The Washington Post reports on Roy Blunt: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Blunt and DeLay are fundraising powerhouses. Their political organizations use multiple fundraising committees, have rewarded family members and have provided an avenue to riches for former aides now in the private sector.

In Missouri, the Blunt organization is a family affair. His son Matt, 34, is governor, and his son Andrew, 29, is a top state government lobbyist whose client list is studded with major donors to his father.

Here in Washington, Blunt has converted what had been an informal and ad hoc relationship between congressional leaders and the Washington corporate and trade community into a formal, institutionalized alliance. Lobbyists are now an integral part of the Republican whip operation on par with the network of lawmakers who serve as assistant whips.

This a photograph of the congressman at a podium literally covered in money comes from his own website. Well, Republicans are very good at staying on message, after all.

Whoops. As soon as I go and spend so much time talking about David Dreier, Dennis Hastert picks someone else. Thanks so much, Dennis.

Anyway, the new guy, Roy Blunt, doesn't yet have a "look what a John Roberts-esque guy this is!" story up anywhere yet, but his official website touts his close loyalty to the administration (he was on Bush 2000's exploratory committee and the campaign's liaison to the House of Representatives) and his ability to "work through the night" to fight for Bush's stupid tax cuts. Oh, and trade promotion is big on his website.

One other difference from Dreier. Blunt is married with kids.

An interesting article in The New York Observer.

The average American Jew would rather be blown up in a pizza parlor than shake hands with [uber-conservative, pro-Israel evangelicals]. But here we are, and I don't see it changing anytime soon.

I'd rather shake Pat Robertson's hand than die—but have him and his ilk as my staunchest allies? At the very least, it's a hint that something's out of whack.

DeLay Is Indicted and Forced to Step Down as Majority Leader

About bloody time. Yeah, yeah, Washington is filled with corrupt politicians, on both sides of the aisle, and so on. [Insert rant about how politics is a dirty business here.]

That doesn't make it any less satisfying to see a truly deserving man get savaged. Pass the popcorn.

Okay, moving on, the Washington Post is covering DeLay's replacement, Representative David Dreier of California. The go-to blog for California politics, Phoblographer noted Dreier's appointment, but only to note that he apparently went to a good college. Keep reading for the sure-to-be-forthcoming profile on the man.

While we wait for the final word from Christiana, I'd like to note the striking similarity, at first brush, between Dreier and soon-to-be-Chief Justice John Roberts. The Washington Post describes Dreier thus:

Skilled at one-on-one politics _ he seems never to forget a name _ Dreier maintains a reliably conservative voting record on economic issues and follows the lead of Republican leaders. He never comes off as extreme. ... Dreier has a more moderate voting record on some social issues than DeLay, for example opposing a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage that DeLay supported. He is a frequent face on television talk shows, particularly after serving as one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's top supporters when the actor ran for governor in 2003.

His stance on the marriage amendment is a difference, presumably—we know practically nothing about Robert's actual policy stands on, well, anything. But the archetype is the same: thoughtful, controversial, genial, charming, and so forth. This is the face the GOP is trying to project now, apparently. Not controversial, not angry, not divisive. Why?

A few reasons, of course. First is that the Republicans are the party in power now, and have been for a while, and "things are going well, stick with us" doesn't lend itself to the revolutionary spirit.

Secondly, and paradoxally, is the fact that Republicans in general and the President in specific are in a weakened position compared to six months ago. Their policies and their governance have little support in the opinion polls. In the '05 and '06 elections, they really have little they can gain and much they can use. (Quilly's "60 in '06" slogan had a very short half-life.)

I'm not surprised that the GOP has concluded that a non-abrasive image is what's needed now. I hope that it won't work, of course, but it's probably what I'd try in their place.

In any case, they'll at least win the first skirmish in this particular battle. Dreier will certainly come off as genial, charming, and smart enough to most people. That paragraph I quoted is the brief, heavily edited version of the Washington Post's short introduction. In other words: it's exactly what'll get played on the cable networks and evening news. (I hate television. I hate it without pity.) It's not like there's all that much more in the articles. The Post, for example, includes this sentence: "A native of Kansas City, Mo., Dreier is unmarried." That's an exceedingly boring sentence that has no meaning, except perhaps a veiled one. I'll ask around.

Just got back from my first massive, four-hour staff meeting. They're not as bad as Dilbert would have you believe. But they're not nearly as funny, either.

Today I'm going to indulge in "blogger news round-up," which is when a blogger simply quotes a few news stories and adds a couple of observations of dubious value. I normally eschew this as tacky, but it's my birthday—seriously—so what the hell?

It's been observed that Cindy Sheehan has impressive political showmanship. Staging her protest in the slow news month of August, for example. Or making sure to get arrested on a Monday, when the story couldn't get buried in the weekend news cycle. (And couldn't put quotes from one of 100,000 anti-war protesters next to quotes from one of 1,000 pro-war protesters.) Sheehan had her account of the arrest up on Huffington Post the same day as the arrest.

