Compare and Contrast…

Byoliveridley

“(Our) stance is not limited to those who fight on the government’s side but applies to all Sudanese, including those who still bear arms and fight the government. They are Sudanese, and we will not let them be tried by any court outside Sudan.”
— Sudan Justice Minister Mohamed Ali al-Mardi
Sudan rejects ICC jurisdiction, says one suspect held | Reuters

To wit…

For a number of reasons, the United States decided that the ICC had unacceptable consequences for our national sovereignty. Specifically, the ICC is an organization whose precepts go against fundamental American notions of sovereignty, checks and balances, and national independence. It is an agreement that is harmful to the national interests of the United States, and harmful to our presence abroad.

—John Bolton, Ex US Envoy to the UN

Nothing more to say, goose, meet gander, eat sauce!, insert other acceptable truisms, here. When Sudan uses the same language as the leader of the free world to “protect” perpetrators and apologists of genocide, you know that the world is a FUBARed place.

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  • U.S Plans new nuclear weapons

    Byoliveridley

    So, who’s going to bring this up at the security council? Will the U.S threaten itself? Are contingency plans being drawn for an attack? Will the U.S nuke Livermore? (that would take out Berkeley, that America hating bastion of communism as well!)

    Chemical & Engineering News: Latest News – DOE Plans new Nuclear Bomb

    The Departments of Energy and Defense have selected Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to move ahead on a design for the nation’s first new nuclear warhead in almost two decades. Called the reliable replacement warhead (RRW), it is intended to replace or add to the current nuclear stockpile.

    The design will utilize technology not available during the Cold War, says Thomas D’Agostino, acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the part of DOE responsible for nuclear weapons. “This will permit significant upgrades in safety and security features in the replacement warhead that will keep the same explosive yields and other military characteristics as the current weapons,” he continues.

    Ah, the wonderful hypocrisy that is nuclear policy these days, lovely.

    Update: Iran may have Halted Nuclear Program (temporarily)

    VIENNA, Austria -Iran seems to have at least temporarily halted the uranium-enrichment program at the heart of its standoff with the U.N. Security Council, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday. The pause could represent an attempt to de-escalate Iran’s conflict with the Security Council, which is deliberating a new set of harsher sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

    Up is down, good is bad, right is wrong.

  • The Big O

    Byoliveridley

    obama
    And so, it goes, the US shows the western world how to elect a minority candidate. Amazing, and truly transformational. There will be plenty of time for politics and what will happen next, but tonight, amazing. The US, after a few years, finally has a better president than Canada!

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    White House edits CDC climate testimony – Yeah, again!

    Byoliveridley

    05CEBA38-309B-4086-9DEA-58D522C052BE.jpg

    Turns out that the Emperor did not want anyone to know what the possible health effects of climate change were going to be.

    White House edits CDC climate testimony – Yahoo! News:

    It was eviscerated,’ said a CDC official, familiar with both versions, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the review process.

    The official said that while it is customary for testimony to be changed in a White House review, these changes were particularly ‘heavy-handed,’ with the document cut from its original 14 pages to four. It was six pages as presented to the Senate committee.

    So, is there any point in blogging about this story about the Emperor and his politburo wielding the censor pen on yet another government report? No, because like million other stories like the one above, nothing comes of it. Nobody loses anything, the press does not understand that this behavior is unprecedented and more representative of 1960s USSR than the so called leader of the free world. The people who read about it could not care less. This is small fry compared to the “enhanced interrogation techniques” (call it torture), “private military contractors” (call them mercenaries), “extraordinary rendition” (state sanctioned kidnapping, disappearing, whatever you call it), etc. This country has apparently been outraged to boredom. Where does the “editing” (censoring) of a government report even register on this list of outrages?

    Seriously, the Democratic party has been the most undistinguished of opposition parties. Yes, they supposedly control the Senate and Congress, but they don’t. In this weird undemocratic and archaic presidential system, you can only succeed if you have 60% of the Senate, 67% of the Congress or the president on your side. So, functionally, the Democrats are still the opposition party and do not seem to understand that as the opposition party, they need to oppose, manufacture outrage (in this case, no manufacturing necessary), and keep yelling continuously. Some shrillness is indicated here. Yes, they have some power that comes from the majorities, but the power needs to be used. They have to keep sending bills that the president will veto, they have to keep subpoenaing the politburo members so they can refuse to testify, and they have to keep repeating that they’re outraged, I tell you, outraged!!

    Oh well, I come from the famously fractious politics of India, so none of my rants are going to make sense. If you want outrage, here you go… Mind you, this is the member of the coalition that rules India exerting pressure on it’s ally, not even the real opposition who only yesterday called for the PM to resign because “a resurgent nation like India should not be led by a helpless and sad leader” – Ouch, take that!! All this over a nuclear deal with the US where India gained all kinds of concessions for essentially building a nuclear arsenal on the sly and against the wishes of the international community.

    The democrats needs a master class on opposition politics from the BJP.

