Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

A GOP Campaign Slogan for 2008? (Leiter)

"Better to be a fascist than a faggot."

The Use Theory of Meaning (J. Stanley)

MOVED UP FROM MARCH 9. I HAVE MOVED THIS POST UP BECAUSE THE COMMENTS THREAD REMAINS QUITE ACTIVE, AND I HAVE RECEIVED MANY E-MAILS ABOUT IT.

Like any area of philosophy, there are researchers in philosophy of language with very different conceptions of what it is. One project in the philosophy of language centrally involves the thesis of deflationism about the semantic notions of truth and reference. According to the deflationist, truth and reference play no significant explanatory roles. But the great discovery of philosophy of language in the Twentieth Century is that, with the use of these semantic notions, one can give a tractable account of meaning. Indeed, this work has given rise to semantics, an empirical discipline in linguistics with which philosophers of language are now expected to be conversant. But there is a group of philosophers who are skeptical of the presuppositions of all the work on linguistic meaning that has been done in the Twentieth Century. They are trying to come up with an alternative account of meaning, a “use theory of meaning”, one that does not advert to semantic notions such as reference and truth.

Recently, I had cause to look at some of the work in this tradition to evaluate the progress they have been making. Unfortunately, I saw little to give me optimism in the project of rewriting semantics in terms of use. In Paul Horwich’s paper “A Use Theory of Meaning”, I find that the meaning of a word is given by “a set of sentences that are regularly accepted in such-and-such circumstances”. Unfortunately, this doesn’t give me much help if I am interested in, for example, tense and time, and want to see what the most recent theories of meaning say about tense in natural language.

Those philosophers who are outside of philosophy of language and semantics look to philosophy of language for certain kinds of resources. It is a cost to a metaphysical theory that it results in an error theory about certain central regions of discourse. For example, it is a familiar cost to presentism about tense that it seems to falsify many statements that we regard as obviously true (e.g. "England has had several kings named ‘George’"). It is a cost to an epistemological theory if it predicts that (say) knowledge-attributions are context-sensitive, when they are not. It is a cost to the view that a statue and the clay that constitutes it are identical that it invalidates certain apparently valid Leibniz’s Law inferences. In each case, we need a viable philosophy of language and semantics to gauge these costs. The use-theory of meaning will never be developed in a form that can play the role that current semantic theories do in these ongoing philosophical projects.

Some philosophers look at the theory of meaning through the prism of the project of deflationism. As a result, they regard those of us who operate with the notions of reference and truth as shallow un-philosophical technocrats, since we are not busy challenging these presuppositions. On the other hand, we regard their work at best as useless for the philosophical project of understanding the language-world relation, and at worst as a vain attempt to reinvent the wheel.

Blogging Hiatus (J. Stanley)

I'll be off giving talks for the next two weeks, first at UC Santa Cruz, where I'll be speaking first to the linguists and then to the philosophers, and then to the Pacific Division APA, where I'll be responding to Gil Harman and Stephen Schiffer in the Author Meets Critics session for my book Knowledge and Practical Interests, available in Wal-Marts everywhere. So I won't have time to blog at all, though I may pause in various cities to accept comments on previous postings.

Google Mars (Edmundson)

Google has mapped Mars, making it possible to soar above the Valles Marineris and swoop around Olympus Mons with the ease that users of Google Maps (of Earth) have grown accustomed to.  As if that weren't cool enough, NASA and Arizona State U. have collaborated on a video simulation of a flight through the Valles Marineris (the deepest, longest canyons in the Solar System). 

"The Case for Impeachment" from Harper's (Leiter)

This is certainly worth reading, and contains a fine record of the criminal war-mongering, and other breathtaking corruption, of Bush & his bestiary of madmen.

British Soldier Quits in Protest Over "Illegal" American Tactics in Iraq (Leiter)

Striking story here; an excerpt:

An SAS [Special Air Services, an elite counter-terrorism unit] soldier has refused to fight in Iraq and has left the Army over the "illegal" tactics of United States troops and the policies of coalition forces.

After three months in Baghdad, Ben Griffin told his commander that he was no longer prepared to fight alongside American forces.

He said he had witnessed "dozens of illegal acts" by US troops, claiming they viewed all Iraqis as "untermenschen" - the Nazi term for races regarded as sub-human.

The decision marks the first time an SAS soldier has refused to go into combat and quit the Army on moral grounds.

It immediately brought to an end Mr Griffin's exemplary, eight-year career in which he also served with the Parachute Regiment, taking part in operations in Northern Ireland, Macedonia and Afghanistan....

Mr Griffin, 28, who spent two years with the SAS, said the American military's "gung-ho and trigger happy mentality" and tactics had completely undermined any chance of winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi population. He added that many innocent civilians were arrested in night-time raids and interrogated by American soldiers, imprisoned in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, or handed over to the Iraqi authorities and "most probably" tortured.

Mr Griffin eventually told SAS commanders at Hereford that he could not take part in a war which he regarded as "illegal".

He added that he now believed that the Prime Minister and the Government had repeatedly "lied" over the war's conduct.

"I did not join the British Army to conduct American foreign policy," he said. He expected to be labelled a coward and to face a court martial and imprisonment after making what "the most difficult decision of my life" last March.

Instead, he was discharged with a testimonial describing him as a "balanced, honest, loyal and determined individual who possesses the strength of character to have the courage of his convictions".

Last night Patrick Mercer, the shadow minister for homeland security, said: "Trooper Griffin is a highly experienced soldier. This makes his decision particularly disturbing and his views and opinions must be listened to by the Government."

Ronald Dworkin, Again (Leiter)

Readers familiar with my views on Dworkin's jurisprudence will not be surprised that I find myself in agreement with the interesting (and also amusing) recent review by Thom Brooks (Politics, Newcastle) of Justin Burley's collection Dworkin and His Critics with Replies by Dworkin (Blackwell, 2004) in the January 2006 Modern Law Review (access may depend on whether your institution has a subscription, but the whole review is worth reading):

Ronald Dworkin's influence on legal philosophy is in some ways puzzling.  No series of lectures in jurisprudence can ignore his tremendous presence and he is one of the most cited and read legal philosophers alive.  Yet this wide readership has not translated into more than a small number of disciples.  It is quite rare to find anyone in the field identifying herself as a "Dworkinian."  Indeed, Andrea Dworkin may well have the larger following....

What will historians of legal philosophy make of Ronald Dworkin's work?  They will surely note his being a major figure, but perhaps best known as a foil to advance competing views of both natural law and legal positivism rather than as someone who began a school of legal thinking.  No one disputes the importance of Dworkin for legal philosophy.  However, his importance for the field is well on the wane now as this collection seems to make clear.  Not only is relatively little (or new) attention given to his third theory of law, but he seems more concerned with advancing his more successful views on egalitarianism among political and moral philosophers....[T]he question for legal philosophers today is how much longer Dworkin will command lectures on his views.  I believe these days are drawing swiftly to a close.

Fixer's Remorse? (Edmundson)

Of recently retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the Accidental Blogger observes:

[She] may in hindsight, regret the tarnished role of the Supreme Court in perpetuating the injustices of the 2000 presidential election which strengthened the hands of the extremists in the GOP. She sees the country on a slippery slope to dictatorship.

A slippery slope to dictatorship?  So the former Justice opined in an impassioned address at Georgetown U., March 10, as recounted by Nina Totenberg, here, courtesy The Raw Story:

[S]he took aim at former House GOP leader Tom DeLay. She didn’t name him, but she quoted his attacks on the courts at a meeting of the conservative Christian group Justice Sunday last year when DeLay took out after the courts for rulings on abortions, prayer and the Terri Schiavo case. This, said O’Connor, was after the federal courts had applied Congress’ onetime only statute about Schiavo as it was written. Not, said O’Connor, as the congressman might have wished it were written. This response to this flagrant display of judicial restraint, said O’Connor, her voice dripping with sarcasm, was that the congressman blasted the courts.

It gets worse, she said, noting that death threats against judges are increasing. It doesn’t help, she said, when a high-profile senator suggests there may be a connection between violence against judges and decisions that the senator disagrees with. She didn’t name him, but it was Texas senator John Cornyn who made that statement, after a Georgia judge was murdered in the courtroom and the family of a federal judge in Illinois murdered in the judge’s home. O’Connor observed that there have been a lot of suggestions lately for so-called judicial reforms, recommendations for the massive impeachment of judges, stripping the courts of jurisdiction and cutting judicial budgets to punish offending judges. Any of these might be debatable, she said, as long as they are not retaliation for decisions that political leaders disagree with.

I, said O’Connor, am against judicial reforms driven by nakedly partisan reasoning. Pointing to the experiences of developing countries and former communist countries where interference with an independent judiciary has allowed dictatorship to flourish, O’Connor said we must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, she said, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.

The beginnings, in this case, were in 2000, with her unprincipled swing vote in the unprincipled decision in Bush v. Gore.

Notice any difference between these guys? (Hellie)

Birthday party, 29 Aug 2005

Both look like Republicans to me.

Powerline bloggers humiliated by facts (Hellie)

A cute skirmish in the blog wars, with a predictable outcome: the foolish Assrocket and Big Trunk of PowerLine carelessly bullshit about how great the Bush Gang's economy is (why does it seem to suck? Damn that liberal media!). DailyKos's bonddad issues a decisive smackdown (regrettably, in a bit mild a tone for my taste).

