The Greatest Gift of All...

So, in defiance of his own election platform, Prime Minister Harper is giving eighteen of his BFFs an early Christmas present:

Career broadcaster Mike Duffy is headed to the Senate as Prime Minister Stephen Harper confirmed Monday that he is filling all 18 current vacancies, triggering a debate over patronage as the fate of his government hangs in the balance.

It's good to know that given the looming financial crisis and increased demand on food banks this year, Harper's bringing a little Christmas cheer into some people's lives:

Appointees will receive a $134,000 annual salary indexed to inflation until they retire or reach age 75, followed by a very comfortable pension — and both are indexed to inflation.

Because adding $2.4 million a year to the parliamentary payroll shows firm, effective economic leadership during this crisis. What's the word for that? Anyone? Early 90s one-hit wonders EMF, did you have your hand up?



Yes, precisely.

Parliament in the Penalty Box

You would think that the current clusterf*** in the House of Commons might break my blogging hiatus. It's been a busy week for me, though, so I've been limited to brief paragraphs on Facebook and trying to stay on top of the whole charade.

I could summarize what's been going on but I think I'll just link to others who've already done a good job with that, including Mad Jenny and interestingly, The Yarn Harlot, who gives a very clear and non-partisan summary of the scenario (thanks to Azura for the tip).

I have my own personal opinion on the matter, of course, but I respect the right of others to disagree and present their own arguments in defence of their stance.

Except when they lie.



This is Bob Dechert, Member of Parliament for Mississauga-Erindale, and a member of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Mr. Dechert has been among the more vocal members of the Conservative caucus (including the Prime Minister) in denouncing the Liberal-NDP coalition. In doing so, he misrepresents our system of government by calling it a "coup" on his website, and referring to it "as close to treason and sedition as I can imagine" in the international press.

According to his biography on his campaign website (whose direct link was removed from the homepage overnight for some reason), Mr. Dechert is a lawyer with over twenty years of experience in Canadian and British law. He has no excuse for not knowing how our parliamentary system of democracy works. Thus, I felt compelled to send him the following letter:

Dear Mr. Dechert,

I understand in times like these, partisan rhetoric can become passionate or even inflamed above the usual level of political discourse. This does not excuse our elected representatives from misrepresenting our system of government to the citizens, as you have done.

I would expect a man of your experience in both Canadian and British law to understand how our parliamentary democracy functions, instead of throwing around inaccurate terms like "coup" on your website, or "treason" and "sedition" as reported here in the International Herald Tribune: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/05/america/canada.php

I thought a "conservative" was one who respected our ancient institutions and traditions, not one who held them in contempt. There are more rational ways to argue your position without willfully obfuscating the laws and traditions of this country.

I've spoken with Conservative Party members who do understand how our system of government works. They have legitimate arguments against the coalition. But if Mr. Dechert and Prime Minister Harper and their fellow travellers believe this sort of stance is "conservative", well then George Washington was a loyal subject of His Majesty King George III.

I might try to summarize my views on the matter later but for now, Rick Mercer gets to the heart of it for me:

Free Sarah Palin!

At Red Tory I came across this great take on the McCain campaign's double-standard:



I'm sure Ms. Brown is as motivated (if not more) to defend her profession as her gender, but still a great point, nonetheless.

Book review: Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, by Chalmers Johnson

This is the third and final book of Chalmers Johnson's Blowback trilogy. I previously reviewed the first book, Blowback, which focused on the harmful consequences of American military intervention and covert operations around the world. The title is a word used by the Central Intelligence Agency to refer to such consequences of operations, and Johnson argued that because such operations are kept secret from the American public--and even their elected representatives--when blowback occurs, citizens are often unable to comprehend the reasons why. Published in mid-2000, Blowback became a bestseller after 9/11, though sadly not enough people seemed to have learned its principle argument.

I reviewed the sequel, Sorrows of Empire, which dealt with the extent of American military colonialization around the world, and how this anticipated the United States becoming a militaristic empire, a new Rome, where generals and admirals are no longer accountable to their civilian leaders.

Now, in Nemesis, Johnson gives a final call, warning that the dissolution of the American Republic is imminent. Summarizing the main arguments from the first two books, he compares the United States to the two other imperialist powers contemporary pundits frequently juxtapose with it: Ancient Rome and Colonialist Britain. Both were democratic states that became empires, at great cost to their economies and their democracy. Prevailing wisdom holds that the Romans sacrificed their democracy for their empire, while the British (eventually) sacrificed their empire for their democracy. This is not entirely accurate; the bloody British attempts to retain Kenya after World War II hardly indicates a magnanimous sacrifice on their part.

The book isn't seamless; one factual error I noted (being the space geek that I am) was identifying Sally Ride as the first woman in space. Dr. Ride was the first American woman in space but she was preceded by the Soviet cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982. I also feel that Johnson doesn't really introduce any new arguments in this book, rather he adds to the arguments from Blowback in Chapters 3 and 5, and Sorrows of Empire in Chapters 1 and 4. Chapter 2 is the comparison with Rome and Britain: instructive, but kind of a simplification of history. Chapter 6 discusses the militarization of space and the potential for disaster it entails, but again this just builds on the arguments from the second book. Still, Nemesis is excellent as a survey of the arguments of the first two books.

UPDATE (August 1, 2008): I found the complete text of the poem Johnson quotes in the introduction.

Neighborhood Girl by John Shreffler

She's new to the neighborhood, her family just moved in
From Greece or somewhere, she's a great, tall gawky girl
With braces and earrings and uneven skin:
Hormones and acne, her change is coming in.

And today, she's playing hooky, January fog.
Orange lights on the school zone sign beat out their tattoo
And caution the Homeland's socked-in morning rush
With their strobe-light samba: Condition Amber,

As she sits invisible, swinging her legs to the beat,
Perched up high on aluminum over
The uncanny Day-Glo of the key-lime fluorescence
That says: School at the top of this composition.

I see her and she lets me. I'm an old family friend:
Sometimes I play poker with her Aunt Erato.
Her name is Nemesis and she's just moved in,
She's new to the neighborhood, she's checking it out.

