Beer tasting

Since we moved here I've taken to trying a wide variety of beers and keeping notes on all of them. If you're inclined you can check out my records here.

So far my two favorites are Ommegang's Three Philosophers and Stone's Arrogant Bastard. Both of those beers have my name all over them. Here are those two breweries' respective descriptions of their beers.

Three Philosophers Quadrupel

Cynics can't believe it, Epicures hail it a sensation, and Pythagoreans just can't add up what makes this luscious blend of rich malty ale and cherry lambic so delightful. It might be the flavor of dark chocolate and cherry cordials; it could be the way it acquires wisdom and grace in the cellar. Maybe it's a conundrum. What's your theory?

The essence of wonder is a unique and masterful blend of strong malty ale and authentic Belgian Kriek. Our philosophers deduce that this powerful marriage of cherries, roasted malts, and dark chocolate will only achieve more wisdom and coherence as it broods in the dark recesses of your cellar.

Try Three Philosophers as:

a delightful accompaniment for roasted meats, rich cheeses, desserts, and for after dinner sipping as with a fine port.

Reviews:

"A rare international blend of dark and malty quadrupel from Ommegang, and cherry-infused lambic from Lindemans in Belgium. It is a masterful blend that is greater than the sum of its parts - a rich, ruby brew that weaves a port-like subtle fruit into a creamy elixir of chocolaty caramel effervescence."
-THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

"An exciting new addition to the Ommegang lineup is Three Philosophers, a blend of Belgian dark strong ale and Lindeman's Kriek (a classic cherry lambic directly from Belgium). On the bottleneck, it says “Strength in Union,” signaling the beer's portent and possibilities. It produces a wine-like ruby fill in the goblet and a nose of malt, dark fruits, vanilla and sweet cherries...But there's more - coffee, currants, brandied raisins, chocolate and sour notes - all blending nicely across the palate. Careful aging is this beer's friend, and I think it will definitely make this example better still."
-THE ANCHORAGE PRESS

Three Philosophers comes in a 750ml corked and caged bottle like a sparkling wine, costs only $6, and is 33 times better than a $6 bottle of wine.




Arrogant Bastard has "you're not worthy" printed on the caps of its bottles. Awesome.

How dare you not let me abuse my power!!

Where people whose job it is to enforce the law go to complain when they aren't treated like they're above the law.

Or as Thoreau says:

They even announce the names of cops who gave them speeding tickets, in hopes that other cops will take notice of this “unprofessional behavior.” Um, yeah. Sure.
I doubt that the creators of that site realize this, but by highlighting instances where the law is applied even to cops they are actually portraying law enforcement in a positive light.

I say “Bravo!” to the cops who apply the law equally and impartially to all of their fellow citizens, including people who enjoy positions of trust and authority.

Post-Mortem America

We are told that in the weeks before 9/11, then CIA chief George Tenet and his colleagues across the intelligence community were so alarmed by the flood of reports about an impending major terrorist attack that they felt their "hair was on fire." God only knows what the truth of this self-serving, after-the-fact assertion might be, but it is indeed an apt term for a sense of imminent doom in the public sphere. And given the headlong rush to a new war against Iran, and the G-force acceleration into the tyranny of a lawless, all-encompassing surveillance state that is unfolding before our eyes -- not to mention the Democratic Party's complete abandonment of even the pretense of carrying out the people's mandate and opposing the Administration's maniacal, murderous, criminal policies -- anyone whose hair isn't on fire today is either brain-dead, bought-off, or an active, eager, conniving traitor to the American people, and the human race.

Chris Floyd wrote that today. It is a fitting introduction to this post I've been trying to try to write for weeks now.

I'd strongly recommend reading this Chris Floyd essay from 3 weeks ago, as well as these 3 responses to it: Arthur Silber, IOZ, and Jim Henley. Those links contained well expressed thoughts by excellent writers. All of them have their hair on fire. So do I. And if you don't, you're either brain-dead, bought-off, or an active, eager conniving traitor to the American people, and the human race.

Floyd begins:

Tomorrow is here. The game is over. The crisis has passed -- and the patient is dead. Whatever dream you had about what America is, it isn't that anymore. It's gone. And not just in some abstract sense, some metaphorical or mythological sense, but down in the nitty-gritty, in the concrete realities of institutional structures and legal frameworks, of policy and process, even down to the physical nature of the landscape and the way that people live.

The Republic you wanted -- and at one time might have had the power to take back -- is finished. You no longer have the power to keep it; it's not there ... Beaten, abused, diseased and abandoned, it finally died. We are living in its grave.

I don't think there's really any question that Chris Floyd is right. We're living in a different country than the idealistic America we grew up believing in, and we're little more than subjects of an elite ruling class that cares nothing for anything but preserving and expanding their own influence. Read his entire essay.

Then go read Arthur's, which puts the Bush carnage in a larger context.

The destruction of America has been accomplished in the manner of a particularly skillful and diabolical con game: it has been done completely in the open. No one was fooled or misled. The ruling class has always stated explicitly exactly what they intended to do -- and then they did it. You didn't think they meant it, not really, not all the way down.

But they did. They counted on the great majority of Americans not to believe what was directly before their eyes, or to identify its full, inevitable meaning. Most of you obliged. Most of you still oblige. They could not ask for more.

And most Americans still don't believe the destruction has already occurred, because there is no thunderous crashing of chords, no widespread calamity or destruction (at least, not yet, although we've had some previews) or, as Chris puts it, it won't come "with jackboots and book burnings," or with "tanks on the street." Poor, pitiful, pathetic Americans: it isn't like a movie.

And so it has come to pass. The lives of most Americans will go on as before, for that is the plan and the point. Be careful not to credit the ruling class with too much cleverness or intelligence for having achieved their heinous end, for most of them don't begin to understand what they're doing either. They are moved for the most part by the views of the "consensus," which views come from they not know where, nor do they care about or understand the original reasons. Their concern is much narrower: consolidating and expanding their own power, and that of the State. Their focus is on how power is actualized in the petty, sordid details of their pallid, drab, arid lives. The larger dynamics never concerned them, and they don't give a damn about any of that today.

So now that we see the big picture for what it is, the question now is what the hell are we supposed to do about it? It is impossible to imagine the massive uprising that would required for genuine change actually coming into being.

Winter Patriot had the idea of a general strike on 9/11/07. Did you hear about that? Me neither.

