There is a person whom you hate for ideological reasons. To borrow the tobacco analogy from my recent post, let’s say it’s the head of a tobacco giant, someone who you believe has blatantly lied to Congress, paid off politicians, designed cigarettes to addict people more effectively, and focused advertising on kids to get them hooked. You feel that this person is a mass murderer.

So you put him in the spotlight. You rant to a very large audience of passionate fellow travelers, telling them that this person is a mass murderer, and will continue to addict kids and murder people, and is getting away with it cold. So far, socially responsible.

But there’s more to it than that. You know, from experience, that there are people in your audience who are on the extreme fringe, so passionate in their zealotry that they are willing to harm people. You know from experience that these people craft bombs, collect guns, and from time to time, will follow a pointed finger and carry out an assassination. You have seen it happen several times before.

But it’s even more specific than that, in this case: it happened before to the tobacco executive you rant against now, whose office was bombed and who suffered one armed attack on his person already, clearly due to publicity aimed at him.

Far from relenting at this realization, you step on the gas. You continue to broadcast their name with the label “mass murderer,” insist that something should be done to stop them. You graphically relate horrific, bloody scenarios on the air and say this person has the blood on his hands, is a Nazi, a fascist, a baby-killer, and so on. You are fully aware that information about where this person’s home is, where they work, where they go to church, and when they do all of this, this information has been spread among the zealots. Perhaps even you are the one spreading it.

And then when the inevitable day comes when this person is gunned down in cold blood, you express “shock” at the murder, and innocently protest that you had nothing whatsoever to do with the killing.

At what point does criticism cross the line and become incitement to violence?

A story that’s bouncing around the media now is the potential responsibility of people like Bill O’Reilly in Tiller’s murder:

O’Reilly has mentioned Tiller 29 times on his show since 2005, calling the doctor guilty of “Nazi stuff,” a moral equivalent to NAMBLA and al-Qaida, and saying that Tiller “has blood on his hands.”

Media Matters uncovered several video segments from O’Reilly’s show ambushing Tiller and his attorney, as well as a 2006 radio broadcast by O’Reilly where he rants against Tiller, accusing him of fully delivering a baby then drilling a hole in its head, and of pumping money into politics to get himself off the hook legally. He then begins a statement: “And if I could get my hands on Tiller….” At this point, he suddenly backpedals: “well, you know. Can’t be vigilantes. Can’t do that. It’s just a figure of speech.” Clearly, his mind strays to violence, a suggestion he immediately recognizes he could be held liable for, thus the backpedaling. But the statement is clear evidence that O’Reilly knew full well what ballpark he was playing in.

O’Reilly, to his credit (using a rather low bar), did not–I think–publish Tiller’s address, though Randall Terry and Operation Rescue did, and the information remained available on pro-life web sites. Tiller has been harassed for years, suffering previous bombings and shootings. The protestations that one could not possibly foresee the result of such vivid, hateful verbal attacks against Tiller resulting in actual violence are, to say the least, untenable. Of course the prolonged public attacks on Tiller would spur violence against him. It already had, more than once. It was only a matter of time before it would happen yet again.

So we return to the question: if prior attention on an individual resulted in violence against them, and you continue to sling the most graphic and hateful accusations imaginable against this person, how complicit are you when the inevitable killing occurs? Can you honestly free yourself of all responsibility by falling short of expressly calling for someone to kill the target of your rage?

There is a mass entanglement of rights and other issues involved, of course. Though free speech does not cover incitement to violence, there is a rather large grey area when you do not specifically incite violence, but rather you do so tangentially. Much depends on what people like O’Reilly and Terry knew, something you can guess at but cannot prove in court.

Of course, O’Reilly and Terry will never suffer criminal consequences of their actions. At the same time, however, I find it impossible to consider that they bear no responsibility for what happened.

Right-wingers, apparently running out of tinfoil-hat fuel with the Republican-car-dealership conspiracy theory, switched their angry criticism of Obama in another direction today: that Obama took his wife to a Broadway show in New York. The general tirade was that Obama wasted taxpayer money to have a grand old time in the Big Apple while honest Americans were being put out of work.

I do not recall any of the same complaints from this crowd when Dubya took the much-larger Air Force One airplane for his multi-week holidays in Texas. Bush, who spent well over one full year of his eight in office on vacation (not weekend or special “days off” but full-out vacations), constantly jetted back and forth to Texas, at great taxpayer expense. He flew to his Crawford ranch 77 times, flew to his parents’ house in Maine 11 times, and took several trips elsewhere for pleasure.

Obama didn’t even stay the night in New York before jetting back to work.

Randall Terry, head of Operation Rescue, has released this statement following the murder of an Ob-Gyn doctor who performed abortions:

George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller’s killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder.

Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches.

The problem here, of course, is that however strongly Terry and other Christians claim that abortion is murder, that is an opinion, not a fact. I could, just as legitimately, conclude that selling tobacco is murder; this would not make it moral or in any way acceptable to kill a tobacconist. You cannot decide on your own what constitutes murder, place your stamp of approval on killing the “murderers,” and then claim the moral high ground.

Note the callous wording of Terry’s opening statement: We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. Terry did not grieve the fact that Tiller was killed, but rather the manner of the killing. In short, Terry is saying, with a wink and a nod, that he fully approves of the killing, regretful only that the murder could not have been performed according to religious ritual. Of course, Terry is mostly likely being ironic: he probably does not actually regret that Tiller did not have time to prepare for death, but says that only to highlight the fact that Terry cares not a bit that Tiller was killed. Surely enough, Terry follows this with a tirade that damns the slain doctor in no uncertain terms. One gets the impression that Terry only regrets not being able to pull the trigger himself.

Finally, Terry’s statement ends with a chilling warning: We will continue to point out people we don’t like, call them murderers, and shine a light on their location so that people willing to go to jail for their murder have time to carry out the deed. Note Terry’s threatening final statement:

We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches.

Dr. George Tiller was murdered as he walked into his church. Terry could not be more plain: we will assist in getting you killed, just like we did with Tiller. Yes, even as you walk into your church, we will hunt you down and have you killed.

I see no reason why Terry should not be immediately arrested on charges of aiding and abetting murder, in addition to making threats of murder to an entire class of people. His statement is virtually a confession.

If Bush had nominated someone as moderate as Sotomayor, I would have been very, very happy. Sotomayor is left-of-center, but by no means a flaming liberal. Bush, on the other hand, installed young, white, male conservatives with strong strict constructionist credentials. (Miers was not male, but otherwise matched the Bush mold.) Their votes since joining the court confirm their far-right expectations.

Not that conservatives are showing any signs of relief or acceptance for a moderate judge as opposed to an ardent liberal. Anyone who is not a flaming conservative will be mercilessly attacked.

Right-wingers are on a new rant: Sotomayor is a racist. This is the statement she made which they are objecting to:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Sounds racist, right? Sexist as well! Latina women are wiser than white men? Racism! Sotomayor must withdraw!!

Except… the quote, of course, is completely different in context. The above quote is in the context of making a decision on sex discrimination cases. Is it racist to say that a Latina woman is more likely than not to better understand the realities of sexual harassment than a white male? Of course it’s not racist. It’s completely reasonable. Of course a woman will understand sexual harassment better than a man.

Sotomayor points out, correctly, that when the court was all white-male, issues regarding race and gender were not handled in an unbiased manner, and that adding people with more diverse life experience to the court could help correct that. And she’s perfectly correct.

Soon after the ‘controversial’ statement, Sotomayor continued:

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

Note that she does not exempt herself from the dangers of judging unwisely outside her field of experience. A little later, she repeats that sentiment of self-caution, that her experience tints her perceptions just as much as a white male’s experience would tint his, and she must be careful to learn and understand:

I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations.

Boy, what an unreasonable, flaming racist she is!!!

It should be noted, by the way, that whenever Bush nominated an extremist non-white judge and Democrats opposed the nomination, Republicans went on a frenzy of calling Democrats “racist” even though their objections were clearly on political grounds alone. Similarly, when an extremist woman nominee was opposed, Democrats were sexist as well. In fact, when an extremist Bush nominee was white, Democrats were reverse racists. Essentially, Republicans scream “racist” pretty much all the time.

Why is it that whenever a judicial nominee is discussed–no matter which party’s president is nominating–somehow, the Democrats are always all racists?

Republican Senator Jim Inhofe released this statement today:

“Of primary concern to me is whether or not Judge Sotomayor follows the proper role of judges and refrains from legislating from the bench. Some of her recent comments on this matter have given me cause for great concern. In the months ahead, it will be important for those of us in the U.S. Senate to weigh her qualifications and character as well as her ability to rule fairly without undue influence from her own personal race, gender, or political preferences.”

Let’s look at a few key parts of this statement.

Of primary concern to me is whether or not Judge Sotomayor follows the proper role of judges and refrains from legislating from the bench.

Keep in mind that “legislating from the bench” is a Republican code phrase meaning “making decisions that I don’t like.” Originally, the phrase was restricted to Roe v. Wade, which right-wingers often cite as the worst case of such judicial legislating. As I pointed out in the last post, however, conservative justices are the ones going wild legislating from the bench. In addition to Scalia on the Establishment Clause, you have the whole right wing of the court rewriting the meaning of the Second Amendment, at the very least relative to how all past Supreme Court decisions observed the amendment. In the re-writing, they did their fair share of Roe-style “legislating,” specifying what was or was not legal in terms of gun control. In short, Republicans are fine with “legislating from the bench,” it’s any decision that they disagree with that is unacceptable to them.

