The Cryptic Philosopher

Not surprisingly, The Onion covers an issue better than the actual media

2009-12-11T15:58:00.002-06:00

From a recent Onion article, "U.S. Finally Gets Around To Prosecuting Mastermind Behind 9/11":

The Justice Department announced Monday that it had finally found enough time in its busy schedule to squeeze in the prosecution of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, more than six years after the high-profile suspect was captured and eight years after the worst-ever terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

That's really the issue here--why hasn't this happened much, much sooner? All of the concerns voiced by those opposed to, uh, the rule of law (not sure how better to phrase that) trot out the same old canards that a trial will make us vulnerable to attack (c/o Mitch McConnell, who seems to have forgotten that we are always targets for attack) or the unbelievably tired "pre-9/11 mindset" arguments (this time c/o Michael Mukasey):

Michael Mukasey...said criminal courts were a bad choice for trying the alleged 9/11 plotters. He said the decision represented a turn from the Bush administration's war footing to a "Sept. 10, 2001" mentality.

"The plan seems to abandon the view that we are involved in a war," said Mr. Mukasey.

Of course, the Congressional Republicans themselves display a shocking lack of any noticeable sense of irony in addressing how trying Mohammed now would only delay justice:

Delayed Justice: In New York, KSM will enjoy the legal rights and benefits of U.S. citizens and resident aliens under the Constitution. A criminal trial will force the government to reveal all of its intelligence on KSM and how it obtained it. Additionally, treating the 9/11 attacks as a simple criminal matter rather than an act of war will hinder U.S. efforts to fight terrorism and sends the wrong signal to U.S. enemies abroad. A costly civilian court trial for KSM will also likely take years. The trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, for example, was tied up in court for more than four years by his lawyers and ended only when Moussaoui pleaded guilty.

Anyway, I've noted before that it is conceivably possible to prosecute unspeakable and unconscionable war crimes in a civilized manner, that most Republicans turn into pants-wetting sissies at the very thought of civilian trials, and that The Onion has a disquietingly prescient sense of humor.

Annual Halloween Crappy Horror Movie Fest movie #3: Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

2009-10-31T20:05:00.004-06:00

Not too much to say about this one. It fills out the story elements hinted at in the first two movies, although it is not strictly necessary to the overall story--perhaps it was just too tempting to create an Underworld trilogy. This installment only brings out Kate Beckinsale in stock footage, opting for the almost-as-hot Rhona Mitra (who was once the model for Lara Croft).

There's basically no suspense, since viewers of the first two films know exactly what's going to happen--the thrill is to finally see vampires and werewolves go at it with swords, arrows, and claws, rather than the oddly modern and high-tech bullets of the first movie. So basically, there are vampires and werewolves, and British women in very tight clothing. Way to be.

Interesting side note: the director, Patrick Tatopoulos, was the "creatures designer" for both The Cave and Pitch Black, making this film choice oddly evocative of my film choice of earlier today.

Annual Halloween Crappy Horror Movie Fest movie #2: Gone

2009-10-31T17:09:00.002-06:00

For my next crappy horror film I decided to try Australia's Gone, for the main reason that it supposedly stars "Chuck's" Yvonne Strzechowski (who appears in one scene and has no dialogue, alas).

As if Wolf Creek didn't teach us all what a terrifying, Chainsaw Massacre-esque place Western Australia is, Gone sets out a run-of-the-mill three-person suspense thriller, with a young hip Australian couple terrorized by Scott Mechlowicz (of EuroTrip fame, who, after this movie and Mean Creek, can probably never play a normal person again.) That's really all I can say about this movie. Mechlowicz has fully transformed from the innocent but lovable doofus of EuroTrip to a career as a B-movie creepy guy. There's really no suspense until the last ten minutes or so, with the buildup consisting of various predictable efforts by the villain to create distrust between the Australian couple--he is helped by the fact that the boyfriend is a spazz and the girlfriend is an idiot.

The grand ending (Spoiler alert!) is definitely one to go down in the hall of fame for Frightening Use of Chain Link. Other than that, meh.

Annual Halloween Crappy Horror Movie Fest movie #1: The Cave

2009-10-31T10:40:00.003-06:00

This movie just plain sucked, despite having Lena Heady (pre-Sarah Connor and pre-300).

Send a bunch of seasoned spelunkers and biologists into a quasi-mystical Romanian cave system, and the best they could come up with to hunt them was the deformed love child of the Alien and the things from Pitch Black?

This film had a budget of $30 million--I wonder how many cups of coffee a day that could have bought in order to save children?

Classic joke of the day

2009-09-05T17:41:00.002-06:00

Holmes and Watson are on a camping trip. In the middle of the night Holmes wakes up and gives Dr. Watson a nudge. "Watson," he says, "look up in the sky and tell me what you see."

"I see millions of stars, Holmes," says Watson.

"And what do you conclude from that, Watson?"

Watson thinks for a moment, "Well," he says, "astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful, and we are small and insignificant. Uh, what does that tell you, Holmes?"

"Watson, you idiot! Someone has stolen our tent!"
h/t Mitch Ditkoff

No one falls asleep during a tattoo session (I think)

2009-06-27T07:18:00.003-06:00

Those who follow tattoo news may have heard about the Belgian girl who claims she asked for three stars to be tattooed on her face, then fell asleep and woke up to find 56 stars there instead, and wanted to sue the tattoo artist:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Now, it turns out she made the whole thing up to placate her father, who was, perhaps understandably, upset at her new facial adornment:[S]he told Dutch TV this week, "I asked for 56 stars and initially adored them. But when my father saw them, he was furious."

The tattoo artist also said [she] had agreed to 56 stars.

"She agreed, but when her father saw it, the trouble started," Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws quoted the man as saying.
I think the moral here is to always get informed consent, and maybe to be a little leery of 18 year-olds wanting their faces covered in tattoos. Kudos to the tattoo artist, Rouslan Toumaniantz, for seeing the real lessons here:Toumaniantz, who is covered from head to toe in tattoo artistry, said the only thing he was disappointed in was having an unhappy client.

"I don't regret it. To tell you the truth, this has given me some publicity," Toumanaintz told The Telegraph.

He will now require written consent from clients before any procedure, he said.
I had always thought the catastrophic pain associated with getting a tattoo was contract enough--who would do that on accident?--but the man is wise. He didn't do anything wrong, but it would be good for him to have a better way to prove that.

In the meantime, a pretty 18 year-old Belgian girl has a face intentionally covered in 56 stars. Maybe there's a broader issue there than informed consent--just sayin'.

Cooler heads might have prevailed

2009-05-01T13:30:00.004-06:00

In 1945, President Truman appointed Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson as the chief prosecutor for the planned tribunals to try accused Nazi war criminals:

The privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated. That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.

This Tribunal, while it is novel and experimental, is not the product of abstract speculations nor is it created to vindicate legalistic theories. This inquest represents the practical effort of four of the most mighty of nations, with the support of 17 more, to utilize international law to meet the greatest menace of our times-aggressive war. The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power and make deliberate and concerted use of it to set in motion evils which. leave no home in the world untouched. It is a cause of that magnitude that the United Nations will lay before Your Honors.

In the prisoners' dock sit twenty-odd broken men. Reproached by the humiliation of those they have led almost as bitterly as by the desolation of those they have attacked, their personal capacity for evil is forever past. It is hard now to perceive in these men as captives the power by which as Nazi leaders they once dominated much of the world and terrified most of it. Merely as individuals their fate is of little consequence to the world.

What makes this inquest significant is that these prisoners represent sinister influences that will lurk in the world long after their bodies have returned to dust. We will show them to be living symbols of racial hatreds, of terrorism and violence, and of the arrogance and cruelty of power. They are symbols of fierce nationalisms and of militarism, of intrigue and war-making which have embroiled Europe generation after generation, crushing its manhood, destroying its homes, and impoverishing its life. They have so identified themselves with the philosophies they conceived and with the forces they directed that any tenderness to them is a victory and an encouragement to all the evils which are attached to their names. Civilization can afford no compromise with the social forces which would gain renewed strength if we deal ambiguously or indecisively with the men in whom those forces now precariously survive.

***

No charity can disguise the fact that the forces which these defendants represent, the forces that would advantage and delight in their acquittal, are the darkest and most sinister forces in society-dictatorship and oppression, malevolence and passion, militarism and lawlessness. By their fruits we best know them. Their acts have bathed the world in blood and set civilization back a century. They have subjected their European neighbors to every outrage and torture, every spoliation and deprivation that insolence, cruelty, and greed could inflict. They have brought the German people to the lowest pitch of wretchedness, from which they can entertain no hope of early deliverance. They have stirred hatreds and incited domestic violence on every continent. These are the things that stand in the dock shoulder to shoulder with these prisoners.

The real complaining party at your bar is Civilization. In all our countries it is still a struggling and imperfect thing. It does not plead that the United States, or any other country, has been blameless of the conditions which made the German people easy victims to the blandishments and intimidations of the Nazi conspirators.

But it points to the dreadful sequence of aggressions and crimes I have recited, it points to the weariness of flesh, the exhaustion of resources, and the destruction of all that was beautiful or useful in so much of the world, and to greater potentialities for destruction in the days to come. It is not necessary among the ruins of this ancient and beautiful city with untold members of its civilian inhabitants still buried in its rubble, to argue the proposition that to start or wage an aggressive war has the moral qualities of the worst of crimes. The refuge of the defendants can be only their hope that international law will lag so far behind the moral sense of mankind that conduct which is crime in the moral sense must be regarded as innocent in law.

Civilization asks whether law is so laggard as to be utterly helpless to deal with crimes of this magnitude by criminals of this order of importance. It does not expect that you can make war impossible. It does expect that your juridical action will put the forces of international law, its precepts, its prohibitions and, most of all, its sanctions, on the side of peace, so that men and women of good will, in all countries, may have "leave to live by no man's leave, underneath the law."

Robert H. Jackson, Chief of Counsel for the United States, Nuremberg, Germany, November 21, 1945

To compare al-Qaeda directly to the Nazis is of course to give al-Qaeda far too much credit, but there is an obvious analogy to be made. Of all the reasons that the torture and other depredations of the Bush years should be investigated and prosecuted, perhaps one of the greatest and least-mentioned is this: in addition to losing our moral standing in the world, consider what the world has lost in terms of opportunities to bring organizations like al-Qaeda to light, to expose them for the cowards and liars that they are, and to begin the process of redressing the conditions so as to make such acts as the 9/11 attacks inconceivable to all humanity. I am not naive enough to think that war and terror can be stamped out solely through honesty, but the fundamental laws of human dignity and decency did not cease to function in September 2001. It is precisely the calm and measured tone of Justice Jackson that has been sorely missing for the past 7+ years. What if the knowledge gleaned from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's (pre-torture) interrogation had been made known to the world in 2003 or 2004? What more could have been accomplished in stemming the tide of hatred and violence fomented by the bin Ladens of the world if we had kept our sights on them the whole time? We will never know, and that is a loss that should not go unredressed.

America either tortures people or it doesn't (updated)

2009-05-01T11:37:00.004-06:00

Remember the debate over the torture issue? It was back before the fears of swine flu surfaced, so it's pretty ancient now...I think it was last Friday. Near as I can tell, the position of the old Bush guard (pun intended) is that we do not torture, but it doesn't matter anyway because it's not illegal to torture, which is not something we do, anyway. I'm pretty much sick and tired of the debate, but it is a debate that apparently must be had, because there are seemingly honest, intelligent people in this country who will say with a straight face that simulating drowning by covering a person's face and repeatedly dowsing them with water until they think they are on the verge of death is not torture, but "enhanced interrogation techniques," and that we shouldn't bother with any sort of investigations into the legality of such actions because...well, I guess it's because we have better things to do. Of course, Republicans are always complaining that government is too big, so perhaps we can just use some of the extra weight to conduct investigations and prosecutions, while the important and necessary parts of the government carry on. If the alleged wrongdoers didn't do anything wrong, then they've got nothing to hide, and what would be the harm in investigating, right? Right?

