Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 18 Editor's Choice: 7
-
Wikipedia Is Freely Editable!
[Read the article: Bitches but no dicks]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"The trademark of a good encyclopedia"? What does that have to do with Wikipedia?
Perhaps Ms. Scribble Pad is a little unclear on what Wikipedia is. In some ways, Wikipedia can be considered a massive communal blog on hundreds of thousands of topics. Anyone can submit and article, or edit an existing article as they see fit. There is no centralized editorial board that comissions articles or reviews them before submission -- instead, readers take it upon themselves to correct inaccuracies and slurs within the article. By some stunning magic, the end result often -- but not always -- resembles a real encyclopedia.
If Ms. Scribble Pad doesn't like what she sees in a wiki article, then she should take it upon herself to change it instead of grandstanding about it on her blog.
Fortunately for Ms. Scribble Pad, she needn't bother -- someone has beaten her to the punch. The Wikipedia entry on woman now reads, "For terms for women often considered offensive, see Misogyny."
-
Broken Robot Bush
[Read the article: The president's greatest hits]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bush these days doesn't remind me of a "greatest hits" jukebox, playing the same tunes over and over ... no, he reminds me of a broken audioanimatronic robot, stuck in the same infinite loop over, and over and over again ...
-
Vote For Who?
[Read the article: The politics of unemployment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sure, middle-class Americans might finally be ready to vote for someone who would fight for their economic self-interest. But who exactly would that be? The Democrats long ago became stooges for the corporate elite. They haven't provided a reasonable economic alternative to the Republicans for more than a decade now!
-
Hate to disagree, but ...
[Read the article: A Bush bounce? Let's do the numbers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The poll meta-analysis that can be found at the pollkatz site (www.pollkatz.com) disagrees. The "Bush Index", which can be found on the site, is a statistical analysis of 15 major polls on Bush's favorability taken on a regular basis.
Taken together, the polls show that Bush bottomed out 32.7% approval and a -32.1% approval-disapproval spread back in mid-May. A month later, his approval is up 3 points to 35.6% and the spread has reduced to -25.9%.
Not great numbers by any means, but the trend has maintained for nearly a month. It's hard to dismiss as a blip.
As a San Francisco liberal, I'm stil stunned that fully a third of this country still thinks that Bush is a strong, competent, compassionate leader. This seems to be a bedrock base that won't be eroded despite overwhelming eveidence of incompetence, corruption, and cronyism.
Who *are* these people who still support Bush, anyways? And what reality-tunnel makes them actually approve of the way he's doing his job?
-
Fantasies of the Chomskyite left fringe?
[Read the article: Beyond the Multiplex]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I find the entire tone of "maybe-its-true-maybe-its-not" that runs throughout your review of the Gitmo flick to be profoundly disturbing. As you note late in the article, "If you've been paying attention over the last three or four years, you know this stuff is happening."
So where exactly is the controversy?
In the gory details of how they were treated? There's plenty of coorborating evidence (Abu Grahib) that we zestfully engage in brutal treatment of prisoners that should be unlawful in any civilized country. Amnesty International and other human rights groups have us on their watchlists. All the while ghouls like Cheney and Gonzales spend their most forceful energies spinning legal rationales that justify torture.
In the backstory of the Three's involvement with the Taliban? Personally, I don't particularly care *why* these three were in Afghanistan -- even if they were Osama's water boys, basic human rights and due process of law are absolutes. The fact that the might be innocents -- or at least something less than hardened killers -- only makes their story more horrifying.
If the US wants to put an end to the world's well-justified suspicions that we are a brutal, torturing police state, then we have a simple option -- open up Gitmo to neutral, international observers like the American Red Cross. Even if questions of illegal detention and lack of due process are not answered, the world will know that we do not torture prisoners of war.
As we have repeatedly refused this access, the world reasonably suspects the worst. And until we open up access, America's image as a "shining city on the hill" will remain tarnished by the stench of torture and brutality.
-
Where exactly were the Israeli soldiers captured?
[Read the article: Lebanon pays for Hezbollah's sins]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Kermani, can you elaborate?
I could have sworn that the initial reports indicated that the Israeli soldiers were captured by Hezbollah *inside* Lebanese territory. Eight hours later, however, I could find no confirmation of this -- suddenly, it was Hezbollah thta had initiated a cross-border operation to kidnap the Israelis. Am I misrembering the initial reports? Were they misreported? Or has the spin machine obscured the facts?
Of course, it's a moot point now ... the war has started, and it's unlikely to end soon. But for posterity's sake, it would be good to know who provoked this crazy war that threatens to spread to Syria, Iran, and the entire Middle East.
-
Hoax
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What's truly ridiculous is the simple fact that mixing up a "binary explosive" in the confines of an airplane would be smelly, time-consuming, painfully obvious and easily stopped:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/17/flying_toilet_terror_labs/
Not only that, even if the terrorist-chemist successed, the resulting product would be unlikely to produce an explosion large enough to down an airliner.
In other words, liquids brought onto planes don't constitute any sort of threat whatsoever. So why are we asked to jump through yet another set of unreasonable restrictions and demands? Part of me hopes it's simple bureaucratic cover-your-ass cluelessness. My paranoid half wonders if it's just another link in a ploy to keep us all scared and trained to blindly follow ludicrous demands.
The TSA is the bastard offspring of the FBI, the KGB, and the DMV. It's a horrible, wasteful, impersonal, humiliating bureaucracy that wastes gobs of money while providing little if any real threat protection. One can only hope that someday we wake up and elect someone who can reform this toxic sacred cow.