Multi Medium

Goodbye, Cruel World... NOT!

2007-01-20T23:31:00.000-05:00

I am not departing the world of blogging, but I am departing the land of Blogger.

Come check out my new digs!

::matthew has generously volunteered his time to get it up and running and generally awesome-looking, and I will be forever grateful.

Please update any bookmarks, blogrolls, blog readers, or RSS readers you might have.

And if you don't have Multi Medium on any of your bookmarks or blogrolls or blog readers, you should. The new URL is 23% shorter, so it's that much easier to add.

Fort Tilden Photoblogging

2007-01-20T18:11:00.000-05:00

After having passed through Jacob Riis Park, I arrived at now-abandoned Fort Tilden, hoping to take pictures of abandoned, decrepit stuff, and maybe some bunkers. But I found more. A lot more.

Opposite directions.

Reflection in a puddle.

This probably qualifies as some kind of flag desecration, but oh well.

"...But why do you ask, Eighteen Seals Humping?"

What's The Plan?

2007-01-20T15:28:00.000-05:00

No, not our plan - I mean Osama's plan. Obviously it hinges on provoking the United States into increasingly irrational and violent actions, and has the ultimate goal of turning the Middle East, and ultimately the entire world, into one giant Islamic superstate.

But what's in between? Is it simply to use our desperate and clumsy flailing to attract new recruits and destabilize and radicalize the region, or does he expect to topple the United States to remove our military and economic power from the playing field? The Bush administration has certainly been playing into Osama's hands beautifully in terms of destabilization and radicalization, but is the second part realistic?

The reason I ask is, I think Osama is in for a disappointment if he believes the U.S. will implode like the Soviet Union did. I'm not saying that it's not impossible for our form of government to change, as the Soviet Union's did - but I don't believe it will happen in a way that is beneficial to al Qaeda. Yes, changes in government caused the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Iraq to collapse and break apart, but they started out totalitarian and moved towards, well, the general direction of democracy. These were countries were the absolute authority of the state was the only force holding them together.

Now consider the U.S. The 2006 midterm elections were a huge positive, but if the Bush Republicans are not permanently removed from power (whether through polls or criminal proceedings), there is always a chance that they could pick up where they left off, and gradually transform the country into a fascist dictatorship - or perhaps not so gradually, if they get another excuse to claim "emergency powers." The problem with this, from an al Qaeda perspective, is that the U.S. wouldn't actually collapse. There might be a slight possibility of revolt, but I think it would be more like Germany in the 30s, where a combination of complacency, xenophobic hysteria, and sheer disbelief allowed the Nazis to incrementally acquire absolute power.

But instead of the unifying boogeyman being Jewish, he would be Muslim. A totalitarian America would be a powerful, unhinged, and implacable enemy of Islam, unbound by any checks and balances or concern for international law. One possible scenario: All pretense of trying to turn Iraq into a democracy is abandoned, and the draft is reinstated to acquire enough troops to impose martial law there. I don't think even the neocons would be insane enough to declare war on the entire region at once, so they use bogus provocations to pick the Middle Eastern countries off one by one (possibly even using nukes), until/unless the rest of the world finally bands together to stop us, at great cost to themselves.

I scares me that I'm pretty sure I just described every neocon's most cherished secret wet dream, at least up until that last part. But to get back to my original question: Is that Osama's plan? To have the U.S. lay waste to huge swaths of the Middle East and elsewhere before getting taken down, and then swoop in to pick up the pieces and take advantage of the global power vacuum? Or does he think the U.S. will just collapse under its own weight like his last nemesis did? Or does he just not care what happens to the U.S., as long as it keeps pushing the Muslim world into his arms?

Sentences I Never Thought I'd Type

2007-01-20T00:02:00.000-05:00

"I appear to be ranked 11th for panda milk frog."

NYC Birdblogging

2007-01-19T23:48:00.000-05:00

Some bird photos from Jacob Riis Park.

The Council has spoken. There is no appeal.

Flying in black & white...

Flying in color...

Just back away veeerrrry slowly and don't make eye contact.

Quote Of The Day

2007-01-19T19:17:00.000-05:00

Kung Fu Monkey:

...Cheney and Gonzales have dropped the Constitution into a hole in the White House basement and are currently dancing naked around the pit, penises tucked between their legs, screaming "It rubs the lotions on its Amendments!" at the shuddering, terrified document, and there's nary a peep.

Now that's speaking my language.

Please Tell Me I Did Not Just Read This...

2007-01-19T18:45:00.000-05:00

From an op-ed in today's NYT about how Solomonic and groovy Dubya's stem cell "compromise" was:

...The human embryo is a human organism, but is this being — microscopically small, with no self-awareness and little resemblance to us — a person, with a right to life?
Many advocates of federal financing for embryo-destructive research begin from a negative answer to that question. They argue that the human embryo is just too small, too unlike us in appearance, or too lacking in consciousness or sensitivity to pain or other critical mental capacity to be granted a place in the human family. But surely America has learned the hard way not to assign human worth by appearances. And surely we would not deny those who have lost some mental faculties the right to be regarded with respect and protected from harm. Why should we deny it to those whose faculties are still developing?

Um. Did he just argue that being an embryo is akin to having a disability? That it's shallow to discriminate against embryos simply because they're about as big as rice and don't have functioning brains?

Who the hell is this jackass?

Yuval Levin, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is a former executive director of the President’s Council on Bioethics.

Oh. Right, then. Carry on, you're doing a heckuva job.

Friday Quote & Cat Blogging

2007-01-19T07:26:00.000-05:00

This week's quote is from a movie called Girl, starring Dominique Swain, whose main claim to fame was starring in the Adrian Lyne remake of Lolita. She became unnecessary when Kirsten Dunst appeared.

Well, when you've had as much disappointment and humiliation as I have, you learn to accept it with a certain amount of grace.

And, of course, there'll be other people's cats...

The shadowy and mysterious Codename B. looking content and slightly belligerent.

B&W Beach Photoblogging

2007-01-18T17:59:00.000-05:00

Yes, Jacob Riis Park has a beach, and, well, it's rather dismal. Hopefully it's a lot nicer in the summer...

Apparently I am not the last photographer on Earth.

I like drinking fountains, especially defunct ones.

I guess this is not exactly a surprise...

Um, seriously, I think something terrible has happened to the lifeguards...

Narrative Shift Alert!

2007-01-18T12:15:00.000-05:00

The good news is that everything that happens is no longer good for Republicans.

The bad news is that everything that happens is good for the DLC.

I don't mind bipartisanship up to a point; that point being "selling out to the Republicans to such a degree that you end up on the same side." So far, it looks like the reverse is happening: Dubya and his vanity war have generated so much ill will and mistrust for the Republicans and their policies that most Americans really want the Democrats to take the wheel for a while. Even if they can't steer us away from the cliff, they can at least kick the leaden Republican foot off of the accelerator.

Thanks to last November's anti-Bush referendum, many Congressional Republicans are now beginning to recognize this shift, and are jockeying for seats on the anti-Bush, anti-war bandwagon. "Bipartisanship" now means Republicans opposing an unpopular president to save their own skins. This is especially true of those Republicans up for re-election next year - the prospect of facing the voters tends to concentrate the mind.

Where Edsall and his DLC, establishment, "Money Party" cronies come in is to push the narrative that Democrats need to push a mushy, cautious, centrist agenda to lure on-the-fence Republicans over. While this would certainly get a lot of legislation passed, most of it wouldn't be worth the paper the lobbyists printed it on.

Edsall & Co's mistake is to underestimate the extent of the shift, and to misread what America voted for last year. I believe they voted for an agenda of change, integrity, accountability, and opposition (CIAO), and will not be satisfied with half-measures. Instead of tacking and triangulating and trying to figure out what Republicans will vote for, Democrats need to push for what their constituents (their citizen constituents) want and need. The Republicans can either get on board with them or try to explain their opposition in 2008 or 2010.

The Democrats haven't had an opportunity like this in 30 years - I don't want to see them squander it with needless capitulation.

Difficult

2007-01-18T07:34:00.000-05:00

How sad is it that when I read something like this, I find myself trying to figure out what category I'm in, rather than the people around me? I think "Hostile-Aggressive" was the only one I could definitively rule out - I'm more "Hostile-Passive." I guess I don't really have to worry about being "Super-Agreeable" either...

There are people that annoy me, but what annoys me doesn't really fit into any of those categories.

NYC Day 2 Photoblogging

2007-01-17T21:22:00.000-05:00

I know I've been photoblogging for more than two days, but now I'm photoblogging pictures from my second day in NYC.

Utility pole! I live for this stuff.

I took a whole bunch of pictures of planes, not-exactly-trains, boats, and helicopters. This was one of the few that wasn't total crap.

I think the trees are powering up for their attack.

Welcome to sunny, scenic Jacob Riis Park! I think this is, like, the only tree.

Thanks, Arlen!

2007-01-17T12:46:00.000-05:00

Republican Congress votes to give President Gore/Clinton/Obama/Edwards/Clark the power to replace U.S. Attorneys without Senate approval.

They could make it awfully uncomfortable for Dubya and his cronies. Unless the Republican plan is to have their tame U.S. Attorneys prosecute corrupt Republicans really ineptly (but comprehensively) so they'll be immunized by the principle of double jeopardy.

Probably not a great re-election strategy, but neither is going to prison.

(h/t Atrios)

Juxtaposition Of The Week

2007-01-17T12:01:00.000-05:00

Right-wing blogger Glenn Reynolds in yesterday's NYT:

...Kennesaw, Ga... in 1982 passed a mandatory gun ownership law in response to a handgun ban passed in Morton Grove, Ill. Kennesaw’s crime dropped sharply, while Morton Grove’s did not.

To some degree, this is rational. Criminals, unsurprisingly, would rather break into a house where they aren’t at risk of being shot. As David Kopel noted in a 2001 article in The Arizona Law Review, burglars report that they try to avoid homes where armed residents are likely to be present. We see this phenomenon internationally, too, with the United States having a lower proportion of “hot” burglaries — break-ins where the burglars know the home to be occupied — than countries with restrictive gun laws.

Likewise, in the event of disasters that leave law enforcement overwhelmed, armed citizens can play an important role in stanching crime. Armed neighborhood watches deterred looting in parts of Houston and New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Precisely because an armed populace can serve as an effective backup for law enforcement, the ownership of firearms was widely mandated during Colonial times, and the second Congress passed a statute in 1792 requiring adult male citizens to own guns.

Daniel Pearl's mother in today's NYT:

IN late 2001, three months before my son, the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, was kidnapped, he interviewed the influential Qatari cleric Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, and asked him about suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. The sheik replied with a novel twist of logic. “Israeli society in general is armed,” he said, implying that Israeli civilians — including women and children, doctors and journalists — are legitimate targets.

If???

2007-01-17T10:19:00.000-05:00

Money quote from today's NYT lead editorial:

If General Qanbar and Mr. Maliki plan to continue shielding militias like the Mahdi Army, this new drive will be doomed before it begins.

This is not an if, it's a certainty. Maliki is only in power because Sadr allows him to be, and the Bushies either don't notice or don't care. Any move to take on Sadr is doomed to failure, especially if it depends on one of his clients for success.

The three most plausible explanations I can think of for this doomed approach are:

1) Stupidity and incompetence. This can never be ruled out.

2) Looking busy. The administration wants to look like they're taking bold decisive action while they run out the clock so Iraq becomes President Gore's problem ("How's that for an inconvenient truth? In your face, Captain Nerdboy! Heheheh.").

3) Provocation. Create a military disaster that you can blame on Iran, so you have an excuse to bomb some democracy and gratitude into them.

A few thousand troops is a small price to pay for Dubya to finally achieve his lifelong goal of nuking the shit out of somebody. I'm sure the troops will be happy to make the ultimate sacrifice so that their president can experience a momentary erection. We could call it Operation Die-agra.

Wednesday Why-I-Love-The-Weekly-World-News Blogging

2007-01-17T07:14:00.000-05:00

As an environmentalist, I find this story rather disconcerting:

MANHATTAN, N.Y.--The mermaid Azura surprised the Clean Seas Institute by announcing her people's extreme displeasure with the anti-pollution group's activities.
"Pollution provides the basis of many Mer-technologies," she said. "You know, we still haven't discovered fire down there."
She explained that the sea-people rely on "reverse-archaeology," wherein advanced societies' artifacts rain from above for use in mer-civilization.
"Your license plates accelerated our development of literacy, and your soda-can rings provided our first currency," she said.
"Abandoned cans and fishing lines have given us telecommunications," she went on.
Weakened by her sojourn on dry land, Azura accepted no questions before leaving the bewildered activists.
"We're used to resistance from big business," said Walter Hargen, a spokesman for Clean Seas. "But to be reprimanded by the fish themselves--that's taken the wind out of our sails."

Clearly, we all have some hard thinking to do.

In political news, the WWN is reporting that Hillary has named Bigfoot as her running mate, but I'm very skeptical - she hasn't even been nominated yet.

Don't Feed The Damn Trolls!

2007-01-17T00:43:00.000-05:00

I'm not entirely sure why this resurfaced six months later on NYT, but I've actually been conditioned to do this since childhood, when my parents counseled me that the best way to deal with teasing was to completely ignore it. I became (and largely remain) Mr. Non-Responsive, and that actually worked pretty damn well.

Does that mean it's good science? Probably not...

Stinky Flower Mystery Solved! Also, The Moths Are STEALING YOUR TEARS!!!

