Air America Radio has started broadcasting. Connecting to the stream is a bit slow, but be patient.

UPDATE: The official Air America stream is proving spotty at best. Try this one.

Atrios brings us more Bill O'Reilly fun. In this episode, Bill O'Reilly thanks God that he'll be dead when whites are the minority. I think a lot of people are thanking God for that, Bill, not just you.

No links here. Just a silly, slap-happy glee. Ol' Mr. Clarke put Mr. Bush's nuts in a vice yesterday on Meet the Press. It was glorious. He provided an inside look at what Al Franken called "Operation Ignore". My favorite part was when Clarke described Tennet's comment that "These people [Bush Administration] aren't responding the way that the Clinton people did when the circumstances were similar." The quote isn't exact...but it's accurate.

However, as everyone, of every political stripe, labors to paint either Clinton or Bush as the villian, please remember that the ultimate responsibility for September 11 lies on one doorstep: the motherfuckers who did it.

While I'm not nearly as sacrilegious as some people, I am occasionally compelled by events to blaspheme. It is clear, as the following pontifical idiocy clearly confirms, that the Pope is a butthole.

When Sunday loses its fundamental meaning and becomes subordinate to a secular concept of 'weekend' dominated by such things as entertainment and sport, people stay locked within a horizon so narrow that they can no longer see the heavens.

Hey Pope...blow me.

Buried deep (on page 81) in the April 2004 issue of Harper's Magazine is a superb revelation by Tim Shorrock about a little outfit called CEO COM LINK, which is a division of Business Roundtable. Essentially, the Business Roundtable is a kind of Senate, or Parliament, of business tycoons who get together and develop strategies to protect their interests by working together. In many ways, its methodological thinking mirrors that of John D. Rockefeller: why compete against one another when you can join together to defeat a common enemy. In Rockefeller's case, the result was monopoly. In the case of the Business Roundtable, the result is civil democracy quietly sublimated by corporate oligarchy. I was intrigued by the news that a select group of Chief Executive Officers culled from Fortune 500 companies now has a direct line to (and from) the highest levels of our national government. As Shorrock explains:

No other organization, public or private, has such a secure and open line to the top tier of government during a national disaster…Certain organizations, such as the Red Cross and the International Association of Fire Chiefs, say they take part in conference calls with Ridge and other top [Department of Homeland Defense] officials when the terror alert is raised, but no dedicated hot line like CEO COM LINK exists for any other group: not governors, mayors, firefighters, hospitals, or police.

My curiosity was stirred. So I skimmed a copy of a business roundtable publication and promptly pooped my knickers in disgust. Some notable passages:

The traditional governmental 'one-size-fits-all' approach is unwieldy for the fast-evolving security arena. Government is less likely to perceive substitution risks. Government is likely to be more willing to direct resources in response to public fear, even where security risk is smaller than the public perceives. Finally, government often fails to develop the most effective and efficient solutions. Thus the responsibility for protecting the homeland should not lie solely in the hands of government.

So sayeth the business leaders.

And yet…

A security program that provides a benefit to only a select few should ideally be paid for by those beneficiaries. The traditional responsibility of government to provide for the common defense and to guard our borders suggests that security risks of national significance should be overseen – and paid for – by the government. The challenge of allocating the costs of security occurs between these two ends of the spectrum – and is complicated by the indeterminate nature of the terrorist threat. Any newly implemented security program should include a close analysis of the question of funding. If the government mandates extraordinary additional costs to enhance homeland security against terrorism, those costs should ordinarily be borne by the government."

And yet…

In many cases private firms, not the government, possess the technical expertise and means to protect the infrastructure they control.

And as the business moguls make abundantly clear…

'The private sector owns and operates 85 percent of the nation’s critical infrastructure [the power grid, financial services, information services, railroads, airlines and others], and Roundtable companies are stepping up to address risks to homeland security,' [C. Michael] Armstrong added. 'We are doing our part to protect employees, customers, facilities and our country.'

So there you have it. The only task fit for the government is to fork over the money. Tax the masses. Surrender your authority. Surrender your resources. The private sector will take it from here, thank you very much.

FYI: Here's a list of your newest corporate mommies and daddies. Now play nice.

My mind, or rather my nose, is blown:

'With the finger you can get to places you just can't reach with a handkerchief, keeping your nose far cleaner.

'And eating the dry remains of what you pull out is a great way of strengthening the body's immune system.

'Medically it makes great sense and is a perfectly natural thing to do. In terms of the immune system the nose is a filter in which a great deal of bacteria are collected, and when this mixture arrives in the intestines it works just like a medicine.

'Modern medicine is constantly trying to do the same thing through far more complicated methods, people who pick their nose and eat it get a natural boost to their immune system for free.'

Settle in. If you're at work, head to the break room, grab a cup of coffee -- this entry's a long one, but worth it, I think.

The Illinois Institute of Art forced me to take a class called Effective Speaking. I already have a degree in theater, for crap's sake; I spent four years studying how to be in front of people and effectively speak. But, nevertheless, there I was, every Thursday night from 6 to 9:30, for the past eleven weeks. Granted, it was a fun class -- we debated politics often, the teacher was intelligent if a bit too eccentric, and I gave well received speeches on Marcel Duchamp, the importance of subscription campaigns to theater companies, and gun control.

Last night was the final exam. The previous week, he said it would be an oral final, and that's all he would say. I believe last night was one of the most memorable events in my entire academic career.

The assignment: It is the year 2024. Write a five minute speech in which you summarize your achievements of the past twenty years and describe how your successes can help make the world a better place.

Okay, that's a pretty cool assignment -- challenging, and relevant to our lives -- look forward and set goals for ourselves. However...

The teacher wrote a three-page piece of speculative fiction about what has happened in the world in the previous 20 years. The president is -- dig this -- Jorge Bushara. Somehow, he's the philosophical descendent of George Bush, but he's openly gay. War is all but eliminated, but it still looms because business has taken over the world. Dick Cheney (who is somehow still alive in 2024) runs GOOBER, an organization dropping Halliburtons in every country. The Islamic organizations have all gelled into one organization whose acronym is PIMP. The rest of the religions formed PUMP and are into peace and love. And Steve Jobs founds the Tech2ubers to promote technocracy. So President Jorge seeks to form a group called PLACEBO to bring order and unity to the world.

