Liberal Values

Bob Barr, writing in The Los Angeles Times, states that he wrote the Defense of Marriage Act and is now calling for its repeal.

This is not the first time I’ve noted that Barr has changed his views for the better. Last June he admitted he was wrong in his support for the drug war.

Liberal Values is now available wirelessly for Kindle users. Subscriptions can be obtained here.

After two consecutive long holiday weekends, many of us can use a laugh before getting back to work full time on Monday. Daniel Kurtzman has compiled a list The 25 Funniest Political Quotes of 2008:

1. “I can see Russia from my house!” –Tina Fey, impersonating Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live (Watch video¹)

2. On undecided voters: “I look at these people and can’t quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention? To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of sh*t with bits of broken glass in it? To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.” –David Sedaris²

3. “This campaign needed the common touch of a working man. After all, it began so long ago with the heralded arrival of a man known to Oprah Winfrey as ‘The One.’ Being a friend and colleague of Barack, I just called him ‘That One.’” –John McCain, in his comedy routine³ at the Al Smith Dinner

4. “Even in this room full of proud Manhattan Democrats. I can’t shake that feeling that some people here are pulling for me … I’m delighted to see you here tonight, Hillary.” –John McCain, at the Al Smith Dinner

5. “Who is Barack Obama? Contrary to the rumors you have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father Jor-El to save the Planet Earth. Many of you know that I got my name, Barack, from my father. What you may not know is Barack is actually Swahili for ‘That One.’ And I got my middle name from somebody who obviously didn’t think I’d ever run for president. If I had to name my greatest strength, I guess it would be my humility. Greatest weakness, it’s possible that I’m a little too awesome.” –Barack Obama, in his comedy routine⁴ at the Al Smith Dinner

6. “He looks like a guy who’s backed over his own mailbox … He looks like the guy at the supermarket who is confused by the automatic doors … He looks like the guy who picks up his TV remote when the phone rings … He looks like the guy at the movies whose wife has to repeat everything.” –David Letterman (Read more of Letterman’s jabs at Old Man McCain⁵)

7. “After a quick meet-and-greet with King Abdullah, Obama was off to Israel, where he made a quick stop at the manger in Bethlehem where he was born.” –Jon Stewart, on Barack Obama’s Middle East trip

8. “This doesn’t smell right. This is not the way a tested hero behaves. Somebody’s putting something in his Metamucil.” –David Letterman, on John McCain suspending his campaign and canceling his appearance on the “Late Show”⁶

9. “McCain suspended his campaign, said the debate had to be canceled, he went to Washington, screwed up the deal, and then un-suspended his campaign and flew to the debate even though there wasn’t a deal. Usually when a 72-year-old man acts this way, this is when the kids start calling nursing homes.” –Bill Maher

10. On taking sides in the election: “If you, out of nowhere, are going to grab a woman out of the woods and make her your vice presidential candidate, what can I do? [Sarah Palin] is like Jodie Foster in the movie ‘Nell.’ They just found her, and she was speaking her own special language. Have you noticed how [Palin's] rallies have begun to take on the characteristics of the last days of the Weimar Republic? In Florida, she asked ‘Who is Barack Obama?’ Hey, lady, we just met YOU five f**ing weeks ago.” –Jon Stewart
Read the rest of this entry »

The memorial for Majel Barrett Roddenberry was held on Sunday. TrekMovie.com has a full report.

Before Hillary Clinton was picked to be Secretary of State, both Bill Richardson and John Kerry were discussed as possible picks for the job. Of the two, only Bill Richardson wound up being offered a cabinet position after the Secretary of State spot was filled. With Bill Richardson’s nomination to be Secretary of Commerce being withdrawn, a columnist for The Kansas City Star suggests that John Kerry might be a good replacement:

With Bill Richardson declining to submit to the nominations process for commerce secretary, how about John Kerry for that job?

He wanted secretary of state, and reportedly was devastated with Barack Obama turned to Hillary Clinton.

He’s a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, and familiar with the issues.

You’d think Obama owes Kerry something, since it was Kerry’s selection of Obama to give the keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention that vaulted Obama onto the national stage.

And, the chances of the Democrats losing a Senate seat from Massachusetts are almost nil.

Kerry for commerce. It seems like a natural.

Kerry would certainly be an excellent consideration for the post. Back in 2004 I felt that the Kerry campaign was making a mistake in not bringing up this aspect of Kerry’s experience, along with his strong history of support for small business.

While Kerry would be an excellent choice, I wonder if he would be interested. My bet is that he’d be happier in his new post as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Plus with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, I also feel safer having Kerry in the Senate, along with many who are already wary of Clinton in the White House, to limit the damage Hillary Clinton might do.

Sunday was a good day for Al Franken as the state election board told CNN they were prepared to certify that Franken has won the recount for the Senate seat by a margin of 255 votes. Sunday was also a good day for Tim Kaine, who has been picked to head the DNC.

