Hungry Hungry Hippo Habitat: News and politics

Video: Saddam Hussein's Necktie Party

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 23:45:31 GMT

When I heard that Saddam had been hanged last night (that's right, "hanged," not hung - look it up, news anchors!), the morbid curiosity in me needed to see the video. I assumed the domestic news agencies would not release the full video, but I thought for sure I'd be able to find it quickly on Al Jazeera or Reuters. Alas, no such luck.

But Google Video came through. The quality is poor due to low light, but here it is in case you just need to see the platform drop for yourself:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1734042717556560160&q=saddam+execution+video&hl=en

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UPDATE 01/02/2007:

OOPS! Looks like Nouri al-Maliki isn't so happy about the fact that you can watch that video:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,240598,00.html

Well THAT didn't take long... South Dakota abortion ban

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 20:49:59 GMT

The legislature of South Dakota has decided to be the one to push the envelope and see just how pro-life this new U.S. Supreme Court is going to be. More info here.

Quoth the article:

Under the new bill, doctors in South Dakota would face up to five years in prison for performing an abortion. The only exception would be for women who need abortions to save their lives.

I don't really have a problem with that. It's a difficult situation, but I believe that sacrificing one life to save another is not something to condemn or scorn. It is an extremely sad situation when that happens. But it is fairly rare. The majority of abortions are performed as a means of birth control. I believe that using abortion as birth control (at any phase of the pregnancy) is nothing but infanticide.

I'm sure you'll be following this discussion, whether you want to or not. This will be all over the media for some time to come. One thing is clear (to me, at least): Roe v. Wade was a political decision; pure judicial legislation. Our Constitution forbids the judiciary from making law, and yet that is just what happened. Whether you agree with the law created by RvW or not, the simple fact is that the law would never have passed Congress and the signature of the President at the time the ruling was made. That is the only legal way for a law to be passed, and RvW circumvented the process to push a political agenda. There has been a culture war over this issue ever since.

Expect it to continue. To intensify. To get violent, on both sides. But for now, it is a waiting game. Be certain that when this law is passed in SD and goes into effect, the lawsuits will begin that day. The Supreme Court will be hearing the case soon. And then we'll know the next chapter in this sad, sad story.

Dick Cheney - Gun for Hire

Thu, 16 Feb 2006 16:23:42 GMT

The press are jumping all over Cheney for the shooting accident. What are they upset about? The fact that he didn't notify them first. No kidding!

Nevermind the privacy of this man's healthcare or condition. Nevermind the fact that this is a private incident that really has no impact on the government or international affairs. The press is mad because they didn't get informed! As though it is their God-given Constitutional right to know about it 5 minutes after it happened!

The whole incident (as far as the press and the nation are concerned) is just a fart in a tornado. For the man who was shot and for Dick Cheney himself, it is a big deal. A tragic and regretable accident. But the media needs to respect the privacy of the guy who got shot.

I don't see it as the responsibility of any public official to hold a press conference to inform the media of his or her personal affairs. It would be different if there had been a crime committed here. But it was just an accident. The media should get a grip.

EDIT:

Rob Cockerham has details regarding Whittington's injuries. Check out what was involved in the surgery.

My lunch with Ray Nagin

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 22:04:34 GMT

I had lunch with Ray Nagin today. We went to Jason's Deli and sat down to have a little chat. Ray ordered a sandwich, and I got the salad bar. I love the salad bar at Jason's Deli. I was very intrigued by his comments yesterday, so I was anxious to ask him about it.

"So, Ray, you had some interesting things to say in your press conference yesterday."

"I'm always interesting," said Ray.

"I'm sure you are. What on earth promted that, anyway?"

"What are you talking about? I like to talk."

"That's obvious. You know what I'm talking about. The whole 'chocolate' thing."

"What, you got a problem with me, Whitey?"

"Well, yes, but that's beside the point. I mean, were your comments in response to someone else who was calling for a Vanilla New Orleans, or are you just a racist biggot?"

He raised his eyebrows a bit at that.

"I ain't no racist, you dumb honkey. I just said that New Orleans would be a chocolate town by the time I finished with it," replied the Honorable Mayor Ray Nagin.