In the months ahead, it will be important for those of us in the U.S. Senate to weigh her qualifications and character…

What happened to the inviolable prerogative of the president to choose whomever he pleases for the court? Oh yeah, that was just for Bush. Well, at least until he tried to put Miers on the court.

…as well as her ability to rule fairly without undue influence from her own personal race, gender, or political preferences.

Two major points here. First, “without due influence from her own … political preferences.” Really? Shall we talk about Alito, Roberts, Thomas, and Scalia, then? None of them hold up to that standard, but I am quite certain that Inhofe would be delighted to vote for one of their political clones, especially if their political preferences played an undue influence on their rulings. Again, the only real right-wing concern here is politics.

But the very interesting statement is “without undue influence from her own personal race [and] gender.” If Sotomayor were a white male, do you think Inhofe would have mentioned either? Not a chance–which means that what Inhofe really means is that she cannot be capable of making any ruling that does not observe and respect preference to whites and men.

More to the point, keep in mind that conservatives who apply their religious beliefs to their lawmaking defend the practice by claiming that their religion shapes who they are, or that in a sense, it is who they are, and they cannot escape it–nor should they, they say. But if your (non-white) race or (non-male) gender should shape your official actions, that’s unacceptable. If Sotomayor were not Christian, you can bet whatever amount you’d like that Inhofe would have included “religion” to that list of things that Sotomayor should not allow to influence her decisions.

It is not that I completely disagree with everything he says, but rather the plainly hypocritical contrast between what Republicans deem acceptable from conservative nominees and liberal ones, in addition to the tones of racism and sexism involved.

Surprise! The right wing is now declaring that Sotomayor is “a liberal judicial activist of the first order”! Various sources have different ways of expressing it, but that’s the general tone. She’s liberal! And activist! Who’da guessed they’d come up with those arguments?

After the last several SCOTUS appointments from the right, representing about as right-wing you can possibly imagine without nominating Attila the Hun, conservatives don’t get to claim this without people snickering. Especially when it is the conservative Supreme Court justices who “legislate from the bench”–that is, they either strike down laws passed by Congress far more than liberal justices, or they simply ignore the law and instead proscribe whatever the hell they feel like, as in Scalia’s dissent to McCreary in which he uses legal violations as precedent to rewrite the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

Surely, the right wing has depleted the whole “most liberal” attack after having claimed that every Democratic presidential candidate is “the most liberal Democrat” around, and that every nominee is “the most liberal nominee” out of all candidates.

In short, all the arguments against Sotomayor amount to this: “She’s not conservative.” That’s virtually the only meaningful description of why the right wing will rail against her and claim that she is the Nth coming of the Liberal Satan.

And, of course, after the last eight years of Republicans claiming that the president gets to choose anyone and the Congress is required to rubber-stamp it, they don’t get to do much more than impotently rant. By their own standards.

Which, of course, they never follow themselves.

Are these guys still not aware of what “teabag” means, or are they just ignoring it? Frankly, if I discovered that the slogan for my political drive was a rather tawdry double entendre and millions of people doubled over in hysterical laughter whenever I said it, I would change it to something else.

I mean, for example, let’s say I wanted to start a drive for Americans to be globally-minded in the post-Bush era, to reach out to people across the globe and find a common ground for cooperation. The slogan I naively choose would be, “everyone, reach around to make the world better!” Then, after the laughter and mocking of the moment subsides, someone informs me of what a “reacharound” is. Would I then (a) defiantly continue to use the expression, or (b) realize I’d committed a faux pas and change the slogan?

I think “b” would be my choice, even if most Americans didn’t understand the double meaning.

It’s not as if there are not alternate tea-related expressions that Republicans could use. The whole idea is to make a reference to the Boston Tea Party, an event in which crates of tea (not individual bags, which were invented around 1900) were thrown into the harbor. I can only suppose that the tea bag was chosen for the current protests because it is so easy and cheap to acquire, while crates of tea would be more problematic. Still, would it be so hard for these people just to stop saying “tea bag” and instead just say “tea,” or “the simple, historical symbol of tea”? They could even keep the tea bags as a visual prop; their image is not linked to the obscene act, just the expression “teabag.”

Instead, we get right wingers appearing hilariously idiotic:

For a very graphic and absolutely not work-safe depiction of tea-bagging, follow this link.

