Democrats in the House of Representatives have proposed a bill that would legislatively create a twenty-year period of “Post-Birth Fetal Development,” during which abortion would be completely illegal. Rep. Roberta Goldwaithe, the bill’s primary sponsor, thinks this is an idea whose time has come. “Neurologists have established that the human brain isn’t completely developed through adolescence. This explains why many young people engage in irrational and dangerous behaviors; drinking and driving, date rape, signing up for the Marines… every parent has his or her own horror story. It’s time for those of us who believe in the sanctity of human life to put our principles before our politics. We must protect all human life, including those who have not yet fully developed into independent creatures.”

Republicans have concerns that the “Post-Birth Fetal Development Pro-Life Abortion Ban Act” is a legislative Trojan horse with potential consequences reaching far beyond the abortion clinic, perhaps as far as Iraq, but Rep. Goldwaithe dismisses these accusations. “A Republican who would vote against the Pro-Life Abortion Ban Act is clearly a closest pro-choice, anti-life satanist, and I know that voters will be smart enough to recognize that come election day.” Goldwaithe admits, however, that the new law would affect the war in Iraq:

It goes without saying that being placed in a war zone would threaten fetal life, but this is a secondary concern. President Bush recently pledged, ‘I believe human life is a sacred gift from our Creator. I worry about a culture that devalues life, and believe as your President I have an important obligation to foster and encourage respect for life in America and throughout the world.’

The President expressed these sentiments to explain why he vetoed a bill that would have allowed federal funds for stem cell research. Embryos used for stem cell research consist of less than 200 cells. The vast majority will never develop into anything but freezer burn, and will eventually be destroyed. On the other hand, fetuses protected by the Post-Birth Act can be as much as six feet tall, and contain well over a hundred trillion cells. With proper care, all have the potential to become fully developed human beings. It’s inconceivable, pardon the phrase, that the President would refuse to protect the sanctity of life merely because it would interfere with military plans.

White House spokesman Tony Snow refused to comment directly on the proposed law, but did say that the administration would continue to support the right of a fetus to bear arms.

I’m proud that Massachusetts took the lead in recognizing the right to marry for same sex couples. The Massachusetts Supreme Court recognized that right on May 17, 2004. Despite dire predictions, the sky has stayed right where it is, and I’m not aware of any heterosexuals filing for divorce on the grounds that their marriage has been devalued. And now I’m proud again; yesterday, June 14, 2007, the Massachusetts legislature rejected a proposal that would have subjected the fundamental right to marry to a public vote.

 Under Massachusetts law, a proposal to amend the constitution must be approved by two consecutive legislative sessions, then by a majority of Massachusetts voters. The proposed amendment to ban same sex marriage was approved by the legislature in January 2007 with 62 votes, and would have been put on the ballot for a vote had the proposal passed again today. The proposal needed the support of 50 voters to pass. It lost, 151 to 45, thanks, in great part, to the leadership of Governor Deval Patrick, Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray, Senate President Terry Murray and House Speaker Sal DiMasi. The idea that a basic human right should be subject to the whim of the majority has been defeated.

I was outside the Massachusetts State House along with hundreds of others to encourage the legislature to make the right decision. (Photos are posted here.) People on the other side of the street — and the other side of the issue — were fewer and less enthusiastic. That’s to be expected, I guess. We were supporting a community of people, couples and families. We’ve seen marriage make a real difference in real lives. Folks on the other side were concerned about an abstract idea, and a corrosive one at that. Their sense of morality is offended by the idea that two men or two women can care about each other in a relationship recognized by the state. It must be hard to be cheery about hating strangers.

A highly placed government software developer revealed today that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is actually a sophisticated hologram. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, joined the Gonzales project when the Attorney General was still in beta. Her team of programmers, many of whom had prior experience at various Hollywood special effects studios, are responsible for Gonzales’ colorful and lifelike simulation of a human Cabinet level official.

