Regardless of how much credit you want to give to the President for sponsoring openness in government, one item jumped out to me. That is the mandate that government documents to be made public must be placed in an open format. That’s interesting and may cost Microsoft millions. Here’s why:

Most government offices are standardized on Microsoft Office, which saves files in a closed and proprietary format. Microsoft likes that, because the easiest way to deal with a Microsoft Word document or Excel spreadsheet is to use a Microsoft product to open it. And Microsoft has a virtual monopoly on office software. Other software can  open and even save in a Microsoft format, but this usually results in changes in the look and formatting of the document or  even possibly data loss.

But if a document is kept in an open format, many other software solutions are possible. Suddenly, Microsoft has a lot of potential competition.

Regards,

Alan  OldStudent

Instead of sending more troops, the United States should just bring all the troops home now from both Afghanistan and Iraq.

There is a huge difference between defeating a country in war and conquering a country. The US did not find it difficult to drive the Taliban out of state power with military action.

But conquering Afghanistan, imposing a new form of government on it from the outside is a different task.

As Michael Moore in his heartfelt open letter to President Obama says:

There’s a reason they don’t call Afghanistan the “Garden State” (though they probably should, seeing how the corrupt President Karzai, whom we back, has his brother in the heroin trade raising poppies). Afghanistan’s nickname is the “Graveyard of Empires.”

Graveyard Of Empires Indeed!.

Moore goes on to say:

If you don’t believe it, give the British a call. I’d have you call Genghis Khan but I lost his number. I do have Gorbachev’s number though. It’s + 41 22 789 1662. I’m sure he could give you an earful about the historic blunder you’re about to commit.

Moore is referring to an article in the website of The Hill Newspaper by Jordan Fabian called Gorbachev to Obama: ‘Prepare the ground for withdrawal’ in Afghanistan. Gorbachev says that what’s needed is “reconciliation in the Afghan society.”

Closer to the truth is the assessment of former CIA agent Robert Bear, as reported in the Huffington Post. The Huffington Post says this:

In the latest video from the Brave New Foundation’s “Rethink Afghanistan” project, former CIA agent Robert Bear says that what the U.S. faces when it comes to the Afghan insurgency isn’t terrorism, but a war of national resistance.

“The people that want their country liberated from the West have nothing to do with Al Qaeda,” Baer says. “They simply want us gone because we’re foreigners, and they’re rallying behind the Taliban because the Taliban are experienced, effective fighters.”

Because these insurgents see the U.S. as a colonial force, Baer says, they are unlikely to ever rally around the Afghan national army the U.S. is looking to establish.

Despite all the talk about “helping” the Afghan people throw off the yoke of oppression and subjugation, the United States is a hated foreign occupier supporting a corrupt and unpopular regime.

That is why Matthew Hoh, former Marine captain and foreign service director in Afghanistan, resigned from his position last month, October 2009. Here is his letter of resignation explaining his reasons in detail.

President Obama’s supporters like to compare him to President Roosevelt and President Lincoln. Actually, he reminds me much more of Lyndon Johnson, whom I remember well. Johnson initially was popular among moderates and those to the left of moderates because of the civil rights legislation and the enactment of Medicare. But Johnson, at the end of his one-term presidency, was unable to appear in public without massive protests. He was hated and vilified by his former supporters.

That’s because when he ran for president, he promised he would not send American troops to die in a fight in southeast Asia, and he broke that promise.

He had run on the Kennedy program, a “peace” program, against the very hawkish and very conservative Barry Goldwater. He won that election by the largest landslide in American history.

Yet by the end of his presidency, he was hated and reviled. As a matter of fact, not only did he not run for a second term, he did not even dare put himself forward as a candidate!

You see, he had  made the lamentable miscalculation of sending around 40,000 troops to Vietnam to help stabilize the government and prepare them for democratic elections. Then he  had to send more……and more……and more, and still the United States suffered a historic defeat.

President Obama reminds me a bit of a comic strip that ran in the 1940s to the 1970s called “Pogo.” Pogo was famous for saying, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

President Obama is about to shoot himself in the foot!

Regards,

Alan

If you would like to download a printable poster version of the above Bring The Troops Home Now graphic, right click here. In Internet Explorer, choose “save target as,” and in Firefox, choose “save link as.” It is suitable for printing on US-sized letter-paper or A4 paper.

