3/31/2003
I feel a desperate need to explain something that I breezed over in my last entry. It is this: that roughly 50% of Americans think that Saddam Hussein has strong ties to Al Qaeda and/or Osama bin Laden.

This makes some sense, because we've heard this claim several times now, from Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair. But what most people didn't do was read the news a few days later; in every instance, it turned out that the evidence presented was absolutely false. One of Mr. Bush's claims was based on false information found [only] on a California graduate student's website; one of Mr. Blair's was based on a completely fabricated report from British intelligence; and so on.

The link does not exist. The proof is that Bush and Blair spent so much energy trying to find it, and never could. If they had a link, you would know about it. You would hear about it every single time the president appeared on radio or TV, because it's the one thing that would really reel in public support for this war: it would link our mortal fear of Osama bin Laden and terrorists, to the regime of Saddam Hussein. But there is no link.

But that doesn't matter - the statements got the idea rolling, in the public mind. The new strategy: for over a month now, the president has been cleverly placing these two unrelated topics in the same sentence, over and over and over. If you listen closely, he never directly relates them - that would be lying - instead, he just mentions them in very close proximity. Apparently, we haven't been paying very close attention to his words, because 50% of us buy the original claim, even though he's stopped making it.

So here we are, 70% of us supporting this war, while 50% of us are riding on solid misinformation that plays a critical role in our rationalization for it. Kinda makes you sick to your stomach, doesn't it?

3/28/2003
"Weapons of mass destruction." An interesting term. The way it's spun by the white house, you'd almost think that 3,000 conventional bombs that together had the same destructive power (or 100 times as much) as a "weapon of mass destruction" didn't matter. But how much "mass destruction" can 3,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles cause? Who is presently unleashing "mass destruction" on who, might I ask? We are, and enough of it that on the eve of this war, our administration thought it would be enough to demoralize the enemy so strongly that we could waltz into Baghdad and (according to Cheney) be "cheered as liberators".

Interesting how, the night the war began, Mr. Bush told us it would virtually be a cakewalk; and how, the next day, before any real troop movements (i.e. feedback), he began telling us that the war might be much more of a challenge "than most Americans think." And each day, he ramped it up after that - slowly easing us into acceptance that this would be incrementally more difficult. (Good marketing, guys.) It's also interesting that it turns out that most of his advisors in the military and CIA warned him it would be an extremely difficult war, months ago, yet he ignored this information and, even worse, didn't bother relaying it to the American public.

Something is driving Mr. Bush, and it isn't reason. That much is clear. Is it a Mandate of Heaven? Is it intense irrational fear? Is it ignorant idealism? Or is it thirst for oil, money, power, dominance? Or a combination of all of these? Hindsight might tell us, one day.

The most frightening thing is that congress has been so complicit in all of this. I keep thinking to myself that if the oval office begins further curbing civil rights and waging MORE illegal wars, that the congress would stop it... but so far it hasn't. So what will they do when the white house throws the next curveball? Do we trust congress not to just go along with it? We should be making our phone calls now, and making sure our congressmen and women know how uneasy we are about what's going on. If we don't, we could find this great country disintegrating in our hands. Remember who else convinced his country to trade freedom for security [against terrorism]? Hitler.

3/28/2003
What I'm laying out in this entry is either an over-the-top conspiracy theory, or a frighteningly accurate Orwellian glimpse of the future. Really, it's just a theory that I want to get out there; I'm not even sure if I believe it; but its degree of plausibility is still disturbing. Also, I should forewarn that it sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it is not; this is just a description of a natural trend, where even the alleged 'bad guys' aren't really aware of what they're doing.

But as long as the people of the U.S. live in fear and ignorance -- which is at least 50% of us, since over 50% think there is proof of a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda, which is undisputedly false -- as long as we live in fear and ignorance, the government is likely to have its way with us, and take away whatever freedoms it likes, as it's already done. Watch out, America - a dangerous trend is building. It starts with capitalism. Capitalism is economic "survival of the fittest", and here come the fittest, the bravest, the most audacious, power-obsessed white men of the era, willing to do anything to grow their power. They started with small businesses and farms, centuries ago. Then came the Industrial Revolution, and then the automobile. Now, they've built gigantic corporations, which, driven by market pressures, have done horrible things to people and to the planet in order to make more money. And the bigger they get, the more pressure there is to make money, and the more likely they are to do wrong in order to make it. These large corporations and their top executives have now mastered the private sector; just look around you - most everything you buy, eat, and do is produced or provided by large corporations - even information. So now, the only way to increase profits further and satisfy their obsession was to begin to manipulate the public sector (government) as well - to control the law, open up free trade, repeal the environmental regulations that hamper them, and so on.

