Why The Next President Will Be A Democrat - A Shallow Analysis

The President has abysmal poll numbers, his opponents, Congress, are doing even worse. You might think this means that people hate Democrats more than the Republicans. And it might. However, there is a bigger-picture conclusion.

What people are hating most, it seems to me, is politicians. Congress has come in, promising change, and when it became clear that there weren't no change a-comin', the poll numbers dropped like King Kong. We, the people, are emitting a collective shout: "Jane! Stop this crazy thing!" Same president, same congress, same senate, all taking us in a different direction than they were elected to.

Ideally at this point, all the incumbents would be voted out in 2008, but we both know that ain't gonna happen. Everybody hates Congress except THEIR congressman, and they may even hate him but not as much as the guy running against him. But the President? He's up for retirement. And we're going to want the candidate who is most unlike him to take his place.

And at the very basic level, it would most likely be someone who looks different because we're afraid of real change, and we recognize if we put a genuine outsider in the position they would just be chewed up by the system. Therefore, either a white woman or a black man. Hillary or Obama. Fred Thompson won't make it, because he LOOKS like the status quo. That's how he's made his living. Guiliani? White guy. McCain: sorry, who?

Condaleeza Rice would certainly qualify if she was anti-war and if she was running.

Of course it's a long way to the elections. But let's face it - how likely is it that people will start to like politicians during a campaign season?

Quote of The Day

Republicans: They’re like even stupider versions of Democrats, if you can imagine such a thing.

-Wonkette.

See link for context - they're talking about Peggy Noonan's discovery that the Bush Administration doesn't really care about their base much at all.

Harry Turtledove's Birthday

It's coming up this Thursday, June 14th. But WHAT IF he had been born today, June 12? How would things have been different? Would I wait two days to do this gag?

Conspiracy Theory

I'm at work, and the computers are running slower than the plot of Pirates of The Caribbean 3. Our IT guy says we're the victim of a denial of service attack. He believes it's the work of firewall companies or security software publishers.

Normally I'd laugh at that kind of talk, but it rings true here because we are a Mortgage Lender company. Who the hell directs DOS attacks at people like us? Not 13-year-old Norwegian hackers - it wouldn't be funny enough. Disgruntled borrowers possibly, but people who refi homes are more mature than that, by nature. They might do it as a strategy but not as a nasty prank.

No one attacks this place unless they have something to gain, and the most obvious gain would be sales of stuff to prevent further attacks. Right? Or am I magic-bulleting this thing to death?

Let The Smear Campaign Begin

Colin Powell, on Meet The Press:

Powell: I’m going to support the best person I can find who will lead this country for the eight years beginning in January 2009.
Russert: Of any party?
Powell: The best person I can find.

Yeah, I always knew he was crooked. He should have made a better case to the United Nations. And I got a guy here who worked with him, who says he was never an actual General!

Sanity And Combs Follow Up - Free Sample

It's hardly necessary, but just in case you didn't believe me.

Sanity and Combs: Freebies From Pharma!

Wired magazine goes all in-depth on the practice of getting doctors' attention by giving away stuff. For example, USB Flash memory sticks to promote an Alzheimer's disease drug.

"...so much of the merchandise handed out generously in past years -- Prozac mouse pads and gym bags, Zoloft coffee mugs -- promoted drugs with recently expired patents, which are now sold generically."Nobody can make money on the generics so they aren't going to pay to sell something," Carlat says. "Only three of the SSRIs (a class of antidepressant) are still patented."

I'm of two minds on this phenomenon. I think I'll go with the pros first. It's nice to be able to take free samples of a drug before you commit money to it. And when I was running theatres, I hosted a few screenings sponsored by drug companies. To this day I have a note pad with the Paxil logo on it. Nice. And the pens! Oh, the pens.

Giving free stuff to doctors makes them happier doctors, and happy doctors make less mistakes, unless they're happier because you gave 'em booze.

Two downsides: the obvious ethical problems the arise when Diet and Exercise can't sponsor a weekend golf trip while Glaxxo can. And my pleasure at getting free samples is mitigated by sitting in a waiting room, watching salesman after salesman walk in to talk to the doctor while my appointment time stretches to two hours late.

By the way, since I've been off anti-depressants for a couple of months now you can assume my opinions aren't clouded by them. If they can make a drug that combats shyness, it's only a matter of time before they make one that targets your distaste for big pharma. Keep a close eye on the reservoirs.

(And no, nowhere in the article does it say that they gave away any combs. If you were me, would you be able to resist that title? Hell no!)

Topics Of Discussion

We are deployed in Iraq right now to protect Iraqis. Most Iraqis are Muslims. Muslims are Islamists, who want all Christians dead. So why are we in there again?

I cn has wrt bowt LOLcats, but do not want! 2 late! I is bhind yr curve, exploitn yr memes.

Bush tackled immigration and now EVERYBODY hates him. He could have stuck with gays and done pretty well. What was he thinking?

My wife was working in San Diego last month - there is a weather phenomenon there called "May Grey" in which every day in May is overcast. Here in L.A. we call it "June Gloom" because I guess summer starts a month later the farther up North you are. So Skot - is there a word for it in San Francisco, like "Aug-ust Fog?" Or do you bother, because it's all year round?

Is it just me, or is Warner Todd Huston overreacting?

Spin Zone

Bill O'Reilly talks to Carl Bernstein, the author of A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hat tip to Atrios! All quotes verbatim, of course.

O'REILLY: Did she break the law?
BERNSTEIN: Yes.
O'REILLY: OK. Good, I like this. How did she break the law?
BERNSTEIN: She broke the law if, indeed, she perjured herself.
O'REILLY: Well, you just said she did break the law.
BERNSTEIN: No. The special prosecutor determined that she did not. So he did not file the charge.
O'REILLY: So you think she did. But the special prosecutor, Ken Starr, said no.
BERNSTEIN: That is co -- you know what? Let me be really straightforward. I don't think she broke the law. I think there was a time that she did not tell the truth.
O'REILLY: Under oath?
BERNSTEIN: You know, I wasn't in the room.
...
O'REILLY: I got it. And I read -- I read your whole book top to bottom.
BERNSTEIN: It's time to sort it out.
O'REILLY: I have to tell you, I still don't know what to make of the woman even after -- even after reading the book. That's how complicated this woman is.
BERNSTEIN: That's terrific.

No Mass Debating In Public

I think it's over for a while, the 10-candidate gang-debates. I have managed to not get a single second of any of 'em first hand. Instead I have deferred to WONKETTE's liveblogging, which has resulted in a hundred variations of the phrase "shut up old man! Shut UP!"

It's not that I'm not civic-minded. It's just that these debates are worthless. If you're interested in politics you do yourself a disservice by watching them. Here's why.

Nobody gets enough time to articulate a real position. With all those people on stage, the pressure is on to give a good slogan, look sexy doing it, and move out. Not only that, but even within those constraints.... Ron Paul has had a thing on his website called the Talk Clock, which graphs which candidate gets the most speaking time. You know who has won consistently? Wolf Blitzer.

"Raise you hands" doesn't count as debate. Strictly speaking nothing on the debates does, but this is ridiculous.

Debates force branding. I'm the anti-poverty candidate! I'm the anti-immigration candidate! This is what you walk away from with these guys when you should be learning which one is the Manchurian candidate. And you shouldn't elect someone because of their pet issue - you should elect them on their ability to balance all issues against each other.

Dennis Kucinich. Adorable and hopeless and as McSweeney's pointed out, "strong to the finich", this man will never be President, even in most alternate universes. Why is he taking time away from viable candidates like Mike Gravel? (Substitute Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee in there if you're Republican.)

Sooner or later, some Democrats will debate on Fox News. And it's just going to be awful. If Obama is on screen, they'll caption it "William Jefferson, D-LA". The set will be dark and creepy, they'll cut to a Natalee Holloway update whenever Biden makes sense, and Britt Hume will ask "raise your hands - when did you stop beating your wife?" causing nothing but perplexed looks. And they'll use the footage on the 1/2 Hour News Hour, somehow finding a way to make it even LESS funny.

The real candidates aren't participating. We all know it's going to be between Al Gore and Fred Thompson anyway, so who are these people? Potential VICE presidents, that's who.

No matter what anyone says, the winner will be decided based on charm. Or tie, or haircut. Parenthetically, Elizabeth Edwards says that John doesn't use any product in his hair, not even conditioner. With savings like that, he can afford to splurge on the cut!

It's over a year away from the election. By November '08 most of these people will be suffering from suspicious dioxin poisoning. Why bother with them now?

Fun With Commenters

"Can't see how all the day is a good one for the Dem's, considering Jefferson's recent headlines," says GWK in my previous post. Interestingly, I hadn't actually said that; I had said it was a bad day for Bush but a good day for DEMOCRACY.

Maybe that's the problem with Bush and the boys - they can't tell the difference so they attack both. You listening, Rove? Only one is your political opponent; the other is what you oughtta be protecting.