I can throw the quotes of Bushies back in their faces all day, and I'd love to do so, but here's the thing: to say that investigations and prosecutions of torture would "tear this country apart" is bullshit, plain and simple. This is not an issue of right vs. left, conservative vs. liberal, or whatever. It's a question of basic human dignity. It doesn't matter what our opponents do, or what they plan to do, or what they'd like to do to us. We (and by that I mean America) hold ourselves out as the "shining city on a hill" to inspire the peoples of the world. We have squandered every last bit of goodwill that we spent the first 200+ years of our history earning from the rest of the world in the supposed name of keeping ourselves safe from...something. The Bushies never would tell us exactly what...

Investigations and prosecutions are not just necessary, they are essential...not just to regain the world's respect, but to regain respect for ourselves. If this truly is a partisan issue, if there really is an argument to be made for legally sanctioned and clandestine torture, then let that argument be made out in the open, within the hearing of all Americans and the world, open to discussion and debate. If having such a debate would be damaging to our republic, if it would somehow damage our ability to "move forward," it does not matter. If we cannot address our own wrongdoing without ripping ourselves apart, then we are just prolonging the inevitable. America is more than a nation, and at the risk of sounding trite, it is an idea that has endured longer than most states ever have. America is a dream of freedom and liberty under law. Let those laws work, and if it tears us apart in the process, what was it that we were really holding together in the first place?

UPDATE: Gene Lyons at Salon has two excellent pieces on the genesis of this whole debacle here and here.

UPDATE II: Ditto for Gary Kamiya:

Those opposed to reopening the book on the Bush years argue that doing so would tear the country apart. They're right -- but they forget that the country is already torn apart. The gulf between Democrats and Republicans has never been wider. The Republican Party, the home of those who still defend the Bush years, has become a reactionary and increasingly marginal movement that is in fealty to crude demagogues like Rush Limbaugh and whose hysterical denunciations of Obama sound more and more unhinged.

What this means is that those Americans who would be truly outraged by an investigation are already outraged. It could not make them any angrier or more bitter than they already are. And even if it did, how much difference would that make? The GOP base already regards Democrats as terrorist-coddling communists. Are they going to all join militias?

I kind of suspect that Mr. Kamiya has not been to Texas recently, or he might not be so sanguine about the idea of Republicans joining militias. I still prefer that to everyone hiding their true colors.

I suppose it's possible that for some the battle lines have not yet been drawn. I certainly hope not, though.

Mocking "conservative" movies, part 2

2009-04-11T10:53:00.004-06:00

This is the second installment in my intermittent series poking fun at National Review Online's list of the 25 best "conservative" movies. Mostly, I am mocking the notion that there is a single unified "conservative" ideology anymore at all. Now, then, on to #6-10 (WARNING: Spoilers abound!):

6. Groundhog Day. I actually haven't seen this one, either (that's two so far), but I've certainly heard a lot about it. It's "conservative" cred apparently comes from its moral "that redemption and meaning are derived not from indulging your 'authentic' instincts and drives, but from striving to live up to external and timeless ideals." All I can think to say is duh. If you do anything enough times (as Bill Murray's character is forced to repeat the same day again and again ad nauseam), you're bound to either (a) go insane or (b) discover some deeper meaning to it all. This is hardly a viewpoint upon which "conservatives" hold a monopoly.

7. The Pursuit of Happyness. Long story short, single dad sacrifices everything to provide for his young son, and becomes a fantabulously successful stockbroker in the process, all during the Reagan administration. Possibly Will Smith's best performance ever, and it certainly does demonstrate the ostensibly "conservative" virtues of self-reliance, family values, and accumulation of wealth. I have a few bones to pick with NRO's analysis of the film, though:

"[T]his film provides the perfect antidote to Wall Street and other Hollywood diatribes depicting the world of finance as filled with nothing but greed." Perhaps you missed the scene where Will Smith's character gets the idea to become a stockbroker from a man driving a Ferrari.
"They’re black, but there’s no racial undertone or subtext." Except for the one you just created. Seriously, you already said it was a Will Smith movie, so why was this sentence necessary?
"Gardner [Will Smith's character] is just an incredibly hard-working, ambitious, and smart man who wants to do better for himself and his son." Who takes an unpaid internship based on the dream of a Ferrari and the ability to solve a Rubik's Cube (see above YouTube link).

Those quibbles aside, this was a terrific movie. Certainly some liberties were taken with the facts, but the story ought to inspire anyone who sees it.
An amusing side note: after getting the job at Dean Witter, Gardner was then recruited to Bear Stearns.

8. Juno. Sigh. If this movie has any sort of anti-abortion message to it, it's really just one that viewers impose onto it. Juno's only stated reason for leaving the clinic is that it "smelled like a dentist's office." More importantly is the fact that Juno chose to leave the clinic after running a gauntlet of a single protester. The protester was more an object of satire in the film than anything about Juno's decision to seek an abortion. A common problem in the whole abortion debate is that people see it as only being two-sided: you oppose abortion rights, or you think it's all hunky-dory. I always thought "pro-choice" was a great choice of labels, because you can support the right to choose without actually liking the procedure itself. But back to the film: aside from the imposed "pro-life" meaning (and I hate that label for reasons I'll discuss some other time), the NRO reviewer doesn't have much nice to say about the movie: "The film has its faults, including a number of crass moments and a pregnant high-school student with an unrealistic level of self-confidence." Actually, I thought it pretty much depicted the teenage years as a series of crass moments. Juno is not a particularly realistic individual 16 year-old, but she is a pretty good cypher for a generalized teenage mindset: torn between all the various pressures and expectations of late childhood, and trying to maintain her own sense of self throughout it all, blah blah blah...point being, there is a lot more going on here than just a "pro-life" or "conservative" message. Finally, recall that the movie ends with the baby being adopted by a single mother. Yikes!

9. Blast from the Past. If you wanted evidence that "conservatives" have no sense of irony or satire, look no further. "Brendan Fraser plays an innocent who has grown up in a fallout shelter and doesn’t know the era of Sputnik and Perry Como is over. Alicia Silverstone is a post-feminist woman who learns from him that pre-feminist women had some things going for them." I haven't seen the film in a good long while, but I'm trying to imagine the two actors discussing the merits of Valium-addled '50s housewives versus Prozac-addled late-'90s career-driven mothers, etc., etc. It could be that I'm too cynical. Maybe I need a good dose of 1950's-era idealism! Well, it's sure a good thing I'm not a gay black communist woman--I hear the 1950's weren't so great for those groups. This is just the same tired old "conservative" cliche that there existed some mythical past when Everything Was Better, and modern society has somehow lost its way.

10. Ghostbusters. Really? Well, there was a very Reaganesque ethic to the movie, which I think is the sole basis for including it on this list: "[Y]ou have to like a movie in which the bad guy (William Atherton at his loathsome best) is a regulation-happy buffoon from the EPA, and the solution to a public menace comes from the private sector." Of course, the EPA buffoon as portrayed utterly failed to follow any of his own agency's procedures for information gathering, but that allowed Bill Murray to have a funny smackdown scene with him. The shutdown of the containment facility was a sterling depiction of Bush II-era disregard for the rule of law in the interest of national security (they had a warrant none of the Ghostbusters were allowed to see.) But seriously, my main concern with this movie's "conservative" creds arises from two facts: (1) a god not mentioned in the Bible tries to destroy the world, and (2) salvation is left to the New York National Guard and four snarky private contractors--four smart-asses defeating ultimate evil? That's what the movie is really about, and it's a little too timelessly awesome to just be "conservative."

Now for some video:

Question re: pirate standoff

2009-04-11T09:34:00.002-06:00

OK, I understand the importance of safeguarding the captain held hostage aboard the pirates' lifeboat, as well as the 200-odd other hostages held by Somali pirates elsewhere. This isn't something where we (and by that I mean the U.S. military) should charge in guns blazing--those times are quite rare, if they exist at all. Keeping the hostages safe is the most important factor, although I think "never negotiating with terrorists" is strongly vying for the top spot among priorities. And yes, just because your motives are pecuniary and not ideological doesn't mean you are not a terrorist--just my $0.02.

Here's what I don't get, though: the U.S.S. Bainbridge, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, is "keeping its distance, in part to stay out of the pirates' range of fire."

I am no expert in naval strategy and tactics, nor do I have any proficiency in hostage negotiations (particularly where there are potentially multiple hostages in play in multiple locations). But really, unless they are carrying suitcase nukes, what could the pirates possibly have on board the lifeboat that could seriously threaten the Bainbridge? The only shots fired so far appear to have been fired by the pirates during an escape attempt by the hostage. Does the Bainbridge have any Marine snipers on board or anything? Maybe I've just seen too many movies, but when the most powerful Navy the world has ever known is held at bay by a lifeboat, something just seems a bit wrong.

Discuss.

I triumphantly return to blogging by mocking the idea of "conservative" movies

2009-02-23T20:55:00.003-06:00

It's not difficult to point out some movies that are decidedly "liberal," at least based on the overall tone and plot of the film. A few titles come to mind such as The American President and Dave, wherein Republican politicians receive their comeuppance by Democratic politicians or a likeable everyman character. For some reason, it seems harder to label a particular film "conservative," particularly using the present-day meanings of the words "liberal" and "conservative." Sometimes I think "liberal" ideas just make for better drama--stories of an underdog triumphing against the odds are much more compelling than stories of the struggle to remain abstinent or to retain one's tax cuts. I jest, somewhat, but the reason I'm even writing this is because I have been haunted for the past several days by the National Review Online's list of the 25 best "conservative" movies (h/t Chez Pazienza at HuffPo). What, you may ask, is a "conservative" movie? Well, in this case it refers to films "that offer compelling messages about freedom, families, patriotism, traditions, and more." With such a generic definition, this should be an entertaining list. Personally, I think it shows the utter bankruptcy of the very concept of a single "conservative" ideology in 2009 America. Cue the snark.

1. The Lives of Others. Beyond a doubt, this is one of my all-time favorite movies. Set in East Berlin in 1984, it tells the story of a Stasi spy assigned to snoop on a barely-tolerated subversive playwright, and how the spy comes to sympathize with the playwright's ideals and freedoms over the Communist system he has devoted his life to. Thinking that communism and totalitarianism suck is hardly the sole domain of "conservatives" anymore, though, so I hereby reclaim The Lives of Others for my fellow political independents.

2. The Incredibles. Another one of my favorite movies, said to "celebrate marriage, courage, responsibility, and high achievement." These are "conservative" values? I think someone missed the last 8 years.

3. Metropolitan. I haven't seen it, but it apparently involves a normal guy showing up a bunch of effete New York snobs. And that's really what conservatives are all about.

4. Forrest Gump. The title character is described as "an amiable dunce who is far too smart to embrace the lethal values of the 1960s." I suppose that is one way of interpreting it, but I got a rather strong anti-everything-stupid vibe from the movie, not just limited to hippies. Meh.

5. 300. Seriously. 300 is considered a conservative film. Beefcake in leather speedoes being fed into a meat grinder in the name of defending a society that kills unfit individuals at birth. It is worth noting that a major cause of the eventual smackdown they receive (aside from being horrifically outnumbered) is the betrayal of one of those "unfit" individuals who was allowed to live, and man was he pissed. I suppose the lesson is that freedom isn't free and must be defended at all costs, which is why so many College Republicans have volunteered to go to Iraq. Oh wait...

