ChezLark

Well we’ve been loitering around Prague for a couple of days now; we discovered that a little restaurant / pub just around the corner from our apartment has WiFi, so I finally have a communication use for the laptop I lugged halfway around the world. It’s evening, and Laura and I just had dinner, and I’m sitting drinking Czech beer that arrived, frothing over, in exactly the oversized glass stein you can picture if you imagine it.

Prague is lovely; it’s littered with beautiful buildings and, unexpectedly, Italians on holiday. I think I may have heard more Italian than Czech in the tourist areas. Also a fair dose of French. The tourist areas are surprisingly busy, considering it’s barely April. I can only imagine what a zoo this place must be in the summer. At least the Charles Bridge was deserted at dawn this morning when I was out wandering around suffering from jet lag.

Czech food, as it turns out, is not nearly as bad as you might imagine. It does feature a lot of cabbage, but they do something to it to make it delicious. I suspect lard is involved. Laura has been eating lots of roast duck, and I’ve been enjoying potato dumplings stuffed with various things. It’s best not to ask what.

Little Ryan has been doing quite well so far, although it’s certainly an adjustment learning to travel with her. Everything is fine and rosy when she’s rested and happy, but things go south in a hurry if we’re far from home and she gets tired, hungry, or fed up of being carried. We are refining a schedule around her. On the plus side, she’s been sleeping like a log for 10-12 hours at a stretch without eating, so we’ve been able to keep up on our sleep.

I have been taking pictures and working hard to justify the weight and bulk of a laptop by processing them in the field. A selection will be going up sporadically on chromalark; here’s the first, from Prague’s superb public transit system:

Well, we’re sitting in SeaTac. Our plane leaves 3 hours late. Our layover in Heathrow just became 7 hours. Ho hum.

The Pluot’s Big Adventure begins today! We leave this afternoon for Prague via London. From there, we’ll take the night train to Krakow, and another night train to Budapest. Then we fly to Rome and drive around Umbria and Tuscany before flying back through Prague. We’ll be away until the end of April.

Being me, I have a bunch of gear with me, so watch this space.

I stumbled across this very interesting talk about “glocalization”, “the ugliness that ensues when the global and local are shoved uncomfortably into the same concept”. The talk is about designing community-spaces like Craig’s List, Flickr, or MySpace while being attentive to what culture means in a globally interconnected world.

If I were a conservative, I would point to this AP story as evidence that the mainstream press is biased against President Bush. As it is, I am merely amused that the press is now pointing out logical fallacies in speeches and debates. The AP story points out that Bush’s speeches are rife with the straw man logical fallacy:

“Some look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day,” President Bush said recently.

Another time he said, “Some say that if you’re Muslim you can’t be free.”

“There are some really decent people,” the president said earlier this year, “who believe that the federal government ought to be the decider of health care … for all people.”

Of course, hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such assertions.
[...]
Bush routinely is criticized for dressing up events with a too-rosy glow. But experts in political speech say the straw man device, in which the president makes himself appear entirely reasonable by contrast to supposed “critics,” is just as problematic.
[...]
“It’s such a phenomenal hole in the national debate that you can have arguments with nonexistent people,” Fields said. “All politicians try to get away with this to a certain extent. What’s striking here is how much this administration rests on a foundation of this kind of stuff.”

Hear, hear. Now, if we could just get the press to call people on the rediculous practice of “pivoting” away from uncomfortable questions in interviews. You know what I’m talking about:

Q: Why did you run down a little old lady in your Porsche?
A: That’s an excellent question, and I’m proud to say that I have an excellent voting record on traffic-infraction laws.

McClellan, of course, is the gold standard for pivoting.

Ryan Marie has gone through several names:

• Soon after conception: The Appleseed
• Later in pregnancy / early after birth: The Pluot
• ~2 months old: Squeaker
• Lately: Petunia

Her latest moniker is mostly because she seems to be developing a sensitive / dramatic personality.

When will someone finally spare the world from Pat Robertson by yanking him off the air? His latest pronouncements:

Television evangelist Pat Robertson said Monday on his live news-and-talk program “The 700 Club” that Islam is not a religion of peace, and that radical Muslims are “satanic.”

Robertson’s comments came after he watched a news story on his Christian Broadcasting Network about Muslim protests in Europe over the cartoon drawings of the Prophet Muhammad.

He remarked that the outpouring of rage elicited by cartoons “just shows the kind of people we’re dealing with. These people are crazed fanatics, and I want to say it now: I believe it’s motivated by demonic power. It is satanic and it’s time we recognize what we’re dealing with.”

Robertson also said that “the goal of Islam, ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it or not, is world domination.”

If I were Christian, I would be ashamed to be associated with this man.

This morning, I would like you to take a minute to reflect on this statement by Scott McClellan, White House spokesdroid. This is from the March 8th press briefing:

As we previously said, we are committed to working with congressional leaders to further codify the constitutional and statutory authority that the President already has. [...] The one thing we want to make sure that doesn’t happen is that any legislation that is passed does not compromise the program or undermine the President’s authority. And so we are moving ahead with congressional leaders on that.

And we’ve previously said that we’re committed to further codifying the authority the President already has. He has the constitutional authority and he has the statutory authority.

