Obama and the Military Industrial Complex

In the first few weeks of the Obama Administration, it is becoming increasingly clear that he can't please everyone. Unfortunately, some in the military establishment have gone almost to the point of blackmail in attempting to place controls on U.S. Defense Policy.

With the word "stimulus" in the air, and every corporation with operations in the United States smelling bacon, an effort has emerged in Washington seeking to extend production of the F-22 as a sort of stimulus spending. A webpage sponsored by manufacturer Lockheed-Martin alleges that 95,000 jobs can be saved by continuing to manufacture the F-22 Raptor, without mentioning a specific cost in additional military spending. Undoubtedly, the Air Force itself is hoping for this increase as well, considering reports that the F-35 can't stand up against Russian air defense systems. However, this is the least of Obama's military problems.

Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledging the change of focus for the Defense Department from Iraq to Afghanistan, has a laundry list of potential military problems which are very far-reaching.

For instance, [Adm. Mullen] said, the United States needs to help Iran develop stability instead of fomenting terror.

Other sticking points abroad, Mullen said, are assuring stability in places like Russia and China, dealing with issues like famine and genocide in Africa, and the drug trade in Mexico.

This news report on Adm. Mullen's full lecture is well-worth reading. Obviously, the Department of Defense is going to be on the receiving end of a lot of government funding, especially considering the costs of expanding operations in Afghanistan, despite efforts to curb U.S. strategic objectives.

Two other reports regarding the military-industrial complex could serve as an early test of the new administration. The first, that the military is attempting to accuse Obama of reducing military spending, by not giving them all that the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted, smacks of career military officials attempting to establish their role in crafting defense policy. While bureaucratic squabbling is hardly anything new, this second report, is far more disturbing. If senior military officials are truly attempting to pressure Pres. Obama into accepting a misleading plan to rename apples oranges, they are certainly making a political decision instead of respecting the orders of their new Commander-in-Chief.

Defense policy, especially spending decisions, are fundamentally political decisions, and thus the exclusive province of elected civilian leaders. Even if General Petraeus is worried that he is losing his hotline to the White House that he enjoyed in the days of the Bush Administration, it would probably be more useful for him to pursue a good working relationship with the incoming administration, rather than engaging in bureaucratic in-fighting over issues which have already been addressed.

My Top Five Films of the Year: I know, I know, but please keep reading.

You already have seen them (or you haven't), and you probably don't care why I think they are my top five for the year (nor should you.) Thus, in the interest of being in the fringe, I am going to attempt an explanation as to how this movie is speaking to us about the current political and social landscape, as all good movies should (except super stylish genre flicks, those are timeless.)
Do I think these films were intentionally made to be elaborate extended metaphors? Unlikely, though who knows. Either way, every artist projects more than they intend.

Number Five: In Bruges

Bruges is a sort of fantasy land. It reminds us of the past. It is a medieval themed tourist trap. Its streets are laden with history yet is occupied with visitors. Bruges is a distraction for the protagonists, and the people trying to bring the protagonists to justice. To me, it is the Middle East. Or Death. Well, really, what's the difference, now a days?

Colin Farrell and some old guy are hit men who get sent there after they did what they do best in London. They were violent in London. Too violent. They must be sent abroad. Together, they are the soldiers we send overseas.

Colin Farrell has committed an atrocity at home, though he had good intentions. Well, they weren't "good" but he didn't mean to kill the kid. He has immense guilt over it. He hates being in Bruges, and wants to leave as soon as possible. And when a future race war is brought up, he says he will fight with the blacks. He is the western liberal.

Some old guy did not commit "the" atrocity, but has done his fair share of damage. He isn't filled with guilt. He is more or less a company man. He generally does what he is told. He is not rebellious. He is trying to make the best of his stay there. He is the one with the most direct contact with the boss. He is the western conservative.

Ralph Fiennes is their boss in London. The prototypical crime boss who dresses nice, gets things done, and has (compared to the protagonists) near ultimate power. He is even more violent, but because he is the boss, he gets to stay in London, and only goes to Bruges at his convenience, apparently to relax. And, of course, let's not forget his warped and conflicted sense of morality. This murder is ok, but this one is not. He is the politician who is above politics and in it for himself (or his bosses.)

While in Bruges, events become a tad surreal. The normal rules don't apply. The characters, especially Colin Farrell, are not taking their trip well. This is culture shock. Or Death.

The characters do not know how to handle their new environment, and their short trip is indefinite. The plot eventually comes to the the boss ordering some old guy to kill Colin Farrell. He wants one side to take out the other, as if this will achieve anything. The movie throws us into a cycle of violence in a strange land. What should be an almost spiritual, and wholly good, place, becomes a horrible place. Death and destruction, even though most of the characters have relatively good intentions.

Also, Peter Dinklage plays a racist midget actor in an art film. I just wanted to add that in, because it is great.

Oh, and I forgot to put above ***SPOILER ALERT***

The New Politics: RIP 2/1/09 That Didn't Take Long

Apparently Republicans are running around raising ideological opposition to Obama's huge economic stimulus package. Heh heh. The Republicans got a good look at Obama's Package this week and the President spent time coming in and out of their offices trying to get them to take it. It seems like the do nothing Congress has decided to keep with what they know rather than try to spend massively huge shit tons of money in hopes Keynesian economics does work.



