Fuckers (updated with names... again)

Sent my sister a text message about this:

The Senate is set to vote this week on a Pentagon spending bill that could usher in a radical expansion of indefinite detention under the U.S. government. A provision in the National Defense Authorization Act would authorize the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect — anywhere in the world — without charge or trial. The measure would effectively extend the definition of what is considered the military’s "battlefield" to anywhere in the world, even within the United States.

She texted back a one-word response, "Fuckers"

That pretty much sums it up.

Update 1: Here are the lists of senators who voted to keep the indefinite detention in the National Defense Authorization Act; or rather the senators who voted "nay" on an amendment to take the indefinite detention of US citizens out of the bill.

Democrats: http://www.opencongress.org/roll_call/sublist/9543?party=Democrat&vote=Nay

Republicans: http://www.opencongress.org/roll_call/sublist/9543?party=Republican&vote=Nay

And if you scroll down the full list you'll see the lovely Joe Lieberman voting Nay like a good little crony.

Both senators from my home state of Wisconsin, Herb Kohl (D) and Ron Johnson (R) voted to Nay.  I can't say I'm surprised, Wisconsin senators tend to have a flair for the occasional authoritarian freak-out.

I'm not going to waste much time on this tripe, except to link to the ACLU response to the issue.  In fact, I'll even post the quote here, free of charge just for you!

UPDATE I: Don’t be confused by anyone claiming that the indefinite detention legislation does not apply to American citizens. It does. There is an exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032 of the bill), but no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial (section 1031 of the bill). So, the result is that, under the bill, the military has the power to indefinitely imprison American citizens, but it does not have to use its power unless ordered to do so.But you don’t have to believe us. Instead, read what one of the bill’s sponsors,Sen. Lindsey Graham said about it on the Senate floor: “1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.”
There you have it — indefinite military detention of American citizens without charge or trial. And the Senate is likely to vote on it Monday or Tuesday.

Update 2: Ok, so maybe Senator Kohl isn't entirely bad.

David Brooks considers it vanity to be outraged over the rape of a child.

There is more to the article but I think that the end portion sums up all of the key points.

People are really good at self-deception. We attend to the facts we like and suppress the ones we don’t. We inflate our own virtues and predict we will behave more nobly than we actually do. As Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel write in their book, “Blind Spots,” “When it comes time to make a decision, our thoughts are dominated by thoughts of how we want to behave; thoughts of how we should behave disappear.” 

In centuries past, people built moral systems that acknowledged this weakness. These systems emphasized our sinfulness. They reminded people of the evil within themselves. Life was seen as an inner struggle against the selfish forces inside. These vocabularies made people aware of how their weaknesses manifested themselves and how to exercise discipline over them. These systems gave people categories with which to process savagery and scripts to follow when they confronted it. They helped people make moral judgments and hold people responsible amidst our frailties. 

But we’re not Puritans anymore. We live in a society oriented around our inner wonderfulness. So when something atrocious happens, people look for some artificial, outside force that must have caused it — like the culture of college football, or some other favorite bogey. People look for laws that can be changed so it never happens again. 

Commentators ruthlessly vilify all involved from the island of their own innocence. Everyone gets to proudly ask: “How could they have let this happen?” 

The proper question is: How can we ourselves overcome our natural tendency to evade and self-deceive. That was the proper question after Abu Ghraib, Madoff, the Wall Street follies and a thousand other scandals. But it’s a question this society has a hard time asking because the most seductive evasion is the one that leads us to deny the underside of our own nature.

 Did you catch it?  David Brooks believes the problem is that we look at the problems of The System rather than taking Individual Responsibility.  And the reason for this is that we live in a societal system that celebrates our own wonderfulness, rather than reinforcing the idea that we are all sinful, and so we look to systems in society to find the problem.

Yeah.  This guy is a fucking moron.

Ignite the very air: Playlist for the fall.

Jackbooted oppression got you down?  Here are my musical picks for the uprising.

(Yeah yeah yeah, fuck Myspace.)

Wormz - by Red Harvest. [Industrialized Thrash Metal] "Chase the bastard, bring him down, bury the fucker underground."  Dissent will not be tolerated, as the treatment of Bradley Manning and the OWS protesters has made more than clear.

Symbol of Decay - by Red Harvest. [Post-Industrial Electronica(?)] Sweeping melancholy inspired by the death and decay of a once thriving industrial city.