Metal makes the world go 'round

There will be a further delay in bringing the world up to speed on my life as I found a story that set my heart aflutter:

Metal goes global, with some surprising riffs
GUY DIXON

Globe and Mail - June 18, 2008

This is a story dripping with irony - ghoulish, blood-red irony.

It turns out that heavy metal, anathema to the moral majority, has spread Western ideals of freedom of expression and democracy more effectively than some more conservative means.

And globalization? The devil's music seems to be the definition of globalization at work, yet with the added bonus of letting metal fans worldwide feel the music is their own, allowing indigenous metal scenes to flourish.

That's the message of Global Metal, a documentary-film tour of not-so-obvious metal hot spots such as Brazil, India, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates, which opens Friday in theatres in Toronto and Vancouver.

"No one's telling you that you should be a fan of Slayer or Morbid Angel. In fact, most people are telling you you shouldn't! But how does that thinking apply for kids coming from different cultures around the world?" film director Sam Dunn said.

He and fellow Canadian filmmaker Scot McFadyen skipped the usual German, Scandinavian and suburban North American centres, which they had already visited in their 2005 documentary Metal: A Headbanger's Journey. That film served both as a general tutorial and as a defence against the usual criticisms of metal, ranging from its antisocial controversies to its perceived head-pounding dopiness.

The popularity of that first film allowed Dunn and McFadyen to continue their highly enviable ability to match their fondness for metal with burgeoning careers in film. And Global Metal, no longer bound by having to justify the music and its black T-shirted fans, thus has enough room to uncover a fascinating side story on the hidden quirks of globalization.

Take China. It hasn't been known for its metalheads. But metal has migrated there in an unusual way.

As a tax writeoff, record companies can destroy their inventory of remaindered CDs, particularly discs by bands no longer signed to the label. Often these are metal bands coming in and out (mostly out) of fashion. But instead of actually destroying the discs, the CDs are shipped through middlemen to China and dumped on the market there.

As Kaiser Kuo, a Chinese American who lives in Beijing and a founder of pioneering Chinese metal band Tang Dynasty, notes in the film, most of these CDs were worthless. But some were real gems and helped to get metal into the hands of Chinese kids.

Dunn adds that this "had, you could almost say, a random impact, where you could be walking down the street in Beijing, and there would be a street merchant. He or she would have a Madonna CD and a Slayer CD, and the person looking at it wouldn't have any reference points for either. So it enters on this equal footing, which is unusual."

And from that beginning, homegrown metal took on a distinct Chinese flavour. Tang Dynasty, the band started by Kuo, who was born in upstate New York and now works in digital marketing, incorporated ancient battle references and historical poems. A Chinese metal scene known for its particularly dark music was born.

"They created a metal which obviously had some relevance and meaning to Chinese people," Dunn says. And yet, although Western headbangers may get into Chinese thrash metal, there are other international metal offshoots that Western fans might simple declare dead wrong. The Japanese glam metal known as "visual kei" trades in thrashing speed metal, but then bands like X Japan will suddenly break into the schmaltziest ballad imaginable. Or there's the Israeli band Orphaned Land, which will suddenly shift from guttural vocals to traditional Middle Eastern singing.

"I think metal is being redefined by virtue of its spread. For the longest time, it was very much defined by the rules that you and I associate with metal, that it has to have certain hallmarks to be real metal," Dunn says.

"What's interesting is that the fringes of that core are starting to change. Introducing Israeli folk melody into metal may not be metal to some kids in the West; in fact, it may be something they feel quite opposed to. But in Israel and maybe in the [whole] region, there is something which to them still is metal," Dunn adds.

Then there's the rise of metal in countries emerging from dictatorships. The first Rock in Rio festival in 1985 was attended by nearly 1.4 million fans and prominently featured such era-defining metal acts as Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions and Iron Maiden. As guitarist Rafael Bittencourt of Brazilian metal band Angra notes, it's not as if heavy metal helped to free Brazil. But metal became a vehicle for joyous self-expression after the military dictatorship fell. (Global Metal, however, makes it seem as if the first Rock in Rio was a metal-only mega-show: The Go-Gos, the B-52s, Nina Hagen and Queen were also headliners. But we're on the topic of metal here, and Dunn is an avowed Iron Maiden fan.)

With the new documentary, Dunn and McFadyen, who have been friends for the past 15 years since attending British Columbia's University of Victoria, have planted their stake deep in the heart of the rock-doc niche. (Although the downtown west-side Toronto office of Banger Productions looks like a lot of start-up film and new-media offices around the city in some ways, the mounted horns outside the office door are a giveaway as to its specialty, as are the books of metal lore lining the shelves next to the Lonely Planet travel guides and Didi, McFadyen's black, metal-appropriate bulldog puppy, who makes her home most days in the spacious editing suite.

Banger Productions is now much in demand. On the office white boards are long to-do lists for upcoming major documentaries on Iron Maiden and Rush. In fact, Dunn and McFadyen's Rush film is said to be the first cinematic documentary of the publicity-shy band, rather than simply a typical concert DVD or a video-music channel profile. The members of Slayer also want to make a doc with the filmmakers.

Groups themselves want to work with the pair. After Headbanger's Journey, members of Metallica told the filmmakers something to the effect of, "Don't you dare make another film without us in it."

It should also be said that Dunn looks the part. With shoulder-length hair and wearing the perennial black metal T-shirt, he has appeared in both Headbanger's Journey and Global Metal as our guide to metal fandom. And yet, although he's as approachable in person as he seems on film, what's that look in his eye? A piercing clarity? And what's that he mentions, with his toothy grin, about possibly doing a documentary about Satan?...!

"We're even talking to Telefilm about it," adds McFadyen, also grinning, as he notes Bill C-10, which proposes to allow Ottawa to deny tax credits for films it doesn't like. Canadian Christian leader Charles McVety has been among those supporting the controversial bill. McFadyen and Dunn, even though they are serious about a Satan doc, both break into ironic laughter. It's the same laugh coming from the metalheads around the world in their documentary.

I loved Dunn and McFadyen's first documentary on metal, Metal: A Headbanger's Journey. Although, as Dunn notes in the interview below with George Stroumboulopoulos, it was basically a metal primer that didn't really teach veteran metal fans anything new, it was a serious and thoughtful take on a major subculture by an academic who is also an insider (Dunn has a Ph.D in cultural anthropology and is a lifelong metalhead).

