Stalling-For-Time Photoblogging

Well, I'm working my way through reading something long, all for a fairly frivolous post to come, so here are some more park photos in the meantime...


Geese on the wing. Or, um, ducks. I can never tell...


Fishin'.


And yet more leaves - the damn park was lousy with 'em.


Not-entirely-successful attempt at a Beauty Sky Shot. 

The First Amendment Was Just For Practice...

Long and infuriating story in tomorrow's NYT (yes, I can see into the future, but I only use my power for good) about government-funded Christian indoctrination. It's very long, so my interminable excerpting is not nearly as comprehensive as it may appear. I recommend reading the whole thing to get a better sense of scope and scale.

Life was different in Unit E at the state prison outside Newton, Iowa.

The toilets and sinks — white porcelain ones, like at home — were in a separate bathroom with partitions for privacy. In many Iowa prisons, metal toilet-and-sink combinations squat beside the bunks, to be used without privacy, a few feet from cellmates.

The cells in Unit E had real wooden doors and doorknobs, with locks. More books and computers were available, and inmates were kept busy with classes, chores, music practice and discussions. There were occasional movies and events with live bands and real-world food, like pizza or sandwiches from Subway. Best of all, there were opportunities to see loved ones in an environment quieter and more intimate than the typical visiting rooms.

But the only way an inmate could qualify for this kinder mutation of prison life was to enter an intensely religious rehabilitation program and satisfy the evangelical Christians running it that he was making acceptable spiritual progress. The program — which grew from a project started in 1997 at a Texas prison with the support of George W. Bush, who was governor at the time — says on its Web site that it seeks “to ‘cure’ prisoners by identifying sin as the root of their problems” and showing inmates “how God can heal them permanently, if they turn from their sinful past.”

One Roman Catholic inmate, Michael A. Bauer, left the program after a year, mostly because he felt the program staff and volunteers were hostile toward his faith.

(...)

The Iowa prison program is not unique. Since 2000, courts have cited more than a dozen programs for having unconstitutionally used taxpayer money to pay for religious activities or evangelism aimed at prisoners, recovering addicts, job seekers, teenagers and children.

(...)

[I]n a move that some constitutional lawyers found surprising, Judge Pratt ordered the prison ministry in the Iowa case to repay more than $1.5 million in government money, saying the constitutional violations were serious and clearly foreseeable.

His decision has been appealed by the prison ministry to a federal appeals court and fiercely protested by the attorneys general of nine states and lawyers for a number of groups advocating greater government accommodation of religious groups. The ministry’s allies in court include the Bush administration, which argued that the repayment order could derail its efforts to draw more religious groups into taxpayer-financed programs.

(...)

In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that public money could be used for religious instruction or indoctrination, but only when the intended beneficiaries made the choice themselves between religious and secular programs....

But even in today’s more accommodating environment, constitutional scholars agree that one line between church and state has remained fairly bright: The government cannot directly finance or support religious evangelism or indoctrination. That restriction typically has not loomed large when public money goes to religious charities providing essentially secular services, like job training, after-school tutoring, child care or food banks. In such cases, the beneficiaries need not accept the charity’s religious beliefs to get the secular benefits the government is financing.

The courts have taken a different view, however, when public money goes directly to groups, like the Iowa ministry, whose method of helping others is to introduce them to a specific set of religious beliefs — and whose success depends on the beneficiary accepting those core beliefs. In those cases, most of the challenged grants have been struck down as unconstitutional.

Those who see faith-based groups as exceptionally effective allies in the battle against criminal recidivism, teen pregnancy, addiction and other social ills say these cases are rare, compared with the number of programs receiving funds, and should not tarnish the concept of bringing more religious groups into publicly financed programs, so long as any direct financing is used only for secular expenses. [This is ironic - remember when the Bush administration made the reverse argument to deny all funding to any international clinics that performed abortions?]

(...)

One grant went to a theater company that toured high schools performing a skit called “Just Say Whoa.” The script contained many religious references including one in which a character called Bible Guy tells teenagers in the cast: “As Christians, our bodies belong to the Lord, not to us.” [this isn't particularly relevant, I'm just amused by the name "Bible Guy" for some reason]

(...)

In ruling on [the Iowa prison] case, Judge Pratt noted that the born-again Christian staff was the sole judge of an inmate’s spiritual transformation. If an inmate did not join in the religious activities that were part of his “treatment,” the staff could write up disciplinary reports, generating demerits the inmate’s parole board might see. Or they could expel the inmate.

And while the program was supposedly open to all, in practice its content was “a substantial disincentive” for inmates of other faiths to join, the judge noted. Although the ministry itself does not condone hostility toward Catholics, Roman Catholic inmates heard their faith criticized by staff members and volunteers from local evangelical churches, the judge found. And Jews and Muslims in the program would have been required to participate in Christian worship services even if that deeply offended their own religious beliefs.

(...)

Not all programs in prisons are so narrowly focused. Florida now has three prisons that offer inmates, who must ask to be housed there, more than two dozen offerings ranging from various Christian denominations to Orthodox Judaism to Scientology. But at Newton, Judge Pratt found, there were few options — and no equivalent programs — without religious indoctrination.

“The state has literally established an Evangelical Christian congregation within the walls of one of its penal institutions, giving the leaders of that congregation, i.e., InnerChange employees, authority to control the spiritual, emotional and physical lives of hundreds of Iowa inmates,” Judge Pratt wrote. “There are no adequate safeguards present, nor could there be, to ensure that state funds are not being directly spent to indoctrinate Iowa inmates.”

I'm not quite as offended by the Florida prisons with multiple religious options, although I would be happier if they had an atheist/agnostic option, or at least Unitarian Universalist.

There are two aspects of the Iowa prison program, and many other Christian proselytizing-masquerading-as-good-works programs that really piss me off:

1) They are, in effect, bribing inmates and other targets (jobseekers, homeless, teenagers) to succumb to their ministrations. Yeah, sure, they're not coerced into choosing the Christian program, but who wouldn't want a nicer cell with a private toilet and the occasional pizza party? Or a job, or some food, or time on a really cool ranch? (Yes, I'm pretty sure the kids are given the most positive, appealing spin imaginable about what life on the Christian ranch will be like.) It may comply with the letter of the law, but it is fundamentally (heh) dishonest.

2) I resent the underlying premise that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is the only path to rehabilitation and redemption. It is just a little too similar to the prejudice that atheists cannot be moral because they do not have a religious code to guide them. What might a secular rehabilitation program look like? Social work is waaaay outside my area of expertise, but how about something like this, or any other organized activity that focuses the mind and builds up discipline and self-worth? Religion does not have a monopoly on instilling purpose and values.

Finally, An Exit Strategy!

According to Josh Marshall (hat tip to lotus):

Okay, these are fairly round numbers. But they give us at least a broad view of the problem. According a recent UN report, approximately 100,000 Iraqis per month are leaving the country. And an average of 2,000 per day across are streaming out into Syria (the rest appear to be leaving through Jordan, approximately 1,000 per day according to this Brookings report). Bear in mind that Iraq is a country of just under 27 million people. So in demographic terms, that amounts to something like arterial bleeding.

In a related story, President George W. Bush called a press conference this evening and announced:

After much discussion and prayer, this administration has decided to adopt a modified version of the Baker-Hamilton Commission's recommendations for troop withdrawal. The Bush-Cheney Withdraw-To-Win Plan will call for the removal of all American combat personnel not essential to oil production in, uh, 27 million divided by 100,000 months. We will strive to accelerate this timeframe further by arming all patrol vehicles with "bunker-buster" speakers and copies of Kevin Federline's "Playing With Fire" CD. Victory is mine!

At long last, prevailure is within reach.

What The.

I just can't make any sense of this at all:

Outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made a secret farewell trip to Iraq, a senior Pentagon official confirmed on Saturday.

Rumsfeld's trip, first reported by ABC News, was his 13th unannounced visit to the country. It came one day after he gave a farewell address at the Pentagon and nine days before he is replaced by Robert Gates.

No other details of Rumsfeld's trip or whether he was still in Iraq were immediately available.

Seriously, I can't think of any possible reason, unless this is part of some kind of elaborate suicide plan.

Justice For Thee, But Not For Me

Remember that Foley guy? Used to be a congressman, had kind of a creepy thing for underage pages, and the Republican leadership looked the other way? NYT has something to say about him, or rather, his enablers. Um, would you believe his enablers' enablers?