In addition to Norm Coleman, who is still expected to challenge the loss of his Senate seat in the courts, Sunday was also a bad day for Bill Richardson, who has withdrawn his nomination to be Secretary of Commerce as a grand jury investigates donors who won a lucrative state contract.

“I really do believe President Bush is the worst president we’ve ever had.” –Harry Reid on Meet the Press

The Boston Globe reports that the police in Massachusetts are unhappy with the new state law which decriminalizes possession of small amounts of marijuana. Many police chiefs will not bother issuing citations for possession, which carry a $100 fine, calling the law unenforceable.

In principle there is a problem in a democracy when police decide which laws they will or will not enforce, however in this case it is a plus if they are no longer going to waste government resources trying to prevent possession of small amounts of marijuana.

The Washington Post shows the extent to which surveillance was being abused by the Maryland State Police:

The Maryland State Police surveillance of advocacy groups was far more extensive than previously acknowledged, with records showing that troopers monitored — and labeled as terrorists — activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes.

Intelligence officers created a voluminous file on Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, calling the group a “security threat” because of concerns that members would disrupt the circus. Angry consumers fighting a 72 percent electricity rate increase in 2006 were targeted. The DC Anti-War Network, which opposes the Iraq war, was designated a white supremacist group, without explanation.

One of the possible “crimes” in the file police opened on Amnesty International, a world-renowned human rights group: “civil rights.”

According to hundreds of pages of newly obtained police documents, the groups were swept into a broad surveillance operation that started in 2005 with routine preparations for the scheduled executions of two men on death row.

The operation has been called a “waste of resources” by the current police superintendent and “undemocratic” by the governor.

Over-reaction to the 9/11 terrorist attacks created the atmosphere which led to such abuses of civil liberties. Stephen H. Sachs, a former U.S. attorney and state attorney general appointed to review the case noted that “…9/11 created an atmosphere where cutting corners was easier.” By responding to 9/11 in this manner in Maryland, as well as in other states, agencies of the government played right into al Qaeda’s hands.

The BBC has revealed the identity of the eleventh Doctor–Matt Smith. Smith, at age 26, will be the youngest actor to star in Doctor Who, being three years younger than Peter Davison when he started playing The Doctor. The above video shows an interview with Smith on his reactions to getting the role.

Smith sort of already has a connection to Doctor Who. His TV debut was in the 2006 adaptation of Philip Pullman’s The Ruby in the Smoke. The episode  starred former  Billie Piper as Sally Lockhart.

There is a spoiler floating around on line regarding the ending of Battlestar Galactica, assuming the rumors are  true.  The rumor is that the series ends with a scene with music but no dialog as Six walks through Times Square in a red dress. Of course this still leaves open plenty of possibilities as to how we get to this point. There has been speculation that the mid-season cliff hanger took place on an alternative Earth and perhaps they reach the real Earth at the end. Another possibility is that the fleet settles on the planet we see in the distant past, with this taking place centuries later. Regardless of how this takes place, is Six plotting to leave this Earth open to yet another Cylon invasion?

High resolution pictures have been released of the upcoming Star Trek movie. A set is available at TrekMovie.com (or click on the picture above for a larger version).

In another post, TrekMovie.com discussed how the movie manages to avoid conflicts with Star Trek canon while also being free to go in different directions:

Earlier this month in an interview TrekMovie.com, Star Trek co-writer Roberto Orci confirmed that Star Trek starts in the same canon universe that we are familiar with, but that much of the new film takes place in an alternative universe/timeline, which was created when the villain Nero goes back in time from the TNG era and destroys the USS Kelvin (a ship with both of James T. Kirk’s parents on board)…

Although Orci noted that this is not necessarily something that needs to be understood to enjoy the film, it could have implications with regard to future films or the ‘extended universe’ of Star Trek. For example it would be perfectly within canon for there to be books, comics and games set in either universe, including the ‘original’ universe after Nero and Spock left for the ‘alternative’ universe. It also shows that the film makers do not see the new film as ‘overwriting’ Star Trek canon and history as we know it.

The post proceeds to consider the science behind the use of parallel universes and time travel.

The People has an interview with John Barrowman. Here’s a portion with information on the upcoming Torchwood miniseries, along with cuts made for the U.S. audience.

He denied speculation he wants to quit Torchwood - in fact he’d like each series to be TWICE as long.

He said: “I love playing Captain Jack and if I could play him until I’m 90, I would. But I’d rather do a series of 10 or 13 episodes because it’s a lot of work for just five.

“The next series is about Torchwood fighting the government rather than just aliens and is a lot darker.

“Jack has to make a decision no parent - that’s a big hint - should have to make.”

But the show is also going to be toned down for America.

John said: “We’re not swearing or doing anything close to the bone because it’s been a huge success in the US and the networks won’t accept it with all that stuff in it.”

