The juxtaposition of two stories on the front page of today's Oneonta Daily Star caught my eye: "Romney declares Jerusalem capital of Jewish state" and "Area gun enthusiasts take aim at critics."
The latter was the usual mainstream media story run in the aftermath of a mass shooting tragedy in which interviewees claimed that we didn't need more gun restrictions. It's shocking that the group interviewed, participants at a southern New York gun show, would come to that conclusion. Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney has agreed with this position.
The former was a story about Romney's visit to Israel. There, Romney said he would back an Israeli military aggression to knock out Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program, which played well with the militaristic government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Republican said that Israel had the 'right' to live next to a non-nuclear Iran.
At home, conservatives claim that everybody being armed makes things *more* safe.
Abroad, they claim that everybody being armed makes things *less* safe.
They need to pick a propaganda line and stick with it.
Additionally, Romney is claiming that Israelis have the 'rights' to live next to an unarmed neighbor and to aggressively disarm their neighbor to achieve that 'right.'
But he denies that Americans don't have any such rights.
Why does Romney claim a right for foreigners that he denies to Americans?
What country is Romney running to lead?
Update: One gun enthusiast interviewed in The Daily Star piece noted "In a free society, you are going to have crazies and there is no way to stop them." Can you imagine a conservative agreeing with that statement if the word 'crazies' was preceded by the word 'Islamist'?
Showing posts with label nuclear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nuclear. Show all posts
Monday, July 30, 2012
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Random thoughts
PRIORITIES
The American people had no problem with kidnapping random and sundry foreigners on foreign soil, guilty or not, and “renditioning” them to torturous regimes under the pretext of national security. We had no problem with funding such tortuous regimes with oodles of your tax money (but God forbid we help working Americans get health care). We had no problem with our agents doing the torturing themselves. We had no problem with the horrors revealed in Wikileaks’ Afghan and Iraq war logs (sorry I can’t link to them as Wikileaks’ site curiously appears to be down). Heck, we had little problem with the insane and counterproductive aggression against Iraq in the first place, even after the WMD fairy refused to show us where those weapons were. But we draw the line at airport pat downs and body scanners?
**
NATIONAL 'DON'T USE YOUR BRAIN' DAY
First, there was a national “Don’t Buy Gas” Day protest. Now, there’s a “Buy Nothing” Day. Do people realize how stupid and pointless these one day protests are? Do you seriously think you’re sending a warning to the consumerist economy by refusing to spend a dime on useless crap today but then going out and buying useless crap tomorrow? Is the self-indulgence of empty symbolism really that powerful? If you really want to send a message, don’t change your day. Change your dang lifestyle.
**
ACCOUNTABILITY FOR ONE, ACCOUNTABILITY FOR ALL
If teachers should be held “accountable” via their students’ test scores, shouldn’t corrections officers be similarly held “accountable” via their released prisoners’ recidivism rates?
**
THE JUDICIARY HIJACKED BY THE MOB
So Mike Huckabee is gloating that he and his fellow theocrats helped oust several Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of equal protection of the law for gay citizens. He claimed that the ruling sent a message.
It sent a message indeed: beyond a certain level, we shouldn't have elected judges.
The system here in New York is fine. Trial court judges are elected. But appellate court judges, those who set precedents, are appointed by the governor and approved by the legislature but to a limited term of office. This gives them a certain degree of accountability but shields them to a certain extent from mob fury.
The judiciary is not supposed represent the "will of the people." It's supposed to uphold constitutions, including minority rights protections, regardless of what the hysteria or scapegoat of the day happens to be.
And it sent another message about why electing judges is dangerous: it lends itself to the same corruption of outside money as the election of politicians.
**
OXYMORON OF THE DAY
New York’s governor-elect wants the judiciary to intervene in a few close election recounts to ensure that we have a “functioning Senate” in January. It’s amusing that he thinks the courts can impose this. Between being run by boobs and criminals (convicted, indicted and not-yet-indicted), NYS hasn’t had a functioning Senate in several years.
**
MONEY WELL SPENT?
The US alone has spent $56 billion on “Afghanistan reconstruction.” For reference, if the US had instead divvied up that money equally and directly given it to the people, that would have put $2000 in the hands of every single Afghan.