"And you don't see that as racist?" I asked him.

"No, you stupid redneck, didn't you hear what I said? And I quote: 'How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about.' Are all you people too dumb to understand that?"

"Well, that's not how you make chocolate at all, for one thing," I replied. "And do you really think people were too dumb to understand what you really meant? You didn't want to mix dark chocolate and white milk. You sounded like some crazed James Bond villain. 'Dark chocolate will rule the world! Wahahaha!' Your dark chocolate is too bitter for my taste."

"New Orleans has always been a chocolate city!"

"Ray, what the heck does that even mean?"

"You know what it means!"

"Yes, I do, and so does everyone else. I think the question everyone has is why you think you can say it without considered being a racist biggot."

"I said black and white together!"

"No, you said 'chocolate.' We all heard you. Let me show you the difference."

I walked over to the soft serve ice cream machine and took a cone from the stack. I held it up and pulled the left lever. "See, this is chocolate." Then the right lever. "And this is vanilla." Finally the middle lever. "This here is called 'twist.' Chocolate AND vanilla. Working together, side by side. You don't like twist, do you? You just like chocolate."

"I love chocolate."

"Do you hate vanilla?"

"No, I like vanilla just fine."

"Ah, but you don't really care for twist all that much, do you? And that is what makes you a racist more than anything. Segregation was bad when it wasn't you calling the shots, but you prefer it when you are, right?"

"Hmmph."

"Well you know, there might just be chocolate and vanilla here, but America is more like that Baskin Robbins next door. There are a lot more flavors. Vanilla and chocolate sell better than the banana nut fudge or strawberry swirl or pink bubblegum, but that doesn't mean that those flavors don't exist. And when you stand up and state your intentions to make New Orleans a chocolate city, you are excluding all other flavors."

"No, I'm not! I just want to make sure that it remains predominantly chocolate!"

"Look, Ray. If any white mayor in this country proclaimed their intention to make their city a vanilla city, don't you think that people would jump all over him as a racist?"

"Only a racist white bastard would say something like that! Trying to oppress my people!"

"No Ray, you are oppressing your own people by your double standards. Seperate but equal was bad, but integration was worse in your eyes. You want 'seperate but superior.'"

"I do not!"

"You do. Equal rights wasn't enough for you. You want chocolate to have privileges that vanilla doesn't. You are cut from the very same cloth as David Duke, just with the colors reversed."

"But my people have suffered enough!"

"Look man, I never owned a slave, and you never were one. What do I owe you?"

"You're still keeping my people down!"

"No Ray, you and others like you are keeping your people down. If a black man gets a good education and speaks proper English and lives anywhere but a 'chocolate neighborhood,' you ostracize him for 'selling out to Whitey.' If you continue to equate education and success with 'whiteness,' and 'whiteness' with selling out, how do you ever expect a black man to be educated and successful without race being in front of him all the time? Morgan Freeman was right: he said that the only way America would ever get over racial bias is for people to shut up about it and quit making it an issue."

"Then quit making it an issue, Whitey! You're just like all those Whities, hatin' on me 'cause I'm black."

"Ray, I don't hate you because you're black. I despise you because you are an idiot, and worse than that, you are an idiot who gets press coverage."

A little perspective on Iraq

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 19:51:58 GMT

I keep hearing the press referring to the "high number of casualties in Iraq." I know that to the families who lose loved ones, that one death is far too many. But in terms of the big picture, this is the most painless war in history. Never in the history of the world has a military operation of the scope of the invasion of Iraq been executed with so few casualties.

As of today - December 14, 2005 (the 1000th day since the invasion commenced) - there have been a total of 2,150 U.S. casualties. That's on average 2.1 casualties per day since the invasion began. Allow me to put this into perspective for you with some U.S. and Allied casualty figures from World War 2 battles:

February 1942 - The Battle of the Java Sea. Ten ships lost; 2,173 sailors killed, in a battle that most Americans either don't remember or have never even heard of.

January - April, 1942 - The Battle of Bataan. 10,000 killed. 20,000 wounded. 75,000 taken prisoner. Thousands more deaths among prisoners during the infamous Bataan Death March.