Does that mean John’s going to keep his clothes on for once?

Actually, no.

He said: “I’ll still be getting naked and it will still be saucy - but it’s done with taste.

We’ll doing everything so it doesn’t have to be heavily edited for the US.”

Here’s a headline I wouldn’t have predicted: Vinyl record sales double in ‘08, CDs down. Of course the vinyl sales remain a niche market, increasing from what had dropped to a relatively low number. This is also not a true sign of old technology winning as the big winner in recent years has been MP3’s. Computerworld reports these numbers:

In 2008, 1.88 million vinyl albums were purchased, more than in any other year since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking LP sales in 1991. The previous record was in 2000, when 1.5 million LP albums were sold. More than two out of every three vinyl albums bought in 2008 were purchased at an independent music store, according to SoundScan.

Vinyl record sales rose 14% between 2006 and 2007, from 858,000 to 990,000. In contrast, CD sales plummeted over the past three years, from 553.4 million in 2006 to 360.6 million in 2008. MP3 sales grew from 32.6 million to 65.8 million during the same time period, according to SoundScan.

Industry observers say vinyl record sales have skyrocketed because new buyers are discovering the value of owning albums, with their cover art, large liner notes and warm sound.

“There’s nothing like a vinyl record. It’s analog. It sounds as close as you’re going to get to the artist. If you’re that guy who sits in that optimum space in your living room, you’re definitely going to hear the difference,” said Steven Sheldon, president of Los Angeles-based Rainbo Records.

“Now, with that said, 99% of the public listens to music as a background off of iPods and everything else,” he said. “That’s by far the worst sound quality, but it’s also the most convenient — and convenience sells.”

In discussions of rebuilding the Republican Party some have been distracted by concentrating on technology as opposed to their fundamental problem of promoting ideas which are unpopular and often contradictory. Patrick Ruffini at NextRight points out  both the value of technology to match that used by Democrats along with the need to concentrate on message. He also notes that the message desired by grass roots is often quite different from that of the national party:

Were MoveOn.org and the netroots primarily about technology or ideology? The answer is both. They were instruments for the ideological “reformation” of the party that just happened to use technology. They were both successful because they tied technology to sense of political purpose, direction, and action. I understand we won’t “be like” the left, but this is a very useful lesson for the right.

Without technology, the Democrats’ path to power would have looked very, very different. Their purpose-driven use of technology sped up the process of giving the grassroots an ownership stake within the party and feeling like they could safely get involved in official Democratic politics again. Right now, there is a poisonous divide between the official Republican Party and the grassroots. This is the inevitable consequence of the bailouts, spending, and Medicare Part D and probably couldn’t be any other way after eight years in the White House. But over the next few years, it has to be a goal to get the grassroots looped back into the party and in fact get them in the drivers’ seat shaping the ideas and priorities of the party. For an opposition to be effective, it must be united. This means breaking down or rendering irrelevant the elitist mindset of the political class that divides it from the grassroots, and working as one united Republican Party in the think tanks, on the ground, and online to be an effective foil to the Obama Administration.

One problem faced by conservatives is that there are vastly different views not only dividing the grass roots and the party but dividing conservatives in the grass roots. Julian Sanchez at Ars Technica discusses both the question of technology as well as pointing out the same problem with the conservative coalition I discussed here yesterday.

Conservatism has much bigger problems right now than a paucity of Twitter skills. (I say this, for what it’s worth, as someone who’s often classified as part of the broad “right,” my frequent criticisms of this administration notwithstanding.) Front and center is that the end of the Cold War and a governing party that made “small government” a punchline has left it very much unclear what, precisely, “conservatism” means. The movement was always a somewhat uneasy coalition of market enthusiasts and social traditionalists, defined at least as much by what (and who) they opposed as by any core common principles. The Palin strategy—recapturing that oppositional unity by rebranding the GOP as the party of cultural ressentiment—is just a recipe for a death spiral. Conservatives don’t need to figure out how to promote conservatism on Facebook; they need to figure out what it is they’re promoting. To the extent that a new media strategy is part of opening up that conversation, great, but it had better not become a substitute for engaging in some of that painful introspection.

That brings us to Erickson’s essay, about which I wanted to say a few more specific things. First, I understand all too well why he insists on getting outside the beltway and talking to technologists rather than political operatives who know a little tech.  Washington is absolutely crawling with snake-oil salesmen who’ve discovered that you can make a tidy living extracting cash from credulous politicos who didn’t learn anything from the last dot-com bubble, provided you’re able to sling Web 2.0 jargon passably. “Go outside the beltway” is probably a decent heuristic for anyone who isn’t confident they can spot the hucksters.

