So I've been thinking about this constitutional law thing. I've been thinking --

What's the point?

Witness the following case study:

In June, 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Bush Administration's policy of detaining foreign nationals without legal process at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station was illegal. The Court determined that the prisoners could not be held in a prison beyond the law, and were entitled to basic legal rights. MacArthur Justice Center attorney Joseph Margulies is the lead counsel for petitioners in Rasul v. Bush.

I recently heard Mr. Margulies interviewed. He described the "legal process" the Bush Administration had established in response to the Supreme Court's decision in Rasul.

The detainees are examined by a military tribunal (not a federal court, as required under Rasul) without access to counsel (also unconstitional, under Rasul) and without even access to the evidence against them (do I need to repeat the U-word? How many times?).

You get it?

They are expected to rebut evidence they're not even allowed to see. Evidence that they face under the presumption of guilt.

This is not American justice. It's Kafka's worst nightmare.

These people have been disappeared. And they'll stay that way until somebody decides, arbitrarily, to let them go.

Fuck constitutional law. The Bush Administration already has.

The truly scary thing is: Under current Administration policies, they can do the same thing to American citizens.

They can do the same thing to you.

They can do the same thing to me.

Anybody out there taking bets if Hurricane Katrina might end up being the American version of the Reichstag fire?

All the people gathered in Washington last weekend to protest the war in Iraq, the War on Terror, the war on whatever the fuck -- you just don't get it.

The war is just an excuse.

All I can say to this is --

WHEEEE!

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/22/politics/22frist.html

My gods, how I hate these bastards.

Hate is not a word I use lightly.

This is unconscionable.

Read it and scream:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/22/opinion/22thur3.html

It does show, however, that Republicans are not all of a stripe: John McCain, at least, is doing his level best to cauterize these festering open sores upon the body politic.

I have, however, little hope for his success. Because I have no doubt that many Democrats will cooperate, Russ Feingold notwithstanding.

As Supreme Chancellor Palpatine so memorably put it: "All those who gain power are afraid to lose it."

Or you can simply quote Stover's Rule of Politics: "Politics is the science of human nature, and so it is governed by the three fundamental principles of human behavior: Greed, Stupidity, and Fear."

Here's one for all you Unclear-on-the-Concept whiners who kept whingeing on and on about Kelo v. New London:

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050920154609990003

Get it, now?

All the Supreme Court did was state that the Constitution does not bar state and local governments from using eminent domain in whimsical ways. This is what the Supreme Court does: interpret the constitutionality of law or legal action. That's all. Sadly, they don't actually rule on whether something is fair, or right (O'Connor's dissent notwistanding -- though I haven't read it in detail, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was based in the first paragraph of the Fourteenth Amendment); though disagreement is possible, this is the current Law of the Land.

The decision, as is noted in the article above, specifically noted that the state, local and federal governments were free to re-write their eminent domain laws to prevent such seizure.

Thus: If you don't like the eminent domain laws where you live, you'd better fucking get busy to elect a local and state government that will write eminent domain laws you're more comfortable with.

Tangential issue:

I got an email this morning from my regular correspondent who goes (on this blog, and on some other forums 'round the 'net) by the handle Shevchyk, concerning some stuff in the Village Voice about the Republicans using the Katrina furor to quietly snuff any Congressional investigation of the Valerie Plame affair without drawing attention from the national press. He closed the email by mumbling in passing something about looking into the idea of becoming a constitutional lawyer.

More power to him.

Canadian or not.

My beloved wife, the Fabulous Robyn, happened to glimpse that over my shoulder this morning. She said, "Shit. You should be a constitutional lawyer."

I said, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

She said, "This country's in a lot of trouble. This is what you care about. It's half of what you write about in your books, and most of what you write about on your blog. Maybe you could do this country a lot more good with a degree in constitutional law."

I said, "I'd be FIFTY YEARS OLD, for Christ's sake."

She said, "So what? At least then the next time you're in DC, you might be able to stand in the Lincoln Memorial without tears in your eyes."

Which is a salient point.

Frank Rich: savage, but always entertaining.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/opinion/18rich.html

He always manages to raise a smile.

Another Victory For Limited Government!

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/16/politics/16blackout.html

A pertinent quote:

"The most serious mistake we can make is pretending that markets do things that they do not do," said Kellan Fluckiger, executive director of the electricity division at the Alberta Department of Energy. "Markets allocate risk, they allocate capital, they provide price signals. Markets do not have a conscience, they do not provide social policy, and they do not do things they are not paid to do."