Dunn and McFadyen are interviewed on CBC's "The Hour".

I've recently become aware just how wide the world of metal is. Although I like the metal that hails from the genre's "traditional" homes of England, Northern Europe and the USA, I'm also a big fan of a few Italian metal bands. But in more recent years I've grown to like some of the following:



Sepultura is Brazil's best-known metal band, rising to prominence in the early 1990s opening for Ozzy Osbourne. Although their earlier albums were faithful to the forms of American thrash and hardcore music, 1996's Roots album incorporated elements of music from Brazil's indigenous peoples, notably the Xavante tribe.



Israel's Orphaned Land combine elements of thrash, death and progressive metal with traditional musical forms from North Africa and the Middle East. Lyrically, they express a desire for understanding and brotherhood between the three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), warning of dire consequences for all if peace is not achieved (most eloquently in their 2004 release, Mabool, or "Flood"). This distinguishes them from the earlier major Israeli metal band, Salem, who memorialize the victims of the Holocaust while railing against Israel's enemies.



Mainland China's Tang Dynasty sets legends from early Chinese history to heavy riffs, making them soulmates with the metal sword-and-sorcery epics of the European power-metal scene.



Much like the Scandanavian black metal bands of the early 1990s embraced an anti-Christian image to stand against a culture they considered oppressive, Taiwanese black-metal band Chthonic embraces myths from Taiwan's history to speak in favour of Taiwanese independence from mainland China. This has been a highly controversial political stance in their native land and has attracted criticism from the People's Republic of China. They are also noteworthy for the incorporation of the erhu, a traditional 2-stringed bowed instrument much like a violin, into their music. And bassist Doris "Thunder" Yeh is totally hot.



Eluveitie is a Swiss folk-metal band incorporating bagpipes, fiddles, and even a hurdy-gurdy into their heavy sound. Lyrically they derive from legends of pre-Roman pagan Europe.

Which only goes to show that Tenacious D are right: You can't kill The Metal!

Book Review: The Sorrows of Empire, by Chalmers Johnson

A few months ago, I reviewed Blowback, Chalmers Johnson's take on American military and economic imperialism. The economist and East Asia expert explained how both trigger consequences that the American people are often required to bear, but because military and covert actions are kept secret or hidden, most citizens haven't the slightest clue why these "terrorists" or "rogue states" are targeting them.

Some might say Johnson's book was uncannily prophetic, since it was written in 2000 and one year later the ultimate form of "blowback", the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, occurred. Others--like myself--might have been surprised at the scope and effectiveness of the attack, but few active observers of international politics were surprised that 9/11 happened in the first place.

In Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic, Johnson takes on American imperialism directly. Tracing its history from the Spanish-American War to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Johnson details the string of bases the US military has erected in something like 3/4 of the nations of the world. He also details the personal arrangements American military officers cultivate with the military elite of other nations. These relationships bypass and undermine the usual channels of civilian diplomacy, as these military relationships are not subject to oversight or control by the elected civilian authorities.

Truth be told, the earlier chapters are not as strong as Blowback's thesis. Johnson's expertise in economics and East Asia were evident in the earlier book, but here he delves into somewhat unfamiliar territory, and thus it comes across more as a popular history than a scholarly analysis. Still, the facts he compiles are shocking.

Much like Gwynne Dyer, Johnson failed to predict just how disastrous the occupation of Iraq would become. In fact, few of the major commentators heard before the war and during the initial invasion, whether supporters of the action or its opponents, were able to predict just how badly the Bush administration would bungle the occupation. In this Johnson is not unique. It seems many commentators and analysts believed the Bush administration could be idealistic, or corrupt, or evil, but no one predicted they could be incompetent. Sadly, the last three years have made that abundantly evident.

Johnson saves the best for last, as it is the book's penultimate chapter that features his strongest argument. "Globalization", that capitalist buzzword of the 1990s, is nothing but Western (ie, American) economic imperialism. This rebirth of eighteenth-century liberalism, often dubbed "neoliberalism", brings with it the racism and exploitation that accompanied classical liberalism in the heydays of the British Empire. Johnson feels that Bill Clinton was a far more successful imperialist than George W. Bush:

In accordance with the logic of Sun Tzu, Bill Clinton was actually a much more effective imperialist than George W. Bush. During the Clinton administration, the United States employed an indirect approach in imposing its will on other nations. The government of George W. Bush, by contrast, dropped all legitimating principles and adopted the view that might makes right. History tells us that an expansive nation must at least attempt to disguise what it is doing if it wants to consolidate its gains. It must pretend that its exploitation of the weak is in their own best interest, or their own fault, or the result of ineluctable processes beyond human control, or a consequence of the spread of civilization, or in accordance with scientific laws--anything but deliberate aggression by a hyperpower.

Clinton camouflagued his policies by carrying them out under the banner of "globalization". This proved quite effective in maneuvering rich but gullible nations to do America's bidding--for example, Argentina--or in destabilizing potential rivals--for example, South Korea and Indonesia in the 1997 economic crisis--or in protecting domestic economic interests--for example, in maintaining the exorbitant prices of American pharmaceutical companies under cover of defending "intellectual property rights". During the 1990s, the rationales of free trade and capitalist economics were used to disguise America's hegemonic power and make it seem benign or, at least, natural and unavoidable. The main agents of this imperialism were Clinton's secretary of the Treasury, Robert Rubin, and his deputy (today, president of Harvard University). Lawrence Summers. The United States ruled the world but did so in a carefully masked way that produced high degrees of acquiescence among the dominated nations.

George W. Bush, by contrast, turned to a frontal assault based on the use of America's unequaled military power.

Ironically, "in its spurious scientificity, globalism has proved similar to Marxism, whose roots lie in the same intellectual soil," in that the modern globalists are convinced their path is inevitable and irresistible. Clearly this notion of historical determinism mirrors the dialectical process of Marxist thought.