Watching our elected leaders in action, it’s not surprising that Americans wonder if there is any limit to the crass misbehavior that members of Congress are willing to tolerate from their colleagues to protect their privileges and hold on to their own jobs. The House ethics committee answered that question yesterday with a resounding “No.”

Sixty-four days after it promised to find out who knew about Representative Mark Foley’s wildly inappropriate, sexually predatory behavior with teenage House pages, and why they failed to stop it, the bipartisan committee produced a report yesterday that was a 91-page exercise in cowardice.

The report’s authors were clearly more concerned about protecting the members of the House than the young men and women under their charge in the page program. And they made absolutely no effort to define the high standard of behavior that should be required of all members of Congress and their staffs.

....The report makes clear that Mr. Foley’s misconduct became known to an ever-widening circle of his colleagues and their aides, including Speaker Dennis Hastert. But no one made any serious attempt to stop Mr. Foley or reveal his misdeeds. A few urged him to cut it out, for political reasons, but did not follow up.

The committee concluded that other people preferred to remain willfully ignorant — to protect Mr. Foley’s secret homosexuality, to avoid partisan embarrassment or for other political reasons.

But even after all that, the report said that none of this amounted to the sort of behavior that might discredit the House of Representatives and thus violate ethics rules. The committee, which never heard from Mr. Foley, did not call for disciplinary action against current members of the House or their staffs....

The panel’s justification for inaction is a breathtaking exercise in sophistry: “the requirement that House members and staff act at all times in a manner that reflects creditably on the House does not mean that every error in judgment or failure to exercise greater oversight or diligence” is a violation.

No, not every error or failure should be a violation, but certainly the ones that lead to an elected official’s sexually stalking teenage boys while his colleagues turn a blind eye or cover it up should be. We’d set the bar at least there. Apparently, it’s too high for the House.

Oy. Maybe this should have waited until the Democrats took over. Assuming that that would have helped.

This speaks to a huge structural problem with our supposedly self-policing government: That guilt or innocence is never decided by an impartial jury, but rather by congresspeople with clear-cut political affiliations and loyalties. Imagine a murder trial where the jury is composed solely of the defendant's friends and enemies (and furthermore, that only a simple majority is needed to convict). The testimony and evidence in the case would be irrelevant - all that would matter would be whether the defendant had more friends than enemies on the jury.

That is the situation that we had eight years ago, when Clinton was frivolously impeached, simply because his enemies controlled Congress. That is the situation we have today, when Foley's enablers got off because their friends control the ethics panel. President Bush admitted to breaking the law in his use of wireless wiretapping and uncontestable detentions, yet impeachment was never even a possibility because his party controlled both houses of Congress. Even under the incoming Democratic Congress, impeachment is not a possibility because the new majority party has to worry about how it might affect their chances of re-election. Granted, this could change as investigations bring more presidential wrongdoing to light, but the underlying problem remains: In-house law enforcement for the political class is a political rather than a legal process, making true justice and accountability impossible.

(Yes, granted, certain crimes can trigger criminal court proceedings, but the government appears to have some discretion to keep things in-house - much like, say, the Catholic Church. And as I understand it, a sitting President's immunity to criminal prosecution is absolute.)

Erosion

I think Dubya is officially cratering. Atrios links to the latest Zogby poll numbers, and they're bad, very bad.

Not only is his overall approval down to 30% (a new low for this poll), but his approval among Republicans is down to 60% (it used to be up in the 80s), and among Born Again Christians, it's 43%. I repeat, 43%. That's... spectacular. And in case you're wondering, he's at 22% among Independents, and 9% among Democrats (the 9% must all live in Connecticut or something).

Consider also, this poll began before the ISG Report came out and mainstreamed the idea that the Iraq invasion was a catastrophic mistake, and (I believe) completed before Bush blew off the Report's recommendation to start withdrawing troops from Iraq, which was, well, kinda the whole point.


But, Barney has a new video! He's planning a Holiday Extravaganza! Hard to say how this might affect the numbers - on the one paw, everyone loves Barney. On the other paw, he's throwing away a lot of his hard-earned political capital by joining the Anti-Christmasofascist hordes.

Totally Not A Meme. Nope.

Technically, since the shadowy and mysterious Codename V. received this via e-mail, and did not tag anyone, I therefore have no obligation to participate. Besides, there's no way I could improve on her responses.

Mmm... Hammer pants...

(Would the world be better or worse if Batman wore Hammer pants? Discuss.)

UPDATE: Christopher Hitchens really needs to start reading V's blog...

NARAL-Mindedness

Digby has (as usual) an excellent post on the ongoing NARAL selloutathon. He contrasts NARAL's accommodationist, triangulating strategy with the NRA's absolutism, which is a comparison that came to my mind in the wake of their lame excuses about not being able to account for cloture votes for the Alito nomination on their "scorecard." Anyone think the NRA wouldn't find a way to keep track of who voted for cloture for a zealously anti-gun Supreme Court nominee, or that any such congresscritter would be receiving any endorsements or thank-you letters(!) in the foreseeable future? Didn't think so.

Digby focuses primarily on how NARAL is allowing the center to shift drastically to the right, but only alludes briefly and indirectly to the way they're moving the left to the right. By giving their blessing to a pro-choice definition of when life begins, and embracing the doctrine of fetal pain sensitivity (I really hope they're wrong on that - I just automatically assume that any scientific claims coming from the far right are garbage, and I haven't been wrong yet), they have given them the imprimatur of progressivity, allowing feckless or naïve Democratic politicians to freely adopt without fear of any repercussions or stigma - after all, who wants to be to the left of NARAL on choice? Protecting choice is their whole raison d'etre, right?

And that, of course, is the problem. Any anti-choice position adopted by NARAL will not make NARAL more credible, because everyone thinks NARAL is an advocacy group for women's choice. All it does is make that position look liberal and pro-choice, because it's been endorsed by a liberal and pro-choice organization.

Now, with all that being said, can anyone explain to me why NARAL's membership has not staged a revolt? I know NARAL chief Nancy Keenan is a Catholic who appears to be personally opposed to abortion (!!!), but is the membership really that oblivious to what's being advocated in their name, or are they in on the scam? I would think that if they're informed, committed progressives, they would have been lashing some serious back starting with NARAL's endorsement of Joe Lieberman. Can anyone out there offer any insider perspective on this? Is NARAL just the pro-choice version of the rights-would-be-nice-but-what-we-really-want-are-tax-cuts Log Cabin Republicans?

Friday Quote & Cat Blogging

This week's quote is from My Giant, starring Billy Crystal and my all-time favorite NBA player, Gheorghe Muresan:

I just signed some singing pigs. They're amazing.

Mmm... singing pigs...


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


Incoming!

I'll Believe It When I See It...

Excellent news, IF true:

By the 2008 presidential election, voters around the country are likely to see sweeping changes in how they cast their ballots and how those ballots are counted, including an end to the use of most electronic voting machines without a paper trail, federal voting officials and legislators say.

New federal guidelines, along with legislation given a strong chance to pass in Congress next year, will probably combine to make the paperless voting machines obsolete, the officials say. States and counties that bought the machines will have to modify them to hook up printers, at federal expense, while others are planning to scrap the machines and buy new ones.

Motivated in part by voting problems during the midterm elections last month, the changes are a result of a growing skepticism among local and state election officials, federal legislators and the scientific community about the reliability and security of the paperless touch-screen machines used by about 30 percent of American voters.

The changes also mean that the various forms of vote-counting software used around the country — most of which are protected by their manufacturers for reasons of trade secrecy — will for the first time be inspected by federal authorities, and the code could be made public. There will also be greater federal oversight on how new machines are tested before they arrive at polling stations.

(...)

This week, the Technical Guidelines Development Committee, a federal panel of technical experts that helps set voting standards, adopted a resolution that recommends requiring any new electronic voting systems to have an independent means of verification, a move that could eventually prevent paperless touch-screen machines from being federally certified.

I hope the Democrats do everything they can to get these reforms in place in time for the 2008 election. They need to operate with a sense of urgency, especially if the Republicans figure out a way to either distance themselves from Bush and his disastrous war; or convince voters that it's not so disastrous after all and Dubya's resolute forceful manliness is the only thing standing between us and the Islamofascist Terrorist Hordes Of Scary.

