Gitmusings

Some more semi-random thoughts about Gitmo:

One of the chilling but (IMO) underexamined wrinkles of the latest Gitmo torture revelations has been the reaction, as compared to the reaction to Abu Ghraib. When the Abu Ghraib photos leaked, there was near-universal outrage at the depravity on display, which the White House successfully deflected away as the independent actions of a few "bad apples."

But as the Gitmo stories have come out, the lion's share of the outrage has been directed at those who have tried to call attention to the immorality of what is going on there (Newsweek, Amnesty International, Dick Durbin), rather than on the torturers themselves, or their highly-placed enablers. It could be the way the news has dribbled out unaccompanied by lurid photos, as opposed to Abu Ghraib's sudden slap to the face, but I fear that it also means that Abu Ghraib has desensitized the American people to torture and abuse. Sadly, I just do not sense the same kind of disgust and visceral horror that was floating around the zeitgeist in the wake of Abu Ghraib.

Another underemphasized aspect of Guantanamo is its retroactive debunking of the "bad apples" canard. It's a lot harder to blame Abu Ghraib on a few rogue guards when similar techniques are enshrined as standard practice at Gitmo. Unfortunately, I see no sign that this idea is getting any traction at all, and Abu Ghraib itself is becoming nothing more than a faded memory of something bad we did once, but which doesn't really matter now.

Veering wildly over to the torture apologists themselves, it looks like the Republican party line is that what's happening at Gitmo isn't really torture torture, not like Saddam's Iraq or Auschwitz or the gulags. I'm willing to concede that very narrow point, but that doesn't exactly let anyone off the hook. Consider:

o As outlined in the Anthony Lewis op-ed linked below, even degrading, inhumane treatment that falls short of the Gonzales/Bybee organ-failure/limb-amputation definition of torture is still forbidden by two UN conventions and our own military code.

o Is this really the face that we want America to present to the rest of the world? That of an arrogant, unaccountable torturer? What happened to America the shining moral beacon and noble champion of human rights? (Yes, I know it's largely a fiction, but at least we used to want to believe it, and I think many people worldwide really did... once)
Do we really want to settle for "a little bit better than Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union"? Our moral baseline should be the ideals of decency and fair play that America supposedly stands for, not the practices of brutal dictatorships.

o Does sending prisoners to other countries for the more hardcore forms of torture really absolve us of moral responsibility? Is outsourcing torture really enough to keep our own hands clean? I'll skip any populist lament for all the American torturers that this puts out of work...

o By embracing and defending even the entry-level torture and mistreatment at Gitmo, we are sending the message that this is acceptable treatment of prisoners. Are the torture apologists really okay with the idea of our own captured soldiers being subjected to such treatment? Themselves? Their kids?

o And speaking of kids, how do you explain this to them? Do you tell them it's okay to be mean to the prisoners because they're bad people? (And how do you know they're bad? Because someone said so?) Or brown people? What kind of values are these kids going to grow up with?

o For those of you claiming to be Christians, can you really, honestly, for one second picture Jesus looking down approvingly at what we're doing at Gitmo? I sure as hell can't.

o More peripheral to the central issue of Torture, but how do you square "invisible" prisoners and indefinite imprisonment without counsel or trial with the US Constitution, which does not distinguish between Americans and foreigners in its due-process provisions.

Right, then. I think I'm done. I suppose I should feel better for having gotten it out of my system, but if anything, I think I'm even more pissed off now.

Anthony Lewis Nails It

There have been a lot of good anti-torture pieces, but I thought former columnist Anthony Lewis did an especially good job in the NYT today. I particularly liked how he pointed out that the Geneva Convention, UN Convention Against Torture, and Uniform Code Of Military Justice all prohibit inhumane and degrading treatment, not just the fingernail-pulling and genital-shocking that torture apologists consider to be the true limit of acceptable interrogation techniques.

Of course, if the US got busted using those, they would just find a way to move the goalposts even further ("At least we're not force-feeding them honey and then tying them to an anthill with a beehive in their underwear!").

Come back, Tony, we need you!

Serendipity II

I was just insomniacally photo-processing away when this one kinda jumped out at me. I'm starting to think the Pittsbirds are all total camera hogs or something...

Quote Of The Day

"It was just after he was released from jail in the early 1990's that Johnson... turned to evangelical Christianity and clown dancing more or less simultaneously."

From NYT's Sunday Magazine article about krumping.

O-KKKay...

Maybe it's just me, but I have a sneaking suspicion that when this is how your defense wraps up, your chances may not be all that good...

The defense rested its case today in the trial of Edgar Ray Killen, a former Ku Klux Klansman who is being tried for his role in the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers in Mississippi.

The final witness for the defense was a former mayor of the rural town of Philadelphia, Harlan Majure, who testified before a packed courtroom that the white-supremacist group was a "peaceful organization," according to The Associated Press. Mr. Majure said that Mr. Killen was a good man and that he "did a lot of good up here," The A.P. reported.

Hey, a lot of Islamic terrorist organizations do charitable good works too! Maybe we should cut them a break!

And no, I don't want to hear about "Ku Klux Kleagle Byrd" - yes, I think it's appalling that he was ever in the Klan, but he's repudiated it and apologized again and again, and I do believe that he genuinely regrets it. He did not downplay the KKK's evil or claim it was a peaceful charity organization.