Special Prosecutor Rides Scooter

As often happens, it's a bad day for the Bush administration and a good day for Democracy. Let's recap: The 2nd Circuit court has ruled that the FCC was arbitrary and vague in assigning fines to Fox TV when presenters on the Billboard Awards show used the word "fuck" in their acceptance speeches; this means that they can fine people for violations but they have to be consistent about it. Unfortunate for a government which might like to selectively silence individuals without being too vocal about their reasons.

On the other hand, Scooter Libby has been sentenced for his role in obstructing the Valerie Plame investigation. In this case it wasn't about public cussing, it was about undermining the intelligence gathering community. I know they're both important; but in one you have to be embarrassed in front of your kids and in another, people die and the terrorists gain ground.

Libby faces 30 months in prison and a $250,000 fine, even after the letters of support from almost everyone who worked to get us into the Iraq war. Who didn't petition for the Scootster? Dick Cheney! The very guy Libby lied to protect. Pwned, Scooter! Yes, Karl Rove is conspicuously absent as well, though perhaps he submitted his appeal in the form of forged xeroxed fliers from Democrats.

Free speech and opposing opinions have proven vexing to this President, as they do to all presidents; but Bush has taken gone farther to slap down his naysayers than any other president in history. "I listen to the Generals on the ground," he says - of course he does, otherwise how would he know whom to fire? It's a dumb strategy, because it simply doesn't work. Or rather it works for a while, but it eventually leads to a pissed-off cadre of former employees seeking revenge. And maybe I'm wrong, but I like to think that today maybe Scooter may finally regain his hitherto faulty memory.

New, Improved Instant Karma

I was on a sixties jag this weekend. It started Friday night when TCM ran HEAD as part of its UNDERGROUND series.

HEAD, you probably know, was the Monkees vehicle. Columbia threw some money at Bob Rafaelson to crank out a spinoff picture. The movie industry was in a complete shambles then, and there was even less predicting the market than usual, hence the desire to turn hit TV shows into movies. At the same time, the Monkees themselves were becoming radicalized, irritated that they were thought to be talentless actors instead of real musicians, so they were looking for street cred.

The resulting movie is a plotless psychadelic mess, but one of the great ones. Where the TV show was anarchic but harmless, the movie is disturbing. It opens with the Monkees crashing a bridge ribbon-cutting ceremony chased by Indians, Cops, and assorted others, and Mickey jumps over the side of the bridge, comitting symbolic career suicide. They keep up the nervy assault on their own careers throughout with flash-cuts to Mai Lai massacre footage, atomic bombs exploding, and a running meme about them being trapped in a box. Artistic restraint? Television itself?

The darkness undercuts that wacky Monkees humor, and the humor undercuts the message, if there is one. Like I say, a mess. Still good cameos from a gigantic Victor Mature (about 30 feet tall, in a golfing ensemble), Frank Zappa, Annette Funicello; some decent music, and four skinny, appealing lads who now all hate each other.

The movie was released about 4 months after the show was cancelled. A little market research birdie told Columbia that nobody wanted to see this movie; most of the promotional material failed to mention the pre-fab four at all. Rafaelson and co-writer Jack Nicholson went on to turn out a little movie called FIVE EASY PIECES and the industry thus took its first tremulous steps back out of the wilderness. HEAD grossed in the mid-five-figures.

Hungry for more summer of love fun, I spent time listening to THE TECHNICOLOR WEB OF SOUND, an internet radio station that specializes in 1967-1971 - the music and the ads. It's dated but fresh because they play obscurities aplenty. They have the entire Carrie Nations catalog in rotation - that's the group from BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, and they're better than you'd think. The music of that era was ballsy, experimental and muscular. They didn't care what it sounded like as long as it didn't sound like something from 1965. The late seventies-early eighties had a similar vibe, and then the grunge movement had the same idea only that mostly sounded like the psychadelic era without the expanded mind aspects.

TechWebSound also plays commercials that many of the artists may wish had never been uncovered. "Jefferson Airplane for Levi Stretch Jeans!" is one of them. The Moody Blues performed several jingles for Coke. Actually, EVERYBODY worked for Coke at some point, which to me suggests that Coke has its tentacles in deeper than I've ever imagined. It's fascinating to hear advertising adapting to psychadelia and turning the love generation's ideals to its own ends.

For the record, I was around seven years old when this stuff was big, so my nostalgia for it must be wired directly to the primitive lizard part of my brain. I should be nostalgic for the mid-seventies, because that's when I first had sex. But man, the seventies? I spent a whole decade trying to escape that.

Thanks To the Commenters

It's more fun to crank this stuff out when people write back to disagree with you. My most frequent commenter has been my ol' pal Skot; and I want to welcome "Madeline's Dad", a man who takes his identity from his very fatherhood. See him as WAMK under a few recent evolution-based threads.

Less frequent, but memorable commenters have included a guy from Reason Magazine Online who wrote to discuss the orgins of "jump the shark"; a kid who ridiculed me for being all emo, and a Film professor who was pleased that I noticed the deeper undercurrents of STARSHIP TROOPERS. I love you all, except the emo kid, whom I will kill if we ever meet.

Fear Of A (color=x) Planet

Okay, the whole day goes by and I still can't shake Dobbs.

It's not just him. Check out this O'Reilly quote:

But do you understand what the New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part, and so am I, and they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have.

A few months back Charlie John Gibson was on a similar bandwagon, without the left bashing, calling for white people to have more babies or by 2050 "we" will be in the minority. Lou Dobbs continually insists that he has nothing against Mexicans as a people, only that their increased numbers in the country will cause economic disaster, leprosy and, uh, I dunno, a gradual shift to different national holidays.

I have said it before, but white people, black people, Jewish people, Muslim people, female people, Swedish people - they're all people, dude. The differences between are pretty tiny compared to the similarities. If the country were 90% Mexican, it would actually be run about the same as it is now. It's a big concept to wrap your mind around, because we focus on superficiality - skin color, accents, peculiarities in the way we worship - but ultimately, as groups there are few important differences.

As individuals of course, the differences between two people are often vast. I'm just talking about us vs. them, not me vs. you.

So racism is, to use an inelegant metaphor, no more than being afraid of your own shadow.

I think this is true of politics as well. My first urge is to believe Republicans are too stupid to understand the world like I do, but that's stupid. They're intelligent people who are getting different information than I am. They want the same thing I do too, a better America which is fair to its citizens, only we disagree about the best ways to accomplish it.

The dangerous meme that's making its way around Republican circles this generation though is the idea that the non-Republicans are so far gone that they must be stopped by any means necessary. Hence the willingness to cage votes, to fix elections, to cheat. Of course it's wrong, but to them it's better than the alternative. The history of politics in the last 30 years (probably much, much longer) seems to be one of stacking up the wrongs in hopes of eventually making a right of some kind. In practice, it virtually guarantees a never-ending assembly line of revenge plots. Viva L'Acme!

This fear of the other is so deeply ingrained in human nature that I suppose only evolution will rid us of it. Glad I believe in evolution, or I'd see no hope at all.

By the way, creationists - what a buncha jerkoffs.

My Cheap Shot: Lou Dobbs

Dobbs doesn't want Mexicans in the country because the more we have, the more orange he looks by comparison.

Leiberman Visits Iraq; "Happy with Progress"

For God's sake, someone in the state department stop these people before they pursue photo ops in Iraq! What the hell kind of message is this?

Do what the president did yesterday - build an Iraqi street in Georgia, and visit THAT. Then you can walk in your shirtsleeves. You can even have a couple of "locals" greet you as a liberator, on camera. You kiss a baby, buy a couple of rugs, maybe even wrestle a terrorist to the ground with your bare hands. Whatever. Will it seem faked? Of course, but we're used to it now!

By the way, it's apparently the 2nd anniversary of Cheney's "last throes" remark: “the level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline.” And yes it will, after a final violent spasm which is just around the corner. The country is still pretty twitchy -- two years is a long time to be in throes -- but that's why it will be too exhausted to fight us over here! We are sitting in the catbird seat, my friends. This war is as good as won. But we still should probably occupy it for at least 50 more years. Why take chances. Pulling out is dangerous, and could cost lives.

Real Borders Aren't Photogenic

The President gives a speech at a simulated Border crossing in Glynco, Georgia to push the immigration bill.

Glynco, Georgia? Surrounded by the United States on three sides, and a small beach town on the fourth. What border crossing do you know that abuts a lush forest?

So I can see giving a speech in Georgia about immigration. And I can see a photo op at a border being a good idea. BUILDING a border crossing for the purposes of a speech has a bit of a let-them-eat-cake quality to it though.

Well, I'm sure they'll find some use for the structure after today, like, uh, a carpet warehouse or some kind of immigration theme park. Work with me here, people.

I Don't Blame Cindy

Just a shout out to Cindy Sheehan - why not quit? It's pretty clear now that the cause is lost, when most of the country wants us out of Iraq but Congress is too weak or stupid to try. And I know you're going to get more people calling you an attention whore, from both sides now, which is ridiculous. Sure, that's the reason you've been protesting. It's like gay people -- they choose to be gay not because they have to, but because they enjoy the abuse and the beatings.