2007-01-16T18:52:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of Jeremy Holden

Fun from the NYT's Tuesday Science section:

A spurge that smells like death

Rafflesia arnoldii is no shrinking violet. At up to three feet in diameter, it’s the world’s largest flower. It’s also possibly the most repulsive — it looks and smells like rotting flesh (the better to attract flies, which act as pollinators).
But while Rafflesia may be easy to describe, it has been much harder to classify. It’s a parasite, embedding itself in vines in the understory of pristine rainforests in Indonesia, and it lacks the roots, stems, leaves and photosynthesizing machinery that would give scientists a clue as to its evolutionary background.
(...)
...Dr. [Charles C.] Davis and colleagues have done more genetic research to solve the puzzle. Their conclusion, published online by the journal Science, is that the Rafflesiaceae, as this family of species is known, are nestled within the spurge family, which includes rubber plants, castor, cassava and poinsettia. “They are smack dab in the middle,” Dr. Davis said.
In some ways this is a surprise, because spurges are so well known. On the other hand, Dr. Davis said, the Rafflesiaceae “are so off on their own trip that their position within any group would require some explaining.”
(...)
“These plants flower in understory rainforest environments, which are dimly lit, so they are not easily seen by pollinators,” Dr. Davis said. “They would have had incredible incentive to increase their surface area, to maximize odor production and bring in these pollinators.”

Beware the moths, especially if you're a sad clown

Moths and butterflies obtain moisture wherever they can find it — in Africa, Asia and South America, even from the tears of mammals and reptiles. But until now, no moth or butterfly has been seen drinking tears from a bird.
Roland Hilgartner of the University of Ulm in Germany and colleagues observed a species of moth in Madagascar, Hemiceratoides hieroglyphica, that alights on the neck of a sleeping magpie or Newtonia bird and sticks its long proboscis between the bird’s closed eyelids. Moths were observed in this position for 30 minutes or longer, presumably drinking the bird’s tears. The finding was reported in Biology Letters.
The moth’s proboscis is about half an inch long (about half the moth’s length), with a sharp point and many tiny spines and barbs. The researchers suggest that it functions somewhat like a harpoon, because it has to go not only between upper and lower eyelids, but also through the bird’s nictitating membrane, which further protects the eyes.

Beaks? Moths with beaks?

Three's Company + Islam = Profit!

2007-01-16T11:20:00.000-05:00

I'm probably overly simple-minded, but I think this sounds like a good thing:

When it comes to producing a funny television show or movie in Canada, producers here have a reliable stable of topics: French-English relations, urban-rural dynamics and anything that involves a bumbling politician or the United States.

But Islam — something of a third rail of comedy throughout the Western world — did not make the list, which is one reason the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s new situation comedy, “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” is attracting such attention here. “It is a risk doing a sitcom about what can be considered a very touchy subject,” said Kirstine Layfield, executive director of network programming at CBC.

But last Tuesday’s series premiere attracted 2.09 million viewers, impressive in a country where an audience of one million is a runaway hit. The CBC had not had a show draw that size audience in a decade, according to the network.

The show follows a small group of Muslims in, of all places, a prairie town in Saskatchewan where, in the first episode, the group was trying to establish a mosque in the parish hall of a church. A passer-by, seeing the group praying, rushes to call a “terrorist hot line” to report Muslims praying “just like on CNN,” which touches off a local firestorm.

Hoping to avoid making a stir in the town, the group hires a Canadian-born imam from Toronto who quits his father’s law firm to take the job — career suicide, his father thinks. On the way, he is detained in the airport after being overheard on his cellphone saying, “If Dad thinks that’s suicide, so be it,” adding, “This is Allah’s plan for me.”

Later, a leader of the Muslim group is seen defending to a local person the plan to turn the parish hall into a mosque. “It’s a pilot project,” he says, leading the man to exclaim wide-eyed, “You’re training pilots?!”

(...)

The show’s creator, Zarqa Nawaz, said that she was not trying to bridge all of the cultural gaps, but that she hoped the program could elicit laughs on all sides and perhaps foster a better understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims.

“I want the broader society to look at us as normal, with the same issues and concerns as anyone else,” said Ms. Nawaz, who based the series loosely on her own experiences as a Muslim woman who moved from Toronto to the prairie. “We’re just as much a part of the Canadian fabric as anyone else.”

(...)

The show has generally been well received by Muslim leaders, who welcome the light touch it brings to issues that are normally debated in numbing seriousness.

“Muslims are a bit late in laughing at themselves, but we have to use humor to remedy these divisions, just like any community,” said Mohamed Elmasry, an imam and president of the Canadian Islamic Congress.

The show has been criticized for treating too lightly the threat posed by radical Islam and the imams who preach it. The newly hired imam in “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” Amaar Rashid, is clean-shaven, wears tight jeans and has the “ravishing looks of a soap-opera star,” as the columnist Margaret Wente wrote in the Toronto daily newspaper The Globe and Mail.

“If there’s an imam on Earth who resembles this one, I will convert to Islam, don the veil and catch the next plane to Mecca,” she added.

Niiice. I see the Canadian right-wing is every bit as classy as our own.

But what some see as a weakness, others see as a strength. Syed Asad Dean, chairman of the Meadowvale Islamic Center in Mississauga, a western suburb of Toronto, said portraying Muslims as moderate members of the mainstream could have a beneficial effect on young Muslims.

“More extreme Muslims are telling our youth that Canada is not interested in our community, so something like this works dead against that type of mentality,” he said. “The youth see it on television and say, hey, they recognize us and they actually made an investment to talk about us and our life in Canada.”

(...)

In the United States, only cable stations have responded so far, but CBC officials say they are hoping to pitch the show to the larger networks.

I really hope this show gets picked up in the U.S. What I like most about it (admittedly, based on a handful of gags quoted in a news story) is that it pokes much-deserved fun at anti-Muslim paranoia. Because people who see all Arabs as potential terrorists, and who feel threatened every time they hear someone speaking Arabic are silly at best, and bigoted at worst. It sounds like this show is trying to counter that mentality by showing Muslims as just folks, who happen to dress differently and worship a different God (or the same God under a different name). I'll go out on a limb here and say that most Muslims do not hate Christians, are not plotting jihad, and are not serving some sort of sinister hidden agenda.

I'm not advocating a total lack of vigilance, just pointing out that if you think there's a terrorist plot unfolding before your eyes every time you see a couple of Muslims talking, then you might as well cower indoors every time it rains so that the lightning won't get you. Just use some common sense. For example, if you see a scruffy, disreputable figure furtively skulking around a skyscraper or industrial installation taking pictures... well, okay, it's probably me. But if it isn't, then use your own best judgment (no gunplay!). If you're not sure, try to distract them with chocolate or techno-gadgets.

B&W UNISPHERE Photoblogging

2007-01-16T07:25:00.000-05:00

I don't think there's actually any convention that requires "UNISPHERE" to be spelled with all caps - I just feel like it should be pronounced in the most portentous way possible.

Unfortunately, my battery ran out before I could get all the shots I wanted, and my backup battery appears to have a serious leak. I tried to get the shots with my wee backup camera, but the results were mixed. Those shots might appear in a separate post sometime, who knows.

Behold, the power of the UNISPHERE!

The metal Horn Of Africa.

Excelsior!

Best Sex Bus

2007-01-16T07:15:00.000-05:00

And yet still more Fun With Spam:

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Excellent. I like "Onset sexual debut number."

UPDATE: Heh. I just got a spam titled "Stinky flower mystery solved." Apparently the mystery has something to do with stock tips.

Eli's Obsession With The Google

2007-01-15T18:56:00.000-05:00

#1 search result for naked bakers.

#3 search result for bush sociopathic liar.

Ex-cellent...

Random NYC Photoblogging: Reloaded

2007-01-15T17:30:00.000-05:00

Let's try that again...

It's all, like, symbolic and stuff.

I don't think there can ever be enough portraits of NYC pigeons.

Leaving the general Shea Stadium/Arthur Ashe Stadium zone, on my way to the UNISPHERE, and a rendezvous with Thers and NYMary at the Queens Museum Of Art.

Stepping On The Butterfly

2007-01-15T11:23:00.000-05:00

I have really enjoyed watching spocko's message spread after ABC/Disney tried to shut him down, only to have it blow up in their face. First second- and third-tier liberal blogs took up the cause, then top-tier ones, then local media, and now national media, in the person of the still-somewhat-esteemed NY Times, which reported on the KSFO "~~Hate~~ Hot Talk" hosts' not-real-successful 3-hour on-air attempt to justify and explain (and very occasionally apologize for) the racist and violent comments spocko caught them red-handed with. And I'm betting that the story will jump to national broadcast media when Countdown airs tonight.

As d r i f t g l a s s points out, perhaps the most significant effect of all this is to put a spotlight on the hate speech that the "personalities" on the extremes of the right have been peddling for the past decade or so. More than that, I am desperately hoping that this will kickstart the long-overdue process of identifying the Limbaughs and Savages and Coulters and Becks as the fringe-dwelling right-wing kooks they are, rather than respected opinionmakers whose words should be taken seriously and nodded thoughtfully about.

Unfortunately, as long as the media is owned by enormous, pro-Republican corporations, this kind of sea change will be a tough sell, but it is possible. For as in-the-tank as the corporate media is, it only has value as long as it has credibility. If they realize that the vast majority of the American people are utterly repelled by these creatures, they will be forced to padlock them in the mad cellar.

In addition to the delicious prospect of never being presented with Coulter or Limbaugh as Serious People To Be Listened To, I am also tickled by the thought of being able to beat the Republican Party ~~to death~~ ~~into submission~~ into a pleasurable state of happy friendliness with their own ~~hobnailed club~~ fluffy pillow of civility. Because after this exposure, it's going to be awfully hard for the right-wing to argue that it's us dirty hippies who are shrill and full of hate. Not that that will stop them, of course...

Uncharacteristic Dose Of Cuteness

2007-01-15T11:19:00.000-05:00

I was searching for something entirely different in the SF Chronicle, and I got kinda sidetracked...

Baby milk frog!

Baby panda!

Awwww...

Monday Media Blogging

2007-01-15T01:54:00.000-05:00

This is a bit premature, but I wanted to post it before it got pulled again:

We're not here to start no trouble, we're just here to do the Superbowl Shuffle.

And for those of you who don't like to watch pro athletes (Gary Fencik!) attempting to rap, here's a Japanese music video of Ronald McDonald in an epic kung fu battle versus convenience store employees:

(From Japan Probe, by way of Kyklops)

Yet Another Reason Vietnam Was Bad

2007-01-14T19:59:00.000-05:00

If not for Vietnam, LBJ gets elected to a second term, and perhaps Nixon never becomes president at all, and the idea of presidential impunity never finds a precedent.

Also: The dirty hippies of the left don't get scapegoated for losing a useless war.

It's not like anyone can say that Vietnam taught us a valuable lesson about not rushing into ill-advised wars of choice.

Oh... Joy.

2007-01-14T19:22:00.000-05:00

Any time you see the Spanish Civil War offered up as a best-case scenario, you know the situation has to be pretty bad...

Mr. Bush has now scaled back his strategy for victory to a strategy for the best-we-can-hope-for. So, it must be asked, what exactly is the best we can hope for?
“In the best-case scenario, we’ll be in Iraq for 15 or 20 years,” said Stephen Biddle, author of “Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle.” He offers the example of the Balkans, where everyone seems to have forgotten about the United States troops who have been there for years, helping keep a peace brokered in Dayton, Ohio, in 1995.
Under the best result Mr. Biddle said he could imagine, the United States would cajole or force warring Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds to agree to the standard-cookbook negotiated ending to a civil war. There would be some kind of power-sharing deal among the key combatants, yielding an uneasy cease-fire that would have to be policed for a long time by outside peacekeepers, since no warring side would trust another.
Sounds like paradise, doesn’t it? Except, Mr. Biddle said, “If I had to bet my house mortgage on a scenario, it wouldn’t be on that one.”
(...)

The best America can hope for, some experts said, would be for Iraq to turn into today’s version of the Spanish Civil War.
...[T]he Spanish Civil War lasted three years, from 1936 to 1939, when the Nationalists, led by Francisco Franco, defeated the Loyalists of the Second Spanish Republic. The death toll was huge — estimates put it between 500,000 and one million. People in just about every European country were passionate about the fight: the Loyalists got weapons and volunteers from the Soviet Union, while the Nationalists received help from Italy, Germany and Portugal.
But, in the end, the Spanish Civil War stayed Spanish. The Europeans sent money and arms and even volunteers, but they didn’t let the war engulf the continent....
The biggest worry in Iraq is not that Iraq will descend into a civil war — most experts say that is a done deal — but that an Iraqi civil war will not stay Iraqi. The fear is that a civil war will engulf the entire region, with Saudi Arabia and Jordan defending the Sunnis, Iran backing the Shiites, and Iraqi Kurds declaring their independence, a move sure to draw in Turkey, which has its own restive Kurdish population.

(...)
The Spanish Civil War script doesn’t bode well for Iraq itself. The death toll would be enormous, and Iraqi Sunnis, who make up only about 20 percent of the population, would face particular hardship. But such a war wouldn’t become World War III. The United States would eventually pull its troops out, the Iranians would finance the Shiites, and the Saudis would support the Sunnis, but neither neighbor would engage militarily itself.
America’s image abroad would suffer a blow, but not a fatal one, and in the end, the United States would still be the sole world power. “That’s the best we can expect,” Mr. Rose said. “Disaster in Iraq, problems in the Middle East and a several-year period to recover the losses in American foreign policy.”

Huzzah.

The problem with Mr. Bush’s plan, said Vali Nasr, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is that it doesn’t provide enough American troops to do much more than stay the course, to use Mr. Bush’s now-abandoned lexicon. The way Mr. Nasr sees it, 20,000 additional troops is too few to change the dynamic on the ground, but enough to escalate tensions further.
“The best we can hope for is pretty much the same thing we’ve had for the last year,” said Mr. Nasr, author of “The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future.” “More of the same for another two years, but keep in mind that it could potentially get much worse.”
That worst-case scenario is pretty scary, Mr. Biddle said. In that picture, the United States would pull its troops out of Iraq, the civil war would accelerate, and the Shiites, financed by Iran, would conquer one Sunni village after another, driving the Sunnis over the borders and into refugee camps in Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
There would be a huge refugee crisis in the Sunni Arab countries, where a dispossessed, bitter and highly politicized refugee population would appeal to Saudi and Jordanian rulers to make a last stand for Sunnis in Iraq. But since it would have taken about 5 to 10 years to get to this point, guess who, by then, would have acquired a nuclear bomb?
Iran.
“In the worst case, you could be looking at a couple of nuclear weapons dropped on major cities — Baghdad, Riyadh, Tehran,” Mr. Biddle said.
That possibility makes the one that Mr. Biddle views as most likely seem almost palatable. Here it is:
“We get out, the civil war escalates,” Mr. Biddle said. “It’s funded by all sides but they don’t send their own troops across the border. The war just bumps along for 5 or 10 years and everybody eventually gets so weary that diplomacy finally gets going, and there’s a cease-fire, power-sharing deal. During that period, Iraqi oil output crashes, there’s huge instability in the region and oil prices rise. And there’s a humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq.
“That’s not a very happy scenario,” Mr. Biddle acknowledged. “But it beats the heck out of nuclear war in the Mideast.”