Bush Top Domestic Advisor and Judicial Appointee Gets Benefit of Doubt (Edmundson)

Claude A. Allen, rising Republican star and, until his resignation last month, the White House's top domestic policy advisor, has been arrested on theft charges, as reported in the New York Times (Mar. 11; registration required):

The [Montgomery County, Maryland] Police Department said that as a result of an investigation ... it found that Mr. Allen had received refunds of more than $5,000 last year at stores like Target and Hecht's. Mr. Allen was arrested on Thursday and charged in connection with a series of allegedly fraudulent returns. The police said he was charged with a theft scheme over $500 and theft over $500.

"He would buy items, take them out to his car and return to the store with the receipt," the police said in the statement. "He would select the same items he had just purchased and then return them for a refund."

Mr. Allen was released on his own recognizance, the police said.

Ingenious scheme!  Who is Claude Allen (and had he never heard of inventory control)?

Mr. Allen was the secretary of health and human resources for the State of Virginia when he was chosen by Mr. Bush in 2001 for the No. 2 job at the federal Health and Human Services Department. Last year, he was named as top domestic policy adviser in the White House.

Mr. Allen went to the White House after his nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit stalled in the Senate. The nomination never came to a vote, in part because some Democrats raised questions about comments he had made in 1984, while working for Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina. He had been quoted as saying that Mr. Helms's opponent that year was vulnerable because his campaign could be "linked with the queers." He later apologized and said he had not intended his words to be a slur against gay men and lesbians.
...

Asked about the charge against Mr. Allen, Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, said, "If it is true, no one would be more shocked and more outraged than the president."

Mr. McClellan said Mr. Allen reported the initial incident [a misdemeanor citation for theft] to Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, on Jan. 2, the day it occurred. But, he said, Mr. Card did not inform the president until early February because Mr. Allen had said the incident resulted from a misunderstanding.

Mr. McClellan gave this chronology: On Jan. 3, Mr. Allen discussed the incident with Harriet E. Miers, the White House counsel, and told her that he had been returning merchandise and there was confusion with his credit cards because he had moved many times. He assured Ms. Miers that the matter would be cleared up.

Mr. McClellan said the White House gave Mr. Allen "the benefit of the doubt" because he had gone through extensive background checks before his judicial nomination.

Within a few days of the incident, Mr. McClellan said, Mr. Allen told Mr. Card and Ms. Miers that he was thinking of leaving the White House to spend time with his family. But Mr. Allen decided to stay for a while because he was working on domestic initiatives for the State of the Union address, which Mr. Bush delivered on Jan. 31.

The last hurrah for a gay-bashing petty thief: to declare the Union's domestic policy.  How eloquent.

Hooded Abu Ghraib prisoner to sue Rumsfeld (Hellie)

His name is Ali Shalal Qaissi; I hope he wins.

UPDATE: Qaissi's "crime"? Complaining to "the military, human rights organizations and the news media about soldiers' dumping garbage on a local soccer field."

Weeks after complaining about the garbage, he said, he was surrounded by Humvees, hooded, tied up and carted to a nearby base before being transferred to Abu Ghraib. Then the questioning began.

"They blamed me for attacking U.S. forces," he said, "but I said I was handicapped; how could I fire a rifle?" he said, pointing to his hand. "Then he asked me, 'Where is Osama bin Laden?' And I answered, 'Afghanistan.' "

How did he know? "Because I heard it on TV," he replied.

 

Sensitive readers might want to use caution before reading more of Qaissi's story of horrible abuse.

Friday Poem: "The Ballerina Has No Sex"

The Ballerina Has No Sex

The ballerina has no sex
She is the color of the brushstroke
On the canvas of the dance
She is the dance’s every instrument
She is both calculus and chance

She is the body possible
The form that follows art
Her pause is movement’s memory
Her motion is its sound
Where she stops the center
The spot she leaves the void

She is the music’s measure
Her silence is its core
She whirls it flows with pleasure
She trembles and it falls
She bends her sloping torso low
Extends a languid curling arm
And with a pointed satin toe
Brings coherence to the whole

She it is we cannot know
We who think we watch a show

8/31/95-1/1/96, 2/6/98, 9/7/98

Copyright 1998 by Maurice Leiter

Posted with permission

A pre-emptive challenge for Bush revisionists (Hellie)

A number of astute observers have predicted that as rule by the Bush Gang is seen by more and more Americans to have been an epic disaster, the GOP will try to save its image by distancing itself from the cult of Bushism: somehow it was special features of Bush himself, or his gang, that led to their special incompetence at implementing policy. Incompetence let Republicanism down this time; True Republicanism, of course, forever remaining the never yet correctly implemented utopia.

The key question for True Republicans is: If not Bush, who would have done better? Who is that dream Republican figure who would serve as president of a GOP-controlled government and  *not* leave a wake of disaster everywhere? (Feel free to swap out more figures of the Bush Gang and replace them with a more expansive Executive Dream Team.)

(My prediction: there's no good answer. It won't happen that the Republicans control all three branches of the government (and the mass media) and epic disaster be avoided. As SusanG puts it,

Everything in this administration comes down to three political positioning maneuvers (and note that #2 and #3 really are subsets merely designed to serve #1):

1.    Corporations should operate absolutely unfettered in order to line the pockets of the oligarchical elite (See: empire building, environmental and safety deregulation, using the armed forces to pry open new markets/ resources/cheap labor, tax cuts, union busting, privatization of anything and everything, etc.)

2.    Pandering to the Religious Right (in order to get the votes to further #1).

3.    Escape any and all responsibility for the obscenely awful consequences of #1 upon the 90% of Americans who fund the stupidity - and pay the personal price in their daily lives - for these policies.

That's not just Bush and his inner circle: #1 is the core tenet of the modern GOP; #2 and #3 follow on as if by force of nature. For instance, not leaving thousands trapped in the Superdome surrounded by rising floodwaters would require an emergency agency with competent leadership and the goal of protecting everyone, rather than a crony- and ideology-police infested patronage machine that only works well when white GOP voters are in danger; a budgetary system sensitive to the infrastructure needs of cities in environmentally sensitive areas, rather than to fat giveaways to rich folks and make-work projects for big corporations indifferent to their use-value; and people in  positions of power at all levels of  government concerned with reality-based policy to support the general welfare.

None of that sounds like the modern GOP to me.)

The Oxford "Jurisprudence Census"

If you know something about legal philosophy--especially Oxford-centric legal philosophy--you will find this rather amusing.  (Thanks to Les Green for the pointer.)

Glenn Reynolds (Leiter)

It is becoming irresistible to conclude that this man is really engaged in an elaborate parody of right-wing morons.

Don't worry, the cone will protect you (Wilson)

In case you needed more evidence that all the brou-ha-ha about national security is so much bull:

Guards say Homeland Security HQ is insecure

WASHINGTON (AP) - The agency entrusted with protecting the U.S. homeland is having difficulty safeguarding its own headquarters, say private security guards at the complex.

The guards have taken their concerns to Congress, describing inadequate training, failed security tests and slow or confused reactions to bomb and biological threats.

For instance, when an envelope with suspicious powder was opened last fall at Homeland Security Department headquarters, guards said they watched in amazement as superiors carried it by the office of Secretary Michael Chertoff, took it outside and then shook it outside Chertoff's window without evacuating people nearby.

Maybe the "superiors" should be informed of the Center for Disease Control's rule #1 for handling a suspicious package or envelope:

Do not shake or empty the contents of any suspicious package or envelope.

Moving on...

The scare, caused by white powder that proved to be harmless, "stands as one glaring example'' of the agency's security problems, said Derrick Daniels, one of the first guards to respond to the incident.

"I had never previously been given training ... describing how to respond to a possible chemical attack,'' Daniels told The Associated Press. "I wouldn't feel safe nowhere on this compound as an officer.''

[...]

Former guard Bryan Adams recognized his inadequate training one day last August, when an employee reported a suspicious bag in the parking lot.

"I didn't have a clue about what to do,'' he said.

When in doubt, grab a cone.

Adams said he closed the vehicle checkpoint with a cone, walked over to the bag and called superiors.

Perfect place to make that call.

Nobody cordoned off the area. Eventually, someone called a federal bomb squad, which arrived more than an hour after the discovery.

"If the bag had, in fact, contained the explosive device that was anticipated, the bomb could have detonated several times over in the hour that the bag sat there,'' Adams said.

The bag, it turned out, contained gym clothes.

Beware the stench bomb!

Some guards who continue to work at Homeland, who would speak only on condition of anonymity because of fear of losing their jobs, said they knew of two instances in which individuals without identification got into the sensitive complex.

Another described how guards flunked a test by the Secret Service, which sent vehicles into the compound with dummy government identification tags hanging from inside mirrors. Guards cleared such vehicles through on two occasions, this guard said, and one officer even copied down the false information without realizing it was supposed to match information on the employee's government badge.

Doyle, the agency spokesman, said such tests are conducted routinely and "I can assure you that if people fail the test they are let go.'

They're sure to be replaced by someone more competent.

