Fascinating stuff. Strangely, I first came across a reference to Baader-Meinhoff in a Monty Python book and I've always wanted to know more about it; we in the US are taught so little about about European history after WWII (or before WWI for that matter).
The actors and characters in the movie are all well played, especially Martina Gedeck as Ulrike Meinhof and Johanna Wokalek as Gudrun Ensslin. The characters are portrayed as interesting, complex people and shown with little sympathy except for Meinhoff, an extreme left-wing journalist who is seduced by the thought of taking action for her beliefs and gives up her young twin daughters for the cause (according to the film, she almost has them sent to a Jordanian orphanage before they are rescued by her ex-husband).
The film also strongly shows the utter lunacy of the position of some current right wing commentators that Nazi Germany was some kind of "socialist" state (evidently because the word "socialist" is in the name of the party) when the Baader-Meinhoff gang and the movement they were part of (which per the movie evidently had strong sympathy from the German public) was clearly a reaction to the corporatism and "my country right or wrong" attitudes of the Facist Nazis and the population that supported them. Pull the other one, gentlemen and ladies.
Highly recommended, though if you are seeing it at the theater in Berkeley you might want to check and see if their air conditioning is working again; 2 1/2 hours of violence in a hot, dark room got a little bit unpleasant ;)
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Context
A few months ago I went down to the jacuzzi to sooth my aching back. I was startled to hear beautiful, ethereal music coming out of it. A couple of (young) teenage girls were singing a song in harmony, with a strong, beautiful melody and unisons, thirds, fifths and sixths weaving in and out, evidently making use of the natural reverb of the concrete and tile. I couldn't quite make out the words. It was exquisite. They stopped as soon as they saw me, unfortunately. I've never heard anything quite like it again.
Turns out it was a Beyonce song, something I wouldn't spend two seconds on if I heard it on the radio.
Context is important.
Turns out it was a Beyonce song, something I wouldn't spend two seconds on if I heard it on the radio.
Context is important.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Let Us consider Heinlein again ...
I'm on a SF kick these days. I sorely miss Heinlein. Of these great 40s Sci-Fi writers (Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Bester), Heinlein and Bester were as smart as any of them but a lot less wooden in their prose. Their characterizations were powerful, flawed but interesting heroes in really novel situations (Bester similar, if Heilein had smoked an awful lot of opium).
His most famous novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, released in 1961 is perhaps the least similar to the rest of his catalog, and a coincidental response to the hippie movement of the time, he basically shows thoae hip kids how it would really work if they were smart enough and had time enough for Love. In a way a retelling of the story of Jesus, giving his life to lift his people up.
But his best novel is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, a look at a thrown=together group of diverse and ordinary people making their way and their own rules and what they would do confronted by choosing between slavery and certain eventual death or revolution on the moon. Good stuff about politics, relationships, and how people react in extremis.
He was interested in war, although not a warmonger, I think. Rather, as most men of that time he feared for his country in a world that would soon have atomic bombs by the score and not a few ill-feelings for the US. Read his essays written in 1945 calling for the creating of a stronger UN that could control all the nukes and armies and prevent war everywhere. Can you imagine something like that from our own warmongering neocon chickenhawks. Self-evidently Heinlein would have little use for such as these.
And he was sexist. In those days many were (J. R. R. Tolkien was a famous one as well). Women were led, women were not very important, women were seen and not heard. To give credit where it was due, this was changing in Heinlein's work. Female characters got stronger in his later works, with some books written from a female point of view. And an entire book on the difficulties and joys of being a woman, set out carefully, fairly and lovingly in his later book I Will Fear No Evil, about a dying billionaire whose brain is transferred to the body of a young woman who he loved, and so he wished to continue the life of her exquisite body properly.
Check him out. Some of his notions about technology seem a little dated, especially in the older books, but you'll never find better war stories set in the future, or better thoughts on how we would deal with the future.
His most famous novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, released in 1961 is perhaps the least similar to the rest of his catalog, and a coincidental response to the hippie movement of the time, he basically shows thoae hip kids how it would really work if they were smart enough and had time enough for Love. In a way a retelling of the story of Jesus, giving his life to lift his people up.
But his best novel is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, a look at a thrown=together group of diverse and ordinary people making their way and their own rules and what they would do confronted by choosing between slavery and certain eventual death or revolution on the moon. Good stuff about politics, relationships, and how people react in extremis.
