California Permitted to Enact Tougher Fuel Economy Standards

Yo check it, inspect it,
Verify and correct it
The auto industry got shut down today
Their lobbyists and their hobbyists lookin' down in dismay
Because they told our state its emissions standards are too harsh
But Judge Ishii ruled in favor of the wetlands and the marsh
Yeah they claimed that federal fuel economy
Preempted our autonomy
But from the judge's pulpit, prophetic Ishii is calling
He's telling the industry their interpretation
Is "the very definition of folly"
And that further appeals would merely be stalling
Their lawyers throw their documents in anger
And inside they're bawling
'Cause environmental groups are taking to the sky
Laughing as defeated executives are behind them and crawling

And as the EPA's expected to back us up with legal mandate
The auto industry's wishing that they never messed with this state

Kind of like first graders

The C.I.A. destroyed two tapes which documented the interrogation techniques performed on two Qaeda operatives in 2002. The tapes were destroyed in 2005, right in the middle of a congressional investigation into the conduct of the C.I.A. with specific interest in the brutality of its techniques.

Want to know what the C.I.A. has to say for itself?

"The tapes were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that video showing harsh interrogation methods could expose agency officials to legal risks, several officials said."

Here's an analogous situation:
[Store Clerk]: "Hey kid, why did you put all those bottles in your shirt?"
[Nefarious Teenager]: "I didn't want you to see me stealing your alcohol."

The chief claim that the C.I.A. made is that releasing the videos would subject the American interrogators in them to Al Qaeda's wrath, and that they didn't have any informational value any more. Really? That's the best you can come up with?

Going back to the analogous situation:
[Cops]: "Kid, why'd you steal the alcohol?"
[Nefarious Teenager]: "My pregnant mom got really thirsty when she was in rehab."

What a terrible excuse. By that logic, the C.I.A. should destroy every single video and documentation regarding the questioning of Qaeda operatives that they have. It's not as if the video would be made public. A congressional investigation requested to see evidence of interrogation techniques, and that's as far as the tape needed to go.

They're acting a lot like first graders who have chocolate all over their hands and faces and say "no" when the teacher asks if they took the chocolate.

Bringing it upon themselves

British teacher in a Muslim-dominated country asks her class of seven-year-olds what the class teddy bear should be named. They vote on Mohammed. Each weekend, a student brings the teddy bear home with them a logs a journal of what they do together. A parent or school administrator (correspondents are unsure which) gets hella pissed and the teacher was convicted of blasphemy. Her sentence was seven years in jail and 40 lashings, but it was reduced to 15 days in jail. Muslims leaving their mosques on Friday called for execution by firing squad.

This is why I don't think anyone should hold any single value to be sacred. One can commit themselves to an ideal, but need to realize they're not above slanders and critical humor. Every news story concerning Muslim extremists makes me think that they're not so extreme, that among them punitive assaults are casual and bloodlust is normal. The class named a teddy bear. It's a compliment by the transitive property. The teddy bear is soft and cuddly and a source of affection, the teddy bear is named Muhammed, Muhammed is therefore soft and cuddly and a source of affection. Isn't that basic?

Family Guy showed the funniest joke the other today. This Muslim goes into heaven with dynamite around his chest, rubbing his hands together gleefully anticipating his 72 virgins, and then from a crowd of teenage boys one with thick glasses a heavy lisp looks up from his laptop and says, "We're playing Magic: The Gathering. Wanna play?" The Muslim looks to the sky (even though he's supposed to already be in heaven) and screams, "Curse you, Allah!"

Oh my god, how funny. Totally deserved it. I hope they're received by 72 white nerds playing Magic: The Gathering after suicide bombing or jihad. They bring it upon themselves with their Dark-age irrationality and intolerance.

a blast from the--now?

The first thing I'd like to point out is the truth of my previous blog in regards to the Speech-Comment Negative Correlation Especially Applicable to Younger Voters Principle (SCNCEAYVP) (seen-see-ah-why-vip) detailed in paragraph one (1), because as my shortest blog it did in fact receive the most feedback (there's some other blog that's got four comments, but I think one of them was mine).

