The one who created this lei also created our freedom

Thomas Friedman, feeling all tingly with a sense of his own naughtiness, suggests the US tell Israel and Palestine that it is getting out of the peace process business until they “get serious” about it. Oddly, he fails to say whether we should also stop subsidizing one side with billions of dollars of aid each year. Funny, that.

In today’s 100-years-ago news (a NYT feature I just discovered is available only to subscribers), Illinois Senator (and former governor) Shelby Moore Cullom (R) suggests that the South could be convinced to vote Republican if not for that pesky negro suffrage. He’s not for total disfranchisement everywhere, for example not in his home state, but the Northern negro is different from the Southern one: “the Northern colored man uses his ballot with wisdom and fairness. We are satisfied with him, but it is not strange, of course, that the South is not.”

Fortunately, Congresscritters have come so far since those days:



Oh, and Rep. Stupak (whose name spelled backwards, I might point out, is Kaputs) can kiss my ass.

In 100-years-ago-today medical news

Dr. E. F. Bashford reports, in an address to the no doubt astounded attendees of the 16th International Medical Congress in Budapest, that “cancer is not limited to white men.”

There truly is a Shakespeare quote for every occasion

I subscribe to the OED word of the day RSS feed. Today’s word of the day: poop. 1616 SHAKESPEARE Antony & Cleopatra (1623) “The Poope was beaten Gold.”

Tap tap tap. Is this thing on?

Unfortunate Headline of the Day, from a White House press release: “President Obama Taps Cassandra Butts to Serve as Senior Advisor at the Millennium Challenge Corporation.”

Update. Er, 100-year-old update

Gov. Glasscock did succeed in saving those two negroes from being lynched. He snuck them out of jail at dawn, onto a special train and safely out of Gassaway. How their trial went we do not know; the NYT doesn’t seem to have covered it. What politician today would do such a thing?

In other 100-years-ago-today news, Pres. Taft was driven around an auto racing course in Savannah, reaching 52 miles per hour, making him the fastest as well as the fattest president.

By the way, 100 years ago Tuesday, astronomer Percival Lovell announced that the Martians were undertaking new construction work on the canals at that very moment.

President insults South by refusal of beverage

For some time I’ve been enjoying the NYT’s 100-years-ago section. Today’s tells of Governor William, um, Glasscock of West Virginia going in person to stand down a town intent on lynching two negroes. The local militia has told him it will not fire on the mob. At press time, the outcome was doubtful. No fair peaking ahead.

In other news, Pres. Taft, visiting Georgia, refused a mint julep with his breakfast, although it had “been brewed with consummate skill and which reposed apparently harmless in a green-topped glass that had perfect barnacles of frosting on the outside.” Times reporter is thirsty. Taft breakfast: waffles, quail, fried chicken, sausage, steak, broiled ham, broiled chicken and “grits.” Times reporter puts grits in scare quotes. As well he might.

Day 10,958

John McCain gave a speech in the Senate today about the 30th anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis. Like Obama, he thinks that Iranian history is all about us: “Today, however, we are also mindful that the pain and suffering that began on November 4, 1979 did not end after only 444 days. For the people of Iran, that hardship continued for 30 more years.” I haven’t seen an Iranian history textbook, but I’m guessing they consider the overthrow of the shah in February 1979 to have been the pivotal event inaugurating the present phase of Iranian history, not the seizure of the embassy in November.

McCain continues:

Iranians are right to ask how much better off they would be if all of the money – the billions and billions of dollars – that Iran’s rulers spend sponsoring terrorist groups, tyrannizing their people, and building weapons to threaten the world were instead devoted to creating jobs, educating young people, and caring for the sick.

Iranians are right to wonder why a country so blessed with natural resources cannot meet the basic needs of so many of its own citizens – and yet, corrupt members of the ruling elite are stuffing the wealth of their nation into their own pockets.

Project much? Is it pleasant, do you think, to live with no sense of irony whatsoever?

Senator Oblivious also complains, in his speech about the 30th anniversary of the hostage crisis, that Iran “seems determined to keep the relationship between our two countries mired in the past”.

Sucker

Remember how the Honduran coup was “resolved” by an agreement that Zelaya would be restored to power – if and when the Honduran congress voted to do so? They seem to be having some trouble working that vote into their busy, busy schedule. But US assistant secretary of state Thomas Shannon helpfully informed them that the US will now recognize the Nov. 29 election even if Zelaya is not returned to office.

There are still 30 Guantanamo prisoners hunger-striking, if anyone cares.

Election November 2009

My voting precinct dropped the fancy voting machines that look and sound just like paper shredders in favor of an old-timey cardboard box with a slit cut in it. To save money. Quaint.

Schwarzenegger gets to nominate a new lt. governor. Danny DeVito? Suggestions in comments, please.

