TIME

No, not the newsmagazine, the way things keep changing, and how they never change back. The "inexorable march of" thing, if it is a thing. the direction of which is defined by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Is it an illusion? Certainly we experience events in time, but to an objective observer (God?) are all events at any point in time just as real? Is it only from the way we experience events that they seem to happen in sequence? Why can't we go back (or forward) to experience events out of sequence? Will we be able to go back and/or forth when we understand the nature of time better? Why hasn't anyone come back to experience us yet? Or maybe they have? Is antimatter just matter going backwards? It looks that way in a Feynman diagram.

Living in the present (how can you avoid it?) does it really avoid the other times? Does the present moment include all three times (and if so are there nine times? the past, present and future in the past, the same three times in the present, and again in the future?) or does it exclude them? If the present, which so quickly becomes the past, is real, is not the past which it becomes just as real? Or is the present even real? If existence in time is not real, what is? Is there existence outside of time? If it is outside of the space-time continuum that we call the universe (i.e. all that exists) can we call it "existence" at all? How can we divide the present from the future and the past, when the future seems to slide as seemlessly into the present as the present does into the past? "Carpe Diem" sounds nice, but by the time we seize the day it disappears and becomes yesterday. Non-abiding is all we can do, and we must accept it.

Speaking of the space-time continuum, I wonder if there are other universes in which movement in time is free, but movement in a spatial dimension is constant, inexorable and unidirectional, as with what we experience as time in this universe. Would that spatial dimension become the functional equivalent of time? Is that what "time" in our dimension constitutes? From the outside, if there is an outside, is time another spatial dimension? What would the universe, experienced differently, "look" like? What does it look like experienced from outside of time, (assuming that there is an experience of that perspective)?

But why speculate about this? It is typically human to wonder about things we can never know. We humans think ourselves blessed by this faculty, and hope to have answers some day. Maybe instead of being blessed we are cursed with this, and will never know answers. I don't know. I only know that I have questions, but not their answers, and that there are worse things than speculating about these things. Maybe they are what life is all about, just questions, never any answers.

My favorite Jazz musician is no longer with us!

from e-jazz news:

Jazz pianist Alice Coltrane, widow of jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, died on Friday, January 12th at the West Hills Hospital near Los Angeles, California. She was 69.

Mrs. Coltrane was born Alice Lucille McLeod in Detroit, Michigan August 27, 1937. As a young girl, she studied classical piano and began playing organ in local churches. Bud Powell was one of her early teachers. She played piano with her brother, Ernest Farrow, in several Detroit clubs before moving to New York in the early 1960’s to pursue a career in jazz. There, while playing at Birdland with vibraphonist Terry Gibbs, she met John Coltrane. They later married, and she performed in his quartet beginning in 1966 until his death in July of 1967.

There's so much sadness in me right now. She has meant so much to me for so many decades now. There is a void that will not be filled, not for a long, long time. If you never heard her music, go to iTunes or someplace and listen. She took off where John ended, moving into beautiful Indo-Jazz fusion in the 1970s. She didn't record as much as I would have liked, but I have most of her albums. Now there will never be new music from her.

I'm sorry. I just want to be alone right now. Excuse me.

As usual Olbermann says it better!

Thanks, Keith. Keep up the good work.

Who favors the "death tax"?

Everyone who follows the issue knows that Warren Buffett favors the inheritance tax.

What most people don't know is that the whole thing was the brainchild of Andrew Carnegie, who convinced Theodore Roosevelt to push for it to be made law. Carnegie made his money himself, and thought that others should make their own money, not inherit it. Permanent dynasties would be bad for the American "land of opportunity" dream.

Carnegie gave his money back to society, and felt other millionaires should do the same. If they didn't the government should take the money. If they didn't want the government to take the money, they should give it to charities of their own choice.

