Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

You may not have heard a lot about it here in the United States yet, but over in the United Kingdom, it’s whopping big news: Prime Minister Tony Blair, before he leaves office in disgrace, is trying to push legislation through Parliament that would build a new generation of nuclear weapons for the British government to use.

It’s bizarre psychology, isn’t it? Tony Blair gets so hyper about rumors that Saddam Hussein is trying to develop nuclear weapons that Blair joins with kook-in-arms George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq, even though there is no good evidence to substantiate the rumors, which turn out to be bogus. But then, a few years later, Tony Blair engages in exactly the same behavior that he said made Saddam Hussein an unacceptable danger.

Many Britons are expressing their outrage at Tony Blair’s efforts to build a new generation of Trident nuclear missiles. The outraged include members of Parliament in Tony Blair’s own political party. Two Labor MPs, Jim Devine and Nigel Griffith resigned from their positions in Parliament in protest of Blair’s nuclear weapons plans.

The vote in Parliament’s House of Commons over whether to build new nuclear weapons is scheduled for tomorrow, but today, Greenpeace UK sent a clear message today, unfurling a gigantic banner outside of Parliament today that reads, “Blair loves weapons of mass destruction.”

Among those British celebrities opposing the vote to build more Trident nuclear weapons is Emma Thompson. Golly, isn’t she great?

For what seems like years, NPR has been broadcasting a series of commentaries entitled This I Believe. It’s supposed to be an opportunity for people to write about, and then read on air, what they believe.

The trouble with This I Believe is that the people who contribute commentaries for the series affect a writerly indirectness that manages to sound contrived and vague at the same time.

This morning, for example, the This I Believe segment was about the writer’s widowed mother, who learned to pump gas, and her friend, who sat waiting for her dead husband to drive the car for a few minutes before driving herself, and the writer herself, who proudly declares that she knows how to pump gas because she didn’t get married until after she turned 40 – as if women who get married in their 20s don’t pump their own gas.

The point was… uh… I have no idea what the point was. I don’t know what the writer really believes, and I don’t think that the writer does either. The whole thing was memoirish, skirting towards suggestions of issues, and then racing away from them just as fast.

This I Believe feels like a self-absorbed pose. It might as well be entitled This I Like To Think About Myself.

I’m going to start my own series, I think, entitled, This Makes Me Want To Turn Off NPR

An article from the Associated Press reports that the diplomatic delegations from Iran and the United States hurled insults at each other during an international conference about the mess in Iraq.

“In their first direct talks since the Iraq war began, U.S. and Iranian envoys traded harsh words and blamed each other for the country’s crisis Saturday at a one-day international conference that some hoped would help end their 27-year diplomatic freeze.”

I think this is great!

It’s three decades overdue, but it’s definite progress to get representatives of the governments of Iran and the United States in the same room, getting peeved at each other.

Better to hurl an insult than to hurl a spear. Better to drop an innuendo than to drop a bomb.

Maybe we could replace war with a new kind of international conflict – a put-down battle. Whichever side was able to insult the other side with most originality and wit would win the conflict…

… and then both sides could sit back down and have a more civilized discussion of the problems between them.

That, or a tournament of laser tag between the top leaders of the competing nations.

Learned this the other day in one of my Hort. classes….very disturbing to a certain extent. My little house is a 748 sq ft bungalow with a 2 car garage about the same size. When I got done with this equation, my total water shed for 1 in. of rain was 932 gallons, times that by my areas total rain fall and we got roughly 26,000 gallons for the whole year. How does your home/workplace fair? Plug in your numbers below and you’ll have a jaw dropper just like I did.

Okay,

I wish I could say that I heard the news this morning with disbelief. Sadly, it’s become all too believable.

The Democrats in the House of Representatives have come up with a plan to end the war a year and a half from now.

Look, this plan is better than not ending the war at all, but why have it end a year and a half from now? I mean, if the Iraq War needs to be ended because it isn’t working now, what good will it do to have the war go on for another year and a half? What possible good could be accomplished from that?

Nothing good for the soldiers trapped over there. Nothing good for Iraq.

Something very good for the Democrats. See, the deadline to have American soldiers out of Iraq would be September 2008. Think hard now. What else is happening in the autumn of 2008?

That’s right: The elections. It’s not just the presidential election time. It’s also time for congressional elections.

So, the last American soldiers would leave Iraq just in time for Democrats to get credit for ending the war, but not with enough time for the Democrats to be blamed if things go to hell in a handbasket as a result.

This plan is an example of political maneuvering of the worst kind.

I want the war to end, just like most Americans do. I do not want the war to be stretched out a year and a half more by the Democrats for the sake of political gain.

Nancy Pelosi ought to be ashamed of herself.