And for those of you too busy, too apathetic or too disgusted to listen to the Roberts Supreme Court confirmation hearings, here is a useful summary from David Brooks, the brighter of the two house conservatives from the NYTimes OpEd page:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/15/opinion/15brooks.html

It is, in fact, the most incisive column he's ever written.

More Non-Partisan Idiocy:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/15/opinion/15herbert.html

File this one under "Ohhh, Christ, my head hurts . . ."

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/FEMA_outsources_Katrina_body_count_to_firm_implicated_in_bodydumping_scan_0913.html


With thanks to Hawki102, for the link.



File this one also under Non-Partisan Idiocy.

Can the crooked fucking politico change his morals in the face of a deepening national crisis?

The answer, reprinted from Reuters:

--
WASHINGTON (Sept. 10) - Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President George W. Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.

One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton.

Bechtel National Inc., a unit of San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp., has also been selected by FEMA to provide short-term housing for people displaced by the hurricane. Bush named Bechtel's CEO to his Export Council and put the former CEO of Bechtel Energy in charge of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
--

There is more, of course. The article goes on to mention the more than one billion dollars in fraudulent billing KB&R submitted on their sweetheart no-bid contract to provide essential services for Our Proudly Supported (As Long As It Doesn't Cost Us Too Much Money) Troops in Iraq, and that sort of thing.

The slugline was:

FIRMS WITH BUSH TIES SNAG FIRST KATRINA CONTRACTS.


I would say something along the lines of "Fuck me like a goat," but the Administration, apparently, has that part covered. So to speak.

Jesus stinking bloody Christ on a stick.

As much as it pains me to write anything that may be construed as in any way defending our multiply-criminal Bush Administration, when the Hurricane Katrina accusations fly thick and fast, it will be worthwhile for the cognoscenti to bear in mind the first corollary to Caine's Law:

Whenever somebody tells you things are simple, they're trying to sell you something.



And that, my friends, is about as far as I'm gonna go into the Who's At Fault business, too.

And another thing

Bill Moyers has the right of it.

As usual.

Read, and shudder:

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050909/911_and_the_sport_of_god.php

Those of you who have read JERICHO MOON, of course, are already familiar with his Old Testament exegesis. The rest, however, is pertinent.



Ahh, fuck.

Why didn't *I* "preserve my political viability"?

I have been waiting to comment on the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

This is, as we have all seen by now, another disaster that did not have to be a disaster.

This is a graphic illustration of the collision of ideology with reality.

That's all I have to say.

Everything interesting happens in the dead zone . . .




One of my favorite cartoons of all time has a physicist in front of a huge blackboard that is filled with this vast, intricate, insanely complex calculation, checking his work with obvious satisfaction. All the way at the bottom, right in front of the final "=1", there's a parenthetical notation that reads:

"Here, a miracle happens."




When I plot a novel, most of it is scenes that I can jump into inside my head: it's like opening them on a hard drive, or accessing them on DVD. I touch them, and I'm there. These are easy for me to write, because I'm literally inside the scene and all I have to do is transcribe what happens: what's there, what it looks like, sounds like, smells like, feels like, who does what to whom, whatever.

But in between those scenes there are always "dead zones." Places where I know what's supposed to happen, but I can't quite see it. It's only mist. I can't bring it into focus.

Now, I can carve that mist into workable shapes. I can make a quality scene out of just about anything. I've done it, and I can do it again. But, y'know . . .

I keep discovering those dead zones are there for a reason.

Those of you who read the Caine novels know that they tend to be Big Picture stories -- that even though they take place in short periods of time and are focussed on specific incidents and problems, the fundamental interconnectedness of reality in my personal universe means that a story about anything is also a story about Everything . . .

When I stare into a dead zone long enough, the mist begins to clear, and son of a bitch, y'know, what I knew was supposed to happen wasn't supposed to happen at all. Or not the way I thought. And the story gets better than I thought it was going to be.

Who's in charge here, anyway?

Where's Bakker? I need a Derrida expert, because I'm beginning to suspect that the author really is irrelevant.




Everything interesting happens in the dead zone . . .

Just when you thought it was safe to read this blog again . . .

http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4133&n=2

Y'know, I was gonna leave the whole ID thing behind. I was bored with it. But those Onion guys rule.

That's all.

Thanks to Chris Billet for the above URL . . .

People.

Shut up for a minute.