The notion of the American military-industrial complex as a socialist entity is not a new one: see for example William Greider's Fortress America: The American Military and the Consequences of Peace. Greider, Johnson and others have noted that American defence spending shows little regard for market forces or other considerations of a capitalist economy--indeed, periods of economic downturn seem to be accompanied by increases in American defence spending. Generally speaking, the same arms manufacturers are granted defence contracts over and over again, which brings into question how competitive the awarding of contracts is. The US military has many of the earmarks of a planned economy.

Johnson takes this idea to the next level, quoting Peru's ambassador to the World Trade Organization, Oswaldo de Rivero:

The ideological war between capitalism and communism during the second half of the twentieth century was not a conflict between totally different ideologies. It was, rather, a civil war between two extreme viewpoints of the same Western ideology: the search for happiness through the material progress disseminated by the Industrial Revolution...the cost of the Soviet version of development was shortages and lack of freedom; today, that of the neoliberal, capitalist variant is unemployment and social exclusion.

The book's conclusion summarizes four likely negative results to the American Republic from increasing American imperialism, the last (and most dangerous in his eyes) being bankruptcy. Imperialism is an expensive business and American defense spending is more out of control than ever before. Although Johnson suggests that the American people could still use their civil institutions to reclaim their nation from the imperialists, he isn't very hopeful.

I conclude this review with a recent example of blowback from American interventionism: the Fort Dix Six, Kosovars so pleased with American involvement in their war against Serbia, they decided to show their gratitude by attempting to break into a US military base on American soil and kill as many US soldiers as they could.

And this is why those who favour American imperialism, even for beneficial reasons (there is something positive to be said about the type of society American imperialists give lip service to, even if they don't practice it). The globalization project of the imperialists has empowered the dissident and disgruntled around the world. The Romans, British, Russians, Turks--they didn't have to worry about oppressed subject peoples in the colonies causing major damage in the homeland. At least not until their empires were well on their way to complete collapse. Whereas today, the openness of frontiers and borders and the free flow of information, technology and finance (a direct consequence of globalization) has placed immense destructive power into the hands of dissidents--and we've seen they're quite prepared to use it--and given them the ability to project that force directly into the political, military and economic capitals of the American empire. The American people should fear their rising empire as much as those worldwide. For much like the British empire that preceded it, the American empire benefits the wealthy and powerful, but it is the rest of society that suffers the consequences.

Kurt is up in heaven now

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007

Kurt Vonnegut, great American novelist, passed away yesterday. Bookninja links to a slew of obituaries. My friend GS sent me a link to this article, one of Vonnegut's last rants against the current Bush administration. Read the whole thing, but I'll point out the section wherein he praises my vocation:

While on the subject of burning books, I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroyed records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

And still on the subject of books: our daily news sources, newspapers and TV, are now so craven, so unvigilant on behalf of the American people, so uninformative, that only in books do we learn what's really going on.

I will cite an example: House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger, published in early 2004, that humiliating, shameful, blood-soaked year...

...So I am a man without a country, except for the librarians and a Chicago paper called In These Times.

As for the title of this post, it is at Kurt's request:

I am, incidentally, Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that totally functionless capacity. We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, "Isaac is up in heaven now." It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, "Kurt is up in heaven now." That's my favorite joke.

Keep 'em laughing, Kurt.

UPDATE (May 24, 2007): Almost forget I had a previous connection to Vonnegut.

The Puppet Master

"Speak, minion, into the amplification device before you. SPEAK!"



Cheney stalks Bush from the shrubbery.

A few words on an important subject

Today is International Women's Day and Blog Against Sexism Day. I'm finding it difficult to write something in support of it. It's hard to write about something I've never really experienced. It's true that society imposes expectations on men as well, but these hardly compare to the restrictive expectations society still imposes (or tries to impose) on women. I feel presumptuous for even trying to talk about sexism from a platform of male privilege (and white straight male privilege at that).

So I'll just summarize my thoughts below:

I wish for a day when the whole world values its daughters as much as its sons.

I wish for a day when everyone is able to rise to the upper limits of their talents and aptitudes without regard for their sex.

I wish for a day when loud-mouthed morons stop blaming female sexuality for the problems of the world so we can actually work on solving the world's problems.

Karen Healey of Girls Read Comics--And They're Pissed! sheds light on an oft-neglected battleground in the war against sexism.

Brainless, the Conclusion

Finally, the last part of Brainless: The Insanity of Conservatism, my spoof of Ann Coulter's Godless: the Church of Liberalism. While Ann goes on for another 200+ pages, I'm not getting paid thousands by a horde of barely sentient amoebas for this, so I must bring a close to this little exercise.

Part 1 available here.
Part 2 available here.

Bonus feature! Click here to download a video of the BBC's Jeremy Paxman eviscerating Ann Coulter in an interview about Godless (RealPlayer required).

