Inappropriate Content

Offically No Longer an Interesting Blog

2006-04-02T21:43:00.000-04:00

So a lawyer in New York has this thing she does:

For the past few years I’ve made a habit of stopping in my tracks every few months, glancing around the general topography of my life and taking stock.

Which isn't bad advice. And this weekend, I've made an attempt at that, looking mostly at three things:

The dozens of half-written blog posts sitting on my hard drive, ranging from three pages on the Alito nomination to "Happy Birthday, Bill Shatner."
The blog itself, which hasn't been updated in a very, very long time.
A half-finished screenplay and a half-finished one-act play that are two of the best things I've ever written and that I can see the endings to in my head, which is a rare thing.

I started this blog to talk about politics: I thought that because I knew more about politics than anyone I talked with, I had something valuable to say. However, I have since learned that just because you understand politics doesn't mean you have anything constructive to say. And, more importantly, a blog is a terrible place to talk about politics. Blogs encourage insta-nalasys and and discourage considered thought. They require a terrible devotion and constant attention. If you want to know about politics, read The New Republic, Columbia Journalism Review, and the occasional issue of Mother Jones and National Review.

Blogs are a good way to let people keep up with you. I know of a few people who would have disappeared from my life for good if they didn't have blogs where the occasionally post. (Mostly just you, Andrew, but only mostly.) I'll certainly let you all know if I bump into Madeline Albright at the bagel place or if I find a job that isn't boring as all hell. But if this place is pretty damn empty for the next few months, just assume that I had to chose between half-finished blog posts and half-finished plays—and that's one of those choices with a clear right and wrong answer, you know.

Unclear on the Concept

2006-03-14T08:51:00.000-05:00

Well, the Oscars are over, and we're still months from the summer blockbusters. That usually means it's time for a scientologist to do something crazy.

Yep. Right on schedule, Isaac Hayes, the voice of Chef on South Park, is no longer the voice of Chef on South Park.

Hayes, who has voiced the character Chef since the series began in 1997, released a statement through his spokesman Monday requesting a release from his contract because he "is disappointed with what he perceives as a growing insensitivity toward personal spiritual beliefs."

Um...growing insensitivity toward religion? Did Hayes not notice that he's been on the cast of South Park for nearly ten years?

Publisher A©

2006-03-13T21:31:00.000-05:00

I've just finished grading a practice SAT, step one in preparing for the real thing. It was, frankly, a severe reality check. The scores were, by my goals, dismal: 800 writing, 740 critical reading, and 400 math. I mean, keeping things in perspective, two out of three ain't bad, but you can see the one score on there that's got me incredibly unnerved. I'm disappointed in myself and quickly regressing back into teen-angst mode. (I'd forgotten how good standardized tests are at bringing that on.) I'll be putting a lot of effort into bringing the score up to where I want it.

It'd be nice to improve the math section as well, but whatever.

I'm treating myself to a nice evening after I take the SAT, whatever the outcome. Merce Cunningham's dance company is coming to the District, and I dropped more money than I can afford to get decent seats to my first Kennedy Center concert.

Merce Cunningham. Martha Graham's talent meets Albert Einstein's hair. What's not to like?

Stealing Babies for Adoption

2006-03-12T13:39:00.000-05:00

That is the front page headline in today's Washington Post. It's really part of a good sunday morning routine I have going here: plug in the iPod, twenty minute walk to the bagel place, breakfast sandwich, get a copy of the Post and sit outside with the spring weather, read about people stealing babies.

I saw the headline I walked into the bagel place and got the paper, and I have to admit that I immediately jumped to some conclusions. Surely this phenomena, while admittedly henious, was perhaps getting exaggerated just a little because headlines like "Electricity Dereguation: High Cost, Unmet Promises" don't pack quite the same punch as "Stealing Babies." And—I know this is hideously cruel, but it's the truth—it can be hard for me to feel that much sympathy for babies when the suburb I live in is infested with infants, a small clutch of whom are drowning out the Rachmaninov concherto I have on my iPod as we speak. So I was prepared to meditate on the necessity of being able to simulatniously condemn the indefensible depravity of abducting children and reprove the Post's yellow journalism... Hell, the chart beside the article was clearly labeled "Adoptions from China to the U.S."—and didn't show how many of of them were suspected to be adoptions of abducted children.

Then I read the article.

Despite my initial suspicions about the Post; despite the fact that actual babies have now ruined Mozart, Kayne West, and the original cast of Rent for me; despite hyperbolic headlines; this is a serious problem that deserves page A-1, above-the-fold treatment. Standard procedure for an American couple that wants to adopt a Chinese baby involves, at the penultimate stage, handing an orphanage director $3000 in cash. One aid worker estimated that less than 10% of that money will eventually end up going to the children in an orphanage. The White Swan hotel in Guangzhou—the city where adoptive parents take their new children to get visas from the State Department—gives guests "Going Home Barbie," dolls specially made by Mattel featuring Barbie and Ken and their adopted Chinese baby girl.

Chinese authorities recently busted a child-trafficking ring in Hunan provice, arresting 27 people including orphanage staff and local police officers who had filed fake reports of abandonded children. Neighbors of the Hengyang County orphanage, which, well, laundured the babies, say it sold as thirty babies a month to various orphanages. They recall six, ten, even twelve at a time being packed into vans. Hengyang is a poor county in a poor province, yet the orphanage director was driven around in a chauferred sedan. One of the defendant's lawyers is actually quoted in the post as saying "Old Lady Liang was quite well known locally for being warm-hearted and taking care of abandoned babies."

It's like the moment in M. Night Shyamalan's last film where you go from a Frank Capra-esque 18th Century village to "everything you know is a lie!" One adoptive parent from Salt Lake City, apparently competing for the Understatement of the Year award, says "it's a corrupt system." That's a typical reaction by one of the parents the Post interviews. They're shocked, ambivolent, uncertain. There's really nothing anyone could say to reassure them.

The world, after all, is a pretty unpleasant place. I was recently talking with a friend who had just found out that Americans import large amounts of pornography from former Soviet countries in Eastern Europe. I explaned, demonstrating more knowledge of the mechanics of the pornography trade than I'll admit to having in casual conversation, that Eastern Europe is one of the few places in the world where large populations of skinny, pale-skinned young people—the sort of person most Americans find attractive—are hungry and desperate. (Another such place is South Florida, but that's another post.)

In any case, child trafficking is still, in the end, a small part of the great Gordian Knot of humanitarian and international problems that is China. But it deserves a little front-page treatment, now and then.

Click here to buy a "If selling babies for profit is wrong, I don't want to be right" bumper sticker.

RIP Slobodan Milosovic

2006-03-11T19:17:00.000-05:00

Just kidding. I mean about being sorry he's dead.

Publisher A

2006-03-06T20:00:00.000-05:00

I never took the SAT in high school: the price paid to avoid being sucked into West High's Advanced Placement / International Baccalaureate Programme point-of-view, which is a painfully narrow place that, while not antithetical to worthwhile thought, is certainly an obstacle. We'll call it the Dan Campbell Memorial Circle of Hell, in honor of a man who is, from what I hear, dead on the inside.

Anyway, it was the price paid, and if the price strikes you as a little high, remember I have always had a pretty steep learning curve, all carefully-groomed appearances to the contrary.

Now, what I've written so far has made sense to precisely one person in the entirety of the universe—he knows who he is—so let me backtrack: I checked out of high school because the high school mindset is bullshit; however, it was a mistake not to take the SAT, and that's why I'm taking it in a three weeks.

What is the high school mindset? Here's an example: I picked up two SAT Prep books. Let's compare the introduction from the book by Publisher A with the introduction from the book by Publisher B:

Are you ready for a totally unique test prep experience? The SAT team at [Publisher A] understands what you are going through.

First, you're facing perhaps the single most important test of your high school career. Second, you're dealing with a longer, more grueling exam today—3 hours and 45 minutes to be exact—testing everything from writing to reading comprehension to reasoning to advanced math. Third, you're struggling to balance your normal activities such as sports and music with SAT prep. Finally, you're a person in need of options—the option of when to study, where to study, and most of all—how to study.

That's why you need this Program. The SAT Premier Program...

Coversely, the second book begins with an summary of the changes made in the SAT test last spring:

It still doesn't measure anything. It measures neither intelligence nor the stuff you're learning in high school. It doesn't predict college grades as well as your high school grades [my long-term prospects are dim] and the new 25-minute mini-essay scored in 60 seconds will certainly not measure how well you write.

It still underpredicts the college performance of women, minorities, and disadvantaged students. In other words, this test can make it tougher, not easier, for many of you to get into and pay for college. Historically, women have done better than men in college but worse on the SAT. For a test that is used to help predict performance in college, that's a pretty poor record.

It's still coachable in all the worst ways.

I'll admit: I spent over an hour trying to come up with a joke—any joke—that could top that first introduction. I considered mentioning that my boss, who runs a staff of more than two hundred people in fifteen states, does not need options of where to work, when to work, and how to work. Where? Her office. When? All the time. How? Hard.

I considered drawing on the similarities between "you need this Program" and the sales pitch you'd get at your local Scientology center. I considered explaining the part where they describe sitting on your ass for three and a half hours doing multiple-choice algebra is "grueling" can be accurate, if you grade on a curve and no Albanian Serbs or Gulf War Vets are taking the test.

I considered mentioning how well a person would score on the SAT if they used the phrases "totally unique" and "the option of when to study" in the grammar section of the test.

But in the end, none of my ideas really did justice to the monumental intellectual narcissism that runs through every word of that introduction. I'm not denying that it's morally admirable to say "I wanted a cool car, but I know Daddy can only really afford the two SUVs, so I'd feel bad asking," I'm just saying I don't need the book introduction equivalent of a drunken blow job in the bed of somebody else's pick-up truck to convince me to buy your product. In fact, it's kind of a turn off. So I'm just going to quietly return the thing tomorrow and exchange it for the next season of "The West Wing." I can steal something from Sorkin for my essay and it'll help my score more than any test prep book, even the one I'm not taking back.

Hickville Dispatch©

2006-03-06T10:19:00.000-05:00

In a bit of proof that even the worst of us can learn from our mistakes, Utah State Senator Chris Buttars has said it's "doubtful" he'll put an anti-evolution bill before the Utah Legislature again. This was after his original proposal was shot down 46-28.

Of course, there are still 28 State Representatives in Utah who care about reforming our education system, so I've conducted a scientific study that they can introduce into next year's biology courses. The study proves people other than me are 100% likely to be psychopathic serial killers. The methodology was: I visited the Crime Library's list of the world's most notorious serial killers and compared my behavior to theirs.

Civil Service

2006-03-03T14:31:00.000-05:00

What is the state of education coming to in this country when a member of the Senior Executive Service—the highest ranking, most responsible employees in Civil Service, typically reporting directly to agency chiefs and cabinet secretaries—spells the word "though" with no U, G, or H in a business e-mail? Now, I feel like Andy Rooney, complaining about this, but the when the new vernacular is less precise than the old, language isn't evolving—it's devolving.

Rising Sun©

2006-03-02T16:42:00.000-05:00

It seems some of my incisive wit and penetrating insight doesn't quite make the translation to Japanese—at least, not when I'm the one doing the translating. But hey, it's important for me to practice as much as possible, and if that means subjecting the two or three people who still read this thing to bi-lingual inanities, it's a price I'm willing to pay.

Of course, the above shouldn't be confused with anything that an actual Japanese person could, in fact, read. Because the language has two eighty letter alphabets and tens of thousands of pictograms, only three of the symbols above would actually be in that sentence if it we're written in proper Japanese.

So if you happen to be a native Japanese speaker who enjoys single sentence statements of the blindingly obvious utilizing vocabulary that would appall a seven-year-old, check back here often.

Kakistocracy©

2006-03-01T11:32:00.000-05:00

From The Legal Times, via The Corner:

Already frustrated with the Democratic Party for putting forward an anti-abortion candidate to run against Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, Kate Michelman, former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, says she has been asked by a number of women's groups and Democratic donors to jump into the hotly contested U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania as an independent. The final straw? When Santorum's Democratic challenger, Bob Casey, endorsed the nomination of Samuel Alito Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court. 'After Casey announced his support for Alito, I got calls from around the country,' says Michelman, a resident of the Keystone State since 1969. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee declined to comment, and a call to EMILY's List, a group that supports abortion rights candidates for elected office, went unreturned.

From The Onion:

WASHINGTON, DC—In a press conference on the steps of the Capitol Monday, Congressional Democrats announced that, despite the scandals plaguing the Republican Party and widespread calls for change in Washington, their party will remain true to its hopeless direction.

"We are entirely capable of bungling this opportunity to regain control of the House and Senate and the trust of the American people," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said to scattered applause. "It will take some doing, but we're in this for the long and pointless haul."

"Some rising stars with leadership potential like [Sen. Barack] Obama (D-IL) and [New York State Attorney General Eliot] Spitzer have emerged, but don't worry: We've still got some infight left in us," Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said. "Over the last decade, we've found a reliably losing formula, and we're sticking with it."

Arty Gras!

2006-02-28T17:46:00.000-05:00

I am helping set up for an art show. Right now I'm just thumbtacking the names of pieces up next to the art, and also standing on very tall ladders to put up decorations. We are still several hours from the fun and free booze—yet it is already better than the entire week at work put together.

If you're in D.C. and reading this in time—two admittedly unlikely propositions—get yourself down to the Warehouse for Arty Gras: 14 artists from New Orleans raising money. We're serving a drink called a Hurricane. I've been assured that it's tasteful.

I'll be here, unless I fall off a very tall ladder.

Update: One of the artists is a woman named Jan Arringo, who fled New York City after 9/11 and, naturally, moved to New Orleans.

I Wish

2006-02-28T13:05:00.000-05:00

that I had an imagination good enough to make this up: I just received an e-mail that contained the phrase:

> IF YOU LOVE JESUS, SEND
> THIS TO AT LEAST 10 PEOPLE, INCLUDING
> THE PERSON WHO SENT IT TO YOU!

