(Crossposted from my own site, because I’ve been gone awhile and there are just so many hours in a day, you know?)

It�€™s been a long, peaceful respite, away from the news and the shameless, preening babblefest we can always expect from our government any time of the year that patriotically-themed holidays are on the calendar. We�€™ll be getting another in 35 short days, and then again in November. (Flag Day, June 14, seems curiously lacking in interested parties, but as it has always been focused on the cloth and not the blood spilled around it, I expect it holds too little titillation for all the armchair warriors who so enjoy blatting about the joy of death on behalf of those who can no longer give an opinion.)

But I couldn�€™t even get through the 10 hour ride home without my blood pressure skyrocketing to stroke level every time I heard snippets of the Memorial Day speech coming out of that slack-jawed hayseed that squats in the West Wing like a foul toadstool, let alone his riposte to the Amnesty International report, him and his henchman. Is that the best you could manage, George, you impotent worm? In one breath he pushes for a totally bogus evisceration of Social Security, saying “The easy path is to say, `Oh, we don’t have a problem. Let’s ignore it — yet again”, while almost at the same time ignoring–yet again–the thousands of pages of ACLU evidence, the army and FBI’s own reports, with the words:

“It’s an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world,” he said, adding: “We’ve investigated every single complaint against the detainees. It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of �€” and the allegations by �€” people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble �€” that means not tell the truth. And so it was an absurd report.”

That’s right, people who’ve been trained to disassemble! As in, disassemble the truth.

But that pack of bald-faced lies and brazen Orwellisms was a mere amateur’s work compared to the Memorial Day speech. I give you:

“America has always been a reluctant warrior.”

Lies! He sought this war; he manipulated every event, turned every phrase, pressured every iuntelligence analyst, to make the war he so dearly wanted a reality. And this:

“Because of the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, two terror regimes are gone forever, freedom is on the march, and America is more secure. “

More lies! The Taliban are alive and well in Afghanistan (where women are still looking for that marching freedom), making inroads just about everywhere except Kabul, and Kabul isn’t looking so well these days. The civil war we unleashed in Iraq is gaining ground and shows no sign of containment. Our own Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication warned last year that our actions since 9/11 have actually made us less safe. But his hubris and gall know no bounds. He reads from letters written by the dead, to families back home, reads the parts that say things like this:

“…I gave my life so you could live. Not just live, but live free”

He goes on to tie it up neatly with this:

“And we must honor them by completing the mission for which they gave their lives, by defeating the terrorists, advancing the cause of liberty, and building a safer world.”

Where did he get these letters? How did he get his hands on them? How do we even know they’re real? And how do you “defeat” terrorists, when every violent act only creates another one?

What a bitter homecoming, to have to listen to a man not fit to lick my cat’s ass “disassemble” the truth from atop the pile of dead he has made, and watch him wrap himself in the borrowed glory and pity of those lives left broken and shattered in his own hateful wake.

She drives around with a sign listing the number of dead and wounded in Iraq pasted in her car window. “I don’t care if people get uncomfortable behind me sitting in traffic. It was the body count that made people rise up over Vietnam. They are keeping this war too squeaky clean for the American public.”

Never in favor of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Megan* has to reconcile that with the fact that her son’s a soldier. And he’s just been ordered to his second tour in Iraq, starting in October. Conversations can be hard:

“Its a touchy subject…on one hand he knows the reason we are there is wrong, on the other he is proud of the work that the engineer forces are doing there by hooking up the water, building schools, etc.� He sees himself as part of the reconstruction - not the invasion.� � I can’t send him into harms way thinking that we are against what he does… it’s a fine line that many family members of soldiers must� walk.”
�

Like many kids, David joined the Army because he didn’t see other opportunities. Not interested in college, he drifted among low-wage jobs and roommate situations, finally ending up in his mother’s basement. An unreconstructed hippie, Megan wasn’t overjoyed about his decision to join the military, but was pleased to see him making something with his life. He would have a chance to see more of the world and build experiences as well as a college fund. He shipped off to Korea, grew up, was transferred to Germany, fell in love and re-enlisted.

Then Bush began rattling his saber, planning his war, and dropping his bombs and life in the Army changed. David’s in the 3rd Infantry Division, the one that made the initial drive to Baghdad. He doesn’t say much about his time there, other than, “Mom, you wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen.” David’s first tour was mercifully cut short when he got kidney stones. (This was during the period when our troops were lucky to get a liter of water a day, thanks to the ineptness of the private supply contractors.) Megan was delighted when he was airlifted to Germany. Subsequent tests showed a cyst on his kidney, and they told him he couldn’t be deployed to Iraq again. When his company went back a second time, David stayed in Germany. His enlistment would be up in February 2006.

Fast-forward a year. Recruiting is down. David’s company is being ordered back to Iraq for a third time. For a year-long tour.

Many soldiers in Iraq develop kidney stones from dehydration and hard water. It’s no longer enough to keep you out of Iraq. So, David received his orders, and he’ll be deployed in October. His enlistment is up in February, but once in Iraq, he’ll be staying for the full year under stop-loss orders. Theoretically, he could then leave the service in October unless they extend the company’s mission.

He’s under pressure to re-enlist, which will provide a bonus and higher pay while he’s in Iraq, but then he’ll be stuck for 3 more years. Apparently, if he doesn’t re-enlist before going, his pay will be less.

And if he does re-enlist, that leaves Megan wondering, “…will this time be enough or if he will have to go yet again?” as she tries to end the war while supporting her soldier.

If you’re interested in what it’s like opposing the war while having a close relative fighting in it, Megan recommends the Military Families Speak Out website.

*Names have been changed to protect privacy.

By the way, did anyone happen to catch the Bush press conference today? Good lord. He was on full verbal stammer. Although the official transcript cuts out the stammers, here’s one of his choicest cuts, warts and all:

We proposed a plan uh that takes uh the uh — solving the uh�€”solving the per�€”the uh, the uh issue about solvency farther down the road than any other President has proposed.

And another (this from the official transcript):

This is an issue that really hasn’t spent — had that much time in the halls of Congress — the debate — hasn’t been debated in the halls of Congress since 1983.

He wandered verbally, staggering around for wards, even falling off his own talking points. He seemed totally confused. His worst habits were on display, and they weren’t mitigated by his efforts at comedy. Take for example this aborted attempt at stem cell comedy:

As you know, I also had an event here at the White House with little babies that had been born as a result of the embryos that had been frozen — they’re called “snowflakes” — indicating there’s an alternative to the destruction of life.

