Omphaloskepsis

Son-in-law duty

2007-04-11T23:11:00.000-07:00

My mother-in-law called me a short while ago, with a tight, constrained voice asking me if I could head over to her house as quickly as possible. Her two small dogs had cornered a rat in her living room, and she was on the verge of freaking out. (my mother-in-law, not the rat).

I got there, and sure enough, there was a big fucking rat, just leaving via the open door. I'm no expert, but it was a healthy adult rattus norvegicus from the blueish/brown blur that I saw, which was definitely about 10 inches of body, and, oooh, 10 more inches of tail. (That's the part that makes my wife shudder.) I found the probable route that it took into the kitchen through a hole in the drywall, and blocked it with something heavy. Unfortunately, they didn't have any steel wool. You gotta go with the steel wool.

Checking on wikipedia later, I was amazed to find out that their little hearts beat 300 to 400 times a minute. I'm thinking this little guy was topping out on the high end on the scale once he realized he had followed some delectable scents until he was smack dab in the middle of a small tiled kitchen with two hyperactive dogs racing in after him. If he followed the path inside that I think he did, the pantry door would have closed behind him just as he made that discovery, forcing some hasty improvisation on his part.

When I got back, my wife tried to convince me, once again, that her family's pathological fear of rodents was actually not a phobia, but are well-founded on a wide variety of historical and scientific facts. Apparently something bad happened to a baby somewhere. Or maybe that was the poor kid in The Jungle. I kind of tuned her out while she was talking about their fat, ugly tails.

This reminds me of the novel I just finished and mostly enjoyed. A terrified, but curious rat plays a key role in the shaggy dog tale at the center of Schrödinger 's Ball, a hard-to-classify comic novel that takes as a starting point of its plot Schrödinger 's semi-dead cat in a box. It is not science fiction, by conventional expectations; but it really only does make sense if you had a technical background, or you're really willing to crank the google while going through it.

It's also a very male novel, in that the women are all beautiful, and described in highly detailed, luscious, panting glory. On the other hand, the men are all male and wear pants or something. Luckily for me, I like male-oriented comic novels about technical subjects, e.g., Cryptonomicon, or hell, anything that Neal Stephenson has ever written. Although Schrödinger 's Ball doesn't measure up to Stephenson, if you like one, I'll lay odds you will like the other.

Bob Dole, presidential floater, now circling the bowl

2007-04-09T19:45:00.000-07:00

Hey, this place is nice. Whoa, was that Melanie Griffith?!

It looks like McCain has not just gone too far, but has been correctly perceived as going too far:

In short order, John McCain has gone from Republican presidential front-runner to political death watch. On Wednesday, the Arizona senator kicks off a month of high-profile events, seeking a resurrection of sorts.

He badly needs it. Mr. McCain just reported raising $12.5 million for the first-quarter -- behind Republican rivals Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, as well as Democrats Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. Most analysts won't go so far as to bury Mr. McCain, citing his Republican rivals' own baggage: Both Mr. Romney and Mr. Giuliani are suspect among social conservatives for their records supporting abortion and gay rights, and gun control. But the one-time GOP front-runner clearly had a very bad week.

He went from bold to ridiculous in his statements on the war, then he made himself into Dukakis in the tank overnight by going to an Iraqi market with 100 soldiers, ten armored humvees, and five attack helicopters as cover.

From the Think Progress video and summary of the video piece:

60 Minutes host Scott Pelley noted that McCain had been a fierce critic of Donald Rumsfeld but seems to "give President Bush a pass." McCain responded, "I say that he is responsible and I will continue to say that he is responsible. Should I look back in anger? Or should I look forward?"

Look back? Look forward? No, no, instead, you should drop the feel-good psychobabble and retreat into the complete, shamed anonymity that only someone who has publicly sold their soul for higher office can achieve. You should be shunned by everyone with a decent breath in them. You should nod sadly when children gasp and run away when they see your pasty, wormlike face. You should drop off the face of the fucking earth, you contemptible, maggoty toad.

21 people died in Iraq because you wanted to sound positive and upbeat about this wreckless, needless, lost war. Ambushed, executed. 21 real, live people. Payback for your little talking point, the one you now blithely dismiss as the time you "misspoke" and talk about how much fun it would be if you didn't have to, you know, talk the truth responsibly like a goddamn senator should. You thoughtlessly chose to trade nifty photo ops against people who kill innocent people to make their points. You lose the PR point completely, you international jackass, and other people died in the bargain.

You thought you'd be clever and recommend a "surge" in Iraq because it would position you so well for the 2008 primaries. With the war lost, you could argue that if only they had listened to you earlier, all would be milk and honey in the former Mesopotamia. You didn't think that your moronic plan would sound pretty good to the Moron in Chief, and now, where are we? Planning to bring home more dead soldiers, more young men without limbs, more young women with plates in their heads.

Is there is nothing you will not say, do, or endure to be president? In 2000, Karl Rove, the chief minister of poison for the idiot king you now refuse to criticize, paid for a push poll where your own adopted daughter was used in a racist attack on you to sabotage you in the South Carolina primaries. You were angry about it with Bush, briefly, then you did everything you could to keep this unworthy man in office in 2004. Even now, you refuse to attack him, despite losing the war, despite wrecking the armed forces. He attacked your own daughter, and you hugged him on stage in 2004 like you were a fucking muppet, you craven, pathetic sycophant.

Bob Dole is another former military officer who had achieved honor in his military and years of service as a senator, then he lost it all in a minute with a sad, meaningless 1996 campaign for president. Now he can't even get an ad on tv pushing boner pills.

Feh. John McCain, you are irredeemable. Just go the fuck away. Resign your office and go live somewhere quietly with your rich trophy wife, and never, ever opine in public again.

photos by the incomparable Water Tiger at DependableRenegade.com

Why am I still posting here?

2007-04-08T17:27:00.000-07:00

Well, it's a fair question. First, blogger has stopped asking me the specific questions that were freaking me out. Second, boy, have I been busy.

In fact, I've spent the last four days recovering from the first part of last week, where, at its peak, I got 10 hours of sleep over a 60 hour period. Whatever it is that I do at whatever company, I released some software that been 10 months in the womb. The risk was extremely high, and so it was an all-hands effort to deliver this bad boy, with four of us working an overnight shift and six of us coming in at three a.m. It worked, to our immense relief.

Now there is a glimmer of hope that my job will start to suck less, starting this week.

Arcade Fire

2007-04-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

I love Arcade Fire, and their 2005 Album, Funeral, was an instant classic. Their latest album is growing on me a bit slower, but I haven't given up.

Here they are performing "Wake Up" with David Bowie at some Hollywood shindig.

The person who posted this video makes the bold statement that "if you don't cry watching this, you are dead inside." That's extreme and unsupportable, of course; but there is something primal about the earnest way that Arcade Fire sings all of their songs that does choke me up. They sing of about childhood illusions of death or eternal love as if they were grown-up children just now making the realizations and compromises of adulthood.

Here they are performing "Rebellion (Lies)" at Coachella in the Spring of 2005, where I saw them live for the first time. I'm not even a bouncing dot in the video, since I was by the sound-booth, not even shown in this video. It was a great, great show from a terrific band.

Although this is just one song, it does give a good flavor of their live presence: a full-on, wall-of-sound presentation with a miked string section, multiple drummers, and a band where everyone sings their fucking heart out. It also shows a little bit of the rough-housing between the band members, which was as out of control as you see here for every song. Fun stuff.

Updated: for clarity.

Hilary on Barack Obama

2007-04-07T09:09:00.000-07:00

Here's an animated song about Mr. Obama by Ms. Clinton concerning 2008. Flash, 2 minutes.

Next to last post

2007-03-24T15:54:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'll be closing this blog down soon, and posting somewhere else, probably by next week.

I have been posting anonymously here for a variety of good reasons. Of late, I have grown increasingly uncomfortable with Google's insistence that I link together all aspects of my online existence. Now, blogger has made some recent, mandatory changes that I'm not so crazy about. It's possible that I am misunderstanding these changes, but honestly, it's not worth the risk to me. They're creeping me out.

I won't post a link to the new blog, nor will my new blog link back here. I'll probably leave this site undeleted, but I don't actually care what happens to it.

How to be a fabulous fag hag

2007-03-24T14:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a funny cartoon on "How to be a fabulous fag hag" by Ellen Forney, who has a long series of excellent cartoons based on real incidents and interviews. Here, she interviewed Margaret Cho (check out her blog, too -- lots of good music).

One of my first girlfriends, Barbara, was a fag hag, with two super-close gay friends. They were quite protective of her, wanting to know exactly "what were my intentions?!" My intentions were lots of hot sex, basically, and I did get what I was there for. Ultimately, though, she also turned me on to some excellent literature before we parted ways, and those authors still work for me. My advice is always to sleep with grad students. At least, that advice has always worked for me.

Although my relationship with Barbara was brief, it was lovely to see their emotional closeness and comfort with each other while we were together.

Margaret Cho speaks the truth:

Don't be afraid to fall in love without expectations, gender, sexuality, precedence, etc. For fag hags and fags, love is love, and that's the best part of it.

Courage of the Jester

2007-03-24T13:53:00.000-07:00

Why is it that comedians have been so right, so cuttingly correct on the issues?

Why hasn't any political commentary in the last dozen or so years had the depth of Bill Maher's open contempt for the Bush/Cheney regime, the casual concern for Tony Snow's soul from Jon Stewart, or the mind-bending performance of Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, who called out the George W. Bush and a complacent press corps to their face, plunging through his routine relentlessly in the face of a hostile audience, knowing that it would be hysterically funny to others. It's 24 minutes long, and one of the bravest bits of comedy I think I have ever seen. As Jon Stewart said later, "We've never been prouder of him, but holy shit!"

I have no good explanation for the lack of courage of others, but do check out these clips if you haven't seen them.

Life in the slammer

2007-03-24T13:29:00.000-07:00

Well, about twenty days in jail. "George" describes his experiences as a gaijin trapped in a Japanese prison on Stippy, an interesting web site devoted to describing Japan by and for other gaijin who live there. It's a five-part series, which is unfortunately incomplete.

(via boingboing.net)

Out again

2007-03-05T21:37:00.000-08:00

Hi, I've been working 80-hour weeks and there are a variety of burning issues on the domestic front, so... I'm not posting.

Someday soon. If you want to help me out, get me a new job. I'd take one bagging groceries at the moment.

Cartman was right

2007-02-17T01:12:00.000-08:00

Cartman: Okay, that does it! Now listen! Why is it that everything today has involved things either going in or coming out of my ass?! I'm sick of it! It's completely immature.
—Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Episode 101, "South Park"

Here is an 11-minute excerpt from a 63 minute documentary, "The Dildo Diaries". Molly Ivins wryly discusses the long and silly battle pitting the Texas legislature versus dildos and sodomy in Texas. Both of those are entirely illegal in Texas, for homosexuals or heterosexuals alike.

There was one omission. The lawmakers knew about some surprising acts with chickens, but they had never heard of butt-plugs. So those are as legal as buying a bar of soap.

Idiots. God, sometimes I'm just so embarrassed to be from the bible belt.

Good news, bad news

2007-02-16T22:36:00.000-08:00

Well, Jet Blue just called to offer me a different flight than the one I had purchased, which was a red-eye to the east coast leaving tonight. The new flight would have arrived just 11 hours before my return flight back home. I do love my family, but eh, not so much that I'm willing to fly 10 hours for an 11 hour visit. So that trip home is cancelled. Sorry folks

This is positive news in that my queen, my wife is really, really tired and was in fact going to suffer through these two red-eye flights purely as a sign of devotion. In fact, a comparison was made to it being a valentine's gift, as was the subtle imputation that I should be damned grateful. So she took the news of the cancellation well: "Yay!" She'll be able to sleep in a comfy bed, and not in a just-off-vertical seat.

On my part, I will get to polish off some yummy videos that we got from Netflix, play with my toy, an Archos video player, and read a fun book about Hindu deities that arrived today. The book is by a Pixar animator, Sanjay Patel who also has a web site, GheeHappy.

It's funny: if we had not gone anywhere, we wouldn't have felt anything special about this weekend. Now it feels like a gift. Thanks for the gift of time, Kali! (And if you like the Kali picture, he has a slightly bloodier version for sale on infant apparel. Just the thing to make your Mormon relatives bug out.)

Photo of Jasmine by GhRis at Deviant Art.
Photo of Kali and victim by Sanjay Patel at GheeHappy.

Acting out

2007-02-06T22:31:00.000-08:00

You know, when I 'act out', that means that I'm eating a bag of Cheetos for dinner, or I'm acting cranky and sullen instead of being a responsible adult. 'Acting Out' has never meant, not even once, that I take it up the ass from a male prostitute who deals me crystal meth, even though that's apparently what it meant to the entirely heterosexual Ted Haggard. Ok, so I'm kind of a pouter when I'm acting out, and he's more of 'hey sailor, have you seen my mangina lately?' sort of person. Different strokes.

I guess it is better for his poor wife and kids to cling to this fantasy. However, I don't see how it will be better for Ted Haggard to come out as a self-hating gay man who now completely denies the impulses he admitted just a few months ago. It would be best if he is bisexual, since that would make his marriage less of a cruel farce.

What a vicious bind his religion has led him into. I hope he can escape.

Molly Ivins

2007-02-03T10:48:00.000-08:00

Like so many others, I'm very sorry that Molly Ivins has passed. She was funniest when she was being cruel to the misguided and pompous, such as in this hysterical review of Camille Paglia's absurd Sexual Personae: Art & Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson:

What we have here, fellow citizens, is a crassly egocentric, raving twit. The Norman Podhoretz of our gender. That this woman is actually taken seriously as a thinker in New York intellectual circles is a clear sign of decadence, decay, and hopeless pinheadedness. Has no one in the nation's intellectual capital the background and ability to see through a web of categorical assertions? One fashionable line of response to Paglia is to claim that even though she may be fundamentally off-base, she has "flashes of brilliance." If so, I missed them in her oceans of swill.

One of her latest efforts at playing enfant terrible in intellectual circles was a peppy essay for Newsday, claiming that either there is no such thing as date rape or, if there is, it's women's fault because we dress so provocatively. Thanks, Camille, I've got some Texas fraternity boys I want you to meet.

There is one area in which I think Paglia and I would agree that politically correct feminism has produced a noticeable inequity. Nowadays, when a woman behaves in a hysterical and disagreeable fashion, we say, "Poor dear, it's probably PMS." Whereas, if a man behaves in a hysterical and disagreeable fashion, we say, "What an
asshole." Let me leap to correct this unfairness by saying of Paglia: Sheesh, what an asshole.

Paul Krugman, an admirer although not a personal friend of Ivins, did us the favor of going over her old columns regarding the disastrous Iraq war, and noted again and again how prescient she was about the quagmire, about the civil war, and about the "batty degree of triumphalism" that America found itself in. He concludes:

So Molly Ivins — who didn’t mingle with the great and famous, didn’t have sources high in the administration, and never claimed special expertise on national security or the Middle East — got almost everything right. Meanwhile, how did those who did have all those credentials do?

With very few exceptions, they got everything wrong. They bought the obviously cooked case for war — or found their own reasons to endorse the invasion. They didn’t see the folly of the venture, which was almost as obvious in prospect as it is with the benefit of hindsight. And they took years to realize that everything we were being told about progress in Iraq was a lie.

Was Molly smarter than all the experts? No, she was just braver. The administration’s exploitation of 9/11 created an environment in which it took a lot of courage to see and say the obvious.

Molly had that courage; not enough others can say the same.

She was smart and brave and funny. I will miss her.

A Confederacy of Dunces

2007-01-26T07:15:00.000-08:00

Dan Froomkin highlights these quotations from Neil Lewis's article about the Libby Trial's opening statements (paragraphs from the article are rearranged and highlighted for a higher quality of snark):

Mr. Libby, Mr. Wells said, complained to Vice President Dick Cheney that he was being set up as a fall guy. Mr. Cheney supported that view, Mr. Wells said, and handwrote a note saying, "Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice the guy who was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others."

Interpreting the vice president’s note, Mr. Wells said that "incompetence" was a reference to the fact that the C.I.A. had mistakenly allowed the White House to use inaccurate information in Mr. Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech about Iraq’s efforts to obtain uranium in Africa. The staff official whom the vice president believed should not be protected, he said, was Mr. Rove. Mr. Libby had been assigned to speak to reporters to straighten out the confusion from Mr. Bush’s speech, a chore Mr. Cheney likened to sticking his head in the meat grinder.

This is a perjury trial, unfortunately, and not a congressional investigation into the false beginnings of a war. But what is briefly referred to here as CIA "incompetence" was the direct result of unrelenting pressure put directly on the CIA by Dick Cheney. In particular, the nuclear claim had been a political football between the White House, CIA, and Pentagon from at least October 2002 until the State of the Union speech in January 2003. People at the CIA had threatened to quit their jobs unless phrases related to Iraq's nuclear ambitions had been removed from assorted speeches.

But now it is shown that Cheney believes it can all be traced to the incompetence of others, despite his direct involvement on the wrong side of the argument.

In addition, Cheney and Libby's arrogance led towards another false conclusion.

This incident appears to have occurred in fall 2003, when Mr. Libby was troubled that Scott McClellan, then the White House press secretary, had publicly said that Mr. Rove had not been involved in the leak but had initially declined to do the same for Mr. Libby and others in the administration. At that time, Mr. Rove had a major role in guiding Mr. Bush’s re-election campaign.