Has Christ jumped the shark?

Kakistocracy©

2006-02-28T09:36:00.000-05:00

Over at the Corner, Senator Byrd is catching some flack for his opposition to renewing the Patriot Act. He was for it before he was against it, you see. Republican op Tim Chapman lets loose:

Byrd did not support the law only in 2001... He supported the anti-terror measure just a few months ago as well when it was passed by unanimous consent. So he voted for it—twice—before he is going to vote against it.

This new found strain of the John Kerry virus that is infecting the West Virginian...is sure not to sit well with the West Virginia voters this November.

Senator Byrd is a bit more willing to admit his mistakes than most people. Maybe it’s because his mistakes have been so much more heinous than any other living senator. Maybe he’s just too old and too incumbent to care.

Either way, whenever someone shouts 'flip-flopper!' like that, I flash back to the town hall Bush-Kerry debate, when a woman from the mid-west asked President Bush to name a few mistakes he wished he could go back and correct. Bush moved right into defending the War on Terror. Aside from an oblique reference to wishing he’d fired Richard Clarke, he didn’t admit to a single specific mistake. And he wasn’t lying—he didn’t say he never made mistakes—or even being particularly misleading. In fact, he was following one of the cardinal rules of image politics: don’t admit your mistakes, don’t change your mind, and don’t be wrong.

If you admit your mistakes, people will think you’re someone who makes mistakes and they won’t vote for you. If you change your mind, people will think you’re someone who changes his mind and they won’t vote for you. If you ever say, 'I was wrong,' people will think you’re wrong and they won’t vote for you.

If you change your mind about an important piece of legislation, you’ve caught the John Kerry virus, quite possibly a terminal case.

This sort of image politics isn’t just practiced by Tim Chapman: it’s SOP for virtually every hack on both sides of the aisle. But it’s more than just low-brow politics. The certainty of facing attack for changing your mind—something reasonable people do every day—is yet another of the humiliating degradations we heap upon anyone with the temerity to run for office. It’s one of the things that makes the process of getting elected and governing so intolerable, virtually no reasonable person would consider running for anything.

So you think you can contribute to public life in this country. Are you an intelligent and reasonable person? Then Karl Rove and Tim Chapman (or, if you happen to be a republican, Paul Begala and Daily Kos) are going say you’re diseased!

College-ish

2006-02-25T17:38:00.000-05:00

Before I went to Salt Lake, I spent a week in a class at the USDA Grad School called "Human Resources for Administrative Professionals." Coupled with "Processing Personnel Actions," my college transcript is lookin' real pretty.

Oh, well. I have been picking up a few bits of pieces of useful knowledge. This a real place:

China Lake is a small town in the southern California desert, fifty miles from the nearest interstate or railroad. The townspeople are a close knit community, most of whom diligently research ways to make the Sidewinder air-to-air missile more deadly.

China Lake is famous among government payroll specialists for being the first government facility to try something called "pay banding" back in 1980. That's more fame than you might think. It's just not the kind that does anything for the tourist trade.

Who says you never learn anything useful working in Human Resources?

A few months ago there was a decently large celebration to celebrate the opening of an Olive Garden.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

2006-02-23T15:47:00.000-05:00

The White House's Katrina Response report bugs me. Reuters reports that "the Pentagon should have a clearer role in dealing with disasters such as Hurricane Katrina."

Maybe it's just a knee-jerk reaction from a instinctual anti-military liberal, but come on, guys. It is possible for the federal government to efficiently and effectively coordinate a large interagency, interstate operation. The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise is the premier example. And the disaster that was post-Katrina FEMA says more about the wisdom of putting inexperienced political appointees in charge of such an important agency than about the need to replace said agency with the 82nd Airborne.

To put it another way, I'm afraid Elizabeth Dole's Inaugural Address will sound like this:

And I'd like to thank the men and women of America's armed forces, who fight to defend this nation from it's enemies; who fight to defend this nation from natural disasters; who fight to defend this nation from criminals and gangsters; who fight to defend our roads and trains from the enemy of a lack of maintenance...

Pod People

2006-02-23T15:04:00.000-05:00

Marvel at vast, untamed swaths of the mental terrain of John Podhoretz and Jonah Goldberg:

Podhoretz:
Jonah, I've read Rod's remarkable book [Crunchy Cons by Rod Dreher. Crunchy cons are, at their best, Father Mulcahy from M*A*S*H; at their worst, Reverend Camden from Seventh Heaven.], and I have to say, like any successful polemic-manifesto, it anticipates and tries to answer many of the objections you have raised and will raise to it. Crunchiness aside, Crunchy Cons is the first popular work of our time to take up the cudgel for the Old Right and its anti-Marxist critique of capitalism -- and what's most promising and hopeful about it is that Rod does so without the repugnant anti-republican, pro-Confederate and anti-Semitic strains that properly consigned the Old Right to the ash-heap of history. That being said, Rod's great problem is that, like any effort to find a more authentic and pure way of living, Crunchy Conservatism might become a haven for purists who adopt it because they want to live a Great Experiment -- making them little different from ideological extremists of every bent. It also provides a big-tent excuse for "sanctimommy" parenting, which is not so much about raising your own kids as you see fit but more about finding other mothers and fathers wanting because they're not as austere and controlling as you are. There's a lot of sanctimommying over at the Crunchy Con blog. And don't get me started on the politician Rod praises at the end of his book and for what reason. I won't tell you who it is, Jonah. You'll have to find out on your own and get really, really annoyed. Consider it a Crunchy Con cliffhanger!

Goldberg:
JPod - Even in the early pages I get the sense that Rod was asking himself something like "What will Jonah say about this?" And I do like his effort to conjure some of the Old Right (though we can have an argument about whether Russell Kirk is really a good representative of the Old Right as Rod seems to be suggesting. I've always read Old Right to describe 1930s conservatism, not 1950s conservatism). But if you read the CCblog or Rod's introduction, you will find several examples of Crunchy Con being used synonymously with Old Right, which simply strikes me as an unsustainable position -- no matter which Old Right you have in mind. My guess is that Russell Kirk put on a tie before he brushed his teeth in the morning. From my reading, Caleb Stegall seems to understand that putting a "hippie gloss" (his words) on traditional conservatism is more of a distraction than a contribution. After all, hippieness is often just simply another form of consumerism with political pretension.

Also, just as a point of clarification, what exactly do you mean when you say the Old Right believed in "repugnant" anti-republicanism? I'm not saying I disagree but small "r" republican can mean different things to different people, including among members of the Old Right.

Podhoretz:
Jonah, by using that phrase I was actually referring to the hostility to American-style democracy -- the frank elitism that is probably more a feature of the sort of conservatism espoused by T.S. Eliot and Yeats but was certainly a feature of, say, Allen Tate's thinking. As for Russell Kirk's tie, that's purely a generational thing. My father would not go out of the house tieless even on the weekends when I was a kid, lest he run into someone on the street.

Goldberg:
JPod - Fair enough on anti-republicanism, though I'm sure someone has a problem with it (someone always does).

As for ties, I agree it's a generational thing, but it's not merely a generational thing.

I think Kirk would probably agree: this wasn't just fashionableness. People wore ties and dressed properly at public events not just in our parents' generation but for several generations. I remember when I was a kid people still got dressed-up to go on airplanes. And if you look at pictures of old baseball games, everyone was wearing a tie.

I could take almost every quote and author in the supposedly Crunchy Con oeuvre and make what I think would be a much, much stronger case that instead of putting on hippie clothing a true "crunchy con" should put on a tie and jacket. Rod talks in his opening pages about the comfort his birkenstocks provide and makes it sound like a virtue that he donned them. But Rod's whole argument is that the comfort and ease our consumer culture brings is the enemy of The Good Path.

Rod talks often and eloquently about the permanent things, of custom and tradition, but when they collide with comfortable open toed shoes and loose fitting shirts, guess which one gets defenestrated?

In other words one of the things that has contributed to a declining sense of community is precisely what Rod now celebrates. A common culture where everyone is inconvenienced equally is far more in keeping with the spirit of Russell Kirk than a culture in which everyone indulges in sartorial rebelliousness and self-satisfaction.

Schools impose uniforms, for example, not to make everybody look like a country club Republican but to make poor kids and rich kids feel just a little bit more like equals.

Man, oh man, could I go on but I really must stop myself for now.

Podhoretz:
Jonah, it's true that people used to dress up to go on airplanes. But so what? Why on earth should people have dressed up to go on airplanes? The formality of previous generations was a social norm and therefore a convention. I suppose it had meaning in the sense that it was a way for people to look as much like adults as possible and that our casual-attired ways are an indication of the perpetual pursuit of youth. But the last thing you can say of the Crunchy Cons -- of whom I must say I am most emphatically not one -- is that they are acting like children. They're trying to live a more serious life. Rod's goal isn't to live a more sober life. It's to live a more sacramental life, to infuse the everyday with holiness.

Goldberg:
JP- Of course dressing appropriately is a social convention. But since when is it a more authentic form of conservatism to disdain social convention? You could -- and I would -- make the case that dressing appropriately is part of good manners. You wouldn't go to a funeral in shorts and a tank top, for example. Of course, it's not just clothes. My guess is Russell Kirk would be horrified by public breastfeeding.

Customs, manners, social conventions: this is the sinew and bone of civilization. Rod seems to be in the business of picking and choosing when convenient. Customs he likes: Crunchy. Customs he doesn't: "mainstream conservative" or "mainstream liberal." This will not do.

Here's something for the guys at the CCBlog to debate: birkenstocks are to culture what broken windows are to crime.

Podhoretz:
From a reader:
Oh I LOVE this discussion. I have on my wall at home a framed collection of antique mug shots taken around the turn of the century. Two pickpockets, one vagrant, one fellow arrested for "suspicious behavior," one peeping Tom, and fellow was running a numbers racket. Every one of them is wearing a suit and tie, and three are sporting hats. These fellows weren’t products of a consumer culture; they were from the street at a time when very few people in society—let alone the bottom rung—had any money. It’s only since the country has grown so supremely wealthy that the rich have taken to adorn themselves with rags purchased at Neiman Marcus for exorbitant sums.
As you know, Theodore Dalrymple writes about this all the time. What must it mean to some working in a factory in rural China who keeps what few clothes they have immaculate to go to work and shred a perfectly good pair of jeans for the racks at Bloomingdales? TD was recently interviewed by a Dutch newspaper correspondent and the subject of tattooing came up. Says Dalrymple, "it represented a mass downward cultural and social aspiration, since everyone understood that tattooing had a traditional association with low social class and, above all, with aggression and criminality. It was, in effect, a visible symbol of the greatest, though totally ersatz, virtue of our time: an inclusive unwillingness to make judgments of morality or value."

What struck Dalrymple about this well-dressed, well-spoken interviewer was how indifferent he was to the tattooing trend. The interviewer simply said that it was legal and that even Dalrymple didn’t believe it should be illegal, so why give it a second thought? "What I found so odd about the correspondent were his perfect manners and refined tastes. But so little confidence did he have in the value of the things that he valued that he seemed indifferent to the mechanism of their disappearance or destruction. This is the way civilization ends: not with a bang but a whimper."

Here’s the whole thing: http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_4_diarist.html

Podhoretz:
Okay, Jonah, look down at your neck: Is there a tie there? No fair saying there is if this is a day you're going on TV or giving a speech...

Goldberg:
John - Absolutely not. I spend most of my time in rags with Kleenex boxes on my feet like Howard Hughes. But I'm not the one extrapolating from my consumer and sartorial choices a political philosophy and movement. My definition of ideological conservatism is that it is only a partial philosophy of life, with very little to say about what to wear or what to eat. I don't believe the personal is necessarily political. In the context of this conversation, what I'm wearing is only relevant if one buys into the assumptions of Rod's paradigm which, I think it is obvious to everyone, I am not doing. Yes, I know there are objections to be raised about this point, but I'm going to keep my powder dry and leave it there.

Podhoretz:
Hey, you brought up the tie thing! And then you made it sound as though sartorial choices were an ideological matter by talking about Russell Kirk's wardrobe! And by the way, considering that Russell Kirk once said people like me think Tel Aviv is America's capital, I hope his stinking ties had ketchup stains all over them.

Goldberg:
Yes I brought up Kirk and ties, but solely to rebut Rod's insinuation that Russell Kirk of all people was the Ur-Crunchy Con and to address your praise of Rod as reviving the Old Right. Personally, I've never been an enormous fan of Kirk's, though I respect his contributions to conservatism. Kirk-o-philia is Miller's bag. I'm much more of a Hayekian.

...

My wife just yelled down the stairs (I work in the basement): "You and Pod have to stop! Nobody even knows what you're arguing about!"

So there you have it.

Minneapolis

2006-02-18T10:00:00.000-05:00

I'm in the main concourse of the Minneapolis St Paul airport. I've been re-booked twice this morning, but I have picked up another $300 airline voucher, bringing my total to $600. A guy who's been on the same two flights as me actually left LaGuardia the day before yesterday; he's up to $900 now, and I'm not sure he remembers where he's supposed to be going this weekend. Maybe he'll end up back where he started in a day or two, with a couple grand. It'll be the financial equivalent of a really good trip to Vegas and the spiritual equivalent of Waiting for Godot.

They're giving an announcement about why my last flight was delayed. Apparently the cargo doors were frozen open. You know, the only unpleasant part of being stuck overnight in Minneapolis is that my jacket was not.

There's a cute guy sitting across from me. (It's a flight to Salt Lake, so of course there are several cute guys.) He's reading a book and looking smart-sexy. A cute guy in an airport reading a book looks smart-sexy. A cute guy in an airport clicking away on his powerbook just looks like a yuppie schmuck. So I'm going to stop looking like a yuppie schmuck, pull out the copy of Hendrick Hertzberg's collected essays I've been working on, and commence with the creating an illusion of intelligence that is my great talent in life.