Well, as long as it's just Middle Eastern cities getting nuked, that's no skin off our nose, right? I mean, it's not like we'd be culpable in any way. We simply tried to force the sweet nectar of democracy down Iraq's throat - how could we anticipate that they would be so barbaric and ungrateful as to spit it back in our faces? (Actually, I kinda wish they really had - we could use some more of that democracy nectar over here.)

The problem with the Bushies and the neocons is that they never, ever look at the worst-case scenarios - except, of course, when they're evaluating what will happen if they don't blow shit up. They don't even look at the non-best-case scenarios. They look at the candy-and-flowers scenario, and become so enamored of its inevitability that they don't even bother to make plans to ensure its occurrence.

Even now, I think the administration is still swinging for the fences, hoping to hit a best-case home run, without admitting that they have barely enough power to clear the infield for a bloop single. Bush thinks he's Mickey Mantle, when he's actually Eddie Gaedel.

Well, Great.

2007-01-14T19:18:00.000-05:00

We've broken Brazil.

Completely Themeless NYC Photoblogging

2007-01-14T15:30:00.000-05:00

Couldn't come up with a theme here. Umm, the first two are B&W and horizontal, and the second two are color and vertical...

Detail of some sort of Con-Ed gas truck...

Reflection in a drugstore window.

Padlock. Chain. Red.

Space alien hitching a ride on a Con-Ed gas truck.

Eli's Obsession With The Google

2007-01-14T13:47:00.000-05:00

On the first page of search results for bell curve in PMS.

I can't even begin to imagine what this could refer to...

Vehicular NYC Photoblogging

2007-01-13T22:45:00.000-05:00

Various vehicles from NYC...

The proud winner of MTV's annual "Pimp My Tug" competition.

In case you've ever wondered what the spirit of New York looked like...

Helicopter MADNESS!!!
(Click on the pic to see Bonus Helicopter)

Well, there is a truck in the background...

Eyevolution

2007-01-13T16:43:00.000-05:00

I'm not entirely sure why this is in the Op-Ed section, but it certainly is fascinating:

...[N]either chimpanzees nor any of the other 220 species of nonhuman primates have whites of the eyes, at least not that can be easily seen. This means that if their eyes are looking in a direction other than the one in which their heads are pointing, we can easily be fooled about what they are looking at.
Why should humans be so different? And yet we are. We can’t fool anyone. The whites of our eyes are several times larger than those of other primates, which makes it much easier to see where the eyes, as opposed to the head, are pointed. Trying to explain this trait leads us into one of the deepest and most controversial topics in the modern study of human evolution: the evolution of cooperation.
The idea is simple. Knowing what another person is looking at provides valuable information about what she is thinking and feeling, and what she might do next. Even young children know that when a person is looking at one toy and not another, she most likely prefers that toy and may reach for it. Professional poker players are often so worried about others reading their minds by reading their eyes that they wear sunglasses.
(...)
Evolutionary theory tells us that, in general, the only individuals who are around today are those whose ancestors did things that were beneficial to their own survival and reproduction. If I have eyes whose direction is especially easy to follow, it must be of some advantage to me.
If I am, in effect, advertising the direction of my eyes, I must be in a social environment full of others who are not often inclined to take advantage of this to my detriment — by, say, beating me to the food or escaping aggression before me. Indeed, I must be in a cooperative social environment in which others following the direction of my eyes somehow benefits me.
Of course, it’s possible that having large whites of the eyes serves some other purpose, like enabling me to advertise my good health to potential mates. But such an advantage would apply to other primates as well. Cooperation, on the other hand, singles out humans, as humans coordinate activities to do such things as construct buildings, create social institutions and even, paradoxically, organize armies for war.
(...)
It has been repeatedly demonstrated that all great apes, including humans, follow the gaze direction of others. But in previous studies the head and eyes were always pointed in the same direction. Only when we made the head and eyes point in different directions did we find a species difference: humans are sensitive to the direction of the eyes specifically in a way that our nearest primate relatives are not. This is the first demonstration of an actual behavioral function for humans’ uniquely visible eyes.
Why might it have been advantageous for some early humans to advertise their eye direction in a way that enabled others to determine what they were looking at more easily? One possible answer, what we have called the cooperative eye hypothesis, is that especially visible eyes made it easier to coordinate close-range collaborative activities in which discerning where the other was looking and perhaps what she was planning, benefited both participants.
(...)
We are still a long way from figuring out why humans evolved to do so many complicated things together — from building houses to creating universities to fighting wars. But the simple fact that we have evolved highly visible eyes, to which infants attune even before language, supplies at least one small piece of the puzzle of how.

This is really intriguing stuff - I had never really given much thought to why we have eyes with whites and most other animals don't. I guess I had just automatically assumed that it was part of the physical evolution of the eye itself, with no social implications. (This could still be the case, but I don't know of anything unique about human vision that is not shared by un-eye-whited creatures, or what the presence or absence of eye-whites would have to do with visual acuity.)

The biggest problem that I have with this hypothesis is that humans are not the only social primate; far from it. So why haven't chimps or bonobos evolved readable eyes? Do they lack the intelligence to make use of such visual cues? Are their social groups not cooperative enough for that kind of transparency to be beneficial to the individual? Could they really be more backstabby than humans? Maybe humans have become less trustworthy since we developed eye whites...

The President Issues A Challenge

2007-01-13T16:09:00.000-05:00

Take that, naysayers!

President Bush on Saturday challenged lawmakers skeptical of his new Iraq plan to propose their own strategy for stopping the violence in Baghdad.
"To oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible," Bush said.

I hereby issue the same challenge to all those who oppose my plan to make sand the world's primary energy source.

This Surprises... No-One.

2007-01-13T14:33:00.000-05:00

Be sure to check out Phila's take on KSFO's attempt at on-air damage control after their attempt to pull spocko's plug backfired disastrously. To sum up: Their on-air crazies did not acquit themselves very well.

I hope KSFO's advertisers were listening, wondering whether they would hear any reason to continue associating their brands with right-wing hate.

(h/t to Supremely Ironic David)

Puking Up The Kool-Aid

2007-01-13T11:34:00.000-05:00

Glenn Greenwald discusses an amazing audio commentary by archconservative Rod Dreher, in which he repudiates, if not conservatism itself, President Bush and the Republican party (emphasis Greenwald's):

Dreher, 40, recounts that his "first real political memory" was the 1979 failed rescue effort of the U.S. hostages in Iran. He says he "hated" Jimmy Carter for "shaming America before our enemies with weakness and incompetence." When Reagan was elected, he believed "America was saved." Reagan was "strong and confident." Democrats were "weak and depressed."

In fairness, Dreher would have been about 12 at the time. But one of the hallmarks of true believer conservatives is that they never outgrow it.

In particular, Dreher recounts how much, during the 1980s, he "disliked hippies - the blame America first liberals who were so hung up on Vietnam, who surrendered to Communists back then just like they want to do now." In short, Republicans were "winners." Democrats were "defeatists."

On 9/11, Dreher's first thought was : "Thank God we have a Republican in the White House." The rest of his essay:

As President Bush marched the country to war with Iraq, even some voices on the Right warned that this was a fool's errand. I dismissed them angrily. I thought them unpatriotic.

But almost four years later, I see that I was the fool.

In Iraq, this Republican President for whom I voted twice has shamed our country with weakness and incompetence, and the consequences of his failure will be far, far worse than anything Carter did.

The fraud, the mendacity, the utter haplessness of our government's conduct of the Iraq war have been shattering to me.

It wasn't supposed to turn out like this. Not under a Republican President.

(...)

As I sat in my office last night watching President Bush deliver his big speech, I seethed over the waste, the folly, the stupidity of this war.

I had a heretical thought for a conservative - that I have got to teach my kids that they must never, ever take Presidents and Generals at their word - that their government will send them to kill and die for noble-sounding rot - that they have to question authority.

On the walk to the parking garage, it hit me. Hadn't the hippies tried to tell my generation that? Why had we scorned them so blithely?

Will my children, too small now to understand Iraq, take me seriously when I tell them one day what powerful men, whom their father once believed in, did to this country? Heavy thoughts for someone who is still a conservative despite it all. It was a long drive home.

Dreher's essay is extreme and intense but also increasingly commonplace and illustrative. The disaster of unparalleled magnitude that President Bush and his integrity-free and bloodthirsty administration and followers wrought on this country will have a profound impact not only on American strength and credibility for a long, long time to come, but also on the views of Americans towards their political leaders and, almost certainly, towards the Republican Party.

One of the very few potential benefits of the Iraq tragedy is that it may raise the level of doubt and cynicism with which Americans evaluate the claims of the Government when it tries -- as Dreher put it -- "to send them to kill and die for noble-sounding rot."

I hope Greenwald is right about where this is heading. I expect there were a whole bunch of bitterly disillusioned conservatives back in 1974 too, but they sure got over it pretty quick. I suspect that if the next Democratic president can't undo the deep structural, psychic, and moral damage 8 years of Bush misrule have inflicted on our country, and if the Republicans field a candidate peddling a bogus message of sunny optimism, then the conservative true believers' faith will be miraculously and instantly restored.

After all, Bush was an aberration; he wasn't a real conservative, and they were all taken in by his wily, resolute ways. But the next time will be totally different, and they'll follow Reagan II to the end of the Earth... until they get close enough to the edge to see the abyss below, at which point the cycle will repeat. Conservatives fall in love with Republicans, Republicans nearly destroy America, Conservatives fall out of love with Republicans, Democrats fail to usher in Golden Age Of America, Conservatives fall in love with Republicans again.

Thinking on it a bit more, I think a big part of the problem (or maybe just a symptom?) is standards. Conservatives simply hold Republicans and other conservatives to a much, much lower standard than they hold Democrats and progressives to. Look at how badly Bush had to fuck everything up before Dreher finally lost faith in him, as compared to him losing faith in Jimmy Carter over one failed rescue operation. Compare the relative standards for impeachment, or for congressional investigations, or even the very definitions of words like "popular" or "mandate." I might try to blame the media for this, but the sad truth is that most of the media is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the conservative movement.

But the bottom line is that the standard of success for a Republican president is somewhere in the vicinity of "Don't get us into a depression or World War III", whereas the standard of success for a Democratic president is "Fix everything the Republicans broke and make the world perfect." So based on that, they can easily say, "Hey, I tried to give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt, but they had their chance and they failed miserably, so I'm going to start screaming my head off for impeachment like any reasonable, responsible citizen should."

(h/t Atrios)

Friday Memorial Quote & Catblogging

2007-01-12T19:32:00.000-05:00

From The Last Starfighter:

Death is a primitive concept. I prefer to think of them as battling evil, in another dimension.

Dedicated to fourlegsgood and his dear departed plushy best friend, Lion Kitty Maxx, who joins the great celestial pantheon of Best Kitties Ever, along with...

...La Belle Eek...

...and The Shadowy And Mysterious Codename F.

I miss them all very much.

Buyer's Remorse

2007-01-12T14:27:00.000-05:00

How's that decision to back Lieberman workin' out for ya?

Making his umpteenth pitch to Congress to provide more security money for New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg stated the obvious when he said that money to defend against terrorism should be divvied up based on an assessment of risks, not “spread across the country like peanut butter.” After all, his testimony to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee echoed one of the key recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. The mayor estimated that more than $3 billion had been distributed in this lunatic way to date.

Unfortunately, the committee’s incoming chairman, Senator Joseph Lieberman, is partial to peanut butter. Mr. Lieberman, who won re-election last November as an independent with help from Mr. Bloomberg, continues to believe that every state, regardless of the risks or threats it faces, should be getting antiterrorism money. In negotiations with the House, Mr. Lieberman is seeking a “compromise” formula that preserves guaranteed minimums for relatively low-risk places like his home state of Connecticut. The minimums he wants well exceed the financing favored by the House, and cannot be justified on the basis of national security.

(...)

Mr. Lieberman fought the odds, held his seat and got this chairmanship. Now it’s up to him to use the power responsibly.

Right. "Lieberman" and "responsibly" in the same sentence. On the other hand, maybe Joe just wants to make sure the Groton sub base has adequate protection. He just loves that sub base.

I hope you're pleased with your moderate, bipartisan, serious buddy, Mr. Bloomberg.

Friday Quote & Cat Blogging

2007-01-12T07:42:00.000-05:00

This week's quote is from The Rage: Carrie 2:

Sometimes my thoughts assume the form of a giant insect.

And, of course, there'll be other people's cats...

The shadowy and mysterious Codename B, of course.

Netting MADNESS!!!

2007-01-11T23:16:00.000-05:00

As I believe I may have warned before, I have... netting photos. There's this sports complex on the NYC waterfront, and one of the piers has been enclosed and turned into a driving range.

I will dispense with captions, since, well, they're all netting.

Worst. Verification. Word. Ever.

2007-01-11T19:47:00.000-05:00

bmfan.

Oy.

I Wonder...

2007-01-11T18:54:00.000-05:00

Does Dubya think to himself, "I still got 55,000 to go before this casualties thing becomes a problem"?

Gulf War II: Less deadly than Vietnam!

American Torture & Detainment Policy: Less brutal than Saddam's!

President Bush: Possibly a teensy bit more competent than Warren Harding or James Buchanan!

Rice/Cheney/Rumsfeld: More competent than... Okay, I'm stumped.

Eli's Obsession With The Google

2007-01-11T16:26:00.000-05:00

#1 search result for i like to hit people.

I don't, really. But I can relate to the sentiment...

