President Carter Is Kicking Ass and Taking Names

Former President Jimmy Carter has been making the talk show rounds talking about his new book Our Endangered Values : America's Moral Crisis. Now, when a right winger uses the phrase "moral crisis", you know he's talking about the satanic lefty plot to take your bibles and impregnate your daughters. When Jimmy Carter says "moral crisis" he's talking about the United States Government torturing prisoners, suspending due process, invading countries, and letting fundamentalists make policy.

Here's the transcript of Larry King's interview with Carter this evening. I can not tell you how refreshing it is to have a prominent citizen who is also very religious say things such as this:

A fundamentalist though, as I define in this book, in extreme cases has come to the forefront in recent years both in Islam and in some areas of Christianity. A fundamentalist by, almost by definition as I describe is a very strong male religious leader, always a man, who believes that he is completely wedded to God, has a special privilege and relationship to God above others.

And, therefore, since he speaks basically in his opinion for God, anyone who disagrees with him at all is inherently and by definition wrong and therefore inferior. And one of the first things that a male fundamentalist wants to do is to subjugate women to make them subservient and to subjugate others that don't believe as he does.

The other thing they do, and this is the only other thing I'll add, is that they don't believe that it's right to negotiate or to compromise with people who disagree with them because any deviation from their absolute beliefs is a derogation of their own faith. So, those two things, exclusiveness, domination and being very highly biased are the elements of fundamentalism.

Wow. Carter gets it. He sees it.

I do not believe in God. However, I am mature enough to realize that in a free society anyone is free to believe anything they want. When it comes to matter of personal cosmological views, words like "right' and "wrong" have no meaning. You either believe something or you don't, and there exists no way to prove your view over mine or my view over yours with any real certainty. That's why it's critical to realize that if you want to keep your free society free, you have to keep an eye out for fundamentalists, because they are no mature enough to let people believe things other than what they believe.

Fundamentalism is about consolidating power and thought. That's why it so closely resembles fascism. Carter recognizes this too:

CARTER: Well, I think there's been always maybe for a century some elements of fundamentals. You know, I believe in the fundamentals of my faith. But in the book that I have written I describe in some detail the exact definition of what I consider to be a fundamentalist that I've just outlined just two principles of it.

In my own Baptist faith the right wing began to dominate and fundamentalism came to the forefront beginning in 1949 about 25 years ago and it came to fruition I would guess about five years ago when the leaders of my denomination issued a creed in effect, a state of principles that they themselves drafted and now you cannot be an employee in the Southern Baptist Convention.

You can't be a missionary overseas. You can't be a pastor. You can't be a chaplain in the armed services. You can't be an administrator or teacher in any of the seminaries or higher education institutions unless you accept that creed and that's something that is completely unprecedented and has never happened in my faith before.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a group of people wanting to organize and worship together. But a line is crossed when it becomes about controlling thought.

But yet another, more concerning line is crossed when fundamentalists try to force their brand of religion on society. Carter understands this too:

But this is something that Thomas Jefferson espoused, as you know, when he said build a wall between church and state and I happen, as you know, I'm a Christian and I believe that Jesus Christ ordained this when he said "Render under Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's." So, this breaking down of the barriers between the two is just one of the elements in recent years that causes me concern.

There is a very clear and distinct difference between believing that Adam and Eve rode to work on dinosaurs and trying to force that idea into society by subverting our educational system. In a free society you have the ability to believe whatever you want to believe, but there also exists an obligation in a free society to keep that society free. When one groups decides that their beliefs trump all others, and seek to force those beliefs on society, then that is an active attempt to make society less free.

For example, when you have a situation where fundamentalists are trying to change how science is taught to fit their cosmological views, then society is becoming less free. Jimmy Carter understands that:

KING: By the way, as a Christian, do you believe in creationism?

CARTER: I believe there's a supreme being, God, who created the entire universe, yes. And I am a scientist, as a matter of fact, as you may know, I studied nuclear physics. I helped to develop nuclear submarines. So, I believe in science. I believe we ought to explore the far outreaches of space. We ought to make sure we understand everything we can about the particles that make up the atoms.