URLs in this post:

1. Michael Moore on Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/an-open-letter-to-preside_b_373457.html
2. Story on Karzai’s brother’s heroin connections: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/world/asia/28intel.html
3. Contact Page for Green Cross International, started by Gorbachev, founding president http://www.greencrossinternational.net/contact-us
4. Article in Foreign Affairs called Afghanistan, Graveyard of Empires, by Milton Bearden: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/57411/milton-bearden/afghanistan-graveyard-of-empires
5. Article in The Hill called: Gorbachev to Obama: ‘Prepare the ground for withdrawal’ in Afghanistan: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/67183-gorbachev-to-obama-prepare-the-ground-for-withdrawal-in-afghanistan
6. Huffington Post article on Robert Bear http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/24/robert-baer-what-were-fig_n_369760.html
7. Wikipedia article Matthew Hoh, former Marine captain and foreign service director in Afghanistan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Hoh
8. Text of Matthew Hoh’s letter of resignation: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/13944018/Matthew-Hoh-Resignation-Letter
9. Link to PeaceSojourner’s Blog site, from where I got the photograph for the poster. http://peacesojourner.blogspot.com/search/label/War
10. Link to download poster. http://alanoldstudent.nfshost.com/general_images/bringthetroopshomenow_poster.png

There are two fallacies about homosexuality that many sincere people believe. Here are some considerations for all fair-minded individuals to consider:

Logical fallacy 1: Many Christians Feel Homosexuality Is Against God’s Law.

• This argument is based on faith. As the Bible says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and evidence of things unseen.” (Hebrews 11:1). An article of faith purports to be a bit of knowledge that does not come through rational evidence. If something can be known from physical evidence and replicable experiment or logic based upon physical evidence, it can’t be faith. Those Christians who have been saying that homosexuality is a sin on this forum have quoted the Bible to prove their point. But their point cannot be accepted unless one unquestionably and uncritically accepts at least those verses as being the revealed word of God.
• As a consequence, there has been a fair amount of heat between those who think homosexuality is some kind of sin because some verses in the Bible say so and those who don’t accept the validity of those verses. But there can never be a meeting of minds unless the believer is willing to accept as valid the mounting evidence that homosexuality is a natural human variant like left-handedness. Moreover, many animal species, including dogs, penguins, bonobo chimps, and sheep have members who practice homosexuality. Therefore, if God created these species, God must approve of this behavior in them. However, because most believers will accept faith over any evidence science can come up with, faith trumps reason and this argument does not convince them.
• There are things in the Bible that no Christian on this board believes. For example, in Deuteronomy 21:18-21, the Bible says that if parents have a stubborn son, they should turn him over to the authorities to be stoned to death. In Leviticus, Chapter 19, Verse 19, it says that one should not plant two types of plants in a field, and one should not wear cloth woven of more than one type of thread. So a logical question to ask of these Christians who condemn homosexuality as being unbiblical is this: If one is not going to “pick and choose” which Bible verses to act upon or believe, why would you not turn your disobedient son over to the authorities for death by stoning or punish all those miscreants wearing Dacron-cotton overalls while they tend their organic farms that have a variety of plants?

Logical fallacy 2: The natural function of sex is procreation, and so homosexuality is a dangerous perversion of what is natural.

• This also is fallacious because it assumes what it sets out to prove. That is known as a circular argument. One of the natural functions of sex is procreation, but very few believe that it is the only function. But to say that the only natural function of sex is procreation is quite different than saying one of the natural functions of sex is procreation. That is like saying the natural function of the tongue is to taste and so using it to speak is a perversion. To me it seems quite likely that sex also has a social and interpersonal function. We are social creatures, and the humans and bonobos are the only species whose females have the ability to enjoy sex. For both humans and bonobo chimps, sex plays an important role is social institutions, relationships, and loyalty. And homosexuality is widely practiced by the bonobos as noted above, even more than among humans. Therefore one cannot logically conclude that homosexuality is unnatural because it cannot lead to procreation, because this argument assumes that procreation is the only natural function of sex against much evidence to the contrary.
• A sub corollary to this fallacy is the often-made statement that if all humans were to be homosexual, the human race would be extinguished, and so homosexuality must be a perversion. I have heard both Christians and Muslims say this. However, this is the famous slippery-slope fallacy. If all humans were to be stonemasons, the human race would die out too, because we would have no farmers or carpenters. If all humans were to be full-time musicians, we would all die out too. Human history shows that homosexuals are always a minority, as are left-handed people or people with eyes of different color, etc. And contrary to what many social conservatives think, the vast majority of homosexuals are not trying to “convert” anybody. As a matter of fact, I suspect that the ratio of heterosexuals trying to convert homosexuals is about a billion times greater than the number of homosexuals trying to convert heterosexuals. I don’t think you can find any homosexual web sites dedicated to converting heterosexuals. but you can find plenty of Christian web sites about converting homosexuals.

Comments are welcome.