So for those of you keeping score, Sheehan has to deal with a fine of less than a hundred bucks and Karl Rove has to deal with video of Sheehan being dragged away in handcuffs. Sheehan's promised not to pay the fine, though I'm not sure if the Novemeber 16th court date fits into the news cycle as well as she'd like.

An aside about the protests: They were quite large, and the best reporting on them so far can be found all over OxBlog the last couple days. I missed the large part of them because my boyfriend was absolutely terrified of what would happen if his father would do if he saw the protests. (Mr. C. got a kick out of it, of course, and took some photos of his girlfriend carrying a "Fire the Liar" sign that he could threaten to show all their friends.) Also, I got a bit distracted when we ran across something much better than the protests on the mall. I missed getting Neil Gaiman to sign his new book for me by five minutes. Damn! Oh, well, he was probably at the protests with David Brooks and R.L. Stine. And Lynn Cheney in disguise.

This motorcycle was parked on Pennsylvania Avenue and 14th Street. If the wind had been a bit better, I'd have gotten the Capitol in the background.



I'm a bit surprised Bill Frist's stock shenanigans made the front page of today's Washington Post. (Oh, the front page of the New York Times as well.) As recently as yesterday, it was getting practically no play at all. Well, hey, it's almost the exact same thing Martha did, and the majority leader isn't a woman, so I didn't expect anyone would care. It still might fizzle out, but I'm hoping for fireworks.

Finally, here's the quote of the week, from Michael Brown's testimony to congress:

It is inherently impractical, totally impractical, for the federal government to respond to every disaster of whatever size in every community across the country.

Ugh.

This Guardian story speaks for itself:

Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

A big part of most of my favorite blogs is their locality. Phoblographer blogs on California in general and her hometown of San Pedro in specific. Democracy Guy blogs on Cleveland, Ohio and his old stomping grounds in Eastern Europe. And OxBlog, while not as local as the rest, definitely has some anglophile tendencies.

When I read blogs that aren't specific to one place or another, it's either because they bring something special to the debate (Democracy Arsenal, for example, brings the foreign policy heavyweight title; Noam Schieber and the other folks at TNR's blog are the smart liberals here at home) or because they're funny as all hell.

While I occasionally try to keep up with Salt Lake City in my Hickville Dispatch© posts, I don't have much local flavor. Hard to do when you live in a city that defines itself by being the representation of otherplacess politics. This week, though, the local indie rag, Washington's City Paper, has a story that's both illuminating about D.C. politics and has a bit of a Utah connection, so I really must cover it.

From City Paper:

D.C. Shadow Rep. Ray Browne sometimes has a hard time getting noticed.

He's a good-natured 66-year-old who wears conservative suits and ties. He doesn't indulge in the showboating that dominates political circles. He works for no pay as the city's voting-rights lobbyist, absorbing barbs and jokes about his position along the way. His message about D.C.'s orphaned political status may get more traction in state capitals and city-council offices around the country than at home. (He has a stack of resolutions in support of voting rights to prove it.)

But the shadow representative is now in a campaign that is boosting his political profile. Browne has picked a fight with the undisputed queen of the District's voting-rights struggle, D.C. Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton.

Browne tells anyone who will listen that Norton is not representing the interests of District residents because she won't co-sponsor D.C. voting-rights legislation sponsored by Rep. Tom Davis.

That's a bigger deal than you think. DC politics are pretty hard core, and the scandals the local DC politicos get themselves into make their big cousins on the Hill look like amateurs. Just ask Marion Barry—he's on the city council, so his number is probably online. And this year's face for mayor promises to be a roller-coaster.

But that's never applied to Holmes Norton, seen at left with Senator Barak Obama and Congressman William Lacy Clay. Her record is unimpeachable: she grew up in DC, went to Yale, became involved in the civil rights movement, was a law professor at NYU and later Georgetown, and has been the District's non-voting delegate in Congress for almost fifteen years. City Paper assesses her as "a strong-willed stateswoman who's not to be messed with."

Recently, Norton tussled with Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison when Hutchison attempted to repeal Washington, DC's gun ban. In the District, those sort of antics rub people the wrong way. Why, we think, do these people from Texas think they can come here and screw with our city? While Hutchison may see it as a second-amendment issue, even pro-gun District residents see it as an issue of District sovereignty.

...

One of the downsides of Blogging at work is that I have to start and stop often enough that there's a danger I'll completely lose my place. I have utterly forgotten what my point was with this post, if there was one. I suppose I wanted to get a little more "here's what's happening in DC" stuff on the blog. Well, I'm going to finish this post, for spite's sake, no matter how random or pointless it ends up being.

