Tag: politics

Thu, July
17th

Dear NASA: Let the Market Decide.

Posted by clint
on July 17, 2008
Saturn Stage SIV-B sleeve jettison
It's pretty obvious to those who know me either through the words here or in person that I'm a fairly staunch progressive/liberal. I believe, for instance, in rights. Hey, fancy that.

Fiscally, though, it's a mixed bag. Too much market freedom (as I believe we have at the moment) will yield the way to corruption, consumer exploitation, corporate greed, and general mayhem. Too much regulation, though, and you run the dangerous risk of stifling entrepreneurship and innovation. Of all these potential evils, the one I fear the most (and sadly the one that comes to pass with the greatest ease) is the intrusion of the private sector into the government through corruption, and so I lean towards increased regulation. Once again, I point my finger at recent events.

So on one hand, I support the de-privatization of the healthcare industry.

On the other hand, though, it becomes clear at some points where the government needs to cut back. In this particular instance, I'd like to focus on NASA.

Overview

I'm a big fan of NASA. Were I to single out the greatest and most awe-inspiring technical achievement of mankind thus far, it would be far and away the Saturn V "Moon rocket." And, technical nightmares aside, no space organization has yet to create a spacecraft as elegant as the Space Shuttle. However, as media excitement and public interest over the International Space Station begins to wane, people are beginning to wonder what the next step for manned space exploration is.

NASA's Purpose of Being

Having run out of options, the Bush administration and NASA got together and answered, "Moon base and Mars." Here we run into the first problem. NASA's overarching goal was to further the advancement of human society and improve human life through space exploration. This included, explicitly, the external probing of the Earth from outer space. It seems that NASA realizes that a base on a large rock we've thoroughly explored has absolutely no bearing on these goals, and so as of 2006 it changed its official mission statement to "pioneer[ing] the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research." Ah, now they have a legitimate argument for a Moon base! We haven't built a base on a rock besides the Earth before, so this is pioneering space exploration! Sadly, the Moon is just a rock, and so any base wouldn't be able to sustain itself, requiring supplies to be sent to it at both literally and figuratively astronomical cost, and to little scientific benefit.

And at what further costs? It was reported around the same time that all these other changes were made that NASA was drastically cutting its budget on general climate studies programs directed at our on precious planet. What will be the point of exploring Mars for life if we don't even understand our own planet, and cut off our primary means of studying it as a whole? NASA science director Alan Stern has been responsible recently for fighting back at the cutbacks in critical science-related areas and pushing for more useful and relatively inexpensive unmanned science to be done; he's been trying to get NASA back to its roots of benefiting mankind as a whole. His reward? He was gently pressured out of the organization by current NASA administrator Michael Griffin.

But whatever, this is past history and we're going to the Moon and Mars whether I like it or not. Let us examine how NASA intends to deliver that goal.

Ares

Computer concept render of Ares I launch
NASA's new project is Ares, which comes in three configurations at the moment: the Ares I will provide manned crew support for the CSM-derived Orion, the Ares IV will provide combined cargo/manned crew lift support, and the Ares V will be the heavy lifter for cargo, primarily for Earth-orbit rendezvous purposes. The goal behind the Ares project is to reuse as much of the technology developed for the Space Shuttle program as possible -- this is referred to as "Shuttle-derived launch architecture." In theory, the reuse of Shuttle technology will expedite the development process and lower costs, in addition to preserving the jobs of those technicians currently working on the Space Shuttles.

However, it seems that none of these purported advantages have panned out. NASA has become increasingly conservative in its estimated date of launch, currently placing a 65% chance that a mission will launch by 2015. Until then and after we phase out the Space Shuttle in the next two years, we will have to utilize Russia's Soyuz launch and spacecraft hardware. In addition, NASA has remained suspiciously mum on exactly how much each launch will cost, while the Ares program as a whole has already cost $7 billion.

Furthermore, there have been accusations that the so-called "shuttle-derived launch architecture" isn't even close to as shuttle-derived as possible. In fact, a proposed alternative, headed by NASA employees on their spare time, called DIRECT was a proposal which would have drastically reduce the amount of engineering required to put NASA back in orbit, in addition to significantly reducing costs. NASA, however, pushed the proposal aside, calling Ares the "right set of rockets for the mission."