Unfortunately, paperless voting machines are only one element of what's wrong with our election system. Not only are votes not getting counted properly, but many of them are not being cast at all, or are not reaching the tallying process. Any serious, comprehensive election reform must include stiff penalties and enforcement for all forms of voter suppression, such as voter intimidation, voter purges, hidden poll taxes in the guise of ID requirements, and dirty tricks in general (phone jamming, deceptive flyers or robocalls, etc.). As long as the Republicans continue to control which votes get to be counted, they don't really need to control the counting itself.

(Wise) Man Down!

Begun, this War On Christmas has.


Dammit, why did today have to be the day I didn't bring a camera? The Treo is pretty nifty, but it is not exactly a State-Of-The-Art Digital Photographic Apparatus.

Lyric Of The Day

From the Jack Rubies' "Good Morning Heartache":

My bad bad doggie bit my face
I left his kennel in disgrace

The Jack Rubies are seriously underrated, or perhaps more accurately, not even rated at all.

ISG Revisited

I've meditated on the ISG Report a little more, and I'm realizing that maybe it isn't a complete waste of time and paper. I stand by my original assessment that even if implemented with scientific exactitude, it's not going to come close to salvaging Iraq, and I stand by my subsequent prediction that Bush will use it to put bipartisan lipstick on the stay-the-course pig. What makes the ISG Report a Big Deal is that after all the hype about how the ISG is such a bipartisan collection of Serious Old Wise Men (and Sandra Day), they completely and utterly trashed the administration's approach to the war - not just strategy (or its absence) or tactics, but also the gaming and suppression of negative information.

In other words, after being given a whole lot of (undeserved) credibility as a nonpartisan band of fair dealers, they exposed the Iraq invasion and occupation for the deadly, destabilizing, and incompetently executed fraud that it really is. It's one thing to hear that sort of thing from us lily-livered, Bush-hating liberals, but from James Baker and Ed Meese? Ed MEESE, people! It moves the Iraq-is-a-destructive failure narrative squarely into the center of "acceptable" political opinion.

Sure, the White House and the corporate media will do all they can to retroactively marginalize the ISG and spin their findings, but I think it's too late.

One question keeps coming to mind: Did 41 know about this? I assume he had some idea of the recommendations, but did he know Junior's War was going to get slammed so bluntly? And if so, did he try to put on the brakes, or did he give it his blessing? I think the father-son dynamic/rivalry is twisted enough that that could be entirely possible. I bet the Bush Christmas dinner will be severely festivity-impaired this year either way, maybe with Junior sulking by himself at the kiddie table.

Simple Answers To Simple Questions

Will It Work in the White House?

No.


Really, the only question is what kind of political use the WH will make of the report. Pretend to gratefully embrace it and then gut it, or simply fail to follow through, or follow through incompetently?

Or attack it as insufficiently resolute and hold it up as an example of the wishy-washy pitfalls of bipartisanship?

Given the national mood ("The war sucks, get out now"), and the polite-but-noncomittal tenor of Bush's public comments about it, it looks like it's going to be some variation of the former. Bush will use the report to bathe stay-the-course in a rosy, bipartisany glow. He will pretend to adopt just enough of it so that credulous right- and center-wing pundits (I'm looking at you, Broder) can admire his open-mindedness and willingness to listen to advice and change course, all the while ignoring the fact that he's doing no such thing.

Look for Atrios and all the other media-watchdog bloggers to start going to town on this within one Friedman Unit (six months).

Shorter Christy

"Republicans are about to learn the difference between overseeing and overlooking."

Go Henry!

Mostly B&W Park Photoblogging

More fun from the park.


More leaves.


Water fountain, wrapped up for the offseason. It kinda gave me the creeps, but what doesn't these days?


Playground slide.


The leaves seem to like it...

How Quaint.

John actually thinks that Cheneys are subject to mere laws. Foolish mortal; has he already forgotten that this is the same family that can shoot people in the face with impunity?

But he is right that it would suck to be a gay commoner in VA.

(hat tip to vicki at DL Lousville)

Iraq Stalling Group

Okay, I'm admittedly way late to the ISG Party, but I have to work. And then I have to recuperate from work. So others have probably said everything I have to say, but I might as well get my observations out of my system anyway. They're bullet points because I'm all corporate.

1) Atrios is entirely correct in that even if the ISG plan is the most brilliant plan ever (which it's not) and would transform Iraq into an America-loving secular democracy in six months if followed in its entirety... it will never be followed in its entirety. Bush will simply implement the parts of it that fit in with what he already wanted to do anyway. And, I might add, when it all inevitably falls apart, he will then place all the blame on them (tell me again why anyone would ever want to be a part of this group?). At least they tried to cover their asses by saying that the plan had to be implemented in its entirety, but who's gonna remember that when everything blows up? Okay, blows up more.

2) Some of the recommendations bring to mind the old saying, "Hope is not a plan." Negotiate with Iran and Syria to get them to help us out? Tell the Iraqi government to make "substantial progress" on reconciliation and security or we'll pull the plug?

3) Um, 70-80,000 is still an awful lot of troops. And if the Iraqi troops and police aren't up to snuff (inconceivable!), the remaining troops will be even more vulnerable than they are now. Realistically, I can see Bush pretending to agree to this and then stalling and dragging his feet to ensure that it becomes his successor's problem. Which, of course, has been his plan ever since it became clear that Iraq wasn't going to spontaneously morph into a model democracy all by itself.

4) Some telling tidbits:

o Bush saying he's not looking for a "graceful exit." (When has he ever?)

o "While the panel was careful to modulate its wording to avoid phrases and rigid timelines that might alienate the White House..." (How pathetic is it that they have to sugarcoat the report so the leader of the free world won't petulantly dismiss it?)

o The commission also abandoned the definition of “victory in Iraq” that President Bush laid out as his own strategy a year ago, and its report did not embrace the White House’s early aspiration that Iraq might be transformed into a democracy at any time in the near future. “We want to stay current,” Mr. Hamilton said briskly when asked about that decision. (Ouch.)

o Their findings left Washington awash in speculation over whether Mr. Bush, who thanked the members for their work and, in a private meeting, did nothing to push back against their findings, would embark on a huge reversal in policy. To do so would represent a[n] admission that three and a half years of strategy had failed, and that Mr. Bush’s repeated assurances to the American people that “absolutely, we’re winning” were based more on optimism than realism. His national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, has said that the president would announce a major change of course in “weeks, not months,” but given no hint how extensive it would be. (Try to imagine the worst choice possible, and that's what Bush will announce.)


I don't have high hopes. Even if implemented in its entirety, I don't think the plan would help a whole lot. And the odds of it being implemented in its entirety are roughly equal to the odds of Bush admitting error. This is not a coincidence.

Night Of The Living Dems

Michael Temchine/The New York Times

I know I watch too many horror movies, but it really looks like something awful and badwrong is about to happen here.

Copper Lining

Remember, back about six months before 9/11, when the Taliban blew up those two giant standing Buddha statues? That was a ghastly, horrible, tragic thing, but apparently there was a tiny bit of good that came out of it, in that the destruction inadvertently opened the way to some fruitful archaeological research:

A continuing paradox is that the destruction of the Buddhas has in a way aided archaeologists in their investigations. For example, carbon dating of fragments of the plaster surface of the Buddhas was able to pinpoint the construction of the smaller one to 507, and the larger one to 554. Previous estimates had varied over 200 years.

The Buddhas were only roughly carved in the rock, which was then covered in a mud plaster mixed with straw and horsehair molded to depict the folds of their robes and then painted in bright colors. Workers have recovered nearly 3,000 pieces of the surface plaster, some with traces of paint, as well as the wooden pegs and rope that were laid across the bodies to hold the plaster to the statue. The dryness of Afghanistan’s climate and the depth of the niches helped protect the statues and preserve the wood and rope.

The larger Buddha was painted carmine red and the smaller one was multicolored, Mr. Melzl said.

The most exciting find, he added, was a reliquary containing three clay beads, a leaf, clay seals and parts of a Buddhist text written on bark. The reliquary is thought to have been placed on the chest of the larger Buddha and plastered over at the time of construction.

(...)

One cave... so blackened by soot from camp fires that the Taliban and looters passed it by, has revealed fine paintings of tiny animals — a lion and a wild boar, a monkey, an ox and a griffin — rare in Buddhist art, but characteristic of Bamiyan, which combines Indian, Iranian and Gandharan influences.