UPDATE: Also #1 search result for beard plugs.

Awesome. I especially like to hit people with my beard plugs.

Widowmaker-In-Chief

2007-01-11T12:18:00.000-05:00

"Okay, I know you've heard this before, but it's totally going to work this time..."

President Bush embraced a major tactical shift on Wednesday evening in the war in Iraq when he declared that the only way to quell sectarian violence there was to send more than 20,000 additional American troops into combat.

Yet in defying mounting pressure to begin troop withdrawals, the president reiterated his argument that the consequences of failure in Iraq were so high that the United States could not afford to lose.

Then why has he been so hell-bent on doing exactly the wrong thing, all the time? If this is The Most Important War Ever, why no draft? Why a call to malls instead of a call to arms? Why no strategy beyond throwing troops at Iraq and telling the Iraqis to play nice? Why no consultations with non-insane Middle East or Iraq experts before, during, or after the invasion? Why, if I didn't know better, I might think that this is just empty rhetoric to make withdrawal sound like a bad thing.

In a speech to the nation, Mr. Bush conceded for the first time that there had not been enough American or Iraqi troops in Baghdad to halt the capital’s descent over the past year into chaos. [And they only just noticed this now?] In documents released just before the speech, the White House acknowledged that his previous strategy was based on fundamentally flawed assumptions about the power of the shaky Iraqi government. [The success of his new plan depends on this exact same government, mind you.]

Mr. Bush gave no indication that the troop increase would be short-lived, describing his new strategy as an effort to “change America’s course in Iraq,” and he said that “we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties” in the course of more intensive round-the-clock patrols in some of Baghdad’s most dangerous neighborhoods. [Oh good, more casualties - I'm loving the new plan already.]

But Mr. Bush rekindled his argument that a withdrawal would doom to failure the American experiment in Iraq, touch off chaos throughout the Middle East, provide a launching pad for attacks in the United States, and embolden Iran to develop nuclear weapons.

This... is a joke, right? The American "experiment" (damn, what a callous-yet-appropriate word choice that is) was doomed to failure from the beginning, it's destabilizing the Middle East, and in case you hadn't noticed, terrorists already have a "launching pad" - it's called Afghanistan, which we have utterly failed to secure, and are now pulling troops out of to feed the surge. As for emboldening Iran, I'm sure they're real intimidated by our brilliant move of committing almost our entire active-duty military to not-quite-prop-up two failed states.

He also offered his most direct acknowledgment of error in an American-led war that has lasted nearly four years and claimed more than 3,000 American lives. “Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility lies with me,” he said.

That's it? That's the great big I'm-a-grownup mea culpa? That is not, "I've made some terrible mistakes and I am deeply sorry for all those Americans and Iraqis who suffered and died for my arrogance and blindness." More like, "Yeah, some of the people working for me might have screwed up a few times, so I guess that kinda sorta makes it my fault, maybe."

For the safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq,” Mr. Bush said in repeating an argument that he has used for nearly four years — that a retreat from the country before a decisive victory is won would provide terrorists a place in which to conduct new attacks on the United States and American targets.

Argh. This just hurts my brain. Is there anyone outside the right-wing true believers who actually believes this? Even if there were any truth to it, Bush's invasion is what created the possibility. It's still a silly idea, especially when you consider that Iraq is going to be a Shi'ite theocracy, and the terrorist organization most likely to strike the U.S. is Sunni. It makes more sense for al-Qaeda to base itself in Afghanistan, which is majority Sunni, where we're barely paying attention, and where the government is all but nonexistent outside Kabul.

As part of a campaign to market the new strategy, Mr. Bush’s aides insisted that the plan was largely created by the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. [BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!]

Yet Mr. Bush sounded less than certain of his support for the prime minister, who many in the White House and the military fear may be intending to extend Shiite power over the Sunnis, or could prove incapable of making good on his promises. “If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people,” Mr. Bush declared.

He put it far more bluntly when leaders of Congress visited the White House earlier on Wednesday. “I said to Maliki this has to work or you’re out,” the president told the Congressional leaders, according to two officials who were in the room. Pressed on why he thought this strategy would succeed where previous efforts had failed, Mr. Bush shot back: “Because it has to.”

I just love this paragraph - it simultaneously reveals the phoniness of Iraqi sovereignty, as well as the depth of the strategic and policy analysis that went into this latest Plan For Glorious Victory.

Until the summer, Mr. Bush had used the phrase “stay the course” to describe his approach in Iraq, and his decision to describe his new strategy as an effort to “change America’s course” appeared intended to distance himself from that old approach. An earlier plan unveiled in November 2005 had been titled “Strategy for Victory in Iraq,” but Mr. Bush used the word “victory” sparingly on Wednesday night, and then only to diminish expectations.

“The question is whether our new strategy will bring us closer to success,” he said. “I believe that it will,” saying that if it is successful it would result in a “functioning democracy” that “fights terrorists instead of harboring them.”

So it won't actually lead to success? It'll what, slow down the pace of failure? Hell, I wouldn't even bet on that.

In some of his sharpest words of warning to Iran, Mr. Bush accused the Iranian government of “providing material support for attacks on American troops” and vowed to “seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies.”

He left deliberately vague the question of whether those operations would be limited to Iraq or conducted elsewhere, and said he had ordered the previously reported deployment of a new aircraft carrier strike group to the region, where it is in easy reach of Iranian territory.

Well, it's good to see that Bush has learned his lesson about starting wars you can't win...

His aides hinted that the administration had already come up with a “Plan B” in case the latest strategy failed, with one saying “there are other ways to achieve our objective.” But he would not describe that strategy, or say if it involved withdrawal, containment or the breakup of the country into sectarian entities.

Wait - I thought "Plan A" (hahahaha) was guaranteed to work "because it has to"? My guess on "Plan B": Nuclear carpet-bombing = Reset button.

Yeah, I have a real warm fuzzy feeling about Stay The Course Plus: Now With More Casualties! This is going to work out great... for Supreme Ayatollah al-Sadr.

NYC Photoblogging, Signage Edition

2007-01-10T22:46:00.000-05:00

By a strange coincidence, the four photos I picked today all have some form of signage in them. Maybe it's carryover from my last photo yesterday.

Well, that certainly clears things up.

In some binary pairs, the more massive body's gravitational field will actually suck matter away from the less massive body.

Apparently this is the primal ball-thingy-on-a-barrel.

Please excuse my ignorance, but WTF is a "Speed Table"?

UPDATE: The Google-using shadowy and mysterious Codename V. has informed me that a speed table is a variety of speed bump. Huzzah.

Distinction Without A Difference

2007-01-10T18:04:00.000-05:00

From McClatchy News, by way of The All-Seeing Eye Of Froomkin:

The White House has sought to frame the Iraq debate as a choice between Bush's plan and abject failure.

Good luck with that one.

Bush Makes A Strategic Retreat

2007-01-10T13:17:00.000-05:00

...From his generals. He also invents a new title for himself, although frankly I think "The Strict Adherer" lacks pizzazz.

When President Bush goes before the American people tonight to outline his new strategy for Iraq, he will be doing something he has avoided since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003: ordering his top military brass to take action they initially resisted and advised against.

Bush talks frequently of his disdain for micromanaging the war effort and for second-guessing his commanders. "It's important to trust the judgment of the military when they're making military plans," he told The Washington Post in an interview last month. "I'm a strict adherer to the command structure."

But over the past two months, as the security situation in Iraq has deteriorated and U.S. public support for the war has dropped, Bush has pushed back against his top military advisers and the commanders in Iraq: He has fashioned a plan to add up to 20,000 troops to the 132,000 U.S. service members already on the ground. As Bush plans it, the military will soon be "surging" in Iraq two months after an election that many Democrats interpreted as a mandate to begin withdrawing troops.

(...)

It may... be a sign of increasing assertiveness from a commander in chief described by former aides as relatively passive about questioning the advice of his military advisers. In going for more troops, Bush is picking an option that seems to have little favor beyond the White House and a handful of hawks on Capitol Hill and in think tanks who have been promoting the idea almost since the time of the invasion.

(...)

There is little question that more troops for Iraq seemed far from the conventional wisdom in Washington after the beating Bush and the Republican Party took in the midterm elections Nov. 7....

(...)

Another problem for the administration was the Iraq Study Group, the prestigious bipartisan panel headed by former secretary of state James A. Baker III, a Republican, and former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.). Soon after Bush returned from Jordan, the group delivered its recommendations, including proposing a high-level dialogue with Iran and Syria to help stabilize Iraq and setting a goal of early 2008 for the removal of almost all U.S. combat troops.

Although the president was publicly polite, few of the key Baker-Hamilton recommendations appealed to the administration, which intensified its own deliberations over a new "way forward" in Iraq. How to look distinctive from the study group became a recurring theme.

As described by participants in the administration review, some staff members on the National Security Council became enamored of the idea of sending more troops to Iraq in part because it was not a key feature of Baker-Hamilton....

(...)

In the end, the White House favored the idea of more troops as one visible and dramatic step the administration could take. One senior White House official said this week the president concluded that more troops are not the only ingredient of a successful plan -- but they are a precondition to providing the security the Iraqi government needs for political reconciliation and other reforms.

Tonight, this source said, the president will explain "that we have to go up before we go down."

Fascinating stuff. the surge is nothing more than a combination of psychodrama and political theater. Surgio has apparently become completely obsessed with his grandiose self-image as the Bold, Resolute Decider Who Bucks The Overcautious Conventional Wisdom, With History His Only Judge (And He Doesn't Even Care About History 'Cuz We'll All Be Dead. So now he can't listen to anyone who doesn't agree with him, not even 70-90% of the American people, because that would be weak. (Yes, only in BushWorld can ignoring dissent be viewed as courageous...)

In addition to demonstrating his Trumanesque independent spirit, Bush also wants to make it clear that he's an original thinker. So not only are the Iraq Study Group's recommendations too timid for his tastes, but they also have the fatal flaw that they're not his. For Bush, the only thing worse than failure would be success with someone else's plan.

So if you add the two imperatives of "Must Be Original" and "Must Be Biggest Possible Fuck-You To Stupid Wimpy Pacifist Voters" together, with a little "Run Out The Clock Until 2009 And Hope Something Good Happens" thrown into the mix, the surge is the inevitable result.

As for the surge itself, I think it's possible, though not probable, that there was a window of time (now closed) where additional troops might have eased Iraq's transition from secular dictatorship to Shi'ite theocracy (anyone who sincerely thought post-Saddam Iraq was ever headed anywhere else is naive or delusional), but the numbers would have had to be a lot bigger, in the ballpark of Shinseki's 400,000, or even more. There would need to be enough troops to seriously inhibit insurgent activity, and they would need to be trained and disciplined enough not to create potential terrorist recruits every time they encounter live Iraqis. This megaforce would also have to include enough trainers to provide intensive training to Iraqi troops and police. Flying motorcycles would be good, too.

Of course, this is all hypothetical pie in the sky, as there would be no way to muster that many troops without a politically suicidal draft, and even then, everything would have to go just right, which is an impossibility under the current administration. The reality is that we're coming up short by a hell of a lot more than 15-20%, and a small bump in troops isn't going to mean squat.

Wednesday Why-I-Love-The-Weekly-World-News Blogging

2007-01-10T07:19:00.000-05:00

Oh my:

Glen Ordneau's striking resemblance to almost all voodoo dolls has brought him decades of agony--a condition only recently addressed by a skeptical medical community.
"We are combating some of the external conditions with moisturizing conditioner for his strawlike hair and body butter for his burlap-like skin," said Dr. Stilton Warnes, a cosmetic surgeon at Sidleigh Hospital. "But we'll have to resort to surgery and skin grafts to correct his pillowy limbs, stubby neck, and the birthmarks over his heart, liver, and other major curse zones."
(...)
Ordneau's black, button-round eyes teared-up as he recalled the discovery of his illness as a youth. "I was traveling with my parents, who bought me a voodoo doll in a New Orleans gift shop," he said. "On our flight back from Louisiana, a pen broke in my carry-on and I turned royal blue for a week. That was the first clue."
Despite Mr. Ordneau's declining health, doctors have postponed his surgery until further tests can be conducted. "Well, he looks like a giant voodoo doll," Dr. Warnes observed. "We're a little hesitant to start sticking needles in him."

It's a tragic story, really. Thank God this poor man is finally getting some help.

Who Is More Foolish: The Fool, Or The Fool Who Follows Him?

2007-01-09T17:34:00.000-05:00

The Richard Cohen Rehabilitation Tour proceeds apace.

It would be a lot easier to pat him on the back for this sort of thing if he hadn't been one of the enablers way back when. Or if he would, y'know, abjectly apologize and beg forgiveness for his role every time he complains about how insane everyone else is.

Educating Froomkin

2007-01-09T16:25:00.001-05:00

The All-Seeing Eye Of Froomkin (And Friends!) have some questions about Emperor Surgio:

Here are some of the things to keep an eye out for [in Surgio's All-New & Improved Iraq Strategery Address]:

* Will he acknowledge the real, specific concerns that many Americans have with this particular war and the way it's been waged? Or will he once again belittle the public angst by ascribing it to too much carnage on TV and a general aversion to warfare?

* Will he engage and address the actual arguments voiced by critics? Or will he simply fight straw men of his own creation?

* Specifically, will he acknowledge the argument that the presence of American troops makes things worse in Iraq, rather than better?

* Will he acknowledge the message American voters sent about Iraq in November, and explain why he doesn't feel obliged to heed the public will? Will he explain why he and the public seem to have reached such different conclusions?

* Will he agree to engage in dialogue -- not just consultation -- with those who disagree with him, and possibly even in public?

* Will he be up front about the possible consequences of a failed escalation -- specifically, the cost in human lives? Will he acknowledge the human suffering?

* Will he be honest about the difference between tactics, strategy and goals, and will he explain why he seems willing to consider only a change in tactics?

* Will he be forthright about how we got here? Will he acknowledge any mistakes, beyond tactical errors that were not his fault personally? What lessons will he say he has learned? Will he take any blame for anything?