Now seriously, do you agree that Congress’ focus in the eavesdropping matter should be to stick to “further codifying the authority the President already has”? Is that what multiple, co-equal branches of government are for? To reinforce the unfettered authority of the head of the Executive?

What are Americans like?

Well, according to Gallup, 53% of Americans agree that “God created man exactly how the Bible describes it”.

Yup. For good measure, 31% agreed that “God guided” evolution, and only 12% backed evolution-only.

The Gallup poll shows that support for the Biblical perspective decreases with education level, but 25% of Americans with post-graduate university degrees still agree with the “God created man exactly how the Bible describes it” statement.

You can’t make this stuff up. The Editor and Publisher reports that:

Reporters who write about government surveillance could be prosecuted under proposed legislation that would solidify the administration’s eavesdropping authority
[...]
The draft would add to the criminal penalties for anyone who “intentionally discloses information identifying or describing” the Bush administration’s terrorist surveillance program or any other eavesdropping program conducted under a 1978 surveillance law.

Under the boosted penalties, those found guilty could face fines of up to $1 million, 15 years in jail or both.
[...]
“The bill would make it a crime to tell the American people that the president is breaking the law, and the bill could make it a crime for the newspapers to publish that fact,” said Martin, a civil liberties advocate.

Maybe you don’t appreciate the situation yet. Think about it for a minute. The President issued an Executive Order directing the NSA to act in direct violation of wiretapping regulations. In response, Congress is on track to “fix” the law by making warrantless wiretapping legal, and now making it illegal to reveal violations of the law.

The genius of the American model of government is supposed to be its checks and balances. With a single party controlling all of Congress, the White House, and with two Supreme Court appointments in its pocket already, am I the only one who thinks we’re witnessing a wholesale failure of that model?

Oh, man. This is not so good.

Moving to tamp down Democratic calls for an investigation of the administration’s domestic eavesdropping program, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that they had reached agreement with the White House on proposed bills to impose new oversight but allow wiretapping without warrants for up to 45 days.

Uh oh.

The agreement, hashed out in weeks of negotiations between Vice President Dick Cheney and Republicans critical of the program, dashes Democratic hopes of starting a full committee investigation because the proposal won the support of Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine. The two, both Republicans, had threatened to support a fuller inquiry if the White House did not disclose more about the program to Congress.

That’s not good.

“We are reasserting Congressional responsibility and oversight,” Ms. Snowe said.

OK, let’s see what these folks hashed out with the White House.

The proposed legislation would create a seven-member “terrorist surveillance subcommittee” and require the administration to give it full access to the details of the program’s operations.

Uh… the White House had previously briefed the “Gang of Eight” Congresspeople about the program. So, now there are only seven?

The agreement would reinforce the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was created in 1978 to issue special warrants for spying but was sidestepped by the administration.

Well hey; that sounds good. So, now the administration has to get a warrant, right?

The measure would require the administration to seek a warrant from the court whenever possible.

Wait a minute; what does “whenever possible” mean, exactly?

If the administration elects not to do so after 45 days, the attorney general must certify that the surveillance is necessary to protect the country and explain to the subcommittee why the administration has not sought a warrant. The attorney general would be required to give an update to the subcommittee every 45 days.

Oh. If the administration doesn’t feel like getting a warrant, it’s sufficient for it to say that it doesn’t feel like getting a warrant. That seems fair.

A spokeswoman for the White House, Dana Perino, [said] “We’re eager to work with Congress on legislation that would further codify the president’s authority,”

Um, yeah.

So, let’s review. Today, the President isn’t getting warrants from FISA because he doesn’t feel like it. Congress, in its oversight role, is proposing to pass legislation to… wait for it… let the President skip getting a warrant if he doesn’t feel like it.

Sounds like a check and balance to me.

I’m tired of messing around. ITMFA.

I hear Crash won Best Picture at the Academy Awards last night, and not Brokeback Mountain. I happen to have seen both pictures and although I thought Crash was quite good, it is no Brokeback Mountain.

That is all.

Life has been very hectic for me lately; Laura and Ryan are in Baltimore and I’m working nonstop. However, I have fond memories of just last weekend when we spent the weekend with a bunch of friends at our ritualistic cabin retreat.

Here’s little Ryan with our friend Eva. Thanks to everyone for making Ryan Marie welcome!

I was wondering why it was that more people don’t get upset when their rights are silently spirited away by an Executive branch run amok, but a new study may have the answer that has been eluding me:

Only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.)
[...]
The study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just one in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms.
[...]
The survey found more people could name the three “American Idol” judges than identify three First Amendment rights.
[...]
About one in five people thought the right to own a pet was protected, and 38 percent said they believed the right against self-incrimination contained in the Fifth Amendment was a First Amendment right, the survey found.

I’ll be in bed quietly sobbing.

Not wanting to be left out, Mississippi has an abortion ban (well, near-ban) in the works; a bill in that state has passed the House Public Health Committee and is heading for a vote in the full House.

The bill that passed the House Public Health Committee on Tuesday would allow abortion only to save the pregnant woman’s life. It would make no exception in cases of rape or incest.

South Dakota lawmakers passed a similar bill last week that was intended to provoke a court showdown over the legality of abortion.
[...]
The lawmaker who introduced the near-ban, House Public Health Committee Chairman Steve Holland said he acted because he was tired of piecemeal attempts to add new abortion restrictions each year.

I’m looking at you, Republican voters.