Just laugh...

the next time someone says Israel wants a peaceful solution. It didn't take them 5 minutes before the threat of peace was on the table and they had to squash it in its tracks.

Seizures Show New Israel Line Against Hamas
Israeli troops seized 64 members of Hamas in the west bank, including 1/3 of the Palestinian cabinet and 23 legislators. Israel’s stated goal ever since the Parliamentary elections 5 months ago was to weaken the new Palestinian government led by Hamas through exonommic pressure in “an effort to get it to recognize Israel and forswear violence.”

Now a faction of Hamas just came out the other day stating that they wanted to recognize Israel and forswear violence; rationally now what would you do if you wanted to nurture that faction? Attack?

"They're raising the ante," he said. "It's not about releasing the soldier, it's more sinister than that. It seems to me they're going for the long haul." But the result, he said, would actually "reinforce the radicals."

Ali Jarbawi, a professor and dean at Birzeit University here, said he thought the real goal was to remove the Hamas government from power.

Israel wants to continue with its unilateral policies based on the idea that there is no "Palestinian partner," said Mr. Jarbawi, who turned down an offer from Hamas to join the government as an independent. "If you build up your strategy on having no partner, then you have to ensure you don't have one. So when Palestinians tell you that there is about to be a political agreement among the factions, putting their house in order at last, you intervene."

A valid question is posed...

"Why do we need a Palestinian Authority at all? Just to disguise the occupation? If I were Abu Mazen, I'd say I'm a president without authority and dismantle it, and tell Israel: 'You're responsible. You pay.' And then you should worry about a binational state."

Israel can't have it both ways--actually they can and they will until the U.S. steps in and stops funding the war machine; which as voters is our responsibility. Either Israel wants a peaceful solution or a violent solution. There is either going to be a two state compromise or a binational state, if solution is even your goal; which is quite questionable when you look at Israels actions in the context of war and peace.

I don't know, no answers from me. As my freind Ryan says "wait 200 years and we can give all the Palestinians casinos."

research is like chasing the tail of God

I’ve been in an open debate with a theologian. The other day he told me I wasn’t an Anarchist. To which I responded that I am. Then he started talking about the etymology of the word, which shut me up. But I’ve gone and looked it up. From the oxford English Dictionary

Anarchy

Greek à name of state without a chief or head

1. a) Absence of Government; a state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power; political disorder
b) A theoretical social state in which there is no governing person or body of persons but each individual has absolute liberty (without implication of disorder)


Anarchist
One who admits of no ruling power; an advocate or promoter of anarchy; one who upsets settled order.

So once I get the economic freedom, Anarchist is going on my left wrist.
an- (without) + archos (ruler).

Even with my compromises, my failures, my contradictions, and my hypocrisies my mythology is anarchism. A society where we have total liberty and yet we take total responsibility for our role in society with no Gods or Masters telling us and/or controlling us; maybe it’s a fact that this world is filled with Masters and Slaves. But that fact doesn’t change my ideal, my mythology.

Shocking isn't the word I was thinking of...

Well it only took two days; I heard on NPR the other day that a moderate wing of Hamas had come out with a plan to recognize the state of Israel. Two days later in the New York Times Israel Steps Up Confrontation in Gaza Strip. From the outside looking in it would appear that Israel not only wants but needs a radical extremist Hamas because the only footing they have is in the use of force. Nothing but sheer U.S. funded warpower will keep Israel the way Israel wants to remain--a Jewish state. If Israel wanted peace it would resist using force in a time when diplomacy would help to end the violence. Instead they have chosen to strengthen the hand of the conservative elements of Hamas.

cut and run or proper planning?

Bob Herbert hit the nail on the head in his op-ed today

Americans need to understand that Mr. Bush's invasion of Iraq was a strategic blunder of the highest magnitude. It has resulted in mindboggling levels of bloodshed, chaos and misery in Iraq, and it certainly hasn't made the U.S. any safer.

I would add that it has--as predicted by experts--increased the number of converts to the terrorists cause.