Capt. Fogg reacts understandably to the whole mess:

I'm past caring. America will do the stupid thing - we always do and when the piper presents his invoice we will spend generations rewriting history to protect the idiots - we always do. And then we'll do it again, using fake lessons from this debacle to justify another one. We always do.

It takes the slightest knowledge of history to get the "we always do" sentiment, unfortunately Americans have no understanding of history. And Americans won't do shit about any of this. So,

First noting that we're now past any Liberty-or-Death moments for the salvation of the Republic, and further noting that violent revolutions, even where possible, aren't generally advisable or supportable, the question naturally arises: what now? The answer is not much. In large part the more pertinent question is simply how do we as individuals comport ourselves to post-citizen lives? Where do we make accommodations and accessions, and where do we offer our small resistances. What does will it mean to be a subject in the era after consensual government? What power, if any, will we have to mitigate the evils of empire abroad? Since the institutions of democracy will remain superficially central to the United States (Rome retained a Senate), to what degree is it useful or valid to participate in the preserved processes of actual democracy? Is it now meaningful to take sides in the factional disputes that will continue in the immediate future as our governors sort out their tribal affiliations and solidify a neater process of succession? What are the ethical and moral obligations of the subject, as opposed to the citizen, for the actions of his nation? If we are to some degree absolved of responsibility and culpability for something like the coming bombing of Iran, does that also abrogate our calling to speak out against it? To what extent does it remain valid to cite the extant catechisms of Republican government--the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the ideals of the Framers--and to what extent is that citation merely willful complicity in a charade?

As a wise man once said, How the fuck should I know?

I think there are two reasons we ask those kinds of questions. First, we have some sense of moral decency (a.k.a. "moral casuistry and solipsism"). When we see something bad happening, we want to try to stop it. But what if we can't? That leads to the the second reason, which is for the sake of our own sanity.

Chris, Arthur, and IOZ seem to converge on two main strategies for dealing with our moral and mental health concerns. We can refuse to acknowledge the illegitimate power our government has amassed, with Thoreau-like nuggets of civil disobedience, taking that as far as we can safely take it. And we can insist on calling things by their rightful names.

"Torture is torture. War crimes are war crimes. Police-state procedures are police-state procedures." Jim Henley says that calling things by their true names is what "bitching on the internet" (a.k.a. blogging) is all about. It helps us feel less crazy in this up-is-down, black-is-white world, and it offers some feeling of moral contribution, because "[a]t minimum, the collective record of American dissent might be some minor use to the next crew that decides to give the liberty thing a go."

So is there anything more we can do than honest bitching and minor resistance? What about Winter Patriot's general strike? Floyd concludes his article today with the acknowledgment that any efforts are almost certain to fail to divert disaster. But,

We must keep sounding the alarm, even in the face of almost certain defeat. What else is our humanity worth if we don't do that? And if, in the end, all that we've accomplished is to keep the smallest spark of light alive, to help smuggle it through an age of darkness to some better, brighter time ahead, is that not worth the full measure of struggle?

Do something. Anything.

George W. Bush's Christian values

"Hey Tony, I got an idea. I say we paint a plane to look like a UN plane. Then let's fly it over Iraq. Saddam will shoot it down and kill the stupid pilot, and then we'll have an excuse to invade and fucking kill everyone! Awesome!"

In which I try to help a poor creature

There are lots of stray cats running around our new neighborhood. The woman who used to live next door would put food out for them, so they used to congregate right by our house. After she moved (about a week after we moved in), most of them moved on and seem to have found some other food source. Someone else probably puts food out, although I did watch one little kitten catch a small bird. We still see them around, and they all look fairly healthy.

Except that one tiny cat was different than all the others. This one never really moved on when the others did. It just stayed in this area, and seemed to get skinnier and skinnier. One hot day I broke down and gave it some water. After a few more days of it crying outside our window I couldn't help giving it some food.

I felt bad about it though, because feeding a stray cat ultimately just creates more stray cats. I couldn't tell if it was a male or female, but we've already seen a pregnant female running around, meaning soon there should be some homeless kittens. I gave food to the starving cat out of sympathy, but if I give it enough food it will just compound the starving cat problem.

This one was different in another way though. All the others are somewhat afraid of people, and will run away if you get too close, but this one really seemed to like people. It made me think that this one didn't really know how to fend for itself and needed a person taking care of it. I wasn't just going to adopt a feral cat off the street though. The whole thing bothered me and I didn't know what to do. I kind of just wished it would go away, but every day it'd show up and cry outside our door. It even would try to come inside when we went in and out, and we had to chase it away.

So yesterday I put some food in a crate and caught the poor little thing. We found a humane society 30 miles away and took it down there. They'll spay her (turns out she's a female, I never lifted her skirt to find out) and give her vet care if she has any diseases or parasites or anything, and give her a chance to get adopted. They said she seems friendly compared to many other stray cats that get brought in, so hopefully someone will take her. They also said they think she's full grown, which surprised me because she's so small. I know she was severely undernourished but figured she was still pretty young. She seemed very happy about the food they gave her.

The only problem now is that they sometimes do have to kill cats at that shelter. They said they give every cat a good chance to get adopted, and at the moment they had a lot of room. This little cat seemed very nice, so hopefully someone will take her. We're thinking about going back to see her after they get her all fixed up. If she's nice, maybe we'll take her.

More on the taser attack

Arthur gets it right as usual. Cops use extreme force against nonthreatening victims for simply failing to do exactly what they say. They take their cues from our imperial overlords, who invade nonthreatening countries for failing to do exactly what they say.

The public watches, and does nothing.

The Shock Doctrine

This is a short film by the director of Children of Men. It is about 6 minutes long.



If you're interested in The Shock Doctrine, here is the author discussing her research. The videos total to about an hour.

disturbing police brutality

This story of police in Florida using a taser on some poor guy is ridiculous on its own (disturbing videos at each of those links). But the crowd applauding it and John Kerry just blathering on while it happens is unreal.

I've referenced before that authoritarians personalities reflexively claim that we shouldn't worry about abuse of power. Somehow amazing things like this just rolls off their back. And what is even more disturbing is knowing that for every one of these attacks that gets caught on video, there are dozens more happening that never come to light. Many of those are far worse, and I'd bet that minorities are disproportionately the victims, probably by a large margin.

A guy talks to much and police torture him while an audience of students and an internationally prominent politician watch and do nothing. "America" doesn't really have any meaning does it?

update:

I'm posting the video of the student as well as a group of police officers tackling a man, breaking his leg in the process, for wearing a "I love the people of Iraq" button while waiting in line to enter a Congressional hearing.