Robert Stacy McCain at The American Spectator shows that it is possible for a conservative activist to both understand the importance of ideas but also support ideas which are a political dead end. He quotes the above passage from Sanchez and responds:

This is true, and as John Hawkins pointed out, the current wave of Republican technophilia is based on a profound misinterpretation of the Obama phenomenon. The high-tech stuff didn’t drive the enthusiasm, the enthusiasm drove the high-tech stuff. And, uh, who has a growing online army of more than 60,000 enthusiastic supporters? The same person who is odds-on favorite for the nomination in 2012? It seems to me that a fairly obvious plan of action is at hand, if only the damned snobs would stop whining about it.

While I disagree with his support for Palin and his belief that backing people like Palin will lead to anything other than continued disaster for the GOP, McCain is correct that it is support for the candidate which is more important than the high-tech stuff. If technology alone was the key to victory, Howard Dean might have won the 2004 Democratic nomination and Ron Paul might have at least done more respectable in the 2008 Republican race. Taking advantage of technology will help Republicans promote their ideas, but first they must come up with ideas beyond the social conservatism and anti-intellectualism of Sarah Palin which have turned the Republicans into little more than a southern regional party.

Conservatives are understandably responding to their rejection in the past two elections by questioning what to do next. Peter Berkowitz argues that the path out of the political wilderness is for conservatives to unite around the concept of supporting the Constitution. In  principle this would be an admirable start, but it would necessitate a complete rejection of what the Republicans have done in recent years. It is the Republicans’ poor record on civil liberties, attempts to dismantle the restrictions on Executive Power established by the Founding Fathers, and a total disregard for a part of our heritage as crucial as separation of church and state, which have led to the rejection of the Republican Party.

Even many conservatives realize that the Republicans will have a hard time passing themselves off as a party which respects the Constitution. This rebuttal comes from The American Spectator:

I agree that conservatives should be united around the Constitution and I look forward to the longer version of Berkowitz’s article that will appear in Policy Review, but I’m afraid this op-ed piece does more to show that conservatives are not in fact united in support of a constitutionalist platform. Aside from the president’s judicial appointments, the Bush years will not exactly go down in history as the high water mark of constitutionalism in American politics.

The real problem for the Republicans can be seen as Berkowitz outlines the conflicting views of the social conservatives and the more libertarian-minded Republicans:

Some social conservatives point to the ballot initiatives this year in Arizona, California and Florida that rejected same-sex marriage as evidence that the country is and remains socially conservative, and that any deviation from the social conservative agenda is politically suicidal. They overlook that whereas in California’s 2000 ballot initiative 61% of voters rejected same-sex marriage, in 2008 only 52% of voters in the nation’s most populous state opposed the proposition. Indeed, most trend lines suggest that the public is steadily growing more accepting of same-sex marriage, with national polls indicating that opposition to it, also among conservatives, is weakest among young voters.

Meanwhile, more than a few libertarian-leaning conservatives are disgusted by Republican profligacy. They remain uncomfortable with or downright opposed to the Bush administration’s support in 2004 for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, and its continuation of the Clinton administration’s moratorium on government funding of embryonic stem-cell research.

In addition, many are still angry about the Republican-led intervention by the federal government in the 2005 controversy over whether Terri Schiavo’s husband could lawfully remove the feeding tubes that were keeping his comatose wife alive. These libertarian conservatives entertain dreams of a coalition that jettisons social conservatives and joins forces with moderates and independents of libertarian persuasion.

But the purists in both camps ignore simple electoral math. Slice and dice citizens’ opinions and voting patterns in the 50 states as you like, neither social conservatives nor libertarian conservatives can get to 50% plus one without the aid of the other.

Berkowitz believes that the social conservatives and libertarians, along with the hawks, can form “a coalition of principle” rather than one of convenience. I disagree, seeing the Republicans as having a coalition of convenience with viewpoints which could not coexist indefinitely.

The views of both the social conservatives and the national security hawks in the Republican Party conflicted with the views of true libertarians (as opposed to the views of many conservatives who call themselves libertarians without supporting libertarian views). The true libertarians have been drifting away from the Republicans and increasingly voting Democratic.

This breakdown of the Republican coalition was foreshadowed by Barry Goldwater, who objected to the influence of the religious right in the GOP and considered himself a liberal in his later years. Social conservatism is virtually the opposite of libertarianism (despite those who concentrate on “economic liberty” while ignoring the big picture).

The real difference between social conservatives and those of us who object to their views is often not one of life style or actual actions. Many of us social liberals actually live quite conservative life styles (and many social conservatives do not live the life style they advocate). The real difference is whether one supports the power of government to impose their life style on others. The belief in the use of the power of the state to impose one’s life style choices on others makes social conservatism totally incompatible with  libertarianism. Of course with our imprecise political language we get contradictions like conservatives such as Ron Paul being called libertarian.

Besides the religious right, the other primary threat to both liberty and Constitutional law in recent years has come from those who support the “war on terror,” mistakenly believing that these policies enhance rather than undermine our national security. These have been the people who would most quickly ignore the Constitution in the name of national security. This, along with social conservatism, are the primary reasons most young and more educated voters have rejected the Republicans in the last two election cycles.

