Malvolio

File under "Duh"

2005-12-20T16:23:00.000-05:00

Subfile under "Obvious, Restating the", along with "East, Sun rises in"; "West, Sun sets in"; "Sun, Earth revolves around"; and Monsieur Jourdain, a character in Moliere's The Bourgeois Gentleman, who discovers that he has been speaking prose all his life and didn't even know it.

Judge rules against ‘intelligent design’
'Religious alternative' to evolution cannot be taught in public school classes

HARRISBURG, Pa. - In one of the biggest courtroom clashes between faith and evolution since the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, a federal judge barred a Pennsylvania public school district Tuesday from teaching “intelligent design” in biology class, saying the concept is creationism in disguise.

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones delivered a stinging attack on the Dover Area School Board, saying its first-in-the-nation decision in October 2004 to insert intelligent design into the science curriculum violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

The ruling was a major setback to the intelligent design movement, which is also waging battles in Georgia and Kansas. Intelligent design holds that living organisms are so complex that they must have been created by some kind of higher force.

Jones decried the “breathtaking inanity” of the Dover policy and accused several board members of lying to conceal their true motive, which he said was to promote religion.

A six-week trial over the issue yielded “overwhelming evidence” establishing that intelligent design “is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory,” said Jones, a Republican and a churchgoer appointed to the federal bench three years ago.

The school system said it will probably not appeal the ruling, because the members who backed intelligent design were ousted in November’s elections and replaced with a new slate opposed to the policy.

"Breathtaking inanity" - I like that. That's the new label for the "ID" crowd.

Time for a new Marbury vs Madison

2005-12-19T02:59:00.000-05:00

We need someone to litigate Bush's claim that he can basically do anything he wants. We need someone to take this to the Supreme Court as quickly as possible.

Of course, I realize that with the Court packed with right-wingers, there is the danger that they will endorse Bush's power-grab. But since that grab effectively vitiates the Supreme Court (along with Congress) as equal branches of government, perhaps they will turn on their master and declare what the Republic has believed for 218 years - that in this country, the Constitution rules and everybody has to obey it - even Boy Kings.

Imagine the message an 8-0 ruling would send (we need to expedite this without waiting for Alito to be confirmed). Imagine the country's outrage if Bush vowed to disobey a unanimous Court ruling. Imagine the fury if he promised to follow it but then just went ahead as he always does and did whatever damn thing he wanted.

It's time the Court reasserted itself and its primacy as the balancer between Legislature and Executive. It's time Bush was reminded that he is merely an elected official. It's time for us to be America again.

AIEEEEEEEEE!!!

2005-12-18T16:48:00.000-05:00

I was just watching Washington-Dallas on God's Own Network (aka FOX), and what do I see? A scoreboard card that wished me - brace yourselves, you're not going to believe this - "Happy Holidays"!

No lie! Rupert Murdoch must be spinning in his grave.

Obviously those pesky secular Christmas-haters have hijacked FOX's graphics department and substituted their filthy "Happy Holidays" for the decent, moral, Christian, American "Merry Christmas" that FOX no doubt had originally created and quite properly and decently intended to be displayed. I'm sure as soon as George W. Bush hears about this, he will take immediate steps to correct this horrible outrage and send the perpetrators to be tortured in Egypt like they deserve.

But it's too late for me. The instant my eyes beheld that foul, false, flimsy message - I've gone blind! My vision is impaired! I cannot see! Oh the humanity! They've gone too far this time, those rotten evil secularizers and their hatred for the Little Baby Jesus and George W. Bush His Only Prophet and Ordained Imperial Most Christian Majesty on Earth. They have to be stopped before another innocent beholds their evil attempt at the kind of ecumenicism that you'd think would be de rigeur in a vastly multiethnic, multicultural, democratic society. And suffers my cruel fate.

It's too late for me. But it's not too late for you. If you're reading this, then you have escaped the secularizationizers' deceit and sorcery. Warn the nation! Warn the world! Warn FOX that its graphics department is in the hands of cosmopolitan, internationalist, secularisticators who will stop at nothing to destroy the the Little Baby Jesus and George W. Bush His Only Prophet and Ordained Imperial Most Christian Majesty on Earth.

Don't let this happen to you and your loved ones! I can't get back my sight, but you can salvage yours. Forewarned is forearmed. Destroy your TV set so you won't be exposed to any risk of the filthy, false, flimsy prophecy of moral relativism. (Then you can go out to Best Buy and charge that big-screen set you've always wanted. It's okay. God has seen into your heart and wants you to go ever deeper into debt to save our American Way of Life and Shopping.)

Guard your vision! Don't suffer my cruel fate! Don't let the evil secularators take away your God-given right to hear only "Merry Christmas" from the $8.64/hour help at Walmart! Don't let them force their moral relativism down your pure, innocent, decent, David Brooks-approved heartland values! It's your only hope! To arms! To arms! Man the gates! Flood the moat! Raise the drawbridge! Speak in tongues! Don't let the rootless cosmopolitan internationalist Bilderburgers complete their fell task! Save yourselves and our beloved God Bless America! Now is the time! This is the place! Climb every mountain! Ford every stream! Buy American! USA! USA! We're Number 1! We're Number 1! Oh beautiful for spacious skies! I enjoy being a girl! O come all ye faithful! God rest ye merry gentlemen! Good King Wenceslas! God bless us, each and every one! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Merry -

Wait.

I'm Jewish.

Never mind.

(Any resemblance between this gentle homily and a Fafblog! post is purely intentional on my part. How'd I do?)

Don't count on Bush being forced to answer for his crimes

2005-12-18T10:17:00.000-05:00

Even among his many critics, there seems to be little sense that what Bush said yesterday supposedly in defense of his illegal wiretapping raises more questions than it answers.

In Address, Bush Says He Ordered Domestic Spying

:::snip:::

In his statement on Saturday, Mr. Bush did not address the main question directed at him by some members of Congress on Friday: why he felt it necessary to circumvent the system established under current law, which allows the president to seek emergency warrants, in secret, from the court that oversees intelligence operations. His critics said that under that law, the administration could have obtained the same information.

I guarantee you, Bush will never be forced to answer this question. Even Republicans in Congress who feel uneasy about his outrageous lawbreaking will nevertheless close ranks around the leader of their party (and his pet president).

On the other hand, if Bush ever is forced to respond on this issue – if his Republican subjects turn on their monarch and commit the ultimate lese majeste, it will be a sign of hope for our country. But don’t bet the Constitution on this ever happening.

The president said on Saturday that he acted in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks because the United States had failed to detect communications that might have tipped them off to the plot. He said that two of the hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon, Nawaf al-Hamzi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, "communicated while they were in the United States to other members of Al Qaeda who were overseas. But we didn't know they were here, until it was too late."

In response, I have 7 words: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” If stopping terrorists is so important that it merits Bush seizing absolute power, then why couldn’t he be bothered to read a brief goddamned memo?

Don’t expect anyone to press him for an answer on this either. Wouldn’t want to get him angry.

The "War on Christmas" crybabies go completely mental

2005-12-18T07:21:00.000-05:00

Whine whine whine. (The "war on Christmas" crybabies, I mean, not the Jews.)

US Jews Feel Threatened by Religious Right

:::snip:::

Mathew (cq) Staver, general counsel of the Florida-based Liberty Counsel, a group which backs conservative Christian causes in court and which has been particularly active in Christmas-related issues, says "there is absolutely no effort that I'm aware of to theocratize America or put down other faiths to expand Christianity."

He credits the increased activity surrounding Christmas issues this year to three years of building an organization over the matter.

"People have said enough is enough," he said, citing such incidents as naming Boston's Christmas tree a "holiday tree" and the publication of a sales catalog by a major retailer which featured Kwanza and Hanukkah gifts but made no mention of Christmas.

Wow. Compared to that horror, Auschwitz is nothing more than...Auschwitz.

President George W. Bush, who describes himself as a born-again Christian, also faced criticism recently for sending out cards wishing people a happy "holiday" season.

"This clearly demonstrates that the Bush administration has suffered a loss of will and that they have capitulated to the worst elements in our culture," William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights told the Washington Post.

Poor little Bush. Utterly helpless against the mighty Jews, who constitute an overwhelming and unstoppable 2% of the population.

Once again, Bush's supporters and enablers show themselves completely incapable of blaming him directly for anything - no matter what he does, if they like it, he gets the credit, and if they don't like it - they twist themselves into Moebius strips to blame someone else. No wonder he thinks he's infallible - his supporters keep telling him that he is. It's an intoxicating drug to Bush, and people like Donohue are the pushers.

This is rich, even for Bush

2005-12-17T23:16:00.000-05:00

Talk about biting the hand that fed you!

Bush attacks paper for jeopardizing national security

In acknowledging the message was true, President Bush took aim at the messenger Saturday, saying that The New York Times jeopardized national security by revealing that he authorized wiretaps on U.S. citizens after September 11. The president said he allowed the NSA "to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda." Publishing details of the program "damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk," Bush said.

Bush is angry at the New York Times - which, if it were still the courageous newspaper of the 1970s - when it published the Pentagon Papers despite Nixon's arguments that doing so would jeopardize national security - sound familiar? - would have published this story when it first got it over a year ago, possibly dooming Bush's re-election. Bush owes his second term to the Times's cowardice. Now that they finally got at least some of their guts back, is he in the least bit thankful for their unwarranted year-long forbearance? Of course not. Spoiled brats are never grateful, since they take their privilege for granted. They earned it, dammit.

Friday Blog Blogging: All I want for Chrismukwanzakah is to be able to write as well as TBogg

2005-12-16T16:25:00.000-05:00

That's not too much to ask, is it?

More casualties of the cultural war.

Now we don't expect that Brokeback will come anywhere near Narnia bucks (particularly since there has been little interest by Burger King or McDonalds with regard to including Jack and Ennis action-figures with every kids meal) but it's still pretty early in the game.

I'll be expecting some TBogg juice in my Chanukah stocking, thank you very much Harry Hanukkah.

Let my people...not be like everyone else. Please

2005-12-16T16:01:00.000-05:00

I know Heinrich Heine wrote, “The Jews are like those among whom they live – only more so.” But do we have to keep proving him right?

A Happy Hipster Hanukkah

"HELLOOOOOOOO Jews!" the M.C. shouted to the 1,000 or so people sipping drinks and jostling elbows in the hazy purple light of Crobar, the Chelsea club, on Sunday evening. Disco balls twinkled. Electric menorahs glowed. In the candlelighted V.I.P. area, people bit into chocolate Hanukkah gelt. From a stage on the dance floor Rachel Dratch of "Saturday Night Live" bemoaned being Jewish at Christmastime, and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, the foul-mouthed puppet, belted out a joyous rendition of "Shalom Aleichem." It was not long before people were waving their arms above their heads and lobbing inflatable dreidels through the air like beach balls.

There was a name for this merriment: "A Jewcy Chanukah," a freewheeling celebration of the holiday produced by Jewcy, a group that brings together young Jews through celebrity-filled events. (Proceeds from Sunday night went to Natan, a philanthropic organization that supports projects that engage young Jews in their religion and heritage.) At the end of the evening, which included performances by the rocker Perry Farrell and the cast of "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," Jon Steingart, a founder of Jewcy, peered down at the packed dance floor. "This," he said, "bodes very well."

"A Jewcy Chanukah" is but one of many kitschy celebrations that in the past few years have made comedy as much a part of Hanukkah as latkes and sour cream. The irreverent and sometimes R-rated Hanukkah productions, popping up during what many people have called a Jewish hipster moment, are largely a reaction to what many Jews say is an overwhelming amount of Christmas hoopla. Their humor-laden productions attract thousands of young Jews (some of whom have never gravitated toward their own culture before) and, perhaps inadvertently, raise the question of what it means to be Jewish.

:::snip:::

Over the last three years more and more young Jews have been flaunting their heritage, donning T-shirts that proclaim their Semitic roots, listening to the Hasidic reggae singer Matisyahu and climbing onto the celebrity-driven kabbalah bandwagon. And though many occupy the same Lower East Side walk-ups that their grandparents once did, they are not interested in quietly assimilating. They identify more with the cultural trappings of Judaism - the music, the cuisine, the humor - than with the teachings of the Torah.

"We ourselves are less observant Jews, but we are still very culturally Jewish," Mr. Steingart of Jewcy said. The comedian Rebecca Drysdale is of like mind. "My connection with being Jewish is not a religious one," she said. "It's cultural."

Mr. Neuman explained: "There's this emerging sense of new Jewish culture that is self-consciously postdenominational and largely devoid of religious context."

But would it be too much to ask that they also identify with the prophetic Jewish tradition, the one that equates “charity” with “justice” and demands “Justice, justice you shall pursue”? There’s nothing wrong with fun, but there’s a lot more to being Jewish than just going to a hot Chanukah party or pretending to know something about kabala. Hillel wrote, 2000 years ago, “If I am not for myself, who shall be for me. But if I am only for myself, then who am I?”

Our ancestors spent those 2000 years suffering and dying and persevering so that we could still be Jews today. I myself am only mildly religious, but I make up for my lack of that kind of fervor with a passionate devotion to social justice. To me, that’s as Jewish as davening 3 times a day, and certainly more so than thinking that it’s enough to eat latkes one week a year. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. (Well, actually, there is – I want to eat latkes 52 weeks a year.)

Don’t want to go to shul? Fine. But why not volunteer at American Jewish World Service or donate to Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger. You can feel Jewish and at the same time actually be Jewish. What’s not to like?

In other words, we never tortured and we'll never do it again

2005-12-16T09:56:00.000-05:00

We're going to restore this country's image no matter what George W. Bush thinks!

President Backs McCain Measure on Inmate Abuse

Under intense bipartisan Congressional pressure, President Bush reversed course on Thursday and reluctantly backed Senator John McCain's call for a law banning cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners in American custody.

A day after the House overwhelmingly endorsed Mr. McCain's measure, the White House took a deal that the senator had been offering for weeks as way to end the legislative impasse, essentially giving intelligence operatives the same legal defense afforded military interrogators who are accused of violating the regulations.

For Mr. Bush, it was a stinging defeat, considering that his party controls both houses of Congress and both chambers had defied his threatened veto to support Mr. McCain's measure resoundingly. It was a particularly significant setback for Vice President Dick Cheney, who since July has led the administration's fight to defeat the amendment or at least exempt the Central Intelligence Agency from its provisions.

Mr. McCain's measure would establish the Army Field Manual as the uniform standard for the interrogation of prisoners and ban the kind of abusive treatment of prisoners that was revealed in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq.

"We've sent a message to the world that the United States is not like the terrorists," Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, said as he sat next to Mr. Bush in the Oval Office. "What we are is a nation that upholds values and standards of behavior and treatment of all people no matter how evil or bad they are."

Mr. Bush sought to make the best of an awkward political situation by inviting Mr. McCain, his longtime political rival and the nation's most famous former prisoner of war, to the White House to thank him for a measure that the president had opposed for months as Congressional meddling.

On Thursday Mr. Bush said it was important legislation "to achieve a common objective: that is to make it clear to the world that this government does not torture."

So why did you oppose it so strongly for so long?

Good source of information on the Cory Maye case

2005-12-15T21:09:00.000-05:00

The Agitator

In case you haven't been following the case, Cory Maye is the Mississippi man on death row for shooting a police officer who was part of a group of cops who broke into his house at night mistakenly searching for a drug dealer living in the other half of the house. He was convicted of second degree murder.

The Maye Case So Far (Note to Bloggers: Here's the Latest, Most Accurate Summary Post)

As I mentioned before, I've been posting on the fly with this story, while trying to correct and clarify along the way. While blogland has been almost universally supportive of Maye, a few blogs and comments on blogs have noted that inaccuracies are being perpetuated. This is in part my fault, and in part due to the fact that the blogosphere sometimes functions like an enormous game of "telephone." As for the part that's my fault: My firsts posts on the Maye case were summaries, in which I collected information from media reports (which I've noted were sometimes contradictory) and from my conversations with Maye's first attorney, who hadn't been on the case in nearly two years. I don't regret putting up those posts, inaccuracies and all, because they're what put this case into public discussion. Only after those posts went up, and particularly after some PR help from Glenn Reynolds, for example, did folks in Mississippi start returning my calls.

But I don't want this to be a case of blogs running amok with foggy details. I think Maye ought to be exonerated on the facts. So before I go on with new information, I'd like to put up a post that aims to keep everyone on the same page.

Let's start with misconceptions, inaccuracies, and clarifications.

# The narcotics task force did have a warrant for Cory Maye's apartment. I first reported that police assumed the entire duplex to be one residence. That wasn't accurate. However, Cory Maye isn't listed anywhere on the warrants by name. Only his residence is listed, and Maye is refered to as "person(s) uknown."

# Maye was not convicted by an all white jury. Two black women sat on the jury that convicted him. The remainder of the jury was white.

# The question of whether or not this was a "no-knock" raid is tricky. The warrant itself didn't specifically allow for a no-knock entry. But courts have generally found that police can, at the scene, decide to conduct a no-knock in spite of the warrant if (a) they believe the suspect may destroy important evidence, and/or (b) if they believe announcing themselves would endanger their own safety. There's also the matter that this raid was conducted late at night. An announcement when the suspect is likely to be asleep, and unable to hear, isn't much different than not announcing at all. The police who conducted the raid insist they knocked and announced themselves. Maye maintains that they didn't. I've suggested that the bulk of the evidence in this case favors Maye's account of the raid.

Let's move on to the facts.

Facts Not in Dispute

# A local narcotics task force conducted a drug raid on the Prentiss, Mississippi duplex apartments of Jamie Smith and Cory Maye on December 26, 2001.

# Smith was arrested without incident. Significant quantities of marijuana were found in his home. Both Maye's current and former attorneys say Smith was never charged for drug possession or distribution. District Attorney McDonald says he doesn't remember Smith being charged or convicted. Maye was never charged with a drug crime. So the only criminal charge of any kind to come out of this raid was the murder charge against Maye.

# Police executed the warrant on Maye's home sometime after 11pm. They first attempted to enter through his front door, then went around to the back. Maye was in his bedroom with his 18-month old daughter when the door was forced open by a cop other than Officer Jones. Officer Ron Jones was the first one to enter Maye's apartment. Maye fired three times. One bullet struck Jones, and killed him.

# Jones was not a regular member of the narcotics task force. He was a K9 officer for the Prentiss police department.

# At the time of his death, Jones was the son of the Prentiss, Mississippi police chief. Chief Jones is now retired.

# Maye is black. Jones was white.

# Jones was armed when he entered Maye's apartment, but his gun was holstered.

# Maye fired three times in rapid succession. After the third shot, the remaining members of the task force shouted "police!" and entered the apartment. At this point, Maye dropped his gun, put up his hands, and surrendered.

# Maye had no criminal history, no history of violence, and no prior drug arrests -- not even misdemeanors.

# The search warrants and affidavits list Jamie Wilson by name, and refer to him as a "known drug dealer." There was also a warrant for a search of Maye's home, but it didn't list Maye by name. None of the affidavits or warrants mention Maye by name.

# The only direct evidence in favor of a search warrant against Maye seems to be a confidential informant's tip to the investigating officer that a "large amount" of marijuana was being stored in Maye's apartment 24 hours before the raid. The officer also says he saw considerable traffic coming to and from the duplex at unusual hours.

# Immediately after the raid, police first said they found no drugs in Maye's apartment. Days later, they say they found a small bag of "allegedly marijuana," and three pieces of a burnt cigar, also containing "allegedly marijuana."

# Officer Ron Jones, the one who was killed, was also the sole officer who conducted the investigation that led to the raids.

# Because of this, we'll never know the details of his investigation. Nor will we learn the identity of his confidential informant. Jones apparently kept no records of his investigation into Maye or Smith. According to DA Buddy McDonald, all record of the investigation "died with Officer Jones."

# Nevertheless, judging by the information included in the warrant affidavits, it appears Jones made no effort to identify Maye, to make a controlled drug buy from Maye to corroborate the informant's story, or to do a criminal background check on Maye. In fact, there's no evidence that Jones knew the identify of the person occupying Maye's apartment.

# The gun Maye used to shoot Jones was stolen, though by all indications, it wasn't stolen by Maye. Maye says he got the gun from a friend. Documents show that the gun was stolen in Natchez, 100 miles from Prentiss, at least a year prior to the raid on Maye's home. The trial judge deemed the fact that the gun was stolen to be prejudicial, and withheld it from the jury.

Facts in Dispute:

# Whether or not the narcotics task force sufficiently announced themselves and gave Maye time to peacefully answer the door before forcing entry.

# Where the drugs in Maye's apartment came from.

# Why the times listed on the evidence sheets for both Maye and Smith's apartments were repeatedly scribbled out. Why Maye's sheet lists no exact time the evidence was collected. Why the evidence in Smith's apartment was collected on the 26th, immediately after the raid, while the evidence in Maye's was apparently collected at 5:20am the next day (though again, that time was the last of three times entered, the first two being scribbled out to the point of being illegible).

# The legitimacy of the warrant for Maye's residence. It appears to have been issued solely on the word of a confidential informant, who says he spotted marijuana in the apartment. If the warrant was illegitimate, police should never have broken down Maye's door. If it was legitimate, they'd still have to have clearly announced themselves, and given Maye time to answer the door, for him to be guilty of capital murder.

# According to Maye's first attorney, two jurors told her after trial that Maye was convicted because (1) jurors resented Maye's attorney for suggesting in her closing argument that God would remember whether or not they'd shown Maye mercy when it came time for their judgment day, and (2) the didn't like Maye's upbringing -- they found him to be spoiled and disrespectful.

Maye's Dirty Laundry

Because I think Maye is innocent on the facts, I've hunted around for anything that could prove damaging to his cause. Here's what I've found:

# The stolen gun mentioned above.

# In addition to the 18-month old child Maye had with his girlfriend at the time of the raid, he has another child with another woman.

# Maye was unemployed at the time of the raid. While some might take this as evidence that Maye was dealing, keep in mind that Maye had only recently moved out of his parents home. He and his girlfriend had been renting the duplex apartment for less than two months, and according to his first attorney, had actually occupied it for only a few weeks at the time of the raid. In other words, I don't think Maye had been unemployed and out on his own long enough for those facts to be taken as support for the theory that Maye was supporting himself by dealing marijuana.

I'm wondering why the guy wasn't convicted of manslaughter - he obviously had no intention of committing murder. And a decent attorney might even have been able to successfully plead self-defense. But - Mississippi, dead white cop, black killer - you do the math.

Okay, this one wins

2005-12-15T19:31:00.000-05:00

The coveted "Making Fun of Right Wing Morons" Award.

waronchristmas@johngibson.com

Dear Mr. Gibson,

I noticed when visiting the FoxNews Website, as I do every day, looking for inspirational words from Brian Kilmeade; that you have established a real, live, email address where good Americans can report, in your words, "Christmas outrages".

I work in a moderately sized midwestern city. I never thought I'd be writing you, but the other day a true outrage occurred. I was at "Romantix: The Erotic Video Store" looking to buy some festive Christmas Erotica, like Santa's Sluts and "I Saw Mommy Eating Santa Claus". As I paid my "browsing fee", I noticed above the till it wished shoppers, "HAPPY HOLIDAYS".

I asked the person behind the till, while still avoiding eye-contact, why they were not wishing their patrons a Merry Christmas?

"What", I asked him, "would Jesus do?"

His mouth opened slightly more, and I saw his non-patched eye open wider. It was clear that he was surprised. Yet he was non-responsive. Such was his shame that it took him several seconds to properly give me five-dollars in quarters.

I continued my perusing of the wares of the store with a noticeable harrumph. There were virtually no creches at all, except for one cardboard cut out of Jenna Jameson on her knees surrounded by three wise men standing around giving her their gifts but it wasn't gold, francesence or myrrh. Well, maybe myrrh. And the donkey seemed like it didn't want to be there.

The dildos were not even arranged with colorful green and red garland.

It was an outrage. Why are our nation's pornographers so cavalier about giving recognition to Christ while selling their material? Jesus is the reason for the season, the thrill of the holiday should arise in all manner of places, especially your pants.

I thought you would like to know so you can help end this outrage.

Merry Christmas,

Atta J. Turk

Reminds me of a joke: New sales clerk in a porn store. Customer enters, asks the price of the dildos. The clerk replies, "The small pink ones are $10 and the big pink ones are $15." Customer asks, "How much for that big plaid one up there?" The clerk thinks for a second and says, "Oh, $25." The customer pays and leaves. The store owner comes back and asks, "What did you sell while I was out?" The clerk answers, "Four dildos and a Thermos."

US can't get a break

2005-12-09T21:40:00.000-05:00

Italy, Ghana and the Czech Republic. That's who the US Men's National Soccer Team has to face in the 2006 World Cup next summer in Germany. A tough draw, perhaps the toughest of the 8 groups. We play the Czechs June 12 in Gelsenkirchen, Italy on June 17 at Kaiserslautern, and Ghana on June 22 in Nuremberg. Only the top 2 in each group advance to the second round. In 2002 in South Korea, the United States had its best ever performance in a World Cup, beating Mexico (yes!) in the second round and just barely losing to Germany in the quarter-finals (after outplaying them).

Anything less this next time will be considered not only a disappointment but a major setback. Hell, it will be a major setback. It's hard to get ESPN, et al., interested in soccer. When the US does well, especially at the quadrennial World Cup, some of the usual suspects among the soccerphobes may at least take some brief notice. When we crash out, as we did in 1998, they can go back to their accustomed soccer-bashing, and no amount of attempting to explain about "Groups of Death" will make any difference.

That said, the US has made itself one of the stronger nations in world soccer; perhaps not strong enough to win, but if we can't at least finish second in this group, we will deserve whatever lumps we take.

I have a lot of faith in Bruce Arena's ability to identify guys who can really play at international level and get them to play hard and together. It will be interesting to see what friendlies he lines up next year to prepare his team. Usually you try to find teams similar to those you will play who did not qualify for the finals. I don't know who is similar to our three opponents, but US Soccer is doubtless even now discussing the problem.

Anyway, now we know who we have to play. It's time to start getting ready! Ole ole ole!

Friday Blog Blogging: Give Till It Helps

2005-12-09T16:00:00.000-05:00

From Altercation:

Name: Stupid
Hometown: Chicago

Hey Eric, it’s Stupid to learn from the mistakes of others. But first, in response to Kimberley Morgan’s request, I have set up a PayPal account if anyone wants to contribute to Major Bateman’s effort to supply Iraqi schools with basic materials. The address is IraqSchools@hotmail.com – be sure to send a message or an e-mail to give me a heads-up so I’m sure the funds were sent, where the soldiers can write you, etc. This isn’t to discourage anyone from buying and sending stuff themselves – as I wrote, you’ll enjoy the process – but if time is tight or all the places around you are pricey, here’s an alternative.

This is about as good a cause as I can think of right now. Please give. Let's try to salvage something decent out of the total mess we've made in Iraq.

Only half the problem

2005-12-05T13:50:00.000-05:00

And I wish the experts, pundits and press would start mentioning the other half.

What Would J.F.K. Have Done?

By THEODORE C. SORENSEN and ARTHUR SCHLESINGER Jr.

The responsibility for devising an exit plan rests primarily not with the war's opponents, but with the president who hastily launched a pre-emptive invasion without enough troops to secure Iraq's borders and arsenals, without enough armor to protect our forces, without enough allied support and without adequate plans for either a secure occupation or a timely exit.

The other half of the problem is that, not only did Bush launch "a pre-emptive invasion without enough troops to secure Iraq's borders and arsenals, without enough armor to protect our forces, without enough allied support and without adequate plans for either a secure occupation or a timely exit", he did it despite being warned in advance that he was launching his invasion without enough troops, armor, or plans.

How many times do we have to point this out? It's not like all the (countless and horrifying) problems in Iraq are or should be considered a surprise. Every single one was predicted by prominent critics, who were dismissed almost out of hand. Some, like Gen. Shinseki, had their careers destroyed by the Boy King Putz in the White House for daring to publicly gainsay His Omniscientness.

Anyway, just because Bush was caught with his pants down is no reason for everyone else to pretend they were, too - in fact, it's even more reason to castigate Bush - after all, he's not just everyone else - he's The Man, with the ultimate responsibility. He can't be permitted to get away with pretending he didn't know that he didn't have enough troops and those troops didn't have enough armor. Didn't care, yes; didn't know, not possible.

Oh, and he also lied about the WMD, in order to get us into his disastrous, unnecessary war in the first place. But we can hardly expect the press - which served as Bush's pre-war cheerleaders - to have the honesty, decency and guts to admit that they facilitated this disastrous war based on a lie they helped spread.

"10 Things I Wish Conservatives Would Learn from the Rest of Us"

2005-12-04T10:26:00.000-05:00

Not that conservatives are actually capable of learning anything…

Pay particular attention to items 2 & 3, class.

Conservatives could learn a thing or 10

Hey, guys, are you reading? Here are lessons from liberals.

By Chris Satullo

Last week, I gratefully listed 10 lessons I've learned over the years from conservatives.

This week, as promised, I'll try to return the favor with "10 Things I Wish Conservatives Would Learn from the Rest of Us."

1. There are more of us than there are of you. Conservatives often conclude from their electoral successes - which hinge on ruthless tactical flair - that they form a dominant majority in America. They do not. Conservatives constitute, at best, a third of the electorate. If you combine the number of voters in the 2004 National Election Study who identified themselves as liberal or moderate, the "rest of us" amounts to 66 percent.

2. All taxation is not theft. Vehement dislike of taxes has been part of the national DNA from 1776 on. But talk-show rants about taxation as thievery are about as logical as expecting McDonald's to give you a free Big Mac, or your car dealer to ship you a free Accord. Taxes are the fee we pay for the many goods and services government provides - from picking up our garbage to protecting us from terrorist attack. It's always fair to question whether you're getting the quality that your taxes should buy. But it's crazy to expect the price of government never to grow.

3. And it's not really your money, by the way. That childish mantra of the tax cutter reminds me of a toddler who is lifted to the basketball hoop by his father, drops the ball through, and exults, "I made a dunk!" Take out your wallet; look at that dollar bill. Whose name is on it? Not yours; the nation's. What value would that slip of paper have without the vast, stable network of rules and procedures upheld by government? Not much. In America (unlike, say, Russia or Iraq), this network is so reliable that some seem to forget it's there. But it is vital, and taxes are the tithe we pay to maintain it.

4. When it comes to government, the magic adjective isn't "small"; it's "effective." A famous line attributed to conservative power broker Grover Norquist describes his movement's goal as "to shrink the size of federal government to the point where we can drown it in the bathtub." As charming as that metaphor is, conservative politicians don't trumpet it when running for election. They just chant about "waste, fraud and abuse." Once they win, and pursue the bathtub project, the middle class yelps, "Wait a minute! Don't cut my programs. Just cut that waste and abuse." If "small" government means being as criminally inept as FEMA was during Katrina, then the bulk of Americans want no part of small government.

5. We want our air and water clean. Businesses will always whine about regulation. By all means streamline clunky rules. But taking care of your own wastes is basic corporate hygiene, a core cost of doing business. Businesses always yearn to "externalize" costs, i.e. pawn them off on the rest of us. This yen need not be indulged. Hey, I'd love to dump the debris from my home-improvement project in your backyard rather than pay to haul it away, but you'd never let me get away with that, right?

6. Campaign cash is the root of too much evil. George Will can intone all he wants about how the First Amendment guarantees the free-speech rights of filthy-rich individuals and corporations. But it's clear to the rest of us that the corrupt way we pay for elections corrodes democracy and citizenship. That can't be what James Madison had in mind.

7. We're living in 2005, not 1787. Here are a few of the contemporary issues for the courts that the Framers could not possibly have imagined: al-Qaeda, the Internet, genetic screening, high-tech surveillance, Howard Stern. The Constitution is a precious guide, but as a North Star to navigate by, not a MapQuest spitting out precise directions.