McClellan, who was considerably smarter than he appeared, went directly to the people concerned, and got their flat denial of involvement. He then went to the press room and passed on their statements. As a consequence, he is enjoying his time out of the White House, and he has never needed to hire a lawyer.

What they interpreted as deliberate inaction was simply the result of Rove's celebrity. McClellan didn't decline to do anything for Libby; no one was asking about Libby at that time. McClellan wouldn't have noticed anything either, since he had gotten Cheney's "word" that he was not involved.

Libby's lawyers should be smarter about discussing that note of Cheney's. Another way to translate his note is "The White House is willing to lie to protect Rove, but not my staffer, Libby. Therefore, he should be lying to protect himself."

When last we posted...

2007-01-25T16:31:00.000-08:00

... I was heading off to Costa Rica for two weeks.

I'm back. I am lightly tanned (one paint chip over), lightly bitten, and newly wise in the ways of monkeys. It was a good vacation.

Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes.

2007-01-05T22:34:00.000-08:00

That was the strange mine of souls.
As secret ores of silver they passed
like veins through its darkness. Between the roots
blood welled, flowing onwards to Mankind,
and it looked as hard as Porphyry in the darkness.
Otherwise nothing was red.

There were cliffs
and straggling woods. Bridges over voids,
and that great grey blind lake,
that hung above its distant floor
like a rain-filled sky above a landscape.

And between meadows, soft and full of patience,
one path, a pale strip, appeared,
passing by like a long bleached thing.

And down this path they came.

In front the slim man in the blue mantle,
mute and impatient, gazing before him.
His steps ate up the path in huge bites
without chewing: his hands hung,
clumsy and tight, from the falling folds,
and no longer aware of the weightless lyre,
grown into his left side,
like a rose-graft on an olive branch.

And his senses were as if divided:
while his sight ran ahead like a dog,
turned back, came and went again and again,
and waited at the next turn, positioned there —
his hearing was left behind like a scent.

Sometimes it seemed to him as if it reached
as far as the going of those other two,
who ought to be following this complete ascent.

Then once more it was only the repeated sound of his climb
and the breeze in his mantle behind him.
But he told himself that they were still coming:
said it aloud and heard it die away.
They were still coming, but they were two
fearfully light in their passage. If only he might
turn once more (if looking back
were not the ruin of all his work,
that first had to be accomplished), then he must see them,
the quiet pair, mutely following him:
the god of errands and far messages,
the travelling-hood above his shining eyes,
the slender wand held out before his body,
the beating wings at his ankle joints;
and on his left hand, as entrusted: her.

The so-beloved, that out of one lyre
more grief came than from all grieving women:
so that a world of grief arose, in which
all things were there once more: forest and valley,
and road and village, field and stream and creature:
and that around this grief-world, just as
around the other earth, a sun
and a silent star-filled heaven turned,
a grief-heaven with distorted stars —
she was so loved.

But she went at that god’s left hand,
her steps confined by the long grave-cloths,
uncertain, gentle, and without impatience.
She was in herself, like a woman near term,
and did not think of the man, going on ahead,
or the path, climbing upwards towards life.
She was in herself. And her being-dead
filled her with abundance.

As a fruit with sweetness and darkness,
so she was full with her vast death,
that was so new, she comprehended nothing.

She was in a new virginity
and untouchable: her sex was closed
like a young flower at twilight,
and her hands had been weaned so far
from marriage that even the slight god’s
endlessly gentle touch, as he led,
hurt her like too great an intimacy.

She was no longer that blonde woman,
sometimes touched on in the poet’s songs,
no longer the wide bed’s scent and island,
and that man’s possession no longer.

She was already loosened like long hair,
given out like fallen rain,
shared out like a hundredfold supply.

She was already root.

And when suddenly
the god stopped her and, with anguish in his cry,
uttered the words: ‘He has turned round—’
she comprehended nothing and said softly: ‘Who?’

But far off, darkly before the bright exit,
stood someone or other, whose features
were unrecognisable. Who stood and saw
how on the strip of path between meadows,
with mournful look, the god of messages
turned, silently, to follow the figure
already walking back by that same path,
her steps confined by the long grave-cloths,
uncertain, gentle, and without impatience.

— Rainer Maria Rilke

Extraordinary bravery

2007-01-05T01:31:00.000-08:00

Here are two stories about three heroes in New York City.

After giving the mayor thanks and a bear hug, Autrey recounted the details of the risky rescue for the media gathered at City Hall.

Hollopeter ... was at the subway station at 137th Street/City College when he suffered a seizure and fell onto the tracks just as a train was approaching.

Autrey was standing on the platform with his daughters and scores of other subway riders when he saw Hollopeter convulsing on the tracks. As he watched, he thought: "I'm the only one to do it."

He eyed the trough between the rails before jumping on top of the teenager, Autrey said, and relied on his experience as a construction worker used to "confined spaces" to calculate - in split seconds - that "maybe we have enough clearance."

Like many New Yorkers, I always wondered if those troughs in the middle of the subway tracks were deep enough to protect you if a train were passing overhead. I never knew the answer, and neither did Wesley Autrey, but he took the chance anyway with literally seconds to spare.

What incredible bravery.

On neutering the Republicans

2007-01-04T22:31:00.000-08:00

President Bush "wrote" an editorial for the Wall St. Journal today.

Here's the part that made my wife sputter in a high-pitched voice like Beaker going mi-mi-mi

It is also a fact that our tax cuts have fueled robust economic growth and record revenues. Because revenues have grown and we've done a better job of holding the line on domestic spending, we met our goal of cutting the deficit in half three years ahead of schedule. By continuing these policies, we can balance the federal budget by 2012 while funding our priorities and making the tax cuts permanent. In early February, I will submit a budget that does exactly that. The bottom line is tax relief and spending restraint are good for the American worker, good for the American taxpayer, and good for the federal budget. Now is not the time to raise taxes on the American people.

Hardly a single word is true. The reality, of course, is that Bill Clinton and his Treasurer Robert Rubin were able to reverse the years of deficit spending after just four years. They built a trillion-dollar budget surplus that Bush blew through like a crack whore with a stolen credit card. These aren't secrets, guys. You can't lie about them.

Here's the part that made us laugh out loud.

One important message I took away from the election is that people want to end the secretive process by which Washington insiders are able to slip into legislation billions of dollars of pork-barrel projects that have never been reviewed or voted on by Congress. I'm glad Senator Robert Byrd and Congressman Dave Obey--the Democrats who will lead the appropriations process in the new Congress--heard that message, too, and have indicated they will refrain from including additional earmarks in the continuing resolution for this fiscal year.

But we can and should do more. It's time Congress give the president a line-item veto. And today I will announce my own proposal to end this dead-of-the-night process and substantially cut the earmarks passed each year.

The reality, of course, is that earmarking is a bipartisan practice that he could have vetoed at any point in the previous six years. Bush tacitly approved the pork-barrel process, as all politicians do. However, here he only named Democrats after 12 years of this midnight thuggery practiced by Republicans. Therefore, he does plan on vetoing a spending bill, probably as soon as possible. Now that the GOP is out of congressional power, it's important to label the Dems as a tax-and-spend party again, so this is just the opening gun in the meme-wars. As it happens, he's right about Byrd, who should have been tossed out of office years ago for his piggy ways.

Another important part of reality is that a line-item veto was granted, back in 1996, and it was eventually struck down as unconstitutional by a 6-3 Supreme Court majority two years later. There are two ways Bush could get a line-item veto: one, they find a magic formula that will let it pass muster with the men in black; two, they pass a constitutional amendment. The first is possible, the second is not. In any case, there's no reason for this congress to do the president any favors.

Here's the part that made me mad.

Our Founders believed in the wisdom of the American people to choose their leaders and provided for the concept of divided and effective government. The majority party in Congress gets to pass the bills it wants. The minority party, especially where the margins are close, has a strong say in the form bills take. And the Constitution leaves it to the president to use his judgment whether they should be signed into law.

Suck my dick. The minority party was completely shut out of every major decision for 12 fucking years in the House, and six years in the Senate. They were unable to pass any significant amendments in any House Vote in literally years. Traditional practices that only helped the majority party were shamelessly promoted: keeping house votes open for hours, threatening to remove filibusters entirely. Worse, the Democrats were called traitors and cowards and weaklings, whether they voted for or against Bush's initiatives. Now we should play nice towards the minority party? Why, because we're the grown-ups?

I am sick to fucking death of hearing how Democrats should behave, after the self-righteous thundering at Bill Clinton's tiniest peccadillo was muted to dead silence after Bush started a needless war and shattered the protections that have been part of Common Law since the 13th century. You authoritarians, you seekers of a king to rule you, you just want to love a Daddy who is always right, don't you? You don't care what he actually does -- you're just thrilled to hear the voice of command, barking out orders like Tommy Lee Jones looking for Dr. Kimble. You don't notice your own insincerity and hypocrisy when you're lecturing the Democrats, and you certainly don't notice that your emperor is an incurious, incompetent dullard.

Grover Norquist famously compared the Democrats to neutered animals when they were the minority party:

Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans. Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they've been fixed, then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don't go around peeing on the furniture and such.

I honestly don't know what to say to the GOP. They have no sense of shame or responsibility over what they, and no one else, are responsible for. Bush is obviously mentally ill, but most of the Republican party has no such excuse for their actions and inactions. The bottom line is, they lost the election, badly. They're losing the war, badly. They've put the country in a terrible financial bind, with trillions in budgetary deficit, a record trade deficit, and a looming recession based on the weak housing market. It's a staggering record of incompetence and chicanery.

Now they can all go fuck themselves while we clean their mess up.

Experiences to avoid

2007-01-04T21:20:00.000-08:00

If I may make suggestions, try not to lose your passport, then only discover it missing two days before an overseas trip. I have a whole day's worth of work to complete now, so color me cranky.

The Yule Log

2006-12-26T07:37:00.000-08:00

It is often difficult to find something new to say about Christmas, love it or hate it.

Well, El Caganer is awfully new to me! (there's a little more info on El Caganer at Wikipedia, our hive mind on disk.)

A Surge to Dien Bien Phu

2006-12-23T16:44:00.000-08:00

The U.S. Army generals have now conceded and completely surrendered their honor to the contemptible politicians who will blame them later, after the upcoming disaster. They are now planning the American Dien Bien Phu. Although it is taken out of context, here's a matching observation from 50 years ago.

In May 1953, French Premier Rene Mayer appointed Henri Navarre, a trusted colleague, to take command of French Forces in Indochina. Mayer had given Navarre a single order – to create military conditions that would lead to an "honorable political solution."^[7] On arrival, Navarre was shocked by what he found. "There had been no long-range plan since de Lattre's departure. Everything was conducted on a day-to-day, reactive basis. Combat operations were undertaken only in response to enemy moves or threats. There was no comprehensive plan to develop the organization and build up the equipment of the Expeditionary force. Finally, Navarre, the intellectual, the cold and professional soldier, was shocked by the 'school's out' attitude of Salan and his senior commanders and staff officers. They were going home, not as victors or heroes, but then, not as clear losers either. To them the important thing was that they were getting out of Indochina with their reputations frayed, but intact. They gave little thought to, or concern for, the problems of their successors."

Sound familiar?

Our soldiers and our country are marching into the abyss. Because of the inability of our pig-headed president to admit defeat, because of goddamn presidential politics concerning the 2008 election, because of a national self-image that thinks of ourselves as inevitable winners no matter what, America will now stumble headlong into the most horrifying battles of the war. We need to get the fuck out, right now. Instead, because of surging, we will go from 3,000 dead soldiers to 4,000 soldiers in an eye-blink. We will escalate troop levels in Baghdad, and not a goddamn good thing will happen because of it. This is insane.

Kevin Drum correctly notes the political advantages of this move to our side:

If they don't get to play the game their way, they'll spend the next couple of decades trying to persuade the American public that there was nothing wrong with the idea of invading Iraq at all. We just never put the necessary resources into it.

Well, screw that. There's nothing we can do to stop them anyway, so give 'em the resources they want. Let 'em fight the war the way they want. If it works -- and after all, stranger things have happened -- then I'll eat some crow. But if it doesn't, there's a chance that the country will actually learn something from this.

I wish it were otherwise. But it isn't.

But it's not fucking worth it. We, the secular progressives, the leftists, the Kossacks, we are already going to be blamed for this war, irrespective of our near-unanimous rejection of it. I was spitting nails about this goddamn idiotic idea back in 2002, and now, now that it's a hideous, blood-stained bed of misery, I still know that we cannot change this situation and we will still be blamed for it. Because we already have been.

Digby and Atrios echoing the same points with more eloquence, less rage and despair.

Update: Indeed, as Talking Points Memo says, the generals must follow these orders from the civilian leadership, or a military coup has begun. Yet, there are alternatives, and not giving public cover for a disaster is one of them. Resigning with wide public notice of one's reasons is another. Josh Marshall speaks of resigning as if it were unacceptable. It is honorable alternative.

Call me picky

2006-12-23T00:07:00.000-08:00

But if I were going to shove a cell-phone up my ass...

... this is probably not the model I'd go with.

San Francisco Chronicle best of year pictures are up.

Mmm, thanks for the tip

2006-12-21T22:39:00.000-08:00

Is there anything catholics will not believe?

One of my two readers has asked me: "why are you so down on religion now?" It's not the season, although the fake Fox "War on Christmas" definitely jumps on my last nerve.

No, it's just the endless Sunni-Shiite conflict. Islam is no more or less ridiculous than any other religion. Islam has some magnificent elements to it: an emphasis on equality, charity for the poor. What bothers me is that the Sunni and the Shia are both following the same religion, yet so many of them are hell-bent on killing each other. Same holy book, same prophet, essentially the same beliefs, but because of a failed ascension to power some fourteen centuries ago, they're willing to kill each other's babies, rape each other's wives, commit acts of hideous desecration and torture.

It's all for nothing, less than nothing. Their God doesn't exist, and He doesn't care how he is worshiped.

Kill the Wabbit! Kill the Wabbit!

2006-12-21T22:31:00.000-08:00

The top 50 cartoons of all time, made available via all the usual suspects. Yippee!
(via boingboing.net)

Right-wing announcers taking flight

2006-12-21T08:26:00.000-08:00

Joe Scarborough is one of the first talking heads to start talking tense. He's voted for Bush twice, he was always in favor of this war, but now he's talking about Bush's impeachment.

Wherein I try to be mutually offensive to everyone

2006-12-20T23:25:00.000-08:00

Santa Claus - Doesn't exist. Cruel hoax to kids.

Easter Bunny - Doesn't exist. Cruel hoax to kids.

Zeus - Didn't exist. Cruel hoax to ancient Greeks.

Jove - Didn't exist. Cruel hoax to ancient Romans.

Aphrodite - Didn't exist. Cruel hoax, but it is nice to blame a deity when you have a raging erection, or after you jumped the bones of someone you met at a bar.

Chaac - Didn't exist. Cruel hoax to ancient Maya, whose life-giving rain would come heedless of their sacrifices.

Quetzalcoatl - May have existed. Not God. Cruel hoax to ancient Aztecs.

Buddha - Did exist. Not deity. Founded influential school of psychology that is practiced as a religion.

Yahweh - Did not exist. Cruel hoax to Jews. Doesn't care if you spell his name out or not.

Jesus - Did exist. Not God. Romans nailed him up just like anyone else who annoyed them. Cruel hoax to Christians.

Mohammed - Did exist. Not prophet. Not a bad king, though. Cruel hoax to Muslims.

Ali (cousin of Mohammed) - Did exist. Killed instead of becoming 5th caliphate, which is admittedly harsh. Cruel hoax to Shia, who should really concentrate on events of the last twelve centuries.

Thor, Odin, et al. - Didn't exist, but man, what a great set of stories.

Trickster (Loki, Coyote, Br'er Rabbit) - Does exist -- as a parable showing an essential part of humanity. As real as any character in Aesop's fables.

Angel Moroni - Did not exist. Cruel hoax to Mormons, but a name that the rest of us can chuckle over.

Harvey (Pooka) - Didn't exist. Sweet story, highly recommended.

-+-+-

Your invisible friends? They don't exist, even though they're sometimes part of great stories.

You know this, just like you know that Zeus and the Easter Bunny do not exist. It's just us people down here. Let's love each other as much as we can.

Decider in Chief

2006-12-20T22:40:00.000-08:00

I wonder if the United States has ever been this close to a military coup. Bush will not back down, and he cannot be persuaded. Leaving Iraq is losing. We will not leave. What will the military do? What will they say?

By yesterday, however, Bush indicated that he will not necessarily let military leaders decide, ducking a question about whether he would overrule them. "The opinion of my commanders is very important," he said. "They are bright, capable, smart people whose opinion matters to me a lot." He added: "I agree with them that there's got to be a specific mission that can be accomplished with the addition of more troops before I agree on that strategy."

A senior aide said later that Bush would not let the military decide the matter. "He's never left the decision to commanders," said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so Bush's comments would be the only ones on the record. "He is the commander in chief. But he has said he will listen to those commanders when making these decisions. That hasn't changed."

I stand by my earlier prediction that the gloves are going to come off verbally. The people with power are starting to get alarmed. The people without power are already alarmed. Eventually, people stop deferentially responding to offensive non-answers like this:

Q: If you conclude that a surge in troop levels in Iraq is needed, would you overrule your military commanders if they felt it was not a good idea?

Bush: That's a dangerous hypothetical question. I'm not condemning you, you're allowed to ask anything you want. Let me weight and gather all the recommendations from Bob Gates, from our military, from diplomats on the ground, interested Iraqis point of view and then I'll report back to you as to whether or not I support a surge or not. Nice try.

