until Iraqis are more likely to be moving into Iraq than away from it, we've got no cause for particular pride at our sewage (so to speak) and paving projects

For more devastating numbers, try this report and ask yourself which way you'd be moving.

Petition for Cory Maye

I have learned, via Sideshow and in my comments that there is a new on-line petition for the pardon and release of the wrongfully convicted death-row inmate Cory Maye. I've had the information site in my sidebar for a while, but I think I'm going to raise the profile a bit, now.

Go, and sign. Because this really isn't a "close call" case; this is a "why do we have a death penalty again?" case.

Winging Media

Tom Toles got Told for Telling Truth should be the headline

The Toles cartoon shows a soldier, a quadruple amputee, in a hospital, being visited by a Dr. Rumsfeld who is scribbling on a form. Rumsfeld says, "I am listing your condition as battle hardened." At the bottom a smaller figure of the doctor adds, "I'm prescribing that you be stretched thin. We don't define that as torture."

For that, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent a letter of complaint. Not to Rumsfeld, silly, to Toles! That's our "freedom" they're defending, so shut up!

And Peter Daou has a great analysis of the right-wing bias of mainstream media focusing on the tendency to use tropes and language which implicitly and consistently praise one side. My favorite bit:

4.BEVAN: “The flip-flop label stuck to John Kerry because he got caught uttering one of the most stupefying phrases in election history ("I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it") which struck the American people as incontrovertible evidence that he was, in fact, a flip-flopper.

OK Tom, explain this:

• Bush is against campaign finance reform; then he's for it. • Bush is against a Homeland Security Department; then he's for it. • Bush is against a 9/11 commission; then he's for it. • Bush is against an Iraq WMD investigation; then he's for it. • Bush is against nation building; then he's for it. • Bush is against deficits; then he's for them. • Bush is for free trade; then he's for tariffs on steel; then he's against them again. • Bush is against the U.S. taking a role in the Israeli Palestinian conflict; then he pushes for a "road map" and a Palestinian State. • Bush is for states' right to decide on gay marriage, then he is for changing the Constitution. • Bush first says he'll provide money for first responders (fire, police, emergency), then he doesn't. • Bush first says that 'help is on the way' to the military ... then he cuts benefits • Bush: "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden." Bush: "I don't know where he is. I have no idea and I really don't care." .......

All that from a blog post that's almost two years old. There must be dozens more examples by now.

So again, who's the flip-flopper?

There's lots more, too. Once you've read that, go back to the beginning and read the whole thing.

Visions of the Prophet...

The Religious Policeman has, of course, been following the story of the Danish cartoons which were deemed offensive by some pretty hard-core Muslims (Update: Thanks to Eric Muller's unfortunate habit of reading and linking to a certain right-wing blogstar, I have found the cartoons.). He's posted an interesting roundup of other images of the Prophet, from South Park to Dante. He also, in that post, subtly answered my question, posted earlier in his comments

This is an interesting story. I'm trying to figure out exactly what's going on.

Do the Saudi newspapers (or authorities) not recognize the futility of indirect political/economic pressure on a free press? (They know about direct pressure, thanks to Rupert Murdoch's accomdating networks).

Are the Saudi authorities trying to avoid attention to something else, and if so, what? Hamas' victory? (and how IS that being reported? I'd like to know) Iraqi ... sucesses? Internal politics? Saudi concessions to EU or US interests?

How can this be resolved? Will it just die out, to be cited again whenever journalists go looking for "context" to later spats? Will it escalate to violence? Affect diplomatic relations?

It's clearly an overreaction, but the question is... why?

The answer, according to Alhamedi, is "to divert public attention from the regrettable demise of a small number of pilgrims in Makkah during the last Hajj." If he's right, it's working.

The Saudi-led "boycott" of Danish goods (their biggest export is probably Legos, actually, not beer or cheese, but don't quote me on that) has led to a "Buy Danish" campaign spreading rapidly through mostly right-wing sites (look it up yourself; I'm not going to link to them today).

Sepoy notes a serious disjunction between the cartoons and the "apology" (which Alhamedi notes is a typical "we're sorry you're offended" non-apology), but I think his second point that "this iconophobia needs to chill" is more to the point.

Manan Ahmed at Cliopatria has a very solid, evenhanded discussion of the historical and theological and political issues. That's what I was looking for.

History Carnival And...

It's the first of the month, which means Carnivals!

The Elfin Ethicist (one of the cooler names out there, to be sure) has put together a massive History Carnival: so much good stuff that they didn't use my entry! He does note, though that dueling is no longer an excuse for murder in the Netherlands. Too bad. I've always thought that a carefully constructed dueling law could take quite a strain off our court system....

In other odd news, the 2005 Stella awards for most egregiously abusive lawsuits are out. It's rogues gallery, to be sure.

The Carnival of the Vanities includes one of mine, this week, but don't let that scare you; it's near the bottom, with the rest of the political stuff. The host's top picks are interesting reading, actually, and the rest of it (I haven't read it all yet) is either pretty good or at least very well described. It's still kind of conservative heavy, but in a libertarian sort of way...

But, for the liberal antidote, the fifth Carnival of the Liberals is up! Twilight Zone theme, which means that the post descriptions are a bit obscure, but it looks good. (and I'm not just saying that because I'm in it!)

And the Skeptics' Circle this time around is in the form of a battlefield briefing! I'm deeply grateful to Brigadier Prometheus and the rest of the General Staff for enduring my charts, and I promise to continue to serve the division with honor and reason!