Goodthinkful comics

The latest issue of the Blue Beetle comic (issue 19) was, as ever, very good. What made it stand out to me was the odd little comic in the middle, an advert for AirHeads candy. For a start, it's eight pages long, making it an impressive length for an advert, but more important is the content.

I wish I could find a scan to post, but to summarise the plot - Lex Luthor and Brainiac use a force-field to lock Superman out of Metropolis. Lex then starts to give his speech about how he will make Metropolis into a great place, yadda yadda. Kids in the crowd get out some AirHeads - and along with the candy comes the bouncing balloon spokes-entity AirHead himself. He enters with the immortal lines "Civics? On a Saturday? Booor-iing!"

And starts spraying candy out to the crowd, turning it into a party where people ignore Lex's attempt to take over the state. Eventually, Brainiac is distracted by Airhead, and the force-field drops, letting Supes back in to arrest the crooks.

So, as far as I can tell, this is an eight page advert telling kids that, when evil politicians try to take over the government, the best thing to do is to ignore it and have a party - that's contributing to the solution! So run along little citizens, eat your candy, and remember not to vote...

Dick Cheney - Vice-President or Quantum Event

From the Daily Show:



So he doesn't need to reveal information because he's not in Executive branch; and he doesn't need to reveal information because he is in the Executive branch. Wow.


Quantum politics - I never thought I'd see it.

No Negotiation with Terro - I mean, Democrats

So, it seems that President Bush will meet with Congress only to tell them to agree with him - at least that's what this article suggests.

I wonder what we're meant to think the point of a meeting is, when one side flatly refuses to discuss the possibility of agreeing with the other. I also wonder why we're meant to solely blame Congress for a failure to fund the troops if the President vetoes a bill that would fund them.

Anyway, this section of the article is almost funny:

"The president is not asking to lecture anybody, nor does he want to," Perino said. "We understand that Congress has a role to play. We understand what that role is. I would hope that they understand what the commander-in-chief's role is. And if a meeting can help alleviate some of the tension, then that's what we're for."

As far as I can tell, the White House (or at least White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino) thinks Congress' role is to send the President only those bills he asks for, and that Congress should understand it's the commander-in-chief's role to tell Congress what to do in time of war. However, I'm fairly sure that Congress is not a branch of the US military, and so the commander-in-chief has no real connection to this situation; it's the President's role that matters, and that the President is also the commander-in-chief is simply irrelevant. The commander-in-chief tells the troops what to do - and if the law says they have to leave Iraq, then it's his role to comply with the law and get them out on schedule, not to tell Congress to write him better laws.

War in Spaaace

Flexing Muscle, China Destroys Satellite in Test - New York Times

Well, well. So the USA has a military rival for control of space - I wonder howBush will react. It goes a little way towards threatening his vision for space, which seems to be mostly that the US can do what it likes, and will stop anyone doing anything that could interfere with US activities.

I can't really imagine why anyone would give in to such bullying - at the time, it seemed like a reason for any other country that ever wants to have even the option of being a space power to arm up to defend their possessions in space before the US was unchallengeable up there. Unfortunately, China seems to have taken up that gauntlet.

I thought the point was to keep the US safe...?

Bush concedes U.S. decisions made Iraq unstable | Reuters.com

Now that's funny. Bush says that the fighting in Iraq is leading to instability in the region that "could lead to attacks here in America."

I thought the reason that the US is fighting in Iraq is that that would mean they wouldn't be fighting in America? Wasn't that the anti-terror part of the war in Iraq? The bit that made it part of the "War on Terror?" Oh well, never mind. I guess it was just about the oil then.

Good news from the Lords, for once

Gay rights laws challenge fails (BBC News)

Yay for the House of Lords, for once they're in the news for NOT making a mess of things!

The arguments on the losing side make me cringe, though:

Lord Morrow told peers: "The regulations make it possible for homosexual activists to sue people who disagree with a homosexual lifestyle because of their religious beliefs. "They require religious organisations to choose between obedience to God and obedience to the state."