I think I'll have to make this a series of sorts, since I'm not going through all 25 in one sitting. Besides, I like to leave my reader(s) wanting more...

Just when you thought it was safe(r) to go in the water...

2008-12-13T17:34:00.002-06:00

Prepaqre for the invasion of the jellyfish. That's the result of a National Science Foundation study, which reveals massive swarms of jellyfish are appearing in oceans worldwide in apparently unprecedented numbers.

I don't know about you, dear reader(s), but jellyfish scare the crap out of me. They're just...weird. They're goopy, tentacle-y, and they don't even have brains!!! How can we compete with such a beast???

I remember summers on the beach at Port Aransas as a kid, having to dodge beached jellyfish and Portuguese men-o-war (which also contributed, I'm sure, to a lifelong fear of Lusophones.)

Incidentally, having spent all of my childhood beachgoing at Port A and Corpus Christi, Texas, I was in my early teens before I learned that it is not normal, after a day at the beach, to sit in the tub and clean tar off of yourself. Thank you, offshore driliing industry!

Back to the jellyfish, though...if we're already having problems with depleted fisheries, melting glaciers, and oceanic "dead zones," the thought of angry swarms of jellyfish in coastal areas is, well, troublesome. I will be spending all of my vacations in mountainous inland areas from now on.

Portugese Man o' War pic from Wikimedia Commons

Tattoos hit the political mainstream, finally, sort of

2008-12-10T14:31:00.002-06:00

After years of hard-fought, oft-thankless struggle, a tattooed she-devil may finally have a shot at the United States Senate.

Okay, that's a gross exaggeration, actually. It would appear that Caroline Kennedy has a tiny, partially-removed butterfly tat on her left arm that, now that she's pondering a Senate run, is making a few waves here and there.

Could this be the defining moment for body art on the body politic? Perhaps. It's much more likely that the Mainstream Media just didn't have very much to do today. Still, I have been pondering for some time where all of this is leading--those of you who don't live in Austin in the summer months may not be used to the sight of more tribal patterns than a New Guinea jungle (was that racist? Maybe a little--I was just going for a "tribal" analogy. Apologies to all Melanesians who might take offense.) Will the bulk of my generation of Austinites eventually come to regret their dragonscale sleeve tats? For my part, I think the HR directors of the future will have little to no cause to bemoan others' ink, as they will no doubt be (at least partially) concealing old tramp stamps from their wild college days.

I leave it to history to decide.

And anyway, Ms. Kennedy has a tiny butterfly, big whoop.

Still here...

2008-12-10T13:00:00.003-06:00

I know it's been quite a while since last I posted, so I figured I owe it to my reader(s) to account for my absence. It's quite simple: there's been so much crap going on in the world, I got overwhelmed by all the idiocy and collapsed into a quivering heap, unable to speak, walk, eat, or blog. Finally, a friendly passerby found me and shook me out of my stupidity-induced stupor.

Also, I've been really busy with work. But I promise that my irreverent/irrelevant rants on culture, politics, and hotties will continue once more. Stay tuned, dear reader(s).

Monday morning geek-out

2008-09-08T06:35:00.001-06:00

Star Wars and cockatiels (h/t io9):

It's good to be the king

2008-09-05T12:46:00.002-06:00

I can't say I agree with or approve of the practice going on here, but I am astonished to see this headline in 2008:

Bare-breasted virgins compete for Swaziland king

By Phakamisa Ndzamela

LUDZIDZINI ROYAL VILLAGE, Swaziland (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of bare-breasted virgins competed for Swaziland King Mswati III's eye on Monday in a traditional Reed Dance.

Walking through the dense crowds in a leopard skin loin cloth, Sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch was expected to choose his 14th wife.

Critics say Mswati, who has courted controversy for his lavish lifestyle while two thirds of his subjects live in poverty, sets a bad example by encouraging polygamy and teenage sex in a country where about 40 percent of adults live with HIV.

Some of the women did not seem to mind, hoping to escape from the southern African nation's hardships for the easy life.

"I came here to dance. I wish the king would have chosen me because it's nice at the king's place. The wives live a nice life," said Tenene Dlamini, 16, in a traditional brown skirt.

"Everything is done for them. They don't work. They earn."

Wow. Just wow. Read more about this guy here.

Why I'm sad the Olympics are over

2008-08-26T20:34:00.002-06:00

No more Blanka Vlasic for the time being :(

Blanka Vlasic Osaka 2007
Uploaded by docteur23

I'll also miss moments like this:

Yeah, I'm a scumbag. I never claimed otherwise.

A political ad for the ages

2008-08-19T13:43:00.002-06:00

I haven't posted in a while, dear reader(s), for any number of reasons, but I'd like to think that I'm back in the game. Of course, the easiest way to blog is to embed someone else's content and say something about it, so here is the nation's political discourse heightened by Paris Hilton.

Say it again and again, and it still sounds weird.

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Honestly, the biggest flaw in her plan is that Rihanna couldn't be her vice president, because she was born in Barbados. This may prove to be the strongest argument for amending Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution (sorry, Arnold.)

Wordle me this

2008-07-15T18:31:00.003-06:00

Nifty new website (h/t AB) that will arrange popular words from your blog into pretty pictures.

I didn't realize I used the word "racist" that much. Hmm.

Politically-correct Follies, UK-style

2008-07-13T13:54:00.002-06:00

The British government has launched an effort to stamp out racism and prejudice at the earliest possible age, including infancy. One heretofore-unnoticed sign of nascent racism? Disliking spicy foreign food:

The National Children's Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.

This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.

The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist attitudes in youngsters from a young age.

It alerts playgroup leaders that even babies can not be ignored in the drive to root out prejudice as they can "recognise different people in their lives".

The 366-page guide for staff in charge of pre-school children, called Young Children and Racial Justice, warns: "Racist incidents among children in early years settings tend to be around name-calling, casual thoughtless comments and peer group relationships."

It advises nursery teachers to be on the alert for childish abuse such as: "blackie", "Pakis", "those people" or "they smell".

The guide goes on to warn that children might also "react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying 'yuk'".

Staff are told: "No racist incident should be ignored. When there is a clear racist incident, it is necessary to be specific in condemning the action."

Warning that failing to pick children up on their racist attitudes could instil prejudice, the NCB adds that if children "reveal negative attitudes, the lack of censure may indicate to the child that there is nothing unacceptable about such attitudes".

Nurseries are encouraged to report as many incidents as possible to their local council. The guide added: "Some people think that if a large number of racist incidents are reported, this will reflect badly on the institution. In fact, the opposite is the case."

I have no idea what sort of power these "local councils" have in the UK, but it certainly sounds ominous. I can hardly fault a program to discourage youngsters from using actual racist epithets, but I have to wonder how it could have taken 366 pages to address this issue. Allow me to list my first few reactions:

1. WTF????
2. If school teachers discourage something, don't they run the risk of kids thinking it's cool? Racism may become the new Sex Pistols for young Britons.
3. Compared to standard British fare, nearly all foreign food is spicy, and is likely to be a shock to the palate of anyone raised on fish & chips. Don't fault little Nigel for reeling at a flavor explosion.
4. A lot of foreign food is just plain gross if you didn't grow up with it--e.g. kim chee (fermented cabbage, Korea) and hákarl (rotten shark meat, Iceland).
5. Hopefully they will include "limey" in the list of slurs to be discouraged--mostly just because we need something to ruffle the feathers of ordinary pasty Brits. Oh, and because sensitivity to racism is a mutli-directional street.

At the very least, I'm sure we can all agree that the British government seems to have too much time on its hands.

Never get into life-threatening danger in front of a geek

2008-07-09T07:00:00.001-06:00

Especially a Star Wars geek:

Reason #2 to Vote for Barack Obama

2008-07-06T21:38:00.003-06:00

He is apparently a part of biblical prophecy heralding the return of Jeebus!

Plus, if the Rapture comes, the rest of us will have our pick of the leftover automobiles!

Adventures in police statism

2008-07-05T08:08:00.004-06:00

A while back, I extended a challenge to Bill O'Reilley to allow himself to be tasered to prove his claim that it's no big deal. I didn't actually expect a response. I am glad, though, to see that another torture apologist, Christopher Hitchens, has put his money where his mouth is and subjected himself to waterboarding. His conclusion? Uh, okay, it is torture after all, sorry. And BillO remains everyone's bitch.

Greatest. Summer movie idea. Ever.

2008-07-04T06:50:00.003-06:00

90 minutes of this would be so much better than most anythingt Hollywood has to offer:

Throw in some ballet-dancing cyborg action, and you may just have the perfect movie:

Bald people kick alien/fascist ass

2008-07-03T06:33:00.003-06:00

io9 has a bit on the most bad-ass bald people in scifi. I have to give props to Captain Picard for ultimate bad-assedness...

...but it was Captain Sisko who perfected the bald/goatee bad-ass look...

...and really, this is all just giving me naughty thoughts about Evey Hammond and Ellen Ripley...

...this is the wrong blog environment to go into those thoughts, though...

Another reason to vote for Obama

2008-07-02T19:40:00.002-06:00

If he wins, Stephen Baldwin will leave the country.

Thus making Bio-Dome 2 considerably less likely.

Voiceover fun

2008-07-02T06:59:00.000-06:00

Presented for no reason whatsoever:

Tunguska and the LHC - coincidence or not?

2008-07-01T08:47:00.002-06:00

I didn't see the connection at first, but it's so clear...just staring me in the face...

June 30, 1908: The Tunguska Event. A multi-megaton explosion over an uninhabited area of Siberia.
August 2008: The first operation of the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, which may very well have the capacity to destroy the world...

Isn't it obvious??? The LHC, once it is switched on, will open a temporal vortex, jumping over 100 years (it was off by a little over a month, but temporal vortices are imprecise that way) and creating a massive explosion a few thousand miles away (again with the imprecision). There is, quite simply, no other possible explanation. How could this be a coincidence??? HOW?????????????????????????????????????

Unless, of course, it's just a coincidence.

Gosh, two days into my stay-at-home vacation, and I'm going seriously batty.

Happy Tunguska Day!!!

2008-06-30T21:49:00.003-06:00

Speaking of destroying the world, today is the 100th anniversary of the meteor/comet/Cylon basestar impact over Tunguska, Siberia.

Bad Astronomy has all the gory details:

100 years ago today, a small chunk of rock or possibly ice was lazily making its way across the inner solar system when a large, blue-green planet got in its way. Traveling roughly westward, it entered the Earth’s atmosphere moving at tens of thousands kilometers per hour. Compressed and battered by tremendous forces, the object got about 5 - 10 kilometers from the ground before it succumbed, exploding like a gigantic multi-megaton bomb.

The air blast flattened trees for hundreds of square kilometers. The ground shook, witnesses felt the hellish heat from kilometers away, and the shock wave circled the world. It happened over the remote Podkammenaya Tungus river, a swampy region in Russia; had it happened over Moscow a million people might have died within minutes.

Now known as the Tunguska Event, it stands today as a shocking reminder that we live in a cosmic shooting gallery, and the Earth sits in the crosshairs of many objects.

I'm not too worried about impacts from outer space objects. Hopefully we'd see it coming, and if there's anything we could do about it, we would (one hopes). My concern is what would happen if something like Tunguska happened today and it wasn't terribly destructive, because it would probably be followed shortly by someone's nuclear arsenal, and then there would be terrible destruction. Overreaction, I'm sayin'. Imagine, if you will, that today was the 50th anniversary of Tunguska, not the 100th. That would mean that, on June 30, 1958, a massive fireball of uncertain origin erupted over Siberia. We know now that the Soviets didn't have as much atomic annihilation capacity as was once feared (although it was and is pretty f--in' scary), but they also had a highly flawed decision-making structure. It would at least make for some interesting alternate history.