When it rains, though, it pours, and it's telling how many NASA engineers are skeptical enough to develop solutions on their free time. Another set of engineers has been working on another alternative, known currently as Jupiter. The alternative rocket would be simpler technologically, which generally leads to safer and more economical operation. Indeed, the development savings alone could total $35 billion. Once again, NASA pushed the proposal aside for not meeting some critieria or another, but is this not why the scientific community exists? To collectively work to solve problems? Surely, these alternative solutions, all crafted by NASA engineers themselves, aren't completely infeasible? And, given the amazingly tangible immediate benefits these designs offer, why is NASA not at least working with these groups to improve their designs?

The Private Sector

SpaceX's Falcon I launch vehicle
The private space sector is great. For the sake of profitability, any private space company must not only ensure rock-solid reliability from launch one, it must constantly innovate and optimize to improve costs and performance to compete in an ever-widening market. Gone are the delusions that the government will absorb the fiscal blow of a failure in the name of the progress of mankind.

That being said, NASA's short-sightedness does not apply solely to its own hard-working engineers. Eagle-eyed observers will note the similarity of the Ares family's specifications to those of the Atlas rockets and particularly the current Boeing-built Delta family of rockets. These are private-sector solutions that have proven themselves over time commercially and are available today. NASA's valid concern that manned spacecraft require triple-redundancy is, as noted in the reference linked, no reason not to attempt the retrofit process.

In addition, PayPal founder Elon Musk never ceases to impress with his leadership in Tesla Motors, SolarCity, and SpaceX. SpaceX's rise to the forefront of the private sector space scene has been meteoric and remarkable. Relying only on in-house technology developed from scratch with simplicity and pragmatism in mind, the fledgling company will very soon have a full lineup of rockets comparable to the Ares or Atlas rockets. In addition, SpaceX's manned space program, called Dragon, has been absolutely tearing through NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, passing many performance and technical NASA reviews in one try, while other companies struggle for months at each milestone for a green light to proceed. Clearly, then, it meets technical specifications for manned spaceflight. In addition, SpaceX is currently aiming for a 2009 launch window for the Dragon. They could delay for 7 years and still have a 65% chance at beating NASA to space!

How does a 400 person company founded 6 years ago create not only a commercially competitive full lineup of rockets and a manned space capsule capable of a full line of work from scratch while NASA's thousands of engineers and contractors burn through billions of our hard-earned money?

Conclusion

SpaceX's Dragon crew vehicle It might be time that NASA stood aside. Not completely, of course. But, when it comes to a pure technological standpoint, it has become clear that NASA's leadership and prowess is rapidly fading. When it comes to repeated hardware such as launch vehicles, it's now more than proven that NASA simply cannot compete with a private sector which is constantly and rapidly developing in order to compete with itself. There is no need to waste hundreds of billions of government dollars when private companies are already investing their own money into developing solutions. If NASA were to adopt this mantra, it could use those suddenly-freed billions to study meaningful things, such as our own planet, or the further reaches of our own solar system. We could build a proper replacement to the Hubble telescope, whose imagery has delighted and inspired many a child and whose success has brought much positive attention to NASA.

The time for massive government development of technology is long past. Let other fools waste their own money, NASA. Stop wasting ours.

Wed, July
9th

Well, it's official: we've been sold out.

Posted by clint
on July 9, 2008
Ladies and gentlemen, congratulations on your fine selection of Congressmen. FISA passed today. And not the FISA we wanted. No, the bad one.

Not that it wasn't expected: the writing has been on the wall for months now. The "Democratic majority" in Congress means diddlysquat, because it doesn't appear that they care for your rights as United States Citizens either. At this point, why do we bother?

Well, we bother because they're our rights, of course. They're nice to have. Like the one where the government doesn't have the right to search us without warrants? I think they wrote that one down somewhere kind of important, I don't really remember where. Oh, and that expectation that criminal acts should be punished justly? Yeah, well we can forget about that now.

And not only that, Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has joined the ranks of those who just don't care about you and I. Yeah, the promise of his brilliant, golden radiance was so incredibly inviting and clearly unattainable, but could he at least keep up the illusion until he's in office? At least he voted for the various amendments to strip retroactive immunity, but his initial promise of simply stripping retroactive immunity was weak enough that it would have been a terribly small token gesture to his base support.