ANN COULTER	FALSE PROPHET
The core of the Judeo-Christian tradition says that we are utterly and distinctly apart from other species. We have dominion over the plants and the animals on Earth. God gave it to us, it's ours—as stated succinctly in the book of Genesis. Liberals would sooner trust the stewardship of the Earth to Shetland ponies and dung beetles. All their pseudoscience supports an alternative religion that says we are an insignificant part of nature. Environmentalists want mass infanticide, zero population growth, reduced standards of living, and vegetarianism. The core of environmentalism is that they hate mankind.	The core of the Enlightenment philosophy says "O what a work is Man" and that through the exercise of our reason, we can accomplish great things. We have all but eliminated many illnesses, greatly enhanced our understanding of nature, and increased the quality of life for all such that even a lower-class person in our society lives better than a king did 500 years ago. We owe this to science, reason, and secularism, as is obvious to any student of history. Conservatives would sooner get down on their knees in a mud hat covered with scabs and pray to the sky for answers to their problems. All their insanity supports is an irrational belief that the sky fairy hates everything that isn't them. Fundamentalist Christians want millions of unloved and unwanted children and women dying in alleyways, overpopulation, a 13th century quality of life, and no sex. The core of Fundamentalist Christianity is they believe God wants them to be miserable, and everyone else should be miserable too.
Everything liberals believe is in elegant opposition to basic Biblical precepts. Our religion says that human progress proceeds from the spark of divinity in the human soul; their religion holds that human progress is achieved through sex and death. We believe in invention and creation; they catalogue with stupefaction the current state of our diminishing resources and tell us to stop consuming. We say humans stand apart from the world and our charge is Planet Earth; they say we are part of the world, and our hubris-tic use of nature is sinful. We say humans are in God's image; they say we are no different morally from the apes. We believe in populating the Earth until there's standing room only and then colonizing Mars; they believe humans are in the twilight of their existence.	Everything conservatives believe is in opposition to reason and fact: The philosophy of the Enlightenment holds that human progress proceeds from the spark of reason and the exercise of the scientific method; their insanity believes civilization should regress to the 13th century. Scientifc fact says that natural resources are being expended at an unsustainable rate and global warming is a growing concern. Their "science" implores us to increase consumption and ignore greenhouse gas emissions despite the threat of societal collapse and environmental catastrophe. Reason, science and secularism have allowed Western civilization to progress to its current state in less than 500 years; they would give credit to God for humanity's works. Evolution is a fact, and has allowed for considerable advances in medicine. They would have us dying in gutters from flu and leprosy until the Second Coming. Science indicates that human civilization may be in dire straits soon; they don't care, as they expect to be swept away by the Rapture imminently.
Our book is Genesis. Their book is Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, the original environmental hoax. Carson brainwashed an entire generation into imagining a world without birds, killed by DDT. Because of liberals' druidical religious beliefs, they won't allow us to save Africans dying in droves of malaria with DDT because DDT might hurt the birds. A few years after oil drilling began in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, a saboteur set off an explosion blowing a hole in the pipeline and releasing an estimated 550,000 gallons of oil. It was one of the most devastating environmental disasters in recent history. Six weeks later, all the birds were back. Birds are like rats—you couldn't get rid of them if you tried.	Our method is based on evidence and examination. Their method is based on supposition and lies. Conservative Christians brainwashed an entire generation into imagining that a 12-week old fetus is a human being and that every sperm is sacred, despite the billions lost every night in natural nocturnal emissions. Because of conservatives' insane religious beliefs, they won't allow us to save Africans suffering from overpopulation because family planning might kill millions of sperm that would die anyway. Sperm is like conservative bullshit--you couldn't stem the flow if you tried.
The various weeds and vermin liberals are always trying to save are no more distinguishable than individual styles of rap music. The massive Dickey-Lincoln Dam, a $227 million hydroelectric project proposed on upper St. John River in Maine, was halted by the discovery of the Furbish lousewort, a plant previously believed to be extinct. Liberals didn't even know this plant still existed, but suddenly they were seized with affection for it. They had been missing it all that time! (Granted, the rediscovery of the Furbish lousewort has improved the lives of every man, woman, and child in America in ways too numerous to count, but even so . . .) Liberals are more upset when a tree is chopped down than when a child is aborted. Even if one rates an unborn child less than a full-blown person, doesn't the unborn child rate slightly higher than vegetation?	The various bags of cells conservatives are always trying to save are no more distinguishable than individual styles of country music. The massive stem cell research initiative of the late 1990s, was halted by the irrational and insane beliefs of the Bush administration's supporters. (Granted, denying hope to thousands of people suffering from spinal injury or cystic fibrosis has improved the lives of every man, woman and child in America in ways too numerous to count, but even so...) Conservatives are more upset when an unwanted fetus is aborted than when thousands of poor children are caught up in drug addiction and gang violence because of a lack of effective social services. Even if one rates a welfare recipient less than an unborn fetus, wouldn't there be less welfare recipients if some unwanted fetuses never existed in the first place?
Liberals are constantly warning us that man is overloading the environment to the detriment of the plants. Howard Dean left the Episcopal Church—which is barely even a church—because his church, in Montpelier, Vermont, would not cede land for a bike path. Environmentally friendly exercise was more important than tending to the human soul. That's all you need to know about the Democrats. Blessed be the peacemakers who create a diverse, nonsexist working environment in paperless offices.	Conservatives are constantly warning us that terrorists are a threat to our civilization. David Horowitz left the New Left--a group of long-haired radicals out of step with the mainstream left--because he felt the Right would better indulge his desire to blame America's problems on brown-skinned people. Belligerence in the service to imperial elitists was more important than tending to the needs of the oppressed. That's all you need to know about the Republicans. Blessed be the warmakers who create a world of angry, desperate suicide bombers.
Suspiciously, the Democrats' idea of an energy policy never involves the creation of new energy. They want solar power, wind power, barley power. How about creating a new source of energy? Nuclear reactors do that with no risk of funding Arab terrorists or—more repellent to liberals—Big Oil Companies. But in a spasm of left-wing insanity in the seventies, nuclear power was curtailed in this country. Japan has nuclear power, France has nuclear power—almost all modern countries have nuclear power. But we had Jane Fonda in the movie The China Syndrome. Liberals are very picky about their admiration for Western Europe.	Suspiciously, the Republican's idea of an energy policy never involves replacing our dwindling sources of energy. They want oil, oil, and more oil. How about reducing our exhoribant energy needs and developing clean alternatives to our declining and dirty source of energy? Reducing our energy needs would make us far less reliant on tyrannical Arabian autocrats. But in a spasm of right-wing insanity throughout the fifties, sixties and seventies, the CIA and State Department supported Arab dictators like the Shah and Saddam Hussein, ensuring that the fledgling democratic movement of the Middle East would be ruthlessly crushed.

Brainless: The Insanity of Conservatism, part deux

Part 1 available here.