China attacks US human rights record (Hellie)

Used to be that the US could get away with the fiction of being a paragon of human rights, despite its internal racial discrimination and external proxy wars. Thanks to the GOP and Bush's torture camps in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gitmo, and elsewhere, and Bush's illegal domestic spying (not to mention that the US's discriminatory imprisonment of blacks -- and love affair with disgustingly harsh criminal punishments -- has been steadily worsening for decades), the US has lost any claim to have its human rights scoldings taken seriously:

China on Thursday lashed out against U.S. criticism of its human rights record, saying racial discrimination and crime were still rife in the United States and prisoners were being abused at U.S.-run detention centers abroad.

The State Council, China's cabinet, denounced the United States for what it said were rampant violence and widespread discrimination against minorities especially blacks in its annual response to the State Department's report on human rights worldwide.

"For a long time, the life and security of the people of the United States has not been under efficient protection," the Chinese report said.

Blacks are given heavier criminal penalties, arrested more frequently and are more likely to be targeted for hate crimes, the report said.

It also criticized American troops for brutality at prisons in Iraq and the detention camp for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"As in previous years, the State Department pointed the finger at human rights situations in more than 190 countries and regions, including China, but kept silent on the serious violations of human rights in the United States," it said.

It is "an act that fully exposes its hypocrisy and double standard on human rights issues," said the report which drew mostly from stories and statistics in the American press.

The response came one day after the State Department said the Chinese government's human rights record "remained poor, and the government continued to commit numerous and serious abuses."

The U.S. report said repression worsened in China in 2005, with a trend toward "increased harassment, detention, and imprisonment" of people seen as threats to the Chinese government. It also mentioned tightened controls over print, broadcast and electronic media and censorship of online content.

The State Department study, published each year since 1977, offers a comprehensive analysis of all countries in the world except the United States.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Washington's report ignored China's progress in human rights, which he claimed "not only met with the satisfaction of the Chinese people but also has been widely affirmed by the international community."

"We express our strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition," Qin said, adding that Washington should "immediately end the erroneous practice of interfering in other country's internal politics."

A large section of the Chinese report was devoted to racial discrimination, which it said had "long been a chronic malady of American society."

It said the country's blacks and other minorities had much lower living standards and incomes and faced job discrimination. Blacks were also more likely to receive the death penalty for serious crimes, it said.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, Muslims have been targeted for arrests and detention under "the banner of 'anti-terrorism,'" the report said.

It also criticized American foreign policy and detailed prison abuse by American troops in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, accusing them of using "various kinds of torture" while trying to "extract information."

The report also touched on:

  private gun ownership in America, saying the "unchecked spread of guns has caused incessant murders."

  secret wire taps and surveillance on American citizens under the Patriot Act.

  the poverty rate and the problem of homelessness.

"No country in the world can claim to have a perfect state of human rights," the Chinese report said.

"We urge the U.S. government to look squarely at its own human rights problems, reflect what it has done in the human rights field and take concrete measures to improve its own human rights status."

Experimental Philosophy Defended (Leiter)

A group of leading contributors to and sympathizers with experimental philosophy responded to my invitation to comment on the recent article in Slate and the critique of experimental philosophy by David Velleman (Philosophy, NYU).  Their response follows:

=========================================================

Responding to a recent article in Slate, David Velleman decries what he calls the “newest philosophical fad,” – the body of research sometimes referred to as “experimental philosophy.”   While not all of us embrace the label “experimental philosophy,” all of us admire the sort of work Velleman appears to have in mind, so it may prove useful to correct some mistaken impressions about the field that Velleman’s critique might engender.   

As we read him, Velleman expresses two concerns about experimental philosophy.  The first is that those who work in this area advocate “substituting [empirical findings] for philosophy altogether.”  We have no idea who Velleman has in mind; all of us reject such a draconian substitution, and some of us have explicitly rejected it in print. (See, for example, Doris & Stich, 2005.) Rather, we argue that empirical work of various sorts may complement other forms of philosophical inquiry – a methodological predilection that Velleman himself shares.

Velleman’s second concern is that “unsuspecting readers” may be unaware that “the ‘discoveries’ touted in the piece in Slate are not exactly news to traditional philosophers.”  We believe that Velleman is mistaken.  One of the findings discussed in the Slate story (and illustrated with a rather tasteless cartoon!) was Jonathan Haidt’s discovery that low socioeconomic status (SES) individuals judge harmless actions which evoke disgust to be morally wrong, while high SES individuals do not judge them to be morally wrong.  Another example mentioned in Slate was the finding by Machery et al. that English speakers in Hong Kong and English speakers (of European background) in the USA had dramatically different intuitions about Kripke’s famous Gödel/Schmidt thought experiment.  A third much discussed finding, not alluded to in Slate, is that English speakers of European cultural background and English speakers of East Asian cultural background report very different intuitions about “Gettier-cases” of the sort that brought about a sea change in epistemologists’ thinking in the middle of the 20^th century.  To the best of our knowledge, none of these discoveries were old news to “traditional philosophers”.   

The work done by experimentally inclined philosophers is relevant to numerous philosophical projects.  Velleman himself concedes that “it is useful to know what most people think about intentional action and moral responsibility” because “in philosophizing on these topics, we can’t stray too far from what people think.” Presumably he would say much the same about knowledge and reference. Anyone with such convictions, it seems obvious, should be concerned to understand what the actual folk beliefs are, rather than resting content with philosophers’ speculations on these matters, buttressed by the dubious practice of assuming that one’s own intuitions are shared by the rest of humankind.  If, as Velleman acknowledges, “it is useful to know what most people think” then there is every reason to pursue the sort of empirical work that experimentally inclined philosophers have been engaged in.  In addition to telling us when professional intuition is at odds with folk intuition, experimental work can shed light on the ways in which the judgments made by both philosophers and lay people may be biased, distorted, or otherwise fallible.  (See, for example, Greene, in press.) And surely this too is something that philosophers should know.

Of course, a number of the hypotheses that experimental philosophers have explored about “what most people think,” or how they go about making ascriptions of moral responsibility, intentionality or knowledge, have been suggested by “prominent philosophers.”  And as Velleman notes,these prominent philosophers “didn't use any data that required approval from the Human Subjects Review Board”.  But Velleman’s comments under this heading suggest what we submit is a deeply problematic  view about what counts as reasonable evidence in this area.  “Traditional” philosophers can use a variety of methods, including consulting their own intuition, to develop hypotheses about the factors that influence people’s judgments on a variety of philosophically important matters.  And some of the hypotheses proposed by these philosophers have been brilliant and prescient.  But to suggest, as Velleman does, that these philosophers have discovered  “that people's description of an action as ‘intentional’ depends on their assessment of the harms or benefits that resulted from it, and whether they were produced reliably or by chance” is at best seriously misleading.  What traditional philosophers discovered were some very interesting and important hypotheses.  To discover whether these hypotheses are true requires systematic empirical evidence of the sort that traditional philosophers, in most cases, simply do not have.

To conclude, we suggest – and we are confident Velleman would agree – that discussion of a scholarly research program will be most productive when it engages the research itself, rather than journalistic portrayals such as the Slate article.  Readers who are interested in learning more about “experimental philosophy” will find a representative collection of articles here.

John M. Doris  (Washington University in St. Louis)

Joshua D. Greene  (Princeton University)

Paul E. Griffiths (University of Queensland)

Gilbert Harman  (Princeton University)

Joshua Knobe  (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

Edouard Machery  (University of Pittsburgh)

Ron Mallon  (University of Utah)

Thomas Nadelhoffer  (Dickinson College)

Eddy Nahmias (Georgia State University)

Shaun Nichols  (University of Utah)

Jesse Prinz  (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

Walter P. Sinnott-Armstrong  (Dartmouth College)

Stephen Stich  (Rutgers University)

Manuel Vargas (University of San Francisco)

Jonathan M. Weinberg  (Indiana University)

=============================

Comments are open; because I am in transit the next couple of days, they may take awhile to appear.  Please post only once.  No anonymous comments.  If the discussion is lively and interesting enough, I may move this thread back to the front once I'm back in the office.

Constellation Coca-Cola (Edmundson)

The scatter of electrical lighting has all but obliterated the starry skies that we gaze into with the same wonder as that in which philosophy begins.  There is an organized resistance movement that merits everyone's support.  But another front in this long war has opened with the the arrival of technological means to project three dimensional images into the atmosphere, as reported in The New Scientist (Feb. 27), "3D Plasma Shapes Created in Thin Air."  A few years ago, there was a scheme to project advertising logos onto the moon.  It fell apart (or did it?) and maybe this one will as well.  For now, anyway, the eye can find Sirius by tracking left from Orion's belt, without having to cut through Coca-Cola.  (And, hey, we can always wonder at the moral law within us!)

A trolley problem for rightwingers (Hellie)

A bright caller to wingnut radio host Andrew Wilkow asks whether Wilkow would save a two-year-old or five petri dishes from a burning fertility clinic. Wilkow freaks out. Score! Catch the audio here.

Torture in Afghanistan (Hellie)

Discussed here.

