I’m not a techie. No one ever mistook me for an IT guy. But, just from an outsider’s perspective, I’ve got to wonder at the wisdom of America Online’s decision to call its new software OpenRide.

AOL is famous for producing software that’s easy to crack. Isn’t the new name sort of an invitation to hackers?

Why didn’t they just name it EasyTarget or SittingDuck?

Right wing Christians love to claim that their narrow religious perspective defined the American identity at the beginning of our nation’s history. Richard Klein of The 700 Club writes, “At the dawn of American history, the faith of our founding fathers was intricately woven into the very fabric of this nation’s freedom.”

Is it so? Don’t take Klein’s word for it. Consider the words of somebody who was actually there, and took part in the founding of the United States of America.

“One set of preachers make salvation to consist in believing. They tell their congregations, that if they believe in Christ, their sins shall be forgiven. This, in the first place, is an encouragement to sin, in a similar manner as when a prodigal young fellow is told his father will pay all his debts, he runs into debt the faster, and becomes the more extravagant. Daddy, says he, pays all, and on he goes. Just so, in the other case, Christ pays all, and on goes the sinner.”

These are the words spoken by Thomas Paine, in his work entitled Age of Reason.

Thomas Paine didn’t agree with the faith-based morality of Richard Klein. He didn’t agree with Klein’s boss, Pat Robertson. Thomas Paine did not agree that a personal relationship with Jesus was a coupon that enables the bearer to freedom from moral responsibility.

Thomas Paine didn’t agree with those who wanted to use the power of government to coerce people to participate in religion. As Paine saw it, faith was not intricately woven into the very fabric of this nation’s freedom. Paine believed that fanatical faith was a threat that could prevent Americans from taking responsibility for the direction of their own nation. He believed that reliance solely on faith would lead to moral corruption, not salvation.

Thomas Paine wanted us to use our reason, not our faith, to guide America into freedom.

Phillip Harring, aka Phil “Nuke Fallujah” Herring, aka “The Fish” writes to us in the melodious tones of love:

Your web site is a joke i feel bad for you it’s because of war that you are able to keep a shit ass web site up if you don’t like what the USA is doing then you are more than welcome to leave!!!

America Land of the Free If you don‘t like it you are free to LEAVE
Liberals: Have you Hugged Sadaam Today?
Anti-War = Pro Terrorism
Bomb Iran Now
Boycott France
Nuke Fallujah!
Fight Evil Now Prevent Attacks on America
Peace & Prosperity Suck — Big Time
Peace Through Superior Firepower
Give WAR a Chance!
Give France Back To Germany!
Sometimes War is the only Answer
Why are Peace Activists so Violent?

Gosh, Mr. Harring, I’ve been trying to book my flight to Sweden for weeks now, but they say I can’t bring liquid on the plane, and since I’m about two thirds water, I just don’t know how to manage it. I also tried to hug Saddam today, but again, I’d have to book a plane flight, and being a whiny, hand-wringing liberal, I just can’t dessicate myself enough. Why don’t you send on some more of your suggestions? They sure are helpful.

George W. Bush spoke today to the American Legion Convention:

The Iraqian regime denies basic human rights to millions of its people.

And the Iraqian regime is pursuing nuclear weapons in open defiance of its international obligations. We know the death and suffering that Iraq’s sponsorship of terrorists has brought, and we can imagine how much worse it would be if Iraq were allowed to acquire nuclear nations.

Many nations are working together to solve this problem. The United Nations passed a resolution demanding that Iraq suspend its nuclear enrichment activities. Today is the deadline for Iraq’s leaders to reply to the reasonable proposal the international community has made.

If Iraq’s leaders accept this offer and abandon their nuclear weapons ambitions, they can set their country on a better course. Yet, so far, the Iraqian regime has responded with further defiance and delay.

It is time for Iraq to make a choice. We’ve made our choice. We will continue to work closely with our allies to find a diplomatic solution, but there must be consequences for Iraq’s defiance, and we must not allow Iraq to develop a nuclear weapon.

You know, the thiqg that really gets me about Bush’s claims is that…

oh, haqg on. It looks like I’ve got a sketchy keyboard issue here… OK, I fixed it. To read that statement correctly, wherever there’s an “Q”, just put in a “N” and you’ll be fine. Otherwise, the statement is exactly the same.