The kicker is that the debate isn't over whether the money should be spent. Its about whether we are giving enough tax breaks to the wealthy fuckers that aren't feeling the pinch. This is a debate over ideology rather than substance. Let me point out that tax cuts and government spending are actually the same thing. Cuts in income and spending both reduce the amount of money in the treasury. The two terms are just ideological code for where the politician thinks the money should go. If you believe in entitlement of the upper class you say "tax cuts." If you believe in entitlement of the poor you say "appropriation." It's bullshit and I am surprised that the fact this is all about ideology doesn't rise to the level of public discourse. Sure you might say that there is an economic debate behind the two sides, except real economists will admit that even amongst them it is really an ideological debate because there is no lab in which to experiment and prove who is more wrong.

The Friday Bacon

The image is of bacon grease filtering into the grease cup. I feel remiss for not posting this before the New York Times and Yahoo. But at least I got there before Ric Romero. If there isn't already a patron saint of bacon, Jason Day deserves that honor.

Coming Home

The DOD recently decided to continue not awarding the Purple Heart to solders with post traumatic stress disorder. The blogosphere has been set aflame with the debate over the issue with one side arguing that this would make a substantial step toward acknowledgment, reducing stigma, and treatment of the disease within the military, and the other side trying hard to find new ways to say that PTSD doesn't exist while not overtly saying that.

This was followed the next day with the revelation that military suicides have reached a new record and have surpassed the rate of suicide in the general population. The close timing gave me pause to think about the significance of the two stories in relation to each other. I am not saying that awarding a medal for having PTSD would reduce suicide among military veterans. I just think that there needs to be a better way of serving those who have done their service to protect us. Having veterans among my family, friends, and co-workers, I have found that many of the combat vets are too proud too seek help even when they need it. You would think that psychologists could find a way to communicate directly with a soldier's experience and explain that getting treatment doesn't detract from their valor or self reliance. But I am not a soldier and I don't have any answers. I just don't like the toll that the psychological wounds of war are taking.

Evamaloutions

I think the real issue is not clearly explained in debates over creationism. In discussion over changes to curriculum it becomes apparent that what is being debated is the position of science in our society and the deference due to science in examination of nature. I don't think that the scriptural interpretive preference of an obnoxiously vocal minority should have any bearing on how we regard the statements of experts on matters of fact. The point is not that fundamentalist Christians are trying to hijack our culture through the indoctrinating power of the already failing public school system, but that they intentionally avoid narrowing the issue or focusing on details because this is a discussion they loose as soon as rationality prevails.

In case you were wondering this post was not provoked by anything in particular but is tangentially related to the posts this week regarding stumbling upon websites anthropomorphizing of animals and showing that the efforts by religious fanatics to destroy science is not restricted to right wing Christian maniacs.

Posted from a Palm Treo mobile device.

Palin Strikes Back

For those worried that the Daily Show might run out of material during the next four years of an Obama administration, the Internet's savior, Sarah Palin, has come through again, launching her own new SarahPAC. Political Action Committees are compelled under federal law to comply with certain regulations, but they spend a lot of money in a city where Benjamin Franklin speaks. What exactly constitutes "a better, safer, and stronger America in the 21st Century" should provide many punchlines in the near-term. Hopefully Governor Palin's four year vacation from federal electoral politics will help her develop coherent policy positions, but I don't imagine her supporters want to hear anything more than catch phrases.

In a slightly more disturbing twist, there is a group known as PalinPAC which stole the catchy name, and as of this writing has received 2588 hits on their website. The most telling mark of something resembling the political version of a scam is that their mission page mentions the values and issues of the Republican Party, but doesn't, at any point gto into any meaningful depth on what exactly those values and issues are. The one page that might reveal the thinking behind the leaders of the group, about their Religious Values has a bible quote, and a very interesting quote which is reproduced below.

Every problem we have can't be George Bush's fault like many believe. Why don't we look to and ask the Congress and House of Representatives what they have been doing about our country's problems? The Democrats wanted control and got it. But what have they done with it?

Obviously nothing a group that supports Sarah Palin would agree with.

Enforcement of the Convention Against Torture

Perhaps the winds of change are blowing through the District of Columbia, for a change. Professor Manfred Nowak has spoken publicly about his belief that George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld should be brought before a court because of the conditions of imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay. A video of an interview with CNN's Rick Sanchez is posted for context below.



For those readers unfamiliar with the various levels of complicity, such as John Ashcroft's infamous quote, Condoleeza Rice's admission, or Dick Cheney's admission from Taxi to the Dark Side, a few highlights are presented below by liberal pundit Rachel Maddow, for a quick brief.

To summarize the argument even further into condensed legal flavor, Article 4 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment compels member states to prosecute allegations of torture, casting a wide net to catch everyone between the interrogator to those who knew about it and did nothing, in theory. The Text is quoted below.

1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture. 2. Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature.

This, to state the obvious, is the largest test of the new administration. How will Obama handle these allegations? I hope this is a question that is being asked again in the White House and in various agencies of the Federal Government, to the logical conclusion that these allegations must be investigated as a matter of legitimacy. How the Rule of Law is enforced will set the tone, as it a lack of credible enforcement of the law as it is written set the tone of the Bush Administration. Simply issuing a subpoena to  former officials will not work, just ask Karl Rove. There can be no pleading and begging for a notionally independent branch of government for morsels of information and the respect due such an august body. Flaunting of Congressional subpeonas must stop, and the words of the anointed, yet not confirmed, Attorney General, Eric Holder, are encouraging, if unsettling to certain people, such as Alberto Gonzalez. Unfortunately for the shamed former AG seems to rest precariously on the words of John Yoo, former counselor in the Bush Administration's Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel. 

The Difference Between Infantaside and Abortion

You are probably seeing this article in your Google search because you misspelled "infanticide."

This posting is only slightly related to the title. On Friday Obama signed an executive order reinstating funding for groups that perform or provide information regarding abortion overseas. Reversing the "Mexico City Policy" of George Bush and the right wing religious extremists that supported him. Editorials across the nation declare that this has inflamed the national furor over abortion again, but this was the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and those people had their undies in a twist for this day in advance.