(...)

The Chinese monk Xuan Zang visited Bamiyan in 632 and described not only the two big standing Buddhas, but also a temple some distance from the royal palace that housed a reclining Buddha about 1,000 feet long. Most experts believe it lay above ground and was long ago destroyed.

But two archaeologists, Zemaryalai Tarzi of Afghanistan and Kazuya Yamauchi of Japan, are busy digging in the hope of finding its foundations. Mr. Tarzi, who excavated a Buddhist monastery this year, may have also found the wall of the royal citadel that could lead the way to the third Buddha. He plans to return next year to continue digging.

(I've probably watched entirely too many bad Sci-Fi movies, because all I can think about is how bad it would be if the Chrysler Buddha suddenly came to life and started killing people...)

There's also some talk about restoring the Buddhas, but given the hefty price tag and the country's many more urgent needs, it's not likely to happen. And the even-more-expensive "$64 million sound-and-laser show starting in 2009 that would project Buddha images at Bamiyan" idea just sounds stupid.

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

Space aliens from Vega? Why, that would make them...

Larry Weald returned home yesterday to a scene of chaos in his refrigerator.

"It was as if someone had taken a scalpel to the takeout box," Weald said of his mutilated order of steamed tofu. Neighboring containers of soy sauce and low-calorie dressing were unharassed.

Police investigation of the refrigerator uncovered heightened levels of radiation. "My pocket sandwiches had fully cooked in the freezer compartment," Weald said.

"Whatever did this must have come through the walls," said Weald.

Police confirm that Weald's security system, deadbolt, and chain lock functioned perfectly throughout the night of the mutilation.

Efforts to conduct video surveillance at the crime scene have been frustrated by darkness inside the refrigerator.

However, NASA researchers believe that the tofu mutilators' origin may be otherworldly.

"There have been increased reports of crop circles in soybean fields, and of UFO sightings near the star Vega," a NASA source revealed.

Investigators say that Weald's is the strangest kitchen incursion since the Beef-Stock Mutilations of 1979, which claimed over 150 Nebraskan bouillon cubes.

I had no idea there was this much specialization among mutilator aliens.

Eli's Obsession With The Google

#1 search result for PIMP CLOWN.

Only search result for "that's a fluffy dog".

Well, Of Course They Do.

Gates' Assets Include Defense Stock:

Defense Secretary-nominee Robert Gates' assets include up to $250,000 in stock in a defense contractor on whose board he serves, a financial disclosure report made public Tuesday shows.

If confirmed as defense secretary, Gates will divest his holdings in the company, NACCO Industries, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. He will step away from any Defense Department matters involving NACCO for at least a year, she said.

Gates is a member of the board of directors of NACCO Industries, the Cleveland-based parent of the NACCO Materials Handling Group, a lift truck company and Defense Department contractor.

He holds stock worth $100,000 to $250,000 and earned $134,750 in director fees from the company from 2005 to the present, according to the financial report he filed with the federal government.

Gates plans to sell all the stock he owns in individual companies and sever all ties with them if the Senate confirms him as Pentagon chief, Perino said.

Well, I'm sure that should be more than enough to prevent any conflicts of interest. Gates's soon-to-be-former company won't receive more favorable treatment than any other random company with absolutely no ties to the administration. Like, say, Halliburton.

More Fun With The AP

Wasn't this a South Park episode?

For nearly 20 years -- ever since Pete Costello was 8 -- his mother has collected disability benefits on his behalf. In meetings with Social Security officials and psychologists, he appeared mentally retarded and unable to communicate. His mother insisted he couldn't read or write, shower, take care of himself or drive a car.

But now prosecutors say it was all a huge fraud, and they have video of Costello contesting a traffic ticket to prove it.

"He's like any other person trying to get out of a traffic ticket," Assistant U.S. Attorney Norman Barbosa said Tuesday.

(...)

The benefits cited in the indictment totaled $111,000.

Barbosa said the government does not know whether Costello is retarded to some degree, but he clearly has been "exaggerating whatever he may have, if any."

This sounds a bit like overkill...

A fed-up mother had her 12-year-old son arrested for allegedly rummaging through his great-grandmother's things and playing with his Christmas present early.

The mother called police Sunday after learning her son had disobeyed orders and repeatedly taken a Game Boy from its hiding place at his grandmother's house next door and played it. He was arrested on petty larceny charges, taken to the local police station in handcuffs and held until his mother picked him up after church.

I can't improve on the AP's headline: Flatulence Forces Plane to Land (hell, even the URL is kinda amusing - in a vulgar, unsophisticated way, of course):

It is considered polite to light a match after passing gas. [It is?] Not while on a plane.

An American Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing Monday morning after a passenger lit a match to disguise the scent of flatulence, authorities said.

The Dallas-bound flight was diverted to Nashville after several passengers reported smelling burning sulfur from the matches, said Lynne Lowrance, spokeswoman for the Nashville International Airport Authority. All 99 passengers and five crew members were taken off and screened while the plane was searched and luggage was screened.

The FBI questioned a passenger who admitted she struck the matches in an attempt to conceal a ''body odor,'' Lowrance said....

(...)

The flight took off again, but the woman was not allowed back on the plane. The woman, who was not identified, was not charged in the incident.

We're all doomed.

Swedehearts

What were they thinking?

Two Swedish border control officers risk disciplinary action for keeping a photo collection of ''exceptionally beautiful'' women that passed through their checkpoint, police officials said Tuesday.

The officers, who were working at a ferry terminal near Stockholm, made photocopies of the women's passport photos and placed them in a binder. They also noted the date of birth next to each entry, the Stockholm police department said.

The binder contained instructions on how to compile the collection, and orders to make backup copies in case the binder would go missing or be confiscated by ''evil-minded bores,'' police said.

The instructions also stated that only ''exceptionally beautiful'' women belonged in the collection and that no personal data, aside from the date of birth, should be included.

The men's employer found the binder and reported them to police, but the matter was dismissed because the compilation was not considered illegal.

Stockholm police passed the matter to the national police's disciplinary board, which recommended the men get away with a warning.

I have no idea what the relevance of the birthdate was supposed to have, unless they were doing some kind of study of age-distribution of beauty (I doubt this).

Granted, I don't know Swedish law, but I can't think of what law this would be breaking. It's terribly inappropriate, though. I'm pretty sure that if anyone at my company did something like this, they would be fired pretty damn quick.

Also: Photocopies? Of passport photos? Their victims'(?) beauty would have to be exceptional indeed to survive that double whammy.

Is It Too Late To Find A New Replacement?

Mr. Gates appears to be engaging in some doubleplusungood wrongthink:

President Bush’s nominee to be Secretary of Defense said today that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq, and that an American failure there could help to ignite “a regional conflagration” in the Middle East.

Robert M. Gates, who will succeed Donald H. Rumsfeld as Pentagon chief if he is confirmed as expected, also told senators that the United States went to war in Iraq without enough troops, as some generals said at the outset of the conflict.

The statements about the situation in Iraq came during an exchange with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, during Mr. Gates’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“We are not winning the war in Iraq, is that correct?” Mr. McCain asked.

“That is my view, yes, senator,” Mr. Gates replied, adding shortly afterward that the United States is not losing the war either. His assessment came minutes after Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican who heads the committee, said he believed that the United States was “drifting sideways” in Iraq, and that the American people are demanding change.

Mr. Gates said “there clearly were insufficient troops in Iraq after the initial invasion.” While he said that he envisions “a dramatically smaller” number of United States troops there, he said an American presence would be required “for a long time.”

Developments in Iraq “in the next year or two” will shape the future of the entire Middle East, Mr. Gates said in describing the possibility of a “regional conflagration” arising out of the Iraq bloodshed.

Wow, some of that actually sounded kinda like straight talk. But don't worry, he starts sneaking back onto the reservation:

Mr. Gates told the senators at the outset that he is “open to a wide range of ideas and proposals” about what to do in Iraq, and that America’s overall goal should still be an Iraq that can “sustain itself, defend itself and govern itself,” the objective that President Bush has long set out.

(...)

Mr. Gates has been president of Texas A&M University, and he told the senators that he is not giving up that job, which he loves, to be anyone’s sycophant in Washington. “I don’t owe anybody anything,” he said, vowing to give not only the president but the Congress his unvarnished advice.