    Picture Courtesy Ristocrats

  • This week's New Yorker Cover

    Byoliveridley


    I think this cover is way too misogynistic. Yes, of course, the obvious flag burning, the Barack muslim thing, the Osama picture, yeah yeah, we get it, satire. But, what the hell’s with Michelle Obama’s Afro? and the Gun, and the Shoes? The hair especially is disgusting. As my partner (see, I do listen!) has pointed out to me many a time, there’s a long history of black women being made to feel funny about their hair, remember the Don Imus Nappy Headed comment (which was offensive even without the whole sex for money insult – Don’t bother clicking on the link, you’ll only see the stupid comment again).

    I stand by my earlier contention that America is not ready for a non-white president, hopefully, I will be proven wrong, now that we know John McCain can’t even get on the internet without help. But the attacks on Michelle Obama are going to get very nasty before this is all over. Every black woman stereotype is going to be thrown at her.

  • |

    War?

    Byoliveridley

    Way off topic, but war’s been on everyone’s mind of late, and the horribly devastating oil spill in Lebanon is but one example of the crazy devastation caused by war. An event that would be an international emergency by itself is only a footnote in the death of many innocent people, destruction of the happiness of entire communities and populations, not to mention all those blown up bridges, power plants and homes.

    Los Angeles Times: Why Good Countries Fight Dirty Wars

    The citizen-soldiers sent into the field by the United States or any other Western popular government are expected, by virtue of not so long ago having been free civilians themselves, to be more empathetic with the plight of the noncombatants with whom they come into contact. Certainly, brutal incidents like the My Lai massacre or the Abu Ghraib scandal occur from time to time, but they are widely viewed as cultural aberrations. This interpretation, however, is as simplistic as it is misleading. All too often the armies of modern democracies have tolerated and even initiated outrages against civilians, in manners uneasily close to those of their totalitarian and terrorist enemies. Israeli troops are currently demonstrating this fact in their response to the Hezbollah rocket offensive — a response most of the world community, according to recent polls, believes is taking an unacceptably disproportionate toll on Lebanese civilians. And there have been times when democratic leaders have been even more open about their brutal intentions: Speaking of the Allied bombing campaign during World War II that culminated in that consummate act of state terrorism, the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, Winston Churchill flatly stated that the objective was “to make the enemy burn and bleed in every way.”

    Excellent article, there really is no moral war, no just war, no holy war, no noble war, no happy war, no easy war, and there really should be no war other than a reluctantly fought, and limited war. There are no noble warriors, no heros, only real people doing things to their fellow human beings that are for the most part, unspeakable horrors. Anyone who tries to argue with me that their war is somehow different because of a host of reasons is not going to convince me.

    While history books can be cleansed to blind future generations to the actual costs of war on the people fighting it, and the damage that ensues, fighting affects everyone who fights significantly, and rarely for the better. Eventually, it dehumanizes you, how can you kill someone (except in close combat where there’s a clear survival motivation) except by dehumanizing them? You’d have to think that a whole neighborhood is somehow inhuman to drop a bomb on them that kills maybe one terrorist and 15 innocent humans.

    The history we learn has a lot to do with our willingness to tolerate this much war. The science lessons we get in school are a culmination of centuries of accumulated knowledge, the mathematics we learn goes back 10-15 centuries, we are taught to be self-critical, to learn from our mistakes, to think, yet the history we learn is pure propaganda, none of these edicts seem to apply. Being a “pacifist” has gone from normal to “loony coward fringe element” in a few years. Oh well…

  • |

    Vote Strategically for the Environment

    Byoliveridley

    via Vote For Environment / Voter Pour l’Environnement.

    This site wants you to vote strategically to avoid splitting the anti-conservative vote on the assumption that all things being equal, the conservatives are much worse for the environment than any of the other parties. This is not really how you want an election to be decided, but a party that represents the minority of Canadians should not get a parliamentary majority simply because of a flawed voting system.

    I would heartily endorse a preferential ballot system for us. How does this work?

    Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a voting system used for single-winner elections in which voters have one vote and rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of first preference rankings, the candidate with the fewest number of votes is eliminated and that candidate’s votes redistributed to the voters’ next preferences among the remaining candidates. This process is repeated until one candidate has a majority of votes among candidates not eliminated. The term “instant runoff” is used because IRV is said to simulate a series of run-off elections tallied in rounds, as in an exhaustive ballot election.

    Under this system, if you like the Green Party the best because of their environmental policies, but know they cannot win, you can still vote for them. Just have the liberals/NDP as the second choice. It is overwhelmingly likely that if you like the Green Party policies, you like the policies of the conservatives more than the policies of the liberals or the NDP. With our current system, that’s exactly what your vote will say. Your vote for a Green Party candidate in this election is essentially a vote for the Conservatives.

    In the absence of the preferential ballot, or instant runoff voting, using web 2.0 methods to vote strategically is the next best thing, and a great idea!