We’re now supposed to change our definition of privacy. Nice. No longer does it mean, you know, things being kept private, but that the government gets whatever it wants and promises not to do bad things with it.
I suppose if you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to hide. Until they decide you are doing something wrong, that is.
I’m bored and if you’re reading this, you’re probably bored, too. So I leave you with this:
I came across this quote in the book I’m reading that I like quite a bit. It’s from Berthold Brecht on the occasion of the 1953 East German workers demonstration:
Following the June Seventeenth uprising
the secretary of the Writers’ League
had leaflets distributed on Stalin Allee
where one could read that the people
had forfeited the confidence of the government
and could regain it only through redoubled efforts.
Wouldn’t it be simpler under these circumstances
for the government to dissolve the people
and elect another one?
I realize I’m a Democrat and biased a certain way, but doesn’t the Republican presidential candidate field…suck? I mean, this is the field:
John McCain – Tied to a terrible war and isn’t the maverick that everyone used to think he was.
Rudy Guiliani – Running on foreign policy without actual foreign policy experience.
Mitt Romney – Doesn’t appear to actually have any principles, as far as I can tell.
Sam Brownback – Religious right loon.
Mike Huckabee – Believes environmentalism should be a religion and doesn’t believe in evolution.
Ron Paul – Crazy.
Tom Tancredo – Crazy.
Tommy Thompson – Fire all the gay people you want.
Duncan Hunter – Who?
James Gilmore – Who?
Apparently there’s some actor that everyone is salivating over, too. Cream of the crop? I think not.
My Final Four: Maryland (that’s right, screw the Gators), Pittsburgh, Ohio State, and North Carolina, with Ohio State winning it all.
by Mark Califano and Jeffrey Meyer
After reading this book, it’s hard to imagine what it’s like to read the entire Independent Inquiry Committee report. This book is fairly brief summary of the findings of the U.N.’s independent investigation into the oil-for-food scandal. In it’s roughly 250 pages you get a picture of what has to be the worst management and oversight job ever. You’re confronted with tales of missed opportunities, corruption, and negligence on page after page.
It’s hard to be surprised that Iraq attempted to circumvent the sanctions and corrupt the oil-for-food program. We all know the horror stories of that regime and corruption is nothing next to them. They seemed to have tried what you’d expect: bribe top officials (i.e. the Secretary General, though they appear to have failed), “surcharges” on oil contracts, kickbacks on humanitarian contracts, smuggled oil, sketchy oil allocations to important people, etc. Iraq succeeded at all of those and it’s not surprising. However, the scale at which they succeeded and the scale of the failure of oversight is remarkable. Top officials literally refused to do their job. Officials like Benon Sevan, the director of the program. He was receiving oil allocations from Iraq on the side, while essentially refusing to investigate charges of kickbacks and illegal surcharges. It’s absolutely pathetic. The 661 committee, the committee set up to oversee the program (notable members being France, Russia, and the U.S.), failed miserably as well. Russia stonewalled most oversight and restrictions on Iraq, probably due to state energy companies being the biggest buyers of Iraqi oil. The U.S. and Britain made some noises, but even they were more concerned with looking out for “dual-use” goods than actually overseeing the program. Describing one remarkable incident, the authors detail how the U.S. seems to have essentially turned a blind eye to oil smuggling by Iraq to Jordan.
As I said, failure at every level. The book wraps up with a list of recommendations, some of which, according to Paul Volcker’s introduction, have been implemented. Several key players in the scandal have been indicted. So, there is hope. Califano and Meyer make an admittedly dry subject interesting and easy to understand, thankfully. The book moves quickly enough and has just the right amount of detail to allow to understand the issues, but not get lost in them. No small task considering the subject matter. This is for all intents the definitive account of the oil-for-food scandal. It’s not pretty and it presents great challenges to the U.N. I can only hope they’re met.
I’m not an activist. I readily admit this. So, this may not carry much weight, but in any case: this is pointless. Can anyone actually give me an example of war that was stopped by protests? Don’t tell me Vietnam; people hated the protesters more than the damn war. I suspect the same thing is true now, to some extent. The war is going poorly and the premises have dissolved, so public opinion has turned against it.
Seriously, do these protests do anything more than give the idiots on TV an opportunity to ridicule the lunatic fringe and celebrities such protests inevitably attract?
Go give Wulfgar nominations for the 2006 MT Weblog awards. I’ve already submitted my nominations, but I’d like to point out that my final votes are very much for sale. And I think my prices are quite reasonable, too. For a little bit extra I’ll even switch out Wulfgar’s PC with a Diebold machine and let you design the results of your choice! That’s an offer that can’t be beat (though I will be asking for hospital fees if he shoots my ass in the process of doing so).
Thing number two: The Fountain is a strange movie. I think you knew that already. Pretty cool, though.
Thing number three: my moderately serious post for the day is at Montana Netroots.
I’m going to be switching hosts, so there may be some downtime/weirdness. Just so you know.
AgapePress is not happy about self-proclaimed “red letter Christians.”
And why would they be? Those red letters often lack the fire and brimstone, socially conservative message they promote. The author cites this passage to play gotcha with those damn liberal Christians:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Much that does not appear in red letters in the minds of the Campolo crowd seems to be present in this red-letter passage. Law. Prophets. Old Testament. Commandments. Pharisees. Teachers of law.
I’m a bit unsure of the point Friedeman wants to make. I haven’t known Christians to follow the Old Testament laws, so the interpretation of this passage doesn’t seem to be the one Friedeman wants. In fact, I’ve seen it interpreted as only referring to the Ten Commandments. That doesn’t have anything objectionable to liberal political ideology, as far as I know. Nor do I believe Friedeman really wants to step into the abyss that is OT law. Stoning for everyone!
Friedeman is right about the picking and choosing liberal Christians partake in. Then again, those red letter passages in the Bible are red for a reason. The folks at AgapePress spend far more time worrying about gays and premarital sex than poverty or kindness. Arbitrary picking and choosing or fucked up priorities? I’m going to say the people with their priorities in line are the winners here.