Ah, compassionate conservatism - they fight the greiving moms, the war veterans, the 9/11 survivors, the Parkinson's disease sufferers, and the AARP. It takes a special kind of courage, but that's just how they roll.

Anyway Cindy, one day this will all be over. I'd say we can have a good laugh over it then, but it will be over because the nuclear winter will forstall any mass communication for a few hundred years, and then we'll have all forgotten politics and be fighting each other based on skin color and religion, like it's supposed to be.

(Extra bitter today - sorry, bad coffee.)

6000 Years At The Museum

Click on the title and you'll get a tour, via Reuters, of the new Creation Museum in Kentucky. It's like many natural history museums, only it explains how all species on earth were present on Noah's Ark, including dinosaurs.

"What we've done here is to give people an opportunity to hear information that is not readily available ... to challenge them that really you can believe the Bible's history," said Ken Ham, president of the group Answers in Genesis that founded the museum.

Here exhibits show the Grand Canyon took just days to form during Noah's flood, dinosaurs coexisted with humans and had a place on Noah's Ark, and Cain married his sister to people the earth, among other Biblical wonders.

Man, the graffiti in that place is gonna be MAGNIFICENT.

Read the article and ask your creationist friend how many of those premises they're buying into.

What You Don't Know: Coelacanth Hurt You

There's a cheapie monochrome sci-fi movie from the fifties which has stayed in my head. Called MONSTER ON CAMPUS, it's the story of a college professor who gets a hold of the long-extinct frozen Coelacanth, which is a breed of fish. A mosquito feeds on the blood and becomes a gigantic pre-historic monster mosquito; the scientist somehow puts his hand in the Coelacanth's mouth, gets "bitten" and finds himself reverting to caveman form, only at night. Kind of a were-caveman, if you will. If you take the fish out of the equation, ALTERED STATES is a remake of MONSTER ON CAMPUS.

So last week, this Indonesian guy caught a Coelacanth!

Much as I love the 'canths, (by the way, another one was caught in 1998) the story might not have come to my attention if it hadn't been flagged by the WHERE ARE MY KEYS blog, because somehow the existence of a Coelocanth disproves evolution.

I'll tell you what I thought was extinct - debate about evolution. And like that Indonesian, I'd heard that such a thing exists but I never thought I'd see one face to face. But I have spent the better part of the week arguing about the origin of species. While I kept imagining myself in a white 3 piece suit, mopping my brow with a cotton handkerchief while gently mocking my learned opponent before a jury of farmers, the thing that fascinated me most is these bloggers weren't creationists. They were simply conservatives.

It's no longer a battle of faith versus science. Apparently now it's a territory war. The Right believes that the schools have a liberal bias and they want back in. You can add schools to the media, Muslims and the blogosphere on the list of organizations which somehow are against them. The evolutionists control the banks and the media!

My problem with teaching creationism in science classes is, of course, that it is the opposite of science. Creationism is philosophy. Come to think of it, how would those people react to a requirement that Darwin be given equal attention at Bob Jones University? I brought something up in the debate but no one reacted to it: you can believe in God AND evolution pretty easily. Why not a world where God creates, then allows things to evolve? The thing that bothers creationists is the fossil record is older than 4000 6000 years, which is how old they think the bible says the Earth is. If you buy evolution, you can't buy a literal Bible.

And since very few people think that way, creationists keep that part on the downlow. Pin one of 'em down on it some time. It's fun!

Anyway, let's tie up the loose ends. A. Finding a long-thought-extinct species doesn't disprove evolution, it proves we were mistaken about it being extinct. If a branch of the Coelacanth didn't evolve, it simply means that branch was able to survive under its local conditions. B. There is such a thing as evolution. You will never be able to prove it to creationists (I gave up trying) in the same way that you'll never convince some people that we never landed on the moon. Faith trumps evidence; it has to. Otherwise why call it faith? C. Just because they didn't respond to the age-of-earth thing, doesn't mean they wouldn't have a counter-argument. I'll grant that.

Oh, and D. The were-caveman is a metaphor for the regression of rational thought. I wish I could have done that one more artfully.

Make Your Own Cola, Then Never Drink Cola Again

This link takes you to a recipe for open-source cola! You can mix the stuff up yourself.

The downside to the process, as pointed out by BoingBoing, is that you realize the Cola is just a cup of sugar with enough other ingredients to dissolve it. Plus, you may want to pay attention to these warnings:

• Caffeine can be toxic in high doses. Be careful not to add too much to your mixture, and do not ingest large quantities.
• Many of the oils needed for flavoring can burn skin. Use caution when preparing. They can also dissolve the plastic lining of a refrigerator; store with caution.
• Gum arabic is available in two forms, art grade, and food grade. Be sure to get food grade Gum arabic, or you could have an unpleasant toxic reaction.

So, thirsty?

Defeatocrats

Harry Shearer, a pretty snarky guy, gets seriously nasty at Congress for backing down from Iran benchmarks and withdrawal dates here. In my experience Harry is almost always right. No change this time, either.

What the hell were they thinking? Here is how it should have played out: Congress submits funding bill with timetables. President vetoes. Repeat many, many times. Each time, Bush would say that Congress is refusing to fund the troops, and each time Pelosi would point out that they are submitting funding bills. Gradually the troops would run out of money, and Bush would have to choose between not accepting what amounts to suggestions on when to bring them home and bringing them home himself, or just abandoning the Army entirely.

However, they changed course. I'm certain that the recent poll which placed congressional approval at 29% had everything to do with it. They thought, somehow, that Americans wanted them to keep funding the war. Even though it's pretty obvious that they were elected to STOP the war.

You can learn much from GW Bush, but the biggest takeway is this - no matter how low his polls go, he will always have a core group who admire him for holding on to his insane, mistaken beliefs. He's consistent on some things, and it gives him the illusion of conviction. Would it kill Democrats to stop triangulating for a while? I'm in favor of compromising when reasonable people can disagree about things, but another thing you can learn from GW Bush is he's not reasonable.

It's also possible that congress remembers the early 90's budget showdown between Gingrich and Clinton. In that scenario, ultimately, Congress got blamed as the obstructionists. I can see the analogy but listen kids: Conservatives are ALWAYS the obstructionists. It's built into the definition of conservatism.

Anyway, I hope the current version of the bill gets voted down before it even reaches the President, because it's hella bad strategy. And I further hope that when 2008 comes around, there's a plausible 3rd party candidate.

Double Negative Doesn't Not Speak Truth

Hat Tip To Wonkette: look at this item from Roll Call, a congressional publication!

Vice President Cheney isn’t not on the phone records of the alleged D.C. Madam, who is accused of running a high-price call-girl ring in Washington, the accused madam’s lawyer said on Tuesday.

This is the entirety of the item.

Let's examine the possibilities. The D.C. Madam's lawyer is being quoted correctly, in which case he's saying that Cheney paid for it. Or a copywriter misquoted, in which case the lawyer is or is not saying it.

I think they are trying to say Cheney was a client, but they're hoping that the message is confusing enough that the Administration won't understand and therefore take no action; such action presumably involving a black cloth bag and and a long drive in a windowless van, for starters.

And yes, for you to believe this you have to believe that Cheney has some element of human sexual response that you didn't think him capable of. Deal with it. At least it's not Ashcroft.

Mo Rocca Settles The Dispute

Mo Rocca, former Daily Show correspondent and a man who can rattle off all 50 state capitols at the drop of a hat, has weighed in on the whole Jimmy Carter imbroglio with a blog post entitled, "Boys, Boys! You're BOTH Crappy Presidents!" Worthwhile reading. He does pick one for the worst, but the margins are razor thin.

Better Safe Than Sorry?

I'm pro-choice (term of art, perhaps, but you know what I mean) so I was intrigued by an editorial in yesterday's Boston Globe by Dean Barnett. Mr. Barnett opposes abortion not on religious grounds, or even moral ones, strictly speaking. The argument boils down thus: we can't agree on when "life begins". Is it at the moment of birth? Conception? Since no one really knows, we must not allow abortion of any kind.

This logic appeals to me. Though in fact, it IS a moral argument, based on the idea that killing another human being is wrong. If you accept that as fact, then you should oppose abortion. And that's where this turns ugly, especially for the modern conservative. Because in no way do most people think it's wrong to kill another human being.

First, I'll grant you that self-defense is an exception. If someone is trying to kill you, you have a right to defend yourself, because you're preventing someone from being killed. But most Americans believe in the death penalty. In this scenario, the man who wants to kill is isolated and prevented from killing you. Killing that man (or woman - I'm talkin' to you, Aileen!) is purely a matter of choice. Maybe this killer would have gone on to renounce their evil ways, perhaps even contribute a valuable book to society. If the majority of Americans support the death penalty, they have no reason to oppose abortion.

Then there is the war. If you support the Iraq war, in which we attacked a country either because we believed they had WMDs or to liberate the country from the oppressive murderous overlord who ran it, well, either way we're killing people because we choose to. Support the war? Leave my foetus alone!