(He clarified things a few sentences later: “But from that point going forward, I felt it was best to stand on principle — and that is taxpayers’ money to use — for the use — for the use of experimentation that would destroy life is a principle that violates something I — I mean, is a position that violates a principle of mine.”)

Gettysburg this was not.

An open discussion in the June Harper’s exposes America’s real ecomomic problem: it’s not economic. Editor Lewis Lapham moderated the discussion among Paul Krugman (liberal), Nixon-era Secretary of Commerce Peter Peterson (center-right), and Bush’s former head of the Council of Economic Advisors Glenn Hubbard (conservative). The forum is refreshingly sane and free of Fox-like histrionics, and yet the positions are predictable: Krugman and Peterson forsee doom (but disagree about the solution) while Hubbard whistles past the graveyard of mounting debt, falling savings, and the imminent problem of Medicare. What’s far more enlightening than their economic arguments, however, are the assumptions that guide them.

Before 1954, middle-distance runners hobbled themselves when they trained for the mile. Coaches and runners alike set paces based on the knowledge that a human couldn’t run that distance is less than four minutes. It never occured to them to set splits that would result in a 3:50 mile. Then Roger Bannister broke the barrier, and entirely new solutions to training regimens emerged.

In the same way, the Bushies have shrunk the available solutions down to a tiny range of possibilities–we can cut benefits in any number of ways, but we can’t consider raising new revenues. Listen to this exchange between Hubbard and Krugman (sorry, it’s not online):

HUBBARD: The size of [Medicare and SS’s future share of GDP] suggests why tax increases can’t be part of the solution. According to the CBO, assuming no change in policy, SS and Medicare a generation from now will consume 10 more percentage points of GDP than they do today. Just for reference, the entire federal share of GDP is traditionally a number like 18 percent. So you would be talking about a 50 percent increase in all taxes, across the board. . .

KRUGMAN: . . . Even if we raised it all through taxes–something I wouldn’t support, by the way–the total tax take in America would go from roughly 27 percent of GDP, including state and local, up to 35%. In many advanced countries, the take is close to 45%.

HUBBARD: That’s about a 50% increase in federal taxes. You ought to know that.

KRUGMAN: That’s what I just said. The federal government takes around 17% of GDP now; a hike that big would raise it up to 25%.

It’s as if Hubbard didn’t even hear Krugman–a 50% increase is inconceivable to him. Krugman ought to know that. Krugman does, of course, and moreover, he sees what Hubbard cannot: the issue isn’t an economic one, it’s a matter of political priority. Reading the Harper’s piece, Stanley Kurtz put on the Hubbard blinders and iterated the same constricted logic:

The only alternative [for Democrats] to the President�€™s plan is a massive tax increase. If we were honestly debating the entitlement crisis, the Democrats would be out there asking for a huge tax hike, a single payer system of national health insurance, and health care rationing. Naturally, the Democrats don�€™t want to do that. So instead they pretend the president is the bad guy for telling the truth about the need to curb the out-of-control growth of benefits.

But we’re not honestly debating the entitlement crisis–we’re debating half the entitlement crisis. Tax cuts are, of course, a massive entitlement. The wealthy are no more entitled to a top marginal rate of 35% than the elderly are to Medicare. Public policy, as the mechanism of producing and allocating revenue, makes exclusively political decisions. When Kurtz describes a “massive tax increase,” he’s right, it would be massive. But only on a small percentage of the population. The reason he doesn’t want an honest discussion is that his party would lose the argument.

(As to rationing, Peterson points out how successfully my home state of Oregon did just that to contain health care costs. We limited the range of procedures available to enrollees of our Oregon Health Care plan–infants born very prematurely, liver transplants for cirrosis, and so on. These were extremely difficult choices, but they were broadly supported by the public.)

Hubbard takes it as an article of faith that reducing the top marginal rates is good for the economy. When Peterson calls him on it (”Bill Clinton raised marginal tax rates, and the net effect was still positive”), Hubbard dismisses the solution. “Our political system would not likely tolerate tax increases of that size.” Which is to say: as the ruling party, the GOP will self-consciously continue to look at cutting only those entitlements benefiting Democratic constituents. Our own entitlements are off the table.

People understand that economics affect political choices. Sometimes we forget how profoundly political choices affect economics.

I’m off to Portland, two hours away. I have things I have to do for my kids there today. I may be gone today and tomorrow. Try not to break blogtopia (y!sctp!) while I’m gone, okay?

It seemed simple enough a task. Simply view nearly 1700 pics and tabulate the data therein. Blog about the states they called home, their ages, and what did them in.

It was Memorial Day, so why not memorialize the most recently departed who we honor with the heaviest of hearts?

At first it was a race, as I spent a couple of days trying to develop a system of streamlined data collection. I’ve now gone through almost 1200 of them, with 500 left to go.

Yet the more I did, the more I looked at face after face - some serious, some laughing, some average and some with movie star looks - the more it sunk in that I was viewing corpses in a morgue, many of them shattered beyond recognition.

Though the official day is past, I will complete the chronicle of how they were reduced to this demographic snapshot. Certain things stand out: a high attrition rate of Marines killed in Anbar province, beginning in April 2004, as the Abu Ghraib story was being explored. I’ve worked my way to November 1, 2004 and month after month, dozens more died there. I wonder how it felt to be a Marine in that region as the fatalities mounted…

Nearly 1700 of our own have fallen in Iraq. Only a handful lived to my age of 52. Each of their lives had meaning. Each went above and beyond the call of duty by paying with their lives.

These faces stare out at me. I want to reassure them and their surviving circles of family and friends that the price they paid was for some ultimate good. With Saddam fallen in the first month and captured in the tenth, there’s a lot to account for in the 17 months since he emerged for an underground lair.

Democracy and freedom are precious things worth sacrificing for, as is the security of our own. If they did not die for that, they died for each other. That is sufficiently noble in itself.

Yet many times in my tabulation, I was overwhelmed with sadness, thinking of faces that smile no more. Sometime this week, I’ll finish my project. But I’d rather reverse the destruction and the pain of all these losses, granting them the miracle of lives full of promises to be fulfilled. I want to scream at those still living, who made the choices that took those promises away. What gives them that right? Who made them Gods to determine such fates?

The fallen are heroes, but I bet every one of them would trade that honor, to hold a loved one in their arms and share another moment of warmth.

One of my Jesus’General readers is sending me reports from Iraq. I can’t say what he’s doing there, because he wants to remain anonymous.