Bush isn't sending more troops

Bush doesn't have more troops. He's not sending anyone who hasn't already been to Iraq, over and over and over. He's asking the troops who've already been there to do more, and more, and more. Bush is taking a military that's stretched to the breaking point, and he's trying to stretch them just a tiny little bit more. Just to see if they break? Or because those voices in his head (that he thinks are God) tell him to? Or because he hates the US government and wants to destroy it? Or because he's seriously stupid?

I don't know. I just know he's not sending any more troops. Not because the Democrats (and a lot of the Republicans) in Congress won't let him. Because he doesn't have any more troops to send to Iraq. He's just asking the troops he has to do more when they're already doing all they can. That's why more of his generals have left. The same generals whom he says he listens to and whose advice he says he follows.

The man needs to be impeached. Yesterday.

De mortuis nil nisi bonum

It's not hard to say nothing bad about Gerry Ford. He was a nice guy, a rarely honest man in a profession full of scoundrels. He was also my first Congressional representative.

Everyone else has given their respects and their eulogies, although I have yet to hear anyone mention Gerry's being the straight man on the old "Ev and Gerry Show" back in the 1960s. He and Senator Everett Dirksen led the Republicans in the Congress, and went on TV to give the regular Republican response to the Democratic presidents' press conferences.

I'd like to remember Gerry for something personal, though. One of my first political memories is of a tornado in the district, and how Gerry got federal aid to the victims. Ever since I was a little kid I had warm feelings about him, more so as I learned how atypical he was as a politician. I was very happy to see him become the first president who never campaigned for the office (or at least for Vice President) since George Washington, and I didn't find it strange that he, who had so little of the consuming ambition that makes and breaks politicians at every level, also became the first and only president who lost a war. He did what had to be done, and we are a better nation for everything he did for us. I never voted for him, but I listened carefully to everything he said and I always respected him.

They don't seem to make Republicans like that anymore, or many politicians of any party.

Celebrities and politics

I've always had mixed feelings about celebrities and politics.

I know many celebrities feel that promoting their opinions in public is bad for business. Politics and religion are always controversial and talking about them might alienate potential customers. Better to keep one's controversial opinions to oneself, and use the money to fund causes close to one's heart. But on to my own mixed feelings about celebrities and politics.

On the one hand they're entitled to their opinions, just like everyone else. And I suppose they are entitled to use their celebrity, if they want, to promote their opinions, just like other people use their money, or writing skills, or other abilities to promote their opinions. The real question is "Should they?"

Let me give two examples, from the right and from the left.

Jane Fonda was famous for her opposition to the war in Vietnam. She came to my university to speak against the war. I was the only person working against the war who spoke against her coming, not because I thought she was wrong to sit in the seat of a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun (although she was), but because she was not an expert on the history or politics of southeast Asia. What difference did it make what she thought? She was not someone was worth listening to about the topic.

I was over-ruled, not on the grounds that anyone respected her opinion (they didn't), but on the grounds that she would draw people to the forum. She did, but how much effect she had on any of them is open to question. We got some starry eyed people who were all agog that they had seen a REAL MOVIE STAR up close. (Big deal! I used to live in L.A. and I am NOT impressed. In fact I'm rather jaded about tourists hunting movie stars.) None of them seemed to pay any attention to what she, or anyone else, had to say about the war, and they crowded out people who came for information, and who would have come anyway. And I was impressed neither with Ms. Fonda's intelligence nor with the extent of her knowledge about the war, at least compared to those of a real expert. She had a right to her opinion, but I wasn't very impressed with it. I am impressed with her films, though. She's a great actress. I have to admit her body is very impressive too. She's kept it in very good shape since the 1960s.

The example I have from the right is Charlton Heston. He has become a spokesperson for the NRA, speaking against gun control. He is a more impressive speaker than Ms. Fonda. He's really got the Moses act down, although he's not much better at reading a script than Ms. Fonda. His movies are at least equally impressive as hers, but that's not why I'm writing this.