While September 1 Impeachment Day vigils appear to be anemically organized in the physical world, there is a reasonably broad virtual Impeachment Day demonstration that will occur online, also on September 1. Starting at noon tomorrow, for a period of 24 hours, the following websites will have the single word “Impeach” appear on their front page in white text on a black background:

You can see Irregular Times is among those websites participating. Our front page will indeed be black, with the text “Impeach Bush” appearing starting at noon tomorrow. There will be a link at the bottom of the page to get through to the rest of the website. I’ll write down some of my thoughts on impeachment-related issues tomorrow.

Since I last wrote about attempts by afterdowningstreet.org to organize September 1 — that’s tomorrow — as a National Impeachment Day, the number of planned vigils has increased somewhat, from 7 vigils to 13. Moving from west to east across the country, the planned Impeach Bush vigils are:

West Hollywood, CA: Corner of San Vicente and Santa Monica Boulevards, 7:00 pm. People signed up online to attend: 0.

El Cajon, CA: Corner of Main and Claydell, 7:00 pm. People signed up online to attend: 2.

Taos, NM: Taos Plaza, 4:30 pm. People signed up online to attend: 0.

Lakewood, CO: 6th Avenue and Simms, 6:00 pm. People signed up online to attend: 5.

Rapid City, SD: unspecified, 4:00 pm. People signed up online to attend: 1.

Lindsborg, KS: 135 1/2 N Main St, 7:00 pm. People signed up online to attend: 0.

Cedar Falls, IA: Overman Park W. 2nd between Clay & Franklin, 6:30 pm. People signed up online to attend: 0.

Ann Arbor, MI: 200 E Liberty, 5:00 pm. People signed up online to attend: 2.

Decatur, GA: intersection of Medlock Road, N Decatur Road and Scott Blvd, 5:00 pm. People signed up online to attend: 4.

Durham, NC: Corner of NC 54 and NC 55, 5:00 pm. People signed up online to attend: 1.

Silver Spring, MD: Randolph Rd. & New Hampshire Ave., 6:00 pm. People signed up online to attend: 2.

Mt. Holly, NJ: In front of Rep. Jim Saxton’s Office, 100 High Street, Suite 301, 7:00 pm. People signed up online to attend: 0.

Hyannis, MA: In front of Rep. Bill Delahunt’s Office, 146 Main Street, 3:00 pm. People signed up online to attend: 1.

Especially if there is local offline organization, there may be many more people to attend these events than is indicated online. Even if this is not the case, your attendance could double the number of people at the vigil. What a good marginal rate of return for your investment in time, yes?

Let’s be honest: Representative Henry Waxman is no looker. But looks aren’t everything: as ranking member of the House Government Reform Committee, Rep. Waxman has the power to commission investigative reports on a variety of government shenanigans and their consequences. Waxman has employed his power with skill and to great effect, bringing to the light of day a series of shady dealings that abuse authority and undermine the rule of law.

One of Waxman’s best attributes is his long memory. Remember 2003? That was the year that members of the House of Representatives voted to pass H.R. 1 into law. In so doing, 209 Republicans and 9 Democrats acted to prohibit the government from negotiating with pharmaceutical corporations to reduce Medicare drug prices. Negotiation of contracts is one of those things that conservatives are supposed to love. But as we now know, the Republicans are no conservatives. Waxman’s office has released a report which shows that under the new system passed by those 209 Republicans and 9 Democrats, Medicare drug prices are 80% higher than in federal programs under which the government is free to negotiate prices. The government could save considerable money, Waxman shows, if it were to buy its Medicare drugs at Costco.

Thanks to these 209 Republicans and 9 Democrats, big pharmaceutical companies have rack up profits, an unnecessary burden has been added to the federal budget, the federal budget deficit has been increased, and the inevitable bill that we taxpayers will have to pay has been bloated. The Medicare bill is an example of really horrible government. But now it’s 2006, and as members of the House stand for re-election, it time for them to be held accountable for their actions. Wise challengers will raise the Medicare debacle as a prime example of the corrupt incompetence that necessitates a changing of the guard.

In this morning’s Columbus Dispatch, an article (no online version is available) reported on a TV advertisement opposing Deborah Pryce’s bid to be re-elected to the House of Representatives in Ohio’s 15th District. The ad points out that Representative Pryce was one of those who voted to enact the Medicare debacle as law. Deborah Pryce couldn’t be bothered to respond to the charge herself. She’s too busy on congressional recess, raising money from the well-heeled of Upper Arlington. But her spokesman, George Rasley did respond. His rebuttal? The people who put together the advertisement are “far-left”. This is a typical sort of ad hominem response from a campaign that cannot manage a substantive response.