In light of that, I'm going to abandon the typical "subject-predicate" form of structuring sentences. Stop using subjects. Just write important things. You can call it incorrect, I call it streamlined.

Newsweek article says we're living in the past. 60s. Talked about the worst week ever, starting with March 31, 1968. LBJ says he's not running again. MLK's assassinated. Bobby Kennedy tells some inner-city Indianapolis blacks that America needs compassion after informing them of the assassination (no e-mail, few phones, that was the first most of citizens had heard of it). 110 cities riot that night, Indianapolis isn't among them.

Jena 6. (Schools still segregate, and so do towns.) Pat Robertson sues Guiliani regarding potential legalization of same-sex marriage. (Gays are still under fire.)

America likes to get hung up on the past. 68 or 01, it doesn't matter. The Republican platform statement Gwaltney passed out references "terror" or "terrorism" or "terrorists" 33 times in those 3 pages. Get out the 60s, but get out of 2001 faster. Segregation and civil rights are decades-old issues. They don't go away when the interest does. War isn't a necessary issue at all. Take away the media, public loses its entranced captivation, America wouldn't fare worse. With the right minds, the middle class would probably receive some extra money, Social Security would strengthen a bit, welfare a little bit, too, perhaps.

These issues aren't blasts from the past as my 80s comrades may have said. Nothing's a blast from the past because we're still in it. We need some blasts from the present though, and one from the future would be kickass right now. What would it say?

[Soft voice entreating from the wings]: "Fix things at home, fix things at home!"

Cuttin' It Short

There's a striking negative correlation between passage length and comment numbers. The shorter a blog is, the more comments it gets.

I think that correlation is a trend applicable to the majority of teenagers, one may even claim to the majority of 18-24 year-olds. If people want responses, they should shut up faster. This is why the young voting demographic is statistically the most likely not to vote. Politicians ramble pretty frequently, so they create long speeches that simply don't elicit as much feedback because of the Speech-Comment Negative Correlation Especially Applicable to Younger Voters Principle (SCNCEAYVP) (seen-see-ah-why-vip) detailed in paragraph one (1). If concerned American historians and citizens want more of the nation to get involved, politicians need to realize that they're boring to listen to most of the time and stop talking much more quickly.

Attorney General Candidacy under Question

Remember Alberto Gonzales? He's the attorney general who resigned a few weeks ago. Couldn't handle the impassioned condemnations of his questionable C.I.A. policies, I guess (among other things).

Well, now there's Michael Mukasey. He's a former federal judge and the Republican candidate for attorney general, and he's been under some heat recently because of his ambiguous stance regarding the C.I.A.'s methods and interrogation policies.

So there's this thing called waterboarding. With a combination of hot and cold water and probably a big guy in kevlar who's unnecessarily rough, the victim experiences a simulation of drowning. A bunch of people consider it torture and are hella opposed to it on ethical grounds, especially the Democrats. A few weeks ago, Republicans were hoping for bipartisan support of Mukasey's candidacy, but his lack of commentary on the issue has made some Democratic groups and politicians rescind their approval and instead decry his voicelessness.

"Hey fellow Democrat, who's that guy on his high horse coming to back up Mukasey?"
"Dude it's totally Bush, what a frickin' ho."
That's a hypothetical conversation between two Democratic politicians who sound a little stoned, but it's regarding actual events. I guess after some adviser interpreted Bush's world for him and told him what all the fuss meant, Bush realized he ought to assist his Republican buddy in achieving attorney-generaldom.

“I believe that the questions he’s been asked are unfair,” George says pensively and with a hint of Socratic thought dribbling acrossing his Texan brow. “He’s not been read into the program — he has been asked to give opinions of a program or techniques of a program on which he’s not been briefed. I will make the case — and I strongly believe this is true — that Judge Mukasey is not being treated fairly.”

Hm. Well, let's consider this. Shouldn't a candidate for attorney general who is replacing someone for his inadequate job concerning the C.I.A. and its interrogation techniques be familiar with the C.I.A. and its interrogation techniques? Won't we have the same problem? Gonzales' resignation may not have stemmed from his ignorance of what happens in the intelligence agency, but it did stem from his inactivity about it. If Mukasey isn't informed enough to even develop an opinion, there seems to be something odd with this whole issue.

