In the end the people of Connecticut will respect me for that

Holy Joe Lieberman says that his constituents overwhelmingly support the public option because they are “confused.” He just hopes that when he votes against their wishes, “in the end the people of Connecticut will respect me for that.” If they do, I guess it proves his point about them being confused. Really, really confused.

My favorite anti-public option line, which Mary Landrieu and Lieberman and others have used, is that the public option is so popular because people think it’s performed gratis by the health care elves. Landrieu: “I think when people hear public option they hear free health care. Everybody wants free health care. Everybody wants health care they don’t have to pay for.” I’m not surprised that they’re so contemptuous of the American public, but I’m a little surprised that they feel free to express it so openly.

George Bush, speaking in India, said that because there was a law calling for regime change in Iraq (“It was a law passed by the Congress and the previous administration”), it was his “official duty” to invade Iraq. So that’s okay, then.

WHO GEORGE DOESN’T HATE: “Please don’t let the propagandists tell the people that George Bush and America hate you [Muslims].”

WHO GEORGE DOES HATE: “I hate people who hijack a great religion to murder innocent people.”

“It wasn’t nobody’s fault. People shouldn’t be pointing fingers.”

LA Times reporter Sandy Banks, on the Richmond gang rape: “The students I talked to after the fact at Richmond High all said they would have intervened. And yet, none of them denounced the kids who didn’t.”

Oh, seeing Dick Cheney is treat enough

The American Prospect asked “What will Dick Cheney give trick-or-treaters this year?” Some of the answers:

“A playful waterboarding, followed by threats, if they don’t tell him which house is handing out the fun-size Snickers.” -- Megan Carpentier, Air America

“An unexpectedly warm and firm hug.” -- Baratunde Thurston, The Onion

“Buckshot in the face, naturally.” -- Eric Alterman, The Nation

To which I would add, “A terrifying look inside his man-sized safe.”

Or, “A pod, the exact same size of the trick-or-treater, to be kept in their basement...”

Or, “A glimpse into the empty void that is his soul. So cold. So very, very cold.”

Other suggestions?

Thought crime

Just saw someone objecting to the new hate crimes provision protecting LGBTs as creating a “thought crime.” A standard Republican talking point. Don’t see them objecting to the distinction between first-degree murder and manslaughter as a thought crime.

Wherein is revealed what makes Hillary Clinton a happy person

Before her trip to Pakistan, Hillary Clinton sat down for an interview with Dawn tv, in which she in no way pandered to her Pakistani viewers: “I love the food, I wear shalwar kameezas. I mean, I want people to know that I am no stranger to Pakistan or Pakistani culture. ... I mean, give me a seekh kebab and some gow and I’ll be a happy person.”

Oh, and it would also help if I were president of the United States. And had Bill’s balls in a box. A nice teak one.

Headline of the Day

London Times: “Sarkozy Plans New Patriotism Based on Values of ‘La Douce France.’” That’s douce. Douce! Not that other word!

I know, I know. I’m a little ashamed of myself.

If we don’t do that, we’ll be insulting democracy

Interviewed by Fareed Zakaria on CNN, Hamid Karzai asserted that the first round of the presidential election had been “defamed, was called a fraud,” and that he had, in fact, won 54% of the vote in a “clean” election. The decision to have a run-off anyway was his and his alone: “I decided -- for peace, for stability and for the future of democracy in Afghanistan and for the future of institutional order in Afghanistan -- to call for a runoff.” The runoff must now go ahead, he says (i.e., no power-sharing deal), because “If we don’t do that, we’ll be insulting democracy”.

And if there’s one thing Karzai hates, it’s an insult to democracy.

Some adult content

A Saudi court has sentenced a woman journalist to 60 lashes for being coordinator on a show that had on a man who talked about sex (he gets 1,000 lashes).

It’s just like America, really: sex bad, violence good.

Criss cross

The Taliban bomb a wedding party in Pakistan, possibly by mistake. Are they us now?

Michelle Obama and the Socialist Hula Hoop of Doom

At the Healthy Kids Fair on the White House south lawn Wednesday. CAPTION CONTEST (alternatively, how will Fox News spin this (geddit, spin this, geddit, geddit?) as showing that Michelle hates whitey and/or America?

He’s the Motivaterer

Every blog has already pointed out the “Get Motivated!” seminar in Fort Worth with motivational speaker George Bush (hey, I’m always motivated when George Bush speaks, aren’t you?).


One of the other speakers is Colin Powell. What I like about the idea of Bush and Powell crossing paths is that, sure, it’ll be incredibly awkward, but Bush will never know why.

Everyone’s a critic

The Denver alt newspaper Westword (motto: nothing can go wrong can go wrong can go wrong) is planning to hire a pot reviewer. It has received 120 applications so far, “many of them offering to do the reviews for free.”

Compare with this NYT story (Well this sucks. The NYT has disabled the program by which bloggers could insert links to stories that wouldn’t go dead in a few days.) about the AP reporter whose job it is to attend executions in Texas – 300+ of them – and how fewer and fewer other news outlets even bother anymore.

Chilling thought of the day: they could probably easily find 120 Texans offering to do that job for free.