And the new questions they ask will have an edge.

"Why shouldn't you be impeached?"
"Is there anyone's child you wouldn't have killed so that you wouldn't have to admit a mistake?"
"Why do you think you were elected king?"

But, hey thanks, Republican voters in 2004. I hope you feel proud that you were lured in to vote against gay marriage so that you could elect this irresponsible murderer. The blood is on your hands, too.

Doo-wop Christmas

2006-12-20T22:23:00.000-08:00

Here's a well-done flash movie by Joshua Held, animating the Drifter's cover of "White Christmas". Check it out before the lawyers show up.

Baby Ocelot

2006-12-20T22:13:00.000-08:00

Friends, I am fried to a crispy wisp. Over the past few days, I have had work issues coming out the yin-yang. That has involved multiple 14- and 16-hour days; being paged at 1am, 4am, and 6am; and working on systems with other people in such an ineffective way that I was honestly reminded of a troupe of monkeys trying to figure out a DVD player. On Monday, a mistake I made was instrumental in breaking a crucial system in a well-publicized, company-wide event.

Still, this cheered me up. What's a billion here or there, anyway? If I get fired, I may have more time to blog.

Timeline

2006-12-14T21:54:00.000-08:00

23 November: Wow, thanks so much for bringing this lovely pumpkin pie! It's fantastic!
24 November: Mmmm, pie for lunch!
25 November: Mmmm, pie for breakfast!
01 December: Huh. I wonder what happened to that pie? I guess she threw it out.
14 December, ten minutes ago: Oh, sweet. holy. monkey. That's just not right.

We have to move into a new apartment now.

Let's say I wanted to mail your ass a letter

2006-12-12T23:15:00.000-08:00

I have heard my share of telemarketer pranks, but this is truly outstanding.

3-minute flash video, safe for work. There's a moving transcript, but it's so much better when you hear their voices.

President Bubble Boy

2006-12-09T23:35:00.000-08:00

pray for us, sister

No one knows what's in the next act. We're in a losing war, as perceived by the professional military folks as the well as the American public at large. Republican senators like Gordon Smith (R-OR) and ruthless Bush family fixers like James Baker are saying that the situation is hopeless, using words that have not featured prominently in the public discourse thus far, like "criminal".

Yet, we're not leaving. Bush has repeatedly equated leaving with losing -- and he's not going to lose, dammit. Someone has recently been whispering into his ear that some presidents, like Truman, were bitterly hated during their presidency, yet were later seen to have been correct all along. This infantile, get-me-a-pony fantasy has worked. Bubble Boy recently repeated the insane story to visiting members from congress, apparently thinking that they were going to react with the same dazzled deference that he has grown to expect from the White House courtiers. He all but stamped his feet when Sen. Durbin didn't respond with awe.

Now, we have a growing narrative, repeatedly widely in the MSM, that Bush has lost touch with reality. Now no one knows what will come next. The official ways of flexing muscle concerning an on-going war are relatively few.

From Congress, there will be investigations. Certainly, Cheney has already said he will tell Congress to stuff any subpoenas up their collective asses, but we must still proceed as if there is a working Constitution. Congress can apply strong pressure through the budget: this is part of what ended the Vietnam War, and would have stopped U.S. support for the Sandinistas. (Instead, it started the Iran-Contra debacle, with many of the present players, including our new Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates.) They can work on impeachment, the hardest ball of all to throw. Note that a line will be crossed at some point in 2007 when the topic of impeachment comes up, and Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid don't smilingly go into talking-points about making progress and working together with the president, but instead they will coldly note to the interviewer that all options are on the table.

The military will continue its time-honored ways of publicly supporting the president, while leaking information to effectively stop the bat-shit insane plans that come out of his and the Vice-president's office, such as immediately going nuclear against Iran. They cannot do more, but we can count on intermittent cooperation with Congress in terms of testimony.

The Courts have been mostly waiting in the wings as this disaster has unfolded. They've handed the administration repeated setbacks, so this is, thank god, one area of the government where spin counts the least.

Officially, then, it's just not clear. The constitution was designed to stop overt tyrants from taking over. Yet there was a design flaw: no one ever considered a country of people that could be distracted from its responsibilities enough to reelect a man so stubborn that he literally doesn't mind if people die, as long as he doesn't have to admit that he lost, that he was wrong. There is not much that the three branches of Government can do that could have an immediate effect on stopping the Boy King. They will all try, and Bush will ignore any request that would mean he would have to admit error.

So what will the Bush dynasty and the Republican electoral machine do now to convince George that, like it or not, he must change course? I think it's safe to assume that they've done all the private remonstrations, and have gotten nowhere. Now they have to have a conversation in public. Suddenly, all the rumors are in play again. These people know where the bodies are buried -- they kept the maps, in fact. These are the people who know what really happened at TANG. They know if Bush actually crashed a National Guard plane while high, as rumored. They know if there was a girlfriend with an abortion, as rumored. They know if he was sentenced for cocaine-related crimes and forced to do community service, as rumored. They know if he's drinking now, as rumored. All the no-evidence rumors are back in the deck of cards, and they can leak with a finely tuned degree of specificity. Just do what we want, Georgie, and we'll make it so they don't hate you so much.

They're the people who can create news without appearing to. Baker can appear on Larry King, and suddenly, with a smile and a friendly head bob, say, "Well, I knew George well when he was in his mischievous period, and man! the things that stubborn boy got away with...". Larry King rouses from his coma to ask a question, and there are banner headlines the next morning.

Barbara Bush can license one of her Nazgul-like friends to leak that she's worried about George drinking -- or that he's banging that uppity darkie he's got working for him. It doesn't matter what they leak, exactly. Whatever they leak can be targeted to be the worst possible news to the tastes of the brain-dead 30% still backing Bush: abortion, miscegenation, homosexuality. Given Baker's decades of loyalty to the Bush family, it's likely that he will avoid story lines that put old H.W. in a bad light. In any case, there's a public message, and a private warning.

I have long awaited Bush to completely lose his shit on camera, screaming, ranting, coming off at the small-minded bully that he is. I know he has it in him. They can simply arrange for a public confrontation, perhaps try to force Bush into a petulant explosion. They know where his buttons are. Then come the rumors about him being drunk again.

If he can be made to be ridiculous, then more things are possible. If he can be made into a threat to the next GOP candidate for President, then more things are possible. The situation is deadlocked, which hides the immense pressures impinging on all sides. If Bush's girlfriend back in the early 1970s did have an abortion, he loses 15-20 points right then. If he has actually been having an affair with Condi Rice, he loses the other 15-20 points. I don't know or care about these things -- Bush might be getting it nightly from Barney for all I care. The only thing that really matters is ending this war in a way that the least number of people are injured. The road to do that is through George's rarely-used brain. He has to feel the pressure, and it has to be unrelenting and massive.

Nixon got down to 22%, I think, and that was after he left office. If Bush gets down below 20%, Congress may find they have the nerve to take us out of the war before any more damage is done. Then, God help us, we will have to listen to the right-wing piss and moan for 20 years about how the Dem's "lost Iraq", but let's lance the boil right now. Adults ignore whines. We do what we have to do.

Comics: Perry Bible Fellowship

2006-12-09T22:42:00.000-08:00

The Perry Bible Fellowship is a series of extremely dark-humored comics by one person, Nicholas Gurewitch. There is no consistent theme or character in the Sunday-only comic, although one species, the Schlorffians, does return a few times. Interestingly, more than any other comic artist I have ever seen, Gurewitch usually doesn't repeat a style of art from one strip to the next: they range from thick-lined cartoons, to impressionist charcoals, to glossy Photoshop creations. His human figures are frequently round-figured with the minimum possible expression, but he's just as likely to draw a detailed picture that could be used in a police lineup. Also, Gurewitch doesn't care if you get it: some strips have to be re-read more than once to be understood.

There is no common thread that exists from one strip to the next: the plot, such as it is, exists only from the first panel to the fourth. However, there are recognizable common themes: dark variations on surprise: a man receives a passionate farewell from his girlfriend, but she's going down on someone before the train has left the station; an anime robot vanquishes its enemy at a significant cost; a sweet forest creature unexpectedly wreaks havoc.

Through the amusing mishaps of a kind familiar to every comic reader, any one strip will unexpectedly veer off to have relationships end, bodies shredded, the planet Earth blown into smithereens, or a dismayed Satan bobbing in a pool of water. If Sylvia Plath were still alive, this is the strip she'd like to find in her morning paper while she sipped her coffee. If you know someone who is a pleasant, good-natured fan of Disney cartoons, the reaction to these comics would be hard to predict. She may love the cheerful acidity present in nearly every panel; or she may just vomit uncontrollably and never speak to you again.

Only for grownups, in other words.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

2006-12-05T22:54:00.000-08:00

A man, Pierre Abélard, a rock-star of his age.
A woman, Héloïse, beautiful and brilliant.
A secret romance.
A pregnancy out of wedlock.
A forcible castration, in revenge.
A ruined career.
A hiatus of years.
A bitter letter of remorse.
A loving letter of response, one of the most beautiful letters of romantic love ever written.

Smart women are the best. I'm a lucky guy.

to the moon, bitches!

2006-12-05T22:14:00.000-08:00

NASA is planning on a permanent human base at the south pole of the moon. Why? It's sunny!

"Conditions at the south pole appear to be more moderate and safer," she said. The south pole is almost constantly bathed in light and would be an ideal place to set up solar-power collectors for an electrical system -- a precondition for achieving the kind of "living off the land" that NASA is aiming for.

Horowitz also said the polar sites are scientifically exciting because "we don't know as much about the lunar poles as we know about Mars." Officials said the area around the south pole has craters that probably hold volatile gases that could be collected for commercial purposes. Highest on the list of possible resources is helium-3, a form of the gas seldom found on Earth that could be well suited for nuclear power fuel.

Not every idea is a good one. Traveling to Mars is a likely death sentence for the first group of astronauts, for instance. It's a fun idea, I wish them all well; but, honestly, the tiniest problem and wham, they're completely SOL. It's just too goddamn far, for one thing. For another, they're going to have to find a crew of emotional mutants who can remain cheerful and cooperative while in close quarters for four years in a row, one way. As a former New Yorker, I think the odds of that are slim. What if they run out of coffee? Bedlam.

Look at what happened in Antarctica:

"Antarctic Life Proves Hard Even for Those Who Love Their Work"

... How boring is life in the Antarctic? People in one group wintering at the South Pole in the 1960s watched the film "Cat Ballou" 87 times. People in another, after tiring of the westerns, Disney features and pornographic films on hand, spliced the movies together into their own production and adopted a vocabulary based on their creation that was so strange that relief crews arriving in the spring could barely understand them.
-- Wall Street Journal, Dec. 10, 1985

Mars is out.

Traveling to the moon, on the other hand, our little lunar buddy just a skimpy 1.3 light-seconds away, is completely doable. Hell, we went there 40 years ago with computers less powerful than are in most cell phones today.

This is wonderful, superb, terrific news. It's not just me, a nerd who had a 10-foot-square map of the moon on his high-school bedroom, or who even now is rocking a nifty surfing/sailing watch that conspicuously shows the phase of the moon, who thinks that this is a good idea. Actual scientists think that this is a good idea!

Having arrays of telescopes on the dark side of the moon, with its lack of atmosphere and light pollution is a fantastic idea. (Of course, it's not always dark over there, Pink Floyd notwithstanding. One side of the moon constantly faces the earth, as its rotation slowed over the first billion years of its coexistence with the earth. A few billion years more, and the earth will also stop rotating, and one side will always face the moon.)

In summary, whee! This news makes me so happy. Also, you were probably hoping that I would link to a surreal play about moon bitches. Here ya go.

Holy Mackarel, Kingfish!

2006-12-04T20:01:00.000-08:00

Air Force interviewer: What did you major in at college?
Interviewee: Chinese. Well, actually, my degree was in 'Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Literature.'
Air Force interviewer: Oh, that's so cool. So, you speak Asian?
Interviewee: Um, yes.
Overheard at the Office

The Daily Show touches on Michael Richard's recent career-ending moment, as always, from a unique perspective. (Apologies in advance for what that freaking link is going to do to your browser. Nothing I can do about it.) And you may need this, too.

Here are all the n-bombs, in case you haven't seen it. (You will have to register to see this video, but you do you not have to give a working email address.)

The first problem, of course, is that Michael Richards has racist thoughts. It's not that he is racist in that, oh, he thumbs through the KKK "Livin' White" newsletter on the weekends. He doesn't think of himself as hating someone for their color. Instead, like everyone in this country or this world, he's been exposed to organized sets of ideas about race. He didn't realize how ingrained those ideas are, how steeped in this culture he has become, and how "sophistication" can mask ideas that are the most rudimentary and primitive that exist in our species. You have to actively work against racism. It is in everyone.

His apology the next day shows a man making the most harrowing personal discovery: he's not a nice guy, he's actually kind of an asshole. Now people hate him. Now, because this one moment, he will be tarred for the rest of his life as a bigot. It can never be undone. The infinitely more talented Elvis Costello discovered this in the 1980s when he used the n-word to refer to Ray Charles, in another private, drunken moment made indelibly public. Elvis said with admirable shame many years later, "I have also found that guilt is a burden without any statute of limitations."

The second problem is more of a professional nature: Michael Richards is not funny. Dealing with hecklers is a learned skill on the comedian circuit. The public, savage evisceration of a drunken idiot is par for the course, and would have been gleefully received by the crowd. It was a terrible reversal. You had an actor who was used to years of adulation for his comedic talents, but he discovered in a brake-screeching moment that he doesn't have what it takes for stand-up. He was able to convert his twitchy, physical gifts into TV history. Seinfeld was great, a classic; but Richards' movies suck, and, oopsie, he just flame-torched his stand-up future. The best he can hope for now is a VH1 "Behind the Fuck-up" TV special.

updated: for clarity

Webb v. Bush, Round 1 of N

2006-12-03T10:21:00.000-08:00

While I have definitely thought of Eleanor Clift as a nitwit in the past, she is a nitwit who parrots the conventional wisdom quite well, a gossip who says what the Heathers are saying in Washington. There is little to dislike, then, in her recounting of Bush's recent bullying of a worried father, Senator Jim Webb. It clearly but implicitly means that a larger fraction of Washington insiders are starting to see Bush's behavior for what it is: bullying and rude, just one measure of what a small man he really is, a man with a pathological inability to sympathize with others.

Key paragraph:

It’s justice long overdue for a president who has so abused the symbols of war to get his comeuppance from a battlefield hero who personifies real toughness as opposed to fake toughness. Bush struts around with this bullying frat-boy attitude, and he gets away with it because nobody stands up to him. Bush could have left Webb’s initial response stand, but no, he had to jab back—“That’s not what I asked you.” Webb is not one to be bullied. He knows what real toughness is, and it’s not lording it over people who are weaker than you, and if you’re president, everybody by definition is weaker.

Webb is an American hero. He was kicking ass in Vietnam, literally from the first night he arrived. Interestingly, the same article also mentions that he beat the hell out of Oliver North in a boxing match, although apparently North was given the win in a controversial decision. To have him forced to speak to his intellectual and moral inferior at this social event is a cosmic joke.

Comics reviewed by a curmudgeon

2006-11-27T23:30:00.000-08:00

Josh Fruhlinger is a man who reads all the comics and takes them very seriously. Funny stuff, with the occasional gratuitous beaver shot.

Gay Camp

2006-11-27T22:16:00.000-08:00

Hey mom, guess what I
learned at gay camp!

Dan Savage writes again about the fascinating Ted Haggard story, focusing on the new line that he'll be in a gay reprogramming camp for the next three to five years.

You might as well change Haggard's DNA to make him into a mastodon or something while you're at it. Just like everyone else, my sexuality is intimately woven into my thinking and my senses. The magic appeal of women and their delicious, lubricious bodies is never-ending and always alluring to me and to all other straight men. (And that was my unspoken defense on Friday, when a co-worker completely busted me while I was checking out her ass.) Straight women must feel a similar way, or they would never, ever put up with men's foolishness. To remove that giddy, joyous feeling from me would be to remove all the thinking and feeling parts of my brain at the very same time. And if I felt the same passionate way about sucking dicks, well, that must be one hell of a Powerpoint presentation they have lined up for Ted Haggard.

I was raised as a devout Christian in the Southern Baptist church. Despite my later complete rejection of the faith, I still maintain an inherent sympathy for the Christian point of view, no matter how irrational and hateful it can become. Even so, this turn of events is perverse beyond all imagining. The guy likes men. So what? Let him be! (And maybe women, too: it's a bit hard to imagine you can have five kids while fantasizing about banging Orlando Bloom, or whomever.) Just a few days ago, a moderate pastor who had been appointed as head of the Christian Coalition was unable to change the group to focus on real issues, like poverty and the environment. Instead, he had to resign. They're sticking with their core issues: butt-fucking and abortion.

I've read the bible, very closely, many times. Jesus really, really didn't care about that shit. Despite my agnosticism, and despite some serious weirdness, the gospels are still mostly a beautiful set of beliefs. The world would be greatly improved if more people believed in them, especially if actual Christians believed in what's actually written in them: care for the poor, love your neighbor, don't flout your faith, don't abuse faith for money. Good stuff.

Why science is cool

2006-11-13T23:56:00.000-08:00

Elves? They're real. So cool.

Elf photo taken from the wide variety available at wakachan.org.

