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...

Cross-posted to Random Fate. — While the Commissar of The Politburo Diktat rightly points out that there is indeed a real threat from groups who use terrorist tactics, calling it a “war” is wrong on many fronts, not limited to the terminology alone, but also because the strategy and tactics we are using are appropriate for wars past, not the “21st Century Thinking” that those who are promoting the so-called “War on Terror” like to use as a club against their...

On a non-political note: Astronomers have an unusual problem that those of us who have to clean our houses wish we had: they are not seeing enough dust, at least in the supernovae they are examining. What are the implications? An article at ScienceDaily explains it well. — Cross-posted to Random Fate.

Cross-posted to Random Fate. — The English-speaking culture of England and the United States has a long history of satire, one of the premier examples is the essay “A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick” by Jonathan Swift. I had been contemplating writing a satire along the lines of “A Modest Proposal” in the context of the reaction to the...

…for aesthetic reasons rather than those of avarice or necessity that we now hold high.

I have taken a hiatus from writing for weblogs, but I feel compelled to add this small tidbit to the supposed “debate” over immigration into the United States: For those of you/us who were among those fortunate enough to be born inside the United States, whether to parents who were citizens or aliens, legal or illegal, it is important to keep in mind that our very own status as citizens is entirely due to an accident of birth. We were born inside the boundaries of the US, therefore we...

Singer Lou Rawls died today due to lung cancer. Another great entertainer departs from the scene.

NOTE: Co-blogger Jack Grant posted this highly original and thoughtful piece on this site yesterday. We are running it again, high up in today’s postings, to ensure it gets maximum readership. Please keep scrolling since newer posts are below this one. This post is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to ALL (those who might agree or disagree with Jack). Cross-posted to Random Fate. — A preface is needed: One month ago I was in France, sleeping in a hotel room after my possessions had been moved from...

Boing-boing points to a parody of the Digital Rights Management agreements that come with some music CDs: What if pizzas came with licenses like the ones in DRM CDs?

How many people seriously believe that Pat Robertson has a hotline in to God? The Rev. Pat Robertson said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is being punished by God for dividing the Land of Israel. Robertson, speaking on the “700 Club� on Thursday, suggested Sharon, who is currently in an induced coma, and former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated by an Israeli extremist in 1995, were being treated with enmity by God for dividing Israel. “He was dividing God’s...

…here is a lesson in Data Mining 101: This is what’s possible with publicly available information, but imagine if one had access to Amazon’s entire database – which still contains every sale dating back to 1999 by the way. Under Section 251 of the Patriot Act, the FBI can require Amazon to turn over its records, without probable cause, for an “authorized investigation . . . to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.” Amazon...

…at Random Fate, for what it is worth.