8. Some of the rest of us read the Bible, too. Millions of Americans who revere Scripture draw very different political guidance from it than evangelical conservatives do. It smacks of the sin of presumption to assert that anyone who disagrees with you on a political issue must be godless, sinful and a dupe of the devil.

9. Charities can't do it all. Just ask any of the quiet heroes who work on the front lines of need. The challenges they face are far beyond their capacity. Charities need government to be a generous, competent and reliable partner.

10. If you're born on third, you did not hit a triple. Liberals too often ignore the degree to which the bad choices people make compound their problems. But conservatives are too eager to ignore the role that luck plays in success, and to equate wealth with virtue. By luck, I don't mean winning the lottery. I mean being born in the Radnor school district instead of in Chester Upland, or having a parent who went to Penn, rather than one who went to Graterford.

Based on the Gospels I read, the last thing Christians should do is to lock in the luck of the fortunate and leave the unlucky to their own devices.

I’d also point out that, except for fortunate sons such as George W. Bush, most rich people would not rich but for their education. Harvard Law School graduates, Wharton graduates, Yale Medical School graduates – what do they all have in common? “Graduates”. People who went to Princeton, Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Michigan, UT Austin, the University of Chicago – they didn’t build those schools, did they? No, they benefited from previous generations’ generosity. There’s no way they can that back. All they can do is pay it forward. No matter how brilliant they are, no matter how hard they worked, they owe at least part of their success to someone. For them to pretend, to attempt to delude us (and themselves) that they achieved it all on their own is not only mistaken, it is offensive. It is sinful, a lie, an immoral self-deification. All of us are dependent on others, and conservatives should recognize this. As we were helped when we needed it, we are morally obligated to offer unquestioning, ungrudging generosity to others who need help.

To which conservatives can only bleat, “No, mine! Mine mine mine! All mine!”

The return of Friday Blog Blogging!

2005-12-02T14:26:00.000-05:00

Yes, after months of estivation (and whatever you call sleeping through autumn), Friday Blog Blogging is back! (I know how much all of you missed it. Sorry.)

From TAPPED:

PROGRESSIVES AND WAL-MART: PART 1. A couple weeks back, The Center for American Progress hosted a forum on Wal-Mart's impact on the American economy. Standard stuff, except this one brought together opposing viewpoints on Wal-Mart from within the progressive family. Jason Furman's paper (PDF) arguing that Wal-Mart represents a progressive success story has attracted the most attention, with The New York Times' John Tierney and The Washington Post's Sebastian Mallaby both devoting columns to it. Their pieces, sadly, were depressingly standard-issue affairs, hackish attempts to pummel liberals with Furman's conclusions, not grapple with the debate. Much more interesting was my colleague Matt's meditation on how Furman's flashes of brilliance synced with his points of myopia (notably his bizarre decision to never once mention unions).

This is an important discussion for progressives to have. In the rush to weaken Sam Walton's behemoth, liberals have emptied the armory, indiscriminately deploying whatever arguments seemed likely to wound and damaging many of their long-term goals. That's poor strategy. So over the next few days, drawing on Furman's paper, Arindrajit Dube's opposing study, and the event's transcript (all of which can be found here), I'm going to try and tease this out a bit better. I hope some of my colleagues will join in, and I invite you folks in blog land to do the same. And the place to start, I think, is with Furman's strongest criticism of the liberal argument:

I’d like to at the very least try to convince you to drop the corporate welfare attack and rather than attacking Wal- Mart employees for benefiting from these programs, celebrate it and push to expand it.

Wal-Mart claims to care about the welfare of its employees. Any corporation is going to put 98 percent of its effort into maximizing its profits and share prices. If Wal-Mart cares about its employees, rather than law being against progressive issues, it would lobby for them and it would work to expand these types of programs. If there were corporate welfare, it would help Wal-Mart’s profits and they would have an interest in lobbying for more Medicaid, EITC, food stamps. I don’t think it will help their shareholders at all, but it will help their workers a lot and that’s something that it claims to care about.

This is largely a function of having unions in the driver's seat. By nature, labor organizers are concerned with squeezing the most generous possible offer out of employers, sometimes at the expense of better societal outcomes. I don't know anyone who doesn't believe labor's historical focus on generous employer-based health care to be a massive strategic failure, and yet they continue on the same path now. The cursory support the labor movement generally offers to efforts to nationalize health is dwarfed by the energy they expend retaining or expanding (and thus entrenching) the current system's offerings. Given their mandate to care for current union members, that's to be expected, but it's short-sighted and shouldn't be replicated across the left.

Much smarter would be an effort to force Wal-Mart into becoming a political ally. Given the choice between providing expansive health care benefits themselves and pushing the government to do the same, Wal-Mart will take the latter route. If you doubt me, ask yourself how much discomfort they've shown with their workforce's utilization of Medicaid. The strategy, then, should not be ending that alliance so all Wal-Mart employees have to pay for the corporation's paltry health benefits, but forcing Wal-Mart to become an ally in the fight to radically expand the federal options open to employees. Variants of this approach have been employed by Andy Stern's SEIU in other industries, often to great success:

SEIU has used its new money not just to enlarge existing campaigns, but to experiment with new strategies. In the nursing home world, for example, SEIU has explored a truce with the owners it fought so bitterly in the 1990s. SEIU recognized that nursing homes were getting squeezed by a lack of government funding for long-term care, so it proposed a deal: The union would use the political muscle of its members and community allies to try and win more state money for nursing homes; if it succeeded, the owners would increase members’ pay and let non-union workers join the union without a fight. Since 2001, SEIU has reached agreements with nursing homes in ten states and has organized twenty-five thousand new nursing home members. In California alone, SEIU has helped win $1.2 billion in new nursing home funding over the last five years.

Similarly, employers are largely (though not solely) scared of unions because of what they'll do to health costs. If health costs were no longer a factor in employee compensation, unions, though still reviled, wouldn't appear so deadly to employers' bottom lines. So criticizing Wal-Mart for its poor health offerings and willingness to send employees to Medicaid's offerings is insane. Rather, that's a trend labor and the left should seek to accelerate until Wal-Mart offers no health benefits, every employee has access to high-quality, comprehensive government care, and unionization no longer means businesses will have to pay for chemotherapy. As part of this strategy, labor may need to soften Wal-Mart up, and part of that effort may include demagoguing their reliance on Medicaid. Fine. But liberals in sympathy with labor's larger cause must not absorb arguments counterproductive to overarching progressive goals. And Furman is doing them a great service by pointing that out.

--Ezra Klein

May I say, it's not the unions' fault that they aren't taking a long-term view. Workers and unions have been totally abandoned in America, not just by the left, but certainly the left hasn't helped. When everyone's leaving you for dead, when there appears to be no possibility of actual growth, fighting a rear-guard action may seem like the only remaining option.

Progressives have not fought hard enough for universal health care, either, so it's hardly the unions' fault that they are concentrating on protecting what they have rather than reach all by themselves for pie in the sky.

Still, there's no question that it is long past time to end our reliance on employer-paid health insurance (even if they do get a tax break for it) and create nationwide, single-payer, universal health insurance. This could even be a way to peel sensible businesses away from a Republican administration that is increasingly divorced from reality. There'd still be other issues separating progressives from the business agenda - regulations, environmental pollution, offshoring jobs, etc. - but it could be a start. Certainly worth trying. But we can't expect the unions to take the hit on their own. This is where the Democratic Party has to start being a political party again.

Apres Bush, le blood-bath

2005-12-01T17:01:00.000-05:00

And I don't mean in Iraq. Sooner or later, all but the most diehard Koolaid drinkers are going to have to admit that no good can come from our staying in Iraq one more single solitary day. (Which does not mean that we won't.) At some point, sanity will return (most likely after Bush is impeached, resigns, goes crazy, or - and alas, much more likely - is finally replaced by his elected successor on Jan. 20, 2009. And that's when the nightmare will really begin.

Because at some point, we are as a nation going to have to survey the wreckage that is and will be Iraq, contemplate the disastrous effect the unnecessary and lie-drive war there has made of our economy, our society, and our reputation abroad, count up the horrendous and all-but-incalculable cost - and ask, was it worth it? To which the answer can only be, NO.

And at that point, the survivors of the thousands of dead and horrifically wounded soldiers are going to rise up in fury to demand a satisfactory explantion of why their loved ones were sent into harm's way, were sacrificed in vain, were denied the promised protections of body armor and vehicle armor - were murdered by their trusted leaders in service of vainglory and malign ambition and mendacity - and do you really expect that the traitors who shoved them into the wood-chipper are simply going to raise their hands like basketball players whistled for a foul and admit what they did?

I'd laugh if it weren't so tragic.

No, what Bush and Cheney and all the other rightwing monsters are going to do is blame someone else - anyone else - for their own miserable failures and crimes. And, human nature being what it is, there will be a strong tendency for the victims to believe them. Because when the families of the murdered soldiers cry out, Did my son/daughter die in vain?, they are not going to want to hear the miserable truth that their beloved family members died for nothing. For no reason at all, not even a bad one. Which is what the left has been saying all along, and which is the undeniable truth, but which offers not even cold comfort to a widow or orphan. It's too painful for most grieving family members to contemplate.

Bush and Cheney will be able to shamelessly lie that the soldiers they sent into the buzzsaw died for freedom and democracy and the war on terror - what do they care that it never was true and they know it never was true? - while those of us armed only with the truth will have to fight the natural tendency of parents to want their children's death to have meant something. But rather than blame Bush and Cheney for actually murdering their kids, they will blame those of us who tell them, truthfully, that their kids were murdered.

It's not going to be pretty.

Let's talk about Doctor Who!

2005-12-01T12:14:00.000-05:00

I just got back from this year's Chicago Tardis Doctor Who convention, where I had a great time. I had seen most of the new episodes, starring Christopher Eccleston as the 9th Doctor, but not all of them, so I spent hours in the video room catching up. Woo! Okay, the 45-minute format just doesn't work, but the entire season was engrossing, brilliantly written and acted, Eccleston himself was superb, and two of the two-parters ("Aliens of London"/"World War III" and, especially, "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances") were splendid.

I've started Raxacoricofallapatorius, a new Doctor Who Blog, to discuss the new episodes. There will be some spoilers, but also news, etc. Come on by and say hello!

Worst. President. Ever.

2005-12-01T12:12:00.000-05:00

Everyone else is linking to this brilliant article, so I might as well, too.

Costly Withdrawal Is the Price To Be Paid for a Foolish War

By Martin van Creveld
November 25, 2005

The number of American casualties in Iraq is now well more than 2,000, and there is no end in sight. Some two-thirds of Americans, according to the polls, believe the war to have been a mistake. And congressional elections are just around the corner.

What had to come, has come. The question is no longer if American forces will be withdrawn, but how soon — and at what cost. In this respect, as in so many others, the obvious parallel to Iraq is Vietnam.

Confronted by a demoralized army on the battlefield and by growing opposition at home, in 1969 the Nixon administration started withdrawing most of its troops in order to facilitate what it called the "Vietnamization" of the country. The rest of America's forces were pulled out after Secretary of State Henry Kissinger negotiated a "peace settlement" with Hanoi. As the troops withdrew, they left most of their equipment to the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam — which just two years later, after the fall of Saigon, lost all of it to the communists.

Clearly this is not a pleasant model to follow, but no other alternative appears in sight.

:::snip:::

For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins.

I've read speculation that Americans will be reluctant to turn on Bush because they won't want to believe that he lied us into a disastrous war that they once supported. I hope he isn't right, but I've almost given up on the hope that Bush will ever suffer any consequences for any of his countless screw-ups, regardless of how catastrophic the fallout - on other people, of course.

The Potemkin* President

2005-11-22T12:49:00.000-05:00

Not quite. See the boldface and the * below.

A Texan Gets a Friendly Reception on the Steppes

By DAVID SANGER

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia, Nov. 21 - If you are an American president in need of just a few hours of temporary political asylum - no debate about Iraq, no Chinese leaders resisting the American agenda and plenty of adulation - here is an approach: Come to the endless steppes that Ghengis Khan made famous.

When Air Force One descended low over the barren but breathtaking landscape here, few Mongolians had ever seen anything like it. None of the previous American presidents had made the journey while in office.

And so Mongolians came into this tattered post-Soviet capital, past what will soon be a monument celebrating the spectacular victories eight centuries ago, when the Mongol empire stretched from the Yellow Sea to Baghdad, to hear George W. Bush tell them that today, "Mongolia and the United States are standing together as brothers in the cause of freedom." If it was gratifying for Mongolians to hear that message from the leader of a country that billboards here proclaimed a "third neighbor" - not Russia and not China - their reaction was probably even more gratifying for President Bush.

At home, there may be questions about the war in Iraq, but there are not many here. Mongolia recently sent its fifth rotation of troops to Iraq - it sends roughly 160 at a time.

There is something else that seemed to thrill Mr. Bush about Mongolia: presidential entertainment is vivid.

As his limousine raced across the steppe, a team of Mongolian warriors - carrying spears and shields and wearing the body armor that Ghengis Khan used to subdue territory that Mr. Bush is still grappling with 800 years later - suddenly appeared and galloped alongside.

Gone from Mr. Bush's face was the let's-get-on-with-it look he had at Gigkakuji, the famed temple he visited in Kyoto, Japan. He talked with the warriors and stepped around camels and yaks to make his way into a quite luxurious ger. Sitting by a wood-burning stove, he chatted with a family of herders. (The Mongolian government says the herders were the real thing, but they live 100 miles out of town, and were brought in to lend some authenticity to the small village erected for Mr. Bush's benefit.)

* Prince Grigori Aleksandrovich Potyomkin (1739-1791) was a Russian general-field marshal, statesman, and favorite of Catherine II the Great. He is primarily remembered for his efforts to colonize the sparsely populated wild steppes of Southern Ukraine. He was also a lover of Tsaritsa Catherine II ("Catherine the Great").

He also legendarily built fake villages on the courses of rivers Catherine was going to travel down so she would be fooled into thinking her realm was more prosperous than it really was. In actuality, all he did was have existing villages cleaned up a bit before she got to them. But the term "Potemkin Village" has persisted.

Right-wing Christian churches, good. Democratic government, bad?

2005-11-18T14:40:00.000-05:00

What is it with writers named Brooks?

'Faith talk' and Tammany Hall

by Rosa Brooks

DEMOCRATS SHOULD be wary of jumping to conclusions in the wake of Democrat Timothy Kaine's Virginia gubernatorial victory. Kaine didn't shy away from discussing his religious beliefs during his campaign, and this seems to be leading party strategists to conclude that Democrats can win in culturally conservative states if they talk about deeply held religious beliefs.

But imagining that red-state voters will turn blue if only Democrats talk more about faith misunderstands the role of conservative evangelical Christianity in American politics. Conservative evangelical churches played a big role in delivering voters for George W. Bush in 2004 — but neither that nor Kaine's victory prove that red-state voters are simply hungry for "religion" and will reward whichever candidate speaks most convincingly about his or her personal faith.

Conservative evangelical churches were able to deliver voters for Bush in much the same way, and for much the same reasons, that labor unions and political machines like New York's Tammany Hall were once able to deliver votes for the Democrats: They offer material benefits to people with nowhere else to turn, and that is easily parlayed into votes at election time.

:::snip:::

To be sure, progressive and moderate Christians need to speak out against right-wing attempts to hijack Christianity. But if Democrats — religious or not — hope to win back the large slice of middle America that today takes its cues from conservative evangelical Christian churches, they need to get back into the business of creating institutions that provide tangible help to ordinary, struggling Americans.

Um...Rosa...they've spent two centuries doing exactly that...it's called "government" - you may have heard of it? What's more "tangible" than Social Security? What's more "tangible" than Medicare? What's more "tangible" than deposit insurance and Pell Grants and Section 8 housing vouchers? The Republicans have spent most of the last 50 years ceaselessly trying to demolish the Democrats' "institutions that provide tangible help to ordinary, struggling Americans" so that they can replace them with their "commit to Jesus or starve" church-based programs and their failed attempts to privatize everything.

Where the hell has this Rosa Brooks been? What country has she been observing? It's okay for the right wing to help people their way, but not okay for Democrats to help people their way? Why the hell not?

David Brooks Apologizes to Hillary Clinton!

2005-11-15T18:01:00.000-05:00

Shorter David Brooks:

It does take a village to raise a child!

We now spend more per capita on education than just about any other country on earth, and the results are mediocre. No Child Left Behind treats students as skill-acquiring cogs in an economic wheel, and the results have been disappointing. We pour money into Title 1 and Head Start, but the long-term gains are insignificant.

These programs are not designed for the way people really are. The only things that work are local, human-to-human immersions that transform the students down to their very beings. Extraordinary schools, which create intense cultures of achievement, work. Extraordinary teachers, who inspire students to transform their lives, work. The programs that work touch all the components of human capital.

Now, I know that David Brooks didn't actually apologize to Hillary Clinton. That would require honesty, which we know is beyond most so-called "conservatives" these days. So, Brooks didn't apologize to Mrs. Clinton.

But he should have.

David Brooks is rolling in his grave

2005-11-11T14:47:00.000-05:00

For GOP, 2006 Now Looms Much Larger

In a season of discontent for the White House, Tuesday's election results intensified Republican anxiety that next year's midterm contests could bring serious losses unless George W. Bush finds a way to turn around his presidency and shore up support among disaffected, moderate swing voters.

Democrats captured the two governorships at stake Tuesday, in Virginia and New Jersey, where Sen. Jon S. Corzine ran away with the race after a nasty campaign. Democrats also buried four ballot initiatives in California championed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and ousted the mayor of St. Paul, Minn., Democrat Randy Kelly, who had betrayed his party by endorsing Bush in last year's presidential election. Democrats failed in their effort to pass a package of political retooling measures in Ohio.

Republican hopes for a quick morale boost had centered on conservative Virginia. Instead, the gubernatorial results there raised concerns among some Republicans that Bush's favored political strategy of mobilizing conservative voters by dividing the electorate on cultural and social issues may have prompted a backlash among voters in inner and outer suburbs who were vital to Bush's reelection in 2004.

"It's not just that they lost these elections," said Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin, "but that none of their old tricks worked that they've relied on to give them the edge in close contests."

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) said the GOP's reliance on cultural issues, popular with rural voters, "are just blowing up" in suburban and exurban communities. "You play to your rural base, you pay a price," he said.

But I thought those "heartland" "values" voters were the only real Americans, the only ones whose values mattered.

Best Blog Post Headline of the Year

2005-10-26T17:08:00.000-04:00

From Eschaton:

Wal-Mart: Go Fuck Ourselves

Couldn't happen to a nastier Big Box store.

If only Bill Clinton were still president...

2005-10-25T19:19:00.000-04:00

Is John Tierney stupid or a liar? I can't see any alternative after reading this:

I can't understand Democrats now gleefully suggesting that Libby and Rove are getting their just desserts for the "crime" of claiming that there were W.M.D. in Iraq. Yes, they were eager to embrace any bit of evidence for weapons there, but they had plenty of company in their suspicions, including Democrats like Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Um…Mr. Tierney…Bill and Hillary Clinton have been out of office since 2001!!!!! Bill is no longer president, and Hillary won't be president until 2009! For god's sake, it's completely irrelevant what they think.

It's not irrelevant what George W. Bush and Dick Cheney think, however, since they are in office. And before you go to war, you should have more than just "suspicions" about the existence of the WMD you are basing your war on. You should not simply be "eager to embrace any bit of evidence" - you should goddamn well have absolutely unambiguous evidence.

How the hell can Tierney fail to grasp this? Simple. He can't. He knows better, but he can't bear to admit it, maybe not even to himself.

But that's no reason for the rest of us to let him muddy the waters as another one of Bush's unpaid defense attorneys.

In praise of nothing

2005-10-23T23:01:00.000-04:00

Shorter David Brooks:

I know there's a pony in here somewhere!

Read this (if you must):

The future belongs to post-Bush conservatives. If you want a glimpse of that future, read the speech David Cameron gave earlier this month, which electrified the British Conservative Party conference. Cameron has learned the essential lessons of Bushism. He offered a positive, governing conservatism. He talked about helping moms afford child care and helping the people of Darfur survive. "A modern, compassionate conservatism is right for our times," he declared.

Then ask yourself, um...why hasn't Bush "helped the people of Darfur survive"? Why hasn't Bush "helped moms afford child care"?

This isn't even mistaking the wish for the deed. This is taking the picture on the frozen dinner box for a five-star meal at Le Cirque.

Law & Order: SVU, we're waiting!

2005-10-22T10:32:00.000-04:00

Presumably their next episode "ripped from the headlines":

Officials Remove Newborn Over Father's Abuse Case

POTTSVILLE, Pa., Oct. 21 - County officials here in Eastern Pennsylvania left notes on Melissa WolfHawk's door, she said, warning her that they were monitoring her pregnancy. They told her they would try to take her child as soon as she gave birth.

She had the Caesarean section on Tuesday. Against her doctors' wishes, she left the hospital two days later to appear in court, but on Friday she lost her fight when a judge gave the boy to Schuylkill County.

At issue, officials say, is not so much Ms. WolfHawk's fitness as a mother as her choice of mates. The newborn's father, her husband, served a decade in prison as a sex offender in New York 22 years ago, convicted in the rape and sodomy of two teenage girls. The boy is the third child Ms. WolfHawk has lost for just that reason. The baby - lawyers are not disclosing his name - will be in temporary custody pending a hearing on longer term arrangements on Oct. 31, as well as an ongoing challenge that Ms. WolfHawk has filed in federal court.

The case illustrates the debate over how far the authorities should go in drawing boundaries between sexual offenders and their neighbors - or, in this case, their own families.

Officials say that their primary concern is the record of her husband, DaiShin John WolfHawk, although there is no evidence, they say, that he has abused children recently.

"He has a history of violent sexual abuse against kids," said Karen Rismiller, a lawyer for Schuylkill County Children and Youth Services. "Just because he served time doesn't allow someone to be around children. He's a sex offender registered in Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland."

Ms. WolfHawk testified on her own behalf in the hearing Friday, which was closed to the public. She refused to say anything as she walked out of the courtroom, holding her abdomen with a hand still affixed with a hospital bracelet, and wearing a blue sweatshirt reading "Transport for Christ" and her long red hair in braids. Judge Charles M. Miller said she could have two hours of supervised visits with the baby before the next hearing. Her lawyer said she had been breastfeeding the child and would deliver frozen milk to the county. "She's hoping it gets to the baby," Ms. Roper said, "but that obviously isn't the same as holding and breastfeeding her baby."

"It's devastating to an infant to be stripped from his mother in the very first days of his life," Ms. Roper said.

Ms. Roper said that the two, who married in June 2002, have maintained separate residences for about two years, and that Ms. WolfHawk would be willing to sign an agreement to stay away from him if that would win her custody of her child.

The county, however, says that the baby is proof that she will not stay away from him. Mr. WolfHawk, now 53, was known as John Joseph Lentini when he pleaded guilty in 1983 to raping and sodomizing two teenage girls. He was sentenced to 5 to 15 years and served 10. Under state versions of Megan's Law, he is required to register with local police.

Mr. WolfHawk changed his name and declares himself chief of an Indian tribe called the Unole E Quoni, which he says has 175 families but is not recognized by any government. Ms. WolfHawk's lawyer said the two met 11 or 12 years ago; they are both members of the tribe.

Ms. WolfHawk had a son by a previous marriage, and Schuylkill County officials moved to take custody of him two weeks after the WolfHawks married, her lawyer said. The boy, now 8, remains in foster care. She became pregnant by Mr. WolfHawk and moved to nearby Lancaster County in 2003, because, a caseworker testified in federal court, she feared that Schuylkill County would take the child. Schuylkill County alerted Lancaster County, whose officials found her living in Schenectady, N.Y., and took the child back to Pennsylvania. By that time, a couple Ms. WolfHawk had lived with briefly in Maryland had filed for custody of the child, arguing that Mr. WolfHawk was unfit. That couple now has custody of the child.

The unusual case has raised some doubts even with groups that champion the rights of abused children.

Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, said he respected the right of agencies to take custody of endangered children, but said that the standard for removing a child had to be set "very high."

"If somebody was convicted 20 years ago and has not reoffended, and the circumstances of the offense would not appear to make him a threat to young children, then this is troublesome," Mr. Allen said.

David L. Levy, the chief executive of the Children's Rights Council, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, said, "I am not aware of any case where a 20-year-old conviction, no matter how heinous, has been used to remove a child from the care of the perpetrator and from a mother who had nothing to do with that crime."

"The state may think that because they're married, the only way to make the child safe from the father is to remove him from the mother," he said. "But what about her due process and constitutional rights? If they can show a present danger, I'd be the first one to support removal, but they need to show a connection between 20 years ago and now."

Not to make light of this case, but how far can officials go to "protect" children? What's next - require Mrs WolfHawk to take contraceptives as long as she is married to her husband?

A new hell on Earth

2005-07-25T17:20:00.000-04:00

As if we needed another one...

From a letter to one of the correspondents at The Daily Reckoning:

Sent in by John Winter: "I reckon that these are the last days of TKM and ZPF. The darkest hour is always before dawn.

"We are all terrified at what they are going to destroy next...I mean they are actually plowing down brick and mortar houses and one white family with twin boys of 10 had no chance of salvaging anything when 100 riot police came in with AK's and bulldozers and demolished their beautiful house - 5 bedrooms and pine ceilings - because it was "too close to the airport".

"So we are feeling extremely insecure right now. You know - I am aware that this does not help you sleep at night, but if you do not know - how can you help?

"You can't just be in denial and pretend its not going on. To be frank with you, its genocide in the making and if you do not believe me, read the Genocide Report by Amnesty International which says we are in level seven (level 8 is after its happened and everyone is in denial)...

"We need you to get the news OUT that we are all in a fearfully dangerous situation here. Too many people turn their backs and say - oh well, that's what happens in Africa. This government has GONE MAD and you need to publicize our plight or how can we be rescued?

"You can't just say 'Oh you attract your own reality'. The petrol queues are a reality, the pall of smoke all around our city is a reality, the thousands of homeless people sleeping outside in 0 Celsius with no food water, shelter and bedding are a reality.

"Today a family approached me, brother of the gardener's wife with two small children. Their home was trashed and they will have to sleep outside. We already support 8 people and a child on this property and electricity is going up next month by 250% as is water. How can I take another family of 4 - and yet how can I turn them away to sleep out in the open?

"I am not asking you for money, or a ticket out of here - I am asking you to FACE the fact that we are in deep and terrible danger and I want you to pass on our news and pictures and don't just press the delete button for God's sake. Help in the way that you know how. Face the reality of what is going on here and SEND OUT THE WORD. The more people that know about it, the more chance we have of United Nations coming to our aid.

"Please stop ignoring and denying what's happening. Would you like to be protected from the truth and then if we are eliminated how would you feel? Surely you would say 'If only we knew how bad it really was we could have helped in some way'. I know we chose to stay here and so we 'deserve' what's coming to us. For now we ourselves, have food, shelter, a little fuel and a bit of money for the next meal - but what is going to happen next? Will they start on our houses? All property is going to belong to the State now...

"We no longer have [short wave] radio which told us everything that was happening because the government jammed it out of existence - we don't have any reporters, and no one is allowed to photograph. If we had reporters here they would have an absolute field day. Even the pro government Herald has written that people are shocked, stunned, bewildered and blown mindless by the wanton destruction of everyone's homes which are supposed to be 'illegal' but which a huge percentage of them actually do have licenses for. Please...have some compassion and HELP by sending out the articles and personal reports so that something can be DONE."

Meanwhile, the US press is consumed by the latest "runaway" white woman. To be fair, the nomination of a new Supreme Court justice is worthy of massive reportage, although the US press isn't actually any good at that kind of reporting anymore...

Between Darfur, Zimbabwe, and anywhere else on Earth where the governments have gone mad, there's enough for the US to be doing some actual good in the world...if we weren't bogged down in Bush's Folly in Mesopotamia.

This is what our brave young soldiers in Iraq are dying for

2005-07-20T10:27:00.000-04:00

And Bush says it's all about the democracy...

Iraqi Constitution May Curb Women's Rights

A working draft of Iraq's new constitution would cede a strong role to Islamic law and could sharply curb women's rights, particularly in personal matters like divorce and family inheritance.

The document's writers are also debating whether to drop or phase out a measure enshrined in the interim constitution, co-written last year by the Americans, requiring that women make up at least a quarter of the parliament.

The draft of a chapter of the new constitution obtained by The New York Times on Tuesday guarantees equal rights for women as long as those rights do not "violate Shariah," or Koranic law.

The draft chapter, circulated discreetly in recent days, has ignited outrage among women's groups, which held a protest on Tuesday morning in downtown Baghdad at the square where a statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down by American marines in April 2003.

One of the critical passages is in Article 14 of the chapter, a sweeping measure that would require court cases dealing with matters like marriage, divorce and inheritance to be judged according to the law practiced by the family's sect or religion.

Under that measure, Shiite women in Iraq, no matter what their age, generally could not marry without their families' permission. Under some interpretations of Shariah, men could attain a divorce simply by stating their intention three times in their wives' presence.

Article 14 would replace a body of Iraqi law that has for decades been considered one of the most progressive in the Middle East in protecting the rights of women, giving them the freedom to choose a husband and requiring divorce cases to be decided by a judge.

American and Iraqi officials say that several draft chapters of the constitution are floating around Baghdad and that no final language has been agreed on. Changes can still be made before Aug. 15, the deadline for the National Assembly to approve a draft. Protests by women and relatively secular blocs on the constitutional committee, like the Kurds, may force Shiite members to tone down the religious language.

"Some of the points regarding women's rights in this chapter are still to be reviewed," said Mariam Arayess, a religious Shiite on the committee.

Ms. Arayess said she believed that the draft was the most recent working version, and that it had fairly generous provisions for equal rights. She is one of fewer than 10 women on the 71-member drafting committee.

But women's groups are incensed by Article 14, which would repeal a relatively liberal personal status law enacted in 1959 after the British-backed monarchy was overthrown by secular military officers. That law remained in effect through the decades of Mr. Hussein's rule.

The law used Shariah to adjudicate personal and family matters, but did it in as secular a manner as possible, pulling together the most liberal interpretations of Koranic law from the main Shiite and Sunni sects and stitching them together into one code.

Critics of the draft proposal say that in addition to restricting women's rights, it could also deepen the sectarian divide between Sunnis and Shiites. The draft also does not make clear what would happen in cases where the husband is from one sect and the wife from another.

Religious Shiite politicians tried once before, in December 2003, to abolish the 1959 law. As is happening now, women's groups and secular female politicians took to the streets.

Faced with the mini-rebellion, L. Paul Bremer III, then the effective American proconsul of Iraq, rebuffed the move, to the anger and dismay of many religious Shiites.

"We don't want to use separate Sunni or Shiite laws," said Dohar Rouhi, president of the Association of Women Entrepreneurs. "We want a law that can be applied to everyone. We want justice for women."

A Westerner familiar with the writing of the constitution said that when he saw a draft of the civil rights section less than a week ago, it did not contain the sweeping language on personal status law. In that version, he said, most measures - even those citing Shariah - were not as severe as they could have been.

"Compared to what some of the conservative Shiites were pushing, the glass is half full," said the Westerner, who would speak only on condition of anonymity, because he did not want to appear to be interfering in a sovereign Iraqi process.

He said there was some cause for alarm, though, pointing to a proposal to phase out a measure in the interim constitution requiring that a quarter of parliamentary seats go to women.

Ms. Arayess, the Shiite drafter, said some of the writers were considering keeping the quota for the next two terms of the parliament before allowing it to lapse. After that, she said, women should be able to stand on their own.

Actually, considering what Bush and the American Taliban have done to our democracy, maybe he's right...

Take this blog and launch it!

