Watch Out For Atheists

I have to confess that this surprised me a little bit.

From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.

and...

[Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher] believes a fear of moral decline and resulting social disorder is behind the findings. “Americans believe they share more than rules and procedures with their fellow citizens—they share an understanding of right and wrong,” she said. “Our findings seem to rest on a view of atheists as self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good.”

Maybe I really don't belong here.

PSA

As a Public Service Announcement, you should know that cops are now patrolling inside bars looking for drunks. I think they're bound to find some.

And here's the rationale according to TABC Commissioner Carolyn Beck, "We feel that the only way we’re going to get at the drunk driving problem and the problem of people hurting each other while drunk is by crackdowns like this.” Sure she's worried about drunk driving, but she's got some other social ills in mind, "People walk out into traffic and get run over, people jump off of balconies trying to reach a swimming pool and miss.” Those are the people that need saving.

This woman is not living the reality-based community. If she keeps this up, the restaurant and bar owners trade association will become more powerful than the Teamsters and the AARP combined. Maybe that's the final showdown I'm looking for with the religious right. The Evangelicals pitted in a death match with restaurant and bar owners and their patrons.

Actually, maybe there's a political solution that I can be a part of. We need to have a referendum to make the TABC Commissioner an elected position. I will gladly serve in this capacity if the good citizens will elect me and I will tirelessly support their mandate to do nothing (beyond building a tent out behind my office where I can smoke cigars while I do business.)

Album Names

I mentioned in a comment that Steve Earle's "Shut Up and Die Like and Aviator" was one of my favorite album names. This got me thinking of starting a thread about album names. Also on my list: Rolling Stone's "Goat's Head Soup," and Uncle Tupelo's "Anodyne."

Cure for Cancer

Somebody has finally found a cure for cancer. Merck has developed a vaccination that prevents cervical cancer with staggering statistical significance. Glaxo is close on their heels with a similar vaccine. Call the neighbors, wake the children, get this puppy on the market, right?

Well, our friends in the Bush administration are likely to resist approval of the vaccines because it angers their benefactors on the religious right. In another skirmish in this administration's war on science, they will argue that this vaccine gives young girls a license to have underage sex. They believe that unhealthy sexual habits lead to cervical cancer and by giving girls this vaccine, they will be giving them a license for promiscuity.

I don't know the answer, but I wonder how many young girls delay their defloweration out of a concern for cervical cancer? According to the article from the New Yorker linked above, the average age that girls lose their virginity is under seventeen. The Bush theocrats are unhappy with this and seek to stem this tide with anti-science (and anti human-nature) actions like not availing girls of this vaccine, pouring tons of money into abstinence education, and keeping young folks away from rubbers. Similarly, they will not financially support efforts to educate people about condoms in AIDS-ravaged sub-Saharan Africa.

Part of me wishes that we could compare the average age at which girls lost their virginity in the 16th century (think of thirteen or fourteen year-old Romeo and Juliet) with current statistics. I think sexual behavior starts after puberty and there would not be a statistically significant age difference in the onset of such behavior through time immemorial. This would conclusively say what we already know - that the Bushies are trying to fight human nature. Unfortunately, such conclusive statistical proof would surely be shrugged off as fuzzy math or some other witches brew of illogic concocted by the reigning Evangelical inquisition.

So there you have it. Add this insult to the injuries of global warming, stem-cells, and all the rest, and pity the imminently avoidable deaths due to cervical cancer.

Jeopardy Test Online

I'm exempt, of course, because I'm already on the active contestant list (heh, heh), but anyone wishing to take the Jeopardy test can do so online now (where was this option during my lean years?!)

Sopranos Talk: Spoiler Ahead

So what's going to happen to Tony Soprano? I figured in last night's episode he'd be recuperating and plotting what to do with Junior. Now it's brain damage? I can't believe there will be 18 more episodes with James Gandolfini on a ventilator.

Are they following the leads of Six Feet Under and Deadwood where they have significant episodes where the main characters are comatose. Let me state for the record that I oppose this. However, it was kinda funny seeing Tony dress and speak like a midwestern salesman during last night's dream sequence.

Additionally, I'd be interested to know how "Big Love" is going over in Utah from our Sagebrush State correspondent, Dick Logan.

Townes Movie

For our singer/songwriter crowd...I was recently informed that there was a biography of Townes Van Zandt playing that the Ft. Worth Modern Art Museum. Alas, I missed it by a couple of days. Luckily it's available on Netflix here. It's about 10th in our queue, which is being managed like a Japanese manufacturing facility by my wife, so I should have a review up in a week or so.

Headline of the Day

Courtesy of the Chicago Sun-Times: "Man severs own penis, throws it at officers"

Dude, when you're out of ammo, you're out of ammo.

More Music Talk

Because I'm a blogger who is responsive to his readers, let's kick off a new music thread. I've been accused on many occasions of "good ol' days syndrome." Ask me about any band and I'm bound to answer, "I like their old shit." So, I want examples of bands where this does not hold true. Here's some examples of bands that are not up for debate:

Rolling Stones
U2
AC-DC
Bowie
Deep Purple (snickering)
Jefferson Starship (maybe the most high-contrast example)

Now I know that Toby is going to throw Steve Earle at me, but I don't buy it. As good as his post-heroin music has been, it ain't Devil's Right Hand or Guitar Town. Don't try Elvis either.

My Name is Steve and I am an Introvert

If you are an introvert or think you may know someone who is, read this essay by Jonathan Rauch. Highlights:

[S]omeone you know, respect, and interact with every day is an introvert, and you are probably driving this person nuts.

For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating. Our motto: "I'm okay, you're okay—in small doses."

We can only dream that someday, when our condition is more widely understood...it will not be impolite to say "I'm an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush."

No doubt.

Fish on Friday

From the Startlegram: "During Lent, the Christian season of penitence preceding Easter, Catholics are prohibited from eating meat on Fridays. But in an unusual move, Bishop Kevin William Vann of the Fort Worth Catholic Diocese has waived that ban for this week only -- because St. Patrick's Day is Friday."

This seems a bit arbitrary, no? But why stop there. St. Patrick's Day might be the most famous (and least holy) of Saint's days, but it is by no means the only one. A quick trip over to the Saint's Calendar shows that pretty much every day is a Saint's Day (if you have time, don't miss the Saint's Fun Facts!)

Therefore, I propose, in honor of the Saint's, to continue this trend of relaxing Catholic prohibitions on Saint's days. For example, I think it would be appropriate on St. Cletus' Day (April 26) to allow all manner of birth control, lest someone bestow the Saint's name on an innocent child. Maybe there's a "St. Dwayne Ray" on whose day the Catholic's could turn a blind eye to capital punishment. Suicide by shotgun to the mouth would be acceptable only on St. Kurt's day. Sins of taking the Lord's name in vain as well as all other spoken vulgarities could be overlooked on St. Al Swearengen's Day.

I welcome religion turning its collective back on rigid moral absolutism. Things really do depend on circumstances. It's St. Patty's Day? Let's party.

Is Bush Conservative?

Andrew Sullivan has this scathing critique:

Bush is not a conservative. He's a Christianist in social policy; and a left-liberal on entitlements. This has been clear for several years now. His main achievement has been to wean more and more people onto government assistance; and to pledge vast increases in the generosity of that assistance. None of this will be reversed; very few entitlements ever are. All that's left is a massive tax hike. But that's coming. When it arrives, whoever enacts it, it will be the legacy and policy of one man: George W. Bush. And it will have to be the biggest tax increase for a very long time.

Ouch. I find the duality of Bush's frames of reference interesting as well. Domestically, it seems like everything he has done has been for short-term political gain (tax cuts, steel tariffs, prescription drug plan) while in foreign policy the thinking is all airy-fairy "let the historians judge me" long-term thinking (democratizing the universe). I think Rove being the point-person on domestic policies has a lot to do with it.

News Whip

I'm so beaten down by current events lately. Excuse me, but I can't work up enough emotion to blog about raising the eight trillion dollar debt ceiling or the morass in Iraq/Iran. I guess Mike Wallace retiring is news, but the man is 88 years old. Retire already. My interest this morning spiked a little when I saw this headline at Drudge: GEOLOGISTS: AFRICA SPLITTING APART, NEW OCEAN FORMING. But it was typical Drudgian hyperbole. The active area seems to be about the size of Palo Pinto County with the "new ocean" about the size of Possum Kingdom Lake. And so, the following...

What image does your brain conjure when you read that Germany "is deploying an army of prostitutes to satisfy the needs of libidinous fans during the month-long 2006 World Cup"? To me it's kind of an S&M thing, because you know jackboots are involved. I suppose if the Germans are going for another massive remilitarization, I'd prefer they be hookers. However, there is some concern that domestic supply may not meet the demand. The article continues, "German media had reported in recent months that up to 40,000 women would be smuggled into the country to work as sex slaves during the World Cup." Ah, Globalization!

Brackets?