Clearly, this kid has no clue, nor did the person who made the sign for him. The sign was made by the Free Republic, so, well, goes to show. (Or perhaps the kid, being at an age where sexual jokes are considered the height of hilarity, knows exactly what it means, which would explain the big grin.)

Already, these people come across as dim-witted dupes when you consider that they are protesting (a) tax hikes for the wealthy, especially the very wealthy, (b) massive tax cuts for the lower and middle-class, and (c) overall tax rates which, even at the highest brackets, would still be significantly lower than they were for most of the 20th century. Add the teabag thing, and they look like complete morans.

So, why do they not get a clue and make a small alteration in their language? I don’t get it. Or maybe they don’t.

“Liberty” University has made it clear that the era of tolerating other views is long gone. It seems that a lot of religious organizations have made it clear: you’re either with us or you’re against us. No more of this “respecting others’ views” crap.

“Liberty” made it clear by shutting down the Democratic club, where many students in the school admitted to being, well, not Republicans. And that’s just too much. Democrats support killing babies. Partially born ones! I hear they eat them afterwards. Seriously, they shut down the students’ ability to openly be Democrats on school grounds because it “goes against the conservative Christian school’s moral principles.”

This follows a wide variety of Christians becoming apoplectic when a pro-choice president speaks at Notre Dame. Not because he was going to say or do anything incendiary, but simply because he’s pro-choice. A lot of people don’t want people like that even near the school grounds.

Remember back to the 2004 elections, when the church officially denied John Kerry communion because of his pro-choice positions? This is just getting stronger and stronger. I would not be too surprised if you started hearing of churches demanding parishioners sign pro-life oaths, and shunning them if they refused to. Or starting protests like they have outside abortion clinics, except outside the homes and offices of those who publicly state pro-choice views.

Of course, if a Christian woman kills her daughter by shunning newfangled medicine and instead depending on prayer alone to cure her daughter’s diabetes, well, that’s faith, and should be protected.

Apparently, the woman, her business partners, and a prayer group “ignored obvious symptoms such as her inability to walk or talk.” Her lawyer insists that she “didn’t realize her daughter was so ill.” Usually, being so ill that one is not able to walk or talk, that’s kind of hard to miss. Not to mention that they called in the prayer group–obviously they knew full well that she was seriously ill (unless they call in prayer groups for minor illnesses). Apparently, the whole bunch figured it was time to call 911 “when she suddenly stopped breathing.” You gotta give it to them, they were really on the ball there. Her lawyer said she takes “good care” of her children (aside from letting them die from easily-treated illnesses), and that “obviously, there will be an appeal.” Well, obviously.

In the meantime, religious groups are also rallying against atheists. It’s not enough just to shun them and hate them, they must be denied the same rights and freedoms as religious folk. If they wish to form groups who practice the same belief, they are not entitled to protection under the First Amendment. When they want to post ads on buses or billboards like Christian groups, the Christians go nuts and force the ads to be taken down.

And the attacks against them are ones that would never be tolerated if aimed at religious groups. What if someone published this in a national newspaper?

I can’t stand Jews — but it’s not because they don’t believe in the Christian God. It’s because they’re crashing bores. My problem with Jews is their tiresome — and way old — insistence that they are being oppressed. First off, there’s Jewish victimology: Boohoo, everybody hates us ‘cuz Jews killed Christ.

There would be hell to pay. And yet, such articles are freely published about atheists.

I think the question here is, how far can these people go in such open rejection of others’ beliefs before they start digging the same hole for themselves that Republicans are? Or am I misreading this, and most everyone thinks it’s okay that Christians are becoming increasingly intolerant and hostile to anyone who disagrees with them?

While George W. Bush is taking the presidential high road and quietly retiring, allowing Obama to have his time, Dick Cheney is doing no such thing. As time goes on, more and more becomes clear about how Cheney was the actual power behind the throne, at least where it mattered. When we get to the key issues, a lot leads back to him. Valerie Plame led back to Cheney’s office. Torture led back to Cheney’s office. Who orchestrated Big Oil’s design of the nation’s energy policy? Cheney. Who had a history of planning the Iraq War even before the 2000 election? Cheney. Halliburton? Cheney. The list goes on. So the fact that Bush is not out there clamoring for attention is not too significant; the real voice of power and influence in the prior administration, namely Dick Cheney, is railing against the current administration–something considered a huge political no-no. But then Cheney is not the type to adhere to standards or worry about insignificant crap like protocol.

In a way, all of this was pretty much what you’d expect from Cheney. His actions have been at the very least questionable, and certainly by many standards riddled with illegality. But as long as it stayed all political and ideological, it was hard to do much more than accuse him of being a criminal on political and ideological grounds. It wasn’t for self-gain. Even his graft was aimed at profiting others, not himself.