“Attorney General Gonzales can be fully projected with voice and high-def 3D visuals anywhere in the Justice Building.” Appearing outside of a few blocks from his office, however, requires portable wireless equipment, and presents more of a challenge. “Just projecting the Attorney General outside the building takes a lot of bandwidth, limiting his ability to connect with his central processor. That can really interfere with the AG’s ability to access memory. Plus, he can look a little grainy when there’s a lot of cell-phone traffic in the area.”

Despite these problems, the silicon-based AG has out-performed initial expectations. “Most of us worked in Hollywood, so we were concerned about Gonzales’ ability to simulate sincere emotions. But lacking a full emotional repertoire turns out to be a plus in politics. And we were really surprised to discover that other technical problems can also be turned to an advantage. Gonzales is programmed with a limited number of responses to inquiries. As programmers, we’d call this a problem with his ‘cognitive display,’ but in politics it’s called ’staying on message.’ Gonzales can ’stay on message’ for very long periods without displaying the shame or embarrassment that would be inevitable in a flesh-and-blood person.”

During today’s press briefing, Tony Snow would neither confirm nor deny the humanity of the Attorney General, but did point out the irrelevance of the issue: “The President has full confidence in the Attorney General, and that won’t change simply because General Gonzales may not be a sentient being. I mean, think about it. Alberto Gonzales overcame the obstacle of his Hispanic-American background to become the number one man in the Department of Justice. He’s even more worthy of admiration if it turns out he is a non-corporeal computer simulation of an Hispanic-American.”

The response from both sides of the political spectrum was immediate. Senator Leahy, who questioned AG Gonzales at length during a number of Congressional hearings, admitted he had not heard the news but seemed unsurprised, noting, “It would explain a lot.”

Meanwhile, former-mayor and 2008 Presidential candidate, Rudolph Giuliani, approved of the idea, but said he didn’t think the present administration had gone far enough. “Most, if not all, of the Cabinet could be replaced by holograms. In fact, I believe that the heads of some agencies — the EPA and the Department of Education come immediately to mind — could be replaced with a voice-activated digital telephone system at great savings to the public.”

Former-governor Mitt Romney’s campaign office had no comment, further fueling suspicions that he himself is a computer-based life form. Pundits have previously suggested that this rumor, if true, could actually help Romney in the primaries: “The Democrats are trying to raise excitement with the possibility of running the first black or female candidate. Running a computer-generated Mormon for the top job would really steal the their thunder.”

By now, most people are aware of the summary holding in Gonzales v. Carhart: for the first time since Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court left standing a law proscribing a particular abortion procedure without an exception to safeguard a woman’s health. Standing alone, this is a terrible result, but understanding how the decision was made is more frightening still.

In upholding the “Partial-Birth Abortion Act” (referred to here as just “the Act”), the Supreme Court’s new majority drew upon old lies about the emotional fragility of women, and the need to protect from their own decisions. The Court used this new/old lie to bypass forty years of precedent safeguarding reproductive rights. The Court allowed Congress to place political values over best medical practice, and to put women’s lives at risk. The lie at the center of Carhart could return to threaten our freedom to live according to our own values.

Read the rest of this post at Sex in the Public Square.

Dick Cheney’s jet, Air Force 2, was attacked by a suicide bomber, specifically a bird that threw itself into the right engine just before the jet’s landing at O’Hare airstrip. No particular group of birds has claimed responsibility for the attack, though analysts believe the VP’s favorite prey – farm-raised quail — were involved.

Cheney, unharmed but visibly shaken, said he would not alter his hunting strategy.

I will not give in to a few fowl terrorists. I will continue to shoot farm-raised birds released for my recreational pleasure from cages hidden behind bushes, and I will kill those birds. Quitting would render meaningless the sacrifice of my good friend, Harry Whittington, whom I shot in the face.