I have no idea how Dean Barnett feels about the war OR the death penalty, though I will point out that he frequently writes for the Weekly Standard and Hugh Hewitt. If he's anti-war or anti-death-penalty, I doubt he'd be welcome there. Still if he is, then more power to him. And congratulations on a good, but problematic argument.

Adwords - Does It Make Adsense?

I just bought a Google AdWords ad. For a maximum of $50 bucks a month I'm advertising BOX OFFICE WEEKLY, my showbiz podcast. It's not throwing money away either - I'm attempting to draw people to the site in hopes that they'll click on the banners, which are essentially other Google AdWords. Someone is going to make money in all this, and I think at least one of them is named Sergey.

There is no way on God's green Earth that I'll ever receive enough clicks to max out the $50 bucks. Worst case scenario is someone will start a click-war with me and start clicking on my ad just to sabotage me and force the limit, but those scenarios are disputable and I think I read in Wired that Google caves most of the time.

Cameron Reilly, the good-lookin' Australian who runs the Podcast Network, has frequently chided me for my poor podcast numbers. It's a compliment really - he thinks the show is good enough that I should have more listeners. He's right of course. If I were smart I'd overcome my shyness and aggressively pursue interviews with people more famous than myself. Whether you like a show or not, you may be interested in the guy they're talking to ON the show.

Which reminds me - on this week's show I fulfilled a long-held evil plan and put in a story about Halo 3. I've had an eye out for Halo stories ever since I noticed that I get more search-engine hits for the phrase "Halo" than anything else. All because I wrote ONE STORY about the cancelled Halo movie in October. Them Halo people is nuts! Anyway, in a few days I'll see that that serendipity has panned out. The story, by the way, is that they're releasing an early beta of a portion of the online battle segment of the game, to make y'all salivate for the late fall release of the complete beta. That oughtta sell a few X-Boxes!

If you see the adSense box, click on it. I can afford it.

Mischief for Lazy Bastards

In an attempt to quantify just how easy it is to infect someone's computer with a virus, a guy paid Google adwords to run the following:

Is your PC virus free? Get it infected here!

He ran the ad for six months and 409 people clicked on it.

Personally, I'm a Mac guy and I take it for granted that no one writes viruses for me (there ain't no future in that) so I probably would have clicked on it just to see what happens. But according to Didier Stevens, 98% of the respondents were Windows users. Disappointingly there was no virus; perhaps he'll be getting angry mail about that in the future.

What I take away from this story, by the way, is that it's really cheap to buy some space on Google Adwords. I need to push the podcast that way.

Jerry Falwell

I hate to speak ill of the dead.

Exxon-Mobil Is Always Secretly Plotting Against Us

Tomorrow is, if your spam filter isn't working properly, the day you are supposed to boycott the gas companies. Don't buy gas on May 15th! That'll teach them! That's a day of gas profits lost forever, yes?

Oh hell no.

These boycotts pop up about every eight months and have not had the effect of bringing down prices of anything. As far as I can tell, here is what happens when you do this - because the demand for gas doesn't change, you are causing a sales spike today and May 16th, for starters. Also, the guy who is struggling to keep his franchise running on the corner has to be sure to schedule less people on the 15th, and since it's usually one guy anyway it will probably be him. If it's already him, he's just losing money on the 15th and he'll have longer wait times today and the 16th. His oil suppliers will not even notice a difference.

So buy enough gas tomorrow so that you can drive to the commuter center and take public transportation to work. Or get more, so you can drive to the weirdo dealer at the edge of town, and reserve a SMART car. Or get yourself a nice bike.

And walk to the store once in a while, will ya? You could stand to take off a couple pounds, am I right? Of course I'm right. You're American.

Mitt Romney: A Nice Enough Fellow

Look, he's really, really likable. And as a presidential candidate there's a lot of things to recommend him, mostly things he is not. He has never cross-dressed in public, for example. He's no atheist! And he is pro-gun enough to join the NRA, but not to go around shooting stuff.

Unfortunately, he's weird.

First of all, the name. What the hell is "Mitt" short for? Mitchell? Mitschlag? And Romney is pretty hard to place too.

Then there is the favorite novel remark. "Battlefield Earth?" He's either currying favor with a tiny coalition of scientologists; or he really likes the book. NOBODY really likes the book. It's abominable.

There is Mormonism. It looks nice from a distance, and they're all really clean-cut folks, but they're also, well, different than other Christians. You should have been watching in the 1800's though; THEN it was really nutty. Nowadays it's just a touch eccentric. It's kind of like a toothless Scientology. And how is a president going to effectively govern without access to caffeine?

Finally, there is the remark he made in speech over the weekend:

“In France, for instance, I’m told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past.”

Completely untrue, based on nothing. No one knows where he got it from. Crazy talk!

He's still more normal than McCain though.

Bush Jokes That Queen is Over 230 Years Old!

The president thanked the 84-year-old monarch for helping America celebrate its bicentennial "in 1776." Recovering from his slip, Bush gave the queen a sheepish smile and told the audience that she had given him "a look only a mother could give."

Nazi Porn Vs. Terrorist Gangs

The NRA has spoken up for the right of people on the terrorist watch list to own firearms. This horrifies a lot of people, but not me. After all, there are two mitigating factors here. One of course is the right to bear arms is guaranteed in the constitution, and once you start excluding people it's not a guarantee. The second is that watch list is mighty large, arbitrary and capricious.

The founding fathers wanted us to have guns to protect ourselves. Not just from each other, but from the government. They wanted what they never had in England, the right to keep the King's forces from entering their homes. Gun ownership is just another one of those checks and balances built into American democracy.

Like all big ideas this one has a downside, and it's this: if you allow everyone to have guns, the percentage of gun agression will be higher. And the question is, is this bathwater bad enough to throw out the baby of gun rights with?

The NRA finds itself in the same philosophical quandry as the ACLU. They too defend a constitutional principal by refusing to ignore it's most unpopular ramifications. Free speech is free speech, even if it means that you can't outlaw Nazi rallies. Even if you can't outlaw porn. It's weird that the left sides with the ACLU and the right sides with the NRA, because they're both doing the same work. The ACLU defended Rush Limbaugh when he had one of his drug run-ins a year or two ago. If Michael Moore was caught with a concealed firearm, the NRA might very well help him out. I would hope so! I would also hope Moore has the presense of mind to carry that firearm, 'cause a lot of crazies hate him.

With both free speech AND gun ownership, a complete lack of restraint is more dangerous than helpful. We don't need home AK-47s, and we don't need to allow calls for lynching in the public square. We do, however, need organizations who will fight for these things, if only to be sure that they are bad ideas.

Startling New Health Theory!

Caught a nasty head cold yesterday - sore throat, congestion, fever, and malaise. I even took the day off work. A SICK day! During which I actually was SICK!

There has been this pattern throughout my life - I stop exercizing regularly, then I start up again, and soon I become ill. When I get better I resume exercizing with no ill effect, except of course disappointment that I don't have a body like Mel Gibson. For years I've concluded that the resumption of activity has somehow awakened dormant toxins. The increased blood flow scoops them out and sends them to the rest of my system.

So I caught up on a couple of TIVO'd episodes of HOUSE, which led me to think differently about this conundrum. I had a psychiatrist appointment (by the way, I'm officially not depressive until further notice! Woo hoo!) and I was bitching in the waiting room about my cold, and another crazy person told me there was a lot of it going around, because of the crazy weather we've been having. The psychiatrist said the same.

So here's what I'm thinking - exercize doesn't cause the colds. The weather changes cause me to think, "I should be exercizing" and that coincides with my colds. Makes sense. Commercial televsion spurs logical thought! Who'd have seen THAT coming?

Bush Hands Me a Metaphor On A Silver Platter

No sooner do I finish writing about Law Day when I learn that yesterday, the President proclaimed May 1st Loyalty Day! As per the proclomation:

America was founded by patriots who risked their lives to bring freedom to our Nation. Today, our citizens are grateful for our Founding Fathers and confident in the principles that lead us forward. On Loyalty Day, we celebrate the blessings of freedom and remember our responsibility to continue our legacy of liberty.

So listen - here's your proof that the President values loyalty above everything else, even the law itself. As though it wasn't obvious already. Buy your streamers now - June 1st is "Public Disagreement Is Treason" Day.

Happy Law Day

Since 1958 May 1st has been desginated Law Day in America. As the Law Library of Congress web page says: "Law Day provides an opportunity for everyone to reflect on our legal heritage, on the role of law, and on the rights and duties which are the foundation of peace and prosperity for all mankind."

Who knew? Why hasn't this gotten more press? There oughtta be a law.

Personally I'm tempted to use the day as an opportunity to take cheap shots at Alberto (quaint Geneva Conventions) Gonzales, but law itself is interesting. It's one of those concepts, like money, which only makes sense because we all agree it makes sense. Just as you can trade a piece of green paper for a Famous Amos cookie because we all say they are worth the same thing, we obey laws because it would be a less safe world without them.