The dilemma that the Republicans face is that in order to be taken seriously again they must jettison the ideas of the religious right and the neoconservatives. Berkowitz is correct that at present there is no clear electoral majority for the minority of Republicans who would remain. However to remain with this mindset is to likely doom the Republicans, and the conservative movement, to increasingly become a southern regional phenomenon which is ridiculed by the rest of the country.

Attempts to preserve the current Republican coalition might bring about brief moments of electoral success but it is a losing proposition in the long term. Repudiating the religious right and the neoconservatives will guarantee that the Republican Party remains in the wilderness for the next several years, but there will be hope of coming out of it as a meaningful party. There is hope for a serious conservative movement to thrive, but not one dominated by the views of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Sarah Palin.

Making any predictions about the long term is risky in politics, including predictions that the more reasonable portions of the Republican Party cannot succeed in the future without the extremists. Imagine any predictions about the future when George Bush took office in 2001. Factors which led to both temporary electoral success for the GOP and later doom such as 9/11 and Katrina could not even have been taken into consideration.

The Democrats are dominant now, but this is largely due to unity because of widespread opposition to past Republican actions. The wide variety of people now supporting the Democratic Party will find it was easier to agree in opposing the Republicans than to agree on policy matters while in power. New issues will emerge and there will be prospects for a reasonable opposition party to grow and perhaps take power in the future. To do so will mean more than uniting around empty rhetoric of supporting the Constitution. It will also require understanding of why the Republicans were repudiated as opposed to repeating the same mistakes, or arguing they lost because the were not conservative enough.

Some Conservatives Fear Obama Advisers Lean Too Far Left is a headline which should surprise nobody. For the most part Obama has received praise from both the left and right for the relatively centrist nature of his initial appointments. Considering that those on the right were expecting a far more leftist government from Obama than we are likely to see, I’ve seen far more complaints from liberals. Still, saying that “some conservatives” believe his advisers lean too far left comes as no surprise. After all, we had a campaign where, despite receiving much of his economic advice from the University of Chicago, we had a campaign were the Republicans distorted Obama’s statements to claim he desires redistribution of the wealth in a Marxist sense. We also saw a trivial association with William Ayers distorted to claim Obama palls around with terrorists.

Saying that some conservatives will think that Obama advisers lean too far to the left sounds like a “dog bites man” story. The most surprising aspect of this story is that they couldn’t make a better case to support the premise. The criticism cited is primarily from one person, Roger Clegg. Certainly there must be some better known conservatives who could also be quoted if one wanted to make this argument. The criticism is also primarily about advisers on the transition team as opposed to those actually given appointments in the new government. I would think that those who will actually hold government positions are more important than transition advisers. I also question whether you can complain that the transition advisers are too far to the left if the actual appointees are seen as more centrist.

Blogging, as opposed to more in depth writing, tends to lend itself toward issues in which the author is clearly on on side of an issue. While some recognition might be paid towards the nuances of an issue, for the most part bloggers are for or against a candidate, and are for or against the Iraq war. The situation in Gaza is far more difficult as neither side is totally in the right. Megan McArdle sums up the problem with writing about the conflict between Israel and Hamas:

Since no action in the region has occurred without plausible provocation for 4,000 years or so, this requires constantly shifting the metrics by which you measure whichever side you happen to favor. Point out that Israel is killing a lot of civilians and you are told that they had to do something in response to the Hamas rockets. Point out that practically, the response they chose has absolutely no strategic or tactical benefit, and a huge potential downside, and you are castigated for your lack of moral outrage about Hamas’s attacks on civilians. Either Israel is doing this because it hopes to gain something, in which case the whole thing is hopelessly ass-backwards–they are strengthening Hamas and worsening their international political position–or it thinks that it’s okay to kill boatloads of civilians purely for revenge against Hamas; revenge for attacks that have so far killed and injured almost no one. This rather undercuts the argument of moral superiority, because guess what? That’s what Hamas thinks it’s doing.

On the other side, there’s a tendency to forget, or forget to mention, that whatever the provocation, a plurality-to-majority of Palestinians constantly and actively wish to kill large numbers of Israelis purely for revenge. Gaza wants to be at war with Israel, and then hide behind the protections of not-quite-war, because they haven’t the foggiest hope of winning anything like a real war.

As with many such conflicts, this is a situation where plenty of fault can be found on both sides. While Megan does attempt to avoid taking sides, and I share her skepticism that Israel’s current actions will be of any long term benefit, ultimately the most important point here is that “Gaza wants to be at war with Israel.” There is no doubt that Israel has reacted to this situation in ways which are objectionable, with regards to the occupation, the subsequent blockade, and its conduct during war, but the underlying reality of the situation is that whether these conflicts continue is far more up to the Palestinians. There is no hope for peace as long as one side to the conflict has a visceral objection to making peace. Overreaction to such a situation, while perhaps not always morally justified, is the inevitable response.