The Vice-President was in Chicago to speak at a function organized by the Heritage Foundation. The Vice President spoke about the importance refusing to set a specific date to withdraw from Iraq:

“It is impossible to argue that an unconditional timetable for retreat could serve the security interests of the United States. It would send a message to our enemies that the calendar is their friend, that all they have to do is wait us out, wait for the date certain, and then claim victory the day after.

Leaders of insurgency groups in Iraq responded with anger to the VP’s comments. “We must know the US withdrawal date in order to plan our victory-claiming celebration. The catering preparations alone will take forty-eight hours. And don’t even talk to me about making all those effigies.”

In other news, the President announced a plan to appoint a “war czar,” to finally achive victory in Iraq and Afghanistan. When asked for details, the President responded:

When I wish upon my czar;
Makes no difference who they are;
When I have a czar he’ll make my dreams come true.

President Bush then explained we could easily win in Iraq, but we all need to believe. He requested everyone present who believed in victory to clap their hands.

There were no additional questions.

Finally, on the human interest front, the winner of the Anna Nicole Smith baby contest was finally chosen from the group of finalists in the Bahamas. A disappointed crowd of men went home tanned, but empty-handed, when photographer Larry Birkhead was declared winner. Birkhead said he attributed his success to timing. “Anna asked me to set a definite time for withdrawal, but I refused.”

The Vice-President has not yet commented on Birkhead’s strategy.

The title of this blog, The Free Lance” is the name H.L. Menken used for a column of his; my son Samuel is named for Sam Clemens; and, I saw Spalding Gray four times in the six years before he died. These are my bona fides for writing about the loss I feel on the death of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

It’s not that I anticipated reading lots more from him, but there was something pleasant about knowing he was alive, still smoking filterless Pall Malls and undoubtedly bitching at someone about something. (He once described smoking as “a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide.)
I first read Vonnegut as a teenager, as I suspect lots of others did. I read the wonderfully funny and sad Slaughterhouse Five, Or, The Children’s Crusade, at the suggestion of a favorite high school teacher. I loved it most for the odd way it mixed the story of the bombing of Dresden (which Vonnegut lived through as a prisoner of war), with the tale of a man living happily with a starlet in a zoo on the planet Tralfamadore. I’ve read Slaughterhouse Five a number of times since, listened to a really great audio version, read by Ethan Hawke, and if there was a copy right here now I’d probably pick it up and read it again right away.

Vonnegut was, in many ways, as engagingly contradictory as his novel about war and Tralfamadore. He was famously pessimistic, but with a humanist warmth that Twain lacked. For example, he wrote:

I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, ‘Please—a little less love, and a little more common decency.’

A direct and palpable hit on the institution of love if there ever was one, but then there’s the grudging hope in a plea for common decency.

Another contradiction: He was a socialist, but wrote Harrison Bergeron, a short story with a barb aimed at the heart of the idea of absolute equality. The Wall St. Journal published Harrison Bergeron a few years ago in its editorial section; not the kind of place you’d expect an admirer of Eugene Debs to hang out. (You can read Harrison Bergeron here.)

Over the past few years, Vonnegut became embittered about the direction the Bush administration was leading America. Once during an interview, he said he was going to sue Brown & Williamson, manufacturers of Pall Malls, because: “they promised to kill me. Instead, their cigarettes didn’t work. Now I’m forced to suffer leaders with names like Bush and Dick and, up until recently, ‘Colon’” But then in May of 2004 he wrote “Cold Turkey,” a diatribe about the follies of human beings generally and the US under President Bush specifically. In the middle of this bleak prognosis for mankind, he wrote about the inspiration of Confucius, Eugene Debs, Jesus, and of Vonnegut’s own his son, who, asked “what life is all about”, responded: “Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.”

