(Originally posted to Iraq at EraBlog on Fri, 21 Mar 2003 07:38:19 GMT)

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only un­pa­tri­ot­ic and servile, but is morally trea­son­able to the American public. Teddy Roosevelt, 1918

We’re at war. The anti-war protests have ratcheted up, with hundreds of thousands protesting all over the country.

Emma joined the protest outside the Federal Building in Seattle early this evening. She went back to her office after an hour because her bad feet were killing her. Not long after, I arrived in downtown and followed the protesters as they …continue.

(Originally posted to Iraq at EraBlog on Fri, 21 Mar 2003 08:04:55 GMT)

Peter Turnley is a pho­to­jour­nal­ist who covered the first Gulf War. The Unseen Gulf War is his collection of previously un­pub­lished photos from that war. The photos present no political viewpoint, but what they do "represent is a part of a more accurate picture of what really does happen in war". Warning: there are a number of graphic images of corpses.

(Originally posted to Ireland at EraBlog on Tue, 18 Mar 2003 06:52:18 GMT)

Roy Foster has a good op-ed in Monday’s New York Times about the origin of St. Patrick’s Day, and how it’s celebrated in the U.S.

[Sorry, the piece is now behind the Times Select firewall.]

(Originally posted to Iraq at EraBlog on Tue, 18 Mar 2003 06:41:46 GMT)

Almost, but not quite, at war with Iraq. Saddam has forty-eight hours to quit Iraq and avert war, but no-one expects him to do that. Feh.

I would feel slightly better about the new war if Bush had managed to forge a broad-based coalition. Instead, in their heavy­hand­ed way, Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Perle have managed to piss off most of the world.

Paul Glastris has a good article in Slate about how Bush repeatedly botched the op­por­tu­ni­ties to get the UN and NATO on board, in contrast with Clinton in Kosovo and his own father for the first Gulf War.

(Originally posted to Iraq at EraBlog on Mon, 17 Mar 2003 06:59:33 GMT)

MoveOn.org organized a rolling wave of can­dle­light vigils across the world today, held at 7pm local time on Sunday, March 16th. Emma and I joined three of our friends at the vigil at the Seattle Central Community College, at Broadway and Pike. I estimate that there were 300-400 people there, and probably thousands more at the other vigils in the Seattle area.

It looks certain that Bush will declare war on Iraq in the next day or two. I’m still against the war. I would very much like to see Saddam gone (the poor bloody Iraqis never deserved thirty-plus …continue.

(Originally posted to Humor at EraBlog on Wed, 12 Mar 2003 00:31:42 GMT)

The Onion has a piece on Irish-Americans Gear Up For ‘The Reinforcin’ O’ The Stereo­types’.

(Originally posted to Humor at EraBlog on Tue, 04 Mar 2003 08:07:10 GMT)

I saw The Closer You Get yesterday. It’s a comedy about desperate bachelors in an Irish fishing village, who place an ad in the Miami Herald for American women to come to Donegal. It’s an in­of­fen­sive, light­weight piece of pad­dy­whack­ery in the spirit of Waking Ned Devine.

These "Irish Personals" arrived in my inbox this morning. Very apropos.

Grossly overweight Louth turfcutter, 42 years old and 23 stone, Gemini, seeks nimble sexpot, preferably South American, for tango sessions, candlelit dinners and humid nights of screaming passion. Must have own car and be willing to travel.

Following a sad recent loss, teetotal Tipperary man, …continue.

(Originally posted to Humor at EraBlog on Wed, 26 Feb 2003 08:16:48 GMT)

Taken from a mail to win_tech_of­f_­topic

"The following was stolen from JINX: The World’s Weirdest eZine. Send ‘Jinx me’ to jinx@thecentre.com for inclusion, sub­scrip­tion, and delight."

You know, many important the­o­log­i­cal questions are answered if we think of God as a Computer Programmer:

Does God control everything that happens in my life?

He could, if he used the debugger, but it’s tedious to step through all those variables.

Why does God allow evil to happen?

God thought he eliminated evil in one of the earlier versions.

What causes God to intervene in earthly affairs?

If a critical error occurs, the system pages him au­to­mat­i­cal­ly and he logs on from …continue.

(Originally posted to Ireland at EraBlog on Mon, 24 Feb 2003 02:58:05 GMT)

Paul Graham has an insightful essay on why nerds are unpopular in American high schools.

So if in­tel­li­gence in itself is not a factor in popularity, why are smart kids so con­sis­tent­ly unpopular? The answer, I think, is that they don’t really want to be popular.

…-

But in fact I didn’t, not enough. There was something else I wanted more: to be smart. Not simply to do well in school, though that counted for something, but to design marvellous rockets, or to write well, or to understand how to program computers. In general, to make great things, which seems a more accurate …continue.

(Originally posted to Politics at EraBlog on Fri, 21 Feb 2003 08:15:16 GMT)

Michael Savage is a radical right-wing talk-radio host and author, far more obnxoxious than Rush Limbaugh. MSNBC has just signed him to a weekly TV show. FAIR has issued an action alert about this. Read Ben Fritz in Salon, or michael­sav­age­sucks.com.

Here’s the letter that I just sent to MSNBC:

From: George V. Reilly

To: feedback@msnbc.com ; Erik.Sorenson@msnbc.com

Cc: fair@fair.org

Sent: Friday, February 21, 2003 12:07 AM

Subject: I object to …continue.