He even had an excellent shield on the vote: John McCain, unhappy with simply being the most absent member of the 110th Congress and hypocritically knocking Congress for taking a week off, doesn't bother to show up after the Senate reconvened, meaning that he missed all the FISA votes. So it would not have been terribly difficult to defend: "what, you don't like my stand on FISA? My opponent didn't think it was important enough to even bother showing up!"

And this is why we need not more Democrats in Congress, we need more and better Democrats. Until then, remember to check over your shoulder before joking about George Bush.

Wed, April
16th

On news sources and environments

Posted by clint
on April 16, 2008
News media I have always been fascinated by the entirety of the news and media mechanism. Their implications on society are enormous - people need to be well-informed in order to make decisions, both personal and societal. Especially with politics, the agenda of the media is a key part of this informative process, and yet is nearly indivinable to the outsider, such as we are.

Of course, each outlet of the media has a different perspective, a different spin, a different agenda. Some are blatant, perhaps even revoltingly so, such as that of FOX "news," while other outlets are less obvious, such as the conundrum that is the government-controlled yet somehow exceptional BBC. It's hard to say with certainty about the specific agenda of most media forms and corporations. However, print, television, and radio news sources have all existed for long enough that a fair bit of analysis may be done on their archives and evolution.

One form of media that's rapidly becoming a major news outlet, and which does not have a long history, however, is the Internet. Outside of websites maintained by the major news outlets, the Internet is an extremely odd news source - I have commented before on anonymity and the Internet, and the faceless, baseless form of web media are somewhat mysterious. In addition, nothing on the web is constant - corrections, modifications, and even wholesale deletions can occur in the blink of an eye without so much as a notice. This is, of course, irresponsible journalism, but such is the power that the Internet affords. The shortcomings of the Internet also rear their heads - entire sites can vanish over time due to neglect or budget cutbacks. Thus to study the news from the web properly, we need a comprehensive archive of work built in real-time - but this is not my arena, nor my current interest: please refer instead to the work of Kirsten Foot.

Instead, since studying the news media of the web directly is so difficult, I am instead interested in the habits of people in our society. In an age where a majority of peoples' knowledge of the news comes either through the television set or through word of mouth, the transfer itself of news has become even more contextual. So, what happens when we remove that context? What happens when we take habitual people and transplant them into a foreign land, where they lack the means and mechanisms of getting news to which they are native?

Perhaps they fall back upon print media. Do they pick up a local newspaper? Do they pick up the New York Times? Or perhaps they resort to using the web. Do they read CNN.com, or something more esoteric such as The Huffington Post? How do these new habits compare to their old ones?

People like to gravitate toward the familiar, the native. The mediums and outlets to which people resort when they find themselves in a distant land says much about those mediums and outlets. If people do resort to using the web to obtain their news, then a comparison between their choices online and their choices offline at home is an effective and indirect way to study something as difficult to study as the Internet.

Photo credit: Birdfarm via flickr.

Tue, April
8th

Fitna.

Posted by clint
on April 8, 2008
I had heard about the "controversial" film Fitna in the days prior to this posting, but I had not found reason to watch it until I noticed that screening it would soon become necessary for discussion in the context of my Amsterdam class. So I watched it just now.

我的天啊!

I am speechless.
My only context for the film was twofold: an assumption that the film was about Islam, gleaned from its shared name with the term used for the Islamic civil wars, and the fact that it was "controversial," a bit of news gathered from various blogs I read detailing its existence on Google Video. I had always assumed that this film would be "controversial" in the way that a political blog like Daily Kos is, or in the way that the great Martin Luther King was at some point "controversial" - that is, that they examine what is already a controversial subject (political news and racism, respectively), and draw certain insightful but not necessarily politically safe analyses and conclusions from them.

This is nothing like that.
This is more akin to terrorism.

The film is shocking. The use of footage from September the 11th in its opening is only the first in a long string of shocking imagery used in the film. The quote from the Qur'an in the beginning of the film isn't an introduction, isn't a hook, isn't a piece of food for thought; it and its successive siblings are rather the focus of the film, it and its successive siblings are rather the foreground against which the film's shocking images are set, it and its successive siblings are rather the disquieting fragments of text from an already fragmented text called out to be wielded in some unseemly fashion to illustrate some unseemly point which, try as I might, I fail to comprehend in the slightest.

The film is shocking. The film is beyond hyperbole, and this statement is far from it. Indeed, I find myself sitting here writing this post of my own volition, before knowing what the content of it is supposed to be simply because I feel compelled to write something about its grotesque nature at this very moment. There are, of course, other reactions.