Yeah, three pages of that. Even George Orwell on a gin bender would have shat something better.

So the idea of the speech is that we're presenting it to the President and his panel. And everyone in class was confused. No one was able to put together anything longer than a minute-and-a-half. And no one, except for one guy who said his movies would bring unity to the world by forcing them to all think the same way (pretty funny), embraced the sci-fi aspect of the assignment.

And then there's me.

Below is my entire speech, just as I feverishly wrote it last night. The only change I made was to redact the name of my teacher; though he liked the joke, I don't think he would like it if his name showed up in a Google search in this context. Whether I'm right to be proud of this speech or not, it's not the words that I wrote or the passion with which I delivered it that I'm proud of. It that I made a group of people who I really didn't know incredibly uncomfortable.

Enjoy:

When I look at the world today, I think back to the Democratic primaries of 2004, when current Oxford Professor of Blogging Dr. Howard Dean looked out at his supporters and said, "YEEAAAHHHWWWW!" The world is confusing the best of us, the brightest and the smartest, men, women, and sentient androids alike. It's time to hearken back to a day when "uniter not a divider" was not a euphemism for anal sex, but instead was a promise to end the selfishness and extreme ideology that threatened to shred our society into tatters. Ladies, gentlemen, and robots, I am Illinois State Representative Arlo Bryan Guthrie, and I represent everything that PLACEBO is and can be.

Though I've only served as an elected official for 10 years, my political career dates back to 2002. The country was mourning 9/11, and yet the United States was embarking on the second war in Iraq, modern day Halliburtonstan. As I put my theater life behind me, I registered the domain name likeyoureallycare.com and began a simple blog where I could vent my frustration at how George Bush II was dealing with the crises of the world.

I was also embarking on a strange journey -- the pursuit of a second bachelor's degree at the Illinois Institute of Art. I graduated with a 3.9 -- it would have been a 4.0 had it not been for my speech class, taught by infamous serial killer R-- "Hatchet Job" J------.

My career as a graphic designer immediately flourished upon graduation, serving as a junior designer for McGraw-Hill, and then as a principal art director for Carlos Segura, the legendary Chicago designer. But I continued to operate likeyoureallycare.com, bringing on several contributors and eventually spinning the operation into a successful ePaper magazine.

In 2014, Steve Jobs successfully registered Apple Computer as a religion. Japan was decimated by Sony Aibos and Honda Asimos in the great Machine Uprising. And my wife gave birth to our second child. One day, I was taking a walk with my newborn daughter down my street. The stroller's wheel wedged into a crack in the sidewalk. I tripped and crushed my child. She lived, but to this day, at 10 years old, she can only walk with cybernetic legs.

I begged my Alderman to fix the sidewalk cracks, and he said there was no budget for it. I was angry. Livid. My child would never walk with her own two feet. So I ran for Alderman. I took my experience in graphic design, communicating ideas for others, and my experience editing political opinion for a successful blog and magazine, and I ran, and I won.

I cleaned the streets, I helped find the homeless homes, and I drafted the first city ordinance allowing robots to become citizens.

Two years ago. I was elected to the Illinois State Legislature. And to this day, I still design my own brochures.

Which brings me to today. PLACEBO needs someone drawn to politics with a drive to make the world better for all Earthlings. And I know just where to begin.

As Nietzsche said, "God is dead." And he is -- almost. With advanced in science, especially the rise of sentient androids, the miracles of nanotechnology, and the discovery of the creation of the universe -- man, was that crazy -- we now know that God is only a construct of our imaginations, meant to fill the voids that science couldn't fill. And yet, the religious fanaticism of ancient times still rules our lands today. GOOBER still tries to control the planet, proclaiming a divine right to do so. The neohippies of PUMP and the extremists of PIMP still attempt to hoist antiquated ideas of deity upon us. Steve Jobs' Tech2ubers are driven by reverence for the spiritual qualities of silicon and quantum mechanics. And I say they can suck it.

Every atrocious war ever fought was due to religion. The Crusades sought to wipe out Islam. The Vietnam War was meant to teach the atheistic Commies a lesson. The Gulf Wars, despite their oil commerce underpinnings, were wrapped up in Western Christian ideals of morality, sin, and hellfire.

We can learn much from the Machine Uprising of Japan -- the robots came to realize that the idea of a creator was a hindrance to self discovery and success. Still, robots, our mechanical brethren, despite being functional members of society, still cannot marry, cannot vote, cannot fly on an airplane, and are ineligible for life insurance. Does a robot not live? "I think, therefore I am"? And why do robots not receive fair treatment? Because of residual feelings of creationism left over by the Puritanical foundations of the United States of America.

I will lead PLACEBO to address the latent feelings of religion in our society, taking the knife stabbed into God's back and twisting it until he stops twitching. God is dead, or at least he will be if I have anything to do with it. The same drive that took me through school, founded my publishing company, and led me to run for office is the same drive that pushes me to kill God once and for all.

Thank you, Mr. President, for the opportunity to share this with you, and I trust you will bring me on board. Think about it, but promise me you won't pray about it.

UPDATE: That robot uprising may come sooner than later. Propz to DJ.

On last night's "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart talked about the Richard Clarke testimony before the 9/11 commission, saying that it was a fascinating look into how government operates. As my girlfriend once said during her time as a legislative bee-och, politics is like sausage -- even if it tastes great, you still don't want to see how it's made.

Well, Jon Stewart is right. I'm ALT-TABbing between data entry at work and reading the transcript of yesterday's hearings. Not only does it show how government operates at a snail's pace, it also shows how that incredibly slow speed may have actually hindered the Bush administration's ability to hit Al Qaida before 9/11 (not that they even wanted to). This is a long-ish quote, but worth reading -- Clarke is questioned by former Illinois Governor Jim Thompson, who, interestingly enough, once saw me perform in a play:

THOMPSON: Well, OK, over the course of the summer, they developed implementation details. The principals met at the end of the summer, approved them in their first meeting, changed the strategy by authorizing the increase in funding five-fold. Did they authorize the increase in funding five-fold?

CLARKE: Authorized but not appropriated.