(Some of you are thinking it, so I’ll just pre-empt it appearing in comments: even more people would offer to combine the two jobs. But really, do you want to have a case of the munchies in the death chamber viewing room? And showing up with cheetos is just bad manners.)(Even if you offer to share.)

Your daily dose of batshit crazy

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, foams at the mouth all over the pages of the Washington Post (or is it on the website only?) about the threat from “secular saboteurs” and the gays and “moral anarchists” and the gays and “sexual libertines” and the gays and Hollywood and the gays and the ACLU and the gays and Democrats and the gays. It must be read to be believed. Last paragraph:

The culture war is up for grabs. The good news is that religious conservatives continue to breed like rabbits, while secular saboteurs have shut down: they’re too busy walking their dogs, going to bathhouses and aborting their kids. Time, it seems, is on the side of the angels.

I don’t know: every time you walk your dog, an angel dies.

Keeping faith with the best interests of the Afghan people

With 1/3 of Afghan ballots tossed out as probably fraudulent, it is, evidently, time to declare the Afghan presidential election a resounding success.

Hillary Clinton: “And after many weeks of counting ballots and much debate over the flaws in the vote, Afghans showed today that their processes work.” One of those processes (I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere in the Afghan constitution): begging, cajoling, blackmailing and threatening Karzai into accepting the necessity to steal a second round of elections. Indeed, “The leadership shown by the President, Dr. Abdullah and all of the other candidates...” If by leadership, you mean ordering their followers to stuff ballot boxes “...has strengthened Afghanistan and kept faith with the best interests of the Afghan people.” You’d almost believe that all the fraud existed in spite of the candidates.

Obama: “This is an important step forward in ensuring a credible process for the Afghan people which results in a government that reflects their will.” Like a mirror reflects a vampire. Or something. “President Karzai’s constructive actions [not defying the ruling of the election commission] established an important precedent for Afghanistan’s new democracy.” Some precedent. Some democracy.

Throughout the two-month-long post-election wrangling, we’ve been told, essentially, that if only we removed most of the fraudulent ballots, whatever remained would be a legitimate election. This is to willfully ignore the large number of people in areas without polling stations, or who were turned away from polling stations, or whose ballots were thrown out, or who didn’t bother participating in an obvious farce. Further, the process of weeding out fraudulent ballots involved discarding entire precincts whose results were unbelievable, disfranchising all their residents.

The run-off will now be done so quickly, in order to beat the Afghan winter, that the only question is whether the election monitors or the ballot-stuffers can organize faster.

(Update: the Guardian anatomizes the failed election.)

Name of the Day

The composer (and singer) of the Addams Family theme song, who just died at 93: Vic Mizzy. Somehow the perfect name.

Why don’t I have an official harpist?

Prince Charles’s former official harpist is on trial for burglarizing four houses. Heaven knows what his unofficial harpist gets up to.

Headline of the Day

AP: “Tijuana Police Find Body Hanged from Bridge, Again.” Oh, I see: not the same body, a different body.

Happy Loma Prieta Day, everybody!

Programming note

Fox has decided to close down the Fox Reality Channel (currently running a marathon of something called The Househusbands of Hollywood). Is it permissible to reverse one of the signs of the apocalypse?

Headline of the Day

From the LA Times: “Dead Man Slumped on Balcony Mistaken for Halloween Decoration.”

(Update: the NYT quotes one of his neighbors, giving Mr. Zayed an epitaph for the ages: “He looked fake.”)

An opportunity to score propaganda points missed

The Italians, naturally, aren’t going to admit to having paid those bribes to the Taliban (see previous post), and nobody, not even the French, who have reason to be a tad miffed, is willing to embarrass them. Which is too bad because the Taliban would presumably also be embarrassed, and their legitimacy undermined, by their having taken bribes not to fight being trumpeted far and wide.

Allies

So, Italian forces in Afghanistan were bragging about how peaceful their area was. Turned out, they were paying bribes to the Taliban to prevent attacks. And it worked, by the way, for not really a lot of money: the Taliban can be bought. Anyway, then they left and handed off to the French, without telling them about the bribes. So they thought they were taking over a nice pacific region, and the ambush that killed ten of their soldiers (oh, and the mutilations) came as a bit of a surprise.

The Americans found out about the bribes through intercepted telephone conversations and formally protested to Italy. Two months before the ambush. So the US didn’t warn the French either.

This business we call show trial

Stalin’s grandson has lost his libel suit against a newspaper which suggested that his grandfather was not a very nice man. His lawyer complained, “We are sure the judge decided this case in advance.” Oh, the irony.

In fourteen hundred and ninety two, some white guy got lost

Hey, evidently yesterday was Columbus Day. I celebrated by attempting to try out that pizza place that just opened, but it was closed for some reason. Obama issued a proclamation. It’s fun watching the first bi-racial president attempt to reconcile praising Columbus’s “bold attempt to expand human understanding of the known world” with the, you know, Indian thing.

“These immigrants joined many thriving indigenous communities who suffered great hardships as a result of the changes to the land they inhabited.” Changes to the land? Like having a lot of murdered Native Americans buried under it, that sort of change?