This took the form of lobbying and campaign contributions. It worked for a while, and quite well - but it could only go so far. So now, the winners in the private sector have a new strategy. Already, a "lucky" cluster of entrepreneurs has sunk its teeth into the white house, led (ceremonially) by Mr. Bush. He comes from big business, especially oil. All of his friends & colleagues are rich, white men (just look at his cabinet; even Kenneth Lay of Enron is "Kenny Boy" to him). His family, going back generations, is into international business and big money. So, it's natural that just about every action by this administration has led to increased profits for businesses. This strategy gives the private sector (Bush & co.) more control than was previously possible through lobbying and soft money; now, they have direct power to ditch regulations and open up trade, and even have the ability to use the public sector's funds to wage wars on resource-rich third-world countries. Mr. Bush is surrounded by capitalism and people obsessed with it; this is how he, and most of his colleagues, think. Welcome to America, Inc.

And because these individuals are driven by a desire to increase their money and power, nothing would serve their egos better than to lock the system down to secure and increase their power. That 'security' often means compromising freedoms. For example, they've already given themselves freedom to tap a phone wherever they want, which can be used not only to fight terrorism, but also, to keep a brotherly eye on their electoral or business competition. Many personal freedoms are likely to fall by the wayside - not because this junta wants to curb our freedoms, but because they want to keep their power. They and their community, obsessed with personal wealth and power - and probably not even aware of it.

3/25/2003
So a 30-day war will cost $75 billion. Of that, however, only $2.2 billion is for humanitarian aid and reconstruction. Oh, and $10 billion is for Israel, because their economy is hurting. Gee, I wonder what the Arabs will think about that one. It's interesting, especially combined with the observation that our military force has swept in, but has yet to be followed by humanitarian aid (food/medicine). It's been 6 days since the war began (and more since UN food/medicine aid was halted) and we're saying our aid will arrive "soon". Think about how that 6+ days might feel to people out of food, water, power, medicine. You'd think that if our priority was really taking care of the civilians, we'd have made sure aid was right behind our troops and that there was oh, say, about ten times as much money allocated to it.

Whatsmore, the Arab League has united to denounce this war; Russia, France, Germany, China, and Pakistan (all former allies) are strongly against it; and Al Jazeera is broadcasting dead Iraqi civilians and that first American Flag all over the middle east. Mr. Bush, your overconfidence, ignorance, and arrogance are getting us into really, really big trouble.

If Bush really believed in "democracy", he would 1) not completely disregard the UN and world opinion [democracy at a larger scale], and 2) he would be listening to the American people's concerns and, at the very least, be trying to address them. But instead, he spins everything to push his own agenda. Where is the democracy, George? Why aren't you listening to anyone, or at least, trying to calm their fears with some meaningful arguments, instead of just spewing rhetoric and propaganda devoid of facts and honest reasoning? Our country is in frightening hands.

3/24/2003
The most frightening information I have ever encountered. Wake up, America, please wake up...

3/23/2003
Apparently, Iraq has said they won't follow the Geneva Convention as far as how to treat POWs, because they don't see this as a legal war; they are treating POWs as mercenaries. So, the [U.S. television] news is mentioning, over and over and over, how Iraq is violating the Geneva Convention. But what I haven't heard mentioned at all (again, on U.S. television news) is that this war itself is a [much larger] violation of the Geneva Convention, simply for the fact that we were not attacked by Iraq first. It doesn't much worse than starting a war.

Oh, and if you ever thought of 9/11 as being similar to Pearl Harbor, you might want to think about what this war has in common with it...

3/20/2003
I just need one thing explained to me: what was our sense of urgency? The president decided a few days ago that we must attack Saddam NOW, before he turns into Hitler #2 (propaganda). This implies that Saddam is imminently close to making some kind of dangerous weapon, or delivery system, or striking us. But I don't see how that would be possible. (note: I will address the possibility of smuggling weapons to terrorists further down.)

Reason #1: Saddam has had U.N. sanctions working against him for over a decade; they won't even let him import plumbinb pipes for fear they could be used to make weaponry. Why do you think that 41% of the population in Iraq is under the age of 15? It's because their infrastructure is so incredibly horrible - food, water, medicine, the bare essentials - are not being met. How can you build an atomic bomb when you have no infrastructure, and a shitty economy to boot? North Korea, who is far more technologically advanced and spends more on their military per capita than any other country, only might have nuclear weapons now, and their missiles are lucky to fly over japan; so how long will it be until Saddam can lob one at us? Twenty years? Forty? (Heck, he can't even hit a target in Kuwait, as of this morning.)

Reason #2: INSPECTIONS WERE WORKING. Anyone reading a few newspapers each day couldn't have helped but notice that Saddam was in good compliance with weapons inspectors, all 120 of them, and had been for over a month. In addition, they turned up nothing of significance. The white house played it up when they found some old empty warheads that might have contained chemical weapons long ago, and there was a tiff about the Al Samoud missiles going 30 miles beyond the range allowed by the U.N. So what? The U.S. is 12,000 miles away!

At this point, people say, "well, Bush probably knows something we don't, that meant we had to attack right away." But that doesn't compute; if Saddam somehow had us by the throat, we would certainly not be attacking him, because he'd be able to retaliate. (Why do you think we're not attacking North Korea? They're far more of a threat at this point.) So it's somewhat obvious that Saddam can't touch us at this point, or we wouldn't be doing this.

