But if she was suddenly appointed the Boss of Everything, we’d worry.  Hopefully, we think she’d grow up quickly.  Great ideas that were funny at that dinner party will usually cost jobs, money, and lives if you really just ripped down everything and put them into place.  Many jobs, billions of dollars, and millions of lives, if you did it on a national or global scale.  But we know that won’t happen.  Some grown up, somewhere, will take what she says and put it through a common sense filter.  Maybe there will be something left, maybe not.

Image from http://www.eurweb.com/

But what if the grown ups won’t take responsibility?  What if the Republicans fail to put limits on Tea Bagger demands, and the Democrats won’t make clear what’s at stake?  What if too many compromises have already been made, to the point that people have forgotten how to stand up for the country?

But otherwise, yeah.  Most of the anti-immigration rhetoric follows some form of: “we only have _x_  jobs” or “our resources are limited.”  But this is not Kuwait.  We don’t all get a salary from the government based on some natural resource we’re selling to the world.  If you believe in the free enterprise system, a hard-working immigrant who has already gone through the dependent years is net gain to the economy.  This person brings in both skills and additional consumption.  Even if they send money to family at home, that still is a form of trade balance correction, you’re paying the whole family for service exported.  All is good.

But if you think of jobs and resources as a form of limited entitlement, then you’re in the socialist model.  Ergo, anti-immigration based on “scarce resources” = socialist thinking.

Arizona Governor says "F*ck the police."

Think about it.  If you’re a police officer, you are constantly making difficult judgments.  Yes, you have to enforce the law, but you only have a certain amount of time, and every infraction you address means a dozen others that will escape notice.  Of course the department helps you set your priorities.  But even with whatever the latest guidelines might be, you still have to choose.  Many choices will be wrong, but you learn.  If your superiors are supportive, they help you develop.  Most have been in your shoes, and they can give you training and guidance on how to tell when something is worth pursuing.

What if someone decided to add a whole bunch of second-guessers.  If you make a decision, anyone can second-guess it.  You can be sued if you get it wrong.  And what is the guidance on which you have to make these decisions?  ”reasonably suspect of being undocumented”.  How to do you reasonably suspect something like that?  Get it wrong and get sued by an illiterate tea-bagger.  Then, just because, left-wing groups will sue you if you don’t apply whatever standard was established in the last suit to non-hispanic residents.

So, though it may suck to be an immigrant, legal or not, in this Arizona, it’s going to really suck to be a cop.

In Piranha II, you were likely to get killed by a carnivorous flying fish if:

• You are female and naked.
• You have sex unconnected to romance.
• You’re a somewhat ridiculous older woman.
• You are an ethnic side-character.

Also, if you’re ex-military, you’re instinctively evil, even when you try to be good.  if you’re a corporate person, you’re stupidly evil.

Things have gotten a lot better for naked or semi-naked women/aliens in Avatar, and only good people have sex, which is romantic as heck.  On the other hand:

• Military is still evil.
• Corporations are stupidly evil.
• Michelle Rodriguez? Dead.
• Sigourney Weaver? Dead. (well, she does get instantly recycled into a giant tree, so that’s something)

• Giant balls of twine and three-story lava-lamps, huge fiberglass dinosaurs in the middle of nowhere.  A ranch of Cadillacs half-buried.
• Religious fundies who hate the “War on Christmas”.  Other religious fundies who believe Christmas is a tool of the devil. (Satan/Santa)
• Gun-toting rednecks
• Hippie chicks with un-shaved arm-pits
• Courses in multi-culturalism that reduce each culture to pop spiritualism
• Courses in home management in college
• Republicans who have integrity and really believe their economic religion helps more poor people than any other method
• Exploiters of every stripe who whip up American sincerity and make a buck
• Democrats who served honorably in every branch of the military
• Chickenhawk politicians who sound righteous as they send people off to war, having never served themselves (this started long before the current Neo-cons)
• Strident athiests
• Flag burners
• Get-off-my-lawn old veterans
• Illegal immigrants
• First, second, and third generation immigrants
• Racists
• People who claim not to be racists, but always find other reasons to hate people from other cultures or ethnic groups
•  People who you assume are racist, but turn out not to be
• Dennis Hopper
• John Wayne
• Martha Stewart
• American Idol

The exact mix keeps changing, but it’s still my country and I always want the best for it.  When President Bush decided to invade the wrong country, resulting in the deaths of thousands of American soldiers, I wanted something better.  But, like most people, I did not root for failure.  I wanted the war to be over quickly, I wanted stability to return.  I wanted few casualties.  Because, though it was a bad decision, the best thing for our country was an easy resolution.  I also knew that was not likely.

A lot of sock-pundits on the right accused liberals of rooting for the failure we eventually felt.  No, we just foresaw it.  Nobody wanted it.  But, they project thoughts into our head.  We can play that game, maybe THEY were rooting for failure so then they could prove that we were rooting for failue!  Who knows what dark threads take hold in the human soul?

