From Informed Comment

The New Middle East Cold War: Saudi/Israel/Lebanon versus Iran/Syria/Iraq/Hizbullah

Helene Cooper with Hassan Fattah of the NYT has the scoop that Saudi King Abdullah told US VP Dick Cheney two weeks ago that if the US withdrew precipitately from Iraq, the kingdom would have little choice but to support the Sunni Arab guerrillas. The Saudi government had pledged to the US not to do so as long as US troops were in Iraq. But it is alleged that Saudi oil millionaires privately already send money to the guerrillas. Saudis, as Wahhabi Muslims, belong to a sect that is to the right of Sunnism. But the Wahhabi tradition dislikes Shiites and in any Sunni-Shiite struggle, the Wahhabis will come in on the Sunni side.

This item is no surprise, of course, and I have brought up this likelihood a number of times myself. What is remarkable is that it is being stated by the Saudi leadership and published in the press. The Saudis are usually circumspect. If they are leaking this sort of thing, their hair must be on fire with anxiety.

This public posturing is no surprise. There is now jockeying to see who will take control of the situation in Iraq. Iran, Saudi Arabia, or al Qaeda.

There is a lot of talk about how the Saudis are worried about Iran but this is not the case as much as they are worried about an al Qaeda friendly Iraq (on their border). The Saudi royals know that an al Qaeda's goal is to take them down and they need to show some "street cred" in Iraq to head off this challenge.

From Global warming: the chilling effect on free speech

Whatever the truth about our warming planet, it is clear there is a tidal wave of intolerance in the debate about climate change which is eroding free speech and melting rational debate. There has been no decree from on high or piece of legislation outlawing climate change denial, and indeed there is no need to criminalise it, as the Australian columnist suggests. Because in recent months it has been turned into a taboo, chased out of polite society by a wink and a nod, letters of complaint, newspaper articles continually comparing climate change denial to Holocaust denial. An attitude of ‘You can’t say that!’ now surrounds debates about climate change, which in many ways is more powerful and pernicious than an outright ban. I am not a scientist or an expert on climate change, but I know what I don’t like - and this demonisation of certain words and ideas is an affront to freedom of speech and open, rational debate.

...

For all the talk of simply preserving the facts against climate change deniers, there is increasingly a pernicious moralism and authoritarianism in the attempts to silence certain individuals and groups. This is clear from the use of the term ‘climate change denier’, which, as Charles Jones argued, is an attempt to assign any ‘doubters’ with ‘the same moral repugnance one associates with Holocaust denial’ ...

I have used the term before. I thought it described the people who would ignore evidence, emphasize outlying evidence and deemphasize more common evidence, play rhetorical word games, etc. in order to be critical of anthropogenic climate change fairly well. There was absolutely no connection in my mind between a climate change "denier" and a Holocaust denier. In fact this seems a dubious connection that is more designed itself to extinguish free speech. If ever you are confronted with someone who is obviously in denial you better not mention that fact or you will be accused of trying to associate them with Holocaust denial. What rubbish.

Having said that though I have come to the conclusion that, in terms of the climate change debate, such a term is not helpful. It just sets up tribalistic camps that are not conducive to open discussion. It may be hard to tell by the news coverage of late but there is still plenty of work to do on understanding climate change and the human role in it (this is not to say we should take no action on it). Open debate is the means by which we in open societies address major issues. Sure there are abusers of this open debate, people who point to it and claim that the debate shows we should not take action, that we don't know enough. But we shouldn't let the abuse of a few miscreants stifle open discussion. Science and open society require open debate in order to function properly and the term "climate change denier", fairly or not, has become weighted toward stifling rather than opening debate. I think it should be dropped.

Two years ago there was outrage (by whom? Who is orchestrating this?) over the exposing of a nipple during the Super Bowl half time. Oh my god, there was a portion of a woman’s anatomy on television!

After that low point in the history of Western Civilization there was talk of bringing the family atmosphere back to football and the Super Bowl. (Family atmosphere?  Football?) OK let's take the premise at face value. Let’s sit down and watch this family Super Bowl.  Unfortunately, after viewing the first 7 minutes of play (about 15 to 25 minutes of actual time) we had to turn-off the game because of the violence.  Not the violence of the game, though it does have large bodies crashing into each other, it also shows teamwork, inter-team sportsmanship, and the joy of play.  No we had to turn off the game for the level of violence in the advertisements.