Ohio votes for casinos. Nothing says excitement like casinos in Ohio.

Maine votes for medical marijuana, against marriage equality.

Sustained suspicion, mistrust, and confrontation

Wednesday is the 30th anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis, and Obama is celebrating by issuing a statement graciously offering to “move beyond this past.” Evidently Obama thinks that the history of US-Iran relations started 30 years ago: “This event helped set the United States and Iran on a path of sustained suspicion, mistrust, and confrontation.”

Technically, that’s half true, in that the US embarked on sustained suspicion, mistrust and confrontation. Before that, most Americans (outside the CIA, that is) were unaware of Iran’s existence or that it was the place that used to be called Persia. The Iranian people, on the other hand, had plenty of suspicion and mistrust toward the US, based on the US’s decades-long history of keeping the shah’s foot planted firmly on their necks, the history so thoroughly ignored by Obama.

WHAT, YOU DON’T THINK “DEATH TO AMERICA” IS AN AGENDA SUFFICIENT UNTO ITSELF? “We have heard for thirty years what the Iranian government is against; the question, now, is what kind of future is it for.” It’s that sort of condescension that should get us off that path of sustained suspicion, mistrust, and confrontation.

Headline of the Day

BBC: “Bear Kills Militants in Kashmir.”

Stigma

Hamid Karzai vows to remove the stigma of corruption from Afghanistan. Not the corruption, just the stigma.

Determined in accordance with Afghan law

Hillary Clinton has had to qualify her praise for Netanyahu’s “unprecedented” temporary pause in settlement activity (except for the massive construction projects that won’t be pausing) (and East Jerusalem) (and all the “illegal” building). Evidently she hadn’t realized that the remarks would not go over well among Palestinians and in the Arab states. Has anyone noticed that she really isn’t very good at her job? She now says Netanyahu’s policy “falls far short of what we would characterize as our position”.

---

The second round of voting has been canceled in Afghanistan, against the stated wishes of Karzai, who thought he could win a single-candidate without having to forge quite so many ballots and also keep his followers happy by letting them steal some more of that UN election money. Says Obama, “Although the process was messy, I’m pleased to say that the final outcome was determined in accordance with Afghan law”. Glad he’s pleased to say that. His staff must have worked long into the night to come up with some way to praise this election, and they came up with “determined in accordance with Afghan law.” Indeed, it is a veritable triumph of “determined in accordance with Afghan law,” a shining example of “determined in accordance with Afghan law.” (Well, except for all that massive fraud. Oh, and there’s some question about whether the election commission actually had the authority to cancel the second round.)

Nutt sacking

Headline of the Day (London Times, headline on the UK News page; the one on the story URL is different): “Nutt Sacking ‘Threat to All Expert Advisers.’” If I were an expert adviser, being threatened with a nutt sacking would be very worrying indeed. (Prof. David Nutt was fired as chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in Britain, for noting that the legal penalties for use of various drugs do not correlate with scientific evidence about their actual harmfulness. He has pointed out that alcohol is more dangerous than pot and horse-riding more dangerous than ecstasy.)

Why we fight

Iraq gets ready for its first public hanging since Saddam. Freedom, ain’t it grand?

I never expected that anywhere, someone would make such a big statue of me

Bill Clinton attends the unveiling of an 11-foot-tall bronze statue of himself in Pristina, Kosovo. That’s actually the first statue of Clinton I’ve heard of. Does anyone know of another? Bill said, “I never expected that anywhere, someone would make such a big statue of me.”


Actually looks more like Kennedy, doesn’t it? Those papers bear the date March 24, 1999, the day NATO started bombing Serbia.

And here Bill is holding a traditional Albanian prophylactic hat.

Unprecedented

Hillary Clinton says that Abdullah²’s likely decision not to contest the fixed presidential race, given Karzai’s refusal to fire his sycophantic election chief and the decision to increase the opportunities for fraud by creating still more ghost election stations, does nothing to reduce the legitimacy of that election: “When President Karzai accepted a runoff without knowing what the outcome would be, that bestowed legitimacy from that moment forward, and Dr. Abdullah’s decision does not in any way take away from that.” Yes, if there’s one thing that’s a complete fucking mystery, it’s the outcome of an Afghan election.

Hillary has also praised Bibi Netanyahu for his great, ahem, restraint, on settlements: “what the prime minister has offered in specifics, of restraint on the policy of settlements, of no new starts, for example, is unprecedented”.

So, I have to ask you, the discerning reader,

poll by twiigs.com

(Update: Eli wrote practically the same post, though without a nifty poll, 41 minutes earlier. I blame Google Reader’s lackadaisicalness for my not having known that.)

Headline/Bad Pun of the Day

“Beauty Spots May Get New Homes.” (Sunday Times of London). I guess Cindy Crawford can afford to buy a house for hers.

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.