Here’s his latest report:

Time now for Bart’s Baghdad report. The forecast for today: hot, dusty, violent and disorganized. Actually, that will be the forecast for the next few years. Maybe decades.

Saw two doves sitting on a huge string of concertina wire today. Ironic. Wish I had a camera.

KBR is really ripping us off regarding food. Last night we were supposed to have t-bone steaks, but what I had tasted like my shoe, after my foot had been in it for a considerable period of time. I was sitting at a table with several air force guys, who gave up on using the plastic forks and knives provided to cut the alleged steaks and just started using their hands.

They use old tank treads as speed barriers to slow down cars before they arrive at the checkpoints. Very effective.

I spend a hour a day going through the various check points. Fox News is always on in the gym.

More observations later.

Bart

There is no need to have an independent investigation into the accusations of abuse according to Condi.

“The United States is as open a society as you will find,” she said, and the administration is being held accountable “by a free press, by a Congress that is a separate and co-equal branch of government, and by its own expectations of what is right.”

Isn’t she cute when she gets indignant?

The other side has it so easy.

One cause of the ongoing struggle with the Forces of Ignorance, whether they be the creationists I wrestle with or the simplistic “blow ‘em up and convert ‘em to Christianity” faction of the extremist right, is that simple-minded ideas can be easily expressed in soundbites and catchphrases. Jingo is always easier than nuance and depth, and has the advantage that it can appeal to people who actually don’t know anything about the subject being discussed. The real world, though, is complicated. When your goal is to respond appropriately and accurately to reality, sometimes you can’t just reduce it to a slogan—you have to try and educate. And often that means you have to get wordy…so I’m afraid this is going to be a longish post. I’m also targeting it at those people who aren’t familiar with the basics of molecular biology, so I’m hoping it will be comprehensible to even those who haven’t had a lick of college biology.

There are a couple of ideas that have been floating around among the Intelligent Design crowd that are very popular with people who don’t know much biology, and the reason they appeal is because they rely on ignorance and common misconceptions, and a faulty mapping of biological properties onto other objects in our experience. Two that I hear often are the analogy of gene products as machines, to highlight their awesome sophistication, and the declaration that because they are so complex, genes can’t change and evolve.

Genes as machines

This is a favorite among creationists. For example, here’s a spectacularly egregious example from Michael Behe:

I mean, literally, there are real machines inside everybody�€™s cells and this is what they are called by all biologists who work in the field, molecular machines. They�€™re little trucks and busses that run around the cell that takes supplies from one end of the cell to the other. They�€™re little traffic signals to regulate the flow. They�€™re sign posts to tell them when they get to the right destination. They�€™re little outboard motors that allow some cells to swim. If you look at the parts of these, they�€™re remarkably like the machineries that we use in our everyday world.

That’s impressive rhetoric—it gives several strong impressions critical to the creationist worldview. One is of purpose. Every ‘machine’ he mentions has a specific function and is carrying out a job. Another impression is of overwhelming complexity. Outboard motors are artifacts of human design, and we can’t imagine mere chemistry building an Evinrude in a vat…therefore, we should similarly think it impossible that mere chemistry drives the activity in a cell.

Unfortunately for Behe’s goals, both of those impressions are completely false.

If you actually look at these “machines”, they don’t resemble anything at all from our macroscopic world. Well, except maybe these: pop beads.

Remember those? Maybe you played with them as a kid, or have kids who have tinkered with them. They’re just little beads of various shapes and colors with a knob on one side and a socket on the other, and you can string them together by popping the knob on one into the socket on another. Look closely at those things Behe is calling “trucks” and “busses” and “traffic signals”, and what you find are pop bead necklaces, or proteins.

There are differences, of course. Cells use 20 different kinds of “beads” called amino acids. Each amino acid has different chemical properties: some are bulky and some are small, some are hydrophilic (or water-loving) and other are hydrophobic (or oily), some have acidic and some have basic side chains. The different properties cause the chain to contort and fold in characteristic ways, so you end up with a pop bead necklace that is twisted on itself to form a lump with a specific shape. The shape is important; some may take on a shape that complements another protein, so they tend to stick together. Others may form a pocket into which other chemicals in the cell might fit, and when they fall into the pocket, they are wrapped in those bulky/small/oily/wet/acidic/basic amino acids, which then promote chemical reactions.

Individual proteins do link up to form more elaborate complexes, but still…it’s all a function of concentration and reaction rates and binding energies. It’s chemistry. It’s driven by thermodynamics and equilibria, not guided engineering.

Hmmm. Behe’s metaphor isn’t a very good one. He wants to pretend something is a “truck”, but when we actually look closely at it, it’s a knotty string, a tangle of chemicals. And it isn’t driving purposefully around the cell, it’s bumping around haphazardly, interacting with other components of the cell chemically. It’s also nowhere near as complex as a truck, since the instructions for building one can be reduced to the order you string together a set of pop beads. Using a metaphor can be a useful strategy for getting a point across, but when the metaphor is used to carry a false message, such as the presence of purpose and detailed complexity that is not present, it is actually misleading. When you get right down to it, what’s going on inside a cell is about as mindless as soup.

That’s all the genetic output of a cell is, is chains of amino acids which interact chemically. Go ahead, rummage about in this useful database, Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (it’s a kind of Google for the human genome, you can search for all kinds of interesting bric-a-brac that have been found in our genetics) and you won’t find trucks or busses or even traffic signs…just proteins.

For example, here’s an interesting one, ASPM (that’s short for Abnormal Spindle-like, Microcephaly associated). It’s a chain of 1142 amino acids, which can be summarized thusly by using a different letter of the alphabet for each of the 20 possible amino acids:

    1 mslraytarc rlnrlrraac rlftsekmvk aikkleieie arrlivrkdr hlwkdvgerq
   61 kvlnwllsyn plwlriglet tygelisled nsdvtglamf ilnrllwnpd iaaeyrhptv
  121 phlyrdghee alskftlkkl lllvcfldya kisrlidhdp clfckdaefk askeillafs
  181 rdflsgegdl srhlgllglp vnhvqtpfde fdfavtnlav dlqcgvrlvr tmelltqnwd
  241 lskklripai srlqkmhnvd ivlqvlksrg ielsdehgnt ilskdivdrh rektlrllwk
  301 iafafqvdis lnldqlkeei aflkhtksik ktisllschf ddlinkkkgk rdsgsfeqys
  361 enikllmdwv navcafynkk venftvsfsd grvlcylihh yhpcyvpfda icqrttqtve
  421 ctqtgsvvln sssesddssl dmslkafdhe ntselykell enekknfhlv rsavrdlggi
  481 paminhsdms ntipdekvvi tylsflcarl ldlrkeiraa rliqttwrky klktdlkrhq
  541 erekaariiq lavinflakq rlrkrvnaal viqkywrrvl aqrkllmlkk eklekvqnka
  601 asliqamwrr yrakkylckv kaackiqawy rcwrahkeyl ailkavkiiq gcfytklert
  661 rflnvrasai iiqrkwrail pakiahehfl mikrhraacl iqahyrgykg rqvflrqksa
  721 aliiqkyira reagkherik yiefkkstvi lqalvrgwlv rkrfleqrak irllhftaaa
  781 yyhlnavriq rayklylavk nankqvnsvi ciqrwfrarl qekrfiqkyh sikkiehegq
  841 eclsqrnraa sviqkavrhf llrkkqekft sgiikiqalw rgyswrkknd ctkikairls
  901 lqvvnreire enklykrtal alhylltykh lsailealkh levvtrlspl ccenmaqsga
  961 iskifvlirs cnrsipcmev iryavqvlln vskyekttsa vydvencidi llellqiyre
 1021 kpgnkvadkg gsiftktccl laillkttnr asdvrsrskv vdriyslykl tahkhkmnte
 1081 rilykqkkns sisipfipet pvrtrivsrl kpdwvlrrdn meeitnplqa iqmvmdtlgi
 1141 py

ASPM is a very cool and important gene—some mutations in it cause microcephaly—but again, Behe’s metaphor fails us. ASPM isn’t a truck or a traffic signal, but does something obscure and biochemical; it’s a regulator of microtubule organization. It sticks to other proteins that form the skeleton of the cell, and changes how they interact in ways that aren’t completely worked out, but it somehow changes rates and periods of cell division. We human beings have a personal stake in ASPM: by regulating cell growth, it’s one of the genes responsible for our big brains, it shows signs of selection for changes in our evolutionary history, and we have comparative data on its sequence in other organisms. Follow those links to find out what ASPM does, but I’m going to focus on it more as a representative protein to illustrate another fallacy, that these “machines” don’t change in evolution, and that there is no evidence of the acquisition of new adaptive features in our proteins.

Genes can’t change

Another common claim by creationists relies on that misconception about the complexity and purpose of gene products to argue that evolution is impossible, because change is impossible. After all, you can’t go poking around making random changes in the engine of a truck and expect it to run, right? In the worst cases, this logical error can turn into outright denial of the evidence, as when creationists claim “In fact, there is no evidence for the existence of beneficial mutations in complex organisms,” when in fact, there is documented evidence of beneficial mutations in modern humans.

As I’ve already explained, though, gene products aren’t trucks, they’re chains of pop beads. Of course you can change one or two or a dozen beads in a long series without totally destroying the protein; you can even make random chains of amino acids that will have function¹. It’s true that some changes disrupt a specific function—if a particular acidic amino acid has to be in a particular spot in a fold of the protein to promote a reaction, deleting it can cause the protein to fail in its job. But many of the amino acids can be jiggered around and cause no change in the protein, or cause subtle changes, among which may be possible improvements in function.

Here, for instance, is a diagram of the gene sequence for ASPM. It’s tiny, but if you click on it you’ll get a larger and more readable version. This is the layout of the nucleotide sequence, the instructions in the DNA that specify the order of the amino acid pop beads in the final protein.

Nucleotide polymorphisms and substitutions in the human ASPM gene. The exons are shown by solid boxes and introns by lines. The sizes of exons, but not introns, are drawn to scale. The thick horizontal line above exon 18 shows the 867-nucleotide fragment that is not found in the mouse Aspm, with the two thin lines above it showing the two segments amplified in various mammals. Fixed nucleotide substitutions in the human lineage after the human-chimpanzee split are shown by circles, whereas common and rare polymorphisms within humans are shown by squares and triangles, respectively. Nonsynonymous changes are solid symbols and synonymous changes are open symbols.

The first thing to explain is that this is a linear diagram of a sequence that will be translated into a string of amino acids, which will then fold according to the properties of those building blocks into a 3-dimensional structure with chemical activity. There’s also a quirk of us organisms with cells that have nuclei: our genes are broken up into stretches called exons (the darker bars in the diagram) that contain the actual instructions for the gene product, and other regions called introns (the thin lines connecting the bars) which are essentially junk that will be cut out and thrown away, and the exons spliced together. The ASPM gene is made of 28 exons.

Let’s look at a closeup of the left side of the diagram to see the really interesting stuff going on in these data.

The study this was taken from examined the ASPM sequence in 14 different people from a range of backgrounds. One of the things they identified was a set of polymorphisms—”multiple forms”, or ASPM genes that are different in different people—and the little triangles and squares mark where the pieces of DNA are different. In 14 people, they identified 33 common and rare polymorphisms! Obviously, this gene is tolerant of all kinds of substitutions and tinkering, which is not at all unusual. Also, most of these changes don’t have any detectable effects on the individuals carrying the polymorphisms.

Another interesting observation: look at the little circles marking positions on the gene labeled “substitutions”. This paper also examined other primates, and the circles mark positions in the gene that are consistently different between humans and chimpanzees. There are 22 places in the gene where all humans and all chimpanzees differ from one another. At least some of these are partially responsible for the difference in brain size between chimpanzees and humans.

Analysis of the details of these changes, such as the frequency of changes to the DNA sequence that do not cause changes in the amino acid sequence vs. those that do, comparison of rates of change with other genes, and comparisons with other species tell us quite a bit about the history of the ASPM gene: it has been subject to relatively intense selection for modifications in our history, and is currently subject to stabilizing selection to maintain its function. Genes are not static things at all, and even now we can measure variation within ourselves in this rather important, umm, “machine”.

Even if one believes in Intelligent Design creationism, the mythical Designer is postulated to work by tinkering with these gene sequences; to argue that there can’t be beneficial changes is to deny the Designer any capacity for Design. At the same time, though, the same random variation that produces the polymorphisms in the human population was the source for the substitutions that differentiate us from chimpanzees. There is no qualitative difference between the chemical nature of those changes—they’re all a matter of swapping out different pop beads.

This is the perspective modern biology has given us, that has made the principles of evolutionary biology stronger and more cogent. We can look at our fellow species on this planet and see that ultimately, the differences between us are a consequence of the accumulation of truly minute changes, tiny switches in a simple encoded sequence. There were no radical transformations that required the privilege of godlike powers to transform an earlier ape into a man—just time and chemistry.