The best law, symbolically, is traffic law. Everybody can understand why it's best that we keep to one side of the road and maintain regular speeds, because the alternative is obviously death and bad traffic. Other law can be a little obscure, and often it's counter-productive and self-contratdicting. We love law so much that we try to make it cover everything. The only thing harder than making a dumb law is getting rid of it. The books are filled with "no-slapping-a-horse-in-the-public-square" ordinances.

It's also pretty easy to confuse law with morality. The two should have little to do with each other. Is it morally wrong to stop dead in the middle of a freeway lane? No, it's stupid. Is it morally wrong to slap a horse in private? Perhaps, but a law won't make it more so. Law shouldn't be a tool to express moral outrage. Law should be a means to keep society moving.

Punishing moral offenses is the job of religion, and guilt. Use them people! That's what they're for.

Devil Went Down To Provo

It's unfair to base your opinions of an entire political party on the crazy statements of a couple of fringe elements. In fact, it's hilariously unfair. Quoting the Salt Lake Tribune:

Utah County GOP Chairwoman Marian Monnahan says District 65 Chairman Don Larsen's resolution - asserting that illegal immigration is the devil's plan to destroy the nation by "stealth invasion" - "in no way" is endorsed by the Republican Party.

As Larsen helpfully points out in his resolution, “In order for Satan to establish his ‘New World Order’ and destroy the freedom of all people as predicted in the scriptures, he must first destroy the U.S.” Larsen thinks it is important to get this language into the public books, perhaps because we will be able to touch Satan's forehead with them and make him dissolve into a shower of sparks and dust.

The KUTV coverage of this story provided both a drawing of the devil (he resembles Cesar Romero) and a link to this story. Last year a Republican Congressional candidate in Salt Lake City named John Jacob blamed the Devil for his difficult campaign.

Jacob says that since he decided to run for Congress, Satan has disrupted his business deals, preventing him from putting as much money into the race as he had hoped.

Yep, that's right - the devil is responsible for keeping rich people out of politics. You know what that means: Satan is on Obama's side! By the way, the devil featured in this article looks more like Montel Williams, only green against a red gradient background. Curious choice, as if the devil hasn't yet been dropped into boiling water, but he'll be delicious afterward.

So as a fair-minded liberal blogger, the power of Christ compels me to point out that the majority of Republican candidates almost never blame their failures of Satan. Publicly. Like any good football team they will cite Jesus when they win something, but so will lots of Democrats. I just don't want you to go around thinking that Republicans are prone to blame everything that goes wrong on some otherworldly scapegoat.

They usually use Clinton for that.

Spupdate

Title = "spa update."

I have chosen my spa. Ultimately I had narrowed it down to three clubs - Topanga Fitness, 24-Hour Fitness, and Spectrum. I visited each club and toured with their spokes-specimen, then did a spreadsheet based on their deals.

Spectrum was the first one eliminated. Even though they had the obviously best facility, a huge building about 2 miles from my house, they also charge $80 bucks a month for the privilege of belonging. I go the gym for the weight machines and treadmills and they all have 'em; so the extra money would have been spent, essentially, to avoid working out around people like me.

Incidentally the Spectrum rep was a pudgy little guy, short and funny, like a character actor. I found him far more reassuring than the Golem I wound up signing the papers with.

At the other end of the scale, I had a sweet deal offered at the local, unenfranchised, Topanga Fitness. Farthest from my house but near the freeway; nominally on my way to work, this club offered the smallest facility but low, low prices. about $14 a month and they were going to throw in a free massage. In addition to being too far, there was no one there when I visited except a trainer and a member. I would also avoid working out around people like me; or any people for that matter. Too depressing.

I'm going with corporate behemoth 24-Hour Fitness. Three or four days a week, and I'm in for five training sessions with the goal of actually MEETING my optimum actuarial table weight and having a little definition to my torso instead of the ectomorphic pale blob it is now. My weight? If you know me you might think I'm slender, but I've been about 10-20 pounds more than the insurance people recommend for my whole life. I want to go to my death bed one day saying, "you should have known me for that month when I had a perfect body."

One can only hope I don't say it a month after.

Iraq: The Big Picture In A Spiffy New Frame

As we consider our options of when to pull out of Iraq (it seems to boil down to either October or The End Of Days) I have been pondering why we're IN there. As an exercise, I'm formulating my opinion on the basis of Right Wing talking points. After all, how am I going to convince someone of my conclusions if they disagree with my premise? So the history, disregarding whatever may have been said or implied in the past, goes like this: Iraq was in no way connected to 9/11 but we thought Saddam Hussein had WMDs. It turns out he didn't (though he probably did and shipped them to Syria before the war started, clever bastard) but now we have to stay there to fight the terrorists who are flooding into the country to fight us.

Okay, any Republicans disagree with me so far? Good. Then here is why we need to get out.

It is phenomenally immoral for us to take over another country and fight our battles there.

It would be like the Palistine invading New York because they want to fight Isreal but leave Palestine intact.

As always, I invite logical criticism. I'm the Berlin Wall baby, tear me down!

FUSION TANGO Generates Heat

My parents in-law are octogenarians. Terrifyingly they are also Tango dancers. They're not professionals, they don't do exhibition shows or anything, but Tango is one of their hobbies. So it was that they invited the little woman and me to join them at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood last night for a show called Fusion Tango, which comprised a five-man band, two singers and four couples.
Tango is a strange, exotic brew. The music - so dark and smoky and soulful, so primitive. The movements - fast, twitchy, almost insectoid in nature. This is perhaps the only dance where they insist on not smiling.
Three of the four couples were young, intense people, and they were amazing. Precise but acrobatic, I lost count of how many times a woman in a thigh-slit black dress was twirled like a sexy baton by a glowering young man with greased black hair. A few times the woman would walk away and turn her back on the fellow, only to be pulled back into his arms. Then they would dance, with less than half an inch between their taut bodies, suddenly kicking and jerking their limbs so violently that it's astonishing that no one broke any bones.
Then there was the other couple.
"Watch that guy," my mother in law said. "He's our instructor."
A stocky man in a white double breasted suit, balding, probably around 50, emerged. His partner was another 20-something in a black dress. This man was indeed, captivating. It was hard to figure out why at first. Sure part of it was the narrative. An older man dancing so close to a girl obviously too young for him, that carries some drama. But there was something else. I couldn't put my finger on it.
Finger!
The man was doing a lot of his dancing with his hands. Where another couple had swung each other like ice skaters, this man would pause, almost motionless, and lift one finger to shake at the bandeleon player. Or he'd fill a beat by caressing the girl from her shoulder blade to the small of her back. Or he'd rub his thumb along his fingertips. Tiny, precise movements, perfectly in rhythm.
He had managed to make his hands a third, separate performer in the dance.
Needless to say, he was the most popular of all the dancers. If you are young you can get attention by defying gravity. At his age, that's out of the question and you look towards less strenuous ways to tell the story. Instead of dazzling footwork, he did dazzling fingertip work. Though his footwork was quite accomplished as well.
For me, economy of movement trumps amazing movement every time. I'd rather see that bald guy dance than see Lance Burton, all things considered.
And this is why, as the entertainment world shrinks and investors pull out, there will still be good movies and TV shows. Because there are plenty of bald guys who know how to make it work without special effects. Even some guys with hair.

(Hear this read on the Box Office Weekly podcast here)

Media Matters' Unfair Verbatim Quoting

O'REILLY: OK. The website you got it off is called Media Matters, which is an assassination website. It's a far-left propaganda thing. Now, I do two hours -- you do radio, two hours as well. They'll take two, three sentences; they'll put it on out of context. - Bill O'Reilly on Ireland's The Late Late Show

I don't do this often for fear of sounding strident, but it's fair if you're only stridenting back. Media Matters has been mischaracterized.

O'Reilly is correct in perceiving a leftward bias in Media Matters. I don't recall ever seeing them writing up a Democrat. Probably at some point they've quoted Joe Lieberman or Zell Miller, but these people are Democrats in (D) only. If you want FAIR bullshit-calling, you should take Dick Cheney's advice and go to factcheck.org. As for "far-left" well, if Colin Powell ever publishes a book exposing his REAL feelings about his time with GWB, they'll call HIM far-left too.

However, what Media Matters does fairly is this: They accurately quote their adversaries and go out of their way to provide context. For example, if somebody says something odious in a segment of a pundit show, they will usually reprint the transcript of the entire segment. When they don't do that, they provide a link to the transcript.

It's true they boldface the quotes they want to call your attention toward.

Probably the thing that bothers O'Reilly and Tammy Bruce and Rush Limbaugh and Melanie Morgan about the site is in addition to all the other info in their articles, they publish contact info. They'll give the show's email address, along with this disclaimer: "When contacting the media, please be polite and professional. Express your specific concerns regarding that particular news report or commentary, and be sure to indicate exactly what you would like the media outlet to do differently in the future." I'm guessing not everyone who writes takes that advice, but Media Matters isn't revealing any private addresses and at least they make the attempt to maintain civility.

