Paul Krugman: Does it matter we were misled into war?

One wonders whether most of the public will ever learn that the original case for war has turned out to be false. In fact, my guess is that most Americans believe that we have found WMDs. Each potential find gets blaring coverage on TV; how many people catch the later announcement -- if it is ever announced -- that it was a false alarm? It's a pattern of misinformation that recapitulates the way the war was sold in the first place. Each administration charge against Iraq received prominent coverage; the subsequent debunking did not.

Star Tribune Letters from readers April 29

Portraits of paranoia

If the profiles of gun owners in the April 27 Star Tribune was supposed to make me feel safer, it failed.

It instead confirmed my fear that these people suffer from unreasonable paranoia about their safety, a lack of political imagination and a penchant for violent solutions.

I hope someone will keep track of who is killed by these responsible citizens. I have no doubt the victims will be their own children, relatives and neighbors.

Michael Boucher, Minneapolis.

i have to say i lose him somewhere in that last line, but other than that...

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Rumsfeld heralds 'first strike' era

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said that his country has entered a new era in which it must pre-emptively seek out and prevent attacks by terrorists and terrorist states.

share the joy, that's what i think. if my stomach hurts after reading this crap, i feel compelled to share it with you.

i am soooo accomplished.

pictures of my trip to russia last year.

it's not just for you, davey, but i kept thinking about how happy you'd be to see them. (finally.)

reading back, i've actually been posting stuff this week. i feel like i've been awful quiet, but i guess not.

what all has been going on around here...

a coworker of mine came out to me. yay! i, in return, came out to zir; i think zie's a little confused and may now think i'm a lesbian, but that's a fixable misconception.

work is still being slow-- they hired us all so that we could help them get caught up, and now they're caught up. i'm fine with this, really, but it's making training difficult. it's hard to remember how to do something when you only have to do it twice a week.

sig and i saw bend it like beckham, which is great. it's about a high school girl who wants to play soccer, and her team and her family, and about sikh indians living in england.

this afternoon, i'm going to go to kitten's birthday party. i am not certain what to get a five year old, but worse comes to worst, i'll get her a target gift card.

i'm hanging in there.

Salon.com Life | A ham from God

anne lamott, talking about the war at salon.com.

"How are we going to get through this craziness?" I asked. There was silence for a moment.

"Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe," he said. "Right foot, left foot, right foot, breathe."

www.betterminnesota.org

"Taxes are the way people join hands to get good things done. That's the tradition of Minnesota." -- Former Governor Elmer Andersen.

go there to find out how to get involved.

Slowly, Loot Is Being Returned to Museum (washingtonpost.com)

The blue Kia minivan rolled through the guarded gates of the National Museum of Antiquities early this afternoon, loaded with a precious cargo of metals and minerals: a bronze relief from the 4th century B.C. swathed in yellow foam padding, antique farm implements, an elaborately engraved marble slab wrapped in plastic, a decapitated statue of an Assyrian king.

Also inside the van was Namir Ibrahim Jamil, a 33-year-old Iraqi pianist who said that 11 days ago he watched in horror as looters ransacked the museum, hauling away as much of Iraq's tangible legacy as they could carry. He said he decided to do the same -- not to seek a fortune on the black market, but to hide the antiquities in his house until it was safe to return them.

namir ibrahim jamil, may your name be praised.

Memorable Quotes from Firefly

this one's for m. socks.

Mal: Kaylee, what the hell's going on in the engine room? Were there monkeys? Some terrifying space monkeys maybe got loose?

according to my tai chi teacher (and yes, i mean my teacher, not my sifu) (but anyhow) i have long legs.

who'da thunk it?

she says that part of the problems that i'm having with the walking parts are due to the fact that my frame wants to take longer steps, but i don't yet have the muscles to do it. so i will work on those muscles. (this involves taking the longer stance and then holding it until i nearly fall over. rinse repeat. this actually sounds like fun to me.)

Stickers

prochoice stickers, one quite graphic. (probably not work safe.)

i'm back from minicon, but my thursday night post seems not to have published. so you didn't even know i was gone!

here's what i'm going to be doing this weekend!