A moment to reflect (Hellie)

What if the blogosphere hadn't come into existence only shortly after the Bush Gang takeover? Imagine having to face down Rove/Cheney/Frist/DeLay/Abramoff/Scaife/Murdoch with nothing but Z Magazine, a few tattered Chomsky books, and Lexis-Nexis (or for the unaffiliated, shudder, microfiche at the public library). Now everyone's Chomsky. I didn't see the "My Pet Goat" footage until mid-2003, and at the time it was secret knowledge; now "no one anticipated the breach of the levees" is available for anyone on Crooks & Liars to expose Bush's lies after Brownie's attempted self-rehabilitation. How did Bush spend 9/11? On 9/11 we learned that he was cowering, then on 9/13 reality changed and he was heroic for a few years. These days, you can't get away with strumming a guitar and cutting a cake while a city is destroyed. I worried publicly prior to the 2004 election that if Bush kept power, he'd destroy Social Security and that would be game over; Josh Marshall and others kept all over individual legislators and humiliated Bush. The Plame outing was going to be yet another silent but deadly Roving; bloggers locked their teeth into a few paragraphs on A17, now maybe Rove is going down, and at least he's distracted. Why did public opinion turn against the Iraq war so much faster and more decisively than against the Vietnam war? Because the blogosphere is constantly humming with reality-based information and analysis to counter the constant propaganda from the GOP and traditional media.

UPDATE: on a more gloomy note, this post is a stark reminder of the forces on the other side.

"As the Iraqis Stand up..." (Edmundson)

When faith-based policy bumps up against reality--as it has in Iraq--where does it turn?  To reality-based policy?  Or, desperately, to an analogy-based policy that tries to cram reality into the terms of a superficially similar historical precedent--even if it is a precedent of failure?  In the case of Iraq evidently the latter, argues Stephen Biddle, in "Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon," Foreign Affairs (March/April 2006).

[I]f the debate in Washington is Vietnam redux, the war in Iraq is not. The current struggle is not a Maoist "people's war" of national liberation; it is a communal civil war with very different dynamics. Although it is being fought at low intensity [sic] for now, it could easily escalate if Americans and Iraqis make the wrong choices.

Unfortunately, many of the policies dominating the debate are ill adapted to the war being fought. Turning over the responsibility for fighting the insurgents to local forces, in particular, is likely to make matters worse. Such a policy might have made sense in Vietnam, but in Iraq it threatens to exacerbate the communal tensions that underlie the conflict and undermine the power-sharing negotiations needed to end it. Washington must stop shifting the responsibility for the country's security to others and instead threaten to manipulate the military balance of power among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds in order to force them to come to a durable compromise. Only once an agreement is reached should Washington consider devolving significant military power and authority to local forces.

Biddle thinks the present strategy--"as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down"--is a ticket to disaster.  Unfortunately, Biddle's suggestion that US troops maintain martial law until such time as "an agreement is reached" between Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish factions seems no more promising.  But first, more of Biddle's analysis:

Communal civil wars, in contrast [to Maoist people's wars], feature opposing subnational groups divided along ethnic or sectarian lines; they are not about universal class interests or nationalist passions. In such situations, even the government is typically an instrument of one communal group, and its opponents champion the rights of their subgroup over those of others. These conflicts do not revolve around ideas, because no pool of uncommitted citizens is waiting to be swayed by ideology. (Albanian Kosovars, Bosnian Muslims, and Rwandan Tutsis knew whose side they were on.) The fight is about group survival, not about the superiority of one party's ideology or one side's ability to deliver better governance.

The underlying dynamic of many communal wars is a security problem driven by mutual fear. Especially in states lacking strong central governments, communal groups worry that other groups with historical grievances will try to settle scores. The stakes can be existential, and genocide is a real possibility. Ideologues or nationalists can also be brutal toward their enemies -- Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge come to mind -- but in communal conflicts the risk of mass slaughter is especially high.

Whereas the Vietnam War was a Maoist people's war, Iraq is a communal civil war. This can be seen in the pattern of violence in Iraq, which is strongly correlated with communal affiliation. The four provinces that make up the country's Sunni heartland account for fully 85 percent of all insurgent attacks; Iraq's other 14 provinces, where almost 60 percent of the Iraqi population lives, account for only 15 percent of the violence. The overwhelming majority of the insurgents in Iraq are indigenous Sunnis, and the small minority who are non-Iraqi members of al Qaeda or its affiliates are able to operate only because Iraqi Sunnis provide them with safe houses, intelligence, and supplies. Much of the violence is aimed at the Iraqi police and military, which recruit disproportionately from among Shiites and Kurds. And most suicide car bombings are directed at Shiite neighborhoods, especially in ethnically mixed areas such as Baghdad, Diyala, or northern Babil, where Sunni bombers have relatively easy access to non-Sunni targets.
...
The biggest problem with treating Iraq like Vietnam is Iraqization -- the main component of the current U.S. military strategy. In a people's war, handing the fighting off to local forces makes sense because it undermines the nationalist component of insurgent resistance, improves the quality of local intelligence, and boosts troop strength. But in a communal civil war, it throws gasoline on the fire. Iraq's Sunnis perceive the "national" army and police force as a Shiite-Kurdish militia on steroids. And they have a point: in a communal conflict, the only effective units are the ones that do not intermingle communal enemies....

The solution?  Biddle writes:

the United States must bring more pressure to bear on the parties in the constitutional negotiations. And the strongest pressure available is military: the United States must threaten to manipulate the military balance of power among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds to coerce them to negotiate. Washington should use the prospect of a U.S.-trained and U.S.-supported Shiite-Kurdish force to compel the Sunnis to come to the negotiating table.  At the same time, in order to get the Shiites and the Kurds to negotiate too, it should threaten either to withdraw prematurely, a move that would throw the country into disarray, or to back the Sunnis.

Hmm.  Threaten the Shi'tes and Kurds with "premature" withdrawal (three years into this)?  Haven't the Shi'ites got friends to the north, in Iran? --but Biddle never mentions Iran, nor for that matter any of the other powers in the region.  That's why Biddle proposes an alternative threat to the Shi'ites: play ball or we'll back the Sunnis.  How's that?

Washington should consider trying to accelerate the emergence of a credible Sunni leadership by endorsing a wider amnesty for former Baathists and insurgents and learning to tolerate nepotistic tribal leaders. Washington should also avoid setting any more arbitrary deadlines for democratization...

Wider amnesty for former Ba'athists...forget democracy for now...and what of Sadaam and his henchmen?  ("...or else we'll restore Sadaam?")  Well, as Biddle confesses:

Putting such a program in place would not be easy. It would deny President Bush the chance to offer restless Americans an early troop withdrawal, replace a Manichaean narrative featuring evil insurgents and a noble government with a complicated story of multiparty interethnic intrigue, and require that Washington be willing to shift its loyalties in the conflict according to the parties' readiness to negotiate. Explaining these changes to U.S. voters would be a challenge. Washington would have to recalibrate its dealings with Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds with great precision, making sure to neither unduly frighten nor unduly reassure any of the groups. Even the most adroit diplomacy could fail if the Iraqis do not grasp the strategic logic of their situation or if a strong and sensible Sunni political leadership does not emerge. And the failure to reach a stable ethnic compromise soon could strain the U.S. military beyond its breaking point.

Nevertheless, there are good reasons to think such a plan could work. Most important, the underlying interests of all local parties would be far better served by a constitutional compromise than by an all-out war.

Biddle's solution, a "constitutional compromise" with "ironclad power-sharing arrangements protecting all parties," would surely be preferrable to all-out war.  But so would a forcable partition of Iraq, or the installation of a (relatively benign) dictatorship, or any number of other, less tidy solutions.  The list of communal civil wars that have been choked off by "ironclad power-sharing" deals is not a lengthy one.  More typically, one side prevails and imposes its will on the losers, and any ensuing "constitutional compromise" is the victor's to design.  It seems that faith-based foreign policy leads to messes that reality-based policy is powerless to fix.

[Update: The occupying US command is reportedly trying to purge the Iraqi police of Shi'ite militants while at the same time delivering an infusion of Sunni trainees.  Biddle's observation:

[T]he harder the United States works to integrate Sunnis into the security forces, the less effective those forces are likely to become. The inclusion of Sunnis will inevitably entail penetration by insurgents, and it will be difficult to establish trust between members of mixed units whose respective ethnic groups are at one another's throats. Segregating Sunnis in their own battalions is no solution either. Doing so would merely strengthen all sides simultaneously by providing each with direct U.S. assistance and could trigger an unstable, unofficial partition of the country into separate Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish enclaves, each defended by its own military force.

No wonder that even the Panglossian Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Peter Pace, was ready to confess on Meet the Press (Mar. 5) that "anything can happen," and that--although things are "going well" rather than badly--he "wouldn’t put a great big smiley face on it."]

[Further update: In the LA Times (Mar. 7), the US Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalizad, states bluntly: ""We have opened the Pandora's box and the question is, what is the way forward?"  (A great big smiley face for Pandora's box, anyone?)]