So again, why the urgency? Iraq probably wouldn't be able to launch a nuclear ICBM for 100 years, if ever, especially with weapons inspectors breathing down their necks. And if they ever kicked the inspectors out, then we could make that case to the U.N., and probably go to war. On that course of action, our only fear is that he could smuggle some weapon to a terrorist, but where did we get that idea? From the white house. Over and over and over and over. Fear, fear, fear. Propaganda. Doesn't this country recognize it when we see it? 70% support?!?! What happened to critical thinking? Come on!

You can't punish people, or countries, for crimes they haven't committed yet. It's wrong. We could attack anyone in the world if that's our policy, at any time, for whatever we want - all our leaders have to do is point the finger and start spinning the story, just like they've done this time. What kind of world does that make? A frightening one, with the door wide, wide open for injustice on a mass scale. If the people of this country don't wake up and see this for what it is, we are certainly doomed. We will tear our international relationships to shreds, we will give terrorists of the future a true and just cause to attack us, and we will suffer for it. We are acting unjustly and we are digging our own graves by writing this new policy of 'preemptive strike', a euphemism for first strike supported by media-inspired public fear.

Funny how some of us justify this preemptive strike saying that Saddam is crazy, and can't be trusted; it seems to me that we're the ones responding irrationally, out of fear. And even funnier, the analogies between Saddam and Hitler; seems to me that G.W. is also like Hitler - dropping the first bombs, aggressing the first war, starting the conquest, and so on; and Rumsfeld's lightning-fast war plans sound eerily reminiscent of Hitler's "blitzkreig" strategy. Why do you think 70% of the British, 90% of the Spanish, and the vast, vast majority of the people of the world are against this war? Why do you think we only got 3 'yes' votes and 1 (if not 2) vetoes on the security council (when we needed 9 out of 15 votes, and ZERO vetoes)? Why do you think Bush Sr. had 90 countries backing him for the Persian Gulf, and we now only have 30, 15 of which refuse to be named? Because it's wrong, and we're in denial about it.

Anyway, the real reason that the Bush Administration chose to do this is because they did some calculations, and they feel they'll get away with it. That's all that really matters.

One more thing... think about the punishment in this country for killing another person. Then think about the loose rules set for institutionalized violence (war). Why do we think so differently of the two? Doesn't the latter demand 1,000 to 100,000 times as much justification, if that many more people are dying? So why don't we demand proof that there's a good, imminent reason for this war? Because if it's unjust, it's about 1,000 to 100,000 times as unjust as killing a single person, which is punished heavily in our own country. That many lives isn't something you play around with, or act on without the facts. If you endorse this war and you weren't already aware of everything I've said in these last few entries, that should be a red flag for you that you're being led, and not reading enough to be able to make an informed judgment.

Oh, and by the way, today's headlines say that we are giving $10 billion in aid to an undisputed apartheid: Israel. Hey, let's see if we can give terrorists any more reason to attack us! Shame, shame, shame.

God bless America, and every country of the world. Show us how to do it right.

3/16/2003
Today, the US, UK, and Spain (the latter two in enormous disagreement with public opinion in their countries) decided diplomacy would end in 24 hours. I have a few things to say about that.

First: screw you, George Bush, you egotistical, fundamentalist, self-serving, myopic piece of crap. You are responsible for the undoing of our country, for disregarding the U.N., for the slaughter of Arabs you're about to begin, and for the decades of terrorism and homeland insecurity that it could inspire. You are not a Christian, and you are not a man. Real men don't use (let alone get off on) violence. I hope you are someday tried for war crimes.

Remember that 11,000-page arms declaration that Iraq gave us? Why did we censor 75% of it before passing it on to the UN? Because we gave him 75% of his weapons. He was our boy. And now, even though there is still no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and even though Saddam is complying with inspections, and even though Iraq had not attacked us, even though North Korea has nuclear weapons and is much more hostile to the U.S., we are still going to attack Iraq. We are starting a war. We are launching the first bombs. America the aggressor. America, immune to international law, inventors of the guiltless 'preemptive war'.

Why are we doing this? Because our president has a personal vendetta; because he is obsessed; because he is wholly incompetent as a leader, and wants to distract the public from his inability to make decisions; because he knows that war boosts ratings (!); because he sees the world in black-and-white (good vs. evil); because he wants to please his friends in the oil business (that's his world). Watch for the evil smirk; George W. Bush is overjoyed to be [finally] going to war. This man is sick. (Remember his first words at ground zero? Not, "may this be the last war of the 21st century", or "the only war of the 21st century"... but "the first war of the 21st century.")