Holmes Norton doesn't support Tom Davis' bill because she's already got a bill, sponsored in the Senate by Joe Leiberman, to give DC full representation—two senators and a representative, just like Delaware or South Dakota. Davis' bill only gives the District a representative:

The D.C. Fairness in Representation Act would temporarily expand the House by two seats, to 437 members. One seat would be added for the District; Utah would get the other. (Utah leaders have argued that they were cheated out of a fourth seat because of undercounting during the 2000 census.) Under Davis' bill, the U.S. House would roll back to 435 members for the 2012 election. D.C. would keep a seat, and the 2010 census would dictate congressional re-apportionment in the rest of the country.

I predict Norton will eventually settle for supporting Davis' bill. Any improvement is better than what we're stuck with now.

As an aside, someone like current Mayor Anthony Williams or various council members would find the DC Rep's job more attractive if it came with actual voting power. And Barry could get a lot of votes simply from people who know they'll get some free entertainment. Me, I'd vote for him on the admittedly small chance it would make Orrin Hatch's head explode. Worth the gamble, in my opinion.

Oh, speaking of Marion Barry's entertainment value, he's just purchased a used Jaguar:

It has a dent in the driver's-side front fender and another on the passenger side. The rear passenger-side door features large scrape and a dent. "I can't afford a new one," Barry says, but he reminds LL that he has now joined an exclusive council caucus: Cropp and At-Large Councilmember Carol Schwartz are also Jag owners. "Maybe it's time to start a used-Jaguar club," Barry says. The new ride must have Barry feeling pretty important. While he chaired a Sept. 17 hearing on vocational education at the John A. Wilson Building, his Jag was parked in the area reserved for the mayor's motorcade. Four straw hats in the back window were the only permits on display.

A little housekeeping today. You may notice the addition of the Bunny of Edwardian Doom. We think bringing the Bunny aboard is a step in the right direction for our site, and that the Bunny will continue the tradition of insightful and thoughtful commentary* we have here. Click here to learn a bit more about the Bunny.

We've also revamped our About section. Enjoy!

So, now that I have my very own url (and a very appropriate one for me, at that) and a nifty design I made all by myself, I feel a strange obligation to actually be some sort of credible blogger.

I'll try and resist, but just in case, I'm gonna take a day or two off to read this book from Reporters Without Borders.

Blogs get people excited. Or else they disturb and worry them. Some people distrust them. Others see them as the vanguard of a new information revolution. Because they allow and encourage ordinary people to speak up, they are tremendous tools of freedom of expression.

Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest.

Reporters Without Borders has produced this handbook to help them, with handy tips and technical advice on how totoo remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation. It also explains how to set up and make the most of a blog, to publicise it (getting it picked up efficiently by search-engines) and to establish its credibility through observing basic ethical and journalistic principles.

In addition to reading this, I'm also taking a few days to celebrate my 21st birthday, which is next Tuesday, for those of you of a mind to send cards, e-mail me.

I'm celebrating by seeing Avery Brooks (a/k/a The Sisko) in Othello at the National Shakespeare Theatre. Front row, baby! Fifty feet from the Sisko. Who needs booze?

Well, anyone who's turning 21, obviously, so if you're in DC, drop me a line and I'll tell you where you can buy me a drink on Friday the 30th.

Is it the name of a cult anime show? Is it a company that makes cheap DVD players? Is it some sort of card game?

According to the Associated Press, it's none of the above:

A rubber company in China has begun marketing condoms under the brand names Clinton and Lewinsky.

The Clinton condoms will go on sale in southern China for 29.8 Yuan ($3.72) for a box of 12, while the Lewinsky model will be priced at 18.8 Yuan ($2.35) for the same quantity.

"The Clinton condom will be the top of our line," Spokesman Liu Wenhua of the Guangzhou Rubber Group said. "The Lewinsky condom is not quite as good."

Liu said the company had chosen to use the Clinton name because consumers viewed the former president as a responsible person, who would want to stress safe sex as an effective way to prevent the spread of the HIV virus.

"The names we chose are symbols of people who are responsible and dedicated to their jobs," he said. "I believe Bill Clinton cannot be unhappy about this because he's a very generous man."

Heh. Here's a primitive photoshop of a Clinton-Gore '96 poster.

Dude, why all the satire the last couple of days? I mean, sure, it's funny and all, but InappropriateContent is a place for serious discussion of the issues! What's with the change of pace?

Two answers. First, it's easy and I'm lazy. I took an early-morning flight into National yesterday and discovered that I can actually get from Detroit to my office faster than I can get from the dorm to my office. However, large quantities of espresso are prohibitively expensive at airport prices, so I spent most of the morning wandering around the office in a half-conscious daze—a condition that apparently induces accurate-yet-angry satirical broadsides at the shallowness of network morning shows. The evidence suggests I don't like Matt Lauer very much.

Second, it's just getting harder to take this administration seriously at all anymore. Click here to read a presidential proclamation declaring that reconstruction of the Gulf Coast requires suspension of the minimum wage for construction workers, and enacting such a suspension. Government of, by, and for the people who sign the paychecks, eh?

Blech.