While some speak of a proportional response, such expectations are not realistic. Shooting rockets into civilian areas will inevitably lead to a disproportionate response from virtually anyone, even if civilian casualties have so far been low. I don’t totally buy Alan Dershowitz’s argument that Israel’s actions are “proportionate” but his example still remains relevant to understanding the situation:

When Barack Obama visited Sderot this summer and saw the remnants of these rockets, he reacted by saying that if his two daughters were exposed to rocket attacks in their home, he would do everything in his power to stop such attacks. He understands how the terrorists exploit the morality of democracies.

In a recent incident related to me by the former head of the Israeli air force, Israeli intelligence learned that a family’s house in Gaza was being used to manufacture rockets. The Israeli military gave the residents 30 minutes to leave. Instead, the owner called Hamas, which sent mothers carrying babies to the house.

Hamas knew that Israel would never fire at a home with civilians in it. They also knew that if Israeli authorities did not learn there were civilians in the house and fired on it, Hamas would win a public relations victory by displaying the dead. Israel held its fire. The Hamas rockets that were protected by the human shields were then used against Israeli civilians.

These despicable tactics — targeting Israeli civilians while hiding behind Palestinian civilians — can only work against moral democracies that care deeply about minimizing civilian casualties. They never work against amoral nations such as Russia, whose military has few inhibitions against killing civilians among whom enemy combatants are hiding.

Regardless of whether it is justifiable, Israel’s actions are going far beyond the actions of Hamas (primarily because Israel has far greater ability to wage war than Hamas does), and violate what we would like to think are accepted laws of war. AP reports on the destruction being caused by Israel in Gaza. Still it is notable that they report:

Before the airstrikes, Israel’s military called some of the houses to warn of an impending attack. In some cases, it also fired a sound bomb to warn civilians before flattening the homes with missiles, Palestinians and Israeli officials said.

Giving warning by itself does not justify targeting of civilians, but this does note a significant difference between the two sides. The Israeli airstrikes might be a disproportionate response to the rocket attacks fired by Hamas, but Hamas did not give any warning first. Israel does deserve criticism when civilians are harmed by its airstrikes, but at least their goal is to minimize such casualties. On the other hand when Hamas rockets hit schools in Beer Sheva it was most likely due to a fortunate chance and not the wishes of Hamas that no children were killed. Israel would also not use school children as human shields, but Hamas is not above this.

Kevin Peraino, writing for Newsweek, considers whether these actions will help or hurt Israel and finds both short term benefits in restoring its aura of invincibility but long term problems in terms of achieving peace in the region. The article concludes:

Retaliatory strikes aside, an intense Israeli assault on Gaza could indeed restore some element of its deterrent power vis-à-vis the Islamists. The Jewish state “has already improved its reputation and powers of deterrence by yesterday’s performance,” says Jerusalem-based historian Michael Oren. Yet even as Israel strengthens its position with regard to Hamas, it risks simultaneously weakening its ability to confront larger, more-dangerous players—particularly Iran. Regional Arab allies like Egypt and Jordan will be critical if the United States and Israel are to effectively increase pressure on the Islamic republic. The bloody images of dismembered corpses that are now airing around the clock on Al-Jazeera will strain those ties. Israel’s latest campaign may restore some measure of its long-lost aura of invincibility. Yet in the long run, it will come at a price.

Part of this price is that yet more Palestinians will find justification for rocket attacks or other terrorist activities in the future, leading to yet more acts of retaliation such as the current strikes in Gaza, even if counter-productive. There is no clear end for this vicious cycle.

Last week I noted that the conservative publication Human Events named Sarah Palin the conservative of the year. Today Crooks & Liars announces that Palin has been chosen as Wingnut of the Year. While one obviously sees the award as going to someone they have a favorable view of, and the other is awarding it based upon an unfavorable opinion, they do agree on Palin’s significance. Like her or dislike her, Sarah Palin deserves both awards.

Palin was the conservative who received by far the most publicity this year. This is an unfortunate fact for the conservative movement. If conservatives in general are separated based upon rationality versus being a wingnut, Palin also deserves this more than any other conservative this year.

While there are vastly different types of views lumped together under the conservative label, Palin represents conservatism of the worst type. She lacks any understanding of civil liberties as guaranteed by the Constitution, as well as any respect for individual liberty. Instead her views are heavily influenced by the religious right on social issues and by the neoconservatives on foreign policy.