If anyone is running a bracket, let me know. If I don't hear from anyone, I'll set one up.

McCain Sellout Watch

We've witnessed the beginning of what will be a series of sickening episodes over the course of the next two years. John McCain, former maverick firebrand who, in 2000, was screwed over by Bush in South Carolina, has realized he can't win without selling his soul to the religious-Bushian right. He recently said that he would sign the South Dakota abortion bill that outlaws abortion even in the case of rape or incest. He also implored voters in the Tennessee straw poll not to vote for him, but to write-in Bush's name because it's a patriotic thing to do when we're a country at war. He has also cratered by supporting the Bush position of teaching intelligent design based on showing "all the theories," supporting the port debacle, and flip-flopping in tax-cuts.

McCain was once a tolerable Republican to me, because he seemed to be fiercely independent, pragmatic, and not in the pocket of the religious right. Count me off that bandwagon.

Wrong message?

Bush said, ""I'm concerned about a broader message this issue could send to our friends and allies around the world, particularly in the Middle East."

I see where he's coming from but I think I disagree (big surprise, huh?). Aren't we really saying that there's a pretty high standard to participate in the global economy and if you want to have diversified (non-petroleum) economies, you need rigidly prove you don't associate with terrorists?

And I think it also tells the executive branch that a fully globalized economy isn't and end unto itself...globalization also should have a major security component. It appears this deal was rubber-stamped by the economic branches of government and shows a frightening decoupling of economic policy from security policy despite all the inter-agency cooperation that was purported to have been accomplished as a result of 9/11.

Our goals should be to eventually have strong trade interactions with Arab and Muslim countries because not only does this help them elevate their economies, but it gives us strong leverage to insist they crack down on terrorists using and abusing their countries.

I also think the WTO should play a larger role insuring global trading partners are not associated with Islamic anarchists.

Life Elsewhere?

Here's big news. Looks like NASA had found water on a moon of Saturn. Biblical literalists beware.

For the love of God...

Check this out:

A Gallup report released today reveals that more than half of all Americans, rejecting evolution theory and scientific evidence, agree with the statement, "God created man exactly how Bible describes it."

"They are "not so quick to agree with the preponderance of scientific evidence." "

Though it goes against every fiber of my belief in privacy and personal freedom, I think these people need to wear signs on their backs. Something discreet saying, "Don't try to be logical with me," or "God on board" would be fine.

The anti-science/pro-ghost stance of the Bush administration is just fueling this fire so I think Bush should be the first to wear a sign. Maybe "I was told there is no math."

As a person overly educated in statistics, I'm more than aware of how high the bar is to claim "correlation." The following summary of their regression analysis sums up why I'll never be a Republican:

"Several characteristics correlate with belief in the biblical explanation for the origin of humans. Those with lower levels of education, those who attend church regularly, those who are 65 and older, and those who identify with the Republican Party are more likely to believe that God created humans 'as is,' than are those who do not share these characteristics."

Putting on my elitist cap, I translate that to cretinous riff-raff, people who go to bed early on Saturday night, dying old people with nothing to lose and grasping for hope, and Bush/Robertson Republicans. Not a very fun bunch.

Flush the hands-free toilet

This article gives a right-good pantsing to the laser-toilet. Key points:

The auto-flush toilet violates two basic rules of technology adoption: Never replace a technology with an inferior technology; and never confiscate power from your users.

I have to deal with these shitty shitters every day and couldn't agree more with the author. Warning: link is a bit scatalogical.

Weber's Theory

In the last week or so, I think I've heard the definition of a "state" as and entity that claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within a given area. This grouping of words seemed to be more than a coincidence...and that's what Wikipedia is for. It's called Weber's Thesis. It's brought up frequently in relation to the Iraqi situation and how the forces of violence seem to be aligning along tribal lines instead of in support of a central government. It seems to be a pretty solid theory to me: name one stable country with two armies.

Lego Weirdness

I thought my recreations of X-Wing Fighters using Lego was impressive back in 1978, but I can't hold a candle to these folks.

Back

I don't know which excuse works best for my extended absence. I was in a training class last week, so I had no blogging time at work. Then I've been on a four-day jag that finds me on the porch late on Sunday night drinking Mexican beer out of a can and smoking a cigar that's been riding around in the bed of my truck.

I'm glad Hustle and Flow won and Oscar tonight for their Pimp song. Anything to go get more people to watch that excellent movie. Crash won best picture in what I believe was backlash against Brokeback. I saw Crash and it was good...but not best picture good (no cripples or homos). I think the message of Crash was that there's a bunch of racism and it sucks and there's likely to continue to be a bunch of racism - which sucks.

On to the news: regardless of my feelings about the Dubai port deal, we're seeing the repercussions of inept political leadership at the White House. The wheels are off. I'd be pissed if they had handled something which I support in such a ham-handed way (like tax reform, for instance). The only thing even approaching this for sheer silliness is that Hillary was unaware that Bill was helping the Dubai folks out while she was railing against the deal. It's no surprise that they're personally out of sync, but it is a surprise that there political machine is out of sync.

As for my views on Port-gate, I can see both sides of the issue and have softened a little. If I had any trust that our government had a shred of competency, I may trust that due-diligence had been done and support the deal. However, I don't and as a member of the Anti-Stupidity party I'm going to have a tough time believing a word they say. (The platform of my party is, "don't support people that are stupid" - and both major parties are currently out of favor. Since the GOP has all the power, and are, therefore, the only party that can "do" anything, they'll be getting the bulk of the hate mail.)

Hope is on the way...

...for all of you whose next breath hangs on my every blogging word. The insurance check for the robbery has arrived and the new laptop is on the way. Hopefully this will result in more frequent posts.

This morning on the way to work I'm listening to the Underground Garage on Sirius and Husker Du's 'Dead Set on Destruction" comes on. I think this was off Candy Apple Gray. In my end-of-year post, I proclaimed 2005 for me as a year of pre-punk, punk, and post-punk. It was a big miss on my part not to have included more Husker Du in 2005 as they are a perfect exemplar of the post-punk sound. I had a Tandy 1000HD computer in college that was pretty much good for one thing - Jack Nicklaus Golf. A great weekday combination was Husker Du's Candy Apple Gray, Jack Nicklaus Golf, Red Man Golden Blend, and cold beer.

The Truth About Dubai

Last December, U.S. News provided the lowdown on Dubai:

From Egypt to Afghanistan, when terrorists and gangsters need a place to meet, to relax, maybe to invest, they head to Dubai, a bustling city-state on the Persian Gulf...Dubai also serves as the region's criminal crossroads, a hub for smuggling, money laundering, and underground banking. There are Russian and Indian mobsters, Iranian arms traffickers, and Arab jihadists. Funds for the 9/11 hijackers and African embassy bombers were transferred through the city. It was the heart of Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan's black market in nuclear technology and other proliferation cases. Half of all applications to buy U.S. military equipment from Dubai are from bogus front companies, officials say. "Iran," adds one U.S. official, "is building a bomb through Dubai." Last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents thwarted the shipment of 3,000 U.S. military night-vision goggles by an Iranian pair based in Dubai. Moving goods undetected is not hard. Dhows--rickety wooden boats that have plowed the Arabian Sea for centuries--move along the city center, uninspected, down the aptly named Smuggler's Creek.

While the UAE supported the Taliban, they don't recognize Israel.

Port Controversy

I find it a bit inconsistent that the President, who's willing to break laws in the name of National Security and doing everything he can to protect the homeland from terrorists, now adamantly supports a state-owned company from a country with 9/11 complicity to own some of our very vulnerable ports.

Defending his decision, he says, "I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company. I am trying to conduct foreign policy now by saying to the people of the world, `We'll treat you fairly.'" Well, Great Britain, headquarters for the company that now owns the port, was not complicit the the planning and execution of 9/11. Great Britain is not located in the most unstable part of the world. While the current UAE government may be pro-Western, how can we be sure they will be on our side in ten years? Or ten months? I feel pretty comfortable that the British government is pretty stable.

Most of the bin Laden family in Saudi Arabia are very pro-Western, but would we sell them a railyard or an airport?

I'm all for free-trade and globalization and the democratizing effect they have on the world, but this seems real damn risky. I am sure that it is an overstatement to call the UAE the fox and our ports the henhouse...but it's not that much of an overstatement.

My second area of confusion is that Bush usually doesn't come out so forcefully on something until it's been politically vetted. I don't see anybody saying anything good about this. It looks like a bipartisan loser. How is Rove going to spin this into an election year plus for Bush like he did with the domestic wiretapping scandal?

Academic Political Correctness

Free speech seems to be under fire lately. The greatest example is perhaps the cartoon furor, but I'm particularly disturbed by the resignation of Larry Summers as president of Harvard. To me, this is political correctness gone awry. Summers was skewered because he suggested that innate gender differences may be why there were fewer women professors than men. I think this sounds like an excellent topic for further research, especially at a noted research institution as Harvard. I don't think anyone can claim that there are not "innate gender differences" between men and women. Short of the ability to discuss this in a university setting and research it, how could we ever address it? If anyplace should be a bastion of free speech, it should be the university, and this action bolsters the argument that universities are held captive by the p.c. left.