2005-07-19T13:35:00.000-04:00

The things people come up with...

MindComet Launches BloginSpace.com: Free Service Transmits Blogs Into Space

ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 19, 2005--MindComet launches a website sending bloggers where no blog has gone before: deep space. BloginSpace.com is a free service for bloggers allowing them to submit their blog feeds for transmission into deep space. The site will aggregate blog content into transmission packages and send the content into deep space via a powerful earth-based satellite broadcast.

"I've always believed that other intelligent life forms are out there, and now, for the first time, they will be able to peer into the life of average Homo sapiens," explained Ted Murphy, President and CEO of MindComet. "We are giving bloggers the opportunity to send a piece of their lives into space to potentially connect with extraterrestrials."

MindComet hopes that the service will allow humans to connect to alien beings in a new way. "The media is saturated with images of war and anger. We have been transmitting these images into space for years," said Murphy. "This program gives us the opportunity to show our race in a different light."

While the program is designed to promote the human race in a positive manner, Murphy acknowledges that there are potential risks. "We strongly urge our users to refrain from language or content designed to provoke our alien neighbors. We hope that our bloggers understand the importance of keeping our message positive."

This is the second blog-centric service MindComet has launched this year. BlogStar Network, a network designed to connect influential bloggers with advertisers, officially launched in mid-June and has been met with incredible interest from bloggers and advertisers alike. MindComet is expecting similar results with the launch of BloginSpace.com.

MindComet is now accepting registrations to transmit information to deep space. For free registration and more information visit BloginSpace.com.

God help us if the aliens start reading Powerline...

I still say, if this were about black crack babies in Harlem, Rush & Hannity would be spewing enough croccodile tears to fill Niagara Falls

2005-07-11T14:36:00.000-04:00

On the other hand, this is such a horrible tragedy that it's unseemly to get too political and snarky about.

A Drug Scourge Creates Its Own Form of Orphan

TULSA, Okla., July 8 - The Laura Dester Shelter here is licensed for 38 children, but at times in the past months it has housed 90, forcing siblings to double up in cots. It is supposed to be a 24-hour stopping point between troubled homes and foster care, but with foster homes backed up, children are staying weeks and sometimes months, making it more orphanage than shelter, a cacophony of need.

This is a problem methamphetamine has made, a scene increasingly familiar across the country as the number of foster children rises rapidly in states hit hard by the drug, the overwhelming number of them, officials say, taken from parents who were using or making methamphetamine.

Oklahoma last year became the first state to ban over-the-counter sales of cold medicines that contain the crucial ingredient needed to make methamphetamine. Even so, the number of foster children in the state is up 16 percent from a year ago. In Kentucky, the numbers are up 12 percent, or 753 children, with only seven new homes.

In Oregon, 5,515 children entered the system in 2004, up from 4,946 the year before, and officials there say the caseload would be half what it is now if the methamphetamine problem suddenly went away. In Tennessee, state officials recently began tracking the number of children brought in because of methamphetamine, and it rose to 700 in 2004 from 400 in 2003.

While foster populations in cities rose because of so-called crack babies in the 1990's, methamphetamine is mostly a rural phenomenon, and it has created virtual orphans in areas without social service networks to support them. In Muskogee, an hour's drive south of here, a group is raising money to convert an old church into a shelter because there are none.

Nationwide, the Drug Enforcement Administration says that over the last five years 15,000 children were found at laboratories where methamphetamine was made. But that number vastly understates the problem, federal officials say, because it does not include children whose parents use methamphetamine but do not make it and because it relies on state reporting, which can be spotty.

On July 5, the National Association of Counties reported that 40 percent of child welfare officials surveyed nationwide said that methamphetamine had caused a rise in the number of children removed from homes.

The percentage was far higher on the West Coast and in rural areas, where the drug has hit the hardest. Seventy-one percent of counties in California, 70 percent in Colorado and 69 percent in Minnesota reported an increase in the number of children removed from homes because of methamphetamine.

In North Dakota, 54 percent of counties reported a methamphetamine-related increase. At what was billed as a "community meeting on meth" in Fargo this year, the state attorney general, Wayne Stenehjem, exhorted the hundreds of people packed into an auditorium: "People always ask, what can they do about meth? The most important thing you can do is become a foster parent, because we're just seeing so many kids being taken from these homes."

The drug - smoked, ingested or injected - is synthetic, cheap and easy to make in home labs using pseudoephedrine, the ingredient in many cold medicines, and common fertilizers, solvents or battery acid. The materials are dangerous, and highly explosive.

The drug also produces a tremendous and long-lasting rush, with intense sexual desire. As a result of the sexual binges, some child welfare officials say, methamphetamine users are having more children. More young children are entering the foster system, often as newborns suffering from the effects of their mother's use of the drug.

But the biggest problem, doctors who work with children say, is not with those born under the effects of the drug but with the children who grow up surrounded by methamphetamine and its attendant problems. Because users are so highly sexualized, the children are often exposed to pornography or sexual abuse, or watch their mothers prostitute themselves, the welfare workers say.

But everywhere there are reminders of the dangers of leaving children in homes with methamphetamine. In one recent case here, an 18-month-old child fell onto a heating unit on the floor and died while the parents slept; a 3-year-old sibling had tried to rouse them.

The police who raid methamphetamine labs say they try to leave the children with relatives, particularly in rural areas, where there are few other options.

But it has become increasingly clear, they say, that often the relatives, too, are cooking or using methamphetamine. And because the problem has hit areas where there are so few shelters, children are often placed far from their parents. Caseworkers have to drive children long distances to where parents are living or imprisoned for visits; Leslie Beyer, a caseworker at Laura Dester, logged 3,600 miles on her car one month.

The drain of the cases is forcing foster families to leave the system, or caseworkers to quit. In some counties in Oklahoma, Ms. Rider-Salem said, half the caseworkers now leave within two years.

The state's only other children's shelter, in Oklahoma City, was so crowded recently that the fire marshal threatened to shut it down, forcing the state to send children to foster families in far-flung counties.

Still, why aren't we hearing more about this from the self-appointed guardians of public morality who think the Red States are the Godly repository of all decency and morality (even when they wouldn't live there themselves)? Huh, David Brooks?

Of course, when liberals make this kind of disguised defeatist argument, he's all over them

2005-07-09T13:21:00.000-04:00

Shorter John Tierney: Don't blame George W. Bush and the Republicans for their failure to secure our ports, roads, railroads, chemical plants, chemical transports, etc. - I pretended like the D.C. sniper didn't exist, so you all should just pretend like Al Qaeda doesn't exist either. And notice the cool way I pretend to be non-partisan by praising Tony Blair!

If this were crack babies in Harlem, then there'd be a national uproar

2005-07-06T11:06:00.000-04:00

In a weird kind of reverse racism, nobody gives a damn about crystal meth kids in Kentucky. (Not that they ever really cared about the crack babies, either...)

METH LEADS TO DOMESTIC ABUSE

One of the more tragic side effects to the crystal meth scourge is its devastation of families. According to the National Association of Counties, 62 percent of counties reported spikes in domestic violence because of meth use. And kids pay the highest price for skyrocketing meth usage; with more and more parents becoming addicted, more and more children have fallen into the already strained foster care system. Mike O'Dell of Alabama estimates 80 percent of children currently in the state foster care system were removed from meth homes. During the past four years, 362 kids with meth-addicted parents entered the foster care system in Arizona; 770 children were removed from meth homes in Kentucky. Iowa now cares for 1,000 kids who were abused or neglected because of their parents' meth habits.

It really is strange that this is not generating the kind of loathing and calls for government action that the crack epidemic did. You'd think a scourge stalking the Heartland would spur even the Bush Administration into action - after all, crystal meth is mostly striking Red States, its victims are Bush's voters. But I guess that would mean admitting that all is not well in the "Real" America. When it's niggers in the big, evil city, then call out the airstrikes and shoot anything that moves. When it's good ol' boys in God's Country, shush - don't make a fuss. Just keep waving that flag and praising JEEEEEEzus - and go off to die in Iraq.

I wonder how they can blame Bill Clinton for this...

2005-07-05T13:08:00.000-04:00

After all, it's not like the Republicans have been in charge of the White House for the past 5 years or Congress for the past 10, or anything like that...

Pentagon Weighs Strategy Change to Deter Terror

After years of saying American forces were sufficient for a two-war strategy, "we've come to the realization that we're not," said another Defense Department official involved in the deliberations, who was granted anonymity because he could not otherwise discuss the talks, which are classified. "It's coming to grips with reality."

It's also coming to grips with the lamentable fact that George W. Bush has broken the Army he has been using as a toy to act out his malignant imperial fantasies. We're spending $5 billion a month in Iraq, and not getting a damn bit of security or peace out of it, no matter how much Bush's apologists and worshippers may try to delude the rest of us that this is somehow fighting terrorism (as opposed to creating more of it). What could we do with that $5 billion a month to really make the world more peaceful and secure?

So, I guess this means we won't be seeing CSI: Houston anytime soon?

2005-07-01T11:23:00.000-04:00

Aw, who cares? They were all probably guilty, anyway.

Officials Ignored Houston Lab's Troubles, Report Finds

For years, while rain from a leaky roof contaminated evidence in the Houston Police Crime Laboratory, and thousands of backlogged rape kits from sexual assault victims went untested, city and police officials turned their backs as the laboratory became a "shambles," tainting an untold number of cases, an outside investigator reported on Thursday.

Officials even failed to take proper action when two laboratory analysts were cited for four instances of fabricating scientific evidence, or drylabbing, said the investigator, Michael R. Bromwich, a Washington lawyer and former Justice Department inspector general called in by the city to conduct the review.

:::snip:::

By the time a state audit in 2002 confirmed problems exposed by a local television station, KHOU, Mr. Bromwich reported, "the DNA Section was in shambles - plagued by a leaky roof, operating for years without a line supervisor, overseen by a technical leader who had no personal experience performing DNA analysis and who was lacking the qualifications under the F.B.I. standards, staffed by underpaid and undertrained analysts, and generating mistake-ridden and poorly documented casework."

By 2002, the number of untested rape kits had grown to 19,500, some dating back to 1980, and the backlog is still about 10,000, the report said. Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 flooded the laboratory, and in 33 homicide and rape cases, employees were quoted as reporting, "this biological evidence had become so saturated with water that they observed bloody water dripping out of the boxes containing the evidence and pooling on the floor."

In another location, the property room - where 280 cartons of misplaced evidence from 8,000 cases dating back to the 1960's were discovered last year - rats were found eating through evidence boxes.

I wonder how many people are on Death Row because of these horrible foul-ups? Not that they are innocent, but they don't have to be. If I had been convicted because of evidence processed by Houston's police lab, I'd be getting my appeal in, oh, say, now. This is going to cost Houston millions, if not more. Some Texas miracle.

Friday Pig Blogging: Where are all the professional moralizers when you really need them?

2005-07-01T10:02:00.000-04:00

Meaning no disrespect to actual pigs (sus scrofula), of course.

From The Daily Reckoning:

Even if most Americans are facing lean times ahead, the "uber wealthy" intend to continue throwing their uber wealth around.

The "Elite Affluent" (net worth of $10 million+) plan to boost their spending this summer, according to a survey conducted by Elite Traveler/Prince & Associates. These wealthy individuals, for example, expect to spend an average of $317,000 renting yachts, a 19% increase over last summer's yacht-rental expenditures.

"Increased spending by the Elite Affluent provides trickle down economic benefits," beams Douglas D. Gollan, President and Editor-in-Chief of Elite Traveler, the luxury lifestyle magazine of the Elite Affluent which is distributed worldwide aboard private jets and mega-yachts. "The amount of money spent by the Elite Affluent segment of the population is really staggering...[which] is very good news for the luxury segment of the economy."

Happily, even after the uber wealthy spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on jewelry, "experiential excursions" and booze, they still have a few pennies left to toss toward charitable causes. Though the elite affluent will spend six times more money on yacht rentals as on charitable giving, their gifts to charity will still total more than $50,000 apiece.

Thank goodness for trickle-down economics.

So let's by all means eliminate the estate tax; goodness knows, we wouldn't want any of these rich rich rich (and therefore, by current compassionate conservative standards, wonderful perfect deserving) folk not to be able to rent their precious $317,000 yachts next summer.

Only Nixon could have gone to China...

2005-06-25T09:08:00.000-04:00

...without being Red-baited by Nixon.

In that spirit, Shorter "Every Apologist for George W. Bush and the idea that it doesn't matter how or why we got into Iraq now that we're there":

Only George W. Bush can save us...

...from George W. Bush's fuck-ups.

Waist-Deep in the Big Sandy...

2005-06-24T19:19:00.000-04:00

Shorter David Brooks:

I've stuck my hand into a wasp's nest, but I daren't remove it lest the wasps think I'm weak.

Hint: It's the moderation, stupid!

2005-06-20T13:50:00.000-04:00

(That's "stupid" as in "President George W. Bush," just in case you weren't sure.)

War Rooms (and Chests) Ready for a Supreme Court Vacancy

Like hostile nations on the edge of apocalypse, Washington's political right and left are on code red over a Supreme Court vacancy that does not yet exist.

Conservative groups held a briefing last week at the National Press Club and promised to spend more than $20 million promoting whomever President Bush nominates to replace Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, should the ailing chief justice retire at the end of the court's term in June, as many expect. The liberal group People for the American Way countered with the threat of its 45-computer war room on M Street and a coalition of 70 other groups to fight back.

Caught in the middle was the White House, which had its own war plan but would not say so publicly for fear of looking ghoulish. After all, the intentions of the 80-year-old chief justice, who has undergone radiation and chemotherapy treatments for thyroid cancer, remain mysterious.

:::snip:::

The atmosphere surrounding Supreme Court nominations has changed sharply since the day that William O. Douglas, nominated to the court in 1939, became impatient waiting outside the closed door of the Senate Judiciary Committee room and sent in a message asking if the panel had questions for him. It did not, and he was speedily confirmed.

Although nomination fights are not unusual - the Senate rejected more than a quarter of all Supreme Court nominees in the 19th century - it was not until the spectacles of the failed nomination of Robert H. Bork in 1987 and the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings in 1991 that they became all-out, multimillion-dollar campaigns. Both sides agree on one thing: the court has increasingly become the battleground for the nation's most polarizing issues, like abortion, affirmative action and gay rights.

:::snip:::

Liberal groups say they are particularly edgy this time around because Mr. Bush has said that he admires Justices Thomas and Antonin Scalia, two of the court's most ardent conservatives. They also say that the biggest fight will not be over a Rehnquist retirement, when the conservative chief justice is likely to be replaced with another conservative, but at the departure of one of the court's liberal members, like John Paul Stevens, or of one its swing voters, like Sandra Day O'Connor.

I got a hint for you, Spanky: Appoint a moderate! Consult with everyone first and then name someone everyone can support! Democrats will understand that a conservative President and a conservative Senate will nominate and confirm only a conservative Justice - but conservative does not have to mean radical reactionary right wing nut!

I realize this means Bush will have to defy James Dobson and Gary Bauer - for once in his rancid presidency - but it would also mean he could actually get his nominee confirmed quickly and without the fight everyone is gearing up for.

But that, of course, assumes that getting a nominee confirmed quickly is what Bush wants. And, of course, it isn't. The fight is what he and his rabid followers want. It energizes them and permits the group that controls the White House, Congress, and most of the media to whimper and feel sorry for itself and delude itself that they are the poor oppressed victims. In a narrow sense, it's shrewd of Bush to operate this way. In a long-term, truly patriotic sense, however, it is monumentally despicable of him. It further polarizes a polity that is already far too divided. He is the president of the entire country, not merely the tiny portion of the most vicious right-wing Republicans who support him as if he were a God-King and not merely another elected official. It is time for him to act as the president of the entire country and govern accordingly

Did Bill Clinton seek to drive the appointment process as far to the left as he could? No, he did not. He nominated highly qualified jurists who sailed through the Senate (Ginsburg was confirmed 96-3 only 6 weeks after being nominated; Breyer was confirmed 87-9, 12 weeks after being nominated). Right wingers may froth at the mouth as much as they like about Ginsburg and Breyer, but those vote figures speak for themselves.

George Bush can't even dream about getting such lopsided majorities for his favored court nominations - and the sad thing, the horrible thing is, he doesn't want such lopsided majorities. He wants controversy, he wants Democratic opposition that he and his fundraisers can distort to their red-meat-seeking red state dupes as "Democratic obstructionism." Shrewd but stupid.

And, what's worse, the press is even stupider because it trembles fearfully and truckles under in obeisance rather than use its eyes and its ears and its brains and label this schismatic president for what he is - a willing captive of the most extremist right wing that has ever existed in this country.

There are plenty of conservative jurists out there who the Senate would eagerly, gratefully confirm for a spot on the Supreme Court if George W. Bush would only do the right thing - for one of the few times in his life - and nominate one of them. Democrats would fall over themselves to vote for the modern equivalent of an Anthony Kennedy. But will Bush stiff his barking dog followers, will he rise above the constipated meanness of Limbaugh or the imperious self-idolatry of Dobson and name someone merely because the person is qualified and not because he is a potential spark for another endlessly nasty fight?

As Yoda says, Your breath, do not hold.

Bush looks in mirror, sees Iran

2005-06-17T13:21:00.000-04:00

This is rich.

Bush Says Iran's Elections Ignore 'Basic Requirements'

WASHINGTON, June 16 - On the eve of the election in Iran, President Bush declared Thursday that the electoral process there had failed to meet "the basic requirements of democracy" and that the "oppressive record" of the country's rulers would undercut the legitimacy of the vote.

Mr. Bush has made democratization in the Middle East one of the central features of his foreign policy, even at the risk of further inflaming those in the Islamic world who view the United States as meddling in their borders. Administration officials said Mr. Bush was not trying to influence the outcome of the Iranian election as much as he was trying, in the words of one senior official, to "call it what it is."

For weeks, the administration has been debating how to deal with the election in Iran. But Mr. Bush's statement on Thursday, one official noted, made no reference to "regime change," and the president's aides appear to be preparing for the return of Ali Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as president. Mr. Rafsanjani last was president in 1997.

Though eight candidates are on the ballot, Iran's appointed religious leaders have authority over the elected leaders. Mr. Bush denounced the current government and the method of selecting the next president.

"Today Iran is ruled by men who suppress liberty at home and spread terror across the world," Mr. Bush said in a statement. "Power is in the hands of an unelected few who have retained power through an electoral process that ignores the basic requirements of democracy." He called Friday's election "sadly consistent with this oppressive record."

"Iran's rulers denied more than a thousand people who put themselves forward as candidates," he said, "including popular reformers and women who have done so much for the cause of freedom and democracy in Iran."

This is almost too easy, of course, and I'm not the first person to notice how much Bush is projecting onto Iran precisely what he has been doing himself.

Suppressing liberty and spreading terror. Unelected few, an electoral process that ignores the basic requirements of democracy.

Well, if the shoe fits...

Granted, he's kind of speaking in code, using "Iran" to mean himself.

I didn't realize George W. Bush could be so self-critical.

Friday Blog Blogging: Beyond belief

2005-06-17T12:42:00.000-04:00

Okay, this one wouldn't even make the first cut for The Twilight Zone:

His church was bombed, and now he protests funerals of the war dead
Kansas preacher says he's coming to Idaho

BOISE, Idaho -- A Kansas preacher and gay rights foe whose congregation is protesting military funerals around the country said he's coming to Idaho tomorrow to picket the memorial for an Idaho National Guard soldier killed in Iraq.

A flier on the Web site of Pastor Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church claims God killed Cpl. Carrie French with an improvised explosive device in retaliation against the United States for a bombing at Phelps' church six years ago.

"We're coming," Phelps said yesterday.

Westboro Baptist either has protested or is planning protests of other public funerals of soldiers from Michigan, Alabama, Minnesota, Virginia and Colorado. A protest is planned for July 11 at Dover Air Force Base, the military base where war dead are transported before being sent on to their home states.

Phelps gained national notoriety in 1998 when he picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, the gay college student beaten to death in Wyoming.

Since then, Phelps said his church has been the target of hateful words and actions, including a bomb attack six years ago.

Phelps' church has picketed the funerals of AIDS victims for more than a decade.

French, 19, was a Caldwell High School graduate and varsity cheerleader. She was killed June 5 in the northern city of Kirkuk. French served as an ammunition specialist with the 116th Brigade Combat Team's 145th Support Battalion.

Phelps said the fact that French led an all-American life gives him all the more reason to picket her final public tribute.

"An all-American girl from a society of all-American heretics," he said.

"Our attitude toward what's happening with the war is the Lord is punishing this evil nation for abandoning all moral imperatives that are worth a dime," Phelps said.

Caldwell Police Chief Bob Sobba said he cannot bar Phelps from going to the public funeral, which is scheduled for 1 p.m. at the Albertson College of Idaho in that city.

"While we respect Mr. Phelps' right to protest, we would hope that he would respect the family and friends of this young person by not disrupting the memorial," Sobba said.

Idaho Air National Guard Lt. Tony Vincelli, acting as spokesman for French's family, said there were no plans to change the funeral arrangements.

The Rev. Brian Fischer, pastor of Boise's Community Church of the Valley, and himself a past target of protest by the Westboro Baptist Church, decried Phelps' plan.

"What Phelps is doing is a reprehensible thing, to take a funeral and turn it into a photo op for his hate cause," Fischer said.

"We hope everyone will ignore Phelps' group."

WWJPIAMCOSA - Who Would Jesus Picket In A Monstrous Campaign Of Self-Aggrandizement?

I expect to see all the wingnut blowhards on TV and all the 101st Fighting Keyboarders denouncing this guy.

I also expect to see West Ham United win the Premier League next season.

(Thanks to Democratic Underground for the link.)

The past is not the past anymore - Nothing to see there (or then), move along, move along

2005-06-17T09:51:00.000-04:00

Marx was right: all world-historical events do take place twice, the first as tragedy, the second as farce.

Take what lamentably passes for our media today. The press has fallen beyond shamelessness into self-parody. Standards have collapsed, all but vanished. Memory preceded this disappearance of self-respect and honesty.

Take what I heard on the Imus In The Morning radio program this morning. The I-Man was interviewing NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski about the Downing Street Memos. Miklaszewski said two things that I found both extraordinary (or, alas, maybe not so) and outrageous. First, he basically said that it did not matter why we went into Iraq – that that was in the past and what mattered now was the present, that we were there, so we had to stick it out.

Oh really? The past doesn’t matter? Then perhaps you might explain, Mr. Miklaszewski, why a decade ago the press was so self-righteously obsessed about Whitewater? I mean, that happened years before Clinton was elected and had absolutely nothing to do with his official duties. Nobody died (Vince Foster’s suicide was unrelated), and yet the press hounded the Clintons unmercifully.

I suppose they learned their lesson, though, and this means that from now on, no elected official will ever be bothered by anything he did in the past. I must have missed the memo that set out the statute of limitations.

Take note, people: this is how the press is going to start spinning the Downing Street Memos any second now. That it’s utterly irrelevant how we got into Iraq – yeah, the president lied, but that’s not important now. It’s like the Simpsons episode where Homer complains about something until Marge points out that it was his fault, after which he immediately sputters that it doesn’t matter how they got into this mess or who got them into it. What matters is they’re in it.

So Bush got us into this mess for reasons he lied about, but he doesn’t have to pay any political – or legal – price for doing so, and we should all forget about the past, come together as Americans, and clean up the mess that we are not supposed to question how it came about. We should trust Bush to continue leading us even though he – shush! – led us into this disaster in the first place. But that’s in the past, so all is forgiven. Again, I suppose I missed the memo eliminating the past. I must have wasted all those years I spent doing graduate work in history, since we’re not allowed to remember anything anymore.

The second obnoxious thing Miklaszewski said was Bush’s critics are playing politics and are getting hysterical. Huh? Learning that the president lied and being outraged about it – that only counts when you lie about getting a blow-job in the White House, I suppose, not when you lie about a war that has killed over 1700 Americans and countless Iraqis.

To say nothing about Bush’s build up to the war – talk about “hysteria”! Saddam was months away from getting his hands on nukes, the next 9-11 was going to be a mushroom cloud, the threat was imminent. But there I go again, fixating on some nebulous “past” – whatever that means.

The great thing about this disappearing act is, it automatically exempts the press from any self-examination about their own high crimes and journalistic misdemeanors. Having turned Whitewater into a disgraceful exhibition of irrelevant grandstanding, having made themselves White House and Pentagon shills during the run-up to and early months of the debacle in Iraq, they can declare it all a non-event, give themselves a mulligan, and start over fresh. Whee! That was fun!

Like Bush himself, who thinks that announcing a policy is exactly the same as implementing it; like my friend who thinks that once he apologizes for some misdeed, it never happened; the press, by declaring the Downing Street Memos irrelevant because what they purport to describe took place so many many years ago, can bask in its own innocent superiority.

It hasn’t happened yet, and maybe it won’t. Maybe the Downing Street Memos will turn out to be the smoking gun that finally nails Bush and his minions as war criminals. But if he skates, if the press gets bored and distracted the next time some white Southern woman apparently goes missing, this will be the attitude. It happened so long ago and we’re already there and the worst thing we could do we be to just up stakes and run. That we should never have been there at all and that our presence has actually made things worse – what are you, some kind of obsessive antiquarian? Move on, losers!

Lying makes very strange bedfellows

2005-06-16T15:52:00.000-04:00

The Democrats are now trying to make something out of the so-called "Downing Street Memos," which purport to show that President Bush was fixated on war with Iraq as far back as the summer of 2002, during which time he was supposedly publicly posturing that he was still hoping for a negotiated settlement. These "memos" are actually minutes of meetings between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and some of his Cabinet officers and intelligence officials.

Bush, of course, has denied that the memos show what they clearly appear to state; i.e., that Washington wanted war and was "fixing" the intelligence to make the requisite case, a case that most British officials thought was extremely thin at best.

Ordinarily, the thing for the Democrats to do would be to call upon Prime Minister Blair and ask him what the memos mean. Blair is the Labour leader, a friend of Bill Clinton, and would presumably be sympathetic to the Democrats' desire to finally get something - anything - on the heretofore untouchable Bush.

But...

Blair is caught in a terrible bind, of his own making. Regardless of how thin the case for war may have been 3 years ago, Blair went along with it. In fact, he made the case better than Bush did! The main reason for his recent relatively narrow election victory was that the British public is pretty damn sure he lied to them about the justification for invading Iraq.

What this means is, Blair has no choice but to back Bush up and continue to lie to his people. He has to swallow hard and say that the memos don't mean what they clearly appear to. Otherwise, he's basically admitting that he lied and thousands died.

Therefore, the Democrats are shorn of their potentially most valuable ally - the man for whom the "memos" were written in the first place. At the time we need real cross-Atlantic solidarity the most, the man who should be most eager to help the Democrats has to continue to pretend that the war was justified and that no one - and most certainly not his friend and yours, and mine, George W. Bush - cooked the books to scare the American public into supporting a war that has turned out to be such a disaster. A war that Tony Blair must know has turned out to be a complete disaster, but which he can never publicly admit to be that disaster.

And so, he has to deny that the memos mean what anyone with half a working brain cell can clearly understand from a cursory examination - Bush wanted his war long before he was willing to say so out loud. For whatever reason, Blair went along with him then and cannot walk out on him now.

I'm sure it's eating him up. (At least, I hope it's eating him up.) I'm sure he'd like nothing more than to be able to hold a press conference in London and proclaim that the "memos" are 100% accurate and that George W. Bush lied in order to foment a war that America was never obligated to undertake. (Where do you think the war crimes tribunals would be held, if Blair were to speak out like that?) But he can't possibly indict Bush without jumping into the dock with him. For the sake of his future reputation, for the sake of world peace, for ths sake of his immortal soul, you wish Blair would stop lying and join forces with John Conyers. But you know he's not going to, at least not in time to help Conyers and the Democrats make any real traction with these "memos". I'm afraid that Bush will slither out of responsibility for one of his many screwups - again.

What an irony - the man who has absolutely no reason to be in favor of almost anything Bush has done turns out to be the man whose self-enforced silence will probably save the squinting little dummy.

Somewhere, Minerva weeps. Or laughs out loud. Or both.

Justice Delayed

2005-05-31T14:00:00.000-04:00

Even the Germans came to terms (mostly) with their barbarous past. When will we?

In Tulsa, Keeping Alive 1921's Painful Memory
Recognition, Reparations Sought for Race Riot

She heard tapping on the roof of her home in Tulsa, and in her young mind Olivia Hooker thought it was hail from a Midwest storm. Her mother grabbed her hand, crept to a small window and explained, to the 6-year-old's horror, that it was actually raining bullets.

"Up on the hill was a machine gun with an American flag on it," Hooker, now 90, said in testimony at a recent hearing in the House before members of the Congressional Black Caucus. "My mother said, 'They are shooting at you.' "

It was Tuesday, May 31, 1921, and the worst race riot in U.S. history was underway. It is an event that hardly anyone commemorates on Memorial Day weekend, because its existence has been all but erased.

More than 1,000 homes and businesses were destroyed in less than a week, and at least 300 people were killed, and then buried, possibly in unmarked mass graves, according to a 2001 report on the incident by an Oklahoma state commission.

The official death toll surpassed the totals of the 1965 Watts riot, the 1967 Detroit riot, the 1968 Washington riot and the 1992 Los Angeles riot combined. Some historians estimated that the toll reached 1,000, based on photos of trucks full of bodies as they rolled out of town, according to a member of the commission.

A quest for reparations by surviving victims ended two weeks ago. The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed without comment a class-action suit against the city of Tulsa, its police department and the state of Oklahoma.

The rejection left in place a lower court's ruling that a two-year statute of limitations on claims had expired in 1923. According to law, the judges ruled, it mattered little that segregated courts in which Ku Klux Klan members held judgeships refused to hear claims of black victims immediately after the riot, or that evidence of its devastation was erased or hidden until the 2001 report.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, based in Denver, said that legal avenues had opened to black complainants over time, citing the 1960s as an era when claims could have been brought, or perhaps the 1980s.

"Why did they just pick that date?" asked Eddie Faye Gates, who sat on the commission. "Seems to me they were looking . . . for a loophole." Charles J. Ogletree, the Harvard law professor and civil rights lawyer who argued the case for victims, said the ruling "doesn't make sense."

Before the rulings, Larry V. Simmons, the Tulsa deputy city attorney who fought the case, told the Tulsa World newspaper that "this complaint should be disposed of as a matter of law." He was out of the office last week, according to an assistant, and could not be reached to comment.

Ogletree promised to try to bring the case before the House Judiciary Committee to keep the case in the public eye. "I think now we have even more compelling reason to not let this disappear," he said.

Tulsa's prosperous Greenwood community was the prairie's own small turn-of-the-century Harlem. It began to grow when slaves who had been owned by Seminoles, Cherokees and other Indian tribes populated the area. The Indians themselves had been forced to march from the South to the Plains by U.S. officials in what is known as the "Trail of Tears."

Over time, black hotels, restaurants, grocery stores and law offices sprang up. In those days, according to the Greenwood Cultural Center's Web site, the neighborhood featured "what may have been the first black airline in the nation." "We had everything the whites had, and I suspect more," said Otis Clark of Tulsa, a 105-year-old riot survivor who testified at the hearing.

On the last day of May 1921, an African American delivery boy, Dick Rowland, was accused of assaulting a white woman, Sarah Page, on an elevator after a clerk heard Page shout and saw Rowland hurriedly leave the building.

There is no report of what Page told police, but charges against Rowland were eventually dropped, according to historians. The Tulsa Tribune ran a story with the headline "Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator." About 10,000 white men gathered at the courthouse where Rowland was held and demanded that the sheriff turn him over.

A group of 80 black men, some of them World War I veterans, armed themselves and went to the courthouse to protect Rowland. At the time, shootings and lynchings of blacks were common on the prairie.