* Will he explain where the additional troops will come from? Will he call for volunteers? Will he call for anyone else to sacrifice?

* Will he say where the money will come from -- for the escalation, for the reportedly billion-dollar jobs program, or for the entire war for that matter?

* Will he say anything about how long either the escalation, or the war, will last? If he establishes benchmarks, will they be accompanied by timelines and consequences? Will there be any accountability, for either the Iraqis or the Americans? At the end of the speech, will the American military commitment appear larger but still equally open-ended?

* Will he say not just that he still believes the war in Iraq is winnable, but why he believes that, and why he discounts the evidence to the contrary?

* Will he be up front about who we're fighting and why? Will he acknowledge that the chief mission of existing and supplemental troops will be fighting well-armed rival Muslim factions?

* Will he acknowledge how the mission in Iraq has changed, from ostensibly being about weapons of mass destruction all the way to tamping down a civil war?

* Will he address the hideously botched execution of Saddam Hussein, which provided such a gripping view of the vicious sectarianism plaguing the country?

* Will he acknowledge that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has repeatedly made promises and not delivered in the past, and explain why he trusts Maliki this time?

* Will he acknowledge that Iraqi forces have never taken their share of the responsibility in Iraq, and that training has thus far been problematic?

* If he says this is a turning point, will he explain why, in contrast to all the previous turning points, he believes this one is for real?

* Will he describe how his view of the situation in Iraq has changed over time, if at all? Will he address the concern that he has been in a state of denial?

(...)

Liberal blogger Josh Marshall looks at the past four years and asks whether anyone "can point to even a single Bush administration decision in Iraq, either strategic or tactical, that didn't turn out to be either a bad idea or a complete disaster? Anything? One good call?"

(...)

Sally Quinn writes in a Washington Post op-ed: "I hope that when President Bush discusses sending more troops to Iraq, knowing that we will have to pull out sooner rather than later, that the conversation comes around to the human suffering. Does anyone at the table ask about the personal anguish, the long-term effects, emotional, psychological and financial, on the families of those killed, wounded or permanently disabled?"

No.

Liberal blogger Arianna Huffington proposes "a diagnostic checklist" to evaluate the level of Bush's delusion.

"Does he exhibit signs of the classic layman's definition of insanity: repeatedly doing the same thing but expecting a different result?...

"Does the patient -- I mean, the president -- demonstrate magical thinking, signs of a belief that merely wishing for something can make it so?"

Yes.

This has been another edition of Simple Answers To Simple Questions.

Who Needs An iPhone?

2007-01-09T16:25:00.000-05:00

...when you can have an iPod/DVD projector shaped like R2-D2? (NOTE: Make sure the motivator is under warranty)

I'm... an enormous geek.

*hangs head in shame*

Did I mention that the remote is shaped like the Millennium Falcon?

(Or that Blogger is run by monkeys? And not the smart kind, either.)

Everybody Dance Now!

2007-01-09T16:07:00.000-05:00

Well, it's official: I am the sweatiest mammal on Earth.

And this is supposedly somehow a good thing.

Also, Dr. Jablonski is pretty cool-looking, in a vaguely New-Agey, Professor Annie Lennox kind of way.

Blogger is run by monkeys, you know.

Shittiest. Prize. Ever.

2007-01-09T16:02:00.000-05:00

Literally.

It's no B.S. - a Staten Island woman who won a sweepstakes ended up with 7-1/2 tons of horse manure.

Ina Adamshvili of South Beach considered herself blessed when she found out she won Turkey Hill Ice Cream's 75th anniversary contest.

(...)

Some winners got 75 homemade apple pies. Others scored Amish buggy rides. Adamshvili won the manure.

The married mother of two quickly decided to trade her dung in for dollars. The company found that manure was going for $9 a ton, so they paid her $67.50 for the glop.

Adamshvili had no complaints.

The Russian immigrant said she hadn't felt so lucky since she won an immigration lottery giving her the right to come to the United States.

"The first time we [won a] green card, second time we [won] this prize," she told the Staten Island Advance.

Adamshvili had few doubts about what she would do with the money....

"I'm going to buy more ice cream," she told the Advance.

I wish I were that easy to please. I would have preferred the pies. The apple pies.

Also, Blogger is run by monkeys.

Brain... Hurts. Does... Not... Compute.

2007-01-09T15:53:00.000-05:00

It's disconcerting to even think about...

George Clooney may get his ultimate revenge against Bill O'Reilly if he is willing to be cast way against type. The author of "The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly," out today from St. Martin's Press, wants the activist actor to play the conservative Fox TV host, who's jousted with Clooney more than once, in a movie version.

TV critic Marvin Kitman spent five years researching the book, interviewing O'Reilly 29 times. He says Clooney, who directed "Good Night, and Good Luck," about the great journalist Edward R. Murrow, could do it. "That's why they call it acting," Kitman said.

This, despite Clooney telling us in the past that O'Reilly "mistakenly sees himself as Murrow."

He also compared O'Reilly to redbaiting Sen. Joe McCarthy - unfavorably.

"Unlike McCarthy, O'Reilly was never elected to public office. What's more, Joe McCarthy was never accused of telling one of his female staff members she should use a vibrator" - one of the sex-harassment claims of a former Fox News staffer.

For his part, O'Reilly has said, "Many of the ideologues on the left - George Clooney, these people - all are underestimating the danger we are in. ... They don't believe we're in the middle of World War III, they don't understand Islamic fascism and jihad." He also has said, "I don't recommend Clooney as a human being."

"Recommend"? What is that even supposed to mean? Do people regularly ask O'Reilly to make human being recommendations? ("Try the Ann Coulter - insouciant but very nutty.")

Perhaps some lighthearted gossip will soothe my aching brain.

Michael Sheen uncovered an interesting tidbit while researching his role as U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair for "The Queen."

"I met [Blair's] daughter a couple of days before we started filming," Sheen told us. " 'What does your dad wear in bed?' That was the first question I asked her. And she just got very blushed. And she said in the summer, he doesn't wear anything."

Or not...

Blogger is run by monkeys.

Spam Vs. The Man

2007-01-09T08:40:00.000-05:00

This is a bit more... subversive than usual:

your man betrothed your men and your shastabolicious Republican.

white-hot honkies imitated one fascist. the pimp needed to dance, so conformists should never self-destruct and could do party tricks.

Power to the people!

("Shastabolicious"???)

More Sanitation Photoblogging

2007-01-09T08:09:00.000-05:00

I imagine that being insane for sanitation is somewhat akin to being cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

The ancient bollard graveyard.

Some kind of entrance archway thingy.

Insert Hitchcock theme music here.

My feelings exactly.

Help Me Out Here

2007-01-08T19:49:00.000-05:00

He looks really familiar, but I'm having trouble identifying who this is singing at Woodstock, because he's so young.

I think I've narrowed it down to Joe Lieberman, David Broder, Joe Klein, or maybe Richard Cohen, but I could be way off. Can someone please help jog my memory?

Simple Answers To Simple Questions

2007-01-08T19:18:00.000-05:00

Lieberman Edition:

Given what [Susan] Collins had to say about the Senators' discussions with commanders, you have to conclude that it's perfectly possible that [Oliver] North, of all people, is being more candid here than Lieberman is. And that possibility is a pretty astonishing one, isn't it?

No.

(h/t Atrios)

Quick Surge Question

2007-01-08T18:07:00.000-05:00

If "as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down," what does it mean that we're the ones doing the additional standing up?

It almost looks like a tacit admission that the Iraq situation is going in the opposite direction of what it was supposed to be, but surely that's unpossible.

Eli's Obsession With The Google

2007-01-08T15:27:00.000-05:00

On the first page of blog search results for masturbation soldiers.

You laugh, but if deployed properly they can be absolutely devastating to enemy morale.

Maybe this is the "surge" we so desperately need.

UPDATE: Also the #1 search result for an unauthorized scientological pageant.

Timeless Wisdom Of The Ancient Spam Lords

2007-01-08T14:39:00.000-05:00

This stuff is going to make me the most enlightened mofo on the planet.

A chess board self-flagellates, because the cashier pours freezing cold water on a bartender.

A fraction living with a diskette is hardly slow.

The polygon sanitizes a pit viper. Another globule is Alaskan.

Casey's Canadians did rodeo clowns and police!as usual, that woman gave birth to the men! A chess board self-flagellates, because the cashier pours freezing cold water on a bartender.

Notice how it comes around full circle to the self-flagellating chessboard. That shit is PROFOUND.

Inadvertently Revealing Front-Page Headline Of The Week

2007-01-08T12:52:00.000-05:00

Conservatives Decry Laws

Conservatives who supported President Bush's reelection have joined liberal groups in expressing outrage over his administration's broad use of anti-terrorism laws to reject asylum for thousands of people seeking refuge from religious, ethnic and political persecution.
The critics say the administration's interpretation of provisions mandating denial of asylum to individuals who give "material support" to terrorist groups is so broad that foreigners who fought alongside U.S. forces in wars such as Vietnam can be denied asylum on the grounds that they provided aid to terrorists.
Advocates for refugees add that people who were forced to aid terrorist fighters at gunpoint could be labeled as supporters and turned away; such cases include a nurse who was abducted and told to treat a guerrilla fighter in Colombia and a woman in Liberia who said her father was killed and she was raped and forced to stand by as rebels occupied her home for several days.
"This is so indefensible," said Michael Horowitz, a fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute and a former lawyer in the Reagan administration. "It is causing heroes who fought for the United States to be afraid of being deported."
"It's outrageous," said Barrett Duke, vice president of public policy for the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. "I think it's essentially a reaction of fear to the current terrorist danger." The language in the laws, he added, is "a knee-jerk reaction."
Gary L. Bauer, president of American Values, a conservative public policy group, said the anti-terrorism thrust of laws such as the USA Patriot Act and the Real ID Act is supported by most conservatives, "but the enforcement of it has lapsed into ludicrousy. The concept of material support is being distorted, and even the definition of the term 'terrorism' is being turned on its ear." [This was too heartless and extreme for Gary Bauer??? Also, everyone knows that "ludicrousy" is not a word. The correct term is "ludicrosity."]
(...)
[Lam Kim] was jailed for two years after arriving in the United States in 2004, and her asylum request was rejected by an immigration judge. "If I go back to Burma," she said softly over the telephone, "I have to give my life. I am not terrorist. I say it not fair."
A Colombian nurse living in California who declined to give her name said she was abducted by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) outside Bogota and forced to treat one of their soldiers. She fled Colombia with her daughter in 2000 after her life was threatened in a note to her family. Her asylum request was rejected last year.
"I had no option," she said. "What will happen if I go back? I will be killed. They look for people. They know when they arrive at the airport. They have names."
(...)
"I will completely own up to wishing we had done more, but it's a big department," [Homeland Security advisory committee chairman Paul Rosenzweig] said....
Jennifer Daskal, a program director for Human Rights Watch [said,] "The administration presented a proposal... and basically said, 'Trust us.' It's been two years, and the administration hasn't done a whole lot to instill confidence."

Wow, where have we heard that before...

Based on the front-page headline (as opposed to the more correct article headline), I really thought that the story would be about conservatives finally taking Bush policies to their logical conclusion and rejecting their obligation to obey U.S. laws in general. But it's actually sort of heartening to know that even hard-core conservatives are uncomfortable with some (repeat, some) of the administration's crueler policies. Why, they almost sound compassionate, even.

Great Moments In American History

2007-01-08T12:46:00.000-05:00

Thankyou. Thankyouverymuch.

This isn't exactly newsworthy, but it's something that's always tickled me.

The meeting between two of the most improbable cultural icons of the 1970s lasted all of 30 minutes, but it has fascinated the nation for years.
A photo of a cloaked and bejeweled Elvis Presley solemnly shaking hands with a grim-faced President Nixon remains the No. 1 requested document from the National Archives, nearly four decades after the secret meeting took place on Dec. 21, 1970.
Now, on what would be the King's 72nd birthday, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Birthplace is giving the curious public a good, long look at the relics of the coming together of The King and The President -- and it's got Elvis fans all shook up.
The free exhibit Monday includes the outfit Elvis wore (a black velvet overcoat, a gold-plated belt and black leather boots); Nixon's outfit (a gray woolen suit, tie and size 11 1/2 black shoes); letters; and a World War II .45-caliber Colt revolver that Elvis gave to Nixon.
''The two of them together somehow is almost incomprehensible,'' said Bud Krogh, Nixon's former deputy counsel who set up the impromptu meeting that day 36 years ago. ''The king of rock and the president of the United States shaking hands in the Oval Office doesn't compute for a lot of people.''
The chain of events that led to the meeting began when a stretch limousine carrying Elvis pulled up outside the White House. One of his guards handed over a letter from Elvis addressed to Nixon requesting a meeting to discuss how the rock star could help Nixon fight drugs -- including getting credentials as a ''federal agent at large.''
''I will be here as long as it takes to get the credentials of a Federal Agent,'' Elvis wrote. ''I have done an in-depth study of drug abuse and Communist brainwashing techniques and I am right in the middle of the whole thing where I can and will do the most good.''
(...)
About 2 1/2 hours later, Elvis walked into the Oval Office wearing his flamboyant outfit, as well as sunglasses and two huge medallions....
Elvis and Nixon talked for about 30 minutes, during which Elvis showed Nixon pictures of his daughter and a pair of cufflinks given to him by Spiro Agnew. He also showed Nixon police badges from around the country and asked again for a badge from the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.
(...)
''Oh man, we were set up! But it was fun,'' said Krogh. ''He said all the right words about trying to do the right thing and I took him at his word, but I think he clearly wanted to get a badge and he knew the only way he was going to get it.''

There's really nothing I can add to this.

Monday Media Blogging

2007-01-08T07:21:00.000-05:00

This is another video that I thought was gone forever. A friend of mind had a bunch of brilliant short videos of mysterious origins at the end of an SCTV tape, which I was never able to determine the exact provenance of, much less obtain copies of. Until now.

This is the brilliantest of them all, a parody of 50's sex-ed films, and one of Paul Reubens' finest moments. "Aw, that stuff's strictly squaresville. I know how to handle chicks!"