THOMPSON: Well, but the Congress appropriates, don't they, Mr. Clarke?

CLARKE: Well, within the executive branch, there are two steps as well. In the executive branch, there's the policy process which you can compare to authorization, which is to say we would like to spend this amount of money for this program. And then there is the second step, the budgetary step, which is to find the offsets. And that had not been done. In fact, it wasn't done until after September 11th.

THOMPSON: Changing the policy on Pakistan, was the policy on Pakistan changed?

CLARKE: Yes, sir it was.

THOMPSON: Changing the policy on Uzbekistan, was it changed?

CLARKE: Yes, sir.

THOMPSON: Changing the policy on the Northern Alliance assistance, was that changed?

CLARKE: Well, let me back up. I said yes to the last two answers. It was changed only after September 11th. It had gone through an approvals process. It was going through an approvals process with the deputies committee. And they had approved it -- The deputies had approved those policy changes. It had then gone to a principals committee for approval, and that occurred on September 4th. Those three things which you mentioned were approved by the principals. They were not approved by the president, and therefore the final approval hadn't occurred until after September 11th.

THOMPSON: But they were approved by people in the administration below the level of the president, moving toward the president. Is that correct?

CLARKE: Yes, so over the course of many, many months, they went through several committee meetings at the sub-Cabinet level. And then there was a hiatus. And then they went to finally on September 4th, a week before the attacks, they went to the principals for their approval. Of course, the final approval by the president didn't take place until after the attacks.

THOMPSON: Well is that eight-month period unusual?

CLARKE: It is unusual when you are being told every day that there is an urgent threat.

That last sentence is the most important one, and the crux of Richard Clarke's whole arguement -- the Bush administration were paying attention to the work he was doing, just not accepting how important it was, letting it pass through all the ordinary, slow-as-molasses channels.

Though during the Clinton administration not as much was done as could have been done, such intelligence and recommendations were always at the top of the stack. Clarke had direct lines to principals, not assistants. And if there was ever "actionable intelligence," action would have been taken. The Clinton administration is not without fault, but the Bush administration did not accept the challenge of combatting terrorism as vociferously as was recommended to them by their predecessors. We may never know why.

The Bush administration can try to cut Clarke down all they want, but I -- or anyone -- should have no reason to think he's lying.

Find out what your neighbors are up to.

Richard Simmons reminds us all that "You shouldn't make fun of people who have issues". God bless that sweet little oily queen.

UPDATE: Ultimate Cage Fighter, or Motorcycle Salesman?

I'm really starting to get pissed off about this:

The independent commission reviewing the [September 11th] attacks said in a preliminary report that in the years before the attacks the Clinton and Bush administrations chose to use diplomatic rather than military options, which allowed bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders to elude capture.

Wow -- slam Clinton for being a pussy and praise Bush for being measured in the same sentence.

Then there's the recent NBC hacking about the Clinton administration missing an opportunity to kill bin Laden:

The tape proves the Clinton administration was aggressively tracking al-Qaida a year before 9/11. But that also raises one enormous question: If the U.S. government had bin Laden and the camps in its sights in real time, why was no action taken against them?

“We were not prepared to take the military action necessary,” said retired Gen. Wayne Downing, who ran counter-terror efforts for the current Bush administration and is now an NBC analyst.

Here's the problem: Clinton did respond militarily. Has everyone forgotten that the US, under Clinton's orders, hit Afghanistan and Sudan with cruise missiles, trying to hit Al Qaeda in 1998? I guess the Clinton administration were using intelligence supplied by Agent 86: Missed him by that much. (Of course, the Bushies must have been using Agent 86, as well: "Would you believe Iraq is stockpiling, let's say, smallpox?")

I can't find any other blog which has made this same argument -- how can you criticize Clinton for not doing anything about bin Laden when he not only tried, he also had as much luck finding him as our current administration has? And while Clinton gathered intelligence on the Taliban, the Bush administration instead thought it wise to give them money.

Oh, the Clinton administration stopped several terrorist plots, too. Yeah, they were pussies.

The World Trade Center bombing, the USS Cole, and the US embassy bombings all happened under Clinton's watch, and all of those tragedies came from an enemy unknown to a country used to fighting the Cold War. And it seems that Clinton's team fought it as best as they could. It wasn't Clinton who dropped the ball.

A quote:

Let the white race perish!...Back whence they came, upon a trail of blood, they must be driven! Back – aye, back into the great water whose accursed waves brought them to our shores! Burn their dwellings – destroy their stock – slay their wives and children, that the very breed may perish. War now! War always! War on the living! War on the dead!

Al Quida? Nope. Yet a religious prophet/terrorist nonetheless. And America rallied together to kick his terrorist ass hard. Let the bad guys beware: we've done it before and we'll do it again. These colors don't run!

Speaking of which …

…they were slammed against the wall in the sally port at the bottom of a ramp where a t-shirt was taped to the wall. The t-shirt…had a picture of the U.S. flag and the phrase 'These colors don't run' on it.

Two staff members, Lieutenant 1 and staff member from R&D, told us they observed blood on the t-shirt. Lieutenant 1 stated some of the bloodstains looked like a couple of bloody noses smudged in a row, and other stains looked like someone with blood on his mouth spit on the t-shirt. (…) While we cannot say definitively whether the blood was from the detainees, the fact that two staff members saw blood on the t-shirt where detainees were 'placed' provides some evidence that detainees were slammed into the t-shirt, as many alleged.

UPDATE: Corrected faulty and misleading link.

Excellent Richard Clarke coverage:

Atrios: "I think the important issue is the fact that when the Bush administration came into power, they decided that the position of National Coordinator for Counter-terrorism wasn't important enough to be a Cabinet level position."

Josh Marshall: "Now do you understand why they're stonewalling the 9/11 commission?"

DHinMI at Kos: "Senator Lieberman, if by some amazing fluke you actually see this email, I have a message for you: STOP BLAMING DEMOCRATS FOR THE ATTACKS WAGED AGAINST US BY REPUBLICANS!!!!!!!"

Kevin Drum: "To them, 9/11 was simply an excuse to haul out all their old Cold War theories, none of which really applied in a post-9/11 world, and try to force fit them into the new reality.... That's what the Bushies really deserve to get beat up for."