Minicon 38 - Preliminary Program Grid

see ya sunday night!

swy1974: As long as I'm ranting...

Addendum: My body fat does not impede my brain functioning. I like finding people who appreciate my body. However, do not confuse this with attempting to use the low self-esteem backdoor to try to get me into bed. I will not be so shocked that someone could find me attractive that I suddenly and miraculously become blind to your tactic, rip off my bodice, and shriek "Take me now; it may be my last chance for love!" You finding me attractive is not sufficient motivation for me to want to fuck you. I won't argue that it isn't a good start, but that's all it is. When I'm easy, it's because I want to fuck, not because I'm bartering for validation from you.

the rest of the post is also quite fine, but this is the part that i'd like to tattoo on people.

my subconscious is not a big believer in subtlety this week, apparently.

had two dreams that i can remember; one about being in the passenger seat of my car while someone else was driving it though hip deep puddles. they were surprised whenever they hit a puddle and wanted to stop and talk about it, whereas i knew that the way to get through the puddles so the car wouldn't die was to hit the gas and keep going.

the second one involved being at my parents' old house in hastings, and having people there sleeping over. people who, i should note, i would never ask to sleep over. if there were a horrible disaster, and they asked, i might drive them to a hotel. but not in my house. anyhow. so that was going on, and one of them came up to me and touched me on the shoulder. i moved, and asked them to stop it. they did it again. i moved their hand off my shoulder and calmly explained to them that if they touched me again, i was going to file assault charges.

i think it's actually battery, if they're unarmed.

i think i like it when the subtlety is on vacation. makes the whole interpretation thing easier.

Americans defend two untouchable ministries from the hordes of looters

The Americans have, though, put hundreds of troops inside two Iraqi ministries that remain untouched – and untouchable – because tanks and armoured personnel carriers and Humvees have been placed inside and outside both institutions. And which ministries proved to be so important for the Americans? Why, the Ministry of Interior, of course – with its vast wealth of intelligence information on Iraq – and the Ministry of Oil.

raise your hands if you're surprised.

(horrified is different than surprised, by the way.)

from the us,

The Case for Looting By Steven E. Landsburg

What, exactly, is wrong with it?

and from the uk,

UN and Army at odds as troops encourage looting

One senior British officer said: “We believe this sends a powerful message that the old guard is truly finished.”

looting is good!

(don't even talk to me about "a refrigerator and a jar of peanut butter". how about morphine? how about antiquities?)

Salon.com Life | Lynda Barry

"Today things were bombed and things blew-up.", says Embedded Fred, the news dog.

Pentagon Was Told Of Risk to Museums (washingtonpost.com)

"I thought I was given assurances that sites and museums would be protected," Gibson said. Instead, even with U.S. forces firmly in control of Baghdad last week, looters breached the museum, trashed its galleries, burned its records, invaded its vaults and smashed or carried off thousands of artifacts dating from the founding of ancient Sumer around 3,500 B.C. to the end of Islam's Abbasid Caliphate in 1258 A.D.

[......]

The museum houses the 5,000-year-old alabaster Uruk Vase, which shows a procession entering a temple -- the earliest known depiction of a ritual. Also from Uruk is the "White Lady," the stone face of a woman that looks as if it was carved during the Greek Classic period but is 5,500 years old, one of the earliest known examples of representational sculpture.

The bust of an Akkadian king, dated 2300 B.C., is the earliest copper casting ever found. The Neolithic collection, of items about 9,000 years old, includes small sculptures of birds' heads from Nemrik, north of Mosul.

this isn't real to me.

i can't be angry or sad about this because there's no way it could have happened. there's just no way that the united states government could have let this happen.

not on the planet that i wish that i lived on, anyhow.

sorry for the quietness; there's stuff going on, but nothing that i want to talk about, particularly.

i started at the new job, and so far it's going pretty well. they keep telling me how fast i'm learning things. i feel like a useless slug because i don't know how the business works there yet, and therefore can't take a lot of tickets. but i've taken and gotten rid of three tickets by myself so far, which is certainly something. i closed two of them and transferred the other one.