In any case, vacations are good. Detroit included a trip to Niagara Falls, which is a lot like Reno, Nevada, only with a really big waterfall. There are Vegas-lite™ style hotel-casinos and strange attractions, such as Ripley's Museum and the Skylon Tower (pictured) an attraction that sounds a little too like "Cylon Tower" for my tastes. I'm afraid if I go in, I'll encounter The Poor Man's Kevin Spacey. The falls themselves are a great deal of fun, though it's hard to maintain your dignity in a blue plastic rain slicker.

My sister does a very good job of it, as you can see:



Now, I hate to be one of those liberals who whines about how great the Canadians have it. (After all, do they have a president who's "Vision for Space Exploration" includes putting a man on the moon as early as 2018? Nope. That's just for us. And China.) But it is pretty damned cool to be able to stop at a gas station, get a donut and a coffee, give the clerk a twenty, and get twenty-one dollars and sixty-four cents in change. Sure, that's in Canadian money, which is really only useful for gypping your friends out of .29¢, and even then only if you happen to have bet them exactly two dollars instead of "two American dollars" or "two of your Earth monies." Also, you can be smug 'cause you know who Sir Robert Borden is your friends don't.

In conclusion, a cheap, greasy all-you-can-eat buffet is still a cheap, greasy all-you-can-eat buffet—even in London, Ontario.

The network morning shows cover the German election:

CHUCK: That's one heck of a squirrel, Janey! Today in the world, an election with eerie similarities to the 2000 election...but in Europe!

JANEY: No kidding, Chuck?

CHUCK: That's right, Janey! We have a live satellite feed from Germany, and we're going to be talking to ABC reporter David Boyers. Can you hear me, David?

DAVID: I can hear you Chuck. And I'm with the BBC, not ABC.

CHUCK: I saw that typo, too, David.

DAVID: It's a British news service, Chuck.

CHUCK: ABC is British?

JANEY: Tell us what's going on in Germany, David.

DAVID: Well, at this point, it's not clear who will be Germany's next chancellor, Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder or Christian Democrat Angela Merkel

CHUCK: So it's similar to the American elections of 2000, then?

DAVID: No, all the votes have been counted, Chuck.

CHUCK: So who won the election, David?

DAVID: Well, because neither major party seems able to form a majority coalition—

CHUCK: But who got the most votes?

DAVID: Well, Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats got 35.2% of the vote, slightly more than Schroeder's Social Democrats—

CHUCK: Then she won the election.

DAVID: Um, no. You see, Germany has a parliamentary—

JANEY: And that's all the time we have right now. Thanks, David!

DAVID: What?

CHUCK: Now we have, live from the Reichstag building in Berlin, Angela Merkel. That's quite a building you have, Chancellor Merkel.

MERKEL: Thank you, Chuck. It helps us keep in mind the terrible consequences of the 1933 Reichstag Fire.

CHUCK: Well, if it happened that long ago, it can't have any relevance in today's world. How do you feel about being elected Chancellor?

MERKEL: Well, I'm not chancellor yet, Chuck.

CHUCK: Chancellor-elect, then. Or do you have some German word for it?

MERKEL: Well, no, because chancellor is not an elected position.

CHUCK: You clearly got the most votes. Why the controversy, Chancellor?

MERKEL: Don't make me hurt you, Chuck. As I said, chancellor is not an elected position, so I didn't get any votes. And I'm not chancellor—but I am here to tell you that I am confident that the Christian Democrats will be able to form a governing coalition without the Social Democratic Party, and that I will become Germany's first female chancellor.

CHUCK: Well, I'm not sure how two democrats can be running against each other.

MERKEL: Am I being Punk'd? Is that hottie Ashton Kutcher there? If he's not, I may be forced to hurt you.

CHUCK: I do want to ask you how you feel about being Germany's first female chancellor. A likely candidate for president in 2008, Hillary Clinton, is also a woman. Do you feel that makes the two of you similar in any way?

MERKEL: If you do not stop saying stupid things, I will remove your organs of generation and force you to eat them, Chuck.

CHUCK: I guess that answers that question, right Janey?

JANEY: Sure does, Chuck! We'll be right back with a special report on what S. Epatha Merkerson's acceptance speech at the Emmy's means for our culture. Here's Doug with the Weather.

Excerpts from the transcripts of John Robert's confirmation hearings, September 14th, 2005:

8:55 AM - PATRICK J. LEAHY (D-VT): See how the lights are set up to make us look like statesmen? [chuckles] ARLEN SPECTER (R-PA, Chair): Follow our lead, kid, and try and look dignified.