Here's my take: Well, duh. This situation will have some impact, and it'll be harder to pin the partisan badge on Clarke than it was on Paul O'Neill. Clarke worked for Clinton, sure, but he also worked for Bush Sr. and Reagan. However, unless someone can bring out irrefutable evidence that Mohammed Atta worked for the CIA under direct orders of Bush himself, this whole situation will not have enough impact. The most important issue facing voters right now is the economy; the Republicans still have more money to define the campaign, and they are doing a pretty good job of painting Kerry as a tax-raising liberal already. Outcries of "you let 9/11 happen" will be met with relentless "no, Clinton did" responses. And no one will budge.

Can't we go beat some sense into Nader so that his 3% can go in the Kerry column?

UPDATE: Wonkette seems to agree on the "duh" count: "Who's really surprised by this?... Doesn't everyone remember September 10, 2001, when Bush claimed Saddam Hussein was responsible for the poor economy, rising fuel prices, and producing Tim Burton's disappointing remake of Planet of the Apes?"

Here's a small taste of Bill O'Reilly's interview with Hans Blix, the transcript of which contains a cornucopia of similarly hysterical examples of O'Reilly's capacity to be a complete meathead:

O'REILLY: But do you understand that when you have 17 violations of a treaty, a war treaty, that you basically have to take action?

BLIX: Well, you're talking about a war treaty. It was a cease-fire. It was not a war treaty.

O'REILLY: Oh, come on. Now don't play semantics here, sir.

BLIX: Second -- all right. I'm trying to be precise. You are imprecise. I'm sorry.

O'REILLY: Well, it was a war treaty.

[Thanks to Arlo for ferreting out the link for me.]

As we contemplate the 'commitment' our candidates have made to the Defense of our lumbering republic, I think we should all thank Timothy Noah for digging up some winking figures published over a decade ago:

The Washington Post's Phil McCombs made (...) intimate calculations in a profile published in April 1991, when Cheney was defense secretary. The timeline:

Aug. 29, 1964: Dick and Lynne Cheney marry.

May 19, 1965: The Selective Service classifies Dick Cheney 1-A, "available immediately for military service."

July 28, 1965: President Lyndon Johnson says draft calls will be doubled.

Oct. 26, 1965: The Selective Service declares that married men without children, who were previously exempted from the draft, will now be called up. Married men with children remain exempt.

Jan. 19, 1966: The Selective Service reclassifies Dick Cheney 3-A, "deferred from military service because service would cause hardship upon his family," because his wife is pregnant with their first child.

July 28, 1966: Elizabeth Cheney is born.

Jan. 30, 1967: Dick Cheney turns 26 and therefore becomes ineligible for the draft.

Dedicated students of obstetrics will observe that Elizabeth Cheney's birth date falls precisely nine months and two days after the Selective Service publicly revoked its policy of not drafting childless husbands. This would seem to indicate that the Cheneys, though doubtless planning to have children sometime, were seized with an untamable passion the moment Dick Cheney became vulnerable to the Vietnam draft. And acted on it. Carpe diem!

Who says government policy can't affect human behavior?

[Thanks to RTC for bringing this to my attention!]

The Jesus movie continues to be bandied about as a political football. Now, I’ve said that I think the movie is terrible. I envy those who found it compelling and meaningful. Going in, I hoped that it would be both moving and poignant. That I was bored and annoyed was terribly disappointing to me; and a waste of $9. While I have perfectly legitimate gripes with the artistry of the film, it was the spiritual aspects of it that where the most glaring problematic. The anti-Semitism implicit in the longstanding fetishistic attachment to the crucifixion is undeniable. James Carroll’s Constantine's Sword, while somewhat patronizing, does a credible job in establishing the historical precedence of this anti-Semitism. Consider Carroll’s description of the origins of the centrality of the cross in Christian thinking:

Before Constantine, the cross lacked religious and symbolic significance. Paul had made the crucifixion essential to the salvation earned by Christ’s death; being ‘crucified with Christ’ was an implication of accepting faith. But even in Paul, the cross as such did not compete, for instance, with the waters of baptism as the Christian community’s metaphoric representation of dying with Christ. As he put it, ‘All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death’. The Gospel of John has water flow from the side of Jesus after he has been pierced, a clear symbol of baptism. Water had a vivid hold on the Christian imagination; wood did not. The fathers of the Church followed Paul in developing the idea of salvation through the death of Christ, but Justin, for example, even in discussing the cross, keeps it at a metaphoric remove by seeing it more as the shape of Passover blood in the lintel than as the literal execution device. The blood of Christ, yes. The cross, not so much. Thus on the walls of the catacombs in Rome prior to the fourth century were to be seen representations of palm branches, the dove, the peacock, the bird of paradise, or the monogram of Jesus. The sacred fish was a favorite symbol because of Gospel scenes, but also because the Greek word for fish, ‘ichthys’, renders an acrostic of ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.’ Such symbols were ubiquitous in early Christianity, but the cross is simply not to be found among them. Some early Christians signed themselves, touching the forehead, shoulders, and breast, but even that is ambiguous, since…Jews were known to make a similar sign.

The place of the cross in Christian imagination changed with Constantine. ‘He said that about noon, when the day was already beginning to decline’ – this is Eusebius’s account of Constantine’s own report of what he saw in the sky on the eve of battle above the Milvian Bridge – ‘he saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above the sun, bearing the inscription CONQUER BY THIS’. The story goes on to say that Constantine then assembled his army – ‘He sat in the midst of them, and described to them the figure of the sign he had seen’ – and gave them the new standard to carry into battle. ‘Now it was made in the following manner. A long spear, overlaid with gold, formed the figure of the cross by means of a transverse bar laid over it.’ …the army behind this standard did conquer, and Constantine, so Eusebius heard him say, was thus convinced of the truth of Christianity. ‘The emperor constantly made use of this sign of salvation as a safeguard against every adverse and hostile power, and commanded that others similar to it should be carried at the head of all his armies.’