It is really upsetting to me that the national abortion debate never rises above our worst and most base instincts. People on both sides straw man each others position's and are disrespectful of their opponents ideology to the point of deliberately lying to their own supporters. What is most interesting to me is that the Supreme Court has heard some well thought out policy arguments in its handling of the issue and it is unfortunate that some of these thoughts don't trickle down into the national debate. For instance the supreme court ruled a law criminalizing use of contraception out of respect for the dignity of family and marriage and the privacy of marital intimacy. Kind of throws a clog in the pro-family rhetoric the right wing slings about.

When it comes to women in the workplace and abortion I feel stupid for never putting two and two together until I read the opinion of The Court in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey.

The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives.

505 U.S. 833, 833 (1992) Hurrr I'm a durrr. Given the nature of the glass ceiling and the thinly veiled questions women get in job interviews regarding whether they are "planning to have a family", and the correlation between attitudes regarding abortion and attitudes regarding women in the workplace, I can't believe it took the Supreme Court to point out this conclusion to me.

Speaking of Religious Zealotry

Isn't there something in the Bible about graven images? One of those "commandment" thingys the fundamentalist religious fanatics keep trying to force onto public land?

I Know What You Mean

Here I was innocently looking for pictures of cute hippo babies and there is this story about a hippo that was separated from its mother by the tsunami and it started hanging around with a tortoise. Awww, cross species cuddling right? And, BAM! the author has to throw in some anthropomorphizing religious BS.

Honeycombs are perfect because..

I was reading an interesting article today about honeycomb. It was a story about a child talking to anthropomorphized bees, and 3/4 of the way through it starts talking about the Qua ran, and God's plan. And I wondered why, and why it was catered to children. It was part of an interesting BOOK SERIES in PDF format for your downloading pleasures.

The Friday Bacon

Bacon and Rabbit stew

Comments

We have recently decided to moderate a comment for the first time. Being advocates of not just free speech but offensively free speech this decision burns us like white phosphorous. I often say that if people aren't trying to take your freedom of expression away from you, then you aren't actually using it. However, we here at the Fringe Element agree that this is not the place for unrestrained purely profane textual outbursts.

We like to think that every time we use an offensive word it is as carefully chosen as every other word we use in our works of expression here. When we swear or present an offensive concept it is to either focus the attention of the reader on the emotion evoked by the idea or calculated to knock the reader off balance in order to shock you the reader out of comfortable ways of thinking, or the word may be chosen simply to properly express our own emotional response to a situation in the news. But vulgar outbursts by anonymous posters have no potential of adding value to what we are trying to do here. Though it pains me to say even that much. If this post was a purely vulgar attack from a person that identified themselves it might have value as an expression of that person's emotional reaction to our content, but as an anonymous outburst from the tubes its just the kind of behavior that would embarrass the poster's mother. Really, you should think of what your mom would say if she saw you filling the wholesomeness of the intertubes with your potty mouth.

Anonymous posts have been a source of much enjoyment for me personally. Contributing to a blog has given me the opportunity to be exposed to the kind of virulent criticism, madness, and ad homenim attacks that can only be generated by painfully sane and mundane minds. I am glad that the intellectual hurdles involved in operating a computer, gaining access to the Internet, surfing the Internet, literacy, and posting a comment don't include the ability to think clearly and express oneself. If they did, the log cabin would be a much less entertaining place.

So we have decided to continue rejecting anonymous profane comments without context as a matter of policy. This is because, without posting your name to such a comment, we are unable to verify whether or not it is an actual person making said comment, thus we do not have to worry about violating an individual's freedom of speech. So if you feel the need to simply leave a profane remark, have the character and gumption to put your name to it. Also, this type of comment doesn't benefit anyone, even the individual responsible for it. It doesn't serve to elevate the discourse, provide any more information that might be lacking from the original posting, or doesn't meet the aforementioned 'mother' criteria, it only makes the commenter vent some emotion and lowers others' opinions of him or her. If on the other hand, you feel passionate about a particular subject and are offended by our thoughts, conceptualizations, ideas, or writings, and comment in a form such as 'fuck you, X is (positive adjective) because Y', this type of comment would be acceptable. So, in summary, please try to keep your comments above the level of an elementary school ad hominem. Thank you for reading, and we hope that you continue to enjoy our content here at the Fringe Element.

Tons of Talk

As reported yesterday, there is an ongoing debate of some intensity into the various types of war crimes that are being committed by both sides in the conflict, about issues arising from use of human shields to use of white phosphorus artillery shells in heavily populated areas. However, there is a new report about the conduct of Israeli soldiers which has been underreported. The story has since been deleted from the Ha'aretz website, but is posted here for your perusal. Two of the most important aspects of the laws of war govern the uniforms worn by combatants and the targeting of civilians in urban areas. The aforementioned report bears on exactly these problems. Though it might be the case that witnesses were mistaken about the identity of soldiers wearing emblems of Hamas, however even the mere allegation that Israeli soldiers were targeting buildings known to contain civilians in order to make them evacuate goes beyond the pale. This latest report, combined with reports that one of the largest hospitals in the Gaza Strip was attacked by white phosphorus and tank shells, should necessitate a response from the Hague and the United Nations if international law is going to be effectual at all during the 21st Century. But perhaps such words are empty, and will ultimately serve to alleviate the suffering felt by both sides of the conflict.