It just so happens that in the 2003-2004 election cycle, Rep. Pryce received about twice as much in campaign contributions from special interest committees as she received from actual people. You can click here to review for yourself the thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars Rep. Pryce received in particular from big medical-pharmaceutical corporate interests. But none of that matters to the Pryce campaign, apparently. You heard it from Pryce’s horse’s ass: apparently, fiscal responsibility is now “far-left.” Opposition to corporate kickbacks is “far-left.” Responsibility in government is “far-left.” Accountability is “far-left.” If those are the standards of being “far-left,” then we all should be happy to be called so. If only Deborah Pryce had the courage in 2003 to make a “far-left” stand for responsibility and economic good sense, we wouldn’t be in quite so much of a pickle today. But no, Rep. Pryce, 208 fellow Republicans, and 9 Democrats decided to act in the “moderate” fashion of attending more to their corporate paymasters than to their tax-paying constituents. Someone who bums cash off the corporate greedheads and runs their errands is nothing more than a running bum. It’s time to throw the bums out.

The generational passions of the Baby Boomers and their coincidence with the antiwar movement of the 1960s continue to shape the movement for peace today. Music was groovy. Peace was groovy. It didn’t take much of a leap for a strange association to be created - music is peace!

I remember the aftermath of this free association from the 1970s. I believe in music. I believe in love. The idea was that if we could all just teach the world to sing in perfect harmony, then we’d all live in peace… and buy a Coke.

It was a fuzzy association between art and peace to start with, and it’s become more fuzzy over time. Now the generation that was going to change everything by being groovy and singing is the generation that is teaching our children. So, we arrive at Pinwheels for Peace.

The idea of the Pinwheels for Peace project came from two art teachers. Through the project, children across America will decorate pinwheels with art on one side and words about peace on the other. Then, the pinwheels will be set in the ground as a statement about the importance about peace.

The organizers of the project tell us that the “spinning of the pinwheels in the wind will spread thoughts and feelings about peace throughout the country, the world!”

But, will it? This seems like the idea of prayer flags to me. Scribble some stuff on a piece of cloth, let it flap in the wind, and it becomes so… only it doesn’t really.

What will a passer-by see? A bunch of pinwheels, spinning so fast that any message about peace will become a blur.

Besides, what counts as peace in the Pinwheels for Peace project? Well, that’s as blurry as the word “Peace” spinnning around and around 30 times a minute. The Pinwheels for Peace organizers tell us, “This is not political. Peace doesn’t necessarily have to be associated with the conflict of war, it can be related to violence/intolerance in our daily lives, to peace of mind. To each of us, peace can take on a different meaning, but, in the end, it all comes down to a simple definition: a state of calm and serenity, with no anxiety, the absence of violence, freedom from conflict or disagreement among people or groups of people.”

Wha huh? Peace is a freedom from disagreement? So then, disagreeing with war is a strike against peace? Peace is serenity, just feeling groovy?

Okay, I’m in a cynical state of mind this morning. I admit it. There surely is some value to getting children to think about peace for long enough to scribble something with crayon on a piece of paper. But come on, now. How much difference will it make to tell children that peace can mean anything they think it means, and the main way to achieve peace is just to make something pretty to flutter in the wind and not disagree with anyone?

It’s far out, that’s for sure.

It’s a move that would make the Grimm Brothers take notice. The big bad wolf is back, but this time, crying wolf is a celebration, not a warning.

Germans are delighted that wolves have finally returned to their nation, after a long, long absence. A group of wolves has moved into the state of Brandenburg from Poland, and are being protected by local officials.

It’s strange to note that the Nazis only rose to power after the real German wolves were wiped out. It leads one to wonder if a nation becomes more predatory when its natural predator animals are subdued.

Naaah. That’s a bit much of a stretch even for me to make. Still, it’s great news.

Who’s afraid? Take a lesson, America. The government there is offering cash compensation for animals destroyed by the wolves, and so locals have no problems with the return.

Is Jesus coming today?

If so, have you bought him a nice welcoming gift?

Consider FIFA Soccer 2006, a thoughtful gift for sports-loving saviors of all sorts. You can get it for the PC, Playstation 2, Xbox and GameBox, ensuring fun play no matter what the Lord’s choice in gaming hardware might be.

Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord!

Now there’s a name: they’re calling it Wordoku. As in Bible Wordoku, Weekly Bible Wordoku, and … oh, dear, someone needs to stake a secular wordoku claim, no? Well, whatever you call it, it’s time for another liberal political sudoku, the logic puzzle with a hidden word and a meaningful clue.