So that’s my short tribute to Kurt Vonnegut Jr., who lived through the horrors of the bombing of Dresden, but still retained enough hope to rant pessimistically about a 21st century America, somewhat older, but not a whit wiser. Just one more favorite story…

Death was a subject Vonnegut wrote about a lot in that characteristically unimpressed way he had. In Breakfast of Champions, he described a short story written by one of his characters as:

..a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne.

Typically Vonnegut, it’s not a very pleasant view of life or death. But then, right there at the end, there’s that champagne.

Using meaningless language is a standard tool of politics, brought to high art by the present administration. Dick Cheney has added a new gloss on the old game, repeating an old argument about Iraq that has lost all meaning.

Here’s the way Cheney put it recent speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee 2007 Policy Conference:

… when members [of congress] speak not of victory but of time limits, deadlines or other arbitrary measures, they’re telling the enemy simply to watch the clock and wait us out.

This argument was used by Bush for the first few years of the war in Iraq to avoid setting a time table for withdrawing troops. Agree with it or not, the argument meant something:

The situation is us versus the bad guys. “We” are the coalition and the fledgling democratic government in Iraq. Insurgency groups dedicated to destroying any US supported government in Iraq are the bad guys. If we tell the bad guys when we plan to pull our troops out of Iraq, the bad guys will hang back, save resources until our troops are gone, then come out of hiding to destroy the Iraqi government.

This argument allowed the Bushies to govern in their preferred way: completely ad hoc, no goals to meet, therefore no way to determine failure.

Whatever value this description of the war once may have had, it clearly doesn’t represent what’s going on in Iraq today. Even the Pentagon admits there is an internecine civil war in Iraq, fought among multiple groups with diverse interests. The Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (a non-governmental group of former intelligence specialists) provide a clear analysis in their recent memo Denouement on Iraq: First Stop the Bleeding:

The vast majority of the violence in Iraq is sectarian in nature and involves a multifaceted civil war mostly pitting Sunnis against Shias. However, the violence also entails secular Sunnis fighting Sunni extremists linked to Al Qaeda and secular Shias battling Shia extremists…. in other words, a rabid dog fight with our troops in between. The only thing the various factions share is unflinching opposition to US occupation. But the notion that there is a monolithic group of “insurgents” or “enemy” falls far wide of the mark.

The “we can’t set a time-table” argument falls apart under these conditions. There is no “them,” holding back waiting for us to leave. The various coalitions are in full-out battle against the provisional Iraqi government and against each other. We have met the enemy, and he is…. well, everybody.

We are used to Cheney’s lies, but this is something different and worth attending to. It’s a concrete example of the administration using empty phrases to shore up support for a misconceived and unpopular war. “Support the troops!” “Democrats want to cut and run!;” smoke and mirror language used for effect rather than meaning. Sweeping aside empty language can raise the quality of the public debate about the war; and a debate based upon facts is precisely what the administration is trying to avoid.

Naomi Campbell, known for her terrible temper, recently spent one day of anger management following her conviction for throwing a phone at her housekeeper.

She has recently been asked by Jamaica to be their national “patron for abused women.”

What possible meaning of the phrase “patron for” applies here?

The blog is called “This Veteran’s Life” and is required reading for anyone interested in the Walter Reed Hospital debacle.

General Peter Pace, the Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced on Monday his personal opinion that simply being a gay or lesbian person is immoral, and that the military should therefore continue to refuse gays and lesbians the opportunity to serve in the military. Well, to be more precise, he supports the official military policy, that gays and lesbians can sign up, as long as they’re willing to crawl into the military closet and deny who they are.

The current “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is immoral because it openly requires dishonesty, and treats gays and lesbians as second class citizens. It is unconstitutional because it punishes by exclusion gays and lesbians, not because of what they’ve done, but because of who they are; this type of “status crime” was years ago determined unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court.