He was interested in war, although not a warmonger, I think. Rather, as most men of that time he feared for his country in a world that would soon have atomic bombs by the score and not a few ill-feelings for the US. Read his essays written in 1945 calling for the creating of a stronger UN that could control all the nukes and armies and prevent war everywhere. Can you imagine something like that from our own warmongering neocon chickenhawks. Self-evidently Heinlein would have little use for such as these.
And he was sexist. In those days many were (J. R. R. Tolkien was a famous one as well). Women were led, women were not very important, women were seen and not heard. To give credit where it was due, this was changing in Heinlein's work. Female characters got stronger in his later works, with some books written from a female point of view. And an entire book on the difficulties and joys of being a woman, set out carefully, fairly and lovingly in his later book I Will Fear No Evil, about a dying billionaire whose brain is transferred to the body of a young woman who he loved, and so he wished to continue the life of her exquisite body properly.
Check him out. Some of his notions about technology seem a little dated, especially in the older books, but you'll never find better war stories set in the future, or better thoughts on how we would deal with the future.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
It's a Sci-Fi World
A few years ago I was doing tech support at a genetics company, and the sensor on the robotic arm of our tape library burned out. I thought: "It's an interesting world where I have to call the wife and tell her I'm going to be late for dinner because my robot has gone blind.".
Monday, June 01, 2009
Bill O'Reilly is not entirely responsible for the murder of Dr. Tillman
Please mentions this whenever you talk or comment about the murder of Dr. Tillman. It's completely true, and only fair.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Mrs. John Smith (the former Ann Coulter)
Mrs. John Smith (the former Ann Coulter) at home in the kind of society she advocates. Mrs. Smith is a good woman who knows her place, cannot read, and does not clamor for voting rights like those homely, mannish suffragettes. Shown here with little Martha Smith, her 11th child.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
The iPhone, Halfway There
UPDATE: It's really the developer community that makes the iPhone so cool. I complain below about the lack of multitasking, and then I found out that a third party developer has implemented putting running tasks in the background independently of Apple! Very cool. You still need to jailbreak the phone to get this working, and Apple makes it way too difficult to do that (and shouldn't make you need to do it in the first place).
I've had my iPhone 3G for a few months now, and I think I've finally put my finger on what's wrong with it.
Please understand, it's the best phone I've ever had; definitely a step up from my Treo. It does the phone things well enough, and much more besides. It's probably the most beautiful piece of tech I've ever seen. However, it has intensely frustrated me, and it's taken me a while to figure out why.
Everything it does it only does halfway. For instance:
* It surfs the internet. However, it doesn't play flash, and although it does a pretty good job of rendering large, complicated pages that wouldn't normally be useful on a device of this size, it's still extremely painful to access those types of pages.
* I can type on it, but it's not pleasant to do so. I could easily operate my Treo with one hand; it's much more difficult to do that on the iPhone. So, since the iPhone supports Bluetooth (and USB, I think), it seems the perfect candidate for an external keyboard, but there are none.
* It plays music, and pretty well. However, the music has to be synchronized by iTunes from your computer, and even then it is limited to Apple-vetted formats. Even iTunes on the Mac can use plugins for Ogg, FLAC, etc., but those won't help you on the iPhone.
* It plays movies, beautifully (for a device of this size), but again, only Apple's vetted formats. Even if you want to play an mpeg4 movie file that plays fine on your Mac it probably won't play on the iPhone. And you have to sync the movies to the iPhone through iTunes. I don't want to keep all my movies in iTunes; it's a pain in the butt.
* iTunes on the Mac can play Internet radio streams. iTunes on the iPhone cannot, which leads me to:
* MacOSX can multitask, so why can't the iPhone? On my Treo I could listen to Internet radio in the background while I did other things, but not on the iPhone. Only a few official Apple apps can run in the background on the iPhone; what a waste!
* The iPhone has wonderful networking capabilities, and the UNIX operating system; as a UNIX geek, these things were the reasons I finally made the purchase of the iPhone. All the pieces are there for me to have a portable, networked UNIX computer, and yet Apple goes out of it's way to not only not support that sort of use, but to block others that try to add it. I don't get it.
I could go on and on. Every single feature is implemented well, but with about half of the possible. As an engineer of sorts, it really drives me nuts. Are all of these limitations due to commercial concerns? Sometimes business practices are really painful.