“Although their competing ways of life were initially at odds, ...” At Odds! “...over time, the ‘New World’...” Oo, sarcastic quote marks. “...became a culturally and ethnically diverse place where we now enjoy the free exchange of ideas and democratic self-governance. Tribal communities continue to strengthen our Nation through their rich heritage and unique identity.” Casinos, you mean casinos, don’t you?

“Italian Americans continue to contribute immeasurably to the identity of our Nation, as role models, leaders, innovators, and committed public servants. From the boardroom to the classroom, they are prominent in every facet of American life.” Casinos, you mean casinos, don’t you?

More election tampering in Afghanistan – this time by the watchdogs

The international Electoral Complaints Commission for Afghanistan has decided that, purely in the interests of time, they will penalize all candidates equally by the percentage of suspected fraudulent votes in each polling box, rather than penalize candidates in proportion to their actual responsibility for fraud. In other words, they are now knowingly invalidating legitimate votes for the more honest candidates.

Unfortunate Headline of the Day

London Times: “Gay Activists Demand Action from Obama.”

Obama at the Human Rights Campaign Dinner

Obama gives good speech. Really. It should be quoted back to him every time he doesn’t live up to it. Although he was able to cite one thing he has actually done for Teh Gays: “Michelle and I have invited LGBT families to the White House to participate in events like the Easter Egg Roll -- because we want to send a message.” (Oh, all right to be fair, also something about ordering federal agencies to extend employment benefits to the partners of gay employees.)

I did like his reference to “the so-called Defense of Marriage Act.” Which, yes, would mean more if he actually supported gay marriage. Gay people should be conspiring to contrive a situation where Obama has to introduce a married gay couple as “Jane Doe and her wife Sarah” or “Adam and his husband Steve.”


Not according to Fox News

Passion for porridge

In slow news day news, an American, Matthew Cox, has rocked the world of porridge by winning the Golden Spurtle award. Now, had you not known that a spurtle is a stick used to stir porridge,


you might have thought the Golden Spurtle award had something to do with the adult film industry (headline on a Scottish news site: “US Man Takes Golden Spurtle” – the article uses the phrase “the coveted Golden Spurtle”) rather than being given out at the World Porridge Championships in Scotland. (Today is World Porridge Day, by the way. Celebrate appropriately.) The only American to participate, Cox flew from Milwaukie, Oregon to Scotland to compete in a porridge contest or, as he put it, “to celebrate our passion for porridge”. The special porridge category was won by one Anna Louise Batchelor, for her steamed porridge spotted dick with custard.

Rocked the world of porridge. Coveted Golden Spurtle. World Porridge Day. Passion for porridge. Steamed porridge spotted dick with custard. There is no phrase in this post I did not enjoy typing. Spurtle spurtle spurtle. Porridge porridge porridge.

Switzerland and the minarets of doom

Switzerland will vote on a referendum next month on banning the construction of new minarets on mosques. It is expected to fail. Some cities have banned (in publicly owned spaces) as racist, and some have allowed, this poster by the Swiss People’s Party.


This is what actual Swiss minarets look like.

Meet the most persecuted person in the entire history of the world and the history of man

It’s Silvio Berlusconi. He said so himself, so it must be true: “I am without doubt the person who’s been the most persecuted in the entire history of the world and the history of man.”

For example, he said, he’s had to fork out 200m euros in legal expenses on “consultants and judges.” He then “corrected” himself to say “consultants and lawyers.”

Are you taking the (Nobel) piss (prize)?

Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” and his “emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.” In crushing Iran like a bug, for example. And for his “outreach” to the Muslim world. For example, he has ordered bombing in at least four Muslim countries. Really, what’s the maximum number of countries in which you can kill people and still win this prize?

CONTEST: What should Obama do with the 10 million kronor prize money?

(Update: Fafblog: “In other news, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to a man who set fire to a library and then promised to write a book about it.”)

(Updatier: Evidently Obama plans to give it to charity. Actually, I had assumed ethics rules prohibited him accepting a large cash prize related to his official work. Certainly they should do so.)

Wherein the appropriate response to the new Oklahoma abortion law is suggested

Next month, Oklahoma’s We Know Where You Live Act will go into effect, requiring the posting on the internet of detailed information about women who have abortions (the law also bans abortions for sex selection, which many feminists are conflicted about. Personally, people who would abort on those grounds are precisely the people I don’t want to force to raise a baby they don’t want. Also, if abortion is a right, having one for a stupid reason is also a right; that’s what a right means.)

People have suggested that the intention of the law is to intimidate and that the specificity of the questions asked of the pregnant women (on pages 8-17 of the law [note: pdf]) will make it possible to identify those in more sparsely populated counties.

Fortunately there is a way out, which I would commend to all abortion patients in Oklahoma: lie. Lying is appropriate, ethical, and does not even seem to be illegal.

Berlusconi versus the Red Judges of Doom

The law Silvio Berlusconi designed to give him legal immunity is overturned as unconstitutional (in that it was passed as a regular law rather than a constitutional amendment and it violated the principle of equality before the law) by “red judges,” as Berlusconi today called the Constitutional Court, adding, “Viva Italia, Viva Berlusconi!”, which wasn’t creepily fascistic at all.