Beer and LEGO

2008-06-30T19:14:00.003-06:00

The Beer Song, as performed by LEGO figures that look a little like a cross between hobbits and the Village People:

You never know where you might find useful info

2008-06-30T18:12:00.002-06:00

A combination of being on vacation (at home), being bored, and enjoying learning led to me to random Wikipedia pages on European history. That, in turn, led me to an interesting series of maps of Europe (yes, I'm a nerd; and no, you cannot give me a wedgie). What makes this notable is that, in addition to obviously-educationally-relevant maps showing language and religion and such, they also present these nuggets of wisdom: Legal status of cannabis in Europe, and Ages of sexual consent in Europe. I tried hotlinking the maps, but to no avail (the page won't even let you right-click). More to the point, alongside maps showing population density and the like, you have a map showing where it's legal to get baked and/or find a woman to go with your whiskey.

I think I saw all of this on a t-shirt once.

Point is, if anyone ever tells you they're going to Europe based on information they got from a map on Eupedia, you might seriously consider punching that person in the groin very, very hard.

It's boycottin' time!!! Or not...Support local business!!!

2008-06-30T12:46:00.003-06:00

An Austin musician has called for a boycott of local watering hole/substitute office space Austin Java, over something to do with trees and high-rise condos.

I only have two thoughts on this:
1. Austin has lots of trees. High-rise condos, by their basic nature, do not.
2. Doesn't Austin have enough high-rise condos already? Who the hell is buying these places?

I should note that, as I write this, I am sitting at Austin Java. They have hella-good cheesecake. Everyone should eat here. But don't hang out her too much--it's hard enough to get a table near a plug for my laptop as it is.

The end is nigh...???

2008-06-30T11:53:00.004-06:00

Two new polls ask the internetting public to evaluate whether the soon-to-go-online Large Hadron Collider is worth the risk of global annihilation that it poses. Actually, as PZ Myers points out, the polls ask the following: "Is the gaint[sic] particle smasher worth the risk?" and "Which do you think is more likely to destroy the world? Human actions or natural disaster?"

I'm hardly any expert on the LHC, but I have watched a lot of SciFi Saturday movies, so I feel that I am more qualified to bloviate on this issue than your average tenured nuclear physicist. And this thing is BIG. Which means it must be powerful in ways we simply cannot understand.

The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August.

But some critics fear the Large Hadron Collider could exceed physicists' wildest conjectures: Will it spawn a black hole that could swallow Earth? Or spit out particles that could turn the planet into a hot dead clump?

Ridiculous, say scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French initials CERN - some of whom have been working for a generation on the $5.8 billion collider, or LHC.

"Obviously, the world will not end when the LHC switches on," said project leader Lyn Evans.

David Francis, a physicist on the collider's huge ATLAS particle detector, smiled when asked whether he worried about black holes and hypothetical killer particles known as strangelets.

"If I thought that this was going to happen, I would be well away from here," he said.

The collider basically consists of a ring of supercooled magnets 17 miles in circumference attached to huge barrel-shaped detectors. The ring, which straddles the French and Swiss border, is buried 330 feet underground.

Damn Swiss. My biggest fear? Those pesky "particles that could turn the planet into a hot dead clump." They really do exist, even if Big Science won't admit the genius of my research. I call them torchyons in honor of the Human Torch from the Fantastic Four, who once rescued me from falling through broken ice.

But enough about that. What does it mean, really, to "destroy the world"? Does the whole not-quite-spherical thing have to blow up, as shown by the classic and infallible astrophysics documentary Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope? Is it enough for all sentient life to be eradicated? All life period? What about pikas? They're cute, so I'd rather keep them around. If the LHC has any chance of killing pikas, let's preemptively bomb Switzerland. Anyway, here's a handy guide to destroying the earth (h/t MrQhuest, whoever you are). I have my doubts that it can be accomplished solely through subatomic particles (unless they come from subspace and are enhanced with trilithium, of course.)

I recall a book by David Brin called Earth (it must have been nonfiction, of course) about a black hole being mistakenly unleashed from a lab in New Zealand (damn Kiwis), and there was also something about nuking Switzerland--gosh, it's like reading a newspaper. It was a pretty good book.

I think I've gotten it all out of my system. I shall now invoke a corollary of Poe's Law and reassure my reader(s) that I am generally being sarcastic. I think critics of the LHC are just jealous that they don't have one as big (damn Swiss).

Still, I'd look out for any rogue gaint particles after August.

And even if the earth is destroyed, it will always exist as long as we remember it.

The chances of '70s disco coming from Mars...

2008-06-29T10:49:00.002-06:00

Bad Astronomy Blog has a reminder of the awesomeness that is The War of the Worlds. The very first commenter to his post referenced the 1978 concept album, and another showed us where to find an addictive montage of '70s cheese and fake UFO pics:

The chances of anything coming from Mars - The best video clips are right here

You have to wait until about 6 minutes into the video to get to the hook: Once Richard Burton gets a break from narrating, Ogilvy the Astronomer gets a tenor solo (courtesy of Justin Hayward) about his opinion of the chances of life on Mars. My dad own(s)(ed) this opus on vinyl LP, and I recall many a weekend marveling at the artwork and not realizing how cheesy it all was. (True confession: I bought the CD's on sale at Waterloo in 2002.) I dare you to listen to the whole thing, though. It's catchy.

Battle of the Bills

2008-06-11T06:27:00.001-06:00

Do. Not. F***. With. Bill. Moyers.

Don't work late

2008-05-30T06:25:00.003-06:00

I have been terribly busy of late, which explains my absence from blogging for the past three weeks. I'm sure this has caused much dismay for my reader(s).

There are many matters on which I could opine, but for now here is a totally fake but effectively creepy video from Singapore depicting an "elevator ghost":

I was expecting it to be a trick of light or something. Turns out it's just viral marketing. There's a video explaining how they did it (SPOILER: It's computer editing), but it's not in English (possibly Singlish--I'm not too familiar with the languages of Singapore).

To get an idea of how effective something like this can be amongst the public, check this out:

Has it been worth it?

2008-05-06T06:52:00.001-06:00

I wonder:

Thomas Insel — director of the National Institute of Mental Health and the U.S. government’s top psychiatric researcher — said today that “the number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care.”

(h/t ThinkProgress)

Does anyone else think...

2008-05-02T07:32:00.002-06:00

...that this whole Miley Cyrus topless thing is some sort of publicity stunt? I mean, she's supposedly shocked, shocked and appalled at photographs for which she posed, probably for hours, but now she's all over the headlines. I for one, was only vaguely aware of media personalities by the names Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana, but I didn't realize until this week they were the same person (or that Billy Ray Cyrus had procreated). But really, this is waaay more interesting than, say, the ongoing Iraq war, the reconsituted al-Qaeda force in Pakistan, or Russia and Georgia's brewing war in Abkhazia. Just to name a few yawners.

It's called a fact-checking department, folks

2008-05-02T07:22:00.003-06:00

Fox News, in covering Clinton's proposal that she and Obama throw down some old-school Lincoln-Douglas debates (h/t Pandagon), ran this graphic:

Stephen Douglas...Frederick Douglass...what's the diff, really?

And civilization sinks a little further. Enjoy the ride.

The God-stick and the shame-cave

2008-05-01T07:14:00.003-06:00

The Daily Show tackles the failings of abstinence-only sex education with far more delicacy and panache than I could hope to muster, so I'll leave it to them:

I especially like the Tennessee Republican who doubts that experts, with research experience in the field of sex education, somehow know better than parents. No parody required.

Death by a thousand cuts

2008-04-29T21:27:00.002-06:00

I wasn't planning on saying much about the Josef Fritzl matter just yet, but my blood's up and I only have a few thoughts to share about this diaper stain.

Prosecutors have said Mr Fritzl faces up to 15 years in prison if he is eventually convicted on charges of raping and beating his daughter, and sequestration.

Fifteen years. That's nine fewer than his daughter spent in that subterranean prison. There could be a certain poetic justice to tossing him down there alone and cementing the door. A coworker today was discussing the special place in hell being arranged for him.

My only hope for the man is that, after seeing the treatment he's likely (hopefully) to get in prison, he will be begging to be trapped in that little cellar.

I'm sure I'll backpedal on the vehemence of my bloodlust in a day or two, but for now, he has confessed to locking up his daughter for twnety-four years in a cellar and fathering multiple children with her, three of whom were also locked up (and one incinerated). Fuck him.

Tom Tancredo messes with Texas

2008-04-29T19:53:00.002-06:00

Colorado Republican Congressman Tom "I See Brown People" Tancredo got booed at a hearing in Brownsville when he suggested that the proposed border fence go to the north of Brownsville (I wish I were making this up) (h/t Crooks and Liars, who has the video):

Boos and hisses emanated from the audience for a congressional field hearing when Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado dismissed residents' concerns that the effort to build 670 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border by year's end would damage the environment and destroy a centuries-old bond between residents on both sides of the Rio Grande.

Late in the five-hour hearing, Tancredo returned to a comment made earlier by panelist Betty Perez, a rancher and local activist. Perez said, ``It really isn't a border to most of us who live down here.''

Tancredo dismissed Perez's remarks as a ``multiculturalist attitude toward borders.''

As jeers rose, Tancredo added, ``I suggest that you build this fence around the northern part of your city.''

Brownsville sits at the southernmost tip of Texas, where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf of Mexico. The border fence as planned would cut through the campus of the University of Texas at Brownsville and Southmost Texas College, leaving its golf course on the Mexican side.

Gosh, so many possible remarks...I'll start off with "multiculturalist attitude toward borders" being a sufficient reason to dismiss an enture argument--that makes absolutely no fricking sense...unless you are aware of some overriding "American" culture that is threatened by our proximity to a country like Mexico...so full of...Mexicans...it must have been horrible for Tom. Actually, it just lends some credence to my hypothesis that he is an insufferable fuckwad.

Another point--Congressman Tancredo is from Colorado. That cuts both ways, actually. On the one hand, he has very little to worry about: Colorado is about 800 miles north and 5,000 to 10,000 feet above Mexico. To get there, Mexicans not only have to trek across a big-ass desert, but then they have to climb. I know they're up to it, but Colorado is a less likely place when California and Texas are sitting right there. On the other hand, the state is called Colorado...could this be a form of linguistic invasion? As a proud American and Texan (and therefore the inheritor of two helpings of whoop-ass served to Mexico), I suggest, nay, demand that "Colorado" be given its proper English name, the State of Red-Colored. Say it a few times--it gets easier. The first option is quite a bit more plausible, don't you think?

At this point, my apologies to Mexico. My taunts were purely illustrative as part of my Tancredo-as-fuckwad exegesis. As a lifelong Texan and Salma Hayek fan, I assure you I meant no offense.

As a quick aside to those who are not too familiar with Texas, Brownsville is the southernmost city in the state, and possibly the southernmost city in the continental U.S. except for the Florida Keys (which technically aren't on the continent anyway). It's not a very good place to try to stir up Mexicophobia or to use the term "multicultural" in a pejorative sense. It is, however, a good place to crash if all the hotels at South Padre are booked up. Also, Kris Kristofferson was born there.

To sum up: Congressman Tom Tancredo has a serious problem with non-Americans, and very poor argumentative skills. He's also a U.S. fucking Congressman, which makes his inability to form a coherent thought all the more good cause for sleep deprivation. Hopefully he will continue to publicly embarrass himself like he did in Brownsville, and his ideas will fade into obscurity along with his career.

