Current Affairs

…which is to say, they agree with me. As I am, of course, the epitome of wisdom and truthfulness – HEY! Stop laughing at me! – this obviously makes them quite the savants…

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The American Civil Liberties Union just won a Michigan court case involving religious expression in a school (in this case, a high school yearbook). At issue was whether a high school valedictorian would be allowed to use a Bible verse as a special quote for the yearbook (not the regular quote under her picture; one solicited by the school itself); the ACLU won an overwhelming victory. Quotes Kary Moss, ACLU head for Michigan:

“There are reasonable limits the schools can place, and potential for disruption is one reason a school might be able to limit certain speech,” Moss said.

Are my Righty colleagues annoyed, yet?

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I am not yet at the point where I reliably dream of blogging – it has happened, terrifyingly enough, but not on a regular basis – but the shower is turning into a useful place to think of possible posts. Of course, I’m more of a linker than a thinker, so I mostly let them pass because I’m off to work later, but weekends are a different story. So, two questions on Iran.

1). Someone taps you on the shoulder and informs you that the United States of America is prepared to change its policy on Iran in any one way, based on your input. What would you change right now*, and why?

Yes, yes, you would first immediately either expel or guarantee the re-election of the current administration, thank you, that has to wait for November either way and the question was about what to change right now.

2). Let us postulate that you will wake up tomorrow to find that you are the President of the United States (no, you don’t have to be George W Bush), and that reports are coming in that a popular uprising has begun against the current theocracy in Iran. The rebels are secular, pro-democracy, have broad support from the populace but not much in the way of heavy weapons and are at least neutral towards the United States; indeed, there is already a widespread belief that the CIA was behind it all (in this case, you know that it was not). The consensus at the UN is rapidly hardening in favor of the existing regime, particularly as said regime is suddenly ready to sign all sorts of nonproliferation agreements in exchange for public support.
Do you support the rebellion, or not?

Moe

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I liked this comment so much from Constant Reader asdf – in an odd way, I needed this comment, or one like it – that I’m giving it its own thread. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but at least the questions are still being asked, not screamed.

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Or possibly President George W Bush. No, I’m being quite serious.

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Via Phil Dennison’s blog.*

“Sorry, amigo, if you want asylum in our country, you have to be a lisping queen. Butch queers have to stay in their own country and take whatever comes.”

Canada, apparently, goes by the Homer Simpson maxim: “We like our beer cold, our music loud, and our homosexuals fah-laming.”

You can’t make this stuff up:

The Canadian Refugee Board has denied asylum to a Mexican homosexual because he is not “visibly effeminate” and therefore not vulnerable to persecution.

Fernando Enrique Rivera, 30, came to Canada four years ago after he was allegedly blackmailed by colleagues in the Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, police department.

In December 2002 the Immigration and Refugee Board concluded: “Effeminate gestures come naturally and unconsciously. … If he were indeed visibly effeminate, he would have been (un)able to easily land a job with the ‘macho’ police force of Puerto Vallarta.”

There’s so much wrong with that I barely know where to start.

Other than the Washington Times, however, I can’t find any information online about this person or his case, so (where’s my lawyer?), perhaps you can make this stuff up. :-p (The Times, that is, not Phil.)

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That there is no Other. No matter where we start from – or where we end up – we’re all human beings on the same spaceship (to evoke a conceit of Timothy Leary). The same dreams, hopes, fears, emotions, you name it – it’s all the same, from mind to mind (some would say heart; others, soul). And, most importantly, no man or woman really is an island; there are connections everywhere, and you’d be surprised how quickly you can trace the path from person to person, woman to man.

A pity that the man in this case is Micah Wright: frankly, it was demeaning to have this insight in relation to the lying SOB*. On the bright side, I now know that newspaper machines (in [some] AZ [college campuses], at least) typically have combination locks. I have no idea what I could actually (and ethically) do with that information, but at least I know – and knowing is half the battle.

Hey, I wonder if that tagline was how Wright got the idea in the first place…

Moe

UPDATE: Reader jon demonstrates that I apparently didn’t know quite as much as I thought that I did. Like that was a shock, or anything.

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If you’re so POed about the twerp that you need to vent some more, I suggest that you click either click through to Max Sawicky’s site (even though he doesn’t link us, the so-and-so) or Citizen Smash’s (who does link us); they both seem equally annoyed about it. As for their dispute… much as I hate not getting the back of my ideological compatriot*, Indymedia ain’t the antiwar movement, thank God. Generally speaking, they shouldn’t be let within a square mile of the antiwar movement (on tactical grounds alone), but that’s another issue entirely.

Moe

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I see that we now estimate that North Korea now has eight or so nuclear weapons, and absolutely no incentive to give them up.

The increase in the estimate would underscore the strides North Korea has made in the past year as the Bush administration struggled to respond diplomatically while waging a war against Iraq in an unsuccessful effort to search for such weapons there.

Well, at least we got the North Koreans to agree to multilateral talks. Hurray!

Let’s quit the nonsense. North Korea wants aid and a security guarantee from the United States and, in exchange, claims that it will relinquish its nuclear weapons. In response, put the following on the table, do it publicly, say (and mean) that it’s non-negotiable, and get your allegedly-compliant Republican Congresspeople to push the necessary legislation through: “Done, on the condition that North Korea fully and completely opens itself to inspections by IAEA, in the manner that South Africa did when it gave up its nuclear arsenal. If you fail to follow through and/or renege in any part of the agreement, all guarantees are off and all non-essential food aid is immediately suspended.”

Then, send a carrier task force slowly steaming in the general direction of the Korean pennisula. (Do it very slowly, though; the idea is to get in position to respond to a future escalation by North Korea, as well as to send a subtle message to our partners, the Chinese, that we’re through being trifled with.* It is not to begin an escalation.)

Just my two cents, if the administration is listening.

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