Jews: true blue (Hellie)

Interesting study (by the Solomon Project) of patterns of political affiliation and voting among American Jews here. From the bullet points:

• The best estimate of the two-party Jewish vote in 2004 – based on the National Election Pool (NEP) exit poll sample of 1511 Jewish voters – is:

Senator John Kerry: 78%
President George Bush: 22%

• The Jewish two-party vote in 2004 was 29% more Democratic than the national two-party vote. This number has been remarkably stable over the last three presidential elections.
• A large majority (from 65% to 74%) of American Jews identify as Democrats. Estimates of the percentage of American Jews who identify as Republicans range from 11-21%.
• Jewish Americans overwhelmingly identify themselves as liberal (up to 40% liberal in surveys by The Mellman Group along with Kiley and Co. and the Feldman Group) or moderate on an ideological scale. Somewhere between 13-18% of Jews identify themselves as conservative.
• There was a significant gender gap among Jewish voters in November 2004 according to the NEP survey. Though Jewish men voted for Kerry 70-28% (a 42% margin), Jewish women voted for Kerry 82-16% (a 66% margin).
• The strongest GOP subgroups within the Jewish population appear to be voters who attend synagogue at least weekly (47% for Bush in The Mellman Group’s surveys) and Jewish men under 30 years of age (35% for Bush according to the NEP survey). The strongest Democratic subgroups were Jewish women who were 60 years of age or older (90% for Kerry in the NEP survey) and Jewish women under 30 years of age (88% for Kerry in the NEP survey).
• Though there is some evidence that Bush captured a majority of Orthodox Jewish voters and Russian Jewish voters, sample sizes for both of these subgroups were either unavailable or too small in all surveys to make any definitive claims regarding their partisan attachments in 2004.

No reason to believe this sort of nonsense, then:

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said the strong loyalty of the Depression-era generation of Jewish voters to Democrats is eroding.

"We have had two presidents, Ronald Reagan and this president, who have addressed anti-Semitism in the world and threats in the world to both America and to Israel with moral clarity," he said. Still, he acknowledged, "we have a lot of work to do."

Reagan?!?!?

(Hat tip: Jonathan Singer)

UPDATE: My impression that Mehlman is completely out to lunch on Jewish views of Reagan receives confirmation from this graph (from the Solomon Project report, p11):

UPDATE: In light of the sort of considerations addressed in this post, one might suspect that lower curve won't be dropping much in the near future.

New Data on Average Faculty Salaries (Leiter)

The Chronicle of Higher Ed article on the study is here.  Philosophy does fairly well relative to the other humanities and even the social sciences.  The average full professor of philosophy in the survey earned $82,030, compared to $76,413 for English professors, $80,706 for History professors, $82,554 for Psychology professors, and $87,079 for Social Sciences professors (a category that would include economics faculty).  Remember these are averages across private and public universities, and across four-year colleges and research universities.

Off to Toronto (Leiter)

On Wednesday, I'm off to Toronto for this event, and since I'm still putting finishing touches on the lecture, there's unlikely to be much new from me for a few days.  I trust my co-bloggers will keep the site lively, entertaining, and informative in my absence!

The Latest Target of the Talk Radio and Blogospheric Brown Shirts (Leiter)

A high school geography teacher in Colorado, one Jay Bennish, is the latest target of the roving right-wing hate-mongers on "talk radio" and in the blogosphere whose whole raison d'etre is to abuse, harass, threaten, and intimidate anyone who dares challenge their parochial prejudices.  A brief account of the remarks that have gotten him into trouble (as well as the students supporting him) is here.  The quoted remarks are, as you shall see, so utterly banal, that they would attract no attention if uttered anywhere else in the world:  e.g., suggesting "eerie similarities" between the rhetoric of Bush and Hitler (others have made the point--some at great length); and noting that the U.S. is "the single most violent nation on the planet earth" today.  To be sure, the Canadians produced the most compelling rejoinder to Bush-Hitler comparisons some time ago, but that doesn't change the historical significance of the fact that Bush is the first major world leader since Hitler to defend the legitimacy of wars of aggression, and that it is official U.S. policy to dominate the world militarily and prevent any rivals from emerging.  In America in the year 2006, however, if you comment on the obvious, you must be punished.

It is surely worth noting that in every media account of this incident I've seen, there is no indication that Mr. Bennish treated his students inappropriately:  he has been suspended for the content of his speech, period.  You can defend free speech and support Mr. Bennish by contacting his employer, the Cherry Creek Schools District at the following addresses:

Cherry Creek Schools
4700 South Yosemite Street
Greenwood Village, Colorado 80111
Phone: 303-773-1184
Fax: 303-773-9884

Dr. Monte Moses, Superintendent
Phone: 720-554-4213
Email: [email protected]

I suggest referencing the ABC News story linked above as the factual context for any message, and noting that on the basis of what is being reported, this looks like unconstitutional punishment of protected speech; to restore the District's good reputation, the teacher ought to be reinstated right away. 

UPDATE:  As Ruchira Paul notes, according to the transcript of Mr. Bennish's remarks, he concluded by saying:  "I'm not implying in any way you should agree with me. ... What I'm trying to do is to get you to ... think about these issues more in depth."  Thinkin "in depth" is, of course, verboten for the talk radio and blogospheric brown shirts.

Hollywood comes through (Wilson)

Kudos to Hollywood for making films that matter, and honoring them and those that made them:

Best director (Ang Lee) and best adapted screenplay: Brokeback Mountain

Two guys in love in a world that won't let them be what comes naturally

Best picture and best original screenplay: Crash

How fucked up racism is, and how people periodically manage to transcend it

UPDATE: some concerns about Crash's presentation of the reality of racism are here.  Thanks to reader Amir for the link.

Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote

Another gay guy rocks the house

Best Actress: Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line

Reese as smartass June Carter, soul mate of the pill-poppin, prisoner-appreciating Johnny Cash

Best Supporting Actor: George Clooney in Syriana

Can we say enough about this awesome guy?  Director and actor in arguably the two most righteous mainstream films of 2005: Syriana (how oil, money, and power poison even the best intentions) and Good Night and Good Luck (journalist Ed Murrow fights to take down the grotesque Joe McCarthy).

Of Murrow, it is said: "He set standards of excellence that remain unsurpassed".

Good on Hollywood, and especially Clooney, for raising the standards of mainstream movies to deal with reality rather than hype.  And they say Hollywood is the land of dreams!

UPDATE: some concerns about Crash's presentation of the reality of racism are here.  Thanks to reader Amir for the link.

Who knew Mamet was a polymath? (Wilson)

This speaks volumes.

"Preemptive" war, "preemptive" incarceration (Wilson)

Guantanamo inmates despair of ever leaving:

Ahamed Abdul Aziz has been in the Guantanamo Bay prison for more than three years and, by his account, has been interrogated 50 times without being charged with any crime. He waits with anguish for freedom but fears it will never come.

"We are in a grave here," he told his lawyers, echoing the despair felt by many of the roughly 490 prisoners held as suspected terrorists at the U.S. naval base in eastern Cuba. Charges have been filed against only 10 of them.

[...]

Major Paul Swiergosz, a Defense Department spokesman, said that holding detainees who are considered a risk is necessary in time of war, while the review process ensures innocent detainees are released.

"Holding detainees in Guantanamo is not a punitive measure, it's preventive," Swiergosz said. "That keeps them from continuing to fight against the United States and its allies. The Defense Department will continue to work diligently to process all the detainee cases we have."

Plumbers Redux (Edmundson)

The Washington Post (Mar. 5) reports, in "White House Trains Efforts on Media Leaks," that the Bush administration is gearing up to crack down hard on those who would treacherously inform the People of what their government gets up to.  "The first thing we do, let's kill all the messengers," wasn't it?  (Unless they're authorized by the VP, of course.)

Who Benefits from Bush's India Giveaway? (Edmundson)

Bush's wild ride to Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan showed more bravado than anything he has done since he landed on the deck of the USS Lincoln three years ago, to declare "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq.  But there is a difference between rashness and courage--a difference it takes what Aristotle called practical wisdom to discern.  That Bush lacks--even disdains--any such virtue was well known long before the travesty that was the election of 2000.  For him and his bubble-minders, practical wisdom is at best a merely "personal virtue," as Cheney disparaged moderation in consumption.  Nonetheless, the President who studiously floated above storm-ravaged New Orleans did not sail down into seething Islamabad without lowering his window shade first. (Or did someone help him with that?)

Now that he's safely back, it is for the rest of us to sort out the damage he has done this time.  The New York Times (Mar. 5), in "Iran's Best Friend," editorializes:

At the rate that President Bush is going, Iran will be a global superpower before too long. For all of the axis-of-evil rhetoric that has come out of the White House, the reality is that the Bush administration has done more to empower Iran than its most ambitious ayatollah could have dared to imagine. Tehran will be able to look back at the Bush years as a golden era full of boosts from America, its unlikely ally.

During the period before the Iraq invasion, the president gave lip service to the idea that Iran and Iraq were both threats to American security. But his advisers, intent on carrying out their long-deferred dream of toppling Saddam Hussein, gave scant thought to what might happen if their plans did not lead to the unified, peaceful, pro-Western democracy of their imaginings. The answer, though, is now rather apparent: a squabbling, divided country in which the Shiite majority in the oil-rich south finds much more in common with its fellow Shiites in Iran than with the Sunni Muslims with whom it needs to form an Iraqi government.

Washington has now become dangerously dependent on the good will and constructive behavior of Shiite fundamentalist parties that Iran sheltered, aided and armed during the years that Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq....

Fast-forward to Thursday's nuclear deal with India, in which President Bush agreed to share civilian nuclear technology with India despite its nuclear weapons programs and its refusal to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

This would be a bad idea at any time, rewarding India for flouting the basic international understanding that has successfully discouraged other countries from South Korea to Saudi Arabia from embarking on their own efforts to build nuclear weapons. But it also undermines attempts to rein in Iran, whose nuclear program is progressing fast and unnerving both its neighbors and the West.