ANN COULTER	FALSE PROPHET
If a Martian landed in America and set out to determine the nation's official state religion, he would have to conclude it is liberalism, while Christianity and Judaism are prohibited by law. And not just in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where it's actually on the books, but throughout the land. This is a country in which taxpayers are forced to subsidize "artistic" exhibits of aborted fetuses, crucifixes in urine, and gay pornography. Meanwhile, it's unconstitutional to display a Nativity scene at Christmas or the Ten Commandments on government property if the purpose is to promote monotheistic religion. Nearly half the members of the Supreme Court—the ones generally known as "liberals"—are itching to ban the references to God on our coins and in the Pledge of Allegiance. They resisted in 2004 on procedural grounds only because it was an election year.	If a space alien landed in America and set out to determine the nation's mental health, he would have to conclude the country suffers from a psychopathologic affliction called conservatism, while rationality and intelligence are aggressively intimidated. And not just in Alabama and Kansas, where it's actually on the books, but throughout the land. This is a country where candidates for high political office must proclaim their unsubstantiated belief in a magic sky-fairy who died on two sticks, their hostility towards all brown people, and their intention to dictate permitted activities in every bedroom in the nation. Meanwhile, decorated military officers, experienced diplomats and respected scientists and scholars are attacked or belittled for offering their rational arguments and expertise. Nearly half the members of the Supreme Court--the ones generally known as "conservatives"--are itching to replace the Constitution with inaccurate interpretations of the chicken scratches of 2000-year-old Near Eastern shepherds. They resisted because the whole nation hasn't been infected with their insanity--yet.
The absence of a divinity makes liberals' belief system no less religious. Liberals define religion as only those belief systems that sub-scribe to the notion of a divine being in order to dismiss other religions as mere religion and theirs as something greater. Shintoism and Buddhism have no Creator God either, and they are considered religions. Curiously, those are two of the most popular religions among leftists—at least until 9/11, when Islam became all the rage.	The inability to acknowledge their own hypocrasy and insanity makes conservatives' mental illness no less hypocritical and insane. Conservatives define conservatism as whatever Rush Limbaugh, the National Review, Ann Coulter and the Bush administration say it is right this moment, regardless of whether it meant the opposite two weeks ago. This is done in order dismiss rational people who consider themselves conservative but disagree with the insane variety as "evil liberals". Creationism and the Rapture are insane, hypocritical perspectives, and conservatives consider them to be rational points of view. Curiously, those are two of the most popular beliefs among conservatives--at least until 9/11, when belligerent imperialism became all the rage.
Liberalism is a comprehensive belief system denying the Christian* belief in man's immortal soul. Their religion holds that there is nothing sacred about human consciousness. It's just an accident no more significant than our possession of opposable thumbs. They deny what we know about ourselves: that we are moral beings in God's image. Without this fundamental understanding of man's place in the world, we risk being lured into misguided pursuits, including bestiality, slavery, and PETA membership. Liberals swoon in pagan admiration of Mother Earth, mystified and overawed by her power. They deny the Biblical idea of dominion and progress, the most ringing affirmation of which is the United States of America.	Conservatism is a complex and serious mental illness denying the Enlightenment-era ideals of the Founding Fathers in humanity's innate capacity for reason and the separation of church and state. Their insanity holds that intelligence and facts are to be ignored, even loathed. All that is important is irrational and unquantifiable faith and "gut instinct". They deny what has made Western civilization prosperous and free: the expulsion of religion and other irrational ideologies from the state apparatus and the acceptance of reason and the scientific method as the preferred manner of understanding the world. Without acknowledging this as the foundation of our society, we risk being lured into irrational, distracting, and dangerous pursuits, including slavery (of non-whites and women), genocide, and baptism. Conservatives swoon in ecclesiastical devotion to fundamentalist Christianity, taken in by her simplistic (conservatives hate "thinking"--it smacks of liberal weakness) but dangerous psalms and odes. They deny the Enlightenment ideals of reason, secularism and the advancement of knowledge, the most ringing affirmation of which used to be the United States of America.
Although they are Druids, liberals masquerade as rationalists, adopting a sneering tone of scientific sophistication, which is a little like being condescended to by a tarot card reader. Liberals hate science and react badly to it. They will literally run from the room, light-headed and nauseated, when told of data that might suggest that the sexes have different abilities in math and science.	Although they are mentally ill, conservatives (through their control of the mass media) convince society that they hold rational, common-sense views, adopting a sneering tone of moral superiority, which is a little like getting a sermon in ethics from a Big Oil executive. Conservatives hate democracy, freedom and entrepreneurship, though they claim otherwise. They will literally throw a temper tantrum when confronted with evidence that their actions contradict their stated principles.
They repudiate science when it contradicts their pagan beliefs—that the AIDS virus doesn't discriminate, that there is no such thing as IQ, that nuclear power is dangerous and scary, or that breast implants cause disease. Liberals use the word science exactly as they use the word constitutional. Both words are nothing more or less than a general statement of liberal approval, having nothing to do with either science or the Constitution. (Thus, for example, the following sentence makes sense to liberals: President Clinton saved the Constitution by repeatedly ejaculating on a fat Jewish girl in the Oval Office.)	If they don't like the facts science arrives at, they circumvent the accepted and effective peer-review process and fabricate data conducive to their agenda in sanitoriums called "think tanks", false data like--the earth is 6000 years old, global warming is a natural phenomenon, blacks are less intelligent than whites, and government-subsidized health care will bankrupt the nation. Conservatives use the phrase "personal responsibility" exactly as they use the phrases "small government" and "fiscal responsibility". All these phrases are nothing more or less than a general statement of conservative approval, but meaning the opposite of what they say. (Thus, for example, the following sentences makes sense to conservatives: George Bush showed personal responsibility by blaming the Democrats for failures in Iraq. George Bush favours small government by listening in to your phone calls and looking at what books you checked out of the library. Republicans are in favour of fiscal accountability by voting for the president's record spending deficits and slashing taxes on the rich.)

By special request

I am posting Brainless: The Insanity of Conservatism, my satire of Ann Coulter's screed, Godless: the Church of Liberalism. Ann's ranting is on the left (for once--ha, ha) and mine is on the right. Note that I don't necessarily agree with everything I've written below: the point was to satirize Coulter, not to articulate my political beliefs (trust me, I could do it far better than Coulter).