It's a lot easier to attack the messenger then to try to explain (or God forbid apologize for) an offensive remark, especially if you pop 'em out like waffles on a daily basis.

Broken Valve

Beltway insiders must envy me today - many of them were obligated to attend the clearly miserable White House Correspondent's Dinner, while I get to read the highlights. While they were eating rubber banquet food, I was enjoying top quality salmon at a good seafood restaurant in Calabasas. And while I listened to my mother-in-law's account of her most recent health scare, they had to endure Rich Little.

My mother in law, for the record, is just fine. Comedy itself has been dealt a mortal blow.

The bizarrely un-hip booking is a reaction to Steven Colbert's turn last year, which was clearly TOO hip. Colbert's speech was the equivalent of walking into a crowded pool hall on tournament night and screaming "billiards sucks!" To make the scenario more apt, I'd add that the judges have long ago decided to always pick Bob as the winner, even though everyone knows that Bob can't play.

Little addressed the bad Colbertian taste in the mouths of attendants with his opening lines.

"I'm not here to make any political points," the veteran comic said. "...I'm just here tonight trying to make enough money to get my relatives out of Canada."

He then wisely stuck to Nixon jokes, Johnny Carson jokes - basically humor which had absolutely no relation to anyone in the room who happened to be alive. Because those people can be a little testy, dontcha know.

Unfortunately, by all accounts the act went over like Colbert's but with the substance removed. As Wonkette pointed out, the President said he wouldn't be funny in light of the Virginia Tech shootings, and Little bravely did the same. But I think he was on the right track, because Rich Little understands the WHCD.

The dinner is a safety valve.

It's a public truce between the White House and the press, who spend the rest of the year trashing each other. It's a way of saying, "we recognize that what you do is essential to the functioning of a healthy democracy, no matter what we may say." If it's swung from too mean to not mean enough, perhaps it's because neither side has been doing their job properly. Democracy has gotten a pretty raw deal these last six years.

Meanwhile, away from the podium, Laurie David and Sheryl Crow approached Karl Rove while he was eating, to talk to him about global warming. Rove is said to have snapped at them; Crow reportedly reminded him, "you work for me!" To which Rove responded, "I work for the American people." This response is the key to Karl Rove. If you don't agree with everything he says, you are NOT AN AMERICAN. To Karl Rove, only 35% or so of us are Americans. The rest are, I guess, the terrorists.

Helluva choice, siding with Rove or the Terrorists. My choice is that they both have to go.

Setup, Punchline

One official, who works closely with Gonzales, described him as "out of touch" with the political pulse in Washington. (courtesy CNN)

NOW he's out of touch with politics?

Clubbin' For Health

I'm considering joining a gym. Not one of those public gymnasiums that all cities are sponsoring nowadays, but a privately held, bright primary colors, meat-market-style gym. It has to do with a desire to shave down this gut, which in turn has to do with my ongoing midlife crisis, now entering its sixth year.

For a long time I belonged to Bally's, and I gotta admit I had a sweet deal with those guys. In the eighties they offered this insane rate - something like a $400 initiation fee but $60 a year membership dues. That didn't last long, but I got in on it, and they honored the commitment for a long time. Up until 2005 I paid it despite never actually going to a Bally's, because it was 4 miles from my house in the wrong direction. I didn't want to give it up, because even though I was getting nothing for the money, it was a bargain nothing.

Now that I'm considering other local gyms, I'm lamenting that deal all the more. The best deal is this tiny l'il gym near the freeway that will cost me about $300 a year. Next best deal, $400 and change. All so I can can stave off the icy hand of decay for a few extra years, and maybe, just maybe, catch the eye of a college girl; who will cooley appraise me before turning her head and chuckling silently to herself, as she tones up for her date with Lars, the trainer. If I'm smart I'll just stick with plan B, which is a daily run around the neighborhood except when it's too cold. Healthful, but not much fun.

Either way, it's cheaper than a Testerossa.

Keepin' The Poor In Line

Skot's comments on my post yesterday led to an interesting conclusion, which reinforces a long held idea of mine. He said:

"Antiquated" social concepts like bourgeois propriety and noblesse oblige have become fading memories, but perhaps they served an unsuspected purpose: self-preservation.

It's oh so true. I read a lot of angry conservatives, people who are furious because they have to pay for their medical care while John Doe is given free medicine at the clinic. Or free food in the form of government vouchers. The AC will lambaste the bleeding heart liberal like myself for coddling the poor.

Listen pal, I ain't coddling nothin'. The poor scare me s**tless.

Here in the big city, you're surrounded by the poor. If you don't give them medical attention, they won't go out and get jobs. They'll get sick. They'll throw up in the streets. They'll catch the bird flu, and you, the rich guy, will catch it from them.

When the poor are hungry enough, they don't get jobs. If they could get jobs, most of them wouldn't be poor! What they'll do instead is steal YOUR food out of desperation. Then you'll be poor, foodless, catching some nasty virus. Good luck.

Remember, when you give a man a fish, you help him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you keep him from sneaking in and eating all your f**king fish.

The Future Is Now

The good people at BoingBoing pointed me in the direction of a series of predictions that were made by the Ladies Home Journal in 1900. What wonders are we supposed to be experiencing today?

Prediction #3: Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. Exercise will be compulsory in the schools. Every school, college and community will have a complete gymnasium. All cities will have public gymnasiums. A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling.

Prediction #9: Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later. Even to-day photographs are being telegraphed over short distances. Photographs will reproduce all of Nature’s colors.

Prediction #11: No Mosquitoes nor Flies. Insect screens will be unnecessary. Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been practically exterminated. Boards of health will have destroyed all mosquito haunts and breeding-grounds, drained all stagnant pools, filled in all swamp-lands, and chemically treated all still-water streams. The extermination of the horse and its stable will reduce the house-fly.

Prediction #12: Peas as Large as Beets. Peas and beans will be as large as beets are to-day. Sugar cane will produce twice as much sugar as the sugar beet now does. Cane will once more be the chief source of our sugar supply. The milkweed will have been developed into a rubber plant. Cheap native rubber will be harvested by machinery all over this country. Plants will be made proof against disease microbes just as readily as man is to-day against smallpox. The soil will be kept enriched by plants which take their nutrition from the air and give fertility to the earth.

Prediction #16: There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second.

Prediction #21: Hot and Cold Air from Spigots. Hot or cold air will be turned on from spigots to regulate the temperature of a house as we now turn on hot or cold water from spigots to regulate the temperature of the bath. Central plants will supply this cool air and heat to city houses in the same way as now our gas or electricity is furnished. Rising early to build the furnace fire will be a task of the olden times. Homes will have no chimneys, because no smoke will be created within their walls.

Prediction #28: There will be no wild animals except in menageries. Rats and mice will have been exterminated. The horse will have become practically extinct. A few of high breed will be kept by the rich for racing, hunting and exercise. The automobile will have driven out the horse. Cattle and sheep will have no horns. They will be unable to run faster than the fattened hog of today. A century ago the wild hog could outrun a horse. Food animals will be bred to expend practically all of their life energy in producing meat, milk, wool and other by-products. Horns, bones, muscles and lungs will have been neglected.

So, basically they were dead-on. Which reminds me, I have to telegraph a picture to my cold-air plant, because I found a house-fly in the spigot. After that, a visit to the public gymnasium, then a delicious bone-less steak! Ah, these are the good times.

Et Tu, Barack?

There's the "verbal violence" of Imus.
There's "the violence of men and women who have worked all their lives and suddenly have the rug pulled out from under them because their job is moved to another country."

Courtesy REASON, which pulls the quotes from THE POLITCO, which I can't access from work. The Obama speech apparently equates these examples with the shootings. I'm all for the O-man, but this is the worst kind of rhetoric, and at way too early a juncture. I'll write further if I find a transcript of the speech.

Virginia Tech: Notes From the Dark Side

I'm certainly against politcizing the tragedy of the Virginia Tech Shootings. But I think we can all enjoy the spectacle of OTHER people politicizing it.

First, hat tip to Wonkette: a commenter in the alt.fan.rushlimbaugh newsgroup.

The Korean Shooter Was A Democrat And A Terrorist
1.Cho said he hated rich Americans. That is typical of class envy and democrats.
2.Cho said he hates American society. Again, that is typical of socialistic, communistic democrats.
3.Cho planned ever detail of his attack.
4.Cho attacked the USA because of his hatred for America.
Though he was a lone actor, Cho was a terrorist because he hated who and what WE are though he was going to one of our finest Universities. Cho was one more terrorst attacking the USA because we are NOT what he wanted us to be, just like muslim extremists who hate us and have killed us for not being like them.

If you crave video, check out Olberman's Worst Person In The World, VT Edition. Note John Derbyshire's response: “I’m still not too clear about who this Keith Omdurman character is. He’s plainly a leftie, though — one of that legion who pine for the days when they could tongue-polish Stalin’s boots — so I am proud to be top of his Worst list.” (hat tip to Think Progress). Way to soothe those ruffled feathers, Derbyshire!