A white man tried to disarm one of the black men, a shot rang out and the riot began.

The police chief deputized white men who could get a gun and ordered them to go get a Negro, using a less polite racial slur. The state's National Guard was called in, and its soldiers disarmed African Americans and marched them through the streets to a holding area.

Black survivors and newspapermen spoke of incendiary bombs being dropped on houses from private airplanes, but the commission found little evidence to support those allegations. But there was ample evidence of marauders with torches made of oil-soaked rags.

"The first thing they did was burn my doll clothes," Hooker, who now lives in White Plains, N.Y., recalled in her testimony. "Then they came in the house. My mother put us under the table. We had not fled because my mother was trying to save the house."

Hooker's home was spared, but her family ultimately moved to Topeka, Kan. "We didn't stay because they had blown up the schools, and my parents couldn't stand the idea of having five children and no schools," she said.

Thousands of others were left homeless, Clark said. "When we got back to Tulsa our homes were burned down," he said. "Nobody saw the older folks. We never saw them again. They say they put them in a grave. We didn't have a funeral for nobody. They never did nothing for people there. Never gave us nothing."

Throughout the reparations case, Tulsa officials seemed unmoved, said Michael Hausfeld, a Washington lawyer who was part of the legal team that sued for reparations. Hausfeld had helped win reparations for Holocaust victims from Swiss banks that accepted money stolen by Nazis during World War II.

"We clearly heard remarks by Tulsans that were racially directed, like 'It's time that you people let this rest' and 'Don't push too hard - you may regret it,' " he said.

Hausfeld said the Tulsa case seems more egregious than the case against the banks because African Americans were "blamed for their own mass murder" and the court system failed to respond.

"If these victims were white, in my judgment, no one would be arguing that they be denied an opportunity to have their case heard," he said. "We haven't even been given a right to present the issue."

If this happened in another country (except, perhaps, Darfur or Uzbekistan or Pakistan, you know, where we need the local dictators' help even after "9-11 changed everything), U.S. conservatives would be shrieking. But it happened here, so we can whitewash (forgive the expression) our own filthy racism.

It's not that America is worse than other countries, or even as bad. It's that our own rhetoric and self-image demand that we be better. Otherwise, it's not a self-image - it's a self-delusion.

South Carolina high school students going to Hell

2005-05-27T15:56:00.000-04:00

This is from the state's official high school biology standards:

Biology Standard B-5: The student will demonstrate an understanding of biological evolution and diversity of life.

Indicators

B-5.1 Summarize the process of natural selection.
B-5.2 Explain how the process of natural selection results in the continuity of life forms over time and the diversity of present day life forms on Earth.
B-5.3 Explain how diversity within a species increases the chances of its survival.
B-5.4 Explain how genetic variability and environmental factors lead to biological evolution.
B-5.5 Exemplify scientific evidence in the fields of anatomy, embryology, biochemistry, and paleontology that supports the theory of biological evolution.
B-5.6 Classify organisms into a hierarchy of groups and subgroups based on similarities that reflect their evolutionary relationships.

Not a word about "intelligent design" or how "evil-lution" is "only a theory" or "has never been observed" or "can't possibly be true, seeing as how the universe is less than 10,000 years old." What's the matter with South Carolina, do they want their kids to be Left Behind when the Rapture comes?

But no one's blaming George W. Bush, because he's such a strong leader in the war on terror

2005-05-27T15:19:00.000-04:00

Meanwhile, if this had happened while Bill Clinton was president...yadda-yadda-yadda...

Well, we started out fine, but then we got into this case-modding contest and time just slipped away

Good thing the House of Representatives approved that $31.9 billion budget for the Homeland Security Department last week, because the agency clearly needs the additional funds. According to a new report from the Government Accountability Office, the DHS Information Assurance and Infrastructure Protection Directorate has failed to complete any of its 13 assigned cybersecurity tasks and is generally ill-equipped to protect the nation's critical information infrastructure. "DHS cannot effectively function as the cybersecurity focal point intended by law and national policy," the report said. "There is increased risk that large portions of our national infrastructure are either unaware of key areas of cybersecurity risks or unprepared to effectively address cyber emergencies." I'll say. According to the GAO report, the DHS lacks even a plan to secure our data networks. Astonishing -- all the more so since the GAO has been urging the department to complete just such a plan since 2001. "The DHS has failed to meet the responsibility for critical infrastructure protection. And even worse, this report proves that a national plan to secure our cyber networks is virtually nonexistent," Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, said in a statement. "As long as our critical infrastructures are interconnected and interdependent, the likelihood that a cyber attack will disrupt major services or cripple our economy will remain and the threat will increase."

And just in case the press or anyone else gets tired of us endlessly pointing out what the reaction would have been had something-or-other happened under Bill Clinton, there's a real simple solution - START BLAMING GEORGE W. BUSH FOR ALL THE DISASTERS HAPPENING WHILE HE'S PRESIDENT!!!!!

Friday Blog Blogging: Bush Is Wrong, Not Strong

2005-05-27T13:49:00.000-04:00

Steve Gilliard's News Blog is an excellent "reality-based" look at the news and other people's looks at the news. Here he talks tough to our side.

Stop endorsing failure

Atrios picked this up from Big Media Matt
Tactics, Strategy

Continuing a trend of writing blog posts criticizing people who I'm soon going to be collaborating with (more on that later, as the kids say). By way of introducing my criticism, let me say that I really like the conclusion of Kenny Baer's latest New Republic column:
Democrats need to remember that for decades they have been able to speak to Americans' deep sense that we are a unique "city on a hill" and a "light unto the nations." Democrats must reclaim that heritage and make the case that Republicans have undermined America's moral standing (and, by extension, our security) both in the world and at home. If they do that, Democrats not only will win over security voters of all faiths and win elections, but they also could once again become the automatic choice of the chosen people.
I think those of us who'd classify ourselves as being among the more "hawkish" brand of liberals have a media strategy problem. Roughly speaking, a lot of Democratic voters don't like us very much. What we need to do is convince more liberals that they should like us. That means spending more time trying to convince liberals of the merits of our views, and less time re-enforcing the impression that we're just opportunists searching for votes out there in some ill-defined center. Give the people a convincing argument for a plausible hawkish policy (Kosovo, for example) and plenty of liberals will come along for the party.
Let me start by saying that I like Big Media Matt. He's a nice kid. But he's wrong, talking out of his ass actually.

Matt, if you are "hawkish", I think there are recruiting station in Boston Common, Times Square and off the Mall in DC. Any one will accept your enlistment. Because if you are going to support interventions, you need to get your ass in the Army and support it as an 11B. This is real life. You can sit on your ass and proclaim policy and not be taken seriously, or you can get a commission, lead a platoon for a couple of years and have real world experience. Because, otherwise, you are pretty much a chickenhawk suggesting poor people die for your ideas. And I think you're smarter and better than that.

Kenny Baer is an idiot. I would suggest that he read Russell Weigley and Williamson Murray before putting pen to paper. Then for light reading, some Stephen Ambrose, maybe toss in Ronald Spector.

Then, when finished, read Hackworth's full bio, Andrew Krepenivich, Andrew Bacievich and Patrick Cockburn.

When finished, he should end his reading with Daniel Yergin's The Prize.

Why? Because he knows fuck all about the military, forget strategy. Baer could be talking about his period for all his supposed knowledge.

First of all, Jews are not a monolith and all the Jews who want to live in Israel live there. The AIPAC crowd dominates Washington, but they have little sway in New York. We see nuance here and there are more than one opinion on Israel.

Second, "security" Dems need to state the obvious: Bush's policies have failed. Thay have made the country far more dangerous than need be. By their racism and imperialism, they have made the US far less secure. The US needs a very different and cooperative military, and one with radically new weapons to meet a new threat, light infantry armies mobile in light vehicles. We need a radical rethink of how we fight wars.

Which, to be fair, is what Donald Rumsfeld was pushing for, before Bush pushed him and us into a war Rumsfeld probably knows (and probably knew then) was totally unnecessary and most likely self-destructive.

You need to cut the bullshit out about National Service and the disguised draft. You aren't sending your kids to Ft. Leonard Wood under ANY circumstance you can avoid. Stop seeking to send the poor there. America has had a draft for about 43 years of its existance. That's it. Raise the pay, lessen the impact of IRR and improve family lives and once the war is over, people will join again.

Matt, there is NO plausible reason for a hawkish policy and if you think Kosovo is it, you're wrong. We were stopping a civil war between the drug funded KLA and the criminal Serbs. It took the better part of a decade to get to that point. Bosnia was turned into an abattoir before the US jumped in. We watched people bring concentration camps back to central Europe before we dropped a bomb. And then we moved with our allies.

The reason most Democratic voters don't like you is because you seem to keep finding ways to get their kids killed while sitting behind a desk. Ever been in a VA hospital? Well, that's where the victims of your ideas wind up.

The Democratic hawks are fools trying to sell an already discredited package. I don't want to emulate a failed foriegn policy which is going to destroy the US Army twice in 30 years. Why would anyone want to say we have a varient of that utter and complete failure.

Democrats have to define national security as prosperity at home and alliances abroad, with an army which is trained and equipped to fight the next war, not the last one.

Republican foreign policy has been all talk and failure. Do Israelis sleep secure at night? Do Iranians have free and fair elections? Is Cuba a democracy?

All GOP failed policies. Every one.

We talk big, and for the most part, people run. But when they don't, like the NVA and the Iraqis, they find out we do not have the will they do. And one hopes that the Iranians don't find this out the hard way. Or the US soldiers in Iraq.

American foreign policy needs to be smarter, for one thing. We have to be serious members of the world community. We cannot pick and choose to join the ICC and the Kyoto protocols. We need to be credible, in word and deed. We need to stand behind our ideals, like closing Guantanmo and using the Internation Criminal Court, to endorse them, to bolster them.

Swinging dick imperialism is advocated by those who will never be at the sharp end of it. We need more friends. Friends who will disuade our enemies from attacking us, by standing side by side with us, as they did after 9/11. We need to be honest brokers, as willing to respect Islam as we do Christianity.

Stephen Ambrose described the American Army of 1945 thusly: "Whenever someone saw an American helmet, that meant they were free". That is the greatest legacy of the US Army in World War II, that when American troops rolled in a German or Italian town, or Okinawan village, that we were there to do more than kill and destroy, but to help. That Filipinos, Karens and Kachins, and Yugoslav partisans could fight side by side with us, knowing we had no designs on their land or people and only wanted them to share the freedom we were fighting and dying for.

It was not perfect. It was not ideal. But as we brought home the POW's and liberated concentration camps, we knew what we had done was right, without question or hesitation.

Imperialism is fool's gold. The worst war the US fought until Vietnam was the Conquest of the Philippines. We murdered and raped and pillaged to subject them for over three years. Now forgotten, it is one of the darkest legacies of US military and foriegn policy.

I am for a strong, effective foriegn policy, which not only includes allies and respect for human rights, but an Army which is trained and equipped to fight effectively, one where soldiers do not get loans for armored vests, do not uparmor their vehicles with "hillbilly armor" found in Iraqi scrapyards and coated with god knows what chemicals. Or field expedient gun trucks. Soldiers who do not fire with abandon with rifles which may jam.

The Group of Soviet Forces Germany is a memory. Why do we still train to fight it? A real foreign policy, a real, tough, democratic policy would build on success, not failure, call the GOP policy for what it is, a quagmire, not only in Iraq, but North Korea, Iran, the West Bank.

The time has come to call the GOP policy for the fraud it is and frame "toughness" as a way to promote and protect this country without claiming an imperial right. The right has failed and the left needs to state that and offer real, credible alternatives.

Tough but fair. George Bush is wrong, not strong. That's our mantra.

Wrong, not strong.

Strong But Wrong

2005-05-26T18:28:00.000-04:00

Meanwhile, the public still persists in seeing George W. Bush as a "strong leader in the war on terror." As Bill Clinton said, "When people feel uncertain, they'd rather have somebody who's strong and wrong than somebody who's weak and right."

A Lawmaker Works, Oddly Enough, to Keep His Voters' Backyards Dangerous

By ADAM COHEN

It is no surprise, given the close ties between industry and regulators in Washington these days, that Joe Barton is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Mr. Barton, a Texas Republican, is such an energy industry loyalist - and so soft on air pollution - that his hometown paper dubbed him "Smokey Joe." He has regularly helped his industry friends by weakening environmental laws and handing out tax breaks. But now he seems poised to do something far more disturbing: block legislation to secure chemical plants against terrorist attacks.

Chemical plants are probably the nation's greatest vulnerability. President Bush's former deputy homeland security adviser, Richard Falkenrath, told Congress last month that they stand "alone as uniquely deadly, pervasive and susceptible to terrorist attack." The death toll from a chemical plant attack could easily outstrip 9/11. The Department of Homeland Security has warned that a single chlorine tank explosion could kill 17,500 people.

Two of the country's most dangerous chemical facilities, which threaten more than one million people, are in Dallas, just outside Mr. Barton's district. There is also toxic waste being transported through his district on rail lines and highways. Mr. Barton's committee chairmanship is likely to give him an enormous say in whether chemical plant security legislation passes this year.

That decision pits the interests of his energy industry supporters against the well-being of his constituents who live or work inside the kill zone. Unfortunately, so far Mr. Barton has tilted in favor of industry.

If corporations were allowed to pick congressmen, Mr. Barton is probably just the one the chemical industry would choose. Before his election, he was a consultant for Atlantic Richfield Oil and Gas Company, and he has accepted more than $1.8 million in campaign contributions from the energy and chemical industries. In Congress, his causes have been an energy and chemical industry wish list. He has fought to weaken air quality standards that apply to Ellis County, Texas, his home county, which has three enormous cement plants that spew large amounts of toxins. And he has pushed to exempt makers of MTBE, a fuel additive that has spilled into bodies of water across the country, from paying to clean it up.

Even for congressmen used to giving the energy and chemical industries what they want, chemical plant security is a sensitive subject. Individual members are often reluctant to take a public stand against strengthening security, for fear of appearing soft on terrorism or because they do not want to be blamed if there is a successful attack. Senator Jon Corzine's chemical plant bill was unanimously voted out of committee, where senators had to record their votes, but then was quietly blocked when it got to the Senate floor.

Mr. Barton, however, is one of the few congressmen who have spoken out publicly against chemical plant security legislation. In 2003, when there was a serious push to pass a bill, he said he did not see a need for a tough new law. "If there are enough terrorists who are dedicated enough and equipped well enough," he told The National Journal, "they're going to overwhelm everything that you put up short of some sort of Fort Knox - which doesn't make much sense, given the cost and the relatively remote possibility that any specific site is going to be targeted."

The notion that unless chemical plants are as secure as Fort Knox they do not need any security at all is ridiculous. The unfortunate truth is that chemical facilities, including the most dangerous, are so unprotected that they are vulnerable to attack not just by Al Qaeda, but also by much smaller and less sophisticated groups who might be deterred by armed guards and concrete barriers.

I recently visited two plants near Mr. Barton's district, both of which were on the list of the 123 most potentially deadly facilities in the country, and found what appeared to be shocking vulnerability.

At Petra Chemicals, which has large amounts of deadly chlorine on hand, there was a no trespassing sign, but security on the perimeter was minimal. An environmental expert and I parked outside and walked around for more than a half-hour without being stopped. We had no problem walking up to a large railroad car just outside the plant that had a skull and crossbones, and markings indicating that it held up to 90 tons of chlorine. At Harcros Chemicals, another chlorine facility, the fencing was somewhat better. But again, we saw no guards, and no one stopped us when we parked and walked along the plant perimeter, looking as suspicious as we could.

In his much-cited book "What's the Matter With Kansas?," Thomas Frank laments that conservatives have succeeded in getting red-state voters to vote against their own interests on important issues. The Republican Congressional leadership's opposition to a serious chemical plant security bill could test the limits of this phenomenon. If Mr. Barton - or Senator James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who is leading the fight in the Senate - sides with industry against his own constituents on averting a Sept. 11 in their own backyard, he could hand his opponents an issue that resonates powerfully with ordinary voters.

That is the narrowly self-interested reason why Mr. Barton, and every other member of Congress, should want to get a strong chemical plant bill through Congress this year. But there is also the test by which all homeland security initiatives should be measured: whether, if there were another terrorist attack, they would feel they had done everything they should have to keep Americans safe.

Barton isn't worried. When Petra Chemicals explodes, killing tens of thousands, he'll do what Republicans have been doing since Sept. 11, 2001 - blame Bill Clinton.

(For another take on Cohen's editorial, read Sam Rosenfeld in TAPPED.)

17,000 desperate housewives called to claim it

2005-05-26T16:24:00.000-04:00

Again, never let anyone say that Malvolio is too proud to blow off (sorry) the easy joke.

Bomb Scare Caused By Plastic Device - Suspicious Package Was Fake Foot-Long Plastic Penis

The “suspicious package” that caused Interstate 75 and Daniels Parkway to be shut for more than an hour Monday was not an explosive pipe bomb — but rather wrapped-up plastic foot-long penis.

“Someone took construction-grade plastic, molded it into a penis and wrapped it with duct tape,” said Lee County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Charles Ferrante.

“They wrote ‘Happy Father’s Day’ on the duct tape.”

The device was first described by the sheriff’s office as a prosthetic penis. Later, it cops described it as a paper sculpture made to look like a penis.

"(The rumor that it was actually a prosthetic penis) just took a life of it's own," said Cpl. Larry King.

Ferrante later spoke with a member of the bomb squad who described it in more detail.

“Somebody molded it to look like a penis,” Ferrante said. “It was not detected until the suspicious package was removed.”

A motorist called the Lee County Sheriff’s Office Monday shortly after 3 p.m. about a suspicious package on the side of the road under the northbound Interstate 75 overpass.

The cylinder was more than a foot long in a plastic bag and wrapped with duct tape. It looked like pipe bomb and was in a position that could cause structural damage.

Deputies arrived and alerted the bomb squad, which used a robot to disable the cylinder. The north- and southbound lanes of Intestate 75 were closed for about an hour between Alico Road and Colonial Boulevard. Traffic was blocked on Daniels Parkway at the overpass for an hour while the device was removed.

The closures left the heart of Lee County's road system without any vehicles as rush hour approached. After the drama ensued there were back-ups for about 15 minutes, but then traffic cleared to its normal levels.

I-75 is the main north-south artery in the region and Daniels is one of the major east-west corridor in south Fort Myers, connecting Gateway, Lehigh Acres and Southwest Florida International Airport with the region's retail power centers and tens of thousands of homes along the way.

Brings new meaning to Douglas Adams's line, "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with."

The entire removal operation cost Lee County more than $167,000, turning the fake manhood into the second-most expensive dildo in history, after the Strategic Defense Initiative.

Whine whine, moan moan

2005-05-26T11:46:00.000-04:00

The last line will make you gasp, unless you are a totally unreconstructed Christian wingnut.

FSU's Bowden enters religion debate

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden said Air Force coach Fisher DeBerry is fighting the government over the role of religion on his team.

Bowden brought up DeBerry while speaking to the Southern Colorado Fellowship of Christian Athletes on Sunday.

Last season DeBerry was asked to remove a banner from the locker room that bore the Competitor's Creed, including the lines, "I am a Christian first and last. ... I am a member of Team Jesus Christ."

"Fisher is fighting a heck of a battle over here at your academy [with] the U.S. government," Bowden was quoted as saying in the Gazette of Colorado Springs. "He's fighting a heck of a battle because he happens to be a Christian, and he wants his boys to be saved. I want my boys to be saved."

Bowden's comments came as a Pentagon task force investigates claims of religious intolerance at the academy, including cases in which a Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and another was called a Christ-killer by a fellow cadet.

"We realize we have other religions with us," Bowden said.

"The coach has a responsibility to these boys to try to influence their spiritual life, their physical life and their academic life. ... We know we're going to get challenged on it, but that's what we believe in. I ain't going to back down."

Bowden also said prayer was a large, yet voluntary, part of his football program and encouraged athletes to be more vocal about their beliefs.

"The problem with us Christians is we won't speak out," he said.

A coach at a taxpayer-supported public institution - especially at the United States Air Force Academy - has a responsibility to respect the Constitution of the United States. If he doesn't want to do that or feels like he can't do that, he can resign and become a preacher. And if he doesn't understand that, he should be fired.

Which would only lead the Christian wingnuts to whine and moan even more.

They don't speak out? What part of "bullshit" does Bobby Bowden not understand?

I am not anti-Christian. They can believe anything they want. But when a small group of self-righteous intolerant triumphalist bigots starts to try to force me to believe it or gangs up on me because I refuse to believe it, then, yes, I become anti-them.

Which they also seem incapable of understanding.

Of all the nauseating right-wing self-pity we've recently been inundated with, this has to be the most egregiously worst.

Play ball!

2005-05-25T21:38:00.000-04:00

This is incredibly cute:

Infield Fly Rule Haiku

Jackals home opener ticket giveaway #2: Create a haiku explaining the infield fly rule. Leave your answers in the comments with your real name (we need to leave it at the "will call" window.) Guys get two tickets for a good haiku. Gals get four.

Tickets are for next Thursday night at Yogi Berra Stadium.

Here are some entries:

The Infield Fly Rule
Who knows what it is? Not me.
Please get me more beer.

The Infield Fly Rule
states, when badgered by flies, swat
often and quickly.

No dropping the ball
To put on a double play
You're already out

Two runners on base
Infield popup, the batter
Is out, runners not

Green summer meadow
Children play, so engrossed
They do not need rules.

Baseball widow, I
retreat for greener pastures:
"Desperate Housewives"

Who can catch a fly?
Not me. Luckily I don't
Need to. I play third.

Most of the entries don't specifically concern the infield fly rule. Here's mine:

Two runners on base
Infielder catches the ball
No one has to run

Not the most inspiring, but it certainly explains the infield fly rule, and I did write it in all of about 30 seconds. I'll do better tomorrow.

Speaking of haiku, in 2001 I won the Vogon Poetry Contest at Toronto Trek 15 with some Vogon haiku:

Space is really big
Really, really, really big
Really, really big

(Imagine a Vogon so bloody-minded as to not only write poetry but to insist upon writing haiku, and counting on his fingers to make sure he has the right syllable count.)

Space is really dark
Really, really, really dark
Really, really dark

Space is big and dark
Just like my bowel movements
Whoops, that one is huge!

Of course I won.

Yow.

2005-05-25T16:30:00.000-04:00

This one hurts for personal reasons (I will detail afterward).

His Rudeness scores mightily.

If Stalag 13 Had Been Like Bagram

Alas, Hogan's Heroes. And poor LeBeau. He never stood a chance. The second that Sgt. Schultz discovered the receiver in the coffee pot and then sputtered a report to Colonel Klink, who then discovered the comically obvious bugs in his office, LeBeau's fate was sealed. But there was so much to go through before the sweet kiss of death finally sucked the last breath from the ill-fated Frenchman.

Sure, when Klink called Col. Hogan to his office, Hogan expected to do the usual song and dance - flatter Klink, make implicit threats about the Commandant's status within the Luftwaffe, plant yet one more bug, wink at Helga, Klink's big-titted secretary (would Hogan have it any other way?), head back to quarters, and send more messages to the Allies about Nazi plans. Except not this time. No, when Hogan entered Klink's office, the monocle was off and Gestapo Officer Hochestetter was there with two big guards. Hogan wasn't sure what happened when the first rifle butt hit him in the nose, but the next thing he knew, his clothes were being cut off him and a hood was being placed on his head. He heard the Germans laughing at his cold, frightened, shriveled cock, disappearing like a turtle head into his body. Then Hogan made his biggest mistake.

Every other time Hogan had invoked the Geneva Convention (for instance, "Colonel Klink, I must protest as a violation of the Geneva Convention the private interrogation of my men by a Gestapo officer"), Klink had crumbled like a house of cards. But when he tried this time, he was slammed face down on Klink's desk as the Commandant exhaled a frustrated, "Hooogannnn. I'll show you what we think of the Geneva Convention." And then Hogan heard a thick sheaf of papers being rolled tightly. Well, this is poetic, Hogan thought, just before he felt the searing pain of the Geneva Conventions being shoved into his ass. Schultz protested briefly, but Klink asked the bumbling Sergeant what he would say to any investigators.

"I see noth-ink," he exclaimed. "I see noth-ink."

Hogan would not crack. He would not give up the names of anyone who had collaborated with him to enable the Allies to stop so many attacks, so many Nazi plans. By the time they threw him into the freezing cold cell, near the cells where LeBeau, Kinch, Newkirk, and Carter cowered, all naked, all chained into forced kneeling positions, Hogan had been beaten repeatedly, he'd had electrodes attached to his nutsack, he'd been half-drowned over and over, but he wouldn't give them a name. Even when they raped him with Klink's swagger stick, Hogan stayed true to his men, his mission.

God, the way the months progressed after that. The dogs they used on Kinch, the way they bundled Newkirk and Carter up in the middle of the night and sent them to Nazi areas of Northern Africa, where they would be tortured and mutilated until they gave up every bit of info they had and lied about so, so much more. How many times can you be hung by your ankles, had your balls pressed in a makeshift vice, your asshole probed with broomsticks, snakes, and ballpeen hammers, how much can you take until you are willing to say anything, sign anything, consign your family to death. Carter lasted about six months until the poor, dim bastard didn't have anything else to make up and he took one electric shock too many. It was worse for Newkirk. He lived until just about the end of the war, when, in a panic, the Gestapo sold him to a caravan of lonely Bedouins.

But LeBeau. The Gestapo decided to use LeBeau as a way to soften up Hogan, that tough motherfucker. They screamed at him, kept him awake for three, four days at a time. They forced him to stand for hours and hours and every time he fell, they would kick him in the side of his leg. They'd chain him by his arms and legs, a modified rack, and force him to sing "Deutschland Uber Alles," to call himself a "filthy Jew," and more. When he'd shit himself, they'd force him to roll around in his own shit and then hose him off with freezing water. They would take him down occasionally, to show him to Hogan, to question him some more. LeBeau would twitch, his muscles stretched to uselessness, uncontrollable. The twitching would enrage his interrogators, and they would beat him more. When Schultz finally started beating him, LeBeau just gave up. His official cause of death was a heart attack, caused by blood clots from all the torture. C'est la vie, eh?

Hogan was sent home after the war. When he is asleep, when he is awake, he hears screams, from his men, from himself. Fifty years of screams. And he thinks he's lucky.

Remember: Hogan's Heroes were guilty. They committed espionage. They thwarted the Germans every chance they could. The Germans in this version were being good soldiers, according to the paradigm the Bush administration has created. They were trying to stop imminent attacks on their own men. Hogan and the other prisoners wouldn't have given up any information if the niceties of the Geneva Convention had been followed, right?

And if they had been innocents, if LeBeau had simply been driving past Stalag 13, delivering wine, well, that's just collateral damage. It's a shame, but, god, don't you understand the price we must pay to sleep safely at night?

As a child, I watched Hogan's Heroes - yes, I surely did. For that sin, my descendants will have to say Kaddish for the full 11 months on my behalf.

Meanwhile, the wingnuts and warbloggers and talk radio blowhards see noth-ink! Absolutely noth-ink!

Wow. What the heck was the New York Review of Books THINKING?

2005-05-24T22:19:00.000-04:00

Steve of No More Mister Nice Blog shreds and keeps right on shredding.

The New York Times Magazine's profile of Rick Santorum was bad, but it wasn't the most disheartening mash note to the Christian Right I read this weekend. That honor goes to Joan Didion's article on the Terri Schiavo case in The New York Review of Books.

Yeah, she's on the other side on this one. She thinks Michael Schiavo is a creep, she thinks his lawyer is a creep, and she thinks the national rancor the case generated was essentially our side's fault. She thinks the majority of doctors who examined and diagnosed Terri Schiavo might be part of a vast death-loving conspiracy, and she strongly suggests that Dr. William Cheshire, who says Schiavo may have been in a "minimally conscious state" rather than a vegetative state, was a hero speaking truth to power.

"Some doctors and bioethicists with interests in the matter suggested that, as a conservative Christian, Dr. Cheshire brought a bias to the case," Didion writes. What Didion fails to say is that Dr. Cheshire did bring a bias to the case:

Cheshire has been associated with the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, an organization formed in the 1990s by leading Christian bioethicists. A poem attributed to him about assisted suicide is posted on the Web site Ethics & Medicine (www.ethicsandmedicine.com):

"The notion of a right to die/ In reason finds approval nil,/ From such a harsh judicial lie/ Would obligate doctors to kill."

(The poem is here. It's not subtle.)

But this is a bias Didion seems to share. I really wasn't expecting this:

...even if we had managed to convince ourselves that this case involved the right to die, a problem remained. No one even casually exposed to religious teaching believes any such right exists. "So teach us to number our days," the Episcopal litany asks, "so that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." This is a prayer for the wisdom to accept that death is inevitable, not a plea for control over its timing. "Control" itself, when it comes to the natural processes of life and death, is seen as an illusion, an error we learn through life to relinquish. This is by no means a view confined to Christian fundamentalists. It is a view shared by anyone whose ethical principles or general idea of how life works have at any point been touched by any of the world's major religions.

What is she talking about? In hospitals every day we use, or agree not to use, "extraordinary measures"; we limit ourselves in some cases to palliative care; we write "DNR" for "do not resuscitate" on medical charts. That's "control," and quite often we have it, regardless of what the Episcopal litany says. And in this country, inevitably, most of the people who exercise this control, or ask that it be exercised, are believers.

:::snip:::

Didion chides those on the right-to-die side in this case for excessive certainty and inability to imagine a different point of view, but says virtually nothing about the certainty and insensitivity of the pro-feeding-tube side, as seen, most shockingly, in assertions by members of Terri Schiavo's family that appeared in the report of Jeb Bush's guardian ad litem for the case, Jay Wolfson:

Throughout the course of the litigation, deposition and trial testimony by members of the Schindler family voiced the disturbing belief that they would keep Theresa alive at any and all costs. Nearly gruesome examples were given, eliciting agreement by family members that in the event Theresa should contract diabetes and subsequent gangrene in each of her limbs, they would agree to amputate each limb, and would then, were she to be diagnosed with heart disease, perform open heart surgery.... Within the testimony, as part of the hypotheticals presented, Schindler family members stated that even if Theresa had told them of her intention to have artificial nutrition withdrawn, they would not do it.

The Schindlers, in fact, are virtually absent from Didion's article -- Didion says nothing about their extreme views, or about their retinue, which included Operation Rescue's Randall Terry and Gary McCullough, a onetime spokesman for murderers of abortion doctors.

Leaving the Schindlers mostly offstage (and their advisers entirely offstage) allows Didion to chide Michael Schiavo's brother Brian as a "hothead" because he appeared on Larry King Live on the night of Terri Schiavo's death and told the Schindlers and their hangers-on and supporters to "pound sand." Readers of Didion's piece could have no idea what Brian was reacting to: namely, murder charges. Schiavo's brother and sister had invited Father Frank Pavone, the self-promoting head of Priests for Life, to sit and watch Terri Schiavo die. By his own account, Pavone "was at Terri Schiavo's bedside during the last 14 hours of her earthly life, right up until five minutes before her death." However, he did manage to interrupt his vigil in order to make certain opinions known to the media:

The night before Schiavo died, Pavone said: "If I speak to Michael, if I speak to [Florida state Judge George] Greer, if I speak to any of these people, I will not hesitate to call them exactly what they are: murderers."

On Larry King Live hours after Terri Schiavo died, Pavone preceded Brian Schiavo and said,

Well, Larry, I've reached out to Michael very publicly over the last month. I've preached on many televised masses directly appealing to Michael to sit down and dialogue about this, to work towards reconciliation, to take into account the serious concerns people have about what Terri's killing says about the path America is taking.