Elsewhere, there is a lot of talk aimed at calling a halt to the ongoing operations. In Egypt, officials are reportedly getting close to hammering out a ceasefire agreement, but the fundamentally conflicting goals of both sides, centering around the ongoing embargo of commercial goods aimed at stemming the flow of weapons into the Gaza Strip, stand in the way of any lasting resolution. The United States is firmly behind the government of Israel as the foreign ministers of the two countries signed an agreement obligating the U.S. to assist in preventing smuggling into Gaza and the re-arming of the militant wing of Hamas in the event of any ceasefire, whether it is formal or informal. Elsewhere, the Arab world is split into two camps, one which supports the U.S.' position in the conflict met in Kuwait, while the other camp, which is opposed, even virulently against the campaign, met in Qatar. The latter group urged member states to diplomatic and economic ties with the state of Israel. Because of this split, neither side was able to achieve a quorum sufficient for the Arab League to issue a statement in response to the conflict, ultimately proving both gatherings to be diplomatically useless in terms of finding a solution to the intractable problem of Middle East peace.

The Friday Bacon

More Questions than Answers

The Fringe Element has yet to comment about the ongoing Israeli military operations in Gaza, because there was seemingly little to be added to the current discussion. However, that silence must now come to an end, as we wonder the true purpose of the operations.

According to Israeli officials, the stated purpose is to make sure that Hamas can no longer fire rockets into the southern areas of Israel from the Gaza Strip. Yet, during the six month cease fire that expired just before the beginning of operations, Hamas did not fire a single rocket in violation of the ceasefire, though a handful of rockets were fired by smaller, shall we say fringe, militant groups. This is a matter of fact, and is readily admitted by Israeli officials. 

So, disregarding the question of who initially broke the ceasefire, because of the rampant violations thereof, not the least of which being the Israeli embargo, we have to wonder why Israeli officials chose to attack the Gaza Strip in the way that they have done so far. Of course, electoral politics gives us a quick answer. The government of Israel has enjoyed carte blanche from the Bush Administration in everything they do, upto and including expanding settlements in the West Bank and continuing to build the separation wall, both of which are violations of international law.  But the reins of the executive branch are about to turned over to a new leader, whose support for Israel has yet to be meaningfully tested. In combination with this factor, Israel itself will soon hold elections for Prime Minister. With the campaign in Gaza enjoying tremendous support amongst the general Israeli population, the various personalities in the running are trying to out-do each other to support the operation. In addition, the 20% Israeli Arab minority has been completely disenfranchised as their parties will not be able to participate in the coming election. 

Yet, this still does not fully explain the rationale behind this operation. If one keeps asking questions, the answers keep leading to darker and darker answers. For instance, the Israeli military has been using some fairly advanced ammunition in the current operation, and the question must be raised whether the Israeli military, and more broadly the Israeli government, is using this as an opportunity to test the finest weapons that the world has to offer in battlefield conditions. For instance, the use of white phosphorus in artillery shells, although illegal to use against civilian targets is not necessarily against international law if used to create a passive smoke screen. But, it is definitely illegal if it is used against the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, which supplies essential foodstuffs to half of the enclave's population. A more insidious weapon is what is known as Dense Inert Metal Explosives, also referred to as DIME. This type of explosive, with a small blast radius, allows for specific targetting of hostile forces. However, it has also been found to be extremely carcinogenic. The apparent signs of a DIME-inflected injury, internal burns without shrapnel and entry wounds without exit wounds, have been appearing in civilian casualties. 

Looking deeper into the situation, I have been left wondering if the Israeli operation is intent on forced displacement of the entire population of the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces have been dropping leaflets and warning civilians that they are going to be in the path of military operations. But, with the territory entirely surrounded and controlled by the Israeli government and for all intents and purposes cut off from the rest of the world, where are the refugees supposed to go? As is usually the case with military operations, civilian bystandards are often left with more questions than answers, and given the opacity of Israeli policy and motives behind the ongoing operation in the Gaza Strip, the rest of the world is left to wonder about true intentions. 

The real question that should be asked in capitals around the world, the United Nations, and the Hague is whether or not to begin investigating whether the Israeli government is committing war crimes. 

Weaseling Out of Things

With the new year and the change of administration in Washington there has been a tendency lately for retrospective looks at the outgoing Bush administration which has reminded us of all that has gone wrong in the last eight years and all that the Bush administration and its collaborators have to answer for. This tendency has in turn provoked the apologists for the Bush regime who are now using the unitary executive theory as a shield rather than a spear. The result is conversations like the one on the Diane Rehm show this morning where lawyers acting as apologists for the nefarious acts of Bush policy sound like panicky weasels trying to slip out of anyone having to take responsibility for the wrongs they have done. These pundits try to appear to be centrists, but the way they use arguments regarding pragmatic politics to evade moral accusations that there has been wrongdoing on the part of the Bush administration paints these men as the worst caricature of the sleazy lawyer.

The BART killing

I have been trying to keep the start of the new year on this blog light with video game reviews and silly articles. I have avoided discussing the conflict in the middle east even though that is the most significant international news right now.

But the riots of last night and the, execution style, police killing of Oscar Grant III are too much to ignore. These are very much subjects which we at The Fringe Element are concerned with. I'll start with the widely viewed video.




I don't know much of the story but people attribute Officer Johannes Mehserle's apparent shock to his mistakenly using his firearm when he intended to use his tazer. I am not sure how this is much better. As you can probably guess from previous articles, we here at The Fringe Element don't approve of liberal use of tazers by police, considering them to be a substitute for lethal force only. Whereas countless news stories indicate that police around the country treat this otherwise useful device as a shortcut to incapacitate any person the officer finds inconvenient to deal with.