Sarah Silverman

This discussion of Sarah Silverman is exactly right. I greatly enjoy what I've seen of her standup and TV show. Chick is funny.

Mindles idiotz rule our discousree

[updated to add more typos in the title. they were all on purpose. really! prove me wrong.]

Today Greenwald takes another look at the pathetic pundit class.

How has it come to the point where these people are considered respectable political analysts? They don't often do any actual analysis of anything! They just talk about how certain events might "play," how they'll be perceived. But they rarely make any effort to actually figure out how the public perceives anything; they just offer baseless speculation that fits with conventional narratives. All they're really talking about is how they themselves perceive things, except wording it as what "the people" will think.

Furthermore, even if they managed to actually look at some surveys and figure out what people really think, should that really take up much of their time? Shouldn't they report on what is actually happening? Shouldn't they then analyze it in terms of real-world effects and let people decide for themselves what they think about it? In an hour of programming, no more than 1 minute should be devoted to "analysis" of what people think about things. That stuff should be an afterthought to the real discussion of what is happening and why. That kind of discussion would take some real work though, whereas any idiot can just talk about how good a man in uniform looks or how Hillary is far too shrill to win a popular election. We wouldn't want anyone to have to actually think about something more complicated than high school popularity contests. Mindless fucking idiots lead our political dialog.

Restore Habeas

Help fight back against one of the most Anti-American measures of the Bush regime.

When I'm not raging out

Here's what my Saturday was like.

raging out

I still haven't finished that post I alluded to a little while back. Actually I haven't even worked on it since then. I had started working on it because I read a few essays that really moved me and I wanted to respond to them. But an ongoing problem is that several times every day I'm moved in the exact same way, and all sense of perspective slips away as I'm motivated in 20 different directions at the same time. The form of the movement is best described as outrage, although elements of frustration, despair, disgust, anger, and sorrow are all in the mix. But we'll call it outrage.

Ours is an outrageous world. Outrageous atrocities are committed on a daily basis and those who are responsible tell outrageous lies about all of it. An outrageous nation with by far the most powerful military force in history uses it to destroy helpless small countries and loot the wreckage, while outrageously preaching to the rest of the world about how noble this is. The internal factions driving this machine somehow manage to blame the carnage on their timid opposition, and the resulting outrage is taken to be proof of the blame. The carnage itself is agreed to be an unfortunate but necessary side effect of the gloriously noble and very important destruction/looting/aggression/killing/spreading-freedom-and-democracy-and-puppies. Heinous war crimes and violations of international law, when impolitely mentioned, are taken to be an indication of how necessary and glorious and noble and important the outrageous aggression must be, but certainly will never be fully acknowledged, yet alone prosecuted. Lies mount upon lies until everyone saying and hearing them knows full well that the words and the truth bear no resemblance. Yet the liars are outraged when their lies are not accepted. Their outrage is loud and bold and coordinated and amplified and effective, in spite of, or more likely because of, its hollow meaninglessness. Dense, genuine outrage is quiet, meek, sloppy. It is and suppressed and impotent.

And I sit here in front of my computer, outraged in a dense and genuine way, wondering what the flying fuck I can do about any of it. I try to write about it but I can't, not really. I try to talk about it but I can't, not really. And so in the end this just amounts to a semi-apologetic self-important lonely pity party, unless of course putting it where other people can read it does some good for anyone else. Then the pity party is a bit less lonely, cause we're certainly not capable of stopping the machine. The outrages accelerate and we won't know what or when the end will be, or if it will be a bang or a whimper or some outrageous third option.

Music + Kick Ass = Alanis Morissette? Seriously.

Speaking of music and kicking ass, a song that is often on my playlists these days is Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know." I hadn't listen to any of her music, or really even considered her existence in many years, but on the drive from Maryland to Ohio I was in a big truck with a stack of CDs, and Jagged Little Pill ended up in the player. Holy shit! That song is pure fury. I played it like 5 times.

A few days later, Bill Simmons wrote this:

What an intriguing twist for the Manning-Brady rivalry! Manning comes through in the big Pats-Colts game, Manning wins the Super Bowl, Manning hosts Saturday Night Live ... meanwhile, the only way Brady's 2007 would have been rockier was if Bridget Moynihan named their new son "Peyton." (Which would have been the single most vindictive move by a female celebrity since Alanis Morissette released "You Oughta Know" in 1995, but that's a whole other column.)

I'm looking forward to that column. Unless he already wrote it, in which case I hope I find it in the archives.

Bush: stop all that lawyerin' and go get 'em!

1.) On the evening of September 11, 2001, in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, he returned to Washington and at 8:30 p.m. addressed the nation from the Oval Office. Following his speech, he met with his senior officials concerned with the crisis in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center. According to Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism chief for both Presidents Clinton and Bush, who was there, Bush entered the room and said, "I want you all to understand that we are at war and will stay at war until this is done. Nothing else matters. Everything is available for the pursuit of this war. Any barriers in your way, they're gone. Any money you need, you have it. This is our only agenda." In the ensuing discussion, according to Clarke, "Secretary Rumsfeld noted that international law allowed the use of force only to prevent future attacks and not for retribution. Bush nearly bit his head off. 'No,' the President yelled in the narrow conference room. 'I don't care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass.'"

2.) Bush himself said to the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, "I had to show the American people the resolve of a commander in chief that [sic] was going to do whatever it took to win. No yielding. No equivocation. No, you know, lawyering this thing to death, that we're after 'em. And that was not only for domestic, for the people at home to see. It was also vitally important for the rest of the world to watch."

These two quotes are from Chalmers Johnson's Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (American Empire Project), with my emphasis added.

I'm trying to understand the deranged psychology of George W. Bush. I find it interesting how he uses lawyers as a substitute for the law in both quotes (the first of which seems to be a paraphrase that might not be word-for-word accurate, but presumably for Clarke to quote it this way, Bush must use that kind of phrasing a lot). I can think of two ways to interpret this.

The first would be that Bush recognizes that he is advocating illegal action, but uses lawyers as some kind of emotional scapegoat to avoid acknowledging his own lawlessness. I'd interpret that as a psychological mechanism he's employing for his own benefit, rather than a deliberately misleading attempt to manipulate his audience. It softens "lawbreaking" into "ignoring lawyers" and everyone hates lawyers so how bad could it be?