**
FORTUNATELY NO ONE EXPECTS COHERENCE FROM SPORTS ANNOUNCERS
Soccer commentators should be thrashed for improper use of the word 'unlucky.' Hitting a shot 15 feet over the cross bar or, worse, out for a throw in is NOT unlucky; it's incompetent. Unlucky is the FC Dallas player who scored the own goal on Sunday night.
**
RADIATING FURY
Last month, Hundreds of gallons of radioactive water from a cleanup at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory spilled from a drainage pipe into the Mohawk River in NY’s Capital District, according to an article in the Albany Times Union. A failed sump pump system caused about 630 gallons of tainted water -- containing Cesium-137, Strontium-90, uranium and plutonium -- to overflow into a culvert draining directly into the river, [the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation] reported.
The T-U described these as ‘known carcinogens.’
I can’t imagine why there’s public reticence about the expansion of nuclear power as an energy source.
The American people had no problem with kidnapping random and sundry foreigners on foreign soil, guilty or not, and “renditioning” them to torturous regimes under the pretext of national security. We had no problem with funding such tortuous regimes with oodles of your tax money (but God forbid we help working Americans get health care). We had no problem with our agents doing the torturing themselves. We had no problem with the horrors revealed in Wikileaks’ Afghan and Iraq war logs (sorry I can’t link to them as Wikileaks’ site curiously appears to be down). Heck, we had little problem with the insane and counterproductive aggression against Iraq in the first place, even after the WMD fairy refused to show us where those weapons were. But we draw the line at airport pat downs and body scanners?
**
NATIONAL 'DON'T USE YOUR BRAIN' DAY
First, there was a national “Don’t Buy Gas” Day protest. Now, there’s a “Buy Nothing” Day. Do people realize how stupid and pointless these one day protests are? Do you seriously think you’re sending a warning to the consumerist economy by refusing to spend a dime on useless crap today but then going out and buying useless crap tomorrow? Is the self-indulgence of empty symbolism really that powerful? If you really want to send a message, don’t change your day. Change your dang lifestyle.
**
ACCOUNTABILITY FOR ONE, ACCOUNTABILITY FOR ALL
If teachers should be held “accountable” via their students’ test scores, shouldn’t corrections officers be similarly held “accountable” via their released prisoners’ recidivism rates?
**
THE JUDICIARY HIJACKED BY THE MOB
So Mike Huckabee is gloating that he and his fellow theocrats helped oust several Iowa Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of equal protection of the law for gay citizens. He claimed that the ruling sent a message.
It sent a message indeed: beyond a certain level, we shouldn't have elected judges.
The system here in New York is fine. Trial court judges are elected. But appellate court judges, those who set precedents, are appointed by the governor and approved by the legislature but to a limited term of office. This gives them a certain degree of accountability but shields them to a certain extent from mob fury.
The judiciary is not supposed represent the "will of the people." It's supposed to uphold constitutions, including minority rights protections, regardless of what the hysteria or scapegoat of the day happens to be.
And it sent another message about why electing judges is dangerous: it lends itself to the same corruption of outside money as the election of politicians.
**
OXYMORON OF THE DAY
New York’s governor-elect wants the judiciary to intervene in a few close election recounts to ensure that we have a “functioning Senate” in January. It’s amusing that he thinks the courts can impose this. Between being run by boobs and criminals (convicted, indicted and not-yet-indicted), NYS hasn’t had a functioning Senate in several years.
**
MONEY WELL SPENT?
The US alone has spent $56 billion on “Afghanistan reconstruction.” For reference, if the US had instead divvied up that money equally and directly given it to the people, that would have put $2000 in the hands of every single Afghan.
**
FORTUNATELY NO ONE EXPECTS COHERENCE FROM SPORTS ANNOUNCERS
Soccer commentators should be thrashed for improper use of the word 'unlucky.' Hitting a shot 15 feet over the cross bar or, worse, out for a throw in is NOT unlucky; it's incompetent. Unlucky is the FC Dallas player who scored the own goal on Sunday night.