ANN COULTER	FALSE PROPHET
ON THE SEVENTH DAY, GOD RESTED AND LIBERALS SCHEMED	AFTER THE FOURTH ERA, GOD TOOK A NAP AND CONSERVATIVES STOLE THE KEYS TO THE ASYLUM
Liberals love to boast that they are not "religious," which is what one would expect to hear from the state-sanctioned religion. Of course liberalism is a religion. It has its own cosmology, its own miracles, its own beliefs in the supernatural, its own churches, its own high priests, its own saints, its own total worldview, and its own explanation of the existence of the universe. In other words, liberalism contains all the attributes of what is generally known as "religion."	Conservatives love to boast that they favour small government and personal responsibility, which is what one would expect to hear from sensible people. Of course conservatism is not sensible. It has its own fantasy world, its own "laws of nature", its own irrational beliefs, its own asylums, its own people with Napoleon complexes, its own insane worldview, and its own deluded explanation of the existence of the universe. In other words, conservatism contains all the attributes of what is generally known as "insanity".
Under the guise of not favoring religion, liberals favor one cosmology over another and demand total indoctrination into theirs. The state religion of liberalism demands obeisance (to the National Organization for Women), tithing (to teachers' unions), reverence (for abortion), and formulaic imprecations ("Bush lied, kids died!" "Keep your laws off my body!" 'Arms for hostages!"). Everyone is taxed to sup-port indoctrination into the state religion through the public schools, where innocent children are taught a specific belief system, rather than, say, math.	Under the guise of favouring small, laissez-faire government and personal responsibility, conservatives favour hypocrasy and demand total adherence to their inconsistent and insane worldview. The national insanity of conservatism demands big government (when it comes to military and police powers), big spending (on the military-industrial complex), state interference into private lives (concerning a woman's right to her own body), and irrational mantras to cover for failures of conservative policy (the failure of the Bush administration in Iraq is a result of the liberals' lack of will). Everyone is taxed to pay for a military-industrial apparatus that costs more than the next two dozen highest military spending nations combined, and that can't defeat two third-world insurgency movements. Everyone, that is, except for rich corporate executives whose wealth is based on the sweat of others, and churches, who indoctrinate innocent children and ignorant adults into specific irrational belief systems instead of, say, science.
Liberal doctrines are less scientifically provable than the story of Noah's ark, but their belief system is taught as fact in government schools, while the Biblical belief system is banned from government schools by law. As a matter of faith, liberals believe: Darwinism is a fact, people are born gay, child-molesters can be rehabilitated, recycling is a virtue, and chastity is not. If people are born gay, why hasn't Darwinism weeded out people who don't reproduce? (For that, we need a theory of survival of the most fabulous.) And if gays can't change, why do liberals think child-molesters can? Pedophilia is a sexual preference. If they're born that way, instead of rehabilitation, how about keeping them locked up? Why must children be taught that recycling is the only answer? Why aren't we teaching children "safe littering"?	Conservative doctrines are less rational than astrology, but their insanity is declared as sensible by the "liberal" media, while skeptic and rational debates about policy are banned from public forums. As indication of their insanity, conservatives believe: that the earth was created in 6 days despite a mountain of scientific evidence to the contrary, that what goes on in your bedroom is their business, that there is scientific evidence that some races are superior to others, but that there is no scientific evidence for global warming, greed is a virtue, but charity is not. If the world was "intelligently designed", why did God create inferior races in the first place? (For that, we need an intelligent design theory of the most fascist.) And if black and brown people are so inferior, why do conservatives consider them criminal geniuses and terrorist masterminds? If God intelligently designed the universe, why couldn't He intelligently design our criminal justice system? Why must people be deluded into believing the highly-paid shills of corporate interests? Why aren't we giving people the facts and encouraging a skeptic attitude towards outrageous claims?
We aren't allowed to ask. Believers in the liberal faith might turn violent—much like the practitioners of Islam, the Religion of Peace, who ransacked Danish embassies worldwide because a Danish news-paper published cartoons of Mohammed. This is something else that can't be taught in government schools: Muslims' predilection for vio-lence. On the first anniversary of the 9/11 attack, the National Education Association's instruction materials exhorted teachers, "Do not suggest that any group is responsible" for the attack of 9/11.	We aren't allowed to question. Those afflicted with the conservative insanity might turn violent--much like the practitioners of Christianity, the "Blessed Peacemakers", who bomb family-planning clinics and shoot obstetricians because they can't stand the thought of a woman having ownership of her own body and control over her own sexual destiny. This is something else that can't be brought up in public forums: Christians' predilection for irrational, insane beliefs and behaviours. Within three days of 9/11, on national TV, Christian Rev. Jerry Falwell blamed the attacks on " pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians...the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America (including the Founding Fathers?)."

There's more to come...

UPDATE: I can't seem to get rid of that white space between the text and the table above. If anyone can help me out, I'd appreciate it. Blogger seems to be adding two line breaks for reasons I can't fathom.

Book review: Blowback, by Chalmers Johnson

Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire by Chalmers Johnson (2000)

Johnson, an American economist and East Asia specialist of some repute (co-founder of the Japan Policy Research Institute, did consulting for the CIA on Maoist China) wrote this book well before the events of September 11th, 2001. Although recognized when it was first published, it quickly shot up the bestseller lists during the "War on Terror", most likely because Johnson saw something like 9/11 coming.

"Blowback" is a term used by the intelligence community to describe unintended consequences of covert operations. Because the general public is kept in the dark about covert operations, when violent consequences result, the public is generally surprised and believes the aggression was without cause. Being so uninformed, the general public feels they have been unfairly targeted by freedom-hating evil-doers, not understanding that their government has ravaged the homeland of the evil-doers through economic or military imperialism and a severe disregard for the native culture.

Writing in very accesible style, Johnson makes his points with clarity and vigor. He largely confines the discussion to areas of his expertise: East Asia and economics. Johnson begins with the tale of US military bases in Okinawa. Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has maintained a military presence in Japan, ostensibly to keep the Soviet Union and Maoist China in check and to prevent the spread of communism into the rest of East Asia (see Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations to see how well that worked during the Cold War). The vast majority of US bases in Japan are based on the island of Okinawa, which was an independent nation until its occupation by Meiji Japan in the late 19th century. It was the site of perhaps the bloodiest campaign of the Pacific War, and after spilling the blood of thousands of Marines on its soil, the US military never left. However, the arranged marriage between the Okinawans and US military personnel was hardly harmonious. Johnson relates a series of offenses perpetuated by US servicemen, starting with the rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl in 1995 by three military personnel, and moving on to pollution, deadly traffic accidents, violence, land appropriation, extraterritoriality, and overall cultural insensitivity.

In subsequent chapters, Johnson relates American support for East Asian dictators throughout the Cold War and afterwards, noting examples of the CIA undermining democratically-elected governments in favour of compliant strongmen.