General Pace’s delicate moral niceties are archaic. Barry Goldwater, the bastion of all that’s conservative, and 37 year veteran of the military, announced years ago his support of the right of gays and lesbians to be in the military:

The big thing is to make this country, along with every other country in the world with a few exceptions, quit discriminating against people just because they’re gay. You don’t have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay. And that’s what brings me into it…. why the hell shouldn’t they serve? They’re American citizens. As long as they’re not doing things that are harmful to anyone else.

Vice-President Dick Cheney, while Secretary of Defense under the first President Bush, called security concerns about gays and lesbians an “old chestnut” and referred to the idea that “a gay lifestyle is incompatible with military service” as “a policy I inherited.” These comments were made by Cheney just after his assistant secretary of defense, Pete Williams was outed as a gay man.

The world has moved on ahead of the US. There are at least 26 nations that allow gays and lesbians to serve, including Israel, Australia, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Columbia, and every country in the European Union, which requires all members to abolish any bans on open service.

Pace’s comparison with adultery is specious. According to files received by Salon pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request the military, under General Pace, is currently providing waivers for at least 17% of incoming recruits, accepting recruits with civilian criminal records including domestic abuse, assault, breaking and entering and auto theft. An outstanding article by Helen Benedict, also published in Salon, documents the pervasive threat of rape and sexual harassment women soldiers in Iraq live with daily. Perhaps General Pace should focus his moral concerns on matters of real substance existing within the scope of his responsibility.

The Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has let the world know what he thinks Department of Defense policy should be, based upon his morals. He has also provided encouragement and cover for the continued harassment and abuse of men and women by their fellows and those in their chain of command. Sounds pretty damn immoral to me.

Please note: I am personally against the action in Iraq and support plans to withdraw troops now. I am not advocating for the war in Iraq, but for the right to openly serve in the military without regard to sexual orientation. Tom

IMPORTANT: If you agree with me, write your representatives in Congress and the Senate as well as General Pace, and write your local papers. Register your disapproval with General Pace’s remarks and your support for changing military policy to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. General Pace can be reached at:

Joint Chiefs of Staff, Chairman
9999 Joint Chiefs of Staff, Pentagon
Room 4E873
Washington, DC 20318
Fax: (703) 697-8758

All or any part of this post can be used, with attribution, for any non-commercial purpose to help spread the word.

It appears that Anna Nicole Smith, like any great artist, is more popular dead than alive — at least as measured by the continuing stream of stories about her in papers, magazines and news shows. The media’s mock self-reflection involved reaches new levels. There are stories about her, then stories about the media’s fascination with her, then meta-stories about the media’s tendency to report on it’s own reporting of stories about the death of Anna Nicole Smith. All are gratuitous, including my discussion here, which raises the bar of Anna Nicole Smith recursive reporting up yet another notch.

Still, it seems right, somehow, that her fame continues unabated after her death. Anna Nicole Smith, the person, had little to do with Anna Nicole Smith, the celebrity, and the former, if anything, tended to get in the way of the latter. Now, relieved of the burden of actual life, the flame of her celebrity can burn as pure and as hot as the sun.

Smith may still be dead, but vice-president Dick Cheney is very much alive. Cheney was completely unharmed when a bomb, apparently targeted at him by the Taliban, exploded near the compound he inhabited during his visit to Afghanistan. Twenty-three other people died in the attack, thereby strengthening the VP’s resolve to stay in the fight.

According to Cheney, the Arab bad guys plan on continuing to kill Americans, figuring that we’ll eventually tire of it and bring our troops home. But Mr. Cheney isn’t going to let us fall into that trap. Let ‘em kill as many Americans as they can, we’ve got plenty more. I’m not making this up, really. During his flight back from Afghanistan, Cheney was asked why he says nasty things about Speaker Pelosi and Representitive Murtha. Cheney replied:

They [the al Qaeda] know they can’t beat us in a stand-up fight. But they do believe — and I think there’s evidence to support this — that they can, in fact, force us to change our policy if they just kill enough Americans, create enough havoc out there. And they cite Beirut in 1983; Mogadishu, 1993, kill Americans, America changes its policy and withdraws. And Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri believe this. They talk about it. It’s not a mystery.