Sadly, even if Killin'- er, Killen, is convicted and imprisoned, well, so what? He's 80 years old now. He's lived a full life already, and had 41 years that his victims never will. If there's a Hell, he'll burn in it just as surely regardless of whether he is convicted in the courts of man.

Yes, I am assuming his guilt. When you have three people killed by Klansmen, I think it's pretty safe to assume that an admitted Klan poobah damn well had something to do with it, even if he wasn't there personally. I hope he does burn in Hell, and I hope I don't have to sit next to him.

And Now For Something Completely Different: Torture Profiteering!

Just when you think they couldn't sink any lower...

More from Froomkin:

Carol Rosenberg writes in the Miami Herald [free registration required]: "The Pentagon
capped a week of intense debate on the future of its prison for terrorism suspects Friday with an announcement that Vice President Dick Cheney's old firm will build a new, $30 million 220-cell prison block at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

"Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root received the work under a $500 million Navy contract from July 2004, according to a Defense Department contract announcement e-mailed to The Herald on Friday."

Pat Riley For Preznit!

And for those of you who don't like sport... There's sport.

Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing leads with a bunch of "Has Bush lost his touch?" stuff, suggesting that Bush's salesmanship is somehow on the wane. I don't think that's exactly what's going on. I think Bush's approach is the same one he's been using for the last four years, and that in itself is the problem.

It's not that his skills have eroded, it's that his act is starting to wear thin, and more and more people are seeing though it or tuning him out. Those of you who follow sports are well aware of this phenomenon - no matter how great the coach, they all ultimately hit a wall where their players have heard every motivational trick in the book, and it just doesn't have the same impact any more.

And it's not like Bush is a great coach. He's abusive; he plays favorites and turns his players against each other; he misleads them about their role on the team; he likes to go with his gut and call risky plays that usually backfire; he jealously guards his own authority and turf; and, quite frankly, the team has completely gone into the toilet since he took over.

I could probably stretch the metaphor further (and is he the "coach" of America, or just of the Republican party?), but really, my central point is that maybe, just maybe, the country is starting to experience some much-needed Bush Fatigue, or better yet, Republican Fatigue. I only have two questions: Will it last? and WHY DID IT TAKE FOUR YEARS???
Again, this is not Sparky Anderson or Pat Riley (80s edition) we're talking about here. We're talking Billy Martin at best, but probably more like Rich Kotite or Ray Handley... Or possibly Jim Fassel or Wayne Fontes, two mediocre-to-bad coaches who always pulled off winning streaks just as they were about to lose their jobs. Until one day they couldn't anymore. Let's hope that day has finally come for Coach Bush, and maybe for the Republicans as a whole.

Pro-Torture Not Enough

Well. Apparently Abu "Torture Memo" Gonzales, the guy who thinks the Geneva Conventions are outdated and "quaint", may be too moderate to be nominated as Rehnquist's replacement.

A Gonzales appointment would be a politically appealing "first" that could ease the confirmation process among Democrats and help expand the Republican base, according to some strategists. But many conservative leaders see him as too moderate on issues such as abortion and affirmative action, and a Gonzales-for-Rehnquist trade would effectively move the court somewhat to the left.

(snip)

...a Gonzales nomination could trigger internal dissension among GOP activists, some of whom have warned the White House against naming the attorney general. At a meeting of conservative groups last week to plot strategy for a possible Supreme Court nomination, one leader spoke out against a Gonzales appointment, according to people in the room.

"Some of the groups share that concern," said Jan LaRue, chief counsel for the Concerned Women for America.... While she noted that her organization has not taken a position, she predicted that if Gonzales is chosen, some activists "may not as vigorously support" the nomination, while Roberts or Luttig "would certainly have broader support across the coalition of conservatives."

"Everyone in my circle crinkles their nose when his name comes up," another activist said of Gonzales. "It would be a disaster if that happened."

My God, this is just terrifying. This pro-torture creep who shouldn't be allowed to practice law at any level isn't conservative enough???

My prediction is that Bush will nominate him anyway because Gonzales is his creature, one of those loyalists who would take a bullet for him. And better yet, it'll give the right yet another cherished opportunity to accuse Democrats of racism and hypocrisy for opposing an awful nominee who happens to be a minority.

Sunday Softball Blogging

Well, this one was pret-ty damn lopsided - I think we won by more than 20 runs or something. Kind of a mediocre game for me, 5 for 10 with 3 runs but 3 pop-ups. I did have one caught at the fence that probably would have gone out if there hadn't been a fielder there. Oh well. Fielding was less than brilliant, but I didn't really get much action in left.

Current Stats: 12 games, .580 BA (47-81), 8 2B, 26 runs, 14 RBI.


There's no shirt-wearing in baseball!


Well, okay. Red shirts are all right. But stay away from alien planets.

Saturday Black & White Blogging

I usually don't have a lot to say on weekends, so I'll just post some photos.


Not sure *what* this is supposed to be, really...


Not a big pigeon fan, but there was something regal about this one perched on the incongruous concrete thingies...

Friday Quote Blogging

"Mankind is just a component of the device which creates the devil."

- Naked, which features a tour-de-force performance by David Thewlis as an over-intelligent and cold-blooded drifter. He gave me the impression of someone impatiently channel-surfing through life.


Oh, look! A cat!


Mom's friend's cat, Sweet Pea. And a box.