Yeah, good luck with that, Bob.

The thing is, while yes, Rummy was incompetent and awful, most of what went wrong with Iraq was dictated from above. If we venture for a moment into Magical Sugarplum Fantasyland and imagine that The Donald was the smartest, most competent SecDef in the history of all the universes, and told Dubya that his plan was The Suck, and refused to invade without a better plan, our clueless leader would have immediately shitcanned him and replaced him with Harriet Miers, or Joe Lieberman, or Jeff "Bulldog" Gannon, or Ryan Seacrest DSV.

In other words, the Defense Secretary does not set the Iraq policy; he merely executes it (or tortures it, as the circumstances require). It really doesn't matter whether Gates has a plan for Iraq or not. Bush will do What Bush Wants To Do, which will inevitably be the most foolhardy and disastrous course possible.

Replacing the SecDef is all well and good, but we won't have any chance of a least-bad outcome until we replace his boss.

UPDATE: I have found the perfect replacement! Certainly a better strategic thinker than Gates or Rummy, and probably more compassionate as well.

Kurtzes Foiled Again

First Stanley, now Howie. (Why yes, I do have a great big man-crush on Glenn Greenwald - the question is, Why don't you? "I'm a woman" is an acceptable response, but only just this once.)

I suppose it's possible Howie was speaking facetiously or sarcastically, but it's hard to tell for sure. If it had been, say, the All-Seeing Eye Of Froomkin, I might be more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt.

Glenn also thinks that at least some of the media is awakening from the hypnotic trance that Bush and Rove put them in six years ago ("Focus on the cocktail weenie as I wave it back and forth... When I count to ten, you will fall into a deep, relaxing sleep..."). I hope he's right, but I'm not convinced. I think any underbus-throwing that they might be doing now is not so much an awakening of conscience so much as a desperate attempt to salvage the last shreds of their credibility.

Just as the first rule of parasites is to not kill your host (and risk starvation), the first rule of propaganda in this country is to not be too obvious (and risk irrelevance). Of course, the Republicans haven't been very mindful of the first rule, so it's probably unrealistic to expect them to heed the second.

A Very Scientological Christmas

Oh my:

Cardboard scenery, paper snowflakes and angel wings from the Halloween store are the stuff that kids' Christmas pageants are made of.

"A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant" - based on the teachings of the church founded by L. Ron Hubbard - includes many of the same ingredients.

But there are a few props that you don't find in a typical pageant.

Like a dancing brain.

A child "robot" narrator.

And a Suri Cruise sock puppet.

(...)

Suri "is a pink puppet with a pacifier and feathery hair," says Alex Timbers, who conceived the show and directs. "She's really cute."

Kyle Jarrow wrote the book, music and lyrics for the 55-minute show that celebrates the life and teachings of Hubbard, using the idiom of a children's Christmas pageant.

(...)

The cast is comprised of kids ages 8 to 12 costumed in jazzy choir robes. The grade-school performers reenact Hubbard's birth (in a manger, of course) and explain the creation myth according to Scientology.

As for little Suri, don't worry, she's not unchaperoned. Mom Katie is also a sock puppet.

Says Timbers, "She's beige-y gray with brown pipe-cleaner hair. She's got big eyes. They bobble."

Wow. Evil Dead: The Musical has some competition.

More Park B&W Blogging

Some more pictures from the park; some of them are even of quasi-parklike kinds of things.


It's a branch... in a lake.


Under the picnic table.


Spooky underwater photography. It looks like it was taken in 1840 or something...


More fun with trashcans.

Shorter Glenn Greenwald

"Spreading democracy around the world is a bad idea if we make everyone hate us."

Can't really argue with that.

Shrubenfreude

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I Can See This Went Went Well...

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

If you're in a tight spot and you want someone to help you, I recommend assuming an expression other than "I wish this joker would shut his piehole so I can presidentially tell him what to do" when they're speaking.


From the AP story:

President Bush told an Iraqi power broker on Monday that the United States was not satisfied with the progress of efforts to stop the sharp escalation of violence in Iraq.

Bush met at the White House with Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the Shiite leader of the largest bloc in Iraq's parliament.

Al-Hakim said that he ''vehemently'' opposes any regional or international effort to solve Iraq's problems that goes around the unity government in Baghdad.

''Iraq should be in a position to solve Iraq's problems,'' al-Hakim said.

The president said he spoke with al-Hakim for more than an hour and said they had a ''very constructive conversation.''

(...)

''We talked about the need to give the government Iraq more capability as soon as possible so the elected government of Iraq can do that which the Iraqi people want to secure their country from extremists and murderers,'' Bush said. ''I told his eminence that I was proud of the courage of the Iraqi people. I told him that we're not satisfied with the pace of progress in Iraq. And that we want to continue to work with the sovereign government of Iraq.''

The rest of the story basically covers the fallout from the Rumsfeld and Hadley memos and the administration's unwillingness to withdraw even if the Iraq Study Group recommends it.

I don't really have any insightful analysis here - we already know that Iraq is a disaster and we're not leaving anytime soon. I just wanted to post the photo because it's such a perfect visual distillation of Bush's pissy, arrogant contempt for everyone who is not his tame creature.

Eli's Obsession With The Google

#3 search result for please screw my husband stories. (Yesterday I was #1 - what gives? Could I really have fallen from grace so quickly?)

And I would love to know the story behind why someone was searching for this. I can only assume they meant it ironically.

Monday Media Blogging

Patrick Stewart encourages a struggling actor and describes the exciting new screenplay he's working on. And I do mean exciting.

Hat tip to the shadowy and mysterious Codename V. Don't forget to vote in her Very Important Human vs. Monkey poll.

Hrmf.

Giants continue to be stupid and bad.

On the plus side, unless they run the table to finish 10-6 and in the playoffs, it should pretty well guarantee that we've seen the last of Coughlin and Hufnagel, who have done an absolutely awful job this year. Injuries are no excuse; they've been losing these games on stupidity, and that points squarely at the coaching staff.

Also on the plus side, Eli, Tiki, Jacobs, and Shockey were all pretty solid, and Sinorice Moss actually played(!). Everyone else was pretty damned awful.

Shorter Stephen Hadley

"Fuck Baker; we're not going anywhere."

Some other highlights:

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said that consensus should not be a prime objective. “I’d rather be divided as a nation and win, than united and lose,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

He called for “more troops, not less.”

Good luck with that, Sparky. Maybe you and McCain can co-sponsor a bill to reinstate the draft.

Yet, some Democrats insisted that no overarching resolution was possible without political progress. “You need a political solution,” said Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. He said he was not sure that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq was “the guy that can carry the sleigh.”

What the hell is that supposed to mean? Is he saying we need to put Santa Claus in charge? Or Rudolph? Is Iraq now part of the Global War On Christmas, too?

Running From Homelessness?

This is kinda interesting and uplifting (why yes, I am just browsing through the NYT's AP page - what of it?):

Rebecca Kelly used to run from her problems. Now, she runs in an effort to solve them. Kelly took her first drink at 14, soon entering the first of what would be many rehabilitation stints. She's been forced to live on the streets, once got kicked in the face by a male attacker, been completely broke more times than she cares to remember.

Now, the 31-year-old is part of a most unusual athletic club called The Home Team, a group of homeless people trying to turn their lives around through running. Three of their members finished 13.1 miles Sunday morning at the Marathon of the Palm Beaches in downtown West Palm Beach.

"It felt better. Absolutely better than I thought it would feel," Kelly said. "It wasn't even the moment crossing the line. It was just knowing that I was going to finish when I got to 10, 11 miles, knowing 'Hey, I trained for this. I deserve to feel good.' It was better than any drug I've ever done."

That's kind of the idea.

The concept -- taking people who are living in shelters and showing them how the discipline needed to become a marathon runner can apply to their regular lives -- is an unusual one. The Home Team's members all have jobs and are in rehab programs, vowing to stay clean and trying to get on their feet.

Each runner was approached a few months ago and asked if they wanted to begin training. Most immediately said yes.

"They had some Hawaiian Tropic girls at one of the water stations. I wasn't feeling any pain going to touch her hand," said Doug Scheer, 35, who's struggled with addictions to alcohol and painkillers and now lives in a tiny room at a shelter. "This is the most fun I've ever had."

(...)