¹Keefe AD, Szostak JW (2001) Functional proteins from a random-sequence library. Nature 410:715-718.

²Zhang J (2003) Evolution of the Human ASPM Gene, a Major Determinant of Brain Size. Genetics 165:2063-2070.

To Whom It May Concern
by Adrian Mitchell

I was run over by the truth one day.
Ever since the accident I’ve walked this way
So stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Heard the alarm clock screaming with pain,
Couldn’t find myself so I went back to sleep again
So fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Every time I shut my eyes all I see is flames
Made a marble phone book and I carved all the names
So coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

I smell something burning, hope it’s just my brains.
They’re only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
So stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Where were you at the time of the crime?
Down by the Cenotaph* drinking slime
So chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

You put your bombers in, you put your conscience out,
You take the human being and you twist it all about
So scrub my skin with women,
Chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.

When Doves fly and why Air America scares the bejesus out of the Republicans.

Why do I even bother to listen to the incompetent, unfunny, disastrous, and ill-fated Air America? It�€™s a poorly managed, money-sucking vaudeville act that will fail at the hands of their ineptitude. Its shallow voices are swimming in a cesspool of un-American scum that is turning off more people then are tuning in. How do I know? Because they told me over and over again, and I believed them, because I am stupid. I am stupid because they told me so.
Of course that couldn�€™t be further from the truth as you know yet the right wing noise machine grinds endlessly on wanting us all to believe that is the case.

Bill O�€™Reilly, “the falafel king” chimes in that those liberals already have NPR and Hannity calls them dumb and unimaginative as he coaches his stoned out nurses. Michael Savage would have them all in manacles, classified as traitors and render their asses to Syria. A new book just came out vilifying them by a fifty something looking Elvis Costello impersonator that thinks South Park is conservative. Michelle Malkin leads the blogger brigade, decrying how bad their ratings are and how hateful they can be to the pristine, republican agenda. Air America isn�€™t funny and entertaining they say. It�€™s nasty and pernicious. That Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter sure are cut-ups.
If Air America is so laughable and odious then why all the ink and venom my dears?

Fear! Fear my friends. Fear that a tiny crack has been opened and the light that shines through will slowly turn ablaze with a fire of newfound hope. You see the republicans have been playing a ponzee scheme, a con game that took twenty years to manufacture and now there is a chink in that insulated Ivory tower. They soon will be exposed as frauds and charlatans to the American people and they mourn that discovery. They care not for the U.S.A, the land of the free, as they do about their power. Fools they are not and they recognize they must destroy it. The monopoly that they slaved over for so long is finally going to erode, and that is their fate, they know this and they attack

They will cry and whine and whimper at its arrival, but they are afraid, afraid that time is running out. The fairness doctrine�€™s destruction was their lift off, and now the domination of the airwaves will slowly diminish. It�€™s too late now. It has begun. The infrastructure is being built and voices are in training. The carefully controlled media will soon follow suit. They have to. When the money pours in the corporate stockholders will want their returns. The republicans are like the moneychangers that Jesus kicked out of the temples. They disguise themselves in the bible, but they cannot hide any longer. David will soon slay Goliath once again.

Their arguments will grow tired as a new and fresher voice will emerge. Be patient where we are now because the preparation has just begun. Air America is flying high in the twilight summer air, like a magnificent dove, its white feathered wings spread across the majestic skies. They try to extinguish it but the match has been lit. The tremors have begun; a rippling effect is in motion. Even Pat Robertson�€™s God cannot stop the coming storm.

When he died at 99, I was surprised by his life accomplishments:

a tireless conservationist, crusading for endangered species, healthful food, cleanup of Santa Monica Bay pollution and other causes.

He deserves Memorial Day honors for joining:

the Navy in World War II and served in combat in the South Pacific. He received a Bronze Star for his heroic rescue of wounded Marines at Tarawa, his son said.

And there’s more:

He established Plaza de la Raza, a foundation in East Los Angeles that teaches arts to poor Hispanics.

He helped Dr. Albert Schweitzer combat famine in Africa. He traveled the world for UNICEF. Concerned about seeing fewer pelicans on beaches where he was jogging, he went with ecologists and his son on a trip to Anacapa Island.

And after his university lectures around the country (though he wasn’t the only such advocate) the US banned DDT in 1972.

It’s worth the day pass to Salon to read more about this versatile actor, twice nominated for Academy Awards for his supporting roles. Even though many are still bound to think of him as Oliver Douglas on Green Acres, Eddie Albert was far greater than that, before he passed away Thursday.

I recall rare moments in life when a President
of ours defended more lives than he lost.
LBJ and Nixon were the deadliest by far.
The Bushes also exacted great mortal cost.
The Gipper was little better. JFK and Ike moreso.
But only Carter and Ford took care with life’s torso.

No Messiah measured life by its national border,
nor its race, nor its gender, nor its narrowest isms.
No Creator bore false witness as a rationale for murder,
nor built gorges of indifference upon Man’s rotted schisms.
Our leaders swift direct us to the pinnacles of terror.
They defend capital and resource, provoking our error.

Rare is it our safety that compels the world’s darkest strife.
Rarer is a President’s truth in his claim to be pro-life.

Disrespecting Women Soldiers

Published: May 29, 2005

On Tuesday, Republican leaders had the Rules Committee block the House from voting on two modest amendments to the military authorization bill that were intended to remove ideological barriers to providing decent care to military women who are victims of sexual assault. One amendment, offered by Representative Michael Michaud, a Maine Democrat, would have ensured that so-called morning-after emergency contraception, which can prevent pregnancy if taken within 120 hours of unprotected sex, was made available to sexual assault victims at military bases. The other, sponsored by Representatives Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut, and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Democrat of Florida, would have carved out a narrow exception to the ban on federal financing of abortions, for military women who have suffered rape or incest.

We understand why G.O.P. leaders wanted to prevent the House from voting on these measures: that would have required Republicans to go on record in favor of ill-treating female service members to placate their influential extreme-right wing.

On Wednesday, House members did vote on a perennial proposal, offered this time by three California Democrats, Representatives Susan Davis, Jane Harman and Loretta Sanchez, to permit American troops overseas and their relatives to obtain abortions at military hospitals and clinics if they pay the bills. Military doctors currently may perform abortions only in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is endangered. Even in cases of rape and incest, the women must pay. While women stationed in the United States who seek an abortion can at least go to public or private hospitals or clinics off the grounds of military bases, those options may not be available to many of the more than 100,000 American women living on overseas bases, including in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We ask women to put their lives at risk for our freedom, so why is it we do not support them when they require safe and legal medical services?” asked Representative Davis. That is the right question. Troubling figures released this month by the Pentagon show that the number of reported cases of sexual assault among service members continues to climb. Regrettably, this did not deter the House from defeating the amendment, 233 to 194.