Many people told me that they thought Michael Moore had been unfair to him in "Bowling for Columbine" when he pestered him with questions at the end about gun control. I disagree. If Charlton Heston is going to be a spokesperson for the NRA he is going to have to take the tough questions. Unfortunately he couldn't take them. The NRA was unfair to have asked Mr. Heston to take on the task of being their spokesperson. He was a fool to accept. He wasn't qualified.

It's possible, at least theoretically, for a celebrity to be a good spokesperson and advocate for a cause. Maybe George Clooney is finally giving us an example in his campaigning for Darfur. But people have to remember that starring in a movie doesn't necessarily require brains (although it certainly doesn't preclude it, either, any more than having muscles precludes having brains.) Why should I listen to someone who starred in films about any issue other than acting? Why should I listen to a specialist in foreign affairs about their taste in films? No reason at all.

Bennett and Blacks

If you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down.

That would be an impossibly ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down,

(from CNN.com)

In all the months after Bill Bennett said that I haven't noticed anyone, even The Nation, point out what WOULD happen if we aborted every black baby in the United States. We'd just go back to having Irish criminals. My Irish history professor (no Hibernophile) gleefully claimed to have seen statistics that showed that "every petty thief in the British Isles has an Irish last name." Personally I wouldn't doubt it at all.

Almost immediately someone jumped on him to explain why the Irish, the street criminals of the British Isles, became the stereotyped policemen in the United States, arresting blacks, Puerto Ricans and others who occupied the same social category that the Irish had occupied in the British Isles.

Crime is caused by social conditions, not the existence or non-existence of certain racial and ethnic groups. Until the social conditions that cause crime change crime will continue, regardless of whether we get rid of certain ethnic or racial groups.

A victim of his last conversation?

from the LA Times:

Rice apparently believed that Bush would simply follow the advice of whoever he spoke with. Therefore the one factor determining whether Bush would support the commission was whether Cheney or Rice managed to get to him first.

I've heard Prince Charles described the same way, but no one lets him be the Decider.

Here's what was wrong with Bush from the beginning

He said it himself:

I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style.

For those who don't understand capitalism, a group which unfortunately includes the president, you don't spend capital. You invest it. That's what makes it capital, not money. You spend money, or you save it and it becomes capital. You invest capital. That's why savings = investment (S=I) in economics.

But this president doesn't understand economics, capitalism or capital, so he squandered all the political capital he got from 9/11 and his re-election, and now he is bankrupt. And the way he is running the United States, the country will be too, very soon.

Wes Clark's ideas for Iraq

It's hard to explain a new option in an op-ed format, but if anyone can do it, Wes Clark can.

Here's what he wrote for USA Today:

What about a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals? Today, setting a rigid, Washington-driven timetable is an option, but a bad one. A precipitous troop reduction could have far-reaching effects: emboldening Iran, weakening U.S. security promises to friendly states, and even sparking military initiatives by other powers — Turkey or Iran — to deal with the resulting security vacuum. Our weakened position in Iraq also could undercut our leverage in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

What about imposing a tripartite division of Iraq? That would merely feed ethnic cleansing and likely lead to a wider, more intense conflict.

The right approach is a coordinated diplomatic, legal, economic and security campaign drawing upon broader dialogue in the region and intensified political work inside Iraq.

Read the whole thing here.

It's official

from Forbes:

The war in Iraq has now lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in the war that President Bush's father fought in, World War II.

That's the War in Iraq, not the war against Usama bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida. Remember them? The people who attacked us on 9/11? The people Bush and Cheney and Rummy let get away?

The question is, what do we do about it?

George W. Bush's Resume

George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Past Work Experience

Ran for congress and lost.
Produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
Bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas; company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money. Biggest move: Traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox.
With father's help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas.
Accomplishments in Previous Positions

Changed pollution laws for power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the Union.

Replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog-ridden city in America. Cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money.

Set record for most executions by any governor in American history.

Became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of my father's appointments to the Supreme Court.