There are also less reactionary and perhaps more rational and scholarly approaches to discussing the film - not on the merits of its content, which are beyond hope for any sort of academic study, but rather in terms of the social roots of its existence and of its topic. I could discuss the film's religious roots, discussing the effects of perspective upon various views of the world, but this line of discussion has been done to death by minds greater than mind, and are not what I find immediately stimulating.

Rather, I would like to discuss the issue of the freedom of speech: what does it mean and where does it cease? Unfortunately, I have no answers to this question, and thus I am unable to provide a particularly proper discussion on this issue. In my opinion, there is no such thing as overstepping the bounds of the freedom of speech. Society is self-balancing, and if one does make a statement this controversial, the social backlash and implications thereof are likely to rectify any damage one may have done or attempted to do. However, I find it incredible that there was considerable issue raised with video sharing sites' decisions on whether or not to allow the video to be shared. Put simply, the laws and rights of free speech cease once one intrudes upon private property. These companies have a right to look out for their employees' security (which prompted the original distributor LiveLeak.com to remove the video for several days), but also to their own interests, and avoiding the center of controversy certainly falls in that category.

Wed, April
2nd

Ignition.

Posted by clint
on April 2, 2008
As part of an ongoing dual-use of this blog, I will be posting various musings in preparation of a study-abroad to Amsterdam. Eventually I am going to rework the backend guts of this blog such that all Amsterdam content falls into its own separate category and feed, but that is for later. For now, let us consider the revealing study of close-reading a perhaps common email:

The subject is "Deadline: Midnight tonight." While email subjects are, by convention, supposed to inform the recipient of the specific contents enclosed within, such that the importance and relevance of the mail may be determined without actually reading it, this email deliberately eschews transparency for ambiguity, leaving me with no choice but to open it to discern its contents. The urgency and set timeframe magnifies this effect.

The email opens with "Friend." These people have my first name on file given my previous donation, and have used it in mailings past, so it's of importance that they chose not to use it for this mailing. Given the ease by which electronic mass-mailings today can insert your name into correspondences, the use of the greeting "Friend" seems almost more personal, against conventional wisdom -- and given the soon-to-be-revealed nature of this email, a personal tone is important to these peoples' cause. There is a space between the greeting "Friend" and the following punctuation "--" which draws attention to this word choice.

The first body line reveals all. Concise without being impersonal (referring directly in second person to the reader multiple times), the sentence remedies all the vagaries of the subject line by stating in a lone sentence comprising a lone paragraph the mission statement of this lengthy email. Its content is complete enough to persuade immediately those who understand its implications to do its bidding with no further questions or reading required, short enough to inform the disinterested to turn away, and intriguing enough to push the interested on. The second paragraph -- also a single sentence -- reinforces this last point.

The content of the email follows with several extremely short paragraphs, each drilling into further and further background and generality from the incredibly precise topic of the opening line, providing as the first line did progressively wider information for the curious and numerous jumping-off points for those who have decided whether to enact upon the call of the email to cease reading.

This series culminates with two final calls. The first addresses the direct implications of the donation you will be making to the campaign; the voice of the paragraph makes no question out of whether or not the reader will in fact enact upon the email, as if to project into the reader's mind this call. The implications listed are all secondary to the potential donor, enumerating specifically benefits to the campaign in question given the hardships listed in the previous few paragraphs. The next paragraph appeals more directly to the reader if the previous incentives are in fact not sufficient cause to donate, revealing a prize that directly benefits the reader, pushing the donation as much as possible.

Then follows yet a single-line paragraph ("Will you make a donation of $25 now?") followed by a link to donate, thus closing with a call to action and an easy way to do so. But if the addressee is still not convinced, the email continues! The remaining content is far more general, with the exception of a description of the prize to be had for donating, interleaved with several more instances of links to the donation page.

For the sake of brevity, this analysis ends here.

Sat, February
23rd

Hillary Schmillary

Posted by clint
on February 23, 2008
"...undermining core Democratic ideals...since when do Democrats attack each other?"
-Hillary Clinton, 02/23/2008

"...that's change you can Xerox"
-Hillary Clinton, 02/21/2008

Fri, February
1st

Are we really supporting our troops? [take 2]

Posted by clint
on February 1, 2008
Because I have discussed this issue before,I would like to point out an update to the disturbing and ever-climbing number of our troops that are committing suicide. The latest report is in, and the troops are suffering. The number of troops taking their own lives has leapt 20% in the past year, and the rate doesn't appear to be slowing.