The second way to read it is that Bush sees the world through the lens of power. He doesn't see The Law as a manifestation of a social contract, or a set of rules that we're all obligated to obey, and that he's obligated to uphold. He just sees power. Lawyers have power and Presidents have power. Presidents are more powerful than lawyers, therefor Bush can get his way, especially when it comes to (what Bush decides are) important things. Supporting this is how in both cases his lawyer references are associated with puerile ideas about strength, or the image of strength. Bush and all of the neocon goons have this preschool playground idea of power. It's all about kickin' ass and gettin' 'em, and demonstrating our resolve. They're overgrown little boys with wild ideas and the most destructive toys in the history of mankind at their disposal.

Anyway, there's no reason these two versions have to be mutually exclusive, but they're both pretty fucking disturbing.

Favorite Musical Acts

It has been a while since I've done any rankings. Here are my favorite musicians/groups:

1. Dave Matthews Band
2. Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
3. Lyle Lovett
   
4. Counting Crows

Pearl Jam, Billy Joel, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Band, and U2 would probably form the next tier, in no particular order. It goes without saying that Tenacious D is the greatest and best band in the world, so I didn't think it was necessary to put them at the top.

Lauren Green, Kathy Griffin, and Jesus Lord of Comedy

It turns out Kathy Griffin was wrong! Jesus had everything to do with her winning that award!

But here's what I don't quite understand, although I'm sure there's a very good explanation. If Jesus really did have everything to do with Kathy Griffin's award, and think Lauren Green has undoubtedly shown that to be true, then that means Jesus had everything to do with Kathy Griffin saying "Suck it Jesus! This award is my God now!" And since Lauren Green makes it clear that she finds self-effacing humor to be amusing, why is it that Lauren Green is unamused by Kathy Griffin's remarks, which is essentially Jesus' own self-effacement? Jesus is Lord of Comedy, but Lauren Green is won't scarf down his tasty communion wafer.

But like I said, I'm sure there's a very good explanation. It is probably related to the reason why Lauren Green would have "turned the other cheek" if Kathy Griffin had just said that no one had less to do with her award than Jesus. Obviously that kind of a comment is the literal equivalent to a slap in the face, but Lauren Green, good Christian that she is, would receive that slap without complaint, and then offer her other cheek to be slapped again. But if Kathy Griffin (at Jesus' insistence) goes on to then slap again, as Lauren Green specifically offered, apparently at that point Lauren Green must spring into action.

Now, I very much believe that Lauren Green and Bill Donahue and Fox News would never have said anything if Kathy Griffin had only disavowed the involvement of a 2,000 year old fictional Jewish zombie. They would have gladly ignored that, and nobody would have censored remarks on the broadcast, and Lauren Green never would have written her well-reasoned column.

But why turn the other cheek if you won't accept the inevitable re-slap? Why doesn't Lauren Green have a sense of humor when Jesus uses an irreverent comedian to make a little fun of himself?

I guess its just that me and Jesus are on the same comedic wavelength. We get each other. That's what I love about him.

Blowback*

I've been working my way through an "inadvertent trilogy" by Chalmers Johnson. After a few years in the Navy he became a scholar of Japan and all of Asia at UC San Diego. In 2000 he published a book called "Blowback," because after decades of studying the region, he became convinced that US imperialist behavior in Asia was going to keep coming back to haunt us. Nobody really paid much attention to that book, but after 9/11 it became a best seller. He felt the need to write 2 more books over the last 6 years, expanding on those works both geographically, discussing mainly the Middle East and South America, and thematically, elaborating on our militarism and imperialism and the "sorrows" it has brought and will continue to bring. His calls for changes are obviously going unanswered.

He devoted a few paragraphs to Diego Garcia in one of the books, which was noteworthy for me because my father did a few months of Navy duty there when I was a kid. I didn't know that it was actually a British island on a 50-year lease to the US (at no charge). Apparently the American military boasts that the base at Diego Garcia is invulnerable to local politics, and the reason is that there are no local politics because the British moved the entire population of the island to some other island, where they now live in extreme poverty and face constant ethnic prejudice. The natives have been fighting that relocation in British courts for decades, where a judge has already ruled their forced relocation illegal.

Think about how those natives much feel about the British and Americans.

The Pentagon officially acknowledges about 800 bases in ~130 countries around the world, and likely has another few hundred kept secret for various reasons. Every one of those bases causes some kind of local tension, from frustration with forced displacement, to epidemics of drunk driving and sexual assault by America military around our bases (which cannot be prosecuted in local courts because the military quickly whisks the criminals back to the US), to official violent military action against defenseless civilian populations. That tension leads to resentment, leading to hatred, leading to "blowback."

Bin Laden made his issues with America very well known: (1) objection to American military presence in Saudi Arabia, a Muslim holy land, where we have numerous semi-secret bases and support a corrupt a brutal theocratic regime (while at the same time hypocritically pretending that we care about spreading democracy to the Middle East), (2) American support of Israel (a long mess of a story unto itself), and (3) American/British sanctions against Iraq, which we enforced by violating international law, which led to the death of millions of innocent civilians who couldn't obtain basic necessities (all of that was before we invaded again in 2003).

9/11 was a classic case of blowback, violent reaction to US militarism and imperialism, and yet our politicians refuse to acknowledge it. We hear nonsense about how "they hate us for our freedom" and when a rare honest moment happens where a politician actually acknowledges the reality of the situation (Ron Paul), he gets attacked by Giuliani and the rest of the pundit class as some kind of America-hater or terrorist sympathizer or just a lunatic. The Republicans lead this willfully ignorant suicidal charge, the Democrats refuse to fight it, essentially making them enablers, and the press gleefully reports the whole thing without criticism or question. And so like 35% of the American public still believes the outright falsehood spread by the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein was directly involved with planning the 9/11 attacks, and we're spending $2 billion per week to occupy Iraq and police a civil war hellhole that we needlessly created.




* Yes, Dave, you probably heard this term on The Simpsons before Chalmers Johnson claims to have popularized it. He doesn't claim to have invented it. It was a CIA term, and obviously The Simpsons makes all kinds of obscure references. I don't think this takes away from the scholarship of the books.

Status update

I'm crawling my way towards a blog post of some substance. I've been paralyzed by a combination of factors, and writing it is like a war of attrition with my own inertia. Whatever. That's a teaser for you and motivation for me.