Consistent with the social conservative roots of her political views, Palin promotes the anti-intellectualism which is now dominating the conservative movement, including a denial of evolution. Palin’s views are totally inconsistent with the libertarian ideas, as well as respect for intellectualism, which has often been seen in conservative thought in the past. Unfortunately some libertarians, clearly thinking with an organ other than their brains, ignore the authoritarianism of Palin’s views and consider her one of their own. If all it takes is a hot woman with a gun to get their support, they’d be better off drooling over January Jones (Betty Draper of Mad Men )after the first season episode entitled Shoot. Here are the choices:

Sarah Palin clearly deserves to be named Wingnut of the Year. The tragedy is that, while some conservatives do see through her, so many other conservatives see her as their new leader. Republican voters see Sarah Palin and fellow social conservative Mike Huckabee as their two preferred choices for 2012. Red State has announced a war against Republicans who have not supported Palin. This will make it much harder for the Republican Party and the conservative movement to move beyond the fringes.

We heard less nonsense about The War on Christmas this year but now, via Pharyngula, we have a tongue in cheek protest against The War on New Year from James F. McGrath, an associate professor of religion:

Apparently the forces of darkness are mounting an attack, this time on the Christian holiday of New Year’s Day, which commemorates and worshipfully celebrates the anniversary of the day on which a Romanian monk miscalculated the year in which our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was born. In addition to the anticalendricals, it seems that the Chinese, Jews, and Muslims are all opting out and deciding to celebrate other days as their new year. More recently the ranks of these heathen have apparently been joined by the ancient Babylonians. Worse still, countless American companies are yielding to the pressure from these groups, and instructing them to wish people “Happy New Years Day” rather than “Happy New Year’s Day”.

Truly committed Christians should be listening carefully for the lack of apostrophe and boycott any stores that prove to be committed to this heretical anapostrophism.

Fight the good fight. Make sure that you drink too much champagne on December 31st as midnight approaches, and not on one of the days celebrated by the heathen. Too much is at stake. Imagine the confusion if we had such crowds and brightly lit orbs descending upon Times Square all throughout the year.

Is this what happened to the religious blogosphere when Indiana, where the author is located, turned into a blue state this year? Next they’ll question taking the Bible literally.

If the members of the Bush administration which acted immorally while in office had any understanding of the difference between right and wrong they hopefully would not have conducted themselves as they did in office. Therefore it comes as no surprise that some of them fail to understand why their actions are receiving criticism. The Wall Street Journal quotes Alberto Gonzales as asking during an interview, “”What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?” At least he didn’t claim he was just following orders.

Think Progress summarizes some of the major things which Gonzales did which were wrong:

Politicized the DOJ: – Gonzales approved the firing and hiring of federal prosecutors for political reasons and lied to Congress about the scandal.

Approved torture: In 2002, Gonzales “raised no objections and, without consulting military and State Department experts in the laws of torture and war,” approved an infamous August 2002 memo giving CIA interrogators “legal blessings.” Gonzales witnessed an interrogation at Gitmo in 2002 and approved of “whatever needs to be done” to detainees.

Lied about warrantless wiretapping: Gonzaled lied to Congress multiple times about the Bush administration’s illegal wiretapping program, saying there wasn’t “any serious disagreement” about the program (there was).

Distorted pre-war intelligence: Last month, the House Oversight Committee revealed evidence showing that Gonzales lied to Congress in 2004 by claiming that the CIA “orally” approved Bush’s claim that Iraq sought uranium from Africa.

Steve Benen points out this review of Gonzales’ actions as Attorney General written for The Washington Post  by Andrew Cohen, the editor and chief legal analyst for CBS News:

When historians look back upon the disastrous tenure of Alberto R. Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States they will ask not only why he merited the job in the first place but why he lasted in it as long as he did. By any reasonable standard, the Gonzales Era at the Justice Department is void of almost all redemptive qualities. He brought shame and disgrace to the Department because of his lack of independent judgment on some of the most vital legal issues of our time. And he brought chaos and confusion to the department because of his lack of respectable leadership over a cabinet-level department among the most important in the nation.

He neither served the longstanding role as “the people’s attorney” nor fully met and tamed his duties and responsibilities to the Constitution. He was a man who got the job not because he was supremely qualified or notably well-respected among the leading legal lights of our time, but because he had faithfully and with blind obedience served President George W. Bush for years in Texas (where he botched clemency memos in death penalty cases) and then as White House counsel (where he botched the nation’s legal policy on torture).

For an administration known for its cronyism, and alas for an alarmingly incompetent group of cronies, Gonzales was the granddaddy of them all. He lacked the integrity, the intellect and the independence to perform his duties in a manner befitting the job for which he was chosen. And when he and his colleagues got caught in the act, his rationales and explanations for the purge of the U.S. Attorneys were so empty and shallow and incoherent that even the staunchest Republicans could not turn them into steeled spin. Devoid of any credibility, Gonzales in the end was a sad joke when he came to Capitol Hill.