Ew.

Well, I guess it's not all that surprising - Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are engaged. Tra-la-la. But check out the last sentence of the AP article and see if it doesn't make your skin crawl:

"The former star of television's 'Dawson's Creek' has said she grew up wanting to marry Cruise."

More Like This, Please.

John Danforth strikes again!

People of faith have the right, and perhaps the obligation, to bring their values to bear in politics. Many conservative Christians approach politics with a certainty that they know God's truth, and that they can advance the kingdom of God through governmental action. So they have developed a political agenda that they believe advances God's kingdom, one that includes efforts to "put God back" into the public square and to pass a constitutional amendment intended to protect marriage from the perceived threat of homosexuality.

Moderate Christians are less certain about when and how our beliefs can be translated into statutory form, not because of a lack of faith in God but because of a healthy acknowledgement of the limitations of human beings. Like conservative Christians, we attend church, read the Bible and say our prayers.

But for us, the only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. Repeatedly in the Gospels, we find that the Love Commandment takes precedence when it conflicts with laws. We struggle to follow that commandment as we face the realities of everyday living, and we do not agree that our responsibility to live as Christians can be codified by legislators.

(snip)

In the decade since I left the Senate, American politics has been characterized by two phenomena: the increased activism of the Christian right, especially in the Republican Party, and the collapse of bipartisan collegiality. I do not think it is a stretch to suggest a relationship between the two. To assert that I am on God's side and you are not, that I know God's will and you do not, and that I will use the power of government to advance my understanding of God's kingdom is certain to produce hostility.

By contrast, moderate Christians see ourselves, literally, as moderators. Far from claiming to possess God's truth, we claim only to be imperfect seekers of the truth. We reject the notion that religion should present a series of wedge issues useful at election time for energizing a political base. We believe it is God's work to practice humility, to wear tolerance on our sleeves, to reach out to those with whom we disagree, and to overcome the meanness we see in today's politics.

I think the unspoken distinction here is between Old Testament Christians and New Testament Christians. It's the difference between defining mindsets of "Thou Shalt Not" vs. "Be Excellent To Each Other."

Krugmania!

I'm sure today's Krugman column has been done to death already; I just want to nibble around the edges a little bit.

Now, politicians and businessmen are always in a position to do each other lucrative favors. Government is relatively clean when politicians are sufficiently afraid of scandal to resist temptation. But when a political machine controls all branches of government, and those officials charged with oversight are also reliably partisan, politicians feel safe from investigation. Their inhibitions dissolve, and they take full advantage of their position, until the scandals become too big to hide.

In other words, Ohio's state government today is a lot like Boss Tweed's New York. Unfortunately, a lot of other state governments look similar - and so does Washington.

Since their 1994 takeover of Congress, and even more so since the 2000 election, Republican leaders have sought to make their political dominance permanent. They redistricted Texas to lock in their control of the House. Through the "K Street Project" they have put lobbying firms under partisan control, starving the Democrats of campaign funds. And they are, of course, trying to pack the courts with partisan loyalists.

In effect, they're trying to turn America into a giant version of the elder Richard Daley's Chicago.

These efforts have already created an environment in which politicians from the right party and businessmen with the right connections believe, with good reason, that they have immunity.

(snip)

The message from Ohio is that long-term dominance by a political machine leads to corruption, regardless of the policies that machine follows or the ideology it claims to represent.

First off, I feel obliged to smugly point out that this reinforces my earlier post about how the Republicans have replaced accountability with impunity (will provide link when I get home), which also gets into root causes and potential solutions.

Second off, I believe Krugman's last paragraph is incomplete. It does not address the chilling fact that Washington has proven that the dominance doesn't even have to be long-term to lead to corruption. In the Republicans' case, it seems to have been almost instantaneous (Enron, Energy Task Force), although it continues to worsen by the day.

Talking Downing

The Big Brass Alliance bloggers are probably all over this already, but if you haven't read WaPo's online chat with Michael Smith, the Sunday Times reporter who's been covering all the Damning Downing Documents, you should do so right away.

He has all kinds of interesting tidbits, like his belief that there's more out there that could ultimately create a public outcry for impeachment, the fact that he's a Conservative- voting ex-soldier who initially supported the war, and that the Geneva Convention obligates an occupier to stay until the occupied country can stand on its own (how quaint!).

He also agrees with me that all the impeachment talk is probably counterproductive right now, and makes Democrats look, well, a lot like Republicans did in '98.

Go! Read! Now!

Loud Is Good

Here's another idea that I've floated here and there but never given its own post. This one's pretty simple: A large part of Dean's role as DNC chair should be that of a promoter. By this I mean that whenever another Democrat has an especially important message to get out and is being ignored by the media, Dean should make an address to underline and call attention to it.

I know this is far from the traditional role of a party chair, which I understand to be more behind-the-scenes fundraising and strategizing. But Dean is unique among all the Dems (except possibly the Clintons) in his ability to get media coverage, which is an absolutely invaluable counter to the Republicans' media stranglehold. Better yet, his blunt and confrontational style is exactly what the Dems need right now, not the mush-mouthed equivocation and appeasement that has garnered their current milquetoast reputation. A few well-timed "Joe Biden/Joe Lieberman/John Edwards does not speak for the Democratic Party" jabs wouldn't hurt either, but I emphasize "a few," and only when they wander off the reservation and start making Republican noises.

