…it’s not just the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

…you can visit my personal weblog, Random Fate, to read some musings on the meaning of “home”.

Cross-posted to Random Fate. — It has been a while since I have posted anything thoughtful or even remotely original. I wish I could say it was entirely due to changes in my life-circumstances, with my new wife, new children, and new priorities, but I cannot attribute my lack of commentary entirely to other priorities. While they are important, these other priorities have not ruled my life exclusively. I did indeed have the choice to write when and if I needed to. I simply have not chosen...

The Commissar of the Politburo Diktat 2.0 does the incredibly difficult but ultimately right thing in issuing a mea culpa: I think we (allegedly informed and thoughtful conservative bloggers) should have done better. There were plenty of warning signs and contrary voices. I didn’t want to listen to them. Stephen takes an action that is beyond the capabilities of many, including the current President: admitting an error publicly and learning from the mistake. Kudos to the Commissar, and here...

McCain is hearing it from the Republican base over the torture amendment. They want torture. He doesn’t. From the NY Times: After months of orchestrated peace, the battle with Mr. Bush over the administration’s effort to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions has put Mr. McCain back into a familiar position: bucking the White House and at odds again with some conservatives, who had already been wary of his ideological views. The dispute is shaping up as an early chapter in a shift of influence...

At The Politburo Diktat there is a back of the envelope estimate of troop levels that might be needed in Iraq to achieve what we have been told is the mission there, along with a brief comment on mission-creep. What is just as interesting as the analysis is the origin of the piece; the author is a right-leaning blogger who started the Raging RINOs (Republicans and Independents Not Overdosed on the party kool-aid) although he has passed administration of that group on to another. In an overheated...

Since it is rather lengthy, my “Post number 1970” will not be cross-posted here at The Moderate Voice as many of my recent writings have been. If you are interested in my take on the fifth anniversary of the murders committed on September 11, 2001, you are welcome to visit my weblog, Random Fate.

Choices. In commemoration of the events on September 11, 2001, on ABC the network has chosen to show a fictionalized version of the events leading to September 11, 2001, a narrative that was allowed to be previewed almost solely by advocates of the right-wing (and mainly Republican cheerleaders), approximately two months before the next election. In commemoration of the events on September 11, 2001, on CBS the network has chosen to show a narrative based upon a compilation of interviews along with...

In a recent interview with Essense Magazine, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice discussed to the current situation in Iraq, endeavoring to place it in the context of the American Civil War. Her remarks included an attempt to buttress the “stay the course” mantra of the administration by striving to liken critics of the current policies towards the situation in Iraq to those “people who thought it was a mistake to fight the Civil War (in this country) to its end and to insist that...

Continuing the theme that Michael van der Galien brought to the fore with his post “Why ‘Pre- and Post-9/11′ Should Be Banned From Vocabulary“, here is what I wrote at my weblog Random Fate on September 11, 2004 regarding how perceptions and NOT reality changed on September 11, 2001: September 11, 2004 – Some thoughts… on lessons learned and now apparently lost The world did not change on September 11, 2001. What changed was the perception of the world held by...

From Scott Adams’ The Dilbert Blog: Now, since I know from the comments that many of my readers are – inexplicably – also troglodytes, allow me to include a disclaimer here. I’m way more hawkish than you are. It just doesn’t look that way because my thinking is that if a bully punches you, you should run away. Later, when he’s asleep, put a bullet in his head and leave the gun in his little brother’s crib so it looks like a sibling squabble. In other...

Earlier today, Michael van der Galien posted here at The Moderate Voice “Why ‘Pre- and Post-9/11′ Should Be Banned From Vocabulary” which brought to my mind something I wrote back in January of this year for my weblog, Random Fate, “America as an idea and an ideal“. It is long so I won’t duplicate the entire post here, but the key passage that reflects the ideas of Michael’s post is: What are the fundamentals? The Founders had recently overcome, at...

The subtitle of an editorial at Washingtonpost.com summarizes one part of the issue, but neglects the fundamental problem: End of an Affair It turns out that the person who exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame was not out to punish her husband. What is the fundamental problem? That the integrity of those in the White House was at issue sufficiently to make plausible in the first place the accusation of someone deliberately exposing a CIA agent who was married to someone who presented a political problem...