I would like to create a database of people who are connected.  These people are the ones who feature in our press.  These people seem “connected” and seem to have special treatment.  People like Cherie Blairs relations and friends or Tony Blairs relations and friends.

It would be very interesting to find out information about these people as they are at the top of the tree in our society. We could use them as role models or hate models depending on your particular system of values.

I would like this database to be a visual one with little spidersweb joining each one to others.

Just how connected are the likes of Paris Hilton and Gordon Brown

The people connected through business would be interesting.

What do you think of this idea.  I will be able to contribute to the computing aspect in June (presently enrolled in a study course) but require a connected person to supply the content.

I have had it up to here with the Democratic wishy washy wimpy whining about Republicans and the war in Iraq.

I read the headline today: Democrats to push for Iraq timetable.

Oh, the Democrats are going push now? Oh really? Gee, but haven’t they been saying that for a long while now? As I remember it, the Democrats started doing what they call “pushing” for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq way back in 2003.

Here’s what the Democratic Party’s version of “pushing” is: Hey, President Bush, you really ought to not have the war in Iraq be quite so big, so could you please not send so many American soldiers to die in a vain cause? Oh, ten or twenty thousand less would be okay with us, and we’d probably negotiate on that. We’re offering a non-binding resolution to officially make this request, not that there will be any consequences if you decide to say no. Did we mention impeachment is off the table? We wouldn’t want to be divisive or anything, after all. We’d hate to actually have to take action to end the war, so we’re writing you yet another mutli-billion dollar check to pay to continue the war. Do you need more? If so, just ask. So, in short, let’s Support Our Troops and Win the War on Terror. Yippee!”

With this kind of “pushing” to end the war, my grandchildren might see American soldiers leave Iraq.

I am sick and tired of hearing Democratic politicians tell me that we can’t really push too hard right now, and that we just need to wait until after the next election. It’s a broken record, and out of tune.

I’m issuing a timetable of my own: A timetable for the Democrats to get some backbone. If the Democrats in Congress won’t actually do something to end the war in Iraq by the end of this month, I’m leaving the Democratic Party.

CNN recently reported on the discovery of previously unknown species that were living underneath Antarctic ice shelves – but what aren’t they telling us about this discovery?

What the scientists found would shock anybody – if only they had the full story. In the entire CNN story, only two sentences mentioned the scientists’ discoveries about sea cucumbers. Why?

Here’s what CNN decided to include: “groups of sea cucumbers were observed moving together, all in one direction.”

What CNN’s editors decided not to tell you is where those groups of sea cucumbers were going. All those groups of sea cucumbers, all moving in a single direction, were on a path that leads, eventually, straight to Manhattan!

Anyone who knows anything about marine biology knows that sea cucumbers are scavengers. Call me excessively curious, but when huge hordes of ocean-going scavengers start heading toward the most important city in the United States, all at once, I’ve got to wonder why. Those sea cucumbers have obviously got some pretty clear ideas about what’s going to happen to New York City in the near future, and have decided, with their cold little invertebrate minds, that there will soon be a lot of food for them in gotham waters.

What do those sea cucumbers know that we don’t know, and why aren’t we being told about it?

John has a good suggestion:

“I have an idea I like to call Volunteer Russia. It means that those Americans who want to have their postal mail and email read, who will allow themselves to be placed under surveillance, have their phone conversations listened to, those Americans who are willing to give up some of their rights in order to be detained and interrogated and not charged with anything in the name of national security have the right to submit their names to the government as open citizens. If they want to live in the Soviet Union, why should any of us stop them?

I think that’s fair.”

Any takers?

A post was made here earlier today at the Irregular Times Diaries by someone calling herself lilmiss. Lilmiss wrote that we ought to vote for John McCain for President in 2008 because McCain is a man “who will stand his ground”.

Stand his ground? John McCain? Sadly, Senator McCain is more like a man who ground his stand.

Senator McCain’s stand used to be that he was against torture. Sadly, in 2006, John McCain ground that stand to a pulp when he voted for the Military Commissions Act.

John McCain did a classic flip flop when he supported the Military Commissions Act. You see, John McCain was against it, before he voted for it.

First, John McCain made a big deal about how he could never support the Military Commissions Act because it legalized torture, and he would never, ever support that. Then, he Mccain met with George W. Bush to negotiate an acceptable compromise. McCain emerged with what he said was a compromise that would not allow torture, but then, over the weekend, the Senate Republicans changed it all right back so that torture would be legalized by the new law once again.

Then, John McCain voted for it anyway. John McCain voted for torture.

John McCain talks about principles, and doing what’s right, but talk is cheap. Watch what John McCain actually does. When the going gets tough, John McCain grounds his stand.