In this case the use of a tazer would have been substantially less likely to cause death. I suppose that difference in outcome is supposed to mitigate the severity of the actions of the officer in this case in the minds of some people. But again, I don't consider a tazer to be non-lethal force. Neither do its proponents who call such devices "less lethal." In the same category as rubber bullets. The idea is to incapacitate with sufficient force to be sure to incapacitate with a single use. In many cases, the requisite amount of force to do so with such certainty is enough to kill. Again, I am not arguing against the use of tazers, I am arguing that people at large, and particularly the police, need to stop thinking of using a tazer as less serious than using a firearm.

The Friday Bacon

His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Norton I, Emperor of these United States and Protector or Mexico.

One hundred and twenty nine years ago today, Emperor Norton passed away leaving this world a sadder and more mundane place without him. Without trying he brought more unity, peace, and mirth to this world then most men of a hundred times his means. We should all strive to be like his Imperial Majesty. All hail the Emperor!

Of Urinals and Broken Zippers

This is a picture of the pull tab from someones fly in the bottom of a uninal at my work. Its been there since before Christmas. Just wanted to share that with you.

Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility

For Christmas my wife and I decided to spend our Best Buy gift cards on the Harvest Moon game. For those of you unfamiliar with the series, the game revolves around your character as you farm your ranch, raise livestock, get married, and have children. Its basically simulated farm life with some corny environmentalism thrown in as plot. As if working your farm by yourself isn't enough work.

This version has all the familiar elements from the previous games in the series. Cows and chickens, corn and tomatoes, picking stuff of the mountain to give as gifts to woo your intended. In this version there is a greater variety of crops and livestock to choose from. There are winter grains like buckwheat and you can raise an ostrich to ride around town.

However, the downsides to this version are much more profound. The first thing you notice is that the voice sound effects sound like adults in Charlie Brown cartoons and are just as intelligible. "Waa waa waa waa." You notice this because every time you start the game the muffeled trumpet sound attempts to say the games name and every time your character pets an animal it says, "there there." Which I guess is an artifact of poor translation from the Japanese version.

The most aggrivating part of the game is the first hour. Because it takes an hour to get through the introduction. The game forces you to wander around town and have an extended conversation involving gift giving with every citizen of the game before even beginning the toutorial. Like most games, the toutorial is entirely unnessary. Of course while trapped in the insultingly unnessary toutorial, the game's writers decided it was also necessary to force you to interact with the games most unplesant character who spends the toutorial insulting you even as you easily accomplish the tedious tasks he sets before you.

Once you get through the god awful plot and asanine toutorial the game is actually quite fun. Like all the games in the Harvest Moon series, its enjoyable to pretend to be farming your own ranch and the motion controls on the Wii enhance the feel of the game. Its got flow.

The Friday Bacon

I just thought I would toss up some stuff generated by the Bacon meme.

Sex in Marriage? None For Me, Thanks.

Another study showing that high and mighty religious posturing about abstinence not only doesn't prevent premarital sex, it only increases the danger. Since abstinence only attitudes put the idea in the heads of these kids that prophylactics are witchcraft.

Suspicion

One of the great things about being from southern Wisconsin (other than access to quality dairy and cheap liquor) is that the six degrees of separation don't leave much of a gap between a southern Wisconsin resident and Gary Gygax. My in-laws were involved with the early days of TSR. My father in law even claims to have developed a new printing technique to allow the production of the map included with the original Dungeons and Dragons box. This connection has also led to a number of games finding rest in the closets of my in-laws, games that never found their niche like D&D did.

This Christmas, these facts led to my having the fortune and displeasure of playing an old TSR game called "Suspicion." That's Gary Gygax on the cover in center frame being accused of the murder. My father in law took that picture.



The game is a murder mystery where one of the players is the murderer and everyone else is trying to figure out who the murderer is. It adds a note of complexity by giving points to innocent players for being wrongly accused of being the murderer.



Its not hard to see why the game never caught on. It has a 13 step set up process that took over an hour and requires all the players to be present. This process also involves lots of sorting and stuffing cards into envelopes. So it combines all the excitement of sending Christmas cards with all the excitement of setting up a board game. In comparison, the game itself is very short. It probably only lasted an hour at most. The rules have many suggestions about strategy to determine who the murderer is but the added complexity of false clues doesn't add any length to the game. Adding extra players doesn't seem to add length either because with the full six players the game could end in one round and really shouldn't take more than four. The players actions are relatively quick and each roll of the dice just pushes the game toward its inevitable conclusion. The game even boils the clues down to numbered cards so that very simple logic can determine the murderer. Repeat plays reduce set up time but there is still the issue of having to sort all 160 clue cards and stuff them into envelopes. Its basically a more labor intensive version of Clue.



Still I am glad to have played it because of the tenuous connection it represents between me and a great man I never got the chance to meet.

The Friday Bacon

The Friday Bacon

Cleveland Ohio: Terrible American City or the Worst American City?

It has been such a long time since a Cleveland article that the city must have thought it had to do better. Yesterday a 42 inch, 111 year old, water main ruptured in an industrial neighborhood of downtown Cleveland cutting off water to half the city. Schools and commercial buildings were closed due to unsanitary conditions and the risk of fire. This being Cleveland the Federal building promptly caught fire. Today there was a boil water alert because of the microbes and toxic industrial chemicals that contaminated the cities water supply as a result of the breach. This happened on a day where the low temperature was 23F in a City that gets as cold as -10F yearly. Tonight there is a massive ice storm bearing down on the Mistake by the Lake and attempts to flee the flaming wreckage of the city by air have been eliminated as the barely operational airports in the region cancel flights. Sure there is a lot about Cleveland to cause a resident to complain, but apparently Clevelanders even do a good job of exporting reasons for people in other regions of the country to take note of Cleveland when they leave the city. What a wondrous place.