To all of you who still support the war in Iraq, I implore you to explore your human side, that side of you that believes in human decency and true morals. This war needs to end now, so we can bring our heroes home. Our heroes who give all they have to keep the dream of this country alive. Let them come home. Let us find them jobs, and homes, let them return to their families.

Please let them come home.

Wed, January
23rd

So much for M.A.D....

Posted by clint
on January 23, 2008
Armed forces leaders from the U.S. and other major countries of the world are urging NATO to maintain a preemptive nuclear strike as a major option to keep other nations from obtaining nuclear weapons.

That's real mature. Annihilate other civilizations with the very weapons they are trying to obtain? I don't exactly think that's the proper way to go about things. Mutually assured destruction is what's supposed to keep the world in check as far as nuclear weapons goes, not preemptive unilateral destruction.

Besides, doesn't anyone remember the last time we did something rash, bold, and maybe a little preemptive regarding weapons proliferation?

Sun, October
21st

Insights into today's politics

Posted by clint
on October 21, 2007
I've always wondered somewhat about the relative indifference of the American public today towards politics, and one of today's Daily Kos editorials gives a good reason why at least the younger generation of the United States is so jaded:
I cannot speak conclusively as to how previous generations have viewed our government--as an oppressor, as an adversary, etc. But I would venture to say that my generation views government as a complete joke.

After all, we grew up and came of age in an era where our "government" was defined by blow jobs, blue stained dresses, and Bushisms. We have come of age in a time where political discourse revolves around childhood taunts and bumper sticker slogans. We have been shaped by an era of political absurdity, where government is neither threatening nor worthy of respect, but is rather viewed as a tragic parody of what once was the greatest system of governance.

I believe, however, that while astute and altogether far too tragically true, these statements aren't an instigator towards indifference, but rather an elusive combination of outrage and hopelessness. We all spent hours learning about our constitution, how it outshines every other form of government by orders of magnitudes in candela, or our government, with our spectacular and nigh superhuman historic leaders, all the way through high school, and yet we turn on the news and see a grotesque mockery that only vaguely resembles the indefinable marvel that is supposedly our government.

Of little help is the relative and grossly disproportionate ignorance we percieve our elders to possess. These are people who made up their mind on politics years upon years ago, and no longer have any ideals or notions about it; instead they simply blindly follow their ideas of bygone times in a manner which is tangentializing in remarkably and increasingly disastrous ways. Conversations such as I had with a few adults just yesterday fail to improve the general health of the scenario; these people could not bring up a single policy-based reason, or any sort of evidence backing their conviction that any and all Democrats aren't very good leaders. Curious, I probed further, as I had always completely failed to comprehend such people, and, being largely surrounded by college youth, hardly happen upon any such characters.

These people could not explain why Rudy Guiliani would make a great leader, but were absolute and firm in their conviction as such. Upon bringing up the World Trade Center Emergency Center debacle, their response was simply that "people make mistakes," and that it was a forgivable error in light of his clearly and vastly superior leadership skills, which still wait in want of any sort of evidence. I pointed out then as I again point out now, that a decision fails to qualify as a mistake and instead leans toward ridiculous and inexusable when a "leader" ignores the advice of every single one of his aptly named advisors -- leadership is a two-way street, something the Bush administration clearly fails to comprehend.

However, whose fault is it really? Not really theirs, for they've been on this planet far longer than we, and have earned their right to be complacent, and to stick to what used to be justifiable convictions.

No, the fault is ours; the fault is that of the media; the fault is that of the rest of our country, our country that has become complacent, our country that has failed to coalesce into any sort of reasonable discourse, our country that has ceased to care, our country that can think no more highly of its own government than a circus, our country that has failed to be a country, but instead the dying, feeble idea of one, struggling to survive on the hollow proclamations of patriotism from a government and a party full of hollow promises. It is our fault, each and every one of us, for not questioning ourselves and others often enough.

Let us fix this before our future becomes even more grave.

