The Razor

I started off the morning behind a Kerry supporter in a Ford Excursion with three bumperstickers. The first was for Kerry, the second was “Peace: Back by popular demand” and the last was “Mission Nothing Accomplished” with the word “Mission” crossed out. The driver must have been an ex Deaniac judging by the stickers and the value of the SUV. There I was puttering along behind him on the Schukyll Expressway in my Honda, appreciating the irony that here was someone driving one of the largest SUVs in the country who thinks he’s a liberal.
Back by popular demand my butt… Here’s the truth:

Are we at peace?
Considering that the number of American casualties in Iraq have seriously fallen, one could argue it. But let’s indulge ourselves in a little morning mental exercise:

Say we pull out completely from Iraq.
Are we at peace then?
How about if we withdraw American troops completely from the Middle East?
The question becomes: Are you at peace while you have an enemy that wants to destroy you because you exist?
I don’t think so.
We aren’t at peace, and it isn’t back. And if I demand anything it’s action.
Currently there is genocide occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan. People are dying under “Peace” – yet would that idiot in the SUV support military action to stop the genocide?

Peace kills. It killed the Armenians in 1915. It killed the Jews during the Shoah (WW2 was NOT fought to stop the Holocaust one should remember). It killed the Cambodians in 1975-79, the Tutsis in 1994, the Bosnians, the Kosovars and now the Sudanese.
Peace kills. I hadn’t realized how true that statement was until I saw that SUV.
Thanks for the insight, bozo…

No poem here, so you can relax.

Just a reminder to myself that the poem I started in 1995 needs it’s three lines today. Back then I decided to write a short poem on a date picked at random. I would then update the poem every year on that date. I started by backdating the poem to 1990 – the year I met my wife.

I lost two entries when the hard-drive crashed on my crappy Compaq laptop.
Today is the day.

END POETRY ALERT

July 15: Many of the millions of foreign labourers in Saudi Arabia suffer from extreme exploitation and work under conditions that resemble slavery, an international human rights watchdog said on Thursday.

Saudi Arabia said that the report exaggerated the experiences of a few of the more than six million foreigners working in the kingdom, and noted that millions of families around the world were dependent on remittances from such workers.



The New York-based Human Rights Watch, in its first comprehensive report on foreign labourers in the oil-rich kingdom, slammed Saudi authorities, the legal system and private employers for a range of abuses that sometimes led to death.



The hard-hitting report called on de facto Saudi ruler Crown Prince Abdullah to set up an independent commission to investigate the abuses and publicise its findings.



“Migrant workers in the purportedly modern society that the kingdom has become continue to suffer extreme forms of labour exploitation that sometimes rise to slavery-like conditions,” it said.



“This report is an indictment of unscrupulous private employers and sponsors as well as Saudi authorities, including Interior Ministry interrogators and sharia court judges, who operate without respect for the rule of law and the inherent dignity of all men and women,” it added.



Around six million foreigners, mostly from the Indian subcontinent, sweep the streets, build homes or run offices in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude oil exporter.



Lured by promises of hefty pay, many workers often ended up at the mercy of de facto employers imposing 12-hour work days or more, the report said.



SAUDI SAYS REPORT EXAGGERATES



The Saudi embassy in Washington said the kingdom had effective labour laws to protect all workers, including foreigners, and there was legal recourse for victims of abuse.



“We disagree with the report by Human Rights Watch and do not believe it is a fair or accurate reflection of Saudi Arabia and grossly exaggerates the few instances which in no way reflect the positive experiences of the millions of foreign workers in the Kingdom,” the embassy said in a statement.



Human Rights Watch said despite its two-week visit to Saudi Arabia in early last year, the kingdom remained closed to foreign investigators, forcing it to interview workers mainly from Bangladesh, India and the Philippines at home.



The report noted that the kingdom’s highest religious authority, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz al-Sheikh, had already spoken out against the abuses in remarks published in a Saudi newspaper in 2002, asserting that Islam does not permit abuse of workers regardless of their religion.