Kakistocracy©

2006-02-13T18:10:00.000-05:00

If I had made fun of Dick Cheney for shooting a major campaign contributor—which I haven't—I would take it all back now. Accidents happen, especially when you're playing with guns. And as Jonah Goldberg writes, "Unless we hear something new, or if Cheney shoots himself in the foot (heh), this story remains all human interest and no politics." So lets talk some real politics: our U.N. Ambassador, John Bolton, has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Apparently a former deputy prime minister of Sweden admired Bolton's anti-proliferation work. It is, of course, almost universally acknowledged that the best thing John Bolton ever did at the State Department's non-proliferation desk was, y'kno, leave. I am not making a joke here—this nomination qualifies as one, and a rather twisted one at that.

Great E-Mails of All Time

2006-02-13T00:07:00.000-05:00

I just got an e-mail that ended with

P.S. Did you hear that Dick Cheney shot someone?

Elevator Out of Service

2006-02-10T13:47:00.000-05:00

To avoid mailing delays, please update your mailing address with the Armenian Finance Ministry.

This morning I wrote that on an envelope, bringing the total number of interesting things I have written as part of my job, after almost a year, to a grand total of exactly one. Or possibly zero, if you don't care about the Armenians.

It's really rather depressing. Other people get to write interesting things. Just this week, The Onion re-printed a fascinating contemporary account of the Yalta Conference:

With the exception of Churchill's loud snoring, the nap proceeded smoothly until Stalin woke up screaming, waking the President and Prime Minister with a start. Both Churchill and Roosevelt attempted to calm the Soviet Premier, who had had a nightmare about wild gorillas surrounding him.

"It sounded like a very frightening dream," Roosevelt said. "To make him feel better, we agreed to let him take control of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria and Eastern Germany. That seemed to make him rest more easily."

Me, I'm just sitting here, on my ass, writing uninteresting things like, "I can take the pie charts home with me this weekend and edit them on my Mac. We can print out the reports on Monday." At lunch I read some more of Hendrik Hertzberg's collected essays. He's been writing interesting things since 1966!

On my way up to the office this morning, I wondered where people stand when they're alone on an elevator. When you have a group of people in an elevator, where they stand depends on how many people are in the group: two people tend to stand on opposite ends of the elevator; three will make a sort of scalene triangle; four or more start lining up in formation. But where do people stand when they're alone on an elevator?

There are philosophical implications to that question. But I prefer to think of it as subject of behavioral science inquiry. Is there something about the layout of an elevator—tall, square; single egress— that causes us to tend to stand in a certain place? Does where people stand reflect their personality? Do poor people stand in a different place from rich people? Do Japanese stand in a different place from Latinos? And what about the gays?

Someone should get ahold of security cameras from different elevators and do a study. The impact on psychology could be enormous.

Personally, I tend to move around, talk to myself, and jump up and down for no apparent reason.

Bureaucratic Nonsense

2006-02-08T14:00:00.000-05:00

I'm in the middle of a training session right now. It's a new database to handle letters to the Department of Agriculture from Senators, Presidents, and other inflated egos. No big deal.

We're using example letters: just old letters our instructor pulled out of a file somewhere. One of the students from another staff was making jokes about her letter: it was terribly written. 'Regarding' where it should read 'because.'

And I just thought it was pretty damn cool to be in a room that's 95% women and more than half black—two of the traditionally least educated groups of people in America—and see everyone making fun of people with poor grammar skills. Feeling good.

Haiti: Why Be Hating?

2006-02-07T18:15:00.000-05:00

Compared to the number of people who have been killed over silly things—cartoons, soccer matches, Jesus—it's almost encouraging to see people dying because they're too eager to vote. I mean, not really—but being slightly less bad is still progress. Especially in Haiti:

Chaos, Confusion on Election Day

Haitians show off their ID cards in line at a voting station.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Port-au-Prince today, some to vote and others to protest that they couldn't. Many polling stations opened hours late and others were without the proper paperwork, while some ballot registrations were sent to precincts miles away. The largest show of frustration came in [front-runner and former President Rene] Preval's stronghold of Cite Soleil, where the election commission had barred polling stations.

It's an important story, so naturally it's been getting virtually no coverage up until now. In today's Washington Post, Haiti was on page A-15. A-15! A half-page special about what it's like to be a sophomore in high school made A-11, and a story about a judge in Washington State who called for a pro-seesaw cheer at a pre-superbly sentencing hearing made A-7. Hey, I know: let's add a little color to that last one. Let's call up Jean-Claude dabbler and ask if he thinks it was appropriate for a judge to cheer the seesaw!

Update: That should read "pro-Seahawks cheer," not "pro-seesaw." It should also read "Jean-Claude Duvalier," not "dabbler." Not that I'm accusing anyone of being anti-seesaw (except perhaps Jean-Claude dabbler) I respect our great American playground equipment traditions. I'm just saying, you should be careful with your spell check. You never know where it might lead.

Geek-Tastic

2006-02-04T20:00:00.000-05:00

I have found the geekiest thing in the universe. It's geekier than the Star Trek wiki. It's geekier than Penny Arcade! It's the "Which Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Are You?" quiz! Holy Bat Pancakes!

YOU ARE 28 UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1332!

You are not a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure at all: you're the statute that allows the federal district courts to hear diversity of citizenship actions! You were drafted with the idea that an out-of-state party may be unduly prejudiced by appearing in a foreign state. Sometimes people may think that you're strange, and they try to minimalize your effects by requiring an amount in controversy and by being especially strict on the requirements for diversity. Also, attorneys often use you for "forum shopping" and other undesirable behavior. But there's no getting around the fact that you're so darned loveable! Your delightful quirkiness entertains friends and law professors alike, and although others may grumble about your eccentricities behind your back, they're always talking about you, so you must be doing something right. Let's face it, the world could use a few more 28 USC 1332's!

Take note, Emily, Queen of the Unusual Internet Quiz (like this one): I don't know what Rule of Civil Procedure you are, but I'll bet large amounts of money you aren't anything in Title V!

Because Title V is boring. It's the administrative personnel stuff, and I had to study parts of it for work. It's the most boring title in the Code of Federal Regulations, and you know that's stiff competition. The only interesting title is Title IX, which is actually a John LeCarre novel that Dennis Hastert liked so much, he slipped it into the '03 defense appropriations bill.

Television

2006-02-02T22:20:00.000-05:00

Some points about television:

My roommate has acquired one, which means I now have access to television.
This is unfortunate. I just walked into the living room and watched a few moments of the Tyra Banks talk show, creatively entitled Tyra. Now, there is something in television called a "product placement." The first words out of Tyra's mouth are an excellent example:
Hey everyone! [audience cheers] Do you all like my new Addidas© Vintage™? [gestures to clothing; audience cheers] They're great. Now on today's show we've got the contestants from the reality show sensation The Biggest Loser with us...
My friend Cara has much better taste in TV. She lent me a Japanese show called Full Metal Panic, which is the ultimate anime teenage marketing ploy with both 16-year-old schoolgirls who have boy trouble and giant battle robots who have trouble...from other giant battle robots. That's right, both of 'em!
Even a for 14-year-olds only show like Full Metal Panic makes room for unflattering commentary on American foreign policy:

Nihon-desu

2006-02-02T19:01:00.000-05:00

I'm getting more and more involved in my Japanese class. It's quite a shock to reacquaint myself with the sheer amount of work it takes to learn something completely new. I'm having trouble with hiragana, the main Japanese phonetic alphabet (they have two, plus a system of pictograms!) and can't for the life of me memorize simple numbers.

On the plus side, I have discovered the single most fun time of day to say in Japanese: 5:00 PM, or gogo go-ji. Go ahead, say it a couple times. Isn't that fun?

And there's a continual motivation: Tokyo is home to a neighborhood called Kanda. Kanda has 160 bookstores. 160! That's a number I can remember. It's ichi... um... ichi something zero. Damn it.

Kakistocracy©

2006-02-01T16:58:00.000-05:00

A few months ago a paper in Denmark called Jyllands Posten published 12 cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammed, despite the fact that the Koran forbids depictions of said prophet. A firestorm was set off, as the Daily Mail reports:

PARIS -- After fiery protests in the Middle East, a near-total Arab boycott of Danish products, a storm of diplomatic protests and death threats against its journalists, a Copenhagen-based newspaper apologized for publishing provocative caricatures of Islam's Prophet, Mohammed...

When a conservative Norwegian magazine reprinted the cartoons early last month, though, the issue took on new life. Anger suddenly reverberated across the Middle East, with condemnation of Denmark and Norway coming from the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and Arab governments.

Naturally, the first thing I wanted to do was see the cartoons. The Daily Mail article described them as "drawn by different artists who portrayed Mohammed in the same broad strokes that many Western newspapers and magazines have come to use as shorthand for terrorists."

A couple of the cartoons are exactly that. For example:

Way to go, Kurt Westergaard. On the other hand, Poul Erik Poulsen's caricature was hardly a caricature:

Wow, doesn't the prophet look bloodthirsty? And then there's Bob Katzennelson—it wasn't Muhammed his cartoon was taking a shot at:

So those are the cartoons that have sparked massive boycotts, protests, bomb threats, recalled diplomats...this is what prompted Bill Clinton himself to wonder "Are we heading to replace anti-Semitism with anti-Islam?" This!

Offensive? Maybe. A violation of Koranic by-laws? Sure. But the new Mein Kampf? What the hell?

We know—know—that this doesn't happen when people make fun of Jesus; nor when people violate the Second Commandment. So if our right to free speech supersedes the highly unlikely claims of a 2,000-year-old book, why in Allah's name is it subservient to the equally dubious restrictions in a 1,400-year-old sequel?

Last Note:

2006-02-01T00:48:00.000-05:00

More evidence the State of the Union was mediocre at best: two-thirds of tonight's posts at the conservative magazine National Review's blog haven't even been about the speech. They've been about Maryland Governor Tim Kaine's response, and specifically about his eyebrow. Or as Peter David describes it, "Spock on crack."

So NOW I'm wishing I had a TV.

A Laundry List

2006-01-31T23:49:00.000-05:00

I have just finished reading President Bush's State of the Union address. Did I miss something by reading the text and not watching the speech on television?

Hope so, because reading the text, the State of the Union's predictability was matched only by it's mediocrity. President Bush ran down the list, checking off the boxes: "Coretta Scott King? Check. Optimistic note on Iraq? Check. Soldier's wife? Check. Play up the economy? Check. Tax cuts for corporations? Check. Sensible immigration reform, check; end our dependence on foreign oil, check; more educations spending, check—

"Wait, I'm not sounding to sensible and centrist, am I? I'd better obliquely imply that Jack Abramoff is gay:"

They [Americans] are concerned about unethical conduct by public officials, and discouraged by activist courts that try to redefine marriage.

"Hopefully that's got me covered on social issues. I mean, I'll throw in some coded anti-abortion stuff just to be sure, but I think I can check that off the list, too. That just leaves 'AIDS is a tragedy' and I think that's everything. Yeah, that's everything.

"Stay in school, God Bless America, I'm outta here."

The President touched all the bases he needed to touch, defended himself against the Democrats issue-of-the-week (the NSA wiretaps, for those of you not keeping score) and he said some pretty words. But there were no unifying themes, no penetrating insights, no new ideas. (Well, OK, there was the one joke about "two of my dad's favorite people: me and President Bill Clinton." That was funny, but makes me wonder if there's any truth to the rumor that 43 and 41 aren't on speaking terms.) It was a laundry list. But unlike President Clinton's laundry list State of the Union speeches, it wasn't a list of new policy proposals. It was a list of things we already knew.

State of the Union? Check. Reaction blog post? Check.

The Understatement of the Week Award

2006-01-30T10:26:00.000-05:00

Goes to Stanley Kurtz, writing in The Corner:

Nobody knows whether the election win for Hamas will help or hurt the cause of democracy in the Middle East...

The post itself is worth reading, if only to see how much this election has shaken the post-Orange and Cedar revolution assumption that elections are the key to peace in the Middle East.

Happy Tsagaan Sar

2006-01-30T09:07:00.000-05:00

This weekend was Tsagaan Sar. I love living in a big city. Why, just ordering breakfast in D.C. is more interesting than all of Provo: "Good morning. How was your weekend?"

"Okay. I sat around playing Escape Velocity all weekend. How about you?"

"I had a good time. It was New Years."

"New Years?"

"The Mongolian Lunar New Year."

"Really? Cool. What's that like?"

Turns out there's a goddess named Bituun Baldanlham, who rides her mule around the countryside. You're supposed to put three pieces of ice outside your front door for the mule to drink. It's like Passover, but it's in Mongolia and it's New Years.

"So what do you call New Years?"

"Tsagaan Sar."

"Zaganscar?"

"You're not very good at pronouncing Mongolian words."

"That's okay, I'm not very good at pronouncing English words."

"The usual sausage egg 'n cheese?"

"Yeah."

On the way to the office, I thought I spotted Bituun Baldanlham, but it was just James Carville on the big screen above Channel Seven's studios. James Carville's 30-foot-tall head is more than anyone should be forced to endure at 7:30 in the morning.

Peach Cobbler-ish

2006-01-28T21:36:00.000-05:00

Fax-ed Up Beyond All Recognition

2006-01-26T14:41:00.000-05:00

I'm sorting faxes when I notice another advertisement. This one is for the 8th annual Government Performance Summit, which bills itself as "The Most Comprehensive Government Management and Measurement Event of the Year!" Now it may be grammatically correct to end a sentence containing the phrase 'government management and measurement' with an exclamation mark, but I don't think it's ethical.

Keynote Speakers [the flyer reads]
Hon. Mike Johanns,
Secretary of Agriculture, USDA
Hon. Clay Johnson,
Deputy Director for Management,
White House Office of Management and Budget
Hon. Jo Anne B. Barnhart,
Commisioner (sic), Social Security Administration
Marta Brito Perez,
Associate Director, Human Capital Leadership & Merit
System Accountability, OPM

So, wait, maybe there's something in an old Miss Manners column I haven't read that suggests we address the Secretary of Agriculture as "Hon. Mike Johanns," but the deputy director of OMB gets an 'honorable' and the associate director of OPM doesn't? And to add insult to injury, Clay Johnson gets his acronym spelled out while Marta Perez doesn't. What did the Office of Personnel Management do to offend these people?