Sponsors donated running attire and shoes to the team members, who often rose at 5 a.m. on Sundays for long training runs.

Johnathan Czerwinski, 26, doesn't hide that he hated those early wake-up calls.

He also doesn't hide the scars on both wrists, evidence of past failed suicide attempts that he was driven to because he couldn't shake his drug craving.

"Being part of this, I've got goals now," said Czerwinski, whose girlfriend gave birth to their first son three weeks ago. "I want to get a car. I want to get an apartment. This has taught me that everything comes step by step, not all at once. It's all a process."

Czerwinski finished 802nd in the men's half-marathon, crossing the line in 2 hours, 28 minutes, 58 seconds.

"He's changed now," said his girlfriend, Caitlin Aleskovsky, 20. "He has a sense of direction -- the right direction, for once."

(...)

Some couldn't finish. But none of The Home Team's three half-marathon entrants dropped out, drawing high praise from some of the elite runners in the field.

"It's phenomenal," said Bea Marie Altieri of Clermont, Fla., who was third in the women's half-marathon, 722 spots ahead of Kelly. "Running has the endorphins, that natural high. So for people who are a little down on their luck or have an addiction like alcohol or drugs or whatever, running is a perfect fit because it gives them a real goal."

This never would have occurred to me. I ran cross-country for a couple of years in high school, and the first month or so of getting into shape for it was utterly miserable hell. But once I got to the point where I could just run and run and run for miles without difficulty, I began to really enjoy it, especially just running aimlessly through the woods with my teammates; and the end of a race, when I could use my "kick" to blow past people (other than this, I pretty much sucked). I also really enjoyed the one cross-country meet we had in the snow, where I learned to use ice slicks to my advantage.

It didn't exactly instill any kind of values or discipline in me that I use in my day-to-day life (perhaps this is why I sucked), but then, I wasn't waking up at 5AM to train for a marathon, or even a half-marathon. Our races were usually 3 or 4 miles, and most of our practice runs were in that same general range, with one 10-mile run each year.

But hey: Whatever works. If running can instill discipline and purpose in people who are struggling, then I'm all for it. I'm also reminded of this fascinating story about a mysterious sixty-something homeless man who also happens to be a phenomenal softball player.

Axis Of Pinball

I've heard of the nuclear football, but this is new:

Pachinko, a form of pinball deeply loved in Japan, is an industry run by ethnic Koreans, and experts have long believed that the revenues are a vital source of hard currency for the impoverished regime in North Korea.

Now, as Kim Jong Il's nuclear weapons program gathers pace, Japan's attitude is hardening, and that includes shutting out the ferry on which money is believed to be hand-carried from Japan to North Korea.

(...)

Pachinko is an upright pinball game played at tens of thousands of brightly lit parlors across the country. Success is measured in little steel payoff balls, which can be exchanged for cash or other prizes.

The machines rake in over $200 billion a year, some of which finds its way to North Korea. Official figures put the sum of remittances from sources in Japan at $25.5 million, but the bookkeeping is murky and some think the sum is closer to $850 million a year. No one knows how much of it derives directly from pachinko.

"It's very difficult to say how much cash is actually going from Japan to the North," said Toshio Miyatsuka, a North Korea specialist at Yamanashi Gakuin University in central Japan who has written a book about the pachinko industry.

"But it does seem certain that a lot of it is winding up in the hands of the North Korean government and military, and that includes money earned from drugs and pachinko," he added.

I'm not really sure what to make of this. 0.4% of pachinko revenue at most is going to North Korea? And what percentage of that actually finds its way to the nuclear program there? It sounds very small in relative terms, but I guess it could add up in absolute terms. 0.4% of $200 billion is still an awful lot of money.

Worst President Ever?

WaPo's Outlook section has the scorecard:

Eric Foner: Oh yeah, definitely. Disdain for Constitution and rule of law puts him over the top. Or under the bottom, as the case may be.

Douglas Brinkley: I dunno, probably. Depends on Iraq, which is not promising. But at least Bush is honest(!) and his administration isn't corrupt(!!!) - apparently Brinkley's not a big fan of the Constitution.

Michael Lind: He's only fifth worst! Woohoo! It's all about the unnecessary wars, and Iraq not as catastrophic as Civil War or War Of 1812. Warrantless wiretapping only used against suspected terrorists, and not against political opponents as with Nixon. (Dude, are you sure about that?)

Vince Cannato: Time will tell - if things pan out well in the Middle East, history might even remember Bush as mediocre! Not-liberal does not equal bad; accusations of trashing the Constitution are just "hyperbole," Bush understands "tough tradeoffs between security and privacy." Guess who Cannato worked as a speechwriter for in 2001.


I think there are actually two broad dimensions on which awfulness (or greatness) can be measured: competency and outcomes. I believe Warren G. Harding was one of the most incompetent and corrupt presidents of all time, but nothing especially terrible happened on his watch, even if he did help set the stage for the Depression. On the other hand, the incompetence of Madison and Buchanan essentially maximized the damage of two wars that might have been preventable or containable.

Bush has managed to score very low on both axes: He's run a series of businesses into the ground, and he employs that same shrewd managerial acumen to the job of running our country, with predictably similar results. That alone would be enough to rank him with the likes of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover in terms of competence. But throw in a disastrous, unnecessary war in which Iraq and the Constitution have sustained far more damage than al Qaeda; throw in passive, uninterested responses to imminent catastrophes on 9/11 and in New Orleans, and you've got enough to catapult Bush way past Nixon and Madison and Buchanan. The fact is, Bush has simply screwed up in more different directions simultaneously than any other president in American history. I think Nixon is the only one who comes close, but his crimes are mitigated by the fact that A) He was actually a pretty competent president who achieved some positive things, and B) He inherited his stupid, unnecessary war.

So yeah, unless Bush's magical thinking magically pays off in Iraq, and it suddenly blossoms into a model democracy and ushers in a magical new Golden Age in the Middle East, you can put me down for "Worst Ever" in the Bush All-Time Presidential Ranking pool. I'll be back to collect my winnings in 2050 - in Euros, please.

What Rahm Said!

(Did I really just say that???)

Sunday's NYT lead editorial:

Well before Election Day, the smart-money lobbyists of K Street were already shifting campaign donations to safe Democratic incumbents, greasing access to the next Congressional majority. That should be warning enough to the incoming speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, to deliver quickly and credibly on their campaign vows to attack the corrupt, quid-pro-quo culture that besotted the Republican-controlled Capitol.

Yet even before the new Congress arrives, there is disquieting talk of advance compromises on what will be done — or not done. It’s fortunate the incoming members will be in the Capitol this week, preparing for January and, not incidentally, observing the lame-duck finale of the Congress that failed on this vital issue.

There will be only one good chance to get this right. Once the new year begins, any feeling of urgency will fade, replaced by a determination to acquire, and protect, whatever power and turf are available.

(...)

A field general of the incoming majority, Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, is already warning that failure to deliver on ethics reform will be “devastating to our standing” in the very first moment of Democratic power.

Most of the time, I don't think Rahm "gets it," to the point where I think he generally does more harm than good. But he totally Gets It on this issue. The Democrats must absolutely shatter the "both parties do it, all politicians are corrupt" mindset that tars them every time a Republican gets busted. They must forcefully establish themselves as the clean party, the integrity party, especially with corruption playing such a major role in ousting the Republicans. The public demanded a cleanup last month, and the Democrats ignore them at their peril.

And if it costs them some lobbyist money, so what? Their campaigns won't need as much funding if the voters know the Democrats are morally upstanding straight shooters (and the Republicans not). And surely they'd be willing to trade a few more free meals and trips for improved job security. Not only that, but a more toothsome ethics office gives them a chance to make life miserable for corrupt Republicans, and maybe even expel some of them. Yes, it's possible some Democrats might get caught up as well, but so be it. The ethics office should treat them fairly, and do whatever the evidence and the rules tell them to do. Again, I think in the long run they would gain far more than they would lose, and we would gain a less corrupt, less corporate Congress.

So please, Democrats, listen to Rahm, just this once. I promise I won't ask you to do it ever again.

New Horizons In Postal Innovation

...And tasty, too!

Residents of the coastal town of Susami in Wakayama prefecture love the sea and the post office so much that the town once installed a mailbox on the ocean floor for scuba divers. Now, further evidence of this powerful sea/mail love comes in the form of “Surumail” — edible postcards made from squid.

