Still playing catch-up from the past few days. Here's some non-election stuff.

POLITICS

1. North Texas house burns because local authorities... - Wow -- to protect against some sort of vague threat of Terrorist Water Contamination, we have to leave fire hydrants not under pressure? Yeesh.
2. Canadian man changes name to beat no-fly list - I feel more secure!
3. Rep. Jane Harman: Finally, Some Progress in Combating... - Rape and sexual assault of women in the military is more than just a heinous crime. This programs is taking the right tack, I think, by trying to reinforce the idea that it's also unmanly and against the traditions of the service.
4. Lieberman Introduces Amendment To Recognize The ‘Strategic... - Lieberman's only hope of not being moved into a broom closet for his office come January is that (a) McCain wins, and (b) he gets some sort of cabinet job. The man has not only burned all his bridges to the Democratic party, he's pissed on the ashes and capered about laughing.
5. Sex, Drug Use and Graft Cited in Interior Department - NYTimes.com - More details on the Interior Dept. scandal. Though as Better Metaphors Needed points out, the whole thing is so cliche it's almost ... unbelievable in its cliche-ness.
6. On 7th Anniversary Of Attacks, White House Claims... - So is the point that they are now trying to downplay Bin Laden's role so that their failure to capture him doesn't seem so bad?
7. More Things That Matter More Than Lipstick - Why we need a strong federal government, and just the sort of regulatory spending that John McCain thinks is a waste of the taxpayers' money. Not that he or his circle have to worry about working for a company that falsifies time records.
8. Government bureaucracy makes a donation impossible. - On the other hand, nobody would claim that government regulations always make sense. In this case, the answer is clear: charge $1 for the marble to fix the Tomb of the Unknowns so that the bureaucrats have something to put in their spreadsheets that doesn't cause a #DIV0 error.
9. Why would any sane person put a Level 4 biodefense lab in Galveston? - Check and see whose district it's in. Check and see who was the lead Congresscritter (House or Senate) that pushed for the location. See, that's one of those there "Earmark" things that causes problems.
10. Eventually Clever » Blog Archive » Let’s Talk Politics… - Politics? Ah, Canadian politics.

FUN!

1. Tennant Mulls Who Movie - Woot!
2. Maybe the LHC is a bad idea after all… - Yeah, that's a bad sign. Oh, and be sure and check out the site Webcams.
3. cbs4denver.com - CDOT To Raise Speed Limit On Part... - The stretch of I-225 from I-25 to Parker is straight, wide, and has minimal exits. Why it's ever had a 55mph limit surpasseth understanding -- though it's certainly added to state revenue due to speeding tickets. Ah, well -- it will make Margie's commute a bit easier.
4. False Memories of tragic and happy events - If we are defined by our memories, what does it mean that our memories are so easily fooled.
5. “Changeling” - First Trailer - FilmoFilia - Coolness. This is the big "breakthrough" screenwriting job for Joe Straczynski. Everything I see and hear makes it look like a winner.
6. No more happily ever afters. - Good writing advice. Living in a real novel would not be a happy experience.
7. The saint of 9/11 - How a Catholic priest who was lionized by so many after his death during 9-11 fell from grace after the Vatican became aware he was gay.
8. Rickover, Hyman, George Bernard Shaw, Heinlein, Robert A. -- Quotes a-plenty!
9. Voice deepening gas - My voice is already deep, but I don't care -- this sounds veyr cool.
10. The Latest on DVD Copying - This could be the sort of schema that both gives 99% of the public what it wants and keeps the production company suits happy -- if they let it.
11. Dollhouse halts for Tweaks - That doesn't bode well.
12. Seth MacFarlane's AdSense Cartoons Now Available - Both amusing and disturbing. As is YouTube - Doctor Who "What Would Brian Boitano Do" -

Filed under :: 9-11 :: Gay Stuff :: Homeland Security :: Media - Cartoons :: Media - Movies :: Media - TV :: Media - TV - Doctor Who :: Media Moguls :: Politics & Law :: Potpourri :: Religion :: Science :: Travel :: WIST :: Writing and Language
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As BD puts it, "Nicely done."