Meanwhile, I'm loving life in Ohio. Kira started classes this week, and we're falling into a pretty good routine. We send her off to class around 8:45, and I go for a jog around the neighborhood. I have something ready for her to stop in for lunch around 1:15, and I start cooking dinner between 5 and 6 usually. We get all our meat and eggs from Luginbill Family Farm, (The eggs are the best eggs I've ever had, and the meat is excellent - ground beef, ground pork, breakfast sausage, smoked sausage, and whole broiler chicken.), and veggies (tomatoes, potatoes, zucchini, acorn squash, butternut squash, cucumbers, bell peppers, hot peppers, sweet peppers, red and yellow onions), honey, and bread fresh from a farmer's market every Saturday. Food is good. Evenings have been some combination of DVDs, HBO, and/or reading. I'll have to do a separate post soon for the different beers we've tried.

I need to work on filling my time in between more productively than reading blog posts and fantasy football rankings. Today I filled out a survey and marked "home maker" as my occupation, though I don't think this home is particularly well-made. I've done some actual work as a consultant for the company I worked for in Maryland, but I don't think I want to keep working for them. I need to start doing the school search thing and some at least third- to half-assed version of GRE prep.

police arrest nonviolent war protesters

George Washington

emotional children

I just witnessed a young man and woman engage in a loud and profane shouting match as he walked away from her, shouting angrily as he left. This was around midnight near the local high school where I live. I wasn't sitting next to my window waiting for some excitement, so they must have been pretty loud. After it became clear to her that her attempts to lure him back ("if you fucking care anything about ... [unintelligible] ... you'll fucking come back here!!!!") would be unsuccessful she ran back to her car and sped away after him, driving dangerously fast.

As I find myself more and more bothered reading about whatever latest outrages are happening somewhere in this world, I suppose it would do some slight good for my own state of mind to keep in mind that human beings are fundamentally irrational. What little reason we do exhibit almost always comes from extensive experience or arduous training, neither of which come easily or often to most people. In their absence, we're driven by instinct, by emotion. And emotions are fucking insane.

I say this might help me because in some cases it would soften anger into sympathy, outrage into lament. You can't be mad at a crazy person can you? They're not responsible for what they do, right? Those kids pissed me off until I realized they don't realize what the hell they're doing. Now I just feel sorry for them, and anyone else in their path.

go!

An attack on Iran is basically inevitable at this point. The only thing that could maybe stop it is impeachment of Bush and Cheney, but that will never happen as long as Republicans or Democrats are in control of Congress. It is obvious that it will be a disaster, and nobody is going to stop it. Way to go, team America!

pictures

Moving into the new place. Lots of cat pictures.

Support the troops, Bush style

How the fuck does anyone take Bush seriously when he talks about supporting the troops? The man is a fucking psychopath.

Ohio

I don't even know where to start writing; I feel like so much has happened. The bottom line is that I am now in Ohio. I loaded up the Penske truck last Wednesday and Thursday, closed on the house Friday afternoon, and arrived here very late Friday night. By Sunday we had dumped everything from the truck into the house, and here I am now, amidst the boxes and clutter.

Our new place is kind of a dump, but I kind of love it. We don't have air conditioning or a dishwasher. We have one small bathroom that smells a little funny no matter how much we clean it. It is a 10 minute walk from campus and we look out our front door to the local high school. I have some pictures I can post if I find my camera sometime soon. Our cats seem to like it here. Our rent is $325/month.

I'm glad to be here. I'm glad that my house sold, that the long drive went smoothly, and that my wife will be starting school again next Tuesday. We've found a farmers market for fresh locally-grown produce, and a family farm that raises grass-fed beef and pork, and free range poultry and eggs. We stocked up on good beer and wine. Life is good.

Any questions?

Today I played some poker. The following hand happened. I offer it without further comment for your entertainment.

Full Tilt 1/2 Hold'em (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: HTML)


Preflop: adspar is UTG with Kh, 6h.

UTGA raises, 2 folds, Button calls, SB calls, 1 fold.



Flop: (7 SB) Ks, 4c, 9h (3 players)

SB checks, UTGA bets, Button calls, SB calls.



Turn: (5 BB) 4h (3 players)

SB checks, UTGA bets, Button calls, SB calls.



River: (8 BB) 6c (3 players)

SB checks, UTGA bets, Button calls, SB calls.



Final Pot: 11 BB


Results:

SB has 8d Th (one pair, fours).

adspar has Kh 6h (two pair, kings and sixes).

Button has 3s 3d (two pair, fours and threes).

Outcome: adspar wins 11 BB.

While that was happening, so was this:

well...

This might kill it for us:

McLean, Va., (August 20, 2007) - Capital One Financial Corporation (NYSE: COF) today announced that it will cease residential mortgage origination operations at its wholesale mortgage banking unit, GreenPoint Mortgage, effective immediately. Current conditions in the secondary mortgage markets create significant near-term profitability challenges, given the company's "originate and sell" business model. Further, recent and continuing developments in the mortgage markets reduce the long-term outlook for profitability in the business, as the company expects markets for prime, non-conforming mortgage products are likely to remain challenged for the foreseeable future.

This might save it for us. Let's hope:

GreenPoint Mortgage will cease making new loan commitments immediately, however, it will continue to meet its contractual obligations to customers for loan commitments that are in the pipeline with rates locked.

more 'fuck this shit'

this time from digby

Hold on for a week

The events of the next week will have a huge effect on the next several years of my life. If my house sells next Friday, then I'm off on a new path with some reasonable financial buffering to ease the transition. If the deal falls apart, I have no idea what I'll do, but I'll be in a terrible financial situation with a few unattractive options.

I have no idea how to tell what will happen. We have a contract in place, and if everything goes as planned, I'll be moving on Friday and quite happy. But the mortgage and real estate markets are descending into chaos, so things could easily go bad in the next 7 days. My buyer is selling property to pay for mine, so that means there are twice as many lenders who could go bankrupt overnight, and twice as many buyers who could panic and walk away. That would leave me hanging in a painful way.

I assume that everyone involved in both transactions wants to see the deals happen. The two buyers get nice new houses, the two sellers get the sale they wanted, the three realtors get their commissions, the two settlement companies get their fees, the two mortgage brokers get their commissions, and the two lenders get their loan assets. Hopefully it all works for everyone.

I'm nervous as hell, and I've got another week before I know what will happen.

Always something

Just when I thought I could breathe easy, the Washington Post runs this article:

Approved Home Loans No Longer Done Deals

Ugh.