The New York Times argues for Gun Control, as though that would have stopped the whole thing. Michelle Malkin, bless her big adorable heart, argues that the tragedy would have been controlled had we only allowed ALL the students to carry guns. "What if just one student in one of those classrooms had been in lawful possession of a concealed weapon for the purpose of self-defense?" Indeed! Let's pass 'em out to the high school kids too... how would that hurt anything?

The President's comments at various points have been distinctly un-political, sensitive and presidential. Logged and noted, sir.

Finally, my favorite: The argument that somehow, allowing abortion leads to campus shootings. I can follow the logic train on that one, but I think I'll catch the war-of-choice-leads-to-campus-shootings express instead. Less detours, dontcha know.

=================================

Update: BoingBoing steers us in the direction of an all-purpose essay written just after the 9/11 attack.

Many people will use this terrible tragedy as an excuse to put through a political agenda other than my own. This tawdry abuse of human suffering for political gain sickens me to the core of my being. Those people who have different political views from me ought to be ashamed of themselves for thinking of cheap partisan point-scoring at a time like this. In any case, what this tragedy really shows us is that, so far from putting into practice political views other than my own, it is precisely my political agenda which ought to be advanced.

No General Conclusions

Yeah, I avoided writing about the Virginia College shootings yesterday. I avoided reading about them. The story is kind of outside my beat.

However, even if I wasn't a smart aleck I think I'd steer clear of this, because our opinions mean nothing in the face of such an awful event. Something this tragic and isolated cannot be helped by Monday-morning quarterbacking. I've seen a call to ban firearms, which wouldn't have helped because firearms are already banned at schools. I've seen the opposite expressed also, as if somehow we'd have safer schools if MORE kids were armed.

The most predictably asinine opinion I've see expressed is that because Cho Seung-Hui was an immigrant we must curb immigration. This is absurd, as ridiculous as the call to ban long overcoats after Columbine. Overcoats don't kill people, disturbed people do. Seung-Hui had been living in the US for 14 years. If you want to rule on the grounds of nationality, we should ban Americans from America.

What we need to do as a result of this is mourn. Nothing more. Life is precious and sometimes short, and we cannot predict how it will end. A thing like Virginia Tech makes the news precisely because it rare and horrible. Throwing fear at it won't make it stop. Mourn, move on, treasure every moment in which there is not a shooting or terrorist attack or medical emergency. Beyond that, it's out of your control.

Considering The World's Ugliest Dog

Yesterday Animal Planet re-aired the 2006 WORLD'S UGLIEST DOG competition. Like the Miss Universe Competition, the applicant pool is curiously limited - no applicants from outside the US for World's Ugliest Dog, no applicants from other planets for Miss Universe. You'd think at least Venus would have someone in the running. In any event, that is where the resemblance between the two competitions ends.

When you think of ugly dogs you are probably picturing a bulldog, or a chihuahua. That is unless you've see a picture of the late Sam, legendary multi-year winner of this competition.



Sam is the stuff of nightmares, Cujo would be scared away from Sam. George Romero's production company, working for 2 years nonstop, wouldn't have come up with half the dog Sam is. (Sam's widow, incidentally, took 3rd place in her category! Work it, sistah!)

Quite a few of the finalists resembled each other. They were small, hairless except for a wiry patch on the tops of their heads, and they had tongues which hung out the sides of their mouths because they lacked front teeth. They were all pure breds, of the group "Chinese Crested." And this fascinates me. Because these dogs, with their imperfections, health problems, and singular unappealing looks, have been made that way on purpose. It's literally the opposite of eugenics. "Malgenics?"

It's especially weird when you consider that there aren't a lot of rewards to owning an ugly dog. Worst case scenario is people comment on how much dogs look like their owners, but there are also extra expenses involved. For example, one dog featured on the program was almost put to sleep for her constant pain until the vet realized that a daily dose of phenobarbitol would fix the problem. Would you keep your dog if it needed more drugs than you do AND scared the neighbor's kids? Of course not, no more than you'd keep a child with those qualities.

Looking at these dogs make me glad that I have one gorgeous dog and one dog who is goofy but appealing. But if I had a hideous parody of a dog, I would love him too. Assuming I could determine a sex at all.

Imus In The Gloaming

"Life is being on the wire, everything else is just waiting." - the late Karl Wallenda

Man, bad week to be Don Imus! On Monday he had a nationally syndicated radio show and it was simulcast live on MSNBC - here it is Friday, and he's the local morning guy on a sports station. All because of a muttered description of a woman's basketball team. Had he just followed the herd and ignored woman's basketball, he'd be on his way to Santorum's house by now for cocktails.

I'm not going to repeat the phrase here - it's offensive but you've heard worse. What's fascinating to me is how we went from "Oh, that's just Imus" to "Imus must be stopped!" I've seen plenty of worse examples of hate speech from Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh, but even outside of the partisan politics you can't swing a clock radio without running into some shock jock making fun of latinos or asians every single day in this great land of ours. Often there is no repercussion beyond an insincere apology; and you almost never get the wholesale airwave scrubbing that Imus went through.

This is why I think the real reason CBS kicked him off has little to do with the incident. Most likely bad demographics coupled with excessive salary demands got Imus fired, with the remark simply being a good vehicle to void the contract. This may be cynical to say it's the whole reason; but from out here it sure looks like it.

Morning radio is a tightrope walk, hence the quote from the founder of the famous Flying Wallendas. You have to be outrageous just to compete, but you can't be too outrageous and keep your job. And the line between the two isn't thin. It's wide, grey, and it moves under you all the time. Poor Don Imus wasn't even near the edge when it slipped out from under him. His career isn't over though. When a radio guy loses his job, it simply means he's hirable by any station who was losing to his time slot. If he doesn't retire, he'll be back in a month tops.

Just now as I was driving back from McDonalds with my multi-culturaliscious southwest chicken salad, I heard a program director saying that Imus wasn't a shock jock, he was an intelligent interviewer who spoke with the most influential Washington power players of our age. Why couldn't he be both? Doesn't a comany town like DC need a shock jock too? To hold that opinion is to fail to recognize just how big the intersection is between showbiz and politics nowadays. They are, at heart, the same thing. The difference is how the money is raised.

And I have to say, just how relevant IS Don Imus? Before this week I'd never have bothered to write about him. After this week, same thing. Clearly, this is the best place to stop.

So It Goes...Like a Rocket, Every 3 Minutes

You know there is no bad news, only opportunities. So when I read this morning that Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is dead at the age of 86 I considered it bad news because I think I've read more of his work than any other novelist. Then a little later I read that the English city of Chatham will host Dickens World, a theme park based on the work of Charles Dickens. Which is the worst news? Who cares? Glass half full! Move on!

I give you... VonnegutLand!

From the Big Montana Wildhack Coaster to the Eliot Rosewater Log Flume Ride, VonnegutLand will be fun for kids of all ages -- especially telephathic twin kids! Who wouldn't love climbing into the Cat's Cradle, which features neither a cat nor a cradle? Arrive early to eat at the Breakfast Of Champions Cafe; Try the Kilgore Trout - it's delicious! Then spend a little time listening to the Player Piano (it plays German songs, but it's really working for the Americans, but it's really working for itself) and be strangely attracted to the Sirens Of Titan ride!

Enough, enough.

Not to go all emo on ya, but I want to finish with a quote from the CNN obit that I cribbed all the references from. "My father, like Hemingway, was a gun nut and was very unhappy late in life. But he was proud of not committing suicide. And I'll do the same, so as not to set a bad example for my children." Vonnegut died of brain injuries resulting from a fall, and it's fitting. I don't think you could have stopped him without stopping his brain first.

1:1 Scale Model Car Kit

Attention Skot - This has got to appeal to you. Model car enthusiasts recreate a table-top display of model cars WITH THE ACTUAL CARS THEMSELVES, along with faithful scaled up glue, parts trees, and enamel paint. Hat tip to BoingBoing. My only worry is that this exhibit may be the seventh sign of the apocalypse; but it could also just mean that Bert I. Gordon is rising from the grave.

His Son Is Working For The Daily Mail

A follow-up to yesterday's piece about BBC Haterz:

WE ARE BIASED, ADMIT THE STARS OF BBC NEWS

It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.

The above quoted from the Daily Mail. Click on my title for the link. But before you do, put a little money on the barrel - what do you bet that the above paragraph is a direct quote from anyone?

And does the following sound a tiny bit like white paranoia to you:

At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

Political pundit Andrew Marr said: 'The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.'

Former BBC business editor Jeff Randall said he complained to a 'very senior news executive', about the BBC's pro-multicultural stance but was given the reply: 'The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism: it believes in it and it promotes it.'

Much of my experience with the BBC comes from the BBC World Service, which broadcasts to, you know, the world. An organization like that would pretty much have to be multicultural in nature, wouldn't it? I don't know much about the Daily Mail (beyond the Beatles reference to it in PAPERBACK WRITER) but Simon Walters, who wrote this article, displays a spot of the old skinhead bias. A big spot. To tell the truth, it's creeping me out. It looks like THE WALL was about 25 years ahead of its time.