Thus the crucifixion was born, via the talisman of the cross, as the central image and shorthand symbol of Christianity; along with the implicit acknowledgement of Jewish responsibility for Christ’s execution. That Christ was Jew, an initially irrelevant distinction among a wildly sectarian Jewish culture, became lost in the combative assertions of later generations of Christians. In fact, the “separateness” of Judaism from Christianity was a deliberate consequence of the centrality of the crucifixion story. Modern Christianity is, as a result, anti-Semitic. The Passion of the Christ does nothing to contradict this paradigm. I don’t fault Mel Gibson for this, he is, after all, the product of centuries of brutally antagonistic and sectarian theology. But the film is, nonetheless, anti-Semitic.

If you have thoughts, please e-mail me. Be forewarned that I may post responses.

Charles Krauthammer, in a fit of impotent rage, has yanked is dong out of his pants and forced a geyser of urine up into his own nose:

When confronting an existential enemy -- an enemy that wants to terminate your very existence -- there are only two choices: appeasement or war.

Aside from the fact that his use of the word "existential" is so grotesquely forced that it actually induces eye pain, his complete inability to imagine any other strategies to eliminate a mortal threat other than "kill or be killed" speaks volumes about the paucity of his imagination. He is, of course, referring to Spain's role in Iraq. It is the trend to call anyone who adopts a different point of view an "appeaser". It's certainly easier than actually accepting the credibility of those who think the war was fraudulent and the "war on terror" an ill-conceived failure. But apologists for the right never said that we should fight smart, to the contrary, they've consistently lauded Bush's anti-intellectualism and declared that what was needed against the terrorists (above all else!) was "resolve", "confidence", "steadfastness", "determination" and "commitment". Our enemies are "nihilistic", "evil", and "will stop at nothing". In other words, we have no choice but to pound stupidly against "them" because, like every abused child on earth, "They just won't fucking listen!"

Of course, this doesn't mean that there aren't those who actually qualify as "appeasers". But it is merely a cold-hearted diversionary tactic to level such accusations at the countries of Europe, who's citizens are fighting terrorism at home and abroad. Perhaps the title of "appeaser" more rightly belongs to Saudi Arabia, about which Lawrence Wright has written a brilliant and revealing article. To wit:

The fact that there are [in Saudi Arabia] no secular charities or non-governmental institutions or, of course, political parties—civil society, in other words—means that there is no moderate, stabilizing middle ground between the government and the clerics. This situation has, naturally, elevated the power of religious conservatives. Although many of its own citizens struggle to make do, the Saudi government sends about two billion dollars a year in aid to other Islamic countries, building mosques and madrassas, underwriting religious universities, distributing books and tracts, funding charities—and supporting jihad. These donations, approved by the small inner circle of elderly princes who run the government, are made with an eye toward placating the country’s religious extremists; they also insure that the Wahhabi strain of Sunni Islam, the official dogma of the kingdom, will be the Muslim voice heard above all others.

Perhaps not serious enough for Misleader or The Nation, but funny enough for us:

The official merchandise Web site for President George W. Bush's re-election campaign has sold clothing made in Burma, whose goods were banned by Bush from the U.S. last year to punish its military dictatorship.

Via Atrios.

UPDATE: Who was I kidding?

And now for your occassional dose of hydrogen power news:

ECD has developed a metal-hydride storage system that 'sponges' gaseous hydrogen so that it is contained within a solid material, which Schmidt says reduces the risk of serious accidents and allows more hydrogen to be stored in the vehicle.

Basically, it helps eliminate the possibility of driving the Hindenburg down Main Street.

This quote, however, is far more important:

ECD modified a Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrid sedan by replacing the gas tank with a 450-pound metal-hydride storage tank and adding a turbo charger to increase the performance of the internal combustion engine, which then ran on hydrogen. The modified Prius has a range of about 150 miles, according to Schmidt.

Sounds like the perfect city car to me.

<streamOfConsciousRambling>

Barack Obama's win last night is garnering lots of prominent blog attention. Excellent, because Obama's going to need some money. As is John Kerry. And the Democratic party. Just donate some damn money, okay?

I gave $100 to Howard Dean last year. Even though his campaign ended up in debt, the Deaniacs kicked the Democrats in the ass (get it?). I don't consider it money wasted. I don't mind giving money to campaigns I believe in because it can pay off in spades -- it's an investment in America. And stuff.

The other night, some 19-year-old college students came to my door begging for money to broadcast a television ad showing that photo of Rummy and Saddam shaking hands, a photo we've all seen a thousand times and has very little merit. After all, the argument is if the US did fuck things up there, shouldn't we fix it? (Yes, we should, but not in the manner we're doing it.) I don't even remember what group they were representing, but their whole schtick was on stopping WMD proliferation. Not in a United Nations peacekeeping way, but in a pot brownie, hippie way. After saying I would read their brochure but I couldn't donate at this time, the guy started giving me such a hard sell:

"C'mon, I'll take a post-dated check."

"Well, buddy, I believe in your cause, but my main concern right now is getting Bush out of the White House."

"We want that, too."

"Great, man, but I'm a student and I don't have a lot of money."

"We'll take anything."

"Look, if I'm going to give my money to anything right now, it'll be to John Kerry's campaign."

"Well, if you look at our brochure, you'll see that John Kerry's record has actually supported many military actions."

Pause. Then I spoke.

"Well, no shit. But I'm not voting for Kucinich or Nader, and neither should you if you know what's best for this country. Don't waste your vote and leave Bush in office for another four years so he can do more of the shit you hate."

Pause. Then he spoke.

"So you aren't going to help us?"

"Dude, I have limited funds. I have to pick and choose which causes I'm going to support. Right now, the cause that consumes me most is changing our president. I don't think your organization is going to help that cause, especially if you're going door to door and criticizing the only candidate who has a chance to achieve that goal."

Then he thanked me and left. I paraphrased a little here, but yeah, I did give him a wee talking-to. Made my cock feel big. I appreciated his hard sell, but I just couldn't pick up what he was throwin' down. I had to hard sell him back.

Speaking of people coming to the door, the other night, a guy came to my door with a box of candy.

"Hello sir, my name is..."

Before he even got his name out, I saw he had Moon Pies. And I shouted with glee.

"MOON PIES! I want two moon pies!"

Already, the guy thinks I'm a freak, but I bought two Moon Pies. Yum.