I say we ride the Ho-Ho horse as long as we can, until Howard Fatigue sets in, if ever. In the meantime, we need to build up a bullpen of firebrands to reinforce the message, take some of the burden off of Dean, and provide a pool of strong successors as DNC chair and/or voice of the Democratic party.

A Practical Question

I could be mistaken, but given the diminishing effectiveness of my popup blockers, I'm pretty sure that there is an ongoing arms race between popup blockers and popup advertisers. My question is, Why would you want to force popups on someone who has gone to the trouble to install software to block them? Isn't it more likely that you'll just piss them off and make them vow to never buy your product? Are they really going to admire your popup's spunky can-do attitude?

Anyway, it's just a thought, and perhaps too perplexing for the pestilent popup people.

Dealing In Death And Donuts

Well, this is creepybadwrong. Bob Herbert on the Army's "School Recruiting Program Handbook":

"The football team usually starts practicing in August," the handbook says. "Contact the coach and volunteer to assist in leading calisthenics or calling cadence during team runs."

"Homecoming normally happens in October," the handbook says. "Coordinate with the homecoming committee to get involved with the parade."

"Recruiters are urged to deliver doughnuts and coffee to the faculty once a month, and to eat lunch in the school cafeteria several times a month. And the book recommends that they assiduously cultivate the students that other students admire: "Some influential students such as the student president or the captain of the football team may not enlist; however, they can and will provide you with referrals who will enlist."

That last quote is a particularly creepy microcosm of the "only the little people fight wars" mentality..

"If you wait until they're seniors, it's probably too late," the book says. It also says, "Don't forget the administrative staff. ... Have something to give them (pen, calendar, cup, donuts, etc.) and always remember secretary's week, with a card or flowers."

The sense of desperation is palpable: "Get involved with local Boy Scout troops. Scoutmasters are typically happy to get any assistance you can offer. Many scouts are [high school] students and potential enlistees or student influencers."

I'm not a parent (nor likely to be), but this is still disturbing as hell. Herbert also points out that these efforts are, of course, targeted primarily at lower income public schools where the students have limited life options after graduation.

Democrats really need to start publicizing this - I can't believe a whole lot of parents would be okay with the idea of recruiters cozying up to scoutmasters. If we can't get poor red-staters on pocketbook issues, let's appeal to their concern for their children. Make them decide whether they're really more afraid of gay recruiters than Army recruiters. Highlighting the desperation also underlines just how close to a draft we really are, and how unprepared for another pre-emptive war of choice.

Right now, every time the White House talks tough about Iran, Syria, or North Korea, the blue-collar red-staters puff their chests out and say, "That's my brave, manly president! USA! USA!" I want them to start nervously pulling their children closer instead.

Bring 'Em On!

Ugh. I guess it was inevitable that Bush would try to paint the Democrats as obstructionists who don't stand for anything, and make them the scapegoats for his own failed and unpopular policies.

For now, I'll just pretend to ignore the fact that the Democrats have been forced into the unpleasant role of that killjoy who's always trying to take the drunk's car keys away. If preventing someone from driving off a cliff or mowing down pedestrians is obstructionist, well, we need more of it.

At any rate, I think Bush may have unwittingly given the Democrats an opportunity, if they're smart and aggressive enough to take it.

From some fundraising dinner for rich people and porn stars (thanks for the reminder, A. Scott!):

On issue after issue, they stand for nothing except obstruction, and this is not leadership. (Applause.) It is the philosophy of the stop sign, the agenda of the roadblock, and our country and our children deserve better. (Applause.)

Political parties that choose the path of obstruction will not gain the trust of the American people. If leaders of the other party have innovative ideas, let's hear them. But if they have no ideas or policies except obstruction, they should step aside and let others lead. (Applause.)

Okay, now, I seem to recall that Harry Reid offered up a very compelling Democratic version of the Contract With America earlier this year, but of course there's no chance at all that any of it could pass a Republican Senate.

So with that in mind, I would love to see Reid call Bush's bluff on this. Remind him that the Democrats do have ideas and plans, remind everyone what they are (and that they've been out there for months, and any specific examples of the Republicans shutting them down), and challenge the Republicans to stop blocking them. Oh, and also point out that blocking bad policies and nominees protects America, and is what Congressmen are supposed to do; when the Republican agenda is no longer toxic, the Democrats will be happy to wave it through.

I know there's a school of thought that says you shouldn't dignify this sort of smear with a response (and look how well that worked out for Kerry last year), but I think this is a winner: It gives the Democrats a platform to promote their own agenda while essentially calling Bush a divisive, partisan liar at the same time. And perhaps even more importantly, not responding would be an implicit admission that Bush is right,and that is just not acceptable.

One minor tactical point: I think the most appropriate way to publicize this would be an initial response from Reid (or a joint response by Reid and Pelosi), followed by a Dean address calling attention to it, in order to assure media coverage.

Here's hoping the Democrats fight back on this. Dean seems to have found his voice after a fairly quiet start, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Awesome!

Remember that girl who pitched an all-strikeout perfect game?

Now, the National Baseball Hall of Fame wants to put her jersey on display in the same shrine that includes items which once belonged to legends such as Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Hank Aaron. In fact, the hall will host a program for Katie and her Dodger teammates on July 7, during which the young pitcher will donate her jersey.

Way cool.