But now we hear the news that Cheney is out there trying to sell a book deal for $2 million. Not accepting offers, but actively seeking them. Not even asking a market price, but setting a figure, demanding it. Doesn’t seem too bad in a way, in that many retiring political figures sell book deals–but few actively hawk for them.

What is much more inappropriate about this, however, is the timing. In the past few weeks, Cheney has been more vocal than ever, taking issue with the new president head-on, even to the point of dueling speeches. Direct criticism, attacks, denunciations. Cheney has thrust himself in the spotlight.

Were this purely because Cheney was troubled with the new administration’s policies and actions, that would be one thing, however contrary to political etiquette. But to make this protest, and then at the peak of visibility, to start advertising a book deal–that smacks of agitating for the sake of personal profit.

Again, not a shocker. Frankly, if we discovered that Cheney had imprisoned little children and had them chained to treadmills to power his home, I don’t think many would be very surprised. But the book deal hawking, however insignificant it may seem, is something solid that can be traced directly to the heart of Cheney’s personal corruption, and provides strong doubt as to his integrity when he speaks. That counts for something.

In looking at this however, one gets a fresh tour of all the crime that this man is responsible for, and you have to start asking the question, why is this man not in prison? Seriously. Now, in this country, we have something of a tradition of not arresting or trying presidents. But Cheney was not, at least technically, president. Hell, he himself argued that he was not even in the executive branch of government.

With the Republicans now openly stating that an official prosecution of Nancy Pelosi is something that is acceptable, the door is open for the Democrats to start an official prosecution into the entire torture deal. And that will lead straight back to Cheney and one of his many criminal offenses.

Obama may not want to open the partisan can of worms that would result from revealing Cheney’s crimes, but many others do. And hell, maybe even Republicans would be OK with it if it focused primarily on Cheney–as with Bush, it would allow them to blame many or even most of the party’s evils on one man, so they could claim the rest of the party were innocent bystanders. Not something that should be allowed to pass without challenge, but it might motivate the right-wingers to go along with an official prosecution, removing one of the key obstacles to such a process.

Whatever it takes, let’s frog-march the evil snarling bastard.

In the whole torture debate, I see a parallel to the death penalty debate: we should eliminate or avoid such things simply because they are wrong and we should not do them. As I like to say, it is not who we are.

In an earlier blog post, I outlined my opinions about the death penalty, and the bottom line for me was that, as a society, we should not kill when it is not absolutely necessary. The clear exception is self-defense, although all too often this exception is used as a loophole to escape the moral standard; those who wish to kill indiscriminately or at will simply trump up imagined threats and say that we must do horrible things in self-defense. As we saw the Democrats in Congress fold like a cheap suit this week, such scare tactics–even when they are as insipid and hollow as the Republicans’ terrorists-released-on-our-streets meme–work all too well. 9/11 did a better job of scaring us all, and the war advocates milked that for all it was worth. As a result, war is far too often abused as a tool. In fact, it can be argued that since WWII, no war we have engaged in meets the true self-defense standard.

The death penalty is easier to dismiss on this principle; there is no evidence whatsoever that the death penalty deters crime, we have secure enough prisons that escape and further crimes are not a true threat, and the cost of securing the death sentence is greater than that of incarceration. The only real value in the death penalty is vengeance, and I do not see that as a valid reason for society to kill. In short, the death penalty, like unnecessary war, should be banned simply because it is wrong, it is immoral–it is not who we are, or should be.

Torture just as easily falls under this principle. Torture is better suited for producing false statements, as the person being tortured will say anything to make it stop. (Something which now appears to be what Cheney was looking for–false evidence to prop up his war.) Non-torture interrogation is far more efficient as a means of producing reliable information. Therefore, torture is never appropriate for self-defense. Without that exception, torture is plainly wrong and should never be allowed.

In all three cases–torture, capital punishment, and war–our motivations are unhealthy. We do things things out of fear, anger, and vengeance. We drape these base drives with veils of false legitimacy, claiming self-defense, patriotism, and duty to those who have fallen. But the true reasons are clear to anyone who wishes to look.

In fact, it seems that as a nation, we have simply discarded the moral high ground we once treasured. With the coming of the Iraq War, so many–and not just on the pro-war side–quickly abandoned our long-held prohibition against pre-emptive strikes. We accepted the deaths of tens and even hundreds of thousands of foreign civilians with nothing more than a shrug, caring little even after it was clear that the actions in which they were killed were unnecessary and misled. We actually have debates where a fictional TV show is considered valid evidence of the facility of torture.