Anyway, following our transaction, he goes to ring the bell for the upstairs apartment, which is my girlfriend's parents' place. I know they won't want to be bothered, so I said, "Oh, there's nobody home upstairs."

"But I saw somebody moving up there. There's a light on."

"Oh." I moved in to whisper. "We don't talk about him."

The guy thanked me and left. Hurriedly.

I was sort of an ass, but I got two Moon Pies, he moved $5 closer to buying baseball uniforms for a Little League team, and, better yet, he now has a great story to tell his friends.

I guess what I'm trying to say is you should donate because you believe in something and not question the consequences. I believed in Howard Dean. He didn't get the nomination, and the money may have been poorly managed, but the Democratic party needed him. As for the hippie kids, I don't believe that focusing on peace and love in a drugged-up Mr. Burns way is worth paying for right now. I'm all for sit-ins and broadcasting photos of Donald Rumsfeld being Donald Rumsfeld, but progressives have to fight back now. The Right has learned that all Gandhi and Rosa Parks did was sit in the way, and conscientious dissenters can easily be moved.

But I do believe in Moon Pies and defeating George Bush. While we're at it, gaining control of the Senate would be pretty damn cool, too. Moon Pie cool.

So give. So there.

</streamOfConsciousRambling>

Looks like we now know what Dean's job is going to be in the months ahead: blast Bush while Kerry (with complete political immunity) watches dispassionately. Republicans wish they had a weapon like this!

The election results in Spain have David Brooks busily defecating into his typewriter again:

…reversing course in the wake of a terrorist attack is inexcusable. I don't care what the policy is. You do not give terrorists the chance to think that their methods work. You do not give them the chance to celebrate victories. When you do that, you make the world a more dangerous place, for others and probably for yourself.

And furthermore...

If a terrorist group attacked the U.S. three days before an election, does anyone doubt that the American electorate would rally behind the president or at least the most aggressively antiterror party?

By this clown's deranged reasoning, it is within the power of a single terrorist to give George Bush a second term: all he needs to do is blow something up and we'll all "rally behind the president". Yet, this doesn't qualify as appeasing terrorists?

As always, Matthew Yglesias provides a more informed perspective:

I think this relies on a very implausible model of al-Qaeda decision-making. Osama wasn't sitting around in a tent somewhere on March 12 seriously contemplating giving up the whole terrorism thing until the election returns showed him that terror works, thus incentivizing further strikes.

The real gist of Brook's Euro-bashing, however, is quite succinctly revealed in one of Matt's earlier posts:

The right would like to set up the following argument: If there are no attacks between now and the election, then Bush has defended us from terror and deserves re-election; if there is an attack between now and the election, then voting for Kerry would be appeasement.

Of course, the reality that the right continues to ignore is that the course of the Spanish government was quite different than the course preferred by its people. The "coalition" against Iraq was an illusion. Statesmen are bound by the duty of their office to consult the sentiment of their people, even if such sentiment runs in stark opposition to the will of the sitting U.S. President. If such statesmen fail to so consult, they will be removed.

A reader responds to my post:

Christ is not a name, it is a noun, a titlle [sic] denoting his status. In Greek Chirstos means annointed [sic]. So in saying THE Christ, the film sugests [sic] that Jesus is the one and true son of god. From the Gnostic perspective, a Christ is title denoting a state of being: i.e. it is our destiny to try and become a Christ. So is Jesus the Christ, or if you are Gnostic he his Jesus the First Christ (think along the lines of Budha [sic]).

While this may seem like a fair rebuke, it in nonetheless true that "Christ is an uncommon name" insofar as "President", "Fluffer", and "Holy Apostolic See" are uncommon names. Uncommon because they're titles. So goes the joke. It's funnier to say, "I'm going to the mall to see the Jesus get his ass whupped" than to say "I'm going to see the ritual reenactment of the brutal martyrdom of the Christ ". And though the movie was funny, it could have benefited from an additional joke.

I saw The Passion of The Christ the other day. Since Christ is an uncommon name and there are a number of people named Jesus, if they felt such a strong need to include the word "the" in the title, the movie really ought to have been called "The Passion of The Jesus".

I must say that I felt very middle-American at the multi-screened cinemaplex. The doors to various theatres were propped open while movies were playing, which provided an interesting auditory potpourri. The Disney movie Miracle was sandwiched between two theatres playing The Passion, so I got a nice blast of "USA! USA! USA!" chanting melodically over the gurgling, blood-choked Aramaic moans of a dying pretty-boy godhead.

Poor Mel. He really made a terrible (i.e. really bad) movie.

Anyone interested in watching a really good Jesus movie should rent Jesus of Montreal.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes:

There is nothing that I more deprecate than the use of the Fourteenth Amendment beyond the absolute compulsion of its words to prevent the making of social experiments that an important part of the community desires…even though the experiments may seem futile or even noxious to me and to those whose judgment I most respect. [source]

And again:

If my fellow citizens want to go to Hell I will help them. It’s my job. [source]

Perhaps these quotes could be paraded out to counter the claims by the radical right that the constitution must be amended to prevent civilization from being dragged "to Hell" by the "noxious…experiment" of homosexual marriage. There is a troubling consequence, however, to the claim that government should permit it's citizens to "go to Hell", as it were. After all, it's quite a convenient way to slough off any responsibility for certain programs which are cancerous to society, like the lottery. People who say the lottery is a "tax on people who can't do math" also argue that it's not society's fault if some poor sucker wants to forgo long-term investments and spend his money on liquor and the lotto, and in the process transform both his body and his neighborhood into blighted eyesores. Like Justice Holmes, we can all just shrug our shoulders and say it's not up to us…that's what freedom is all about. While this rings true on an individual level, it isn't quite as clear cut as that when it comes to public policy. For example, the proceeds from state lotteries usually go directly into the educational system. If the schools didn't get this money from the lottery, they'd get it from another source of revenue: probably property taxes. In other words, property owners (who spend an average of $1 per month on the lottery) avoid having tax hikes by soaking the poor (who spend anywhere between $60 and $90 per month on the lottery). Which brings me to my point. It's primary day in Illinois and the only statewide referendum on the ballot is an initiative to raise taxes on the top 2% for the purposes of funding education. Sounds fine, if such a measure would lessen the economic burden that programs such as the lottery are currently placing on the poor. But will that happen? Of course not. If the government gets more money, it will spend it. The solution, I believe, is in constructing ballot initiatives that deliberately shift the burden of social injustice from one group to another (which is all that progressive politics ultimately does anyway), rather than simply constrict or loosen the flow of cash from government to the people, or vica-versa.