May 5 - May 6, 1942 - The Battle of Corregidor. 800 killed. 1,000 wounded. 10,000 POWs. In two days.

May 1942 - The Battle of the Coral Sea. 543 killed. Three ships lost.

June 3, 1942 - The Battle of Midway. 307 killed. Two ships lost. (In one day. And this was a major victory.)

June-July 1942 - Convoy PQ-17. Convoy of supplies from US to Russia. 25 ships out of 36 sunk. 153 dead. 3,350 motorized vehicles intended for allied Russia; 430 tanks; 94,000 tons of cargo - all sent to the bottom of the sea.

August 1942 - February 1943 - The Battle of Guadalcanal. 1,492 killed. 4,500 wounded.

August 9, 1942 - The Battle of Savo Island. 1,270 killed. 709 wounded. 4 ships lost.

August 1942 - February 1943 - The Battle of Stalingrad. (There were no Americans in this battle, but I included it for illustrative purposes.) 1,600,000 military casualties on both sides; as many as 1,200,000 civilian casualties.

February 1943 - The Battle of Kasserine Pass. 6,054 dead or wounded, 3,700 captured, over 1,000 vehicles destroyed.

Early 1944, The Battle of Monte Cassino. ~54,000 dead or wounded US and Allied forces.

...

This is just scraping the surface. I've skipped over many, many hard fought battles (all of these are also pre-Normandy.) Everything above happened in less than the 1,000 days we've been in Iraq. These men fought and died so that you could live free. They fought and died to free the peoples of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Would the America of today have had the courage to endure the sacrifices that the Americans of generations past made? I'm afraid not.

When every KIA soldier is featured in a 15 second bio-pic on the CBS Evening News each night, and when 2,150 brave souls is too high a price to pay for freedom, then I think America has lost something valuable. Our courage? Our morality? Our will? Perhaps. But we have definitely lost our perspective. Is it easy to lose 2,150 of our young people over the course of three years in a foreign land? Not at all. But as you can see above, in years past America has lost more than that in a single day. And we did not wince. We did not abandon the cause. Our determination did not waver. We wept, we mourned, we learned from our mistakes, and we moved on - never abandoning the goal of ultimate victory.

If the America of today can be scared off by losing a little over 2,000 soldiers in a war, then we can never fight in another war. Our superpower status means nothing if we can't stand the sight of our own blood. We will be pushed around by everybody, because they will know that we are too much a nation of wimps to do anything about it. By wanting to pull out to avoid more casualties, we have told our enemies one thing - if you bleed us a little bit, we'll take our ball and go home. We don't like to get hurt. If you hurt us, we'll leave.

I for one am not willing to send that message to our enemies. Find your courage, America. We're going to need it.

Saddam Hussein is not afraid of execution by shredder

Mon, 05 Dec 2005 20:29:14 GMT

Saddam Hussein says he is "not afraid of execution." Well, he might not be afraid of good ol' American execution by lethal injection, but this is Iraq, buddy. They'll probably cut off your head in the public square.

Or - and this would be poetic justice - they'll throw you feet first into a shredder like you and your dear boys did to so many of your enemies so that you could hear them scream in anguish as they were ground into tiny little bits while you laughed like some maniacal James Bond villain. You bastard.

If they took you into a public square and were going to put you in a shredder, would you be scared then? I wouldn't be too worried about the method of death though. You should be concerning yourself with what awaits you on the other side. You are going to die. Don't fear pain; don't fear death - fear God.

My advice to you is to repent and plead for mercy. Defiance will cost you everything. It already cost you your power, your pride, your country, your wealth, your position, your good for nothing sons, and your dignity. All you have left is your life and your soul (what's left of it.) Keep up the defiance and you'll forfeit those as well.