The India deal is exactly the wrong message to send right now, just days before Washington and its European allies will be asking the International Atomic Energy Agency to refer Iran's case to the United Nations Security Council for further action. Iran's hopes of preventing this depend on convincing the rest of the world that the West is guilty of a double standard on nuclear issues. Mr. Bush might as well have tied a pretty red bow around his India nuclear deal and mailed it as a gift to Tehran.

Santa Bush brought only switches and ashes for Pakistan, despite those toys and goodies for its arch-foe India; but the luckiest kid in the "Arab" world (as generously defined by our Ministry of Malapropaganda) is Iran.  As the Greeks knew, even the generosity of the vicious man is vicious.

[Update: Fallout from Bush's beneficence, as reported in the Hinustani Times.  Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer.]

Jobs for Philosophers, Sunday Afternoon Edition (Hellie)

Those with an AOS in value theory may wish to consider this position.

US to withdraw from Iraq by '07? (Hellie)

How long can the military sustain the current casualty rate? Until after the midterm elections, apparently. (So, allegedly, say "unnamed senior defense ministry sources".)

Political and Legal Philosopher Waldron from Columbia to NYU

Details here.

Weatherson's Monday Philosophy Message Board (Leiter)

I am asked, with increasing frequency, to post announcements of conferences and the like.  Unless I have some personal connection to the event (in which case it falls under the catch-all "navel-gazing" purpose of this blog, like all others!), I will not post these announcements:  I'm afraid I just don't have the time to process all such requests, nor do I want to get into the business of making editorial judgments about which ones are worthy and which ones not.  Brian Weatherson (Philosophy, Cornell) has come up with a good solution, namely, a Monday Message Board at his blog, where folks can post such announcements.  I encourage philosophers to make use of it.

Will Anyone Have E-Mail Correspondence with Michael Ruse Again... (Leiter)

...after this?  And now The New York Times has picked it up!  What was Professor Ruse thinking in making public a private correspondence with a colleague?

UPDATE:  One up-side of this whole affair:  Dembski says something true for a change, as this blogger notes.

Iraqi death squads for dummies (Wilson)

The director of the Baghdad morgue has fled in fear of his life, after reporting that 7000 people have been killed by death squads in recent months -- and of course those are just those that made it to the morgue after being tortured and executed.  Unclear who's responsible, exactly, but suffice to note that John "Death Squad" Negroponte was recently ambassador to Iraq, and it was just a few months ago that the "Salvadoran" option was openly discussed.

Those unfortunates left behind in Iraq are circulating this horrific document, translated from the Arabic:

Before reading the guidelines, please keep the following facts in mind:

1- The mere fact that you are arrested by security militias would mean possible death or deadly injury, even if you were innocent. Therefore, your main goal should be to escape arrest by any means possible.
2- The phrase "We have a few questions, and you'll be back in an hour" usually means your disappearance for months or, God forbid, your death. Therefore, do not be naive to trust security forces.
3- Remember, your presence in detention means 11 dollars a day for prison officers to feed you; a dollar for your food and 10 for the officers. As a result, keeping you in detention is a guaranteed source of profit for security officers, even if you were innocent.

The following security plan to avoid detention depends on organising neigbourhood watch teams, and in the following manner:

1- Look for trustworthy friends in your area and remind them that your cooperation is vital to save many lives in the neighbourhood.
2- Draw a simple map of your area. Put down the main streets and back alleys that would be used by Interior ministry forces to reach your area. Remember that security patrols will not land on your house from a helicopter, but will instead use main streets leading to your house.
3- You can use Internet services such as Google Earth to identify the streets leading to your area. Download it from http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html
4- Coordinate with your neighbourhood team to watch and to patrol surrounding streets, according to the diagram. This should be around usual raid hours.
5- Exchange landline and cellular phone numbers with your team. Upon noticing a patrol (usually modern 4 wheel drive vehicles with no number plates) entering your area, call to notify neighbours and the rest of your team members.
6- Train your family and friends to be alert to movement in the street, strangers or suspicious activities. Regularly discuss the neighbourhood’s situation with your team members.
7- Every person should be trained on the appropriate method to hide or escape. Learn to hide valuable items and jewelry within minutes of a raid. Remember that all cupboards and drawers will be opened. Beds and blankets will be turned over.

Things to remember:

1- In most occasions, the raiding force is unaware of your identity, until you tell them! Train yourself on impersonating someone else when necessary.
2- It might be a good idea to carry a second ID card, with your own photo but under a different name. Some people have escaped arrest by claiming they were guards with no relation to the family living in the residence.
3- If you are not familiar with your neigbourhood, now is the time to be so. Stay up to date with events and gossip in the area. The murder of your neighbourhood's baker, for example, could lead to the murder of the storeowner next door, as an act of vengeance by security militias. It does not matter if both were innocent.
4- Security militias rarely know you in person. They usually learn your name and address from an informer in your area. It is of the utmost importance to remain alert at all times. Do not enter and leave your residence at known intervals. Do not use the same vehicle if possible. Try to spend a few nights away at friends or relatives.
5- Arrange with your neighbours to place small roadblocks (palm tree trunks) at all entry points to your area. Every extra minute you gain is on your side, and would help you escape more easily.
6- Do NOT resist the raiding force, under any circumstances. Just try to escape capture, using any trick possible. Remember that you know the insides and outsides of your area better than anyone else.
7- Remove anything from your residence or your computer that might be interpreted by the raiding force as related to 'terrorism'. Books, posters, photos, religious leaflets printed in Saudi Arabia, websites, audio and video clips and CDs, even if they are commonly available on the market.
8- Important data on your computer might be lost forever. Use an online storage service to backup your important files, or use a well-hidden flash memory stick, or even your email inbox. If you are forced to destroy your SIM card, you can store your telephone contacts using the same method. Remember that cell phones are almost always stolen during raids. You might endanger your friends and family if security militias confiscate your cell phone.
9- People are commonly arrested and killed because of the surname in their ID cards. If you have a surname that identifies your sectarian background (such as Al-Dulaimi or Al-Janabi), try to issue a new ID with no surname or tribe name if possible. If your birthplace is Ramadi, Fallujah, or Madain, for example, be sure to issue a new ID to keep you safer. Do not drive a vehicle with Al-Anbar number plates in areas of sectarian unrest.

Important guidelines: 

1- Women should arrange to hide valuables such as jewelry, money and important documents as they see fit. The raiding force rarely searches women.
2- Most victims of sectarian killings or torture had specific religious appearances. Try to shave your beard, and avoid behaviour, appearances and discussions that might identify your sectarian background.
3- Before you leave the house, watch for movements and any suspicious vehicles or strangers around you. Do not use the same road often, and try to leave and return at different intervals.
4- If you receive a threat, do NOT ignore it. Move to another area or governorate for some time.
5- Avoid entering sectarian or religious discussions, for whatever reasons, even when you feel you, or your beliefs, are intentionally provoked. Your life is more valuable than a pointless debate.
6- Be respectful and tolerant of your colleagues. Let them feel you are sympathetic and understanding to their feelings. Respect other people’s religious occasions. Close your store or business if necessary. Learn to compliment!
7- Keep the above guidelines in mind all the time. Pass it on to others. Reject sectarianism and remember that all Iraqis of all sects and ethnicities are paying dearly for this.

By the way, did you know that Death Squad has a new job now... as the U.S.'s first Director of National Intelligence?  Sworn in by the Senate 98-2 (Tom Harkin and Ron Wyden the only dissenters).  Sleep tight.

Who is Joe Lieberman? (Hellie)

Joementum, that fool; the DINO who gladly submits to Bush's cheek-pinchings; Gore's VP candidate, Loserman; gleeful accepter of endorsements by the corrupt GOP: who is this familiar figure? As it turns out, he has a long history of slimy bastardness related program activities:

Joe Lieberman works hard at coming across as a nice man. But as veteran of the music business with a long memory, I can say from experience Joe Lieberman has never been a nice man, just a cut-throat practitioner of partisan politics -- with a big smile. He's up for re-election this fall and everyone should be aware that he's done more in his time to promote government censorship and destroy freedom of speech for artists than any politician on the national stage today.

[. . .]

Lieberman started his political career in 1970 by going up against a Democratic Party boss Arthur Barbieri and outwitting him in manipulating elderly voters in Crawford Manor, a government-built retirement community, in an election for Connecticut State Senate in which Lieberman was challenging New Haven Democratic incumbent Ed Marcus. Lieberman recognized that parties no longer deliver all the votes and money needed to win elections. You have to build your own machine based on personal loyalty.

[. . .]

But Lieberman was dealt 2 crucial political defeats before he started his real ascendancy. The party bosses bushwhacked him in a 1978 bid to become Lieutenant Governor and he was defeated in a bid for Congress by a Republican 2 years later. In his self-serving book, IN PRAISE OF PUBLIC LIFE, Lieberman delineates the 3 lessons he took away from that race: to rely on daily tracking polls, to never "let your opponent go negative on you without giving at least as good as you get in return," and, most important, to "never, ever let anyone attack you as a 'high-taxing, big-spending liberal.'" That third one's the one he's based the rest of his career in politics on.