What I've never understood about the tough-guy "we don't cut and run" rhetoric is the fact that at some point we have to leave; actually we don't have to leave we could stay indefinately and have a giant drain on our economy and security, pulling us down from our slot as the sole hyperpower. But my question is, if you agree that we have to leave, how wlse do you expect for the troop drawdown to occur. the "enemy" is going to know betore it happens, and yes they will attempt to exploit the oportunity that leaving will create. But maybe we should allow the civil war that is bound to occur--or rather is occuring right now--to get going. We can use our resources and power in more effective areas. if you don't want Iraq to become another Vietnam don't make Iraq another Vietnam: Set a timetable now.

How well are we doing in Iraq

The way the Republican's talk it would seem that we are making progress in Iraq. And because of that fact we don't need to set a "time-line." Now I don't believe we can successfully pull everyone out in 6 months. But me should be taking dramatic steps towards leaving. We can't sit there forever and time and time again our leadership has failed to lead us by simply saying everything is peachy. But everything is not peachy, you are either irresponsible or delusional if you think that way. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. For four years Republicans have been deferring to the President; if the President says its going well and only a coward cuts and runs then we must be doing everything right. We screwed up the occupation, and we have no plans to get out except for some enlightened words from our successful leader. if you want to really see how well its going read the article Fear Invades Once comfortable Baghdad Enclave in todays New York Times.

Now, as Iraqi leaders in the Green Zone savor their recent successes — the naming of the first full-term government since the fall of Saddam Hussein and the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted guerrilla leader — Iraqis outside its walls are more frightened than ever. Neighborhood after neighborhood in western Baghdad has fallen to insurgents, with some areas bordering on anarchy. Bodies lie on the streets for hours. Trash is no longer collected. Children are home-schooled.

Now thats progress!

The powerful dominance of the mythological superhero

Why was our quick overthrow of the Iraqi government so grand? I keep hearing about how impressive that was for us to accomplish. But we picked on the weakest enemy we could find. The Iraqi army wasn’t an army; after over 13 years of sanctions and sporadic bombing campaigns Iraq had a beaten and bruised third world military. It was like attacking an elementary school crosswalk attendant and then struting around campus bragging about how well you did it, ignoring the fact that you did it to a 5th grader.

Finding your true values

To be truly human one must figure out what one believes and then act on it. Getting lost in debate about what and why you believe is a way of holding off from the necessity of action. You are your values, not the reasons behind why you hold those values. Without action you are a hollow shell of potential.

Bias

Everyone has bias towards certain things--no make that all things--and its a fact of life. now all we can do is deal with reality and work on uncovering both others bias' and uncovering and being honest about our own.

back to the bible

If the bible is to be taken literally rather than metaphorically then we are all children of Adam and Eve, we are all inbred; we all know what happens with inbreeding so that seems unlikely to be true. So Adam and Eve are a mythological way of saying how we developed therefore we must interpret things through the lens of mythology not the lens of reality. When people confuse reality and mythology thats when things become political.

Learned helplessness

I was reading something that brought up the issue of learned helplessness. Researcher Martin Seligman electrically shocked dogs and the dogs who weren't given a way out learned to stop trying. They learned to be helpless. Can people follow from that research? Poor people aren't biologically lazy. In fact some poor people work more than 40 hours a week. But the issue is always on the apathetic poor, the ones who don't try, the cleche welfare mothers and such. But could it be that society has reinforced the helplessness and the poor have been trained to stop trying since only an idiot keeps touching the stove when they get burned.

Today's New York Times

Some things stuck out for me today...

In the article titled "In the Congo, hunger and disease erode democracy." I was struck by something I never thought much about when reading about the Congo; it put things in perspective about how bad it is there.

In less than a decade, an estimated four million people have died, mostly of hunger and disease caused by the fighting. It has been the deadliest conflict since World War II, with more than 1000 people still dying each day.

The deadliest conflict since World War II.