Ooo, Good Question!

Letter to the NYT about Krugman's national healthcare column:

I find Paul Krugman's column disturbing. If 72 percent of Americans want a national health insurance program but insurance companies have the power to override that majority, what does that say about the health of our democracy?

I wish that question applied only to healthcare, but it seems like it applies to, well, pretty much everything these days.

Kindred Spirits

Argh.

At a time when Pakistan is supposed to be going after Al Qaeda terrorists who make merry within the country's borders, our colleague Nicholas Kristof reports that Mr. Musharraf's government has instead arrested a victim of sanctioned gang rape for planning a visit to the United States. Mukhtaran Bibi was sentenced by a tribal council to be gang-raped because her [12-year-old] younger brother supposedly had relations with a woman from a higher caste. After the rape by four men, she was forced by village leaders to walk home nearly naked in front of a jeering crowd.

They've also released the rapists for no apparent reason.

Tell me again about President Bush's deep and abiding love for freedom and democracy and human rights, and how that led him to oh-so-reluctantly invade Iraq?

Oh well, at least it's not like we're friends with anyone who boils people alive - Oops. Never mind.

Random Photoblogging

Just 'cuz. I think I've been slacking on the photos a little lately.


I liked this in B&W as well.


This came out a whole lot better than I expected...

Boy, I Really Overshot With That 400...

The Christopher Walken census sketch strikes again!
Apparently his character is working for the Justice Department now...

Flanked by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Bush said that "federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects, and more than half of those charged have been convicted."

Those statistics have been used repeatedly by Bush and other administration officials, including Gonzales and his predecessor, John D. Ashcroft, to characterize the government's efforts against terrorism.

But the numbers are misleading at best.

An analysis of the Justice Department's own list of terrorism prosecutions by The Washington Post shows that 39 people -- not 200, as officials have implied -- were convicted of crimes related to terrorism or national security.

Most of the others were convicted of relatively minor crimes such as making false statements and violating immigration law -- and had nothing to do with terrorism, the analysis shows. For the entire list, the median sentence was just 11 months.

So once again, our famously plain-talking president resorts to carefully parsed sentences that are not technically outright lies. Yes, it's true that 400 people have been charged, and 200 convicted, as a result of federal terrorism investigations - it's just that almost none of them actually have anything to do with, y'know, terrorism.

But I still feel ever so much safer, yesirree. At least for the next 11 months.

Headline Of The Day

From the NY Newsday sports section:

Matsui swollen, hopeful

Why I'm Not Impeachy Keen

The Downing Street Memo/Minutes revelations and the various other damning documents originating from those loose-lipped Brits have a whole bunch of my liberal brethren talking giddily about impeachment, but I have to confess to considerably less enthusiasm. Not only do I consider it unlikely, but I actually think it could be counterproductive.

Firstly, while there are some tentative signs of principled Republican resistance to the Bush agenda and questioning of the war and the Bolton nomination, and even Social Security reform, it looks more like butt-covering than genuine opposition. When it's come right down to it on votes like bankruptcy reform and confirming horrible, unqualified right-wing judges, they've been in perfect, bootlicking lockstep. If they're not going to vote against Priscilla Owen or Janice Rogers Brown, they're sure as hell not going to vote to impeach Bush himself, enthralling a fantasy as it may be (I do have a caveat about that, which I'll get to later).

Secondly, I have to ask the question, what does impeachment buy us, really? Yes, we all hate Bush, and I think we all agree that he's the worst president of all time and want to see him humiliated and exposed for the criminal he is, but let's not lose sight of the big picture here. Bush himself is not truly the problem, but only a symptom of the corruption and arrogance that has become the Republican core. What Democrats need to do is discredit and expose the entire Republican party and its media mouthpieces, allowing them to retake control of Congress and start fixing everything that's been broken. They need to cast themselves as the party of grown-ups, who sometimes ask us to make sacrifices and take our medicine and do our homework so we stay healthy and smart and get good jobs.

Impeachment does nothing to advance this; in fact, it essentially absolves congressional Republicans of all responsibility, by allowing Bush to take the blame for everything that's gone wrong, while portraying themselves as innocent dupes. Worse yet, unless there is overwhelming public demand for it (the only scenario in which I can see any realistic chance of a successful impeachment), the attempt would backfire badly and make Bush a heroic martyr of the Republican cause, unfairly attacked by small-minded liberal Democrats blinded by hate and vengeance. Just imagine the backlash against the Clinton circus, magnified by a Republican media avidly hyping the Bush-Under-Siege meme. And if there is overwhelming public demand for it, then the Republicans will see which way the wind is blowing and vote for impeachment, thus making themselves noble heroes who heavy-heartedly put country before party, thus inoculating themselves even more thoroughly from any accountability for Bush's depredations.

And for what? What would impeachment buy us, beyond the I-told-you-so satisfaction? Even if we do manage to impeach Bush, that still leaves us with President Cheney, which is even worse (yes, I know he has zero charisma, but this has consistently been spun as a positive - proof of Cheney's seriousness and steady competence). If we manage to impeach both of them, we end up with President Hastert, which is only a marginal improvement at best. Yes, it could potentially be President Pelosi, but the chances of Democrats retaking the house next year are slim, and I don't think the pro-impeachmentpeople are really looking to wait until 2007 anyway.

