Modulator

Work in Progress

If you arrive here and still find this in a premature state that is because Modulator's new home is still under construction and time is not permitting me to complete Phase 1 quite as quick as I had hoped. Modulator's other home is here. I won't be doing much posting until I get things up on this new site.

Site Changes

Blogging is pretty much on hold for a while as I move off Blogspot to a new host and migrate from Blogger to Movable Type. This is taking me longer than it might for someone with more time available and/or more experience installing applications in a Linux/Apache environment.

I still have a bit I need to finish:

Move all posts to new site
Compete rev 1 of my new tempate
Experiement with some of the Movable Type configuration options

When I get this done (maybe by this weekend) I'll leave a pointer here to the new site.

Hegemony Cricket!

In case you missed this when Spade Hammer posted it back in February here is George II's view of the world. There is more interesting artwork by Dave Cohen here.

What are we Fighting For?

Eric Alterman points us toward this NY Times article (free registration) which reports on Justice Scalia receiving the Citadel of Free Speach award in Cleveland. You will love the headline. But the Justice's views on individual rights scare me:

He talked mostly about the constitutional protection of religions, but also said that government has room to scale back individual rights during wartime without violating the Constitution.

``The Constitution just sets minimums,'' Scalia said. ``Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires.''

And I thought that the rights I enjoy were clearly stated in the US Constitution. I wonder if he has been reading a draft of something new being prepared by Ashcroft's minions.

Repeating History?

This historical review by Thom Hartman is posted at The Smirking Chimp. It is not comforting reading.

Willing?

Read Tim Dunlop's take on what it means to be part of the coalition of the willing.

The administration can mouth it a 1000 times (they will), they can add names and numbers to a meaningless list (they will), they'll find countries to help clean up the mess, and this will still be the coalition of George and Tony.

And, one blog earlier Tim links to this dialogue on the casus belli.

Iraq Afterwards

Josh Marshall suggests in this article that it may not be quite as easy as some think to transform Iraq into a democratic pro western government:

a low death toll is key to convincing Iraqis and the rest of the Arab world that we are liberators, not conquerors or destroyers. In short, it’s key to making our invasion seem like a good thing.

But that’s the catch. Occupying armies will always keep things under control in the short-term. But the sort of transformation we engineered in the former Axis powers required a far greater pliancy, one which allowed us not only to disarm these countries but rewrite their textbooks, reorient their politics, and do much more.

Doing that in a foreign country may require a mauling of the civilian population that we are rightly unwilling to undertake.

US Vetoes

Estimated Prophet suggests that we might want to think about US Security Council vetoes. You can find additional information on these and other vetoes here.

How to Drag the People to War

You should all read this quote that was originally posted by Karen and linked to by Crazy Tracy.

Lightbulb Jokes

Go here to read Ted Barlow's lightbulb jokes. There are enough of them to last many visits!

Constitutional Consistency

Steve Verdon questions the consistency of folks who allege that the Bush administration is, in many actions, ignoring the constitution while these same people support many other federal activities that would also appear to ignore the constitution. You can read his argument here.

What Steve does not tell us is whether he thinks the Bush folk are indeed requesting legislation and implementing regulations and administrative policies that ignore the constitution.

Water Wars

A late night thought from Emma suggests that water not oil may be the more interesting issue in the middle east. I wonder just how the Bush mob will keep things settled in post war Iraq while Turkey first begins selling 50,000,000 cubic meters/year to...Israel and then reduces the flows in the Tigres and Euphrates by 80% by irrigating land in Anatolia? Go read the story at Emma's she has links to the stats.

Seeing Clearly

A lot of folks seem to be having trouble seeing clear answers on many issues. This should help you as well as those whose vision is crystal clear. Use your cursor to find the way. Requires Flash Player.

Who We Are

Thanks to Mike Silverman at Red Letter Day for the link to Michael Totten's blog on Our Common Humanity.

IRAQ and More

the talking dog is in an educational mode today. Jump over there to find links to a handfull of articles that may make you a little uncomfortable with the current US direction.

Bush

Sean LaFreniere quotes at length from year old testimony by William Kristol and then says that:

Bush looks like a strange apple for a Conservative Republican.

Now I couldn't find anything in the Kristol testimony to that would lead me to this conclusion. The paragraph that follows, though, is delightful to read and would make Molly Ivins proud. It begins:

I dont think that GW was a mature human being before 9-11.

And continues with a great brief history of Bush but then closes with:

Today he threatens the world's dictators with serious military consequences and pushes a new vision of the world that shows itself as rather Progressive and based upon Liberal ideals. I wonder how his old political friends, the Conservative Republicans and the Christian Right, feel about "their president" now?.

The latest versions of the Iraq goals probably are progressive and liberal in the context of Saddam. But it is pretty difficult to find anything progressive and liberal on the domestic front.

And, what do conservative republicans and the christian right feel about their president now? Probably pretty gleeful at the prospect of a global christian theocracy instead of the domestic one they thought they were going to get.

The Talking Dog

Thanks to Seth Farber at The Talking Dog for the review and TD Designation: Mudi. Leap right over to Seth's to find a wealth of reviewed blogs interspersed with well written commentary on world happenings.

al Qaeda

Tim Dunlop wonders just how important Khalid Sheikh Mohammed really is.

Health Care

There are many factors that drive up the cost of health care. Reuters reports today that cholesterol drugs save 6000 Britons a year. They also report that these drugs cost 91,000 UK pounds per life saved per year and about 547 UK pounds per year for each individual taking the drugs. Somebody has to pay for this.

Normally I would argue with myself that using these drugs also reduced the number of heart operations and provided substantial balancing savings. The article does not provide this supporting data. In fact, it says that over the last 3 years heart operations have increased from 40,983 to 53,000. Somebody has to pay for this.