Next is "Doctors See Way to Cut Suffering in Executions" It was about suffering during lethal injection. I'll be up front and state that I am against the Death Penalty because I believe the role of the State is to set the example of how people are to treat each other. If we decide collectively that people should not kill one another within our domain; then the state should not kill either. I'm not saying there are never legitimate times to kill a person; i'm saying the death penalty does not fall within that principle. People simply want revenge and peace for whatever crime has been done. The criminal has lost their right to proticipate freely within our society but thats as far as you can take it, too many factors are involved with such drastic crimes: mental health, and sociological realities; this does not legitimize the crime but it does put the breaks on the general publics thirst for blood. The first thing that stood out is the fact that with execution methods the concern is with how those viewing the execution are effected by the site of watching a person die in the manner that many of the drugs cause a person to die.

But medical experts say the current method of lethal injection could easily be changed to make suffering less likely

At the core of the issue is a debate about which matters more, the comfort of prisoners or that of the people who watch them die. A major obstacle to change is that alternative methods of lethal injection, though they might be easier on inmates, would almost certainly be harder on witnesses and executioners.

With a different approach, death would take longer and might involve jerking movements that the prisoner would not feel but that would be unpleasant for others to watch.

"Policy makers have historically considered the needs of witnesses in devising protocols" for execution, said Dr. Mark Dershwitz, a professor of anesthesiology at the University of Massachusetts who has testified about the drugs used in lethal injection

because drugs like Pavulon can mask suffering, many states outlaw them for animal euthanasia.

We won't do it to other animals, we must want the person to suffer. What does that say about us?

Then it goes on to an interesting sociological pattern. Doctors and nurses tend to refuse to do the injection

Although some doctors and nurses do help in executions, lethal injection in many states is carried out by paramedics, technicians or other prison employees who do not have special training in anesthesia.

So there must be something in their training that causes them to refuse. This is an example I've heard about academia. Some people phrase it saying, Academia trains people to be atheists. Which seems strange to me from being in University. I was never once trained to be an atheist; I was trined to be rational, and methodical in regards to backing up whatever position i'm taking. So in a round about way academia does train people to be atheist since most rational and emperically valid methods of coming to a position on religion lead too uncertainty in an a definative answer and therefore the mythology of the society for which you live in will not magically be an answer that seems legitimate. My point is, something in the training of medical professionals keeps them from participating in the barbarian blood sport of tax funded revenge. So there must be some social benifits that can be applied to others to help promote ethical reasoning when dealing with very terrible occurances.

Finally check out the op-ed A Look at Republican Priorities: Comforting the Comfortable

I'm back

The solution to every problem can be found by taking a step back and letting the world pass by--you are bound to find the answer you are looking for without the need to stress over it. I had internet connection issues, mostly political. But [wo]man is a social animal and can't chop down the whole forest or else [s]he will have no place to dwell; lesson to this story, don't eat where you shit or shit where you eat. Finally summation in normal terms: libraries have internet connection for free! Taxpayer enabled propaganda back in business...

blogging hiatus

Sorry, been having trouble with connections--both physical and metaphysical. And now i'm going out of town. But I shall be back.

An Inconvenient Truth

Went to see the new Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth today. Here is the website for it. I was really impressed. It did a good job of debunking the myth that Scientist are debating the issue. It’s similar to the evolution issue. Science isn't questioning if global warming from human industrialization is occurring. There are debates within science, but it’s a question of how bad and what to do about it. The thing is people don't understand the process of science. It’s about using the scientific method and then having your findings challenged in journals where experts can look at the research and force the author of the study to defend her findings. You always have that one guy (maybe 5% of any population)--we'll call him Peter. And Peter will scream and yell telling you those elitist liberal academics are pulling the wool over your eyes. And then everyone says okay so the issue isn't solved-- there are still scientist saying it isn't happening.

Well take Peter and apply him to religions. What do Christians say when you see a Christian bombing a Doctors office. You usually hear, "well he isn't really a Christian, he's a very disturbed person." Well it works the same here. Scientist are telling people, "look, see Peter over there; he isn't really a scientist. He doesn't participate in our process of publishing research in journals. He gets all his research money from big oil and gas. He won't participate in civilized debate, he simply uses a bully pulpit for five minutes of Q and A on TV news channels where real Scientists don't have the opportunity to challenge every one of his statements with documentable evidence refuting his idiotic claims.