Apparently, Bush doesn't have an opinion either. (Is he uninformed as well? What is happening!) He declined to address waterboarding in an Oval Office press conference. “I’m not going to talk about techniques,” he said. “My view is this: The American people have got to understand the program is important and the techniques used are within the law.”
That translates to: "Shut up, stop turning on the lights, let us work in the dark and we'll get the job done. We'll show you the product, but don't ask how it's made."

Shady deals, man, shady deals.

Here's a song to the tune of Cat's Cradle that started out pertaining to my blog and then stopped at about the same time.

Deals go down when the lights are cut
Cameras tape walls and the shades are drawn shut
George says "Mike, Repubs are in a rut,
Show me all the stuff that you've got to strut"
"Well George, let me tell ya,
I've been a judge for so long
I've maintained this facade
It'll keep going strong
I'll say I don't know nothing
'Bout torture and drowning"
"And if they wanna hear something?"
"I'll look concerned and start frowning"
"That's my favorite trick in the book," George laughs
Mike says "I know, I saw you frown at your staff"
The Democrats wonder, does Mukasey have a voice
If we brought up waterboarding, would he have a choice?
Would he call it torture like a noble human being,
Or has his eyesight been adjusted to see what the amoral are seeing?

Make him step down, nation,
Tell him he's not in charge
Tell him "Abandon your station
And we'll steer the Barge"
And we'll sail upstream to a beautiful place
Where there are rainbows and pixies and a sympathetic race
Where torture drowns beneath its own atrocity
And there's enough love for you and me

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/washington/02bush.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Naughty Saudi

"What! He's building a university that will let women drive?"

Yeah, dude. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is investing $10 billion and two years into a revolutionary, coeducational graduate school built under the massive oil conglomerate Saudi Aramco. He feels that the Arab world is slipping behind the West in terms of intellectual achievements and indirectly attributes the slacking to the fervent religiosity of the region, which tends to prevent collaboration and research into controversial sciences, such as evolution and genetics.

The university is planned to be sectioned off from the nation's police, who enforce Muslim mandates, and it's the only place in the country that will allow women to drive and openly socialize with males. (Israelis, however, are barred entry into Saudi Arabia as a whole and cannot enroll in the school regardless of their sex.)

If the political turmoil that King Abdullah predicts unfolds and threatens the university, I think America should get involved. If our goal for the millenium's early years is to democratize and liberate, this is a prime opportunity. The "king has conceived of the new university as a liberalizing counterweight" to the medieval social mores of the region, and its success may determine the immediate success of Arab women's gradual advancements.

I'm gonna summarize my article with a poem.

Oh King Abdullah, King Abdullah,
Build your school upon the sand
You've invested so much moolah
To construct intelligence within your land
So wall it off, wall it off,
Barricade it from vehement cops
Who look at evolution and Muslimly scoff
Because we're wrong, and Allah's tops
Let women drive, women drive,
And maybe the rest of Arabia will follow suit
Sink or support, the King made the dive
And we don't want reversion to roots
Help them move on, them move on,
Maybe democracy's going strong
So send in the aid with a marching band
To assist the school upon the sand!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/world/middleeast/26saudi.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

The Abolition of Man

We're the most powerful species. We're the catalyst for thousands of extinctions, the wanton indulgence of self-interest at the expense of insignificant insects and rodents. Our ancestors climb trees, but we saw them down with our beacons of intellect and replace the natural world with our perceived paradise, a conglomeration of skyscrapers, complex social contracts and cubicles for the human geniuses who drive it all. Evolution has granted us the greatest wonders yet bestowed upon an organism (how many species can pick up a pen? how many species have the capacity for self-reflection?), but evolution has similarly granted man's microscopic foes the insidious weapon of drug-resistance. "MRSA is a strain of staph bacteria that does not respond to penicillin or related antibiotics" and has consequently become "responsible for more deaths in the United States each year than AIDS."