This is NOT about whether there is a Higher Power in the universe. Or more than one universe. Or whatever the fuck.

Personally: I do not believe in the "supernatural." Because the "natural" is plenty -- it is, in fact, everything. I am a pagan pantheist. To me, there is nothing that is not God.

Not even President Bush, but let that go . . .

I've been haunted by real, actual ghosts (as those who followed my RotS tour blog will recall). I do energy work; I have felt the power of kundalini and chi (which ain't the same thing, by the way -- and don't argue with me, I speak from experience), as well as reiki. I am, in fact, a reiki master. I have felt things -- and done things -- that science cannot explain.

I know things exist beyond the realm of current scientific verification.

Shit, that's why I write fantasy. Because novels without magick are not the truth.

However, none of these phenomena are supernatural. They are natural. We just don't have the science to measure them yet.

Which means WE SHOULDN'T BE TEACHING THEM IN SCIENCE CLASS.

Get it? Science is not about whether something is true. Science is about whether something is verifiable.

You want to talk about truth, go study philosophy.

And Intelligent Design is the WORST thing we could be teaching in a public school science class, because it is an EXPLICIT STATE ENDORSEMENT OF A RELIGIOUS DOCTRINE.

Period.


Those of you who are interested in the politics of it might want to check out Paul Krugman's column in today's NYTimes.


[an aside to David Welch --

Holy Shit, dude -- doesn't a Major League pitcher make enough money to get a decent education? Or have the 'roids gone to your brain?

But thanks so much for playing. Vanna, show him his parting gifts.]

Just for a change of pace . . .

I'm NOT gonna bash Bush for being a moron.

He is, but this time I'm after the press.

So Shrub gets up on his hind legs and tells some TexAss reporters that he believes "the theory of intelligent design" should be taught alongside the theory of evolution in our nation's science classes, because students should be exposed to both sides of the debate.

So he's a moron. As is anyone else who thinks "intelligent design" is science.

I don't have a problem with the argument itself. It may even have some merit. I'm no atheist -- personally, I agree with Stephen Colbert that atheists are merely people who have chosen to abandon the worship of a higher being in favor of worshipping their own sense of smug superiority. [Sorry, Scotty -- but you've gotta admit it's a pretty good line. What do you expect from a guy with a Libertarian moustache?]

I don't even have any problem with Intelligent Design being taught -- but it should be confined to social studies classes, where it belongs. Unless you're in a religious school, in which case they can teach you whatever they want, as long as they're not using my tax dollars to do it.

This is why I'm after the press.

They keep saying "the THEORY of intelligent design" [caps mine, of course], sometimes in the same breath with the theory of evolution.

Let me say this nice and loud, so there is no misunderstanding, here:

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A THEORY OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN.

Not in the scientific sense.

That pisses me off as much as the idiots who keep saying, "Well, Eeevil-ution's just a THEORY . . ."

Which is why I'm gonna take a minute here an explain to the morons -- which include, I'm sad to say, our national press corps -- what a theory is in the scientific sense.

It is, at its most basic form, a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena.

When one moves a theory into the scientific realm, however, one adds the element of testability.

Let me say that again.

TESTABILITY, YOU MORONS.

That is: you can use the theory to generate new hypotheses about as-yet unobserved phenomena, which can then be investigated. If they prove to be consistent with the theory, then the theory stands. If they are not, the theory is changed until it is consistent with ALL OBSERVED FACTS.

With evolution, we can even observe its action in short-lived organisms in a junior-high biology lab. We see it in action every day. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria, anyone? Anyone? Mr. Bush? Senator Frist?

THERE IS NO TESTABLE HYPOTHESIS FOR INTELLIGENT DESIGN.

Not one.

We cannot see Intelligent Design in action. It is BY DEFINITION mysterious and unknowable, occurring by the action of a deliberately-undefined supernatural force.

Therefore it is not a theory. It cannot be a theory.

STOP CALLING IT A THEORY, YOU MORONS.

Call it an argument. Call it an explanation. A rationale. Call it a Faith-Based Program -- the Bushitters love those. You're goddamn journalists, aren't you? Isn't it your job to get the facts?

The fact is: it's not a theory. When you call it one, you're engaging in partisan rhetoric, not journalism.

What does it take to get through to these people?

Sure, they don't have science educations -- but neither do I. My college degree was in THEATRE, for shit's sake.

Get it right.

Hey, everybody

Hey, everybody . . .