I've heard nothing from him. You know, it's one thing to avoid bitterness. It's another thing to avoid truth. And reaching out in kindness and compassion and in respect, which is the attitude I have and I try to foster, is very, very different from distorting the truth. We have to accurately describe what happened here. And what happened here is that Terri was killed. And a lot of people don't accept the explanation of why.

Brian Schiavo was upset at that? Brian Schiavo was "hotheaded"? Well, for crissakes, I certainly hope so.

Pavone's name doesn't appear once in Didion's article.

:::snip:::

Didion goes on to refer to "the first news cycle," as if the first news cycle in this story was in the days before Terri Schiavo's death. In fact, Terri Schiavo was a cause celebre on the right as far back as 2003. It's not clear that Didion even knows that. She doesn't seem to know that a mini-version of the recent drama took place a year and a half ago, complete with emergency legislation rammed through the Florida legislature and cries of "legalized murder" from the national right-wing media. This was a major battle in the culture wars long ago, and the religious right fired the first shots. What offends Didion is merely the rest of America fighting back.

It's said that hard cases make bad law. Which, of course, is not an excuse for not making law. But it is a cautionary note to be very careful when dealing with an overly emotional case.

Still - I always thought the New York Review of Books was a liberal publication. What the heck are they doing publishing a deliberate piece of hack-work like this?

Friday Blog Blogging: Josh Marshall sings truly

2005-05-20T13:27:00.000-04:00

Not that Josh Marshall needs it, but I think these two posts deserve widespread dissemination.

For all the constitutional mischief they're in the midst of making, we should probably thank the 50+ senate Republicans for giving us an extended moment to see so clearly just who they really are.

Remember that this entire political uproar is supposedly about originalism, the need for judges who will interpret the law and the constitution not according to our personal wishes or the political needs of the moment, but according to its original and long-settled meaning. That is, we're told, their aim. And yet to accomplish this they are quite happy to use a demonstrably bogus interpretation of the constitution to overturn two centuries of settled understanding of what the document means and requires.

Before everyone's eyes, everything about the constitution is subservient to their need for power.

Their very victory, should it come to that, is their badge of hypocrisy. Their arguments are all at war with themselves. But they don't care. This is just about perpetuating their own power by any means necessary, using narrow majorities to lock in their power for the long haul.

The problem is, the press is letting them get away with this. The press is reporting the day-to-day tennis match, not taking a step back and looking at the big picture, the drastic implications.

As we wait on the sidelines for the seemingly inevitable chain reaction to take place on the senate floor, it is worth observing and considering the fact that every Republican senator certainly knows that the proposition they're about to attest to is quite simply a lie. Perhaps they have so twisted their reasoning as to imagine it is a noble lie. But it's a lie nonetheless.

What do I mean?

Whether you call it the 'nuclear option', the 'constitutional option' or whatever other phrase the GOP word-wizards come up with, what "it" actually is is this: the Republican caucus, along with the President of the Senate, Dick Cheney, will find that filibustering judicial nominations is in fact in violation of the constitution.

(Just to be crystal clear, what the senate is about to do is not changing their rules. They are about to find that their existing rules are unconstitutional, thus getting around the established procedures by which senate rules can be changed.)

Their reasoning will be that the federal constitution requires that the president makes such nominations " http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html "by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate" and that that means an up or down vote by the full senate.

Nobody believes that.

Not Dick Cheney, not any member of the Republican Senate caucus.

For that to be true stands not only the simple logic of the constitution, but two hundred years of our constitutional history, on its head. You don't even need to go into the fact that other judicial nominations have been filibustered, or that many others have been prevented from coming to a vote by invocation of various other senate rules, both formal and informal, or that almost countless numbers of presidential nominees of all kinds have simply never made it out of committee. Indeed, the whole senate committee system probably cannot withstand this novel and outlandish interpretation of the constitution, since one of its main functions is to review presidential appointees before passing them on to the full senate.

Quite simply, the senate is empowered by the constitution to enact its own rules.

You can think the filibuster is a terrible idea. And you may think that it should be abolished, as indeed it can be through the rules of the senate. And there are decent arguments to made on that count. But to assert that it is unconstitutional because each judge does not get an up or down vote by the entire senate you have to hold that the United States senate has been in more or less constant violation of the constitution for more than two centuries.

For all the chaos and storm caused by this debate, and all that is likely to follow it, don't forget that the all of this will be done by fifty Republican senators quite knowingly invoking a demonstrably false claim of constitutionality to achieve something they couldn't manage by following the rules.

This is about power; and, to them, the rules quite simply mean nothing.

Of course the rules mean nothing. As I said yesterday, they are drunk with power and they do not think there will ever be a reckoning. They are on a crusade and completely suffused with their own overwhelming sense of absolute righteousness. Coupled with their nauseating self-pity and inexcusable ignorance of the entire rest of the universe, you get little kids being indulged by their negligent parents while they trash a relative's home. God help us when we finally have to clean up their mess.

God help us when the hangover comes

2005-05-19T13:38:00.000-04:00

People trying to rationally parse the Senate Republicans' actions are wasting their time. There's no grand strategy, no reasonable approach that can be dealt with by reasonable men on the other side. The Republicans are drunk with power, pure and simple. For whatever reason, they have become immersed in the notion that they are the only aggrieved people in America and that their grievance is so grievous that it excuses any and all actions they take. Couple that with their appalling self-righteousness and the lamentable fact that they are acting as if their temporary monopoly on power is a God-ordained permanent one, and you get what we are seeing: nauseating triumphalism coupled with petulant self-pity. If we had a truly free, independent, unemasculated press, this would be pointed out so frequently that even red state morons would get it. But IOKIYAR.

Still, it's important to remember that this is what's going on. Democrats who try to reason with Republicans are playing tiddlywinks against the Steel Curtain. Liberals who try to argue rationally with wingnuts are like a kitten against a starving wolf. The right wing is drunk with power and rage, they feel like they've been oppressed for centuries and finally - finally! - they are free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, they're free at last! And, since their monopoly is permanent and God is on their side - ignoring Lincoln's dictum that one should pray that one is on God's side - why shouldn't they do whatever they want? They won, didn't they? The American people have spoken, and will not do so again for another 18 months. In the meantime, anything and everything they do is what the American people voted for.

At some point, history being what it is, things will change. More progressive leadership will emerge - heck, I'd settle at this point for more centrist leadership! But oh! the damage that is being done as these drunken elephants trample every constitutional principle, every check and every balance, stomp America's reputation abroad into the mud, preside over frightful human rights abuses and a war that begins to resemble a Stalingrad in the desert, give away more and more of America to the corporations, permit themselves to be saddled by the most extremist version of Christianity imaginable, and then have the nerve to lecture the rest of the world on democracy and freedom.

What a bad taste we are going to have in our mouths on the morning after this bender.

So that's what I have!

2005-05-18T14:55:00.000-04:00

Dr. Corrente, 20 ccs of impeachment hearings, stat!

B.S.S. (Bush Stress Syndrome)

Isn't it time we had a talk about B.S.S.? B.S.S. isn't in the DSM_IV, but it's unquestionably real. My symptoms are:

1. Headache

2. Exteme irritability

3. Constant sense of nausea

4. Uneasy sleep and bad dreams

5. Urge to throw the nearest object to hand at TV or radio

What are your symptoms?

[Oh God, it's coming on again! Where's that damn bucket?!?!?]

I would add:

6. Investigating how to obtain citizenship in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Tristan da Cunha...

7. A "fuck everybody" attitude.

8. Nostalgia for George H. W. Bush.

9. Nostalgia for Ronald Reagan.

10. Nostalgia for Herbert Hoover, Calvin Coolidge, or even Warren G. Harding

11. Counting the hours till The Daily Show.

12. Stunned disbelief, married to a strong desire to climb under the covers and stay there.

13. West Wing reruns. Lots of West Wing reruns.

Imagine a First Lady who makes you long for the return of Nancy Reagan!

Funniest post of the year

2005-05-18T14:18:00.000-04:00

Or since the last Fafblog! post I blogged.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Korea?

So all Giblets hears these days is "Oh North Korea has nukes, oh what are we going to do about North Korea, oh we have to negotiate with North Korea." Well Giblets has the solution to ending the North Korean nuke program in minutes! But what would Giblets give North Korea? What "carrots and sticks" would he use? Behold - the possibilities are endless!

NOTHING!: Giblets does not negotiate with rogue nations! Instead he will devastate them by periodically shaking his fist and going "ooh you'd better not" and "ooh you'll be sorry" until they relent.

MORE NOTHING! What do you give the rogue nation that has nothing? More nothing! Sanctions will make North Korea go from Starvingest Stalinist Dictatorship to MORE StarvingestER Dictatorship EVER! Let's see how much longer Kim Jong Il can take the pain after Giblets sanctions away his janitor's children's sumptuous dirt buffet!

NOTHING... PLUS ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILES!: Giblets does not negotiate with rogue nations... and he doesn't HAVE to, because he has spent over $200 billion on a vast and array of brokwn anti-ballistic missiles! When those North Korean missiles see Giblets's far more expensive and non-functional missile shield, they will be so impressed and intimidated they will drop harmlessly into the ocean to be eaten by large fish.

DELICIOUS KLONDIKE BAR: What would you do for a Klondike bar? Would you shut down your nuclear weapons program, submit to a thorough inspections regime, and disarm your stock of ballistic missiles? Well Giblets doesn't care, because Giblets does not give ice cream to rogue nations. That would only encourage them to develop nuclear weapons just for the sake of obtaining delicious ice cream.

FAKE OUT: Giblets goes "Hey look over there - an aid package and a non-aggression pact!" While North Korea turns around goin' "Where?", Giblets makes off with up to six nuclear warheads, 100 No-Dong missiles, and 8000 spent fuel rods. Suckers!

FAKE OUT 2: Giblets promises that in exchange for the dismantling of its nuclear program North Korea will receive a "wet willie," an unspecified prize too enigmatic for North Korea to resist. When the agreement is signed, however, North Korea gets nothing more - and nothing LESS - then a moistened finger swirled in its ear, to its bitter shame and eternal embarassment!

THE WEE FOLK: Giblets sits it out and waits for an assortment of mischievous pixies and gremlins to replace North Korea's plutonium with swiftly vanishing, treacherous fairy plutonium! Or for the vaporization of Tokyo, whichever comes first.

I myself would have said, send North Korea to bed without its supper, but their Dear Leader (Kim Jong Il, not George. W. Bush, he's our Dear Leader) seems to have done that already.

Bush's response to North Korean nukes reminds me a bit, sadly, of a Simpsons episode (it's only a slight exaggeration to say that everything reminds me of a Simpsons episode - everything else reminds me of a Monty Python bit) in which Ned Flanders's hippie father, unwilling to discipline his unruly son, begs a psychiatrist to do it for him: "We've tried, like, nothin', man, and we're outa ideas!"

No religion here

2005-05-18T09:00:00.000-04:00

Aka, "No sex, please, we're Christian."

ACLU suit sees religious content in abstinence plan

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boston yesterday challenging the US government's funding of a faith-based abstinence program called the Silver Ring Thing, arguing that the public contribution of more than $1 million violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

The nationwide initiative, which has held four events in the Boston area since 2002 and is planning more, urges middle school and high school students to forgo premarital sex and buy silver rings to symbolize their vow of abstinence. The three-hour events have drawn tens of thousands of young people since the program began 10 years ago.

In its suit against the US Department of Health and Human Services, the ACLU contends that the program's primary aim is to spread Christianity. The civil libertarian group cites several pieces of evidence, including a Silver Ring Thing newsletter that says the Pennsylvania-based ministry instructs young people that "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ [is] the best way to live a sexually pure life."

"Federal tax dollars are clearly underwriting religious indoctrination," said Julie Sternberg, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, which prepared the suit. The federal government can fund faith-based programs that perform social services, Sternberg said, but it cannot bankroll activities that explicitly promote a religion.

Denny Pattyn, the founder of the Silver Ring Thing, said in a statement that his group's goal is to teach adolescents about the risks of sex, including teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. The organization, he said, believes it is using its federal dollars properly. Pattyn did not return several phone calls yesterday.

Nikki Dingle, a 19-year-old freshman at Salem State College, attended a gathering held at Merrimack College. Partway through the event, she said, organizers allowed the young people to participate in two group discussions about chastity -- one rooted in Christian values, which she participated in; the other that had no religious theme.

The ACLU acknowledges in its suit that Pattyn, who leads the events, allows teenagers to participate in the secular discussion group. But the ACLU, some of whose members attended a Silver Ring Thing event at Gordon College in Wenham in September, alleges that young people feel pressured to participate in the religious discussion -- those who want to participate in the secular discussion, for example, have to switch rooms, while the religion-based discussion group can stay in their seats, the suit says. The ACLU contends federal money funds both the secular and religious presentations.

The ACLU also notes that the silver rings that youngsters buy for $15 are inscribed with a reference to a verse from the New Testament that says, in part, ''God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of all sexual sin." Adolescents who buy the ring also receive a Bible.

Pattyn, according to the suit, is also executive director of the John Guest Evangelistic Team, an evangelistic ministry based in Sewickley, Pa., that IRS records show has the same address and federal tax identification number as the Silver Ring Thing. The federal money, according to the suit, helps fund salaries and benefits for the Silver Ring Thing staff, along with stage equipment and transportation of program officials to events.

A study released in March in the Journal of Adolescent Health indicated that young adults who took virginity pledges as teens were as likely to be infected with sexually transmitted diseases as those who did not. The study by two sociology professors -- one at Yale, another at Columbia -- said people who make the pledge generally have fewer sex partners, start having sex later, and marry earlier. But they are less likely to use condoms and more likely to experiment with oral and anal sex.

And, therefore, more likely to divorce earlier, too. But hey, we'll just make 'em sign up for "covenant marriages" which is all we need to take care of the divorce problem, right?

There's nothing wrong with abstinence, in theory. Teenagers want to have sex, but they also want to drink, drive, and do other adult things when they're way too young, too. The problem with abstinence is, for the Christian right wing, that's where sex begins and ends in their minds for teenagers. You shouldn't do it, therefore, you shouldn't talk about it, either.

But what happens if you do do it? Christian right wingers have no answer. If you don't want to get sick or pregnant, be pure and holy and you won't get sick or pregnant. And that's true. But that's their answer to everything. Don't want to be gay-bashed? Don't be gay. Don't want to be mocked or harrassed at the Air Force Academy for not being an evangelical? Don't not be an evangelical (I suppose).

Kids are going to have sex, whether we like it or not. There's no way to turn off all those surging hormones. I think we should be teaching teenagers how to be responsible, not telling them, "Just say no."

In any case, the Silver Ring Thing may be effective. But it is also clearly intended to do more than just promote virginity; I don't see how anyone can deny that it has a strong secondary goal of promoting Christianity. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as they do it with their own money.

Sic transit gloria Hollywood

2005-05-17T22:04:00.000-04:00

I'm reading Will in the World, Stephen Greenblatt's biography of Shakespeare. Shakespeare started his career as an itinerant player, the profession of playwrite still nascent. At the time of his first entry into London, Christopher Marlowe was enjoying fame for his play Tamburlaine. Greenblatt writes:

The part of Tamburlaine was created by an astonishingly gifted young actor in the Lord Admiral's Men, Edward Alleyn, at the time only twenty-one years old. At the sight of the performance, Shakespeare, two years his senior, may have grasped, if he had not already begun to do so, that he was not likely to become one of the leading actors on the London stage. Alleyn was the real thing, a majestic physical presence, with a "well tuned," clear voice capable of seizing and holding the attention of enormous audiences.

Will in the World, pp. 190-191.

In other words, the Russell Crowe of his era.

It's interesting. At the time, Alleyn must have been the toast of London, but no one has heard of him for 400 years, while Shakespeare's name will live forever. There were probably noted thespians in Dickens's time, but again, nobody remembers them and everyone knows Dickens.

Part of that, of course, is because we can read Shakespeare and Dickens, while there are no records of Edward Alleyn. The names Eleonora Duse, Sarah Bernhardt, and Sarah Siddons are known, even what they looked like, but not what they were like on the stage.

Makes you wonder - even with movies and TV, DVDs and whatever replaces DVD, will the future remember Tom Cruise or Pierce Brosnan, Meryl Streep or J-Lo? Or will they fade and vanish, except to a few cultural historians? Who today really remembers Gloria Swanson or Douglas Fairbanks? Or even Clark Gable or Claudette Colbert?

Granted, I can't think of too many writers from this era who deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Shakespeare and Dickens. Although they tend to be thought of as "literary" these days, in their own time they were the purveyors of the most popular of popular art. Larry David and David Chase have a very long way to go before they become immortal.

Again, granted, temporary fame is not a bad second place to eternal glory, and most of us would happily settle for the former. But for all their enormous celebrity, the odds are strongly against the future having a clear memory of most of today's biggest stars.

Drama queens

2005-05-16T13:43:00.000-04:00

Tolerance is bad, mkay?

Drama Lesson

How a Playwright Learned Improvisation

Sabrina Audrey Jess, figures she has about half an hour before the cast party begins. With an actor friend to keep her company -- a friend who will come and go, leaving at one point to get out of costume -- she scrunches in one of the back rows, pressing her feet against the seat in front of her. This is where Sabrina begins to explain how "Offsides," her one-act drama about a high school football player who realizes he's gay, landed her in an ugly political brawl.

"I had a lot of senior friends last year who went through a really hard time," she says. "Some of them didn't tell anybody because of how scared they were. There were some who told people, and their parents said they were going to get kicked out of their house, or they had to go to counseling, and if they didn't go to counseling they would be forced to leave the house -- it was just a lot of stuff. And it didn't make sense to me."

So Sabrina wrote "Offsides" -- but only because she needed something to direct for the school's annual one-act festival and couldn't find what she was looking for. She didn't have a particular topic in mind. She was just hunting for a comedy.

"I liked a lot of them," she says, "but none of them really stuck out to me. So I was like, 'All right, how bad can it be? I'll just sit down and try to write one.' "

"You didn't get a comedy," her friend says with a giggle.

"It was far from a comedy," Sabrina agrees, and the girls crack up.

This is gallows humor; after the play was performed in early February, Sabrina didn't exactly have a lighthearted time. "Offsides" was the second of five one-acts on the bill, and a few folks walked out. Says Sabrina, "The people I saw leave during the show had little kids, which I completely understand." The play contained a tentative and ambiguous homosexual kiss that was blacked out almost before it began; more unsettling were the physical beating and blistering ostracization the football star then endured from his friends.

For Sabrina, the real fallout came in the following days. Her play was the hot topic of the next county school board meeting, which was preceded by anti-"Offsides" leaflets and even an e-mail campaign urging constituents to tell school board members that "it is inappropriate to promote homosexuality in our public schools." That came from the office of Del. Richard H. Black (R-Loudoun), who later stated that he didn't write the e-mail but was simply passing it on.

Thus, of course, and, I'm sure, entirely unintentionally, making her point for her.

What is it about this that the homophobes and wingnuts don't get? That calling for tolerance - for kindness and respect and understanding - is not the same thing as "promoting homosexuality"? I'm baffled. I realize many people are uncomfortable with homosexuality, for a number of reasons. But how is it "promoting" homosexuality to call for an end to gay-bashing? Other than a true nutcase like the evil Fred Phelps, can anyone really be in favor of someone being beaten up simply because he's gay? Or being thrown out of his house by his parents? Or committing suicide rather than keep dealing with the taunts and the threats and the beatings?

The people who quote Leviticus to justify their homophobia are also the people who, for the most part, don't follow a single other stricture from that text. They don't keep Kosher, they violate the Sabbath, they wear garments made from more than one thread, etc. What it is, is, they don't like gays, so then they go find a Biblical justification to back up something they've already decided.

And in any case, whether or not you think homosexuals should have any rights at all, if you truly believe in that "culture of life" that the right wing Christians and Republicans seem to think they have a copyright on, you should be in favor of simple tolerance.

But they aren't. They get almost hysterical the instant anything other than vicious condemnation of the "gay agenda" makes even the most minimal public appearance. It's as if they have some kind of right not to have any of their tender sensibilities affronted by having to consider the existence of anything they don't approve of. Not being in charge of everything is discrimination against them. Not being able to discriminate against others is discrimination against them. Not being able to beat up a fag is anti-Christian. After all, if he doesn't want to keep getting beaten up, all the queer has to do is choose to be straight!

I'm constantly being reminded of what G. K. Chesterton wrote: "Christianity hasn't failed. It's never been tried."

And you're not singing the national anthem loud enough either!

2005-05-13T16:54:00.000-04:00

Only 3 feet by 2 feet? What kinda commies are they?

Law forces schools into flag chase

More than 15,000 American flags need to be replaced in public school classrooms in Central Florida by the end of the school year because they are smaller than a new state law requires.

The law, requiring every Florida public classroom to display an American flag, includes a 3-by-2-foot size requirement. Many flags used in classrooms aren't that large.

"We already had flags in every classroom," said Richard Wells, Seminole County's school district spokesman. "They just weren't the ones specified by the law."

(The law also says the flags should be paid for with donations.)

China's eating our lunch, India's stealing our software jobs, but Florida's kids'll at least have BIG FLAGS.

A little learning may not be a dangerous thing...

2005-05-13T16:12:00.000-04:00

...but it's surely not as good as a lot of learning.

The Daily Reckoning, a (what else?) daily e-newsletter, has this to say about America's coming collapse:

On the cover of one of this week's newsmagazines is a story about China. It is the world's second super-power, the piece tells us. We don't doubt it. But now our little system of connected thoughts has turned into a galaxy. We look all the way back to the 18th century...when Britain and America stole a march on the entire world. While the Chinese were still tilling their fields with wooden hoes, the Anglo-Saxons were building mechanized looms...and steam engines...and then railroads...and skyscrapers...and airlines. They worked like mad...saved their money...and built up a base of capital that sent them racing far ahead their potential rivals. The Chinese...the Indians...there were vast groups of the world's population that had plenty of manpower. What they lacked was capital, know-how and a market culture that rewarded risk taking and innovation.

The "Anglo-Saxons" so lauded in this encomium were a small fraction of greedy, ruthless men who exploited their workers almost as cruelly as Pharoah did the Israelites. They forced farm laborers off their land, they summoned the yeomanry any time the workers even thought about organizing, they polluted the land and the air and the water, stripmined coal, turned vast numbers of women into prostitutes and children into factory hands, and did a whole host of other awful things.

For every "Anglo-Saxon" who "built a mechanized loom," there were 50,000 who were all but chained to them. They "worked like mad," all right, because it was either that or starve. They didn't save their money, however, because none of them had any. They lost limbs and eyes, they coughed their lungs out, saw their children die in infancy and died young themselves.

One can argue that this was the price of progress, what Marx called "primitive capitalist accumulation," and that without it we would not have become the richest countries in human history. There is a lot of historical accuracy to it. But if you're going to make that argument, don't cast it as if it was the calculated choice of an entire society from whose superior discipline we have sadly gone astray. I guarantee you that nearly every British worker who suffered during the Industrial Revolution would have chosen less progress if it meant he did not have to work a 12- or 14-hour day tending unfenced machinery in a stinking, dark, smoky, din-filled cavernous factory for pennies a week.

That doesn't mean he would be right, either. Most of human history has been mightily cruel to most humans. Poor people have suffered for millennia, and it's only due to their suffering that we have a better world today. But at least acknowledge that. Don't lionize the greedy bastards who profited off their suffering. Lionize the inventors, the artists, the writers and composers and poets and explorers and scientists and doctors and nurses and teachers and discoverers and statesmen, the philosophers and humanitarians. The ones who actually made the world better.

As for us - well, yes, too many Americans are addicted to credit cards (as if the economy could possibly function if we weren't). But we work plenty hard. If we don't save enough, whose fault is that? Bush gave tax breaks to the wealthiest - why aren't they saving more of it? I thought that was the whole point - give money to the monied, who don't need it and who will therefore invest it in ways that will eventually redound to the greater profit of all. Doesn't seem to have worked that way, huh? Oh well, I guess the next round of tax cuts will cure all diseases.

In any case, China is now going through the "primitive capitalist accumulation" Marx was certain was a prerequisite for any eventual communist revolution. He was a good describer, much better at that than as a prescriber. It's hard for any country to go through that twice, although if the Republicans have their way, we're going to have to (labor movement, environmental protection laws, all the victories we thought we'd won). There are many reasons why Britain led the way industrially and commercially, and many reasons why China is taking off so shockingly now. Lecturing and scolding us will not lead to enlightenment on these complex issues, especially not when your history is faulty. Businessmen are a necessary evil. They should not be celebrated for that - letting them get rich is enough reward.

Crime definitely pays - for right wing politicians and their media handmaidens

2005-05-13T13:53:00.000-04:00

We can be rational and effective or we can be irrational and ineffective. Unfortunately, we all know which way America has chosen. (And to think this country used to have a reputation for being pragmatic and practical.)

Unlocking the Prison Within

“Illiteracy is a prison. Education is my way of tearing down the walls, my liberation, a journey to other worlds." These words, strongly metaphoric in their imagery, are spoken softly by a man named Sammi in a place where you would least expect poetry: the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton. Sammi is, in fact, serving a 98-year sentence for first degree murder. And yet, behind the walls of the oldest continuously operating prison in America, Sammi has achieved a sense of personal freedom he has never experienced before - by learning how to read and sharing that gift with other inmates.

Sammi and Nathaniel, another convicted murderer he is tutoring, are two of the central subjects in "How Do You Spell Murder," produced by Academy-Award winning filmmakers Susan and Alan Raymond. The documentary explores the relationship between illiteracy and crime.

The Raymonds' work has taken them to four war zones around the world, from Belfast to Bosnia, and into the worst inner city neighborhoods around the United States. "I used to look back and say to myself, what were we thinking," says Susan Raymond. "We had a young child but we were both young, and we wanted to chase our careers and have the life experience. But to have both parents in a helicopter, both parents covering a bomb scene. I just say thank God we made it."

Susan is the narrator, producer, writer, and director half of the husband-wife team, based outside Philadelphia, who rank among the most influential and distinguished independent documentary producers and directors. Their "young child," a son, is now 16 years old. Susan and Alan Raymond have been working together for more than 30 years. They made their mark in the documentary field with the 1973 PBS cinema verite series "An American Family," which captures the daily life of the Loud family, foreshadowing America's rising divorce rate and the emergence of the gay liberation movement.

In 1994 they won the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary for "Am a Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary School," a film that depicts the life of an inner-city elementary school and in the process chronicles the deterioration of the nation's public school system.

"Once you've won an Academy Award," says Alan Raymond, who does the producing and the shooting, "you realize you don't have to spend your life dreaming of getting one. It's wonderful. It gives you a certain imprimatur. We live in a very competitive field now in television where editors are inundated with shows. It's hard to get a major review or feature article, so the award gives you a certain credibility."

They specialize in long-form storytelling, focusing on social issue documentaries an hour or more in length. "Our basic hope is that our work will affect public opinion," says Susan. Telling the story of the link between crime and the numbers of prisoners who are functionally illiterate, often because of a learning disability, was a natural choice for a couple committed to social change. Making "How Do You Spell Murder?" became especially pressing for the Raymonds when they discovered the L.I.F.E. program at the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton and found out that as many as 75 percent of the prisoners there are considered illiterate.

"A film like this is a reference for prison groups," says Susan. "The tape is being used by educators and researchers. We know it's being passed around to people who write legislation. Of course on the other side there are the victims' rights groups who have aligned themselves with the conservatives. These days there's a lot more sympathy out there for the victim than the criminal who doesn't know how to read."

Her husband concurs. "The link between illiteracy and crime is an important societal issue that no one wants to address. Our film first aired on Cinemax Reel Life on September 24, 2002. When we went to do the publicity and press, very few writers wanted to touch the subject. It was very chilling to see that there was no sympathy for that population." He points out that it's a very conservative time in the state and federal prison system, when less than one percent of state and federal prison budgets is used for prisoner education. "And yet this is while every study shows that education is the best way to rehabilitate, the best way to prevent recidivism."

"Learning to read is a basic human right," says Susan. "It borders on criminal behavior on the part of society to deny that right to some, and that's why we believe it's a human rights violation. Prisons don't put effort into rehabilitation. None of that prison time has been used productively to prepare the inmates for real life."

A basic notion that demagogic politicians, hyperventilating right wing radio talk show hosts, and macho assholes (the kind you see staggering around drunkenly outside some prisons on the night of an execution, baying bravely as if they are about to slay the prisoner themselves in single combat) seem incapable of grasping is that we treat prisoners humanely not simply for their sake but also for ours. A society that takes out its anger about crime on criminals simply because it can is a deeply sick society. That pretty much all of human history has demonstrated this sickness is no excuse.

I know the argument, why should my tax dollars go to give some vicious thug a free education? Well, why shouldn't it? If it will keep him from committing crimes in the future? Is that not a wise investment?

But the Rush Limbaughs and Bill O'Reillys and Sean Hannitys and Michael Savages of the world - to say nothing of the Dobsons and Robertsons and conservative "Lawnorder" Republicans - will eat you for breakfast if you try to make that argument. "Willie" Horton (he never called himself that, you know, nor did anyone else before Lee Atwater) worked. The public wants and needs monsters. The press and the politicians are happy to feed that fear. Effective solutions against crime definitely do not fit their bill.

Friday Blog Blogging: Back to the basics

2005-05-13T13:31:00.000-04:00

I usually use this spot to highlight new or obscure stuff, but sometimes you have to go with the classics, if for no other reason than to remind yourself why they are classics in the first place.

Two outstanding posts on Daily Kos:

Reid under attack

by kos
Thu May 12th, 2005 at 23:41:49 PDT

Frist wants to be president bad. Really bad. And he's willing to drag down the rest of his party in order to fulfill his ambitions.

Seems that his battle over the filibuster is going so poorly, he's hired a known thief to lead a smear campaign against Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid. The first salvo has been hurled by partisan "journalist" Charles Hurt of the Washington Times.
Minority Leader Harry Reid strayed from his prepared remarks on the Senate floor yesterday and promised to continue opposing one of President Bush's judicial nominees based on "a problem" he said is in the nominee's "confidential report from the FBI."

Those highly confidential reports are filed on all judicial nominees, and severe sanctions apply to anyone who discloses their contents. Less clear is whether a senator could face sanctions for characterizing the content of such files.
And the punchline:
Republican aides pointed to Standing Rule of the Senate 29, Section 5: "Any Senator, officer, or employee of the Senate who shall disclose the secret or confidential business or proceedings of the Senate, including the business and proceedings of the committees, subcommittees, and offices of the Senate, shall be liable, if a Senator, to suffer expulsion from the body; and if an officer or employee, to dismissal from the service of the Senate, and to punishment for contempt."
And then Reid is lectured by a thief.
"Harry Reid is a disgrace to the Senate and to [his] Church of Latter-day Saints," said Manuel Miranda, who was forced to resign as a Republican Senate staffer after downloading files on judicial nominees from Democratic computer servers.
So let's take a moment to digest this.

Reid is a disgrace to the Senate and his church, and should face expulsion from the Senate, for mentioning that Judge Saad has an FBI file. Got it. That secret FBI file. The one that was discussed in the Detroit Free Press a year ago.
Levin and Stabenow testified Thursday during the private meeting. They said before the meeting that they would discuss information from Saad's FBI background check that raised doubts about his ability to serve, but they wouldn't elaborate.
The secret FBI file that was discussed by Gannet News Service also last year.
The Judiciary Committee held a private meeting to discuss Judge Saad's nomination after a routine FBI background check on the judge uncovered allegations of "very serious nature."
It is indeed an act of sleaze and desperation for Frist's office to try and use this to rally rebel Republicans to his side on the Nuclear Option.

How much you want to bet that at least some "moderate" or "neutral" so-called MSM journalists pick this up and run with it, ignoring Bush's tumbling popularity, DeLay's sleaze, Frist's incompetence, and the way the war in Iraq is going so well?