It did give me pause to think about my own 9-11 thoughts. But I find what I remember and take from that day is not FEAR that the BAD GUYS ARE ALL COMING TO GET US!! AND OUR WOMEN AND CHILDREN, TOO!  Yeah, there are bad guys out there, but ... what 9-11 showed me is how we, as a nation, could be united in response to a tragedy -- heck, how we could be united with the world.

9-11 should not be about us being afraid. It should be about us striving to do better. Yes, we need to defend ourselves -- but we need to be doing so much more than that, if we're to be true to our principles.

It's one thing to never forget. It's quite another to obsess.

Filed under :: 9-11
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Seven years ago today. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

In honor of a day that brought us together in grief, support, and determination, I will eschew posting about politics today. I may save it up for tomorrow, but for today ...  

Filed under :: 9-11 :: Blogging
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Yes, it's time once more for that feature here where I try desperately to catch up with all the browser tabs I've refused to close for the past few days until I can blog about them.

1. Who was St Ywi?
2. I would go see this movie.
3. Layers of Voyeurism.
4. Maybe it's about time to reread my Reinhold Niebuhr books.
5. It's amazing what you can find on the Internet.
6. Christianity's image problem.
7. Two religious cases the Supremes passed on this term.
8. "9/11 has made us stupid."
9. Richard Scarry, bowdlerized.  Well, maybe.  Plowing through the comments is kind of interesting.
10. Despite my comments over at Les's blog, I'm not all that thrilled about Halo parties as a means of youth outreach by churches.
11. Stephen Fry has a blog.  How jolly.
12. "Every time you try to drag real physics into a discussion about a fantasy story, God kills a cat girl." (Alternate)
13. Some nice 404 ("page not found") pages. (via K-Squared)
14. Five things Hollywood thinks computers can do.
15. Gaslamp Fantasy, a collection of steampunk (etc.) links and resources by Kaja Foglio.
16. Yes, the US State Department has a blog: "DipNote."  Yeah.
17. When giving a lecture to students on how a bill becomes a law, it's good to make sure there isn't porn on the USB memory stick you're using ...
18. Doyce had this shirt on Friday night.  Great for gaming during baseball season.

Filed under :: 9-11 :: Blogging :: Elections 2008 :: Gaming :: Geopolitical Brouhaha :: Media - Books :: Media - Movies :: Parenting :: Politics & Law :: Potpourri :: Religion :: Writing and Language :: ZT & PC
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Filed under :: 9-11
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I was digging into my referrer logs today, just for giggles, and ran across some Usenet references.  I followed them, and found this page on, of all things, alt.guitar.amps. It linked to this page of my blog, where I refute (shamefully, without citation) this quote attributed to George W. Bush:

George W. Bush did not say:

We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of our great nation.

 The quote is from Bob Woodward’s Bush at War, and sometimes this is mentioned (Woodward’s name giving it a certain cachet).

But Woodward never attributes this quote to Bush. Instead, he records it as being said by an unindentified CIA or Special Forces trooper at a 9/11 memorial they’ve built in the Afghan mountains during the first mission into Afghanistan.

 After someone pointed to my page as a counter-proof, they were shouted down by someone else who pointed to all sorts of other Internet citations that claimed Bush did say it, so nyaaah (we are talking, of course, about Usenet ...).

If someone's citing me in an argument, I have a stake in things.  So inquiring (and OCD) minds want to know the truth.  And so, naturally, I turned to Google.  The phrase is still quoted by people to this day as a Bush utterance, so the truth of the matter seems more than just an academic concern.  If he said it (or if Woodward says he said it) then that's useful information.  If not, then let's know that, too.

(All the bolding below is mine, just to show things up.)

The citations that this is a Bush quotation are numerous.  That's not surprising, since it would be a great zinger against him.  In addition to the above, it shows up all over the place -- but, suspiciously, rarely quoted at length, or in context, and often with the smell of "I read this quote there so I used it here" about them, or "I got this from Agnes, who got it from Jim, who got it from Louise, who got it from ..."

There's this article by Michael Ortiz Hill.

