Tag - politics

OK, I still don’t get it:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday ordered his staff to begin revising the California’s lethal injection procedure to allay concerns raised by a federal judge that condemned inmates are being subjected to unnecessary pain. (Full story.)

I posted on this months ago: We’re only going to kill him if it doesn’t hurt.

It’s not the pain … it’s the killing that matters!

Sure, pain is not nice. Pain is not good. Pain is, well, painful. But it’s a very small thing, really, compared to being dead, toast, BBQ’d, poisoned, beheaded.

Pain is temporary. Death is forever.

I think those who are in favor of the death penalty think it’s easier to convince others of the rightness of that position if they can say it’s a painless process. To me, that’s nonsense.

(And I happen to agree with the death penalty in some cases.)

If you can do it painlessly, great. Fine. But don’t defend the morality of capital punishment by saying it’s painless! Conversely, don’t say that capital punishment is wrong because it causes pain.

That’s just missing the point.

Well, if there was anydoubt at all, this should lay it to rest:

Visiting Venezuela President Hugo Chavez has denounced Israel’s recent attacks on Lebanon as “genocide,” likening its action to war crimes committed by Germany’s Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

“Israel often criticizes Hitler … but they have done the same thing, perhaps even worse,” Chavez told reporters Friday in a briefing during his six-day visit to China.

Let’s see … kill 6 million people on purpose, versus kill about a thousand because you’re trying to stop the people who are shooting rockets at you (while surrounded by civilians). Is there any comparison there at all, either in quantity or quality? Not to any sane, balanced, and reasonable individual.

Every time Chavez opens his mouth he shows himself to be a bigger and better buffoon than the last time. I seriously doubt the US really is trying to overthrow his quasi-dictatorship, but I almost hope they would, just to shut this utter moron up.

Does language mean something? Should you use terms that adequately describe what you’re trying to convey? Should the words you use have some level of equivalence with reality?

I think so. Apparently, Dave Pollard does not. We will not ever all agree. That’s OK. The least that can be expected, however, is that we argue fairly.

Pollard has published an article on Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, so full of overblown exageration and hyperbole as to be perhaps intentionally fallacious.

The link is above; here’s my commentary on just one of his paragraphs. Note: I don’t claim to have “the right answer” for every single issue below; but I do have a problem with the way they have been presented.

Our execrable
ad hominen
minority right-wing extremist
What?!? If that word means what the dictionary says it means, Harper is not extremist. Pollard is just using language as a weapon, carelessly, blind to the consequences of the arms race of his own rhetoric. If he thinks he’s seen extremism, I suggest he goes and lives in Saudi Arabia or Lebanon for a few years. Just because a person holds different views than you do does not by itself make him extremist.
prime minister Harper, fresh from completely botching the evacuation
So he was personally there, and personally responsible? Get a life. Are you telling us that Canada needs to equip and maintain a 10,000-strong special extraction force for the immediate rescuing of citizens in war zones? What magic do you believe in? How many aircraft carriers did we suddenly acquire? Since when did being a Canadian citizen mean that you can go to any country you like, no matter how dangerous, live there, and when it hits the fan, expect the government to bail you out? What social contract did you sign?
of Canadians from Lebanon
While we should help anyone we can, and while people with a Canadian passport do deserve our support to the best of our ability, wherever they are, let’s be clear: Canadians are people who live in Canada, primarily, and pay Canadian taxes, primarily … not people who are flying a flag of convenience and using it whenever the dangerous place they actually live in and are citizens of gets too hot to handle
and then making life more dangerous for Canadians at home and Canadian ‘peace-keeping’ troops mired in the hopeless anarchy of Afghanistan (and dying in battle at a horrific rate)
I’m not very sanguine about what we’re doing in Afghanistan either, don’t get me wrong. And any death is a terrible, desperate tragedy. But at a horrific rate? Compared to what? Not any of the actual wars this country has fought.
by blathering on about how Canadians support Bush’s war on terror (we don’t), is boycotting the AIDS Conference
He decided not to attend – big difference between this and “boycotting”
which is important enough for Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and 20,000 other people to attend, but apparently not important enough for the host country’s prime minister to attend. The PM insists it’s more important that he be in Inuvik in Canada’s North to announce how some of the billions cut from Canada’s environmental programs
He didn’t sign Kyoto; that doesn’t mean money is being cut.
are to be spent on defence of our Arctic sovereignty.

Pollard: by venting like this, you might be relieving your own pent-up frustrations, but you are actually hurting your cause. Because anyone can see that you are not defending your positions rationally and fairly.

Which are important things if we want to keep our public discourse civil.

There’s an important story on the Huffington Post about a Ted Koppel article in the NY Times:

Koppel goes on to note that “over the past couple of months alone, he told me, Hamas has received more than $300 million in cash, provided by Iran and funneled through Syria” and “the more than 12,000 missiles and rockets…in Hezbollah’s arsenal were largely provided by Iran.” Here’s the important passage:

. . .

Are the Israelis over-reacting in Lebanon? Perhaps they simply perceive their enemies’ intentions with greater clarity than most. It is not the Lebanese who make the Israelis nervous, nor even Hezbollah. It is the puppet-masters in Tehran capitalizing on every opportunity that democratic reform presents. In the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon, in Egypt, should President Hosni Mubarak be so incautious as to hold a free election, it is the Islamists who benefit the most.