Virtual alibis

2006-11-12T18:44:00.000-08:00

Hey Bunky. Has this ever happened to you?

Your daughter is involved with a much older married man who is also your boss. You find it inappropriate, but yet you are not comfortable speaking to your boss yourself.
You ran into an old friend and decided to meet to catch up. You have no intentions to stray, but your partner is suspicious and you are embarrassed to ask your friend to explain the situation. We can pose as a friend and talk to your partner.
You like the person you are dating, but you need your space and can't spend as much time with as him as he'd like. We will help you find an excuse, so that your partner is not hurt.
You have a business idea, but you are suspecting your partner is selling it to the competitor. We will pose as a competing firm and set your business partner up.
It's a matter of principle and neither you nor your ex are willing to make the first step to get back together. We will facilitate the meeting.
You know for a fact that your friend is being cheated on, but you don't want to be the one to tell him/her.
You have tickets to the ball game, but it's also your neighbour's birthday and you need an excuse to deny the invitation.

The Alibi Network is a real business set up to help you create a perfect alibi, enabling you to move through these difficult situations. In fact, every one of those scenarios, taken from their web site, was crafted by their own PR people. The common theme, of course, is that the fictional person addressed in all of these scenarios is either innocent or actually an aggrieved party.

I wonder what situations they are most typically involved in. Spousal cheating and con artistry would top of list. What else? Embezzlement? Industrial spying?

The different services provided are all "virtual": you're seen to be calling from a phone that is not yours, you're given confirmation of a flight that you're not taking, you're pretending to be a large company with a given location that you do not have.

However, none of services would really pass close inspection. The merest whiff of suspicion could lead to most of these cover stories being blown away: here's your emailed e-ticket, but I see that your luggage doesn't have a matching tag on it. It wouldn't take much.

via boingboing.net

I am a badass

2006-11-12T09:09:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, I was working on our earthquake supply kit. Some of the speciality items I needed I found on froogle.com and bought them online. Nothing, really, that I've thought about since they arrived.

Last week, however, I got the full printed catalog from Chief, and now I have little boy fever!

I am so going to get the UV flashlight.
I am probably not going to get the crime scene investigator kit, despite enjoyable hours as a youngster using more primitive versions of these.
Leg irons would be difficult to justify to the missus — but they're so affordable!
Unfortunately, they are quite strict about who they will send a Slim Jim to.

It's just a lot of neat stuff for police and fire departments.

Sandwiches

2006-11-11T21:57:00.000-08:00

TriPod11: bush ain't THAT bad...he kinda knows what he's doin
idaredbeet08: Please. Monica Lewinski had more President in her than George Bush ever will.
--bash

Well, the most important election in about thirty years has just broken the way that I wanted. Bush is down to 31% in the popularity polls, so he almost entirely hamstrung. The war in Iraq is, if not ending, moving to the "end of the beginning" that rational people have long hoped for. Rumsfeld has been brought up on war crimes charges. A variety of Republican-type people have been put in jail or lost elections that were mere stepping-stones to their 2008 presidential ambitions. Britney has kicked her retarded sperm donor to the curb, and she is now walking around New York sporting a rack that looks like the tips of thermonuclear missiles.

But the largest question on my mind right now is: what the hell is wrong with sandwich-makers in California??

In New York City, the sandwich-making protocol is exceptionally clear. You step up to the deli counter. The skilled sandwich preparer stands ready for your order, pen in hand. You specify (1) main ingredient (2) bread (3) condiments (4) additional ingredients. The skilled sandwich preparer both writes down and repeats back your order. Once you have assented, the sandwich is assembled with loving care. Food is important to most New Yorkers, and every store is keenly aware of all the alternatives consumers have.

Here are some sample sandwich orders that are syntactically correct: "I would like a pastrami on rye with mustard, with Swiss cheese." "Can I have a roast beef sandwich on an onion roll with Russian dressing, onions, lettuce and tomato." "I would like a grilled American cheese sandwich on white bread with mayonnaise." (Although appalling to me now, this last sandwich order was actually said out aloud by me, at age 17. My black friend from DC commented that it was the whitest food order he had ever personally heard.)

As a computer scientist and amateur linguist, there is much to admire in this protocol. It is clear. It is precise. In the event of misunderstanding, there's a certain way to catch most errors. If you place an order with the ingredients in a non-standard order, the preparer will likely repeat it back to you in the canonical form mentioned above. Clear, precise, effective. And it leads to the correct construction of highly desirable food items, so it is, above all, important.

This enlightened sandwich protocol is not followed in California. In fact, no one here has any standard way of taking a food order. They look at you glumly, you tell them what you want, and then they saunter off. You don't know if you'll get a fish in a hat, or the delectable corned beef that you've been fantasizing about all morning long.

A few days ago, I was ravenous for the roast chicken sandwich that the local deli makes so well. When I got there, I asked for a chicken sandwich, with both mayonnaise and mustard. To my amazement, when I got home, I had a chicken salad sandwich, which had both mayonnaise and mustard on it. What insane person would put mayonnaise on a sandwich made of a salad whose second ingredient is mayonnaise? This is like bringing a hot date to Hugh Hefner's mansion. And who would put mustard on a chicken salad sandwich? That's just craa-azy.

I mention mayonnaise, and I do like the stuff, in moderation. It's just egg yolks and oil, after all, emulsified using the tiniest bit of mustard. Homemade mayonnaise is divine, and it's really easy to make. Unfortunately, my wife was raised by wolves, and she has adamantly refused to heed the culinary call of two kinds of delicious fat blended into an ambrosial scrumptiousness. The thought of this condiment, in fact, makes her ill. Lengthy discussions have failed to persuade her of her essential error in this matter.

Consequently, she has never, in her entire life, asked for mayonnaise on any food, ever. She would sooner ask for anthrax jelly. In New York, that preference would mean that she would never, ever be served the mayonnaise — if for no other reason than the deli worker could accidently force someone to eat something that wasn't kosher. In California, it means that, for about every third deli sandwich, she's scraping the disgusting stuff off with a knife, muttering gently to herself. Somehow the word has gotten out across California that all sandwiches could be improved with a little mayonnaise, and that this is secretly what every customer wants, even when they explicitly say they don't want it.

The situation represents a real challenge for politeness. If you ask for the sandwich you actually want, you'll get it, plus a dollop of mayonnaise. If you ask for the sandwich you want and also mention, with a smile, "oh, and no mayonnaise, please!" then you have made the crucial mistake — in California — of reminding them about mayonnaise! So here it comes with thick lashings of the white stuff.

If you loudly, aggressively and repeatedly point out that, of all the things in the store, you would put mayonnaise at the very bottom of the list of things that you would want on your sandwich, that you would welcome a festive sprinkling of lawn clippings on your sandwich before that particular condiment, that you do not not NOT want motherfucking mayonnaise on your motherfucking sandwich, bitch; well, then in that case, you receive some remarkably sulky service. And sometimes a little extra mayonnaise, on all four sides of the bread.

California is a mystery to me, in some ways. Once I asked for a turkey and avocado sandwich at a store that had turkey and avocado sandwiches prominently on their menu. When I got back to my desk, I discovered that the young woman, apparently freshly arrived from the planet where they do not make sandwiches, had put an entire half of an unsliced avocado between the bread slices. It fit like a bear under a blanket. What possible thought processes could have led to this result? If this sandwich were a child, I would have called Protective Services on the store.

Ultimately, it is a sad state of sandwich-making affairs, one that would leave many New Yorkers shaking their head in bemusement. The only method I have found that works is to place the order, and then, watch the preparer like a hawk. At the crucial moment, their hand will reflexively reach for the spatula in the mayonnaise dish, and that's when you shriek out your warning, startling everyone. There's little dignity in it, but this is the price we must pay here in order to get the sandwich we actually want.

John Montague, immortal inventor of the sandwich

Monkeyshines

2006-09-06T20:04:00.000-07:00

Wow, I have rarely been this proud of my fellow primates. A young monkey recklessly, foolishly, and succesfully fucks with a pair of young tigers until they ignominously give up the field. The learning curve is probably steep on these kinds of tricks, but this is one happy, proud monkey.

Where have I been lately? Working 70 hour weeks, my friends. This will continue for quite a while, so no more than one post a week. And, hey: if you're a Java/J2EE programmer, send me your resume, or I'll tweak your ears like the monkey.

YAWN

2006-08-19T23:14:00.000-07:00

YAWN!

Thank you.

Yawn, the movie. (3 minutes, Quicktime). The explanation.

(Photos from The Marotti Family.)

Mbube / The Lion Sleeps Tonight

2006-08-19T23:09:00.000-07:00

Here's a funny 1-minute animated clip of a Hippo and a Dog singing the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

This is apparently one of a series of animated shorts by a French director named Pierre Coffin, starring the hippo and dog, named Pat and Stanley. The vizzavi ad is also funny.

Sadly, this talented guy doesn't appear to have any published works on DVD.

There are motherfucking snakes on the motherfucking plane

2006-08-16T21:59:00.000-07:00

Man, I don't know if I'll ever tell my mom I have a blog. I don't know if I'm ready for that fight. Maybe I'll tell her I'm gay, then when she's really upset, I'll tell her the truth is that I have a blog. We'll see.

Anyway, here's a hysterical, 7 minute clip of motherfucking Samuel L. Jackson being interviewed by motherfucking Jon Stewart on the Daily Show about Snakes on a Plane. If you don't have a clue what the hell I'm talking about, go check out the screenwriter Josh Friedman's blog, I find your lack of faith disturbing.

In truth, this will probably be a terrible movie, so I'll only be able to use the movie reviews of the folks I really trust. We'll see!

Viva La Perdida

2006-08-14T22:44:00.000-07:00

A month or so ago I went to hear Alison Bechdel, the talented author of Dykes to Watch Out For. She was speaking about her new book about her dysfunctional family, called Fun House. It's an excellent book, with close, almost insanely detailed, re-imaginings of her life with her family. She spends a good deal of time speculating, from her point of view as an out lesbian, what her father's closeted homosexual life must have been like. At times, I felt that she drew too many connections, but one can never know what that kind of emotional claustrophobia and paranoia must be like.

One book that Bechdel mentioned she was looking forward to reading was La Perdida. She was deliriously correct. This is a fantastic graphic novel, an autobiography told with a somewhat unreliable narrator who was choosing to live in a particular fantasy of Mexican life while in her twenties. I'm really enjoying it, both for itself, and while I think of my own sister, who is pursuing her own adventures in Mexico for the next several months. Good stuff, and I was thrilled to find that there are multiple successors in this series! Lucky me.

Cold War vs. Terrorists

2006-08-14T05:41:00.000-07:00

Cold war wins. Darksyde puts it all in perspective, concluding:

And if you want me to be afraid for my very nation's survival, Jebus H Christ, you damn well better be able to wave around a threat considerably more convincing than a rag-tag group of zealots who shit in caves and beg other people to put on suicide belts sporting a rip cord detonator.

I don't want to die in a terrorist attack. But I didn't want to die in a nuclear attack, either, and we weren't waterboarding innocent or crazy people back then.

Great White Shark Breaching

2006-08-13T22:23:00.000-07:00

I sure do love seals, but sharks gotta eat something, baby. Here's a 2-minute documentary snippet showing two full breaches of two Great Whites, each roughly the size of a pickup truck. Good stuff.

Not long ago, I read a great book about sharks called The Devil's Teeth by Susan Casey. It had many interesting facts and stories in it. You probably know that sharks haven't evolved in millions of years, so geologically speaking, they're pretty old. How old are they in the whole history of life on this planet? They're older than trees.

yumpin yiminy

2006-08-12T18:51:00.000-07:00

AOL recently published, then immediately retracted a large set of user search data. Users were identified by number, but any names or addresses were removed. Some reporters at Cnet.com dug into some of the details, and it was frightening what they found. I use Google 2 to 50 times nearly every day, for work and non-work issues. I can only guess what trail I've left behind over the years.

On the implausibility of the liquid explosives plot

2006-08-12T13:26:00.000-07:00

Wondermark Cartoon by Davild Malki

Perry Metzger is a real person. I knew him at Columbia, where he was a child prodigy who entered at age 14 or so. He was and is extraordinarily smart. We weren't friends; he was kind of a jerk back then.

Here's a lengthy letter that Perry wrote to the public mailing list Interesting People, which is run by the semi-legendary Dave Farber. (He invented SNOBOL, which alone makes me a fan of his, but most people admire him for his work that led to the Internet.) I would point you to the mailing list's archive site, but it looks like they've lost the domain for the moment.

Below is the entire content of Perry's letter, only modified in form for HTML, plus a few added links. (Why? Because I work hard for you, both of my readers). In brief, Perry's calling bullshit on the specifics of the plot, as reported.

First, a note of introduction. Until recently, I was a computer security guy, and as with many in my profession, the application of computer security analysis to non-computer security problems was increasingly interesting to me. Now, for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I'm back at school, studying chemistry, and I'm spending this summer in a lab doing organic synthesis work. Strangely, today I find my interests colliding.

So, I'm doing a bunch of reading, and I find the claimed method the "highly sophisticated" attackers came up with for bringing down airliners kind of implausible. I wonder if it could ever work in reality.

A disclaimer, I'm working entirely off of news reported by people who don't know the difference between soft drinks and nail polish remover, but the information I've seen has the taste of being real. As near as I can tell, it is claimed that the terrorists planned to make organic peroxides in situ on board an airplane and use them to destroy the plane.

This seems, at least given my initial examination of the idea, implausible.

Based on the claims in the media, it sounds like the idea was to mix H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide, but not the low test kind you get at the pharmacy), H2SO4 (sulfuric acid, of necessity very concentrated for it to work at all), and acetone (known to people worldwide as nail polish remover), to make acetone peroxides. You first have to mix the H2O2 and H2SO4 to get a powerful oxidizer, and then you use it on acetone to get the peroxides, which are indeed explosive.

A mix of H2O2 and H2SO4, commonly called "piranha bath", is used in orgo labs around the world for cleaning the last traces out of organic material out of glassware when you need it *really* clean -- thus, many people who work around organic labs are familiar with it. When you mix it, it heats like mad, which is a common thing when you mix concentrated sulfuric acid with anything. It is very easy to end up with a spattering mess. You don't want to be around the stuff in general. Here, have a look at a typical warning list from a lab about the stuff: http://www.mne.umd.edu/LAMP/Sop/Piranha_SOP.htm

Now you may protest "but terrorists who are willing to commit suicide aren't going to be deterred by being injured while mixing their precursor chemicals!" -- but of course, determination isn't the issue here, getting the thing done well enough to make the plane go boom is the issue. There is also the small matter of explaining to the guy next to you what you're doing, or doing it in a tiny airplane bathroom while the plane jitters about.

Now, they could of course mix up their oxidizer in advance, but then finding a container to keep the stuff in that isn't going to melt is a bit of an issue. The stuff reacts violently with *everything*. You're not going to keep piranha bath in a shampoo bottle -- not unless the shampoo bottle was engineered by James Bond's Q. Glass would be most appropriate, assuming that you could find a way to seal it that wouldn't be eaten.

So, lets say you have your oxidizer mixture and now you are going to mix it with acetone. In a proper lab environment, that's not going to be *too* awful -- your risk of dying horribly is significant but you could probably keep the whole thing reasonably under control -- you can use dry ice to cool a bath to -78C, say, and do the reaction really slowly by adding the last reactant dropwise with an addition
funnel. If you're mixing the stuff up in someone's bathtub, like the guys who bombed the London subways a year ago did, you can take some reasonable precautions to make sure that your reaction doesn't go wildly out of control, like using a lot of normal ice and being very, very, very careful and slow. You need to keep the stuff cool, and you need to be insanely meticulous, or you're going to be in a world of
hurt.

So, we've covered in the lab and in the bathtub. On an airplane? On an airplane, the whole thing is ridiculous. You have nothing to cool the mixture with. You have nothing to control your mixing with. You can't take a day doing the work, either. You are probably locked in the tiny, shaking bathroom with very limited ventilation, and that isn't going to bode well for you living long enough to get your explosives manufactured. In short, it sounds, well, not like a very good idea.

If you choke from fumes, or if your explosives go off before you've got enough made to take out the airplane -- say if you only have enough to shatter the mirror in the bathroom and spray yourself with one of the most evil oxidizers around -- you aren't going to be famous as the martyr who killed hundreds of westerners. Your determination and willingness to die doesn't matter -- you still need to get the job done.

You also need quite a bit of organic peroxides made by this route in order to be sure of taking down a plane. I doubt that just a few grams is going to do it -- though of course the first couple of grams you are likely to go off before you make any more. The possibility of doing all this in an airplane lav or by some miracle at your seat seems really unlikely. Perhaps I'm just ignorant here -- it is possible that a clever person could do it. I can't see an easy way though.

So far as I can tell, for the pragmatic terrorist, the whole thing sounds really impractical. Why not just smuggle pre-made explosives on board? What advantage is this "binary system" idea in the first place? There are also all sorts of ideas a smart person could come up with in a few minutes of thinking -- see below.

The news this morning was full of stuff about "ordinary looking devices being used as detonators". Well, if you're using nasty unstable peroxides as your explosive material, you don't really need any -- the stuff goes off if you give it a dirty look. I suspect a good hard rap with a hard heavy object would be more than sufficient. No need to worry about those cell phones secretly being high tech "detonators" if you're going this route.

Anyway, from all of this, I conclude that either:
The terrorists had a brilliant idea for how to combine oxidizer and a ketone or ether to make some sort of nasty organic peroxide explosive in situ that has escaped me so far. Perhaps that's true -- I'm not omniscient and I have to confess that I've never tried making the stuff at all, let alone in an airplane bathroom.