Onward (and, alas, downward):

The Extremist War on Moderates

by Armando
Thu May 12th, 2005 at 23:41:02 PDT

The Extremists in control of the Republican Party are at war with the moderates of their own party, and the moderates have started to notice:
The next squeeze, for the moderates, will be the explosive question of whether Republican leaders should change Senate rules to bar Democrats from using the filibuster, a two-century-old parliamentary tactic, to block the judicial nominees. Dr. Frist is advocating the change, and a confrontation is widely expected next week.

. . . Mr. Specter is in a particularly tight spot. He is trying to remain neutral, but as Judiciary Committee chairman is expected to advocate for the nominees. John Breaux, a centrist Democrat who was in the Senate until last year, said defying party leaders could be especially risky for a committee chairman. "They can put an awful lot of pressure on you," he said of the leaders. "They say, 'Look, you're a chairman because your party is in control, and you've got to be with the party.' So when you break with them, you have to be fast on foot to explain it."

Ms. Collins, chairwoman of the domestic security committee, is also taking that risk. Along with Ms. Snowe, she has expressed reservations about the rules change, as well as the Social Security plan. Last week, the two returned to Maine to find themselves the targets of an advertising campaign on the judicial nominees, a campaign that had the endorsement of Dr. Frist.
Can you believe that the Senate Majority Leader has approved running ads against Senators from his OWN Party? It is the Dobsons and Robertsons who run the Republican Party. The most extreme elements in the Republican Party call the shots now. But the moderates now realize it:
By this week, Ms. Collins seemed a bit worn down by that debate. "It seems like it's issue after issue this year," she said, adding that she often envies "those senators for whom everything is black and white."

Ms. Snowe, meanwhile, had a message for fellow Republicans: "Frankly," she said, "the election of the president drew from Americans who describe themselves as moderates, which is about 45 percent of Americans today. That's something we overlook at our own peril."
With due respect to Sens. Snowe and Collins, you overlook at your own peril that the head of the Republican Party is now the Reverend James Dobson of Colorado Spring, Colorado.

Another development the MSM is completely going to miss. This one is harder to figure out why, though. Keeping Bush in office is good for the corporations (at least short-term), so it figures they'd try to ignore bad news about the Republicans or at least seek distractions such as fictitious bad news about the Democrats.

But how is it in even Rupert Murdoch's personal or class interest to see America become a theocracy under the "guidance" of James Dobson and Pat Robertson? Or do he and his fellow plutocrats think they can ride the tiger? For a chilling cautionary tale of how that worked out once before, read David Abraham's The Collapse of the Weimar Republic: Political Economy and Crisis (Princeton University Press, 1981).

Or perhaps they don't give a shit, figuring that if America goes belly-up, they can simply own China or India instead. Which is a whole lot of help and comfort for the 99.9% of the country without that option.

America - especially its rational propertied classes - had better wake up soon.

The theocracy is here - and it's full of hypocrites

2005-05-13T12:59:00.000-04:00

Surprise surprise.

Don't have the energy to quote. Just go read here and here.

Then answer me this: I know 51% of America voted for Bush (which means, of course, that 49% voted for Kerry. Some "landslide.") Do you really think they voted for this?

Congress to reality: Go away, kid, stop bothering me

2005-05-13T12:27:00.000-04:00

Strong men getting weak at the knees at the thought of their daughters – well, not exactly their daughters, since, as far as I know, nobody in Congress actually has a daughter - or a son – in the serivce - facing combat – but you know what I mean.

For Female GIs, Combat Is a Fact
Many Duties in Iraq Put Women at Risk Despite Restrictive Policy

Jennifer Guay went to war to be a grunt. And the 170-pound former bartender from Leeds, Maine, with cropped red hair and a penchant for the bench press, has come pretty close.

It was mid-February and Guay, 26, an Army specialist who was the first woman to be assigned as an infantry combat medic, was spending 10 hours a day on missions with the 82nd Airborne Division, dodging rockets and grenades in the crowded streets of Mosul.

"Break-break-break: U.S. soldier down!" a hard-edged voice came over the radio. A gun battle had just broken out.

In less than five minutes, Guay was at the scene. She dashed to Sgt. Christopher Pusateri, 21, who was lying on the ground, a bullet through his jaw. "I was in charge of this man's life," she recalled. Pusateri had "a massive trauma injury, and I had to get him off the middle of the street."

Day after day, Guay has faced situations that would test the steel of any soldier. And female soldiers like her -- as well as Army officers who support them -- are seizing opportunities amid Iraq's indiscriminate violence to push back the barriers against women in combat. As American women in uniform patrol bomb-ridden highways, stand duty at checkpoints shouldering M-16s and raid houses in insurgent-contested towns, many have come to believe this 360-degree war has rendered obsolete a decade-old Pentagon policy barring them from serving with ground combat battalions.

"The Army has to understand the regulation that says women can't be placed in direct fire situations is archaic and not attainable," said Lt. Col. Cheri Provancha, commander of a Stryker Brigade support battalion in Mosul, who decided to bend Army rules and allow Guay to serve as a medic for an infantry company of the 82nd Airborne. Under a 1994 policy, women are excluded from units at the level of battalion and below that engage in direct ground combat.

"This war has proven that we need to revisit the policy, because they are out there doing it," Provancha, a 21-year Army veteran from San Diego, said from her base in what soldiers call Mosul's "mortar alley." "We are embedded with the enemy."

Dozens of soldiers interviewed across Iraq -- male and female, from lower enlisted ranks to senior officers -- voiced frustration over restrictions on women mandated in Washington that they say make no sense in the war they are fighting. All said the policy should be changed to allow, at a minimum, mixed-sex support units to be assigned to combat battalions. Many favored a far more radical step: letting qualified women join the infantry.

But Congress is moving in the opposite direction. A House subcommittee, seeking to keep women out of combat, passed a measure this week that would bar women from thousands of Army positions now open to them. In Iraq, female soldiers immediately denounced the vote.

"I refuse to have my right as a soldier taken from me because of my gender," Guay wrote in an e-mail. "It is my right to defend my country. . . . I am well aware of the danger. . . . Let me (us) do our job."

For many inside Army camps, the disconnect between Washington officialdom and the reality that female troops confront in Iraq was epitomized by President Bush's Jan. 11 declaration of "No women in combat."

"That's an oxymoron!" said Sgt. Neva D. Trice, who leads a female Army search team that guards the gates of Baghdad's Green Zone, where many U.S. and Iraqi government facilities are located. "If he said no women in combat, then why are there women here in Iraq?"

Dozens of soldiers interviewed across Iraq -- male and female, from lower enlisted ranks to senior officers -- voiced frustration over restrictions on women mandated in Washington that they say make no sense in the war they are fighting. All said the policy should be changed to allow, at a minimum, mixed-sex support units to be assigned to combat battalions. Many favored a far more radical step: letting qualified women join the infantry.

But Congress is moving in the opposite direction. A House subcommittee, seeking to keep women out of combat, passed a measure this week that would bar women from thousands of Army positions now open to them. In Iraq, female soldiers immediately denounced the vote.

"I refuse to have my right as a soldier taken from me because of my gender," Guay wrote in an e-mail. "It is my right to defend my country. . . . I am well aware of the danger. . . . Let me (us) do our job."

For many inside Army camps, the disconnect between Washington officialdom and the reality that female troops confront in Iraq was epitomized by President Bush's Jan. 11 declaration of "No women in combat."

"That's an oxymoron!" said Sgt. Neva D. Trice, who leads a female Army search team that guards the gates of Baghdad's Green Zone, where many U.S. and Iraqi government facilities are located. "If he said no women in combat, then why are there women here in Iraq?"

Whatever happened to Kipling's "The female of the species is deadlier than the male"?

Besides, we've got a serious manpower - sorry, person-power - crisis in Iraq now. Kick the women out and we'll be totally in the shit.

I wonder what the racists will say about this

2005-05-13T11:24:00.000-04:00

I guess, considering that racism is imbecility, meaning racists are imbeciles, they'll simply deny what science is clearly telling them (and us).

DNA Study Yields Clues on First Migration of Early Humans

By studying the DNA of an ancient people in Malaysia, a team of geneticists says it has illuminated many aspects of how modern humans migrated from Africa.

The geneticists say there was only one migration of modern humans out of Africa; that it took a southern route to India, Southeast Asia and Australia; and that it consisted of a single band of hunter-gatherers, probably just a few hundred people strong.

Because these events occurred in the last Ice Age, when Europe was at first too cold for human habitation, the researchers say, it was populated only later, not directly from Africa but as an offshoot of the southern migration. The people of this offshoot would presumably have trekked back through the lands that are now India and Iran to reach the Near East and Europe.

The findings depend on analysis of mitochondrial DNA, a type of genetic material inherited solely through the female line. They are reported today in Science by a team of geneticists led by Dr. Vincent Macaulay of the University of Glasgow.

Everyone in the world can be placed on a single family tree, in terms of their mitochondrial DNA, because everyone has inherited that piece of DNA from a single woman, the mitochondrial Eve, who lived some 200,000 years ago.

(Boldface mine.)

Not really much else to say.

Why does reality hate Jesus?

2005-05-13T11:19:00.000-04:00

What’s wrong with those damn, whining Iraqis? Why can’t they let Preznit Dear Leader Bush celebrate his God-ordained victory for democracy and expensive oil?

Iraqi living standards 'plummet'
Living conditions for Iraqis have plunged over the past 25 years with many households struggling to fulfil basic needs, an Iraqi-UN report says.

In 2004, a year after the fall of Saddam Hussein, some 22,000 households were questioned about their lives.

The study paints a "rather tragic situation of the quality of life", said Iraqi planning minister Barham Saleh. He blamed the former regime, but the insecurity which has followed its fall is also seen as playing a key role.

Improving security will be crucial in lifting living standards in Iraq, now among the lowest in the region, according to the UN Development Programme's country director for Iraq. "A country suffering from a difficult security situation cannot provide services to its population," Boualem Aktouf told the BBC news website. "Although many people live close to health centres, schools and clinics, their quality is not guaranteed," he added.

It is highly likely that most households now have a lower real income than almost 25 years ago, said the report, entitled the Iraqi Living Conditions Survey 2004.

Almost a quarter of children aged between six months and five years old are suffering from chronic malnutrition, it said.

The report says that while the infrastructure exists to allow access to basic supplies - like electricity and clean running water - it is not reliable.

In some areas, the situation has worsened dramatically since the fall of the regime. Iraqis living in Baghdad, for example, now only have about ten hours of electricity each day, half of what they enjoyed in 2003.

Mr Aktouf said it could take up to ten years to restore standards of living.

Why didn’t we just give Saddam Hussein $100 billion in cash to go into exile and use the other $300 billion we’ve spent on the war to rebuild the country? I don’t think, although I could be wrong, that even the U.S. Department of Defense and Halliburton could waste/steal that much money.

Yoor skool taks dollers att wurk

2005-05-13T10:50:00.000-04:00

The future of American education.

Kids' book on evolution stirs censorship debate in Monticello

With its lavish illustrations of colorful, cuddly critters, "Our Family Tree" looks like the kind of book kids keep by their bedside to read again and again.

But when its St. Paul author, Lisa Westberg Peters, planned to talk about the book in classroom appearances today and Friday at a Monticello, Minn., elementary school, educators got cold feet.

"Our Family Tree" focuses on evolution, the scientific explanation for human origins that some believe contradicts biblical teachings. Peters' appearances, which were to focus on helping kids learn how to write, were canceled.

Notice that? "Some believe." So what? Some believe we found WMD in Iraq, but not even Fox News goes with that anymore.

"It's a cute book. There's nothing wrong with it. We just don't need that kind of debate," said Brad Sanderson, principal at Pinewood Elementary.

No, you need precisely "that kind of debate," Mr. Sanderson.

Monticello's assistant superintendent, Jim Johnson, said school officials made a reasonable request of Peters to talk about writing but leave the discussion about evolution to teachers. When she refused, the visit was scuttled.

Awww, how mean of her to be so unreasonable as to refuse to discuss the subject of her book. What kind of a raving lunatic is she?

Across the country, there has been increasing opposition to teaching evolution. Peters said officials at two other Minnesota school districts have asked her not to talk about the book in visits over the past year.

The author believes that she is being censored -- something the schools deny.

"Once you start censoring, it's a slippery slope. Are geology and physics next? You have to stop it right away," said Peters, who won a Minnesota Book Award for "Our Family Tree," published in 2003.

In Kansas, the State Board of Education is expected to require that teachers tell students that evolution is controversial. Bills have been introduced in Georgia and Alabama to allow educators to question evolution in the classroom and offer alternatives.

Last year, the Grantsburg, Wis., school district drew widespread attention when a new policy urged teachers to explore alternative theories to evolution.

A nice trick, considering there are none. (So-called "Intelligent Design" is not a theory, in the way that evolution is. It's not even a hypothesis. It's simply biblical creationism in a very ill fitting lab coat.)

Peters' book and her school visits have caught the attention of people on both sides of the evolution issue, as well as those concerned about academic freedom.

Susan Spath, public information director for the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, Calif., said she was troubled that Minnesota school officials appeared to fear even talking about evolution.

"This is a signal that school administrators may not be backing up good science teachers, that good science teachers may not be teaching evolution, teaching it correctly, or allowing religious beliefs to be substituted in the classroom for fear of controversy," Spath said. "This is a sign that should concern any parent who cares about good education."

The American Library Association and the Minnesota Coalition Against Censorship also have expressed concerns over the cancellation of Peters' school visits.

"Our Family Tree" was inspired by the geology of the western United States and the works of Stephen Jay Gould, a well-known Harvard University paleontologist. Peters gently walks kids through how one-celled organisms morphed through the eons into more complex creatures, including humans. She could easily leave "Our Family Tree" out of her presentations; it's not a huge part of her material. But she said that would imply she's ashamed of it.

There's also a broader concern. "This is about open discussion in public schools. Censorship is wrong. It's OK in a repressive society, but that's not what we have," Peters said.

Yet.

In addition to Monticello, Peters said Emmet D. Williams Elementary in Shoreview and Rutherford Elementary in Stillwater also have tried to prevent discussion of her book.

Rutherford teacher Mary Ellison and the school's principal declined to return phone calls. Kay Smith, the Shoreview school's principal, said educators asked Peters not to talk about the evolution book because they didn't have time to review it with students before she arrived -- something Peters disputed.

The Shoreview school staff relented and allowed Peters to do her full presentation. "It was a beautiful job. Students and staff were very appreciative," Smith said. "At no point did anybody feel she was pushing the agenda of evolution."

It's a sad - and scary - state of affairs when you have to be afraid to promote incontrovertible science.

Mary Ann Nelson, assistant commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Education, said it's up to local schools to set policy for outside speakers.

Nelson said that state science educational standards provide for students to learn more about evolution as they grow older, and that the standards allow for teachers to provide background on the limitations of scientific theories. She declined to comment specifically about Peters, saying she didn't have enough information.

Robert Zink, a University of Minnesota professor of ecology, evolution and behavior, said Peters' experience should send a chill through parents and anyone who cares about the free exchange of ideas.

"This is a form of censorship," Zink said. "I understand the schools' perspective. It's easier to avoid hot-button topics than confront them head-on, but they have no more basis backing away from this than someone who would come in and discuss the laws of physics.

"As the parent who has children in elementary school, [Peters] is exactly the type of person I would want to be there."

And this happened in Minnesota, not Kansas.

I'm shivering.

That didn't take long

2005-05-13T10:15:00.000-04:00

I suppose, in retrospect, we should have seen this coming.

New German Holocaust Memorial Vandalized

Within hours of the opening of Germany's national Holocaust memorial to the public, a vandal scratched a swastika into one of the 2,711 gray slabs, a spokesman for the memorial said Friday.

The small swastika was spotted by security guards and quickly removed, though the vandal was not caught, spokesman Uwe Neumaerker said.

"What else can we do?" he said. "There are some security forces and they walk through and if they find something they remove it. ... You can't be everywhere at once."

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was officially inaugurated Tuesday after years of debate and delay. It opened to the public Thursday.

The underground information center had 2,700 visitors but many more wandered among the haunting field of slabs. Neumaerker said he could not even speculate who may have defaced the slab.

Designed by U.S. architect Peter Eisenman, the memorial in the former no man's land of the Berlin Wall is a labyrinth of narrow rising and falling pathways between the upright slabs in the ground.

It took 17 years of wrangling among German politicians over its design and message before it was finally completed.

Ahead of its opening, Eisenman said he recognized the memorial could not please everyone, and that he wouldn't mind skateboarders, children playing hide and seek or even graffiti on the slabs.

Asked Monday if the project would be demeaned if someone scratched Nazi symbols on it, he was noncommittal. "Maybe it would. Maybe it wouldn't," Eisenman said. "Maybe it would add to it."

The sickness of the world is sickening. One shouldn't get all frantic over one incident, and perhaps Eisenman is right, that this will keep the memory of all that horror fresh rather than comfortably in the past. But that there are still Nazis - anywhere in the world, but especially in Germany, where it should be as plain as anything how ruinous they really were - is dispiriting. We've learned nothing, nothing at all.

Now we only need 10 of these in every state and we're fine

2005-05-12T10:49:00.000-04:00

Especially Kansas.

Exciting students about science

ASHEVILLE — As an engineer, Ravi Gorthala deals every day with complex equations, but there are numbers that scare him.

Like the statistic that only 2 percent of high school graduates in the United States will go on to engineering graduate school. Or that Europe produces three times as many engineering graduates as the United States each year while Asia produces five times as many.

Gorthala admits he’s no educator, but he thinks he may have a solution to a growing problem.

On Tuesday, he unveiled plans for Think Tek Learning Lab, a free after-school program for middle and high school students in Buncombe County that could open as soon as January.

Think Tek could introduce under-performing students to technology, letting them get their hands on such devices as a transparent motor or a fuel cell. They could make plastic prototypes with computer-assisted design software or maneuver flexible cables with miniature cameras the same way that surgeons can see inside the human body.

But mostly Gorthala wants to get young people excited about science.

“There’s a need here, and I can make a difference,” the Asheville resident said. “We’re not competing with the school systems; we’re trying to help them. We want to provide an informal setting to let kids explore a wide range of technologies.”

Through his Connecticut-based engineering firm, Steven Winter Associates, Gorthala applied for an initial $60,000 grant from NASA to plan the pilot program. In July, he goes back to NASA for a $600,000 grant to open and run the learning lab.

NASA has an ongoing interest not only in space exploration, but also in improving education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. “If they want astronauts to go into space, they have to increase the level of education,” Gorthala said.

Gorthala and his team introduced educators and other community leaders to Think Tek at a forum at the Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College’s Enka Campus.

“We’re not asking for money or any manpower, but we do have to have community support,” said Terry Messer, the Think Tek project’s marketing director.

After-school classes would run twice a week per semester with 100 hours of lab time, including time to invent and design their own project. Intensive summer sessions with full-day labs would also be offered. NASA would pay for about 400 students in seventh grade and up to attend the sessions each year.

After the initial two years, Gorthala would like to see the lab run on affordable fees paid by parents with some scholarship money available.

Randy Harter liked what he heard.

“I’m open for partnering with anyone who can help us do a better job in what we do,” said the mathematics specialist with Buncombe County Schools.

Yusef Fahmy, an engineering professor at UNC Asheville, wants to see more high school graduates coming into his classroom educated and excited about science and mathematics. Their enthusiasm could be good for the health of the local economy.

“When they come from high school into university, we can reinvest them in society,” Fahmy said. About 90 percent of UNCA’s recent graduates in mechatronics have been able to find work here in the area.

“We’re in the right place at the right time in Buncombe County. In Western North Carolina, we have a concerted effort now to bring in more technology,” Messer said.

In my experience, children are naturally curious about how the world works. All they need is encouragement and opportunity to maintain that curiosity for a lifetime. Let's replicate this experiment a 100 times, a 1000 times over, and we may yet arrest America's steady decline as a nation of knowledge and enlightenment.

God hates Social Security privatization!

2005-05-12T08:51:00.000-04:00

Although maybe God just hates the Boston archdiocese...(and who can blame Him?)

Boston's Catholic Archdiocese May Cut Priests' Pensions

Seeking to save money, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston is proposing cuts in its pension benefits for priests.

The archdiocese says that its pension fund has had poor returns in recent years and has suffered from many of the same problems as corporate America's pension funds. Previously, however, officials have cited general financial strains stemming from the sexual abuse scandal and a resulting decline in contributions from churchgoers.

Companies that offer pensions are barred by federal law from reducing benefits that employees have earned.

Unless they're United Airlines.

But churches and other religious employers, like hospitals or schools, do not have to comply with the law and are generally free to handle their pension funds as they choose.

Such as use the money to pay off your priests' victims.

In November 2004, Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley issued an open letter to all members of the archdiocese, warning them that "the financial situation of the archdiocese is much worse than most people realize." He added, "The pension plans for laity and clergy are in danger." The archbishop said at the time that the overall financial problems were not the direct result of settlement payments to victims of sexual abuse but resulted from a sharp falloff in contributions by churchgoers in the wake of the scandal.

The archdiocese of Boston presumably has access to some of the finest financial advice available to anyone anywhere. And if they can't invest wisely, what makes John Tierney and Trent Duffy think you or I could do better?

Why don't we let Bush try it first?

2005-05-11T11:43:00.000-04:00

Although, if his history is any guide, even if he completely fucked up investing for his retirement (the way he fucked up almost every other business venture he ever got involved with), it's a near perfect guarantee that some rich friend of his Daddy would make sure he didn't have to eat dogfood - unless he wanted to, of course. (With Dubya, you never can be too sure.)

Too bad the rest of us don't have that kind of "safety net."

Experts Are at a Loss on Investing

Nobel winners and top academics fumble the sorts of decisions Bush's Social Security overhaul plan would ask average Americans to make.

Harry M. Markowitz won the Nobel Prize in economics as the father of "modern portfolio theory," the idea that people shouldn't put all of their eggs in one basket, but should diversify their investments.

However, when it came to his own retirement investments, Markowitz practiced only a rudimentary version of what he preached. He split most of his money down the middle, put half in a stock fund and the other half in a conservative, low-interest investment.

"In retrospect, it would have been better to have been more in stocks when I was younger," the 77-year-old economist acknowledged.

At least Markowitz invested more wisely than some of his fellow Nobelists. Several of them concede that they have significant portions of their nest eggs in money market accounts, some of the lowest-returning investment vehicles available.

"I know it's utterly stupid," confessed George A. Akerlof, a UC Berkeley professor and 2001 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics.

As President Bush crisscrosses the country promoting his plan to overhaul Social Security, he argues that Americans are ready to trade in a portion of their traditional benefits for ownership and control over their own investment accounts. People have grown so comfortable with stocks and bonds, he asserts, that they can invest their way to more prosperous retirements by watching their quarterly statements, adjusting their portfolios and looking out for themselves.

But a growing body of research shows that millions of Americans fail to get even the most elementary investment decisions right.

"I think very little about my retirement savings, because I know that thinking could make me poorer or more miserable or both," quipped 2002 Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University.

"I would rather spend my time enjoying my income than bothering about investments," said Clive W.J. Granger, an emeritus professor at UC San Diego and a 2003 Nobel Prize winner.

White House officials dismiss such remarks as largely irrelevant to the Social Security debate. They describe the president's proposed investment accounts as voluntary and low-risk.

They suggest that those who oppose the accounts are taking a special swipe at low-income Americans, who otherwise would not have the money to invest on their own.

"It's almost an insult to the ability of some Americans to take charge of their retirements," Bush spokesman Trent Duffy said.

Fine, Mr. Bush. You first. Publish your portfolio on the White House Web site. Let's see how you do.

That Nobelists and other highly educated professionals get tripped up by retirement is hardly proof that people can't handle their own retirement investments. But it does suggest that few are terribly good at the job, and fewer have the time or inclination to get better quickly.

And the president's accounts plan would require people to do a very good job at investing.

Markowitz, Akerlof, Kahneman and Granger are not the exceptions among the nation's most-educated elite or the general population in taking a cautious or hands-off approach to retirement investment.

In interviews and e-mails, five of the 11 Nobel winners in economics during this decade and a handful of others since 1990 said they failed to regularly manage their retirement savings. One even says he missed the mark in how he invested his prize winnings.

Thus adding ammunition to the old argument, "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?"

But if these guys can't do it, what chance do the rest of us have?

"If the creme de la creme of the economics profession and American academia can't get these sorts of things right, why should we expect everyone else to?" asked Yale finance theorist Robert J. Shiller. "Why should we be surprised that people who already carry a heavy burden paying their bills and keeping up with their 401(k)s, if they have them, are reluctant to take on new responsibilities with these [Social Security] accounts?"

Part of the problem is that retirement investment is one of the most difficult financial tasks Americans undertake — far more difficult than financing a house or paying for college because it involves so many imponderables so far in the future.

"Retirement is not like buying a cup of coffee," said Joseph E. Stiglitz, a 2001 Nobel Prize winner, former Clinton administration economist and Columbia professor. "It's not something you get to do over and over again and learn from your mistakes."

Recent research suggests that people, by nature, often make poor economic decisions.

But Bush, his own security guaranteed the day he was born, has no feel for what it's like not to be so insulated - and isolated - from the vicissitudes of life. In other words, he don't give a shit.

"Just because people have the economic self-interest to do something and just because they are given a substantial incentive to do it doesn't mean they're going to do it, or do it correctly."

Not even if they're highly educated, not even if they're Nobelists.

A number of safety features would be built into the president's Social Security accounts, the White House said. Account holders would be allowed to invest in only a handful of conservative stock and bond funds. When they reached age 47, they automatically would be switched into a lower-risk life-cycle fund. In addition, when most people retired, they would have to buy an annuity that promised a steady stream of monthly payments. They would not be able to withdraw the money as a lump sum.

The inclusion of these protections points to a dilemma for Bush in making the case for accounts: Most Americans recognize the dangers the protections are intended to shield against.

For some, it is a powerful argument for keeping Social Security what it is today, a safety net, rather than converting the program into an individual investment vehicle.

"We have a lot of people out there with 401(k)s who have never managed an investment in their lives and are just trying to keep themselves from drowning," said William F. Sharpe, a Stanford finance professor emeritus who shared the 1990 Nobel with Markowitz and Merton H. Miller and founded a company that offers to make people's retirement choices for them.

"I suspect if you asked them, they'd say: 'I've got enough trouble; I don't want to screw up my Social Security.' "

Economics and investing are not the same thing, or the professoriate really would be rich. But again, expecting us to manage our retirement investing is no fairer than expecting us to manage our colonoscopy. And saying so is an insult to no one - except, of course, George W. Bush.

The challenge stands - if it's so easy, show us how, Mr. President. Lead the way.

Hey - that's me!

2005-05-10T11:32:00.000-04:00

I resemble that remark. Dammit.

Over 50 and Out of Favor
Advertisers and thus TV networks are fixated on 18- to 49-year-olds, but aging baby boomers say they shouldn't be taken for granted.

Brad Adgate turned 50 today and, just like that, he became irrelevant to the TV industry.

You might think marketers would want to court Adgate. The New York advertising executive makes a six-figure salary, and he and his wife enjoy spending it. Last year, they spent $35,000 remodeling their kitchen with all new appliances. They splurge at the supermarket — he likes microbrew beers — and at the sporting goods store. Recent purchases include new bikes for the family ($1,300) and a pair of running shoes for Adgate ($115).

"I don't run as fast as I used to, but I don't feel old," Adgate said. "And I don't act old."

Such subtleties, however, are lost on most advertisers. Madison Avenue has focused for decades on reaching the demographic group that Adgate just grew out of: the 18-to-49-year-old consumer. The result: TV networks are fixated on the under-50 "demo" as well.

Catering almost exclusively to the young might seem counterproductive. More than half the nation's wealth is in the hands of people over 50, who spend an estimated $2 trillion a year on products and services.

But advertising experts say that when they aim commercials at young people, they also get older folks — while the opposite is rarely the case. People over 50 watch more TV and thus are easier for the networks to reach. The younger demo, busy with work and family and tempted by myriad entertainment choices, is more difficult to corral.

"If you target young, you're going to get younger viewers and keep your older ones," said Jon Nesvig, Fox Broadcasting's advertising president. "But if you target old, that's what you're going to get — older viewers."

It's a classic case of supply and demand, which means networks can charge a premium for capturing 18-to-49-year-old eyeballs.

This season, for example, a 30-second spot on NBC's younger-skewing "Las Vegas" averaged $185,000. A comparable spot on CBS' "JAG," whose viewers' median age was 58, went for $130,000. The CBS show recently went off the air.

With that kind of money hanging in the balance, "there's been no incentive to change the equation," said David Poltrack, CBS' head of research.

But some warn that unless advertisers change their tune, they eventually will face the wrath of a group that knows how to make its voice heard. After all, it was these same baby boomers who came of age protesting the Vietnam War.

"That activism will come alive again," predicted Brent Green, who wrote the book "Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers." "Advertisers that ignore or make fun of aging people will do so at their own peril."

Ironically, the very 18-to-49 formula that is now excluding much of the baby boom generation was initially developed to embrace them.

By 1950, research firm A.C. Nielsen was tabulating TV ratings by estimating the number of households that tuned into a program. Most families had only one TV set and shows with broad-based appeal were the most popular. CBS had "I Love Lucy" and later "The Beverly Hillbillies," and NBC had "Bonanza."

"Advertisers were finding their way," TV historian Tim Brooks said. "They really didn't know what segments of the audience they reached."

Nielsen began providing more detailed information about viewers, including age and gender, by the early 1960s. The firm even created a category called "Lady of the House," Brooks said, to identify which shows housewives were watching. That group was of particular interest to packaged-good companies seeking to influence the person who did the shopping.

Executives at the third-place ABC network saw demographic details as a way to get into the game. For the 1969 season, ABC had just two shows in the Top 20: "Marcus Welby, M.D." and "The Johnny Cash Show." With the post-World War II babies coming of age, ABC executives aggressively lobbied advertisers to adopt 18- to 49-year-olds as the new ratings yardstick. They developed shows with this audience in mind.

Within a few years, ABC had become a force with "Happy Days," "Laverne & Shirley" and "The Six Million Dollar Man." Advertisers moved money into shows for younger audiences.

At the time, 18 to 49 made sense. It represented a broad swath of the adult population, and the first members of the bulging baby boom population (those born from 1946 to 1964) were in their 20s. This was the first generation to grow up with television, and they were free-spending, not having lived through the Depression or World War II. Advertisers saw a seemingly endless supply of boomers to buy their products.

"At that time, 18-year-olds were marrying and starting families," Brooks said. "The 18-to-49 category roughly matched the age span of consumers of family-oriented products."

"That's why 'JAG' got canceled — it had older viewers," said executive producer Don Bellisario, who is 69. "Now that I'm of that generation, people come up to me and say: 'Why are they always chasing after 18- to 34-year-olds?' As nicely as I can, I say: 'Well, you're going to be dead a lot sooner than they are. And you are not going to change the cereal that you eat in the morning or the car that you buy.' "

But is it true that older people are rigidly set in their ways? Advertisers have long clung to the notion that brand loyalty can be instilled in the very young. Just get them into the habit of buying Cheerios, Crest and Chevrolets, the theory goes, and you'll have them for the rest of their lives.

A recent RoperASW study, however, found that people over 50 were just as likely as younger consumers to switch brands for such things as banks, airlines, computers, even bath soap. The 2002 report, commissioned by AARP, found that when it came to some products — including athletic shoes, home electronics and cellphones — older buyers were even more open than younger ones to change.

Just ask Steve Mosko. At 49, the television executive knows firsthand how dramatically buying patterns have changed.

"When my dad was 50, he drove a Chevy, he bought Gulf gas and wore the same kind of wingtips year after year. He was a creature of habit," Mosko said. "Our generation is completely different. I buy the same clothes that my son buys, and he's a sophomore at USC. We get new cellphones every six months, and buy different cars. People in my age group are desperate to try something new."