. . .

Well. That would explain a few things for those of us who have been wondering why Israel has been “over-reacting.”

Okay, am I the only one who thinks this whole story is just completely bonkers?

A CONVICTED murderer in California was due to be put to death with a new kind of injection in the early hours of this morning after a federal judge ruled for the first time that the usual method may inflict “excessive pain”.

The execution of Michael Morales, who has spent 23 years on death row for the torture, rape and murder of a teenager, had been due to take place 24 hours earlier but was thrown into turmoil after the anaesthetists suddenly refused their services on ethical grounds.

Apparently the concern is that the drug they were going to use would cause the convicted killer some pain – possibly agonizing pain – while they were killing him.

How modern this is: it’s not the killing that’s the problem, just the pain that accompanies it.

Unbelievable.

If you’re going to go so far as to execute a convicted criminal, in most cases and in reasonable circumstances that is the most violent and painful and permanent punishment you can possibly impose on him. A few minutes of pain, frankly, is no big deal compared to dying. Even agonizing pain.

On the other hand, if you are so squeamish that you don’t want to be causing any pain at all, why on earth are you killing people? That’s the worst pain – when you define pain as negative stimulus – that you can imagine.

I’m reminded of Spider Robinson’s characterization of the years leading up to the millenium: the crazy years.

These are crazy years too. We’re only going to kill people if it doesn’t hurt.

This is a great quote about the whole Cheney shooting incident:

Dr. David Blanchard, the emergency room chief, estimated that Mr. Whittington had more than 5 but “probably less than 150 to 200” pellets lodged in his body.

From the New York Times.

Poor, misunderstood, and abused pop star Madonna is telling people to lay off Tom Cruise for being a Scientologist. As she says …

“We’re both in the take-a-lot-of-s— club together,” Madonna tells Rolling Stone magazine in its new issue. “I don’t really know what Scientology is, and because I don’t know, I’m not in a position to have an opinion about it. But I don’t think anybody else knows, either.”

She doesn’t think that anyone else knows? What?!? I don’t think Madonna is stupid, but that is not an intelligent statement. Very frankly, it’s an ignorant statement.

There’s enough on the web that a simple web search will turn up that is credible, well-substantiated, clear … and not too complimentary of Scientology. Only those who are willfully ignorant or intellectually lazy don’t know that.

Note:
I’ve posted on Scientology before:
– when a Scientologist tried to convert me,
– on what Scientology has done to members who want to get out,
– and on my feeling that Katie Holmes was brainwashed.

Okayyyy ….

Norway is considering breaking up companies that do not have at least 40% women in top management.

“For a woman to get in a man must get out. It is not difficult to find qualified women.”

That’s a quote from Karita Bekkemellem, Norway’s minister for family and children. The second sentence is interesting, from a business point of view. I find it hard enough to find qualified applicants period, never mind if I’d be forced to choose just from half the potential population.

I also find the first sentence interesting, from a human rights point of view. If I was a man in top management in Norway, I’d not be feeling too comfortable. And if I lost my job because of an imposed gender quota, I would sue the pants off the government for sexual discrimination.

Frankly, if I owned a business in Norway, I’d really consider relocating. This does not sound like a business-friendly environment. And being forced to ditch even a couple senior managers could be a serious blow. At least the minister is being honest and forthright, but she’s presenting what in some cases is a legitimate problem in very stark them versus us language, and that’s bound to backfire.

I also find it interesting that the minister for family and children is the one promoting this law. The fact is that children do best when at least one of the parents is a full-time caregiver. Frankly, women do a better job at that than men. And 80% of the women I’ve met and talked to about this issue say that, given a choice, they’d stay home with their kids until they’re in school.

So why is the minister of family and children pushing this issue, instead of the minister for labor and business? Odd!

This article on the Online Asian Times by a European financial analyst (who also has posted the article on his blog) summarizes many of my fears about the United State’s current direction.

Ill-advised wars without clear endpoints, money flowing out the door like a river of cheap paper, a focus on the short-term benefits of outsourcing at the expense of the long-term benefits of retaining “in-house” production capacity, and an attitude of arrogance at the top are combining to isolate and simultaneously impoverish America.

That’s probably a premature statement at this point, and there are caveats.

But a country cannot continue to spend more than it makes, just as a family cannot continue to spend more than it makes. And making more enemies than friends is never a good plan. And there is a whole world out there of young, hungry economies snapping at the heels of the erstwhile economic giant.

I find this sad, because though much maligned and often, with justification, criticized, overall the US “empire” has been a force for good in the world … from helping to win WWI and WWII, to restraining totalitarianism in Communisitic guise during the post-war period, to spreading the freedom meme across the globe.

And I’m disappointed that this decline is being presided over a by a president who appears to be a Christian, but makes too many backroom deals, has too many strings tying him to niche lobbies that do not have the overall public interest at heart, and, most importantly, has extreme difficulty saying those simple words: “I was wrong.”

How will America turn this around?

Well, it’s a big ship. And big ships take a long time to reverse course. It won’t happen overnight, and it will be painful. America needs a party that is not in bed with lobby groups. One that will get back to basics: pay the bills, don’t over-reach its financial means, and focus on developing and sustaining the talents, capabilities, and health of its people. And engage its armed forces a little more judiciously than we’ve seen in the past few years.

The only problem is that this party does not exist.