Johnson's thesis is that since the end of the Cold War, with their enemy defeated and the reason for supporting military bases, covert operations and brutal dictators around the world gone, US foreign policy now has the goal of transforming the economies of all other nations into mirrors of its own. Not accepting the possibility that Japanese or Korean capitalism might be organized differently than American capitalism, the US uses the World Bank and the IMF to force "globalization" (ie, Americanization) on foreign markets. Also, in the post-Cold War world, the US relies more and more on military and economic dominance to get its way, while diplomacy is tossed aside (clearly the foreign policy of the current Bush administration is almost the culmination of Johnson's fears).

Essentially, Johnson feels that this is naught but American imperialism. American foreign policy no longer seeks to contain Soviet influence, so it must manufacture new reasons to justify military bases around the world, and economic and political interference in every other nation's affairs. These justifications are forcing the rest of the world into the American economic system, and policing the world against "rogue states" (Axis of Evil, anyone?), whose ability to actually threaten American power is practically non-existent. (Lest I sound heartless, there could be 10 more 9/11s, and America would still be the lone superpower. Far less stable governments have endured far more.) Pre-9/11, you would have added the threat of China to that list, even though China has little military capability beyond its own borders (though extensive economic influence through Chinese expatriate communities in East Asia) and likely little desire to exercise military might: history shows China only seems to be concerned with territory it believes it has historical claims to--Taiwan and Tibet, and not much else. And yet, there is threat exaggeration. Whether motivated by greed on the part of the military-industrial complex, or some kind of messianic idealism on the part of American foreign policy, Johnson feels this is imperial overstretch, and there's no way the United States can continue on this trajectory without serious blowback (and not just violently, but economically or diplomatically as well).

At last, the kryptonite worked!

Captain Copyright, the reprehensible mascot created by the federal government to brainwash children into accepting criminally restrictive copyright practices (while glossing over concepts of fair use) has been put down.

See BoingBoing for more.

Bumper thumpers



This and other bumper stickers available from Stamp & Shout. Some other favourites:

A whole lotta bull

So commenter "David F" on the Rolling Stone site posts

I don’t suppose anyone has seen the study that shows bovine flatulence is a larger cause of global warming than any man-made pollution.

...as suggested in this article:

There are 1.4 billion cows worldwide, each producing 500 litres of methane a day and accounting for 14% of all emissions of the gas.

And why are there 1.4 billion cows in the world?

Could it be because we raise them for food and clothing?

The horror...the horror...

I don't know what creeps me out more--my own government or foreign ones.

Matthew 12:37

"For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." (King James Version)

Not your great-great-great-grandfather's Inferno

Dave and I discussing a modern Dante over MSN:
-Do you know who is on the lowest circle of Hell?
-Judas Iscariot
-The three great traitors who are being ever devoured by Satan? Right...
-I forget the other 2...Brutus
-Brutus, and another betrayer of Ceasar. Caius I think
-Cassius
-That's it
-Satan's crying in Hell? I didn't know that
-I would
-If I was surrounded by allusions to 13th century Italian politics for eternity, I guess I would too
-Heh. "And here is Iolo! We all know why *he's* here!"...Wha...?
-"No, I don't"
-"And who else do we find in the garden of liars? Why, it's old Rigato Belinni! Remember him?"
-"who the fuck are these people?"
-Hah! Priceless
-Maybe someone should write a modern Inferno..."And look around the Food Court of Liars--look, it's Jean Chretien, having a big bowl of 'I will eliminate the GST' poutine!"
-Maybe someone *should*
-"George W. Bush is still looking for WMDs and Al-Qaeda operatives in that Iraq souffle"
-Hah! You're killing me!
-"Stephen Harper serving us Conservative Cake. What beautiful frosting. Oh, but scrape those empty calories off and there's a whole load of homophobic, racist Alliance fruitcake underneath!"
-Dude. You should write this down.
-I'll put it in my blog

If he's Director of Intelligence, I'd hate to see the Director of Stupidity

Outgoing CIA director George "Slam Dunk" Tenet, best known for his utter incompetence at his job in recent years, recently told a conference that the free and open nature of the Internet might have to be curtailed to uphold national security.

I would like to suggest to George that he look into what the Internet actually is, before making broad, sweeping statements about it (Besides, George, wouldn't policing the Internet fall under the National Security Agency's jurisdiction?). This essay is one of the best I've read on the nature of the Internet. Also, I haven't read it, but Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet has been recommended to me as an excellent history of the global computer network.

Curious, George, why are you so concerned with threats that are likely to be outside your purview, and which you know so little about? I mean, let's look at an obvious failure of the US intelligence community: 9/11.

Many people stood motionless, looking up -- at American fighter planes streaking overhead. Few things conveyed a changed world as vividly as U.S. Air Force jets engaged in high alert air defense of Manhattan Island. As I spoke to one man he paused, waiting for the aircraft's noise to subside, then looked at me and said: ""Sort of like locking the barn door after the horse is stolen, huh?"" He was angry. He wanted to talk politics. He reminded me that the unchallenged US Air Force had conducted massive air operations over Yugoslavia two years ago without suffering a single casualty. But the same US Air Force had failed utterly to defend American air space a few hours earlier.

And why was this? The answer is here:

The really scary fact is that at any given time, the continental United States is protected by only eight F-15s and F-16s, and these aircraft sit alert at the four corners of the country. That is why when the hijacked airliners deviated from their flight plans and honed in on their final targets, no air defense fighters were in position to intercept and prevent them from making those devastating attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

What about the Global Positioning System (GPS), George? You know, the system the US Military put into place but later allowed the private sector to use and exploit (kind of like the Internet, now that I think about it). The same GPS that US aircraft use for targeting and US soldiers use to navigate is also used by recreational hunters in the woods, and by oil tankers piloted by automation (interesting aside: the word 'cybernetics' comes from the Greek word kubernetes, meaning 'steersman' or 'helmsman'). In the UK, a blind septagenarian and his team built a remote-controlled model plane and used the GPS to fly it over the Atlantic Ocean. But I wouldn't worry, George. It's not like terrorists could use the same idea to deliver biological or chemical weapons, right?