To Matt Thornhill, president of the Boomer Project, a marketing research and consulting firm, Mosko proves one thing: "The whole notion of brand preference is a myth. If baby boomers were brand loyal they would still be buying Thom McAn shoes and shopping in Woolworth stores."

Slowly, some advertisers are recognizing the power of this under-appreciated group. This fall, retailer Gap Inc. plans to open a chain of clothing stores for women over 35. Cadillac and Audi have incorporated the music of such 1970s rock icons as Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie into their TV commercials to touch a chord with aging boomers. The Bowie song that runs in Audi's recent ads? "Never Get Old."

One of the most successful products recently to tap into that individualism has been Apple Computer Inc.'s digital music player iPod. Apple set out to market the portable device, which can hold thousands of songs, to people of all ages.

Last fall, its TV commercials featured a silhouette of a dancing Bono of the Irish rock band U2 singing "Vertigo." Apple was confident that younger consumers would see Bono — who turned 45 today — as the ultimate in cool: a hardened rocker who crusades for social and environmental causes. Apple was also betting that older consumers, whose fear of technology might have made them anxious, would feel reassured. If Bono, whom they'd listened to for more than two decades, could handle an iPod, so could they.

"We have huge youth appeal," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of iPod marketing. "With this campaign, we tried to reach across several generations."

Adgate, the ad executive who turns 50 today, recently got an iPod from his wife. He loves the way it makes his two-hour commute fly by. And recently, it prompted him to alter his exercise routine: the five-mile jog.

"I've been running for 37 years and I've never used a Walkman or anything to run with," he said with an enthusiasm that sounded, well, youthful. "But now I use my iPod all the time. Jackson Browne, the Eagles, Steely Dan. It makes the workouts so much smoother."

I turned 50 on Friday. I don't see how - I don't feel like I've accomplished enough in my life to be that old - but then I'm told by friends that no one feels like they've accomplished enough in life at whatever age they've attained.

It isn't just advertising, of course. Movies are also largely geared at 13-year-old boys. Adam Sandler can act - just see Punch Drunk Love for proof of that - but as long as there are smutty-minded, gigglingly stupid newly pubescent boys, he won't ever have to.

I don't worry about it. Nobody ever gave a shit what I thought when I was 18-49, so why should they now? And since I never paid all that much attention to advertising, it's only fair that advertising shouldn't pay too much attention to me.

But turning 50 - ouch. That hurts for a lot more reasons than simply passing out of a prized demographic.

Huffington Post online

2005-05-09T20:29:00.000-04:00

The Huffington Post is Arianna Huffington's newest venture: a Web site with news and a blog. So far she's got Tina Brown, Jon Corzine, Walter Cronkite, Larry David, Mike Nichols, and others. Also Harry Shearer's "Eat the Press." She does not, however, have me on her blogroll. Humph. (Very hard stare at Arianna.) I'm sure it's just a temporary oversight in the hubbub of getting ready for her big opening and that it will be rectified any moment.

[...]

Still waiting.

Any moment now.

Chuck Hagel going to Hell

2005-05-09T20:02:00.000-04:00

Guess he forgot to drink his Koolaid this morning.

Hagel calls for filibuster solution

At least some Senate Republicans still hope to negotiate a deal to end the fight over filibusters of judicial nominees.

"My goodness, you've got 100 United States senators. Some of us might be moderately intelligent enough to figure this out," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska. "We need to work through this."

Hagel remains publicly undecided about whether to endorse the GOP threat to use their Senate majority to ban such filibusters. But he noted Sunday that private talks were continuing between Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, in an effort to work out a compromise.

"We would, I think, debase our system and fail our country if we don't do this," Hagel told ABC's "This Week."

"But you can't give up a minority rights tool in the interest of the country, like the filibuster," he said.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, said, "It's that kind of statement that gives us hope."

Republicans are considering a parliamentary ruling to ban filibusters against judicial nominees. Any such ruling would be subject to a full Senate vote, with a simple majority required to prevail.

During President Bush's first term, Democrats filibustered 10 nominees to federal appeals courts and have said they will do so again this year for the seven that Bush renominated. As of late March, the Senate had confirmed 204 judges chosen by Bush, according to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"I know that Senator Frist and Senator Reid both want to work this out," Hagel said.

"The United States Senate is a minority rights institution unique in the world," Hagel said. "And I don't think either side wants to give that up. Now, the other part of this, which I also believe strongly, is that presidents deserve votes on their nominees."

But he noted that Republicans prevented votes on many of President Clinton's choices for the federal bench.

"The Republicans' hands aren't clean on this either. What we did with Bill Clinton's nominees -- about 62 of them -- we just didn't give them votes in committee or we didn't bring them up," Hagel said.

Why does Chuck Hagel hate Jesus and America? Doesn't he understand that it's not about getting any judges confirmed? If George Bush really wanted to get judges confirmed, he could do so in an instant simply by appointing judges who aren't snakehandling extremists. As he has done about 90% of the time.

But that's not what God told George to do! So, dadgum it, he's just not gonna do it! This is about getting them evil, anti-people-of-faith Democrats to realize that they lost last November - LOST, dadgum it - Ol' George done got hisself a MANDATE, dadgum it - he won by 2%, and that means the American people overwhelmingly voted for him, so he can - indeed, must - do anything he wants.

This isn't about any stupid judges - the Republicans don't give a shit about judges - as Hagel pointed out, they were perfectly happy to prevent Clinton from having his nominees voted on - this is about destroying the Democrats and creating the one-party state the Founders clearly had in mind when they wrote the U.S. Constitution, which doesn't even mention parties at all. So once the Republicans have every imaginable arm of power under their control, that's what we'll have.

Chuck Hagel, by bringing up something that runs counter to this Godly aim, is unleashing the forces of Satan and Feminism on the Republic. He must be condemned to Hell immediately! The fact that he's telling the truth is totally irrelevant.

Um, no...that's not what it connotes

2005-05-09T11:15:00.000-04:00

Business Week has a new blog about...um...blogs. They call it Blogspotting, a play on the term "trainspotting" - and they have no idea what that really means.

Welcome to Our Blog

Heather Green

Before anyone asks, we didn't pick the name because we have an urge to speak in Scottish brogue or fall headlong into the seamy side of questionable drug usage. It seemed to fit what we intend to do with this blog—track the phenomenon of how media, business, and blogs meet head on.

The name blogspotting seems appropriate as a take off the traditional definition of train spotting. It's a hobby of tracking trains as they go along their routes. But often, train spotters move from being observers to participants in the workings of trains.

Actually, trainspotters are considered even less socially utile and adept than science fiction fans. Trainspotting, besides being an actual hobby, is also a metaphor for nerdy geeky obsessives who waste their lives in hobbies that no one outside the field can see any real interest in, pursuing useless trivial information instead of getting drunk or laid or at least getting 7 1/2 points on the Bears at Green Bay this Sunday.

It is not a positive, no matter how cute Ewan McGregor is.

Also, do we really need a blog about blogs? What's next - a blog about all the blogs about blogs?

Hmm...that's not a bad idea...

(Yes it is.)

Now you can eat your cake and fart out the window at the same time!

2005-05-09T11:08:00.000-04:00

For the limousine liberal who has everything, including a solar-powered air-conditioner for his Honda Gold Wing.

Lexus RX 400h

Finally, here's a hybrid for high rollers -- those who like to be socially responsible but aren't willing to give up the creature comforts of a luxury ride. It's the 2006 Lexus RX 400h, the first hybrid from a premium brand.

Editor's Review:

The Good Peppy V-6 masquerading as a V-8
The Bad Toyota loaded this car to drive up the price
The Bottom Line A luxury hybrid for when price -- gas or otherwise -- isn't an issue

And check out the sticker: This car starts at nearly 50 grand -- more than $11,000 above the base RX 330 with all-wheel drive. More than half of that is for equipment you would pay extra for on the RX 330, such as leather upholstery, moon roof, roof rack, and high-intensity headlights that swivel as you turn, along with a GPS navigation system.

Luxury-car buyers are accustomed to the supreme quiet of a cabin that's well insulated from wind and road noise. But hybrids often make strange sounds, so when you test-drive the Lexus, be sure you don't hear any noises you can't live with. I was vaguely uncomfortable with a dull whine when the car was decelerating to a stop. What's acceptable in a $20,000 Toyota Prius may not be in a $50,000 Lexus.

Only $50,000? That's hardly enough to make a guilty rich guy feel like he's doing something to save the planet.

In any case, the idea of an environmentally friendly SUV is such an oxymoron that you wonder who Toyota thinks they're fooling?

Interesting comment, though, from a reader:

I don't understand why the public/media isn't picking up on, and challenging, the fact that this and its lesser cousin, the Toyota Highlander, ARE NOT SUV's!!! If you read the FINE PRINT it says: NOT RECOMMENDED FOR OFFROAD USE! In all-wheel drive form these vehicles are not to be driven off pavement!! NO trips in the snow to go skiing!! NO driving up that dirt road when it might be wet!! Apparently you can't risk overheating the rear drive electric motor by slipping a wheel. SO...my point is if it's an in-town-only vehicle with NO SPORT to it...why didn't they just do a hybrid of a minivan and then just call it by its rightful moniker...UV for just a plain old utility vehicle?

Whatever you call them, mate, they're still to friggin' big and too friggin' expensive to drive, no matter how much money you may have burning holes in your pockets.

You could still call it an SUV, though - Suburban Utility Vehicle.

It's time to do more than just remember the Holocaust.

2005-05-09T10:54:00.000-04:00

It's time to stop them from happening.

From a description in today's Times of the new Holocaust memorial in Berlin, which opens on Thursday.

A Forest of Pillars, Recalling the Unimaginable

In the 15 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, the nation has struggled - painfully and sometimes defensively - to come to terms with its Nazi past. Nowhere has that been more evident than in Berlin, the restored capital, where a vast rebuilding effort has transformed the once-ravaged city center.

The new Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, designed by Peter Eisenman, is the apotheosis of this soul-searching. A vast grid of 2,711 concrete pillars whose jostling forms seem to be sinking into the earth, it is able to convey the scope of the Holocaust's horrors without stooping to sentimentality - showing how abstraction can be the most powerful tool for conveying the complexities of human emotion.

The memorial's power lies in its willingness to grapple with the moral ambiguities arising in the Holocaust's shadow. Its focus is on the delicate, almost imperceptible line that separates good and evil, life and death, guilt and innocence.

The location could not be more apt. During the war, this was the administrative locus of Hitler's killing machine. His chancellery building, designed by Albert Speer and since demolished, was a few hundred yards away just to the south; his bunker lies beneath a nearby parking lot.

Covering five and a half acres in the center of Berlin, the memorial, which opens May 10, will be an unavoidable fixture of the city's life - reassuring those who see the Holocaust as a singular marker of human evil while upsetting those who feel that Germany has already spent too much time wallowing in guilt.

:::snip:::

These moments speak to one of the Holocaust's most tragic lessons, the ability of human beings to numb themselves to all sorts of suffering - a feeling that only intensifies as you descend into the site. Paved in uneven cobblestones, the ground between the pillars slopes down as you move deeper in.

At first, you retain glimpses of the city. The rows of pillars frame a distant view of the Reichstag's skeletal glass dome. To the west, you can glimpse the canopy of trees in the Tiergarten. Then as you descend further, the views begin to disappear. The sound of gravel crunching under your feet gets more perceptible; the gray pillars, their towering forms tilting unsteadily, become more menacing and oppressive. The effect is intentionally disorienting. You are left alone with memories of life outside - the cheerful child, for example, balanced on the concrete platform.

This is a chilling moment. For me, it evoked Primo Levi's description of the death camps. "To sink is the easiest of matters," he wrote in "Survival in Auschwitz." "It is enough to carry out all the orders one receives, to eat only the ration, to observe the discipline of the work and the camp." Only through constant struggle and arbitrary luck was survival possible.

But it is only as you re-emerge from the memorial, rejoining the everyday world, that what you have experienced becomes clear. Mr. Eisenman, the architect, has said that his greatest fear was to sentimentalize the Holocaust. "I don't want people to weep and then walk away with a clear conscience," he explained.

I imagine the effect is like walking into a forest ever deeper, so that you can't be sure you will ever emerge back into the light, into the real world. That must have been what it was like for the victims of the Holocaust, herded by the Nazis into the forest of the camps, of the brutality and murder and fear and terror.

Unimaginable, no matter how many times you see Schindler's List or The Pianist (once each was more than enough for me), no matter how many times you read Anne Frank's Diary or any of the other books and memoirs on the subject. Endless night, with no hope of daylight ever coming, as Elie Wiesel described it.

And it goes on. Cambodia, Bosnia, East Timor, Rwanda, now Darfur. How many memorials will it take? How many museums? How many sensitive, historically contextual, even insightful architectural reviews?

I don't want to have to commemmorate any more of these nightmares.

Think of it as "evolution in action"

2005-05-09T10:12:00.000-04:00

Although, of course, we don't really believe in "evolution." Except when it comes to ridding the species of untermenschen like the poor, minorities, etc. Icky people like that. Who needs 'em?

States Propose Sweeping Changes to Trim Medicaid by Billions

Governors and state legislators have devised proposals for sweeping changes in Medicaid to curb its rapid growth and save billions of dollars.

Under the proposals, some beneficiaries would have to pay more for care, and states would have more latitude to limit the scope of services.

The proposals, drafted by separate working groups of governors and state legislators, provide guidance to Congress, which 10 days ago endorsed a budget blueprint that would cut projected Medicaid spending by $10 billion over the next five years.

Many of the proposals resemble ideas advanced by President Bush as part of his 2006 budget. In some cases, the governors embrace Mr. Bush's proposals but go further. At the same time, they also reject some of the president's recommendations that they believe would shift costs to the states.

John Adams Hurson, a member of the Maryland House of Delegates who is president of the National Conference of State Legislatures, said: "I am a Democrat, a liberal Democrat, but we can't sustain the current Medicaid program. It's fiscal madness. It doesn't guarantee good care, and it's a budget buster. We need to instill a greater sense of personal responsibility so people understand that this care is not free."

Unless you're a member of Congress...

I suppose it would be an act of "class warfare" for me to point out that the real "budget buster" was Bush's monstrous tax cuts? I thought as much. Sorry, how could I have been so divisive? I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, poor misunderstood billionaires. Here's another $100 billion in tax cuts. There, better?

Nine North Carolinians who are surely going to Hell

2005-05-09T09:51:00.000-04:00

How can they not listen to their pastor, the ultimate spiritual authority in this evil secular world, the very vicar of the Lord Hisself? How can they not vote for God's Own Party?

A spirited spat steals church calm
Ousted nine whose politics didn't suit pastor return

WAYNESVILLE -- The nine members of a Baptist church who said they were expelled last week for refusing to support their pastor's political views arrived at church Sunday with their families, saying they were not ready to give in.
"We're glad you're here today," the pastor, the Rev. Chan Chandler, told them. "We're here to worship the Lord."

The public welcome may have been largely for the sake of the media; many journalists huddled in the rear with their notebooks and microphones.

East Waynesville Baptist Church is locked in a bitter battle over how members should apply their moral beliefs to politics. On the one side are those who support the pastor's hard-line theological and political views that led him to support President Bush. On the other side are church members who agree with many of the pastor's social views but who don't want to be told how to vote.

The spat started before Bush's re-election last year, and it climaxed last week when nine church members were asked to sign a pledge supporting the pastor's views. They walked out and were summarily expelled by the remaining church members.

Ah, so it wasn't just their knuckle-dragging pastor. I don't remember reading this earlier.

Each camp has hired lawyers, and despite appearances, no one is backing down.

But I thought lawyers were all evil Democrats, the source of all that is wicked and wrong in the world.

Those opposed to Chandler said he has not stopped talking politics since he told the congregation in October that those who planned to vote for presidential challenger John Kerry should repent or leave the church. His defenders said the argument isn't over politics but principle: Can a church member vote for a candidate who supports a woman's right to abortion and equal rights for gays?

Can Bush's supporters vote for a man who lied to get the country into an unnecessary war that has killed almost 2000 Americans, wounded uncounted tens of thousands more and wounded and killed at least a hundred thousand Iraqis? Can Bush's supporters vote for a man who has condoned the detaining and torturing of innocent people?

"What's made it unique is that pastor came out with it," said the Rev. Buddy Corbin, pastor of the more moderate Calvary Baptist Church in nearby Asheville. "It's an unstated view promoted by many church leaders."

Self-righteous hypocrites. If my synagogue kicked out Republicans, would we ever hear the end of it? Would Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity ever stop shrieking about how the politically correct liberals were trampling on the rights of poor, helpless, defenseless Republicans?

And no, that is not a trick question.

Baptist leaders say it's unusual to expel members because of their political views, if only because it violates a federal law that prohibits nonprofit organizations, such as churches, from endorsing political candidates.

"The voter has a right to choose," said James Royston, the executive director-treasurer of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina in Cary. "Those are matters of individual conscience."

Oops, wrong answer, Mr. Royston. What do we have for our loser, Johnny?

"Well, Satan, we have a one-way ticket, all-expenses-paid trip to - that's right, you guessed it - Hell!"

Several national groups committed to the separation of church and state have denounced the church and asked Bush to do the same.

And look who's going to be joining you for your eternity of damnation and torment, Mr. Royston!

Chandler, 33, has been pastor at the church for 2 1/2 years. He is studying for a master's degree in divinity at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest.

Evidently, not the Harvard of the Old South.

He did not take questions and has refused to talk to the media. His lawyer, John Pavey Jr., issued a brief statement in which Chandler said, "No one has ever been voted from membership of this church due to an individual's support or lack of support for a political party or candidate."

No, they were kicked out because they laughed at his multi-color polyester sports jacket and his multi-color polyester toupee. Flint-headed, red-necked, narrow-minded pastors have feelings too, you know.

Vicki Smith, a church member who supports the pastor, volunteered that she was a Democrat and added, "In no way have our political beliefs been challenged."

Absolutely. You can vote for any candidate named George W. Bush you want.

But she said the church was developing a "covenant" that spells out that members must "abide by the word of God."

And She told you how She wanted you to vote, is that it, Vicki?

For many church members, the feud has been distasteful.

"It's supposed to be a place where you go to worship God and be a witness to him," said church member, Selma Morris, 78. "That's our purpose."

I've recently been reading a biography of Shakespeare, which includes a chapter on the religious conflict of the second half of the sixteenth century. Catholics burning Protestants, who happily returned the favor. Is that where we're headed? Is that really where the Christian wingnuts want to see us headed?

I suppose these self-righteous fanatics are sincere about their conviction that they have to try to impose their beliefs on everyone else. But if they could just take one small step back and get a look at the bigger picture, because they are actually threatening their own rights, too. If there is no principle of religious freedom, if anyone can use temporary power to dominate, then nothing can stop someone else from doing the same. If their religious mania provokes a backlash, it could threaten everyone's religious freedom.

Not that I expect them to imagine it is ever possible that their opponents will gain the upper hand. As far as they're concerned, in the words of Homer Simpson, "Everything lasts forever."

You can take the cracker out of Georgia, but you can't take the cracker out of the cracker

2005-05-09T08:54:00.000-04:00

It's heartwarming, in a way, to know that some things and some people are just never going to change.

Rock the cast-off

I just don't think I'll ever feel sorry for John Rocker. They guy can try to explain away the incidents and verbal sparrings he gets into all he wants. He can wish that he'll be treated like any other player in the Atlantic League, but the truth is that he's not.

Tuesday night's incident in Atlantic City is another example of how the comments in his infamous 1999 Sports Illustrated article were more than just a young guy slipping up. And frankly, in my mind, you don't slip up that many times over the course of an hours-long interview (if not one spread over a day or two) and insult not only homosexuals and blacks, but foreigners and AIDS victims and attribute that to a misinterpretation of what you really meant. There has to be some basis for comments like that. Some people may have been willing to treat it as a one-off thing, but I just couldn't.

Rocker can portray himself as the now-helpless victim all he wants, but to think that people will just forget that still tells me that he doesn't understand what was wrong about what he said. He told the New York Post:
"I have this idea, I guess it's a fantasy, that I want to play baseball and just enjoy playing," said Rocker, who is coming back from shoulder surgery two years ago. "I look around and see other guys who are allowed to just enjoy playing. How come I can't? Wouldn't that be a novel concept?"
Did he actually think that could happen in New York? He could have given himself a better chance to "just enjoy playing" by signing with a team in the Frontier League or the Northern League. Play in small towns in Indiana and Iowa, not in the small cities of the Northeast, not in the shadows of New York City. But for some reason, he chose Long Island.

I just can't like John Rocker. I'll probably get to a Ducks game somewhere in New Jersey, Newark or Somerset maybe, and I might boo. But I won't yell any insults, certainly not any profanities. And if you ask me, the alleged comment by the fan in A.C. was pretty clever. "Long way from Atlanta, isn't it?" Heck, maybe it was just a geography quiz. According to Mapquest, it's 837 miles from Atlanta to Atlantic City. That is a long way. Thirteen, 14 hours. Still, Rocker could have continued walking. He could've smiled and ducked into the dugout. He even could have responded, in part, as he did: "I'm still a millionaire." Zing! But he had to add the profanity. He had to make it a conversation, an exchange, rather than a fan's solitary outburst.
Last night, before the home opener in Central Islip, he wouldn't talk to the media. He released a short statement after the game. He just wants to play baseball.

Well, John, maybe someday you'll be able to do that. But don't think it's going to just happen for you. Don't think we'll all just forget everything from the past and look at you like any other fallen semi-star just trying to live a few more years of your dream. You're going to have to earn it by taking responsibility for your own actions.

Of course, the easiest way to do that would be to act in a way that doesn't require any explanations.

But then he wouldn't be the John Rocker we have come to love to hate. It's like Nick Hornby's defense of Arsenal in Fever Pitch where he compared their unpleasant antics in the late 1980s to The Sex Pistols as harmless deviancy. That's John Rocker now. Marx was wrong. Although I wouldn't call John Rocker a "world-historical event," he is clearly occurring, as it were twice: the first time as farce, and the second time as farce, too.

I hope John Rocker never changes.

Look, I just write for the New York Times - but I'd never be so left-wing as to actually read it

2005-05-08T14:09:00.000-04:00

Shorter John Tierney:

If I keep pretending that the only choice anyone has ever mentioned anywhere at any time to "fix" the "crisis" in Social Security is to drastically raise taxes or drastically cut benefits, maybe no one will notice that A) there's no crisis and B) lots of people have made lots of suggestions on how to "fix" the non-crisis that won't require doing anything drastic.

I mean, it's not like Paul Krugman hasn't written at length about this. But then, Krugman's only a professor of economics at Princeton, and how can anybody at a two-bit school like that know anything about anything? And he's also only a New York Times columnist, and Tierney's got far too many more important things to do than to acknowledge his own employer. But when someone important like E. J. Dionne says the same thing, then perhaps it's time for Tierney to start paying attention. He might avoid embarrassing himself. At least, if he keeps lying, maybe he won't lie so flagrantly.

I'm sure this is Bill Clinton's fault

2005-05-08T10:13:00.000-04:00

Is George W. Bush ever going to be held accountable for anything that goes wrong on his watch? Or am I wasting my time waiting for that to happen?

U.S. to Spend Billions More to Alter Security Systems

After spending more than $4.5 billion on screening devices to monitor the nation's ports, borders, airports, mail and air, the federal government is moving to replace or alter much of the antiterrorism equipment, concluding that it is ineffective, unreliable or too expensive to operate.

Many of the monitoring tools - intended to detect guns, explosives, and nuclear and biological weapons - were bought during the blitz in security spending after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

In its effort to create a virtual shield around America, the Department of Homeland Security now plans to spend billions of dollars more. Although some changes are being made because of technology that has emerged in the last couple of years, many of them are planned because devices currently in use have done little to improve the nation's security, according to a review of agency documents and interviews with federal officials and outside experts.

"Everyone was standing in line with their silver bullets to make us more secure after Sept. 11," said Randall J. Larsen, a retired Air Force colonel and former government adviser on scientific issues. "We bought a lot of stuff off the shelf that wasn't effective."

Among the problems:

¶Radiation monitors at ports and borders that cannot differentiate between radiation emitted by a nuclear bomb and naturally occurring radiation from everyday material like cat litter or ceramic tile.

I guess it's time to round up all the nation's cats and send them to Guantanamo. Can't be too cautious, you know.

¶Passenger-screening equipment at airports that auditors have found is no more likely than before federal screeners took over to detect whether someone is trying to carry a weapon or a bomb aboard a plane.

¶Postal Service machines that test only a small percentage of mail and look for anthrax but no other biological agents.

We're always ready to fight the last war.

I noticed something recently going into various local sports arenas - they're not checking people as much as they used to. Granted, these are minor league games, and maybe they're still checking everyone and everything going into, say, Yankee Stadium. But I wonder/think/hope that maybe they've given up suspecting that Al Qaeda's next target will be a Trenton Titans game, even if it is the third round of the playoffs.

Max Cleland was demagogued out of the U.S. Senate because he opposed the specific way Bush intended to create the Department of Homeland Security - quickly and with no safeguards for the workers in the existing departments being crammed into the new bureau. And since it was created, Democrats have pointed out how horribly it has been managed. And the American people haven't given a shit. And you know what? They still won't. As far as too many of them are concerned, George W. Bush can do no wrong. He says he's making us safer, and that's good enough for them, and for the corporatized press so diligently distracting and misleading them.

Read Juan Cole. Now.

2005-05-06T14:24:00.000-04:00

Secret British Memo Shows Bush Tampered with Iraq Intelligence

:::snip:::

It is even worse. British Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith was at the meeting. He had to think up a justification for the war in international law. Britain is in Europe, and Europe takes international law seriously. You could have war crimes trials. (Remember that Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet almost got tried in Spain for killing 5000 people in the 1970s).

Goldsmith was as nervous as a cat in a roomful of rocking chairs: "The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change."

The driness of the wit is unbearable. "The desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action"! Naked aggression is illegal, he could have said. Then he reviews the three possible grounds for a war. You could have a war if Iraq attacked you. Iraq had not attacked the US. Or you could have a war if it was a humanitarian intervention (e.g. under the genocide convention). But Saddam's major campaigns of death had been a decade before. Or you could get a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing the war, in accordance with the UN charter. But Goldsmith makes it clear he thought you would need a new resolution, that the old ones wouldn't work for this purpose.

The Attorney General of the United Kingdom thought the reports Dearlove and Straw were bringing back from Washington reeked of an illegal war. People who plan out illegal wars are war criminals. He knew this. He was stuck, however. They were all stuck.

The man from Connecticut with the Crawford ranch had decided to cut down some trees. And they were all hostages in his guest house and he was going to put chain saws in their hands and make them help, whether they liked it or not. Goldsmith's hands trembled as he reached out for the chainsaw rig. He saw himself and the others sitting in the Hague, one day, facing the same judges that Milosevic harangued. Charged.

But it is a long way from Crawford to the Hague. The man from Connecticut with the cowboy boots and the fake twang would get away with it. They would all get away with it.

But people would know they had lied.

It will be harder and harder for all but the Koolaid-drinkingest of Koolaid drinkers to continue to ignore the stench as public knowledge of - and utter disgust with - Bush's illegal war grows. The only reason it didn't sink him last year was because the press was still in cheerleader mode. Tony Blair did not enjoy that coddling - the British press can fairly and accurately be described as carnivorous - but he had a decent record in other areas (unlike Bush) and a relatively weak opponent (unlike Bush). You need all 3 things - a gelded press, a poor record, and a weak opponent - to escape being charged with crimes of war.

But it's coming for Bush. Oh yes, it's coming. No wonder he hates the very idea of the International Criminal Court.

Bobo still getting things almost but not quite completely wrong

2005-05-06T13:17:00.000-04:00

Shorter David Brooks:

Like Lincoln, I believe that the only truth is that human beings are endowed with unalienable rights, and beyond that, it's best to be humble and cautious, so why am I still in the same boat with right-wing Christian nuts who are anything but humble or cautious?

He concludes:

While the evangelical tradition is deeply consistent with the American creed, sometimes evangelical causes can overflow the banks defined by our founding documents. I believe the social conservatives' attempt to end the judicial filibuster is one of these cases.

Lincoln's core lesson is that while the faithful and the faithless go at each other in their symbiotic culture war, those of us trapped wrestling with faith are not without the means to get up and lead.

So get up and LEAD already, you fraud! You spend more time lambasting the ACLU than you do the Justice Sunday perpetrators. That tells me that you're still more upset with the dwindling handful of "secularizers" than you are with the stampeding elephantine herds you so daintily euphemize as "social conservatives."

A lot of us are struggling with our faith, David. Most of us aren't issuing fatwas against anyone of the wrong - or no - faith. Try doing more than just "reporting" what your narrow little mind deludes itself into thinking it sees out there in your imaginary "heartland" - try actually standing for something for a change. We could use your help.

Friday Blog Blogging: New Jersey in May

2005-05-06T12:01:00.000-04:00

From the New Jersey Writers Blog:

Months are funny things. We have one that is an aggressive verb – March - in all its military power. We have another that is a noble adjective – August – that describes only the most important or impressive events or occasions. All the rest are leftovers from Latin numbers or the less auspicious relatives of Julius Caesar. All except one…

May is the indefinitely adverbial month of eternal hope and possibility. We may dream of the winning number and put some money down on it in the back of a shoe repair shop on Bergenline Avenue in Union City where very little shoe repair actually goes on; in the front of a pizza place in Elizabeth where there’s always a couple of guys sitting in the window seat; or in Trenton in the smoky corner of a diner. As the poet Alexander Pope reminds us, “hope springs eternal in the human breast.” It springs in Trenton, too, and Linden, and Carteret, and even in Keansburg during the month of infinite possibilities – May.

That's kind of nice. Never thought of the months as simply words before. It takes a poet to make us really notice things we've known our whole lives but just haven't known we know.

There's not much spring among Yankee fans at the moment, but there's still plenty of time left in the season, and they've got to start hitting pretty soon.

Don't they?

Should the Democrats form a "Shadow Cabinet"?

2005-05-06T11:14:00.000-04:00

Looking at the British general election, I was struck by the fact that several junior ministers lost their seats. Unless they can find some junior member with a relatively safe seat to step down and let them stand for reelection to Parliament in a by-election, they will lose their positions in government.

Also, one Conservative "shadow minister" lost his seat.

It got me thinking. Being in the official Opposition in any country with a parliamentary system is very close to having an official job. The Leader of the Opposition in the British parliament gets a salary and a staff. He (or she) is a member of the Privy Council and thus entitled to be called "The Right Honourable."
There's not quite a similar system here. The minority leaders in the House and Senate are official positions with a staff, but we have no equivalent to a "shadow cabinet."

Why not? Yes, it would be difficult to figure out who appointed whom, but if the Democrats could get their act together and appoint, say, a "shadow" Secretary of State and a "shadow" Secretary of Defense a "shadow" Secretary of the Treasury" and a "shadow" Secretary of Education, a "shadow" Secetary of the Interior," Democrats of stature and expertise, with political and communication skills, standing of their own, and had these people meet regularly and issue frequent critiques of the Bush administrations countless mistakes along with precise policy alternatives of their own, it would give the Democrats a coherence they currently lack. The critical mass of such an impressive collection of designated spokespeople would have to attract considerable media attention.

The idea would not be to have a "government in waiting" for the next time a Democratic president got to appoint a real cabinet. Nobody tells a president in advance who is going to be in his cabinet, especially when we don't even know who's going to run in 2008. But even in a parliamentary system, not every "shadow minister" moves into office if and when his party takes over. The idea is simply to give the Democrats some focus during their years in exile. To remind the public that there really is a true Democratic Party, not just a bunch of elected officials, state committees, and desperate bloggers.