The terrorists were smuggling on board pre-made organic peroxide explosives. Clearly, this is not a new threat at all -- organic peroxide explosives have been used by terrorists for decades now. Smuggling them in a bottle is not an interesting new threat either -- clearly if you can smuggle cocaine in a bottle you can smuggle acetone peroxide. I would hope we had means of looking for that already, though, see below for a comment on that.

The terrorists were phenomenally ill informed, or hadn't actually tried any of this out yet -- perhaps what we are told was a "sophisticated plot" was a bunch of not very sophisticated people who had not gotten very far in testing their ideas out, or perhaps they were really really dumb and hadn't tried even a small scale experiment before going forward.
There are other open questions I have here as well. Assuming this is really what was planned, why are the airport security making people throw away their shampoo? If you open a shampoo bottle and give it a sniff, I assure you that you'll notice concentrated sulfuric acid very fast, not that you would want to have your nose near it for long. No high tech means needed for detection there. Acetone is also pretty distinctive -- the average airport security person will recognize the smell of nail polish remover if told that is what they're sniffing for. Oh, and even if they used a cousin of acetone, say methyl ethyl ketone (aka MEK, aka 2-butanone), you'll still pick up on the smell.

And now, on to the fun part of this note. First they came for the nail clippers, but I did not complain for I do not cut my finger nails. Now they've come for the shampoo bottles, but I did not complain for I do not wash my hair. What's next? What will finally stop people in their tracks and make them realize this is all theater and utterly ridiculous? Lets cut the morons off at the pass, and discuss all the other common things you can destroy your favorite aircraft with. Bruce Schneier makes fun of such exercises as "movie plots", and with good reason. Hollywood, here I come!

We're stopping people from bringing on board wet things. What about dry things? Is baby powder safe? Well, perhaps it is if you check carefully that it is, in fact, baby powder. What if, though, it is mostly a container of potassium cyanide and a molar equivalent of a dry carboxylic acid? Just add water in the first class bathroom, and
LOTS of hydrogen cyanide gas will evolve. If you're particularly crazy, you could do things like impregnating material in your luggage with the needed components. Clearly, we can't let anyone carry on containers of talc, and we have to keep them away from all aqueous liquids.

See the elderly gentleman with the cane? Perhaps it is not really an ordinary cane. The metal parts could be filled with (possibly sintered) aluminum and iron oxide. Thermit! Worse still, nothing in a detector will notice thermit, and trying to make a detector to find thermit is impractical. Maybe it is in the hollowed portions of your luggage handles! Maybe it is cleverly mixed into the metal in someone's wheelchair! Who knows?

Also, we can never allow people to bring on laptop computers. It is far too easy to fill the interstices of the things with explosives -- there is a lot of space inside them -- or to rig the lithium ion batteries to start a very hot fire (that's pretty trivial), or if you're really clever, you can make a new case for the laptop that's made of 100% explosive material instead of ordinary plastic. Fun!

No liquor on board any more, of course. You can open lots of little liquor bottles and set the booze on fire, and besides, see the dangers of letting people have fluids. Even if you let them have fluids, no cans of coke -- you can make a can of coke into a shiv in a few minutes. No full sized bottles of course, since you can break 'em and use them as a sharp weapon, so no more champagne in first class either, let alone whiskey.

Then, lets consider books and magazines. Sure, they look innocent, but are they? For 150 years, chemists have known that if you take something with high cellulose content -- cotton, or paper, or lots of other things -- and you nitrate it (usually with a mixture of nitric and sulfuric acids), you get nitrocellulose, which looks vaguely like
the original material you nitrated but which goes BOOM nicely. Nitrocellulose is the base of lots of explosives and propellants, including, I believe, modern "smokeless" gunpowder. It is dangerous stuff to work with, but you're a terrorist, so why not. Make a bunch of nitrocellulose paper, print books on it, and take 'em on board. The irony of taking out an airplane with a Tom Clancy novel should make the effort worthwhile.

So, naturally, we have to get rid of books and magazines on board. That's probably for the best, as people who read are dangerous.

And now for a small side note. It is, of course, commonly claimed that we have nitro explosive detectors at airports, but so far as I can tell they don't work -- students from labs I work in who make nitro and diazo compounds for perfectly legitimate reasons and have trace residues on their clothes have told me the machines never pick up a thing even though this is just what they're supposed to find, possibly because they're tuned all the way down not to scare all the people who take nitroglycerine pills for their angina.

Now, books aren't the only things you could nitrate. Pants and shirts? Sure. It might take a lot of effort to get things just so or they will look wrong to the eye, but I bet you can do it. Clearly, we can't allow people on planes wearing clothes. Nudity in the air will doubtless be welcomed by many as an icebreaker, having been deprived of their computers and all reading material for entertainment.

Then of course there is the question of people smuggling explosives on board in their body cavities, so in addition to nudity, you need body cavity searches. That will, I'm sure, provide additional airport entertainment. By the way, if you really don't think a terrorist could smuggle enough explosives on board in their rectum to make a
difference, you haven't been following how people in prison store their shivs and heroin.

However, it isn't entirely clear that even body cavity searches are enough. If we're looking for a movie plot, why not just get a sympathetic surgeon to implant explosives into your abdomen! A small device that looks just like a pace maker could be the detonator, and with modern methods, you could do something like setting it off by rapping "shave and a haircut" on your own chest. You could really do this -- and I'd like to see them catch that one.

So can someone tell me where the madness is going to end? My back of the envelope says about as many people die in the US every month in highway accidents than have died in all our domestic terrorist incidents in the last 50 years. Untold numbers of people in the US are eating themselves to death and dying of heart disease, diabetes, etc. -- I think that number is something like 750,000 people a year?
Even with all the terrorist bombings of planes over the years, it is still safer to travel by plane than it is to drive to the airport, and it is even safer to fly than to walk!

At some point, we're going to have to accept that there is a difference between real security and Potemkin security (or Security Theater as Bruce Schneier likes to call it), and a difference between realistic threats and uninteresting threats. I'm happy that the police caught these folks even if their plot seems very sketchy, but could we please have some sense of proportion?

Perry

Happiness is a Swarm Gun

2006-08-10T22:03:00.000-07:00

What sites are people visiting on the web right now, this very second?? Hmm, let's go see!

Karl Rove offers gentle advice

2006-07-30T21:01:00.000-07:00

In an AP article headlined "Rove Critical of Media's 'Corrosive Role' in Politics", we see:

Rove told about 100 graduates trained to be political operatives that they should respect the instincts of the American voter.
"There are some in politics who hold that voters are dumb, ill-informed and easily misled, that voters can be manipulated by a clever ad or a smart line," said Rove, who is credited with directing President Bush's wins in the 2000 and 2004 elections. "I've seen this cynicism over the years from political professionals and journalists. American people are not policy wonks, but they have great instincts and try to do the right thing."
Rove said it is "wrong to underestimate the intelligence of the American voter but easy to overestimate their interest," adding, "Much tugs at their attention."

Wow, some gentle wisdom. Thanks, Karl. That one will go in the scrapbook.

Of course, this is from the man who started whisper campaigns in three separate races to spread these smears:

That Ann Richards, the unmarried governor of Texas, was actually a lesbian and her staff was filled with lesbians.
That Mark Kennedy, the incumbent democrat in the Alabama Supreme Court, who had had a long and honorable career as a protector of children's interests, was actually a pedophile.
That John McCain, father of an adopted child from Bangladesh, was actually having affairs with black women, and the dark-skinned child was the obvious product. Also, that he was mentally unbalanced from having been a prisoner of war during the time that Karl's candidate, George W. Bush, was safe in America, snorting coke, getting his girlfriends pregnant, and crashing Texas Air National Guard airplanes.

In a culture with honor, the only proper response I can conceive for Karl Rove, this smug, disgusting, penile-headed operative who has so thoroughly debased the political system, would be for everyone he meets to abruptly projectile vomit upon him for the rest of his life.

Ok, that's unlikely, but it's a pleasant daydream, you must admit.

Life is an endless unfolding

2006-07-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

John Gardner, the founder of Common Cause, delivered an extraordinary speech called "Personal Renewal" in 1990. The speech has been copied and referred to in many different contexts.

Gardner is inspiring and funny in this speech, and it makes me want to check out his books. He touches on too many aspects of embracing change here to be easily summarized. He was 78 years old when he wrote this.

A small fraction:

You come to understand your impact on others. It's interesting that even in the first year of life you learn the impact that a variety of others have on you, but as late as middle age many people have a very imperfect understanding of the impact they themselves have on others. The hostile person keeps asking 'Why are people so hard to get along with?" In some measure we create our own environment. You may not yet grasp the power of that truth to change your life.

Of course failures are a part of the story too. Everyone fails, Joe Louis said "Everyone has to figure to get beat some time." The question isn't did you fail but did you pick yourself up and move ahead? And there is one other little question: 'Did you collaborate in your own defeat?" A lot of people do. Learn not to.

One of the enemies of sound, lifelong motivation is a rather childish conception we have of the kind of concrete, describable goal toward which all of our efforts drive us. We want to believe that there is a point at which we can feel that we have arrived. We want a scoring system that tells us when we've piled up enough points to count ourselves successful.

So you scramble and sweat and climb to reach what you thought was the goal. When you get to the top you stand up and look around and chances are you feel a little empty. Maybe more than a little empty.

You wonder whether you climbed the wrong mountain.

But life isn't a mountain that has a summit, Nor is it -- as some suppose -- a riddle that has an answer. Nor a game that has a final score.

Life is an endless unfolding, and if we wish it to be, an endless process of self-discovery, an endless and unpredictable dialogue between our own potentialities and the life situations in which we find ourselves. By potentialities I mean not just intellectual gifts but the full range of one's capacities for learning, sensing, wondering, understanding, loving and aspiring.

2006-07-30T00:04:00.000-07:00

Get that finger out of my face, bitch, I'm fucking the president

I was surprised by the details of the U.S. offer to Hezbollah

Politically, the centerpiece of the plan requires Hezbollah to surrender the military force and formidable weapons arsenal it spent 24 years building, and which has given it special standing both in Lebanon and well beyond its borders. As the only Arab force that has ever made Israel retreat in six decades of regional warfare, Hezbollah would effectively have to give up being a regional player and make its own retreat to local Lebanese politics, where it would be just one of 17 recognized sects in a country 1,000 square miles smaller than Connecticut.

Hell, why are we low-balling them? Why not just start off by asking the Hezbollah representatives to shoot themselves in the head? That's an even more effective tactic. Why, just the other day, a large dog sought to hump on my leg. I was stern, but fair, when I said, "This is unacceptable behavior. I require that you castrate yourself!" Damn me if he didn't do just that, right away. Good doggie.

So, the U.S. negotiation to halt the war is in bad faith. It is a transparent attempt to let Israel completely win this misbegotten war, which it can't. Seeing this kind of imbecilic incompetence must be hard on the professional staff at Foggy Bottom. It will take a decade or more for the U.S. to recover from this reckless support of Israel in the opinion of much of the world, and many people will never forget and never forgive. Sigh. I need a Canadian t-shirt, or hat, or something...

If you want more rational analysis of the current crisis, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service has a report released on 21 July called "Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah: The Current Conflict" (25 page pdf)

(AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Cremastered potatoes

2006-07-29T09:22:00.000-07:00

The cremaster muscle appears only in men. Its function is to raise and lower the testicles in response to heat, cold, and assorted emotional states. When highly stimulated, the cremaster can actually yank the testes entirely inside the body (ouchie).

Matthew Barney is an artist who has made a three hour movie called The Cremaster Cycle. (He is also Bjork's boyfriend.)

Friends, I'm here to tell you, I just don't get it. I finally watched part 3, which is a 30 minute excerpt from the larger, 3-hour piece. Part 3 is an intriguing series of images consisting of various interactions between these components:

Four, perfectly lovely, half-nude ladies, who appear here and there throughout the piece, either walking around or in a large bubble bath.
Two different speed metal/punk bands, and perhaps a hundred followers who form a mosh pit. I don't remember their names, but trust me: it doesn't matter.
Terrible music. The punk bands were just ok, but the rest of the film is filled with tinkly crap that raised my blood pressure.
The Entered Apprentice (Matthew Barney himself), who is dyed pink, wearing a large pink drum major's hat, with a large, pink, rubber mat grotesquely stuffed into his mouth. As one closeup makes clear, the stuffing has injured his mouth. It's also clear that it's make up -- was this amateurish, or did he want the viewers to know that he wasn't actually injured? I cannot say. His costume also half-reveals his body, which is athletic and strong.
Aimee Mullins, a lovely actress who has twin, below-the-knee amputations highlighted by clear lucite boots. The clear boots make it clear how damaged her legs are, and they are no substitute for her normal prostheses: she walks awkwardly about. At one point, she makes out with the Entered Apprentice. At the end of the movie, she is badly injured, although no assault was shown. Her lucite boots are shredded into useless curlicues of plastic, and she sits glumly, waiting for something.
A half-woman, half-cat creature who mewls and looks about nervously. Unlike the Rockettes below, she is more fully depicted as a cat, with body makeup that is the color of fur. However, she also is naked from the waist up. She is later bludgeoned to death by the Entered Apprentice for no apparent reason.
Richard Serra, the well-known sculptor. He first sets up a miniature sculpture not terribly different from other pieces of his, like his much-loathed Tilted Arc installation. Once set up, he uses industrial equipment to heat a large kettle of petroleum jelly. Then he spatters the sculpture with large ladles of the molten jelly. Over time, in many separate steps, the jelly recongeals into a gelatinous snow drift. It is neither attractive nor ugly, just unusual.
About twenty to thirty young women dressed in revealing, half-Rockettes, half-"hello kitty" outfits. That is, they have little floppy kitty ears on, with cat makeup, but they also wear short-shorts, stockings, and high heels. They do Rockette-like routines through the piece, including several fun bits where they kick the museum wall in near simultaneity. They smile continuously, some apparently in near hilarity at what they are doing. They all have fantastic legs, and may, in fact, be Rockettes. The Entered Apprentice considers them repeatedly, from different angles.
The Guggenheim museum in New York. The museum is a character in this piece, where it serves as stage, gym, and prop. The Entered Apprentice rock climbs from the floor to the top of the museum, using pre-built holds that are temporarily fastened to the inner walls. As a former rock climber, I can assure you that he did some righteous climbing. For at least two sections, a mistake could have injured or killed him. By the end, the walls have been climbed, used as a drum, walked on, leaned against.

The images shown throughout these piece are striking and memorable. Even though I mostly hated this film, they still have a power over me two days later. However, it's frustrating that there was no easily accessible theme to this art. Clearly, he's endlessly concerned with women. But is that it? Is that the cremaster connection? With the relentless cat imagery, was he saying something deep? Or was he just making a visual pun about pussies? (including his own pink costume?) Why was his mouth injured? Why he did severely injure the cat/woman? Was Aimee Mullins the cat/woman? Why have a goddamn bubble bath on the floor of the Guggenheim?

I do not think that the piece was meaningless, but I do think that it was pointless, because there is no real entry point to let anyone start to consider whatever meaning it might have. It's almost as if Barney had made a movie for his close friends.

My meaning may not be clear; let me find a better example. Velazquez's Las Meninas is one of the most sublime pieces of art ever made. When you look at it, you first see a pretty girl, surrounded by attendants. Then you might notice that some of the attendants are dwarfs, or perhaps you see that they are following a story of their own, ignoring all the other action while they choose to bother the put-upon dog. Or you might notice the artist himself, Velazquez, who is painting the "other" picture, or perhaps the King and Queen, who are the ones "really" having their portrait made in the other picture. Perhaps the indulgent gaze of an attendant who leaves the room, filling it with light, will catch your eye. What, exactly, does the expression on his face mean? Perhaps none of this will draw your eye, but your head will instead spin as you consider the different angles that Velazquez is depicting perfectly, all at once. What were the political chances he took by creating such a unique, slightly disrespectful portrait? Could he he have been banned or even killed after its creation?

It is as complete a capturing of a single, rich instant in a royal family's life that I can imagine, and it includes the artist itself in a fun, heisenbergian way. I could look at it for hours. Yet it is still a painting with a pretty girl in the center. That is the beginning. This painting will always lure the admiring gaze so that it can later intrigue the admiring mind. It is one of the greatest works of art ever made.

The Cremaster Cycle, eh, not so much. On his own, Matthew Barney entirely re-makes Tom Wolfe's point about modern art being weaker, because it frequently has to be accompanied by explanatory texts.

Roe vs. Reality

2006-07-29T09:03:00.000-07:00

The NEJM has a good article summarizing the current state of affairs with regard to abortion rights.

The darker the color on this map, the higher the ratio of women to potential abortion providers. Using the per capita ratio in this way highlights the destructive combination of rural life, with its already poor doctor-patient ratio, with the hysteria and physical threats to the physicians that anti-abortion forces create.

The article discusses the nationwide scene, and how Roe is being gutted from all directions, such as South Dakota's recent law defining abortion as murder commited by a doctor. The article particularly highlights one brave Nebraska physician, LeRoy Carhart.