In 1982 he ran for Connecticut Attorney General as a law-and-order candidate inching slightly towards the right and glomming on to an aggressively "pro-family" position that has served him very well. He won. For the next 6 years he marketed himself assiduously to Connecticut citizens. In 1988 he challenged progressive Republican incumbent U.S. Senator Lowell Weicker -- attacking from the right -- and beat him. Lieberman ran a brutal and viciously negative campaign, mocking Weicker personally and even red-baiting him for being soft on Castro (William Buckley formed a PAC to raise money for Lieberman and later Jack Kemp called him "one of us.") Today Lieberman is far more popular in Connecticut with Republicans and with conservatives than he is with Democrats and with progressives, and in 1988 conservatives gave him his small margin of victory over Weicker. Once in the Senate he went even further right and pro-corporate. "He accumulated the most pro-corporate record of any Senate Democrat -- and the millions of campaign dollars that came with them." He joined the DLC and became their president-- before that, the domain of right-leaning Southern Democrats.

This is when Lieberman, like a snake, shed his old skin entirely, discarding the last vestiges of anything vaguely Democratic, and became what he is today: a right-wing demagogue, a really vile politician who belongs in the Republican Party, not the Democratic Party. He made racism quasi-acceptable by framing it as being against unfair affirmative action. An unrelenting homophobe, he joined Jesse Helms' campaign of defamation of gay people and he joined forces with far right extremists like Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed to promote school prayer and voucher programs for religionist schools. And then he got into my own business and my growing hatred for Joe Lieberman turned personal.

The sordid story of Lieberman's key role in the priggishly moralistic censorial group, the PMRC, is then nauseatingly detailed, with this conclusion:

Lieberman destroyed an alliance between young voters and the Democratic Party that had started with John Kennedy's election as he ham-fistedly savaged their culture for his own political ambitions.

In a more recent post, Klein goes into more detail on Lieberman's non-censorship-related activities:

A 2003 piece in the LA Weekly titled "All in all, as Democrat, Lieberman makes a great Republican," takes the bull by the horns when it comes to Lieberman's carefully disguised dog whistle brand of political bigotry:

On gays in the military, Lieberman has enunciated the now-discredited canard that 'homosexual conduct can harm unit cohesion and effectiveness.' (Tell that to the dozens of countries, from England to Israel, that permit openly gay troops in their armed forces.) In fact, Lieberman worked with Georgia's Sam Nunn to fashion the destructive 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, which resulted in escalating expulsions of gays from the military every year after it took effect. Its Catch-22 provisions have directly stimulated a rising wave of violent gay bashing and harassment in the military because victims can't complain without 'telling.'

This is just part of the record that has made Lieberman his party's most notorious theocrat. The Scripture-quoting Lieberman made God-bothering a staple of his 2000 vice-presidential campaign: That August, Holy Joe told a Detroit congregation never to imagine 'that morality can be maintained without religion.' This position was denounced as 'unsettling' by no less than the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith (ADL), which released a letter to him arguing tartly that 'To even suggest that one cannot be a moral person without being a religious person is an affront to many highly ethical citizens.'

Prayer in the schools? Holy Joe lined up with the GOP's religious zealots to push it repeatedly in the Senate. Subsidizing parochial schools at the expense of public education? Holy Joe has sponsored legislation to give parents vouchers to send their kids to parochial schools, draining money from the public schools to which most Americans send their kids. And Lieberman just last year joined with rabid gay basher Rick Santorum -- the Pennsylvania Republican who compared same-sex love to bestiality and incest-- to co-sponsor George Bush's faith-based initiatives, praising Bush's 'leadership' in tearing down the constitutional barrier between church and state.

Right after Gore made the colossal error of naming Lieberman to the Democratic ticket in 2000, Dr. Manning Marable, Director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University, wrote in the Detroit Free Press:

Throughout his twelve years in the U.S. Senate, Lieberman positioned himself on the extreme conservative wing of the Democratic Party. He chairs the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the 'centrist' group of elected officials (including Clinton and Gore) who have aggressively pushed their party toward more conservative public policy positions. On a wide variety of issues, Lieberman is clearly to the right of both Clinton and Gore. On gay rights, for example, in 1994 Lieberman supported an amendment offered by reactionary Republican Senator Jesse Helms, which cut off federal funds to any school district that used educational material that in any way 'supported homosexuality.'

Lieberman, in a tough primary battle against a progressive Democrat who comes off as anything but the Inside-the-Beltway professional pol that Lieberman has become, probably did take offense to my charge that he's a homophobe; anyone who would still use that "some of my best friend are..." line undoubtedly doesn't think they are homophobic. But I really don't know any gay people who could look at his record as outlined above and conclude anything else.

It's somewhat harder to believe that a US Senator, an ostensibly Democratic one, no less, does not know that he's providing an acceptable frame for racism when he says affirmative action is "un-American."

Let me go back to the very learned and distinguished Dr. Marable for a moment:

Lieberman has a long record of hostility toward affirmative action that even his liberal apologists in the Democratic Party cannot hide. Back in 1995, when Lieberman took over the DLC, he declared, 'You can't defend policies that are based on group preferences as opposed to individual opportunities, which is what America has always been about.' Lieberman embraced California's Proposition 209 in 1996, which outlawed affirmative action programs in that state. When President Clinton, after months of hesitation, finally put forward the formulation that affirmative action programs ought to be 'mended, not ended,' Lieberman led the opposition within the Democratic Party. The DLC's Progressive Policy Institute issued a report criticizing Clinton's position, and called for abolishing it for government hiring and contracting, and making it voluntary in private business.

On issues of higher education, Lieberman has again played a conservative role. He was the only Democrat to vote against liberal historian Sheldon Hackney, the President of the University of Pennsylvania, to become head of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He claimed that Hackney was too liberal on campus issues of 'political correctness.' Lieberman then became co-founder of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a five-year-old group that reject ''racial preferences,' opposes 'political correctness,' and defends 'Western civilization.'

(More on the odious ACTA to be found here)

Lieberman and his co-founder, Lynn Cheney, were on a mission. But could he really not realize that these actions played directly into the hands of the bigots of the GOP, giving them cover for their racist agendas? If so, he's the only one.

It didn't fool the NAACP, who gave him a "D" on his voting record, and it didn't fool Jesse Jackson. "We submit to the senator of this state," Jackson roared in 1995 three years before Lieberman's NAACP "D" grade, that we have marched too long, and have died too young. We have been to too many funerals to turn back now! No, Mr. Lieberman, we are moving forward!"

Anyone one who needs further evidence of what could only charitably be referred to as "racial insensitivity" can read the infamous transcript that made many civil rights partisans denounce Lieberman as a racist here (where Lieberman calls affirmative action "un-American.") Former Congressman and NAACP President Kwesi Mfume branded Lieberman as a candidate with "no legitimacy" in the African American community and compared his political capital there to "confederate dollars" after he snubbed an NAACP convention so he could schmooze with Bill O'Reilly on Fox TV.

And Maryland Congressman Albert Wynn, commenting on a subsequent meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus where Lieberman acted the buffoon as he tried to mend fences, said "basically, people were laughing at him."

But the fact that those affiliated with a United States Senator (sorry-- formerly affiliated) became enraged and demanded a retraction about what one lone blogger like myself had to say about them speaks volumes-- Lieberman must indeed be terrified of Ned Lamont. I can well imagine why. Lieberman is still a rabid supporter of an unpopular and disastrous war; his vote helped put a man on the Supreme Court who is now writing love notes to James Dobson, and the man he's running against-- Ned Lamont-- is someone people really believe in, someone I believe in, someone that people are working their butts off for.

So if you would like to help replace a reactionary Bush-lover with a real progressive Democrat, please visit my Act Blue page and be part of the grass roots movement that will add up five, ten and twenty dollars at a time to fight the big money Lieberman will get from all the defense contractors his warmongering has done so much to enrich.

Friday Poem: "Brecht You Would Understand"

Brecht You Would Understand

Brecht you would understand
Why I cannot forgive your country

It is only a little longer
Until the living memories will pass
When the unforgiven will forget
What they were presumed to have done
Their place will be another place
The old grey faces will be gone
And those who watch will scratch and doubt

And you mother
Who did not preach the cause
You would not have minded
Minded very much
That I not forgive my country
Knowing what has been said

Children whose flame is clean and bright
I tell you what you will not like
I would bear witness to all this
But I am witness only to myself
I have not suffered I confess
Have worn the emblems of well-being
In the safety of ordinary threats
My life like a long flirtation
Full of benign diversion

For me especially no forgiveness

The kitchen walls are white
The white floor gleams like a dinner plate
White guilt upon white walls
And on the stove
The pot is black
The kettle black

See what we are

7/6-7/8/95

Copyright 1995 by Maurice Leiter

Posted with permission.

Mask off, mask on (Wilson)

The latest manifestation of the GOP rhetoric-reality gap is too wide even for your typical Republican, but as per usual the facts (see also here and here) that would resolve the seeming inconsistency (and maybe serve as a wake-up call for real people to take back their country) are largely absent from any mainstream reporting:

I watched most of the Sunday talking head shows yesterday, and for the ones I missed I read the reports by my stalwart blogmates. Notable by it’s absence was any mention of administration officials’ financial connections to the Carlyle Group, CSX, Dubai Ports World and the UAE. Even though venerable CNN host Lou Dobbs had thoroughly reported on this last week on his show [see my previous post].