His argument for demanding immunity was that being tried for bribing judges, bribing MPs, embezzlement, tax fraud, false accounting, witness-tampering, etc etc would be a “distraction.” He much prefers being distracted by, well....

Unemployment is nearly 10%, but Trader Joe’s still employs someone

(at least I assume they do; it’s the only logical explanation) whose sole job is to follow me around the store and then discontinue at random some product I like. Today: the potato and cheese perogies.

First above equals

Silvio Berlusconi’s lawyer, arguing that he deserves immunity from prosecution: “He is no longer ‘first among equals’, but ought to be considered ‘first above equals.” “The law is equal for everyone, but not always in its application.” Especially if you bribe the judge, which is one of the charges he wants immunity from.

And Haiti once again wins the gold braaaaaiiiins

Will Durst tweets: “Too bad, the Olympic vote wasn’t held in Chicago. That way the dead could have voted for the city early and often.”

Not a great joke, but it occurs to me that Chicago should have argued that if they got the Olympics, the dead could compete. Zombies are very popular right now.

My laziest contest ever

A McDonald’s is to open in the Louvre, or, as it’s known to American tourists, “Can We Just Look at the Mona Lisa and Get Outta Here?” According to an unnamed art historian, “This is the pinnacle of exhausting consumerism, deficient gastronomy and very unpleasant odours in the context of a museum.”

(A personal note: when I first visited Paris, there were no McDonald’s. The company had just closed all their restaurants in the city because they weren’t up to the McDonald’s corporate standards. Imagine that.)

LAZY CONTEST: In fact, a contest contest. Come up with your own contest about the Louvre McDonald’s – more snooty quotes from art historians? something about freedom fries? Pulp Fiction riffs? – then submit an entry.

Logic

Dear lord, but Michael Steele is a blithering idiot. Which I knew, and you knew, but this one has just been irritating me for days for some reason. Denying Obama’s claim that requiring health insurance is just like requiring car insurance, which should be easy because health insurance is actually not just like car insurance, Steele said, “I think that analogy kind of falls off the radar screen because of the frequency with which I get sick versus the frequency with which I drive a car. I am more likely to need car insurance because I get in my car 7, 8, 20 times a day, where I’m surely not getting sick 8, 10, 20 times a day.” Apples and oranges. If you only “need” health insurance when you’re sick, as opposed to when you have the potential to become sick, then you only need car insurance when you crash, which you’re not doing 7, 8, 20 times a day (unless you’re Lindsay Lohan).

It’s awful, those little teeth

Jacques Chirac has had to get rid of his “depressed” dog Sumo after it bit him for the third time. But here’s the sentence which the BBC reporter most enjoyed writing: “In January this year, Mr Chirac had to be hospitalised after the dog sank his teeth into an unnamed body part.”

Another detail about French presidential canines: Sarkozy, known to be hilariously sensitive about his height, used to own a chihuahua named Big.

(Update: further research – Jesus Christ I’m bored – reveals that the unnamed body part was his butt.)

Burning justice

Texas Gov. Rick “Good Hair” Perry attempts to cover up evidence of the innocence of a man executed for a crime that never happened. Or, as they call this sort of thing in Texas, Thursday.

It’s like I slapped my own family in the face

The government has finished its prosecution of a third Marine for an incident in which four unarmed, surrendered Iraqi prisoners were murdered in Fallujah in 2004. After two others were acquitted, Sgt Jermaine Nelson, who had confessed six different times to executing one of the prisoners, was convicted – of dereliction of duty, in a plea agreement in which the government dropped the murder charge. He will be reduced in rank to lance corporal, serve no time and not be dishonorably discharged. His lawyer said he got such a good deal because he was so cooperative with investigators, although he had refused to give evidence against his sergeant last year (the gov did not go after any of the three for contempt of court in their pact not to testify against each other). (My posts on that trial here and here.)

Said Nelson, “I gave in to the peer pressure and now I have to live with it for the rest of my life... I let down the Marine Corps, which is my family. It’s like I slapped my own family in the face.” Adding, “Oh, and it’s also like I shot that one Iraqi guy in the face.” I may have made up that last part.

He went on, “If the Marine Corps will allow me to stay in, I’d love to stay in.”

(Sources: BBC, AP, North County Times, ditto, San Diego Union-Tribune.)

Guns for cons

It’s now legal to bring guns into bars in Arizona. Project for some day when I’m bored: join NRA, attend meeting of same, propose ending the unfair infringement of the 2nd Amendment rights of prisoners, see how much support I get.

Veiled

From a NYT story that asks the burning question, “Is Iran Designing Warheads?” (I’m picturing arches and majestic domes): “The Israelis, who have delivered veiled threats of a military strike...” Yes, veiled, just the word I was looking for. Because there is nothing more subtle than the Israeli threats to bomb the shit out of Iran.

Propaganda kills

an Afghan girl. The Times: “This is believed to be the first time that a civilian has been killed by a box of public information leaflets.”

A courtesy

The Honduran coup regime’s foreign minister threatens to de-embassize (that’s a word, right?) Brazil’s embassy if it doesn’t hand President Zelaya over or remove him from Honduras within ten days, but “As a courtesy, we are not planning to invade the place.” Because no one – no one! – can accuse Honduras’s coupsters of lacking courtesy.