We have to look at ourselves, too, though; this is a democracy, and we (sort of) put him in power. We're the land of the out-of-touch; the land of people driving SUV's and desensitizing ourselves with TV violence. We're a war-happy public, a land of people who buy their kids war toys and watch war movies for entertainment; we don't know what it's like to actually have bombs dropping around the corner, friends and family dying in front of you, your brother's leg blown off by a land mine (a tool we still use liberally), baby parts lying on the sidewalk. That is what war is. Being so out of touch, we should be very careful when we go to make decisions about war, or deciding whether or not we (personally) endorse it. Is our fear enough to justify what we are doing?

We have a beautiful side, too. Most Americans are incredibly kind people with good hearts. But we are sheltered, and often irresponsible, and our unawareness lets things like this happen. But if this is a democracy, then we are responsible for it.

We have a responsibility to make sure that our world evolves in healthy ways. Aren't we supposed to be going into the future and building a world where war is truly a last resort, overcoming our primitive past, using our minds and words to resolve conflicts, phasing out 'war' as a tool of conflict resolution? But instead, here we are, starting a war that is far from inevitable, dropping the first bombs. Remember World War II? Hitler struck first, so he started the war - that makes him the bad guy. Who's starting this war? Then look at it objectively, and tell me - who's the bad guy?

The argument
Bobby: I hear we're going to attack Iraq, for our own safety, because they won't disarm.
Billy: Yeah, we're gonna kick their asses with our hot new weapons!
Bobby: But isn't that against international law, to strike first? Even under the pretense of 'preemption'? Isn't that like punishing someone for a crime they haven't committed yet?
Billy: I agree, BUT... we're liberating the Iraqi people from an evil dictator.
Bobby: Alright... then let's say that that's why we're doing it... that we're liberating the Iraqi people from an evil dictator. So, for that reason, is it okay to attack Iraq? Isn't that against international law - regime change by force? And why don't we do this every time there's an evil dictator?
Billy: Uh... uh... we do, right?
Bobby: No, we most certainly do not.
Billy: Okay, um... oh yeah - we're doing it because he's violating U.N. resolutions to disarm!
Bobby: Then why are we fielding this $100 billion job for the UN? It's their job, and they disapprove of what we're about to do - meaning that the rest of the world thinks we're doing this too early, that it's wrong. Why do we suddenly care so much about enforcing U.N. resolutions?
Billy: Because that's the right thing to do.
Bobby: Is it still the right thing to do if the UN - the voice of the world - is against us doing it? Aren't we really doing it for ourselves? Doesn't this defeat the purpose of the UN?
Billy: I don't know, man... he could have some gnarly weapons, though, and he's not afraid to use them!
Bobby: So we're back to a preemptive strike, which is against international law. Come on, give me one valid reason to attack Iraq.
Billy: Because he used chemical weapons on his own people!
Bobby: Your logic is impeccable.

UPDATE [3/31/03]: apparently, I've been outdone on this one. Check out a more expansive debate, entitled A Warmonger Explains War to a Peacenik.

3/15/2003
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of our president's obsession with going to war with Iraq is how the reason has changed, over and over, in the past year. You'd almost think he had some other motive! Anyway, as it turns out, we have to give the guy a break - it turns out that, once again, intelligence given to him (concerning Iraq's weapons program) - which he shared with us in a major speech last fall - was blatently wrong. (He also shared with the American public, prior to that, that he had proof that Saddam had links to Al Qaeda - which also turned out to be completely false. But far fewer people probably read that than heard the televised speech.) Anyway, there's a good article on this at commondreams.org.

3/13/2003
What follows is a letter of resignation written by John Brady Kiesling, a member of Bush's Foreign Service Corps and Political Counselor to the American embassy in Greece. Kiesling has been a diplomat for twenty years, a civil servant to four Presidents. The letter below, delivered to Secretary of State Colin Powell, is quite possibly the most eloquent statement of dissent thus far put forth regarding the issue of Iraq.