I think we ought to discover everything we can about science. It ought to be accepted as proved unless it's discounted. I believe still in a supreme being. But, I don't believe that we ought to teach religious matters in a science classroom, because I think that the two ought not to be related.

They ought to be completely separate. And I don't think anyone, Larry, interferes in full belief in the other. I believe completely in scientific proofs and values unless they're discounted. I believe in a supreme being. But, I don't believe you ought to teach creationism in the science classroom.

Obviously, I disagree with his cosmological stance, but he has every right to have that stance. However, and much more importantly, I totally agree with the principle he is putting forth here: "The two ought not be related". Religion has it's place in society, science has it's place. Religion has thousands of places of worship and hundreds (if not more) of it's own schools; it does not need the public school classroom.

But let us not forget that freedom is as much a matter free thought as it is a matter of honor. When your country is operating secret torture camps, then you disgrace and dishonor the ideals of freedom. Carter understand this too:

I don't think there's any doubt that lately, as John McCain has pointed out, and as 90 of the 100 Senators have approved that our government has illegally and improperly been torturing prisoners, so John McCain and others are trying to have in the law just now being considered we should not be permitted to torture prisoners. This has been a part of our nation's policy ever since I can possibly -- well for more than 100 years at least.

KING: But we didn't -- we didn't have a 9/11.

CARTER: Well but we had the Second World War, which was a lot more destructive for our people. In fact, my own uncle, Tom Gordy (ph), was captured by the Japanese about two weeks after Pearl Harbor and he was a prisoner for four years. He was tortured severely, only weighed 85 pounds when he came out of prison. He was almost dead.

And after that the Geneva Accords were written, which was approved by and even negotiated by the United States and we agreed that in order to protect our own reputation and in order to prevent our own service people from being tortured if they were captured that we would not torture prisoners who were held by us.

That in a radical way is now being rejected by many people in our government and it's not a unanimous thing even within the Bush administration. There's a big debate going on whether the CIA should be permitted or the Defense Department should be permitted to torture people.

I think it's completely wrong. It's completely damaging to our country and it's never been done before. That's just another one of the principles that bothers me.

KING: And the story today on the front page of "The Washington Post" reporting that the CIA set up covert prison systems nearly four years ago with facilities in Thailand, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, a secret prison system. What do you make of that?

CARTER: I was not surprised. In fact, I covered that in my book because there has been a program that was fairly well known that when we were condemned by members of the Congress for what was going on in Guantanamo, we began to move prisoners out of Guantanamo and those others that are captured in the Mideast and put them in countries where torture is alleged or permitted.

And so this was not a revelation. It was very surprising because it's been a policy. And, as you know, just a few days ago the vice president went to the Congress to try to get key Senators to agree not to put in the McCain Amendment but to let the CIA have permission to torture prisoners.

This has never been done in our country and it violates the reputation of our nation and it also I think makes it possible for our own prisoners to be in danger in the future.

The eloquence with which Carter spoke about these things was...uplifiting. We need more people like Jimmy Carter to speak out on the true "moral crisis" in America today.

Quote of the Day

As seen on AIM:

"i'm no conformist. that's why i bathe only on postal holidays."

Literally

Ever seen someone chided for using the word "literally"? I mean when someone says "My mouth was literally on fire after eating that pepper" and then some nitpicking language fundamentalist says "No, I saw your mouth and it was not on fire". David Cross had a bit like that, maybe he started the nonsense...

As it turns out, this elucidating Slate.com piece by an editor at the OED explains that not only is it perfectly ok to use "literally" that way, but in fact Louisa May Alcott, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mark Twain, and James Joyce all used the word in that context. Nit-pickers - 0, Masters of the English Language - 1.

This is why a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Merry Fitzmas

Deck the halls with balls of liars...Merry Fitzmas, Mr. Bush.

By Far The Coolest Thing I've Seen Today

Music video produced entirely on an Apple II+ in Applesoft II.
Hat tip: Boing Boing.

Re: William G.

Suprisingly, I got an actual comment on my William G. post:

Joe wrote:
Actually, Paul, William G. is a nice guy and a talented artist. I think you misread his critique of PvP and Penny Arcade. If he seems resentful now, it's because of the huge number of PvP and Penny Arcade fans who sent him hateful emails after the article.