The Israel-Palestine conflict

Mon, 14 Nov 2005 22:28:28 GMT

Please read Iowahawk's excellent analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

New Orleans: The Homeless and the Hopeless

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 14:41:40 GMT

As I watched the news unfold on Monday, it seemed that New Orleans would be spared from the worst of it. After all of the build up to the main event, and after having read for years that New Orleans was on borrowed time, it almost seemed like a premature denouement when the storm passed and the city seemed to have survived. The wind was fierce, blowing windows out and destroying several smaller buildings. The rain was heavy, bringing minor flooding to several areas of the city. Power was out, of course. The water system was contaminated (it's New Orleans; they've always had bad water, but now it was utterly undrinkable.) As bad as it was, it did not bring the destruction prophesied by the forecasters. There seemed to be a feeling of disappointment mingled with the relief that the storm had not been the cataclism of its previous billing. Not that I wanted to feel this way, but the anticlimax seemed to beg the question, "is that all?" It's not too bad, considering. So we thought.

But it is bad. And getting worse - far worse than anyone who was watching Monday would have believed, and even worse than predicted before the landfall. The levees which had survived the impact Monday became saturated and finally gave way. Water has been pouring into the city since. One estimate puts the depth at the breach at over 100 feet. Neighborhoods that were relatively safe after the storm had passed now began to fill up. They are now in water up to the rooftops or even completely submerged. People who for one reason or another stayed in their houses were now chased from the ground floor upstairs - even into the attics. Those who were able eventually had to cut through the roofs to escape topside. Many others undoubtedly have drowned in their attics.

As helicopters lift parched, sunburned people from rooftops one at a time, others attempt to reach the stranded with boats where once were streets. As the stinking poisonous water reaches ever higher, the temperatures rise. The humidity is so high from the standing water, the survivors and rescuers are subjected to a heat index over 115 degrees. Bloated corpses float helplessly in the water. Sewage has overflown into the enormous cesspool that has become New Orleans. Alligators have overflown from Ponchartrain into the city. West Nile virus is now a major concern, along with hepatitis, heatstroke, food poisoning, starvation, lack of potable water. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

Meanwhile, the Superdome, housing tens of thousands of refugees, has become an island itself as the water rises around it. Today, plans are being formulated to evacuate the dome. But where will they go? Metropolitan New Orleans was home to approximately 1.5 million people last week. Many wisely fled the city on Sunday. The others are suffering the consequences of staying right now. As I type this, a news alert just popped up on my screen indicating the intention to evacuate the inhabitants of the Superdome west along I-10 to the Astrodome in Houston. Regardless of all of this, the entire sum of those 1.5 million people are now displaced - and will be for months. Even if the floodwaters receded tomorrow (and they won't), these people have no homes to which they can return. New Orleans will soon be a necropolis. The sister city of Atlantis. It is likely that none will be able to inhabit the city for a long time - if ever again.

What of those 1.5 million souls? Homeless, jobless, penniless. Literally refuges, who just one week ago were living in a major city in the most powerful and technologically advanced nation ever on the face of the earth. Their city is now a third world disaster area. And this was a near-miss. (I haven't even mentioned Biloxi, Gulfport, Mobile and the others - not out of disrespect, just out of attempting to comprehend the massive scope - basically hundreds of miles of Gulf coast has been obliterated.)

It is going to get worse before it gets better. Oil production is crippled on the Gulf. Insurance companies must be stunned. Rescuers are still frantically racing against time. Hundreds of miles of elevated highways have been destroyed. The levees are useless, and the pumps would be futile at the point even if they had power. The engineers have many many long hours ahead of them. The notion of a cleanup effort is incomprehensible. All of which must happen before the dream of rebuilding can even commence.

Just a few hours.

A few hours of rain and wind has brought death, destruction, disease, and despair. And America, indeed all of mankind and all its advanced knowledge and ability was unable to prevent it. Unable to undo its effects. Unable even to comprehend the scope of the devastation.

And then I became mindful of the days of Noah. The people had been told for decades that it was coming. When it came, those who had not heeded the warnings were swept away. There was no escape. No getting in the car and heading for higher ground; higher ground was irrelevant. The microcosm of New Orleans pales in comparison to that destruction in terms of scope, but surely parallels it in terms of panic and despair. It is unimaginable.