It acknowledged that many foreigners reported no complaints about their experience in Saudi Arabia.



The Saudi embassy said an independent human rights commission had been established. “The kingdom takes the issue of human rights very seriously and we continue to make progress in this regard,” it said.



The report said mistreatment of women was among the most disturbing findings. “Some women workers that we interviewed were still traumatized from rape and sexual abuse at the hands of Saudi male employers,” the report said.



Human Rights Watch also slammed interrogation methods in Saudi prisons and the country’s legal system, saying confessions were often obtained through torture and workers complained of being forced to sign confessions they could not read under the threat of more torture.



None of the workers interviewed had had access to legal assistance before their trials or to their embassies, and no lawyers accompanied them during trials, even in cases that resulted in the death penalty, the report said.

Yep the Electoral College is still around – much to my surprise considering what happened four years ago. Just found a place that consolidates the polls and shows the electoral results.
Visit Electoral Vote Predictor 2004.
Currently Kerry has a solid lead – 322 to Bush’s 205.
If that were to hold (doubtful) then Kerry would have a win similar in size to Clinton’s defeat of Dole in 1996.

Is it possible?
Absolutely.
Is it likely?
No.
My gut tells me that Bush will be re-elected.

I successfully ripped and burned my first DVD today.
Dennis Miller: The Raw Feed
I’ve always liked Miller – even when he was a comedian on SNL. Like myself he underwent a bit of a conversion, or what you victims of the Catholic Church would term a metanoia , after September 11. There’s something about seeing planes slam into things and Palestinians dancing in the streets that changes one’s perspective on things. He’s honest about it, and so am I.
That said, Miller is hilarious. He has the unique ability to mix the intellectual with the profane in a way that no other comedian can do.
He is known for his esoteric references, and there is usually a pause or two after these jokes when your mind chews on them until you burst out laughing. The DVD is only an hour long, but I haven’t had time to finish it. It’s not kid-friendly – and 7 year olds – even mine – would miss the humor but catch the naughty words. I have been doing my best to clean up my language, but it has been f(*&ing difficult – but the Wife is persistent, and having your kid swear like sailor does NOT ingratiate you with the inlaws.

Yes, I’m coming out.
No not this out – but out of the closet of anonymity. I am officially no longer Machiavelli@therazor.org . I am now Scott@therazor.org.
For those of you who have followed this blog, I do not in fact live in Ibiza Spain. I live in boring old Barcelona, New York.
For the record, I am pro-gay rights, pro-military anything, pro-Israel anything, don’t drink, don’t smoke and was no-one special in a previous life.
So there. It’s done. Flame away you bastards!

WTF is going on with the Bush team? They decide to pull a play straight out of Pappy’s re-election playbook in Aug 1992 (substitute “flag burning amendment” for “marriage amendment”) , piss off just about everybody and are on the verge of having the FMA (Foolish Men Act? F’d-up Marriage Act? F’ing Moron Act?) laughed out of the Senate.

It serves them right. If marriage needs protection from anyone it’s Brittany Spears (1o minute marriage) and Larry King (married a billion times – ok, just 9).

Idiots. Bush deserves to lose for pulling this stunt.

Problem solved.
F***ing great. My first earworm of the day.
ED Note: Instapundit posted at 11am – 2 hours after this was written.

And Glenn Reynolds doesn’t report it.
Here’s Dean’s take on it.
I think that Reynolds and Instapundit have gotten too big for us lowly bloggers. I’ve noticed over time that he links to traditional media much more now than he used to. That’s why I’ve been linking more to Dean Esmay, because he’s a hardcore blogger and honestly, I don’t need Reynolds to tell me what’s in the traditional media because I find the stuff myself.
That said, Atlas Van Lines has some explaining to do.

