In today's Denver Post, Ed Quillen's op-ed on "What Intelligent Design?" makes exactly the right reply to those who would replace evolution with intelligent design in our schools and scientific laboratories. If whoever did the intelligent design was so smart, why aren't we (and most of our fellow creatures) better designed?
In additions to the points raised by Quillen, I wonder: Why can't dogs talk? Why do some turtles live longer than human beings? Why do so many human beings become sick and useless years before they die? Who designed the dodo bird?
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Friday, August 05, 2005
Bush Believes He Is Still at War
Bush's advisors tried to change the "war on terror" into a "global struggle against violent extremism," but Bush himself isn't buying it. Bush wants to be a war president. The fact that we are not clearly winning the war is apparently less important than being at war. The military appears to be uncomfortable with being in charge of the war on terror. Rumsfeld and his four star lackeys led the charge to change the name from war to struggle.
Karl Rove made fun of "liberals" who thought that the police, rather than the military, had to be the front line against terrorism. Rove said that after the 9/11 attacks, liberals, "wanted to prepare indictments, therapy and understanding" for the attackers. Rove clearly thought indictments were useless, but after the London underground bombings, Tony Blair didn't declare war on any new countries, as Bush declared war on Iraq. Rather, Blair has increased the role of the British police in fighting terrorism. No doubt Rove ridicules Blair and the British people in private, despite the fact that the British bombers appear to be home grown in Britain, rather than people who have come from the Middle East specifically to carry out the bombings.
Bush has no clue what he's doing, or what needs to be done to protect the American people, but he knows that he likes being a war president. By the way, how's the war in Iraq going these days? How many American military have been killed? How many innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed? How much better is life for the average Iraqi? How democratic is the new Iraqi government under the new constitution going to be?
Karl Rove made fun of "liberals" who thought that the police, rather than the military, had to be the front line against terrorism. Rove said that after the 9/11 attacks, liberals, "wanted to prepare indictments, therapy and understanding" for the attackers. Rove clearly thought indictments were useless, but after the London underground bombings, Tony Blair didn't declare war on any new countries, as Bush declared war on Iraq. Rather, Blair has increased the role of the British police in fighting terrorism. No doubt Rove ridicules Blair and the British people in private, despite the fact that the British bombers appear to be home grown in Britain, rather than people who have come from the Middle East specifically to carry out the bombings.
Bush has no clue what he's doing, or what needs to be done to protect the American people, but he knows that he likes being a war president. By the way, how's the war in Iraq going these days? How many American military have been killed? How many innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed? How much better is life for the average Iraqi? How democratic is the new Iraqi government under the new constitution going to be?
Friday, July 29, 2005
US Not Totally Honorable with North Korea
With North Korea back in the news, and with me thinking about Rome in the late 1990's, it reminds me that one of my jobs at the American Embassy in Rome was to take the tin cup out to the Italian Foreign Ministry and beg for money to help the US meet its commitments under the agreement with North Korea that it then still honored. Italy then held the presidency of the EU, and thus we begged Italy as a country and as a representative of the entire EU.
The problem was that the agreement called on the Western parties, the US, Japan, and South Korea, to provide heating oil to North Korea while work was proceeding on the non-proliferating, Western design nuclear reactors that we had promised North Korea to replace their indigenous reactors that were producing the bad bomb-making plutonium. However, the US Congress, under its non-treaty-honoring Republican leadership would not appropriate enough money to meet the US obligations under the treaty. So, we browbeat our allies to make up the difference, presumably because they were more concerned about the future of the world than the Republican Congress was.
I didn't like that any more than I liked punishing children for the sins of their parents, despite the precedent for such punishment in the Old Testament. (See previous post).
So, as I approached the end of my career, it was as if the Republicans became less concerned about the protecting the US, and more greedy (giving money that should have gone to protecting the US to their wealthy campaign contributors instead).
These current negotiations with the North Koreans bring back bad memories. Although Christopher Hill is a career Foreign Service officer (who spent time in Poland as I did), I don't trust the US negotiating position. The North Koreans are crazy, but so is John Bolton, who was in charge of this process until recently. And Condi Rice named him to be Ambassador to the UN, not a good sign for Condi's competence.
The problem was that the agreement called on the Western parties, the US, Japan, and South Korea, to provide heating oil to North Korea while work was proceeding on the non-proliferating, Western design nuclear reactors that we had promised North Korea to replace their indigenous reactors that were producing the bad bomb-making plutonium. However, the US Congress, under its non-treaty-honoring Republican leadership would not appropriate enough money to meet the US obligations under the treaty. So, we browbeat our allies to make up the difference, presumably because they were more concerned about the future of the world than the Republican Congress was.
I didn't like that any more than I liked punishing children for the sins of their parents, despite the precedent for such punishment in the Old Testament. (See previous post).
