And The Award For "Clunkiest Metaphor Of The Week" Goes To...

Tom Friedman, of course. Don't trip over it on your way to the podium, Tom!

Every time I visit India, Indians always ask me to compare India with China. Lately, I have responded like this: If India and China were both highways, the Chinese highway would be a six-lane, perfectly paved road, but with a huge speed bump off in the distance labeled "Political reform: how in the world do we get from Communism to a more open society?" When 1.3 billion people going 80 miles an hour hit a speed bump, one of two things happens: Either the car flies into the air and slams down, and all the parts hold together and it keeps on moving - or the car flies into the air, slams down and all the wheels fall off. Which it will be with China, I don't know.

Wait... I thought the world was supposed to be flat? I'm so confused now. Also, wouldn't you really need a minivan or an SUV or something for that many people? Even so, I think you'd have a lot of people sitting on laps, and that's terribly unsafe.

People will pay money for this?

Flower For Eschaton

One last thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday, Atriots and non-Atriots alike. I'm not a sappy person by nature, but I was touched and a bit amazed by all the well-wishers and kind words. The internets can truly be a wonderful place, when inhabited by the right people. Thank you all for making me feel so welcome.

Birthday Toy Postmortem

Seven PS2 games from half.com for under $100 (um, total, not each), $37 of which is God Of War.

Not bad, not bad at all.

Vicarious Spamblogging

I haven't done any spam blogging in a while, although I do have some samples in cold storage. But one of my coworkers was kind enough to share some of his spam with me, and it's a doozy.

Subject: Re: 25 mg did the tricck

Preview text:

Hello, Myself, I have the honour to be Irish, sir. My name is Bloodhis lordship's, and stood squarely before him. The medical skill of Bridgetown was summoned to their aid. PeterEngland? Oh, and there's more to it than that, even. D'ye thinknegroes,...

What? What??? Do I think Negroes what? Dude, don't leave me hanging like that! And what kind of name is "Bloodhis lordship's"? Is that really Irish? Oh well, I'm sure it'll be continued in the main e-mail itself, and all will be made clear. Let's just see here...

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P.S. Try us and you will not be disappointednecessary to bribe a gang of scoundrels to depart from obedience!

Hmm... Did you notice the overwrought period novel subliminally hidden in the words "PharmacyByMail", "VIAGRA", "CIALIS", "VALIUM", and "LEVITRA"? It's pretty subtle, so I have cunningly used italics to make it easier to spot.

I need to start working "you will not be disappointednecessary to bribe a gang of scoundrels to depart from obedience!" into my everyday conversation...

Cue watertiger to taunt me with goofy spam names. I shake my fist pre-emptively at your aunties.

Ideological Purity Gone Wild

The Republicans are eating their own again...

Sam Brownback (R-Dobsonia) has placed a hold on Bush's nomination of Julie Finley to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe... because she's pro-choice.

As WaPo observes,

Mrs. Finley's opinions on abortion, whatever they may be, have nothing whatsoever to do with European security and democracy, peacekeeping in Chechnya, or the enforcement of arms control treaties, the main issues of concern to the OSCE.

A standup comic once claimed that Keith Richards' role in the Rolling Stones was to make Mick Jagger look healthy. I think Brownback is one of many Republicans whose role in government (or outside of it, for that matter) is to make Bush look moderate and sane. And if they can turn the U.S. into a combination theocracy/kleptocracy in the bargain, so much the better.

On the other hand, if some Chechen terrorist finds a way to turn aborted fetuses into WMDs or an army of very small zombie warriors, Ms. Finley's ideological blinders may prevent her from reacting quickly enough to the gathering danger. Best to be prepared for every eventuality.

Wankiw.

Second letter down - Mankiw's response to NYT's piece
about income inequality:

Your chart about the percentage of income earned by the top 0.1 percent of taxpayers was fascinating, but "Richest Are Leaving Even the Rich Far Behind" failed to draw the obvious conclusions from it.

The data show that the rich take a rising share of income when the economy is booming, such as during the 1920's and 1990's. Their share declines when the economy hits hard times, such as during the Great Depression and the most recent recession.

The rich took their smallest slice of the economic pie during the 1970's - a period when productivity growth was low and unemployment and inflation were rising.

Here's the lesson: If policy makers' primary goal is to reduce income inequality, they should put the economy through the wringer. But if they want economic prosperity for all, they should avoid focusing on the politics of envy.

Oh, I see. So income inequality is the sign of a healthy economy, and should therefore be encouraged, or at least celebrated.