Don’t you hate it when an anecdote just trails off?

Obama, yesterday: “I was up at the G20 -- just a little aside -- I was up at the G20, and some of you saw those big flags and all the world leaders come in and Michelle and I are shaking hands with them. One of the leaders -- I won’t mention who it was -- he comes up to me. We take the picture, we go behind. He says, ‘Barack, explain to me this health care debate.’ He says, ‘We don’t understand it. You’re trying to make sure everybody has health care and they’re putting a Hitler mustache on you -- I don’t -- that doesn’t make sense to me. Explain that to me.’ He didn’t understand.”

Er, so how did you explain it to him?

I got nuthin’

Baltimore public schools institute Meatless Mondays, replacing the traditional Mystery Meat Mondays.

So, does Dexter, serial-killer trying to blend in with a society whose mores he does not feel, = Don Draper? Discuss.

For extra credit, where does Roman Polanski fit in to this thesis?

Ahmadinejad and the nuclear enrichment plant of doom

Obama on the evidence of Iran’s secret nuclear facility: “This was the work product of three intelligence agencies, not just one.” Well, if it’s three whole intelligence agencies, then it must be true. (I think he means the CIA, MI6 and French intelligence). “They checked over this work in a painstaking fashion.” Seems to me I’ve heard this sort of thing before.


The most unlikely part of this story? That the US supposedly for years possessed intel that would have advanced Dick Cheney’s agenda, but failed to leak it.

Senators Bayh, Kyl and Lieberman issued a statement accusing Iran of a “consistent pattern of deceit, concealment and bad faith,” because if there are three things Joe Lieberman hates, they’re deceit, concealment and bad faith. “Until Iran proves otherwise, we must assume the worst about its nuclear intentions and activities -- and act accordingly.” Can’t let the smoking gun come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

Obama’s UN speech & the Middle East

Israeli Foreign Minister Lieberman praises Obama for saying in his UN speech that Israel is a Jewish state. As always with American foreign policy, Obama treats the Palestinians who live inside Israel proper as the forgotten people, the equivalent of an embarrassing fart, best ignored.

Obama also again called on the Palestinian gov to “end incitement against Israel” without naming the newspapers he wanted suppressed and individuals he wanted cracked down on. If you’re calling for a country to repress free speech, you should at least be specific about which speech you want repressed.

Sarah Palin and the land bridge to Asia

Oh, which speech to blog about today, Obama at the UN or Sarah Palin in Hong Kong? What to do, what to do.

From Sarah Palin’s speech in Hong Kong (no link, since the Wall Street Journal took down the excerpts from the closed-door event they’d posted earlier):

OF COURSE SHE’D HAVE TO FIND... SOMETHING ELSE... TO HUNT FROM PLANES: “We got a chance yesterday to see some of the magnificent city of Hong Kong, and while the wildlife to human ratio here, it differs from that of Alaska, uh, I do think I could get used to this.”

AND VICE VERSA: “And we have a special place in our hearts in Alaska for the Pacific Rim.”

WHAT AN AWFUL THING TO SAY ABOUT YOUR DAUGHTER: “We have the world’s most abundant salmon spawning grounds right there in Bristol Bay.”

WHAT SARAH HAS ALWAYS BEEN REALLY INTERESTED IN: “Personally, I’ve always been really interested in the ideas, too, about the land bridge.”

YES, ALASKA AND HONG KONG ARE JUST EXACTLY THE SAME: “We have much in common with Hong Kong. We’re both young and transient, independent and libertarian.”

WHAT YOU CAN CALL HER: “You can call me a common sense conservative.”

HAVE YOU CHECKED BEHIND THE SOFA CUSHIONS? “what happened to that Reagan legacy, the Reaganism that worked what happened to that?”

IT WAS THE JEWS, WASN’T IT? “While we might be in the wilderness, conservatives need to defend the free market system and explain what really caused last year’s collapse.”

HOW TO GET OUT OF HERE: “Ronald Reagan, he was faced with an even worse recession and he showed us how to get out of here. If you want real job growth, you cut taxes!”

BECAUSE ALL YOUR WORDS EXCEPT FOR THOSE TWO WERE SO RATIONAL: “I seem to have acquired notoriety in national debate. And all because of two words: death panels.”

WHOLE? “we should seek, as we did in Europe, an Asia whole and free.”

Some common ground

Honduran President Zelaya has returned to Honduras – well, the Brazilian embassy in Honduras. Very possibly still wearing his pajamas, we just can’t tell.


Hillary Clinton helpfully advises that it is “imperative that the return of President Zelaya does not lead to any conflict or violence”. She did not proffer any suggestions as to how the elected president might restore himself to power without “conflict” but did suggest “instead that everyone act in a peaceful way to try to find some common ground.” Some common ground between, you know, Zelaya being president and Zelaya not being president.

What, not even the giant puppets?

Ahead of the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, Obama gave an interview to the editors of the Toledo Blade and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His message to protesters: give up. Capitalism will always defeat mere democracy:

I was always a big believer in - when I was doing organizing before I went to law school - that focusing on concrete, local, immediate issues that have an impact on people’s lives is what really makes a difference and that having protests about abstractions [such] as global capitalism or something, generally, is not really going to make much of a difference.