Cherry-picked Intelligence

Very revealing (and long) article from the former Middle East Chief of the CIA. The nut of it - what we already knew - intelligence was manipulated and cherry picked to support decisions already made. I particularly liked this bit:

[T]he greatest discrepancy between the administration's public statements and the intelligence community's judgments concerned not WMD, but the relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda. The enormous attention devoted to this subject did not reflect any judgment by intelligence officials that there was or was likely to be anything like the "alliance" the administration said existed. The reason the connection got so much attention was that the administration wanted to hitch the Iraq expedition to the "war on terror" and the threat the American public feared most, thereby capitalizing on the country's militant post-9/11 mood.

Latest from the Farsi Fuehrer

The Persian Pogromist said:

We must believe in the fact that Islam is not confined to geographical borders, ethnic groups and nations.

So kind of a Catholic missionary thing? Share the love with the world? Mein Mullah continued...

It’s a universal ideology that leads the world to justice...We don’t shy away from declaring that Islam is ready to rule the world.

Ah. Okay, then. Fundamentalist Iranian Islam ruling the world. People, this intransigent fellow is about to get the bomb. Like I said here, the Chamberlain at Munich moment is nearing.

Cratering

Hopefully some of you wise financial types were smart enough to short RadioShack stock. If the humiliating CEO Resume scandal and response from the eunuchs on the Board of Directors wasn't enough, fourth-quarter earnings were so far in the toilet as to necessitate a "turnaround plan." It would require Jacques Cousteau, two Bathyspheres, a gross of underwater light cannons, and an Ohio-class nuclear submarine to see my stock options.

Defining Centrism

Political eggheads should read this article. It is an analysis of the American electorate that addresses the notion of the American center (of which I am a member). The main point of the article is to further stratify "independents" into three categories: independent leaning democrat, independent independent, and independent leaning republican. It turns out that over the last fifty years these "leaners" have been reliable votes for the side to which they lean. Therefore the true size and importance of the independent vote is grossly overstated. Looking at the last election, it is patently obvious that the "turnout the base" strategy worked better than the "appeal to the center" strategy.

Here's an interesting observation from the study:

Democratic-leaning independents are usually more partisan in their voting behavior than are weak Democrats. Or perhaps, on reflection, this is not so surprising after all. Remember, some components of the traditionally Democratic base, such as union members and blacks, tend to be socially conservative, while many college-educated independents turn up their noses at partisan labels but are consistently liberal in outlook.

As much as I'd like to claim membership in the ranks of the "true" independent," I think this is probably where I fit in.

The most salient point made in the article is about marketing, but justifies what, I think, all of us already know. All stripes of Republican are more brand loyal and ideologically aligned with the GOP than Dems are with their party. While the overall number of Dem and Dem leaners is greater than that of the GOP, the lack of message and ideological consistency among Dems reduces turnout...and loses elections. After six years, Bush, who rode into office as a "uniter," has shown to be a singular polarizer of the country and the world. It's hard to imagine what can unite Democrats if the Bushian ability to polarize has failed.

Beak boy Update

I commented on the men's skater who wore an orange glove to represent a swan's beak in the gay sport thread. Well, I think the men's two-man luge has some major competition. Turns out beak-boy is American Johnny Weir. I encourage all interested parties to read this article. A sampling:

"I don't like to be called a jock," Weir told NBC. I don't really see that Johnny Weir needs to lose any sleep over that particular concern. But he continued: "That makes me think of spandex-covered football players. It's not - not me. I'm in rhinestones and velvet, not spandex."

Nobody understood what the single red glove was all about. Johnny Weir wore that glove during his figure-skating short program Tuesday. When asked what it meant, he explained that the glove was the beak. And he was the swan. That explained it all right. Weir also announced that he named the glove "Camille." It's a good name for a glove.

No Money in Blogs

Here's a brief but interesting article on how to spot the end of a trend. The trend in question here? Making money off blogs. One category of trend-enders:

The Gullible Latecomers: In the end stages of any investment mania, the clueless and the greedy flood in. You know things are really poised for a fall when people who have no management experience and feeble business plans somehow manage to raise cash for ventures. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Pajamas Media. Last November, the collection of right-wing blogs (with a few lefties thrown in for laughs) grandly announced the closing of a $3.5 million round of venture capital financing. Roger Simon, the screenwriter-turned-blogger who is the CEO of the enterprise, promised "to change the way people report and access news and commentary." I don't know. It looks to me like a bunch of blogs with their own logo.

Olympic Survey

My experience with the Winter Olympics has been limited to a couple of women's hockey games, the Bode meltdown in the downhill, and snippets of other silly sports like Nordic Combined. I really enjoy watching the women's hockey because the game is a tick slower than the NHL and, therefore, allows you concentrate on the entire ice and see plays develop rather than just following the puck.

In general, the Winter Olympics appear to be specially designed for gay white people. In this vein, I ask you, the readers, to render an opinion on the gayest Winter Olympic sport. Feel free to comment as anonymous if your afraid of the political correctness police.

Cheney Update

The personification of evil has finished his on-air mea culpa with sycophantic right-wing house organ Brit Hume (I reserve the right to update this characterization after I see the interview...but I'm not expecting much.) Reports say that Cheney confesses to drinking one beer at lunch. Please. The only people that say they had one beer are people that had a shitload of beers and just got pulled over. He was hammered.

The new rumor is that he is having an affair with the third hunter.

Drunk Cheney Conspiracy continued

From the LA Times article:

The Secret Service said it had turned away one sheriff's deputy at the ranch the night of the accident because arrangements had been made for Cheney to be interviewed the following morning, Associated Press said.

Right. If I'd shot someone, I'm sure I could make an appointment with the cops.

The party of 11 hunters set out in two trucks Saturday morning, driving around the mesquite-dotted property and shooting quail until about 12:30 p.m., said Anne Armstrong, co-owner of the ranch. Then they broke for a lunch of antelope, jicama salad and camp bread, washed down with Dr. Pepper.

Nothing goes with jicama and antelope quite like -er, uh- Dr. Pepper?

Conspiracy Theory Bandwagon

This is too delicious...I can't resist. I think there's a good chance Cheney was drunk or had at least been drinking. I know I would have been drunk out hunting birds on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in South Texas. I've been around enough rich Republicans on Saturday afternoons (at A&M football games) to know they're not above tippling. Anyhow, that's why they waited 14 hours before he met with cops. If this cat Whittington drops dead, Cheney may be in an intoxication manslaughter jackpot unless all the witnesses perjure themselves.

Search Engines in China

I confess being conflicted over the kerfluffle with internet companies and the repressive Chinese government. The nut of the deal is that Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Cisco and others are censoring content as the price of doing business with the booming economy. For example, I entered "Tibetan independence" on Yahoo's China site and, predictably, I don't know what I found because it was in Chinese...but I have it on good authority that I would have been redirected to only articles from the state run press. Ditto for Tienanmen, Falun Gong, Democracy, etc.

So the question is: should U.S. companies be complicit in Chinese repression? Yahoo is reported to have turned over emails that led to the jailing of political dissidents. On the face, I would say no. However, on the flip-side I believe "sunshine is the best disinfectant" and if we can incrementally inject some information into Chinese culture, it's bound to spread.

The real answer may be one of nuance. I hear Google only agreed to the censorship provided they appended a message at the bottom of the results page that says the content had been filtered. Thoughts?

Bring it on, bitch

At one of these protests over cartoons, the leader of Hezbollah said, “Today, we are defending the dignity of our prophet with a word, a demonstration but let George Bush and the arrogant world know that if we have to ... we will defend our prophet with our blood, not our voices."

Fuck you, buddy.

How can this knucklehead call the world "arrogant" as he seeks to impose upon us his backward, tyrannical worldview. One of the things I dislike about Bush's government is its arrogant interventionist execution of poorly thought-out airy-fairy plans (plans that are generally designed to meet political ends.) But the U.S. has some skins on the wall and, ulitimately, we're the straw that stirs the drink.

Here's your quagmire

After three years and $16 Billion, you can still only count on four hours of electricity per day in Baghdad. Compare this with 16 to 24 hours before the war, based on a report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq (not the so-called liberal media). It gets damn hot in Texas in the summer and if I could only get four hours of electricity, I would be clamoring for some accountability. To make matters worse, 20% of Iraqis have sewers and only 32% have drinking water. I might as well just light my tax dollars on fire.

Anyone with a cursory knowledge of Maslow's Hierarchy should be able to wrest lasting control of this place. These people don't want democracy, they want toilets and air conditioning. Why can't we improve those things first and then worry about self-actualizing concepts like freedom and democracy.