U.S. Diplomat John Brady Kiesling Letter of Resignation, to: Secretary of State Colin L. Powell ATHENS | Thursday 27 February 2003 Dear Mr. Secretary: I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens, effective March 7. I do so with a heavy heart. The baggage of my upbringing included a felt obligation to give something back to my country. Service as a U.S. diplomat was a dream job. I was paid to understand foreign languages and cultures, to seek out diplomats, politicians, scholars and journalists, and to persuade them that U.S. interests and theirs fundamentally coincided. My faith in my country and its values was the most powerful weapon in my diplomatic arsenal. It is inevitable that during twenty years with the State Department I would become more sophisticated and cynical about the narrow and selfish bureaucratic motives that sometimes shaped our policies. Human nature is what it is, and I was rewarded and promoted for understanding human nature. But until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer. The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America’s most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security. The sacrifice of global interests to domestic politics and to bureaucratic self-interest is nothing new, and it is certainly not a uniquely American problem. Still, we have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to so to ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo? We should ask ourselves why we have failed to persuade more of the world that a war with Iraq is necessary. We have over the past two years done too much to assert to our world partners that narrow and mercenary U.S. interests override the cherished values of our partners. Even where our aims were not in question, our consistency is at issue. The model of Afghanistan is little comfort to allies wondering on what basis we plan to rebuild the Middle East, and in whose image and interests. Have we indeed become blind, as Russia is blind in Chechnya, as Israel is blind in the Occupied Territories, to our own advice, that overwhelming military power is not the answer to terrorism? After the shambles of post-war Iraq joins the shambles in Grozny and Ramallah, it will be a brave foreigner who forms ranks with Micronesia to follow where we lead. We have a coalition still, a good one. The loyalty of many of our friends is impressive, a tribute to American moral capital built up over a century. But our closest allies are persuaded less that war is justified than that it would be perilous to allow the U.S. to drift into complete solipsism. Loyalty should be reciprocal. Why does our President condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this Administration is fostering, including among its most senior officials. Has “oderint dum metuant” really become our motto? I urge you to listen to America’s friends around the world. Even here in Greece, purported hotbed of European anti-Americanism, we have more and closer friends than the American newspaper reader can possibly imagine. Even when they complain about American arrogance, Greeks know that the world is a difficult and dangerous place, and they want a strong international system, with the U.S. and EU in close partnership. When our friends are afraid of us rather than for us, it is time to worry. And now they are afraid. Who will tell them convincingly that the United States is as it was, a beacon of liberty, security, and justice for the planet? Mr. Secretary, I have enormous respect for your character and ability. You have preserved more international credibility for us than our policy deserves, and salvaged something positive from the excesses of an ideological and self-serving Administration. But your loyalty to the President goes too far. We are straining beyond its limits an international system we built with such toil and treasure, a web of laws, treaties, organizations, and shared values that sets limits on our foes far more effectively than it ever constrained America’s ability to defend its interests. I am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my conscience with my ability to represent the current U.S. Administration. I have confidence that our democratic process is ultimately self-correcting, and hope that in a small way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share. John Brady Kiesling

Asked if his views were widely shared among his diplomatic colleagues, Mr. Kiesling said: "No one of my colleagues is comfortable with our policy. Everyone is moving ahead with it as good and loyal. The State Department is loaded with people who want to play the team game — we have a very strong premium on loyalty."

3/13/2003
There is an excellent article in the current issue of Wired about Hydrogen.

3/12/2003
An interesting way to protest: baringwitness.org.

3/11/2003
I get really tired of seeing Compact Fluorescent (CF) light bulbs (the spiral-shaped ones that take up 1/4 the energy of standard incandescents) selling for $10 a piece at the hardware store, when we know that's a huge markup because you can get them for $2 each at a few rare places like Costco and Ikea. This [nearly] ubiquitous overpricing seriously discourages people from buying and using them.

So, if you want some, don't go to the hardware store - order half a dozen online from coolite.com (note: click on the word 'Spiral', NOT the image, to see the individual bulbs - they have a broken link). They're selling the bulbs for $3-4 each, all the time. Note that you can't use these bulbs (like most CF bulbs) with dimmers. CF bulbs usually last ~8 years and save you $50-100 per bulb in electricity costs over the life of the bulb!

3/8/2003
Ah, GDC (the game developer's conference) was most fun. Vince is going to hang out here for the weekend. He was kind enough to point me to these excellent raps [see the 2/4/03 entry] that someone wrote in his name (well, actually, under the name 'ViNcE the wOrLd TrAveLeR'). Read them out loud for a real delight.

3/1/2003
Radness. Today we went mountain biking and saw 3 bobcats and 2 wild pigs, all for a good amount of time. The pigs were surprisingly docile, I thought - they were just grazing. They were very large (~300 lbs?) and dark black in color. The cats were surprisingly little - barely larger than housecats - but definitely not housecats - they had sharp, pointy ears and very striking colors and markings. Nature rules.

2/15/2003
We had a little anti-war rally in Santa Cruz today, with a few thousand people... not much compared to 400,000 in New York and 1.5 million in Rome, but a good turnout considering Santa Cruz only has a population of 50,000. Here were some of the messages:

• How did our oil get under their sand?
• Read between the pipelines
• How many LPG's does your car get? (lives per gallon)
• Look! It's a no-brainer (with an arrow pointing to a picture of Bush)
• Iraqi children love their parents too.
• War is not healthy
  for children
  and other living things
• (very huge sign) Every bullet finds its target in a mother's heart
• "Problems can not be solved on the same level of consciousness that created them." --Albert Einstein
• "War is obsolete, you now... of course the mind can rationalize fighting back... but the heart, the heart would never understand. Then you would be divided in yourself, the heart and the mind, and the war would be inside you." --Dalai Lama
• "Today the real test of power is not the capacity to make war, but the capacity to prevent it." --Anne O'Hare
• Billions for education, not war
• Fund public schools, not Bush's wars
• This country has been hijacked by lunatics
• Stop mad cowboy disease!
• Reclaim our flag from the right -- patriot for peace (picture of a big flag)
• Your silence is your approval
• France, Russia, China - Thank You
• Christians for Peace - duh!
• Who Would Jesus Bomb?
• U.N.: Inspect the U.S.!
• No blood for oil
• One Nation Under Surveillance
• Duct tape is not the answer
• War is a dick thing; peace is a heart thing
• Let's bomb Texas - there's oil there too!
• 50% of the people in Iraq are under 15 (..it's actually 41% though, according to the CIA world factbook for 2002)

2/1/2003
I would like to take this time to remind everyone that preemptive war - in this case, attacking another country because they might have the ability to attack you - is wrong. Even if you think they might try to attack you someday, you don't have the right to attack them until they do; otherwise YOU are agressing the war. Whoever launches the first bombs, starts the war; if no one launched the bombs, there would be no war. We would be doing what Germany did in World War II.

