Iridescent Intelligence

Hillary Clinton and Iraq series: Part 1: Does it matter?

2006-06-18T19:57:00.000-07:00

Introduction to the Hillary Clinton and Iraq series:

This is the beginning of what I hope will be an enlightening series of posts. In this first post I am going to point out why Democrats need her and why it might be a bit unrealistic to worry about her support for the war now that it has already begun. My next post in this series will examine how she came to support the war and why she still supports the war in Iraq. The series may become many posts or it may only need two. Part of the fun of this series will be to find out how complex this issue really is. I started this project when I realized that I did not know the whole story and I wanted to examine for myself whether I truly want to support Hillary as a candidate.

Part 1: Does it matter?

Now that Hillary Clinton is a possible candidate for the democratic ticket, democrats are arguing about her support for the war in Iraq. I find this a bit silly because we are already in the war now. Support for the war is no longer an issue. The issue is whether we can get out of this war with our dignity intact and without destabilizing the middle east. Out of all the runners for presidency, Hillary is the sharpest and most diplomatic. If anyone can get us out of the middle east crisis intact, she can.

She is a talented politician with determination and vigor. She is skilled at the game that is politics. Her ability to survive concentrated criticism and persevere is a trait that few politicians have. She does not let anything drag on her political vehicle. This race is going to need a candidate that can break the status quo and persevere when the cards are stacked against them. The conservative empire of fear is not an easy opponent and I think the democrats are going to need serious firepower to break their hold on the America's hearts and minds.

Conservatism may seem as if it is faltering, but when one looks at the simple issues and political cliches they throw at the American people, the situation looks much grimmer. The reason is that conservatives have it easy as far as issues go. They can throw amendments against gay marriage and abortion at congress to get attention. These plays for attention are highly successful. The news carries these stories for days on end on the front page. Issues like global warming and the scarcity of fossil fuels are not as simple or glamorous. The democrats have a tough job ahead of them because the issues they want to bring to the table are not pretty and they are not always easy to understand. That is why they need a strong candidate that can hurl boulders without breaking a sweat.

I see Hillary as the prime candidate for bringing attention to democratic issues. She would be the first female president and that fact alone gets her enough attention that it could tip the scale in favor of the democrats. The sweet smelling simple justice of the conservatives speaks loudly to voters in this age of terrorism and democrats need a voice that can blow this euphemistic garbage out of the minds of voters. Hillary's blunt truths are needed to pummel the sweet nothings out of the hands of the conservatives. Politics needs to get gritty in 2008 and who would be better at grinding down the competition than Hillary?

My picture

2006-05-14T20:33:00.000-07:00

This is a short post to post my picture for my avatar. I hope you like it, because taking good pictures of me is a chore. I have a very malleable face that is often caught in wierd contortions.

Nano Bacteria?

2006-05-14T19:01:00.000-07:00

Nanobacteria are a tiny life form... Actually that is in debate. What is known is that they are particles that multiply and may cause diseases such as calcified arteries, ovarian cancer, and kidney stones. I would summarize the article further, but it is so involved and interesting that I think you would be much better off reading it for yourself.

I am astounded by this article. Nature has surpassed science fiction once again. It is somewhat funny that the academic community was so busy arguing as to whether this was a new form of life that they forgot to study it and try to figure out its pathology. I am glad that studies are finally being done by reputable institutions.

Arguing about whether something is alive strikes me as a waste of time. When I argued with my biology teacher in ninth grade about whether viruses were alive I felt as if I was having a religious debate. There was a point where the people arguing stop caring about facts and just want to be right. I believe that there may be more than one classification of aliveness. When you see a virus multiply and spread through a population do you really want to say that everyone has been infected by a particle? Mercury particles don't replicate and virus particles do? It sounds odd to me. I am not sure anything that is not a virus even fits into the same group of objects that a virus is in.

Nanobacteria are somewhat similar in that they operate outside the traditional argument of whether they are alive. We do not fully understand what they are, but I am sure they aren't just particles; they replicate. So perhaps we should stop arguing about whether they are alive and just agree that we don't know what they are yet. We can both agree they are a unique piece of natural engineering that deserves its own classification of life. If we don't want to say that viruses and nanobacteria are alive, perhaps we can just say they are quasi-alive. They are in the realm of superposition. They are neither alive nor inanimate.

Another thing to consider is the question, "just what is alive?" The definition of the word alive has the word life in it. Using the scientific definition of life isn't much help because it becomes hard to figure out what exactly how reproduction, metabolism, and response to stimuli apply to a given object. The answer that I find the most useful is this: it is a human concept placed on nature to describe whether an object in question is living or not. Living things are things that we can relate to and feel a kinship with. They are things that we see as having that indescribable spark that give them the quality of being alive. One clear piece of evidence in what I have already said is that the definition tends to go around and around. It becomes an interpretative dance that people can disagree or agree with. It is an opinion.

I understand how hard it is to classify things because I have no IQ due to special circumstances and I also am in the PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified) part of the autism spectrum. My test results baffled the people giving the tests. If the test says I have no IQ how can I write this blog? Well it is because I am Quasi-smart.