And its not like I claim any knowledge on the subject. I know next to nothing about it. But I do have faith in Science and the Scientific method. I do know that over and over again the process of testing ideas by doing the research and then having them challenged and verified by others causes our knowledge and understanding of the world to grow and improve. I have to let the experts do their job. And when 90% of the experts say x is happening. I believe in x.

The movie also does a good job of remaking Al Gore for a 2008 bid. It was a great piece of political propaganda. The unfortunate thing is you could use the model of analysis Gore used to take apart other issues like Militarism, Democracy, Voting, Economics, and Thought-control in Democratic societies; but that might be dangerous to go there.

Anyways lots o'thumbs up on this movie. Its well worth the money to see just a few of the slides he uses, some of the graphs and flow charts are very powerful. Just watch HOW the critics attack him. They'll pick out Scientist who disagree with certain examples--because its a fact that there is debate within science as to what exactly the warming looks like--and will use that to say there isn't global warming which is a jump in logic. Or they will find "experts" who happen to NOT be climate scientists. The sad thing is this will be another case of preaching to the converted; the intellectual isolation in this country (on all sides) is out of control. And the people who won't see it, won't be around when the shit hits the fan.

Here are some highlights I found online about it:

The Globe Is Warming To Al Gore

What does Gore do in An Inconvenient Truth? He delivers a lecture, about global warming. He waxes didactic. Pedant that he is, he teaches his audience something. He proves that he is smarter than the rest of us, in that he’s developed real, deep knowledge about something we all should care about. And in transmitting that knowledge to viewers, he leaves moviegoers feeling smarter than when they entered the theater.

Warming to A Candidacy?

So much for his silly dichotomy -- his assertion that global warming "is not a political issue. It is a moral issue." Any large policy issue is a political issue, and it is large because it is morally significant. So, having come within 537 Florida votes, or perhaps a 5 to 4 Supreme Court decision, of becoming president, why not try again, particularly with, he says, "Earth in the balance"?

Did Al get the science right? At Salon you have to look at a quick add to read the whole article...

The usual oil industry flacks and dogmatic skeptics have surfaced to denounce Al Gore's global warming movie. But climate scientists say that, basically, he got it right.

Al Gore's global warning

Critics who accuse Gore of opportunism will have to acknowledge that he has been at this for a long time, ever since he researched the subject in college and helped organize the first Congressional hearings on global warming in the late '70s. They will also have to deal with the fact that, as mentioned in the movie, a 2004 Science magazine survey of all peer-reviewed scientific studies of climate change showed 928 papers supporting man-made global warming. None denied it. Meanwhile, a similar sample of stories from the mass media showed that 53 percent claim global warming is unproven.

The world is Flat

I’m reading Thomas Friedman’s book “The world is flat.” He gives a story about a McDonalds franchise that outsources their drive-through to a call center in Colorado. Something stuck out in the story:

Though his operators earn, on average, 40 cents an hour more than his line employees, he has cut his overall labor costs by a percentage point, even as drive-through sales have increased… Tests conducted by outside companies found that [his] drive-throughs now make mistakes on fewer than 2% of all orders, down from about 4% before he stated using the call center.

He cut labor costs by a percentage point but he’s paying the operators more than his workers in the store? Having worked at McDonalds I can tell you that if you had stuck me in a room where I couldn’t get pulled off the drive-through to help do something else I would have been more efficient and a lot faster at my job. I can’t tell you how many times I would flip burgers and take drive-through orders--and then there was the time when I was riding around in a golfcart in the parking lot taking orders; hey I was 15! If I had been in a room with no outside work related distractions my job would have been totally different.

Now this example of outsourcing WILL come into play when they start shipping that job over to places where the market will allow for wages to drop substantially. But it’s a question of quality and competency, drive down the market too low and the quality of the worker—their education, NOT their competency as a human—will impact your business.

Another point is people shouldn’t be scared of these kinds of examples of technologies taking jobs. Technology isn’t inherently evil. It’s used the way it was developed. We have a top down authoritarian system and therefore we develop technologies to get rid of costly labor—otherwise known as humans who have certain basic needs. We could flip it around and create technologies that get rid of upper management if we wanted to. You don’t have to pay a CEO millions when you can outsource his job to a computer program.