There were two particularly violent ads that stood out from the rest.  There was one for a movie that showed guns, shooting and very dark imagery and there was another that showed cave men kicking, and getting squashed by, dinosaurs (never mind that cave men and dinosaurs never co-existed and were separated in time by 65 million years.)   Though there was no actual dinosaurs injured in the ad the visual language and visual impact said that it was OK to kick small animals that happened to be passing by.  Couple that with the image of a man being squashed by a dinosaur and you had an extremely violent ad.

Now I know that many on the so called religious right see the human body and sex as the worst possible subjects for children (why they may even ask you a question right there and then about sex if you don’t “protect” them.)  and have no problem with violence (they hold a violent world view after all) but for me and my family, violence is evil.

It is evil because I believe that televised violence promotes fear, that it promotes violence, and that it promotes disengagement from society.  These three sins are running at an all time high and that can be traced right back to the images we allow into our heads and thus into our psyches.  

Now I do not want government regulation.  I happen to believe in and respect freedom of speech and that can mean freedom to make me turn the channel too.  Thus I will make my request not to government but to the networks who claim to want to present a “family Super Bowl”, please turn off the violence. Turn-off the violence for our families.  Turn-off the violence for our mental health.  Turn-off the violence for the future of our nation.  Then maybe we can have a family Super Bowl, one that we won’t turn-off.

We see today that a bus, loaded with the elderly being evacuated from Houston, exploded. The oxygen that many were using is suspected in the blast. Wow, billions of dollars spent on "homeland" security and you can just picture the panic of Bush administration hacks after their response to hurricane Katrina, "Get 'em out of there. Stuff them on any bus you can find, just get 'em out of there." Of course if there had been an actual plan for an evacuation maybe there would have chosen a system of transportation that wouldn't explode when transporting elderly oxygen users. But, as we all know, government is bad (that is unless it's military governemnt...)

In another indication that our pals in the White House are blithering idiots one of our "allies" in the Gulf Region, Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister (ally here means that they have lots of money and oil, not that their populous give a damn about us. In fact, they hate our guts, hell most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis) has warned that Iraq is on the verge of total collapse (not unlike the Bush administration itself). He warns that if this were to occur that it would most likely lead to a regional war. Oh joy! You know if we only had someone who gave a shit in office.

Speaking of collapse, there is a book out (Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed) by that name authored by Jared Diamond (he is the author of the very interesting book Guns, Germs, and Steel). I haven't read the book myself but from what I understand the general premise is that societies collapse because they choose to. What happens is that the interests of the power structure in a society come into conflict with the interests of the society itself. That is the destructive force, and one that we as TRUE Americans should be aware of. Why? Jeez, where oh where do the interests of the power class come into conflict with that of the society as a whole? Hmm. (Tax breaks for the wealthy - $200 billion on a war in a far away land (most of which has gone where exactly?). The luxury goods market is hot - Poverty has been increasing for the last four years. Crony government - Levees break in New Orleans. Creationism in the classroom - threat to our economic future from well educated foreign workers and NO plan to do anything about it.)

The city of Colorado Springs was hit by a heavy thunderstorm on Tuesday resulting in heavy flooding, lightning, water, and mud damage to homes and a foot of hail on the ground in some locations.  The question is why is god punishing Colorado Springs?

In other interesting news Joe Biden has promised that “If he has a clear chance of winning” he is planning to run for president. In a move seen as exposing his intentions, Jeb Bush immediately opened an investigation to see if Biden had been involved in Terry Schiavo’s collapse over twenty years ago and if he could account for forty some odd minutes on the morning that she did.

In the “Why the fuck there is little sympathy for you motherfuckers” department the recording industry has added another layer of “protection” on their CD recordings so that not just anyone can put the music they “bought” on just any listening medium. Of course if anyone finds out how to bypass this “protection” it is an illegal act, in this great free nation of ours, to tell anyone else how to do it.