And my point was that if we follow what I believe Speaker Pelosi really wants to do in terms of withdraw, that that would validate the al Qaeda strategy.

And so, absent a real plan, we stay in Iraq for brinkmanship. They think they can kill and wound enough soldiers for us to back down? We’ll show ‘em.

I wish someone would tell Mr. Cheney: Adamantly refusing to consider loss of life in making military decisions is not good policy; and playing chicken with people willing to blow themselves up to kill us is not an effective strategy.

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., historian, author and special assistant to President John F. Kennedy died February 28, 2007.
Presidential special assistants fill a unique role in an administration. Presidents choose individuals they believe have the experience, abilities and wisdom necessary to provide guidance during difficult times. A special assistant must share the presidents’ values and his vision for America.

The following is a short comparison of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., special assistant to President John F. Kennedy, with Karl Rove, special assistant to President George W. Bush. I hope that viewing this comparison is as enlightening for you as writing it was for me.

	Schlesinger	Rove
Education	Harvard University, 1938-42 Left following Pearl Harbor, without completing his PHD	University of Utah 1969-71 University of MD — completed half a semester, 1971 George Mason University, 1973-75 University of Texas at Austin, 1977 Never received his bachelor’s degree
War Experience	Volunteered for combat during WWII, turned down due to bad eyesight; spent 1942-45 in the Office of War Information, and the Office of Strategic Services, precursor to the CIA.	Maintained a student deferment during his semester and a half of college in Utah and MD; lost his deferment just prior to the end of the draft.
Youthful fame	Won the Pulitzer Prize at 29 for The Age of Jackson, a history of Andrew Jackson’s presidency.	Stole stationary from the offices of a democratic candidate for Illinois state treasurer, used them to produce handbills advertising “free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing” at the opening of the candidate’s new campaign headquarters, and distributed the handbills at rock concerts and homeless shelters.
Significant Mentor	Reinhold Niebuhr, Christian theologian, proponent of the use of Christian values as a basis for politics and diplomacy, and one of the architects of modern “just war” theory.	Donald Segretti, a Nixon political operative. Rove worked under Sergretti during Nixon’s campaign, when Segretti obtained letterhead stationary from Democratic presidential candidate Ed Muskie and used it to produce a bogus letter falsely claiming that Democratic Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson had fathered an illegitimate child with a 17 year old woman. Segretti was later convicted as a Watergate conspirator.
What he said about his President	“… urbane, objective, analytical, controlled, contained, masterful, a man of perspective…”	“Huge amounts of charisma, swagger, cowboy boots, flight jacket, wonderful smile, just charisma – you know, wow!
Other significant achievements	Wrote twenty books, won two Pulitzer prizes, three national book awards, the Four Freedoms Award and the Paul Peck Award. Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1961. Served as Special Assistant for Latin America affairs and speech writer for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, 1961-64.	Ran George W. Bush’s presidential campaign, including during the S. Carolina primary, when a whisper campaign falsely claiming that opposing candidate John McCain was mentally unstable, had been a stoolie during the time he spent in a Vietnamese POW camp, and had fathered a black, illegitimate child. Rove, a political operative, served Bush as assistant to the president, deputy chief of staff, and senior adviser. Rove outdoes his mentor Segretti, giving testimony in the investigation of the Valerie Plame affair, and is not even indicted
Quotation	“If we are to survive, we must have ideas, vision, and courage. These things are rarely produced by committees. Everything that matters in our intellectual and moral life begins with an individual confronting his own mind and conscience in a room by himself.”	“As people do better, they start voting like Republicans – unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing.”

Playboy Magazine’s site contains an excellent, recent article on the Bush administration’s efforts to minimize the existence and human costs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) left untreated in troops returning from Iraq.