In Bush at War Bob Woodward writes, "Most presidents have high hopes. Some have grandiose visions of what they will achieve, and he was firmly in that camp."

"To answer these attacks and rid the world of evil," says Bush. And again, "We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of this great nation." Grandiose visions. Woodward comments, "The president was casting his mission and that of the country in the grand vision of Gods Master Plan."

(In turn cited here.) That's closely echoed in another article at the same site by William Cook.

Bob Woodward's deferent, perhaps even obeisant homage to "Dubya" in his recent book, Bush at War, contains this troubling observation: "The President was casting his mission and that of the country in the grand vision of God's Master Plan." This frightening perception followed the President's declamation, "We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of this great country and rid the world of evil."

 (Note that the quotes don't quite match, which seems odd.) (Cook is in turn cited here.)

Someone mentions the "end of the book" as a location, but still attributes it to Bush:

Woodward ends his book with another quotation from the president, uncomfortably apposite: "We will export death and violence to the four corners of the Earth in defense of our great nation."

It's not just sources on the left, but a review of the book by Georgie Anne Geyer, in Pat Buchanan's American Conservative, again says:

One of those armchair psychoanalysis efforts on Bush also mentions the quote in order to prove a point: 

Bush has rather unconvincingly denied that he holds the end times view that Christ's return will be heralded by a cataclysm in the Middle East. But there are signs that he may hold this apocalyptical idea of world history and that he may be both seeking to avoid the biblical cataclysm and to "bring it on." In his Jan. 10, 2007, speech he called the Iraq war part of the "decisive ideological struggle of our time" and described the absolute catastrophe he is sure would ensue from "failure" in the Iraq war. He has said repeatedly that he believes he is engaged in a mission to "rid the world of evil" and told Bob Woodward that he would willing to "export death and violence to the four corners of earth in defense of this great nation," which to him is clearly a Christian nation.

 That reference actually has a citation, a foreign policy paper by Stephen Zunes:

Even more disturbingly, Bush has stated repeatedly that he was “called” by God to run for president. Veteran journalist Bob Woodward noted, “The President was casting his mission and that of the country in the grand vision of God’s Master Plan,” wherein he promised, in his own words, “to export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of this great country and rid the world of evil.”

But Zune doesn't give his source (though he's in turn quoted here).

The "Bush" quote also shows up here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and a host of other angry op-ed pieces, blog screeds, and sig lines.

 In the meantime, what of those who argue otherwise (or, rather, provide a different citation for the quote, one that doesn't include George W. Bush)?

This Peter Symon review of the book (hardly by a Bush supporter), includes the following:

Woodward's book opens on the morning of September 11, 2001, the day of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. But rather than start this review with the events of that day and their consequences I will quote the very last few paragraphs of Bush at War and then wind back the clock to the events of that day.

Woodward says: "On February 5, 2002, about 25 men representing three different Special Forces units and three CIA paramilitary teams gathered outside Gardez, Afghanistan, in the east, about 40 miles from the Pakistani border.

"It was very cold, and they were bundled in camping or outdoor clothing. No one was in uniform. Many had beards. The men stood or kneeled on this desolate site in front of a helicopter. An American flag was standing in the background. There was a pile of rocks arranged as a tombstone over a buried piece of the demolished World Trade Centre. Someone snapped a picture of them.

"One of the men read a prayer. Then he said, 'We consecrate this spot as an everlasting memorial to the brave Americans who died on September 11, so that all who would seek to do her harm will know that America will not stand by and watch terror prevail.

"'We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defence of our great nation.'"

 A similar quote from the end of the book is given here.  Slightly more summarized, the Afghanistan scenario is echoed here (again, not at all by a Bush apologist): 

Woodward tells of a religious prayer meeting on February 5, 2002, attended by 25 men — including three different Special Forces units and CIA paramilitary teams. After a prayer and the invocation of September 11, one of the attendees — speaking for the group — pledged, “We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of our great nation.”

 Similarly, the Socialist Worker Online, claiming the book is actually meant to support Bush, quotes it similarly:

The book closes with a description of U.S. Special Forces and CIA paramilitary troops in occupied Afghanistan dedicating a makeshift monument to the victims of the September 11 attacks. After reading a prayer, a U.S. operative "consecrates" the monument with these words: "We will export death and violence to the four corners of the Earth in defense of our great nation." These words remind readers of what’s really going on in Bush at War.

