Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Globetrotting

I probably won't have a chance to update this blog until Sept 20. Look for more rage against the machine when I return!

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Supersize Global Warming Today!



Check out much funnier responses to the current McDonald's toy Hummer Happy Meal giveaway or make your own at Ronald McHummer!

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Respectfully from Beirut

The letter and pictures below were sent to our departmental mailing list yesterday. I have permission from the author to reproduce them here.


Dearest Family, Friends, and Colleagues,

I apologize for the mass email, but I wanted you all to see the pictures I took yesterday in southern Lebanon. I would attach more pictures to help you all understand the extremely disgusting nature of this war, but internet service here in Beirut is quite slow do to the conflict.

I am sending this email because I am very disturbed by Israel's claim to have destroyed the infrastructures that will stop the movement of arms and claim to have destroyed buildings that harbored arms. After touring the regions most heavily hit, I can attest to the fact that NONE of this is true. In reality, Israel only hit the major roads used by civilians and not the minor roads which are used by Hezbollah. Further, the only only movement and traffic that was hindered was the civilians, the Red Cross, and the World Food Program. Regarding "buried arms and munitions," it is absolutely ASININE to assert that apartments, mosques, and houses contained Katusha rockets. Please remember, these are not unreasonable people, these are instead people who have known peace for over 10 years now. It is almost certain that the stores of rockets are buried in the hills and in bunkers removed from their families. Yet Israel proceed to bomb, destroy, and level over 15,000 buildings. Of the hundreds upon hundreds of destroyed buildings that I have inspected over the previous several days, I have not seen any evidence of arms or munitions. Why would members of Hezbollah store Katusha rockets in the same house as wives, parents, and children? Who in their right mind keeps a rocket in the same house as their child?

In case you were not aware, our government and our elected representatives all voted to support these actions and also to supply the munitions used in these attacks. In other words, your tax dollars paid for this destruction and war on Lebanese civilians.

I beg each of you spend a moment to look at these pictures and try to understand the hell that war reaps on ordinary civilians.


This first picture is of the Damour bridge crossing a river – this is one of the most heavily used bridges in all of Lebanon, is 10 km south of Beirut, and provides the major connection between Beirut and the south.



The second set of two pictures are from Qana. The first is of the building that was struck by 3 rockets from an Apache helicopter, and the second is of the mass grave that created to bury the 28 woman and children who died in the attack (all the casualties were civilians). Since this burial is the major news today from Lebanon, so perhaps if you watch tonight's news you may see similar pictures.

Lastly, I want to reiterate that OUR government and nearly all of OUR elected representatives (410 in favor vs. 8 against in the House and unanimous in the Senate) supported and paid for the destruction of residential buildings and civilian infrastructures. How is destroying residential property and civilian infrastructures in another country self defense?

Thank you for spending the time to comprehend the disgusting acts that our government paid for and supported.

Respectfully from Beirut,

Andrew Van Eck

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Bush Gets His Ears Boxed

US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor is the first federal judge to rule the government's warrantless wiretapping program unconstitutional. She has ordered an immediate halt to the program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy as well as the separation of powers. (The Justice Department is appealing Taylor's ruling because it believes that it must continue to infringe on American civil liberties in order to protect our freedom. Or something like that.)

On the other hand, Taylor dismissed a separate claim by the ACLU over the NSA's massive data mining of phone records, saying that not enough had yet been publicly revealed about that program and further litigation would jeopardize state secrets. This suggests to me that the Judge was more het up about the Bush administration's sneaky bypass of the judicial branch (in the form of their special surveillance court) than about violations of our citizens' right to privacy per se.

Bottom line: Bush is listening... Use big words!

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

A Man, a plan, Iran - Lebanon!

Seymour Hirsch has an excellent piece in the New Yorker about the Bush administration's reluctance to rein in Israel and prevent hundreds if not thousands of civilian casualties. In it he confirms that the Israelis had planned a major offensive against Hezbollah months ago and were simply waiting for an opportune provocation to strike. For their part, Cheney and co. were eager to witness Israeli success because they hoped to use it as a blueprint for a future invasion of Iran, should one become necessary. Given that Iran is supposed to give up its nuclear enrichment program by the end of this month, there was no time to lose if such lessons were to be learned. But the debatable military success (and clear political failure) of the Israeli attacks leaves the outcome of such an operation against Iran ambiguous at best. Perhaps the only gain, and that one somewhat dubious, was the monthlong distraction from the heaviest casualties yet witnessed in our own military-political debacle, the Iraq war.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Forecast: Continual State of Emergency

The House recently passed a version of the National Defense Authorization Act, HR 5122, that would amend Title 10 of the United States Code to give the President the authority to take control of the National Guard in case of "a serious natural or manmade disaster, accident, or catastrophe that occurs in the United States, its territories and possessions, or Puerto Rico" without gubernatorial consent.

Why should we worry? As stated explicitly by an oppositional letter from the National Association of Governors to House leaders last week, this provision is very open-ended without a definition of what constitutes a "serious" natural or manmade disaster. What's to stop this President (or any other, but I have reason to fear this one specifically) from using any handy excuse to deploy our own National Guard against a dissenting state, organization, or individual citizen? If we can engage in an eternal war on terror under this administration, surely we can also fall prey to an ongoing national state of emergency.

The clock is ticking! The House version of the National Defense Authorization Act must be reconciled in conference with the version already passed by the Senate. Call your Senators immediately and warn them not to allow this dangerous President any more "emergency" powers!