The TELEGRAPH Hates The BBC

I'm not kidding. This last week I've read three blog posts about the leftist bias at the BBC, and they all have had an article at the London TELEGRAPH as their source. I don't think Murdoch is behind the Telegraph, but something is definately fishy there.

Under the headline HERO'S TALE IS "TOO POSITIVE" FOR THE BBC, a story of the cancellation of a 90-minute dramatization about Johnson Beharry, who won the Victoria's Cross in Iraq. The story quotes the fired producers of the show, who believe that the BBC is bowing to anti-war pressure. Nobody from the BBC itself responds to the charge. Still, this is not an editorial; which makes this paragraph a little troubling:

The BBC's decision to pull out will only confirm the fears of critics that television drama is only interested in telling bad news stories about the war.

Damn that MSM and their left-wing bias! Once can easily imagine the BBC pulling out because the script was bad, and not talking because it would be damaging to the producers.

The Telegraph is also the paper of record for BBC SHOULD DUMB DOWN, SAYS OWN REPORT, though again the BBC (and the report, which has not yet been completed or published) say no such thing. The Telegraph, though, includes this as its 2nd graf:

Executives at the corporation have always denied that it is a bastion of the liberal elite, pandering to the young, upmarket and metropolitan.

"Liberal Elites?" What the hell is the word liberal doing in there? What does that have to do with this story? Nothing, as it turns out. But they threw it in anway. Again, not an editorial; this was presented as straight reporting. Note the usual lack of named sources.

My friend at Publius' Forum says these articles are proof of bias at the BBC; I say it's proof that the Telegraph wants to smear the competion.

This concerns me because there are few news organizations that try harder to avoid bias than the BBC news. By going after their entertainment programs the Telegraph paints the whole corporation as biased, and therefore you should stop trusting them and trust, say, the Telegraph instead. Colbert was right - the truth itself has a liberal bias! At least it does when you look at it from the far right edge.

Fun Facts About THE AVENGERS

1. Though BBC America runs a single season of 26 episodes, The Avengers actually ran 6 seasons. Included in those are one season with Diana Rigg which was in black and white, a season with Linda Thorson as Emma Peel's replacement Tara King, and two seasons with Honor (Pussy Galore) Blackman as Cathy Gale. All Avengers seasons had Patrick MacNee as dapper secret agent John Steed.
2. The Avengers was a spinoff from another season, incredibly called POLICE SURGEON. That show was canceled but the character of the surgeon ("David Keel") was popular; they put him in another show and paired him with a shadowy secret agent. In the first few episodes Steed and Keel tracked down the killers of Keel's wife. Hence, the avengers.
3. Blackman left the show after two seasons to become a Bond girl; Diana Rigg left the show after two seasons to become a bond girl. The Linda Thorson years only ran one and a half seasons.
4. Before Diana Rigg, the show was practically live. That is to say it was either live or videotaped the day of airing. In other words, they didn't have time to take the mistakes out. The show went to film when the producers found an American market for it.
5. The last season, with Linda Thorson, was actually the highest-rated in Britain and Europe. Sadly, Americans didn't take to it. Without American money, the show went off the air.
6. Prolific producer and writer Brian Clemens went on in the nineties to write several episodes of REMINGTON STEELE.
7. Diana Rigg hated leather catsuits and is seldom seen in one, despite what you may think, or may have liked.
8. Some Diana Rigg episodes are rewrites of Honor Blackman episodes, because they were never syndicated and it seemed like a waste of a good idea.
9. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee both appeared in episodes; in both cases the plot revolved around remote-controlled humanoids.
10. Almost everybody agrees the movie just didn't get it.
11. The theme of the show was written by Laurie Anderson; he also wrote the theme to Space: 1999. As you will recall, the moon flew out of Earth's orbit 8 years ago, taking with it the entire crew of Moonbase Alpha. Long story.
12. Steed drove six different Bentleys (plus a Vauxhall) during the original series, even though he and Emma spoke as if he had only one. Patrick Macnee says he never learned how to drive them; he left them in third gear all of the time, and often they would have to be pushed into the camera frame by the crew or driven by a double. The Bentleys were usually rented from private owners, and most are said to have been in rather poor condition. (paragraph courtesy Avengers Forver!)
13. BBC America is canceling the Avengers, opting for shows which aren't 35 years old. More's the pity, I say.
    

Keith Can Relax About The Ashes

First of all, it's been widely reported that Keith Richards was just kidding about snorting his father's ashes with cocaine. But really, just because he says he didn't, how would he know? He probably insists he's a drummer twice a day at this point.

However, according to Slate magazine, there is no pressing health danger in snorting cremated remains. There might be, if you do it all the time, of course. It would be similar to black lung disease. And there's a slim chance that you could get mercury poisening from the remains of people's fillings. But on the whole, snorting up your relatives pales compared to the risks of the cocaine itself. Or falling out of trees, for that matter. If you haven't already, go for it Keith. Joseph Campbell would be proud.

Another Delicious Retraction

This one is even better than Gingrich's weirdo explanation for his "language of the ghetto" remarks recently. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) was on Meet The Press Sunday and speaking about the totally reasonable dismissal of US Attorney Carol Lam. He pointed out:

"She was a former law professor, no prosecutorial experience, and the former campaign manager in Southern California for Clinton"

These are not the reasons anyone is giving for her dismissal, by the way. However, Hatch's statements raised some red flags because a little easy research reveals she was never a campaign manger for Clinton, because at the time of the campaigns she was an Assistant US Attorney, and thus to participate in any campaign would have violated the Hatch Act. She never was a law professor and she has, actually, been a federal prosecutor for 18 years. So was this part of a disinformation campaign to distract us all from the political nature of these firings?

No no, of course not. According to a letter to MTP Hatch wasn't talking about Carol Lam, fired US Attorney, at all. No, he was talking about Alan Bersin, her predecessor. Bersin had been appointed by Clinton and was presumably fired when Bush came into office. As Rachel Maddow points out:

Given the massive media attention and debate about "Alan Bersin" recently, I can understand his mistake.

News of the correction should rip through the right wing blogosphere like wildfire. I bet Drudge has a spinning siren over item right now! But maybe this is the solution to the whole problem... it's all a big misunderstanding! Gonzalez, had he been involved at all with the decision, thought that he was firing THE PREVIOUS OFFICE HOLDERS. It happens. So let's just let bygones be bygones, shall we?

Once we re-impeach Clinton, if you know what I mean.

What Could Be Cuter?

It's Knut, the polar bear cub! Knut is the first polar bear born at the Berlin Zoo in over 30 years.

What's in store for Knut? Eventually he will grow to become a dangerous, ravenous beast; but only after several years as a mascot for the Grateful Dead.

The Language of the Ghetto

Once again, America is forced to pay attention to a Newt.

Over the weekend Newt "Contract With America" Gingrich came out against bi-lingual education. "We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto," he said. This, predictably, has led to a few accusations of racism directed towards someone who is, arguably, the whitest man in America.

It wasn't so bad, really; unartfully phrased but God knows easier to climb out from under than last night's correction on Hannity and Colmes. "...frankly, "ghetto", historically had referred as a Jewish reference originally. I did not mention Hispanics, and I certainly do not want anybody who speaks Spanish to think I’m in any way less than respectful of Spanish or any other language spoken by people who come to the United States."

So what Newt is saying, if I'm reading this right, is that you want to learn English so you don't wind up like those unprosperous Jews.

I live in Southern California, and I can tell you that I'm fed up with those people. The way the gardners lapse into Yiddish whenever they want to talk about you behind your back; the drive-thru guy telling me to try a large because "you should live a little - would that be so wrong?" I hate seeing all those unlicensed accountants hanging out in front of H&R Block, hoping someone will hire them despite their illegal status. And you know what? If we don't keep them out, on their side of the fence, you KNOW they're going to overrun the entertainment industry.

Orwell That Ends Well

I love stuff like this, in the same way that I love slowing down at car wrecks on the freeway. Did you know that there are over 30 public surveillance cameras in the vicinity around George Orwell's historic London home? Ha ha ha... 1984 is funny because it's true!

In the DIGG comments under this story, someone points out that his girlfriend's bike was stolen in London, and they have footage of the perp from about a dozen angles, but the police say they are unable to catch him. Gosh, why would those cameras even be up if it isn't to catch criminals?

Personally, I'm a middle child but I have a big SISTER, so the idea of a Big Brother might appeal to me. But if the dude takes me away in the dead of night and brainwashes me, maybe I'd be happier as an orphan. If I ever pursue my dream of making a new life in England, I think I'll live in Cardiff. Even with Torchwood and their temporal rift.

read more digg story

Bagdhad Is Perfectly Safe

Just look at this footage of John McCain demonstrating that you can, indeed, walk the streets safely. I guess we were wrong - the surge is working in a big way!

Newsweek provides a little more background.