**
RADIATING FURY
Last month, Hundreds of gallons of radioactive water from a cleanup at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory spilled from a drainage pipe into the Mohawk River in NY’s Capital District, according to an article in the Albany Times Union. A failed sump pump system caused about 630 gallons of tainted water -- containing Cesium-137, Strontium-90, uranium and plutonium -- to overflow into a culvert draining directly into the river, [the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation] reported.
The T-U described these as ‘known carcinogens.’
I can’t imagine why there’s public reticence about the expansion of nuclear power as an energy source.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Britain to go nuclear
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." -Theodore Roosevelt
It's no secret that the Bush administration is hell bent on inventing pretexts for a military confrontation with Iran. This is cause for great concern. When two belligerent, theocratically-based regimes of different sects collide, the results are rarely pretty.
The main fake pretext for militaristic posturing against Iran is that country's nuclear program, which it claims is designed to provide energy to its exploding population. Washington counters that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons. I'm not sure if this is true but even if it is, can you blame them? Nuclear weapons are the only proven deterrence to Bush administration belligerence. Contrast the different fates of Iraq and North Korea.
That the nuclear question is a fake pretext is pretty transparent. Take the British government recent decision to give the green light to a new generation of nuclear power stations in the United Kingdom. They even tried to couch it in environmentalism by invoking green buzzphrases.
Britain's energy minister told Parliament: "Nuclear power has provided us with safe and secure supplies of electricity for half a century. It is one of the very few proven low carbon technologies which can provide baseload electricity. Nuclear power currently provides us with around 19% of our electricity. Nuclear power will help us meet our twin energy challenges - ensuring secure supplies and tackling climate change."
In fact, the minister said that limiting the amount of power produced via the nuclear route "would not be consistent with [Britain's] long term national interest."
This drew no reaction at all from Washington.
It's in Britain's national interest that it have nuclear power but a threat to world peace if Iran does.
It's in America's national interest that it have nuclear weapons but a threat to world peace if Iran might... even though the only country ever to use nuclear weapons against a civilian population was not Iran, but America.
And yet many are still under the delusion that "they hate us because we're free."
Whew! I'm glad it's not the hypocrisy.
Aside: this really raises an interesting question. Pro-gun types contend that if everyone had a gun (or several), the world would be safer because there would be so much 'deterrence' from reckless or aggressive use. According to this logic, wouldn't it stand to reason that the world would be safer if every country had nuclear weapons?
It's no secret that the Bush administration is hell bent on inventing pretexts for a military confrontation with Iran. This is cause for great concern. When two belligerent, theocratically-based regimes of different sects collide, the results are rarely pretty.
The main fake pretext for militaristic posturing against Iran is that country's nuclear program, which it claims is designed to provide energy to its exploding population. Washington counters that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons. I'm not sure if this is true but even if it is, can you blame them? Nuclear weapons are the only proven deterrence to Bush administration belligerence. Contrast the different fates of Iraq and North Korea.
That the nuclear question is a fake pretext is pretty transparent. Take the British government recent decision to give the green light to a new generation of nuclear power stations in the United Kingdom. They even tried to couch it in environmentalism by invoking green buzzphrases.
Britain's energy minister told Parliament: "Nuclear power has provided us with safe and secure supplies of electricity for half a century. It is one of the very few proven low carbon technologies which can provide baseload electricity. Nuclear power currently provides us with around 19% of our electricity. Nuclear power will help us meet our twin energy challenges - ensuring secure supplies and tackling climate change."
In fact, the minister said that limiting the amount of power produced via the nuclear route "would not be consistent with [Britain's] long term national interest."
This drew no reaction at all from Washington.
It's in Britain's national interest that it have nuclear power but a threat to world peace if Iran does.
It's in America's national interest that it have nuclear weapons but a threat to world peace if Iran might... even though the only country ever to use nuclear weapons against a civilian population was not Iran, but America.
And yet many are still under the delusion that "they hate us because we're free."
Whew! I'm glad it's not the hypocrisy.
Aside: this really raises an interesting question. Pro-gun types contend that if everyone had a gun (or several), the world would be safer because there would be so much 'deterrence' from reckless or aggressive use. According to this logic, wouldn't it stand to reason that the world would be safer if every country had nuclear weapons?
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