Ultranormal

Category: politics

  • Random thoughts

    I still hate school. And of course Brian woke up very early all weekend, making me wake up early too. But today, when I had to get up to take care of Max, Brian slept in. Grrr. And I think I sent Max to school in the rain, without a coat. I am a bad, bad mom.\
    ABC is full of asshats, who won’t even comment on their program. What kind of leadership is that?\
    I still love Supernatural! And Veronica Mars. And am looking forward to Battlestar Gallatica. What do these three shows have in common? Amazing use of music. Listen up! You will feel the love too!\
    I am staying away from all of the 9/11 programs this weekend and today. Too much politicizing going on for me to stomach them.\
    The Skins play tonight and Clinton Portis might play too!\
    Kevin is still really sick. He can’t breathe that well or speak that well. I feel badly for him. And me. It is annoying trying to keep him stocked with juice and soup. And he keeps giving his juice away! How can I make sure there is enough for him, when he does that?\
    Someone left us cookies at our doorstep last night. Whee! Brian turned down half of a chocolate chip cookie in favor of crackers. WTH?

  • WTF?

    NY Supreme Court rules against same-sex marriage. This decision just boggles me. While not affecting me personally, gay rights are very important to me. Lately my church has taken a more active role against gay rights, urging its members to write their politicians in favor of the Gay Marriage Ban. I can’t support that at all. I am even thinking about leaving the church over it.

  • Virginia Democratic Party Primary Tomorrow

    In case you didn’t know (and I didn’t until I got e-mail this morning), there is a Democratic Primary tomorrow (6/13) in Virginia where you get to pick who runs against George Allen in November. So, if you care about such things, and you probably should, show up at your normal polling place and vote!

  • Weekend Update

    Max had another soccer game on Saturday. He has so much fun there, I have to recommend it to all parents of young children. It is so much more interactive and physically demanding than tee-ball or little league. (It’s practically non-stop running for an hour, instead of standing around waiting to bat or for someone to hit the ball your way.) It’s kind of hard to watch though, because he tends to stop paying attention. Which is fine since he is only 6, except I want him to pay attention and get better. But I don’t want to be one of those overzealous parents you hear so much about. In practice all of the boys seem to be getting better at the basic skills, but come game time, they just kind of do a “Lord of the Dance” imitation when they get near the ball. If the teams kept score, you’d note that they are relatively high-scoring though because 1) we don’t use goalies and 2) once a kid makes a good kick, he can usually follow it through to the goal because there is almost no defense on the field.\
    Yesterday was the first day in nearly a week that I didn’t have a horrible headache plaguing me all day. Also, Kevin only worked 11 hours. Coincidence? I think not.\
    Tonight is the series finale of 7th Heaven. Sniff. Let’s all take a moment to reflect on this horribly written and horribly acted show. The fans will miss the many non-interesting story lines filled with hypocrisy, manipulation, backstabbing, and outright lying. I guess they’ll just have to pay more attention to the Bush Administration to get their fill from now on.\
    In Brian news, he has been wearing only one sandal for almost 2 hours. I don’t know why.\
    Kevin told me he gets teased by coworkers about my numerous Veronica Mars posts. Hmm, I guess this means I shouldn’t post my thoughts on under-wire bras.

  • Truth!

    I believe in America. I believe it exits.

  • BS

    Penn&Teller broke Kevin’s heart a little bit last night when they said he couldn’t join their club. Awwww. 🙁 Their latest show was on The Boy Scouts of America and how they discriminate against homosexuals and atheists, yet still receive government money, ever since the Mormon church got involved. Shame on the BSA! Pick a side and stick with it! Either you are a public group that allows anyone to be a member (and receives government money) or you are a private group that can make membership selective (and does not receive government money).\
    Speaking of homosexuals, I was lurking at TWoP and saw a funny post. A woman saw a commercial for Big Love, an HBO show about polygamy set in Utah, where one of the wives got into a screaming match about praying for souls with two guys on bikes. The poster thought the two guys were gay. Hee. Someone else from TWoP explained that they weren’t gay, just missionaries.

  • Progressive Progress

    A couple updates from the weekend (and the end of last week) before I get back to work:\
    I am now a member of the Loudoun County Democratic Committee. I joined officially last week. I’m still not sure what all that means other than attending committee meetings and brushing up on Robert’s Rules Of Order, but it feels good to be more involved in the process.\
    In ankle news, I wore a “regular” shoe all morning after physical therapy. I broke down around 1 and put the Velcro Nightmare back on, but I was walking around in a matching pair of hiking boots for a good three or four hours there. Progress, baby, progress.\
    Yes, now, back to writing javascript and longing for CSS.\
    update: Wearing a regular shoe for the first half of the day was a really bad idea.

  • Merry Christmas, America

    What have we found out this year?