Cleveland Ohio: Terrible American City or the Worst American City?

A dead body was discovered in the Cleveland impound lot on Monday. This was two days after the car was impounded. A little background; there was an ice storm last Friday night in the area causing a large multi-car accident. One of the cars towed away from the scene contained the person who was not discovered. The question I have not heard any local media raise is whether the person was already dead at the time the car was towed. And if not, whether it was the negligence of the police in leaving him in the car for two days that caused his death

The Friday Bacon

Don't You All Fell Better Now That Racism Is Over?

I don't know if my own experience over the past month has been unique but I have noticed an increase in little incidents of racism and they seem to be connected to Obama being elected. Here is what I mean, I will be with a group of people and the topic will turn to the recent election and while the subject of the first black president is in the air someone will then tell a joke so racist that you would think Carlos Mencia had just walked in the room. It's like some kind of weird cognitive dissonance is trying to work itself out of the population. In many cases, the people I hear doing this are not what I would call racist but I don't know how else to quantify what I am experiencing. Its somewhere on the racism scale between being uncomfortable with interracial dating and using the word "colored" when drunk.

Spying On The Innocent

This article details some of the absurdity of the Maryland terrorism list wherein peaceful people who never committed any crime and never planed to do so were labeled as terrorists. Remember, people still claim that the president has the power to indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen living in the United States after merely labeling them an enemy combatant. A term the government was unable to define even at the Supreme Court. Also remember that the people detained as enemy combatants are tortured prior to determination of guilt or complicity in any criminal act.

We don't have any examples yet of someone being detained and tortured merely for exercising their First Amendment rights by expressing a liberal opinion and hopefully we will never see any. This is still the danger we have to be aware of when a government takes these kinds of powers for itself. The above article details how intelligence that repeatedly says these people were not dangerous leads to them being labeled as terrorists and in many cases misidentifies what these people were involved with and where they were. If these cops really thought these people were terrorists and a danger to the country I would hope that they would be more careful with the information they gather so as to actually know where someone was on a certain day rather then place them on the opposite side of the continent. Here we are seven years after 9/11 and we still haven't learned the lessons about putting quality people between us and the enemy and not wasting time and taxpayer dollars on witch hunts.

Extinction Delayed

Some good news on the primate conservation front. Scientists have discovered a previously unrecorded group of Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys. This is a bit like the previous story where scientists were able to access a previously inaccessible part of jungle and discovered more Gorillas than previously estimated. It's not like these things weren't there before, we just didn't know about them. Still it means that from our perspective the species is slightly better off even if it is still tetering on the brink of extinction. I guess thats good news.

Like the beetle who's larva burrow into the human brain, Bush's political appointees are burrowing into their respective departments. As the president's term comes to an end, people who occupy positions that are appointed by the executive take up new jobs within their departments, preserving their high status within influential government agency's and moving beyond the reach of the incoming president of the opposing party. It is something that always accompanys a change in the guard but with the Bush administration's appointees it takes on a more sinister effect. We have recounted many times here that President Bush's picks for department heads have not been based on quality of the individual but on their loyalty to his narrow ideology and the individual of the president. One need only look to the energy department the EPA or to the Justice department to see scandals arising from industry insiders acting as regulators or "holy hires" who were picked because of the ultra right wing religious fundamentalist colleges they attended. The damage done to policy and the public interest done by this administration will take decades to undo.

Another example of cementing of Bush policy long into an Obama presidency is the midnight passage of executive orders. Like the burrowing of political hacks, these last minute orders cement extremest right wing policy and weaken government oversite and cannot be easily overturned by a new administration partly because of the time consuming process of determining all the changes and waiting through the public commentary period but also because of a lack of political will. Somehow there is the perception in Washington that turning back all these executive orders will cause some kind of liberal shock to the populace at large resulting in a backlash against the president. As if setting things back to the way they were is somehow more shocking than a lame duck president without a mandate of the people sneakily instituting his personal preference for policy at the last minute.

The LHC And the United States Committment to Science Education

The Large Hadron Collider is the biggest and most powerful super collider in the world and humanity hopes to discover new fundamental truths about reality through its use. It was built in France and Belgum but there was once the possibility that an even bigger, more powerful collider would have been built in the U.S. except congress lost the nerve to fund the project after already dumping millions into partial construction. This was not just a loss to the local community and the University system of Texas but to U.S. education. Now the best and brightest minds in physics will be compelled to go to France instead of being drawn to America. New discoverys will be made that will lead to marketable technologies that could have been discovered within U.S. jurisdiction. The loss of talent and potential discovery and the immesurable loss to the U.S. economy is particularly irksome in the current economic crisis. This shortsitedness reflects a general U.S. failure to focus on quality of science education in order to maintain our technological and intellictual superiority in the world.

Property Rights = Civil Rights

Some months ago I discovered that my wife keeps a large supply of cash in a secret location. She does this to be prepared for emergency's. One of those emergency's is the possibility of leaving me and having to leave immediately. I was not particularly threatened by this revelation and jokingly acted hurt that she might abandon me in some tragedy or that she thought I would transform into some raging monster after we have been together for almost 10 years. I also was not threatened because it is a sensible plan and I wholly endorse this for all women. Not that I need to, because as I look around and ask women I know and my female relatives they all have an escape fund. It seems like most modern western women have the good sense to be financially independent from their men or to preserve the ability to sever the financial connection on short notice.

It seems related to some of the conclusions reached by the UN Commission on the Status of Women. I paraphrase; they found that due to the vast imbalance in earning power and property ownership of women relative to their percentage of the world population and the percentage of the worlds labor performed by women that efforts should be taken to improve the equality of women's property rights worldwide as that inequality tends to multiply the terrible consequences of tragedy's like war and natural disaster, leading to increase in HIV infection among other things.