NYC Sanitation Photoblogging

2007-01-07T20:46:00.000-05:00

There probably aren't very many photographers who yell "Score!" when they find NYC Department Of Sanitation headquarters...

Umm... Traffic thingies?

Nicely maintained physical plant.

Inexplicable little mini-pier thing. Actually before the Sanitation Department, but I like to save the verticals for last.

See above.

Wanker Of The Day

2007-01-07T16:04:00.000-05:00

Ryan Lizza:

NANCY PELOSI’S carefully crafted introduction to the American people last week seemed to reinforce some stereotypes of the so-called mommy party. On the day she made history as the first woman to be elected speaker, she appeared on the House floor, surrounded by children and bedecked in pearls.
But even as this nurturing image dominated the news, the swearing-in ceremony on Thursday was notable for another milestone in gender politics: the return of the Alpha Male Democrat.
The members of this new faction, which helped the Democrats expand into majority status, stand out not for their ideology or racial background but for their carefully cultivated masculinity.
“As much as the policy positions is the background and character of these Democrats,” says John Lapp, the former executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee who helped recruit this new breed of candidate. “So we went to C.I.A. agents, F.B.I. agents, N.F.L. quarterbacks, sheriffs, Iraq war vets. These are red-blooded Americans who are tough.”
Mr. Lapp even coined a term to describe these manly — and they are all men — pols: “the Macho Dems.”
The return of Democratic manliness was no accident; it was a carefully planned strategy. But now that the Macho Dems are walking the halls of Congress, it remains to be seen whether they will create as many problems for Democrats as they solved. After all, these new Democrats have heterodox political views that could complicate Democratic caucus politics, and their success may raise uncomfortable questions for those Democrats who don’t pass the new macho test.

Ick. And it just goes on and on like this, with Lizza gushing about how tough and manly the new Democrats are, like a star-struck Chris Matthews rhapsodizing over Action Flightsuit Dubya With Deciderer Grip. He's completely bought into the Republican narrative that American voters prize manliness over all other qualities (like, say, honesty or competence). Oh, and get this: He says the Macho Dems are in the image of the brilliant wizard masterminds who are solely responsible for their victories, Chuck Schumer and Rahm Emanuel. It is to laugh. Or cry.

And finally, one last little tidbit of wankery I wanted to point out:

In the Senate, Mr. Schumer’s tough-guy caucus includes Jon Tester, a husky Montana farmer with a buzz-cut, and Jim Webb, the former marine from Virginia who turned his son’s combat boots into an effective electoral prop. Upon arriving in Washington, he promptly picked a fight with President Bush at a White House reception.

Yes, that's right, Webb cunningly lured Bush into his trap by avoiding him for the whole reception, and letting the word get out that Bush should not bring up his son who almost got killed, and then allowing Bush to get close enough to have this exchange:

"How's your boy?" Bush asked, referring to Webb's son, a Marine serving in Iraq.

"I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.
"That's not what I asked you," Bush said. "How's your boy?"

"That's between me and my boy, Mr. President."

The liberal perfidy, it burns! How could he be so mean to Nice Mr. President like that?

Video Tribute To The Right-Wing Blogosphere

2007-01-06T23:39:00.000-05:00

"We don't get French benefits?"

(h/t to ::matthew for finding it on YouTube)

Ask Manson Spocko

2007-01-06T19:30:00.000-05:00

"They try to rub me out and put me in a jail cell, only you're just spreadin' me around more!"

A Farewell To Canopies

2007-01-06T19:21:00.000-05:00

Okay, this is the last of the canopy shots, I promise. Although I still reserve the right to post pictures of netting...

Canopy.

Canopy.

Canopy.

Not canopy.

Quick Surge Comment

2007-01-06T19:07:00.000-05:00

The Bush administration handles troop deployment the same way it handles the federal budget.

Spocko Is Dead, Long Live And Prosper Spocko!

2007-01-06T15:12:00.000-05:00

I really can't add much of anything to El Gato Negro and spocko's background and action plan info at Online Blogintegrity. Suffice it to say that spocko has been on a righteous and sometimes successful crusade to make advertisers aware of the truly vile things their sociopathic wingnut sponsorees (primarily Melanie Morgan, Lee Rogers, and Brian Sussman) have been saying on KSFO radio.

Worse yet, KSFO is a subsidiary of Disney, which means that:

A) They bask in Disney's family-friendly aura, which makes companies feel safe advertising with them, because Hey, it's Disney, so it's not like they're going to say anything sadistic, racist, or violent, right?

B) They have virtually unlimited resources to crush wee bloggers and private citizens like spocko, and have been trying to do just that, which is why spocko's blog has been offline for a while: They sent his chickenshit hosting company, 1&1 Internet, a groundless cease-and-desist letter for supposedly hosting copyrighted content (the audio clips in my second link, which fall very comfortably under the provisions for fair use). 1&1 gave spocko 24 hours to remove the content, he complied, and then they pulled his plug anyway. Lovely.

Fortunately, spocko has been getting some help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and has found a new host for his blog, so he should be back online soon. And as a result of Disney's bigfoot tactics, this has metastasized from being Spocko's Lonely Crusade to being a lefty blogosphere cause celebre. Smooth move, Ex-Lax.

So, to sum up: Yay spocko! Yay lefty blogosphere! Fuck KSFO! Fuck Disney! Fuck 1&1!

Oh, and a pre-emptive fuck-you to KSFO/Disney professional troll "blogicalthought." I don't typically delete troll comments, but I'll delete yours - if your masters don't want to let spocko have his say, I don't see why I should let you have yours. And before you start blathering about how he's trying to suppress KSFO's "freedom of speech," I'll just point out that there's a big difference between informing advertisers of what they're paying for, vs. actually silencing someone through legal action and plug-pulling. So bite me.

Eli's Obsession With The Google

2007-01-06T14:08:00.000-05:00

Heh. #1 search result for does this look weird.

Also, #2 result for japanese potty training commercial the soup.

Merry Christmas, Army Style

2007-01-06T13:45:00.000-05:00

Well, this is just lovely...

The Army said yesterday it would apologize to the families of about 275 officers killed or wounded in action who were mistakenly sent letters urging them to return to active duty.
The letters were sent a few days after Christmas to more than 5,100 Army officers who had recently left the service. Included were letters to about 75 officers killed in action and about 200 wounded in action. The 75 represent more than one-third of all Army officers who have died in Iraq since the war began.
"Army personnel officials are contacting those officers' families now to personally apologize for erroneously sending the letters," the Army said.

I suppose it was inevitable that they would get desperate enough to start recalling dead people, especially now that we're on the verge of a surge.

Canopy MADNESS!!!

2007-01-05T22:02:00.000-05:00

All canopies, all the time.

Theoretically, this should work better as B&W, but for some reason I prefer it in color.

We mean no harm to your people...

Okay, not really a canopy pic, but you can kind of see the corner of one. I liked the abandoned, end-of-the-world vibe.

Note the bird on the post.

Eli's Obsession With The Google

2007-01-05T18:16:00.000-05:00

#1 search result for meet ass, and just outside of the first page of search results for Kenosha prostitute.

Awesome.

Meet The Surgin' General

2007-01-05T16:23:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know I'm not the first one to think of it, which means it's inevitable that it will become this poor sucker's nickname.

Also, can any military experts tell me if I should read anything into the fact that Petraeus is a Lt. General and not a full one? I.e., that Bush couldn't find anyone higher-ranking willing to be associated with this mess?

Quote Of The Day

2007-01-05T15:05:00.000-05:00

...Two days ago.

It's a dangerous sign when politically ailing sitting presidents read biographies of Harry Truman, as Bush has apparently been doing for a while. It's like failing artists who take solace from the fact that van Gogh didn't sell many paintings in his lifetime either. Maybe they'll end up like van Gogh, too, appreciated years later. Then again, maybe they're just lousy artists.

(Hat-tip to Howie)

Another Rat Overboard

2007-01-05T14:19:00.000-05:00

When you've lost Krauthammer...

Of the 6 billion people on this Earth, not one killed more people than Saddam Hussein. And not just killed but tortured and mutilated -- doing so often with his own hands and for pleasure. It is quite a distinction to be the preeminent monster on the planet. If the death penalty was ever deserved, no one was more richly deserving than Saddam Hussein.

For the Iraqi government to have botched both his trial and execution, therefore, and turned monster into victim, is not just a tragedy but a crime -- against the new Iraq that Americans are dying for and against justice itself. [This is totally not hyperbolic at all, nope.]

(...)

The execution [was] a rushed, botched, unholy mess that exposed the hopelessly sectarian nature of the Maliki government.

Consider the timing. It was carried out on a religious holiday. We would not ordinarily care about this[!], except for the fact that it was in contravention of Iraqi law. It was done on the first day of Eid al-Adha as celebrated by Sunnis. The Shiite Eid began the next day, which tells you in whose name the execution was performed.

It was also carried out extra-constitutionally. The constitution requires a death sentence to have the signature of the president and two vice presidents, each representing one of the three major ethnic groups in the country (Sunni, Shiite and Kurd). That provision is meant to prevent sectarian killings. The president did not sign. Nouri al-Maliki contrived some work-around. [Probably a signing statement.]

(...)

Maliki's rush to execute short-circuited the judicial process that was at the time considering Hussein's crimes against the Kurds. He was hanged for the killing of 148 men and boys in the Shiite village of Dujail. This was a perfectly good starting point -- a specific incident as a prelude to an inquiry into the larger canvas of his crimes. The trial for his genocidal campaign against the Kurds was just beginning.

That larger canvas will never be painted. The starting point became the endpoint. The only charge for which Hussein was executed was that 1982 killing of Shiites....

...Saddam Hussein will now never be tried for the Kurdish genocide, the decimation of the Marsh Arabs, the multiple war crimes and all the rest.

Finally, there was the motley crew -- handpicked by the government -- that constituted the hanging party. They turned what was an act of national justice into a scene of sectarian vengeance. The world has now seen the smuggled video of the shouting and taunting that turned Saddam Hussein into the most dignified figure in the room -- another remarkable achievement in burnishing the image of the most evil man of his time.

Worse was the content of the taunts: "Moqtada, Moqtada," the name of the radical and murderous Shiite extremist whose goons were obviously in the chamber. The world saw Hussein falling through the trapdoor, executed not in the name of a new and democratic Iraq but in the name of Moqtada al-Sadr, whose death squads have learned much from Hussein.

The whole sorry affair illustrates not just incompetence but also the ingrained intolerance and sectarianism of the Maliki government. It stands for Shiite unity and Shiite dominance above all else.

We should not be surging American troops in defense of such a government. This governing coalition -- Maliki's Dawa, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Sadr's Mahdi Army -- seems intent on crushing the Sunnis at all costs. Maliki should be made to know that if he insists on having this sectarian war, he can well have it without us.

Seriously, for Chuck Krauthammer not to be happy about Saddam's execution... it's like they fucked up Christmas.

And he's not down with Operation Surge And Awe either. Forget more troops - what Dubya really needs is more Kool-Aid.

MMMOOOOOMMM, He's Doing It Again!

2007-01-05T12:26:00.000-05:00

Every time, every single goddamn time Bush nominates someone, there's always this exact same picture of him standing behind them with this creepy, smug, possessive, almost speculative look on his face, like he's thinking, "Oh yeah, that's mine, all mine. I wonder what he (or she)'s like in the sack."

Gah. Gives me the right bloody creeps, it does.

(Photo credit: Doug Miller, NYT)

Who's Tough On Terror Now?

2007-01-05T09:11:00.000-05:00

Bad news for Republicans:

Capitalizing on their newfound political momentum, House Democrats are expected to submit a legislative package Friday that would bolster funding to regions at highest risk of terror attack like New York and provide more money for first responders.

Doing an end-run around the normal committee process, Democrats say they will force an up-or-down vote on the floor Tuesday, to fulfill their promise to pass the outstanding recommendations from the 9/11 Commission in their first 100 hours.

Among other things, the package sets timetables for more rigorous screening of air and ship cargo. It would also strengthen efforts to curb proliferation of materials that could be used to build nuclear weapons or "dirty" bombs, and would prohibit aid to countries that do not cooperate.

"Under Democratic leadership, the House is now taking long-overdue steps to close the dangerous air cargo security loophole that has left airline passengers and crew members vulnerable to another deadly terrorist attack," said Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Homeland Security Committee. "We are also going to plug the wide open loophole through which thousands of containers are arriving in U.S. ports without first being screened overseas."

So much for the bogus Republican narrative that Democrats are weak on terror. Hopefully the Democrats will do a good job of pointing out how they're the ones taking real action while the Republicans just posture and take away civil liberties.

I dare the Republicans to try to shoot this down - there's no bigger gift they could give the Democrats. I guess they could carp that it doesn't go far enough, but what would that say about them that they didn't go as far in six years as the Democrats went in six days?

More likely that they'll try to hog all the credit for it, saying it just expands on the groundwork they laid down, and that they created the atmosphere for serious thinkage about such things, and that they would have proposed the exact same thing if they had retained control of Congress. I'm sure the media would willingly go along, and we'd see a whole bunch of tsk-tsk-y op-eds about how unseemly it is for the Democrats to take credit for riding on the Republicans' bold and resolute coattails.

The story saves the best for last, though:

The Republican minority, meanwhile, is chafing at the Democrats' attempt to bypass the normal committee process.

"To legislate all of this in one afternoon or one evening, when no one in the House will know the nuances, trivializes the importance of the issues," said Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and now its ranking Republican.

Yes, you heard that right - the Republicans are whining about anti-terror legislation being rammed through without giving anyone time to review it. Delicious.

Friday Quote & Cat Blogging

2007-01-05T07:38:00.000-05:00

This week's quote is from the Wim Wenders classic Paris, Texas, starring Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell, and Nastassja Kinski:

To be a rich father, you must look at the sky, never at the ground.

And, of course, there'll be other people's cats...

No eat shadowy and mysterious Codename V!

The shadowy and mysterious Codename B. is all about the play-biting. Very cute.

B&W NYC Photoblogging

2007-01-05T00:04:00.000-05:00

More from NYC.