In the United States, nearly 20 percent of hospital beds are in facilities with religious affiliations, most of which prohibit physicians from providing abortions. According to the Guttmacher Institute, although nationwide about 1 in 14 abortions is sought for health reasons, only two hospitals in Nebraska offer pregnancy terminations, and they do so only under rare circumstances, such as intrauterine fetal death; each of these hospitals performs fewer than 10 pregnancy terminations per year. Nevertheless, in 2004, women from many other states traveled to Nebraska for abortions — at Carhart's clinic. Occasionally, when a hospital refuses, Carhart is asked to terminate a pregnancy that threatens a woman's health. In a recent case, a woman with severe pregnancy-associated renal failure traveled 200 miles by ambulance for an abortion. She arrived with her hospital identification bracelet and an intravenous line in place, underwent the procedure, and was shipped back to her hospital bed.

Similar events have occurred in many other states. In 1998, the Louisiana State University Medical Center in Shreveport refused to provide an abortion for Michelle Lee, a woman with cardiomyopathy who was on the waiting list for a heart transplant, despite her cardiologist's warning that the pregnancy might kill her. Hospital policy dictated that to qualify for an abortion, a woman's risk of dying had to be greater than 50 percent if her pregnancy was carried to term; a committee of physicians ruled that Lee did not meet this criterion. Since her cardiomyopathy made an outpatient abortion too dangerous, she traveled 100 miles to Texas by ambulance to have her pregnancy terminated.

In other words, this latter woman had a heart so unhealthy that she couldn't even drive to Texas on her own: she had to contract an ambulance. But the Louisiana hospital still would have required that she carry her pregnancy to term.

pug bowling

2006-07-25T22:53:00.000-07:00

so wrong.

Firing missiles at ambulances

2006-07-24T23:14:00.000-07:00

For fuck's sake. These are war crimes, not accidents.

On Saturday, Israeli forces struck two ambulances outside the town of Qana, injuring six Red Cross volunteer medics as well as the three wounded passengers they were carrying, Red Cross medics said. The ambulances were flashing blue lights and had illuminated the Red Cross flag, the medics said.

"I fell down," said Qassem Shalaan, 28, one of the wounded medics, who was standing about three feet from the first ambulance when it was struck. "I opened my eyes to make sure I could still see, then I checked my body and I was okay."

He had three stitches below his lip and cuts on his leg. His eardrums were bruised.

As the medics in the other ambulance called for help, a second missile hit it less than a minute later, wounding the three other medics, they said.

The medics, all wearing flak jackets and helmets, kept working despite their injuries. They took the wounded -- a 14-year-old boy, his father and his grandmother -- into a nearby home. There, in the basement, they used their shirts as bandages amid shelling that lasted throughout their two-hour wait for help.

"I'll speak for myself, but I feel like I have no cover even as a Red Cross worker," Shalaan said from his hospital bed.

Hezbolla is monstrous, they are indiscriminate killers. Now, however, Israel has taken on the role of judge and executioner. This is collective punishment. They are deliberately killing civilians. This is wrong, disastrously wrong.

Do the Israelis think they will destroy Hezbollah? They can't. How did they catch the American disease of hubris?

Hip-hip

2006-07-24T00:37:00.000-07:00

Here's a tight loop of Weezer's "Island in the Sun" song (the hip-hip song) on top of wallpapered versions of cuteoverload.com pictures.

Despite the fact that it's a short loop and despite the too-fast speed of the picture rotation, you can really while away some time looking at this page. How long, exactly, I would (cough) prefer not to say.

On Saturday, returning late from a flight, I spontaneously decided to see The Raconteurs. It worked out wonderfully: I missed the opening band and still got a great spot. Being by myself, it was easy to work down into the pit before the stage so I could check out the show with the true believers.

I was going blind into the show. (Deaf into the show?) I haven't bought the album (Broken Boy Soldiers) yet, and while "Steady as She Goes" appears to be getting a lot of airplay, I haven't heard it. I do love the White Stripes, however, so my hopes were high. I don't think I was alone in my feelings: the crowd seemed to be wild only for Jack White

It was a fine show, with some astonishing solos by White. It's not a solo band; it's just that he's noticeably better than all of them, the Derek to their Dominoes, if you like. Like Clapton, White can just play the shit out of the guitar. In truth, though, he reminded me more of Richard Thompson. (Albeit with a greasy mop on his head, and a demented leer. How this talented troll ever married a lovely sylph like Karen Elson is beyond me. Just buy the CDs, honey. You'll thank me later.)

Good show, though. I will buy the new album.

ah em bahk

2006-07-23T17:25:00.000-07:00

Er, ah, hello there. [cleans glasses]

To my four regular readers, I've been off dealing with family things, and I'm a little too depressed over the Middle East and our idiot, frat-boy president to say anything snarky.

If you feel like checking out some IRC funnies, here's bash.org's top-100 list:

ben174: If they only realized 90% of the overtime they pay me is only cause i like staying here playing with Kazaa when the bandwidth picks up after hours.
chrislmb : If any of my employees did that they'd be fired instantly.
ben174: Where u work?
chrislmb : I'm the CTO at LowerMyBills.com
*** Ben174 (BenWright@TeraPro33-41.LowerMyBills.com) Quit (Leaving)

_____________________________

Rabidplaybunny87: Okay, so my neighbors officially hate me
GarbageStan23: why?
Rabidplaybunny87: Well, me, david and andrew were having a bonfire in the backyard, and we were making s'mores and all... and suddenly we here sirens, and see a firetruck turn into the street in front of us.
Rabidplaybunny87: So we all went running to see what was up, and our neigbor's house was on fire!
GarbageStan23: oh shit!
Rabidplaybunny87: Yeah, and when we got there, the wife was crying into her husbands arms, and we were just kinda standing there, and then she saw us, and then like for 10 seconds, gave us the dirtiest look ever
Rabidplaybunny87: Turns out, we were still holding our sticks with marshmallows on it, watching the fire....
Rabidplaybunny87: talk about bad timing...

An Inconvenient Truth

2006-07-15T15:14:00.000-07:00

Man, if I could have Billmon's baby, I would. Here's what he wrote about An Inconvenient Truth., turning it into a larger essay on the press.

Ralph Peters wants to help the terrorists

2006-07-15T00:33:00.000-07:00

I was horrified to read this blood-thirsty editorial from Ralph Peters in the New York Post:

Violent Islamist extremists must be killed on the battlefield. Only in the rarest cases should they be taken prisoner. Few have serious intelligence value. And, once captured, there's no way to dispose of them.
Killing terrorists during a conflict isn't barbaric or immoral - or even illegal. We've imposed rules upon ourselves that have no historical or judicial precedent. We haven't been stymied by others, but by ourselves.
The oft-cited, seldom-read Geneva and Hague Conventions define legal combatants as those who visibly identify themselves by wearing uniforms or distinguishing insignia (the latter provision covers honorable partisans - but no badges or armbands, no protection). Those who wear civilian clothes to ambush soldiers or collect intelligence are assassins and spies - beyond the pale of law.
Traditionally, those who masquerade as civilians in order to kill legal combatants have been executed promptly, without trial. Severity, not sloppy leftist pandering, kept warfare within some decent bounds at least part of the time. But we have reached a point at which the rules apply only to us, while our enemies are permitted unrestricted freedom.

What Ralph Peters manifestly does not understand is that the terrorists want you to kill them. They want you to overreact. It is necessary for the giant to become angry, and try to swat the terrorists, because that is the way that they can recruit more people to their cause, by us killing and torturning innocent people. If they live, they become our enemy. If they die, their friends and family are converted.

In many ways, this mock-conservative rhetoric is only a slight variation on the whining that conservatives have engaged in for decades now concerning the mollycoddling of prisoners. Instead of welfare mothers and black criminals released on parole, they can complain about this wacky Geneva convention, preventing us from waterboarding a bloodthirsty terrorist, when in fact, this is just a random guy who was given to us by his political enemies in afghanistan.

It is sad how those darn rules are always standing between us and the utopia that awaits once we are allowed to do whatever our id requires. It's funny, the left and the right both have instinctive responses around the id, but one leftist response is basically "I should be able to fuck anyone I want" while one rightist response is "I should be able to shoot anyone I want."

In any case, this fierce rhetoric is unacceptable. It's illogical. It's ahistorical. It hurts real American values. During World War II, our opponents in the Axis were fanatics who killed and tortured in the millions, from Nanking to Dachau. After the war was ended, we could say, with justifiable pride, that we had remained true to our principles. Certainly, there were many moral failings, from unnecessary civilian bombing to years of collaboration with former Nazis during the cold war. When Dachau was first uncovered, there was a spontaneous massacre of the guards, after all. These were genuinely awful times.

In the end, however, we did the right thing, on the whole. We're not in that position now. We have invaded the wrong country, tortured the wrong people, and backed the wrong players in Iraq and in Israel. Our president is a callous boob who chortles on about eating pig while the Middle East is exploding.

We need to be a country of laws, and a country of principles. It is completely beyond me how someone can be called a conservative, and be willing to chuck all that in the wastebasket.

All criminals have friends

2006-07-12T22:57:00.000-07:00

Ken Lay was eulogized as a "straight arrow" and a "boy scout" at his funeral yesterday. I'm sure his friends and family loved him, and I am sorry for their loss. In his personal life, he was probably a sweet guy.

However, he wasn't a straight arrow in his business dealings. He was a white collar criminal, whose malfeasance and nonfeasance cost real people hundreds of millions of dollars worth of real money. That's just the truth, most recently confirmed by a jury verdict.

Ken Lay had always been willing to overlook criminal or merely stupid behavior if it looked to be profitable. As the superb book Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron details, in the 80s, Ken Lay was well-briefed on an scam that nearly lost hundreds of millions and ruined his company.

In that case, some crooked commodities traders were allowed to bet much more in futures than their entire company was worth. Luckily for Enron, their overleveraged maneuver was never uncovered. Someone more skillful was brought in to clean up the mess; he was able to unwind the trades without anyone being the wiser. The key point is that Ken Lay knew these two were wrong before things turned sour. He had been briefed in exquisite detail. He knew they had actually set up an account in the Cayman Islands to store their money. Unfortunately, he also knew that they were the only profitable arm in Enron at that time. After a meaningless investigation, these two crooks were sent forth with a mere "sin no more" warning from him, then they proceeded to literally bet the farm. (NB: the movie "Smartest Guys in the Room" is excellent too, although I was quite surprised to see some of the bad guys in the book are actually in the movie, cheerily telling anecdotes about Lay and Skilling. I guess they didn't read the book.)

The point is repeated a million times over. If you rob a bank and take 1,000 dollars, they'll throw you in jail for life. But if you steal hundreds of millions of dollars through complicated financial chicanery, you get to die in your sleep, in a comfortable house in Aspen, Colorado.

As the song goes,

Them that's got shall get
Them that's not shall lose
So the Bible said and it still is news
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own

I actually met the guy who wrote "God Bless the Child" at the Columbia U. Folk Crypt. A cheery little marxist sprite, he was. Now I can't find his name. It looks like people think Shania Twain wrote that darn thing.

Straight shooter misfires again

2006-07-12T22:45:00.000-07:00

The indefatigable Dan Froomkin takes a good look at the coverage of the two-page memo just put out by the Pentagon on whether the Geneva Conventions apply in all occasions, or just when convenient. He was unable to find a consensus view. The new policy could literally mean anything, and is likely intended only to ease the public mood, in the U.S. and abroad.

Gullibility: it's not in the dictionary, you know

2006-07-12T21:47:00.000-07:00

Sadly, this blog gets about 1,000 times less traffic each than this one-trick pony does. Maybe because that's because mine has a weird name, maybe because I update it only once or twice a day, or maybe because I don't stay on one topic for more than a post or two. The low traffic bugs me sometimes, even though I really enjoy writing here. My brother, my family, and a few good friends read it, so it's just an online diary for folks I know, mostly. Fortunately, I'm chatty, and this blog is probably saving some poor friend of mine from a three page letter about formic acid and les fourmi and whatever the hell.

It is truly awesome to look in the reference logs for my blog, and find that some guy in Iceland has found this blog after midnight while looking for some random string (on the Icelandic version of google, no less. (Hey, "I'm feeling lucky" is apparently "Vogun vinnir vogun tapar." I'll have to try that out if I ever meet Bjork. Then maybe she'll drop that creepy Matthew Barney fellow. (I keed, I keed. I actually have Cremaster as #1 in my netflix queue. The odds are 50-50 that I will hate it, but it should be quite novel. (If this were real prose, I couldn't possibly have four nested parenthetical remarks. So, clearly, you're imagining this.)))).

In any case, the reference logs are usually interesting. I was very surprised to see that if I put "irrumatio" in a post, it brings in all kinds of people, no doubt frustrated and looking for blowjob photos. Sorry, guys — and now, I've done it again, so I'll get even more random horny surfers. Well, if you cannot find porn on the internet, I cannot help you.

In any case, this blog of mine doesn't get much traffic, alas. On the plus side, at least I'm not an gullible idiot.

(Green Fields photos from this cycling place.
The highly processed photo of Sydney is by my talented friend Tibor.)

Thong of my heart

2006-07-11T00:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a sweet acoustic song called "I Miss Monica." It goes on a bit too long..

Ratking starts to separate

2006-07-10T23:18:00.000-07:00

A ratking is an agglomeration of many rats, each joined in the center by their knotted tails, each unable to separate from each other. The idea may be a fictional one, although the powerful metaphor has inspired a number of novels, including a dreary mystery set in Italy by Michael Dibdin. (Sorry, Roscoe.)

I was reminded of a ratking when I stumbled upon this story today. The National Socialist Movement, a prominent white power group, is completely disintegrating, with wild accusations of Satanism and child molestation being thrown about. I have absolutely no idea what is true in this story, other than they are all still filled with hate, previously for Jews and non-whites, and now for each other.

The central issue that seems to be dividing them is: can you be a good white power advocate if you are a Satanist, or must you be a Christian? Well, I have no idea how to respond to this stumper. Humorously, one prominent actor in this drama is a group called Joy of Satan. Their theology can be boiled down to: Satan! He can be your buddy, too! (I'm mildly worried that just by linking to them, the NSA has already classified me as a dumb-ass.) But come on, who could read about the "Teens for Satan e-Group" without giggling? Rock on, little Satanist dudes.

Here's the blog that represents the point of view of one of the main Nazi's involved in this feces-throwing party: Overthrow88. (Satanists? he's agin 'em.) Nota bene, gentili amici, that it is a genuine Nazi blog at Overthrow88 here, so don't be surprised if your gorge rises at some point.

(Ratking photo by Katherina Fritsch)

Holiday texts

2006-07-04T00:58:00.000-07:00

On certain holidays, I like to read or meditate on something related to the holiday, perhaps an MLK speech, a JFK biography, an essay on Christmas, etc. In modern America, all holidays are designed to trigger an impulse in you to buy something, but that is surely unnecessary in nearly all cases.

Here are the Federalist Papers, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, if you feel like a little reading on the Fourth of July. We live in a great nation: great in its conception, great in its history, and great in its stop-and-start attempts to live up to its own ideals. May we always seek to improve ourselves.

... for a dog, it's like climbing Mount Everest

2006-07-04T00:31:00.000-07:00

My wife is a much more evolved creature than I am, so she declined to watch "The Best of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog" with me this evening.

But come on, Robert Smigel is a freaking genius! Not just for Triumph, but also for SNL's TV Funhouse, Ambiguously Gay Duo, and the Synchro-Vox interviews with Bush/Clinton on Conan (moving lips on static picture). And he was kicked out of The Westminster Dog Show twice! Nobel Prize worthy! Definitely read these two interviews if you like his work, and also like hearing the back story on assorted comedy show goings on. It will be too "inside baseball" for many, however.

Here he is in the first DVD's best bit: he showed up at the lengthy line for Star Wars: Attack of the Clones where assorted nerds waited in costume. He eviscerated them, and they loved it. Fantastic stuff, about 8 minutes of streaming video.

Here he is with a much briefer interaction with J-Lo.

Better to keep one's mouth shut...

2006-07-02T02:49:00.000-07:00

In all fairness, there are morons and lunatics on both sides of the ideological gulf. When I lived in Berkeley, for instance, I heard all manner of nonsense: conspiracies, pacificism to the point of suicide, Lyndon LaRouche theories about the Queen of England. Still, most people on the left can easily tune out the complete non-thinking, Renaissance Faire, hug-a-bunny type of liberal. I can only hope that people on the right can recognize Ms. Atlas Shrugs as — how can I say this kindly? — an uninformed embarrassment. She has a great body, and a great smile; but when she speaks, it is in an angry shorthand of talking points and bumper sticker slogans, a Fox News broadcast pureed into nonsense.

I wonder if this vlog entry is her attempt to test the waters for more television appearances, since she might imagines herself as a brunette Ann Coulter. If so, check out this 2.5 minute disaster on YouTube.com before a friend of hers convinces her to yank it, as it is the classic television career torpedo.

NY Times recursively involved in yet another story

2006-07-01T22:34:00.000-07:00

When Howard Kurtz points out that you've taken on an idiotic editorial position, you should really hang it up. Your position is hopeless.

For the Wall Street Journal editorial page, there may be no more juicy target than the liberal press appearing to undermine the Bush administration's war on terror.

The White House and congressional Republicans, after all, have spent the past week attacking the New York Times for disclosing a secret program targeting the banking records of suspected terrorists.

The problem: The Journal itself had published a front-page story about the classified program on June 23, the same day as the Times.

I have never been able to fully reconcile the contradictions between the Wall Street Journal as a newspaper, with its smart, hard-working reporters and its trogdolytic editorial board. I know, as someone who has spent quite a few years working for finance companies, that nothing would tank the paper as quickly as the reporters taking on the same "don't trouble me with the facts" attitude that the editorial board uses every single day.