I've had my iPhone 3G for a few months now, and I think I've finally put my finger on what's wrong with it.
Please understand, it's the best phone I've ever had; definitely a step up from my Treo. It does the phone things well enough, and much more besides. It's probably the most beautiful piece of tech I've ever seen. However, it has intensely frustrated me, and it's taken me a while to figure out why.
Everything it does it only does halfway. For instance:
* It surfs the internet. However, it doesn't play flash, and although it does a pretty good job of rendering large, complicated pages that wouldn't normally be useful on a device of this size, it's still extremely painful to access those types of pages.
* I can type on it, but it's not pleasant to do so. I could easily operate my Treo with one hand; it's much more difficult to do that on the iPhone. So, since the iPhone supports Bluetooth (and USB, I think), it seems the perfect candidate for an external keyboard, but there are none.
* It plays music, and pretty well. However, the music has to be synchronized by iTunes from your computer, and even then it is limited to Apple-vetted formats. Even iTunes on the Mac can use plugins for Ogg, FLAC, etc., but those won't help you on the iPhone.
* It plays movies, beautifully (for a device of this size), but again, only Apple's vetted formats. Even if you want to play an mpeg4 movie file that plays fine on your Mac it probably won't play on the iPhone. And you have to sync the movies to the iPhone through iTunes. I don't want to keep all my movies in iTunes; it's a pain in the butt.
* iTunes on the Mac can play Internet radio streams. iTunes on the iPhone cannot, which leads me to:
* MacOSX can multitask, so why can't the iPhone? On my Treo I could listen to Internet radio in the background while I did other things, but not on the iPhone. Only a few official Apple apps can run in the background on the iPhone; what a waste!
* The iPhone has wonderful networking capabilities, and the UNIX operating system; as a UNIX geek, these things were the reasons I finally made the purchase of the iPhone. All the pieces are there for me to have a portable, networked UNIX computer, and yet Apple goes out of it's way to not only not support that sort of use, but to block others that try to add it. I don't get it.
I could go on and on. Every single feature is implemented well, but with about half of the possible. As an engineer of sorts, it really drives me nuts. Are all of these limitations due to commercial concerns? Sometimes business practices are really painful.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Strange and Fishy
I haven't seen this before; evidently with the thaw yesterday a lot of the fish in the pond swam to the top of the ice and then couldn't get back under before they froze. There were several of these fishy lineups. Very strange.
Monday, December 22, 2008
After the Lord of the Rings
This post is dedicated to those that have read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and perhaps the Hobbit, and wish to dig a little deeper into Middle-Earth. Tolkien's fiction is unique in it's depth and lends itself well to further reading, but where do you start?
Tolkien's son Christopher, a professor of English Literature in his own right, has released many books relating to, editing and sometimes even finishing his father's works. The obvious first choices are The Silmarilion and The Children of Hurin. The are both indispensable, in my opinion; in particular, the Silmarillion has much of interest to LotR fans, including the origins of Sauron, an explanation of what a Balrog is, where dragons came from, and so much more, including a retelling of the creation and early history of the world, from the point of view of Tolkien's elves! It ends with the history of the events leading up to the War of the Ring itself. However, at best, it is a much more difficult read than LotR or the Hobbit, since Tolkien never meant it to be a linear story, and much of it is written in an archaic style of English.
My real suggestions are a little more off the beaten track:
I'd also like to mention a work with a hidden treasure, The War of the Ring, Part 3. A slim book in the series of Christopher Tolkien's books about his father's writings, it has one truly outstanding piece, Tolkien's original Epilogue to the Lord of the Rings, a sweet story from the life of Sam Gamgee in the Shire AFTER Frodo and Bilbo sail into the west.
Tolkien's son Christopher, a professor of English Literature in his own right, has released many books relating to, editing and sometimes even finishing his father's works. The obvious first choices are The Silmarilion and The Children of Hurin. The are both indispensable, in my opinion; in particular, the Silmarillion has much of interest to LotR fans, including the origins of Sauron, an explanation of what a Balrog is, where dragons came from, and so much more, including a retelling of the creation and early history of the world, from the point of view of Tolkien's elves! It ends with the history of the events leading up to the War of the Ring itself. However, at best, it is a much more difficult read than LotR or the Hobbit, since Tolkien never meant it to be a linear story, and much of it is written in an archaic style of English.