In closing, then, two thoughts: 1. Piss off, Congressman. 2. ¡Viva México!

Arlington Cemetery will keep funerals private, even when the family doesn't want them to

2008-04-28T06:37:00.002-06:00

Think of it as the Iraq ostrich syndrome (h/t HuffPo): out of sight, out of mind:

Lt. Col. Billy Hall, one of the most senior officers to be killed in the Iraq war, was laid to rest yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery. It's hard to escape the conclusion that the Pentagon doesn't want you to know that.

The family of 38-year-old Hall, who leaves behind two young daughters and two stepsons, gave their permission for the media to cover his Arlington burial -- a decision many grieving families make so that the nation will learn about their loved ones' sacrifice. But the military had other ideas, and they arranged the Marine's burial yesterday so that no sound, and few images, would make it into the public domain.

That's a shame, because Hall's story is a moving reminder that the war in Iraq, forgotten by much of the nation, remains real and present for some. Among those unlikely to forget the war: 6-year-old Gladys and 3-year-old Tatianna. The rest of the nation, if it remembers Hall at all, will remember him as the 4,011th American service member to die in Iraq, give or take, and the 419th to be buried at Arlington. Gladys and Tatianna will remember him as Dad.

The two girls were there in Section 60 yesterday beside grave 8,672 -- or at least it appeared that they were from a distance. Journalists were held 50 yards from the service, separated from the mourning party by six or seven rows of graves, and staring into the sun and penned in by a yellow rope. Photographers and reporters pleaded with Arlington officials.

"There will be a yellow rope in the face of the next of kin," protested one photographer with a large telephoto lens.

"This is the best shot you're going to get," a man from the cemetery replied.

"We're not going to be able to hear a thing," a reporter argued.

"Mm-hmm," an Arlington official answered.

The distance made it impossible to hear the words of Chaplain Ron Nordan, who, an official news release said, was leading the service. Even a reporter who stood surreptitiously just behind the mourners could make out only the familiar strains of the Lord's Prayer. Whatever Chaplain Nordan had to say about Hall's valor and sacrifice were lost to the drone of airplanes leaving National Airport.

This makes me mad.

Great Porn Dragon - UPDATED!!!

2008-04-25T18:32:00.002-06:00

It's just fun to say, isn't it? (h/t Atrios)

Great Porn Dragon
Great Porn Dragon
Great Porn Dragon
Great Porn Dragon
Great Porn Dragon
Great Porn Dragon
Great Porn Dragon
Great Porn Dragon
Great Porn Dragon
Great Porn Dragon
Great Porn Dragon
Great Porn Dragon
Great Porn Dragon
Great Porn Dragon
Great Porn Dragon
Great Porn Dragon
Great Porn Dragon
Great Porn Dragon

I wonder if it's like the Great Pumpkin?

UPDATE (04/28/2008): PMI has a nice graphic addition to the mockery pile-on:

Pick your favorite tattooed she-devil

2008-04-25T07:30:00.003-06:00

A poll at the Huffington Post asks you to choose who is hotter: Megan Fox or Carly Smithson. I had no idea who Carly Smithson was until about 5 minutes ago (my TiVo has been broken for months, and I really don't miss it, even though I'm still paying for it and for cable. I wouldn't watch American Idol anyway.) Since I have previously opined on the hotness of Megan Fox, it seemed appropriate to pass this information on to my reader(s).

Of course, there is still much more important stuff going on in the world, but I'd rather be watching this:

I'd also rather have a car that actively helps me pick up chicks (as opposed to passively doing so.) Can't have everything, I guess.

Non-sequitur Hottie of the Day, 4/23/2008

2008-04-23T08:16:00.003-06:00

H/t to litbrit for reminding us that Danica Patrick exists.

She's not a redhead, but she drives really fast. Works for me.

Life imitates art: The Onion scoops the AP, sort of

2008-04-23T06:03:00.002-06:00

New in world news: Al Qaeda has criticized Iran for spreading various 9/11 conspiracy theories involving Israel (h/t VC):

Osama bin Laden's chief deputy in an audiotape Tuesday accused Shiite Iran of trying to discredit the Sunni al-Qaida terror network by spreading the conspiracy theory that Israel was behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

In this instance, the al Qaeda guy is at least partly right--as anyone with half a brain knows, 9/11 was an inside job; however, to paraphrase Gary Larson, people with whole brains tend to disagree, and are generally more articulate in expressing their views.

An astute commenter to the Volokh post that set me off on this little tirade made the all-important connection: that it was in fact "America's Finest News Source" that first broke this story:

9/11 Conspiracy Theories 'Ridiculous,' Al Qaeda Says

To be fair, al Qaeda worked really hard to come up with something that diabolically horrendous. They even managed to outdo Hollywood in most ways; to my knowledge, only Stephen King ever came up with a scheme similar to 9/11 (cf The Running Man, spoiler alert!) and that didn't even make it into the movie. Let's not take this away from them, really. Besides, there's still whoop-ass to dish out to them.

Creepy, creepy robots

2008-04-13T09:38:00.002-06:00

Another questionable contribution to the world's technology from Japan:

I'm taking one of those fellas with me if I ever go clubbing again.

This one seems cool...

...but it sort of begs the question of why the bicycle is even necessary. How about a robot on wheels? And what will this do to the bicycle courier business?

The pièce de creepy-ass résistance, though, definitely goes to Actroid:

So many wrongs here, it almost makes a right.

Wrong, but ever so right somehow...

2008-04-12T09:55:00.001-06:00

Something about this seems insidiously taboo...

I do so appreciate the judicious use of subtlety now and then.

The truly important news

2008-04-12T09:08:00.002-06:00

It's good to know that someone out there is connecting the dots:

By the way, if you so much as snicker when Tucker Carlson says "Hardball" at the end of this clip, somewhere in the world, a kitten will die.

How I feel today

2008-04-08T16:23:00.000-06:00

see more crazy cat pics

Acting shout-out: Todd Anderson in "North Country"

2008-04-06T14:21:00.005-06:00

I watched the movie North Country this morning (h/t Netflix), a 2005 Oscar-baiting Charlize Theron film, and I have several salutes I have to make here.

First off, and obviously most importantly, it really is a pretty good film about the issue of sexual harassment, as well as how crappy it must be to work in an iron mine.

On a less-socially-conscious note, the film proves Carlize Theron is beautiful even with ridiculously-authentic '80s hair, and it offers a glimpse of hometown hottie Amber Heard in the undoubtedly-daunting role of a young (teenaged) Charlize Theron.

Really though, the point of this post is this: I must tip my hat generally to the grotesque depiction the film offers of the types of harassment the women had to endure, and specifically to Todd Anderson, who portrays a mine worker whose preferred method of harassment is to ejaculate into Michelle Monaghan's locker. I single out Mr. Anderson for his courage and fortitude, based on the fact that he may forever be known, thanks to the film's credits, as "Semen Man."

That has got to be hell on a resume.

Currency exchanges for the computer generation (and for foes of Ganon)

2008-04-04T07:11:00.003-06:00

Maxim has finally provided me a means to understand the dire state of the American dollar: by comparing it to video game currencies (h/t CFLF)!!!!!

For example, $3 will get you one Hyrulian rupee, while $37,000 will get you a single coin from Super Marios Brothers. Check out the site for the methodology. It's amusing enough that you don't realize for a minute or two how depressing it is.

Early morning, April 4

2008-04-04T06:40:00.001-06:00

By way of tribute:

See also RFK's speech the night of April 4, 1968.

Salvation in a mug!

2008-04-04T06:09:00.003-06:00

The BBC reports that daily intake of caffeine can help protect the brain (h/t Volokh):

Coffee may cut the risk of dementia by blocking the damage cholesterol can inflict on the body, research suggests.

***

"Caffeine appears to block several of the disruptive effects of cholesterol that make the blood-brain barrier leaky," said Dr Jonathan Geiger, who led the study.

"High levels of cholesterol are a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, perhaps by compromising the protective nature of the blood brain barrier.

"Caffeine is a safe and readily available drug and its ability to stabilise the blood brain barrier means it could have an important part to play in therapies against neurological disorders."

A spokesman for the Alzheimer's Disease Society said that the study shed "important light" on why previous research had showed benefits for drinking coffee.

"This is the best evidence yet that caffeine equivalent to one cup of coffee a day can help protect the brain against cholesterol.

"In addition to its effect on the vascular system, elevated cholesterol levels also cause problems with the blood brain barrier.

"This barrier, which protects the brain from toxins and infections, is less efficient prior to brain damage caused by Alzheimer's disease or strokes."

Now, this has me pretty excited, because two of my most favoritest substances in the world are caffeine and cholesterol, and it's nice to know that they might be fighting to the death, Kumite-style, inside me right now. Keep in mind, though, that this entire experiment was done on rabbits, and a comparable effect hasn't actually been shown in humans yet.

Explosive nipple rings???

2008-03-28T06:27:00.003-06:00

Will someone please explain how this furthers the interests of national security and/or airline safety?:

A Texas woman who said she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane called Thursday for an apology by federal security agents and a civil rights investigation.

"I wouldn't wish this experience upon anyone," Mandi Hamlin said at a news conference. "My experience with TSA was a nightmare I had to endure. No one deserves to be treated this way."

Hamlin, 37, said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on Feb. 24 when she was scanned by a Transportation Security Administration agent after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.

The female TSA agent used a handheld detector that beeped when it passed in front of Hamlin's chest, the Dallas-area resident said.

Hamlin said she told the woman she was wearing nipple piercings. The agent then called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the jewelry, Hamlin said.

Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked whether she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. But several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was out, she said.

She was taken behind a curtain and managed to remove one bar-shaped piercing but had trouble with the second, a ring.

***

She said she heard male TSA agents snickering as she took out the ring. She was scanned again and was allowed to board even though she still was wearing a belly button ring.

Any ideas??? Anyone??? Am I going to be denied entry to an airport because I have braces? Either the TSA has too much power and too little of a mandate, or we are all just waaaaaaay too paranoid.

While the thought of having my own nipples pierced causes me to collapse shuddering into the fetal position, I will defend to the death other peoples' right to do as they will to their own nipples.

Besides, this isn't national security, it's (O, for a less-cliched phrase) sexual harassment.

Strange bedfellows

2008-03-25T06:42:00.004-06:00

I have been generally annoyed by the hubbub over Rev. Jeremiah Wright--I certainly don't support everything he's said, but I do believe that if Barack Obama is to be held responsible for everything the man says (which might be a slight exaggeration), then John McCain should have to answer for the rhetoric of John Hagee, et al.

Coming to Rev. Wright's defense, perhaps surprisingly, is Mike Huckabee:

"[Y]ou can't hold the candidate responsible for everything that people around him may say or do," Huckabee says. "It's interesting to me that there are some people on the left who are having to be very uncomfortable with what ... Wright said, when they all were all over a Jerry Falwell, or anyone on the right who said things that they found very awkward and uncomfortable, years ago. Many times those were statements lifted out of the context of a larger sermon. Sermons, after all, are rarely written word for word by pastors like Rev. Wright, who are delivering them extemporaneously, and caught up in the emotion of the moment. There are things that sometimes get said, that if you put them on paper and looked at them in print, you'd say 'Well, I didn't mean to say it quite like that.'"

Later, he defended Wright's anger, too:

"As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say 'That's a terrible statement!' ... I grew up in a very segregated South. And I think that you have to cut some slack -- and I'm gonna be probably the only conservative in America who's gonna say something like this, but I'm just tellin' you -- we've gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names..."