David Brooks, who is unique in his prominence and in having worked for both papers, believes that a large part of the fire-breathing response to the SWIFT story is literally that it came from the New York Times, and not, say, the Washington Times. After all, the SWIFT story had been released in pieces multiple times over the last few years, and it appeared on the front page of the WSJ and the Los Angeles Times. Still, it is the New York Times that is demonized by President Bush.

Brooks commented on the News Hour:

[...] the Times has become a symbol. If you remember, the president attacked the Times in his convention speech in the last election when we were in New York. And the Times has sort of become a symbol.

And I personally face it when I go in and interview people in the White House, the venting, the rage, and the, "How can you go to work for those people?" And I don't know what explains it, but it is a remarkable political attack.

On a political level, the White House is trying to find a demon that will resonate with the American people. They've tried gays. They've tried immigrants. Long ago, they tried Bin Ladin, but he's fat and sassy now, pumping out videos so often he should be setting up his own podcasts, and filing video shout-outs on YouTube.com

On an emotional level, the political masters are also letting Bush shout out his anger at being contradicted by the reality-based community, presumably hoping that his petulance will be mistaken for authenticity. Recall the words of the anonymous aide that Ron Suskind quoted in October 2004:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

That's how that the Bush/Cheney administrations wants to be thought of: as history's actors, as real men like Dirty Harry who are not troubled with legal niceties like the U.S. Constitution. They want to kick open the door and shoot the bad guys right between the eyes. They are naturally enraged to find stories that, instead, depict them as panty-sniffing keystone kops who have learned how to spy on Americans, but not how to stop hideous terrorist attacks in Bagdad.

Stick figure's flying fists of fury

2006-07-01T20:04:00.000-07:00

Here is a 2-3 minute flash movie, featuring fight between a human web/flash designer and a just-designed stick figure. Verily, he has sown the wind and he reaps the whirlwind.

NB: it is very loud.

http://worksafevideos.com/movies/flash_fighters.html

Our Cuban Gulag Archipelago

2006-07-01T10:03:00.000-07:00

Karl Rove, speaking under a cloak of anonymity, decided to try out this meme in response to the Supreme Court's Hamdan decision:

A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the issue is still being debated internally, seemed to hint at the potential political implications in Congress. "Members of both parties will have to decide whether terrorists who cherish the killing of innocents deserve the same protections as our men and women who wear the uniform," this official said.

It's framed by a genius of propaganda. I suppose it would have been more artful if he could have gotten in children in there, like "terrorists who cherish the killing of innocent children." And he didn't mention the orphans who deserve tax cuts, or young, freckle-faced farmers who love their mothers.

But this is nitpicking. See how wonderfully the phrase "deserve the same protections" brings up reflexive responses: "why, terrorists don't deserve anything!", or "my god! terrorists don't deserve protection!" Many people will not even have to read the entire sentence before they start getting their rage-on. It's nicely done.

Unfortunately, the facts are biased once more — O treacherous world — and the rich, emotional argument that Rove is trying to weave will be snagged on one simple thorn: no one knows how many of the 450 people being held at Guantanamo are terrorists, because they have had no trials that would determine these facts. The administration was content, in their simplicity and blood-thirstiness, to seize several hundred people on a battlefield, determine through some manner that they were terrorists, and then proceed to torture them for four years while maintaining that they were unworthy of any Geneva convention protection, any protection that our own military affords to prisoners of war, any protection that we would demand that our own soldiers be given if held by a regime of any kind.

If they are terrorists, prove it. It is merely "proof" that is the "protection" that Karl refers to above. Once the charges are proven, then you can shoot them, feed them fish heads, or hold them in a prison cell until they die — I don't care which. But if you cannot prove it, then the keeping of anyone in these torturous conditions is a monstrous sin. We have elected a president, we do not have a king whose imperial judgement cannot be questioned.

Our actions towards the worst people will show our values. Bush's lack of judgement in Guantanamo has tainted America, and will do so for years to come.

I'm the King of the Castle

2006-06-30T19:16:00.000-07:00

... and you're a dirty rascal.

The unofficial Bush regency starts to draw to a close with the 6-3 Hamdan decision by the Supreme Court, analyzed in detail here by Peter Baker and Michael Abramowitz. Glenn Greenwald considers the back and forth of how quickly and completely the Bush administration will ignore this decision, ultimately concluding it's a good thing no matter what.

It won't be easy. Certainly this decision will be used in the 2006 congressional races as a bumper-sticker slogan of a runaway court. The mere contradiction of the boy king's wishes is all the proof needed. However, the court's decision is an excellent one, based on common sense. We don't live under Henry VII or Stalin, we live in a nation of laws, with checks and balances. As a fledgling nation, we enshrined into law our revulsion at the practices of the Star Chamber, even though it had been banished nearly a century before. We let callous murderers like John Gotti and John Wayne Gacy decline to incriminate themselves before a court of law, and that's something for us as a nation to be proud of.

Hopefully, the Hamdan decision will be one of many "at long last, have you no sense of shame?" moments, when Americans continue to realize that not only is Bush a remarkably incompetent president, but that he's actually a short-tempered, bullying asshole, not someone they'd want to have a beer with.

I've kept to a vow I made three months ago not to buy any books until July. It hasn't been easy, but the vow ends tomorrow, and I'm going to get Ron Suskind's book first thing.

Photos from North Korea

2006-06-21T00:29:00.000-07:00

A Russian photographer was able to partially evade his handlers in North Korea, and take a wide variety of pictures. The entire photo essay is worth checking out, but beware if you're on 56k.

Here are two photos I found striking. He says that the North Koreans everywhere found his white skin astonishing. The Russian scrawled on this photo means "Look, there's a nigger in pink." (Click to see full size).

With no fuel, his old man is using the only means available to plow his godforsaken land. Check out the ribs on that poor ox, too. What a miserable life.

They are prisoners.

(via Bifurcated Rivets.)

Missile Defense hawked in response to Korean tests

2006-06-20T23:21:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine asked, in reference to this absurd PR report that appeared on Fox: "I thought Missile Defense does not work (or is not finished)" Well, it all depends on the meaning of what "it works" means.

First, though, let us note in passing that we're missing the more obvious point, which is that Bush's "axis of evil" has greatly energized the three countries he named: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. In particular, by invading one of the three countries, he has created an energetic response in the other two to survive our forthcoming invasion. Iran should be our ally, not our enemy.

However, we are here, and it is now, and the North Koreans are testing a missile that could reach the continental United States. Will the U.S. Missile Defense system work?

If you mean, "can this system stop a single ICBM in scenarios where the time and direction of attack are signaled beforehand, and no counterdefense measures are taken?", then the answer is sort of. There are six deployed systems currently. In eight tests since 1999, they've hit their targets in just five times. The two of the last three tests in 2004 and 2005 were unmitigated disasters, where the interceptor rockets did not even launch. The most recent test was a success.

If you mean "can this system stop a realistic missile attack, where multiple inbound ICBMs are fired at multiple targets with no advance warning, multiple missiles per target, and a large variety of countermeasures such as chaff, flares, full-scale decoys, and ECM?" then the answer is no, not even theoretically, not for years. It's a very, very hard problem. ICBMs might be traveling at 15,000 mph, and they might be launched from submarines just a hundred miles away from your borders. This is one reason why MacMamara and others came up with Mutually Assured Destruction.

If you mean "does this system supply a broad, flower-lined highway upon which many ripe sacks of gold can caper into the pockets of large military-industrial companies?" then yes, it works extraordinarily well, thank you. Thank you very much indeed!

From one spook to another

2006-06-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

A former CIA case officer, Garrett Jones, has some advice for incoming CIA head General Hayden, e.g.,

The RUMINT (rumor intelligence) on you is that you like "corporate speak" and prefer large, impersonal gatherings to one-on-one encounters. You are going to have to work on this. Blunt, plain speech will get you farther than anything else with the Agency workforce. Most of its officers feel that they have worked as hard as they can only to be lied to. If there is something bad, they want to hear the truth; if someone erred, they want to hear that, too. If something is going to happen to them, tell them before they see it in the Washington Post. You are working with a bunch of spies, so you should not be surprised that RUMINT travels quickly and is surprisingly accurate in this culture. Count on it, and do not lie to them. "I do not know" or "I cannot tell you" are statements the workforce understands and they accept they are sometimes necessary; but they will almost always find out if you lie.

Wander around the building and listen to people. The workforce is surprisingly smart and sophisticated; they will usually tell you what is wrong if you give them a chance. Make time to find out where different units are physically located in the building, at least the big ones. It is amazing what you will learn when you go to them instead of them coming to you. Yes, you will be busy, but your first job, before anything else, is to make the workforce motivated and effective.

It's an interesting insider view. One clear implication is that Porter Goss did most of the things he warns against — otherwise, why else would he specify to have no more than two bodyguards. They used bodyguards inside the CIA? Tough crowd, I guess.

Irrumatio over Iraq

2006-06-19T23:54:00.000-07:00

Joe Klein writes admiringly of George Bush, that gorgeous man-boy who gets so excited and "frothy" by being in airplane cockpits. (ooh!) In a dreamy, post-coital moment, Klein writes that the disastrous situation in Iraq puts Democrats in a quandry:

What can the Democrats do? They can play politics or be responsible. The political option is to embrace "cut and run"; call for an immediate withdrawal, as Kerry did; and hope the public is so sick of Bush and sick of the war that it will punish the g.o.p. in the fall. But embracing defeat is a risky political strategy, especially for a party not known for its warrior ethic.

The "be responsible" crowd, let us not forget, lied America into a needless war. Please forgive me for doubting their bona fides, not least when there's a flagrant lie about Kerry's plan even in the same goddamn paragraph that Klein urges "responsibility" on the Democrats. Shithead.

Also, let's look at those fierce warriors advocating this war.

Joe Klein, born in 1946, did not, of course, serve in Vietnam, despite graduating in 1968 at the height of the war. I don't know the story; presumably he got some good lottery numbers. George Bush, who was a cheerleader in college, did not serve in Vietnam. As is widely known, he was placed in Texas Air National Guard with other well-connected young men, then eventually chose to stop flying, for reasons that are not publically known. Dick Cheney did not serve in Vietnam, he asked for five deferments. He later claimed he had "other priorities." Dennis Hastert got out of service in Vietnam with "bad knees", an ailment that did not prevent him from pursuing college wrestling soon afterwards. Karl Rove also dodged service in Vietnam.

And so on and so on. It's perfectly ok with these wrinkled men with their withered souls to describe the deaths of more young Americans as "staying the course." That's their warrior ethic, and that's their political game. They honestly don't care if you or your loved ones die, as long as they are in power. It's all ok with Klein, too, as long as he can be in the intoxicating company of these powerful men who do nothing braver than light Cuban cigars.

Klein answers his own rhetorical question of "what to do?" by concluding that the very best thing for the Democrats is to do exactly as they are told by their Republican masters:

In fact, the responsible path is the Democrats' only politically plausible choice: they will have to give yet another new Iraqi government one last shot to succeed. This time, U.S. military sources say, the measure of success is simple: Operation Forward Together, the massive joint military effort launched last week to finally try to secure Baghdad, has to work. If Baghdad isn't stabilized, the war is lost. "I know it's the cliche of the war," an Army counterinsurgency specialist told me last week. "But we'll know in the next six months—and this time, it'll be the last next six months we get."

No, we don't. There are no "six more months." That canard has been put forth by every gelled, moused and powdered pundit on television for the last four years. It's bullshit. There are no corners to turn. Things will not get better. The insurgency is not in their last throes. Anyone who thinks Zarqawi's death meant anything important is a Fox TV news viewer.

There are no large-scale targets for our Cold War era military to attack. There is a large, well-equipped Sunni insurgency in Iraq. There are ethnic and religious hatreds that go back six hundred years. There is no achievable goal here: the Iraqi army is becoming less capable as time goes on. Among other things, it is riddled with infiltrators, do-nothings, and cowards. Anyone who is capable of fighting has gone into the insurgency, not the Iraqi army. (Unless they are Kurdish, naturally.) The Iraqi police are useful for directing traffic, nothing more. They cannot keep the peace in the face of men armed with high explosives and mortars. No police force could. Our own armed forces, formerly the finest military power in all the world, is being slowly ground into a bruised, second-rate force, now with hideous civilian atrocities resulting from the lack of leadership from the White House on down. It's all one big, fucking mess.

Retrieving our soldiers, via a measured draw-down like the one that Murtha has advocated, is not a political strategy. It's just accepting reality. Iraq has already started on its civil war. We cannot prevent it. Every decision that could have stopped us from going down this dreadful, bloody path was already decided wrongly, in the distant past. The time to decide for the better is gone, long gone. We can, perhaps, prevent Iran or Turkey from making territorial gains. Unlike the insurgency, they have military targets of value. That's the extent of our potential "victory."

There is no unringing this bell. The virgin has been bloodied. The mirror has been broken. Many, many people have died because George W. Bush wanted to have a war for his political "capital" and also as a means of showing up his father in his own oedipal fantasies. Nothing can change this war's initial, imbecilic motives, nor the damage that resulted from ignoring reality in favor of a fantasy.

Victory in Iraq is completely irretrievable. That is not the Democrat's fault, who have had no effective control over any part of this war. It is no one's fault but the cowards and poltroons who have effective control of the white house, the congress, and the judicial branch — and the starry-eyed journalists who believe that they are being realistic when they have been completely bamboozled. The only question is how many more people will die before these facts are generally accepted.

God Bless John Murtha

2006-06-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

Murtha displays some righteous anger at the White House and at Karl Rove in two sputtering rants on Meet the Press. Outstanding.

Fat kids, fat kids, whatcha gonna do

2006-06-15T18:56:00.000-07:00

The Institution of Medicine (IOM), a branch of the National Academy of Science, has come out with a barnburner called "Food marketing to children and youth: threat or opportunity?" (You're urged to buy the text, but the entire text is online in multiple formats).

The situation is not good: we are a fat nation, and we're getting fatter. Depending on the metric you examine, things are twice as worse (diabetes and other obesity-related illnesses) or four times as worse (overall incidence of obesity)

Here's a chart of kids between 1963 and 2002. It's in the IOM report at page 42. Labelling kids as "obese" (dark lines) or "overweight" is relative to the Body Mass Index. Obesity is at or above the 95% point on the curve appropriate for the child's age and gender, using the Center for Disease Control data. Overweight is defined as the 85% to 95% portion of the curve.

In other words, 9% of kids in the 1960s were obese or overweight, but now it is over 32%.

Why? Well, it's true that kids are exercising less, they're watching more TV and engaging in low-calorie pastimes like video games, but that's not the conclusion of the report. No, kids are fatter because marketers are substantially better at persuading kids to eat bad food.

You don't believe me? Well, it's a 500 page report, but here's part of a short, angry summary from a doctor and public health specialist in the New England Journal of Medicine, called "Food Marketing and Childhood Obesity — A Matter of Policy". (She also refers to a CISP study).

Marketing to children is hardly new, but recent methods are far more intense and pervasive. Television still predominates, but the balance is shifting to product placements in toys, games, educational materials, songs, and movies; character licensing and celebrity endorsements; and less visible "stealth" campaigns involving word of mouth, cellular-telephone text messages, and the Internet. All aim to teach children to recognize brands and pester their parents to buy them. The IOM notes that by two years of age, most children can recognize products in supermarkets and ask for them by name.
But the most insidious purpose of marketing is to persuade children to eat foods made "just for them" — not what adults are eating. Some campaigns aim to convince children that they know more about what they are "supposed to" eat than their parents do. Marketers explicitly attempt to undermine family decisions about food choices by convincing children that they, not adults, should control those choices. Indeed, children now routinely report that they, and not their parents, decide what to eat.

I like capitalism; it pays my bills and it brings me shiny new toys. But this crosses the line of responsibility. Unfortunately, Congress is currently playing the role of drunk baby sitter, talking to her boyfriend, so there will be no adult supervision on this issue on the federal level until at least the fall elections. However, in quite a few state jurisidictions, the legislators have started to demand better quality food for children. Here's the NEJM companion article "Obesity — The New Frontier of Public Health Law" (This article is also free, although most recent content at the NEJM is behind a subscription wall.) As the article points out, another factor is all the lawyers who are saddling up and filing obesity-related class action suits. (It is hard to know who to root for in this arena).

Hillbilly revenge

2006-06-05T21:09:00.000-07:00

Here's a short video of a young man and his friends who take revenge on the car of his girlfriend, who allegedly cheated on him. The problem is... it's his car. He's paying for it.

The microphone of the video camera they use couldn't handle the sounds of the AK-47 and pistols that they use to shoot the car — it's kind of a nifty buzzing sound, like in a science-fiction movie.

Sorry for not posting more lately. I have gotten a lot of things done lately, including getting to watch several computer monitors launched like basketballs, in 30-foot hook shots. All baskets were made.

The Sisyphus of Morons

2006-06-02T00:04:00.000-07:00

Keith Olberman tees off on Bill O'Reilly's head, which O'Reilly richly deserves.

99 times out of a hundred when we belly up to the Billo bar of bluster... nearly every time we partake of the movable Falafel Feast, he serves us nothing but comedy.

Farce, slapstick, unconscious self-mutilation -- the Sideshow Bob of commentators, forever stepping on the same rake, forever muttering the same grunt of inarticulate surrender, forever resuming the circle that will take him back to the same rake. The Sisyphus of morons, if you will.

The Malmedy massacre was horrible.