In football locker rooms, the hidden shelters behind the cultural achievement of centuries of games and spectacles, players battle against the lining of their jerseys, the sweat in their helmets and the microbes that teem in the humid mire. The bacteria is most easily transmitted by contact, either direct (person to person) or indirect (two people sharing something, like a towel, without ensuring hygienic quality).

We created the disease. For all of the benefits of medicine and imposed antibiotics, all advances have an undeniable and monolithic setback, which is that bacteria are natural organisms, too, and can undergo mutations that make them impervious to our genius manifest. As we come to rely upon vaccinations and pills to ward off death, the emergence of bacteria that surmount our defense becomes potent a fortiori.

We're not any better than bacteria. We function in accordance with the same laws that they do. As we transcend the limits of our capacities by inventing inorganic means by which to do so (such as manufacturing medicine to unnaturally empower our immunological response to malignant organisms) we are supplying those very organisms with the means by which to assault us more effectively. Perhaps as we progress in technological feats we are actually not progressing, but on the contrary inviting disaster and the shipwreck of our monuments by voicelessly taunting bacteria and viruses to try to hurt us now.

One of my favorite songs is entitled "The Abolition of Man," and the final couplet goes like this:

The abolition of man is within the reach of science,
But are we so far gone that we'll try it?


Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/19/us/19staph.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

Dismantling Walls That They Devise

A 17 year-old wanted to honor his grandfather's death by flying a flag over the Ohio Capitol building for his "love of God, country and family," which anyone can do by purchasing a flag and going through some simple process. The lead architect cited his office's rule for ordering flags: "Personalized dedications are permitted, but . . . political and/or religious expressions are not" and the boy was declined, but he was also persistent. He wrote a letter to his congressman, and now the rule reads: "Personalized dedications are permitted, but limited to three hundred (300) characters."

The LA Times calls this a "touchstone case in the church-state culture wars" and seems convinced that the people behind the wall trying to support it suffered a heavy defeat. But I fail to see how trying to honor one's deceased grandparent by flying a flag that mentions God over the Capitol building is in any related to a church-state debate. It's more like a jackass-state debate. In flying the flag, that state is by no means endorsing a religion or imposing upon passersby. The media and foolish adherents of injurious convictions are thrusting false meaning into a controversy that doesn't need to exist. They're trying to tear down walls that they create just for the spectacle of the rubble and subsiding ash when it all comes down. The remonstrations are mere squabble over letting a citizen elate in the success of a relative with whom he can no longer interact, and in that sense the issue is closer to freedom of speech rather than the separation of church and state. It's really not that big of a deal. It's really not that big of a blow against Separation.

You're Freaking Killing Me

The American public is opposed to torture. But it's also opposed, and more strongly so, to war and bombs and the death of its citizens. So perhaps that's the reason that the C.I.A. has not disclosed its interrogation methods to Congress, and certainly not to us. Guantanamo Bay was a pretty rough incident for the interrogators, showing the public the army's inhumane and systematic degradation of prisoners' morale and willpower by stripping them of clothes and adorning them with black bags over their heads and all that.

But that was a while ago. People forget things.

In what appears to be a step toward ethical treatment, Congress passed on ban in 2005 on C.I.A. torture methods that constitute "cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment" of prisoners, but many of the members of Congress who voted weren't aware that the Justice Department had already decided that the methods didn't violate that standard.
Hollow steps.

Intelligence officials even claimed the most unbearable tactics were no longer in effect, such as "waterboarding," a simulated drowning of victims, but memorandums disclosed in 2005 reveal that such practices have continued in secrecy.

“I find it unfathomable that the committee tasked with oversight of the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program would be provided more information by The New York Times than by the Department of Justice,” Senator John Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said to the acting Attorney General.

You're killing me. The greatest power in the world can't keep track of the agencies that contribute to its power? Come on, America. It's like you're not even trying.

Can you imagine drowning?
Can you imagine being drowned?