Whatsmore, if the U.S. does this, we will no longer be in a position to tell other nations that they can not do it, or to stop them from doing it, because we would have just done it ourselves. (This is what we bleeding hearts mean when we say it would "set a horrible precedent".) As a result, India could nuke pakistan because Pakistan posed a threat to it, or vice versa; Israel could wipe out entire Palestinian communities because they bred suicide bombers; Russia could take Chechnya off the map; and so on. And if you think it wouldn't happen - think again. The only thing holding these countries back from doing these things is that it's a violation of international protocol. But if the big guy - the U.S. - breaks this law, then all of a sudden everyone else can, too.

And a reminder: if you think the U.S. is the altruistic "policeman of the world", just remember that we're also one of the only countries with a strike-first nuclear policy (another bad precedent), and that we're one of the only remaining developed countries that still uses land mines (and we use them quite religiously - ask any Iraqi or Afghan).

Didn't 15 of the 19 hijackers come from Saudi Arabia? Could it be possible that our ballistic president is, by his obsession with Iraq, ensuring that his very fears will come true someday? Doesn't Iraq have the 2nd largest oil supply in the world, and aren't the majority of the Bush Cabinet former oil company executives? Oh, and what was that stuff Einstein said about peace? Ah, I forget - oh well. Come on, let's go bomb the axis of evil!

And for all you oblivious parents out there buying your kids war toys - KNOCK IT OFF! Our culture is so densensitized to violence that we don't even think about what war really means, and it all starts in childhood! 100,000 Iraqis died in the Gulf War, and here we are, ready to do it again, out of spoon-fed fear (fed to us by the white house and the media). Anyway, parents: please, stop buying war toys. Talk to your kids and help them realize that war means death, the death of people with families. The death of hundreds of thousands of people - not just 7 astronauts or 3,000 innocent New Yorkers. I'm sure you're afraid that your kids will be bummed not to get the toys they want, but once they understand the truth, they'll feel like better people, and they won't want war toys; and they'll grow up for the rest of their lives a little different than the other kids - a little more tuned in to reality - and, probably, with a better ability to critically analyze things for what they really are, instead of always flowing with mainstream opinion.

Have some (painful) laughs here.

2/1/2003
This is an important message regarding abortion and vegetarianism.

I am no fan of abortion, but I believe in a woman's right to choose. I respect you if you differ on that, though, because abortion is a terrible thing. But I want to make a comparison. Which do you think has more cognitive awareness: a two-month-old fetus, or a full-grown pig or cow? Which do you think experiences more terror, more fear, when it realizes that it is about to be killed? Which do you think is more likely to realize that it is about to be killed? If you've ever seen pigs about to be slaughtered, you'll know the answer; they are acutely aware, and the scream and squeal in the full terror of impending death. It is horrible.

Abortions are performed quite regularly in this country, and there is a great deal of controversy about it. But no one really cares that the cows, pigs, and other animals - quite alert, aware, and with a strong sense of life-and-death - are slaughtered regularly, and unnecessarily, for food, skin, or fur. (37 million cows a year, and 98 million pigs per year, just in the U.S.).

My point is that eating meat, from one point of view, is [objectively] far more offensive that abortion; yet it is fully accepted, while abortion is extremely controversial, in our culture. This is illogical. We need to examine things for what they really are, make our own decisions as individuals, and stand behind them, against our culture if necessary. So, it is my opinion that if you're going to be pro-life, you better go get a vegetarian cookbook if you want to avoid hypocrisy. But if you want to be pro-life and still eat meat, they you should objectively compare these two choices, and be sure that you're comfortable with that. And watch out; your mind will do everything it can to keep you from facing the truth.

1/23/2003
No, I am not dead. I've just been frustrated that republicans did so well on Nov. 5 of last year, and thought I'd take a nice break from my political venting, to spare you folks who might read this blog of mine.

However, I've still been virtuously reading the news every day, and I see trends that I like. Mr. Bush's real agenda - oil, killing the environment, war for ratings, the destruction of 'evil', and distracting us from his inability to run this country - is getting more obvious every day. His approval ratings are down to 58% (which, frighteningly, will probably only drive him more toward war). And the protests over the weekend got ten times the press coverage as similar protests on 10/26 last year; why, you ask? My guess is because even mainstream journalists are smart enough to see, now, that this administration DOES suck and that enough people realize that that the journalists can print it without getting fired for releasing 'unpatriotic' news.