Letters from lenders approving loans "used to be a reason to exhale, a reason to believe that a deal is done," said Leisa Hart, an agent with Long & Foster Real Estate. "We no longer have reason to exhale until we've gotten to the settlement table and until that loan has been fully funded."

Yup.

chomsky, trivers

That's it

If IOZ wasn't already my favorite blogger, this seals it:

If you asked me, "What would a contemporary police state look like?" I'd reply that it would look an awful lot like what America looks like right now. I would tell you that subsidized consumer affluence has proven a far more effective method of social control than centrally planned, faux-egalitarianism. I would tell you that someone finally figured out that breadlines breed rebellion but lines at the multiplex for the midnight opening of the next blockbuster do not. I would tell you that keeping up with the Joneses has proven a more effective enforcer of conformity than any book of Dear Leader's wisdom ever did. I would tell you that hope for Vegas vacations beats fear of the work camps for quashing dissent. I would tell you that subtle is better than overt, seemingly random better than routine, carnivalesque better than somber, colorful better than drab. Look at the billions of dollars and man-hours thrown into deciding between a guy from Massachusetts and a gal from New York who evince no convincingly held differences of belief. Has ever a nation been farther from revolution than the United States in the year 2007?

I feel a great many people waiting, breathing shallowly, as if one day at last the whole edifice will tip over and reveal its infested foundation. It won't. I feel as if a great many people are waiting for a president to suspend the government, or for black-hood squads to start snatching people in broad daylight, or for the police to establish checkpoint entrances to our cities and loyalty oaths in our schools. (That last, of course, already . . . ) They are waiting, in other words, for incontrovertible and public evidence that Denmark is rotten, some moment of national epiphany when Candidate-for-Life Benito Giuliani descends through the clouds in his own airline trailing some athletic blond with a camera on his way to a firelit vigil in Yankee Stadium.

There is an office tower in Pittsburgh with a good view of the county jail, and cells at the county jail with views of downtown offices. I imagine the populations of one or the other spend a great deal of time thinking, "Poor bastards, stuck in that place . . ."

terrorists terrorizing terrorfully? terribly terrifying!

So Bush has now declared that Iran's military force is a terrorist organization. Awesome!

Winter Patriot:

Science fiction? Au contraire! It's the Washington Post, which also says:

The Bush administration has chosen to move against the Revolutionary Guard Corps because of what U.S. officials have described as its growing involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its support for extremists throughout the Middle East, the sources said.

Involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan? Support for extremists?

Come on! Can't they do any better than that??

How remarkable. How utterly Orwellian. We've never had a clear definition of "terrorism" in the "post-9/11 world", but this is getting even more ridiculous than ever!

The president declares a branch of a foreign country's military to be terrorists, and to justify the declaration, he cites their alleged involvement in two countries which he himself invaded and occupied under false pretenses!!

Oh, well. He's the president, and I'm not. I guess they must be terrorists!

Chris Floyd:

The reality is that this move is just one more piece of groundwork for a military strike on Iran that is indeed inevitable – and vital too, at least for the ambitions of the "global domination" crowd embodied in the big slab of electronically-maintained meat known as Dick Cheney. As Cooper finally acknowledges – in the 22nd paragraph – such a designation is merely symbolic, as the Revolutionary Guards have very few if any assets in the United States or associated with United States financial institutions in any way that would fall under the measure's ban. It is intended as just one more shot across the bow, one more provocation aimed at goading the Iranians into a response that could be seized upon as a further "justification" for war.

And it is yet another round in the endless PR campaign to demonize Iran in the eyes of the American people: A government that has an officially designated terrorist organization as part of its armed forces! My God, better order some more haz-mat suits for Sump City, Iowa, before they sarin-gas the county fair! Better go fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here!

Colin Powell

I'm always confused when I hear someone speak highly of Colin Powell. I'm inclined towards Chris Floyd's opinion of him (from May, 2002):

The former general has long been regarded by the "serious" media on both sides of the Atlantic as a "moderate" maverick on Bush's hard-right team. Liberal commentators praise Powell as a "restraining influence" on more bellicose insiders like Cheney and Rumsfeld, and a wise, guiding hand for a president unschooled in the subtleties of world diplomacy.

It's all a sham, of course. Powell is nothing more than a lifelong bagman for powerful interests. His willingness to play ball, to look the other way, has made him a convenient tool for the some of the most violent and undemocratic forces ever to pollute American society.

Brush with greatness

Last night I randomly logged in to Full Tilt to terrorize the $1/2 games. I was absolutely crushing it for like 6 or 8 big bets, so I started snooping around and noticed there was some kind of "chat with the pros" section and there happened to be a live chat going on. Erica Schoenberg was the featured pro. I had never heard of her, so I decided to join the chat. I fired off a few questions, hoping some of them would be selected for her to answer.

2007-08-14 03:52:36.47 who are you?

2007-08-14 03:54:47.10 do you find that your anonymity inspires fear?
especially when you play against people i've heard of

Meanwhile some of her answers to other questions included Seinfeld quotes, references to the NBA, and her speaking french. Some questions seemed to imply that she was attractive. What was going on here?

2007-08-14 03:56:56.20 As a female who likes Seinfeld, do you find that I should know who you are? If so, why don't I?

2007-08-14 03:59:37.03 do you think that full tilt should sheild you from the tough questions? if not, please tell me who you are.

2007-08-14 04:02:08.53 lebron? francais? seinfeld? some full tilt tech geek just made you up right?

2007-08-14 04:04:10.16 all my questions concern your likely nonexistence. how do you handle the pressure of this kind of scrutiny?

Around this point it became obvious that this girl was dating some famous high-roller named David and happened to win a tournament. Apparently that makes her some kind of celebrity. My questions kind of deteriorated from here (or improved, depending on your perspective).

2007-08-14 04:11:37.30 did you and i ever play $15/30 together at the
taj? if so, did we flirt a lot and then never fully realize our
desires?

2007-08-14 04:14:27.18 i have AJo in the small blind. do you know
phil ivey?

2007-08-14 04:17:47.04 6 dude one time my buddy knocked gavin smith
to the ground cause he was so drunk. true story. now, hypothetically if
i shared a poilte lunch with you, who would have had a bigger brush with
greatness?

2007-08-14 04:25:28.31 if you could have dinner with any 5 people,
living or dead, would your zombie magic make you famous enough for me to
have heard of you?

At this point I decided to google this girl, I found pictures of her. She's kind of pretty.