Run-of-the-mill business undergrads have heard that you can't manage what you can't measure. Here's a situation where we've got the measurement part down cold, but are failing to adjust in the management area. It's pretty clear that the civilian political leadership hasn't been up to the task, but these numbers suggest that the management on the ground has sucked as well. If this was a company, hopefully we'd have fired the CEO, but we damn sure would have changed strategy and tactics. This hasn't happened with the "stay the course" bunch.

Comparing Fundamentalists

In the midst of the great cartoon riots of 2006, I was discussing with a former commenter to this site the irony of these proceedings: these radical Islamists are protesting the portrayal of Islam as a violent religion with violence. The former commenter suggested that no religion makes itself such an easy target for stereotyping than modern Islam. I, of course, took this opportunity to rake Evangelical Christians over the coals. In the wake of this discussion comes this interesting column out of the Times of London which does a good job of comparing and contrasting the two groups (while buffaloing my contentions about evangelicals). Key point:

Far from commanding any special respect or protection from the State, religions must be exposed to relentless criticism, like all non-rational traditions and beliefs. Some religions will survive this contest between tradition and modernity, between reason and revelation, as Christianity, Judaism and Islam have done for centuries. Others, such as Marxism and Scientology, will fall by the wayside. In America, the Constitution, with its prohibition against the establishment of any state religion and its absolute defence of free speech, demands a robust competition between faith and reason and among the religions themselves. And in the end, as America’s surprising piety clearly shows, it is not just society but also religion that emerges stronger from the refiner’s fire of competition, criticism and even insult.

Thoughts on the King Service

As you know, I like nothing better than seeing Bush get gigged. This is exactly what happened today at Coretta Scott King's service, when a preacher and Jimmy Carter pretty much excoriated Bush to his face. Preacher Lowery said:

We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there / But Coretta knew and we knew that there are weapons of misdirection right down here / Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor.

As much as I'd like to rationalize this as Mrs. King going down fighting, I think this was disrespectful to Mrs. King and too tactless by half. It did get a two minute standing ovation, and I'll be interested to listen to Ed Gordon tomorrow to hear the response in the black community and whether they anticipate any galvanic effect.

Two things...

I'm still without a laptop and probably will be for a while, so I'll be blogging during work downtime (which, unfortunately, has been rare of late). Two things have caught my notice today. First, I think Russ Feingold had a nice retort to the administrations "pre 9-11 mindset" talking point. He said:

This administration reacts to anyone who questions this illegal program by saying that those of us who demand the truth and stand up for our rights and freedoms somehow has a pre-9/11 world view. In fact, the President has a pre-1776 world view. Our government has three branches, not one. And no one, not even the President, is above the law.

Secondly, these Muslims that are rising up around the globe and burning embassies are really in need of a sense of humor. I'm afraid there will be a giant puss-out in Europe as they pull up the kid gloves with which the West treats the Muslim world. I admit I'm not the one to be commiserating with Muslims on the sacrosanctity of their holies, but at some point these folks need to stop being such titty-babies about every little thing. I would like nothing more than the world collectively telling them to get the chips off their shoulders and grow up. I thought Andrew Sullivan had a great point when he said:

One massive supporting pillar of Jihadism has been the West's refusal to treat the Islamic world as it would any other part of the world. If Chinese radicals were ransacking Western embassies because of a cartoon, and were backed by the Chinese government, we would be outraged, demanding apologies, severing relations, and so on. But when Muslims do it, backed by Islamist governments, we are supposed to take it on the chin, to "respect" their religious traditions, issue mealy-mouthed statements, etc. In many ways, this is the real offense: treating Muslims as if their violation of global norms, and thralldom to medieval conceptions of politics and religion, were somehow acceptable. They are not acceptable.

The Iranians, as usual, did not help matters. While President Ahmadinejad was planning his trip to the annual pariah conference - held in Havana this year - his state-run newspaper solicited the best holocaust cartoons from the readership. In my opinion the proper response would have been, "Whatever dude." The actual response...pompous rhetoric from the European analog of the Anti-Defamation League furthering the "fuck you, no fuck you" that's been going on between Iranians and Jews for quite a while now.

Burgle Blog Break

We got cold burgled the other day and our laptop was stolen. Therefore I'm in a limited blogging posture until this is remediated.

Takebacks

I wish this came as a surprise...

One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.

Bring back the War Department

This post is not meant to be a shrill anti-Bush rant, but I'm not sure how we can defend the Orwellian name of the Department of Defense. Bush was clear tonight as he has been since his second inagural that he believes his mission is to end tyranny in the world. By his invasion of Iraq, this certainly means that military options are in play to end such tyranny. Therefore, we need to either bring back the old "War Department" and make rummy the SecWar or rename it the Department of Offense. I think it's a real reach to think that what we're doing in Iraq is defensive. I'd be honored to die, or have a relative die, in defense of my country, but I'm not sure that I'm willing to die so some Iraqi can elect fundamentalists associated with Iran. The only way in which it's even a smidgen justified is if you twist football phrase and say the best defense as a good offense. I don't anticipate any foreign armies taking Venice Beach, Galveston, or the Jersey Shore any time soon. That's where you'd have an aptly named DoD. Maybe call it the Dept of Ending Tyranny Abroad so Freedom Can Be On the March, but DOETASFCBOTM doesn't seem to fit with the military's love of acronyms.

Cloning

And what the hell was that comment imploring the congress to act on human-animal cloning? Did I miss something? Is the Planet of the Apes a reality? Granted that presidents need to propose new initiatives in this thing, but how deep do you have to dig for that?

UPDATE: Bob Cesca notes over at HuffPost...

Words about New Orleans: 165. Words about legislation prohibiting the creation of a race of Pig Men: 86

SOTU

A few thoughts on the State of the Union address before I get spun to death.

1. I'm a big fan of a so called Manhattan Project to reduce dependence on foreign oil. I thought the speech tonight was most notable for an oilman declaring that we are "addicted to oil." I think that his request to improve math and science education dovetails well with research into new types of energy as well as acceleration of existing alternative energy sources. Unfortunately, words aren't often followed by deeds with Bush so I'll be skeptical to see if anything happens.

2. I thought it was interesting that he mentioned Social Security reform from last year and gave Dems an applause line. When I was really into the debate last year, I recall it was Bush's stubborness to give up on private accounts that really doomed progress when there were compromise measures on the table. By recommending a bipartisan research panel, I hope that this is a harbinger of conciliation and not the creation of a debating society.

3. For the majority of the speech, he seemed to be speaking in broad strokes that were hard for most people to argue with. Other than the above, I didn't find it to be rhetorically compelling.

4. Speaking of rhetoric, he corrected one of my pet peeves by saying that we had killed or captured many Al Qaeda leaders, instead of "75%" of Al Qaeda leaders. Unfortunately he laughably continued to suggest that those that oppose his wiretapping also oppose fighting terrorism.

5. I still don't get the logic that if we fight them over there, we don't have to fight them over here. He repeated this again and it seems rhetorically dangerous. Just because we've been lucky and have evaded attacks doesn't mean this will always be the case. After 9/11 Britain certainly tightened up their security, but that didn't preven the London bombings.

6. The rest we've all heard before a hundred times. Freedom's on the march. Democracies aren't terrorists (except apparently in Palestine). Affordable healthcare for all Americans. Tax cuts. No child left behind. Blah, blah, blah.

7. The elephant in the room for me when he gave his laundry list of tyrannies (Syria, Iran, Burma, etc.) was China. It's a tyranny. He said 50% of the world is free. Get some elections in China and that becomes 75%. I realize that it would be political and economic suicide to mention this, but it's still notable.

Now I'm off to be spun by Ken Mehlman and Howard Dean.

Logical Fallacies

In the post below, I mention how a misreading of cause-and effect can cause bad things...faulty inferences...to occur. I mentioned religion as a misreading of causality. This is the old Post hoc ergo propter hoc (After the fact therefore because of the fact) fallacy. I found a good example of this as it pertained to the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Excerpt below...article here.

One of the things that fascinated me, not least because it seems to have happened in the aftermath of Krakatoa, was that [the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906] had an effect on religion. After Krakatoa, you had a lot of people who were Islamic saying this is clearly a sign from Allah. This volcano is a sign that he's angry. We must rise up and kill our rulers, the Dutch, and drive them out. And essentially they did. And one might argue that Krakatoa triggered the first militant fundamentalist Islamic uprising in the world-a long, long time before Israel 1948 and all those things. A similar thing happened in California not, however, with the Muslims but with fundamentalist Christians. There was a church down in Los Angeles in a place called Azusa Street, which was a fledgling church of people who called themselves Pentecostalists. They spoke in tongues, they waved their arms around and did all sorts of crazy things. All things that would appear to others as crazy. And all that sort of direction came about because of manifestations as they saw it from God. He would send signs down. Miracles would be called. People would, as I mentioned, talk in tongues. On the week before the San Francisco earthquake, this little church had a modest-size meeting, and a couple of people spoke in tongues, and it was all going along quite nicely, but the Pastor stood up and said we are expecting a sign from the Lord.