8:56 AM - JOHN ROBERTS: Hey, everybody! CROWD: Norm! SPECTER: [sighs]

9:02 AM - SPECTER: We're just about ready to begin, Judge. ROBERTS: Sorry, sir. The White House had a set dresser to do this for me. EDWARD KENNEDY (D-MA): [drinks from flask]

9:45 AM - ROBERTS: I feel it's important that a justice know the Constitution. Judges are umpires, and the Constitution is our playbook, the source for American law. The justices must know it as well as Yog-Sothoth knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall shall break through again. SPECTER: I'm sorry? ROBERTS: I said judges are umpires, and the Constitution is our playbook. SPECTER: [blinks] Um...let's talk about eminent domain and, um, Kelo v. New London.

10:26 AM - ROBERTS: It's settled law, Senator, and I respect precedent— JOSEPH BIDEN (D-DE): But do you think it is right or wrong? ROBERTS: It's settled law, and I serve the law as surely as the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh serve Nyarlathotep. I serve the law and the Constitution.

11:02 AM - DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA): Naturally, it is very troubling to those of us who...I'm sorry, Judge Roberts, are you all right? Your eyes look bloodshot. ROBERTS: It is merely a sign of my devotion to the Constitution. I serve the Constitution, body and soul. It is my master, as surely as Cthulhu is Master of R'lyeh— FEINSTEIN: I'm just saying, we can get you a glass of water if you'd like one.

11:45 AM - SMALL CHILD: Daddy! It's that man I told you about! SAM BROWNBACK (R-KS): Excuse me please, I have a sudden, urgent appointment to attend to. [exits]

12:11 PM - BIDEN: That's not a clear answer to my question. Which side would you be on? ROBERTS: I would be on the side of the Constitution. The Constituition is the master of us all. It is the master. CHARLES E. SCHUMER (D-NY): Did you used to be in one of those Rocky Horror showings in the Village? ROBERTS: The what in the where now? KENNEDY: [drinks from flask]

1:31 PM - HERBERT KOHL (D-WI): There has been controversy over the advice you gave Governor Jeb Bush of Florida during the 2000 recount—suggestions that Governor Bush asked for your help making sure his brother won the election— ROBERTS: Lies! Scandalous lies! I serve the Constitution above all!

1:45 PM - ROBERTS: The job of the court is to interpret law—it's your job here in this chamber to make it. SPECTER: No, no, Judge, you're thinking of the lobbyists. KENNEDY: [drinks from flask]

2:25 PM - TOM COBURN (R-OK): It's not true you frighten small children like your treasonous liberal critics say, is it? ROBERTS: I couldn't frighten a small child if I tried! [attempts to frighten a small child] SMALL CHILD: [laughs delightedly]

2:51 PM - ROBERTS: In that particular case, I had been asked to represent a specific client as part of my firm's pro bono work— KENNEDY: Are you trying to start something? ROBERTS: Um...no, sir. KENNEDY: Better not. [drinks from flask] Don't screw with me, punk.

3:12 PM - ROBERTS: I won’t take to the court whatever personal views I have on those issues. They’ll be based on my understanding of the law, which I serve— BIDEN: You continue not to answer the question. Do you think Roe v. Wade was right or wrong? We demand answers! [bangs fist on table] SPECTER: We do? BIDEN: We do! We demand answers! We are the senate! We demand answers! We demand sacrifice! NOOOOOW! [bangs head on table] KENNEDY: [drinks from bottle]

3:14 PM - ROBERTS: The senate cannot demand sacrifice! The senate is the servant of the Constitution! We are all the servants of the Constitution! We serve! Only Yog-Sothoth, the Opener of the Way, may demand sacrifice! BIDEN: Stop filibustering! Give us what we demand! SPECTER: We demand nothing! BIDEN: We demand everything! [throws "MR BIDEN" name plate at the Mr. Specter] KENNEDY: Oh, now you're gonna start something?! [throws bottle at Mr. Biden] I'll fuck you up! ROBERTS: ph'nglui mglw'nafh Madison R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn! Hamilton fhtagn! Adams fhtagn! BY ALL THE FOUNDER GODS OF THE CONSTITUTIONOMOCON!

This section of the popular classified/job/personals site craigslist is the reason I haven't posted, or read news, or done any work at all today.

It smells exactly like Iocane powder, a deadly and completely odorless poison...

I am assuming most of you need room for threesomes and farm animals...

LOOK AT YOUR CHILD! HE IS LICKING THE WALL! Don't you find that the slightest bit disturbing?

Instead of buying a perfectly functional new microwave for $20 at Wal-mart, you could spend $32.50+shipping refurbishing an old microwave! What are you, a philosophy major? Stop spending your money on crap!

Bonus points if you're Catholic, gay, or republican, so that the aborted life will be just that much more meaningful

I introduce myself over the sounds of an apparent orgy in my bedroom to a profusely apologizing realtor and a smirking couple. I summoned as much dignity as I could, smiled devilishly, and returned to the fake orgy in my bedroom as they showed themselves out...Don't you people call first?

Who needs news?

This report from Reuters brought a little cheer to my morning.

[French Quarter strip joint] Big Daddy's general manager, Saint Jones, and a band of helpers defied an evacuation order by arriving to clean up their premises in the historic French Quarter, which escaped largely unscathed from the floods.