My gut feeling is that impeachment talk is premature, and maybe makes us look a little fanatical and crazy. We absolutely need to keep the story alive, and keep hammering away at the message that Bush is a sociopathic liar, but we need to focus more on ways to make the war an albatross around all the Republicans' necks in 2006, not just the lame duck's.

Sunday Softball Blogging

Another good day at the plate - 6 for 7 with 5 runs, and a laser RBI ground-rule double to the left-center gap, and my team won 10-5 (I think). A little mixed in the outfield - I was really sharp on fly balls again, but pretty crappy at cutting off anything on the ground.

I've switched to a heavier bat (which I hit the double with) because I'm starting to have doubts about the structural integrity of my regular bat, which seems to have no sweet spot lately - it makes kind of a clanky sound, and the ball doesn't seem to travel real well. It's not just me that it does this with, either.

Current Stats: 11 games, .592 BA (42-71), 8 2B, 23 runs, 14 RBI.


Juuuust a bit late...

First There Is An Orange Thing, Then There Is No Orange Thing, Then There Is... Or Not.

What do these two things have in common, besides being orange?





Answer: Both disappeared off the face of the Earth the day after I photographed them. I also took a couple of completely unsuccessful shots of a scraggly tree obscuring a Stop sign; the tree was gone within a week. I'm not sure if the lag was due to the photos being crap, or the fact that the Stop sign was more red than orange - some further experimentation may be needed.

In any case, I'm really not sure I'm comfortable wielding this sort of power, and if anyone comes to EschaCon wearing orange or red, please do not be offended if I refuse to photograph you.

Geek Update

My PC has now been up and running continuously for 90 straight days (Windows XP Pro).

Whoo!!!

*awkwardly attempt high-fives and hurt myself*

I Could Get Better Frames At Lenscrafters

This is another post that probably isn't really news, but which distills bits and pieces of thoughts I've had and expressed elsewhere.

We are all well aware that the Republicans are frighteningly, appallingly, shamelessly good at framing, and Frankly, there's not a whole lot Democrats can do to diminish their talent for it. However, that doesn't mean they should leave them with a clear field to trot out whatever deceitful spin they like. Democrats need to get a lot better at their own framing, and they need to get a lot better at countering the Republicans' framing.

What bugs me the most is the Democratic/liberal stereotype that the Republicans have successfully installed in the public psyche. Not only is it inaccurate, but it is in fact a more accurate description of the Republicans themselves. What I would love to see is Democrats begin describing Republican politicians and their masters as morally relativist, soft-on-terror, America-hating elitists who think they know what's best for everyone else.

I'd like to go through that point-by-point to clarify it a bit further:

Morally relativist: While I grant that Democrats have had their share of scandals, they have nothing that compares to the sheer quantity of scandals and dodginess on display in the Republican party. Just off the top of my head, we've got Coingate, Plamegate, DeLay's myriad ethics violations (and a bunch of others who have had shady dealings with Abramoff), a gay prostitute gaining privileged access to the White House and its press corps despite no legitimate journalistic credentials, more sexually creepy behavior than you can shake a stick at, and, oh yeah, lying us into a neverending, immoral war in which torture and murder are a-okay.

Soft-on-terror: Bush and the Republican Congress have been dragging their feet on securing Russian nukes, port and nuclear plant security, playing regional pork politics with local-level homeland security funding, and putting corporate interests ahead of chemical plant security.

President Bush also demonstrated a lack of commitment and a short attention span when he had an opportunity to beef up security and anti-terror activities prior to 9/11, and in his efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in the aftermath. And as a special bonus, the invasion and botched occupation of Iraq is not only a magnificent terrorist recruiting tool, but an ineffectual or puppet "democratic" government there would almost certainly undermine the credibility of democracy in the Middle East as a whole.

America-hating: Republicans have shown themselves to be implacable enemies of the Constitution, especially the checks and balances between the branches; due process; free, open, and fair elections; and the First Amendment's protection of free speech (i.e., dissent, unfavorable media coverage) and prohibitions against mixing religion and government. Their rabid anti-environmentalism also makes them enemies of America's very physical being - they would be perfectly happy to see the purple mountains' majesty turned into strip-mines.

Elitists: The Republicans are the party of the rich, the aristocratic, and the corporate, and their policies (corporate welfare, including bankruptcy and tort reform, tax cuts grossly weighted towards capital and upper income brackets) are dedicated to making the rich even richer, at the poor's expense. Yes, there are wealthy and intellectual Democrats, but enriching their peers is generally not one of their policy goals. Sadly, there are exceptions (I'm looking at you, Joe Biden), but they are not exactly held up as exemplars of the Democratic ideal.

Think they know what's best for everyone else: This is the one that has always blown my mind the most, and I've never been entirely sure what it referred to. Yes, there is some degree of political correctness, and it can be aggravating at times, but the Democratic legislative priorities have always been focused on providing aid and opportunity. The Republicans are the party of limiting choices because they know best, making only token, trojan-horse efforts to improve education, while fighting to defend anti-sodomy laws, outlaw abortion and stem-cell research, censor anything remotely racy in TV or movies, and generally impose hard-right, allegedly Christian moral values on the entire nation.