To spell out what that means, after a mudslide or tornado or flood damages a village some of the women might be left without their husbands due to deaths in the tragedy. Because they cannot earn as much from their labor or perhaps because they cannot claim ownership of their dead husband's property they are forced into prostitution in order to make enough money to survive or to keep their children alive. This would be bad enough if it didn't also obviously increase the spread of STDs and increase violence against these women, amplifying the personal tragedy set in motion by a natural disaster.

If the personal tragedy of each individual were not enough there is the social cost. With property rights or equal earning potential, these women could continue to be productive members of society, producing value through their labor through farming, or producing other tangible goods. Instead they end their lives destitute, in medical care funded by charity, government spending, and privately subsidized medicine. This cost is shifted to some degree on to western persons through government aid and pharmaceutical companies selling novelty lifestyle drugs for erections and sleep aids at overinflated prices to recoup the costs of the discount AIDS medication they sell to African countries and charities.

In this way, the very real costs of human tragedies on the other side of the world financially impact the life of every American such that even the most cynical and selfish should care for real equality. Even if just out of concern for the cost of their next 4 hour erection.

Depression Era Tactics

We have really hit the shit now people. Labor is dusting off tactics that they haven't used since the bad old days of company towns and anarchists. Laid off workers have occupied a factory in Chicago. They were given short notice of the closing of the plant and are attempting to get the severance and vacation pay due to them. This is actually connected to the $700,000,000,000.00 bailout because one of the banks that got assistance from the Treasury is the bank that finances this company that employees these workers and said bank refuses to loan the company the money it needs to keep up with its payroll, forcing it to close its factory doors. Which is exactly why there needed to be better controls put on this massive act of corporate welfare so that Paulson wasn't left with the sole option of begging the banks to not horde the cash but deploy it. Because if they won't spend the money then the bailout can't serve the purpose it was authorized for.

The Friday Bacon

Pizza with Bacon, peperoni, ham, sausage, and banana peppers. Served frequently at my work.

The Friday Bacon

The Friday Bacon

The Friday Bacon

The Real Cost of the Bailout

As I've written here on this blog before, our public policy has come closer and closer to engendering moral hazards. Now, this statement has come to a sick and twisted fruition. The cause of this putried flowering is the confluence of two individual factors. The first, is President-elect Barack Obama's pledge to help the ailinig auto industry. Already bleeding money like it needs a tournequet and considering passing another series of economic stimulus packages, the deficit is already such a theoretical number that adding to it won't make much of a difference. The second is another set of behaviors that, besides the aforementioned moral hazard, are morally questionable in other ways. General Motors is burning cash like it's needed to power plant machinery lost $7.35 per share in its latest report. Furthermore, this cash crunch is putting the company in the position where it will no longer be able to fund regular operations. However, instead of consider options like marginal spending decreases, or bankruptcy, the consequences of which CEO Rick Wagoner says would be "dire", he is waiting for President Obama to pull out the checkbook and write a check to the auto industry. After all, the financial industry is in the process of receiving checks without any strings attached, so why shouldn't the Big Three, also? I'm sure Rick is also already beginning to plan how he is going to spend the bonus that he no doubt will feel he earned because he drove the company into the ground so hard and fast that the government needed to bail it out or face political consequences.  Herein lies the moral hazard and the real cost of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. Instead of engaging in normal business practices that would help shore up the bottom line, such as closing additional plants and laying off hourly workers, or even declaring bankruptcy and arresting the further deterioration in its credit rating, a company that is potentially too big to fail, is probably going to be able to get a handout from the federal government. So, instead of receiving the punishment of the markets for not balancing its liabilities and assets properly, and for not developing products that the public is willing to purchase, a company is instead able to receive the public's money in the form of a handout, probably without any strings attached.  

The Friday Bacon

We have previously featured a picture of the Bacon Strips bandages on the Friday Bacon. A relative must have seen that post and decided to go out and buy some as a joke gift for me. The images for this installment of the Friday Bacon include images of the bandages on my toe, the tin they came in, and a tiny plastic pig toy that comes with them.

The Burning Questions

Whether you supported John McCain, Ron Paul, or even Brian Moore, the real Socialist candidate, congratulations are certainly in order for the winner of the 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, there are more than a few questions he needs to answer almost immediately. Sure, he can have a few days to bask in the glory of the acceptance of an entire nation-state, if not the entire world, but try to keep it short. Some of these questions may have already been answered in campaign promises, but as the last few presidential campaigns have demonstrated, promises can be forgotten so easily, and so these need to be asked. So without further avail, in no particular order, are the list of questions we here at the Fringe Element would like to see Barack Obama answer. 