Jones told Reuters he would open for business as soon as he could get electricity, water and dancers.

Good luck to him, eh?

#24
1602
By Neil Gaiman

The year is 1602. Queen Elizabeth is an old woman, watching as strange things begin to happen in her court, her country, and her world. Things that bear a startling similarity to the things that happened in the Marvel Universe.

Gee-whiz, we're supposed to think. There's Dr. Strange, the Queen's new court physician. There's Otto Von Doom, literally a count in a castle. There's Magneto, as the High Inquisitor in charge of burning mutants—I mean, witchbloods. Xavier is now Javier, heh, heh. And your friendly neighborhood Spiderman? Peter Parquerh. That's right, Parquerh. I am not making this up.

Oh, well, one must not be too harsh. Gaiman is at home with characters like Queen Elizabeth and James I. (Inaccurately, the boyfriend-historian informs me. He is not an admirer of the Virgin Queen.) In between the geekerific "guess who this is" moments, he justifies the craziness with a time-space distortion, just like Star Trek justifies shrinking people or Quark in Roswell or whatever they're doing next week: it is a comic book, after all. It doesn't hurt that the Elizabethan version of Archangel, X-Men's first openly gay character, gets quite a bit of page space, much of it scantily clad.

It's entertaining enough, and more importantly, it's worth reading a trade paperback to see the words "Captain America fights the President-For-Life" written without irony.

---

#25
Losing America
By Sen. Robert C. Byrd

When lefties make fun of President Bush's youthful indiscretions (a useful phrase that can cover everything from sneaking into an R-rated move to dealing cocaine) the President's supporters can turn around and say, "So the President was in a frat, big deal! Robert Byrd was in the Ku Klux Klan!"

And they have a point. Both George W. Bush and Robert C. Byrd have pasts they are rightly ashamed of. Neither can be respected without admitting that stupid young men do grow out of it and mature.

The difference, of course, is that while George W. Bush has matured from a college frat boy into a man with the mindset, intelligence, and class of a mildly successful used car salesman, Robert C. Byrd has matured into something of a statesman. Certainly he is aging with a bit more dignity than Zell Miller. History will look on Senator Byrd rather more kindly than the late Strom Thurmond, whose record as longest-serving senator Byrd may well live long enough to break.

Byrd slides between two separate styles in his book. Most of the time, he tries to be one of the great Roman statesmen, with much talk of institutions and constitutions, and the occasional biblical reference for garnish. Critics dismiss Byrd because he is pretending to be a great statesman, but what his critics don't mention is that he does quite a good job with his act. (Of course his critics are often cable network pundits who can barely impersonate themselves, let alone Cato. That's right, Bill, I mean you.) At the risk of falling victim to the soft bigotry of low expectations, it's frankly so thrilling we still have a senator capable of writing an entire book that complaining he's not as good as Marcus Aurelius is just whiny.

And no, Byrd did not use a ghost writer. Then again, neither did Rick Santorum.

In the end, though, it's not the highfalutin stuff that's the most interesting. Now and again, Byrd slips from Roman Senator to U.S. Senator; he begins speaking in congressional short-hand, a mix of copious statistics, DC jargon, and personal anecdote that is a very good reflection of the sausage-making aspects of lawmaking. This is the fascinating part of the book, and it's also where the books most important insight is from: Byrd's dislike of the President isn't personal; he's not a Bush-hater.

At their root, Byrd the Statesman's complaints that the Bush administration doesn't respect the historic authority and constutional role of the Senate isn't the real source of his animosity. Really, it's Byrd the Appropriations Master's gut-level disgust at Bush's incompetence. A badly planned war, bungling the creation of DHS, deficit spending, tapping the Social Security trust, massive regressive tax cuts—all these things that so often seem like just the talking points of people who hate the President—well, they actually mean something to a man who's been a United States Senator for half a century.

And they should mean something to the rest of us, too.

Look, it's that damned British media, being biased again. Bless 'em.

In any case, my recent lack of posting is due entirely to the Earth. No, not the planet, Google Earth, which is quite possibly the coolest thing, well, ever.

A few days ago, a friend of the BF described Katrina as "the first time in my lifetime that the US Government has utterly and completely failed it's citizens." A couple of the latest exhibits on display in the carnival of horrors:

The Salt Lake Tribune

As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.

Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers. Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA

On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency. Federal officials are unapologetic. "I would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to FEMA, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country," said FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak.

If someone should be revisiting their commitment, maybe FEMA should be revisiting their commitment to help people who get hit by a hurricane!

How about this one: Yesterday CNN interviewed some students at Duke University who heard about the problems at the convention center, drove down, and evacuated seven people—two days before the government evacuated anyone. CNN

M. O'BRIEN:So, off you go to the National Guard checkpoint. You brandish your credentials. I say credentials like this [O'brien does air-quotes: the students had photoshopped press credentials]. And the next thing you know you're there. How long did it take you to get to the Convention Center?