So, as I approached the end of my career, it was as if the Republicans became less concerned about the protecting the US, and more greedy (giving money that should have gone to protecting the US to their wealthy campaign contributors instead).
These current negotiations with the North Koreans bring back bad memories. Although Christopher Hill is a career Foreign Service officer (who spent time in Poland as I did), I don't trust the US negotiating position. The North Koreans are crazy, but so is John Bolton, who was in charge of this process until recently. And Condi Rice named him to be Ambassador to the UN, not a good sign for Condi's competence.
Clinton's Winds of War
I happened on a copy of War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk, which I bought after returning from my tour as an American diplomat in Rome.
While I was in Rome around 1996 or '97, I went to a party celebrating the launch of an Italian satellite, as I recall somewhat vaguely, and struck up a conversation with a man who worked for an Italian telecommunications company, maybe the state telecom company. He said that America must really hate him and his little daughter, because it had refused his daughter a visa to visit the US because of the company he worked for.
It turned out the problem was the Helms-Burton law, named after its sponsors in the Senate and House, two bigots and proud of it. I was appalled that the US was punishing children to affect the conduct of their parents. But I had already decided to leave the Foreign Service because I did not feel that the US was living up the standards that it should. Helms-Burton was passed by Republicans, but President Bill Clinton was enforcing it. This was just one more sleazy thing I was glad to be leaving behind.
After I returned to the US, I happened to be watching the mini-series "Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance" on TV, partly because it involved diplomats in Rome. Lo and behold, one the sleazy things that one of the "nice" the Nazi diplomats there was doing was threatening the child of the Jewish heroine, Natalie, to get her to force her uncle to make propaganda broadcasts against the Allies. How little things change! I didn't personally take any actions against children, but I had worked at an embassy that did. Jesse Helms liked those Nazi tactics! What an awful man!
I'm not sure that the TV mini-series exactly followed the novel. I can't find exactly what I think I remember seeing on TV, but here are some pretty close passages (from the Pocket paperback edition):
While I was in Rome around 1996 or '97, I went to a party celebrating the launch of an Italian satellite, as I recall somewhat vaguely, and struck up a conversation with a man who worked for an Italian telecommunications company, maybe the state telecom company. He said that America must really hate him and his little daughter, because it had refused his daughter a visa to visit the US because of the company he worked for.
It turned out the problem was the Helms-Burton law, named after its sponsors in the Senate and House, two bigots and proud of it. I was appalled that the US was punishing children to affect the conduct of their parents. But I had already decided to leave the Foreign Service because I did not feel that the US was living up the standards that it should. Helms-Burton was passed by Republicans, but President Bill Clinton was enforcing it. This was just one more sleazy thing I was glad to be leaving behind.
After I returned to the US, I happened to be watching the mini-series "Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance" on TV, partly because it involved diplomats in Rome. Lo and behold, one the sleazy things that one of the "nice" the Nazi diplomats there was doing was threatening the child of the Jewish heroine, Natalie, to get her to force her uncle to make propaganda broadcasts against the Allies. How little things change! I didn't personally take any actions against children, but I had worked at an embassy that did. Jesse Helms liked those Nazi tactics! What an awful man!
I'm not sure that the TV mini-series exactly followed the novel. I can't find exactly what I think I remember seeing on TV, but here are some pretty close passages (from the Pocket paperback edition):
Our friend and rescuer, Dr. Werner Beck [the Nazi diplomat], is moving heaven and earth to get us released, or at the very least, to designate three other Americans from the list for the retaliation, if it comes to that. (p. 250)
I have concealed this news from Natalie. Her dread of the Germans and what they may do to her baby borders on the psychotic. (p. 251)
Aaron was describing Werner Beck's intervention to quash the summons from the secret police, at the time when alien Jews had been interned. (p. 294)
"My guess would be," said the doctor, "that this Dr. Beck is preventing you from leaving Italy."
"How preposterous!" exclaimed Jastrow.
But Castelnuovo's words stirred a horrible dark sickness in Natalie. "Why? What would there be in it for him?" (p. 295)
With a curl of his lips, and a total confusion of f's and th's, Beck retorted, "But there's also the question of Mrs. Henry [Natalie] and her baby 'rotting here.' And there's the more serious question of how long you can stay on in Siena."
Natalie interjected, "What's the question about our staying in Siena?"
"Why the OVRA pressure never lets up on me, Mrs. Henry. You realize that you belong in a concentration camp with the rest of the alien Jews....." (p. 339)
Dumbly Natalie nodded. She went to the library to draft the [misleading] letter [to Beck], feeling -- half with terror, half with relief -- that the lead had in an eyeblink passed from her to her uncle, and that she and her baby were now in the dark rapids. (p. 342)
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