Thursday, July 17, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Barack Rebuttal.
So I got an email from the Obama campaign after I sent them an angry letter. Looks like they were anticipating many an angry letter on this topic, so they had a boilerplate response. I think it looks pretty good -- I mean, I'm still annoyed at the politics of the thing, but less so at Obama. By the way, doesn't "Barack Rebuttal" sound like someone with a hideously fake asian accent saying "Brocolli Butter?"
Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders.
That is why last year I opposed the so-called Protect America Act, which expanded the surveillance powers of the government without sufficient independent oversight to protect the privacy and civil liberties of innocent Americans. I have also opposed the granting of retroactive immunity to those who were allegedly complicit in acts of illegal spying in the past.
After months of negotiation, the House passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year's Protect America Act. Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President's illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance - making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future.
It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I voted in the Senate three times to remove this provision so that we could seek full accountability for past offenses. Unfortunately, these attempts were unsuccessful. But this compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward. By demanding oversight and accountability, a grassroots movement of Americans has helped yield a bill that is far better than the Protect America Act.
It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives - and the liberty - of the American people.
Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. There is also little doubt that the Bush Administration, with the cooperation of major telecommunications companies, has abused that authority and undermined the Constitution by intercepting the communications of innocent Americans without their knowledge or the required court orders.
That is why last year I opposed the so-called Protect America Act, which expanded the surveillance powers of the government without sufficient independent oversight to protect the privacy and civil liberties of innocent Americans. I have also opposed the granting of retroactive immunity to those who were allegedly complicit in acts of illegal spying in the past.
After months of negotiation, the House passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year's Protect America Act. Under this compromise legislation, an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue, but the President's illegal program of warrantless surveillance will be over. It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance - making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law and disregard the civil liberties of the American people. It also firmly re-establishes basic judicial oversight over all domestic surveillance in the future.
It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I voted in the Senate three times to remove this provision so that we could seek full accountability for past offenses. Unfortunately, these attempts were unsuccessful. But this compromise guarantees a thorough review by the Inspectors General of our national security agencies to determine what took place in the past, and ensures that there will be accountability going forward. By demanding oversight and accountability, a grassroots movement of Americans has helped yield a bill that is far better than the Protect America Act.
It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives - and the liberty - of the American people.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Business as usual? Yes we can.
Sigh. So Barack Obama is a regular ol' politician after all. Sure, he's still a politician with better ideas and viewpoints than his opponent in the presidential election, but the brief moment when we believed he wasn't politics-as-usual has passed. That carefully crafted image of a guy who sticks to his guns and crosses party lines to defend the common folk is just that: a facade. Underneath there's still that same ol' cynicism.
What I'm talking about is Obama's vote in favor of renewing the FISA act. That bill expands the government's ability to spy on us without warrants, and grants retroactive immunity to the companies who helped W. break the law before. It legitimizes and codifies some of the more heinous civil liberties infringements that this administration has perpetrated upon us and gives truly scary powers to the executive branch.
Obama's "yea" vote is stunningly cynical, the opposite of the personable, deeply compassionate facade he puts forth: those who find this vote repugnant, like me, aren't going to vote for McCain, so we'll still vote for him. And now he can appeal to those who were worried he's not tough on "the terrists," not committed to "MER-ka." I mean, way to go if it helps him get elected, but the stench of having voted yes to George W.'s Orwellian wet dream isn't going to go away soon.
Worse yet, those who favor the bill are still using the old "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" defense. And people are still buying it. Even a tiny little bit of thought would give the lie to that argument: once the government has the right to spy on you without cause, they always have it, and they can use it against whomever they like. The enemy du jour is the terrorist, which is already problematic (due to the notion that anyone who doesn't genuflect in front of the flag 24/7 while praising W. is a terrorist). But what if the next folks they go after are environmentalists? Or vegetarians? Or Christians? We've given the government a big ol' gun, and people are fine with it because at the moment it isn't pointed at them.
What I'm talking about is Obama's vote in favor of renewing the FISA act. That bill expands the government's ability to spy on us without warrants, and grants retroactive immunity to the companies who helped W. break the law before. It legitimizes and codifies some of the more heinous civil liberties infringements that this administration has perpetrated upon us and gives truly scary powers to the executive branch.