Accomplishments As President

Attacked and took over two countries.
Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.
Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
First president in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in U.S. history.
After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.
Set the record for most campaign fundraising trips than any other president in U.S. history.
In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.
Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in U.S. history.
Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in U.S. history.
Set the record for the least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.
Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in U.S. history.
Presided over the biggest energy crises in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
Presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.
Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
Dissolved more international treaties than any president in U.S. history.
My presidency is the most secretive and unaccountable of any in U.S. history.
Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history (the 'poorest' multimillionaire, Condoleezza Rice, has an Exxon oil tanker named after her).
First president in U.S. history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.
Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.
First president in U.S. history to order a U.S. attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation.
Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in U.S. history.
First president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the human rights commission.
First president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the elections monitoring board.
Removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in U.S. history.
Rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
Withdrew from the World Court of Law.
Refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
First president in U.S. history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. elections).
All-time U.S. (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
My biggest lifetime campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in U.S. history.
First president in U.S. history to unilaterally attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
First president to run and hide when the U.S. came under attack (and then lied saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1)
First U.S. president to establish a secret shadow government.
Took the biggest world sympathy for the U.S. after 9/11, and in less than a year made the U.S. the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in U.S. and world history).
With a policy of 'disengagement' created the most hostile Israeli-Palestine relations in at least 30 years.
Fist U.S. president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
First U.S. president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the U.S. than their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
Set all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated U.S. law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
Failed to fulfill my pledge to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive.'
Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capital building. After 18 months I have no leads and zero suspects.
In the 18 months following the 9/11 attacks I have successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.
Removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in U.S. history.
In a little over two years created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided the U.S. has ever been since the Civil War.
Entered office with the strongest economy in U.S. history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.
Records and References

At least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available)
AWOL from National Guard and deserted the military during a time of war.
Refuse to take drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father's library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All minutes of meetings for any public corporation I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
For personal references please speak to my daddy or uncle James Baker (they can be reached at their offices of the Carlyle Group for war-profiteering.)

Good take on Clark

There's a lot to be said about the fallacy of political pundits and conventional wisdom about Wes Clark, too much in fact.

and too much in the article for me to quote. I'll let you read "The Donkey in the Room" for yourself.

Not the greatest generation any more

Look at this sick sh*t:



And then Americans wonder why they hate us. The kids that grew up in the privation of the Great Depression went on to hand out candy and chocolate bars in Europe and Japan, making friends that helped us win the Cold War. Their grandchildren fighting in Iraq, against people who never attacked us and who might have been our friends, are busy making enemies that will haunt us longer than I care to predict.

Maybe this is an isolated incident, but I don't think so. The Iraqis greeted us as liberators. Now they hate us. Now you know why.

MSNBC won't print this

because it attacks someone else's comments about Wes Clark's op-ed about Iraq.

Gregg says:

"Iraq is far more complicated than any one of you here realize. If the politicians, think-tankers, Bush bashers and everyone none active military would get out of the way, the military could handle this situation ASAP."

Gregg, Iraq is far more complicated than YOU realize. That's why we need someone who does understand it to sort it out. Could you have even found it on a map before we invaded?

BTW, you contradict yourself when you complain that Wes Clark didn't win wars, but ask everyone else to get out of the military's way. The military already won in Iraq, but Wes Clark realizes that war is more than a military problem. You don't. That's why he was a general and you weren't. And for the record I know someone who is being sent to Iraq. Just shared a beer with him AAMOF, and hope to see him again before he goes.

Why do these people hate the Constitution?

from MSNBC:

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The U.S. military called no witnesses, withheld evidence from detainees and usually reached a decision within a day as it determined that hundreds of men detained at Guantanamo Bay were “enemy combatants,” according to a new report.

and why pick on these people? If they are terrorists, there should be evidence. If they are not, they should be released. And if you have no evidence that they are terrorists, why do you believe them to be?

more from MSNBC:

Twenty-one first-year law students at Seton Hall University in Newark, N.J., analyzed the documents to create a database analyzed by eight second- and third-year students.