Huckabee gets perilously close to what I like to call the "context fallacy," wherein any embarrassing, inflammatory, offensive, or just plain nasty comment presented as a soundbyte can be dismissed by the speaker as having been "taken out of context," usually with no follow-up explanation (or inquiry) as to the correct context. The speaker often gets a free pass, or at least a reprieve as the news media move on to other scandals or verbal gaffes.

Regardless of context, Rev. Wright has said some pretty wacky stuff, but the question few are asking is this: how much should a parishioner be held directly responsible for the rhetoric of his/her pastor/minister/rabbi/imam/etc.? Partly it depends on the extracurricular activities of the church/temple/mosque/etc. For example, an active member of Westboro Baptist Church could certainly be said to bear some responsibility for what its pastor says and does, comsidering that church's rather single-minded focus, but that is an extreme example. For a church such as Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ, with over 10,000 members (h/t Wikipedia), that is a harder connection to make. I for one am not terribly bothered by Wright's infamous rhetoric--in part, because the broader context (now that I've looked into it a little) seems relatively benign when compared to say, Jerry Falwell or the aforementioned Rev. Hagee; but also because Rev. Wright seems to be expressing anger and frustration (cf. Huckabee, above) alone, not some sort of plan for rearranging the world order (I'm just paranoid enough to suspect Rev. Hagee has that in mind.)

At any rate, I like that Huckabee stepped up for the guy, and I wish everyone would talk about something else.

In support of redhead nudity

2008-03-22T08:27:00.001-06:00

Me and my dang fetish.

FCC Okays Nudity On TV If It's Alyson Hannigan

Last pic for today, I promise

2008-03-22T07:28:00.000-06:00

see more crazy cat pics

Soak it in

2008-03-22T07:20:00.000-06:00

see more crazy cat pics

For those who dig dinosaurs

2008-03-22T06:51:00.003-06:00

Dinosaur art has long been a secret passion of mine. So when I saw something purporting to be "The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopaedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages," I had to check it out. From what I can see on the web, it does not disappoint:

It may also be known that I am a big fan of the Lolcats (e.g. here, here, and here), but I lament that their time in the spotlight may be nearing an end (although there is too much of a good thing sometimes.)

That said, two good things don't always go well together (e.g. salsa and key lime pie), so this might be a bit much:

As is this (I think this is the giant isopod. Again.):

see more crazy cat pics

Never let flood-related deaths harsh your buzz, man

2008-03-22T06:18:00.001-06:00

Disturbingly chirpy Fox News anchor on the first day of spring and its associated natural disasters (h/t HuffPo):

Cognitive dissonance goes great with smut!

2008-03-21T17:21:00.002-06:00

Get this: the Parents' Television Council, whose raison d'etre is to "to ensure that children are not constantly assaulted by sex, violence and profanity on television and in other media," posts what it considers to be the most-objectionable TV material on its website as "The Worst Cable Content of the Week" (h/t SexInt).

As of today, March 21, 2008, the "worst" recipient is FX's Nip/Tuck. A clip from the episode “Rachel Ben Natan” is posted, along with a play-by-play of the salacious bits, e.g.:

Receptionist Bettina performs oral sex on Christian as he reads his phone messages. Her head briefly pops up as he asks her a question. Christian grabs the back of her neck and shoves her face back into his crotch, just below camera range.

...

Bettina has sex with Christian on the couch. Both are clothed, though she leans back, displaying her cleavage.

...

Christian is shown having sex with Bettina from behind, as she kneels on his desk wearing a bra and panties.

Bettina: "God, you're in great shape!"

Christian spanks her.

...

Christian has sex with Bettina who is lying on a desk wearing only a bra on top. She answers the phone while having sex. He buries his face in her breasts.

...

Bettina lies on the couch, her legs over Christian's shoulders as they have sex. Both are naked. No breasts or genitals are seen. Both scream as they climax.

Shortly after they’ve finished, Christian fires Bettina for mispronouncing Julia's name.

I guess if there's gonna be a bombardment of smut anyway, it might as well come from a "parents' advocacy group.

Must be somewhere between Georgia and Azerbaijan

2008-03-20T06:41:00.001-06:00

Weirdest thing I've seen all week (h/t to Jesus' General):

The song that's haunting me this week

2008-03-19T16:40:00.002-06:00

I recently discovered this song, "Cassie," by Belton, TX-based Flyleaf, courtesy of Pandora.

Even after reading the lyrics (kind of a cheat, I know), I'm still puzzled by the song. It's probably about suicide:

Do you believe in God
Written on the bullet
Say yes to pull the trigger
Do you believe in God
Written on the bullet
And Cassie pulled the trigger

But then again, maybe I'm just imposing a cliche on the song. Regardless, it's catchy and I thought I'd share.

Remembering the greatest nerd of all time

2008-03-18T18:22:00.005-06:00

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, hero and icon to nerds and geeks alike, passed away today at the age of 90. I have been a fan since I first saw 2001 at the age of 7 or 8, and an admirer since I read Childhood's End and Rendezvous with Rama at the age of 13.

In addition to being a screenwriter and prolific author, he also first thought up quite a few things we find commonplace nowadays:

Clarke also was credited with the concept of communications satellites in 1945, decades before they became a reality. Geosynchronous orbits, which keep satellites in a fixed position relative to the ground, are called Clarke orbits.

His non-fiction volumes on space travel and his explorations of the Great Barrier Reef and Indian Ocean earned him respect in the world of science, and in 1976 he became an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

I'm also a big fan of Clarke's Three Laws:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

I'm not sure there can be as fertile an imagination as his anytime soon. I hope the first people to venture beyond the moon do so at least partly in his honor. I'll bid him farewell with a little Also Sprach Zarathustra:

See you out there in the universe, Sir Clarke.

Subprime crisis for dummies

2008-03-18T15:40:00.002-06:00

Everything you need to know about the subprime mortgage crisis, with poorly-drawn stick figures (h/t Volokh).

Those poor Norwegian villagers...

46.6%!

2008-03-14T17:45:00.003-06:00

The purity test (h/t Kerry Howley), which guided my way through college, is back, and it's grosser than ever. (The bar is way lower at Rice, as I score a 25% on that test.) This was something all Rice freshmen were supposed to take during orientation, to be used for comparison with your score upon graduation (I dropped by about 67% in four years!)

I'm now 17.48 points less pure than the average test taker, as it turns out.

OMFGWTF

2008-03-14T15:21:00.003-06:00

I can't not share this story from AP (excerpted because it's really gross):

NESS CITY, Kan. - Deputies said a woman in western Kansas sat on her boyfriend's toilet for two years, and they're investigating whether she was mistreated.

Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said a man called his office last month to report that something was wrong with his girlfriend.

Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman’s skin had grown around the seat. She initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.

“We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital,” Whipple said. “The hospital removed it.”

***

“She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body,” Whipple said. “It is hard to imagine. ... I still have a hard time imagining it myself.”

He told investigators he brought his girlfriend food and water, and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.

“And her reply would be, ‘Maybe tomorrow,”’ Whipple said. “According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom.”

The boyfriend called police on Feb. 27 to report that “there was something wrong with his girlfriend,” Whipple said, adding that he never explained why it took him two years to call.

This may turn out to have been a serious case of abuse or neglect, in which case I'll probably feel bad for making fun of the situation.

But still...

TWO YEARS???

Didn't I see something like this on TV once?

That was a little different (woman spending three years on a sofa, not two years on a toilet).

The real question (that I know you're wondering about) is whether the boyfriend's place has more than one bathroom. And if it doesn't...

Actually, let's not go there. Let's not go any further with this. I'm out.

UPDATE: More info from AP. Apparently the woman has a phobia about leaving the bathroom.

Demystifying St. Paddy

2008-03-14T14:23:00.002-06:00

Some much-needed demystification (demythification?) of the annual senseless beerfest that is St. Patrick's Day (not that I'm knocking mass consumption of beer) comes to us from Andy Crouch (h/t Shakesville):

So that time of year is upon us once again, the time when imbibing throngs pack into bars, throw on giant, foam hats, and clink mugs of green beer in celebration of, well, something. Perhaps a greater perversion than even the American fascination with and celebration of Cinco de Mayo, St. Patrick’s Day is an opportunity for wild, unabashed revelry among the masses and for big breweries to haul in the cash.

***

Now I don’t begrudge anyone a day or two a year to let loose but this particular holiday, along with Cinco de Mayo, has always felt pretty forced to me, especially in Boston. Quick, tell me three things you know about the man known as Naomh Pádraig. Admit it, the only thing you could come up with was the snake thing. And when you think of Cinco de Mayo, you think of the day that Mexicans won their freedom. You and millions upon millions of others would be wrong on both counts. But why let a little history, or legend, get in the way of a few pints, right?

Speaking as something of a faux-Irishman myself, I've always had a troubled relationship with St. Patrick's Day. It's not just most Americans' atrocious taste in beer...I think it's the rather rote manner in which we celebrate so many of our holidays. While I'm certainly looking forward to many of the planned events, the history of the day is left rather vague.

So I decided to do an extremely minimal amount of research (since I'm skipping work today anyway) (h/t Wikipedia):

Saint Patrick (Latin: Patricius, Irish: Naomh Pádraig) was a Christian missionary and is the patron saint of Ireland along with Brigid of Kildare and Columba. Patrick was born in Roman Britain. When he was about sixteen he was captured by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Ireland, where he lived for six years before escaping and returning to his family. He entered the church, as his father and grandfather had before him, becoming a deacon and a bishop. He later returned to Ireland as a missionary, working in the north and west of the island, but little is known about the places where he actually worked and no link can be made with Patrick and any church. By the eighth century he had become the patron saint of Ireland.

Okay, that's all well and good, but what about all the cool stuff he's supposed to have done?

Pious legend credits Patrick with banishing snakes from the island, though post-glacial Ireland never actually had snakes; one suggestion is that snakes referred to the serpent symbolism of the Druids of that time and place, as shown for instance on coins minted in Gaul (see Carnutes), or that it could have referred to beliefs such as Pelagianism, symbolized as “serpents”.

Bit of a buzzkill, but legend usually has an element of metaphor to it. According to the Smithsonian, Ireland has never had snakes:

It's true, aside from zoos and pets, there are no snakes on the emerald isle. In fact, there never were any snakes in Ireland. This state of affairs probably has more to do with the vagaries of geography than any neat tricks performed by St. Patty.

***

[S]nakes are found in deserts, grasslands, forests, mountains, and even oceans virtually everywhere around the world. Everywhere except Ireland, New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland, and Antarctica, that is.

One thing these few snake-less parts of the world have in common is that they are surrounded by water. New Zealand, for instance, split off from Australia and Asia before snakes ever evolved. So far, no serpent has successfully migrated across the open ocean to a new terrestrial home. As the world's oceans have risen and fallen over the millennia, land bridges have come and gone between Ireland, other parts of Great Britain, and the European mainland, allowing animals and early humans to cross. However, any snake that may have slithered it's [sic] way to Ireland would have turned into a popsicle when the ice ages hit.

And so how did his day become such a big deal?

Irish colonists brought Saint Patrick's Day to what is now the United States of America. The first civic and public celebration of Saint Patrick's Day in the 13 colonies took place in Boston, Massachusetts in 1737. During this first celebration The Charitable Irish Society of Boston organized what was the first Saint Patrick's Day Parade in the colonies on 17 March 1737. The first celebration of Saint Patrick's Day in New York City was held at the Crown and Thistle Tavern in 1756, and New York's first Saint Patrick's Day Parade was held on 17 March 1762 by Irish soldiers in the British Army. In 1780, General George Washington, who commanded soldiers of Irish descent in the Continental Army, allowed his troops a holiday on 17 March. This event became known as The St. Patrick's Day Encampment of 1780. Today, Saint Patrick's Day is widely celebrated in America by Irish and non-Irish alike. Americans celebrate the holiday by wearing green clothing. Many people, regardless of ethnic background, wear green-coloured clothing and items. Traditionally, those who are caught not wearing green are pinched. Alcohol is the centre of many American celebrations.