Now Rush Limbaugh is openly rooting for failure.  Why?  Because he doesn’t love America.  Not all of it.  He has picked the parts he likes, and will only love an America if it fits that model.  That’s sort of like only loving your kid if he goes to the same college you did.  Rush believes in “Individualism and Capitalism” and whatever.  As if those things are going away.  We haven’t been the capitalist country he espouses since before WWII.  And we aren’t any closer to pure socialism than we were eight years ago.  But the diseased economic religion of tax cuts and minimal regulation has produced a huge bill.  If we don’t pay it now, it will only get bigger.  Rush is apparently rooting that our efforts to save the economy will fail.  That is the most unpatriotic thing I’ve heard in a long time.

But the real problem is that some powerful alien force can introduce robots.  This article explains how scientists model Condorcet’s theorem among animal communities. But they don’t just watch the animals, they create convincing robots which infiltrate the bug communities and convince them to do something self-destructive:

José Halloy of the Free University of Brussels used robotic cockroaches to subvert the behaviour of living cockroaches and control their decision-making process. In his experiment, reported in an earlier issue of Science, the artificial bugs were introduced to the real ones and soon became sufficiently socially integrated that they were perceived as equals. By manipulating the robots, which were in the minority, he was able to persuade the cockroaches to choose an inappropriate shelter—even one which they had rejected before being infiltrated by machines.

Just imagine if some other power tried to do the same thing with us?  They could send robots into our world, disguised as humans, and convince us to make self-destructive choices, such as ignoring global warming, invading Iraq, and giving away our civil rights.  That would make a good story, wouldn’t it?

• Driving through a hail of bullets hoping the thin metal of your car will protect you.
• Finding conveniently placed explosive barrels to help cover your escape.
• Taking on a guy with a handgun using your super-duper fire extinguisher.
• Recognizing a voice you heard over an international line, based on two words.
• Shooting a middle-aged woman in the arm and saying “it’s just a flesh wound”.  Could be, could hit an artery.

But none of these things upset my friend.  He’s against the torture.  I went back and forth.  I’m also against torture, and also believe that it rarely gives reliable intelligence.  In fact, I don’t like the show, 24, in part because they constantly use torture to advance the plot in a way that seems to validate it as an intelligence gathering tool.

On the other hand, it’s just a movie.  We allow ourselves to enjoy movie protagonists who commit every kind of heinous act.  Torture doesn’t stand out over, say, murder, genocide, drug-dealing, or vampirism.  I thought people who got upset about the “torture quests” in WOTLK were idiots.  Still do.  So why shouldn’t this be the same?  I think that, had they really established the character they were shooting for, the father so blinded by rage and love for his daughter that he considers nothing else, it might have worked.  But in this case, Liam Neeson’s character never rises above a sort of everyman with talents.  So we don’t really separate his morals from our own.  So his choices are those of someone who we consider “moral”.

I do think my friend was being ridiculous, but I get just as ridiculous over other things, especially the off-screen hiding spot.  The hero walks into a room, looks around, and is suddenly jumped by a bad buy who was hiding off-camera.  It’s a good hiding place, because WE CAN’T SEE THEM.  The hero, though, shouldn’t be limited by the camera frame.  Liam Neeson does this once, walking out into a hall, apparently without noticing the bad guys, who then knock him out.  So they can hang him from a pipe.  This trope drives me crazy.  I haven’t walked out, yet, but then I’d have to explain and people would probably say “it’s just a movie.”

There are other rules, practices, rituals that make us feel safe.   Once we go through those security gates.  The assumption is that terrorist will only target us on the other side.  With hummus.  We take off our shoes, take out our laptops.  No pen-knives, no liquids.  And, it turns out, no hummus, no cottage cheese, no yogurt.  The TSA doesn’t seriously think you could design a bomb that looks like an unopened thing of hummus, does it?  Anybody who could do that could make a meatball sub into something even more dangerous.  And how did they decide what amount was too much?

It’s a safety ritual.  It has to do with making us feel safe and protected.  It’s a bit of theater, really.  When they took my hummus, the TSA guy looked deep into my eyes, with the trained softness of a hostage negotiator or grief counselor.  “I understand,” he said, “I’m a hummus eater too.”  I offered him mine.

Before 9/11, we had a false sense of security.  After 9/11 we had a false sense of danger.  It happened, so we believe it could happen again, anytime, anywhere.  In fact 9/11 took years of planning and organization.   But we need something to tell us that it’s okay to fly.  Ritual security measures are probably more effective than real security, which necessarily takes place out of our view.

by Mark Twain

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams — visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

*God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!*

Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory –

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside — which the startled minister did — and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

“I come from the Throne — bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import — that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of — except he pause and think.

“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this — keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory–*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(*After a pause.*) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.