UPDATE: The holy grail - a source of tax revenue that rises when the economy collapses.

At the request of Pandagon, I give you this paragraph from this Time article:

Administration sources tell TIME that employees at the Department of Homeland Security have been asked to keep their eyes open for opportunities to pose the President in settings that might highlight the Administration's efforts to make the nation safer. The goal, they are being told, is to provide Bush with one homeland-security photo-op a month.

Pandagon overlooks one very important thing: if this is the case, it's probably illegal. Campaign work cannot be done in a government office, like fundraising phone calls. I would say a Homeland Security agency calling Karl Rove and saying, "Hey, how's about a photo op at this waterway that we've reinforced?" I'd say that's illegal.

It may never cease to amaze me. Well, I guess it will at least cease come November.

Newsweek finally owns up. See bottom of the article.

Since most of you who read this are Chicagoans, I wanted to remind you that tomorrow is our primary. In real elections, we should vote strategically, since we know what happens when you don't. Primary elections, however, is the opportunity to vote with your heart. If you supported Wes Clark, John Edwards, or, in my case, Howard Dean, you should still vote for them. After all, you're voting for their delegates, and if you believed in that candidate, you want their voice present at the convention. It's not just pomp and circumstance at the convention; it's writing the platform. Lord knows I want Howard Dean's still great message there in as full a force as possible.

And the Illinois senate primary is tomorrow, too. Still don't know the candidates? Pick up last week's Chicago Reader. Again, I'm voting my heart, and fortunately, my heart's choice has a commanding lead. (If you have to vote Republican because of that deal you made with Satan, consider John Borling.)

Finally, you're going to have several pages of judges to trudge through. There is one, however, that you have to vote for -- Jon Erickson. I know Jon from working with Larry McKeon and related campaigns. Jon is a stand-up guy with his heart and politics in the right place, especially on hate crimes. Vote for Jon.

It is funny though that judge candidates have received endorsements from the Lesbian & Gay Bar Association. "Gay bar." Funny.

VOTE TOMORROW!!!

Moment of silence for Dave Blood

The Guardian has published a quaint little article on the application of chess technique to battlefield strategy:

Teams at the Swedish national defense college in Stockholm and the defense science and technology organization in Australia are studying [chess] afresh in an attempt to understand better how to gain military success. In Sweden, the researchers are using real players. In Australia, the team has run tens of thousands of virtual games - with some clear messages for their military sponsors. [...]

Uncertainty is often a problem in war. So in practical terms, launching a rapid attack might provide a better chance of winning than trying to gain more information about the battlefield situation, or ensuring that you have numerical strength over your opponent. [...]

"We watched with great interest the dialogue between General [Tommy] Franks, who wanted to use more materiel, and Donald Rumsfeld who wanted a fast tempo and lighter units," [Jason] Scholz says. Based on the chess results, which favored a fast, decisive attack strategy, Scholz says his advice would have been to go along with the US defense secretary's ideas. "In the end, there was a compromise," he says. "But a relatively fast tempo did really gain a very decisive, rapid advantage in Iraq." However, trying to win a battle as quickly as possible might not always be the best strategy, he adds: "You can win a battle quickly but hearts and minds are not so easily won - and of course we do have continuing trouble in Iraq."

Here's an excerpt from an e-mail I received recently which provides an additional insight:

...in military strategy as in business you must erase from your mind any concept of excess. As Ray Kroc once observed (that were he to see a competitor drowning he would shove a hose in their mouth), the goal is to ensure victory which means completely minimizing your risks (to the level of craven cowardliness), and means using every advantage, which means accomplishing your goals irrefutably irreversibly absolutely and leaving your enemy with zero alternatives but complete powerless collapse.

As I've observed before, chess is for suckers. They win by kicking the board out of the way, punching the fucker in the face, breaking his nose, cracking his skull, kicking him in the neck, getting him on the ground and stomping his temple until the head caves like a pumpkin. It's nothing personal, it's the Art of Victory. And really, is any other strategy sensible? A lot of folks are suggesting that because Iraq is in chaos that somehow the U.S. failed. The folks advancing this argument have never heard of "who fucking cares?" Unimportant people are unimportant people. There is no group either willing or capable of giving the U.S. a serious contest for power in Iraq. That means no enemy, that means total victory and that means Dick Cheney is wondering why anybody is paying any more attention to this dead horse. It's settled. Move on. Anybody moves, Hit 'em.

The Republicans are giving Kerry shit for saying this:

"These are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen, it's scary."

Wasn't Clinton impeached for lying about a blowjob? And didn't the Republicans dish it out on Clinton when donors stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom? Everyone's a hypocrite, but there are varying levels of obviousness.

On the other end of Republican hypocrisy, take a look at the Iraqi interim constitution – the Iraqis have the right to healthcare and social justice. I guess we need a foreign nation to attack us and kill countless citizens so we can get some of that here.

Prepare to be blown away like a hideous socialist space lizard – the truth behind where Dubya really went in 1972.

It's good for John Kerry to talk about his friendship with McCain, as McCain is popular with independent voters. It shows bipartisanship. It helps Kerry lock arms with Vietnam vets on both sides of the aisle. They've worked together a lot and would continue to work closely in the future, I'm sure.

But McCain as a running mate for John Kerry? Not only is the premise asinine, but that progressives like Pandagon and Kos are holding this possiblility up with any esteem is exceedingly asinine.

In the wake of Zell Miller's rejection of all that is holy, progressives are searching for their own defector. McCain ain't it, folks. Even if he's too liberal for the Republicans, he's not even remotely liberal enough for ascend to my Mantle of Decency™. Despite his name on a sweeping campaign finance reform law, McCain is still very much a Republican on many issues – compare McCain's voting record on civil liberties issues with Kerry's. (Not to mention that McCain has already been stumping for Bush.)