Happiness runs in a circular motion...

Close-up of a semi-abstract sculpture of an apple.

Some sort of pavilion-y, canopy-y kind of thing.

And an entirely different canopy.

Um.

2007-01-04T23:46:00.000-05:00

Underwater hockey.

Why?

Okay, Now I KNOW They're Lying

2007-01-04T16:02:00.000-05:00

Today's NYT:

The White House declined Wednesday to criticize the conduct of the execution of Saddam Hussein, even as State Department officials and military leaders in Baghdad raised questions about the timing of the hanging and the way the condemned dictator was taunted by Shiite guards as he stood on the gallows.

Spokesmen for President Bush said he had not seen the video of the execution Saturday, and Mr. Bush himself refused to answer questions about it. Appearing in the Rose Garden with his cabinet to talk about a balanced budget, the president turned his back and walked away when a reporter called out to ask whether he believed that the hanging had been handled appropriately.

Seriously, does anyone expect us to believe Dubya didn't watch the execution he's been obsessing over for the last 15+ years? Give me a break. He watched it over and over again in big-screen, hi-def slo-mo, snarfing down pretzels and pork rinds and whooping it up with his mouth full.

The circumstances surrounding the hanging have prompted public demonstrations among Mr. Hussein’s Sunni loyalists in Iraq and outrage around the world. Yet, while Bush administration officials said in quiet background conversations that they agreed that the execution was bungled, the White House insisted in public on Wednesday that the president was concentrating on the future of Iraq and that he was content to leave the investigation to the Iraqis.

“The most important thing to keep in mind is, this is a guy who killed hundreds of thousands of people and received justice,” said Tony Snow, the White House press secretary. Mr. Snow said too much attention had been paid to “the last two minutes” of Mr. Hussein’s life and not enough to the previous 69 years.

Um, Mr. Tony? I think you may be missing the point just a wee tiny bit. This is about the legitimacy and credibility of both the American and Iraqi governments. When the highest-possible-profile execution is carried out in an unprofessional, sectarian manner by a ski-masked death squad, it sends the worst possible message to the Sunni Islamic world, and indeed to everyone who is not a Shi'ite extremist.

Not only that, but as others have noted, the spectacle achieved the impossible by making Saddam look almost noble. When the condemned is orders of magnitude more dignified than the executioners (or the witnesses), you have an image problem.

"Surge" Purged?

2007-01-04T15:35:00.000-05:00

From McClatchy, by way of The All-Seeing Eye Of Froomkin:

President Bush plans to order extra U.S. troops to Iraq as part of a new push to secure Baghdad, but in smaller numbers than previously reported, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

The president, who is completing a lengthy review of Iraq policy, is considering dispatching three to four U.S. combat brigades to Iraq, or no more than 15,000 to 20,000 U.S. troops, the officials said. Bush is expected to announce his decision next week.

(...)

"Instead of a surge, it is a bump," said a State Department official. He spoke on condition of anonymity, because Bush hasn't yet unveiled details of what the White House is calling a "new way forward" in Iraq.

Bush had been considering proposals to send a much larger contingent into Baghdad - as many as 30,000 to 40,000 soldiers and Marines.

I give it a day or two before they deny having ever considered a "surge".

Only problem is, any tabloid or gossip reader (not me!) can tell you that "bump" is just not very manly. Might I humbly suggest calling it "The Bulge", or maybe "The Package"?

More Keith Ellison!

2007-01-04T14:03:00.000-05:00

Would it be churlish and uncivil of me to note that Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison sounds a helluva lot more Christian than all the so-called Christians of the Right?

Somewhere in Minneapolis or Jackson or Baltimore, somewhere in America today, there is a young couple that is feeling vulnerable. Maybe one has been laid off due to outsourcing, and maybe, the other is working for something close to a minimum wage. They probably have no medical benefits. Today real income is lower for the typical family than in 2000, while the incomes of the wealthiest families have grown significantly. Things are tough for working people, but in America, we often turn to our faith in tough times.

When our couple shows up for worship service, probably on a Sunday, there is no doubt that the preacher will tell them of God’s unyielding love. “God loves you.” But the next thing the preacher tells them is crucial - not only to the young couple, but to us all. The next message from the preacher may help to shape, not only the next election results, but the political landscape of the nation.

Will the preacher tell our young couple, “God loves you – but only you and people like you?” Or will the preacher say “God loves you and you must love your neighbors of all colors, cultures, or faiths as yourselves”? One message will lead to be a stinginess of spirit, an exclusion of the “undeserving”, and the other will lead to a generosity of spirit and inclusion of all.

In America today, we are encouraged to believe in the myth of scarcity - that there just isn't enough - of anything. But in the story of the miracle of the loaves and fishes, Jesus, who the Muslims call Isa, found himself preaching to 5000 (not including the women by the way) at dinner time, and there didn’t appear to be enough food. The disciples said that there were only five barley loaves and two fish. We just have to send them away hungry. We simply don't have enough. But Jesus took the loaves and the fish and started sharing food. There was enough for everyone. There was more than enough. What was perceived as scarcity was illusory as long as there was sharing, and not hoarding.

(...)

If scarcity is a myth, then poverty is not necessary. America need not have 37 million Americans living below the poverty line. It is a choice. Hunger is a choice. Exclusion of the stranger, the immigrant, or the darker other is a choice.

We can choose generosity.

(...)

We live in a society which says that there is enough for a tax break for the wealthy but not enough for an increase in the minimum wage or for national health care. There is enough for subsidies to oil and coal companies but not for families who are struggling to afford child care or a college education. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

We need a politics of generosity based on the reality of abundance as opposed to a politics of not-enough. The richest 1 percent of the nation, on average, owns 190 times as much as a typical household. The child poverty rate in the United States is the highest of 16 other industrialized nations. Employers are shifting health insurance costs onto workers. Not only are fewer employees receiving health insurance through their employers, but those who still do are paying more for it.

Recently, I have become the focus of some criticism for my use of the Qu'ran for my ceremonial swearing in. Let me be clear, I am going to be sworn into office like all members of Congress. I am going to swear to uphold the United States Constitution. We seem to have lost the political vision of our founding document -- a vision of inclusion, tolerance and generosity.

I'm not sure it's quite as simple or easy as Mr. Ellison says, but I have no doubt that we can and should be doing a lot more than we're doing now. The passage I bolded is an excellent example of the Republicans' skewed priorities, and what they choose to squander this country's abundance on. And that's without even mentioning the ongoing cost of the war and occupation in Iraq, which is probably enough to wipe out poverty all by itself.

But I guess since he's a Muslim, our Christian nation doesn't have to listen to him. Hell, I'm sure I'm objectively pro-terrorist just for saying "What the Muslim said!" Oh well, I'm sure it wouldn't be the first time.

UPDATE: There's quite the lively debate in the comments after Ellison's piece. There are some truly creepy xenophobes and bigots there (as well as some I-got-mine-fuck-you conservatarians), but they're getting their asses kicked pretty handily by the sane people.

Media Notes: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

2007-01-04T11:33:00.000-05:00

Kind of an up-and-down day for Howie...

The Good:

One of the perks of being president--a Republican president, at least--is that, besides a nice white mansion with a chef and your very own armed forces, you get to write for the Wall Street Journal op-ed page.

(...)

And what issue has the president decided to put his muscle behind? Let's examine the words of George W. Bush:

"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....

"...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."

Let me get this straight. After six years of a Republican Congress earmarking truckloads of pork for home districts, much of it for Bridge-to-Nowhere projects, Bush has suddenly decided--the day before the Democrats take control--that earmarking is an outrage?

How convenient.

It's still a good idea to make it harder for lawmakers to slip costly goodies into bills. But when has Bush exhibited much concern for the inner workings of Congress? Whenever he's been asked about the Foley scandal or Tom DeLay's problems, the White House line has always been, that's a congressional matter.

I think narrative is the key here. Not only does this approach gloss over the failings of the Republican Congress, but it also reinforces the "tax-and-spend liberals" meme. Republicans didn't need controls on their spending, because they're Fiscally Disciplined Small-Government Grown-Ups who would only spend your hard-earned tax dollars on inportant things like fighting Terror or stimulating the economy. Democrats, on the other hand, are like spoiled little children who want to spend money on every shiny little trinket dangled in front of them, and must be reined in by their Wise Daddy. To admit that Republicans are the ones throwing money away would blow this story all to hell.

The Bad:

I'm not linking to this Glenn Reynolds post because he mentions me saying that many journalists now admit they misjudged Jerry Ford three decades ago. (Well, maybe a little.) But he makes a point that is starting to get some online traction:

"They said nice things about Reagan after he died, too, despite hating him in office, and they're already gearing up to do the same thing with George H.W. Bush, who was treated quite unfairly during his term. It's as if the only good Republican President is a dead Republican President."

Aarrgghh. The stupid, it burns me.

The Ugly:
(I can't really blame Howie for this, he's just the messenger)

Finally, I got an NBC press release about Matt Lauer's 10th anniversary that contained this sentence:
"On Friday, 'Today' will take a look back at the highlights of Lauer's ten-year career as co-anchor including his big-name, newsmaker interviews with President George W. Bush, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Amber Frey."

Amber Frey? Scott Peterson's ex-mistress? Does she really belong in such august company?

Oy.

If Only She Were 10 Years Older...

2007-01-04T10:39:00.000-05:00

President Bush has certainly set the bar almost impossibly high for just the right mix of pampered, petulant self-absorption and blithe incompetence, which naturally gives me much cause for concern that we will be able to find a suitable successor who would not be a fatal shock to the American system.

After an extensive search process, I believe I may have located an ideal replacement:

Two nightclubs known as Club Paris will no longer be associated with their namesake -- Paris Hilton, according to the club's owner.

Fred Khalilian said he "fired" the hotel heiress because she has failed to attend scheduled appearances at the location in downtown Orlando. The troubles started two years ago when Hilton showed up six hours late for the grand opening, Khalilian said.
"She's created a circus for herself," he said. "It's all about: How has she screwed up now?"

Khalilian does not want to change the name of the Orlando club, or one opened in Jacksonville last year, because he said the name is so well known. Instead of Club Paris representing Hilton, it will stand for the city, Khalilian said.

She's perfect! The country wouldn't even miss a beat! She even carries a little dog around with her!

Sadly, she does not meet the minimum age requirement to run for president, so a Constitutional amendment may be required.

Hey, how old is K-Fed?

ALL Your Communications Are Belong To Us

2007-01-04T07:43:00.000-05:00

The Bush administration apparently realizes they missed a spot:

President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.
The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.
That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.
Bush's move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise.
"Despite the President's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.
Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail.
"The [Bush] signing statement claims authority to open domestic mail without a warrant, and that would be new and quite alarming," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington.
"The danger is they're reading Americans' mail," she said.
"You have to be concerned," agreed a career senior U.S. official who reviewed the legal underpinnings of Bush's claim. "It takes Executive Branch authority beyond anything we've ever known."
A top Senate Intelligence Committee aide promised, "It's something we're going to look into."
Most of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act deals with mundane reform measures. But it also explicitly reinforced protections of first-class mail from searches without a court's approval.
Yet in his statement Bush said he will "construe" an exception, "which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection in a manner consistent ... with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances."
Bush cited as examples the need to "protect human life and safety against hazardous materials and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection."
White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore denied Bush was claiming any new authority.
"In certain circumstances - such as with the proverbial 'ticking bomb' - the Constitution does not require warrants for reasonable searches," she said.
Bush, however, cited "exigent circumstances" which could refer to an imminent danger or a longstanding state of emergency.
Critics point out the administration could quickly get a warrant from a criminal court or a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge to search targeted mail, and the Postal Service could block delivery in the meantime.
But the Bush White House appears to be taking no chances on a judge saying no while a terror attack is looming, national security experts agreed.
Martin said that Bush is "using the same legal reasoning to justify warrantless opening of domestic mail" as he did with warrantless eavesdropping.

Arrrgh. There they go again. Bush apparently can't stand the thought that someone, somewhere might be saying something he doesn't know about. And our descent towards police-state totalitarianism just gets steeper and creepier.

In my happy fantasy dream world, the president's authority to make signing statements is repudiated by the Supreme Court, and the president is then impeached and convicted for his multiple violations of the laws he tried to exempt himself from. I'm also filthy rich, invulnerable, and irresistible to women.

UPDATE/ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS:

o Snail mail seems a bit inconsistent with the "ticking time bomb" scenario, no? Not inconceivable, but pretty unlikely.

o I didn't see any mention of the eavesdropping being limited to mail to or from a foreign country - indeed, all the references were to "domestic mail," so the scope is a lot broader than what the administration claims to be doing with regard to wiretapping.

o As an NYT op-ed or LTE pointed out a while back, if there aren't enough translators to handle the volume of mail and phone conversations to be spied on, then this is transparently not about preventing terrorism, unless the Bushies are stupid enough to think that Arab-speaking terrorists would talk to each other in English for our convenience (okay, I'll concede that one).

o I would like to add the following to my happy fantasy dream world: A professional-quality 20-megapixel thought-controlled eye camera, with a zoom lens that can instantly go from ultra-wide fisheye to ultrasupermegazoom (so much for wearing glasses). Also, it would have to be wireless so I wouldn't have to stick USB cables up my nose.

Mostly Color NYC Photoblogging

2007-01-03T21:56:00.000-05:00

Grr... I waste a whole buncha time rambling on about why I suck at nature photography, and Picasa/Blogger eats it. Wankers.

I'll sum up, 'cuz I'm impatient and cranky now, plus it'll probably get eaten again:

Basically, there are two primary dimensions I look at in selecting a photo subject: Content (coolness, weirdness, beauty, etc.) and Composition (forms, shapes, and how well they fit into my framing sensibility). As anyone who has gone on photo walkabout with me can tell you, Content is optional for me - I'm a Seinfeld photographer, I take pictures of nothin'. And when I do point my camera at something interesting and hope Content is enough to carry the picture... it usually isn't.

When it comes to nature, for me it's heavy on Content and light on Composition: Lots of beauty that I just can't find a way to frame. Charley observed that my compositional style tends to be geometrical, which I think is pretty accurate. Nature certainly can be geometrical, but usually isn't, and I haven't been able to adapt my compositional style accordingly.