Or maybe it's because the people closest to the bottom can't really fall much farther when the economy goes kaflooey...

Maybe a rising tide really does lift all boats - but if you don't have a boat, you're shit out of luck. God, I hate these people.

Unintelligence

Why does Barry Posen hate America?

Insurgencies and counterinsurgencies are, above all, intelligence wars - for both sides. Insurgents are invariably at a disadvantage in terms of troops and firepower. They survive only if they have superior information, which they derive from broad popular support. This support - whether voluntary or coerced - allows them to hit, run and hide; to kill and survive to kill again. Their effort collapses when their opponents possess superior information.

(snip)

The insurgents have very good information. Many reports suggest that they have operatives within the Iraqi security organizations and bureaucracies.... Assassinations of Iraqi government officials, including senior security officials, and ambushes of security forces reveal a formidable intelligence apparatus. Car bombs seem to be regularly directed at American convoys; the insurgents must know their routes and their schedules.

(snip)

In terms of collecting intelligence about the insurgents, things are no better. Since the Iraqi election, American officials have treated the news media to stories about how much more information Iraqis are providing. This may be true, but it is not nearly enough. In late March, just before the recent flurry of bombings in and around Baghdad, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told reporters that his "metrics" and "indicators" were improving. It is clear then, that the recent bombing campaign, which has killed more than 700 people, was a surprise.

(snip)

Those who wish to "stay the course" in Iraq need a plausible strategy of victory in the intelligence campaign. The usual methods either have not worked or are unlikely to work. Unless the American and Iraqi government forces can deprive the terrorists of their local supporters and the intelligence they provide, they are in for a long, indecisive struggle.

I've got a fever! And the only prescription... is more torture!

(No, I don't think Posen is advocating that - but it'll be spun that way.)

Enough.

Kristof has another column on the ungodly nightmare that is Sudan, and President Bush's manly, resolute inaction in the face of it. I'm going to shy away from the money quotes about mutilating and killing children - check it out for yourself if you want to be appalled.

Last fall President Bush declared the slaughter here in Darfur to be genocide, and then looked away. One reason for his paralysis is apparently the fear that Darfur may be another black hole of murder and mutilation, a hopeless quagmire to suck in well-meaning Americans - another Somalia or Iraq.

I think Kristof is giving Bush too much credit here - I think Bush just doesn't give a damn because Sudan has no terrorist strawmen, oil, or any other lucrative war profiteering opportunities.

If Mr. Bush led a determined effort to save Darfur, there would be real hope for peace here - plus, the international image of the U.S. would improve. And a new Zogby poll commissioned by the International Crisis Group found that Americans by margins of six to one favor bolder action in Darfur, such as a no-fly zone.

But Mr. Bush is covering his eyes. Last year administration figures like Colin Powell and John Danforth led the response to Darfur, but now neither Condoleezza Rice nor the White House seems much interested.

Darfur will never be a Somalia or Iraq, because nobody is talking about sending in American combat troops. But simply an ounce of top-level attention to Darfur would go a long way to save lives.

In 1999, Madeleine Albright traveled to Sierra Leone and met child amputees there, wrenching the hearts of American television viewers and making that crisis a priority in a way that eventually helped resolve it. Ms. Rice could do the same for Darfur if she would only bother to go.

Mr. Bush values a frozen embryo. But he hasn't mustered much compassion for an entire population of terrorized widows and orphans. And he is cementing in place the very hopelessness he dreads, by continuing to avert his eyes from the first genocide of the 21st century.

Shouldn't the evangelists be pressuring Bush to do something about this? Aren't they supposed to care deeply about this sort of thing, and the Culture Of Life and stuff?

In any case, I don't want to hear another word about how Compassionate Liberator Bush had to invade Iraq to save its people from Saddam's brutality.

Ever.

And There Was Much Rejoicing...

36 today.

*half-hearted hooray noises*

Will have to go and buy myself a toy at lunchtime.

Monkeynomics!

I suppose this could be utter hokum, and I'm sure there's stuff being left out of this article, but it doesn't sound all that implausible to me, and it's bloody fascinating:

The essential idea was to give a monkey a dollar and see what it did with it. The currency Chen settled on was a silver disc, one inch in diameter, with a hole in the middle -- "kind of like Chinese money," he says. It took several months of rudimentary repetition to teach the monkeys that these tokens were valuable as a means of exchange for a treat and would be similarly valuable the next day. Having gained that understanding, a capuchin would then be presented with 12 tokens on a tray and have to decide how many to surrender for, say, Jell-O cubes versus grapes. This first step allowed each capuchin to reveal its preferences and to grasp the concept of budgeting.