Haven't been around much lately. I'll try to get better. Too busy with the book, and with living my life . . .

Random thoughts from the meanwhile:

Been thinking quite a bit about Nixon lately. Y'know, it was the Republicans who got rid of him -- after the press finally got off their asses. Well, the American press is slowly coming to life, but there is no sign that the Republicans will ever turn against Bush.

This, to my view, springs from one fundamental distinction between the two presidents: Nixon was poor white trash. [Well, not trash exactly, but the point remains. By comparison, anyway.]

Bush comes from the WASP Mafia -- and the Bush Family is legendary for the vengeance it wreaks upon its enemies . . .


Watch Saudi Arabia now that Fahd's really gone -- Abdullah looks like an honest man, who honestly hates our guts. He's an actual enemy of Islamist terrorism -- the word is that most of the real SA progress against the Islamist whackos has come directly from him -- but apparently he also hates the whole "looting the country and funnelling the cash through American oil companies" way of doing business, too . . .

Our relations with Saudi Arabia are about to get interesting, I think.


Our relations with Pakistan will continue to be See No Evil, despite the fact(s) that Pakistan is a totalitarian military dictatorship that sold nuclear weapons technology to North Korea (now common knowledge), despite the fact that Pakistan airlifted Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters out of the siege of Kandahar (cf. Seymour Hersh's CHAIN OF COMMAND), despite the fact that any woman, in that nation, who reports a rape can still to this day be routinely prosecuted for adultery unless she can producce FOUR MALE WITNESSES TO THE CRIME (cf. Nicholas Kristof's recent reports in the NYTimes for case histories).

But they're an Important Ally in the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism.

For shit's sake.


And, in an entirely non-political note, I just wanted to let all you Caine fans know that the way things are going, it looks like I will successfully achieve my goal of fucking off the whole multiple-third viewpoint for CAINE BLACK KNIFE.

That's right.

Those of you who thought that the main problem with BLADE OF TYSHALLE was that Caine just Wasn't In It Enough, well . . .

I'm gonna make you very, very happy.

And those of you who felt that there just hasn't been enough Balls-Out Asskicking?

You're gonna be happy, too.

A Festival of Fools

Christ, it's fun to bitchslap the troll, isn't it?

From his consistent misuse of basic English and inability to punctuate, I presume there's just one. There might be two, though I hope the odds would be against it -- one shudders to think that two minds might similarly compose with such astonishing anti-erudition.

Here's the funny thing:

This blog's more active when I DON'T post here.

I am, however, curious just what it was the troll wanted someone to "say to a Special Forces face" [sic]. Whatever it was, I'll happily say it to HIS face. Words are just words. Whoever said "Words can hit as hard as a fist" didn't train at my school.

At any rate, we stumble merrily along. I can hardly wait to see Karl Rove under federal indictment. Any bets on whether Patrick Fitzgerald has the stones to really throw the book at him? My money's on "inadvertent disclosure," and criminal case closed . . . until the Wilsons file a civil suit. That's where the fun will REALLY start.

Wonder if the Supreme Court will follow precedent and let the Wilsons' lawyers depose a sitting President?

By the way, I've stopped agitating for a Bush impeachment -- that'd leave Cheney in power, which would be worse. Bush at least still looks a little embarrassed when he lies. As ineffectual as they've been lately (i.e. Social Security), I'm wondering if the country might not be better off if we just left them in place, safely neutered, until 2008 . . .

Can I just say here how wonderful it is that President Bush has declared all America is a hostage?

That we now have no choice but to stick to the bloody course his lies have set for us?

Gosh, that's swell.

Especially considering that we have managed to make Iraq into the planet's #1 training ground for international terrorists.

Especially considering that we still haven't even won the bloody war in AFGHANISTAN.

That helicopter full of our Best and Brightest -- gods help us: Airborne special forces and Navy SEALs on a rescue mission -- was shot down (which their courage and splendid skills doesn't exactly help them survive, y'know?) by the fucking TALIBAN.

Does anybody remember them?

That war's not over. But we don't have enough people left to fight it. Because we're consumed with Bush's uselessly stupid political adventure in Iraq.

I'm a little angry about this.

Can the War in Iraq be won? Very likely.

Can it be won by the idiots in the current Administration?

I don't see it. I just don't see it.

I'm going now.

Shit, people think my BOOKS are dark. They should talk to some of these poor bastards to have to live through what's going on over there.

And I don't mean just the Americans.