I even watched the Wall Street Journal report with Maria Bartiromo [Rowr! Ciao Bella!] hoping the issue might be raised. No such luck. But during a segment where a writer from the WSJ editorial page and the WSJ’s managing editor proceeded to beat Rep. King about the head over his opposition to the port deal, an intriguing question came up: why would Bush come out and threaten to veto any legislation blocking the deal before the discussion had even really started? The WSJ people were practically tearing their hair out in disbelief. Why would Bush take such a strong stand on something that is, politically, a big fat loser?

Why indeed.  Another thing you can’t talk about on TV is the motives of administration officials.   Why would John Snow tell reporters he had no idea that Dubai Ports World had bought the shipping operations of the company (CSX) he had headed for 20 years for $1.15 billion? Maybe he was too busy to notice since he was nominated to be Treasury Secretary at almost exactly the same time. And of course this would have no connection to the fact that Snow’s Treasury Department approved Dubai Ports World’s recent bid to buy operations at six US ports.

Nothing fishy here, right? As compared to, say, Whitewater? No need for the Press or the Government to investigate the financial dealings of people in the White House. We should all just respect the office of the President.

The Print Media is also silent on the issue.  With the exception of a column by David Lazarus in the San Francisco Chronicle which politely points out that there might be, ahem, a slight appearance of impropriety.

[...]

The pattern that emerges is something like the Duke Cunningham bribery shenanigans on a much larger scale where entities interested in gaining political influence buy assets controlled by politicians for significantly more than they’re worth. The politicians get to “keep the change”, as it were. Or maybe it’s more like the scams in the “Funky Finger Productions” skits on In Living Color: “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money!”

While the Dems and the Corporate Media chase after the White House’s flurry of fake-ass talking points about PortGate (see talk show reports linked above), the giant piggy bank in the middle of the room goes unnnoticed.

Unfortunately, the same is true of most progressive bloggers.  So, for example, Glenn Greenwald's discussion of the ports issue focuses primarily on arguing (against a Repub talking point) that those opposing Dubai World managing the ports are justified since the UAE is anti-Israel.  Whether or not you agree with Greenwald (I don't), all this is besides the point of the real story of the ports: that the Republican national security hysteria is just so much dispensible clothing on the slavering Corporate wolf.

Santa Claus Visits India's Nuclear Arsenal (Edmundson)

Optimism and empty liberality are George W. Bush's tools of choice when problems poke into his bubble.  Problem: record-low popularity and incessant bad press about Iraq, Katrina, Medicare, wiretaps, torture camps, etc., etc.  Solution: traipse overseas to put up headlines like those applying the term "historic" to a nuclear "pact" with India.  Bush got the headlines--momentarily.  But it soon emerged that this deal amounts to little more than a promise to grant India a dispensation from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that it has refused to join most of the rest of the world in signing.  The slapdash giveway threatens to spur a nuclear arms race in Asia.   

Meanwhile, the heavy aerial artillery is rolling back to re-pacify fractious Iraq: when you've got 'em in the sights of your AC-130s, their hearts and minds will follow.

(And did Santa remember to bring something special in his pack for Pakistan?)

Pay your credit card off, raise a terrrr flag (Hellie)

Real Americans don't have enough liquidity to emancipate themselves from debt peonage:

The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522.

And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The Soehnges' behavior was found questionable.

And all they did was pay down their debt. They didn't call a suspected terrorist on their cell phone. They didn't try to sneak a machine gun through customs.

They just paid a hefty chunk of their credit card balance. And they learned how frighteningly wide the net of suspicion has been cast.

After sending in the check, they checked online to see if their account had been duly credited. They learned that the check had arrived, but the amount available for credit on their account hadn't changed.

So Deana Soehnge called the credit-card company. Then Walter called.

"When you mess with my money, I want to know why," he said.

They both learned the same astounding piece of information about the little things that can set the threat sensors to beeping and blinking.

They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted.

Walter called television stations, the American Civil Liberties Union and me. And he went on the Internet to see what he could learn. He learned about changes in something called the Bank Privacy Act.

"The more I'm on, the scarier it gets," he said. "It's scary how easily someone in Homeland Security can get permission to spy."

My private theocracy (Hellie)

Your pizza dollars at work:

If Domino's Pizza founder Thomas S. Monaghan has his way, a new town being built in Florida will be governed according to strict Roman Catholic principles, with no place to get an abortion, pornography or birth control.

The pizza magnate is bankrolling the project with at least $250 million and calls it "God's will."

Civil libertarians say the plan is unconstitutional and are threatening to sue.

The town of Ave Maria is being constructed around Ave Maria University, the first Catholic university to be built in the United States in about 40 years. Both are set to open next year about 25 miles east of Naples in southwestern Florida.

The town and the university, developed in partnership with the Barron Collier Co., an agricultural and real estate business, will be set on 5,000 acres with a European-inspired town center, a massive church and what planners call the largest crucifix in the nation, at nearly 65 feet tall. Monaghan envisions 11,000 homes and 20,000 residents.

During a speech last year at a Catholic men's gathering in Boston, Monaghan said that in his community, stores will not sell pornographic magazines, pharmacies will not carry condoms or birth control pills, and cable television will have no X-rated channels.

[. . .]

"If they attempt to do what he apparently wants to do, the people of Naples and Collier County, Florida, are in for a whole series of legal and constitutional problems and a lot of litigation indefinitely into the future," warned Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

[. . .]

Frances Kissling, president of the liberal Washington-based Catholics for a Free Choice, likened Monaghan's concept to Islamic fundamentalism.

"This is un-American," Kissling said. "I don't think in a democratic society you can have a legally organized township that will seek to have any kind of public service whatsoever and try to restrict the constitutional rights of citizens."

UT Law and Philosophy Program for 2005-06 (Leiter)

The web site has finally been updated, for those who might be interested.

Cash's basement tapes (Wilson)

On the way.

More documents show Bush knew what he claimed not to know (Hellie)

Yesterday, Katrina; today, Iraq. Tomorrow: reports from the treasury warning against ruinous giveaways to the ultrawealthy?

Two highly classified intelligence reports delivered directly to President Bush before the Iraq war cast doubt on key public assertions made by the president, Vice President Cheney, and other administration officials as justifications for invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein, according to records and knowledgeable sources.

The first report, delivered to Bush in early October 2002, was a one-page summary of a National Intelligence Estimate that discussed whether Saddam's procurement of high-strength aluminum tubes was for the purpose of developing a nuclear weapon.

Among other things, the report stated that the Energy Department and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research believed that the tubes were "intended for conventional weapons," a view disagreeing with that of other intelligence agencies, including the CIA, which believed that the tubes were intended for a nuclear bomb.

The disclosure that Bush was informed of the DOE and State dissents is the first evidence that the president himself knew of the sharp debate within the government over the aluminum tubes during the time that he, Cheney, and other members of the Cabinet were citing the tubes as clear evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program. Neither the president nor the vice president told the public about the disagreement among the agencies.

Read the rest: similar stuff on whether Saddam would attack the US (bwah-ha-ha-ha; hm). Liars!

UPDATE: it appears that the recent flurry of revelations has not been due to something special in the March air: rather, "a network and a cable affiliate" had the Katrina tape on hand by 29 August!

Hitting the Grundlegung at 55 MPH (Edmundson)

In a remarkable video, "A Meditation on the Speed Limit," a group of Atlanta-area students asks whether those who observe the posted speed limit act in accordance with a maxim that they can at the same time will to become a universal law.  Billed as "An Extraordinary Act of Public Obediance [sic]," five drivers poke along at 55 mph, side by side, as a plug of frustrated rational beings develops behind them.  Some of the rational beings, unwilling to be treated as anything other than ends in themselves, make vivid their disapproval.  (Thanks to Sean Devetter for the pointer.)

A bribe menu (Hellie)

Former Rep Duke Cunningham:

Prosecutors call it a corruption case with no parallel in the long history of the U.S. Congress. And it keeps getting worse. Convicted Rep. Randall "Duke" Cunningham actually priced the illegal services he provided.

Prices came in the form of a "bribe menu" that detailed how much it would cost contractors to essentially order multimillion-dollar government contracts, according to documents submitted by federal prosecutors for Cunningham's sentencing hearing this Friday.

"The length, breadth and depth of Cunningham's crimes," the sentencing memorandum states, "are unprecedented for a sitting member of Congress."

Prosecutors will ask federal Judge Larry Burns to impose the statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

The sentencing memorandum includes the California Republican's "bribery menu" on one of his congressional note cards, "starkly framed" under the seal of the United States Congress.

The card shows an escalating scale for bribes, starting at $140,000 and a luxury yacht for a $16 million Defense Department contract. Each additional $1 million in contract value required a $50,000 bribe.

The rate dropped to $25,000 per additional million once the contract went above $20 million.

At one point Cunningham was living on a yacht named after him, "The Dukester," docked near Capitol Hill, courtesy of a defense company president.

UPDATE: the actual bribe menu reproduced here. 'Menu' is a bit much -- it's more an inarticulately scrawled description of quid = m*quo + boat.