Everybody has a right to express their opinion, and nobody should be subject to the kind of hazing Bill has gotten for doing so.

Thanks for writing in Joe.

William G. may well be a decent guy in real life, but his Internet persona is one of a hateful creep. I do recall seeing some of his art last spring, and it indeed was rather good.

However, as a critic he's a hack. His critique of PA and PvP was, to put it mildly, crap. If I recall correctly, he was saying that as an artist these comics were poor because they lacked good art. That was a rather weak point...Just because every frame isn't an infinite canvas fit for an HDTV that takes a week to draw doesn't mean the comic can't be a good comic, or a great comic.

For example: The reason Penny Arcade is a great comic is because of the writing and characterization. When you read a PA strip you have an instinctual feeling for who these people are. That's what great comedy is. Gabe and Tycho are like Abbot and Costello...They play established rolls and those rolls are central to what make the gags work. While PA and Garfield are both essentially gag comics, Garfield sucks because the characters are so bland that the gags become unfunny. The point is that the gags are the joke, the characters are the joke. While the art isn't mind blowing, it is crucial to the characterizations. Gabe and Tycho would not work as stick figures.

But none of that is why William G. got the hatemail. Most people can sluff off criticism of their favorite comics. He didn't get the hatemail because of what he said about the comics themselves. He became an asshole when he said this about PvP and Penny-Arcade:

If they came out today, they wouldn't be as popular as they are.

That's not a critique of those comics, it's a critique about their fans. It's one thing to criticize the comic itself, but he was insinuating that these thousands of readers are ignorant...That if they knew any better, they wouldn't be reading these comics. He personally insulted every reader of Penny Arcade and PvP Online.

That's why when he complains about the "fanboys", he's either an idiot or a liar. If he's an idiot, he can't see that there exist types of comics that don't merely exist on art alone. If he's a liar, than he's still insulting these audiences whenever he spews the word "fanboy", and he's insulting them because he loathes the type of person who reads webcomics for anything else than arthouse eliteism.

Personally, I think he's just an idiot. Remember, there is no such thing as bad publicity. He must have had a huge readership after the "PA/PvP Incident" and instead of doing anything useful with that, he closed the blog. Then he started showing up everywhere, leaving little bits of trolling wherever he went. The man simply has had nothing of any substance to say since the incident. He also hasn't produced any more art. Had he been smart, he would have made fun of PA and PvP in comic form, but I really think the man has no real sense of humor.

What William G. needs to do is apologize to the readers of PvP and Penny Arcade. Then he needs to drop the curmudgeon persona.

David Brin is the Man

Sci-Fi author David Brin has a not-so-well-known blog where he posts basically what are huge essays broken up into blog-post sized posts. He started with a three-month-long series on Modernism and it's enemies that was breathtaking and recently followed it up with a series on gerrymandering.

Yesterday's post though, mirrors a lot of the thoughts that have been going through my own mind recently about wealth and liberalism. Sometimes, I feel like Brin spends too much time trying to be a "centrist", but this post is a spectacular takedown of the economics of the Right...

We have been told all our lives that socialism is the chief enemy of markets. Hm, well, that was true for a little while, I guess. Indeed, Ronald Reagan was right to call the Soviet Union an "evil empire." But for how long? From 1917 to 1989?

Big deal!

For most of the rest of human history -- 99% of urban cultures -- the great enemy of accountability and market systems consisted of conspiratorial aristocratism. The deliberate collusion of those with power, money and influence to take over the organs of the state and use the state's power to enforce their family privileges. Their right to cheat and own other people. And then to ensure those privileges would be inherited. This happened so consistently, across all cultures, that it must be one of the core human traits that modern civilization is challenged to overcome.

Seriously, conservative friends, look over the paragraph above and try your best to evade it.