Religion needs us, we don't need religion

“No one who knows even a little about the history of the Reformation would even attempt to deny that there were many political factors and historical ‘causes’ involved on all sides, including ambition and greed and misunderstanding and lust for power, as well as more than a little of human pride and prejudice.” ---Jaroslav Pelikan

Religion is about manipulating the spiritual side of humans for political ends. The separation of the three Abrahamic religions--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—were purely political differences; the politics of interpretation and control. Most people don’t like hearing that the roots of what they believe boil down to power plays from individuals long ago. Humans don’t need religion for their well being, though I am of the opinion that they do need spirituality. Now to make things even more complex societies themselves may need religion to function in a healthy manner. So the true quest of a spiritual “prophet” is to be a true politician and set up a society based on being spiritual on top of the social need for cohesion; setting up a non hierarchical Religion—otherwise known as a secular State (or in my goal an anarcho-syndicalist State); but since elites are involved, violence is inevitable; the elites will fight you to the death to keep control. Jesus was trying to do this for his fellow Jews, Paul was trying it for his fellow Romans, Gandhi for his fellow Indians, Martin Luther King Jr. for his fellow man. It’s a futile cause because people are willing to go to war to keep their power.

Last thoughts for the night

"Try to think of us human beings as instruments, put into an environment. Things impinge on us. Just as a thermometer registers the temperature, so we respond to causal impacts: energies and photons and pressures of touch and sound. I, as an instrument, respond to this continuous causal flux one way--a way determined by the state of my sense organs and brain--and so do you. But if I respond one way, and you a different way, where is truth or falsity? I am an input-output device which gives one output, and you are a similar device which gives another." --Simon Blackburn

I don't know what to make of having no control. It makes things less serious, it takes things to a different level. If you are a hard determinist you technically believe everything is set and we are just playing out a recording; we are the music. Technically this means we believe in God. God is a word Romantics like to use, it’s a pretty way of saying everything is as it should be. I'm an Atheist for political reasons. I'm an atheist because I have no empirical data to the contrary. I believe in the possibility of Deities but I highly doubt the likelihood of a God as "we" understand it. We being humans, we meaning an anthropocentric Deity. If there is a God then he doesn't care about us. If there is a God with traits most people claim, then he's an asshole.

See even reading back over this I am caught by the uselessness of the word God. It’s such a loaded word. I used it just now in a few different contexts; all from one word. The word is meaningless because there are so many different interpretations of the word. I can't comprehend what you mean by the word. It has no meaning--shit can I say that one more time? That’s why when you start a debate you first have to make the person making the claim to define her terms. Usually that’s where most of my debates snag. When you actually sit down and force a person to define what they mean you come to find out they don't know what they mean. How can people invest so much belief and passion into something they don't understand? And yet the thing is I do it all the time, my confusion isn't God my confusion is life. Yet I'm very passionate about it and I have no fucking clue about anything. So I sit and poke holes in people beliefs so that they can be as empty as I am.

Wow the quote I used to influence my last thoughts for the night have nothing to do with the subjects I hit on. Or maybe they do?

Know Thyself

"A person must first learn to know himself before learning anything else." --Søren Kierkegaard

What do I honestly know about myself? Do I know anything? Is there anything at the core? Know thyself, I want it tattooed on my body, but what does it mean to me? Do I really want to know myself? I have more questions than answers. Do i have any answer? I'm scared to even think that I do. I'm scared of being wrong. At the desk where I am sitting, if you look up, there is a mirror right in front of me. If Narcissus fell in love with himself through his reflection can I find a way into myself through reflection?

Where am I right now. Right now I have nothing I believe in, I have ideals with no meaning, I justify through manipulation and seduction. People are objects to me, I keep them around for entertainment and gratification.

This is my new blog because this is my new life. On March 16th of this year, I came very close to killing myself. In 3 months I've been in and out of jail, and then a treatment facility the rest of the time. I just recently got out of treatment. Now I have to pick up the peices and see whats left. This is my attempt to change without changing. To keep alive the good things I have and finally let go of all of the bad. Maybe I fail. And if I do I was meant to fail, nothing more, nothing less. Mostly this is to document my mind, a way to share without sharing.