Three days later San Francisco, arguably the most sinful of all American cities given over to drinking and whoring and gambling and all those fun things that happened in the aftermath of the gold rush days. But a city that lived for fun, for sin was destroyed by an earthquake. And so the Pastor, not unreasonably, said, well there's no doubt about it, this is the sign from God that we've been waiting for. And suddenly this little church was overrun with people, I mean tens of thousands of people came, they had overspill locations. It became like the Crystal Cathedral that you see in Los Angeles today and the link is not actually an unreasonable one to make because out of the Pentecostalist church that began in essentially 1906 came all the great evangelical movements from Aimee Semple McPherson right through to Pat Robertson and Tammy Fay and Jim Bakker. One might argue--and I don't want to make too much of this--that the power of the Christian right and particularly the Pentecostal brand of Evangelicals has had a crucially important effect on contemporary American politics. That movement was triggered in large part by what was perceived as a sign from God on April 18, 1906. So, the downstream effects of the San Francisco earthquake, if you do say, it caused Pentecostalism, it gave us conservative Christianity, and it gave us certain political effects that are being felt around the world.

So a tectonic plate shift 100 years ago is responsible for the Bush administration. A reach but something on which to muse...

Economic

It appears that we've had a raging economic debate going on all weekend here (while I was dead drunk in a ditch somewhere, shirking my moderating duties). In failing to distill their individual theories through the lens of the globalized economy, especially the possibility of China's economy overheating and their inability to control it through monetary policy, both authors do a disservice to our esteemed readership. Or something. My point is really that economics is some hard shit with lots of variables that aren't always consistent. Things are seldom black or white. Maybe tax cuts/increases help the economy, maybe they don't...it depends on a multitude of different things. While I'm no economist, I'm a decent statistician and the biggest mistake made with statistics is to infer causality (high contrast example: I got a raise after a big thunderstorm so therefore thunderstorms cause raises). That kind of thinking is how we ended up with religion.

I'm purple...

Okay, I'll take the bait and allow JimL to set the hook. He claims I'm a shameless partisan that lambastes the right while giving the left a free pass. I confess I have a contrarian streak. This makes it much easier to bitch about people with power. The left is powerless and inept and therefore makes a pretty weak target. Additionally, nothing makes my blood boil more than people who impose their morality on others and people that take rights away from Americans. The left hasn't been doing this much lately with the exception of trying to fine people who buy cereal with cartoon characters used in advertising.

But to try and establish my purple credentials:

John Kerry is a fool. He is perhaps the least politically savvy politician ever. This latest effort to call for a filibuster from the ski slopes in the Swiss alps just reinforces the stereotype he rightfully earned during the campaign. The stupidest thing he ever did, however, was when a reporter teed up the easiest question ever during the campaign. If you knew then what you know now, would you still vote for the war in Iraq. The moron said yes. I'd agree to take a year off my life if I never had to hear him speak again. I think he and Bush have each done one thing right in their lives. Kerry had that great line about who wants to be the last person to die for a mistake. Bush had that strike he threw at Yankee stadium after 9/11.

Gore isn't much better. The fact that Kerry and Gore couldn't beat a seriously weak Bush in either election bespeaks the political and strategic bankruptcy of the left. The left has no coherent ideology that a layperson can identify with. The left also has no personality. If the evangelicals would just let McCain run, he would slaughter all comers.

Cindy Sheehan doesn't know when to stop and the fact that she and other Hollywood crazies are the poster-children for the left is the reason the left can't get traction. The Dems need some kind of leadership to distance from these nutjobs. As I understand it, Sheehan is currently in Venezuela hobnobbing with Hugo Chavez. The lefties that have actual charisma are way too left for regular folks to identify with. The sensible centrists have no charisma. They're fucked.

As a career third-party voter, I'd love for a true centrist to emerge that had sensible economic policies and didn't want to force their personal Jesus on me. The lobby, the church, and the lefty interest groups are too strong, as well as the goofball primary system. I'm fucked. So I'm going to continue to complain about powerful people putting stupid policies in place. Since George is damn near a monarch, there's a good chance most of this complaining will be about him.

Today's Constitutional Abomination

...but not here. Witness the following statement in the new Iraqi constitution:

"The freedom of communication, and mail, telegraphic, electronic, and telephonic correspondence, and other correspondence shall be guaranteed and may not be monitored, wiretapped or disclosed except for legal and security necessity and by a judicial decision."

I'm really curious what the President feels his limits are under his supposed statutory authority to do anything to protect Americans. Using the same justification, he has legalized torture and allowed American citizens to be held without charges or access to attorneys. An article in Slate posits:

Bush and his lawyers contend that the president's national security powers are unlimited. And since the war on terror is currently scheduled to run indefinitely, the executive supremacy they're asserting won't be a temporary condition.

More good stuff:

[I]n inverting specific prohibitions into blanket permission that Gonzales reaches for the genuinely Orwellian. The Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 not only does not authorize Bush's warrant-less snooping but clearly and specifically prohibits it by prescribing the FISA court system as the "exclusive" method for authorizing electronic surveillance for intelligence purposes...[Attorney General Alberto] Gonzales proposes that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act must either be read as consistent with the position that [the president] can wiretap whomever he wants (thus becoming meaningless) or, alternatively, be dismissed as an unconstitutional irrelevancy.

In other words, laws either mean what we want them to or they are unconstitutional. This is really what these people are saying.

But why does this all-purpose rationale not also extend to press censorship or arresting political opponents, were the president to deem such measures vital to the nation's security?

They've insinuated to varying degrees that political opponents are traitors and that all bad news is the fault of a biased press...if things get bad enough, they just might lock them up and shut 'em down. Fox News can stick around as the state-run news channel.

Munich...not the movie.

I've been noodling on doing a big tour-de-force post on the similarities between Iran and Germany in 1935. To me this is the scariest problem in the world. Alas, I was beaten to the punch by Newt Gingrich here and at length here. Now Newt and I don't always agree, but I've always thought he was a smart guy with interesting things to say. He says:

Indeed, the new Iranian President does not even require us to read a book like Mein Kampf to understand how serious he is. He enthusiastically makes speeches proclaiming to the world his commitment to genocidal annihilation of another nation. Furthermore his senior foreign policy leader has endorsed his vicious threats.
Meanwhile the civilized world wrings its hands and the United Nations acts with contemptible weakness.

[T]he combination of two elements--the virulence of the ideology of Iran’s current regime and advanced military capabilities it is working energetically to acquire--when added to Iran’s inherent endowment--its strategic location, natural resources, population, and proximity to the vital resources of other nations in the region and the seaways through which these sources reach the rest of the world--poses a threat of such scope and magnitude which leave us with no choice but to take it with the utmost seriousness. We must prepare and take actions of the same intensity and seriousness as the threat.

I feel there's going to be a Munich moment, similar to when Britain chose to appease Hitler rather than confront him. I see the new Iranian leadership as pure evil, and the US is not in a strategically ideal position. Russia and China are acting in their economic self-interest instead of the world's best interest by not denouncing and distancing from Ahmadinejad when he claims the Holocaust didn't happen, Israel should be destroyed, or other incendiary rubbish of that ilk.

The Munich moment was a point of inflection for the Third Reich that allowed them to proceed unabated with their plans until finally the conquest of Poland was too much. A point of inflection with Iran is nearing, I don't know when, but the consequencing will be staggering.

A step in the right direction...

Good news in an area I've griped about before: corporate anti-consumerism. Steven Soderbergh's new movie "Bubble" is being released simultaneously at theaters, on DVD, and on broadcast television (via Mark Cuban's HDNET). Big retailers like Wal-Mart and the studios have long been colluding to maintain their grasp on movie dollars by enforcing waiting periods between theatrical, DVD, and television release. This move towards simultaneous release gives consumers more choice, which is the direction we need to be headed. The technology is there for these paradigms to be busted.

Drop the Fruit Loops and come out with your hands up!

This story tells of a group in Massachussets that seeks to fine people $25 everytime someone buys cereal or other unhealthy foods that are marketed to children. Commentary here.

Who are these people? They're running a close second to religious-right types in the "Who do I want to party with the least?" category.

Hello Hobbit people!

I got sucked in to some politics so I haven't been living up to my pledge to convert this blog to a round-the-clock clearinghouse for Lord of the Rings minutiae. So a great way to begin is for everyone to go here and find out your Lord of the Rings name. My name is Valaraukar and I'm a Wizard! What's your Lord of the Rings name little Hobbit-person?

More War Stuff

It appears from some comments to this post that because I don't cotton to Scott McClellan's politically-induced math errors, I'm some sort of terrorist sympathizer. (This is not true. I believe terrorists should be killed cartoon-style with dynamite up their asses, gruesome electrocution, base-jumping sans parachute and other greatest hits from Itchy and Scratchy.) And true to the party-line, there's an immediate conflation of Al Qaeda with Iraq. This raises the question of equivalence again as I did a few months ago here.