Where we once had pride, we now claim self-preservation. Where we once held principle and sacrifice over fear, we now hold fear over principle and sacrifice. In short, we no longer have values. Oh, go ahead and tell me otherwise, but as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. Show me an action in the past decade that we as a nation have taken in any of these areas which demonstrates true adherence to the values we once held. Even if you can find one, I will be able to show you so enough actions that contradict those values to drown the few, if any, actions which adhere to what we once held sacrosanct.

I think that the general expectation for the next version of the iPhone was for the early June WWDC to reveal the model, and the release would be sometime in July. However, signs are mounting that the new iPhone will be released in early June instead. Various reports tell of the iPhone being EOL’ed–End-of-Lifed, which means that supplies are drying up and no restocking is expected. This is usually a strong signal that a new version is coming within just a few weeks, not a few months.

AT&T now officially denies it, but representatives told customers that the 16GB model was no longer available and that refurbished iPhones were instead being offered. Despite the official denial in the U.S., Vodafone in Australia is telling staffers that the model is EOL’ed. At the same time, is Austria (not Australia), an ad appeared with a placeholder item for a 32GB iPhone, indicating the next version.

One of the reasons that cheap PCs and other equipment are not quite as cheap as they seem is mail-in rebates. I have always hated these rebates, as I am sure many people do. And yet, many people act like they are a great thing, or at least will go along with the idea that the rebate actually lowers the price. But I think it’s no secret that rebates are actually designed to keep the consumer’s money.

I think it was back in the 90’s when I first dealt with this, and my experience varied little from the cartoon version above. The rebate form required that you keep every scrap of paper associated with the item, and fill in an inordinate amount of information that would make a spammer drool. That is assuming that you can figure out the information and do it correctly. Then you get to mail in the form, hope it is accepted, and at that, wait a few months (or longer–the most common complaint is that the rebates takes too long to arrive) before the long-awaited rebate check arrives–one which is somewhat hard to cash, if I recall correctly. Some rebates don’t even pay by check–they issue you a debit card which can only be used at certain stores. Usually these details are not evident unless you read the fine print, which no one ever does.

Finally, there is the time/effort cost: how much is it worth to you to take the trouble of filling out all those forms, mailing things in, dealing with potential snags, keeping tabs on the rebate coming back, and then doing what is necessary to claim the cash in the end? Before getting excited about a rebate-discounted price, ask yourself if you would be just as excited if you had to do all that work before the purchase? You have two items, one is $299, the other is $230 after a $100 rebate. But before you can walk home with the cheaper item, you have to sort through papers, fill out forms, go to the post office, go to the bank–an assorted variety of tedious tasks, even not including the months-long wait. Is it worth it?

The common reaction is to give up somewhere along the line–which is exactly the idea the manufacturer had in mind. Fact is, about 60% of all people who qualify for rebates don’t claim them.

The soon-to-be-released Palm Pre is playing this game. The price you see for their 8GB model is $199.99, after a $100 mail-in rebate. Apparently they could not get the price down to match the $199 8GB iPhone, so they priced it at $300 and tacked on the rebate. If the 60% rule about rebate claims holds true, Palm will be getting $260 per phone–and the remaining $40 will probably be covered by all the detailed marketing information they’ll get from the people who do fill in and submit the rebate forms. Good deal for them, not so great for buyers who don’t think about the rebate drawbacks before buying.

If you’re hot for the Pre, then get it at Best Buy or Radio Shack, which claim that they will honor the $100 rebate instantly. I’m not sure if they require cumbersome forms or not, but the ‘instant’ part sounds a lot better than the normal route.

Interestingly, Japan doesn’t do rebates, or at least I have never heard of one here. Sachi was puzzled by the concept and had not heard of it, either.

As for me, I have long considered any mail-in rebate as a scam and I do not buy anything that includes one–or if I do, I disregard the rebate and count the pre-rebate price as the real cost.

Jonathan Chait of the New Republic:

Quite possibly, four years from now we could still be mired in a worldwide depression and Obama could be facing dismal — who knows, even Bush-like — popularity ratings. The world is unpredictable. But isn’t there a pretty decent chance that the economy will have recovered, and Obama’s policies will look fairly wise in retrospect? Do Republicans want to make any political plans for this contingency?

Sure they have a contingency plan: lie. That’s how they claimed Clinton was not responsible for the booming economy he oversaw. If the economy gets better, claim it was because of actions taken by Republicans in the Bush years which came to fruition later, because of economic conditions completely divorced from Obama, and because of pressures Republicans exerted to shape policies during the Obama administration. Meanwhile, they will blame Obama for every piece of negative news during that time (there is always something bad happening), and will claim he’s the most liberal and worst president ever.

Is Chait new here or something?

As I have noted a few times recently, Republican Kit Bond is railing against Pelosi for have the utter temerity to claim that our “terror-fighters” in the CIA might be capable of fibbing.