2007-08-14 04:31:51.50 all those questions about who you are were
just jokes! who is this david, and why does your prettiness make my
tummy feel weird?

I later found out that her primary claim to fame is that she is engaged to David Benyamine and was part of some kind of strip poker DVD where she took her top off. (I'd link to pictures but this is a family blog. I'm sure you can find them though.) Only one of my questions made it through before she signed off.

[adspar]: who are you?
EricaSchoenberg: who are you?

fuck this shit

I just watched Bill Kristol tell preposterous lies right to Jon Stewart's face and when it was done, Stewart giggled and shook Kristol's hand. Then it cut to a commercial for the Democrat Senate election committee. Fuck this shit. Even the dissenters are lame-ass establishment pimps. God fucking damn this all.

this is me

Romney: bigot, hypocrite

Romney says: I'm a bigot against some people!!
Christians say: We're bigots against Romney!!
Romney says: Bigotry is wrong!!


I've come to realize that principles mean nothing to these people. They're just convenient props for self-promotion. Until they become inconvenient, at which point they're completely disposable. Fucking assholes.

if you're so inclined

Far-flung correspondent for the New Yorker writes about bonobos, and Frans de Waal responds. Frans is cool. Bonobos are cool.


Giuliani loves his money.


Republicans are like children.


IOZ calls it like it is.

the real estate blues

A few weeks ago I accepted an offer on my house. If everything goes as planned, we'll close in 2 weeks. I'm extremely nervous about it though, because my buyer is selling a condo before moving here. That buyer is 100% financed, and we haven't heard a final loan approval from that lender. The mortgage market is a disaster right now, and those kinds of loans are particularly suspect. I'm concerned that the deal is going to fall apart and severely mess up our plans.

There's nothing I can do, and there's nothing you can say. I'm just nervous and can't sleep and need to vent.

Another objectionable mass email

A relative sent this email to most of my family.

Subject: Fw: News Flash

> Verified with SNOPES--this is unnerving
>
> AT A CITGO STATION REGULAR WAS PRICED AT $2.82 PER GALLON, NO
> CUSTOMERS, HOWEVER ACROSS THE STREET IT WAS SELLING FOR $2.85 PER
> GALLON AND ALL PUMPS WERE HAD CARS
> WAITING TO FUEL. HERE'S WHY!!!!
>
> Have you noticed how the Citgo signs have disappeared in the past 7-8
> months? Very clever move by Chavez. But guess what...........
> CITGO IS CHANGING ITS NAME...this is serious Americans...make sure you
> read ..
>
> NEWS FLASH:
>
>
> Chavez is NOW getting a Russian Weapons Factory built by Putin The
> RUSSIANS are building an AK-47 Kalashnikov Assault Rifle factory in
> Venezuela , to give armament support to Communist Rebel groups
> throughout the Americas.
>
> Chavez NOW has IRANIANS operating his oil refineries in Venezuela for
> him. It is likely only a matter of time, if not already, before Chavez
> has Iranian built LONG RANGE missiles, with variety of warhead types
> aimed at: Guess Who?
>
> CITGO is NOW in the process of Changing Its Name to PETRO EXPRESS due to
> the loss of gasoline sales in the USA due to the recent publicity of
> ownership by Chavez of Venezuela .
>
> Every dollar you spend with CITGO or PETRO EXPRESS gasoline will be
> used against you, your basic human rights, and your freedoms. He will
> start wars here in the Americas that will probably be the death of
> millions.
>
> THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT because Chavez is starting to feel the loss of
> revenue from his holdings. HE OWNS CITGO. This is a very important move
> that everyone should be aware of.
>
> ANNOUNCED JUST RECENTLY, CITGO, BEING AWARE THAT SALES ARE DOWN DUE TO
> U.S. CUSTOMERS NOT WANTING TO BUY FROM "CITGO-CHAVEZ", HAVE STARTED
> TOCHANGE THE NAME OF SOME OF THEIR STORES TO: "PETRO EXPRESS"
> DO NOT BUY FROM "PETRO EXPRESS" EITHER!!! "PETRO EXPRESS" IS ALSO 100%
> OWNED BY "CHAVEZ."
>
> KEEP THIS MEMO GOING SO THAT EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT IS HAPPENING.
>
> BOYCOTT "CITGO" AND "PETRO EXPRESS"
>
> MAKE SURE THIS IS PASSED ON TO EVERYONE IN YOUR E-MAIL LIST IN THE
> UNITED STATES AND OUTSIDE OF AMERICA

I sent this response to everyone.

If we're concerned about weapons in the hands of dangerous people that might be counter-productive to America's interests, we might want to be more concerned about this kind of thing. Nobody arms dangerous people with more weapons than the United States.

Additionally, some of the claims in the email might be a wee bit silly, like " Every dollar you spend with CITGO or PETRO EXPRESS gasoline will be used against you, your basic human rights, and your freedoms." This article explains how this claim is wildly inaccurate from an economic perspective, although economics are the least of the problems there. The idea that Hugo Chavez is actively attempting to violate American human rights and freedoms on a massive scale is pretty silly. Note that he has offered cheap heating oil to American poor. In his own country, he's fought poverty in numerous ways, getting real results. Let's worry about human rights violations and attacks on personal freedoms committed by our own government before we start worrying about hypothetical future violations by someone else.

Or "he will start wars here in the Americas that will probably be the death of millions." If we're worried about wars that will probably be the death of millions, maybe we ought to get our own forces of Iraq. As of a year ago, the best scientific estimate of the number of Iraqi deaths that had occurred since our invasion that wouldn't have happened if we had not invaded was 655,000. We're easily on pace to kill well over a million.

Note that none of this should be construed as blanket support for Hugo Chavez. There might well be valid criticisms of his policies and practices, but absurd fear-mongering hype isn't the way to address such issues. And my other objection is that if we're concerned about war and weapons and personal freedom, we'd be wise to tend to our own affairs first.

un-crazy

I think I have to agree with Trakker and Capt. Fogg that it is no longer crazy to suspect that Bush doesn't intend to stop being The Decider in 2009.

fuck the democrats

They could stop it, but they don't. Fucking assholes. There is no hope.

Glenn Greenwald:

With each day that passes, the radicalism and extremism originally spawned in secret by the Bush presidency becomes less and less his fault and more and more the fault of those who -- having discovered what they have been doing and having been given the power to stop it -- instead acquiesce to it and, worse, enable and endorse it.