Aziz Poonawalla at City of Brass discusses Islamic identity and American identity, and notes the synthesis of the two along with how that merging is the whole point of America. When discussing Islamic identity, it is important that we recall the Christian identity that many in the United States profess to have, and to consider why we fear the concept of an Islamic identity while seemingly missing the complementary idea of a separate Christian identity. Recall the question I asked recently in my...

Scott Adams, whose The Dilbert Blog has had many surprises but managed to avoid a schtick that would become tiresome, has written a post on self-criticism in the context of being American citizens that captures exactly what I have tried to convey in my three years of blogging at Random Fate. From the final paragraph of his post comes a succinct statement of the key idea: I know this post sounds harsh, but I think self-criticism is always the first step toward a solution. We as a nation have problems,...

The Hubble space telescope has captured an amazing image of the moon Ariel crossing Uranus. A good description of the event is found here: A SPOT ON URANUS The official Hubble site has additional images. A good illustration of the relative scale can be found through this link. — Cross-posted to Random Fate.

Implicit in the term “national defense” is the notion of defending those values and ideas which set this nation apart.    -Judge Anna Diggs Taylor Exactly what I have been arguing ever since the passage of the unintentionally ironically named USA PATRIOT Act.

I have not had the time to write much lately, and unfortunately my latest ruminations are inadequate in my eyes, hence my lack of posting both here at at my own weblog, Random Fate, but despite the deficiencies of my writing, I must link to a post explaining where I feel we are far too fearful to question any more and am compelled to wonder why.

Cross-posted to Random Fate. — The Wall Street Journal (posted online at OpinionJournal.com) betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of the rule of law in an editorial on the recent ruling by the Supreme Court on the applicability of part of the Geneva Conventions to the prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay by the United States. In the editorial Osama in Genevaland (subtitled Terrorists are now getting lawful-combatant legitimacy) they write: The Geneva Conventions of 1949 govern...

As stated by President George W. Bush in his remarkably rare (for his presidency, anyway) news conference in Chicago yesterday: “It didn’t say we couldn’t have done — couldn’t have made that decision, see?” Mr. Bush said at a news conference in Chicago. “They were silent on whether or not Guantánamo — whether or not we should have used Guantánamo. In other words, they accepted the use of Guantánamo, the decision I made.” In what twisted...

…that the oath one takes upon entering the Armed Forces of the United States is to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” not to “provide political cover for the President of the United States.” Not all bravery is exhibited on the battlefield, and not all difficult choices involve death. — Cross-posted to Random Fate.

Dr. Steven Taylor at PoliBlog makes an important point regarding the Hamden decision by the Supreme Court that he promises to explore in more detail later: However, I would note the following from Article VI of the Constitution of the United States of American which notes (in what is know as the “Supremacy Clause�): This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United...

One of the blogs at ZDNet.com points out something I have been aware of for quite some time, but haven’t posted upon. Perhaps I should start making some noise. From Tom Foremski: IMHO, “US chip leadership is in trouble – but business is good“: The bad news is that US is likely to lose its lead in chip manufacturing expertise and that could be catastrophic to the US economy. The SIA and the chipmakers and other groups are lobbying hard in Washington D.C. to make sure that...

From an article at MSNBC.com on the elimination of the taxes on telephone calls: Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who won approval of the ban in the Senate Finance Committee, said he didn’t want the Internet to fall victim to taxes like the telephone tax enacted for the Spanish-American War. “That war ended two centuries ago, and Congress is just now getting around to getting rid of the tax,” Wyden said. Senator Wyden apparently thinks that there were telephones around in 1806 and that the...

“The accused is a non-ape and therefore has no rights under ape law.” This is a line from the original Planet of the Apes movie that has more resonance now than even in the era in which the movie was made. The themes explored in this movie are remarkably much more relevant now than they were almost 40 years ago. For those who have limited imagination, think of Guantanamo and our collective reaction to those whom our government has stated, often with no evidence beyond hearsay, are our...