Beyond doing the right thing for troops healthcare, hey, Congress, how about an investigation of those “climbing rates” of sexual assualts? Since part of what the military does is turn men into brutes, they are going to act like brutes, and we need to protect our female soldiers from them.

Many on the right (and some who make a profession of saying they’re not on the right, yet continue to extol what they claim to be Bush’s accomplishments while attacking the left) are in extraordinary high dudgeon over the recent comments in the release of Amnesty International’s 2005 Annual Report, in which, among other criticisms of human rights abuses throughout the world, the organization referred to the detention centers set up by the Bush adminstration around the world to be “the Gulag of our times.”

Apparently the right is unaware of the concept of hyperbole as a rhetorical device. I find their outrage somewhat mystifying. Consider these recent uses of hyperbole:

Saddam could launch WMD’s within 45 minutes.

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Saddam has mobile germ warfare weapons labs.

“Iraq is the front in the War on Terror.”

A year from now, I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush.

The right has chosen to attack AI not on the substance, but on the tone of their report. I cannot recall firm and unequivocal denials that none of these camps exist, that extraordinary rendition has not been taking place, etc. That, frankly, underscores the fragility of their argument. The facts are the facts.

The Sunday Semonette is a weekly quotation offered in praise of reason, free thought, and other Enlightenment values. Today’s inspirational quote comes from Scottish philosopher David Hume:

What danger can ever come from ingenious reasoning and inquiry? The worst speculative skeptic ever I knew was a much better man than the best superstitious devotee and bigot.”–David Hume in a letter to Gilbert Elliot, March 10, 1751.

From the Effect Measure bully pulpit, Revere delivers a humanist homily from Herbert Simon.

The Sunday Sermonette meme is busting out all over!

When your son - or daughter - has fallen on the battlefield, a gold star is not much comfort. And when even that is denied to you because of rigid respect for rules above heart, the lustre of that star can be lost forever.

This would be the approprate time for Laura Bush to extend an invite to Ligaya Lagman for a White House event, to demonstrate support where it’s due. That is, if she stands for anything at all.

Chuck Currie covers a spate of bad theology:

“Some would have us believe that Islam is just as good as Christianity,” said Vines. “Christianity was founded by the virgin-born son of God, Jesus Christ. Islam was founded by Muhammad, a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives, the last one of which was a nine-year-old girl.” In addition, Vines said, “Allah is not Jehovah either. Jehovah’s not going to turn you into a terrorist that’ll try to bomb people and take the lives of thousands and thousands of people.”

I presume Mr. Vines thinks Christianity was just a good boy who had an adolescent moment’s lapse with that Crusades thing. And the witch burnings. And the appeasement of the Nazis thing. And the ties to the KKK thing. And that priest pedophilia thing. And…

Gotta watch the Iraqi and Bushwinkle Show. If only I could find the Wayback Machine…

The New York Times headline reads: Smithsonian to Screen a Movie That Makes a Case Against Evolution.

Sounds impressive until you find out that the Discovery Institute just rented out the Baird auditorium to show their movie. Leave it to the fellows of Discovery Institute to rent a room by the hour and brag about it.

News of the Discovery Institute’s announcement appeared on a blog maintained by Denyse O’Leary, a proponent of the intelligent design theory, who called it “a stunning development.” But a museum spokesman, Randall Kremer, said the event should not be taken as support for the views expressed in the film. “It is incorrect for anyone to infer that we are somehow endorsing the video or the content of the video,” he said.

The museum, he said, offers its Baird Auditorium to many organizations and corporations in return for contributions - in the case of the Discovery Institute, $16,000.

When the language of the Discovery Institute’s Web site was read to him, with its suggestion of support, Mr. Kremer said, “We’ll have to look into that.”

He added, “We’re happy to receive this contribution from the Discovery Institute to further our scientific research.”

The president of the Discovery Institute, Bruce Chapman, said his organization approached the museum through its public relations company and the museum staff asked to see the film. “They said that they liked it very much - and not only would they have the event at the museum, but they said they would co-sponsor it,” he recalled. “That was their suggestion. Of course we’re delighted.”

The Smithsonian is strapped for cash, but I didn’t realize it was this desperate:

Mr. Kremer said he heard about the event only on Thursday. He added that staff members viewed the film before approving the event to make sure that it complied with the museum’s policy, which states that “events of a religious or partisan political nature” are not permitted, along with personal events such as weddings, or fund-raisers, raffles and cash bars. It also states that “all events at the National Museum of Natural History are co-sponsored by the museum.”

Now the Discovery Institute will be able to say that the Smithsonian co-sponsored their flick. Worse still, the Smithsonian has publicly conceded that the the Discovery Institute’s screening is a non-religious and non-partisan event. Smithsonian is inviting the mistaken inference that this screening is a legitimate scientific event.

I know museum curators aren’t known for playing hardball. But here’s a good rule of thumb: If someone says they’re waging a culture war against you, don’t rent them any space and don’t co-sponsor any of their events.

If the Smithsonian must associate with crackpots, it should charge a lot more than $16,000 for the privilege.

Hat tip to PZ Myers.

“There’s no question in my mind the number one problem of mankind is the spread of nuclear knowledge,” said Buffett, 74, the world’s second richest man and chairman of holding company Berkshire Hathaway. “It should be at the top of the list for our government.”

Buffett, one of the world’s most widely admired investors, recently footed the bill for a hypothetical nuclear doomsday movie called “Last Best Chance.”

[link]

Also pushing for this bipartisan effort are former Senators Sam Nunn (D) and Fred Thompson (R), current Senator Richard Lugar (R), 9-11 Commission chair Thomas Kean (R) and vice chair Lee Hamilton (D), and CNN founder Ted Turner. Not exactly a progressive’s favorite line-up.

According to Peter Daou:

The Nuclear Threat Initiative is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization focused on immediate actions to address high-risk situations involving nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. NTI is co-chaired by CNN founder Ted Turner and former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn. Warren Buffett
serves as Advisor to the Board of Directors.

To illustrate the threat, NTI has put together Last Best Chance, a
docudrama that depicts the danger posed by vulnerable nuclear weapons:
http://www.lastbestchance.org

ABC’s Nightline recently featured the project, and Meet the Press will cover it this Sunday, May 29th.