• Will you promise not to lie to the American people, even if the truth will hurt your political aspirations?
• Will you move the U.S.A.'s foreign policy away from the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive strikes into foreign countries?
• Will you free the West Memphis Three and Mumia Abu-Jamal?
• Do you plan to amend the FISA Act and discontinue the NSA's domestic surveillance programs?
• Will you use neutral experts to evaluate science and policy before committing tax money to any specific plans and regulations?
• Your running mate is famous for having been the reason for the creation of PGP encryption. Will you enunciate a series of principles governing your administration's relationship to the internet, and will you continue to support net neutrality? Furthermore, will you enforce net neutrality regulations with civil and criminal penalties?
• Do you realize and acknowledge that infrastructure, the environment, the economy, taxes, energy, crime, prisons, and drugs are all interrelated facets of one national domestic problem that must be solved with a cohesive effort and a comprehensive policy?
• How do you plan to address the ongoing global economic crisis? Do you want to convene a Bretton Woods II, or try to create a novel set of policies?
• How will you direct your appointed Treasurer to manage the funds under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act? Will you direct these funds to help homeowners or businesses?
• Will the focus of whatever economic plan you craft be to create jobs, like Franklin Delano Roosevelt with his New Deal, or to help corporations?
• How do you plan to regulate big business? That is to say, how do you plan to regulate corporations so that no corporation is "too big to fail"?
• How do you plan to encourage the creation and growth of small businesses while protecting the public interest?
• Do you plan to trim down the budget of the Department of Defense? Or, if not, at least demand better accountability of funds that are spent?
• How will you encourage private, self-interested companies to develop alternatives to fossil fuels and solutions for our energy crisis?
• How do you plan to address the shortage in funds in the Social Security trust that were promised to the now-retiring baby boomer generation?
• Do you plan to continue the War on Drugs?
• To what extent, if any, are you going to restructure the military-industrial complex?
• To what extent, if any, are you going to restructure the prison-industrial complex?
• What measures do you plan to take in fostering a so-called green economy?
• What is your plan for addressing America's crumbling infrastructure?
• Do you plan on re-tasking the FBI from its current counter-terrorism mission to being more focused on domestic crime, such as white collar crime and political corruption?
• Do you promise not to politicize the Justice Department and the various U.S. Attorneys?
• What type of Judge will you appoint to the Supreme Court if given the chance?
• How do you plan to address the Bush Administration's last minute changes to federal regulations governing such matters as consumer safety and the management of federal lands, and such bureaucracies as the Environmental Protection Agency?
• Do you plan to drill for oil and natural gas offshore and in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge?
• How do you plan to address the growing shortage of lending for college students and their families?
• Do you have any plan to provide health care for all American citizens?
• Are you going to follow-up on Vice President-elect Joe Biden's promise to prosecute former members of the Bush Administration for their various allegend misdemeanors and felonies?
• Do you plan to continue to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons?
• Would you be interested in negotiating a multilateral treaty governing Space, the Internet, and other facets of information warfare?
• Will you continue to address terrorism as a national security issue, or view it as a problem of criminal justice?
• Do you plan to rehabilitate ties with Russia?
• Are you going to continue with the installation of the missile defense shield, especially in the Czeck Republic and Poland?
• Do you plan to change America's foreign policy in regards to the Republic of Georgia?
• Do you plan to change government policy as it relates to selling weapons to foreign nations?
• What will be your administration's policy towards Israel? Are you going to take meaningful steps in creating a Palestinian state or otherwise realizing peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians?
• Will you denounce Israeli settlements in the West Bank that have been recognized as illegal under international law?
• You have already expressed a willingness to negotiate with the government of the Republic of Iran directly, but will you continue to enforce unilateral sanctions placed upon that country by the Bush Administration?
• How long is your timeline for pulling American troops out of Iraq?
• What is your plan for Afghanistan? Will you follow-up on your promise of deploying additional troops to the region? How will you address the concerns of the Afghani government about civilian casualties? 
• You have also addressed a willingness to address the various problems in Pakistan, such as the Taliban haven along its shared border with Afghanistan, but will you direct the Department of Defense to continue using Predator drone missile strikes into Pakistani territory to kill militants? Will you continue to support the Pakistani government's campaign to fight the aforementioned militants in the form of cash payments and limited training, or will you try a different approach? Do you have any plan for addressing Pakistan's foreign exchange problem?
• Do you plan to convene peace talks between Pakistan, India, and the People's Republic of China over the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir?
• Do you have any plan to address the ongoing civil war in Sri Lanka?
• Do you plan to engage in talks with the military government of Myanmar?
• At the risk of asking too large of a question, what will be your administration's policy towards the People's Republic of China? Will you continue to sell armaments to Taiwan?
• Do you have any plan to address the ongoing violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo?
• How do you plan to address piracy in the Gulf of Aden based in Somalia?
• Do you have any plan to engage in talks with Robert Mugabe's government and alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe?
• Do you plan to continue the DEA's coca eradication program in South America?
• Do you plan to lift the embargo on Cuba?
• How do you plan to mend ties between the U.S.A. and Latin America?
• Do you have any ideas for combating the rise in drug-related violence in Mexico?

The Afterglow

I have made the analogy before that the campaign was like being hit on by a drunken sociopath. In the aftermath of the election it seems even more so with various special interest groups and media outlets remembering various promises made by Obama while on the road to the White House. They seem like an expectant lover on the morning after, hopeful that this impulsive decision to get in bed with this beautiful person who said all the right things will turn into a healthy relationship. All the while the recipient of the lover's attention hurriedly prepares to move on with his agenda while assuring the lover that, "that was all pillow talk baby." We can at least hope that Obama doesn't spurn the voters like a one night stand. But he is a politician and I won't hold my breath.

John Stewart made the observation to Obama that the country isn't what it was when he started this race. Truly Obama is inheriting a sloppy shit sandwich from one of the most hated presidents in history. Unfortunately for the discontent, Bush is scheduled to leave office and they will loose a symbol of everything they dislike about U.S. policy. But the problems he created will remain. What happens if Obama fails? Do we loose the meager gains we have made in race relations? Does the country swing wildly back to the politically extreme right? Will there be much left of the country after four years if he can't get a hold on these various crises?

Parts of the country started to reflect Bush's low approval ratings by going blue this election. My question is whether these states who were red in 2004 have an indelible sin on them for causing the last 4 years of unnecessary downward spiraling of the nation. Ohio and Pennsylvania, I am looking at you.

As usual, I have nothing positive to say.