Click here for a printable version of the twenty-first in Irregular Times’ ongoing series of liberal political sudoku. As in classic sudoku, the object of liberal sudoku is to fill in a 9×9 grid so that each member of a set of nine symbols appears once and only once in each column, once in each row, and once in each of nine smaller 3×3 sub-boxes. The twist with our political sudoku is to replace the numbers 1-9 with a set of nine letters. At the bottom of the puzzle is a clue, hinting at a name, a word, or a phrase related to liberal politics that appears in one of the rows or columns of the puzzle. Using the clue in combination with rules of logic, you should be able to fill in all the boxes and find the one possible solution.

If you need a bit of additional help solving the puzzle, here’s a clue: Appearing in this sudoku grid is the last name of the person who said this year on national television that “All of the science since 1999 has repudiated the idea that global warming caused by man-made gases — that’s methane and Co2- - is causing a global warming, and the end of the world is coming, and the icecap is going to melt and all these things.”

Our newest liberal sudoku puzzle is ready for you to print out and solve. Go to it!

Mother Davis writes a new item down next to pencils and protractor and explains,

At the end of August, parents across America are busy going shopping for back to school items for their kids. They get the academic materials, to be sure, but they also know it’s important for their children to have the right clothes so that they can survive socially. Now, with the Iraq War going on and on without stop, I have a recommendation that may ensure the literal physical survival of school age children.

Earlier today, I noted Truman’s attention to the book Founding Myths by Ray Raphael. Following his link to the New Press web site, I found a lot of great books, but the one that stood out the most to me was 10 Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military, a short book put together by Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg.

If you’ve got a kid going off to high school this year, chances are that he or she will be targeted by a military recruiter willing to make all sorts of extravagant promises about the military life, regardless of reality. Don’t send your child off to school without any defense.

You, as the parent, should read this book first. Even more importantly, give it to your kids so that they’ll know the facts that military recruiters try to obscure.

Cindy Sheehan wrote the introduction to this book. She knows as well as anything what can happpen to a kid who is seduced by the military’s promises.

Closing her Trapper notebook,
Mother Davis

It’s like raaaain on your wedding day…

Chris Pirillo has drawn up a list of 10 Ways to Eliminate the Echo Chamber in the blogosphere. The phrase “Echo Chamber” refers to the tendency of an issue, once raised at a high-ranked blog, to bounce around all the other blogs until everybody is talking about the same thing, in pretty much the same way. It also refers to the unfortunate tendency for issues raised by lower-profile blogs to get little notice. The result is that high-profile bloggers all tend to end up saying the same thing and to remain relatively clueless about what more marginal people are talking about, while the marginal bloggers tend to be oriented second-hand to what the big kids write, and to have their original ideas ignored.

This is a really interesting problem (related to density and centrality in social networks, if you’re interested in a graph/matrix theoretical way of thinking about it), and Pirillo has some interesting suggestions for ways to avoid behavior that reinforces an echo chamber: stepping away from news aggregators for a week, forcing oneself to write something wholly original without blogosphere sources once a day, and so on (although three of his ten pointers are really the same idea — write new, non-linked material).

However, it’s got to be said that Chris Pirillo is an “A-list,” high-profile blogger (as you probably know, because he’s an A-list, high-profile blogger). And guess what? Everybody and their uncle is linking to him and talking about his ideas. There are seventeen trackbacks alone to Pirillo’s original post. The idea of an “Echo Chamber” has entered, and is bouncing about, the Echo Chamber.

And with this post, seventeen trackbacks becomes eighteen.

Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?

Two days ago, I found out that Columbus Public School District officials had given the OK to a blessing of Woodward Park Middle School and all its students, staff and faculty by four cooperating Christian Churches. Their reasoning: “anyone can walk onto the school grounds during the weekend” and do whatever they want.

My response:

Great! I know what I’m doing next Sunday (not Saturday — the whole city will be caught up in its other pantomime pretend playgroup, aka Ohio State Football). I’ll be walking onto the school grounds in order to dedicate Woodward Park Middle School to Satan (found in Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Islamic and Church of Satan religion) and his demonic underling, the diabolical Cthulhu (found in H.P. Lovecraft, Dungeons and Dragons and Overdecorated Dorm Rooms). I’ll put a letter in the newspaper asking everyone to come. Since Columbus Public Schools isn’t endorsing any one religion over another, this should be perfectly OK. Right?

Well, good news: the Columbus Dispatch says they’re inclined to print my letter of invitation. Maybe I’ll have some company. If you’re in the Columbus area and you’d like to come for a little Satan-Cthulhu mixer, I’ll be right outside Woodward Park Middle School (5151 Karl Rd.) at 2 pm this Sunday. We’ll have a cursorily curse-filled time.