Then Chen introduced price shocks and wealth shocks. If, for instance, the price of Jell-O fell (two cubes instead of one per token), would the capuchin buy more Jell-O and fewer grapes? The capuchins responded rationally to tests like this -- that is, they responded the way most readers of The Times would respond. In economist-speak, the capuchins adhered to the rules of utility maximization and price theory: when the price of something falls, people tend to buy more of it.

(snip)

...The data generated by the capuchin monkeys, Chen says, "make them statistically indistinguishable from most stock-market investors."

But do the capuchins actually understand money? Or is Chen simply exploiting their endless appetites to make them perform neat tricks?

Several facts suggest the former. During a recent capuchin experiment that used cucumbers as treats, a research assistant happened to slice the cucumber into discs instead of cubes, as was typical. One capuchin picked up a slice, started to eat it and then ran over to a researcher to see if he could "buy" something sweeter with it. To the capuchin, a round slice of cucumber bore enough resemblance to Chen's silver tokens to seem like another piece of currency.

Then there is the stealing.... Once, a capuchin in the testing chamber picked up an entire tray of tokens, flung them into the main chamber and then scurried in after them -- a combination jailbreak and bank heist -- which led to a chaotic scene in which the human researchers had to rush into the main chamber and offer food bribes for the tokens, a reinforcement that in effect encouraged more stealing.

Something else happened during that chaotic scene, something that convinced Chen of the monkeys' true grasp of money. Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of money, after all, is its fungibility, the fact that it can be used to buy not just food but anything. During the chaos in the monkey cage, Chen saw something out of the corner of his eye that he would later try to play down but in his heart of hearts he knew to be true. What he witnessed was probably the first observed exchange of money for sex in the history of monkeykind. (Further proof that the monkeys truly understood money: the monkey who was paid for sex immediately traded the token in for a grape.)

This last bit leads directly to a sentence that has probably never been written before: "...Chen has taken steps to ensure that future monkey sex at Yale occurs as nature intended it."

Anyway, I don't have much to add to this, other than that I think it's pretty damn cool, especially the part about the capuhoochie (although, to be honest, I notice the article never specifies the gender of either monkey, so it could just as easily be a capugigolo).

Also, I just really like the word "monkey," and all the monkeyness it implies.

You Go, Hill!

Well, I guess we can expect Hill to get the Howard Dean
treatment any second now...

"There has never been an administration, I don't believe in our history, more intent upon consolidating and abusing power to further their own agenda," Mrs. Clinton told the audience at a "Women for Hillary" gathering in Midtown Manhattan this morning.

"I know it's frustrating for many of you; it's frustrating for me: Why can't the Democrats do more to stop them?" she continued to growing applause and cheers. "I can tell you this: It's very hard to stop people who have no shame about what they're doing. It is very hard to tell people that they are making decisions that will undermine our checks and balances and constitutional system of government who don't care. It is very hard to stop people who have never been acquainted with the truth."

Mrs. Clinton described Republican leaders as messianic in their beliefs, willing to manipulate facts and even "destroy" the Senate to gain political advantage over the Democratic minority. She also labeled the House of Representatives as "a dictatorship of the Republican leadership," where individual members are all but required to vote in lock-step with the majority's agenda.

(snip)

Abetting the Republicans, she said in some of her sharpest language, is a Washington press corps that has become a pale imitation of the Watergate-era reporters who are being celebrated this month amid the identification of the anonymous Washington Post source, Deep Throat.

"The press is missing in action, with all due respect," she said. "Where are the investigative reporters today? Why aren't they asking the hard questions? It's shocking when you see how easily they fold in the media today. They don't stand their ground. If they're criticized by the White House, they just fall apart.

"I mean, c'mon, toughen up, guys, it's only our Constitution and country at stake," she said. "Let's get some spine."

Suggesting some lines of reporting, she asserted that the Bush administration could not account for $9 billion in Coalition Authority spending in Iraq, and that the Food and Drug Administration had allowed religious and political bias to interfere with science-driven decision-making on reproductive drugs.

I think she kinda pulled her punches with her choice of scandals for the press to investigate, and I would have liked to see her talk about election reform, but overall, some damn good stuff - I especially liked how she called the press out, which the Dems don't do nearly often enough.