My real suggestions are a little more off the beaten track:
- Unfinished Tales It contains several stories and other works relating to Middle-Earth, from what Tolkien refers to as the First, Second and Third ages. This is by far my favorite of Christopher Tolkien's works on his father. For an LotR fan it has many special treasures, including:
- unpublished essays on the wizards (such as Gandalf and Saruman) and the Palantiri (the far-seeing crystal balls)
- a compilation of several unfinished essays on the origins and history of Galadriel and Celeborn of Lothlorien
- a "historical" essay about the Ringwraithes' hunt for the ring in the Shire and elsewhere
- an unpublished story of the history of the Hobbit, from Gandalf's point of view!
- much more
- unpublished essays on the wizards (such as Gandalf and Saruman) and the Palantiri (the far-seeing crystal balls)
- Professor Tom Shippey's non-fiction book The Road to Middle Earth. Professor Shippey more or less followed in Tolkien's footsteps in academia, and has much interesting information about the inspirations for Tolkien's work in ancient English history and literature. I find this sort of thing terribly interesting. There must have been a mythology available to the Germanic inhabitants of post-Roman England, equivalent to that of the old Norse, but we only have tantalizing hints about these, evidently due to the lack of writing by the pre-literate English and also because of active suppression, first by the church and later by the Normans after the invasion of 1066. Professor Shippey shows us many of these hints and how Tolkien developed them into a new "English" mythology. Wonderful stuff.
I'd also like to mention a work with a hidden treasure, The War of the Ring, Part 3. A slim book in the series of Christopher Tolkien's books about his father's writings, it has one truly outstanding piece, Tolkien's original Epilogue to the Lord of the Rings, a sweet story from the life of Sam Gamgee in the Shire AFTER Frodo and Bilbo sail into the west.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Suggestion to the Car Companies
I don't want to see the car companies fail; I think the fallout would be terrible. But I do believe that there should be MAJOR conditions attached to bailing them out, including the ousting of all the current management.
However, I'd like to make a suggestion to the car companies, something that they should do without being forced to, something terribly symbolic of what their attitudes should be going forward: no more lobbyists. Fire them all, and promise to never again attempt to turn public policy in their interests.
If you think about it, the car companies have run themselves into the ground by their own inflexibility; they opposed all safety and environmental regulations and ended up making their recent money by exploiting a loophole in the current regulations, the one that allowed SUVs to exist. If car companies no longer lobbied, they would be tacitly committing to deal with the world as it is, rather than as they'd like to see it. I think that would be wonderful symbolic gesture, and car manufacturers, wouldn't that make your jobs more interesting? ;)
However, I'd like to make a suggestion to the car companies, something that they should do without being forced to, something terribly symbolic of what their attitudes should be going forward: no more lobbyists. Fire them all, and promise to never again attempt to turn public policy in their interests.
If you think about it, the car companies have run themselves into the ground by their own inflexibility; they opposed all safety and environmental regulations and ended up making their recent money by exploiting a loophole in the current regulations, the one that allowed SUVs to exist. If car companies no longer lobbied, they would be tacitly committing to deal with the world as it is, rather than as they'd like to see it. I think that would be wonderful symbolic gesture, and car manufacturers, wouldn't that make your jobs more interesting? ;)
Friday, March 28, 2008
Mini Review of the Sanyo Xacti HD1000
This isn't meant to be a comprehensive review, but I really enjoy this device and would like to share my thoughts about it.
To begin with, I've now owned three Xacti devices, and although I always enjoyed the sensation I would cause when I pulled one out, I had been rather disappointed by the performance of the cameras.
The HD1000 is another kettle of fish entirely; I am very pleased with almost all aspects of the performance of the device. Now, you shouldn't expect a $700 device to have the performance of a $3K pro HD camcorder, but I am very happy with the quality of the video. In any kind of decent light it is very nice looking and very HD. However, unlike earlier Xactis, it is not totally useless in low light; the picture degrades in a pleasant way and is still quite watchable.
The HD1000 has compromised still picture size for better HD movie quality (rightly, IMHO). However, even though the stills are limited to 4 MP, I am quite pleased with the way they look, especially the colors. If 4 MP is large enough for your needs (and I never need to blow up beyond 8x10, so I'm fine with it) I think you will be pleased with the still quality of this little camcorder.