We get quite a few of these sorts of advertisements and part of my job is to dispose of them. (Exciting work, huh?) I did get one last fall that I've kept on file. It was a booking form from Entertainment With Class, a company in Maryland. It includes contact information, details of the event, legal disclaimer, and a list of the entertainers available. For example, the female entertainers include Sparkle, Puddin', Brown Sugar, and Dallas. The male entertainers include Nubian King, Razor, Sexecutioner, and Wiggles.

Clearly, Wiggles is the classy one.

Ayatollah Ironic

2006-01-25T23:56:00.000-05:00

The bus drivers of Tehran are going on strike this Saturday. According to the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran (nominee, 2005 "Most Awkward Name" award), the bus drivers are protesting "poor conditions, the lack of the right of having an independent union and the persistent imprisonment of their colleagues."

Good for them, of course, and it's a shame the American media isn't covering this. Michael Ledeen points out the story at National Review's blog. He also writes, without any indication that he realizes the hilarity of the situation:

so far I'm aware of exactly two men ... who have called for support for the Bus Drivers' Collective: Jimmy Hoffa Jr. and Rick Santorum.

Forget photo's of Bush and Abramoff. I want to see Hoffa and Santorum!

Big Brother Watch

2006-01-23T15:20:00.000-05:00

The President made a telephone call this morning to a group of anti-abortion protestors, saying:

We're vigorously promoting parental notification laws, adoption, teen abstinence, crisis pregnancy programs, and the vital work of our faith-based groups. We're sending a clear message to any woman facing a crisis pregnancy: We love you, we love your child, and we're here to help you.

We're from the government, and we're here to help. Heh.

Stormin' Orrin

2006-01-11T17:02:00.000-05:00

Just saw Sen. Orrin Hatch's IMDB biography.

US senator from Utah, 3 January 1977 - present.

Favorite poet: Sara Teasdale.

A staunchly conservative Republican, Hatch once hired a young woman named Eliza Florez as a page on his staff. After she left his employ she began a new career as adult film actress Missy Manners.

Cool. I went up to the Supreme Court today to see the protesters and think about the Alito nomination. Had some interesting times.

I've got my first session of Intro to Japanese in half an hour. Woo!

Lunch Hour

2006-01-06T13:10:00.000-05:00

I got the first two seasons of The West Wing on DVD over Christmas and was rather surprised to realize that when President Bartlett was shot just at the end of season one, he was standing just outside my office. We're located next door to an exhibit of part of the Berlin Wall where they filmed the cliffhanger first season finale. I spent part of my lunch break wandering around, tracking down the precise spot where Toby found Josh in a puddle of his own blood. Cool.

Christmastime Was Here

2006-01-05T20:27:00.000-05:00

Flying into Seattle, colors look brighter. I don't just mean the "I'm traveling, no work, a bit of money, gonna see my family" sort of glow you get. I mean the colors are literally brighter: it's almost always overcast, and the sky is dark, dark grey, like you always see in drawings of London. This increases the contrast between colors like red, green, and yellow. As the plane drops down, the buildings and cars seem brightly painted; the grass and trees are more vibrant. Everything seems brightly painted, as if the landscape were exquisitely detailed models from the old Mr. Rogers television show.

Then the plane gets a little lower and it's cruising over power lines and freeways, past the big FedEx planes across the tarmac, and over the runway, floating gently just above the ground. There's a moment suspended in time, and then there's a bump. Just like that the plane has gone from graceful sky-machine to the world's ugliest, most inefficiently designed Greyhound bus, and the first person to get their bag out of the overhead gets a gift card from IHOP, so by all means, use those elbows!

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is the lower 48's closet airport to Japan, with a dozens of flights to Tokyo, Okinawa, Taipei, Soul, and the other cities in what I like to call "The Area of the World Sadly Within Range of Kim Jong Il's Serious Psychological Problems and Also Missiles." The signs and the pre-recorded admonitions to keep your luggage with you at all times are in English and Japanese. There are customs machines; they look just like e-Ticket machines and have large Japanese characters--Hiragana? Katakana?--directing visitors to slide their electronic passports, place their fingers on the fingerprint readers, and generally pretend this is an episode of Star Trek. Only with Kim Jong Il, who is too unrealistic a character to be in a science fiction show.

I'm taking a Wednesday night course in Japanese this spring, and a weekend Intro to Photography course, mostly to get at a darkroom again. It's the part of the money I inherited I know my grandmother would approve of me spending. The iPod, not so much, but learning is the single most important thing we can do, and school is sometimes a surprisingly good place to learn. I'm looking forward to it, although right now I'm also looking forward to getting into Minneapolis alive: I'm writing on my way back to D.C., and going over the Rockies had more bumps than an M.C. Hammer video.

Note: When you're reduced to making fun of the 1980's, you have nothing more to say. Here are pictures of family in Seattle:

And now it's coming up on midnight at a small hotel in West Bloomfield, which is south of Minneapolis and not, sadly, in Bloom County. So: no Opus the Penguin, but there is a Chili's across the street. Also, I got a free ticket from the airline for being willing to give up my seat on an overbooked flight. So I guess I'll be getting out to Utah sooner rather than later.

The hotel has a banner that reads "FREE WIRELESS INTERNET" in large letters tacked over the side of the roof that faces the freeway. The free wireless internet consists of as many error messages as you can handle in the rooms, free of charge. They also offer free long distance calls, except the phones don't work.

I should have made the airline give me free meal vouchers. I actually enjoy, all things considered, reading in a cheap-but-clean hotel room and checking my e-mail in the lobby by the coffee machine. But the $12.99 I spent on buffalo wings at Chili's is gonna haunt me for a while.

Seattle-Tacoma

2005-12-30T12:26:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, I read a quick Democracy Arsenal post written by Heather Hurlburt while she sat at an airport, waiting for her flight to leave. I thought to myself, "I want to write a post like that." And now I have.

Coming soon: photos from the Seattle trip, and I'll bitch about Vladmir Putin's growing resemblance to Tony Soprano. Also, sure, now they're interested in who leaked classified information.

1000 Words ©

2005-12-19T12:53:00.000-05:00

Google Image Search the shiznit, my good readers. It has been officially designated by Her Majesty the Queen as "The Official Shiznit of Empire."

Anyhoodles, I'm off for a nice long walk down to the Office of Civil Rights in the Reporters Building near L'Enfant Plaza. Got a package to deliver, nice brisk weather, and a new BBC4 interview with the Blair-a-tron 2000 on my iPod. I wouldn't do it for free, but as jobs go, it's not bad at all.

Santa

2005-12-14T21:50:00.000-05:00

So: I'm in a coffee-shop called Warehouse, which holds is the only coffee-shop in the entire District of Columbia I know of that has the dual distinction of being a) not Starbucks™ and b) not Starbucks™. I know that, technically, that's one distinction, but it's such an important one I thought it was worth saying twice.

Two distinctions Warehouse holds that relate to this story: they a) serve beer and b) are right across the street from the District's convention center. And this is what I overhear after I get to the counter: "So I said, 'What are you talking about? There aren't any bars next to the convention center!' Then when he brought me in here, I said, 'Oh, you mean the coffee place! They serve drinks?'"

He doesn't think a sandwich and coffee joint would server beer? Must be from Utah or something.

I take a look: three standard-issue yuppies in suits listening to Santa Claus. He's a jolly, big guy with a bushy white beard, long white hair (in a neat pony tail) wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a Blackberry and a beer in front of him. That's what I've always pictured Santa looking like, anyway.

The yuppies are on their way out while I wait for my turkey wrap. I say hello to Santa and we get to chatting. He's an outgoing fella, and half sloshed already. Turns out Santa is your stereotypical O.C. conservative.

He's glad California executed Stanley "Tookie" Williams.
"Fuck him. Fuck him. He started a gang that's gotten more people killed, more innocent people killed—I mean, they say he's fucking converted or something, but I have been standing on the roof of the L.A. convention center, putting up some signs, I see two cars pull up, zig-zagging, this one pulls up next to the other, forces it off onto the sidewalk, three guys get out, thugged out, with guns, go up to the driver's window of the other car and just start blasting away. Killed the guy. That's what 'Tookie' started. So fuck him. Fuck him."
He's into extreme sports, of course.
"I've met them all. I've met Mark [the guy who invented snowboards]. They come to me to set up conventions, and I tell them what I really think of their stuff. I mean, as soon as I have their business, as soon as they pay me, I tell them what I really think. I told Mark, 'those X23 boots you make, they suck. They don't fit on the arch, they don't turn, they suck ass, Mark.' He said to me, 'I don't like them either.'"
He doesn't like James Dobson:
"You know what I think of religious fanatics? Fuck them. Fuck them. They're absolutely insane, they don't have a fucking clue what they're doing. I mean, they can believe what they want, buts they get up talking all this bullshit and they expect us to just go right along with it because they think it's what Jesus would do. So fuck them. Fuck them.
Or homos:
"Fuck them. They keep shoving this stuff down our throat, they keep putting these movies out. I mean, they can do what they want on their own, but they want everyone to be gay. They really do. Well, fuck them. Fuck them.

So I did something that wouldn't have scored me many points with Elizabeth Birch: I just smiled and nodded and let him keep talking. A couple minutes later, Santa had gotten on to some other subject, and we talked about Utah and pollution and stuff for a while. But I kept thinking about how Ang Lee wants everybody to be gay.

In this particular situation, it seems pretty clear to me that it would have been useless to argue with the guy. Having some stranger call you out on your ingrained bigotry when your half-drunk at some coffee-shop isn't going to change anybodies mind. But it made me wish I knew Santa better. Because what can change your mind about something is what the people you know and respect think.

I've been thinking back to high school and I can remember at least a couple of my friends who, if they hadn't known any gay guys, turning out just like Santa: nice guys, cool guys, who just don't really get the homos. But because they knew a couple gay guys—in one or two cases, specifically because they knew me—they are nice guys, cool guys, who do get the homos, who aren't scared of gay people or threatened by gay people, and everybody's better off. I don't mean to sound self-congratulatory...okay, maybe I do. Among the mistakes of my life are scattered the occasional good action, and coming out so soon was definitely one of them.

But then you sit and listen to Santa, and you think, "could I be more open, maybe? Would he have been more understanding if I had said, 'dude, I'm gay'?" Maybe not. Probably not. Like I said: it's usually useless to yell at a drunk stranger. But not always. And any time you take the cautious path, you look back and say, maybe I should have done things differently.

It's good to have these doubts. You can't be sure if you haven't made a mistake, every time you make a decision. It's ever so easy for people who are absolutely sure they've made the right choices to delude themselves into causing a lot of suffering. Or, more often, just making fools of themselves in public.

1000 Words©

2005-12-12T10:22:00.000-05:00

It's a beach party on Sydney's happening gay scene!

Did I say beach party? I meant race riot.

RIP The Odd Couple

2005-12-11T22:23:00.000-05:00

...or at least, they would have made a wonderful odd couple. Two great men died this weekend.

Richard Pryor

Eugene McCarthy

A Moment of Realization

2005-12-08T01:26:00.000-05:00

I was on the bus coming back to my apartment just a few minutes ago when I realized that I was on the bus on the way to my apartment. Not in the sense of being insane. (I am not insane unless I find myself in a courtroom, and even then it would depend on the circumstances.) I mean in the sense that I suddenly noticed I had reached a major milestone in my life: I am now officially living on my own, paying rent and buying groceries.

This is done with the help of roommates, or at least the paying rent is. So far my roommate's contribution to the grocery-buying effort consists of one bag of Doritos™ Tony brought back from the airport and one bottle of coconut rum Kimesha smuggled back from the Virgin Islands. All they've done is make my two bottles of OJ and three cans of peaches look good—and isn't that enough, really?

In any case, they work at Dulles Airport; gate agents for an airline that is, for tax reasons, not officially part of United Airlines. The hours are shitty, from mid-afternoon until nearly midnight, and they can't leave until the last flight they're assigned to has pulled out, which means lots of mandatory overtime. On the plus side, all that mando adds up, and they get to fly. They've only had the job six weeks and Kimesha's already returned to the Virgin Islands, where she was born, just to spend her day off seeing friends, and also to smuggle us rum. Tony goes to Florida to see his family, and claims he can get me tickets to London for eighty-five bucks, so the two of us could fly out there for a few days just for shits and giggles.

"Why London?" I asked him.

"You've got an accent. They'll think you're English and be nice to us."

"They'll think I'm pretending to be British and say nasty things about us behind our backs."

Anyway, we're on air mattresses for now, but I have a futon coming in 3-7 business days, and we're checking with relatives, craigslist, and thrift stores for a table and a reading chair for the living room. I'm planning on having all my books still at my father's house shipped here. So at some point in the near future, I will have the following:

A futon.
A reading chair.
Books.

Ah, quiet satisfaction. A sense of smug contentment that comes from knowing you're better than the mall-zombie masses. The fulfillment that comes from not succumbing to materialism. I could have these things, if I hadn't bought an iPod.

Oh, well. I can listen to Car Talk and watch episodes of Lost on the bus now. To say nothing of all that music, and being able to show new people the pictures I keep with me.

So that's my life right at the moment. I know that if you're reading this blog, you're probably more interested in what's going on my life than the political stuff I usually put up. After all, you could get that stuff from CNN. Trouble is, I hate only posting once or twice a week, and my life simply isn't interesting enough to warrant daily posts. I can manage to be interesting maybe two, three times a week, and I'm pretty damn interesting. I mean, no living soul has gone their entire lives without being interesting at least once, now that Adlai Stevensen has, sadly, died. But who does it all the time?

I'll try and put more up about me and the things I do. But there will still be plenty of political crap. Maybe I'll do more jokes about Ted Kennedy drinking a lot, but those aren't much original either.

