National Eat at Wendy's Day

I hereby declare this to be National Eat at Wendy's Day, in honor of the wedding anniversary of Elizabeth and John Edwards.

If you can't find a Wendy's, eat at Culver's.

I cannot believe my eyes. From the Washington Post:

The United States and the European Union have agreed to expand a security program that shares personal data about millions of U.S.-bound airline passengers a year, potentially including information about a person's race, ethnicity, religion and health.... According to the deal, the information that can be used in such exceptional circumstances includes "racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership and data about an individual's health, traveling partners and sexual orientation.

Just last night I saw an episode of PBS's Now that demonstrated how the Republicans stole the 2004 election. Of course, I already witnessed how they, with the connivance of the Supreme Court, stole the 2000 election. The thief in charge made his first-ever, after five years in power, veto to prevent medical research that uses stem cells. Today he is promising to veto legislation continuing and expanding health insurance for children.

The war, the lying Attorney General, the national debt to foreign nations, our standing in the world - I am sickened. And we liberals, progressives, moderates - we sit tamely and wait, hoping, against all evidence to the contrary, that they will not steal the next election.

Even if they don't, even if we somehow manage to elect a Democratic President and larger majorities in Congress, the new leaders - even if they don't use their Republican-provided ability to gather this type of Big Brother information about people - they will not demolish the capability to do so. Then the next time the Thieves are in charge, they will expand their powers yet more, and soon enough they will have assured that they are ALWAYS in charge, or perhaps will occasionally allow a Lieberman-type to nominally be in charge.

This has been the most frightening week of my life. To watch the Attorney General of the United States, the person overseeing our entire legal system, to watch him lie baldly to the Senate, and feign forgetfulness, was profoundly shocking. How could I have been so naive?

Aren't we angry enough? I just don't get it. Yes, I'm still on about the issues in my last post.

Digby has a post up about the cost of this war. If we would only pour that amount into rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure and getting their economy back up, the "insurgents" would be stymied and Iraq and the rest of the world would start to like us again (shades of Sally Field). If everyone in Iraq were prosperous, they would have no reason to fight each other. With Leon Uris's Trinity fresh in my mind, whatever anyone says about religious wars, no one wants to risk their and their children's well-being in violence just because their neighbors go to a different mosque or church.

There will always be religious and political differences among people, but they don't escalate into violence unless there are significant economic issues as well. Where are the historians?

Let's Get 'Em!

Why are Democrats unable to pin memorable, disparaging labels on Republicans? Benchmarks in Iraq, firing leakers, sanctity of traditional marriage, culture of life -- the opportunities for calling them on their hypocracy and flip-flopping are boundless. Yet they continue to control the discourse. I don't mean so much the "framing" fad, as I do the entire use of language and controlled anger. Are we too kind? Too humble? We must NAIL THEM.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jq0j80UB_c

Christy Hardin Smith has just published a great post http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/10/no-room/ on the mob mentality and Alice-in-Wonderland quality of this administration. It's an erudite, well-reasoned piece with no name calling or anything pithy for the talking heads to grab onto. How about, playing on La Casa Nostra, we start referring to this White House as La Casa Bianca? Or something. I don't pretend to be good at this, but others are. We have to capitalize on the current dissatisfaction with Iraq and the record low approval numbers of B*** and Ch**** and get the country laughing - no, sneering - at Republicans. I clearly remember how, in the runup to the 2004 elections, the right was sneering at Democrats simply for having so many candidates. Well, this year, they have more than we do - and it's a lot - and no one on our side seems to recall this. No one ever calls them on it. They get away with crap after crap, like a teenaged boy: Sorry, Mom, I will this time.... Okay, but I promise I will this time.... No, really, I really truly will - THIS time....

More on the Atheism series

I'm still working through my emotional response to this programme :) . I felt proud to be one of these intelligent, informed atheists, but mostly I was just poleaxed. Rather like Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud, or We're Here and We're Queer, the first time I heard either of those proclamations.

Ah, I've just realized what made the show so unusual - there was no presentation of the "other side." In American politics, the media is supposed to present "both sides" (in reality fulfilling the equal time requirement most unevenly), and that approach has bled over into its coverage of almost everything else, particularly anything the least controversial. So that, instead of telling us what's what with global warming, or the Shroud, say, of Turin, we hear from scientists on the one hand and true believers on the other. The viewers are left to "make up their own minds", as if there were no factual aspect to the matter.

But the British atheism show ONLY presented information about the course of atheism throughout history - no religious types got to have their say! Most unusual!

Inspired

I just spent the afternoon and early evening watching "Atheism: A Brief History of Unbelief" and the accompanying interviews. What an eye-opener! I learned some things, but mostly I was astounded, not only to look at these guys stating boldly their non-belief in God, and their logical reasons for it, but to think that this program was actually broadcast nationwide, albeit in England. There's some hope that it will appear in the US, but I can't imagine it. That's how bible-belty it feels here. Or perhaps my childhood has a stronger hold on me than I like to think.

The one drawback, and it is a big one, is that the show was exclusively white males, and mostly pretty old too, though I don't really mind that. But to think that not a single woman could have made a substantive contribution to the topic. Huh.

Immediately afterward, I caught the last part of Bill Moyers' "The Buying of the Iraq War", followed by an Iowa Public Television journalist roundtable on in-state coverage of the runup to the war. Gilbert was great; to the others I kept saying, so why did you?

Still, for today at least, things are looking pretty good for us antiwar antireligion types.

Red

Five minutes in: The red is such a welcome contrast after the cold, dreary white of White. It's also more natural - taillights, jackets, no-left-turn signs - than the blue of Blue - candy wrappers, glass mobiles.

Fifteen minutes in: Okay, enough with the red already! Every thing that doesn't move is painted or dyed red, and if you count the dog's blood, then some of the moving things as well. Even the protagonist is named Valentine.

On the other hand, it does have two dogs in it.

An hour ten in: I'm sorry the young judge guy's girlfriend is cheating on him, but the fact that if she doesn't answer her phone, he goes to her place and, with some effort, spies on her with her new lover - that's creepy. In fact, Marie's own boyfriend sounds pretty creepy and controlling, too - and Kieslowski doesn't seem to be commenting on it, it seems like neutral depiction. Hope I'm wrong, that it (critisicm) just doesn't come across in translation.

Auguste, the scorned lover, has just tied his little dog out on a post and is abandoning him. I hate him. Ah, later, we see he couldn't go through with it. But does the dog survive the ferry capsize??