Produced by the Susami fishing cooperative, Surumail postcards consist of dried surume squid (Todarodes pacificus), the local seafood specialty. The squid jerky is flattened and vacuum-packed into the shape of a postcard, and an adhesive label is included for the postage, delivery address and a short message.

Be sure to check out that link to the underwater mailbox.

This Is Probably Worth Repeating...

I posted this about 5 months ago, but it now seems timely enough that an exhumation may be in order:

It is not a coincidence that the women and minorities who are prominent conservatives are unusually vile and unqualified - it is by design.

I believe that the conservatives actively seek out, recruit, and cultivate these people, not just to apply a thin layer of I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Diversity on top of their Wonderbread movement, but to provide endless opportunities to accuse their opposition of the very hatefulness that is their stock in trade.


Some examples:

Democrats opposing Clarence Thomas for being a sleazy sexual harasser? A lynch mob.

Liberals/Democrats pointing out, repeatedly, that Condi Rice is criminally incompetent? Racist, sexist, and possibly homophobic.

Liberals jumping all over Michelle Maglalang (or something) for her hypocrisy about Teresa Heinz Kerry's "professional name" when she uses one herself? Racist and sexist.

Liberal outrage at Ann Coulter over... jeez, who can keep track? Yeah, definitely sexist, yeah.

Liberals making a fuss about a gay prostitute in the White House press corps (possibly sleeping over as well)? Homophobic.

Liberals bashing Israel's increasingly sadistic Palestinian policy, neocons, or Joe Lieberman (and don't try to tell me he hasn't been cultivated by the Republicans)? Anti-semitic (I'm Jewish, by the way - but perhaps I'm self-hating).

Even the failed nomination of the laughably unqualified Harriet Miers to the SCOTUS (that really happened - I didn't just dream it, right?) was used as an example of liberal sexism, even though it was Republicans who ultimately shot her down.

To some extent, we play into the Republicans' hands every time we so much as mention their race, sex, or orientation while attacking them (although it's kinda the whole point in Gannon's case). However, the sad fact is that even if we scrupulously referred to, say, Ramesh Ponnuru or John Yoo as snivelling, sadistic little cockroaches without ever once mentioning their race, we would still be accused of racism, even if that is precisely what we are attacking them for. Such is the opportunistic illogic of the Republicans and their captive media.

Believe me, I am no civility advocate, even if I don't swear much on this blog (what can I say, my Dad reads it). If you want to curse these fuckers out, feel free. But just remember that they are trying to bait you. They want to collect and display as many samples of liberal "intolerance" as they can, the higher-profile the better. Don't make it easy for them. Besides, it's not like there isn't a wealth of material to work with - why waste time on cheap shots that are beside the point, which is not that Coulter and Malkin are women, but that they are evil.

One additional recommendation: Keep a bunch of minority, women's, and gay rights issues in your back pocket to wave at the conservative flying monkeys whenever they start insincerely protesting their compassion for the oppressed. Surely they should be willing to go on record with their support of gay marriage to prove that they're the tolerant ones, right? Or at least to condemn the Right's shabby treatment of women like Cindy Sheehan and Valerie Plame. Or ask them how the glorious liberation of the women of Afghanistan and Iraq is coming along.

Thankfully, in the case of the recent civuffle, the conservatives were pretty quiet; but I think my point is still valid.

No! Really?

I missed this one yesterday, but Cursor didn't.

For days, Arab governments lobbied against any American opening to Iran, Jordanians planned protests against President Bush and politicians braced for a possible announcement of a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

But as the summit meeting between President Bush and Prime Minister Kamal Nuri al-Maliki of Iraq concluded Thursday morning, the Arab world was left dumbfounded that nothing had come of it.

“I am baffled by what I saw,” said Abdel Moneim Said, director of the Ahram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo. “This was an expression of the Americans in deep trouble, but Bush’s approach to dealing with the Iraqi problem also bore the signs of someone out of touch with what is going on.”

(...)

“I did not see a coherent strategy that really deals with the situation,” Mr. Said said. “I did not see Bush realizing how bad it is.”

(...)

The sessions ultimately proved disappointing for Arab nations, [Fares] Braizat said. “The meeting showed that Bush cared about the game, but he did not know how to make the right moves,” he said. “There were no tangible results.” And results, he said, were what Arab leaders were looking for.

Anyone who finds this result surprising simply hasn't been paying attention. Bush just wants to run out the clock so Iraq can become someone else's problem. Which, by the way, suggests to me that he expects a Democrat to take the presidency in 2008.

My favorite line in the story comes from a Jordanian security official:

They burnt some flags, but for us, burning flags is not a security issue, it’s an environmental issue.

*wistful sigh*

Mittstake

Oops:

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who has hardened his position against illegal immigrants as he readies a White House run, was having his lawn manicured for years by undocumented Guatemalans.

(...)

The workers said they made $10 an hour in cash and worked 11-hour days. Romney never inquired about their status, they said.

(...)

Romney's office said the Republican governor had no idea the workers trimming his hedges and mowing his grass were in the country illegally.

"Gov. Romney hired a legitimate Massachusetts lawn service company to take care of his yard. He knows the owner as a decent, hardworking person who is a legal resident," Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said.

Romney, who is gearing up to announce a presidential bid, backs legislation to build a wall across the U.S.-Mexican border, and arresting illegal immigrants.

"It's one more thing you can do to make this a less attractive place for illegal aliens to come to work," he said in June, after reports that the state was paying contractors who hired undocumented workers.

Way to make Massachusetts a less attractive place for illegal aliens to work, dude. Well played.

I'm fairly sympathetic to illegal immigrants, and I think the hysteria about how they're going to take our jobs and destroy our country is just another example of Republicans demonizing the "Other" so they can posture about how they're the ones defending us from Scary Enemies like Mexicans and Gays and Muslims while the Democrats would just let such monsters live their lives in peace. But if you're building your rep as an anti-immigration crusader, I can't believe you wouldn't be paranoid or xenophobic enough to ask your contractor about all these suspicious-looking brown people on your lawn.

The two best explanations I can think of (which are probably not mutually exclusive):

1) Romney doesn't really give a shit about illegal immigrants (I mean, come on - he's in Massachusetts), and this is all just positioning for a presidential run. Of course, he could have at least gone through the motions of pretending to give a shit.

2) Romney, and probably other Republicans, view illegal immigrants in the same way they view abortion: A terrible, repugnant plague upon our country - but damned useful on the down-low. "Abortions and illegal immigrants for me, but not for thee," in other words.

I'm leaning towards both. I suspect that Romney knew damn well that there was a possibility they were illegals, but the contractor gave him such a good deal that he simply didn't want to know.

Interactive Blogging!

A little while back, the shadowy and mysterious Codename V. offered to open her semi-regular bad-movie bashing reviewing up to requests. Well, spear and magic called her bluff and sent in a request, and I am pleased to say that V. did not disappoint. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Shark Attack 3: Megalodon! Now who wouldn't want their favorite bad movie immortalized in such exquisite fashion?

And if that's not enough, you can also participate in a poll to decide one of the Great Questions Of The Ages: Who Would Win In A Fight: A Human Or A Monkey?

Irony-Rich Bloodletting

Okay, I have spent waaaaay too much time tonight and last night catching up with the 836 846 comments on the Tom Watson and FDL posts about language and liberal anti-feminism. Or at least that's what they nominally started out as, but to me both threads ultimately turned into discussions of power: Mainstream media and political establishment vs. blogs; large blogs vs. small blogs; front-pagers/moderators vs. ordinary commenters.

There are two threads of discussion that I want to focus on, because I'm intrigued by their symmetry:

On the one hand, the FDL front-pagers and loyalists argue that Tom and the FDL dissenters' pleas for them to use less sexually offensive language are part of, or of a piece with, the establishment's desire to use the club of "civility" to neuter them of their rebellious, subversive, sometimes even transgressive passion and anger.

On the other hand (and this is not a counterargument to the first hand, merely a different hand pointing in roughly the opposite direction), the FDL dissenters argue that the FDL community, led by the front-pagers, brutally suppresses dissenting opinions with derision, abuse, and outright censorship. (Full disclosure: I made some comments on FDL which put me closer to this camp, although they're not as strongly-worded as my composite summary here.
UPDATE: I may have not been entirely clear. I meant that I was closer to the dissenter camp in this debate, not one of the dissent-suppressing loyalists. Which is not to say that I never piled on or accused someone of trolling. I did, but hopefully not very savagely or often.)