 And this article by G. Pascal Zachary -- again, critical of the book -- notes:

Oddly, the strongest parts of "Bush at War" take place on the ground in Afghanistan. Woodward intersperses his account of Washington meetings with the exploits of the first CIA team sent into Taliban territory. The team, codenamed Jawbreaker, is shown handing out cash to Afghan warlords. Woodward remains uncritical of these CIA agents, and of the Pentagon Special Forces units who later join them. He ends the book with a strange image of a group of them creating a 9/11 memorial in the Afghan mountains. One of the Americans vows, "We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of our great nation."

Other Afghanistan citations can be found here, here, here,

Interestingly, the question of which source is correct is played out at Axis of Logic, where someone questions the quote and cites the Afghanistan locale.  The site owner says the person who'd attributed it directly to Bush had, in turn, gotten it from several other "mainstream" sources, about as well-researched as the above blubs (in fact, including several of them), and so stuck by it. 

Wikiquote, though, agrees in refuting the Bush sourcing of the quote, as does the late, lamented SpinSanity.

And what of the book itself?  I don't have a copy, but the contents are scanned by Amazon.  Go here, and search for "four corners" and the "Back Matter" of the book.  There it is, page 352, smack-dab in Afghanistan, Dubya present, if at all, only in spirit.  (And if I'd gone there first, I might well have written a far shorter post.)

Even without the book, though, my judgment would be with the Afghanistan citation.  It has full, contextual quotes from the book, it's supported by more believable people, and it lacks the subtle variations in text ("defense of this great country" or "defense of our great country," or "this great nation," etc.) that make the others less credible.

And ... what's, then, the point of this way-too-much-Googling?  Just this:  the truth matters.  When we fail to dig out the truth, or research it when there's a question, or simply take the easy road of repeating what we've heard, we do the truth no service.  Indeed, one of the great criticisms of George W. Bush has been his truthfulness, or lack thereof; using misquotations and half-truths to attack him does the cause no favors.  Use his own words to hang him, if you will, not words you wish he'd used, or think he would have used if he'd thought of them.

I do understand the sentiment, mind you.  There's a lot of anger, and angst, and disgust, and discomfort with George W. Bush and his various actions, domestically and internationally.  Finding him saying he's going to "export death and violence to the four corners of the earth" (especially if you truncate the "defense"  and "rid evil" parts) is a money quote that's hard to resist, even when it's refuted (and especially when everyone else is using it).

But, y'know, there's tons of "I cannot believe Dubya said that" material out there.  Why keep holding onto something we're pretty sure he didn't say when there's so much other ammo lying on the ground?  If you think Bush is a force for deceit and trickery in this country and the world, don't use the devil's own tools.  Keep the moral high ground.

Don't be about the truthiness, but be about the truth.  In the long run, it prevails.

Filed under :: 9-11 :: Geopolitical Brouhaha :: Media - Books :: Politics & Law :: Writing and Language
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Though written after the 9/11 attacks, a quick review of the various partisans, pundits, and attention seekers after the Virginia Tech shootings shows that it's still, sadly, relevant.

Why the Bombings Mean That We Must Support My Politics

Of course the World Trade Center bombings are a uniquely tragic event, and it is vital that we never lose sight of the human tragedy involved. However, we must also consider if this is not also a lesson to us all; a lesson that my political views are correct. Although what is done can never be undone, the fact remains that if the world were organised according to my political views, this tragedy would never have happened.

Many people will use this terrible tragedy as an excuse to put through a political agenda other than my own. This tawdry abuse of human suffering for political gain sickens me to the core of my being. Those people who have different political views from me ought to be ashamed of themselves for thinking of cheap partisan point-scoring at a time like this. In any case, what this tragedy really shows us is that, so far from putting into practice political views other than my own, it is precisely my political agenda which ought to be advanced.