So go bother your city council, and stop pestering Obama with your silly “abstractions.” Don’t bother your little heads about national and international policy. No we can’t! No we can’t! No we can’t!

He did add, “I think that’s part of what makes America wonderful is people have a lot of different opinions”. A lot of impotent, impotent opinions. So stay home and just shout your different opinions at the teevee. That’s what makes America wonderful.

Czars

The wingers have gotten very upset about the number of unaccountable “czars” Obama has advising him. After all, George Bush always submitted the voices in his head for Senate confirmation.

Obama doesn’t want witch hunts taking place

I am not paid enough to read all 5 transcripts of Obama’s tv appearances today, much less watch them (Lindsey Graham made a little joke about him appearing everywhere except the Food Network – because if there’s anything Lindsey Graham hates, it’s a media whore). So let’s look at just one, Face the Nation.

On insurance companies: “We don’t mind them making profits, we just want them to be accountable to their customers.” Whatever that means.

Asked if insurance companies won’t just pass the proposed taxes on them on to their customers (but in an accountable way): “Here’s the problem, they’re passing on those costs to the consumer anyway.” They’re passing on costs that don’t exist yet?

SO STOP SENDING HIM THOSE EMAILS ABOUT INCREASED SIZE, HE JUST ISN’T INTERESTED: “I have no interest in increasing the size of government.”

On the Justice Dept investigation of the CIA’s interrogation practices (or, as he put it, “problems that occurred under the previous administration”): “I don’t want witch hunts taking place.” Although dunking them in ponds to see if they’re witches would be nicely ironic.

Really, with no doubt at all that the CIA tortured prisoners, the phrase you choose to describe investigating and prosecuting those practices is “witch hunt.”

Talking about the cancelled missile defense program, Mister Diplomacy referred twice to “the Iranian threat” and twice said that Russia was “paranoid” about the program.

Taking fashion tips from Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids

I rather like how the last sentence in this London Times story: “Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, yesterday reminded western forces they had lost in Afghanistan before. ‘We fought against the British invaders for 80 years from 1839 to 1919 and ultimately got independence by defeating Britain,’ he said in a statement on a Taliban website. Omar is believed to be in hiding in Pakistan.” Neatly puts the one-eyed wonder in proper perspective.

The thing about getting a dead-trees newspaper is that your eye falls on things you would never ever click on. For example, without the NYT styles section this week, I would not be up on the latest fashions.

David Petraeus would totally do Afghanistan

David Petraeus has an op-ed piece in the London Times entitled “Afghanistan is Hard All the Time, But It’s Doable.” Cue porn music.

He introduced himself to his London audience (the article was adapted from a speech) thus: “The region under my command consists of 20 countries, from Egypt in the west to Pakistan in the east, and from Kazakhstan in the north to Yemen and the waters off Somalia to the south.” He thinks 20 countries are “under my command.” No imperial hubris here.

(Except for suggesting that John Donne’s Meditation XVII was about counter-insurgency, which is something I’m pretty sure I didn’t realize in the 9th grade, Petraeus says exactly what you think he would say about Afghanistan, so you needn’t bother clicking through.)

Precedents in assholery

Monday, the Obama admin filed a brief in District Court arguing that prisoners at Bagram Airfield have no habeas corpus rights because it is located an active war zone, glossing over the fact that some of the prisoners were only in an active war zone because they were kidnapped from other countries and brought there. Reminds me of the 2,264 ethnic Japanese the US seized from Peru and other Latin American countries during World War II and transported to the internment camps in the US. When the US began paying reparations to interned Japanese-Americans in 1990 it excluded these internees because they had been... wait for it... illegal immigrants.

Condoms to the rescue. Again.

Slate asks the question, “Can Condoms Combat Climate Change?”

CONTEST: Complete this response: “Yes, but only if...”

Under the order of Islam’s enemies

Why we fight, redux: The upper house of the Afghan parliament votes to condemn Karzai’s amnesty of Pervez Kambaksh, the student convicted of blasphemy for downloading material about women’s rights from the internet, complaining that he did so “under the order of Islam’s enemies,” by which they mean Western nations (there is no evidence one way or another that Obama actually did press for this). Oh, let’s do keep troops in Afghanistan forever, just to keep these people who think we’re Islam’s enemies in power.

The Republicans in the California state senate, having failed to kill a program that provides help to poor people in filling out their tax returns, a program which the makers of the software program TurboTax have contributed millions to campaign funds in an attempt to eliminate, retaliated by blocking 20 bills, including funding to keep domestic abuse shelters open. The funds had passed the lower house unanimously, but needed 2/3 in the senate. Other bills that fell victim to the hissy fit would have prevented the firings of cops and firefighters and distributed money to prepare for swine flu – not even California money but federal dollars, which the state will now lose. The legislative session has now expired.

Stupid Hollywood Movie Idea of the Day: Battleship: The Motion Picture. As in “You sunk my battleship.”

All the news that’s fit not to print

In a 2,579-word front-page article asking the question how many Israeli settlers would resist being removed from the West Bank, the NYT fails to mention the many subsidies that settlers receive from the state.