The audio sounds good. I recorded a bunch of video at a rock show and the camcorder was able to handle the sound pressure level nicely.
I was unable to test HDMI output, but the component output from the camera dock works very well. I wish the camera had some kind of digital audio out to go with the component video (it has stereo analog only), but that's a nit pick, really; I'm out of HD inputs on my receiver and it's a pain to switch an input to analog just for plugging in the camcorder.
The PS3 is able to play the videos directly from the SD card, or from the internal hard drive. A DVD is evidently too slow; they'll play, but it'll be choppy.
If you are interested in buying a Xacti-style camcorder, you are probably (like me) going for form over function a little bit. However, you will probably be quite pleased with the HD1000.
To begin with, I've now owned three Xacti devices, and although I always enjoyed the sensation I would cause when I pulled one out, I had been rather disappointed by the performance of the cameras.
The HD1000 is another kettle of fish entirely; I am very pleased with almost all aspects of the performance of the device. Now, you shouldn't expect a $700 device to have the performance of a $3K pro HD camcorder, but I am very happy with the quality of the video. In any kind of decent light it is very nice looking and very HD. However, unlike earlier Xactis, it is not totally useless in low light; the picture degrades in a pleasant way and is still quite watchable.
The HD1000 has compromised still picture size for better HD movie quality (rightly, IMHO). However, even though the stills are limited to 4 MP, I am quite pleased with the way they look, especially the colors. If 4 MP is large enough for your needs (and I never need to blow up beyond 8x10, so I'm fine with it) I think you will be pleased with the still quality of this little camcorder.
The audio sounds good. I recorded a bunch of video at a rock show and the camcorder was able to handle the sound pressure level nicely.
I was unable to test HDMI output, but the component output from the camera dock works very well. I wish the camera had some kind of digital audio out to go with the component video (it has stereo analog only), but that's a nit pick, really; I'm out of HD inputs on my receiver and it's a pain to switch an input to analog just for plugging in the camcorder.
The PS3 is able to play the videos directly from the SD card, or from the internal hard drive. A DVD is evidently too slow; they'll play, but it'll be choppy.
If you are interested in buying a Xacti-style camcorder, you are probably (like me) going for form over function a little bit. However, you will probably be quite pleased with the HD1000.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Naughty
I blush to admit how much pleasure I get from making naughty passwords and typing them in over and over again.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Tony Blankley, Oh My God
I'm not sure I can listen to Left, Right and Center anymore. I never agree with anything Tony Blankley says, but at least I can usually listen to him; he speaks well and never becomes outraged and hateful like so many other conservative commentators. But a couple of days ago he went on NPR and did an editorial where he said that the CIA throwing away the tapes of waterboarding of prisoners, a clearly illegal act, was exactly the right thing to do because if those tapes ever got out they would make our lies about waterboarding less plausible to the Islamic world.
He also said this on Left, Right and Center, and followed it up by stating that the national interest clearly outweighed the law in cases like this.
I wish there was a nice Facisistic state Tony could go and live in, rather than trying to destroy mine.
He also said this on Left, Right and Center, and followed it up by stating that the national interest clearly outweighed the law in cases like this.
I wish there was a nice Facisistic state Tony could go and live in, rather than trying to destroy mine.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Whipsawed
Listening to random songs in my car. First up: "Larks Tongues in Aspic Pt. II" by King Crimson (live version by the "double trio"). The power, masculinity, intellect and sheer fun of the music makes me pound my steering wheel with my fists as I wait at a light.
Next up: "Polegnala E Todora (Love Song)" by Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgare, to me pretty much the epitome of the beauty, gentleness and (since I don't know the language) mystery of femininity.
Whipsawed by humanity, I cried a little. Sue me.
Next up: "Polegnala E Todora (Love Song)" by Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgare, to me pretty much the epitome of the beauty, gentleness and (since I don't know the language) mystery of femininity.
Whipsawed by humanity, I cried a little. Sue me.
Monday, September 10, 2007
iPhone, good God
I played with one over the weekend, and it is perhaps the most beautiful and intuitive piece of tech I have ever seen. Too many downsides for me to switch now, though: no tethering (using the phone as a modem for my laptop), no ebooks, no 3G, no overseas use. And iTunes is too limited for the various music file formats I want to use, as well as video formats.