i saw a kitten on the side of the highway this morning, and now i feel bad that i didn't pull off the highway, snatch it up, and take it to the vet, totally disregarding highway safety and the fact that since the kitten didn't know me it would probably run away and get squished underneath cars and it would all be because of me.

i am spackling up the cracks in the corners of my closets. oh the excitement. oh the spackle in my underwear.

i am sad and mopey, and some of this is probably due to the fact that i haven't eaten dinner yet. but not all of it.

i am alternating between writing documentation about how to use exchange admin stuff and surfing petfinder. (there's a link to your left, with cutie-wootsie little pictures of pets.)

boston terriers are cuter than anything. cute cute cute.

exchange admin? not so cute.

going to go see the financial advisor tonight. wheeee. or something.

i had a not-so-ironic burger for lunch today. veggie burger with cheese and lettuce and tomato and mayo. mmmm. so far, the cafeteria may be the best part about working here. it's certainly not sitting with my back to the door of our room.

i am having an on and off day. on the on side, i started at the new job today. i got my computer in and set up and got all my new applications installed. i found the bathrooms, and the cafeteria, and i had a veggie burger with bacon and cheese which was yummy.

on the off side, i hate fighting with people. grrrr!

pnh's Electrolite: I've long been a liberal with serious doubts about "gun control."

If gun rights are so all-fired important, why is Canada a free society and Iraq anything but?

good question, hmm?

to me, when someone talks about their lovers, past or present or future, as people they've "had" (please inflict the proper verb tense on that; thank you), it sounds more as if they're referring to desserts, perhaps. (or pets. "a labrador retriever? yes, i've had one of those.")

um. ew.

i filled up my email disk quota just now. i just cleared off ten megs. so if you got a bounce, please try it again.

(mea saurus, mea saurus, mea maxima saurus...)

porcinea: So, this morning I got mail from my favorite uncle. Slimy mail, containing a link to a video (revisiting 9/11) and words about how peace protesters should move to Iraq.

here is part of what she wrote back.

And I carry a sign when I march for peace, that says "Our Grief Is Not A Cry For War!" Because it's not.

So please, please stop the propaganda machine from feeding on our pain, our loss, our terror, our grief.

hurray, piglet. what a fine thing to do.

yes, it's a pointless meme. deal.

10 BANDS YOU'VE SEEN LIVE

• gallowglass
  
• morrigan
  
• nine inch nails
  
• new kids on the block
  
• ani difranco
  
• moxy fruvous
  
• great big sea
  
• the nields
  
• sarah harmer
  
• tool

09 THINGS YOU'RE LOOKING FORWARD TO

• minicon
  
• summer
  
• the weekend
  
• starting my new job next week (being homicidal seems to have worked...)
  
• seeing my puppy
  
• going to toronto in august
  
• convergence
  
• supercon
  
• finishing my current book

08 THINGS YOU WEAR EVERYDAY

• 1-7 captive bead rings (ask me if i care that this is cheating)
  
• jeans

07 THINGS THAT ANNOY YOU

• mean people
  
• puppy vomit
  
• non-tivoed television
  
• ibm's clean desk policy
  
• newspapers
  
• people who can't spell and who don't use spellcheckers
  
• only having one bathroom door

06 THINGS YOU TOUCH DAILY

• the dog
  
• my alarm clock
  
• my steering wheel
  
• my home keyboard for my computer
  
• my wallet
  
• and nathan, but he's not a thing

05 THINGS YOU DO EVERYDAY

• wake up
  
• use a computer
  
• swear at my knees
  
• let the puppy lick my nose (yes, it's gross, but it makes her sooooo happeeeeeeee) (no, lore, you can't. i don't care how happeeeee it would make you.)
  
• wash my hair

04 PEOPLE YOU SPEND THE MOST TIME WITH

• nathan
  
• abby
  
• sigrid
  
• oh and after that it's a tossup. probably aaron, actually.

03 MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH AGAIN AND AGAIN

• red rock west
  
• truly madly deeply
  
• terminator 2

02 FAVORITE SONGS OF THE MOMENT

• jocelyn square, by love and money
  
• and the new linkin park song that i don't know the name of.

01 PERSON YOU COULD SPEND THE REST OF YOUR LIFE WITH

• meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! or at least i hope so.