That's it. Right there. Look at the current Republican party. Look at the current Administration. They are the new arristocrats. Rich, white, male, wealthy. They have spent the last several decades making America safe for serfdom. The rich lower taxes on themselves and ensure that the cost of living increases for everyone else. They make more money while we pay more for education, housing, food, healthcare, and transportation. They squeeze the middle class and squash the poor. They make debt easy to aquire and hard to pay off. These guys are neo-Randian followers of a sort of revived version of Social Darwinism. Now the poor don't deserve help because they don't deserve it...They don't have the "determination" and they don't do the "hard work".

The new Social Darwinists have done a very effective job of propagandizing their vision so that the middle class will accept it. Welfare and Affirmative Action become "socialism". They demonize the Europeans and they push nationalism.

Back to Brin:

Go ahead. Ask some of today's "insatiable-style" aristos and propertarian mystics how they can support tax cuts for the rich in good times and in hard times...

...tax cuts for the rich during peace and during war. Tax cuts during huge deficits and tax cuts during surplus...

...tax cuts to "supply side" us into prosperity through investment in research and factories...

... and then -- when the aristocracy demonstrably does not invest their tax gifts in capital -- they switch to "demand side" justifications, calling for yet more tax cuts, so that the aristocracy can spend it all on employment-generating toys.

(Hint, the last thirty years have shown that direct tax cuts to the rich are just about the LEAST effective economic stimulation of any kind. Proportionate to any other social class, they do not spend. (Hence their support of consumption taxes.) And they do not invest in risky factories or startups. (Venture capital languished even as the Bush cuts sent torrents into wealthy pockets.) They most certainly do no research! In fact, they mostly use any fresh infusion of money simply to be richer.)

When you probe through all the contradicting justifications for this universal rationalization of tax cuts for the rich - especially refusing to pay when your country is at war - the surface reasons all unravel and you'll easily get to the reductio answer.

"It's not the government's money. It's my money."

Try it and see. These old-fashioned aristocrats (and their apologist ideologues) are generally pretty honest about it, after a good push, readily admitting that "supply side" and all the other flummeries were just window dressing. To them, "it's our money" is a deeply-felt and indignantly moral position. A platonic essence, grounded on a purely self-referential axiom. And, like all axioms, it is not subject to question or doubt.

Also (like so many fellow hypocrites on the left) they refuse to ever consider how wonderfully convenient it all is. That their principled, moral stand just happens to support their own, personal self interest.

What a coincidence.

Heh...I've spoken to people like that. Thank You, David Brin, for telling it like it is.

A Troll Explodes

The world of web comics is filled with tons of interesting and diverse personalities. In any diverse population, you'll find some scum-sucking pigs who are utterly full of themselves.

99% of the time, these people are an utter annoyance to society. That last 1% of the time, they throw a supernova-like hissy fit and for one brief moment outshine every other talentless hack in a giant explosion of diahrea-like whining.

Tonight, webcomic asshat William G. is shining in the night's sky.

You may remember William G. from the time, several months ago, he wrote an epic blog post that claimed that PvP and Penny Arcade were subpar for various spurious reasons...It seemed like the center-piece of his post was that he disliked PvP and Penny Arcade because they were popular, not because of anything in the strips. His measure for webcomic quality was, it seemed , his own work that no one has ever read. He was then burried under a pile of furious emails from PvP and PA readers (ha!). This was followed by a period of intense whining about "fanboys" and finally he simply depublished the post, thus commiting the ultimate act of online cowardice.

Since that time he has become the sewer rat of the webcomic world, showing up in various forums and blog post comments to make postings that have obvious troll-like and attention-whore tendancies which a high degree of whine-osity.

Which brings us to this week. In a recent Blank Label podcast, Scott Kurtz was asked about the Webcomics Examiner article series that did a review of his work, one that William G. was involved in and basically said nothing of substance.

First, Kurtz said a few negative things about Webcomics Examiner. Personlly, I disagree with him, and Eric "Websnark" Burns does a far better job of explaining that. But then, Kurtz tears William G apart. It's a beautiful and heartfult moment when a troll gets torn a new one. I encourage you to listen to the whole thing.

Inevitably, William G. heard about this, and had the oh-so-predictable reaction of undergoing silicon fusion and having his rotten iron troll core implode...

