Mission Accomplished?

Obama announced the end of the Iraq war. Other than the obvious Bush joke, I only have two thoughts about this.

1) I'll believe when I see it.

2) What about Afghanistan?

UPDATE: This.

Yeah, I Did That

OK, I can't really take that much credit at this point, but yeah, I did that:

Its funny, because the baby's so little at 13 weeks that we still can't see the sex, which is why we're still calling him/her Jelly Bean, but there's already so much personality evident. The Bean's in the same position in all of these pictures because s/he refused to move. S/he was just so comfy chilling in there that s/he couldn't be bothered to cooperate. Eventually we just got this:

No pictures, please!

This kid likes great music (ie the music Claudia and I like), doesn't mind scary movies and chills like that:

I'm in exactly the same position right now, except with a laptop. Seriously, just how cool is that?

Leland Yee Supports Shark Extinction

I've never mentioned it here, but I've always had a thing for sharks. There's just a certain something about them that I've always been attracted to. Their basic shape is so perfectly suited to their environment that its remained fairly constant for tens of millions of years. Their senses, behaviors, their massive variety, hell, even the fact that some of the few fish that have live births (as opposed to laying eggs) are sharks is just cool!

As you might gather, I find the practice of finning sharks for shark fin soup to be absolutely reprehensible. For those who don't know or can't be bothered to click the link, finning is the practice of "fishing" where sharks are caught and, while still alive, have their fins cut off and are then thrown overboard where the shark then suffocates and dies. This is only because shark meat isn't nearly as valuable as the fins, so according to supply and demand, the limited space on board the fishing vessel is saved for the most valuable product.

While many countries regulate shark finning and have banned the practice of throwing the sharks overboard, these regulations are rarely, if ever, enforced. Most fishing vessels arrive in port with a far higher fin to carcass ratio than the laws allow, but no one cares. This may not seem that important, but last year, over 70 million sharks were killed for their fins.

Today (14 Feb., 2011), two California legislators have proposed a statewide ban on the sale of shark fins. Finning is already illegal in the US, as are imports of fins without the rest of the carcass. Despite that, shark fin soup is still readily available and there is a lucrative black market for fins. Banning the final product ends that and should have a major impact on the overall market.

However, CA state Senator Leland Yee has decided that this proposed law is an attack on Chinese culture and cuisine.

“I am very concerned with the plight of many shark species and the illegal shark fining trade.  That is why I support the federal law that bans the practice of killing sharks only for their fins and I would support state legislation to strengthen it.  I would also support legislation to create greater penalties for and enforcement of illegally killing sharks or selling any product from an endangered species.  

However, the proposed state law to ban all shark fins from consumption – regardless of species or how they were fished or harvested – is the wrong approach and an unfair attack on Asian culture and cuisine.   Some sharks are well-populated and many can and should be sustainably fished. 

Unfortunately, this proposal is just the latest assault on Asian cultural cuisine.  Last week, we had to fight a proposal at the California Fish and Game Commission that would have banned frog and turtle consumption.  I had to pass legislation last year just to allow for the production of Asian rice noodles, and similar bills were needed to allow for Korean rice cakes.  There have also been previous efforts to end live food markets, roasted duck, and several other cultural staples.

Rather than launch just another attack on Asian American culture, the proponents of the ban on shark fin soup should work with us to strengthen conservation efforts.”

--- Statement from Yee's office

To which I call bullshit. No one is calling on a ban of Chinese culture. No one is calling for the state to come in and close Chinese restaurants. The fact is that current conservation efforts have failed. 20 species of shark are on the Endangered Species list, tens of millions of top-level predators with a low reproductive rate are being removed from the ecosystem every year and the sale of fin soup is booming.

This isn't about anything other than preventing the extinction of amazing animals that have been on this plant since before the dinosaurs. No species can withstand the immense pressure that overfishing places on it. We are causing this, so its up to us to stop before its too late. The fact that Leland Yee would immediately turn this straightforward conservation law into a racist attack by the government on a vulnerable minority says a lot about him.

* It should be noted that the bill was proposed by Assemblymen Paul Fong, who is of Chinese decent, and Jared Huffman, a native of Macau.

Yee's opposition to a shark fin soup ban has nothing to with Chinese culture, nor with defending people against racism. It has everything to do with the businesses who give him money worried that they're going to lose a profitable item. That is the kind of politician that Leland Yee is. He doesn't give a shit about the environment, he's in the pocket of monied special interests and is willing to disguise that by using ugly race politics.

** It should also be noted that Yee was behind California's unconstitutional video game ban that was similar to bans that other states had enacted and which were all later struck down by the courts. Yee's bill, when it was struck down, cost the state $324,000 in legal fees to the ESRB, in addition to its own costs.

Fun Political Comment

As for the Republicans — how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical 'American heritage'...) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.

Ok, I totally stole that from PZ, but its a pretty awesome quote from HP Lovecraft, who despite being a fairly pathological bigot for most of his life, was completely spot on here. The quote's from August 1936, Letter to C.L. Moore, August 1936 quoted in “H.P. Lovecraft, a Life” by S.T. Joshi, p. 574.

Compromise

The problem with analyses like this one is that they're missing a fundamental point:

Their answer was pretty emphatic: 78% of respondents said they thought Republicans should compromise, while 15% thought they should stick to their positions. That 78% is up from 74% two weeks earlier. When the same question is asked about Democrats, 76% say they should compromise with 17% saying they should stick to their guns.

This is where Rachel misses the boat. When 78% of poll respondents answer that Republicans should compromise and Republicans respond with "Hell, no!", there's a clear advantage for Democrats to say they're open to compromise.

This seems like Politics 101 to me, and I'm a little surprised Rachel took aim at Democrats for smart messaging. Usually they're dumb about it, but they got this one right.

When polls say that people want the parties to compromise with each other, that's exactly what they want. The problem is both Democrats and Republicans don't use the regular definition of "compromise."

Both parties define "compromise" as we define "capitulate."

The Republicans refuse to capitulate to the Democrats, while the Democrats are all too willing to capitulate to the Republicans. Just look at health care, where the Democrats started with a weak position and then gave up point after point and ended up with a corporate giveaway. Then consider the wars, offshore oil drilling, Social Security, the economy and pretty much every other issue that Democratic voters care about, and its little wonder why the Democrats are going to lose on Tuesday.

The only problem is that the only other option are the Republicans, and American voters are too stupid to understand what a teabagger-controlled Congress will mean.