I have a secret fear of Saran Wrap. When I was younger, I saw a movie in which someone was asphyxiated with a plastic bag tied around their neck until they had nothing left to breathe but their own toxic carbon dioxide. That recognition of impending death as your lips turn blue and you feel your head throb as blood pumps faster and faster, trying to circulate the oxygen that isn't there--what absolute terror.

To impose that terror upon another is worse than death, because it makes them acknowledge with excruciating certainty that death is near, but not immediate.

Whatever information a subject may withhold fails to warrant such grievous procedures.

Come on, America. Find a better way.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/05/washington/05interrogate.html?hp

Guinea Pigs and Drugs

Daniel R. Levison, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, is expected to release a report on Friday about the practices of the F.D.A. regarding clinical trials. Federal health officials don't know how many clinical trials are being conducted. They audit less than 1 percent of trials, and when they do show up, it tends to be after the experiment has been completed. The F.D.A. has about 200 inspectors on its payroll, and about 350,000 test sites.

There isn't much interest in our guinea pigs. Well, there is, but only in their results and numbers, not in their welfare.

A few studies proclaim that test animals are treated better than people and are far more closely examined. Institutes that use animals need to register with the federal government, keep track of subjects' health, and are frequently inspected without forewarning.

The fuzzy guinea pigs seem to have a leg up on the human guinea pigs.
Or maybe two?

I am struck by the anomaly, that in every conceivable American forum in which human rights are so slightly endangered, there is a protest, a petition, public backlash against the endangerers, except for the F.D.A. I wonder if it has anything to do with who the guinea pigs usually are--sickly, inadequate people, the kinds of people who need drugs. They function improperly and offensively much of the time and need to be suppressed, stifled, or cured. And a drug will either do that, or it won't do anything at all, in which case there aren't any real repercussions.

If the drugs works and allays the disease: "Well done, corporation. We can make these afflicted victims normal now."
If the drug fails and impairs the person: "Shame on you, corporation. But thanks for making the victims less weird."

So I suppose society is a bit less obnoxious, a bit more socially acceptable, with drugs, because they make the uncommon tendencies less conspicuous.

Oh, no. That can't be right.
But maybe it is.

A Cartridge Shoots Cynicism

"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those who have not got it."
George Bernard Shaw

Disillusionment comes in waves, because for me it always fades in the calm months following some incident. I forget how little it takes for some people to start fights. I forget that some of them are really quite stupid.

But every once in a while, I am reminded that my whimsical notions of global solidarity and the paramount necessity of compassion in our daily lives is simply a notion, a velvet curtain with a pleasant mirror of the world created by peaceful months. But the idyll of those months is eventually curtailed by some disasted, and the mirror breaks and the curtain falls to reveal our human tendency toward brutality.

Two students were shot at Delaware State University early this morning, around 1:00, because someone was too obtuse to resolve an argument without guns. Resorting to guns and other devices that have potential to mortally wound a person is the surest indication of stupidity that I know, barring incidents of self-defense. On a fundamental level, it signifies that the shooter willfully refuses dissent and that he or she cannot live knowing that someone will not adopt their convictions. It reveals the unrivaled insecurity of someone too foolish to reason through their anger, too foolish to admit that difference is okay. In place of a discussion, there is the swelling volition from the barrel of a gun. There is a bullet that represents one's frustration when he or she knows that they are in error, but won't accept the other person's ideology because of habit, or whatever. But not because of reason. It's never rationally justified.

Wars are rooted in that same stupidity, whose potential is magnified by the power of the stupid person's capacity to control others.
"I want your land."
"I want your riches."
"I want your opposing beliefs to vanish."

I can't think of any other causes for war. Retaliation is only a response to one of those catalysts. So, setting aside the arguments of hideous grammar, vacuous assertions, and unwavering faith, I contend that George Walker Bush is a stupid person, or at the very least he is stupid enough to be influenced by stupid people.

Every warship launched, every missile fired, every bullet shot, signifies the American government's inability to coexist with something different. I think that "War on Terror" is an intentional misnomer. "War on Opposition" would be much more accurate, because all of the turbulent animosity that we're familiar with springs from our government and Middle Eastern governments having a rather stupid conversation.
"I'm right."
"No, I'm right."
"Agree to disagree?" (optional dialogue)
"Nope."
"Then I'll kill you. And take your oil, too."