But look a few years back, and you can find Bond himself calling a CIA operative, one responsible for hunting down WMD in fact, a liar. This actual terror-fighter’s name was Valerie Plame, and Bond thought she was fair game. He even called this CIA operative a liar because he claimed (falsely, as it turned out) that CIA documents contradicted her–the exact same claim Pelosi is making when she calls for the documentation of the briefings to be declassified to prove her true.

Of course, I have never held that Republicans are guilty of the vice of consistency.

Fer cryin’ out loud. Ninety–Ninety voted against funding to shut down Gitmo because of Republican scare tactics about terrorists being released on the streets of America? When Kit Bond (yes, the same guy who held that the CIA could never lie) claimed that closing Gitmo would lead to terrorists put in halfway-houses in Missouri where they would then walk the streets and slaughter Americans, I thought that this was such an example of rank alarmist stupidity that it would bolster the case against the Republican scare tactics. Anyone who was a real terror suspect would be tried and if guilty would be detained in SuperMax facilities (where we already hold many big-time terrorists like Ramzi Yousef), anyone else would not be allowed into the U.S.

But at least 47 Democrats, despite their near-supermajority in the Senate and the moral high ground, caved utterly to not just Republican scare tactics, but stupid Republican scare tactics. If the White House has not coordinated the details yet, then make it mandatory to work out the details–but don’t strip the funding and give such credence and respect for the rank idiocy and scaremongering spouted by the GOP.

What’s next? Will the Democrats rename themselves the “Democrat Socialist Party”? Frankly, at this point, that wouldn’t surprise me much. Even after the GOP abandoned the idea of rebranding the Dems with that name themselves–noting, rather chillingly, that the publicity on their proposal had “educated” Americans to be “properly fearful.”

The GOP at work, making you scared.

GOP head Michael Steele just plain wore himself out apologizing nonstop for the past several months, apparently:

“The era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over. It is done,” Steele said in remarks prepared for delivery Tuesday to state party chairmen. “We have turned the page, we have turned the corner. No more looking in the rearview mirror. From this point forward, we will focus all of our energies on winning the future.”

Funny, I must have missed it. Who apologized when? I think I heard about some Republicans saying that Bush spent too much, but that’s about as apologetic as I think they got.

But an “era”? Wow. A whole couple of decades of Republicans apologizing?

I know! They did it in private! Behind closed doors. That explains it–or at least it’s the only thing that could make any kind of sense, however little. Republicans acted brazenly, arrogantly in public, demonizing anyone who dared oppose them, going on unrepentant spending sprees, gleefully tearing the Constitution to shreds–and then retired to their homes every night, walked into dark closets, and spent hours and hours apologizing for their actions.

And now they’re darn tired of all that secret apologizing. No more! Time for a comeback!

Isn’t it nice to live in a world where you can make stuff up and everyone will just believe you? Good luck to Steele on that.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, Gallup has a good breakdown of where the GOP is losing ground. Young college graduates in the Midwest seem a big problem for them. Whites strayed from the GOP far more than blacks, but mostly because not too many blacks were in the party in the first place. People of all income levels, married and not married, left in almost equally significant numbers. The only groups that did not leave the party were conservatives and frequent churchgoers. The base, in other words. Maybe Steele believes it’s time for a comeback because there’s no one else left to bolt from the party. Or so he hopes.

So, there’s no sign of a turnaround, but if Michael Steele says there is, then perhaps we should pay attention. You gotta respect a man who has spent so much time apologizing to his wardrobe.

When Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA of fibbing on what they said to her about waterboarding, Republicans reacted with outrage. The CIA, lie? Preposterous!

“I think her accusations against our terror-fighters are irresponsible and, according to the CIA’s record, Speaker Pelosi was briefed on what had been done,” said Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, the senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “It’s outrageous that a member of Congress would call our terror-fighters liars.”

Of course, there is evidence that the CIA’s claims were less than accurate. For example, they also claimed to have briefed former Democratic Senator Bob Graham of Florida on three occasions; Graham, who takes careful notes and keeps his calendars and schedules, proved that he could not have attended briefings on those dates; the CIA relented and admitted the data was in error. Graham also insists that, according to his notes, he was also never briefed on waterboarding, despite the CIA claiming he was.

But what about Bond’s indignant protest that we not dare question the truthfulness of the CIA? Fact is, the CIA’s reputation has been pretty much torn down all on its own in the past years; the Bush administration pretty much decimated that. Sandy Goodman at HuffPo lists several prominent examples of the CIA misleading pretty much everyone–the U.N., the 9/11 Commission, reporters, Congress, you name it. And from a blog post I wrote exactly three years ago, here’s a quote from Harper’s on how the CIA presented information on Iraq:

A number of current and former intelligence officials have told me that the administration’s war on internal dissent has crippled the CIA’s ability to provide realistic assessments from Iraq. “The system of reporting is shut down,” said one person familiar with the situation. “You can’t write anything honest, only fairy tales.”

