tsunami math

American Samizdat notes the US is spending $ 35 million for disaster relief, while the Republicans spent $40 million to buy the presidency.

Juan Cole points out that two weeks of Bush’s post-war war in Iraq costs as much as everything the US spent on emergency humanitarian assistance in 2003 for all the countries in the world.

Oh yeah, we've got our priorities clear.

too much education

Here it is, the xtian right admission that education makes people more liberal.

whiny campus republicans

So, the foolishness about liberals on campus continues. In response to the recent articles about how there are more democrats than republicans on faculties, a colleague started a series of emails about the whole thing. I won’ t post those here, though I will note some of the rebuttal links, from Ellen Goodman and the LATimes. (See also my earlier post on Juan Cole.)

And I’ll respond to a piece forwarded from the Chronicle of Higher Ed.

The pseudonymous Chronicle author reports on his oppressively liberal education:

During an "Introduction to Political Science" class, for example, I was required to write paper [sic] on how to solve global warming. My paper suggested that perhaps there was no reason to, since the scientific evidence was inconclusive. I got a D.

Now, it’s true that the overwhelming scientific consensus on this might not have been as evident when this fellow was an undergraduate-- I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on that. But after all there’s something to be said for actually responding to an assignment. And even that leftist cabal, the Pentagon, considers the thought experiment worth engaging.

He also complains

In another class, I fell victim to my own indignation at having to use inclusive language in my papers. Flexing the muscle of my perceived linguistic superiority -- the masculine third-person singular pronoun across many languages functions as the generic, genderless third person, after all -- I argued that "he" should be in and "s/he" should be out. Another D paper.

Well, historically, “he” was not a gender-neutral pronoun in English. It was in the 18^th century that academies tried to regularize the language, and decided it should count for that. But in fact, of course, people do tend to imagine the person referred to as “he” is male. And, again, there’s the responding-to-the-assignment issue.

Finally he bemoans the parking lot at his new job:

the rustless Volvos and Subarus exuded a clear semiotics of inclusion and exclusion. … “here we drive academic cars”

Ok, this one is just whiny. A Subaru only costs about two thousand dollars more than the Honda Accord the writer reports driving himself, and since he was recently out of grad school, well of course he drove a cheaper car than the faculty members who’d probably paid off those grad school debts and gotten used to having a decent paycheck. I mean, assuming the cars’ prices are the issue here. They're "rustless," by the way, because his new job is in the South. And if it’s just an aesthetic thing, well, I drive a Honda myself (okay, it’s a hybrid Insight, but still). Whiny.

fascists r us

Gonzales, loss of habeas corpus, torture, right wing judges-to-be, the lapdog lying press--Elaine Cassel in Counterpunch lists some of the disasters of our fascist state.

happy holidays

military family values

IPS notes that the US army is “considering curbing ‘family-oriented programmes,’ such as one that permits soldiers to extend their tours of duty at particular U.S. bases so their children can finish high school.”

The article observes that the plan to send more troops to Iraq indicates that things are going worse than the administration wants to admit. The article is titled “More Troops Mean More Trouble,” which I actually thought meant it would argue that the more troops we send the more things will get worse, which seems in fact to be how it’s working. For instance, there are now ten times more “rebel” attacks than there were a year ago (150 per day now). Why people fighting for their own home country count as “rebels” is another matter.

our tax dollars at work

Or, sex bad, violence good.

Rep Henry Waxman's report on The Content of Federally Funded Abstinence- Only Education Programs finds that these curricula, meant for children and adolescents, present "false, misleading, or distorted information about reproductive health" (including assertions that an abortion will make you sterile and that condoms don't protect against STDs) and stunningly outdated stereotypes about gender roles. For example, one curriculum lists 'Financial Support' as one of 'The 5 Major Needs of Women' and 'Domestic Support' as one of 'The 5 Major Needs of Men.' The curriculum states: "Just as a woman needs to feel a man's devotion to her, a man has a primary need to feel a woman's admiration. To admire a man is to regard him with wonder, delight and approval. A man feels admired when his unique characteristics and talents happily amaze her."
(via Girl In The Locker Room)

I don't need anyone supporting me financially, but anyone who's seen my apartment can tell you I could really use some domestic support. Apparently, I'm a man.

That's why I pay my taxes to kill Iraqi civilians.

vote, schmote, smote

Well my comrades tell me the vote counting issue was dismissed at the Solidarity meeting not as insufficiently socialist or revolutionary or progressive, but as already taken care of, as not neglected, not the next place to push an analysis or action.

Fair enough.

But isn’t it inconsistent of me to suggest I’m some poststructuralist postmodernist ex-post-positivist, and then the next week or so be saying something is just wrong?

Well, duh.

In other news, more death.

US Marine claims unit killed Iraqi civilians 12/08/04 Agence France-Presse (AFP)

And in other military coverups: Whitewashing torture? A veteran sergeant who told his commanding officers that he witnessed his colleagues torturing Iraqi detainees was strapped to a gurney and flown out of Iraq -- even though there was nothing wrong with him. By David DeBatto. The Department of Defense is currently investigating more than a hundred allegations of prisoner abuse. So far, not a single officer or high-ranking enlisted soldier has been charged in any of them.

vote, vote, who's got the vote?

John Conyers, Maxine Waters, and ten other Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have written to Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell listing voting irregularities there, including counting irregularities and discrepancies, registration "peculiarities," unusual results, spoiled ballots, overvotes & vote discrepancies, machine problems, machine shortages, and rejected registration forms--which together "may have altered and suppressed votes, particularly minority and Democratic votes." Like when they refused to let anyone observe the Warren County vote count, locking down the building because of an alleged level 10 terrorist threat. No one at the FBI seems to have heard about this threat.

At Sunday's Solidarity meeting (the socialist brunch group), the view seemed to be that the socialist reason to care about this sort of thing is to connect with minority voters. Call me naive, but I can't help feeling it's just wrong to be disenfranchising people and rigging elections.

And then there's the affidavit from the fellow in Florida who says he was hired by Rep. Tom Feeny (R-FL) to write vote rigging software.

not by chance

Now let me get this straight, so to speak. MSNBC has no problem airing hate speech against Palestinians, but NBC refuses a message from a church saying it welcomes everyone . They pay Don Imus to insult Arabs in mourning, and they won’t even take money from the United Church of Christ to broadcast a message that Christ wouldn’t have turned away gay people. NBC, owned by GE: weapons manufacturer, major contributor to W’s “campaign.”