Mental health problems tend to be easy to ignore. There are no physical scars, or missing limbs. The public prefers to believe troops come home healthy and heroic, and the government is happy to encourage those beliefs. As a result, the long term costs of untreated PTSD are played down in both the press and in the federal budget.

War is a Racket, a short work written by former General Major Smedley Butler in 1935, contains a powerful description of Butler’s observation of the emotional damage caused by war :

Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remolded; they were made over; they were made to “about face”; to regard murder as the order of the day. They were put shoulder to shoulder and, through mass psychology, they were entirely changed. We used them for a couple of years and trained them to think nothing at all of killing or of being killed.

Then, suddenly, we discharged them and told them to make another “about face”! This time they had to do their own readjustment, sans mass psychology, sans officers’ aid and advice and sans nation-wide propaganda. We didn’t need them any more. So we scattered them about without any “three-minute” or “Liberty Loan” speeches or parades. Many, too many, of these fine young boys are eventually destroyed, mentally, because they could not make that final “about face” alone.

In the government hospital in Marion, Indiana, 1,800 of these boys are in pens! Five hundred of them in a barracks with steel bars and wires all around outside the buildings and on the porches. These already have been mentally destroyed. These boys don’t even look like human beings. Oh, the looks on their faces! Physically, they are in good shape; mentally, they are gone.

Smedley Butler served in the Spanish American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the first World War and in US military actions in Honduras, Haiti and Veracruz, Mexico. He was awarded two Congressional Medals of Honor. After leaving military service he became a strong critic of the US administration and it’s willingness to use war to benefit industry.

A Court of Federal Appeals held yesterday (Feb. 14), that an Alabama law prohibiting the sale of sex toys is constitutional. If only they’d treat the sale of guns the same way.

Take a look at my discussion of the case at Sex in the Public Square, an excellent blog by a thoughtful academic and activist. (And, full disclosure — a good friend).

Ed, I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but today you’ve won my heart.

Today you had the nerve to ask Bush why the hell anyone should trust his accusations that Iranian weapons are being used against Americans in Iraq. Bush was clearly shocked that anyone would suggest his administration would fabricate evidence about weapons. Watching the exchange was better than chocolates or roses.

If you’d like to see the video, check out Think Progress here. Here’s the transcript:

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. I want to follow up on Iran one more time. Are you saying, today, that you do not know if senior members of the Iranian government are, in fact, behind these explosives?

That contradicts what U.S. officials said in Baghdad on Sunday. They said the highest levels of the Iranian government were behind this. It also — it seems to square with what General Pace has been saying, but contradicts with what your own press secretary said yesterday. What…

BUSH: Can I — let me — I can’t say it more plainly: There are weapons in Iraq that are harming U.S. troops because of the Quds Force. As you know, I hope, the Quds Force is a part of the Iranian government. Whether Ahmadinejad ordered the Quds Force to do this, I don’t think we know. But we do know that they’re there. And I intend to do something about it. And I’ve asked our commanders to do something about it. And we’re going to protect our troops.

QUESTION: But given some of those contradictions, Mr. President…

BUSH: There’s no contradiction that the weapons are there and they were provided by the Quds Force…

QUESTION: What assurances can you give the American people that the intelligence this time will be accurate?

BUSH: Ed, We know they’re there. We know they’re provided by the Quds Force. We know the Quds Force is a part of the Iranian government. I don’t think we need who picked up the phone and said to the Quds Force, Go do this, but we know it’s a vital part of the Iranian government.

What matters is, is that we’re responding. The idea that somehow we’re manufacturing the idea that the Iranians are providing IEDs is preposterous. My job is to protect our troops. And when we find devices that are in that country that are hurting our troops, we’re going to do something about it, pure and simple.

Now, David says: Does this mean you’re trying to have a pretext for war? No. It means I’m trying to protect our troops. That’s what that’s means. And that’s what the family members of our soldiers expect the commander in chief and those responsible for — responsible for our troops on the ground.