Smash the Control Machine - by Otep. [Nu Metal (wait! It's actually good music!)] "Then they outsourced my job and gave a raise to my boss.  You bailed out your banks and billed me for the loss..."

Just One Fix - by Ministry. [Industrial Metal] "Like if I boarded a train, trying to take in another station.  Join us and the choice will be made, unless we kill the lies as a nation."

Salem - by Paint it Black. [Hardcore] "my Intelligent Design? No Submission!"

Reject All American - by Bikini Kill. [Riot Ggrrllll]

Helped bury a cat today

Well, it was actually two cats.  One had been cremated years ago and we took the opportunity to bury him with the other kitty.

They were both great cats, neither was mine but it's sad to see them go.

Somewhere I wrote a post where I mentioned that a cat was being annoying by rubbing itself all over my computer screen, that was one of the ones we buried today.  Annoying little kitty who will be missed :')

Ok, so...

If I was right-wing this would probably look really bad.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The "hand to hand combat" part... umm yeah not cool man. Not cool. I know that was figurative, but still.

edit: I mean, hand to hand combat is literally taking place in Oakland right now.  In Ohio the NAACP did good work in the recent vote, but no combat was involved... or maybe I'm just tired and feeling judgmental O.o?

fall...

I was staying with some family this weekend.  Overall things were going well but I started to feel overwhelmed and left early to drive 3 hours back home.  There wasn't anything good on the radio so I put on a Throbbing Gristle album (never a good sign).

A large part of why I left was because I simply cannot stand the person my father has become.  I terrifies me that somebody so intelligent and that I've always felt so much respect for can now so rabidly subscribe to every single thing Glenn Beck says.  My father is convinced that the left-wing islamofascists are about to rise up and drench the streets in blood, and he says (essentially) that he is worried because he thinks I'm too naive to stay out of it.

In one of my university classes we spent a few hours discussing the Spanish Civil War last week.  My professor mentioned the painting Autumnal Cannibalism by Salvador Dali.  I've had that image burned into my brain ever since.  I can't stop thinking about that war, the so-called Red and White Terrors.

I decided to get in contact with one of the local Socialist (gasp/shock/horror) groups.  I gave my phone number to a very attractive female (too old to be a 'girl', still feels uncomfortable calling someone my age a 'woman') and mentally I was thinking something along the lines of "is this how it begins?"

In retrospect I find it disturbing how that question had nothing to do with the immediate social interaction.  There was nothing in my mind along the lines of, "Yay!  The Cute Girl wants to talk to me again!"  No matter how post-feminist (left-wing feminazi islamofascist?) I try to be that's usually how I would have responded to the situation, even though she was only getting my number so we could coordinate schedules to set up meetings when people didn't have classes.

Instead I just had that painting stuck in my head alongside my father's lunatic ravings, which he shares with all the other Fox News Faithful.  Listening to Throbbing Gristle I remember that there are few things more horrifying than my own species.

I'm terrified of the future.  Sometimes I just hope that I'm insane.

Progressing Away From the Constituion

Was talking with my father about politics.  He said something about how Progressives want to get rid of all private property.  I asked him what he thinks a Progressive is.

He responded "Progressives are people who want to progress away from the Constitution."

How the fuck am I supposed to have a rational conversation with somebody who refuses to consider any other possible explanation of what I believe?  It doesn't matter what I say or how clearly I try to explain the error, my dad is convinced that I'm someone who wants "to progress away from the Constitution".

fuckity fuck fuck

gggggrrrrrrrr this did quite a bit to dampen my good mood.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/02/uk-military-iran-attack-nuclear

copy&pasted:

Britain's armed forces are stepping up their contingency planning for potential military action against Iran amid mounting concern about Tehran's nuclear enrichment programme, the Guardian has learned.
The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government.

 It's a good thing we didn't foment the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953 and install a brutal dictatorship, and then fight kicking and screaming when the Iranians rose up and overthrew our chosen regime only to install their own brutal theocracy that hates us more than the government we initially overthrew.  Because then this whole ordeal would seem rather preposterous.

Life feels... good

The whole "Occupy Wall Street" phenomenon has me feeling great.

EVE Online, friends, and my classes are devouring nearly all my time.

Scratched out some time over the weekend to replay some of Legend of Mana for the first time in a decade; that game holds up very well :)

that's all for now...