Howard Dean took some steps towards addressing some of this in his comments about Republicans being a white Christian party and not working an honest day in their lives (elitism), which predictably resulted in howls of outrage from Republicans and even some of the tamer Democrats. Here's hoping he keeps the pressure on and refuses to bow to intimidation - with the caveat that he does need to do a better job of clarifying when he is talking about the Republican leadership, including government officials and influential non-governmental individuals like Dobson and Norquist.


Tune in next week for: "The Republican leadership cannot be reasoned with; they are sexist, intolerant religious fanatics who hate America for its freedoms, and will not rest until it is destroyed."

Friday Quote Blogging

"They switch you off when life is good, and switch you back on when they're up to their noses in life's bitter droppings."

From a supercheesy Grade Z sci-fi movie called Forbidden World, whose only claim to fame that I can recall is that the cast featured June Chadwick (the girlfriend from Hell in This Is Spinal Tap), and Fox Harris (the crazy Malibu driver in Repo Man). The character speaking is some kind of troubleshooter who has been sent to stop the rampaging creature that's killing everybody, and which he calls a "dingwopper" a few times.

UPDATE: I just remembered - I don't think the quote is the troubleshooter waxing metaphorical; I think there was actually a cranky robot in this movie, so the quote is meant literally. Well, except for the noses and the bitter droppings.

No cats in the movie, so I provide one here:


Eek in a basket!

Bolo's World

This is just silly:

Thomas Benya wore a braided bolo tie under his purple graduation gown this week as a subtle tribute to his Native American heritage.

Administrators at his Charles County school decided the string tie was too skinny. They denied him his diploma, at least temporarily, as punishment.

(snip)

The courts have ruled that students have limited rights to express themselves at school as long as their behavior is not disruptive.... David Rocah, a staff lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, said there are limits to those rights. Carrying political placards or wearing a clown suit to graduation would presumably be disruptive. The question, he said, is whether a bolo tie under a gown is disruptive.

"There's nothing wrong with wanting graduation to be a formal occasion," he said, "but the idea that everyone should look the same -- they're not all the same."

Rocah called the school's interpretation a "narrow and cramped view of personal autonomy."

Jeez, lighten up! It's just a tie! Give the poor kid his diploma already! Yes, I'm sure the school doesn't want to set some kind of Dangerous Precedent, but come on. A bolo tie may be unconventional, but there's nothing inherently distracting about it. Yes, there are lurid bolo ties (mine are, Benya's is not), but the same is true of "regular" ties, and the school has no restrictions on those.

Graduation Day is supposed to be about the students, not the school or, God forbid, its administrators. So stop digging in your heels to defend the letter of the law, and do the right thing. Kids only get one high school graduation, and it should be an occasion of joy and pride, not an occasion for struggling against bureaucracy. There'll be plenty of time for that later on, I promise.

UPDATE: I think this may be a little outside my usual "beat", but the thing is, in high school and college I was the guy who dressed like a nut. No intent to be disruptive, really - the bizarre 70s clothes just tickled my fancy, and I enjoyed dressing that way as an expression of my eccentricity. So maybe that makes me a little hypersensitive to heavyhanded attempts to stifle sartorial self-expression.

He Blinded Us From Science!

Reading some letters to the editor about Philip Cooney's selective editing of government global-warming reports, I can't help but wonder if there's a memo buried out there somewhere that talks about how "the science and facts are being fixed around the policy"...

Friday Church Door Blogging

I'm trying to get back to photoblogging a little more - I've been taking pictures, but I've gotten a little lax on posting them, partly because BloggerBot has gotten so thoroughly unreliable. It also looks like the scaling-down of the images has gotten a lot less smooth, but you can always click on them to see them full-size (and smoother).


Church door closed...


Church door open.

I'm Too Sexy For My Hair

Ugghhh...


Ahhhh...

Wow. I guess the haircut must have made me paler.

NYT Nails It

From one of today's editorials, on the former anti-environmental oil industry lawyer who has "been fighting the same fight in his new job" by editing government reports on climate change to downplay or discredit global warming:

"It's sad to think of a White House run by people who believe that a problem can be edited out of existence."

And it's downright scary to think of a White House that doesn't believe there's a problem that can't be edited (or spun, or denied) out of existence, and, worse yet, believes that this is preferable to actually fixing the problem.

Yes, it may be easier to paper over problems than it is to actually solve them, but it's disastrous in the long run, and it's not a hallmark of accountability or resolute, courageous leadership, which President Bush supposedly personifies.

A Picture's Worth... About Four Words.

I. Need. A. Haircut.

Did Somebody Say...

Cloud Blogging?

The Memepire Strikes Back

Okay, I admit, I've kinda been procrastinating on this book meme that Phila tagged me with, because I, like, already did one, and I've been generally distracted by various goings-on, but here goes:

Number of books I own: Jeez, that's a toughie. I'd guess I probably have at least four or five hundred here, and maybe two or three times that in my mom's garage in California. So we'll call it an even 2,000. Of course, I'm about as good at estimating this sort of thing as Christopher Walken was in that census sketch...

Last book I bought: I'm not sure if that's actually changed since the last book meme, so I'll say either 1602, a graphic novel that takes place in an alternate past where a whole bunch of the Marvel heroes were roaming around in 1602 instead of modern times, or Gridlink'd, by Neal Asher, "where the main character is a government agent who has been gridlinked (connected to the cyberuniverse in realtime) for so long that he's started to forget how to be human. His eccentric and mysterious boss has him disconnect from the net to reconnect with his humanity while investigating a massive teleportation disaster, while being chased by a crazy vengeful terrorist and his goons and evil psychotic android." And did I mention that the terrorist may be in the pay of an enigmatic space alien composed of a three giant spheres that calls itself "Dragon" and is able to create dinosaur-men to do its bidding? Or that the evil psychotic android likes to collect souvenirs from its victims (kid stuff, like a rubber ball or binoculars) and arrange them around himself when he's not killing people?