Not Torturing People Is Hard Work

Interesting tidbit from Bush's interview with the Radio-Television News Directors Association & Foundation, courtesy of The All-Seeing Eye Of Froomkin:

I tell you an interesting ethical dilemma that the President has to deal with. And that is, if you’'re in my shoes, and you thought Abu Farraj al-Libbi had planned an attack on America, would you use any means necessary to get the information from him? And the decision I have made is "No, we will not." And let’'s just pray he doesn’'t have that information. And when I told the American people we'’re not torturing, we'’re not torturing. But try that on for an interesting ethical dilemmaas the President of the United States.

I think it's pretty damn scary clear that deep down in his cold little heart of hearts, Bush is very much okay with torture, and has only (supposedly) renounced it because of all the goodie-goodies raising a fuss about it. Shorter Bush: "Okay, y'all got your wish, I'm not going to torture anyone - let's just hope we don't regret it." Lovely.

Oh, Please Let It Be So...

Today's WaPo:

After enlarging their majority in the past two elections, House Republicans have begun to fear that public attention to members' travel and relations with lobbyists will make ethics a potent issue that could cost the party seats in next year's midterm races.

In what Republican strategists call "the DeLay effect," questions plaguing House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) are starting to hurt his fellow party members, who are facing news coverage of their own trips and use of relatives on their campaign payrolls. Liberal interest groups have begun running advertising in districts where Republicans may be in trouble, trying to tie the incumbents to their leaders' troubles.

Among those endangered are at least two committee chairmen and several other senior members. Congressional districts that traditionally have been safe for Republicans could become more competitive, according to party officials.

The article then goes on to hone in on Coingate in Ohio, which I think could have a huge effect. For while I don't think it will have any impact at all on Republican credibility at the national level, it could provide a much-needed lever to tilt Ohio back into the Democratic column in 2008, which could once again be decisive in the presidential race. Even if Ohio was stolen in 2004, a lot of the voter suppression and vote-counting shenanigans would be non-issues with Democrats in control of the state's voting machinery (although I suspect the Republicans and media will tell a different story, and that their allegations will be... revealingly specific).

The importance of painting the so-called "moral values" GOP as corrupt, venal money-chasers cannot be understated, and I'm glad to hear that the Democrats are actually trying to take advantage of this opportunity. Remember, "restoring honor and dignity to the White House" was a major theme in 2000, with the Republicans painting themselves as the super-integrityful antidote to eight years of Democratic sleaze. Let's remind the voters of that, and of how Republicans have raised sleaze to an art form while they've been in power. Let's also remind them that wealthy fatcats are the real elitists, and unlike liberals, they are only concerned with consolidating and enriching their own wealth and power.

I'm not saying that we should ignore substantive policy and all the Republicans' glaring failures (and destructive successes), just that the Democrats need to rely on a two-pronged strategy that attacks the Republicans on policy *and* character.

We should also work on getting Bob Shrum to switch sides so he can work his "magic" for the Republicans...

Correction: I saw "Ohio" and mistakenly made the association to Coingate, but it is not mentioned in the article (Ouch). Instead, it talks about Bob Ney and his connections to DeLay and Abramoff.

But hey, the more dirt on Ohio Republicans, the better. I'm skeptical of Democratic prospects in the South, so discrediting Republicans in pivotal states like Ohio and Florida is vital.

Assuming fair elections, of course. Without those, it doesn't much matter what we do, unless we can secure tamper-proof margins.

Sunday Softball Blogging

Well, I had easily my best game of the season, but we still lost, 17-11 (I think). Only played 7 innings because the sun and the heat was just brutal out there. My legs were pretty much rubber by the 5th. But I still somehow managed to go 7 for 7 with a double, an RBI, and 3 runs, and played flawless defense - I think my fly ball radar is finally locked in.

Not a lot of pics, because we only had six players, which doesn't leave a lot of time between at-bats... or pitching... or catching, since each team had to provide their own.

Current Stats: 10 games, .563 BA (36-64), 7 2B, 18 runs, 13 RBI.


Run, Forrest, run!!!

Hmm... I Can't Quite Put My Finger On It...

From Atrios/Kos/Stoller's lawyer's public comments to the FEC urging them to leave bloggers the hell alone already, via Atrios:

We also recognize the concern, as expressed via the comments being submitted by the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet and others, that to expand the media exemption to include bloggers would diminish 'the privileged status the press currently enjoys.' Curiously referring to bloggers’ desire to equal treatment as 'demands', the IPDI portends that such an expansion would destroy campaign finance regulations and/or reporter shield laws.