Mon, October
15th

Again proof that kindess comes first

Posted by clint
on October 15, 2007
You probably never knew that we interrogated some 4,000 Nazi P.O.W.s during World War II, because the activity was, like our current interrogations, top secret. However, given light to recent happenings with our latest government and torture, the people who were asked to interrogate this staggering number of prisoners could not in good conscience stand by any longer, and came forward to admit what they did. Let us see what atrocities they committed to help us win the war against the Nazis.

"We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture," said Henry Kolm, 90, an M.I.T. physicist whose interrogation of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, took place over a chessboard. George Frenkel, 87, recalled that he "never laid hands on anyone" in his many interrogations, adding, "I’m proud to say I never compromised my humanity."

That torture seems really justified now, doesn't it? Lesson number one: be a human being.

Thu, September
20th

There would be no wars in the first place...

Posted by clint
on September 20, 2007
So there's been a great deal of debate over Sally Field's rant at the Emmys and the bit of censorship that happened when she veered into anti-war territory, and tried to say that "if mothers ruled the world, there would be no goddamned wars in the first place." The quote actually more resembled "there would be no g--*camera angle of some random darkened corner*," as Fox cut away and didn't return until she was walking off the stage.

Though the FCC ruled specifically in 2004 that the phrase "goddamn" is permissible on air, it's understandable that they would, out of their own moral beliefs, refuse to air the segment. However, it's just as believable, given that it's Fox, that they took the excuse to cut out the anti-war rantings of a woman who's clearly not helping anyway (for the uninitiated, Jon Stewart now runs a segment of a similar name on the subject).

Well, today we find out that Fox is indeed no better than anyone thought of them. While claiming the moral high ground publicly, their hipocritical ways got the best of them, and they allow their own pundits sock puppets to repeatedly use the very same "offensive" speech. See for yourself. Feh. We all harbored doubts as to their motives simply to give them the benefit of the doubt, but really, did anyone really think they were innocent on this one?

Lesson of the day: Fox deserves no benefit of the doubt.

Mon, August
27th

Farewell, Alberto Gonzales, and we hardly knew ye...

Posted by clint
on August 27, 2007
...given that even you couldn't remember half of it.

I won't say much on the matter, since all that there is to be said has been said by better minds than mine. I'll merely leave you with a revealing little Bushism today that people don't seem to have caught on to just yet, which I think really sums up the truth of the matter:
It's sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person, like Alberto Gonzales, is impeding from doing important work...

Yes, Mr. Bush, he is indeed impeding. However, I do believe you meant to say "impeded."

Thu, August
16th

Are we really supporting our troops?

Posted by clint
on August 16, 2007
The BBC is reporting that US Army suicides are at a 26-year high. The official reason is, of course, not related to battle, but the Army itself has found "a significant relationship between suicide attempts and the length of time soldiers spent in Iraq, Afghanistan or in nearby countries in operations supporting those wars."

And our government says morale is at an all-time high.

How can we do this to our soldiers? How can we send them -- often those who have no choice whatsoever, for financial reasons or otherwise -- again, and again, and again into a war that two thirds of this country refuses to support anymore? Forget even the fact that we're apparently too cheap to even supply proper body armor to these pawns, forget even that we're in a country that does not wish us to stay there, forget all the ideological and logical reasons we bring up so often as reasons to pull out, and to do it soon.

How can we do this to people? Our fellow citizens? What have we become?

I always hated how the now not-so-freshly elected Democratic congress is so often claimed to have been brought about as a "referendum on Iraq." To my perhaps delusional mind, I've always hoped that there were a million and one reasons that the American public finally got fed up with the GOP and George Bush's tricks; which, indeed, there are as many, if not more. I furthermore also cringed when Pelosi stood on that podium and proclaimed that it was "time for change!" I hoped that she and all the Democrats wouldn't have to eat those words come 2008, though given their track record, it was inevitable. And guess where we are now? I don't see any change, that's for sure.

If you can't even achieve the single most simple, defining, and advertisable goal that the media and you yourselves have declared as your raison d'être, if you can't even perform your duty as a "referendum on Iraq," then what the bloody hell did we put you there for? Again, and again, and again you put up shows, you put out strongly worded speeches about how this time, this time we will never back down, that we will fight this one to the end, and yet again, and again, and again you fail the American people.

Yes, you are failing the American people. The American people that put you there to represent our best interests, our will. Much as CYA seems to be the modus operandi in Congress these days, your job as a politician is to do whatever it takes to act in the best interest of the citizens of the United States. Are you doing that? Search your soul. Act.