I guess that's all we really need to know. Just grab a Smithwicks and chill.

Modern American miltary history, as told by food

2008-03-14T10:17:00.002-06:00

Too strange to be missed--"Food Fight". I'm still trying to figure out what food represents Russia (without consulting the cheat sheet). (h/t Brad Plumer).

Obviously, the USA = hamburgers.

My favorite is the use of kimchee to represent Korea.

Remembering Gary Hart

2008-03-13T10:55:00.002-06:00

I'm reminded, as I read about Der Spitzer's downfall, of what some comedian in the '80s suggested Gary Hart should say in response to his scandal (it later became a bumper sticker):

Yeah, I fucked her. Vote for me.

At least it's honest. And slightly less humiliating for the other parties involved.

Would you pay $4,300 to *********?

2008-03-12T20:28:00.004-06:00

We really don't know anything more than we knew yesterday about Mr. Spitzer that's actually useful, but at least the AP's shameful hounding of the call girl's family has yielded the revelation that she's pretty hot.

$4,300 hot? Eh, maybe.

Of course, leave it to Fox News to include pictures of all the other agency ladies. Still, any excuse to plaster the news media with hotties is fine by me. Courtney Friel, anyone?

Malum prohibitum: Why is the basic transactional part of prostitution illegal, anyway? - UPDATED

2008-03-11T12:45:00.004-06:00

It's pretty much par for the course nowadays that more than a few authority figures love the outside-the-mainstream kinky stuff. I have about as much sympathy for Eliot Spitzer as I did for Larry Craig (i.e. none). Still, there is a looming and largely unasked question here: Why is the act of two consenting adults, in private, agreeing to exchange money for sex a crime? Above all, why is it a federal crime in this case? Glenn Greenwald explores this question in some depth, as does Digby. I also recommend Digby's post for its historical review of the Mann Act, the archaic 1910 federal law invoked to federally prosecute prostitution-related offenses.

In all seriousness, while I think Eliot Spitzer deserves to be hoisted upon his own petard (I never get tired of that phrase), doesn't the federal government have better things to do? Isn't there a war still going on or something?

Some discussion of the question (thanks to a quick and highly unscientific Google search) can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here. A common thread among arguments for keeping prostitution illegal involves legalization's supposed windfall for pimps and its further demeaning effect on women, not to mention an increase in human trafficking. I don't want to pick on this site too much, because I know they do a lot of good work, but their "10 Reasons for Not Legalizing Prostitution" do not hold much water. A more in-depth look at this page may come in a future post. There is absolutely no denying that human trafficking and the continued subjugation of women is a problem all over the world. These are terrible problems that deserve smart, effective soultions. Wiretapping a guy who spends $1K-5K per hour for the services of an "escort" is not one of those solutions. Going after the traffickers, educating the women most likely to be victimized by said traffickers, and working to alleviate the conditions that might cause women to fall prey to a trafficker are more likely to help. But they won't make for prurient headlines.

In a final note for the moment, I present further evidence regarding the death of irony (or at least one of its more pathetic gasps): Newsweek has commentary on the whole sordid affair from Heidi Fleiss.

UPDATE (3/13/08): Ditto everything Glenn Greenwald says here. Viva sarcasm!

A friendly reminder

2008-03-09T08:44:00.002-06:00

"When the President takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter. Courts can sustain exclusive presidential control in such a case only by disabling the Congress from acting upon the subject. Presidential claim to a power at once so conclusive and preclusive must be scrutinized with caution, for what is at stake is the equilibrium established by our constitutional system."

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., et al v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 637-38 (1952, J. Jackson, concurring)

Truly, truly disturbing

2008-02-28T19:05:00.001-06:00

I figured I'd end an absence from blogging with some seriously f****d-up s***t:

GRAND PRAIRIE — An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent killed himself after an armed standoff with a police officer and three colleagues, Grand Prairie police said Wednesday.

Police discovered a suitcase full of pornography, a flag with a swastika and more than a half-dozen weapons after finding Mark Juvette dead early Wednesday.

Juvette, 40, worked for the agency's Dallas Office of Detention and Removal.

Agency officials did not comment.

No commentary at this point. Just raising awareness.

A couple of thoughts for Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T12:33:00.001-06:00

Bah.

Humbug.

Not as sucky as some

2008-02-11T20:53:00.000-06:00

The unofficial results are in: the new Texas license plate doesn't totally suck.

I'll be following this story closely, dear readers.

It's hard out here for a pimp

2008-02-09T12:18:00.000-06:00

Rich dudes on business trips beware--Dallas women may drug and rob you:

Well-dressed men at posh Dallas hotels and bars are being targeted by a ring of flirtatious women who may be drugging them before swiping their watches and other expensive items, police said.

One man was injured when he was beaten, possibly by a high-heeled shoe, police said. Another lost his wallet while in his car with his pants around his ankles.

*****

The stylish W hotel in downtown Dallas is among the places where the scheme is said to have been run. Authorities said the women knew what they were looking for; several of the victims wore Rolex watches.

In one case, police said a 37-year-old Tampa, Fla., executive lost his iPod, laptop and $4,000 watch after accepting a beer from one of the women.

The women may be slipping drugs into the drinks of their victims, police said.

In addition to business travellers, Dallas police "suspect there are others too embarrassed to file police reports." Way to take all the fun out of hotel bars.

Go Texas go 2!!!

2008-02-08T13:51:00.000-06:00

Mary Mapes at HuffPo expounds on Texas' sudden possible political relevance. She also makes some great observations about my confusing-as-hell home state:

Texas is not the South. It is not the West. It is not the Southwest.

Texas is all those things, a heady blend of magnolia blossoms and masa harina; a place big enough and complicated enough to treasure both the Alamo and the dreams of millions whose lives began in Mexico. It has memorials to Civil War heroes and civil rights legends, border towns without running water and the latest thing from Barney's.

Texas is home to both big oil and big hair; sometimes to big, oily hair.

Anyway, just read it.

Go Texas go!!!

2008-02-06T11:24:00.000-06:00

Burnt Orange Report has some thoughts today on the possibility that Texas may actually be relevant in determining the Democratic nominee this year:

Barack Obama's strong performance on Super Tuesday all but guarantees that Texas primary voters will play a key role, maybe the key role, in selecting the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.

Few saw this coming. Ever since efforts failed to move up the Texas primary, we thought we were sidelined. Then Michigan and Florida broke the rules, taking two big-state delegate counts off the table. Then Obama's captivating campaign of hope interrupted a Clinton coronation.

Until the last few days, most old Texas pols, and new pols for that matter, hadn't given much thought to the possibility of a historic Texas presidential primary. Now, here it comes, and early voting begins in 13 days.

To put this in perspective, Texas voters have never played this role in a Democratic primary. Good luck on your targeting, and good luck exit pollsters. It's a first-of-its-kind election in more ways that one. The universe of likely voters just got much, much larger.

Of course, I doubt it will ultimately matter, as this is one of the reddest of the red states. The Republicans could nominate this thing for president and still carry Texas:

That's a giant isopod, Bathynomus giganteus, a close, albeit bigger and scarier, relative of the doodlebug.

To get back to my actual point, hooray for Texas. Don't muck this up.

Help Texas license plates not to suck

2008-02-05T10:35:00.000-06:00

The Texas Department of Transportation is allowing Texans to vote on what their new license plates will look like. Please vote so we don't end up with a field of bluebonnets on every license plate! (I love bluebonnets, but I don't want to see them all the time.) Voting ends on February 11, 2008.

Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a write-in category, so many of Texas' other lovely natural resources (e.g. Amber Heard) will go unrecognized by the state, alas.

When times were simpler...and bubblier

2008-02-05T10:12:00.001-06:00

I did not watch the Superbowl, as I don't particularly care about the Giants, the Patriots, the NFL, or the game of football all that much. I also no longer find the commercials all that entertaining--the secret formula is out, and there is really no way to surprise us anymore.

Still, it is worth remembering the glory days, when Superbowl ads were unusual and edgy, and the idea of a ".com" company held endless promise. I think this was from the 2000 Superbowl:

At least E*Trade survived the crash, abeit with some problems.

CP the video star!

2008-01-30T17:06:00.000-06:00

I have a post up at one of my sister sites about my infintessimally brief stint as a music video extra. Just so you know.

"Liberal Fascism"

2008-01-22T13:25:00.000-06:00

PMI on how to review Jonah Goldberg's new book.

Kinda NSFW.

Kinda disturbing.

Way bemusing.

I think it says all I have to say on the topic.

24, '94-style

2008-01-22T13:21:00.000-06:00

Volokh Conspiracy has the scoop on the original pilot for "24", dating back to 1994, when AOL ruled the 'net and savvy government agents carried pagers.

The Oscars leave me behind, once again

2008-01-22T12:45:00.000-06:00

Of all the movies in the latest Oscar nominations, I've seen exactly four of them:

Charlie Wilson's War (Supporting Actor, Phillip Seymour Hoffman)
Ratatouille (Original screenplay, Animated feature, Original score, Sound editing, Sound mixing)
The Bourne Ultimatum (Film editing)
Transformers (Sound editing, Sound mixing, Visual effects)

Of the four, the only one I didn't find disappointing on some level was "Transformers," and that was just because I had no expectations whatsoever.

Seriously, though, I'm pulling for "Bourne" for film editing--based on what little I know of the subject, that part of the film kicked ass (think high-speed fight scenes). On the other hand, I didn't like how the techno remix of Moby's "Extreme Ways" broke continuity with the first two films. Minor criticism, I guess.

What generation are you?

2008-01-22T11:11:00.001-06:00

The whole Baby Boomer/Generation X/Generation Doofus nomenclature has always struck me as just a marketing tool, especially since so many people seem to be barely left out of categorization. My parents, born in 1944 and 1945, missed inclusion in the Baby Boom (beginning in 1946). I was born in 1974, and it was unclear for quite a while whether I fit into Generation X or not. Now generation labels are thrown around all over the place.

Here's an interesting test to determine your generation based on technology usage rather than date of birth--it makes more sense to group avid Wii-players together than just people born between Year A and Year B. As an example, I was at Ikea a few weeks ago and was mystified by a teenage girl who, while examining fabric samples and talking to her mother, was furiously writing text messages ("texting," as the kids say) on her phone at a remarkable rate. It seemed like super-human multitasking.

Apparently, though, I fall on the high end of tech savviness, as the quiz puts me firmly in Generation Y (18 points!). Chronologically, I'm near the end of Generation X, though.

I wore through a Nirvana cassette in high school and once broke a closet rod because of all the plaid flannel shirts I owned--that must merit inclusion in Generation X, right? Plus, I think a great many recent technological advances are stupid (HD television, mostly--a topic I'll expound upon in a later post.) I feel more Generation X than Y (although I never participated in a mosh pit), so maybe I'll just split the difference and say I'm part of Generation X.5.

Join us. We have coffee.

Cloverfield and disaster porn

2008-01-21T20:15:00.001-06:00

I haven't seen Cloverfield yet, but I'm sure I will at some point. The History Channel's "Life After People" premieres tonight, too. It gets me wondering--and I have no answer to this question--what it is about the destruction of familiar landmarks in movies that is so dang entertaining.