So... extending a right or privilege to an arbitrarily undesirable group of people somehow "diminishes" that right or privilege for those desirables who already have it?

Where have I heard this before?

Friday Quote Blogging

"Why do you suggest anything to Walter? Are you the spokesman for society, come to put your stifling finger in his eye?"

- Bucket Of Blood, courtesy of the shadowy and mysterious Codename V.

This is easily my all-time favorite Roger Corman movie. I know it's sacrilege to say this, but I think most Corman is just kinda... lame. Not even so-bad-it's-good, just... lame. Especially when compared to other masters of so-bad-it's-good, like Troma and Full Moon and Fred Olen Ray.

Anyway, controversial and contrarian tastes aside, Bucket Of Blood is a bit of a departure for Corman, since it has no cheesy monsters or lame special effects. Just a pathetic, not-very-bright beatnik/artist wannabe named Walter, who becomes an overnight sensation in the beatnik/artist community with his shockingly realistic sculptures, which look uncannily like clay or plaster slathered over a dead body. This is worth seeing solely on the basis of the florid and overwrought beat poetry and general hepness on display, of which the above quote is but one small sample.


Look! A cat!


Curious Eek.

More Overseer

I have finished the main body of Jonathan Rabb's The Overseer, but I'm going to attempt to tackle the nifty bonus at the end; namely, the (fictional) On Supremacy treatise itself.

One the most pivotal and chilling elements of The Overseer is education, which the Shadowy Republican Cabal uses in secretive camps to indoctrinate and train an elite cadre of loyal killers and operatives. Here is a sampling of the educational techniques - again, there are some eerie echoes of themes that we hear today. This excerpt describes a class of 6- or 7-year-olds who have just read Cinderella:

In quick succession, the children shouted out a long list of [Cinderella's stepsisters'] infractions, the most poignant from a shy boy who had waited until all the others had quieted down to speak.

"They made her feel very bad and said that nobody liked her."

A silence filled the room, several heads turning toward the boy as the teacher, in her most motherly tone, added, "And that's probably the worst thing, isn't it? To make special people, like Cinderella, feel that they don't belong, that they've done something wrong. And people who do that shouldn't be our friends, should they? And we don't have to like them, do we?" A chorus of nos. "In fact, sometimes it's all right not to like certain people. People who scare us, or hurt us, or make us feel bad about ourselves. People like Cinderella's stepsisters, who knew how special Cinderella was, but who did everything they could to hurt her. It's important to know that you have to watch out for those people. And you shouldn't feel bad if you begin to dislike them. Dislike them so much that you begin to hate them."

It's a little over the top, but I can't help but think of the Right's "woe is poor little ol' me, oppressed and condescended to by those mean know-it-all liberal elitists, they're all traitors who should be deported or shot" narrative, and it suddenly becomes not so hard to believe that they received an indoctrination like this.

This Must Be My Lucky Day!

Finding these is one of my peculiar knacks. Not sure if it's translated to any actual luck or not, but I figure every little bit helps. I used to go hunting for them during finals week and tape them to all my tests. Sometimes even one per essay in my bluebook...

Every Time! Every Single Time!!!

"Hey, this dude's kinda hot. If only he had less hair."

Without fail, every time Bush appoints someone, he has this creepy expression on his face, sort of possessive and speculative and... well, I don't really know. I can't quite classify it, but I hope I never see anyone looking at me like that.

Congress's Irony-Poor Blood

At long last, sir, have you no sense of irony?

From NYT:

Citizens who want to keep an eye on the [Patriot Act re-evaluation] process will have no easy task. The most crucial debates of the Senate Intelligence Committee are being kept closed to the public.

(snip)

Now the Bush administration and its Senate allies have come up with another: a proposal to let F.B.I. agents write their own "administrative subpoenas," without the need to consult prosecutors or judges, in demand of all manner of records, from business to medical and tax data. There is no serious evidence that agents have been hamstrung by the lack of such wide authority.

Freeing agents from getting a judge's sign-off is an invitation to overreaching and abuse, as is a proposal to let the F.B.I. ignore postal law restraints when antiterrorism agents choose to monitor someone's letter envelopes and package covers.

Our lives become more and more transparent, as government becomes more and more secretive and opaque. Where are the "administrative subpoenas" for Cheney's energy task force, or for Bush and Cheney's testimony before the 9/11 commission?

Just imagine what problems could be solved if everyone in government had to play by the same rules as the rest of us poor schmucks.