Here's William G. going supernova:

Okay, I put the reviewing behind me. The people had spoken, and they didnt want to know what I thought of certain webcomics, they just wanted me to cheer them along in their tastes. I heard it, got sick of the harassment from some corners, and tried to move on.

Then I got a transcript from a podcast where Straub and Kurtz go off on the Webcomics Examiner and myself in particular.

Well, fuck both you over-bloated, self-serving fanboys. You've just made me determined to get back into webcomic commentary. And if you (incorrectly) thought I was just being mean the last time, you aint seen me when I actually am angry

Eric Myers has the transcript here. One of the things that bugs me about it, not just that Kristopher Straub told a pretty blatant lie about Modern Humour Authority... he's been habitually lying about it for a few years now, I figure he can't help himself... it's that Scott Kurtz all but claims that he's not very smart.

This is an intensely beautiful moment. This scum-eater is a classic example of trollism/tin-foil syndrome.

Exhibit 1: Accusing people of harrasment, when in fact they;re just reacting to his own acidic personality.
Exhibit 2: Calling people fanboys. This is classic..You're not the problem, the "fanboys" are.
Exhibit 3: The "I'll be back" BS. You never "left", you just became a troll in other places than your own blog.
Exhibit 4: Accusing other, more successful and much funnier webcomic arists of lying.

William G. has just become the Richard Hogland of webcomics.

Jack Shafer is the Man

Jack Shafer, editor-at-large and media critic at Slate captures one moment of perfect beauty:

I don't hate Apple. I don't even hate Apple-lovers. I do, however, possess deep odium for the legions of Apple polishers in the press corps who salute every shiny gadget the company parades through downtown Cupertino as if they were members of the Supreme Soviet viewing the latest ICBMs at the May Day parade.

YES. Oh how I covet this paragraph and wish I had wrote it. This is like that moment when you finally see the arrow in the FedEx logo; the moment of clarity and understanding. "Deep odium" perfectly describes what I feel. It's as if a haze has lifted and I can finally describe what I see. Thank you Mr. Shafer, for this moment of clarity.

Underwhelming

What's my reaction to today's announcements by Apple concerning a video iPod and video in the iTunes Music Store?

Underwhelming.

Buying videos in the iTunes Music Store makes very little sense right now. $2 music videos...whoop-dee-do...Fairly low res TV episodes that are oh-so-easy to Tivo (and aquire by other means)...whoop-dee-do.

Video in iTunes kinda makes sense (as a video organizing app), but the execution sucks. Open a movie and it starts playing in the album art area which is located in a tiny box in the corner of the screen. If you set it to play video in its own window the video keeps playing audio in iTunes after you close the window...That makes no sense whatsoever. I think MS figured this stuff out in 1996 or so...iTunes should play videos the same way music videos work in the music store: Put them in the main pane.

Even more disturbing is the fact that iTunes does not recognize AVIs in any way. That's like not supporting MP3s. 99% of the content I'd like to organize is in the form of AVIs rather than Quicktime. I know Apple likes to imagine that QT is the last video format on Earth, but not at least providing transcoding fascilities for AVIs seriously limits the usefulness of iTunes as a video organizer...Of course, the probably reason the left transcoding out is that it's is deadly slow (compared to simply converting a song from one format to another) and AVI transcoding facilities would allow pirated content to be easily put on the video iPod.

The video iPod unit itself is also underwhelming. Next to the PSP's breathtaking 4.3 inch widescreen LCD, the iPod video's 4:3, 2.5 inch display is old hat. The aspect ratio tells me that Apple is not too serious about portable video right now...Rather, I think this is a panic move by Apple to get something into the portable video market before it's too late.

I can't accept the explanation that Apple is doing this simply because everyone expected a video-capable iPod...No, they have far more urgent reasons for getting into portable video.

First, the cellular providers are all ready to start streaming full-frame video content to phones. Portable, on demand video is a scary prospect for Apple because compared to streaming, the online music store model sucks. There's no need for people to be stuck with giant DRMed music files sucking up space on their hard drives when it gets streamed right to their phone.

The second reason is the Sony PSP and it's UMD video format. As a competitor to today's video iPod, the PSP is an above average hobbyist's toy...If you invest in a large memory card, you can fill it with videos you transcode on your PC and transfer over. But that's not what concerns Apple...The UMD movie format must scare them half to death.