It was suggested that the DOD errs on the side of caution when it gives enemy casualty numbers for Iraq. GregC said that although the administration said 30,000 had been killed, it was actually more like 50,000. Never mind that my original comment was on Al Qaeda, not the Iraq war from which those figures were clearly drawn. Even so, the clean intent in quoting these statistics is to show how many terrorists we've rounded up or killed. That's not true.

I don't know how many of that 50,000 were true head-chopper-offers and how many were just a bunch of Iraqi army guys that didn't want to get invaded and went Red Dawn on us. Even the president stated that by far the majority of the insurgency were not terrorists. Yet since, when the administration speaks of the problems in Iraq he always says terrorists because it's good politics at home. He's still trading on 9/11 for a semblance of respect.

A person that targets military or cops is not a terrorist, they are insurgents. Some people don't like other people telling them what to do, regardless of how well intentioned the first party is. This is not always a bad thing...witness the Revolutionary War.

Style Over Substance Watch

The Powerpoint President has done some rebranding with his civil-liberties infringing domestic spying program...which he's now dubbed the "terrorist surveillance program." How many votes will that get the GOP congress? How many GOP'ers will compromise their beliefs in personal freedom (except for gun-freedom) and hop on board the national security express? Karl Rove's marketing machine appears to be in full swing for an election year.

Comments on Art Rock

As I mentioned in a comment to JimL in a previous post, politics is whipping my ass so I'm changing the theme of this blog to 24/7 Lord of the Rings discussion (bonus points for posting in Elvish).

As many readers know, I'm a big fan of satellite radio. The range of music offered is amazing, especially to those of you that tune in to the Mansion of Fun featuring David Johannsen. The other day I was heading out to get a sandwich for lunch and landed upon "The Vault" on Sirius. This station specializes in "deep cuts" from classic rock era artists. As I was meandering down the road, Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick came on. I know the song well, going back to my youth listening to KZPS. However, this was Thick as a Brick (parts 1 & 2). I left the song and went inside to get my sandwich. I emerged roughly a half hour later to find the SAME SONG still playing. Upon running across the same tune tonight, I felt obliged to indulge you with a comment or two upon that most self-indulgent musical relic from the seventies - art rock/theme albums.

I confess I was once held in the sway of this musical genre, most notably by art-rock placard-carrier Rush. Other mainstays like Yes, ELP, and Pink Floyd were proponents of this style. It strikes me now how incredibly dated and banal this entire bunch of music seems. While the riffs of Rush's 2112 still kick, the blatant ripoff of Ayn Rand and various biblical themes serve to underscore the pseudo-intellectual vacuity of these bands. I can't see myself as an adult jamming down to the tale of By-Tor and the Snowdog regardless of how live Neil Peart's drumming might be. I'd much rather hear everyday truths about relationships and sex artfully conveyed by, say, the Rolling Stones, AC/DC, or, for that matter, Humble Pie, than listen to retreaded classical tales interpreted by the doltish gang above or someone even more ham-fisted like Thin Lizzy.

But this music is, to my mind, the soundtrack to Lord of the Rings and its ilk. Which makes me wonder if we shouldn't be expecting a comeback. What could accompany an evening of male-only video gaming and pot smoking than a few hours of Geddy Lee singing about Cygnus X-1? It seems that the true benefactor/scion of art rock has been the jam band. They share the self-indulgence, but seem to differ in the importance of the spaceman ethos. So, I predict the advent of the spaceman/medieval knight jam-band. It's a hell of an opportunity for you musicians out there.

Texas de Brazil

I may be stealing my wife's thunder with respect to restaurant reviews, but I went to Texas de Brazil the other night on a vendor's tab and wasn't impressed. The novelty has worn off and with a few exceptions, you're just eating overcooked meat. I asked for some rare lamb and received a chunk of meat that was better suited for a fat sandwich. Additionally, I don't necessarily like the meat-carriers descending on me like a pack of wolves as soon as I go "green". I still managed to get shitfaced on a couple of bottles of wine and about four after-dinner scotches (should have been two after-dinner scotches, but the bartender was a chintzy fucker.) I think this place is a one trick pony useful for out-of-town guests that like gimmckry.

He did it again

Presidential spokesperson Scott McLellan is at it again misleading people by playing fast and loose with the numbers. From yesterday's press briefing:

MR. McCLELLAN: ...[T]he leaders of al Qaeda and others are on the run. We've already brought to justice some three-quarters of the al Qaeda leadership. And we are not going to let up. We are taking the fight to the enemy. We are continuing to pursue them, wherever they are. And we will bring them to justice, and we will win in this war on terrorism.

So we'll just snatch up the last 25% of al Qaeda leadership and there'll be no more terrorists, right? I guess terrorists, unlike every other organization in the world, do not fill open positions.

And isn't he sounding more Orwellian than usual?

The Evocative Singer

Tonight on Fresh Air, Terry Gross was interviewing Joe Henry, an artist with which I have a little familiarity from my days as an alt-country maven. In recent years, Joe has branched out and begun a second life as a sought-after producer. He was on the show pimping his new album, I Believe to My Soul, in which he presents great soul singers from the past with interesting new arrangements. I really liked what I heard and will be buying the album.

In the interview, he hit upon a subject that I had mused about in the past. He mentioned that he cared as little about the vocal gymnastics frequently associated with soul singers as he cares about self-indulgent guitar picking (I immediately thought Joe Satriani). Instead, he sought singers that could be evocative. In some of the cuts they played on the show, it was clear what he meant. However, his subjects were both evocative and immensely talented singers.

When I think evocative, the first person that comes to mind is Townes Van Zandt, who by just about any estimation is not an immensely talented singers. Consider Townes's original version of Pancho and Lefty side-by-side with the version made popular by Wille Nelson and Waylon Jennings (both talented singers). After hearing the Townes version, I can't really listen to the Nelson version. Sure, part of this is the silly 70's over-production, but most of it is Townes evocative voice. It's this voice that imbues his songs with so much meaning and emotion that I'm willing to overlook his obvious shortcomings as a singer. Warren Zevon comes to mind as well as an artist whose evocation trumps talent. Consider his version of Poor Poor Pitiful Me up against the many remakes.

I'm keenly aware that others would rather listen to fingernails on a chalkboard than hear Townes's voice, but this was a small epiphany for me as to why I like the music I like.

Hitch strikes again...

A recent Christopher Hitchens post was copied here recently by JimL to bolster his position on the Iraq war. (I would ask that next time JimL has articles we should read, he simply provides the link.) As is frequently the case with Hitch, he's quite the ideological chameleon. Today, he comes to my rescue on NSA spying and sheer dumbness of the Bush administration (he's rumored to have been a target of domestic spying). I guess to keep JimL happy, he takes a swipe at the CIA as well. Money quote here:

We are, in essence, being asked to trust the state to know best. What reason do we have for such confidence? The agencies entrusted with our protection have repeatedly been shown, before and after the fall of 2001, to be conspicuous for their incompetence and venality. No serious reform of these institutions has been undertaken or even proposed: Mr George Tenet ...was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The better the ostensible justification for an infringement upon domestic liberty, the more suspicious one ought to be of it. We are hardly likely to be told that the government would feel less encumbered if it could dispense with the Bill of Rights. But a power or a right, once relinquished to one administration for one reason, will unfailingly be exploited by successor administrations, for quite other reasons.

I don't know what to say about this...

Laura Bush, on her taste in music vis-a-vis the President:

"He likes country music a little bit more than I do, although I actually really am very fond of country music, as well," she said. "One of the songs on my IPod that I love is Dolly Parton singing 'Stairway to Heaven.' So that's sort of a combination, country and pop."

I understand the first quote: Laura making sure she doesn't alienate any cookie-baking southern women who enjoy Toby singing "We'll put a boot in your ass."

But that bit about Dolly Parton singing Stairway and the result being a combination of country and pop? I need some help. Someone please explain this to me...

How do you really feel?

In response to the attempts by the GOP to swiftboat Jack Murtha for speaking out against the war, including the similar refrain of dragging in some old fossils to say he doesn't deserve his medals, Arianna has the following to say:

They are the lowest form of character assassination -- cranked out by the GOP attack machine with ruthless efficiency (and almost comical predictability). A belly flop into the Beltway sewer that degrades a political culture already so befouled it might seem beyond further degradation. But then we get this effluvium -- and the stench hanging over our democracy becomes unbearable.

I agree with what she says, but I really like the way she says it.

Sam and Harry's NEVER AGAIN

Picture this, ten people going out to dinner, a lot of money is going to be spent, nobody cares about prices or limiting what they should or shouldn’t have. It is the holidays - eat and drink what you want. Isn’t that how you want your office holiday dinner to be? However restaurants are my nemesis. I love nice dinners and great service ; I don’t mind paying for them either. On the other hand, I hate average food and rotten service , which is an apt description of Sam & Harry’s, Fort Worth’s latest venture in to the apparently unknown territory of the steak house.