Obama's "yea" vote is stunningly cynical, the opposite of the personable, deeply compassionate facade he puts forth: those who find this vote repugnant, like me, aren't going to vote for McCain, so we'll still vote for him. And now he can appeal to those who were worried he's not tough on "the terrists," not committed to "MER-ka." I mean, way to go if it helps him get elected, but the stench of having voted yes to George W.'s Orwellian wet dream isn't going to go away soon.
Worse yet, those who favor the bill are still using the old "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" defense. And people are still buying it. Even a tiny little bit of thought would give the lie to that argument: once the government has the right to spy on you without cause, they always have it, and they can use it against whomever they like. The enemy du jour is the terrorist, which is already problematic (due to the notion that anyone who doesn't genuflect in front of the flag 24/7 while praising W. is a terrorist). But what if the next folks they go after are environmentalists? Or vegetarians? Or Christians? We've given the government a big ol' gun, and people are fine with it because at the moment it isn't pointed at them.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
The roof, the roof, the roof is on water.
We don't need no fire, let the motherf***er leak!
I have some cautious hope about the state of the roof today, after a visit from yet another contractor. He's the kind of contractor I like: a sixty-year-old dude who has been fixing roofs for years and isn't interested in milking every last dime out of a young guy who is starting a family. Looks like he might return an estimate that's substantially lower, for the same amount of work. Go, old dudes!
Now if I could just stop my cats from believing that the entire basement is a litterbox, life would be grand.
I have some cautious hope about the state of the roof today, after a visit from yet another contractor. He's the kind of contractor I like: a sixty-year-old dude who has been fixing roofs for years and isn't interested in milking every last dime out of a young guy who is starting a family. Looks like he might return an estimate that's substantially lower, for the same amount of work. Go, old dudes!
Now if I could just stop my cats from believing that the entire basement is a litterbox, life would be grand.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
My leaky little boat...
So after the last rain, we noticed some sizable bubbles in the ceiling in our bedroom. As they dried, they cracked, and the next rain will start the dripping. This makes me nervous, as I'd like to be shoveling money into a "Baby Dagmar Provision Fund," but all the ready cash (and a lot of credit) is going into just keeping our heads, feet, and furniture dry.
I think there's a song in all of this, and I'll have to take a day and write it up. I can feel it percolating in the back of my brain; something along the lines of Blues Traveler's "The Mountains Win Again," called "Water Always Wins." Knowing me, it'll start with the futile hopelessness of trying to keep it out, and end with a celebration of how water will always find a way. I try to be pessimistic, but it just doesn't work.
I'm currently cherishing in my mind the image of my wonderful wife on the 4th of July. We spent most of the day kicking back under a tree in a public park, and as it got dark, we broke out the sparklers. She was tired and had a headache and was feelin' the pregnancy, but she took a sparkler in each hand and danced around, lit by a gentle green glow, her face radiant. I looked at her and my heart leapt and I fell in love all over again. You'd think that two years of marriage, plus two more years of co-habitation, plus two more years of being together, would mean we could stop acting like newlyweds, already. Personally, I hope we'll still be baby-talking each other at Baby Dagmar's high school graduation.
As I said to Jess the other day, "it's a good thing that we love each other. Because that means all these other problems we come up against, we can solve. Most of them boil down to money, and money comes and goes pretty predictably. If we didn't love each other, we would only have one problem -- but it'd be the one problem that can't be solved."
Friends, I'm no genius, but occasionally I say a true thing. Even a blind pig finds an acorn every once in a while.
I think there's a song in all of this, and I'll have to take a day and write it up. I can feel it percolating in the back of my brain; something along the lines of Blues Traveler's "The Mountains Win Again," called "Water Always Wins." Knowing me, it'll start with the futile hopelessness of trying to keep it out, and end with a celebration of how water will always find a way. I try to be pessimistic, but it just doesn't work.
I'm currently cherishing in my mind the image of my wonderful wife on the 4th of July. We spent most of the day kicking back under a tree in a public park, and as it got dark, we broke out the sparklers. She was tired and had a headache and was feelin' the pregnancy, but she took a sparkler in each hand and danced around, lit by a gentle green glow, her face radiant. I looked at her and my heart leapt and I fell in love all over again. You'd think that two years of marriage, plus two more years of co-habitation, plus two more years of being together, would mean we could stop acting like newlyweds, already. Personally, I hope we'll still be baby-talking each other at Baby Dagmar's high school graduation.