A few examples include Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and Armageddon/Deep Impact, a nice compilation of which is found here:

Think of it as disaster porn: the "money shot," if you will, of all these movies is the mega-CGI scenes of destruction and mayhem. Maybe we as a culture just need to be repeatedly desensitized after events like 9/11 and Katrina, and watching NYC get blown up/flooded/smashed by a monster/inundated by leprechauns is the way to do it.

Or maybe we're just a nation full of assholes. Hard to tell. Anyway, I prefer the much more sober, survival-against-all-odds Battlestar Galactica over fluff like Armageddon.

And besides, the spoilers about the Cloverfield monster make it look pretty silly.

Happy MLK Day!

2008-01-21T15:53:00.000-06:00

"We refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt."

Classic animation remembered

2008-01-19T21:53:00.000-06:00

A few of my favorites from Liquid Television on MTV back in the day.

1. Never sing with a baby dragon:

2. Never underestimate the power of laughter:

Annoyance challenge for 1/19/08

2008-01-19T21:38:00.000-06:00

See how long you can sit through this video:

I made it just over 1 minute, out of 2:28 total.

Don't tell the Lorax about this

2008-01-19T21:19:00.000-06:00

My inner hippie is shitting blue cupcakes over this, but this is one damn cool piece of logging equipment:

Thank you, John Deere. And seriously, let's not get the Lorax involved in this. He speaks for the trees.

Celebrating the 10th Monicaversary!

2008-01-17T14:38:00.000-06:00

Drudge Retort has the news:

On the evening of Saturday January 17, 1998, the internet gossip merchant Matt Drudge posted a story that opened the most sensational scandal season in the history of the American presidency. He reported that Newsweek magazine had killed reporter Michael Isikoff's story about President Clinton's sexual relationship with a former intern. The next day he had her name: Monica Lewinsky.

Ah, sweet memories...times were so much simpler then, right?

Today in douchebaggery

2008-01-16T14:33:00.000-06:00

An out-of-control high school party makes international news, somehow.
Otherwise known as total douchebag Corey Worthington Delaney of Melbourne, Australia—a 16-year-old idiot who threw a party while his parents were on holiday that raged so out of control it has made international headlines: "More than 500 people turned up [the] house in Melbourne and police were called when neighbours complained about the noise. Some of the revelers went on a rampage and police cars were pelted with glass bottles while nearby houses and gardens were vandalised. No one was arrested but at least 30 officers, a helicopter and the dog squad were needed to break the party up."
Shakesville has the complete transcript of the interview with the kid, who is, in fact, a douchebag. I also wouldn't be surprised if he has bumper balls.

Today in good taste

2008-01-16T10:37:00.000-06:00

Here are two bits of news that brightened my day, at least somewhat:

1. A former executive for the company that makes Enzyte has testified as to its total inefficacy, further noting as follows:

In some cases, company founder Steve Warshak required customers seeking a refund to get a notarized doctor's note stating the pill had no effect. "He said it was extremely unlikely someone would get anything notarized saying they had a small penis," testified James Teegarden Jr.

2. The Virginia General Assembly is considering a bill to outlaw "bumper nuts," those scrotum replicas you see hanging from the bumpers of trucks owned by people who don't have any friends. Urban Dictionary defines them as "prosthetic testicles used to adorn the oversized vehicles of those who think very highly of themselves." Lest you worry about the First Amendment implications, read on:

Objects that resemble human genitalia would be banned from display on vehicles, under a bill proposed Tuesday by Del. Lionell Spruill Sr.

The accessories, sometimes called "bumper nuts," often are found on the back of pickups.

"They're offensive to some folks," said Spruill, a Chesapeake Democrat. "It's OK to express yourself, but citizens have the right not to be subjected to something vulgar."

Remember, the legal standard for "obscenity" is if "when taken as a whole, [it] lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value." I don't particularly support the bill, mostly on knee-jerk libertarian grounds, but I also don't really worry that banning truck testicles is merely a gateway to substantially greater government control of speech.

I also don't think it's speech. It's fake nuts hanging from a truck.

Here come the anthropologists!!!!!

2008-01-09T20:06:00.000-06:00

We are sending anthropologists into Iraq. Seriously. The satire writes itself.

9/11 conspiracy nuts sometimes actually make right-wing nuts sound reasonable by comparison

2008-01-04T13:43:00.000-06:00

There was apparently much hubbub about this video that was removed from Google and then rejected by YouTube. Take a moment if you'd like to view it yourself. Now then, setting aside any political motives that may have been behind its removal, the video is just plain bad. I have many thoughts on the poor argumentative style of the video's author, at least based on one viewing about five minutes ago, in between phone calls at work. The video contains three clips from news reports that apparently aired on 9/11/2001:

1. Some schmuck off the street, shortly after the towers collapsed, gave a lucid explanation of how he witnessed the buildings collapse due to the intense heat of the fires.
2. Some schmuck on TV (in voiceover) offers his opinion that it is possible that the towers' collapse could have resulted solely from the force of the impact of the airplanes and the heat of the resulting fires.
3. Some other schmuck on TV, also in voiceover, explains how Osama Bin Laden, from his safehaven in Afghanistan, has been poised to launch attacks on the U.S. with as many as 3,000 fighters, etc., etc.

The video offers these three clips, again and again, as proof of...something, but I'm not sure what. Clip 1 is shown to demonstrate, presumably, that no ordinary shmuck off the street on a morning as insane as 9/11/01 could possibly offer such a lucid explanation of things unless he was planted there by the true architects of the attacks. I think Clip 2 is offered to make the same points. Clip 3 is apparently offered to show how quickly the puppetmaster of 9/11 introduced the meme that it was all the doing of the evil jihadis. The final conclusion of the video--its exhortation to its viewers? "Think about it."

OK, I've thought about it, and whoever edited this video is either full of shit or so determined to accuse the Bush administration (or whoever else is intended to fill the puppetmaster role, since it is never made explicitly clear--I'm sticking with Puppetmasters, I think) of even more mass murder and mayhem that s/he can so easily ignore the basic rules of logic and argument structure. This is actually no different than the simplistic good vs. evil meme that is behind every thought, word, and deed of the Bush administration, just focused differently. The Bush administration, in this view, is Evil, and anything that helps them in their Evil quest must have been their doing. Or something like that.

Clip 1: The schmuck with the unusual clarity of thought and voice in the midst of such a tragedy. Was he stating an opinion of what he saw, mustering up as much gravitas as he could for what would likely be his only appearance on telelvision ever? Was he in fact a plant put in place by the Puppetmasters to introduce the "myth" that the towers were brought down by airplanes? How the hell should I know?

Clip 2: The schmuck on TV with the opinions re: the cause of the collapses. Was he a readily available public official who could offer the public something, anything, other than the news anchors' voices on a day when almost everyone sat glued to the TV? Was he purposefully placed in the studio by the Puppetmasters to further introduce Schmuck #1's elaborate hoax about the airplanes? How the hell should I know?

Clip 3: The question here seems to be how did this schmuck have such a detailed and comprehensive report prepared by 9:30 a.m. on 9/11/01? Could it be that Osama bin Laden was already a subject of much concern after the bombings in Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, and on the U.S.S. Cole in Aden harbor, and therefore news agencies likely had information on him and his operation(s) at hand and needed something, anything, other than the news anchors' voices on a day when almost everyone sat glued to the TV? Didn't America already have a tendency (whether justified or not) to think of Arabs whenever something blew up? Could it be that this was yet another part of the Puppetmasters' plot to...uh...bring up some Arab guy to distract the public from the fact that...okay, I really don't know where the Puppetmaster argument would go from here.

Just a few points (keep in mind, of course, that I am limiting myself to the clip in question and what I guess could be called "conventional wisdom" about the 9/11 attacks; i.e. I have not taken the time to do background research on the specific clips in the video, beyond the commentary offered in the video and the contents of the clips themselves):

- Schmuck #1, to my knowledge, has never publicly opined on the crisis outside of his fifteen seconds of fame on that terrible morning. The conclusion that fires from the jet fuel weakened the steel supports, blah blah blah, came from other people later on. I don't know who Schmuck #1 is, but I assume that if he was actually quoted in, say, the 9/11 Commission Report as an expert whose opinions and testimony prove the "fire hypothesis," then the author of this video would have mentioned something about that. So either Schmuck #1 is just an unexpectedly cool customer with detailed opinions offered in a crisis situation, or he is part of a conspiracy so large that it must include both engineering experts and shmuck-on-the-street testimony.

- Regarding Schmuck #2, insert the entire above paragraph, but change "schmuck-on-the-street" to "schmuck-in-the-studio."

- As for Schmuck #3, I didn't hear him say anything about bin Laden that I hadn't already learned, prior to September 2001 from other news sources.

From what I have been able to read or watch (and stomach) regarding the whole 9/11 conspiracy movement, just about all of the "evidence" is based on strange turns of phrase on the day of the attacks or from officials during and after that day and from video evidence that can only be seen if your TV color and contrast is adjusted correctly. There is no (or very very little) positive evidence of any actual event, statement, or deed--rather, it is all based on bizarre inconsistencies in individual officials' statements and the misapplication of various logical concepts, such as Occam's Razor (e.g. here). It reminds me a bit of those videos people have of their dogs, where they alone are convinced that the dog is speaking when it's really just dog noises. Schmuck # 1 and 2, by themselves, prove nothing except that the opinion of the "fire hypothesis" might have been quite common on the morning of 9/11/2001. Schmuck #3 doesn't tell us anything we don't already know, and he only proves that we have a knee-jerk reaction to suspect Arab terrorists when something blows up.

I do not know the author of his video, I do not know where he stands on the broader issues, and I do not know exactly where he stands on who is ultimately responsible for 9/11 (because he certainly doesn't say so in this video). I can only assume that he is saying that it could not possibly have been just the work of Arabs and burning jet fuel. Beyond that, we might as well say the Flying Spaghetti Monster did it.

Let me tell you where I stand: I think a bunch of crazed religious zealots carried out a plan to do as much damage as they could to the U.S. as they could, and they happened to succeed (from their point of view, they got lucky). I think a president and his administration, who were well on their way to permanent mediocrity in early fall 2001, seized upon the event in the most craven, cynical way imaginable in order to solidify their hold on power. I think that any involvement the administration might have had with the terror plot prior to 9/11 was limited to ignorance and negligence. I think the administration's obsession with secrecy, an issue long before the morning of 9/11/2001, added to some people's natural suspicion that those who are in power will do anything to keep and/or increase it, and that this same obsession with secrecy has only encouraged stranger and stranger conspiracy theories, until it is difficult to distinguish between those who contend the Bush administration allowed 9/11 to happen through neglect and those who say that the jet airliners that crashed into the WTC were drone aircraft piloted remotely by someone else.

I also think that Dick Cheney probably masturbates to the stories about how he is the Puppetmaster orchestrating this whole thing from the very beginning, only wishing that it were truly so.

Here's a "common sense" question for the conspiracy theorists--one that I have not yet seen answered at all: Considering how wrong the administration has been about pretty much eveything else they've ever done, how did they manage to get this one, albeit enormous, plot to go so incredibly right?

Fluffy mackerel pudding

2007-12-19T09:42:00.001-06:00

For your next holiday dinner party, pass on the turkey or roast beef.

Instead, treat your guests to fluffy mackerel pudding, thanks to Weight Watchers circa 1974.

I would hotlink the picture, but it's just too frightening.

Holiday malaise, with cute bunnies

2007-12-16T11:54:00.000-06:00

I'm not so big on seasonal affective disorder or holiday blues (besides, it's sunny!), but this video sums up my melancholy rather well:

Plus, bunnies are cute.