Think about it...What was the last portable video format you saw? Unlike music, we've never had a real portable video medium until UMD. Not only do UMD movies look good, and work well, but the MPAA didn't flinch at approving it because it's the natural portable extention of DVD...No Hollywood content sitting on hard drives waiting to be cracked open.

Sure, carrying around discs does lack the slickness of the iTunes Music Store, but how slick would the store be when you're downloading 400MB+ video files? Consider that UMDs store the video at full DVD resolution, which undoubtely means that a future device will allow them to be played back at full res...How will Apple compete when Sony's format already has 1GB+ movies?

The other thing that bugs me is how we went from iTunes 5 to iTunes 6 in a handful of weeks. Something tells me that all the iTunes work was done for some time, but something (perhaps legal, perhaps iPod design related) delayed the release of the version of iTunes with the video support. It makes sense considering how barren iTunes 5 was in the new features department.

Mitch Albom May Be The Perfect Punchline

Seen on Metafilter...The most interesting pieces of pop music trivia (that you know are 100% false.)

Starship's "We Built This City" was actually written by future sports columnist and "Tuesdays With Morrie" author Mitch Albom.

Hypothesis

Hypothesis: The Flaming Lips can heal all wounds.

NOTE TO SELF: Do not seriously test this hypothesis.

PS: Parapa pa pap...Parapa pa pa pa pa pa...

Today's Odd Internet Find

Behind The Typeface: Cooper Black.

Quote of the Day

As seen on the Gaming-Age Forum...

Santo: "I don't understand girls. They make absolutely no sense and are impossible to read."

Fix: "That's because you're supposed to read them like they're written in braile."

Richard Dawkins is the Man

Occasionally I read "The Shape of Days", a blog by a Battlestar Galactica fan who is also a right-wing/social darwinist asshat. Not suprisingly, he's from Texas. Today, he flings his warm poo of seething rage at this excellent satire piece by Richard Dawkins. I think Dawkins just moved from "awesome" to "hero" status in my book.

Quote of the Day

From a commenter at The Old New Thing:

Meh, what are you on, man? Raymond is a lvl 900 ninja coder. He could cast a 1200 damage VC++ spell as an afterthought. Also, he knows Itanium assembly. Pour out your Haterade.

Quote of the Day

Matthew Yglasias, guest blogging at Talking Points Memo:

Social Security now, Social Security tomorrow, Social Security forever!

Quote(s) of the Day

QotD #1: Fark Headline:

Cream reunites in concert. For those of you under 40: Cream was Eric Clapton's old band. Under 30: Clapton was once a big rock star. And for you under 20: Rock was a kind of music they used to play on the radio

QotD #2: Sci-Fi author David Brin:

Remember the basic philosophy here, folks. Most of you would have been burned at the stake 400 years ago. I know I would have. Nowadays, that is a compliment. Let's KEEP this a civilization in which that's a compliment.

Stay burnable.

Jackass(es) of the Day

Jackass #1: Sci-Fi writer Orson Scott Card

The original "Star Trek," created by Gene Roddenberry, was, with a few exceptions, bad in every way that a science fiction television show could be bad. Nimoy was the only charismatic actor in the cast and, ironically, he played the only character not allowed to register emotion.

Jackass #2: Webcomic artist/reviewer William G

I saw a link for the Web Cartoonists Choice Awards again. I know everyone always complains about it every year because all of the Megatokyo and Penny Arcade fanboys supposidly register and "stuff the ballot boxes". Where unsung heroes like Ghastly go un-noted.

But I think one of the best ways to prevent this possibility from happening is for everyone who actually likes webcomics as a medium, and not just the comics that pander to your pet obsessions, should register and try to influence the voting towards what you think is a good webcomic.

Well Isn't This Cool...

I was going to make a post about how much the websites of most commercial AM stations suck, but then I stumbled upon this. It's a lengthy, detailed document on WLS's website about how to get the best reception, written by their chief engineer. Rather cool. Wow, they even have a coverage map. Every radio station website needs one of those. It just kinda makes sense.