New York City's terrorism budget slashed by 40%

2006-06-01T23:55:00.000-07:00

... because it has no icons or national monuments. None.

Sometimes I can play politics, and chuckle at foolishness like this. But sometimes I just want to cry because these people are so homicidally incompetent. Ignoring the tall mounds of brick, glass and steel that are frequently pretty to look at, each day, New York's population swells to 12 million people.

(Via dependable renegade)

Commercial Satellite photos showing Chinese nuclear, sub sites

2006-06-01T11:29:00.000-07:00

Washington Times: Commercial photos show Chinese nuke buildup

Imaging notes: World’s First Look at China’s Underground Facilities for Nuclear Warheads

It must be amazing what the professionals can see, using the non-commercial systems.

419 scams

2006-06-01T08:09:00.000-07:00

Here's what I don't understand about 419 scams: why is there no effective government involvement? The individual losses are relatively small, seen from an international finance point of view but the sums of money in aggregate are massive. Organized bands of criminals are using computers and the boundless naïveté of computer users to steal money from their victims. Why wouldn't this involve the government?

Look at the complete absence of critical thinking that the crooks are able to use:

In February, about a year after Gaston had posted her résumé on a job-search Web site, she received an e-mail about a part-time opportunity: to work as a courier for money for an international charity that builds homes for people in disaster areas. Her assignment was to deposit local donations into her own bank account, wait for the checks to clear and then wire the money to another address. She was told she would be paid 7 percent of every donation check, with a guarantee of $500 the first week on the job.
Gaston received a $4,500 cashier's check on Saturday, Feb. 26, and immediately deposited it in her Bank of America account. The teller told her it would take three days for the check to clear. On Wednesday, Gaston reviewed her account online and saw the funds were in her account. "I assumed, since it was a cashier's check, that Bank of America had actually gotten money from the other bank and put it into my account," she said.
On Thursday, Gaston withdrew $2,000 and wired it to a Ukrainian address. That's not unusual since most of these scams direct money outside the United States, often to Canada or Nigeria. The next day, Gaston followed instructions from another e-mail directing her to wire $1,900 to a different Ukrainian address.
"I couldn't believe I could make this much from this little bit of work," Gaston said. It was only a few days later that Gatson's euphoria wore off, when she caught a snippet of a TV news story about a person who had been scammed by an identical work-at-home scheme.
"My face turned completely green," said Gaston, who called the bank immediately. Bank officials told her there was nothing the bank could do and warned her that she would have to repay the $3,900 when the counterfeit cashier's check was finally returned to the bank.

Thank goodness she caught that TV show after only two thefts from her accounts.

The scams rely on a variety of leverage points to protect the criminal:

the banks are ineffective at detecting counterfeit cashier's checks, or even at warning their customers about the possibility of counterfeits.
even though the banks are duped, it is always the consumer who must pay.
the scams require international borders to be both permeable and impermeable: the money can pass through, but no effective legal action.
there's no way to retrieve that money once it is sent: banks are apparently uninterested in establishing contingent transfers, or attempting legal action afterwards.
there's no coordinated action taken against the receiving bank, which will have received stolen money from dozens of different banks.

This inaction is shameful. The assorted Western governments should force the scammer's government to disgorge this loot. Banks should warn their customers, and establish effective blacklists of remote banks to make it increasingly difficult to profit from this scam.

Cannot possibly be true

2006-05-31T23:09:00.000-07:00

This is a crazy story right out of Rambo: First Blood. A young couple visiting Baltimore was apparently arrested for trespassing on city streets after some bizarre interactions with two police officers. If true, these two kids probably have 150 messages waiting from them from attorneys.

The story rings false on some levels: what aren't we hearing? On the other hand, two children of police officers will likely know how to talk to the police without wearing handcuffs.

Chris Rock had some tips on how not to get your ass kicked by the police. Wise words, my friends.

Lions led by Donkeys

2006-05-31T22:54:00.000-07:00

Here is a a truly great memorial day post by Kung Fu Monkey. I don't know why this point of view are so hard to understand by 101st Fighting Keyboard™ crowd: you don't "support the troops" when you are indifferent to their deaths and their suffering, not when the liars who brought U.S soldiers to their bloody deaths can be casually referred to as "Heroes in Error".

I "supported the troops" when I didn't want them sent into a pointless war, I "supported the troops" when I wanted them adequately armed and supplied, and now I "support the troops" by wanting them out of this hell hole as soon as possible.

There is no saving this burning building. Out, out, out. It's a civil war, fueled by religious fervor. We lost, Iraq lost, Iran won. Out.

I miss New York

2006-05-30T21:51:00.000-07:00

Scrabble girl: "Gooeesay" is so not a word.
Scrabble guy: That's "guise."
Scrabble girl: Ha! Well, smart guy, you spelled it wrong. "Guys" is spelled G-U-Y-S.
Scrabble guy: Are you serious?
Scrabble girl: Sorry, there's no way I'm letting you get away with that after you wouldn't give me any points for "Steve."
Scrabble guy: How long have we been dating?
— Central Park

Overheard In New York rocks.

Bad tattoos

2006-05-29T18:02:00.000-07:00

I had my ear pierced when I was 25. It wasn't common for straight men to get their ear pierced back then, and I felt moderately rad. The earrings definitely attracted attention, and not just when I wore the big smiling Mickey Mouse earring. My friend Teresa's reaction was the best: she screamed in delight within seconds of seeing me with my new adornment. My older Russian friend Alla also saw it quickly, but she declined to say anything about until I explicitly asked her. Then she told me, with a face faintly wincing in pain, that she had noticed it and she did not like it. Men uniformly did not notice and did not care. My mother's reaction was not positive. When I told her that I had gotten an earring, she lay awake all night, calling me at 8am the next morning to find out if I was gay. My amusement did not, in turn, amuse her. But hey, if moving to New York to get away from your parents doesn't involve some element of épater le bourgeois, then you're really not getting the full E-ticket ride. So, radness achieved.

Still, some time passed, I decided it looked like I was trying to be hip, and I just took the earring out forever. Completely disradificated, I was; and of course, no one cared. True, once a poor closet case unfortunately assumed that my barely-visible earring hole meant that I was also a closet case. Unfortunately, his gaydar was way off, and we so started on a brief, abortive friendship with him asking me frequently to go on "walks" and me eventually saying a variation on the ultimate lame statement, "Look, I don't want to date you, but I don't see any reason why we can't be friends." Turns out that's a really bad thing to say to certain closet cases.

Still, it would take a remarkably close observation of my face to notice that I have a tiny little dimple in one earlobe. Maybe someday the earlobe will be wrinkled or hairy enough that it will be completely invisible. Ew.

Easy reversibility is why earrings are cool. Hell, get two or three piercings if you feel like it. Tattoos, on the other hand, are not so easy to remove. Don't get a tattoo. If you have one, don't get another one.

Hookers and Booze

2006-05-28T15:43:00.000-07:00

The San Diego Union-Tribune has a good story detailing the poker parties that Foggo and Wilkes ran. Now-convicted Congressman Duke Cunningham attended these parties, along with Porter Goss, former head of the CIA and his assistant Brant "9-Fingers" Bassett, along with "CIA agents, lobbyists, defense contractors and, occasionally, staffers and members of Congress." That cautious summary from the always sue-able paper left out the hookers, since these swingin' dicks were showing their manliness in every way that they could.

The parties sounded like fun.

Joe Murray, a reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution who attended a party in 1994, wrote about how eagerly one of the CIA officers accepted a Cuban cigar from him.

"You know, of course, this is considered contraband," the CIA officer told Murray. "But you've done the right thing as a good citizen. You've turned it in to the proper government agency. Be assured that very shortly it will be destroyed by fire."

But of course, it's all fun until someone gets their eye out, or, alternatively, until they fuck up national security by playing politics, or start assigning bogus water-delivery contracts to their friends, effectively stealing millions from the U.S.

The story has a just little bit of information about Goss and ol' "9-fingers" Bassett. Here is a story with more information about them,with a few more more high-testosterone anecdotes:

Bassett is said to have sent a prank letter to a friend at the CIA who was then stationed in Vienna. I've heard various accounts of precisely what he wrote, but multiple former intelligence sources said that the letter contained exaggerated talk about sexual relationships. Two of the sources said that the letter was intercepted in Vienna by the KGB, which, believing it had Bassett in a compromised position, subsequently made a blackmail recruitment pitch to him. Bassett properly reported the contact to his superiors, they said, but was again reprimanded for sending the letter in the first place. "Bassett was a cowboy who violated procedures, but he had a lot of influence with Porter," said one person. "Dusty would never have gotten the [executive director] job if he hadn't been good friends with Bassett."

Della Reese said it best

2006-05-25T23:19:00.000-07:00

Bush and Blair have actually deigned to admit that they made mistakes during the prosecution of the war with Iraq. This does merit a headline, since Bush has admitted virtually no errors of any kind during his six years in office.

However, it's simply past the point where it is relevant. Are there parents of dead soldiers who care that Bush now regrets taunting the insurgents by saying "bring it on"? Will it comfort the children whose fathers or mothers were killed in action to know that Blair and Bush now believe that Bremer de-Baathification policy was hasty and ill-advised? If I or my loved ones are killed in a terrorist bombing, will it be a balm to consider that Bush would prefer not to have radicalized certain people by invading their country and torturing their citizens? The time to investigate possible errors was back in 2002, when lies were published as facts, when sober objections to this war were sneered at and called treasonous.

Although it borders on the tedious to keep saying it, these two men lied their respective countries into war, destroying the lives of thousands of individuals. Apologies now are senseless and unproductive. You don't get points for a hand-written apology after running my kid over with your truck. Beaten wives forgive their abusive husbands all the time, but I'll be goddamned if I will ever forgive these two. As Della Reese's character in Harlem Nights says, "Kiss my entire ass."

Anti-heros of the fourth estate

2006-05-25T22:42:00.000-07:00

Magnusson pushed away the vodka bottle as though it was too close to him.

"I started as a 15-year-old trainee at one of the Stockholm newspapers," he said. "That was in the spring of 1955. There was an old night editor there named Ture Svanberg. He was almost a big a drunk as I am now. But he was meticulous at his work. And he was a genius at writing headlines that sold papers. He wouldn't stand for anything sloppily written. Once he flew into such a rage over a story that he tore up the copy and ate the pieces, chewed the paper and swallowed it. Then he said: 'This isn't coming out as anything but shit.'

"It was Svanberg who taught me to be a journalist. He used to say that there were two kinds of reporters. 'The first kind digs in the ground for the truth. He stands down in the hole shovelling out dirt. But up on top there's another man, shovelling the dirt back in. There's always a duel going on between these two. The fourth estate's eternal test of strength for dominance. Some journalists want to expose and reveal things, others run errands for those in power and help conceal what's really happening.'

"And that's how it really was. I learned fast, even though I was only 15. Men in power always ally themselves with symbolic cleaning companies and undertakers. There are plenty of journalists who won't hesitate to sell their souls to run errands for those men. To shovel the dirt back into the hole. Paste over the scandals. Pile on the semblance of truth, maintain the illusion of the squeaky-clean society."
— Henning Menkel, Sidetracked

On September 29, 2003, three days after it became known that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate who leaked the name of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, columnist Robert Novak telephoned White House senior adviser Karl Rove to assure Rove that he would protect him from being harmed by the investigation, according to people with firsthand knowledge of the federal grand jury testimony of both men.

...

Rove testified to the grand jury that during his telephone call with Novak, the columnist said words to the effect: "You are not going to get burned" and "I don't give up my sources," according to people familiar with his testimony. Rove had been one of the "two senior administration" officials who had been sources for the July 14, 2003, column in which Novak outed Plame as an "agency operative." Rove and Novak had talked about Plame on July 9, five days before Novak's column was published.

Rove also told the grand jury, according to sources, that in the September 29 conversation, Novak referred to a 1992 incident in which Rove had been fired from the Texas arm of President George H.W. Bush's re-election effort; Rove lost his job because the Bush campaign believed that he had been the source for a Novak column that criticized the campaign's internal workings.

Rove told the grand jury that during the September 29 call, Novak said he would make sure that nothing similar would happen to Rove in the CIA-Plame leak probe. Rove has testified that he recalled Novak saying something like, "I'm not going to let that happen to you again," according to those familiar with the testimony. Rove told the grand jury that the inference he took away from the conversation was that Novak would say that Rove was not a source of information for the column about Plame. Rove further testified that he believed he might not have been the source because when Novak mentioned to Rove that Plame worked for the CIA, Rove simply responded that he had heard the same information.

— Murry Waas, "Rove-Novak Call Was Concern To Leak Investigators"

F---d company

2006-05-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

Skilling and Lay are heading for the big house. Their blame-the-short-sellers defense was profoundly disingenuous, and could more properly be called the "we sure hope the jury knows nothing about finance" defense. Instead of spending $70 million on this defense, they would have done better to take a page from Michael Jackson's book and just move to a country like Bahrain that has no extradition treaties with the United States.

Hicks blitz, then nix, ritzy pix

2006-05-23T23:39:00.000-07:00

Hey, I was right back in January! The Da Vinci Code is indeed a terrible movie. The movie has a low, mixed rating of 45 on MetaCritic.com. This is a highly mixed rating. Assorted middle-brow reviewers like Roger Ebert give it a moderate rating of 3 out of 4 stars; but I have long believed that Ebert gives higher ratings to movies that he predicts will be popular.

Even better (as far as my prediction's accuracy), the negative reviews are blaming Akiva Goldsman in large part for the disaster.

Anthony Lane in the New Yorker:

The film is directed by Ron Howard and written by Akiva Goldsman, the master wordsmith who brought us "Batman & Robin." I assumed that such an achievement would result in Goldsman’s being legally banned from any of the verbal professions, but, no, here he is yet again.

Peter Travers in Rolling Stone:

How to apportion that blame for the movie's inertia? Start with screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (an inexplicable Oscar winner for A Beautiful Mind), who manages to eradicate every ounce of suspense, spirituality and erotic fire from Brown's novel. Point the finger at director Ron Howard (also an inexplicable Oscar winner for A Beautiful Mind) for playing it so safe that the film feels embalmed. The acting is either hammy (Bettany) or nonexistent (Tautou, so good in Amelie, so charmless here). Even the great Ian McKellen, cast as Holy Grail expert Sir Leigh Teabing, is reduced to nonstop bloviating, only alleviated by the occasional hint of mischief in his eyes. Instead of dialogue, Goldsman has written huge globs of exposition. Sir Leigh will yak about the concept of the "sacred feminine." Sophie will say, "I don't follow." And Sir Leigh will pick up the thread with a slide show that reveals a mystery woman visible in Da Vinci's The Last Supper. And Robert will add to the blabfest. And so on and on and on.

Here's the conclusion of Anthony Lane's very testy review:

Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people, except at Columbia Pictures, where the power lunches won’t even be half-started. The Catholic Church has nothing to fear from this film. It is not just tripe. It is self-evident, spirit-lowering tripe that could not conceivably cause a single member of the flock to turn aside from the faith. Meanwhile, art historians can sleep easy once more, while fans of the book, which has finally been exposed for the pompous fraud that it is, will be shaken from their trance. In fact, the sole beneficiaries of the entire fiasco will be members of Opus Dei, some of whom practice mortification of the flesh. From now on, such penance will be simple—no lashings, no spiked cuff around the thigh. Just the price of a movie ticket, and two and a half hours of pain.

Ha, I say. You heard me: ha!

While I certainly don't mind a movie that slams Opus Dei — these self-flaggelating ultra-conservatives are collectively as nutty as a fruitcake, even if they do not employ albino priest-assassins — this book was meaningless, pretentious balderdash. It should never have been made into a movie.

True, this movie is making a great deal of money, but hell, people paid good money to go see Godzilla, too. I will predict Da Vinci Code will have an relatively short run, as the huge PR buys and ultra-wide release plans are really what made for a big opening weekend. This movie was simultaneously released in every major country in the world — it took place in just three days. (India came a week later.) That's the widest initial release I have ever heard of.

Big, splashy box office numbers will make headlines; but the actual run won't be sustainable once the word of mouth gets out that the movie stinks. The Da Vinci Code sounds like a long, dull movie. While America always has a bumper crop of movie-goers who can be bullied into seeing a movie with a serious ad blitz, there's ultimately a limit to what people will drop $10-$16 in tickets and refreshments to see. The studios want people to think that they're seeing Passion of the Christ (in both senses), but instead, they get an involved, ridiculous conspiracy about art history and early Christian history.

Brokeback Bunnies

2006-05-23T00:10:00.000-07:00

Beauty is composed of an eternal, invariable element whose quantity is extremely difficult to determine, and a relative element which might be, either by turns or all at once, period, fashion, moral, passion.

—Jean-Luc Godard

Is this true? Who can say? Godard was a pretentious twit, and I write computer code for a living.

However, you can't argue with the cinematic magic of Brokeback Mountain, enacted by bunnies, in 30 seconds.

Monthly tasks

2006-05-22T22:00:00.000-07:00

Every month or so, it's definitely worth checking out the sporadically-updated Craig's List best-of collection. This month is typically stellar. It's got good advice, high tragedy and low comedy.

Eurovision

2006-05-22T21:31:00.000-07:00

I have never touched a woman.

God bless Europe, the center of civilization.

Here's the winning band, the Finnish xerox of GWAR, Lordi, with "Rock and Roll Hallelujah" on Google Video (3 minutes). I can only conclude that drunken 13-year-olds are the only ones actually voting in Eurovision, because, uh, these guys really suck.