Not only are my political views vindicated by this terrible tragedy, but also the status of my profession. Furthermore, it is only in the context of a national and international tragedy like this that we are reminded of the very special status of my hobby, and its particular claim to legislative protection. My religious and spiritual views also have much to teach us about the appropriate reaction to these truly terrible events.

Countries which I like seem to never suffer such tragedies, while countries which, for one reason or another, I dislike, suffer them all the time. The one common factor which seems to explain this has to do with my political views, and it suggests that my political views should be implemented as a matter of urgency, even though they are, as a matter of fact, not implemented in the countries which I like.

Of course the World Trade Center attacks are a uniquely tragic event, and it is vital that we never lose sight of the human tragedy involved. But we must also not lose sight of the fact that I am right on every significant moral and political issue, and everybody ought to agree with me. Please, I ask you as fellow human beings, vote for the political party which I support, and ask your legislators to support policies endorsed by me, as a matter of urgency.

It would be a fitting memorial.

'Nuff said.

Filed under :: 9-11 :: Fourth Estate :: Politics & Law
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It seems pretty likely that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is not a nice person, and has done some pretty nasty things. But if, after years in a CIA detention center, and then time in Gitmo, he's now reportedly confessing to having been behind 9/11, various other attacks, and the beheading of Daniel Pearl ... how much credence should we give that confession?

The alternatives:

1. He really did it.
2. He was involved in some fashion, and he's trying to make a name for himself by confessing to it (I mean, it's not like he's going to be set free any time soon, so he has very little to lose and much to gain.) Either he was close enough to things to give a credible story, or else he knows enough to seem credible to intelligence and political groups who really want to show that they've caught a Big Bad Guy.
3. As #2, but he's martyr-like covering from others.
4. After being subjected to various interrogation/coersion techniques (insert your own euphemism), known and unknown, he's willing to confess to anything he's asked about (and, as noted, various folks have plenty of incentive to either believe him or pretend they do).

Case #1 is the best, of course. But there's no way to be sure. #2-3 are certainly possible, given the political pressure (within the intelligence community and in national politics) to catch a Big Bad Guy.

It's #4 that's the most troubling, and, of course, is the direct effect of the Administration's tolerance and/or encouragement of coersive techniques that quite a number of people claim are torture. A lot of people defend torture using the "ticking nuclear bomb" scenario, but that's not what's applying here. Torture is possibly effective if you are trying to gather information you could not get otherwise, especially in a timed circumstance. "Where is the bomb planted?" Given that the main weakness of torture is that, if effective, the subjects will tell you whatever they think you want to hear, true or not, getting verifiable data in a vacuum is a case where it can actually work. "The bomb is under the bridge!" You can go and confirm that.

But when it comes to "Did you do X?" where there's no way to specifically verify the info given, torture is far less useful (we'll set aside the moral dimension for the moment, as that's a separate and more complex issue). If I say, "Yes, I planned the bombing," am I telling you that because I did, or because I think you want to hear that and that if I say it you'll take me off the waterboard? Sure, there can be confirming data -- but info gathered under torture can't make the confirming data any more certain. At some point, it comes down to the believability or credibility of the subject, and under torture, nobody's statements are credible.

So did Khalid Sheikh Mohammed actually do the things he's now claimed to have confessed to? Who knows? But the believability of the information has been cast into doubt based on known cases of coersion, and in many quarters, domestic and international, it will be treated with as much credibility as the "confessions" of people from old Soviet gulags.

And that is the real shame of the Administration's policies -- even if they have the truth, nobody can be sure of it, and more and more people are willing to automatically doubt it.

(via DOF)

Filed under :: 9-11 :: Homeland Security
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Filed under :: 9-11
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Flipping through the TV, skimming through the radio, leafing through the paper ... there's so much being said, some too tragic to listen to, some to blatently manipulative to bear.

The one thing I heard that brought it all home -- was, ironically, a replay of the coverage.

This morning, after I got up, I had the TV on -- and MSNBC was rerunning their coverage of that morning. And, as I watched, just off-camera, the second plane plowed into the WTC ...

The fear, the uncertainty, the violence of that morning -- authentic in a way that five years later cannot be recalled.

Filed under :: 9-11
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