BYRD: Past the National Guard blockade, it probably took us about 15 to 20 minutes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was nothing. It was basically a direct drive.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Now here's the part where people at home are going to be scratching their heads and say, wait a minute, three guys from college, they drive in with a couple of credentials, and it takes them only 20 minutes to get from the checkpoint to the Convention Center. How is it people were suffering for so long there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right, and that's our question. Why were people stranded there for four or five days with no food and water? You know, there were murders and beatings in that place. And we heard about it on Thursday, about three days after. We drove in, and we have never been to New Orleans. And we made it in, in 20 minutes in a Hyundai Elantra, completely over land.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No difficulty at all. We can't figure it out.

M. O'BRIEN: It makes it very difficult for me to understand the explanation. The federal officials have said they had a hard time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You could have driven buses en masse to the front of the Convention Center and unloaded those people two days after that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And while we were there we saw over 150 buses that were either leaving the city or just sitting parked completely empty outside. Bus after bus.

M. O'BRIEN: Why is that? Did you ever ask? Did you get any -- is this some of the pictures you took maybe as you drove in? [Photos on screen.]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: There you see the buses going the other way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: Many of those buses you say were empty?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were all empty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every single bus, we saw...

M. O'BRIEN: I would love an explanation for that one.

We'd all love an explanation for that one. Oh, no, wait—House Majority Leader Tom DeLay cancelled congressional hearings on Katrina and FEMA head Micheal Brown to "convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public"; Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has joined the line of people won't criticize the administration ("It's a short line," he adds); and Powerline's John Hinderaker calls reporting of these disasters "the worst instance yet of media bias."

Well, excuse me for "playing the blame game," but any agency that sends 1,000 fire-fighters—search-and-rescue certified, haz-mat certified and paramedic certified fire-fighters—to community relations training one week after the entire Gulf Coast is decimated has fucked up beyond all forgiveness; any President who staffs the Federal Emergency Management Agency with a Director, a Chief of Staff, and a Deputy Chief of Staff who have, between them, collectively, precisely zero experience in emergency management has fucked up; and anyone who calls criticism of said agency and President "a disgrace" is absolutely, utterly bat-shit insane and can go to hell.

M. O'BRIEN: Many of those buses you say were empty?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were all empty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every single bus, we saw...

Fuck.

I received this in my mailbox yesterday. From my boyfriend, though I suspect Donnie (Rumsfeld, not Osmond) has something surprisingly similar.

President Arroyo wishes to thank you for your support during the recent sane and legal attempt to impeach her and would dearly like to see you on her upcoming visit to New York City.

A friend of the boyfriend sent on this Salt Lake Tribune article, with the comment "I'm actually impressed with something the state of Utah did! Stunning."

Unlike the Kansas School Board, which earlier this summer approved allowing educators to teach theories in addition to evolution that explain life on Earth, the Utah Board of Education on Friday unanimously approved a position statement supporting the continued exclusive teaching of evolution in state classrooms.

So a hearty congratulations are in order for the Utah Board of Education.

Testifying in the cause of science were scientists and teachers from a variety of disciplines; most impressively, faculty from the rival schools at the University of Utah and Brigham Young University put aside their differences to testify in favor of evolution. BYU biology professor Duane Jeffery compared intelligent design to astrology, and U of U bioengineering professor Gregory Clark boiled down the scientists effectively: "Invoking the supernatural can explain anything, and hence explains nothing."

Anyone with a passing familiarity with Utah politics will recognize the gentleman at left, state Senator Christ Buttars, Utah's resident nut-bar and national embarrassment. In an August 8th editorial in USA Today, Buttars informs us that "there has not been any scientific fossil evidence linking apes to man.

"I realize that is a dramatic statement, so to be clear, let me restate: There is zero scientific fossil evidence that demonstrates organic evolutionary linkage between primates and man."

During the fight last year over Utah's anti-gay marriage amendment, Sen. Buttars complained when the Attorney General admitted the amendment could affect common law marriages. Buttars didn't buy such argument because, as he put it, "there is no common law marriage in Utah."

Buttars had previously worked with the same Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, on SB175, a bill to help corrupt cops steal the property of people without bothering to charge them with a crime first.

Remarkably, Buttars' "what fossils?" remark was topped by Casey Luskin (right) of the Discovery Institute for Science & Culture (official site here, debunking here) who cited SETI as an example of evidence for Intelligent Design. That's right. SETI, as in the radio telescopes searching for signs of extraterrestrial life.

"SETI is an attempt to identify intelligent design in radio signals from outer space, signals with an intelligent origin rather than a natural origin," [Luskin] said. "If we can try to detect intelligent design in signals we receive from outer space, why can't we detect intelligent design in genetic codes we see in biology?"

Ow. As Marvin would say, "My brain!"