Even before the Justice Department was exposed under his reign as a politicized den of ideology, Gonzales’ work as Attorney General was unacceptable and unworthy of high office. He defended the constitutionality of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program even though many conservative and liberal legal scholars alike considered it to be a violation of the law. He endorsed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which did away with important rights not just for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay but for legal aliens within the borders of the United States. Thus did Gonzales fail to exercise any sort of independent check and balance upon the White House’s most controversial legal policies.

Meanwhile, according to the National Association of Police Chiefs and Sheriffs, big-city murder rates have risen by 10 percent over the past two years — a period that coincides precisely with Gonzales’ time as attorney general. The Federal Bureau of Investigation puts the violent crime increase at 3.7% for January-June 2006 and drug use (and production and sales) apparently are on the rise in the nation’s heartland. And the Justice Department’s record of terror-related prosecutions is a mixed one at best. Thus did Gonzales fail to succeed at the most fundamental task of chief law enforcement official — to make crime less not more prevalent.

And all the while, Gonzales’ Justice Department was crumbling from within, devastated by a cynical strategy of minimizing the role of career nonpartisan professionals within the Department in favor of young ideologues, mediocre attorneys and just plain party hacks. The U.S. Attorney scandal is just the most publicized example of this daring effort to make the Justice Department a house organ for the Bush administration. Less visible career attorneys were pushed out at the expense of rank partisans willing to toe the company line. Even the internship programs for law students were schooled to favor “right” thinking attorneys at the expense of others. One law school, founded by Pat Robertson and rated among the worst in the nation, became a feeder school for the Department. And it was all part of a plan.

I’ve previously written about the plans for increased surveillance in Great Britian  here and here, and this morning new plans were reported in The Guardian. They report that, “The private sector will be asked to manage and run a communications database that will keep track of everyone’s calls, emails, texts and internet use.” This sounds like the modern equivalent of Orwell’s warnings of televisions which watch everyone.

There have also been objections raised to this plan:

…Sir Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, who has firsthand experience of working with intelligence and law enforcement agencies, told the Guardian such assurances would prove worthless in the long run and warned it would prove a “hellhouse” of personal private information.

“Authorisations for access might be written into statute. The most senior ministers and officials might be designated as scrutineers. But none of this means anything,” said Macdonald. “All history tells us that reassurances like these are worthless in the long run. In the first security crisis the locks would loosen.”

Macdonald’s objections are quoted again later in the report:

“The tendency of the state to seek ever more powers of surveillance over its citizens may be driven by protective zeal. But the notion of total security is a paranoid fantasy which would destroy everything that makes living worthwhile. We must avoid surrendering our freedom as autonomous human beings to such an ugly future. We should make judgments that are compatible with our status as free people.”

After Blu-ray won the format war against HD DVD some felt that Blu-ray would finally start to take off in sales. This is one expected story of 2008 which did not occur.  Engadget points out an article at Content Agenda on what Blu-ray needs to do.

As they point out, Blu-ray has a better picture, which most will notice, and better sound, which far fewer will appreciate, compared to conventional DVD’s. While it is an improvement, the improvement is incremental and does not represent the tremendous difference seen when we moved from VHS to DVD. Blu-ray also faces  competition from new technologies such as streaming video which were not a factor when DVD first developed its market share. Another problem faced by Blu-ray is that much of the programing is not available in high definition, limiting the material which is available which justifies the move to a different player.

The gap between conventional DVD and Blu-ray is even less now that upscaling DVD players are being sold for less than $100. Such players still do not have as good a picture as Blu-ray, but the gap is even less. Blu-ray looks better, but not enough for many people to pay the extra cost. The articles linked above recommend lowering the price of Blu-ray discs to that of DVD’s. While this would help to get people to make the conversion, lower  prices alone  would not solve the problem which led me to hold off on going to Blu-ray.

One issue which I have rarely seen mentioned, but which has led me to postpone the move to Blu-ray, is viewing in different rooms. If I am watching n my main media room with the fifty inch television I can certainly see a major difference and would prefer the higher definition of Blu-ray. However I also have smaller HD televisions in three other rooms and on those sets the difference over upscaled DVD is not as significant. If I buy Blu-ray discs then I lose the option to watch them in any of the other rooms, as well as on a lap top or other computer. For now, if I really want to see a movie in high definition I’ll watch it on HD cable instead of DVD.

Blu-ray players have come down in price enough where I’d be willing to buy one for the main media room, but I’m less eager to replace the DVD players in every other room. Some day all my computers might be replaced by newer models with Blu-ray players, but that is at least a few years off.

My suggestion, besides lowering the cost of Blu-ray movies, would be to bundle a conventional DVD with a Blu-ray disc. This way I could still watch the movie in any room I choose, regardless of which type of player is present. The material costs for a DVD are very inexpensive. If they are concerned that the extra DVD will be given away or sold to others, reducing potential sales, another possibility is to have a single disc with each format present. Actually I recently heard that this is being developed but it will only help if the release of combo discs becomes a wide spread practice rather than being limited to certain shows, and if the price is not much more than buying a DVD.