Anyway, my friend Scott (skroz) recently yelled at me for not posting here for a while, because he liked to hear the stories I linked to here; so I'll try and start it up again.

11/14/2002
Sean Penn paid $56,000 out of his pocket to place this full-page ad in the Washington Post a few weeks ago: An Open Letter to the President of the United States of America. It's quite well done; if Mr. Bush reads it, the tone is constructive and supportive enough that, who knows - it might even make him blink. For a plain text version, click here.

10/28/2002
Nice... finally, a little mainstream condemnation of Bush Jr.'s propaganda and lies appears, in Newsweek.

10/26/2002
My friend Luke and I went to the protest [against the Bush 'crusade' for Iraqi oil] in San Francisco today. It was quite a turnout; it took 3 hours for the stream of people coming from the Embarcadero to the Civic Center, along Market St., to end, and crowd estimates have ranged from 42,000 to 80,000 or more just in SF, but most sources agree that this was the biggest protest in San Francisco since Vietnam. There was a much bigger protest in D.C. (200,000 people) as well as in other major cities all over the world. Click here to see some of the pictures I took of the SF protest. I tried to get photos of a lot of the signs because the messages were either profound or hilarious.

As usual, most of the mainstream media completely ignored this event, but the San Francisco Chronicle had a so-so writeup on it, and Smirking Chimp had some info as well (be patient - their site is slow). What really bothers me the most, though, is that none of the logical arguments that abounded at the protest - from the public speakers, written on signs, etc. - made it into any of the writeups, at least, not in any detail. Why is this side of the argument never heard? And worse yet... why do people who haven't researched the facts endorse this war?

10/23/2002
I know I'm not supposed to go there, but I'm going to do it: I urge you to vote democratic on November 5 (if you're in the U.S.) and help turn around the direction this country is going. If you've read any international news in the past year, you're aware of the horrible reputation we're building for ourselves, regarding things like the International Criminal Court, steel tariffs, Iraq, the Kyoto Protocol, Venezuela, and so on. And inside our borders, we now have the rights-eroding Patriot Act, detention without due process, $30 billion more military spending, a vastly crippled EPA, a slashed Clean Air Act (and hence, a motherload of dirtiest-in-three-decades power plants being constructed in haste) - but hey, at least we replaced it with voluntary emissions reductions(?!) - and an economy going down the toilet. Whatsmore, we have a psychotic right-wing president who only cares about war, hasn't lifted a finger for the economy, and has proven he will do anything for big business.

All of these actions are driven by an ultra-conservative, right-wing White House that needs to be kept strongly in check. They want more control over everything - U.S. citizens, and the rest of the world. Control and power. Ever read 1984?

I'm afraid that if we stay on this track, one thing is for sure: violence will perpetually escalate and my grandkids will still be dealing with terrorist attacks and, possibly, the aftermath of World War III. Whatever happened to the vision of the future where nations cooperated, and violence was a last resort? We are in the dark ages today - as we should expect, with a cabinet full of Cold War veterans. Who knows, maybe if we stay on this track, the EU and others will finally stand up to us - maybe they'll even slap embargoes on us, or start a "oil for food" program, where we export food to get the oil for our SUV's! - the ironic inverse of the Iraqi version.

Vote for democrats - to keep these rich, insensitive, Orwellian dictators-stuck-in-a-democracy in the White House from striking out the rest of the Constitution. They've lived a life of privilege, and abstraction, and "good vs. evil" fairy tales; and I don't think they have a clue what they're really doing to the world.

Click here for a similar take on all of this.

10/20/2002
My friend Luke and I saw an incredible documentary tonight: Michael Moore's new film, Bowling for Columbine. This is, by far, his finest work. Its goal, as I perceived it, was to answer the question: Why does the U.S. have so many more gun deaths, per gun, than any other developed nation - by a huge margin? In the exploratory process of answering that question, many tangents come up, and many pieces come together - frighteningly well. (I always knew that I felt something about TV wasn't right, beyond the violence, glamour, and advertising - but I could never put my finger on it. Now, the puzzle is complete, for me.)

I very, very highly recommend seeing this movie. Whether you're a parent concerned about the crazy world your kids are growing up in, one the kid growing up in a crazy world, or even just a person who feels some ill unease about today's world - please, rouse as many of your friends and family as possible and go see it. You will not be disappointed; you'll probably even walk away feeling a bit empowered, with a better understanding of life, reality, and the media.

10/20/2002
A good thing to print out and hang on the fridge: the Environmental Working Group's website has posted a list of the fruits and vegetables with the most pesticides - i.e., the ones that you might want to buy organic. So, if you don't have the cash to buy mostly organic food, but you still want to protect your kids from ingesting too many pesticides, here's your ticket to applying the 80/20 rule.

Also, tomorrow marks "Organic Monday", the first day that the federal "Certified Organic" label kicks in. Happy Organic Monday!

10/19/2002
The average American - one single person - over the course of their life, eats:

• 26 pigs
• 10 cows
• over 2,200 chickens, and
• 71 turkeys.