Kakistocracy©

2005-12-07T12:56:00.000-05:00

Oh, for crying out loud, what is this new crapulence? AP:

The administration also is trumpeting progress on the economic front in a 35-page booklet titled "Our National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" that it released a week ago when the president gave the first speech of the series at the U.S. Naval Academy. There, he highlighted progress in training Iraqi army and police forces...
Senate Democrats issued a report saying the U.S. faces a reconstruction gap. While the administration cites the number of new schools built, roads paved and businesses created, "the simple fact is that basic needs – jobs, essential services, health care – remain unmet," according to the report obtained by The Associated Press.

Amazing how the usual script can work for everything if you just change the names. They must grow their communications staffers in the same lab ABC grows it's sitcom writers.

Monkey See, Monkey Buy

2005-12-06T21:24:00.000-05:00

I just listened to an NPR piece. Steve Unger's observations about holiday shopping. He lists a half dozen reports of people who have been hurt and even hospitalized by crowds of shoppers resembling stampeding herds of antelope or mad elephants. "It's a huge blow for proponents of intelligent design," Unger observes. "Proof that our DNA has barely mutated from that of our tusked cousin the elephant."

Far more developed than hyenas, we are monkey see, monkey buy. Advertisers compel us with sexy and cool images and soundtracks that create emptiness, promote need, and offer fulfillment all at the same time. In the "season of giving," these messages combine with tradition and religion to be so effective, so convincing, shoppers are willing to wrestle each other to the floor.

Now that's intelligent design.

That story was the first Podcast I listened to on my new iPod.

Glandular Discontent

2005-12-01T18:56:00.000-05:00

You know those times when someone neglects their blog and writes a post apologizing for it? Isn't that annoying as hell? If you're going to take the time to post on your blog, you should at least slap an internet quiz up there or do something else to take up space, the way E.R. has a train wreck on the weeks the writers couldn't come up with anything good.

You scored 59% sanguine, 53% phlegmatic, 39% melancholy, and 52% choleric!

You are the Thymus.

As you may know, the Thymus is a lymphatic organ where T-cells mature. It increases in size until adolescence, after which it atrophies.

My thoughts? I associated the Thymus with these humors because it's a childhood organ. You may be a wonderful impulsive and lively person, but eventually you're going to have to settle down. Or not. We all lose our Thymus, but at least we've still got you!

The What Organ Are You? Test

You Say Burma, I Say Myanmar

2005-11-29T17:08:00.000-05:00

I went to a wonderful bakery near my office today. I've been going as often as possible the last several days, for the breakfast crissuants. There are several very nice Asian women in late middle age who work there. (The only French person I've ever seen was the owner; I once saw him walk in and go straight to the back office. He had his breakfast, from the place across the street. If someone )

Today as I was getting ready to leave one of the Asian women asked me if I was student. We talked for a moment, introduced each other, and other such things.

"I don't wish to be rude," I said, "But are you Vietnamese?"

"How did you know?" she asked.

"Well, this is a French bakery," I replied.

It's the second time I've been kicked out of a restaurant in my life, but it's the first time I regret it.

Such Crazyness!

2005-11-28T13:31:00.000-05:00

I've been teaching myself CSS Image Filters. "What is that crazyness?" you may ask. It's crazyness like this stuff:

I can take Bobby Kennedy (hotness) and apply the, say, an inverted image filter with an alpha mask(crazyness):

That's applying crazyness to the hotness! But what if you want the crazyness without the hotness? We can take a piece of styled text like so:

Where's the Beef?

And give it a glow filter with speed blur:

Where's the Beef?

Well, I don't know about the beef, but I can tell you where the cool shit is at: the CSS .img filter tag is where it's at!

I'm on such a total geek high right now. Geek the freak out!

(And by the way, we spell "craziness" with a Y now. Cause its l33t that way.)

Turkey Day

2005-11-23T15:14:00.000-05:00

The first time I visited the District of Columbia, my family visited a friend of a friend who worked at the Washington Post and gave us a tour of the newsroom. I had a photograph of Tuesday's front page under a calendar showing it was still Monday, but I've misplaced it and now I can't tell you the exact date we visited. In fact, now I think about it, I can't even recall the year. I can, however, recall seeing a homeless man sleeping on the grate of a subway station right across the street from the White House. This was before I'd read The Jungle or seen the photography of Jacob Riis. When I did see Riis' photographs, or read about New York in the 1880s (or 1980s), I always came back to my memory of the bum at the White House.

I was there again last night; same place, different year. I know a bit more now. I know that it's called the Metro, not the subway, and that it's a good block-and-a-half from the White House. I know that there over 3.5 million Americans are homeless at some point each year; that in 2000, 36% of those people were families with children; that in the District of Columbia, there are 14,000 people on the streets or in shelters every night. I know homeless children staying at the family shelter a less than two blocks from my dorm. I remember when I was in Philadelphia; getting up at four in the morning on Sunday, cruising around downtown in a battered white van with donuts and coffee to hand out.

Less than a block away from taking the picture above, I walked past another battered white vans. About two dozen homeless men and a few women were lined up for coffee and food. Same thing, different year.

I kept walking. I didn't have any change, and was late for take-out Chinese with the boyfriend. (Also, it would have struck the people handing out food amiss if some kid in a shirt and tie had just showed up and asked to help.)

Thanksgiving is supposed to be a holiday about appreciating what you have. And ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I think the proper way to do that is by enjoying what we have, not wallowing in collective guilt. We should return to the way harvest festivals are celebrated in less puritan cultures—wine, women, and song. But every now and then, a little solemnity is not amiss. So, I'm going to spend a little time today being glad I'm not out in the cold, standing in line for a white van with bad coffee and worse food.

Besides, if it means giving up wine, women, or song, I won't have any trouble figuring out which one goes first.

Forestry

2005-11-23T14:36:00.000-05:00

It's obviously an immensely unethical and borderline illegal thing to use this blog to disseminate privileged information about ongoing lawsuits...but what the hell. The Forest Service is being sued in civil court because we

negligently caused the largest forest fire in the history of [state], by not attacking or attempting to surpress the [location] fire, even though they knew the fire danger to be high.

Um, it's hard to say the danger of a fire is low if the forest is already on fire, but whatever. I would advise the plaintiff to see if his/her attorney's diploma is signed—that's not usually the sort of document you send to the HR department.

Not Exactly Terry Gross

2005-11-23T11:18:00.000-05:00

Way to research your interviews, AVClub! Woah.

AVC: Reginald Hudlin is one of the executive producers of The Boondocks. What do you think he brings to your partnership?

Aaron McGruder: Uh, we don't have a partnership anymore. Reginald Hudlin left the show at the end of the Fox pilot. He is now running BET, and I have not spoken with him in over a year. We have a contractual obligation to give him a credit.

Heh. "Oh. Um, nevermind then."

Monday, Monday

2005-11-21T13:51:00.000-05:00

Being a secretary entails being prepared for the unusual. Today I helped a gentlemen secure employment at The Brookings Institution.

I feel unclean.

Oh, I'm moving into an apartment tomorrow morning. Independence and all that, for the first time, really. Milestone in my life, new experiences, blah blah blah fishcakes. I'll try to blog it without being a navel-gazing self-obsessed loon. Well, without being more of a navel-gazing self-obsessed loon.

Anyhoodles, I can't figure out if Ariel Sharon is an awesome old man like Gandalf the White or a really-bad-crazy old man like Bilbo Baggins. It can be hard to tell, in the holy land. When Al-Jazeera is talking about your "bold gamble," you're either visionary or crazy.

The Greater of Many Evils

2005-11-18T14:05:00.000-05:00

As morally bankrupt as the GOP leadership is, and as dizzyingly malevolent as Sony-DMG is (and they're really, really evil) we shouldn't forget that there are people out there who are a thousand times worse:

A doctor and head of a Baghdad hospital was shot dead Thursday inside his clinic in the Abu Ghraib district of western Baghdad, said an Iraqi police official with Baghdad emergency police. Four gunmen stormed Dr. Kadhim Abbood Alwash's clinic and shot him to death, said Qassim Allawi, a Health Ministry official. Alwash was head of Karama General Hospital in Baghdad.

Onion Day!

2005-11-16T14:19:00.000-05:00

Hooray! It's Onion Day. The day when The Onion puts out it's new headlines, like Anti-Homosexuality Sermon Suspiciously Well-Informed, Long-Awaited 'Beer With Bush' Rally Awkward, Voters Report, and Guatemalan Anti-Drug Chief Caught Dealing Cocaine.

Oh, no, wait, that one's real.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- The chief of Guatemala's national drug squad and two of his officers have been arrested in Washington for conspiring to import and distribute cocaine.

Castillo is Chief of the Servicio de Analisis e Informaction Antinarcoticos and the highest ranking anti-narcotics officer in Guatemala. Aguilar is the second in command at SAIA. Orlando is also a member of the same special police force and was responsible for security sweeps at Santo Tomas, a port on Guatemala's Caribbean coast.

The President of Guatemala, Oscar Jose Rafael Berger Perdomo, said through a spokesman that he is shocked—shocked—to discover drug dealing in his anti-drug agency.

The Halls of Power

2005-11-16T11:14:00.000-05:00

Members of the Senate have been overheard discussing the nomination of Samuel Alito:

SEN LINCOLN CHAFEE (R-RI): It was really very embarrassing. Danny Eddison had been buggering the pool boy in the sauna for months. One afternoon he went to actually have a sauna and discovered the pool boy buggering Mrs. Eddison. Naturally one of them had to go.

SEN OLYMPIA SNOWE (R-ME): Naturally. And he can't keep the pool boy: he'd be seen as violating the principles of his organization.

CHAFEE: Oh? The Kato Institute hardly shares the principles of Focus on Family.

SNOWE: Yes, but a new pool boy costs far less than a divorce settlement.

CHAFEE: Of course. Oh, Olympia, you're such a cut-up. Never change. Hi, Ted. What's the word?

SEN TED KENNEDY (D-MA): Spoiling for a fight, Linc. Alito's opened up the floodgate. Same for you, I trust.

SNOWE: You would not believe the pressure. A protestor threw a turkey at me this morning on the way to my office. Swear to Buckley, a turkey.

KENNEDY: Was it pro-life or pro-choice poultry?

SNOWE: All I know is, that's one less thing John has to buy for Thanksgiving dinner.

KENNEDY: How is your husband?

SNOWE: Emasculated, like all husbands of female politicians.

KENNEDY: Even the ones who are former two-term governors and now CEO's of major a major education-services company that operates the Art Institutes of America?

SNOWE: Especially the ones who are former two-term governors and—

CHAFEE: However the fight goes, Alito's got the donations pouring in.

KENNEDY: Soft and hard, as Bobby used to say. Left and right. The Dean tells me we're gearing up for a major political assault, old school Democratic party style.

SNOWE: That's so cute.

CHAFEE: Do you have novelty bobbly-heads?

KENNEDY: Yes. If you need me, I'll be

ALL: Sooo drunk!

KENNEDY: See ya.

CHAFEE: You coming to the Senate Christmas party?

SNOWE: Wouldn't miss it for the world. Remember last year, when Liddy Dole had way too many Boilermakers and got freaky with Jay Rockefeller in the bathroom?

Good Enough for Government Work

2005-11-14T15:42:00.000-05:00

My boss has been traveling for a week, on one of those four-cities-in-six-days business trips where life is a hectic mess and you complain about the fact that it's impossible to keep track of, but don't mention that you made an excuse to spend two days with your old friends from high school and also that the adrenaline rush makes you feel alive.

When she got back, I had everything that had piled up neatly organized and stacked like a good little secretary. I'd heard a horror story about the secretaries in the American embassy in Riyadh, who do literally nothing but play Solitaire and sleep at their desks. While I drink too much coffee to sleep at my desk, blogging is a lot like Solitaire and I do a lot of blogging, so I'd resolved to put on a show of competence that would make Radar O'Reilly himself Olive Drab with envy.

My boss has businesswoman style that would, in any other city, make her a dynamo powerhouse; but in a city where your competition is Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Dole, it can be harder to shine. (She's two cubes behind me as we speak, telling a mildly risqué joke to a colleague. It's been observed that executive women must be able to talk as dirty as their male counterparts. While my bosses humor would be shocking in most of the country, it again pales in the cuthroat competition of our nations capitol; Olympia Snowe makes Quentin Tarantino look like Jimmy Stewart.) I had a stack of papers and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

"This arrived from someone in the Sweetbark Forest. It's not urgent," I'd say.

"I'll look at it tonight," she'd say. "What's next?"

"The Chief's office sent this over, I'd say. "They approved the training session in Denver, but not in Salt Lake."

"Make sure that goes to Bill. It's his baby," she'd say.

"One of the printers is broken, smoking, and possibly on fire," I'd say, "I'm planning on putting it out."

"That's a priority," she'd say.

"First thing when we're done then," I'd promise. "I also need a copy of your airline tickets to finish your travel voucher, and this here is my time card."

She'd sign the paper. "E-tickets are in my e-mail inbox. I didn't just sign for a stolen jeep, did I, Radar?"

"I never watched L.A. Law, ma'am."

She'd pause and glare. "I know you're young, but if you're just pretending to be that young, I'll--"

"Klinger was trying for a Section 8 again while you were gone."

"That Klinger," she'd say. "He's a character."

Later I was talking with two of the other secretaries in the obvious.

"I've been working on this position description since six o'clock this morning," said one.

"You have fun with that," said the other.

"Fine, be sarcastic," the first replied.

"You don't have fifty CD's to Fed-Ex."

"I've got all these DVD's."

"Well, I can't stick around," I interrupted, "I've got my travel vouchers to finish."

Good times. The who-is-more-overworked contest is the secretarial equivalent of the my-God-has-a-bigger-dick-than-your-God contest that's been so popular, and deadly, in Western Civilization. It's also a gread way to avoid work. (The whos-more-overworked game, I mean; religious persecution and ritual stonings are, in fact, a terrible excuse for skipping the Tuesday staff meetings.) Anyway; now I'm spending my work day blogging. It's like an organized conspiracy to be inefficent with the taxpayer's dollars. Yay?

ElectionsWere Those Today?