Upon arrival I immediately notice a sign for valet yet there is no valet to be found. We waited (remember 10 people 5 cars) 5 min for someone to arrive to tackle this crazy notion of car parking. – Bad Start-

Once inside the east side of the Worthington hotel it is obvious that they do not have our reservations. This is a sore spot with me considering I made the reservations and called to double -check them. We wait while they set up a table. I find myself thinking this is a bad sign. It is the Saturday before Christmas and they have a table for 10 open at 7:30pm.

We get our menus , which I believe are a fairly standard thing for most restaurants. If places don’t have menus they usually have a chalkboard. We weren’t at a chalkboard kinda place. I bring up the menus because mine offered no entrees. I did have two sides of identical appetizers and salads. The husband’s menu offered last week’s specials and this week’s specials. He, of course, had no appetizer selections. You can imagine the hijinks that ensued when we both had to order from two different menus. The phrase “can I get another cocktail” is ringing in my ears.

Speaking of cocktails. It seems that at S&H you must wait 25 minutes for your first cocktail. This is an extremely bad way to start out any party. It is a horrible way to start out an office gathering.
Angry quick hits :
· The husband was away from the table and they didn’t ask me if he wanted anything to drink. I feel as though I have known him long enough to make and educated guess on what he would like to drink.
· I ask for a straw. I believe this is a common bar staple. The straw they brought for my Grey Goose and soda would have been more appropriate for a Super Big Gulp. There is something foolish about a 4 in glass and a 15 in straw.
· They ran out of Crown Royal. At a steak house.
· They didn’t have any Skyy Vodka.
· Someone ordered a mojito and instead of saying “Hey we don’t do that here, we are a steak house” they make this person wait 45 min to get them a drink (apparently mint is something hard to find in a major downtown hotel) the only good part of this is that it wasn’t me.
· The wine list was its own course. It didn’t come with the menus. It arrived after we were on our second round of drinks. Perhaps they only have one and they have to share.

The food was completely unremarkable . Boring expensive steaks, Boring veggies. Note to S & H: Yo, I make good mashed potatoes...if you would like the recipe give me a ring.

The main sentiment I left with was: eat at Del Frisco's, eat a melt-in -your-mouth buffalo steak at Bella Italia, or eat at Silver Fox. Please, just eat somewhere else.

Restrooms – Oh, sure I just love to take and elevator up two flights to go to the ladies room.

Highlight of the night was a guest visit from Robin and Sarah, friends from New Braunfes.

I have a new irritation. While adding links to this post I was bombarded with music, loud office disturbing music, on the S & H site. I believe web sites should be like children, seen and not heard.

Orwellian?

Here's an applicable, shocking, and prescient quote from George Orwell that adapts well to our current situation in Iraq, "We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against a solid reality, usually on a battlefield."

Vocal Celebrities

In a comment to this post, JimL said, "Harry Belafonte and Sean Penn should be embarassed for their uneducated, self-important selves." I thought this would be a good time to post my response on the vocal celebrity.

While I agree that the celebrities he mentions often seem to have a rather limited worldview, I staunchly defend their right to speak out. Their rhetoric is aimed at the uninformed lowest common denominator that reacts emotionally to their bleating. Who does that remind me of? Bush...in spades. His trip to the VFW riling them up about treasonous liberals for criticizing the war is far more reprehensible than anything Sean Penn ever did because he has the bully pulpit (and his redneck base is better armed).

If JimL were a TV star or musician (both of which I guess he is in a way) who had a faithful audience (I don't know about this), and he felt passionately about something, why not speak out? Bono obviously feels very strongly about African hunger (or some such), so he uses his position to try to help. I'm sure his zealous advocacy has turned off some of his fans. If I were famous enough to have a large fan base that I could utilize in the benefit of my passion, then I would be derelict not to do it. Arnold certainly thought this way (as that supposed Jesus fellow did too.) Shit, if I cared about anything that deeply, I'd be trying to sway my devoted following of a dozen blog-readers to my point of view. But, alas, I don't...except maybe the gurgling vitriol I harbor for religious fanatics.

Now I don't care what Sean Penn says and it won't affect whether or not I'll go see his movies. But I certainly will hesitate before I give any more money to Mel Gibson. We all have the freedom to vote with our feet or our wallets.

Going to the Mattresses

I don't think I'll get too much argument if I say that what politicians in power want more than anything else is to remain in power. When they come under fire, they "go to the mattresses" to defend that power. When the Clinton administration was in the throes of Blow-gate, they obviously were trying desperately to maintain power and therefore weren't focused on their obligation to what's best for our country. They did some dumb things that caused harm to the country...especially with respect to neglecting terrorism. We didn't know about this until years after it mattered.

Now we are facing what is likely to be the most scandal-plagued year in decades. It's also an election year with polls not looking good for those in power. The "ins," in my opinion, will do anything to maintain power even if it does harm to the country. For instance, I think the administration will prematurely withdraw troops regardless of progress in Iraq to drum up electoral support and boost polling.

What other dumb shit will be done in the next twelve months to try and hold on to power? If past is precis, we can count on utter stupidy the likes of which boggles the mind. This is an administration with robust record of doing stupid things for the sake of political power.

It's even more problematic because there are scandals in the White House, Senate, and House. This will be a grotesquely partisan ugly year. My hope is always that centrist candidates will strike a chord, but these scandals will likely ignite the freakish bases of both parties and drown out any pragmatism. What wedge issues will be drummed up to distract the electorate from what really matters?

My Scandal du Jour

These days there's pretty much a scandal for everyone. Between Abramoff, Plame, Delay, Duke Cunningham, Katrina response, Cronyism, PreWar Intel, Torture, Domestic Spying, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Ahmad Chalabi, Judith Miller, etc. there's pretty much something available for everyone. There's so many, it's impossible to be an expert on all of them. I know...I've tried. I really tried to be an expert on the potential connection of the Italian Secret Service in the Yellowcake Scandal. It was too deep and I had to cut bait.

Now, I think it's an unreported scandal that we're making the poor pay for Katrina relief through health-care cuts, student loan cuts, food stamp cuts etc. rather than the Marshall Plan we were promised. But I think I've found a bigger scandal that everyone can agree on. What's a scandal is how severely the administration underestimated the cost of the war and the legacy this underestimation will leave. Recent reports conservatively estimate the long term cost of the war at TWO TRILLION DOLLARS...compared with what we were hearing from Bush's economic team before the war:

Before the invasion, then-White House budget director Mitch Daniels predicted Iraq would be "an affordable endeavor" and rejected an estimate by then-White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey of total Iraq war costs at $100 billion to $200 billion as "very, very high."

So if $100 billion is "very high," what were they expecting? $50 million? Meaning that they could have underestimated by a factor of 40? That's got to be the scandal of the century. As a project manager, what if I took a million dollar project and brought it in for $40 million? Was the Big Dig even that bad a failure?

These are, of course, costs one can calculate..."hard costs" if you will. I'd like to see the price of lost respect in the world due to the hubristic bullying, lying, and manipulation. How much "goodwill" came off our balance sheet after no WMD, Abu Ghraib, and Gitmo.

Now I think Colin Powell was right with his "Pottery Barn" rule that if you break it, you own it (although I think it proves Powell doesn't know what the hell they sell at Pottery Barn). Bush screwed it up, but now our entire country has to fix it. The false choice of "stay the course" versus "cut and run" is rhetorically fallacious in the highest. We can't have an immediate withdrawal as we must pay Bush's butcher's bill and hopefully leave the place somewhat functional.

Greek Life

While I don't argue with the rights of fraternities and sororities to exist, I must admit I've always had some heartburn about them. To me, they are fundamentally worsening the cultural and social stratification of society by helping the people that need help least.

These organizations simplify socialization of the already socially well-adapted. It's no secret what these groups are looking for in their recruits...people that have a combination of these traits: good looking, social, confident, rich and smart. If you possess any of these, you're automatically socialized.

This pattern will perpetuate itself forever. I'm not suggesting Greek affirmative action, I'm not suggesting anything other than we see things for what they are.

(Note: folks that lack any of the qualities above...i.e. an ugly unconfident poor dumb loner is just a loser and not somebody I want to ever hang out with.)

(Full disclosure: I was not in a fraternity)

Javelina Blogging

Contrary to recent reports, the javelina is not related to the raccoon.

Shooting Fish in a Barrel

My favorite targets are generally religious zealots. Given that, I know there can't be an easier target in America than Pat Robertson. So it's hardly fair that I pants him here on the blog. However, his recent statements about Israeli PM Ariel Sharon's stroke being punishment for pulling Israeli troops out of the Gaza Strip prompted me to let him hang himself. Forthwith, I begin a Greatest Hits of Robertsonian Comic Genius. Feel free to contribute your own if you know of some good 'uns. On with the show:

Robertson said that God told him: "I will remove judges from the Supreme Court quickly, and their successors will refuse to sanction the attacks on religious faith." Robertson also said that he "heard it from the Lord" that President Bush will have Social Security and tax reform passed and that Muslims will turn to Jesus Christ.