Again, it would not be easy to bring this about. The Republicans would deride it and some of the press would follow their corporate masters' orders and scoff at it. But I think it would be very useful; worth exploring, at least. Tell me why not.

Time to "power down"?

2005-05-05T18:46:00.000-04:00

A very sobering post.

Options & Leadership

More on Peak Oil, and the politics of consumption, from Richard Heinberg of the New College of California, in an article written by Melanie Gosling for the Cape Times of South Africa. WARNING: Reading this may bum you out. Here’s the gist:
Natural gas extraction will peak a few years after oil, extraction rates for coal will peak in decades, nuclear energy is dogged by unresolved problems of waste disposal and solar and wind energy will have to undergo rapid expansion if they are to replace even a fraction of the energy shortfall from oil. And the enthusiasm about a hydrogen economy comes from politics rather than science, he said.

"Our real problem is that we are trapped in a perpetual growth machine. As long as modern societies need economic growth to stave off collapse (given existing debt-and-interest-based national currencies), we will continue to require ever more resources yearly. But the Earth has limited resources.

"The energy conundrum is thus intimately tied to the fact that we anticipate perpetual growth within a finite system," Heinberg said.

He sketches four main options available in response:

1. Following the US leadership in competing for remaining resources through wars;
2. Wishful thinking that the market or science will come to the rescue;
3. Assuming that we are already in the early stages of disintegration, devoting our energies to preserving the most worthwhile cultural achievements of the past few centuries.
4. "Powering down" - reducing energy resource use drastically through economic sacrifice, reducing the population size and developing alternative energy sources.

"The sooner we choose wisely, the better off we and our descendants will be," Heinberg said.
“Following the U.S. leadership…” The one area where we could lead with our hearts, and we're leading with imperialism, at the end of a gun barrel.

Oh, and Ira Chernus reminds us that the Pentagon is making first-strike plans for the use of its overstock of WMD's: New US Plan for Nuclear Intimidation

So option #1 isn't going to end anytime soon.

Neither will #3 or #4. Any American politician who suggested either might as well start writing his memoirs - and leave them in the drawer. The fastest possible way to become a nonentity is to breathe even the slightest hint that America has anything other than a limitless, golden future. American do not want to hear it. Anyone who tried would be demagogued to death by his opponent, by the press, by corporate shills (i.e., the press), etc.

It is impossible to have a serious discussion about energy in the United States. We've made a secular religion out of #2 on the list above (no potty jokes, I'm being serious - for a change). It's really about the only thing all Americans believe in - that God Himself ordained that America, unlike any and every other civilization and nation in history, is uniquely blessed with eternal luck and largesse. And that we deserve it.

More than any group of people in history - more than the smuggest Victorian gentleman - Americans are suffused with a sense of boundless entitlement - to all there is, and then some. Stephen Sondheim's "More" should be our national anthem.

You do not fuck with this greed. You feed it or you lose. Alas.

Christians at Air Force Academy discriminated against again

2005-05-05T13:23:00.000-04:00

I mean, if they can't intimidate heathens and make slurs against Jews, what the fuck's the point of being a Christian?

Air Force Sets New Inquiry at Academy

The Pentagon is sending investigators to the Air Force Academy to look into complaints that evangelical Christian faculty members, officers and cadets routinely proselytize and intimidate those on campus who do not hold the same religious beliefs.

The inquiry follows accusations that these other cadets have long been subject to a climate of religious intolerance. To address the problem, the academy, in Colorado Springs, began requiring its faculty and students in March to attend 50-minute sensitivity training classes.

But last week the advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State sent a report to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld saying the problem remained and was systemic.

Among the accusations are that cadets who declined to attend chapel after dinner were marched back to their dormitories in a procession called the "heathen flight," that a history professor ordered students to pray before their final exam and that two weeks after the religious sensitivity program was announced, the football coach placed a banner in the locker room that said, "I am a member of Team Jesus Christ."

"This is the worst systemic series of religiously discriminatory acts I've ever seen in any federal government context," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, who charged "a clear pattern of misconduct that was overlooked for years."

The inquiry will be headed by Lt. Gen. Roger A. Brady, deputy Air Force chief of staff for personnel. Jennifer Stephens, an Air Force spokeswoman, said the service had not yet decided who else would serve on the investigative task force, which is to issue a preliminary report by May 23.

Concerns about the religious environment on the campus first surfaced after the academy conducted a survey of staff and faculty early last year on the broader culture there. When the academy solicited further expressions of concern over religious influences, about eight people came forward with accusations of 55 specific incidents of bias spanning four years, said Lt. Col. Laurent Fox, the academy's director of public affairs.

About that time, Mikey Weinstein, an academy graduate and Reagan administration official, visited Colorado Springs and discovered that his son, a cadet, was frequently a target of slurs because he is Jewish. Mr. Weinstein took his complaints to the academy, Americans United and the news media.

"It hurts because I love the academy," Mr. Weinstein said in an interview yesterday. "But it is suffering from a terrible constitutional cancer right now."

Clearly the Academy is totally beset with rife and unrepentant hatred of all those brave Christians who make up only about 90% of the cadets and therefore have to be protected against their evil enemies' murderous rampages of tolerance, diversity and inclusivenss. After all, all they're trying to do is save the infidels' mortal souls - you'd think those crybaby Jews and Muslims and Hindus and atheists would show a little gratitude. But nooooo, they have to whine and bitch and moan about some innocent horseplay and spirited name-calling. As if being labeled "Jewboy" or "Christ-killer" ever hurt anyone. Can't they realize that what's being inflicted on them is actually divinely-inspired Christian love?

Well, I say enough. I say it's time to stop persecuting these poor, helpless Christians before they become martyrs to political correctness again. Have we learned nothing from the Holocaust...oops, sorry, probably not the best example to bring up.

Never mind.

Throwing himself on a grenade for Shrub

2005-05-04T21:54:00.000-04:00

When the sun finally flickers out, I'm sure some wingnut will blame Bill Clinton. And how does George W. Bush inspire such fulsome yet completely unjustified loyalty?

Military's Lack of Armor

To the Editor:

I was sickened by the naïveté and hypocrisy displayed by The Times (front page, April 25), and even more so its readers (April 27 letters), regarding the lack of armored vehicles for our fighting forces.

When the military buys any weapon or piece of equipment, it must balance capabilities and cost. Although an armored Humvee offers more protection from small arms and explosive devices, it is slower, less maneuverable and much more expensive. Moreover, the defense budget is a zero-sum game. Armor a vehicle, get fewer vehicles, or get less of something else. Military planners must do this calculation daily, and believe me, they do care about the human cost.

Since I can remember, The Times never saw a defense budget that wasn't "bloated." Most of the vaunted "Clinton surplus" was borne on the back of an eviscerated and overextended military. It is the height of hypocrisy for those who cheered these developments to now wring their hands over the consequences.

Sean M. Hannaway

The funny thing is, the Times did "balance capabilities and costs". Just a few days ago, too.

Support Our Troops

More than two years after the invasion of Iraq, American soldiers are still needlessly dying or suffering grievous injuries because of the Pentagon's inexcusable slowness in protecting their Humvees and trucks with adequate armor. It's a problem that the troops in the field have been vocally complaining about for a long time, and one that briefly made headlines when a National Guard soldier confronted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Kuwait last December. Yet, despite accelerated efforts since that time, it is far from solved. Perhaps the Pentagon needs to divert some money and effort from those exotic weapons systems for the future that defense contractors prefer, and save the lives and limbs of the troops it sends into battle today.

Hmmm. Sounds like a fair tradeoff to me. I'd rather spend money on desperately needed Humvees now than sci-fi weapons in the future.

Further, I can't believe that the right wing kooks are still blaming Bill Clinton for everything that goes wrong, four years after he left office!

A) When Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense, he called for far deeper cuts in defense spending than Clinton enacted.

B) As Al Franken has pointed out, the military machine that Bush sent into Afghanistan was Clinton's. The one Bush sent into Iraq was still pretty much Clinton's, too.

C) Given that the invasion of Iraq was totally unjustified - I'm sure Mr. Hannaway will refuse to believe this, but then, Bill Safire still thinks we're going to find Saddam's nukes; the right wing is just chock-full of delusions - and given that Bush and Rumsfeld were convinced there would be no murderous aftermath, the military may try to persuade itself and us that it had no way of knowing that we would need armored Humvees. But we did. And still do. And they should have known it.

We had no justification to invade Iraq in the first place. Doing so completely unprepared is inexcusable. Trying desperately to concoct excuses is pathetic.

I am sickened by Mr. Hannaway's frantic efforts to blame anyone but those who are really responsible - George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and all the other neocons and imperialists who looked at Iraq as their own personal fiefdom. Where does Bush find all these slackjawed, gaping apologists?

Mr Hannaway should be ashamed of himself, although I'm not holding my breath.

Of course, they didn't care too much that it was called baseball...

2005-05-04T19:16:00.000-04:00

I wonder what he thought of the "little bats" he found in Mommy's nightstand…

Mom's the word
Deer Park product Valentine proud of his special relationship

BY JEFF PEARLMAN
STAFF CORRESPONDENT

SARASOTA, Fla. - Within the four walls of the major league clubhouse, the concept of homosexuality fits about as comfortably as a pair of mittens on a porcupine. For the most part, men who love men and women who love women are not gays or lesbians, but "queers" and "dykes." Trip over a mitt and you're a "faggot." As for ideas of civil unions and gay marriage - forget about it.

"Baseball is very set in its ways," Cincinnati Reds outfielder Jacob Cruz said. "Always has been."

Within these confines, there is a man who seems to hover above it all. He is a 25-year-old righthanded relief pitcher with the Reds, a quiet Long Island kid with blazing brown eyes and a blazing 95-mph fastball. He is as open as he needs to be, not afraid to tell the truth about his family but aware that its implications might not sit perfectly with the 40 or so other young men who surrounded him recently in the Reds' spring training clubhouse.

"I'm a blue-state guy in a red-state sport," Joe Valentine said. "But that won't stop me from being proud of who I am."

Who is Joe Valentine?

He is a 1997 graduate of Deer Park High School.

He is a former All-American at Jefferson Davis Community College in Alabama.

He is a happily married North Babylon resident who wants to start a family.

He is a potential future closer for the Reds.

One more thing. Consider the following dialogue, which took place on a lazy spring training morning between a pitcher fighting to make the club and a baseball writer wrapping up another run-of-the-mill Grapefruit League interview.

Joe, can I give your parents a call?

"Sure."

OK, what are their names?

"Deb and Doreen."

That's right: Joe Valentine is the son of two gay women.

He tells you this without an iota of emphasis, almost as if he were explaining the mechanics of a slider or giving directions to the nearest 7-Eleven. There is no additional explanation, no awkward pause for effect. Nothing.

"It's no different than having a mother and father," he said. "These are the two women who raised me, and they are wonderful people. It's just not a big deal to me. Why should it be?"

In an enlightened world, it shouldn't. But major league baseball is to enlightenment what Pauly Shore is to career longevity. It took until 1959 for every team to have at least one black player. There never has been a female umpire. And in the history of the league, no active player has ever come out of the closet to express his homosexuality.

"I've got nothing against those people," Washington Nationals relief pitcher T.J. Tucker said recently. "But I don't get why anyone would want to be like that."

And they don't get why anyone would want to be bigoted and stupid, but there you have it.

Update - Here's what No More Mister Nice Blog has to say about this.

Shorter Chuck Colson:

That new all-gay cable channel is bad because it celebrates a lifestyle based on transient relationships -- as exemplified by the disgusting show about gay weddings.

****

(Incidentally, via Norwegianity, I find this Newsday article, from a couple of weeks ago, about Joe Valentine, who has made it all the way to the majors in baseball -- he pitches for the Cincinnati Reds -- as well as to heterosexual wedded bliss, despite the almost insurmountable burden of having two mothers, whom he clearly loves and who clearly love and support him. The two women have a "transient relationship" that has now lasted thirty years; Valentine calls his moms "wonderful people" and his high school coach says they "did a helluva job raising one fine man." Good thing we have Chuck Colson around to help prevent other children from suffering a similar fate.)

The wingnuts are such transparent hypocrites. They scream about how gays are evil because they're so promiscuous. Okay, say the gays say, let us get married. No no no, the wingnuts respond, we can't let you do that. Apparently there's a finite number of marriages in the universe and we can't let gays use up any that the heterosexuals might need (especially considering how many heterosexuals seem to need to get married more than once. Talk about "transient"!)

There's no arguing on this, by the way. The homophobes are entirely impervious to logic.

Yow

2005-05-04T15:58:00.000-04:00

Wanna read some good - nasty, but really good - writing? Go here.

This week:
House of D
and
Riding the Bus With My Sister

"The narration is strewn with gallstones of wisdom that Duchovny pisses out in bloody shards."

"If watching a retarded woman crying at a burial turns you on, as it does for many of us, you must see this movie."

"I think most people should be disgusted with Hollywood's 'Precious Moments' portrayals of the retarded. It fucking pisses me off. Retards are people too, and they are people with serious problems. They are not cuddly pals who always teach us how to be better people. Sometimes they repeat themselves for hours and hours. Sometimes they shit their pants. What lesson is there to be learned from that, other than to cover everything with plastic? But, Hollywood keeps trotting them out to prop them up as something they arenít. It think it has little to do with helping us understand mental disabilities, and a shitload to do with Hollywood wanting to feel good about themselves. Maybe they find it easier to act retarded than actually help the retarded. Or maybe they'd rather just approximate what goes on in families with handicapped members then spend time with them. Either way, fuck off, Hollywood. Use a monkey, a dwarf or anything but the helpless retarded."

I'm not quite sure how I ended up on this page - something about following a link from somewhere to somewhere else before pasting in the link to this page - but it was worth it, just to read something so original, pithy, and sincere.

I've often thought Robin Williams should be banned from Acting. Not from appearing in movies and TV, but from Acting. Much like Sylvester McCoy, the Seventh Doctor Who, Williams too often tries too hard to Act rather than simply to act. He's at his best when he has no clue that the camera is rolling. Odd since his early comedy stuff and his live appearances are so stunning.

Anyway, this is the best thing I've read all week, which is saying something since I try to read TBogg and Digby every day. The secret, guys, is keep banging the rocks together.

And, they're off!

2005-05-04T11:20:00.000-04:00

Digby, for once, doesn't go off half-cocked.

All Together Now

Man, we liberals can't win for losing, can we? First we are told that we're a bunch of immoral libertines who are trying to destroy the fabric of our nation with our nasty talk and perverted big city ways, and then John Tierney says today that we are a bunch of stiffs who don't understand what a bunch of rollockin', ribald partiers those real American Red Staters are.

I admit that I'm a little bit confused, but I'm sure David Brooks will clear it up for me in his next column, being the world's foremost expert on heartland values and jumbo shrimp platters and all. Meanwhile, I guess what I don't understand is why it's ok for the First Lady to make horse cock jokes on television but it's not ok for a professional comedienne to make "bush" jokes at a private fundraiser. That's the part that seems a little bit odd to me. Remember this:
Comic Whoopi Goldberg's sexual puns on President Bush's name at a John Kerry fundraiser got her canned Wednesday as spokeswoman for Slim-Fast weight-loss products.
The freepers were terribly upset at the vulgarity:
Hollyweird does NOT represent American values, or the heart and soul of our country, in any way whatsoever!!

This election is shaping up to be a contest between anyone with decent or Christian values (whatever his or her usual political leanings) and the moral FILTH and POISON represented by Hollyweird and the media and advertising community, the feminazis, and the gays. I vote NO to all of them!!!!

As for SlimFast, it doesn't work anyway, in terms of long-term weight loss and health. Don't beleive their hype, whether spread by Whoopi the Obscene or by anyone else. Boycott SlimFast for ALL the right reasons!!!!

By the way, I see from your screen name that you are a Christian, as I am. May God bless you!!!!
Mychel Massie clutched his pearls and bravely held back the tears as he related the horrors on World Net Daily:
I am profoundly offended by Kerry's foolish and base support of such filth – and America, you should be, too.

What type of future does Kerry envision for America if he applauds the rawest of trash as "the heart and soul of our country"? How does Kerry view the voters, his church, the family and education if he postulates those things as "values inside you"? To laughingly support such an extraordinarily tasteless, vulgar, public display, one must ask not only how Kerry views the office of president, but exactly what respect has he for himself?
Republican leaders, if you'll recall, demanded an apology from the Kerry camp. Junior made the line "my opponent likes tah say that Hollywood is the heart 'n soul 'o America. but I think the heart 'n soul 'o America is right here in _______, heartland USA" one of his rapturous applause cues throughout the campaign.

That was a different time. Now it seems that the moral Red Staters have finally decided to admit that they love a good horse cock joke as much as the next guy and that's just fine with me. I always knew they did. We're all about horse cock jokes in this country, from sea to shining sea. Nothing makes a First Lady more downhome and fun than talking about horse cocks on TV. Bring 'em on. Horse cocks for everyone.

But I'd really appreciate it if they'd can the phony sanctimony from now on and shut the fuck up about "Desperate Housewives" and dirty talk on TV. If it's ok for the First Lady of the United States to joke publicly about her husbands limp dick and jerking off farm animals then it's ok for Whoopie Goldberg and everybody else to make Bush jokes.

Ezra makes the same point but without even one horse cock reference, a weakness I often notice in his writing.

Especially during Kentucky Derby week.

Remind me again how Republicans are supposed to be "stronger" on defense than Democrats?

2005-05-03T22:58:00.000-04:00

Too funny for words.

~~I assure you, sir, the redacted portions are completely unreadable~~:

The Pentagon is likely reviewing all its recently declassified documents with a very careful eye this week after learning that redactions to its publicly released report on the death of Italian secret agent Nicola Calipari could be viewed with a simple CTRL-C, CTRL-V. The Pentagon quietly released the heavily censored report to the Web in Adobe Systems' PDF format last weekend, failing to realize that its hidden portions could be revealed by simply opening the document in Adobe's free Acrobat Reader, hitting the ''select text'' button, copying and then pasting that text into any word processor. "I played around on my computer by highlighting the text, I found out the words were still there under the blacked-out bits," Salvatore Schifani, one of the first folks to notice the Pentagon's gaffe, told Repubblica radio. "It really surprised me, because the best way of not making this information available would have been not to write it down in the first place, rather than putting it there and then trying to conceal it in such a silly way." Makes you wonder how many other "censored" Pentagon documents might be readable this way.

I'm a big fan of Tom Clancy novels, but I always wanted to write (or at least read) an "anti-techno-thriller" - one in which none of the fancy toys work and all of the military guys are self-serving CYA careerist opportunists. Seems like that's what the real Pentagon is really like. I'm not sure if I should be amused or terrified.

I repeat: It's a good thing a grizzled old, experienced combat vet like George W. Bush is in charge of things. Can you imagine what bad shape our military would be in if a cowardly draft-dodging deserter like John Kerry were president?

Overly loud professions of faith - the very last refuge of a scoundrel

2005-05-03T10:21:00.000-04:00

In response to one of my posts, some anonymous missionary without even the guts to admit his name basically says I'm going to hell unless I repent and accept JAYZUSSS as my personal savior.

Fuck him.

I'm sick and fucking tired of so-called Christians acting like only they know anything about faith and morality. As if, once a person says he's a Christian, the rest of us are supposed to suspend all our judgment and critical faculties and fall to our knees in reverent obeisance.

Considering what Christians have done to Jews the past couple of millennia - torture, murder, lies, forced conversions, expulsions, blood libels, etc. - that they really think any of us have the slightest desire to become anything like them strikes me as the sheerest height of delusion.

One reason Jews and Catholics have always gotten along better than Jews and Protestants is Catholics do not believe in the foul, filthy notion of salvation by faith alone. Catholics, like Jews, believe that it is your works as much as your faith that define your relationship with God. Salvation by faith alone is an abomination to Jews. Actually, salvation is a rather odd notion to a Jew, since we believe and teach that all humans are by definition saved provided they follow a few, simple commandments (the seven so-called "Noahide" commandments). Jews, of course, have to follow 613 commandments, but even we are automatically saved (as David Klinghoffer puts it, we follow the mitzvot not to earn salvation but to justify already being saved and to show our appreciation and loyalty to God for His gifts. But we're all already "saved".)

In any case, the idea that once you say you're a Christian, you automatically are above reproach, that no one can criticize you, that no one can question anything you do, is repulsive and un-American. James Dobson, nominally a Christian, is a proponent of child- and animal-abuse. Can we not say so without being condemned as enemies of people of faith? Ralph Reed is a corrupt pig.

I don't care what they say they are. I know plenty of real Christians. I'm not necessarily impugning Dobson's or Reed's personal faith and piety. I'm just saying that when they act like pigs, I'm going to call them pigs, and they can't hide behind a Bible and a cross and say I'm being mean to them.

I'm a Jew. Unlike Christian mischaracterizations of Judaism, faith is as important to Jews as it is to Christians. But it's like Napoleon supposedly said to his generals, "Pray as if everything depends upon God, but fight as if everything depends upon you." Merely saying you're a person of faith is not enough. You have to truly live your faith, too. If it doesn't make you a better person, what good is it?

Hating gay people, hating women, advocating violence against children, threatening judges who disagree with you, attempting to impose your incredibly narrow-minded vision upon everyone else - that's not faith, that's miserable, mean-spirted insecurity and megalomania.

Stop braying about your faith while belittling everyone else's. Just shut up about how wonderful you are and how awful the rest of humanity is. We don't want to hear it, and it sure doesn't make what you're pushing seem attractive and appealing.

This is not anti-Christian. It's anti-blowhard. It's anti-mean old goatfucking scumbag. It's anti-theocratic dictator wannabe. Yes, it's even anti-Republican (which did not used to be the same thing as pro-Antichrist. And you know what? It still isn't.)

Let's get back on track here. We don't oppose Janice Rogers Brown because she's a Christian. We oppose her because she's a nutcase who does not understand or give a shit about the U.S. Constitution. It's cheap and easy to defame us - too cheap and easy. It demeans the people who do it as much as they think they're humbling us. It divides the nation. It brings Christianity itself into disrepute, which I somehow doubt is what Tony Blankley and Bill Frist have in mind.

A fair fight is one thing. Winning at any cost is another. Trying to turn a 51-49 Presidential election into the Second Coming is off the frickin' table.

Army recruits anything with a pulse

2005-05-03T09:19:00.000-04:00

Well, why not? Why should the only psychopaths involved with the U.S. military be civilians?

Army Recruiters Say They Feel Pressure to Bend Rules

By DAMIEN CAVE

It was late September when the 21-year-old man, fresh from a three-week commitment in a psychiatric ward, showed up at an Army recruiting station in southern Ohio. The two recruiters there wasted no time signing him up, and even after the man's parents told them he had bipolar disorder - a diagnosis that would disqualify him - he was all set to be shipped to boot camp, and perhaps Iraq after that, before senior officers found out and canceled the enlistment.

Despite an Army investigation, the recruiters were not punished and were still working in the area late last month.

Two hundred miles away, in northern Ohio, another recruiter said the incident hardly surprised him. He has been bending or breaking enlistment rules for months, he said, hiding police records and medical histories of potential recruits. His commanders have encouraged such deception, he said, because they know there is no other way to meet the Army's stiff recruitment quotas.

"The problem is that no one wants to join," the recruiter said. "We have to play fast and loose with the rules just to get by."

Meanwhile, the Army says, nothing to see here, move along, move along.

It's a good thing a grizzled old, experienced combat vet like George W. Bush is in charge of things. I'd hate to imagine what bad shape our military would be in if a cowardly draft-dodging deserter like John Kerry were president.

How can anyone take these morons seriously?

2005-05-02T12:11:00.000-04:00

Other than, say, Rush or Hannity or a similarly opposable thumb-deprived hyperpartisan Bush catamite?

Who Left The Kids In Charge?

Today, the House passed The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA), a bill making it illegal to transport a minor across state lines to circumvent laws in the state in which the minor lives that require parental notification before an abortion. The Democrats offered several amendments to this bill; one, for instance, exempts cab drivers and bus drivers from prosecution. But the Republicans, in issuing the committee report, took it upon themselves to rewrite the amendments' descriptions in the official committee report to make it read as though they concerned sexual predators, even though neither the bill nor the amendment has anything to do with sexual predators. The revisions are as follows:
"DEMS: a Nadler amendment allows an adult who could be prosecuted under the bill to go to a Federal district court and seek a waiver to the state’s parental notice laws if this remedy is not available in the state court. (no 11-16)
GOP REWRITE:. Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have created an additional layer of Federal court review that could be used by sexual predators to escape conviction under the bill. By a roll call vote of 11 yeas to 16 nays, the amendment was defeated.

DEMS: a Nadler amendment to exempt a grandparent or adult sibling from the criminal and civil provisions in the bill (no 12-19)
GOP REWRITE: . Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution under the bill if they were grandparents or adult siblings of a minor. By a roll call vote of 12 yeas to 19 nays, the amendment was defeated.

DEMS: a Scott amendment to exempt cab drivers, bus drivers and others in the business transportation profession from the criminal provisions in the bill (no 13-17):
GOP REWRITE. Mr. Scott offered an amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution if they are taxicab drivers, bus drivers, or others in the business of professional transport. By a roll call vote of 13 yeas to 17 nays, the amendment was defeated.

DEMS: a Scott amendment that would have limited criminal liability to the person committing the offense in the first degree (no 12-18)
GOP REWRITE:. Mr. Scott offered an amendment that would have exempted from prosecution under the bill those who aid and abet criminals who could be prosecuted under the bill. By a roll call vote of 12 yeas to 18 nays, the amendment was defeated.

DEMS: a Jackson-Lee amendment to exempt clergy, godparents, aunts, uncles or first cousins from the penalties in the bill (no 13-20)
GOP REWRITE. Ms. Jackson-Lee offered an amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution under the bill if they were clergy, godparents, aunts, uncles, or first cousins of a minor, and would require a study by the Government Accounting Office. By a roll call vote of 13 yeas to 20 nays, the amendment was defeated."
Here is the text of the bill. I can't provide a link to the amendments, because, oddly enough, their descriptions have not been posted (and at this stage in the proceedings, they usually are.) But if you read the bill, it's just about transporting minors across state lines to get an abortion. It has nothing to do with sexual predators at all.

No doubt, you are thinking to yourselves, this was the work of some rogue staffer, the same sort of person who would think it was funny to change the description to say something like: "Rep. Nadler proposed an amendment to declare that he is a poopyhead." Wrong:
"Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., who authored the panel's report, defended its language, saying the Democratic amendments would not have specifically excluded child molesters from protections.

"Perhaps these amendments were not properly drafted by the authors when they were submitted in the committee," Sensenbrenner told the House. "That's not the fault of the majority, that's the fault of the people who drafted the amendment." "
To which Rep. Nadler replied:
"Under CIANA, a father who rapes and impregnates his own daughter can go and sue the doctor or the grandparent or the clergyman who transported his child across state lines for the purpose of getting an abortion. Maybe that wasn’t exactly the intent of this legislation. But according to the descriptive guidelines now laid out by the majority, it would therefore be fair to call this entire bill the Rapists and Sexual Predators Right to Sue Act."
And he's right. If any law that provides people some right or benefit without specifically exempting sexual predators can now be redescribed as the Republicans suggest, the possibilities are endless. The Highway bill, for instance, can now be called the "Helping Sexual Predators Reach Their Victims More Quickly Act". A bill appropriating money for cabins at a National Park could be called the "Providing A Secluded Location In Which Sexual Predators Can Molest Their Victims Act". A new telecom regulations bill might be the "Enabling Sexual Predators To Communicate More Easily With Their Victims Act." The next time a supplemental appropriations bill for Iraq comes up, we can call it the "Enabling Sexual Predators To Target Our Men And Women In Uniform Act". (I mean, what are the odds that our armed forces, noble though they are, do not include at least one sexual predator?) The possibilities are endless.

Or at least they're endless if you happen to be interested in entering infantile distortions of House members' bills and amendments into the Congressional Record for political purposes. To a responsible adult, there's only one option: entering an accurate description of each bill and amendment into the record, and debating them on the merits. Apparently, though, Sensenbrenner is not interested in behaving like an adult, or in exercising his responsibilities as Chair of the Judiciary Committee in a minimally responsible way. His conduct is indefensible.

(h/t Opus)

(Note: Some of the links may not work - they seem to have expired - and I don't have time to try to correct them. Sorry.)

Why don't the Republicans simply decree that the Democratic Party is hereby renamed the Washington Generals? That's how they see us, that's the role the really seem to think we are supposed to play. And they get real pissy when we seem to think otherwise.

Oh, and while they're at it, decree that the entire free press is henceforth to be known as the Office of Obedient Information of the Republican National Committee.

Friday Blog Blogging, Monday edition: Why there are no "Christians" on the right

2005-05-02T10:51:00.000-04:00

The right wing doesn't hate women, any more than they hate gays. They just hate women who don't obey every single psychotic word they say.

Un-Bleeping-Believable

Jeanne d'Arc says that "Christian" activist groups opposes the development of a vaccine that would protect women from the virus that is responsible for most cervical cancer. Why? Because the virus is transmitted sexually.

"Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex," says a spokesperson from the Family Research Council, a "Christian" lobby group.

In other words, they'd rather their daughters died of cancer than engage in premarital sex. What's next? Honor killings?

These are the same people whining about how us liberals are mean to them because they are "people of faith." But they aren't. They are people of pathology. Call 'em CINOs--Christians in name only. Ain't nothin' in the Gospels that would justify crap like this.

Other links: Don't miss Dan Froomkin's Bush press conference news roundup.

Update: This is sick, too.

It's simple. Behave yourself - as we (and only we, of course) define proper behavior - and we'll let you live. Disobey us and you deserve whatever horrible - albeit preventable - evil awful thing that happens to you.

Simple, obvious, wrong, and despicable. And these fuckpigs call the "Old Testament" cruel. The God they pretend to worship is infinitely nastier than anything in the Tanakh. At least Jews have millennia of rabbinical commentary softening the literal words of the Torah. What do these monsters have other than the grinning, drooling vengeful words of their own hate-filled hearts?

Fool The New York Times once, shame on Bush. Fool The New York Times an infinite number of times...

2005-04-29T13:54:00.000-04:00

I know someone who, when he misbehaves, thinks that if he says he's sorry, not only does that make up for what he did, it means he never did what he did. If he does it again, and you get mad at him, it's not his fault - he hasn't done it again, he's doing it for the first time. His apology wiped the slate clean.

George W. Bush is sort of like that.

Empty Promise

One of the loftier moments in President Bush's State of the Union address came when he promised to improve the quality of the defense offered in death-penalty cases and to expand the use of DNA testing to prevent wrongful convictions.

A close look at Mr. Bush's budget, however, shows that his promise was largely illusory.

Mr. Bush is asking for $20 million for a hazily defined effort to train lawyers, judges and prosecutors in capital cases. This falls far short of the $75 million called for in the Justice for All Act, a broadly bipartisan law designed to address these and other vital justice-related issues. Mr. Bush signed it last October.

Hmm...Bush supports a concept, then fails to fully fund it. Where have we heard that before?

Oh, here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here, here, and here.

It's a game the whole family can enjoy! Just type "Bush fails to fund" into Google and just see how many pages come up!

Seriously, though, catch the pattern? Bush makes a big announcement of some lovely-sounding program so he can get all the credit for his high-minded intentions. Then, he simply guts its funding so he doesn't have to do any of that nasty, intrusive, actual work (something "W" has never stood for in his entire wastrelly life) to implement it.

And he gets away with it, time after time after time. No one, at least in the MSM, ever calls him on it. Anyone saying he was a poor student has seriously misjudged him. He is amazingly capable of learning that he will never, ever be held accountable for anything he does - or fails to do - or, in this case, refuses quite happily to do.

Is The Times ever going to be on the same planet as a clue when it comes to George W. Bush?