Here’s an entry in today’s Ha’aretz Daily ticker:

12:52 Iran`s spiritual leader Ali Khamenei: U.S., Israel are behind kidnappings, killings of foreigners in Iraq

I’m a friend of Bill W. If you know what that means, you’ll realize that I am repeating myself when I state that I can’t drink anymore. Well, I can – but I also can put a loaded gun to my head and pull the trigger and get the same results, only much quicker and with less mess.

We’ve just discovered that one of our family has 1-2 years to live. A housewife with 2 kids, expensive house, trips to the Caribbean, nice cars… My wife and I were jealous being that we can’t even remember our last vacation, our house is small (but it’s an oasis as anyone who has ever visited knows) and our cars old.

For those of you who have never dealt with this disease, it’s the only one that convinces you that you aren’t sick. It then poisons your liver, your heart, your mind and then spreads out and infects your family with a condition called “co-dependence”. Think of co-dependence as a condition like that used by cancer to encourage the growth of blood vessels to sustain itself.

Co-dependence and alcoholism create a vicious cycle of gradual decline -> crisis-> lies you want to believe -> return to normality -> gradual decline. The cycle occurs on a large scale and involves everyone. The cycle is insidious. It is invisible to those in it yet rolls forward, incorporating nearly every attempt to stop it into the cycle.

I was lucky. I broke the cycle without losing anything more than my self-respect. My wife and I tried to break the cycle of our loved one, and boy did we pay the price with the others. Tears on my son’s birthday, being kicked out of homes. Long silences. Tense meetings. Sharp words. We tried everything to help the loved one and the family – but both were in serious denial.

On Sunday there was yet another crisis and the blood-alcohol level was so high that denial evaporated. The level was enough to kill a college student, and here the tiny housewife was walking around with it. To achieve that level meant that it had been going on for years – decades perhaps. The wife ransacked the woman’s house and found alcohol hidden everywhere. In closets, drawers, even sports bottles in the garage.

There can be no more lies. The Truth is finally out – but it’s too late for her – and for our family.

I have been sober now for over 3.75 years. After so many years of internal angst and agony, I feel content – but I don’t overestimate myself. Yesterday I spoke to an “angel” who was there for me three years ago, and he told me about helping the family of a man who fell off the wagon after 12 years of sobriety. My demon is always with me; I see him in the corner of my mind. But he’s my demon – part of me – and I only get nervous when he starts to disappear. Friends of Bill W will know what I mean by that.

So here we are, our small family about to get smaller. But the lies are gone, the air is finally clear, and in a sense, the nightmare is over. The Truth is wonderful. It is liberating, and it is much easier than a life of lies. So why do we do everything to avoid it?

Proof the media is biased. Hat-tip to Dean Esmay:

Citing 1992 election data: “These statistics suggest that journalists, as a group, are more liberal than almost any congressional district in the country. For example, in the Ninth California District, which includes Berkeley, twelve percent voted for Bush – nearly double the rate of journalists. In the Eight Massachusettes District, which includes Cambridge, nearly nineteen percent voted for Bush, more than triple the rate of journalists. In the Fourteenth California District, which includes Palo Alto, 26% voted for George Bush, more than four times the rate of journalists.

See for yourself.

Let’s be blunt: we need an amendment defining marriage about as much as we need one defining marriage like we need one defining the word “coward” – which when you think about it would be an extremely short amendment:

Amendment XXVIII
The word “coward” shall be forever defined as the following: France.

Seriously, this whole debate is completely nuts. It reminds me of the one that took place 12 years ago about one to ban flag burning.

Any “Conservative” who support this amendment is not worthy of the term.

Here is a collection of recent postings by bloggers on Michael Moore.
James Lileks: Believing in Bush’s perfidy…
Dean Esmay: Lost it… dang…
Steven Den Beste: Muqtada al-Moore

The Razor is about Absolute Truth. Moral relativists like Moore don’t believe such a thing exists. He also hates America for the very reasons that I love it: freedom, common sense, patriotism.