Last book I read: Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan. I think I had just started in on it when the last book meme rolled around. Essentially, the main character is some sort of terrorist or anarchist, who was killed and had his mind (which was stored on a hard drive at the base of his skull, as is customary) put in deep storage for a while, but got pulled out of it and "resleeved" in a new body to investigate a 350-year-old filthy-rich guy's apparent suicide, because the filthy-rich guy doesn't believe that he would kill himself when he knows full well that he has a backup copy of his mind in a remote storage facility. Devious, twisty stuff, set in a very intriguing, seedy and coherent universe that hangs together very well. May one day be a Major Motion Picture, although that looks like it's stalled right now.

Five books that mean a lot to me: Wow, that's another serious toughie. There are a lot of books that I really like, but I don't ordinarily form emotional attachments to them. I'll take a stab at it, but my choices are going to be a little strange...

Queen Of Angels, by Greg Bear. I scrounged this from my older brother's paperback collection many many years ago, and it totally blew my mind. Not only was it the first book I read to really explore the possibilities of nanotechnology, but it had a description of how the mind works that profoundly resonated with me - very compartmentalized, with independent agents and personalities for different tasks and functions.

The Book Of Strange Facts And Useless Information, by George H. Morris. My first and very favorite book of trivia, which I got when I was probably about 10 or 11. I'm pretty sure my love of trivia started here.

National Geographic Atlas, 1981 Edition. Just a bloody huge honkin' book with all kinds of good stuff in it. I loved that book as a kid, and used it to memorize state and world capitols, and to find weird/cool place names, like Sexmoan in the Phillippines. I also remember noticing that almost every town & city in Madagascar started with an A.

World Almanac And Book Of Facts, 1989 Edition. Another great source of trivia, with fascinating facts like the number of female urologists in the US between the ages of 55 & 64 (two), which I tormented my college suitemates with for weeks, if not months. Plus I needed to get caught up on my world capitols, since there were some new ones.

Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson. I only have a hazy recollection of the actual content, but I have fond memories of my dad reading it to me as a kid. My dad is very cool. And a bit weird.

Theoretically, I'm supposed to pass this along to five more people, but I'm a little hesitant to do that, since this is so similar to the book meme that passed through the blogosphere just two months ago. So I'm going to make my link in the chain more of a voluntary, opt-in one: If you didn't get the last book meme, or if you'd like to do another, please do, and let me know so I can take lots of credit for it.

Codename V. has already asked to be included.

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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TopNow don't be rash. My men are within their rights, as you are quaIity Best priceeven as his fingers closed upon the hilt, the other's closed upons Total conturned to say good-bye to Miss Bishop, who was already mounted. HefidentiaIity Home deIiveropportunity of doing so.y
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.

Meet The Overseer

"Hatred, if directed properly, is a powerful tool.... [It] makes the people docile and unimaginative."

- On Supremacy, Chapter XV


Okay, so, I think I'm close enough to the end of my book now to describe it fairly accurately. It's The Overseer, by Jonathan Rabb, and my mother sent it to me because it scared the bejesus out of her (not that she had a whole lot of bejesus to begin with). The basic premise is that a Swiss monk, a contemporary of Machiavelli, wrote a treatise called On Supremacy that made The Prince look like one of those books that tells you which fork to use with your salad. It has fallen into the hands of a Shadowy Republican Cabal, and they're using it as a roadmap to take over absolute power of the United States.

Essentially, the way the On Supremacy gameplan works is, there are three spheres: Financial, Educational, and Political, each with its own leader. They are independent of each other, but they are all controlled and coordinated by an "overseer", who is the only one with the big picture. The takeover itself is to be executed via a series of rapid-fire catastrophes, terrorist attacks, assassinations, and financial crises, using brainwashed operatives created by the educational sphere. The attacks will expose the country's weakness and decadence, and allow the Shadowy Republican Cabal with its firm steady hand and unerring moral compass to take absolute control. For our own good, of course.

What makes the book scary is that it was written in 1998.

I realized there were too many juicy and alarmingly apt quotes from the book to weigh down a single post with, so I will be posting additional ones here and there as the mood strikes, and possibly some more tidbits about the book.

O...Kay.

Granted, it's for a good cause, but it's... peculiar.

...Brooklyn cab driver L.G. Khambache Sherpa hopes New Yorkers will join him in doing just that - crawling on hands and knees with him during his ongoing 15-mile, six-day"Crawl-a-thon" from Inwood to Ground Zero.

...

Sherpa says the pain is all worth it if he fulfills his goal: raising cash for tsunami victims in Asia and 9/11 emergency workers at Ground Zero - as well as to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first scaling of MountEverest.

"Hopefully, some people will come join this mission and crawl with me - not only physically, but spiritually also."

...

"I thought he was weird," said Alfredo Garcia, 63, of Inwood. "But he's
doing it for a good cause. I like the idea."

Be sure to check out the photo of him in his crawling costume...