On The Third Hand
A Proud member of the Brigade of Bellicose WomenThe liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. — Samuel Adams
| On The Third HandA Proud member of the Brigade of Bellicose WomenThe liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. — Samuel Adams |
| Old Articles by week 03 Mar - 09 Mar 24 Feb - 02 Mar 17 Feb - 23 Feb 10 Feb - 16 Feb 03 Feb - 09 Feb 27 Jan - 02 Feb 20 Jan - 26 Jan 13 Jan - 19 Jan 06 Jan - 12 Jan 30 Dec - 05 Jan 23 Dec - 29 Dec 16 Dec - 22 Dec 09 Dec - 15 Dec 02 Dec - 08 Dec 25 Nov - 01 Dec 18 Nov - 24 Nov 11 Nov - 17 Nov 04 Nov - 10 Nov My comments are my opinions. Links are my choice, but do not necessarily reflect my opinion. I often link to articles, sites and blogs with which I disagree. I try to look at all sides, but the fact that I'm human makes it impossible for me to view anything completely objectively. | Warblog ArchivesFriday, 08 Feb 2002Short stuff [permalink]
Thursday, 07 Feb 2002Who does what? [permalink]Jacob Sullum takes on the other "war on" and the disingenuous ads about it. If you'd like to know my opinion of the "war on drugs"... just read that. What do blogs do?[permalink]Spread ideas. And Jeff Jarvis has a damned good one. As Richard Bennett says: "Pass this on.". Send it in e-mail to anyone likely to be at the Olympics! Hey... it's what blogs do -- pass ideas. It's something Americans do too. If you can pass the word to ten Americans (or sympathetic friends of the US) at the Olympics, I'd bet it will happen. Here's the idea: "So the Olympics relented and will let us bring our tattered flag from the World Trade Center into the opening ceremonies. How frigging big of them. Given ten (possibly even one) person starting it, I'll bet it would happen. If you'll be there -- and even if you sing as off-tune as I -- do it! It's long past time we gave a collective "up yours" to those who despise us. Wednesday, 06 Feb 2002Homeland defense is futile (US) [permalink]Or so says David Carr [link via Matt Welch ]. I've said similar things a few times -- that the government's homeland defense cannot protect us. Carr gives extensive numbers and examples. He makes excellent arguments as to why it is impossible for the government to defend this country -- even at the cost of what we are. I believe he's quite correct. He also shows, very clearly, a blind spot in the thinking of most American citizens. He proved that the government could not make the country safe, he did not prove that the citizens and residents could not. That was the idea President Bush was pushing in his speech on "Citizen Corps". Of course, that will probably turn into another useless (and far too easily misused by police -- think snitch) bureaucracy in a couple of years. Meanwhile, with any luck, a lot of citizens will get a lot of valuable training and retraining. If they volunteer. The blind spot is what I see as our biggest problem in homeland defense. It is also the reason that the president's rating is so high. Most people want to believe the government will take care of everything. It did a good job in Afghanistan, they think, surely it can defend us here on home territory even more easily. Let's just pass more laws, require higher security in 'sensitive areas'. As that article mentioned, what people think will work is not workable if we are to remain a free and open society. Many seem to be urging the government to take away more freedoms -- so we can be safe. As far as I can see, safety from terrorism isn't possible in the US -- even if we were a totalitarian state. We are too big, we have too much open space and open seaboard to ever be totally secure. We never were totally safe here; it's just that until recently most here had the illusion of safety. If we go back to that illusion, we will be just as safe as we were on September 10th. If we don't go back to that, if we keep our eyes open, learn to defend ourselves, get to know our neighbors and surroundings -- we still won't be totally secure. But we'll be much safer than we were then, and much safer than we are now. The government can do some things: hunting down terrorists, messing up their funding, messing with their minds (I'm a psyops fan), stomping on governments that shelter them. All that helps, but if "we the people" go back to sleep, if we urge the government to do it all, then I very much fear we may end up with neither safety nor the freedoms that made this country great. Short Stuff [permalink]
Don't go! [permalink]I find a new site, and suddenly they are threatening to pack up and go. According to the Bunion: "With the news that Tony Bush and George W. Blair have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, we feel that our work here is done. Satire can go no further and we simply have to hang up our pens." Gentlemen of the Bunion, I suggest you learn the difference between satire and irony. Unless the gentleman who nominated them was being intentionally ironic, it was not satire. Satire is always intentional, irony does not have to be. He caused the irony... you write the satire. Got that? Good. (I may differ with your view, but I understand perfectly why you would see that nomination as ironic.) I suspect that if they aren't joking (who knows with a satire site) that they are more likely discouraged by the low number of hits on their site counter. Patience, gentlemen, patience; it takes a few days to get noticed hereabouts! Tuesday, 05 Feb 2002Short Stuff [permalink]
Monday, 04 Feb 2002Starving Afghans [permalink]It seems we still do have thousands in danger of starving in Afghanistan. There's a very interesting article at BBC online, by a reporter in western Afghanistan. The article mentions "the fighting" twice as a reason for people starving. It tells a sad tale about a baby that died and an even sadder one about families selling daughters to buy food. Excuse me? I have a question for this agency "Oxfam" which is distributing food in the region. I would very much like to know why they are allowing food to be distributed in such a way that the people must pay for it? Ok... they "explain the system" - this is what the article says: Much of the food which has come in this weekend has gone straight to "grain lenders" in the bazaar. Last year they gave villagers food as credit. Now the villagers have to repay their creditors before they can eat themselves. Now, it seems to me that the problem stems from some time ago. Why was it that these "grain lenders" had the food to lend in the first place, when others had none? How much of that food that was lent was food distributed by Oxfam in the first place? I'm willing to bet that most of it was, considering that area was one of the hardest hit by the drought. Looks like we have a situation where improper distribution was occurring already -- for whatever reason. I would assume the agency was only allowed to distribute food after these shopkeepers got their take. So now Oxfam is in a position of trying to get enough food up there to let the bosses have their share, plus enough food to let the people give the bosses back "lent" food and have enough for themselves too. Of course, we mustn't think that the problems might be linked back to the shopkeepers who somehow had enough food to "lend" while everyone was starving. We certainly must not ask how they ended up with all that extra food in the first place, a question that might imply criticism of those lovely people in the agency. No, we must accept that it is all the fault of the fighting, and thus -- by sweetly subtle implication -- the US and its allies. Sigh... Broken Breaking News | |