As I said to Jess the other day, "it's a good thing that we love each other. Because that means all these other problems we come up against, we can solve. Most of them boil down to money, and money comes and goes pretty predictably. If we didn't love each other, we would only have one problem -- but it'd be the one problem that can't be solved."
Friends, I'm no genius, but occasionally I say a true thing. Even a blind pig finds an acorn every once in a while.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
A pulse...
So we go to the doctor's office for Jess's checkup. We jitter in the waiting room, thankfully not for too long before we're called back to the exam room. The doctor tells Jess to pull up her shirt and pull down her jeans to "Britney Spears levels," so that she can use the Doppler machine.
The doctor spreads what can only be described as blue goo, or possibly smurf ectoplasm, on Jess's stomach and pulls a wand from a little machine that's mostly a speaker. She switches on the machine and we hear white noise: static, ocean, a seashell that aurally reflects the blood rushing in your ears. She moves the wand over Jess's slowly expanding stomach, searching for the heartbeat. We know we might not hear it; we might not hear it because sometimes you just don't hear it on the first visit, and we might not hear it because it might not be there.
The silence in the room is only amplified by the ocean sound coming from the machine. My wife and I stare into each other's eyes and I squeeze her hand tightly. Scratch-thump. Scratch-thump.
We both turn pathetically hopeful eyes to the doctor, but she shakes her head. "That's your heartbeat," she says, and goes back to searching for that other heartbeat that is (maybe should be we hope) hiding there. Scratch-thump. Scratch-thump. Jess's heartbeat again. The tension is unbearable.
And then, overlaid on top of Jess's steady Scratch-thump: scratchthumpscratchthumpscratchthump, exactly double-timed to Jess's heart, syncopated, a mad little drummer pounding out life, a beat you could dance to, and I feel like dancing and crying and Jess is crying, too.
scratchthumpscratchthumpscratchthump i am here i am building myself out of pieces of both of you i am here i am going wild just wait until you meet me scratchthumpscratchthumpscratchthump
Nothing else in the world is as important to me as that wonderful, beautiful, kinetic techno drumming of my baby's heart. As soon as I hear that sound, it's over for me, man. I don't care what happens as long as that beat keeps going; I'd throw myself under a bus, I'd take a bullet for that scratchthumpscratchthump.
Do it, child, do it -- bang those skins, pump that blood, make yourself. I can't wait to meet you because I already love you more than anything.
Dear god, the realization that this is just the first in an endless series of casual every day miracles to come.
I love you, Jess, and I love you, baby.
The doctor spreads what can only be described as blue goo, or possibly smurf ectoplasm, on Jess's stomach and pulls a wand from a little machine that's mostly a speaker. She switches on the machine and we hear white noise: static, ocean, a seashell that aurally reflects the blood rushing in your ears. She moves the wand over Jess's slowly expanding stomach, searching for the heartbeat. We know we might not hear it; we might not hear it because sometimes you just don't hear it on the first visit, and we might not hear it because it might not be there.
The silence in the room is only amplified by the ocean sound coming from the machine. My wife and I stare into each other's eyes and I squeeze her hand tightly. Scratch-thump. Scratch-thump.
We both turn pathetically hopeful eyes to the doctor, but she shakes her head. "That's your heartbeat," she says, and goes back to searching for that other heartbeat that is (maybe should be we hope) hiding there. Scratch-thump. Scratch-thump. Jess's heartbeat again. The tension is unbearable.
And then, overlaid on top of Jess's steady Scratch-thump: scratchthumpscratchthumpscratchthump, exactly double-timed to Jess's heart, syncopated, a mad little drummer pounding out life, a beat you could dance to, and I feel like dancing and crying and Jess is crying, too.
scratchthumpscratchthumpscratchthump i am here i am building myself out of pieces of both of you i am here i am going wild just wait until you meet me scratchthumpscratchthumpscratchthump
Nothing else in the world is as important to me as that wonderful, beautiful, kinetic techno drumming of my baby's heart. As soon as I hear that sound, it's over for me, man. I don't care what happens as long as that beat keeps going; I'd throw myself under a bus, I'd take a bullet for that scratchthumpscratchthump.
Do it, child, do it -- bang those skins, pump that blood, make yourself. I can't wait to meet you because I already love you more than anything.
Dear god, the realization that this is just the first in an endless series of casual every day miracles to come.
I love you, Jess, and I love you, baby.
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