"...one of the fundamental principles we have in America is that the president is the commander in chief of the armed forces and attempts to undermine the commander in chief during time of war amounts to treason."

"But look at Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The stuff that she believed in was absolutely outlandish, you know, polygamy, legalized prostitution, legalized -- the age of consent dropped to 12."

STEPHANOPOULOS: You said...that the out-of-control judiciary -- and this was in your last book, Courting Disaster -- is the most serious threat America has faced in nearly 400 years of history, more serious than Al Qaeda, more serious than Nazi Germany and Japan, more serious than the Civil War?
ROBERTSON: George, I really believe that.

After Orlando, Florida, city officials voted in 1998 to fly rainbow flags from city lampposts during the annual Gay Days event at Disney World, Robertson issued the city a warning: "I don't think I'd be waving those flags in God's face if I were you. ... [A] condition like this will bring about the destruction of your nation. It'll bring about terrorist bombs, it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor."

COLMES: When you say he's got the favor of heaven, are you implying that that -- he is God's choice and that God preferred him over John Kerry?
ROBERTSON: Obviously, if you think the Lord rules in the affairs of men, he did because he sure won. He had 3.5 million more votes.
COLMES: -- Doesn't that mean that at one time, Pat, Bill Clinton was God's choice for president?
HANNITY: No, he just allowed -- allowed that to happen.
COLMES: Let me ask Pat.
HANNITY: We're out of time.
ROBERTSON: I think -- I think He [God] wanted to bring America to its knees so we'd start praying harder.

Horses in Front of Greenwood

At the entrance to Greenwood Cemetery in Fort Worth is a large statue of four horses charging out of the cemetery gates. As I'm entering the cemetery for a funeral, I started wondering about the significance of these horses. The most obvious connection seems to be the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. But why would a "place of rest" metaphorically advertise itself as a haven for war, famine, pestilence, and death? Appropriate...yes. Subtle...no. Maybe they just thought horses would be some cool shit to have out in front of a cemetery...I wonder.

Update: Well, you do a little research and you find the answers. The horses at Greenwood are a quadriga. A quadriga is a " four-horse chariot, raced in the Olympic Games and other sacred games, and represented in profile as the usual chariot of gods and heroes on Greek vases and bas-reliefs. The quadriga was adopted in ancient Roman chariot racing. Quadrigas became a natural emblem of triumph, victory or fame, often depicted as a triumphant woman guiding a quadriga. In classical mythology, quadrigas were the vehicles of the gods; Apollo was often depicted as driving his quadriga across the heavens, bringing daylight with him and dispersing the darkness of night."

Well, okay then. I guess that's more in line with the usual advertising modus of cemeteries. I think it would have been cooler with the chariot, though.

Hooked 'Em

I think Samuel L. Jackson needs to send Vince Young his "Bad Motherfucker" wallet. Vince is a total badass who has a storied history of rising to the occasion and did so in spades Wednesday night.

Maybe it was just the epic struggle he had just been through, but I thought Matt Leinart was a bit of a sourpuss in post-game interviews. He kept referring to Vince Young as a "freak of nature" and declaring that they were a better team that "lost" rather than Texas "winning." I think I was watching a different game. If I've ever seen any team snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, it was Texas on Wednesday night.

Now, as an A&M alum I've had to progress through a slew of rationalizations to end up as a fever pitch Texas supporter. I think what finally put me over the edge was the simple fact that the state of Texas produces so much talent, it's bullshit that we haven't had a national champ in 35 years. If it's Texas, so be it. However, given that I had a little bet on the game, I still considered it a win-win situation. If Texas lost, I could revert to being a snarky Aggie gigging the Longhorns about Mack Brown not being able to win the big one. That would have been worth the price of the bet.

Wasting Time

Those of you who haven't killed time on Internet Movie DataBase are missing out. Did you know...

Corbin Bernsen (of Major League and L.A. Law fame) has one of the world largest collections of snow globes...over 6000!

Here's a user comment I found on the "Dog the Bounty Hunter" forum...

Some of you comment on the way they are dressed and what they did when they where younger I have been a bail agent for 21 years now and believe me they put their lives on the line everyday with that in mind does it really matter what they are wearing and as far as what they did they paid their dues they did their time and for Dog to go out and change after that well I don't know I guess you are perfect and have never sinned or felt deep remorse for those sins. He made his life better he now has morals how many people now can say that. As far as I can see no one cares about anyone anymore it is a rare thing to see another human being actually take the time to help someone else and you are going to mock that everything must be perfect in your world how about joining the real world

Now, I'm no grammarian (a fun game: find the double negative in this post) but those are the longest sentences I've seen since I gave up on Faulkner. I get the feeling that the writer was just too fucking pissed about some asshole besmirching Dog's good name to take time to punctuate. I feel sorry for the writer's spouse, who undoubtedly had to endure a none-too trenchant pantsing of modern society as interpreted by this 21 year veteran of the bail-bond trade.

But the ultimate timewaster has to be Stuffonmycat.com. Here's what's happening over there. While their lazy-ass cats are sleeping, people cover them with shit - all kinds of shit like candy, cd's, post-it notes, whatever - then take photos and submit them to the site. Any photo qualifies as long as there's a cat with something on it. Like dogs, musical instruments, bananas, spare change....

Blarnia II

Just in case my viewpoint wasn't clear on the previous post, I view Aslan the big fluffy friendly lion in the Narnia series a little bit like I view Joe Camel. Gandalf in Lord of the Rings is also culpable.

Which is not to say I don't support the rights of both C.S. Lewis and Camel cigarettes to advertise their products how they see fit. We have to live with these fraudulent portrayals...caveat emptor.

Update: I don't have a problem with kids enjoying a fantasy kiddie story with a big fluffy lion. I do have a problem with the way the hordes of evangelical Christians, unaware of my "apathetic atheism," give me the ol' wink-wink "my family saw Narnia this weekend...did you." These are the same people that continually drop the name of their church to try and elicit a response from me to see if I'm one of the gang. Let your kids enjoy the movie, buy the stuffed animal at Burger King, and leave me alone about it...lest I endorse the Mouseketeers as sponsors of Marlboro.

Alternative to Blarnia

Like any good name-calling elitist, I was musing over the latest issue of the New Yorker recently trying to project some blue-state ethos onto my red state existence. I ran across an article about the celebrated children's author Philip Pullman. Pullman writes children's fantasy novels that have been regaled as masterpieces in his native Britain. It's worth noting that Pullman's characters are differentiated from the standard Magic-and-Monster goulash in that there is a pronounced dedication to science.

The article is an interesting juxtaposition of Pullman, an avowed atheist, and C.S. Lewis, the evangelist. In the wake of the movie Narnia, Lewis has been receiving much acclaim from our vocal theocratic wing and a fair amount of criticism for his rather transparent Biblical allegory from egg-headed literary coastal types. For my part (and I identify myself with the egg-headed literary coastal types), I lapped up those books at a very young age like a kitten with a bowl of milk without even sniffing the religion being foisted upon me. I will attribute this to my secular upbringing, my uncritical nine-year-old brain, and the great names of the books, especially "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader."

The article describes Pullman as being more critical of the Narnia series than the Lord of the Rings, that other mainstay of Christian allegory by Lewis' converter Tolkien:


When it comes to “The Chronicles of Narnia,” by C. S. Lewis, Pullman’s antipathy is even more pronounced [than for Lord of the Rings]. [He] considers the fantasy series “morally loathsome.” In a 1998 essay for the Guardian, entitled “The Dark Side of Narnia,” he condemned “the misogyny, the racism, the sado-masochistic relish for violence that permeates the whole cycle.” He reviled Lewis for depicting the character Susan Pevensie’s sexual coming of age—suggested by her interest in “nylons and lipstick and invitations”—as grounds for exclusion from paradise. In Pullman’s view, the “Chronicles,” which end with the rest of the family’s ascension to a neo-Platonic version of Narnia after they die in a railway accident, teach that “death is better than life; boys are better than girls . . . and so on. There is no shortage of such nauseating drivel in Narnia, if you can face it.”

Touche. Much of the criticism of Narnia has to do with the inherent sexism that sounds to me to be earned. On the contrary, many young girls identify with the youngest sister who is the first to be brainwashed...er...believe in Narnia. One thing I like about the Lion episode is that Santa gives everyone tools.

The Pullman series is called "His Dark Materials" (a line from Paradise Lost) and is available here.

Pullman's series is described as being similar to the Harry Potter series in that it attracts many adult readers as well. I've ordered up the series of three and am looking forward to the read. Stay tuned for a review (in about six months).