The mirror breaks and the curtain falls.
Stupid.

Being Too Important

Earlier this week, a large picture of an Asian man in a suit that boasted the black panache of the wealthy caught my attention, either in the front section or the Business section of the L.A. Times. I forget.

He is the C.E.O. of Hyundai, and he was brought up by the Japanese government on charges of fraud, I believe. As history goes, those Eastern countries never grant much leniency to delinquents. Lots of floggings and beheadings and such--not too many pardons. Anyone can forgive someone else, so why use a Mandate of Heaven for that? No, no. Mandates of that caliber are for immunity from public backlash of capricious, unwarranted slaughter.

Of course, the Mandate of Heaven or similar derivations of authority haven't been invoked in first-world countries since Tojo Hideki, the emperor of Japan during World War 2, shamefully surrendered to the wrath of amoral Americans and their good physics--you know, nuclear fission and all that. Speaking of physics, which is closely related to trigonometry, please excuse my tangent. Yes, it's a silly joke. But maybe you'll like it.

The C.E.O. of Hyundai wasn't flogged, or beheaded, or even imprisoned. His violations were overlooked, because he plays such a vital role in such a massive company that his incarceration would directly impact Japan's economy.

How would you like to be told what his pardon tells him? If you do not know what his pardon implies, it is this: he is too important to be missing, even when equality demands his removal. He has attained a position powerful enough to subvert principles of equality and justice.

Imagine if that were to happen in our country:

"Oh, hey there George. You really should be laying off of the kilos, don'tcha think?" the Chief Justice would say. "Good thing you're president, or you'd be fucked."
"Yep," George would say. "Good thing."

A False Dilemma

At dinner, my friend, Andy, told me about the extent of the government's dominion over our mouths and our wrists.
He told me about a story he'd heard recently, one about a graffiti artist whose canvases-of-choice were billboards and who became wealthy by means of his glistening beacons of counterculture. With the money he amassed, he purchased his own blank billboard, which he planned to tag up legally. But the art he chose to create and display to the thousands of early-morning commuters supported homosexuality in one way or another, and was consequently deemed illegal.
My father asked, "What, you thought we had freedom of speech in this country?" He smirked with the restrained grin of someone who wants to laugh at their own joke, but refrains from doing so because of the social stigma.
If I actually pursued his provocative remark, I doubt he would be able to substantiate his perhaps facetious contention that we don't have freedom of speech. But there are other liberties upon which organizations or important persons infringe by their claims of strategic sacrifices and desired security. I don't feel that our freedom to assemble and protest is genuine, and I am inclined to believe that the people who attend leftist protests and watch their license plates being scribbled down by cops will agree. If the will of the people has such a capacity to militate, I wonder why these liberties are not forcibly retracted with vehement cries of moral desecration accompanied by nonchalant middle fingers.
And I think it's because many people don't know they don't have everything that is promised to them in the brittle papers of passed eras, or because they have bought into the deception that sacrificing such rights is judicious.
On Facebook today, the poll asks, "Is the glass half-full or half-empty?"
76% of the 1,000 who replied, most of whom are between 18 and 29, declare that it is half-full. I find it curious that so many optimists--or perhaps dumb people, unaware of their legal manacles--presented themselves, amidst a backdrop of opprobrious abrogations and regressive environmental and social policies.
Is America a land of optimists, or a land of people contented by their own ignorance?
Or, more likely, for those of us who are familiar with fallacious arguments, is it simply a land of false dilemmas, a place in which we ignore the fact that there very well may not be a cup at all, and instead only a petrified dedication to seeing something positive about a situation that is irrefutabley negative, and ought to be seen as such?
I suppose sometimes, we can't afford to be optimistic. Sometimes, optimism creates a faith in our own ingenuity that isn't warranted. It can devolve into a form of escapism, a subversive conviction that suicidal attempts won't lead to suicide because we're too happy to die.
Yes, sometimes optimism can be boiled down to idiocy.
But don't lose hope, because the pessimists are even dumber.