You should also be aware you can sign up for a free copy of the film at this site, though you need to do so quickly while they’re still available.

As one who’s pushed to eliminate nuclear and chemical weapons from the planet for more than three decades, I’ll happily promote the efforts of anyone working towards every control we can get that might eventually lead to that end.

It’s especially critical for nukes and the raw supplies of fissionable material; the deadliest materials a criminal mind could employ. Perhaps this project will make the crucial difference.

We can only hope.

Last month, I posted a story accusing a major news network of dirty search engine optimization tactics. The story ended up making its way to some pretty high level sources. This week, I got contacted by Mark Glaser of Online Journalism Review. I thought I’d post an (edited) answer to one of his more important questions:

What are these people — if not the companies themselves — doing to manipulate search rankings, and what can bloggers and Google do to fix things?

The SEO tactic that poses the greatest danger to bloggers has no official name. For our purposes we can just call it �€œreverse search engine optimization�€�. Google has a set of filters which detect and punish pages that use certain outdated SEO tactics. In the case of the CNN spams, we observe a tactic called keyword stuffing. Put simply, keyword stuffing is flooding a page with repeated search terms, (i.e. CNN CNN CNN CNN CNN CNN CNN). At one time, this tactic actually worked; but now google has a set of filters which easily detect this practice. When google finds a page with stuffed keywords, it responds by either removing the offending text, removing the page, or in some cases the entire domain from its index. In the case of the CNN spams, the possible damage of the stuffed keywords was greatly intensified. But to understand why, you must first understand how google assigns weight to a page�€™s content

In every search engine, the single most important determinant of where your page is placed is the text in your title tags. For example [title]CNN: Television’s Great Orifice[/title]. Page titles can be seen at the very top of your browser window.

Now, in most blogging software, the page title is also outputted into h1 or h2 tags. These header tags are probably the second most important determinant of where your page is indexed. Third most important is the content. My essay has about 7 mentions of “CNN”. All together, this is why my essay is seen as relevant to “CNN” by google. So when a spammer leaves a comment that repeats “CNN” 100 times, there is no way for google to differentiate between the repeated search terms as spam, or me trying to boost my own search engine ratings by way of dishonest techniques. If someone dropped by and left a comment that repeated “Texas Holdem” over and over again, it would be a different story. The repeated terms are not already in my pagetitles, headers, and content. But in this case, google has my pagetitles, headers, and content all containing “CNN”; so it looks very bad to their filters.

Keyword stuffing is perhaps the easiest way to pull off a quick censoring of a post. Unlike, cloaking (setting font-color to white, and repeating a term over and over again so that is visible to search engines but not the human eye), you can’t protect yourself by limiting the HTML tags that a commenter can use. The only way you can protect yourself from stuffed keywords is to have some way of knowing when someone comments on any post of yours.

I don’t ever know if we’ll ever see this tactic become widely used. It only works on pages that allow comments; and its very easy to catch. However, there is another tactic that I’m far more worried about. That is: using link farms to censor a page.

A link farm is a page that is created for the one purpose: to link to page, and in turn raise its page rank. But google has wised up to link farms, and now actively punishes pages that have participate in link farms. Many of these pages have been removed from the index all together. Theoretically, it would be possible for a company to set up link farms to attack certain pages, and delist them in far more silent and effective way than is possible with keyword stuffing. Since the link farms themselves would be delisted, so it would be very difficult to track this practice. I haven’t yet seen any evidence of this tactic being used. But my guess is if its not already happening, its right around the corner.

The main problem for google is that the very filters that maintain quality in their search results can easily be taken advantage of by an SEO expert gone bad. When they designed the filters, they did not seem to take into account what someone would have to gain from getting a page delisted. Then again, I haven’t the foggiest idea of how google could differentiate between dishonest SEO that is by or against the owner of a page. It’s a forgone conclusion that these filters are an overall good thing for the web; even if they can be taken advantage of.

As for what bloggers can do in the meantime, I’m afraid I don’t have any easy steps that will protect them. Rather, my advice is to be vigilant, keep an eye out for fishy comments, keep track of your google traffic; if it begins to fall do some investigation as to why. If you can’t figure it out, drop me comment at my blog, and I’ll happily investigate it for you.

I don’t see this being a problem that is going to be solved through educating the masses. Most bloggers aren’t going to take the time to have total awareness of what is happening to their comment sections, much less their google rankings. Moreover, half of the concept I’ve described is theoretical. The best strategy I’ve come up with so far is to aggressively pursue any occurrences of these dirty SEO tactics, and hopefully, expose the companies that perpetrated them. The goal is to make it a practice which is widely known to carry risks that outweigh its benefits.

The Internet is free, but like a democracy, a free Internet requires vigilance. My personal view is that protecting our right to be listed high on a google search is as important, to virtual world, as protecting our freedom of speech is to the physical world. To be listed on some google search is to be heard, to be delisted is to be silenced. When you’ve been silenced, you’ve been censored. Its as simple as that.

If anyone has difficulty accessing the site, please notify me at my despammed.com email address which begins with oldblue@

No need to email me if the problem is an incapacity to use comments. That’s a bug we’ll be fixing soon.

TCF has been contemplating a new TCFW blog gimmick aimed at driving more customer traffic into his little bodega of truth. Jealous and peeved that Rox Populi�€™s Write Your Own Caption is not as easily or successfully cloned as a prime-time network police or medical drama, I may still go with my first instinct.

I was thinking a fun, but revealing exercise would be to post pics of gas-guzzling SUVs�€™ hypocritically sporting �€˜Support Our Troops�€™ decals, for example. I�€™d keep one of those cheap disposable cameras in my car, and post the pics regularly. Huh? TCF could do better? How about, cute puppy pic blog posts? Or, a sexy, suggestive pics of hunky male celebrities shtick?

However, TCF offered the preceding thought to segue nicely into this hand-to-God true story of a recent incident, I experienced personally.

This past Wednesday morning, I couldn�€™t sleep, so I went to the Dunkin Donuts nearby. Don�€™t ask me why, but I hate their coffee, although I know many apparently swear by it. Too acidic, with like a burnt pinecone aftertaste. Fey�€�

But, I enjoy a nuked sausage and cheese croissant occasionally, then getting my preferred extra large w/cream and sugar coffee from Dunk Donuts in nearby Melrose Park, if I wanna drive that far.

So, as I�€™m crossing the parking lot, I notice a nearly new, khaki green GM gas-guzzling, behemoth of an SUV (the make escapes me now). It had two �€˜Support The Troops�€™ ribbon decals, one yellow, and the other employing a US flag design. On the tinted rearview window above, an oversized American flag decal that was not see-through.