Buttars intends to introduce legislation or a ballot initiative to over-rule the school board, and "issue legislation" is a persistent problem in the Utah legislature, so there's no chance we've seen the last of this craziness. For now, though, let's toast a victory for the good guys.

Which of the following frightens you the least?

• Chief Justice John Roberts
• Chief Justice Clarence Thomas
• Chief Justice Priscilla Owen
• Chief Justice Alberto Gonzales
• Chief Justice Hello Kitty

AP:

NEW ORLEANS - The last bedraggled refugees were rescued from the Superdome on Saturday and the convention center was all but cleared, leaving the heart of New Orleans to the dead and dying.

Charles Womack, a 30-year-old roofer, said he saw one man beaten to death and another commit suicide at the Superdome. Womack was beaten with a pipe and being treated at an airport triage center, where bodies were kept in a refrigerated truck.

[At the convention center], a woman lay dead in a wheelchair on the front steps. A man was covered in a black drape with a dry line of blood running to the gutter, where it had pooled. Another had lain on a chaise lounge for four days, his stocking feet peeking out from under a quilt.

Hillary Snowton, 40, sat on the sidewalk outside with a piece of white sheet tied around his face like a bandanna as he stared at a body that had been lying on a chaise lounge for four days, its stocking feet peeking out from under a quilt.

"It's for the smell of the dead body," he said of the sheet. His brother-in-law, Octave Carter, 42, said it has been "every day, every morning, breakfast lunch and dinner looking at it."

When asked why he didn't move further away from the corpse, Carter replied, "it stinks everywhere, Blood."

Fuck

Touring the airport triage center, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., a physician, said "a lot more than eight to 10 people are dying a day."

Frist's comment is apparently in reference to the number of people dying each day in Iraq, making it a comment that is both insensitive and inane. Oh, also crazy.

Also, Bush gets two.

Double fuck.

It's up. All the good stuff.

David and I are listening to Fats Domino, in honor of his safe evacuation.

My last post may have been a bit rant-ish, but I have reason to be angry. This is what was was on the front page of the paper today:

At least seven bodies were scattered outside the convention center, and hungry, desperate people who were tired of waiting broke through the steel doors to a food service entrance and began pushing out pallets of water and juice and whatever else they could find.

An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket. Another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet

At right, President Bush boards Air Force One on the beginning of his tour of the damage left in the wake of Katrina. The hurricane has provoked a small storm of criticism of the administration, including CNN anchor Jack Cafferty: "I have never ever seen anything as badly bungled and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans. Where the hell is the water for these people? Why can't sandwiches be dropped to those people that are in that Superdome down there? I mean what is going — this is Thursday. This is Thursday. This storm happened five days ago. It's a disgrace." Then there's this ThinkProgress post:

---

Why are these helicopters being used as a backdrop for President Bush, instead of assisting the victims of Hurricane Katrina?

Why are members of the Coast Guard being used as a backdrop for Bush’s press conference? Don’t they have more important things to do?

---

Should we be playing politics while New Orleans simultaniously drowns and burns? I was going to say, "No, we should be calm, we should focus on the people who are suffering."

Then I read this, from CNN last night:

Michael Brown, director of FEMA: People who were unable or chose not to evacuate are suddenly appearing. And so this catastrophic disaster continues to grow. I will tell you this, though, every person in that convention center, we just learned about that today and so I have directed that we have all the available resources to get to that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water, the medical care that they need.

Paula Zahn: Sir, you’re not telling me –

Brown: To care of those bodies that are there –

Zahn: you’re not telling me that you just learned that the folks at the convention center didn’t have food and water until today, are you? You had no idea that they were completely cut off?

Brown: Paula, the federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today.

And this:

During President Bush's first term, Army Corps of Engineers Chief Michael Parker kept pushing for massive, costly refurbishing of the flood-controlling pumping system in Louisiana's portions of the lower Mississippi River. Bush fired him.

And this:

In its [2004] budget, the Bush administration also had proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, one-sixth of what local officials say they need.

And to top it all off, the Administration complains about anyone who criticizes the preparation for or response to Katrina ("I hope people don't play politics," says the President, while an aide calls criticism "despicable and wrong") at the same time they use Katrina as cover to slip in a controversial recess appointment.

It's bullshit, and there's nothing wrong with calling it bullshit.

My aunt sent me a few more pictures from the recent trip to Salt Lake:

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson at an anti-war protest. I bumped into Anderson at the Salt Lake Roasting Company coffee shop. Like any good politician, he pretended to remember me—hell, maybe he did. Anyway, he told me he isn't sure if he's running for re-election. I told him I'd work for his campaign for free. It's not like my father has rented out my old room or anything.


Hey, it's a picture of Sam that doesn't make him look crazy. Sweet.


It's a sister. Awww.

In any case, to respond to repeated comments, I am working on a new blogroll. I won't get it up over the weekend, though: I'm working Saturday and on Labor Day, which sounds bad, except for two things. First, I get paid double, and second, I get paid double.