2005-11-10T19:59:00.000-05:00

National

No, really, did some sort of election just happen?
Virginia

Congratulations to the big winner in the governor's race: outgoing Governor Mark Warner's presidential aspirations.

However, we can't dismiss winning Democrat Tim Kaine, no matter how tempting it must be for the folks at The Corner, as simply riding his successors coat-tails to victor. Kaine's campaign focused on substantive issues: transportation, early child care, fiscal responsibility (it's our issue now, GOPers, and if you've got a problem with that, stop going to Grover Norquist's luncheons). Kaine's victory address:
"We proved that Virginians want a governor who puts partisanship aside," Kaine told an ecstatic crowd of supporters at the Richmond Marriott Ballroom on Broad Street around 11 p.m. "We proved that people are more interested in fiscal responsibility than ideological bickering."
By contrast, the victory of Republican Bill Bolling for Lieutenant Governor came in a race that was much more of the Christians v. Commies dynamic a certain White House Deputy Chief of Staff would like every race to be about. Kaine proves we can get above that crap.
California & Ohio

First, mad props to California for sticking it to Schwarzenegger eight times. Also for voting down Proposition 73, which would have required parental notification when a minor seeks an abortion. Only a very blue state would endorse the idea that parents do not own their children.

The long-term issue was redistricting reform. Both California and Ohio had ballot initiatives that would have moved the responsibility for drawing congressional districts from the state legislatures to independent panels or councils. The failure of those initiatives is being called, in the better D.C. circles, a failure for the people and a victory for misleading campaign ads. However, both initiatives had serious flaws that were easily apparent to observers at the state level, which is why the Cali-based blog Phoblographer* and the Ohio blog Democracy Guy are such essential reading.

(The Phoblographer* was my boss during part of the 2004 campaign in West Virginia.)
New York City

Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg handily won re-election and Democrats like Hillary Clinton lined up to congratulate him. Because why the hell not?
Dover, Pennsylvania

The now-infamous ID trial is taking place in Harrisburg. However, Jason Zengerle recently wrote for TNR that
back in Dover, away from the glare of national attention, the intelligent design issue is not so theoretical. Instead of dueling experts, it pits neighbor against neighbor. And, instead of a judge, it will be regular citizens who issue a ruling, when, on November 8, they go to the polls to cast their votes in the school board race.
Well, in the very best news of the election, the voters in Dover ousted all but one of the nine school board members. Because the people of Dover, PA, as red-state as it gets, rock hard core:
"I don't think the attitude of including intelligent design was right. It's not part of science education, and it was poorly handled," said Charles Reed, 59. He added with a twinkle: "They underestimated the intelligence of voters."

And with that good news, I'm off to Gotham to celebrate Armistice Day with Michael Bloomberg. Okay, Veterans Day on the same island as Michael Bloomberg. But they never should have changed Armistice Day, and I recall reading somewhere that Bloomberg painted the town red during the 2004 GOP convention. Or maybe that was John McCain.

Anyhoodles, have a good weekend.

Coryphella Pedata: the New Architeuthidae Architeuthis

2005-11-10T09:47:00.000-05:00

Hundreds of meters down in the Mediterranean, this purple-and-white sea slug disproves many sterotypes about gay men by being able to color-coordinate better than me, despite living too deep for light to penetrate and also not having eyes or a brain. [Tarik Tinazay – AFP]

Paris Dispatch

2005-11-09T17:04:00.000-05:00

If OxBlog is willing to take the risks, we should be willing to read the writing on the, uh, wall.

I had a little scrape in a cité in north Aulney, and so now need to modify two claims made in my previous post. I have now met some rioters, and I no longer have pictures to share, nor come to think of it, a camera. I got nothing of theirs. On the other hand, taking care of myself decently enough I rather nicely got to keep my unbacked up dissertation, wallet, and the passport and press card I'd kept with me in the off chance I had to give an accounting of myself to police. Nasty horrid villains. Pluck though being a virtue, OxBlog will be out there again tomorrow. With a disposable camera, this time. But a thousand words being worth a picture, I suspect I can make it up to you lads.

The Department of Too Little, Too Late

2005-11-08T17:10:00.000-05:00

CBS News:

White House staffers began attending mandatory briefings Tuesday on ethical conduct and the handling of classified materials... President Bush ordered everyone in the White House with a security clearance to attend the ethics briefings to be held this week.

I've got to stop reading news at the office—when I laugh really hard, it can seem like I'm having trouble breathing. I wouldn't want my coworkers to worry.

Former Vice-Presidential Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby attempts to perform the Jedi Mind Trick on gathered reporters. "This is not the leak you're looking for. This is not the leak you're looking for. You are looking for some other leak," Libby was quoted as saying. After the conference, long-time White House reporter Helen Thomas spent the better part of an hour under the mistaken impression that she was a plumber.

McCain's Posse

2005-11-08T10:38:00.000-05:00

As I type, the McCain Amendment sits on the President's desk. I like to imagine George W. Bush in the Oval Office, living out his own version of The Telltale Heart, as H.R. 2863 (amendment 1977) sits unsigned in the desk drawer, it's hideous, er, unsigned-ed-ness growing louder, louder, louder...

In any case: it now seems that some conservatives are put in the awkward position of defending torture. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts has said "interrogating terrorists is some of the valuable information we get. It saves lives."

This is the argument put out by Dick Cheney, National Review, and other conservatives. But it is flat-out wrong. In January, The Washington Post's Anne Applebaum trotted out a string of military interrogators to explain, simply, that torture does not work. "If I take a Bunsen burner to the guy's genitals," points out one Vietnam-era combat interrogator, "he's going to tell you just about anything."

The second argument is expressed, in a crude letter to the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger with the claim that the McCain amendment will "place us in a disadvantage and will signal an unwillingness to act aggressively in our own self-defense." Even NR believes "the McCain amendment could do harm: It will be widely interpreted as making it impossible to treat enemy detainees any differently from U.S. criminal suspects. This is an unreasonable standard, and one we will come to regret."

The folks at Democracy Arsenal have repeatedly eviscerated this argument, but the most heartening view comes from conservative Ramesh Ponnuru:

I am inclined to disagree. I think this view undervalues three things. First, the amendment may have some effect in fighting a great evil, torture. (The editorial argues that it won't, since it merely codifies existing practice while creating opportunities for interpretive mischief; but if there is anything to the idea that previous policies have "sent the wrong signal" and that the amendment would send a better one, that would be a mark in its favor.) Second, the amendment may improve America's image in ways that help our foreign policy. (I think that the counterargument that some people, though not my colleagues, make, that it will make us look weak, misunderstands the nature of American power.) Third, the amendment may increase congressional involvement, and accountability, in the war on terrorism. As Reuel Gerecht and Tom Donnelly have argued, that buy-in may be worth some congressional excess--and I'm not sure that this is excess.

Ponnuru is a staff writer for NR. Much better than finding out you agree with someone you always agree with, is finding out someone you disagree with on practically everything agrees with you on the most important things. It reaffirms my faith in the idea that conservatives and liberals can sit down and have a drink without things sounding like Crossfire. And, y'kno, humanity.

Elitist Liberals Look Down on Average Americans

2005-11-07T18:23:00.000-05:00

Last week's episode of The West Wing was a live "debate" between the two presidential candidates, Alan Alda and Jimmy Smits, moderated by MSNBC newscaster Forrest Sawyer. I did not get to see the episode, but I did read the New York Post's Adam Buckman, who proclaimed that some

aspects of the telecast itself were poorly thought out. One gaffe was the use of the NBC News logo under the word "Live" on screen throughout the hour.

NBC does its news division a disservice by slapping a news label on a piece of prime-time entertainment. It is irresponsible, too, because it confuses some viewers.

Yes, you know—those people who might actually think Alan Alda is running for President.

Don Quixote and the French

2005-11-07T17:15:00.000-05:00

So: The situation in France is so appalling I haven't been able to blog, or read news, (or, incidentally, do any work) all day. This has left me with very little to do. A couple hours ago, I embarked on a quest to find something that was a) related to France, b) worth blogging, and c) did not involve anyone being dragged into the street and beaten. I ended up spending most of the afternoon playing around with Babel Fish—which is, a most of you will already know, a fish that lives in your ears and has the same job as Nicole Kidman had in the film The Interpreter, only the fish spends less time pointing a gun at a thinly disguised version of Robert Mugabe and more time living in your ear.

I decided to find some fluffy French site about, say, Elijah Wood, and translate it into English. First, I plugged the phrase "elijah wood film" into Babel Fish and did a google search on the result, film en bois d'elijah. Of course, film en bois d'elijah means "film out of wooden elijah," which seemed odd, even if you don't count the mental association between the last couplet of the French and English versions of that phrase...but I was having an odd enough day as it was and decided to press ahead. I Googled film en bois d'elijah hit the Feelin' Lucky button, and ended up at a French message board devoted to Tobey Maguire.

I plugged the address of the message board into Babel Fish and it spat out a version of the page written in something that closely resembles English, which at one point included the phrase "thank you my tite casserole, they are supers these photographs..."

In conclusion, today was one of those Mondays that makes you question your connection to reality.

Now I'll repeat my post dans le Francais tres mauvais.

Ainsi : La situation en France est si effroyable je n'ai pas pu en mesure au blog, ou lisez les nouvelles, (ou, par ailleurs, effectuez n'importe quel travail) toute la journée. Ceci m'a laissé avec très peu pour faire. Un couple il y a des heures, je me suis embarqué sur une recherche pour trouver quelque chose qui était a) lié à la France, b) intéressant blogging, et c) n'a pas impliqué n'importe qui étant traîné dans la rue et battu. J'ai fini vers le haut de dépenser la majeure partie de l'après-midi jouant autour avec le poisson de Babel qui est, une plupart d'entre vous saurai déjà, un poisson que les vies dans des vos oreilles et a le même travail que Nicole Kidman a eu dans le film l'interprète, seulement le poisson passe moins de temps dirigeant un pistolet à a disquised légèrement la version de Robert Mugabe et plus de temps vivant dans votre oreille.

I a décidé de trouver un certain emplacement français pelucheux au sujet par exemple de bois d'Elijah, et le traduit en anglais. D'abord, j'ai branché l'expression "film en bois d'elijah" aux poissons de Babel et ai fait une recherche de google sur le résultat, d'elijah de bois d'en de film. Naturellement, le d'elijah de bois d'en de film signifie le "film hors de l'elijah en bois," qui a semblé impair, même si vous ne comptez pas l'association mentale entre le dernier couplet des versions françaises et anglaises de cette expression... mais de moi avait assez impair un jour comme il était et décidé d'aller de l'avant. I le d'elijah de bois d'en de film de Googled bouton chanceux a frappé Feelin ', et a fini vers le haut à un panneau français de message consacré à Tobey Maguire.

I a branché l'adresse du panneau de message aux poissons de Babel et il a craché hors d'une version de la page écrite dans quelque chose qui ressemble étroitement à l'anglais, qui à un point a inclus l'expression "vous remercie ma cocotte en terre de tite, ils sont des supers ces photographies..."

en conclusion, était aujourd'hui un de ces lundi que les marques vous remettent en cause votre raccordement à la réalité.

Rage

2005-11-07T11:11:00.000-05:00

"This is just the beginning," said Moussa Diallo, 22, a tall, unemployed French-African man in Clichy-sous-Bois, the working-class Parisian suburb where the violence started Oct. 27. "It's not going to end until there are two policemen dead."

The New York Times, which is reporting the first death in the Paris riots. Not even Ronald McDonald escaped the mobs.

I can't blog about this. Blinding rage. Anger. Stupid people.

Paris? Broken!

2005-11-04T16:52:00.000-05:00

SkyNews:

A handicapped woman was doused with petrol and set on fire by youths during another night of rioting in Paris.

That's it. Protest the oppressive conditions you live in by setting a handicapped woman on fire. That'll bring people around!

Fuckwads.

RIP Michael Piller

2005-11-04T16:15:00.000-05:00

Wil Wheaton has a eulogy for Michael Piller, seen here on the set of Voyager.

Kakistocracy©

2005-11-03T15:32:00.000-05:00

Second Judge Out for DeLay Trial

Two days after U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay won a fight to get a new judge in his case, prosecutors on Thursday succeeded in ousting the Republican jurist responsible for selecting the new judge.

DeLay's case will eventually be decided some guy in the mail room of the Supreme Court. Of Hawaii.

The Democrats' Dilemma

2005-11-03T10:53:00.000-05:00

OxBlog quotes a Dean TV appearance where he discussed abortion:

I guess Dean should've said something like "Safe, legal and rare." But I think it's significant that Dean attempted to ground his position in a broad philosophical principle, i.e. the exclusion of government from family life, only then to back off from the logical application of that principle to the issue of abortion.

One might say that Dean's position is admirable. He is trying to return tolerance and civility to an issue plagued by divisiveness and resentment. Yet as a result, he comes of looking confused and/or disingenuous.

This is the Democrats' dilemma.

That's pretty much it in a nut-shell. Me, I think "safe, legal, and rare" is an excellent position to have. But Dems have this tic: they insist on pointing out how complex an issue is and complaining the Republicans are dumbing-down an issue--when there is a perfectly reasonable and relatively complete way to simplify the Dems position!

For example, in life, you often get something like this:

GOP: Patrick Fitzgerald is criminalizing politics.

DEMS: Well, politically motivated leaks that reveal classified information pose a great risk to American blah blah blah...

Which is bull, when it should be this:

GOP: Patrick Fitzgerald is criminalizing politics.

DEMS: Scooter Libby is a crook.

See how simple that is! This way the terms of the debate have been set and are easily understood, and each side can set back and present the evidence—and which of those two points do you think is easier to prove?

How Low Can You Go?

2005-11-03T10:26:00.000-05:00

Approval ratings don't mean as much as the papers would have you believe. But this does make my day a little brighter.

Poll: More Bad News For Bush

And the picture looks like it should be on The Onion! (Hat tip: Matt) So much fun to watch a president in freefall. Now he can go skydiving with his father.

