Terrible stuff in Ft. Hood today.
Archives for 2009
Afghanistan
I have to admit that I don’t have a very strong opinion about Afghanistan. I don’t understand the situation at all, I understand that, unlike Iraq, there may have been good reasons to go in, and I also understand that those reasons may or may not have anything to do with whether or not the United States should stay there and that staying there costs a lot of money and demands a huge sacrifice from our servicemen.
In any case, I was impressed with this speech about why we should get out, from my Congressman, Eric Massa:
Open Thread
Comrade Luke, Paris.
Shawn, Stockholm Harbor.
Email me a link to your one or two favorite pics on a photo site like Flickr (do not send the image itself please) and I will put up favorites in open threads. Send a short caption if you want one.
***Update***
To view all of the photo posts at Balloon Juice, click the ‘photo blogging’ tag at the bottom of the post.
Kick It Up a Notch
Cold and overcast here and I am working from home, so I am making some vegetable beef soup. So far, I’ve got the beef stock cooking, and plan on adding celery, carrots, tomatoes, leeks, potatoes, green beans, and peas.
Any ideas for something unexpected or different beyond a traditional vegetable soup?
Where Do They Go From Here?
Sully had a great perspective on the defeat of the gay rights measure in Maine:
The hard truth is: people are still afraid of this, and our opponents knew how to target their fears very precisely. They have honed it to an art – their prime argument now is that although adults can handle gay equality, children cannot. And so they play straight to heterosexuals whose personal comfort with gay people is fine but who sure don’t want their kids to turn out that way. One way to prevent kids turning out that way, the equality opponents argue, is to ensure that they never hear of gay people, except in a marginalized, scary, alien fashion. And this referendum was clearly a vote in which the desire to keep gay people invisible trumped the urge to treat them equally.
I honestly don’t know where the gay rights movement goes from here. There have been some recent successes- there seems to be some movement on DADT, an openly gay mayor was elected in North Carolina, Washington state passed a gay rights bill, Obama signed the Shephard legislation, the HIV ban was lifted, and some other victories in other states in recent years. At the same time, I understand (as much as I can) the anger and the frustration. They did the right things- they had bills passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, followed the legitimate political process, and unlike any other civil rights issue, laws are only temporary for gays and a year later it gets overturned in referendums. It has to be maddening, and I have no answers. About the only thing I can do is to stop being a jerk and openly taunting gay bloggers when I think they are doing something stupid or flailing pointlessly at the administration, because at this point I can’t think anything other than that they have every right to be pissed. I don’t know if it will work, but maybe the only recourse left for the gay rights movement is legitimate anger. Nothing else seems to be working.
But How Will We Pay For It?
Will be interesting to see if Obama folds on this:
The nation’s top military officer said Wednesday that he expected the Pentagon to ask Congress in the next few months for emergency financing to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though President Obama has pledged to end the Bush administration practice of paying for the conflicts with so-called supplemental funds that are outside the normal Defense Department budget.
The financing would be on top of the $130 billion that Congress authorized for the wars just last month.
Personally, I think it would be supremely irresponsible to act on this legislation without seeing the CBO score. I’m hoping Max Baucus and the blue dogs will get on that, because I’d like to know how this legislation will pay for itself. I suggest we put this off a few months to talk about the costs and how we are robbing future generations.
Oh, wait. This is for the military. Never mind.
You Just Can’t Handle the Truth
It has now been about 36 hours since the most definitive victory for conservatism ever, yet according to my sources, Obama is still President, the Senate still has 60 Democrats, and the House gained a Democrat.
I guess you have to live in the beltway or work for a cable network to truly understand election results.