And on the NYT’s op-ed pages, Reagan’s assistant secretary of state for Africa Chester Crocker talks about how Obama needs to get “engagement diplomacy” exactly right, without quite mentioning that his and Reagan’s policy of “constructive engagement” was in support of the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Maybe it’ll make more sense in Farsi

The tv show “Lost” has gotten approval from the Iranian authorities to be sold in DVD form and possibly broadcast, dubbed into Farsi. Naturally, there will be some censorship because, as the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance put it, “that Kate is just too damned hot.” (The former head of the ministry had denounced the show for its “Zionist concepts,” by the way.) There is also talk of doing an Iranian version.

CONTEST: So, what sort of changes would have to be made to Lost to make it more acceptable to the mullahs? Also – what Zionist concepts could they be talking about? Locke as Moses?

It doesn’t even say ‘Mr. president of the republic’ or anything

The US finally revokes the visa of the head of Honduras’s coup government. Micheletti amiably says that that’s within the US’s rights, complaining only that the letter to him used his previous title. “It doesn’t even say ‘Mr. president of the republic’ or anything.” Because you aren’t. Which is kinda the point.

Dear Leader Blog: “At this point, Congress is basically a Civil War reenactment without the costumes”.

Sly Headline of the Day

NYT: “Ikea Tries to Build Public Case Against Russian Corruption.” And we all know how hard building an Ikea case (or table) can be.

Why we fight

Afghan journalism student Pervez Kambaksh, convicted of “insulting Islam” for downloading material about women’s rights from the Web, sentenced to death in a four-minute trial in which no defense was allowed to be heard, which was then reduced to 20 years, has been released and exiled after a mere two years in prison. Evidently this happened a couple of weeks ago, secretly. He is now in an unspecified European country, which has granted him asylum.

Freedom, ain’t it grand.

Obama health care speech to Congress: Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics

Transcript.

“I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.” Wow, he’s gonna solve this forever. Or screw it up so badly that no one will ever dare it touch it again. You know, whichever.


And now for the horror stories: “Another woman from Texas was about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company canceled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne. By the time she had her insurance reinstated, her breast cancer more than doubled in size.” But what about the acne? Oh, and did she, you know, die? Obama really does not know how to tell a story.

“our health care problem is our deficit problem.”

“There are those on the left who believe that the only way to fix the system is through a single-payer system like Canada’s, where we would severely restrict the private insurance market and have the government provide coverage for everyone. On the right, there are those who argue that we should end the employer-based system and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own.” And there are some who dismiss others’ views as “left” or “right” positions driven by ideology.


“But either one would represent a radical shift that would disrupt the health care most people currently have. ... I believe it makes more sense to build on what works and fix what doesn’t.” Is going to single-payer really that “radical” a shift? We’re not talking about demolishing all the existing hospitals and building new ones or importing all new doctors from Cuba, just changing how health care is paid for.

Note: at this point I’ve stopped the DVR. If he’s just gonna read the prepared remarks off the teleprompter, I don’t need to hear him to it. (Although I evidently missed Rep. Joe Wilson shout “You lie.”)(That’s what YouTube is for.)

“Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics. ... Well the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action.” Right here, I can see how the Republican tactics have paid off. By his own words, Obama admits that we never had an honest debate: we had the scare tactics, bickering and games, and now he wants us to go straight to action. Can we really skip that step? Doesn’t it feels like representative democracy has failed, even knowing that it’s been sabotaged by one party’s unwillingness to participate? Or does Democrats fighting each other make up for it?


Oh good, he has three basic goals: More security and stability for those with insurance. Provide insurance to those without it. Slow the growth in costs (I guess costs will continue to increase forever, just more slowly).

No more caps, recisions, rejection for pre-existing conditions, a limit on out-of-pocket expenses. Er, aren’t those the ways insurance companies make huge profits?

So instead of single payer, or a public option, we get... an “exchange.” Plus mandatory insurance in a for-profit system.

“95% of all small businesses, because of their size and narrow profit margin, would be exempt from these requirements.” I hereby predict the next Republican meme: this will just discourage small businesses from growing.

“Insurance executives don’t do this [cherry-picking the healthy and dropping the sick] because they are bad people. They do it because it’s profitable.” Really? Let’s take a vote.

poll by twiigs.com

He does mention a public option, but “it would only be an option for those who don’t have insurance.” He insists that at most 5% of Americans would wind up on it, and he “reminds” “my progressive friends” that the public option is only a “means to [the] end” of ending insurance company abuses and keeping insurance affordable. And of course he’s willing to drop it. Co-ops, triggers, it’s all good to him. “But I will not back down on the basic principle that if Americans can’t find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice.” So he won’t back down on a basic principle so vague that you can’t definitively state when he has actually backed down on it.

“Demonstration projects” for malpractice tort reform, whatever that means. I doubt we’ll ever hear another word about this.

What is this woman laughing about?

“I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it. ... If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out.” That should scare them into submission.

RHOMBOID? “We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it.”

He quoted a letter Ted Kennedy wrote him. Kennedy said, “What we face is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.” Obama should have made this point himself, if indeed he believes it, but at least it got said.