The New England Journal of Giant Fibreglass Foodstuffs

2005-11-02T13:08:00.000-05:00

So: I work in the government. I work in a department with a d that is part of an operations area that is part of a service that is part of a Department with a D. I'm the secretary with an s for the director of the department with a d, as opposed to the director of the Department with a D, who is a Secretary with an S. (Go ahead and read that sentence again. I promise it makes sense.)

The old director retired a couple months ago, leaving behind a few awards, a legacy of 32 years of civil service, and a couple of magazine subscriptions. One of those magazines is National Journal, which bills itself as 'The Weekly on Politics and Government.' It's not as good as The New Republic, of course, but then again, what is? Considering what I pay for it--nothing--it's the best value in the District.

One of the more interesting features is called the "Political Insider's Poll." Of course all polls, whether of insiders, outsiders, or supply-siders, have a certain fascinating yet tenuous connection to reality. Still, the last two issues of this poll have given us some interesting feedback on the 2006 congressional dog and pony show. I mean, election.

Last week 76 senators and congress-critters were asked who will be the house speaker in January 2007. (A coveted position because the speaker is third in line to be president, although the only House Speaker in history to go all the way was the brief "acting-presidency" of John Goodman in the fifth season of The West Wing. Speaking of John Goodman...Takei?)

Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming bi-partisan majority of legislators believe that, if the GOP maintains control of the House, Dennis Hastert will extend his term as House Speaker. After all, Denny is one of the few prominent Republicans on the hill who is not prominent because of an association with Jack Abramoff or Tom DeLay, which is all it takes to be the GOP equivalent of a big ol' teddy bear. His blog is a down-home aw, shucks-y blog.

Also unsurprisingly, the Republicans think they'll keep control of the house; the Democrats think they'll make a sweep. Of course, a good third on either side of the aisle gave responses like these:

"Democrats will pick up a few seats, but no surge."
"Republicans will suffer significant losses (eight to 12 seats) [but] retain the majority."
"Left with a razor-thin majority, Hastert."

National Journal prints those quotes without attribution; it does say that the first two are Republicans and the third a Democrat. But while we can see what our legislators think will happen in 2006, only one of them dares to speculate why:

The 2006 election will be a referendum on President Bush. If you like the way things are going—runaway budget deficit [and so on]—vote Republican...

"Referendum on the President" is a phrase that popped up again and again in this week's poll, which was of political 'insiders' such as Mary Matalin and Gary Bauer for the GOP and Terry McAuliffe and John Podesta for the Dems. Respondents were asked to name the top three issues of the 2006 elections. Democrats put Bush's performance as a solid first place while the GOP left the referendum theory in a distant fourth.

One interesting side note is that the perennial Democratic crutch issue, health care, came in sixth on the Democrats list and eighth on the GOP side. I hope that doesn't change. Because, yes, our national lack of good health care is one of the biggest problems in America--but whenever the Democrats come back to it, it sounds like we're harping, like we're out of 'real issues,' in short, it sounds desperate.

I've mentioned before a problem with blogging at work: my posts tend to lose discipline, and degenerate into a string of disconnected non-sequiters. This is one reason I enjoy blogs that just go ahead with a whole bunch of short posts each day, such as The Corner or OxBlog. But another problem is that somehow, every long post I try to do at work seems to devolve, sooner or later, in to some pointless navel-gazing about blogging. Which is why I'm going to stop writing now, before I turn into a caricature of myself, which would be an accomplishment for someone who doesn't yet have any caricature, or, arguably, any character. Here's a picture of a giant egg in Australia.

Is this giant fibreglass egg a terrorist fibreglass egg?

China Shop Round-Up

2005-11-02T10:42:00.000-05:00

What's been going on the past few days.

Germany: Broken
France: Broken
Canada: Broken
Iran: Broken A Lot
Bill Frist: Still Crazy
E. Howard Hunt: Still Alive, Still Crazy

W&I©

2005-11-02T09:32:00.000-05:00

Any reviewer who expresses rage or loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has just put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or banana split.

—Kurt Vonnegut

The Congressman and the Pumpkin

2005-11-02T08:33:00.000-05:00

A couple of days ago, I'm doing my correspondence thing, and I notice a letter for Congressman John Doolittle (R-CA). It was boilerplate stuff. Every few months one congressman or another senator sends us a question on behalf of a constituent. "Why are seasonal firefighters subject to this or that pay limitation," usually. We send them back a boilerplate response. "Because congress passed a law that requires us to," usually. I was passing the letter along to my boss when

I stopped, and realized that there is an actual Congressman Doolittle serving in the House of Representatives right now. With a podcast and all.

Woah.

Anyhoodles, I'm not one for faces, so my Jack-O-Lantern this year was a little bit more verbose than most.

Sententia Mortuus

2005-11-01T09:24:00.000-05:00

I knew I hated Star Trek: Nemesis, but I didn't know why I hated it until The Onion AV Club explained it. In the director's commentary on the DVD,

Baird's offhanded and repeated dismissal of pre-established Star Trek canon—characters, design, relationships, backstory, previous Trek films—strongly implies a fatal contempt for the series. He brightens noticeably when describing the parts of the film he got to design from scratch, or redesign to override previous series installments. Baird devotes a bare word or two of praise to actors Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner, but mostly seems to regard them as props amid his more interesting sets and computerized cameras. Judging from an awkward reference to "Patrick and Brent and... Worf," he doesn't even necessarily remember their names.

In short: Those weren't real Romulans, just like I've been saying!

W&I©

2005-10-31T14:19:00.000-05:00

If we were permitted to hang two or three persons, the problems with the stock exchange would be solved for ever.

—Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

SCOTUS, POTUS, and FetusOh, My!

2005-10-31T12:40:00.000-05:00

WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Samuel Alito, a federal appeals court judge chosen by President George W. Bush for the U.S. Supreme Court, has a staunchly conservative judicial philosophy that has earned him the nickname of "Scalito."

Scalito? Wow, that's like a joke, only without the funny. Those crazy lawyers.

I haven't seen anything really illuminating about Alito, possibly because I haven't been looking, although his Wikipedia entry includes a brief rundown of a few of the cases he's tried.

In 1991 he wrote a dissenting opinion in Panned Parenthood v. Casey. There's going to be a lot of hemming and hawing about that case. (Of course, there will be hemming and hawing about every little aspect of this case, as November is sweeps month, and every little thing the cable networks can blow out of proportion is one more hour that goes by without Wolf Blitzer having to rob a bank himself. For example, AP thought it would be newsworthy to get a photo-op with the nominees' wife and kids (left). "Senator, how will the fact that Judge Alito's children are attractive and his wife is, it appears, constipated, affect the confirmation hearings?" At least the photographer was in touch with the whole Dali-does-politics vibe and made sure to put them under a nice big portrait of Clinton. American politics hurts my brain.) I myself wrote a whole thing of hemming and hawing about the Casey case and then decided it was mildly shallow liberal boilerplate rhetoric. I happen to agree with a great deal of the mildly shallow liberal boilerplate rhetoric you'll find out there and am not opposed to writing it myself; I just figure why not put a link to The Huffington Post up instead? Then you can read mildly shallow liberal boilerplate rhetoric written by Alec Baldwin. You want to know what Alec Baldwin thinks about the 2006 senate races. You can tell your friends you don't care what some silly movie star thinks about politics. You can tell your parents you don't care. You can even tell yourself you don't care. But I know you're gonna go read what Alec Baldwin writes, and maybe even Larry David and Ellen, too. You can't fool the blogosphere!

But I digress, because it's fun. At right, Alito gears up for the fight by standing in a perspective distorting "z-machine" with Judiciary Committee Chair Arlen Specter. The Alito fight will be loud, long, and much of it even less witty than the Judge's nickname. (No, really, "Scalito" — even that crazy mofo Antonin Scalia has more dignity than that.) Kathleen Reardon thinks Dems should "take the high road" and try to avoid a nasty nomination fight. (Kathleen Reardon blogs at the Huffington Post, but is not famous. Some people draw that line at Nora Ephron. I prefer to use Senator Evan Bayh or, if I'm feeling charitable inclinations toward humanity, Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy. [Along with my usual inclinations, which are less toward humanity as a whole, and more toward, say, Judge Alito's son.])

The moderates are wrong. Matthew Yglesias reminds us that, for all the sound and the fury, hot button issues signify a bit more than nothing:

Nationwide, there are 246 abortions per 1,000 live births. In some conservative states, the rate is much lower. Only 154 per 1,000 in Arkansas, for example. But even 154 per 1,000 is a lot more than zero per 1,000. Some "red" states like Georgia (226) and North Carolina (230) barely differ from the national average. Meanwhile, "91.3% of all abortions occur in the woman's home state." If Roe is overturned and many conservative states implement abortion bans, that will be a big deal for the women who live in those states.

Anger

2005-10-28T15:05:00.000-04:00

Patrick Belton is annoyed that his blog, OxBlog, is the #1 result for an internet search for "Philadelphia is Cool." The number #2 result is a Time Magazine article on pedophilia. I dont' even know how people look these things up. I guess having Google Reader up all day, every day doesn't quite make me a tech wiz. Damn. Well, at least I'm smart enough to stumble across stuff like this:

Socrates: [Draws his gun.] Aristotle, you're Plato's student, I respect you, but I will put fucking bullets through your heart if you don't take back what you said about me being violent now!

Tim Russert in the Indictment? Tim Russert in the House!

2005-10-28T13:57:00.000-04:00

The indictment. What's up with that?

Only a few charges, but all of them damn near bulletproof. That's how a hardworking prosecutor from Chicago does things, or so this layman assumes.

Couple neat things: the New Republic gets mentioned by name on page 5, providing more evidence that it is superior to all other magazines. Also, Tim Russert is in there more than Judy Miller and Matt Cooper combined. Apparently Scooter lied about what he said to Russert regarding Plame. Which means that Tim Russert's testimony will be key to the prosecution. Anybody see that coming?

Sure, Tim Russert looks happy to see a couple of adoring policy geeks. Inside, however, Tim Russert is a boiling cauldron of pure spite and unadulterated rage. "Arrg! Kill them all!" exclaims Tim Russert, with the consummate skill of an experienced news professional. "With lasers!"

Do the Sulu Dance

2005-10-28T12:15:00.000-04:00

AP: Sulu Comes Out, Dons Elton John Glasses

Wow. Between Ozzie Guillen and Sulu, it's a good week. (Of course, that's just Gullien's management style. George and Barbara Bush also got cought canoodling.) Anyhoodles, we've learned two things this morning. First, Sulu and his parter have been together 18 years, which means even Bill Shatner can keep secrets better than Rove. Second, we all must listen to the Sulu Dance. If not like it.

Michael Moore is a Hypocrite

2005-10-28T11:35:00.000-04:00

So says Peter Schweizer's new book, which is making the rounds at National Review. Kathryn Lopez has interviewed Schweizer and Jonah Goldberg has a column today decrying liberal hypocrisy. Apparently Schweizer discloses the shocking news that Michael Moore is a hypocrite—his foundation owns Halliburton stock. Nancy Pelosi and Noam Chomsky also are hypocrites.

My first instinct is to write, of course, true believers are always the worst, whatever the cause. Who knows how many of the moral crusaders smearing President Cleveland for having a baby out of wedlock were adulterers themselves?

But then I think: hey, I spend plenty of time chuckling over, say, Brio Magazine. Why complain if Jonah Goldberg blows off some steam by taking a few easy shots at some liberals who have, lets face it, made themselves easy targets?

Kathryn Lopez asked Schweizer "doesn't revealing Barbra Streisand's water bill feel a little like going through her garbage?" She immediately caught herself and changed the question to "Did you have to go through her garbage?" It's a better question: after all, she's didn't write a whole book on this stuff, she's just have a few laughs at work.

Darfur

2005-10-28T10:35:00.000-04:00

Eric Reeves, a professor at Smith college who wrote an excellent overview of the Darfur situation in July has an update. Apparently big business triumphs over all:

The same vicious cabal in Khartoum that was explicitly declared by former Secretary of State Colin Powell to be responsible for genocide in Darfur has now been allowed to secure the services of a former State Department employee to provide it with p.r. counsel. For a fee of $530,000 per year, the firm's role will essentially be to put a happy face on a genocidal regime.

Blech. Look: Fox is reporting that Scooter Libby will the the only one indicted today. Of course I'm disappointed, but let's face it: Karl Rove is nothing compared to the Janjaweed.

The Corner

2005-10-28T10:14:00.000-04:00

A good point from the Corner:

Pat [Fitzgerald] has never given up his day job throughout this appointment. That job is being the U.S. attorney in Chicago — responsible for the enforcement of federal law in a 150-lawyer office in the 3d or 4th largest district in the country. Indictments in that office, since he took over in 2001, are up by something like 100 percent, and they have done impressive work in terrorism financing, organized crime, securities fraud and political corruption. Further, unlike most U.S. attorneys, who leave the work to the staff and just steer the ship, he has always handled some of the big cases himself.

He is thus actually far busier than normal prosecutors, and there is no reason to fear that — like Starr, Walsh or Barrett — his only mission in life is to be the full-time, personal prosecutor for a few beleaguered public servants. (This investigation, in fact, has cost the public a bare fraction of what those other magillas cost.)

The press conference is at 2:00 EST. K-Lo and the other Corner-ites keep saying "can we just get on with it?" Well, we Bush-haters are on the edges of our seats as well. I'm gonna go throw myself into work and I just might end up taking a long lunch at, say, around two so I can hang around at the two-story screen on the Channel 7 building across the street.

More Brio

2005-10-27T17:06:00.000-04:00

Matt Yglesias has posted one or two of the more interesting things he's found in Brio, a magazine published by Focus on the Family to provide an alternative to magazines like Seventeen and Teen People. Finally, a magazine that combines the tolerant example of James Dobson with the educational heft of Aaron Carter. Joy.

Hey, kids! Let's learn about Uganda!