• 0 pigs
• 0 cows
• 0 chickens, and
• 0 turkeys.

10/15/2002
Congressman Ron Paul, R/Texas, published his 35 'Questions that won't be asked about Iraq' about a month ago, and I just stumbled across it today. For anyone who feels like endorsing a potential preemptive and unilateral war with Iraq, but hasn't done their research, I strongly suggest you read this first.

10/9/2002
I've been meaning, for a long time, to find out which gas companies import the least middle-eastern oil. Well, I finally looked it up... here's what I found.

The "good" ones (with the least middle-eastern imports) seem to be: (most certain first)

    SUNOCO, Conoco, Citgo, Hess, 76, Phillips 66, Circle K, Vitol, Sinclair,
    Tesoro, Walmart, Flying J, Coastal/El Paso, Kendall, Tosco, Holiday.

Borderline/Sources Disagreed:

    BP, Amoco.

The "bad" ones (with the most middle-eastern imports) seem to be: (worst first)

    TEXACO, SHELL, Exxon, Esso, Mobil, Chevron, Marathon, Arco, Motiva,
    Valero, Diamond Shamrock, Ultramar, Beacon, Speedway, Caltex.

I could only find three seemingly-reliable sources aside from the ubiquitous e-mail that went around, so I looked at their results and combined & cross-checked them all; they mostly agreed. Here are the sources:
    http://www.boycott-middle-east-oil.com/
    http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/oilterrorism.htm
    http://www.builditez.com/sites/araboilboycott/index.asp?pg=T4&col=1


Note that there are also general boycotts already out on Chevron, Texaco, and Exxon/Mobil for their efforts to undermine the Kyoto Protocol.

UPDATE
There is also this bit on snopes.com about why this is a hoax (this info gets sent around in a chain letter). Well, they're claiming that it's a hoax that "spurning gasoline from Shell, Chevron, ... will cut off the funding of terrorists." But that's not what I'm saying; that's not my goal. My goal is to vote with my dollar, and hurt the business of oil companies that have any presence in the middle east, to get them the hell out of there - not to cut off funding of terrorists. (That, after all, comes from the very same Saudis that invested in W's failed oil companies). It is my belief that our money-hungry country has only had one purpose setting foot in the middle east in the last 50 years: to serve our own interests, which means making more money or getting cheap oil. The best interests of the inhabitants are very low on our list of concerns. That's bad for them, and in the long run, it's bad for us, because it builds up their hatred for us.
    http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/nogas.htm

9/26/2002
It's all too clear now; my doubt is eliminated. The facts: Bush and Cheney are big oil men, and Iraq is sitting on the second-largest stash of oil in the world (second only to - you guessed it - Saudi Arabia), worth $1 trillion. Iraq has agreed to let in weapons inspectors unconditionally, but Bush is still pushing - HARD - for Congress to give him the go-ahead for a unilateral, and preemptive, military strike.

First of all, this is illegal. Is it okay for a single nation to bypass the U.N. while alleging to be help the U.N. do its job? No - the U.N. is there to decide when it's okay for nations to use violence; it's not up to the president of the U.S. to decide, unless it's self-defense, which this clearly is not (especially if you listen to the old weapons inspectors). And even if they could pose a threat to us, is it okay to preemptively strike your neighbor because he or she might strike you? No. (Especially because this will be a 'precedential' green light for China to attack Taiwan, India to attack Pakistan to attack India, Russia to obliterate Chechnya and Georgia, and many others.)

Second, this is dumb. We're supposed to be fighting a 'war on terror', but what does terrorism have to do with Iraq? Zero of the hijackers were from Iraq, while 15 of 19 were from Saudi Arabia - our democracy-crushing "best pals" in the region. As Gore said the other day, taking unilateral action on Iraq on now would seriously compromise the multilateral support that we've enjoyed for the so-called "War on Terror".

Bush is not dumb, even though he might be a functional illiterate; Cheney and Rumsfeld are not dumb. It's clear as day that the Bush cabinet is pushing some agenda; after all, why insist on attacking now, when Iraq has agreed to new inspections? Well, here are some highly plausible alterior motives:

1. November elections are coming up; war always boosts the president's popularity; Bush's approval has gone from 60% to 67% in just two weeks, on merely talk of war. They're hoping that this support will rub off on republican candidates. Remember, it's urgent! Attack Iraq now!
   
   
2. They're hoping to distract the public from their failure to find Osama bin Laden (or other members of al-Qaeda), and to distract us from the lawsuits against Halliburton (Cheney's multibillion-dollar oil & services company with $3.8 billion in government contracts). Their ruckus has done a great job of it so far.
   
   
3. Neo-imperialism. Did anyone notice that we've crushed democracies in Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq; we're headed there with Colombia and Venezuela, and (at least economically) Brazil; and that we fully reinforce dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan? We don't care about democracy; we care about installing leaders that will give us access to natural resources, cheap labor, or military bases. There is no question.