The New York Times and others have reported that in 2003, the CIA station chief in Baghdad authored several special field reports that offered extremely negative assessments of the situation on the ground in Iraq—assessments that later proved to be accurate. The field reports, known as “Aardwolfs,” were angrily rejected by the White House. Their author—who I’m told was a highly regarded agency veteran named Gerry Meyer—was soon pushed out of the CIA, in part because his reporting angered the See No Evil crowd within the Bush administration. “He was a good guy,” one recently retired CIA official said of Meyer, “well-wired in Baghdad, and he wrote a good report. But any time this administration gets bad news, they say the critics are assholes and defeatists, and off we go down the same path with more pressure on the accelerator.”

In 2004 Meyer was replaced with a new CIA station chief in Baghdad, who that year filed six Aardwolfs, which, sources told me, were collectively as pessimistic about the situation in Iraq as the ones sent by his predecessor. The station chief finished his assignment in December 2004; he was not fired, but according to one source is now “a pariah within the system.” Three other former intelligence officials gave me virtually identical accounts, with one saying the ex–station chief was “treated like shit” and “farmed out.” …

“The CIA’s ability to speak honestly is gone,” concluded the official, “which is extraordinarily dangerous to our country.”

So it is not exactly unreasonable to suggest that the CIA might be inaccurate.

Certainly it is no coincidence that the CIA released this information as Pelosi was calling for a truth commission that could potentially make the CIA look very bad–and that the Pelosi story has rocketed in the media despite its relative insignificance relative to other stories on the same topic. This is a chilling warning shot to those who would try to get the real truth out there: we will take you down with us.

Okay, most of the graphics issues have been taken care of, but a few remain (I have to fill out the Blogroll, and fix that footer). I have also reworked the LinkBoard to remove outdated links and add new links to sites I frequent more than I did the last time I changed the board, a few years back. Getting close to wrapping it all up.

Well, I broke down and spent four or five hours doing that blog-theme makeover. You probably noticed that things look a LOT different now.

What’s involved is kind of… well, involved. I don’t just want anyone’s theme, I want my own theme–but I cannot even come close to writing a whole theme by myself. So I have to find a free theme which I can then re-work to be my own theme–with my own background images, separators, styles and all. That I can do. But since nobody has anything very close to the style I like, I have to choose a theme which looks even moderately compatible, and then go into the CSS stylesheet (as well as some of the PHP templates), and change everything to what I want.

For example, most blogs have big blank areas on the sides to account for varying screen sizes; it’s easier to maintain formatting when your widths are strictly set, but it wastes tons of space on larger screens. I like to have my content fill out the screen dynamically. That involves finding the main and sidebar sections, setting them to just the right proportions, and then dealing with a half-dozen faults that suddenly appear because the theme’s designer did not intend for the sections to be variable-width. Blank areas appear in the background image in many spots, and I have to leaf through hundreds of style variables to figure out exactly which ones ore the culprits.

And that’s just the beginning. I won’t bore you with the details, but there’s a lot–getting images right, setting margins and padding, getting fonts the way you want them–everything has to be tweaked just right so it fits together more or less seamlessly.

Two major notes: First, you may notice it’s not finished. That’s what happens when you start late in the evening. It’s 3 am and I’ll deal with the minor stuff later.

Second: the blog WORKS again! The Eyelid Twitching post is back up and running, for one thing. But other stuff is much better, like category notations no longer end with a comma, and I imagine that the comments and the moderation notice for them will actually work now.

The reason for this is that the last time I chose a theme to work off of, I unfortunately chose a really bad one, one which had bad coding which broke lots of stuff. The author even built in a message that would display to Internet Explorer users but no one else, and did not give warning on the materials that such a message would be displayed. However, I did not realize this until well after I had spent six or eight hours tweaking it–after which I did not feel like going through all that again. After that, it was a case of “I’ll get to it eventually.”

So I would like to thank everyone for being so patient over the past 18 months or so, putting up with the buggy software. The new theme (iNove) seems well-built, is aware of the latest WordPress build and of CSS3, and from what I can tell is doing a great job holding this old blog up. It’s one of the most-used themes, which speaks well for it.

If you see any problems (aside from the glaring graphic glitches, like the green icons in the sidebar hiding behind text, or corners of rounded graphics not fitting right), please let me know. Especially when it comes to functional elements, like comments and notices. The graphic stuff I’ll clean up in the next day or two.

Thanks!