Dear Susie:
I’m a teen girl living in Uganda. I really love listening to music! I enjoy Whitney Houston, Alicia Keys and a very long list of gospel artists. I love the talent and passion that Whitney and Alicia use in their music. Any Christian artists you recommend that provide the same sound?

Ynang Silas
Uganda, Africa

Dear Ynang:
Check out Nicole C. Mullen, Charity Von or Rachel Lampa. By the way, I’ve been to your country and loved it!

And that's the end of that article. I wish Susie would push the boundaries a little: betcha $20 she could have told her readers to check out the "Christian song stylings" of Idi Amin without the editors noticing.

A Budget for Halloween

2005-10-27T16:43:00.000-04:00

Over at Democracy Arsenal, Lorelei Kelly channels Ike Eisenhower:

Today I walked through the Capitol South metro station on my way up to the Hill. Metro stations are full of large advertisements. This fall, the defense bills have been wending their way through committees. Hence fighter planes, guns,submarines and lots of gadet laden soldiers float along the walls of most DC metro stations like an X-box dream menu. Capitol South had a nautical theme.

I learned that the Coast Guard's Deepwater program is made in 41 states. That the shiny ship I was looking at was "the future of littoral combat" (Fire that ad agency!) and that the DDX destroyer was going to guarantee my freedom...

The final bit of unseriousness came when I picked up the Hill newspaper and read that a new Senate group the "Fiscal Watch Team" had joined House Conservatives on the Republican Study Committee in proposing offsets in the federal budget to mitigate the costs of Katrina. The Fiscal Watch Team proposes 5% across the board cuts to domestic spending. Defense and Homeland Security are off the table. Defense industry advertisers are probably very grateful for this decision as they can now spend their earnings on flu shots, which they will need, as American hospitals are in the cross hairs of conservative budgeteers just as avian flu marches closer to the Atlantic ocean. I thought the House's "operation offset would be more fair because it included a section on defense. But the only cost savings on defense ideas they have are a garage sale for old boats and some sort of privatization scheme for veterans health.

This is not a government that is serious about national security.

Robot Overlords

2005-10-27T10:51:00.000-04:00

Over at The Corner, the subject of the morning is what role conservative elites played in the now-officially failed nomination of Harriet Miers. Has it occured to anyone else that Miers is a lot like JFK's erstwhile secretary Evelyn Lincoln? Wasn't she a hanger-on as well? Will Miers write a gushing book about how wonderful the Bushes are?

Speaking of JFK, Jonah Goldberg posted a reader e-mail this morning that included the words "party discipline matters. That's one area where Democrats have always outshone us." Um. As of this writing, no one at the corner has publicly called them on this. Can I politely remind everyone that Lyndon Johnson is dead?

Anyhoodles, who cares about SCOTUS when there are robots? Jonah welcomes our new robot overlords. If you want to signal your allegiance, there are of course tee-shirts at hand. This time, though, the liberal media have the real story about our new lords and masters.

Speaking of the robots, Harriet Miers, and end of humanity in general, the White Sox won the pennant. What the hell? Chicago next? It's discombobulating, which probably explains how this unidentified White Sox fan could so utterly abandon all standards of taste. I mean, Ozzie Guillen? Please.

RIP Rosa Parks

2005-10-25T10:31:00.000-04:00

"[They say] that my feet were hurting and I didn't know why I refused to stand up when they told me. But the real reason of my not standing up was I felt that I had a right to be treated as any other passenger. We had endured that kind of treatment for too long."

Rosa Parks was not a little old lady when she refused to give up her seat in December 1955. She was a 42-year-old woman who knew what she was doing. The Civil Rights movement was not about feeling sorry for black people; it was about fighting injustice and standing up for what's right.

Let us remember a woman who stood up for what's right by sitting down right where she was.

What Would John McCain Know About Torturing Prisioners, Anyway?

2005-10-25T09:54:00.000-04:00

The New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 - Stepping up a confrontation with the Senate over the handling of detainees, the White House is insisting that the Central Intelligence Agency be exempted from a proposed ban on abusive treatment of suspected Qaeda militants and other terrorists...
Vice President Dick Cheney and the C.I.A. director, Porter J. Goss, urged Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who wrote the amendment, to support an exemption for the agency, arguing that the president needed maximum flexibility in dealing with the global war on terrorism.

McCain, to his everlasting credit, rejected the White House's exemption. The administration is threatening to veto the legislation. That would make President Bush's first veto, after six years in office, a veto to allow the CIA to torture prisoners. As usual, that old Ben Franklin quote about giving up liberty for safety is apt. As usual, here's to John McCain.

Quizilla: Internet Crack

2005-10-24T16:15:00.000-04:00

How Politically Savvy Are You?

The quizilla machine. It starts with one little quiz, and then... I can't think of a way to finish that analogy. I'm gonna go take more quizes...

Follow the Money

2005-10-24T13:31:00.000-04:00

The Carpetbagger Report notes this mind-boggling interview in the New York Times. Connie Mack, a former GOP senator from Florida, is heading the White House commission on reforming the tax code.

DEBORAH SOLOMON, New York Times: Well, the U.S. government has to get money from somewhere. As a two-term former Republican senator from Florida, where do you suggest we get money from?

Connie Mack: What money?

NYT: The money to run this country.

Mack: We'll borrow it.

NYT: I never understand where all this money comes from.

Mack: When the president says we need another $200 billion for Katrina repairs, does he just go and borrow it from the Saudis?

In a sense, we do. Maybe the Chinese.

NYT: Is that fair to our children? If we keep borrowing at this level, won't the Arabs or the Chinese eventually own this country?

Mack: I am not worried about that. We are a huge country producing enormous assets day in and day out. We have great strength, and we have always adjusted to difficulties that faced us, and we will continue to do so.

NYT: Wasn't your grandfather, who was also named Connie Mack, one of the founders of Major League Baseball?

Mack: My grandfather was instrumental in the creation of the American League. My dad was with the baseball team as well. It was the Philadelphia Athletics.

NYT: Did you ever play professionally yourself?

We'll borrow it? By letting our children "adjust to the difficulties that face us?" The Philadelphia Athletics? We'll borrow it from the Chinese?! What is wrong with these people?

1000 Words©

2005-10-24T11:54:00.000-04:00

I was big once, thinks the Apple III to itself. The Apple III is old and lonely. It's grandchildren never come to visit. They're young and iPods and having a good time being engraved by U2 or Madonna. Poor Apple III.

Dead Poets Society

2005-10-24T10:19:00.000-04:00

Catilin Flanagan gets loquacious in the Atlantic on Wifely Duties:

My children are still very small, but it has been made abundantly clear to me by friends and acquaintances that I had better get in the market for an SUV or a minivan, because I am soon enough going to be shuttling the children and their friends to a bewildering series of soccer games, soccer parties, soccer tournaments... Mothering, which used to be a rather private affair (requiring, principally, a playpen, a back yard, a television set, and a coffeepot), has now adopted a very public dimension. Why, of course Sarah So-and-So is a good mother: little Andrew is at Gymboree, Music Rhapsody, Bright Child, and Fit for Kids every week! All of domestic life now turns on the entertainment and happiness not of the adults but of the children. At vacation time my husband and I don't drag our little boys through the Louvre, as I was dragged at a tender age (because my parents wanted to see it, and it would never have occurred to them to consult their children about where to go on holiday).

Matthew Yglesias agrees:

For a parent to participate in some amusement they don't really care for because the kids like it is totally normal. To demand that the kids put up with something the adults want to do is unthinkable. People inconvenience themselves by moving further and further toward the fringes of urban areas in order to be able to afford houses and yards that are, by world standards, simply enormous and huge swathes of these massive spaces are given over to the children. Sentiments like "children are to be seen and not heard" couldn't be be more dead. In essence, couples are expected to more-or-less give up on their lives for a couple of decades in order to raise their kids. To do anything less -- to inconvenience or annoy your children or deprive them of something they might want to do or to have for the sake of something you want -- would be abhorrent and neglectful.

I wonder how much the children appreciate all this quality time with their parents. Or if anyone has had the guts to ask.

We Miss You, Sandra Day!

2005-10-23T13:26:00.000-04:00

Water What?

2005-10-21T16:35:00.000-04:00

"AS BAD AS WATERGATE," screamed the handmade sign outside the Rosslyn Metro station this afternoon. "SEND LIBBY ROVE AND CHENEY TO JAIL," it demanded, culminating in the command, underlined twice in red Sharpie, "SEND BUSH TO THE NUTHOUSE."

It's not the first time political lit has been handed out at the Rosslyn Metro station. There have been a couple people passing out flyers for Virginia's gubernatorial candidates, quickly engaged in a race to the bottom vis Ã vis negative ads, and every couple of weeks there is some otherwise reasonable person handing out the latest issue of Lyndon LaRouche's newsletter. The Bad as Watergate sign seemed closer to the LaRouche lit than the governor's race.

Except the LaRouche people don't usually have a sign. Nor do they have a card table attached to the sign. If they did have a table, it might have just as many pamphlets and newsletters piled on it, but it certainly wouldn't have had what the As Bad as Watergate booth had: a couple of people who were actually paying attention.

Blog Politics

2005-10-21T14:53:00.000-04:00

There's been some recent blather involving a dem senatorial primary and which bloggers are getting paid by which candidates. Since following politics in Ohio is basically rubbernecking, I'll spare you the details.

I do want to share DemocracyGuy's assessment of the scandal.

Folks, it's time to wake up and smell the coffee. The flavor of the day is payola. It's a strong blend of hypocrisy, greed, and opportunism, fed by the fawning naivete of people who have no idea they're being taken to the cleaners.

Blogs? Meet the New Media, same as the old media.

Click Here©

2005-10-21T10:38:00.000-04:00

Here's a headline from a radio station in the Seattle suburbs:

Gun-Wielding Clowns Rob Doughnut Shop

In other news, I'm working on redesigning the blog—again—to find some code that doesn't go wonky in Firefox. Which is still cool.

I've always known clowns were up to no good.

Gearhead Orgasm

2005-10-21T08:59:00.000-04:00

The only way I'll get near a motorcycle is if I can ride sidecar with Dykes on Bikes...is what I used to say before I saw this baby.

Yamaha's concept model of a high-performance hybrid motorcycle, the 'Gen-Ryu.' (Photo: AFP/Yoshikazu Tsuno) 600cc engine and electric motor hybrid system which can achieve over 1,000cc class machine performance. I'm not really sure what those numbers mean, but I do know that I want a space-bike, and I want one now.

DeDemocrat

2005-10-20T16:14:00.000-04:00

This from that bastion of journalism, USAToday:

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Republican Rep. Tom DeLay's fate could hinge on a Stetson-wearing defense attorney who not only represented Waco cult leader David Koresh and helped a cross-dressing millionaire beat a murder rap, but is also a Democrat.

Because in Texas, cross-dressing millionaire murderers are more common than Democrats. Or so the editorial staff of USAToday—located just outside of DC in McLean, VA, a town as blue-state as it gets—will be happy to assure you over drinks in a swank Georgetown "authentic watering hole." By the way, DeLay's lawyer looks a bit like Gore Vidal.

1000 Words©

2005-10-19T15:42:00.000-04:00

A picture of Saddam Hussein as a child. Next time you're tempted to be one of those people who thinks little kids are "just so cute," remember that they grow up to be Saddam Hussein. (AP Photo/File)

Envy

2005-10-19T08:28:00.000-04:00

There are justsome blogs I know I can never hold a candle to:

On Yahoo! Search, OxBlog is one of the top ten websites that come up if you enter 'salma hayek sucking'. What really baffles me, though, is why anyone would actually click on the link to our website when the other nine results seem to promise so much more of what one is presumably looking for.

On a related note, OxBlog is the first (yup, first) website that comes up if you Yahoo! Search 'is harry potter circumcise'. I had hoped that our readers would have better grammar.

Chairman Mao Accuses Richard Nixon of Corruption

2005-10-18T13:45:00.000-04:00

The Washington Times:

ROME -- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe yesterday railed against President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, calling them "international terrorists" bent on world domination like Adolf Hitler.

Inappropriate Content

Offically No Longer an Interesting Blog

Unclear on the Concept

Publisher A©

Stealing Babies for Adoption

RIP Slobodan Milosovic

Publisher A

Hickville Dispatch©

Civil Service

Rising Sun©

Kakistocracy©

Arty Gras!

I Wish

Kakistocracy©

College-ish

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Pod People

Minneapolis

Kakistocracy©

Great E-Mails of All Time

Elevator Out of Service

Bureaucratic Nonsense

Haiti: Why Be Hating?

Geek-Tastic

Television

Nihon-desu

Kakistocracy©

Last Note:

A Laundry List

The Understatement of the Week Award

Happy Tsagaan Sar

Peach Cobbler-ish

Fax-ed Up Beyond All Recognition

Ayatollah Ironic

Big Brother Watch

Stormin' Orrin

Lunch Hour

Christmastime Was Here

Seattle-Tacoma

1000 Words ©

Santa

1000 Words©

RIP The Odd Couple

A Moment of Realization

Kakistocracy©

Monkey See, Monkey Buy

Glandular Discontent

You Say Burma, I Say Myanmar

Such Crazyness!

Turkey Day

Forestry

Not Exactly Terry Gross

Monday, Monday

The Greater of Many Evils

Onion Day!

The Halls of Power

Good Enough for Government Work

ElectionsWere Those Today?

Coryphella Pedata: the New Architeuthidae Architeuthis

Paris Dispatch

The Department of Too Little, Too Late

McCain's Posse

Elitist Liberals Look Down on Average Americans

Don Quixote and the French

Rage

Paris? Broken!

RIP Michael Piller

Kakistocracy©

The Democrats' Dilemma

How Low Can You Go?

The New England Journal of Giant Fibreglass Foodstuffs

China Shop Round-Up

W&I©

The Congressman and the Pumpkin

Sententia Mortuus

W&I©

SCOTUS, POTUS, and FetusOh, My!

Anger

Tim Russert in the Indictment? Tim Russert in the House!

Do the Sulu Dance

ElectionsWere Those Today?

SCOTUS, POTUS, and FetusOh, My!