    • Our government tortures people because it can, does it without regard for our Constitution, our laws, international treaties or fear of punishment.
    • Our government illegally spies on its own citizens without regard to the legality or constitutionality of the practice (more info from Salon and Josh Marshall
    • Our President thinks the Constitution, the founding document of our country and the bedrock of all our laws, is a Goddamned piece of paper.
    • Our President and Vice President have repeatedly lied to us about a whole host of issues from Iraq to torture to these new allegations of wiretapping, and no one is calling for impeachment. President Clinton was impeached for lying about an affair. President Bush and Vice President Cheney’s lies have violated your civil rights, caused innocent people to be tortured, killed our fighting men and women, and ruined our standing in the international community. Where’s the outrage?
    • Our Congress doesn’t care about any of the above and is beholden to the wealthy and vile.
    • Our Congress can’t seem to make or pass a law that doesn’t contain inordinate amounts of pork for wealthy donors in the home district. They can’t pass a defense bill without sticking in all kind of unread, unreviewed, unrelated measures meant to undermine due process and debate (like sticking drilling in ANWR into a defense spending bill at the last minute).
    • Our supposedly independent press knew about the torture and the spying before last year’s election and sat on the stories. You think 51% of the country would have voted to keep Mr. Bush in office if they knew he thought the Constitution was a “god damned piece of paper”?\
      Merry Christmas, America.

  • Write Your Senator, Congressman and The President

    Sent to John Warner:\
    Dear Senator Warner,\
    Even though I’m in the “other” party, I’ve always respected you as a moderate and as a man of reason. It is with that sense of respect that I e-mail you today, requesting your help.\
    It has come out in recent weeks that not only have our armed services used white phosphorus on the battlefield: a horrific munition, but we’ve set up “black site” secret prisons where we torture terrorism suspects.\
    Torture is against US law (see: Report of the United States to the UN Committee against Torture, October 15, 1999, UN Doc. CAT/C/28/Add.5, February 9, 2000, para. 6.). It seems that on more than one occasion, that law has been broken, commands given at the highest levels of the Executive branch. There is no exemption, no provision for exigent circumstances (see the above reference).\
    I’m the son of a twenty-three year Air Force veteran, and I grew up under the threat of terrorist attack while we were stationed in Germany in the early eighties. I grew up afraid of the Russians. I am proud to be an American, but today, I am ashamed.\
    I’m ashamed that our government has fallen so low as to endorse, and try to redefine torture and rationalize it away in the name of national security. I wonder where the outrage is, and why no one in a position of authority has been held accountable.\
    Our own Vice President has lobbied the Senate to exempt the CIA from torture, and although our own President said this week that “we don’t do torture”, no one believes him.\
    If we can impeach Bill Clinton for lying about an affair with an intern, where are the articles of impeachment for Dick Cheney, who obviously condones torture?\
    Your own leadership wants to investigate who leaked the existence of the “black sites”, but not the black sites themselves. I hope you can help. This is an abomination and a black mark on our country. We’re the land of the free and the home of the brave. Torture should be beyond the pale.\
    Thank you for your time,\
    Kevin Lawver

  • No Excuses, No Rationalization

    Torture is prohibited by law throughout the United States. It is categorically denounced as a matter of policy and as a tool of state authority. Every act constituting torture under the Convention constitutes a criminal offense under the law of the United States. No official of the government, federal, state or local, civilian or military, is authorized to commit or to instruct anyone else to commit torture. Nor may any official condone or tolerate torture in any form. No exceptional circumstances may be invoked as a justification of torture. US law contains no provision permitting otherwise prohibited acts of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment to be employed on grounds of exigent circumstances (for example, during a state of public emergency) or on orders from a superior officer or public authority, and the protective mechanisms of an independent judiciary are not subject to suspension. (Report of the United States to the UN Committee against Torture, October 15, 1999, UN Doc. CAT/C/28/Add.5, February 9, 2000, para. 6.)\
    With today’s revelations about white phosphorus, and the continued revelations about “black sites” and Cheney’s continued lobbying for torture exemptions, it’s high time someone goes to jail.\
    I’ve never been more disappointed in my country. I was embarrassed by the Lewinsky thing, because I saw it as a case of sexual harassment. I thought impeachment was the right thing to do, because there was obvious wrong-doing and a crime was committed (even if it wasn’t the one they charged him with). But this? THIS?!\
    There is no excuse. There is no rationalization. There is no way to cover this up or make it go away. Our government has committed atrocities in the name of “freedom” and put a huge bloody mark on our flag that may never go away. It’s time for people to stand up and say “no more”. Write your congressman, write your senator, write the President. This has to stop, and those responsible have to be held accountable.\
    bq. US law contains no provision permitting otherwise prohibited acts of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment to be employed on grounds of exigent circumstances (for example, during a state of public emergency) or on orders from a superior officer or public authority, and the protective mechanisms of an independent judiciary are not subject to suspension.\
    It’s already the law, and we’ve already broken it. In the past, we’ve gotten exemptions for US soldiers and military leaders from international courts, but you know what, this is a case where it may be justified to turn Bush, Cheney and anyone else who endorsed and passed down the pro-torture rules, over to the Hague. It’s not the soldiers’ fault, it’s their commanders.\
    This makes me think of Abu Ghraib. Since we now know that torture was a part of the policy, what does that mean for Lyndie England and the other enlisted soldiers who were found guilty? Why hasn’t anyone in a position of authority been held responsible?\
    We’re supposed to be better than this. We’re supposed to be land of the free, home of the brave, not the land of the war criminal, home of the torturer. We can’t spread freedom if we’re also spreading torture, death and oppression. They’re mutually exclusive. You can’t build a democracy from the scorched bones of women and children. You can’t wipe away the stain of secret torture prisons without someone paying the price for it.