Well, yes. We do that all the time, if you haven't noticed. We do, for example, when we refuse to allow people to kill people in the name of God. If a faith has a revelation that states they must not pay taxes, would Lord Morrow accept that? Sikhs are enjoined by their religion to carry swords - they don't, though, wearing pins in the shape of a sword, because they chose obedience to the state (in a reasonable and responsible compromise). Why should Christians retain the 'right' to be intolerant of other lifestyles?

I expect that Lord Morrow wants his own faith to be protected from interference by the law, but would not extend similar protection to a religion that offended him. Lord Smith's response seems to be just right, though. Hooray for sensible Christians.

But Labour's Lord Smith said: "I am somewhat puzzled by the arguments that have been advanced.

"It seems to me, in my simplistic way, that what they (the opponents of the regulations) are arguing for is quite simply the right to discriminate and the right to harass.

"And those arguments are being made in the name of Christianity."

Terror Alert emails

BBC NEWS | UK | MI5 to send e-mail terror alerts

Ok, now that's an interesting idea, and I approve of anything that keeps the public informed about what our security services are up to. I doubt this will tell us much, but I'll sign up for it on the off chance.

The article raises another point, though. It prompted me to have a look at the MI5 website, and see what they think our current situation is. This is what they had to say:

Current threat level

The current threat level is assessed as SEVERE (as of 14th August 2006).

This means that an attack is highly likely and indicates a continuing high level of threat to the UK.

Hmm. To me, that's a problem. We've been in a position where an attack is 'highly likely' since August last year. It's the second highest rating, second only to Critical threats, in which an attack is 'expected imminently.' So, where is the attack? How long can an attack be highly likely before we have to start doubting the assessment rather than continuing to take precautions?

The last attack posted by MI5 on their website is the July 2005 attack on the London transport system. The last significant arrest was in September 2005. In both cases well over a year has passed with no attacks. Oddly, no mention is made of the bomb scare that paralyzed air traffic on the 10th of August 2006 (and pushed the threat level to Critical) - an event which, I now read, happened in the first month that the alert status was public and exactly one month after the Home Office announced that it would be made public. An event which turned out to be no real threat, or at least not an immediate one, as the suspected terrorists still needed to get passports... it's as though the timeline is missing embarrassing details.

Perhaps there have been attacks which were quietly prevented, in which case good for MI5. But I'm unwilling to take that on faith, and without some evidence I can only assume that we're not really at that much risk, and that these threat ratings are more an exercise in politics than prudence.

Iraq Launches Drive to Subdue Baghdad - Forbes.com

Iraq Launches Drive to Subdue Baghdad - Forbes.com

Good luck with that.

I can't see how it will work, though. The best result I can see is that the militants put away their guns for a bit, and pull them out again when the army is needed elsewhere and Baghdad has been relatively quiet for a bit. I may be wrong though, and I hope things do get better. Maybe this is a good idea.

Still, whatever the case, didn't we just conquer this place a few years ago? Why does it need another military attack so soon? Grr, the incompetence of it all... this shouldn't be needed. And I don't see how we're going to avoid having the same problems all over again after this assault.

Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran - Sunday Times - Times Online

Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran - Sunday Times - Times Online

So Israel threatens Iran with nukes, and that's alright?

Deterrence is about the only good argument I know of for having nuclear weapons; to me, this does no more than provide Iran with a good and sufficient reason to get their own, so that they don't have to suffer under this threat. Obviously, the same applies to Israel, but advocating a nuclear first strike on an enemy is not something that endears a country to me.

Lets hope this isn't a serious op plan just yet. I can't see things going well in the Middle East if Israel nukes someone.

Investigating the wrong problem

So, the Iraqi government is planning to investigate how Saddam's hanging came to be filmed.

If they don't want this kind of a public mess, wouldn't they be better off, say, investigating why it was such a botched job in the first place? When the executioners are wearing street jackets rather than uniforms, when they taunt the condemned, and when they chant the name of a militia leader - surely that's the problem, rather than the fact that someone filmed it.

If there's one thing that I am coming to hate about politics, it's the way that the politicians seem to have an endless capacity to excuse actions, but not those that bring these actions to our attention. Obviously, this film will inflame the violence in Iraq. But wouldn't it have been much less controversial if those filmed had acted like professionals doing a job rather than thugs killing a rival?

They killed him in the middle of a prayer. Way to make him a martyr, guys. Thanks for that.