Apple has really screwed up doing the exclusivity contract with AT&T, though. Stuff like this:
$4800 iPhone Bill
iPhone Bill Surprisingly Huge
is inexcusable, and really does damage to the brand.
Apple has really screwed up doing the exclusivity contract with AT&T, though. Stuff like this:
$4800 iPhone Bill
iPhone Bill Surprisingly Huge
is inexcusable, and really does damage to the brand.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Why a War "Czar"?
There has been a lot of speculation as to why the President wants to appoint someone to be in charge of prosecuting the war in Iraq (the so-called "War Czar"). As many have suggested, doesn't the Commander in Chief already hold that position?
I don't actually mean this as a "snark", or sarcastic comment, and I don't really even mean it in a cynical way, but I think this might actually be close to the truth: the President is sick of dealing with Iraq, and probably overrode Karl Rove (despite the political problems such a move would cause) to make this happen. He has a history of getting into business situations and failing at them, and then either bailing or getting someone (like his father or his father's friends) to fix the situation for him. This is just true; read anything you like about the history of Bush's business dealings.
Isn't this the most likely reason for such an odd and politically risky move?
I don't actually mean this as a "snark", or sarcastic comment, and I don't really even mean it in a cynical way, but I think this might actually be close to the truth: the President is sick of dealing with Iraq, and probably overrode Karl Rove (despite the political problems such a move would cause) to make this happen. He has a history of getting into business situations and failing at them, and then either bailing or getting someone (like his father or his father's friends) to fix the situation for him. This is just true; read anything you like about the history of Bush's business dealings.
Isn't this the most likely reason for such an odd and politically risky move?
Thursday, May 17, 2007
The new Plasmabat album is now available!
The new Plasmabat album is now available!
http://cdbaby.com/cd/plasmabat2
It is an album of mostly delicate guitar instrumentals, all composed and performed by me (with a little help from my friends Lynda and Serge)
I hope you like it! I've also updated the Plasmabat Myspace page:
http://myspace.com/plasmabat
If you feel like it, do me a big favor and review it!
Hugh
http://cdbaby.com/cd/plasmabat2
It is an album of mostly delicate guitar instrumentals, all composed and performed by me (with a little help from my friends Lynda and Serge)
I hope you like it! I've also updated the Plasmabat Myspace page:
http://myspace.com/plasmabat
If you feel like it, do me a big favor and review it!
Hugh
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Hooray for the New Congress
This is the first time since I've been old enough to know that I have been proud of my Congress. I don't care about the pork, I don't care about the fact that the Prez promised to veto the war spending bill before they even drafted it.
This Congress took a principled stand on the most important issue of the day, and used all the tools they had to make it happen. I'm proud of them.
I am, however, confused about the reaction of the mainstream press. Every story I've read or heard about regarding the bill seems to make the assumption that the President's anticipated veto is not only inevitable but is somehow the Congress' responsibility. That somehow they should have crafted a bill that would both satisfy the public that elected them and the President, without any kind of compromise on his part.
But as far as I remember, the Legislative and the Executive branch are equals, so why doesn't the President have to compromise and the Congress does? The entire country (no, the entire world) know that the President was wrong in his execution of the supposed "war", and yet when the Congress finally expresses the will of the people of the United States, as they should, they are excoriated by our own press.
This is the main stream media that went along with the personal destruction of President Clinton by his political enemies, and the one that allowed George Bush to push his reactionary and constitution-weakening agenda without fear of criticism.
I'm damn sick of it.
This Congress took a principled stand on the most important issue of the day, and used all the tools they had to make it happen. I'm proud of them.
I am, however, confused about the reaction of the mainstream press. Every story I've read or heard about regarding the bill seems to make the assumption that the President's anticipated veto is not only inevitable but is somehow the Congress' responsibility. That somehow they should have crafted a bill that would both satisfy the public that elected them and the President, without any kind of compromise on his part.
But as far as I remember, the Legislative and the Executive branch are equals, so why doesn't the President have to compromise and the Congress does? The entire country (no, the entire world) know that the President was wrong in his execution of the supposed "war", and yet when the Congress finally expresses the will of the people of the United States, as they should, they are excoriated by our own press.
This is the main stream media that went along with the personal destruction of President Clinton by his political enemies, and the one that allowed George Bush to push his reactionary and constitution-weakening agenda without fear of criticism.
I'm damn sick of it.
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