So, in other words, each side of the debate believes that their right to express themselves is under attack by a more powerful adversary who finds them threatening. I'm wondering if this is simply human nature, or if it's an insecurity inherent to the progressive internets. The Republicans and the corporate media have tried to marginalize and demonize liberal bloggers for at least two or three years now, so we're all a little hypersensitive.

The thing is - and this is why I'm more sympathetic to the dissenters - the power that the FDL front-pagers, moderators, and loyalists have over other commenters is far more immediate. Most non-trolls want to fit in. They want to be accepted by the community, so an attack by a front-pager speaking in The Voice Of God (whether they mean to or not, as Pach has realized, and Jane is coming around to), or by a bunch of regulars, can be a very chilling prospect. The end result is that many of the less thick-skinned commenters, myself included, will either self-censor to avoid another('s) beatdown, and/or become increasingly uncomfortable and embarrassed by the disagreements that escalate into screaming matches, until they finally just leave the room. Granted, the latter is not exactly a direct result of intimidation, but it is an indirect and undesirable outcome.

The corporate media and political establishment's power over the blogosphere is similar, in the sense that it can only pressure and not compel, but it is also more tenuous. I really don't think there are very many liberal bloggers who give a rat's ass about whether the media or politicians like them - quite the contrary. But while they may not crave approval, I believe that many do crave credibility, which the establishment is loathe to bestow upon Dirty Unwashed Hippie Bloggers. This allows them to be manipulated with the Carrot Of Civility: the media myth that the only reason no-one takes liberal bloggers seriously is that they use bad words and say mean things, and if they just behave themselves they will attain respectability. I could probably count the number of liberal bloggers this has worked out for on my nose... if I had tertiary syphilis.

Jane, to her credit, sees right through this bullshit, and has pledged never to jump through civility hoops for The Man. I absolutely have no problem with that philosophy, and I say Rock on, sister. Where it gets a little dicey is when Jane and her loyalists project this onto their commenters who take offense to some of the stronger language (or imagery), and treat them as agents of that hostile establishment. They are not. Sure, some of the criticism comes from opportunistic trolls, but most of it comes from regular commenters who, for example, find the "c-word" offensive. But they are friends, speaking on their own behalf, expressing their own personal feelings, and they deserve more respectful treatment than, say, Deborah Howell or Mark Halperin. And with that in mind, viewing honest criticism from a lowly commenter as a form of oppression to be vehemently opposed simply does not make sense. [Warning: Unsolicited advice follows. You may wish to avert your eyes.] Far better to direct the justifiable rage where it belongs, while listening to and nurturing the community of commenters. If a large number of commenters (and some front-pagers, for that matter) are uncomfortable with the c-word, it's okay to retire it. Really. It doesn't mean the bad guys won and you lost. It just means FDL is more welcoming to the people who love it, and that's a net positive.

Yes, you can take this too far and end up declawing yourself, but I think it is possible to weigh a word's utility against its unpopularity or offensiveness. The c-word is very offensive to many people, and it doesn't really convey much beyond hostility. "Whore", on the other hand, does not provoke the same level of visceral reaction in most people, and it conveys an image of someone who has chosen money and power over principle. I would hate to see "whore" go away; it encapsulates the essence of the Republican party and all its enablers, including the Democratic ones. But I would venture to say that there are very few thoughts which are effectively illuminated by the c-word.

But this is veering into an entirely different debate, the one about what language is acceptable and what language should be tossed overboard. There was a lot of juicy, interesting discussion about this, but I don't think I'm qualified to add much to it, so I'm just going to leave that side of it alone and mumble about imbalance of power. I've probably made a big enough fool of myself as it is.

That Certainly Would Explain It...

Thers has just tipped me off to a Startling Confession from my interception-throwing namesake:

Do you see now, people? Have you finally fucking figured it out?

I do not like football. I don't know how much clearer I can make that point. This sport blows. Everyone's running around and hitting each other... yikes. All I wanted when I was a kid was to hang out with my mom in the kitchen and make some zucchini bread. But nooooo, everyone's all like, "You're a Manning. You should play football!"

Fuck that. You should hear my dad in interviews. "We never pushed football on the boys..." Yeah right, old man. I just fell into this shit naturally. It had nothing to do with the family football games we played every afternoon for SEVENTEEN FUCKING YEARS, Dad. Or the film study sessions after dinner. No, that was for fun. Ass.

(...)

Give me squash. There's a sport. You got two guys in a box swatting at a dead superball. Now THAT I can get on board with. No coaches. No annoying family members telling you about how "great the game is". None of that crap. Just you, some other sweaty guy, and lots of grunting. Bliss.

I got a bigass signing bonus, you know. I could play that shit all day. All I have to do is prove to everyone that I'm not good enough to play this bullshit football. Critics say I'm inaccurate. Wanna bet? I'm the most accurate fucking passer in the world, people. Those aren't interceptions I'm throwing. They are FUCKING CRIES FOR HELP.

(...)

I'm gonna get out of this game. And if it means throwing another 20 dead-on picks and costing the Giants the playoffs, then fuck it. I'm doing it. You can't stop me. Nothing will keep Eli from that squash court.

I don't know why I never saw it before. And I wondered why he seemed to be actively trying to lose games.

You Missed A Spot.

Yeah, Gilliard's a pretty good pessimist, and so are his commenters.

But I was surprised that none of them pointed out the obvious: That if we do withdraw from Iraq, and it becomes an even worse bloodbath than the occupation, the Republican and media spin will be that this is all the Democrats' fault. After all, it was the Democrats who wanted the troops to retreat before the job was finished (of course, whether "finished" means Iraq becomes a paragon of democracy or a lifeless, smoking wasteland depends on which conservative nutbar you talk to).

So therefore, any casualties incurred while doing what the Defeatocrats wanted are therefore entirely on our effete, latte-sipping eggheads. Never mind that we never wanted the troops there in the first place.

Tell me I'm wrong.

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

Video report on the deadly risks of telekinetic abilities.

I don't understand how the mainstream media can ignore a public health crisis of such epic proportions.

An Imperative We Can All Agree On

If only everything in life were this simple.

Dream Job Of The Week

They're not even really my thing, but I still think this sounds pretty cool:

The masters of the plastic universe are baffled. From their imaginations, their computers, from their calloused fingers, magnificent kingdoms have sprung. They can re-create the Seven Wonders of the World in a literal snap. But now they huddle in their model shop of Legoland California and contemplate the seemingly impossible:

How in the rectangular heck do you give a Lego bride a Lego bosom?

Tim Petsche considers miniature chef hats borrowed from a Lego kitchen set. Too big. What about a couple of Lego daisies? someone else suggests. Too weird.

Too bad.

Such are the dilemmas of grown-ups in a child's fantasy job.

(...)

[Eric] Hunter and the other master model builders work in a Carlsbad shop filled with some 2,000 floor-to-ceiling bins full of virtually every piece Lego has created, in every color (that would include the seven shades of pink). Outside in the theme park, their obsession with detail is why a small black Lego rat can be found in the New York subway display, and why Secret Service men on duty in mini-D.C. all look alike and sport tiny earbuds.

(...)

His work is focused on a planned Las Vegas exhibit, due to open next spring in the park's Miniland U.S.A. Designers expect to use more than 2 million bricks to build miniatures of famous Vegas hotels and casinos, complete with a tacky wedding chapel and Lego showgirls.

(...)

[T]hey smile at their own inside jokes, such as the home brewery that the model builders constructed and hid atop the model of the Kennedy Space Center, and the Elvis impersonator amid the crowd of mini-commuters at Grand Central Terminal. Then there's the Lego body of Jimmy Hoffa, buried where no tourist will ever see him, deep within a column of the new Freedom Tower in fake Manhattan.

Lego bosoms? Lego rats? Lego Hoffa? Lego Elvis? Awesome. I also like the acronym for the Washington Metro Area Lego Users Group: WAMALUG.

I mean, yeah, I probably wouldn't have a girlfriend, but I bet I could build a perfectly serviceable one out of some Mindstorms kits - a little strategically-placed bubble wrap, coupla really big Lego chef hats, and I'm sure it'd work out fine. I could call her Legolita - you know, like in that KuBrick movie with James Mason.