Obama cures scrofula.

Who says we never learn our lesson?

Secretary of War Robert Gates repeats the Republican claim, beloved of John McCain as well, that “As soon as the Soviets left Afghanistan, we turned our backs on Afghanistan”, without saying precisely what the US was supposed to have done. Invaded in 1996? At any rate, “I believe we’ve learned our lesson,” which is not surprisingly to never ever stop occupying Afghanistan. For the right-wing, lessons learned from history always –always – involve starting yet more wars and occupying yet more countries, and not, for example, never get involved in a land war in Asia, or even, never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

(By the way, when I reference The Princess Bride, it’s the book, not the movie.) (Not that I have anything against the movie. On the contrary.)

Obama indoctrinates innocent school children in his hippy communist fascist hand-washing ways

Obama: “Maybe you could be a good writer - maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper - but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class.”

School children: “What are these ‘books’ and ‘newspapers’ of which you speak?”

Sorry, that didn’t sound much like the youth of today, did it? Let me try again: “What are these ‘books’ and ‘newspapers’ of which you speak, dawg?”

Obama: “If you don’t do that - if you quit on school - you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.”

School children: “Wow, I was totally gonna drop out until you told me I’d be quitting on my country.”

Obama: “But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher”.

School children: “‘Bad attitude?’ ‘Talking back’? What are you? Eighty? This is how you encourage students?”

Obama: “I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot”.

School children: “Whatever, Howard Hughes.”

Complaints like this are rare

American troops in Afghanistan raided a hospital run by a Swedish aid agency (in violation of international law), tied up staff and visitors, turfed patients out of their beds, generally broke the place up, and failed to find whoever they were looking for. Said a military spokesmodel, “Complaints like this are rare.” Well that’s okay then.

Oh, they told the doctors to inform them if any Taliban showed up as patients. The doctors said no.

The Germans are defending their decision to bomb the hijacked oil tankers, killing dozens of Afghan civilians, the defense minister saying that it was the correct decision because the tankers might have been used to blow up German bases. Unlike the Americans, who have been claiming they had no idea there were civilians in the area, the Germans are saying that they would have dropped the bombs regardless. Good to know.

When diminutive French president Nicolas Sarkozy visited a factory, workers were lined up to greet him. But only workers shorter than his 5'5".

While you think about that I shall remove my clothes

Well, I got nuthin’. Fortunately, there are always personal ads from the London Review of Books (the complete WIIIAI collection of LRB personals is here.)

Not very friendly woman seeks not very friendly man. Box no. 13.01

Without my grandfather’s contribution to agricultural reforms in 1912, this nation would currently have to import its turnips. While you think about that I shall remove my clothes. Man. 55. Box no. 16/02

I have a dream. And that dream is to try on every pair of shoes in the world. That’s where you come in: brusque, butch fem cobbler to 55 with expansive collection of animal skins and a strap-on. Man, 76. Box no. 16/03

I cast a magic spell on you. And now you are reading this advert in a literary magazine that exists only in your mind. Soon you will fall in love with me. When we meet, the odour will not concern you. Mr Mesmer: amateur hypnotist, professional shrimp-farmer (M, 51). Also available for weddings and birthdays. Box no. 16/05

The sweet smell of apples in the orchard carried on the warm, gentle breeze. A hushed moan, the curtains swish softly. Slowly my breasts come into focus. The goat bleats. The shackles tighten. And then the chanting starts again. Scary woman, 52, looking for a very specific type of ‘perfect Sunday’. Box no. 16/08

I flow like a harpoon daily and nightly. What does that mean? If the readings on my ambulatory blood pressure monitor are correct – and I think they are – it means I’m currently not allowed solids but I am allowed cuddles. Tactile man and lecturer in cultural studies, 52, patiently waiting for the hearing to return in his right ear. So much love to go around at Box no. 16/13

This advert is exactly what happens when you ignore the label’s warning and actually do ingest the Listerine. Idiot man, 38. Box no. 16/17

Heh heh, they said reBUTTal

Obama will address schools Tuesday, indoctrinating innocent, impressionable children in the socialist values of working hard and staying in school. The Republicans have demanded to be allowed a rebuttal. CONTEST: who should give the rebuttal, and what will they say?

Boffo

Name of the Day: the editor of the Catholic newspaper L’Avvenire, who has had to resign after being exposed by a Berlusconi-owned newspaper as having been fined as a “sex pest,” in retaliation for the paper’s reporting on Berlusconi’s own sexual misdeeds: Dino Boffo.

After Berlusconi went after the editor, by the way, he had to cancel his appearance at that plenary indulgence mass, which means, if I understand these things correctly, that he will be going to hell after all.

Status

Chuck Grassley should die because he cannot afford health care, and John Boehner should go broke because he gets sick. If you agree, join us in posting this as your status for the rest of the day.

Frente amplio

The Uruguayan ruling party has been handing out condoms with its name, Frente Amplio (Broad Front) on them. There’s probably a joke in there somewhere. Since they were paid for with government rather than party funds, the opposition is demanding that the condoms be taken back. Ewwwwwwww.

Indy headline: “Thousands Sign Turing Petition.” There’s probably an obscure joke in there somewhere.