Alternatively, it could just be that I'm a thoroughly urban creature, or that I haven't found the right kind of nature yet. I'll keep trying.

It was a lot smoother and coherenter the first time, but oh well. You get the general idea.

I was tracking the seagull, and somehow managed to get something reasonably not-bad-looking. Or maybe the seagull flew into the shot, except that I don't have, like, five shots of the exact same thing...

Pylons! I took a whole bunch of photos of these. Doesn't necessarily mean I'll post all of 'em...

No shit.

Early stage in the life cycle of the Northern American Bagpipe.

This is actually an excellent example of Content over Composition (not to mention photo processing). The photo completely sucks, but I was tickled by the resemblance...

The End Times Are Here

2007-01-03T21:41:00.000-05:00

I just saw a promo for a CBS reality show called Armed & Famous, where Erik Estrada, Wee-Man, Jack Osbourne, La Toya Jackson, and some female wrestler are trained as cops.

We're all doomed.

Balance

2007-01-03T18:10:00.000-05:00

(This is apparently over a week old, but hey, it's new to me...)

By way of The All-Seeing Eye Of Froomkin, Jane Smiley calls for a fairer, more nuanced view of our 43rd President:

People always comment on how stubborn George W. Bush is, or how stupid he is, or how ignorant he is, but what they don't comment on is how selfish he is.

She makes an excellent point. I find it very difficult to argue with her on this one.

Froomkin also has an excellent rundown of all the occasions on which Bush has invoked formerly-not-under-the-bus General George Casey to defend his Iraq strategery.

What The.

2007-01-03T12:07:00.000-05:00

WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH RICHARD COHEN???

And can you be persuaded to keep him?

Muslim-Jitsu

2007-01-03T11:23:00.000-05:00

This is just... magnificent:

Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, found himself under attack last month when he announced he'd take his oath of office on the Koran -- especially from Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode, who called it a threat to American values.

Yet the holy book at tomorrow's ceremony has an unassailably all-American provenance. We've learned that the new congressman -- in a savvy bit of political symbolism -- will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

"He wanted to use a Koran that was special," said Mark Dimunation, chief of the rare book and special collections division at the Library of Congress, who was contacted by the Minnesota Dem early in December....

Jefferson's copy is an English translation by George Sale published in the 1750s; it survived the 1851 fire that destroyed most of Jefferson's collection and has his customary initialing on the pages. This isn't the first historic book used for swearing-in ceremonies -- the Library has allowed VIPs to use rare Bibles for inaugurations and other special occasions.

Ellison will take the official oath of office along with the other incoming members in the House chamber, then use the Koran in his individual, ceremonial oath with new Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "Keith is paying respect not only to the founding fathers' belief in religious freedom but the Constitution itself," said Ellison spokesman Rick Jauert.

This is an absolutely brilliant use of political symbolism - good luck trying to paint someone as an unpatriotic terrorist infiltraitor when they're sworn in on Thomas Jefferson's Koran.

Good on ya, and Goode off ya, Mr. Ellison.

(P.S. Am I the only one who finds himself wondering if Jefferson's Koran has all references to Allah excised from it?)

Wednesday Why-I-Love-The-Weekly-World-News Blogging

2007-01-03T07:24:00.000-05:00

Nature is the true mother of invention:

Birds inspired the airplane and rabbits' ears helped designers improve TV reception. Now, a new study from biologist Carl Navrin reveals a host of little-known animal species responsible for the best ideas of other human inventors.

"Perhaps the most impressive of these is the telepigeon, which combines the species' messenger abilities with a unique flair for visual mimicry and clearly inspired the invention of the TV," Navrin said.

"The birds can rearrange the pigments in their plumage -- tinting themselves blue, for example, to indicate impending rain, or mimicking the color patterns of a predator to relate a daring escape to nestmates."

Navrin recently discovered the remains of a telepigeon nest above John Logie Baird's London laboratory, the origin of history's first live video broadcast.

Across the Channel from Baird's telepigeon roost, a French bird known as the Croquinole alters its plumage in an even more surprising way.

"These creatures munch berries into an acidic paste," Navrin said. "When secreted over a nestmate's head, the acid dissolves disulfide bonds in the birds' plumage. This creates body, shine, and a permanent curl useful for attracting mates."

Wigmakers and hairstylists hunted Croquinoles for their paste throughout the Nineteenth Century, until the invention of the chemical perm in 1906.

Navrin has also studied the mating habits of a scaly, silver pufferfish able to rotate, capture sunlight, and spread it around the dark sea-bottom in search of females.

"The sparkly puffers were often stuffed and hung in German nightclubs during the 1920s, until a cheaper glass version of the fish, called the Mirrorball, or Discoball, became available."

The biologist's latest discovery is the rare Clay's Cottontail, which produces the smallest newborns of all rabbit species, as well as the largest ears.

"The young nest inside the ears of the oldest adults at the sight of an approaching predator, such as a raccoon," Navrin said. "There, they repeat the sounds of the intruder so the hard-of-hearing adult will know what's going on.

"When a Clay's Cottontail kitten accidentally crawled into the ear of an electrical engineer in 1959, the animal gave him partial deafness--as well as the inspiration to cure it," Navrin explained. "The first in-the-ear hearing aid reached the market one year after the incident."

But humans can still take pride in some of their innovations. "We haven't yet found a species that inspired the lawsuit," Navrin said.

"We came up with that beauty all by ourselves."

The disco-ball fish is Teh Awesome.

Time-Delayed Christmas Photoblogging

2007-01-02T22:47:00.000-05:00

Okay, this is pretty much the last of the pre-NYC pics, other than a great photo of my little sis that would probably get me skinned alive if I posted it.

Cozy!

Top-down view of a nativity scene with a candle fan, turned by hot air from the candles.

Crazy chandelier shadows.

Even crazier chandelier shadows. I debated on whether or not to post two photos so similar, but I like the composition of the first one, and the abstract wildness of the second one.

Groceryblogging

2007-01-02T18:13:00.000-05:00

Necessarily brief, as I am typing this on the bus with one thumb while my other hand holds onto my groceries:

As I attained my bus stop for my return voyage and turned to search for my bus, what should I see but a great big Trader Joe's logo, no more than fifty feet away.

I know TJ's is kind of a big deal to a lot of people, so can anyone give me some recommendations of what I should check ouy in order to get the full, glorious effect?

Much obliged in advanceowmythumb.

Very Sane, Well-Adjusted Cows

2007-01-02T15:35:00.000-05:00

Prii-ii-ii-ii-on over yooouuu...

Scientists have genetically engineered a dozen cows to be free from the proteins that cause mad cow disease, a breakthrough that may make the animals immune to the brain-wasting disease.

An international team of researchers from the U.S. and Japan reported Sunday that they had "knocked out" the gene responsible for making the proteins, called prions. The disease didn't take hold when brain tissue from two of the genetically engineered cows was exposed to bad prions in the laboratory, they said.

(...)

The research published in the online journal Nature Biotechnology could be used as a tool that would help researchers better understand similar brain-wasting diseases in humans, Glenn and others said.

Scientists are still mystified by the biological purposes of normal prions, which humans also produce. But they believe that even one prion going bad can set off the always fatal and painful brain disease -- known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.

(...)

In the lab, Robl and his colleagues, who included a scientist from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, scraped skin cells from cows and "turned off" the gene that makes prions.
Then, using those cells as a "starter kit," they produced 12 calves through cloning processes -- the fusing of the cells into the eggs of cows....

(...)

But Hematech isn't much interested in producing serum for scientists and has no plans to become a beef producer.

Instead, the company is genetically engineering cows to produce antibiotics and other medicines for people.

The company embarked on the mad cow disease project five years ago to ensure it could produce medicines that were free from the brain-wasting disease. BSE is caused when one misshapen prion prompts normal prions to turn bad, slowly boring lesions in the brain and making infected animals go mad.

(...)

At least 180 people worldwide have died after eating meat infected with mad cow disease in the last two decades. Symptoms can take years to develop.

But scientists are certain the brain-wasting diseases are caused by the misshapen prions, one of the most mystifying particles in biology. No one knows the function of normal prions and the research published Sunday suggests the proteins have little value.

All the prion-free cows the research team created were born healthy, although Robl noted that since they are only two years old they will have to be watched to see if the lack of prions has any future health effects.

"It furthers the mystery of prions, for sure," Robl said.

I'm not sure what I find more intriguing: That mad cow disease can possibly be genetically engineered away, or the other aspect of this experiment - what happens to an animal that can't produce prions? If they do in fact serve some hitherto unknown function, this may be the only way to find out. I just hope the whole process isn't too cruel - I didn't get the impression that Hematech places much of a premium on humane treatment...

Free Will-y

2007-01-02T12:10:00.000-05:00

NYT tackles the age-old question: Do We Have Free Will?

As William James wrote in 1890, the whole “sting and excitement” of life comes from “our sense that in it things are really being decided from one moment to another, and that it is not the dull rattling off of a chain that was forged innumerable ages ago.” Get over it, Dr. James. Go get yourself fitted for a new chain-mail vest. A bevy of experiments in recent years suggest that the conscious mind is like a monkey riding a tiger of subconscious decisions and actions in progress, frantically making up stories about being in control.
As a result, physicists, neuroscientists and computer scientists have joined the heirs of Plato and Aristotle in arguing about what free will is, whether we have it, and if not, why we ever thought we did in the first place.
(...)
Mark Hallett, a researcher with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, said, “Free will does exist, but it’s a perception, not a power or a driving force. People experience free will. They have the sense they are free.
“The more you scrutinize it, the more you realize you don’t have it,” he said.
(...)

The traditional definition is called “libertarian” or “deep” free will. It holds that humans are free moral agents whose actions are not predetermined. This school of thought says in effect that the whole chain of cause and effect in the history of the universe stops dead in its tracks as you ponder the dessert menu.
At that point, anything is possible. Whatever choice you make is unforced and could have been otherwise, but it is not random. You are responsible for any damage to your pocketbook and your arteries.
“That strikes many people as incoherent,” said Dr. Silberstein, who noted that every physical system that has been investigated has turned out to be either deterministic or random. “Both are bad news for free will,” he said. So if human actions can’t be caused and aren’t random, he said, “It must be — what — some weird magical power?”
(...)
In the 1970s, Benjamin Libet, a physiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, wired up the brains of volunteers to an electroencephalogram and told the volunteers to make random motions, like pressing a button or flicking a finger, while he noted the time on a clock.
Dr. Libet found that brain signals associated with these actions occurred half a second before the subject was conscious of deciding to make them.
The order of brain activities seemed to be perception of motion, and then decision, rather than the other way around.
In short, the conscious brain was only playing catch-up to what the unconscious brain was already doing. The decision to act was an illusion, the monkey making up a story about what the tiger had already done.
(...)
Naturally, almost everyone has a slant on such experiments and whether or not the word “illusion” should be used in describing free will. Dr. Libet said his results left room for a limited version of free will in the form of a veto power over what we sense ourselves doing. In effect, the unconscious brain proposes and the mind disposes.
(...)
The belief that the traditional intuitive notion of a free will divorced from causality is inflated, metaphysical nonsense, Dr. Dennett says reflecting an outdated dualistic view of the world.
Rather, Dr. Dennett argues, it is precisely our immersion in causality and the material world that frees us. Evolution, history and culture, he explains, have endowed us with feedback systems that give us the unique ability to reflect and think things over and to imagine the future. Free will and determinism can co-exist.
“All the varieties of free will worth having, we have,” Dr. Dennett said.
“We have the power to veto our urges and then to veto our vetoes,” he said. “We have the power of imagination, to see and imagine futures.”
In this regard, causality is not our enemy but our friend, giving us the ability to look ahead and plan. “That’s what makes us moral agents,” Dr. Dennett said. “You don’t need a miracle to have responsibility.”
Other philosophers disagree on the degree and nature of such “freedom.” Their arguments partly turn on the extent to which collections of things, whether electrons or people, can transcend their origins and produce novel phenomena.
These so-called emergent phenomena, like brains and stock markets, or the idea of democracy, grow naturally in accordance with the laws of physics, so the story goes.... A knowledge of quarks is no help in predicting hurricanes — it’s physics all the way down. But does the same apply to the stock market or to the brain? Are the rules elusive just because we can’t solve the equations or because something fundamentally new happens when we increase numbers and levels of complexity?

I know I'm waaaay out of my depth here, but I find this last explanation the most satisfying, and not just because it gives me some degree of free will (yippee!). My reading of it is that free will is a form of, or a result of, complexity - the outcome of stimuli funnelled through all the baggage and impulses and decision processes of each individual's personality. It's possible that it's not truly random, but it's so close to it that it might as well be - and the conscious mind is not cut out of the loop.

And that's the problem I have with the monkey-on-a-tiger analogy (much as I like monkeys) - it's simply too mechanistic and autonomic. I'm sure there are people who act solely on basic animal instinct and then rationalize lofty and noble reasons behind their actions (i.e., Republicans), but people in general are capable of more, and many in fact dedicate themselves to various forms of self-denial where they steadfastly refuse to yield to their base instincts. Any conception of free will needs to make very generous allowances for self-control and individual codes of behavior.

My all-time favorite "solution" to the problem of free will in a mechanistic universe was that of Liebniz, who posited that the physical and mental universes were separate but synchronized, so that all your preprogrammed thoughts and sensations would unfold at the exact same time that the physical universe provided their cues. In other words, your mind would be set to experience pain at 11:25:13.71 AM next Monday, at the precise instant that the physical universe would give you a paper cut.

Which brings me to a more basic question: Why exactly is free will a "problem" in the first place? What's wrong with the universe unfolding randomly? Why should human reactions be as simple and predictable as those of mindless physical objects? Why shouldn't the human mind be an independent actor as the universe plays out?

Pre-Christmas Flashback Blogging

2007-01-02T07:28:00.000-05:00

Some appetizers before I get to the NYC main course...

Sunset from the plane to NJ.

More advanced sunset.

Christmas candles.