It has shown me a few truths that ought not be forgotten. First and foremost, that God is big and we are small. All our plans can be thwarted in an instant and our lives completely shaken, or even taken. None of our supposed "greatness" can stand a chance in the presence of the Lord God Almighty. And through this disaster, God is showing his immeasurable love. Life is precious, and the God for whom the death of a sparrow does not go unnoticed will surely not despise the people affected by this disaster. God's love has not failed; rather it will be displayed in remarkable ways though this disaster as people turn to him and cry out to him, and as he demonstrates his love through his people. Of the millions of people who are simultaneously crying out to God, he is giving each one of them his undivided attention. People who have been affected directly or indirectly by this hurricane will now reorder their priorities. The realization of what is really important is dawning across this nation with more clarity than ever before. For many, material possessions no longer hold the priority in their lives that they did a week ago; now it is enough that they have their families and their lives. Because they have nothing else. Faith, hope, and love remain.

The situation is still fluid, and I am not in the immediate area to render assistance. Many of the local churches are sending aid and relief - water, food, clothing, blankets, etc. I intend to do what I can to offer assistance and to show these displaced people the love of God. There is so little I can do, and yet every little bit helps. If I can be a blessing to one person by providing a bottle of water or a set of clothing, it is worth my effort to do so. I would like to encourage each of you to do the same.

Let us all keep the refugees and victims in our prayers, and do what we can to render assistance. Though the storm seems dark and the outlook bleak, God will bring good from this, and hope will return to those who are presently hopeless.

To be a POW, or not to be a POW

Fri, 17 Jun 2005 20:03:02 GMT

THAT is the question. We keep hearing incessant cries about how we are inviolation of the Geneva Conventions in regard to our treatment of Al Qaeda terrorists in Guantanamo and elsewhere. Do the people making these claims even know what the Geneva Accords actually SAY in regard to prisoners of war? Of course not. But here I am to educate and enlighten you!

Below is an excerpt from the 12 August 1949 Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners, Part 1: General Provisions, Article IV, section A. This is where the legal definition of the term "prisoner of war" is established (important items in bold; my comments in italic):

__________________________________

A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces. (Were the terrorists officially members of the armed forces of a particular nation? No. This doesn't qualify them.)
2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil (sic) the following conditions: (Note: This says that to qualify under section 2, a combatant must meet ALL qualifications in subsections a-d.)

(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (Osama answers to no one, but could be considered possibly to be responsible for his subordinates. At least, he will be held responsible. However, he is not in direct tactical command of terrorists in the field. Disqualified.)
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (VERY IMPORTANT! The terrorists do wear uniforms or distinctive marks which are "recognizable at a distance." They commit their violence under disguise, attempting to blend in with the civilian population.)
(c) That of carrying arms openly; (Terrorists are most effective when they conceal their arms, since they rarely fare well in direct combat with US troops. Since it is not standard practice for terrorists to carry weapons openly, this is not applicable either.)
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. (I think it's clear to all that terrorists operate outside the laws and customs of war. Disqualified.)

3. Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power. (The second half of the sentence is irrelevant, since the terrorists don't qualify for the bold-faced portion.)
4. Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model. (Nope, sorry.)
5. Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law. (Not applicable, unless you want to claim that the hijackers were "crews of civil aircraft.")
6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war. (Once again, terrorists do not qualify.)

___________________________

So there you have it. According to the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949, the terrorists who have been captured do NOT qualify as "prisoners of war" under any of the qualifying articles, and as such they are not legally afforded the privileges and protections contained therein. The United States is therefore not legally bound by its ratification of the Accords to apply these privileges and protections to these captive terrorists. They are only "enemy combatants," not "prisoners of war."

The truth about global warming.

Mon, 09 May 2005 14:55:10 GMT

As someone who has been a science and engineering student at length, I have always been outraged at the politically motivated "anti-science" that passes for truth from the mouths of the media, politicians, and pundits. People who gather "experts" around them to say what they want to hear have convinced the public at large so convincingly of their lies that they are considered largely unassailable to this day.

Finally, credible scientists have stepped forward to speak out against the manipluative lies of global warming and the conspriacy of the Kyoto Accords. Read it all, and watch the documentary that the the Canadian government refuses to allow to be broadcast.