John Cole:

At any rate, well done Democrats. If you are wondering why your poll numbers in Congress are so low, it is because the Republican opposition hates you, and the people who voted for you hate you more. Why? Because of stuff like this.

Grow a spine, you cowards.

Thoreau:

You mean to tell me that Harry Reid couldn’t get 8 more Democrats 40 of his 49 Democrats (plus Bernie Sanders) (edit) to say no to a President whose approval rating is currently a complex number with a negative real part and a large imaginary part? WHAT THE FUCK DID WE ELECT YOU SONS OF BITCHES FOR??!?!?!?!?!?

A.L.:

What's important to understand is that this bill would allow much broader surveillance than what the Bush administration has so far acknowledged doing. Until the administration actually discloses what activities it has engaged in and promises to abide by FISA, I just don't see how any self-respecting member of Congress could vote to give the administration additional powers. I understand that FISA is not a perfect law and there are ways it could be improved and further-modernized, but until you actually know what the administration has been doing over the last six years and the extent to which it is willing to comply with even an amended FISA, you're just legislating in the dark. It's craven and reckless.

The six months sunset provision doesn't give me much reassurance either. If Congress is too craven to withstand administration pressure in this scenario, does anyone believe they'll actually have the stones to take existing powers away when they come up for renewal? Not likely.

Who is IOZ?:

The senate just voted overwhelmingly to further expand the Executive Surveillance State, because, after all, this Executive has proven to be ethically rigorous and practically restrained in its use of the vast powers already conferred on it by the Congress

The government of the United States is just a criminal cartel. Democrats are just as much a part of it.

Jason Bourne kills your dinner plans

I love the Jason Bourne movies. They're on a select list of flicks that I can't turn off if I see them on TV. Tonight I saw the newest, The Bourne Ultimatum, and it somehow gave me a way to finally start blogging about food like I've been meaning to.

Bourne 3 deals with the idea of understanding the reasons for our actions. Assassins are told who to kill and aren't supposed to ask why. But Bourne, former CIA assassin, is troubled by the moral abominations of his past life and struggles to understand how he came to be in those situations.

There's a flashback scene where Bourne is given a gun and ordered to kill a hooded man, told only that doing so will help save American lives. Would you pull the trigger? I think that most people with a functioning moral compass answer that they would be reluctant to kill in almost any circumstances, and that in this specific scenario they'd minimally have to know a lot more before they'd take a life.

But if they were actually put into the situation, many more would kill than say they would. Why? Because people are social creatures, and they tend to follow orders. They rationalize that if an authoritative figure is giving them a command, there must be a good reason for it, and they probably ought to listen. Even if it turns out the order was morally wrong, it can't really be my fault, right? I was just following orders. The famous Milgram experiment chillingly documented this behavior.

Normal people can be manipulated or coaxed into doing things that they themselves would find morally wrong in other circumstances. Authority is one social mechanism to induce morally conflicted behavior. Another is the power of normalization - peer pressure, following the crowd. And yet another is to hide from people the immorality of the action. If everyone else does something, and I can't see anything obviously wrong with it, what harm can there be, right? Especially if the authorities are saying it is ok. That logic makes sense in the heat of the moment, but doesn't cut it for us as we carefully contemplate morals in a detached way. We see the moral obligation to make a reasonable effort understand the consequences of our actions before we act.

So what does Jason Bourne's moral crisis and the rest of this discussion have to do with food? Ask yourself these kinds of questions:

• Do you understand where your food comes from?
• Do you know how it gets from the ground to your plate?

If you're like most people, you don't know much about that. You know an apple grew on a tree and an egg came from a chicken on a farm, but you don't really know the whole process. And you certainly have very little idea about the complicated manufacturing project, the logistical miracle, that resulted in that soda or that microwave dinner or those corn chips.

Does it matter? Well, how about these questions:

• Do you understand the environmental impact of that process?
• Do you understand the public health impact of that process?
• Do you understand the political impact of your food choices?
  
• Do you know how the animals that you eat are treated?
• Do you know how the people who work along your food chain are treated?

If one or more of those sound like they might be issues of moral concern, you're probably a normal human being. You eat hundreds of times per year, spending thousands of dollars on food, and you don't know anything about the moral consequences of your actions. You don't know the answers to those questions because they're deliberately hidden from you. You eat more or less the way everyone else does, and it isn't something you've often thought to even question, aside from a few nutritional facts here and there. You compare prices, see what tastes good, and maybe try to be healthy sometimes.

Are you doing something morally wrong? Something to which you'd object if you only understood the whole situation? Would you kill a man without knowing why? Have you already? Why?

If you're like me, these are troubling questions. No wonder Bourne gets headaches. At first he tried to run away from the nightmare of all his questions, an understandable reaction. It is tempting to just try to forget about all this and keep eating the same way. Eventually Bourne realizes that he has to confront the questions.

And the answers turn out to be even more troubling. In real life and in the movie. No wonder Bourne is on an international rampage to get to the bottom of things. He has to understand it all before he can ever hope to make it right and try to be at peace.

visit him often

Who Is IOZ? operates on a few basic principles best expressed thusly: When the government talks, it lies. When Democrats and Republicans tell you what they're going to do, the Republicans are lying about the what and the Democrats about the do.

more bridges that might fall down

Perlstein:

The Minnesota bridge that plunged into the Mississippi River yesterday, killing four, and almost killing a school bus full of kids, was rated "structurally deficient."

So how about bridges in other states? Via the magic of Google, I did a quick and selective canvass...

Abuse of power: why worry about that?

Over the last year I've been involved in a series of heated email exchanges with the man who used to be known as "check my ip." He's a textbook authoritarian, reflexively defending the Bush administration's crimes in the name of security, while openly scoffing at the idea that government abuse of power is something reasonable people should be concerned about. I've given up on the emails, but I can't help but wonder what empty excuse he'd muster to salve the cognitive dissonance from the story about how the FBI concealed evidence that would have spared four men from 30 years in prison, rewarded and promoted those who orchestrated the cover-up, and now the taxpayers have to pay the $100,000,000 settlement. I'm sure he'd mutter something about a few bad seeds and then blame the liberal media.

Racism

Alive and well in America!

3 fun things to read

Ethanol is a terrible energy solution, but that won't stop our politicians from promoting it. As long as their corporate masters make money, they're happy. Who cares about the rest of the world, right?

George Bush can take all your money if you say bad things about him, and you can't do anything about it. Welcome to America, fucker!

Torture and rape make for good common ground with our new friend Libya.