Shaking my head with disgust, I continued inside and took my place behind a short line of customers already waiting. To my right, sitting on the other side of the long, oval counter sat a woman eating and reading the paper, who can only (and accurately) be described as obese. Oblivious to all those around her, the bespectacled, dark pink-shirted customer clearly was enjoying the strawberry-filled donut in hand, a large sack of treats and milk (low-fat 2%) beside her as back-up.

After completing my purchase, TCF turned to leave just in time to watch �€˜Big Pink�€™ laboriously, and with a slow waddle, exit the premises. Needing to cross a very busy thoroughfare during peak morning rush hour, TCF stood at the curb in front of the Dunkin Donuts long enough to notice the aforementioned, mileage-challenged �€˜bucket�€™ pull to the DD exit �€“ with �€˜Big Pink�€™ at the wheel!

Oh, and by the way, hanging from her rear view mirror was one of those blue Handicap Parking Permit passes.

Only in America.

(Cross-posted at That Colored Fella’s weblog)

This is the Master of the Domain again, y’all.

That wen’t so smooth I shouldn’t have even mentioned it. Carry on. All your bookmarks and RSS feeds will be redirected and retrieved…no change necessary on your part.

Britain’s environment secretary, Margaret Beckett, tells the U.S. to face up to climate change, and she’s not mincing her words on this issue:

In an interview with the Guardian ahead of the British-chaired G8 summit in July which seeks to promote climate change and Africa as the great challenges of the decade, Tony Blair’s veteran environment secretary says that the US is “doing more than people give them credit for in terms of new technology investment such as carbon sequestration.

“But the question is ‘is that enough?’ And the general feeling in the world community is that no, it is not doing enough. If the Americans think the Kyoto process is not a good process, do you just stand back and say you don’t want to be part of that? Or do you say you don’t want a process like that again?”

Mrs Beckett noted with typical acerbity that the US critique of the Kyoto accords on climate change has not been consistent.

Initially it argued that it was unfair not to have developing nations involved, then that it was unfair to force them to take part.

She said it would be “wise” for Washington to come up with its own ideas on the way forward.

Washington’s ideas on the way forward seem to consist of closing ones eyes and pretending that everything is perfectly fine. Or of inventing really fancy names such as “Clean Skies” or “Healthy Forests” for programs that clean the skies by making sure that nothing remains alive to fly about in them or that make the forests healthy by getting rid of those dratted trees. As long as open market activities are not threatened our administration is content. Or so it seems to me.

Some of my wingnutty acquaintances argue that us liberals are always willing to save nature whatever the cost, and they may have a point. But the reverse is always true: there is no price cheap enough for some of these corporate conservatives to spend for the sake of this earth. Because she doesn’t vote.

She has other powers, of course, and one of them is the power to shrug us off if we pester her too much. If we take care of the earth she’ll take care of us. How’s that for a deal that even a wingnut could understand?

At approximately 7:30 pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time, we will begin the process of moving The American Street to a new server. There is a strong chance any posts or comments made for several hours after that time will vanish.

Hopefully this will all be fairly transparent, but we are trying to synchronize this with a change in registrar (I know, I know…I may be the Master of the Domain, but I just work here, know what I’m saying?). Therefore I want to let you know that the new server is at

http://68.178.151.30/amstreet/

and the RSS will be at

http://68.178.151.30/amstreet/feed/

Even now, at those addresses The American Street lives a strange parallel existence, the passage of time held in abeyance for an entire day at my whim, proof positive of the puissant power that is mine to command!

LET ALL NOW PRESENT BEND THE KNEE BEFORE HE WHO IS MASTER OF THE DOMAIN!

ahem

Anyway, I’ll post something when it’s done.

On the same day President Bush said that 20 years from now, historians will look back on the Iraq war as “America’s golden moment,” Raw Story reports that Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) seeks to amass 100,000 signatures from U.S. citizens calling on President Bush for more answers about a 2002 meeting during which a senior British official said intelligence was “being fixed” to present a case for the Iraq war.

From JohnConyers.com:

“…Along with 88 of my colleagues, I wrote to the President requesting answers about this grave matter. Thus far, our search for the truth has been stonewalled and I need your help. I believe the American people deserve answers about this matter and should demand directly that the President tell the truth about the memo. To that end, I am asking you to sign on to a letter to the President requesting he answer the questions posed to him by 89 Members of Congress…

..Please pass on this important letter to your friends and colleagues, and ask them to sign as well.

Thank you for your help and support.”

John Conyers, Jr.

Letter to President Bush Concerning the Downing Street Memo

Raw Story has learned that a coalition of activist groups running the gamut of social and political issues will ask Congress to file a Resolution of Inquiry, the first necessary legal step to determine whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses in misleading the country about his decision to go to war in Iraq. It cites the Downing Street Memo and issues surrounding the planning and execution of the Iraq war. A resolution of inquiry would force relevant House committees to vote on the record as to whether to support an investigation.

NOTE: Telling us that history will judge this as our “golden moment” is quite a leap from Bush’s reply to Bob Woodward when he asked the president how history would judge Bush on Iraq. Back then, Bush had replied:

�€˜History,�€™ and then he took his hands out of his pocket and kind of shrugged and extended his hands as if this is a way off. And then he said, �€˜History, we don�€™t know. We�€™ll all be dead.�€™�€�

Reference: AfterDowningStreet.org

Now we know what is needed in a diplomat: rough edges. Or at least rough edges are perfectly acceptable in the intricate game of international diplomacy, thinks Condoleezza Rice:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged Friday that John R. Bolton has “rough edges” but said it was time for the Senate to approve his nomination to be U.N. ambassador so he can promote needed reform.

A day after Democrats forced the Republican-run Senate to delay a vote on Bolton until at least next month, Rice called him a “pretty tough person” and added, “There are many people who work for him who would walk through a wall for him.”

Bolton has been accused of bullying intelligence officials whose analyses ran counter to his conservative ideology. His defenders have said he did not mistreat them and is entitled to disagree with intelligence estimates he receives.

Who am I kidding here? Bolton is exactly what the administration wants: a bully. Bush and friends are not interested in international diplomacy, they are interested in international dominance of the crudest kind. The choice of Bolton is probably perfect.

The costs of that choice will fall on other people than those behind his selection, though. Nobody likes a bully, and bullying tactics are only successful in the very shortest of runs. In the longer run people remember and resent.