Among their findings:

* The government did not produce any witnesses in any hearing.
* The military denied all detainee requests to inspect the classified evidence against them.
* The military refused all requests for defense witnesses who were not detained at Guantanamo.
* In 74 percent of the cases, the government denied requests to call witnesses who were detained at the prison.
* In 91 percent of the hearings, the detainees did not present any evidence.
* In three cases, the panel found that the detainee was “no longer an enemy combatant,” but the military convened new tribunals that later found them to be enemy combatants.

“No American would ever consider this to be hearing,” Denbeaux said. “This is a show trial.”

Welcome to Stalinism, American style!

I'm back

I've been busy and I've been busy celebrating the Democratic victory when I wasn't busy otherwise. Maybe I should post a series of short pieces on introducing Islamic studies or something like that? Well, I'll post new messages as I have time.

I still am worried about our democracy, though. We need to do some things ASAP.

1. Get ballots with certifiable paper trails to confirm the voters' choices. The opinion polls very consistently overestimated the actual poll results as far as Democrats went. The obvious explanation to me is that the polls were rigged. Not enough to stop a Democratic landslide but enough to slow it down.

2. Repeal the noxious portions of the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act. I take my oath to defend the Constitution "against all enemies, foreign and domestic" very seriously.

3. Investigate the worst aspects of the Bush regime, to stop their crimes and promote the idea of impeachment. At the very least the public needs to know what the &%$#! has been going on in the Bush regime.

4. Try to change course in Iraq so that we're not going it alone any more. The options are so much worse than they were before or should be now.

5. GET BIN LADIN! Dead or alive. (But I'm not holding my breath waiting for the Commander in Chief to order that one.)

We are in very deep shinola here!

This is from the Military Times newspaper group editorial about Rumsfeld:

It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation’s current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.

Did you get that? Rumsfeld is losing control of the military.

So what is the solution? The Military Times group of Newspapers suggests that Rumsfeld be fired. I have long thought Rumsfeld should have been fired for many, many reasons, but the call for firing him to restore discipline in the military worries me. That would only whet the appetite of political generals in the military. We are lucky to have a nonpolitical military in the US, and to have civilian control of the military. We need to keep that more than almost anything.

What worries me about this editorial is the argument that the opinion of the majority of Americans is not important, but that the opinion of the generals is. That doesn't sound like civilian control.

To be fair, they ambiguously complain that Rumsfeld is losing control of the military, but their solution to his loss of control is to give more power to the top military brass, letting them decide who gets to give them orders.

It's been argued elsewhere that the Cheney gang is so adamant about retaining Rumsfeld because Bill Clinton let the generals (e.g. Wes Clark) call all the shots, and the new administration wanted to restore effective civilian control. I don't know. I do know we are in trouble here. It needs a steady hand. It needs someone who's got a history of strong military experience, and a strong committment to a nonpolitical military and civilian control. Maybe a retired, nonpolitical general?

Rumsfeld should be removed because (1) he has failed, and (2) he has lost the faith of the country at large. That he has lost the trust of the generals is incidental. They have a vote, like everyone else, but they don't have voice. Civil servants in general are "Hatched" but military personnel do not have the same rights of free speech as civilians. Nor should they. They are the core of the government. Lose control of the military and you lose the republic. There's no crossing the Rubicon in reverse. It's that simple.

I thought it would have been Boykin!

How did I miss this? I've been away too long, I guess. But the news is just getting too surreal for my taste.

MIAMI (AFP) - The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God. "He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

OK, the guy is under Rummy in the chain of command, so he'd better say nice things about him, but "the good Lord tells him is best for our country"?!? I thought military were supposed to sign oaths to defend the Constitution of the United States. Hasn't this guy even read that Constitution?

Even stranger, OK, suppose this guy believes the Bible literally and thinks King Solomon talked to God. How does he come off thinking Rummy does, too? Or is he just being very subtly sarcastic? That must be it. It's very dry humor, over Rummy's head.