Most importantly, though, is the whole electability issue that revivified Kerry's campaign in the first place. Bringing a Republican to the Democratic ticket is going to raise all of the arguements from 2000 back, those about there being no difference between the Republicans and Democrats. Those arguments of sameness are what drove progressives to Nader four years ago.

If that wasn't enough, the Bush campaign would slam how different Kerry and McCain are and raise questions about why they are even on the same ticket. The choice would reek of pandering for votes instead of having an agenda.

Bringing McCain to the Kerry ticket would draw attacks from the far left and new, unique attacks from the middle to far right. A Kerry/McCain ticket would not be unbeatable; it would be unbearable.

What the Hell is going on at Newsweek?

The article I talked about on Monday that changed has changed back.

Do I take back everything I said? No. We can deal in truth and still win in November. As for this article? Damned if I know what's the truth.

Just in time for the elections: WTNH.com - Pentagon to offer direct news service from Iraq and Afghanistan

The U.S. military will launch its own news service in Iraq and Afghanistan to send military video, text and photos directly to the Internet or news outlets.

The $6.3 million project, expected to begin operating in April, is one of the largest military public affairs projects in recent memory, and is intended to allow small media outlets in the United States and elsewhere to bypass what the Pentagon views as an increasingly combative press corps.

Now that's what I call "fair and balanced."

Moment of silence for Spalding Gray

Yesterday, Atrios brings up an issue about fake firefighters in a Bush ad and quotes a Newsweek article:

Another less-publicized aspect of the ad flap: the use of paid actors including two playing firefighters with fire hats and uniforms in what looks like a fire station. "Where the hell did they get those guys?" cracked Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, which has endorsed John Kerry, when he first saw the ads. (A union spokesman said the shots prompted jokes that the fire hats looked like the plastic hats "from a birthday party.") "There's many reasons not to use real firemen," retorted one Bush media adviser. "Mainly, its cheaper and quicker."

Atrios posted yesterday, and I just read it today. I clicked over to the Newsweek article, and the paragraph has changed:

Another, less publicized aspect of the ad flap: Everyone but the firefighters were paid actors. The firefighters posing in a firehouse was "stock" film footage of volunteer firefighters -- shot and available for purchase to the general public.

So the original Newsweek article was wrong; however, there's no note saying that the article was changed. This isn't new. White House Web Scrubbing incidents, anyone? That's not the point I wish to make.

I scrolled through the comments to the Atrios post, and no one is mentioning this change to the article. Lots of incited liberals who are too lazy to RTFA are going to perpetuate a new myth -- that George Bush used fake firefighters in an ad. Using lies doesn't help at a time when we want truth. We get angry every time a neocon makes a claim -- "Bill Clinton is a murderer" -- that gets handily refuted but isn't, ahem, killed. We shouldn't sink to the same level. We are liberals because we want to lead the world by example, not by deception.

But I'll if you want to concoct a conspiracy theory that Newsweek made the change because they're working for the government, be my guest. After all, Winston Smith's job was to rewrite past news articles so history reflects the will Big Brother.

UPDATE: I should mention that I still love Atrios, and his is still my favorite blog (as should be evidenced by how many times I reference him). I'm not faulting him, though he has not yet made mention that the article changed as of this writing.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Now Wonkette is pushing it. Maybe they posted it into their queue yesterday before the change was made. Also, it occurs to me that even if it is stock footage, they may still be actors. Just throwing that out there.

After consulting my abacus, I found that if you boggle up the letters in “Martha Stewart”, you get “Hear Smart Twat”. Hmmm….

A hearty, vaguely homoerotic fanny slap to Stigmutha for passing on this little panic attack from Elaine Cassel:

Four more years of Bush and I doubt that I will be writing or you will be reading these warnings. We will have been silenced. I wish I were exaggerating, but this past year has taught me that, if anything, my warnings have been too tame.

We have seen a despot, and he is occupying the White House. We have seen tyranny, and it is the Bush Administration.

Poor Elaine describes herself as "terrified" of aforesaid Bush Administration. I suspect she fancies herself terribly brave to write so boldly (and presciently) while a tyrannical despot wields such sinister power; the spirit of Ann Frank is alive and well in Elaine Cassel.

God bless folks like Elaine, really. But the last thing we need right now are more people who are terrified of Bush. It's good to be nervous, scared, even a little nauseated on the eve of battle. Many a soldier has charged into combat in a sopping wet pair of underpants. But terrified? Terrified soldiers throw down their guns and run screaming from the battlefield. Terrified soldiers consistently overestimate the strength of their opponents.

It's helpful to remember that almost half of the people who voted in 2000 did so for Bush. The best strategy to win back those voters is not to scream about what a goddamn Nazi Bush is, but to quietly whisper in their ears while they sleep, "President Bush is a pud." Then gently insert their hand in a bowl of warm milk and tip-toe out of the room.

A new interesting development in the We-Stole-Democratic-Memos-From-Their-Servers investigation, or, as I like to call it, Servergate, four of my favorite Senators are going to the top:

The letters were signed by Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the committee's top Democrat, and by Senators Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Charles E. Schumer of New York, and Richard J. Durbin of Illinois.

"We believe," the senators wrote, "that the administration's `by whatever means necessary' approach to judicial nominations . . . greatly contributed to the atmosphere in which Republicans committed these acts."

Mad propz to Atrios.

Kelly proves me (and the New York Times) wrong in an e-mail he sent me:

"But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President
shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."

Source:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.amendmentxii.html

Do with this whatsoever you will, you glossy-cheeked little Cherub!

Same-sex education GOOD. Same-sex marriage BAD.

Funny, but wrong.

UPDATE: "Though it looks like he leans to the left in this picture, he usually prefers to straddle the middle."

Normally I don't directly respond to Kelly's posts since I universally agree with them.

I do want to mention, however, that I love Moon Pies. With an ice cold RC, a Moon Pie makes a resplendent summer snack. Or on a crisp Autumn afternoon, toss a Moon Pie in the microwave for about 20 to 30 seconds, and eat it with a fork. As Dave Chappell might say, "Mmm, mmm, bitch!"

Moon Pie GOOD. Ritualized consumerism BAD.

On my way to work today I read [source] the following critique of Workplace 2000, a sample of late 90's business literature, which I thought merited sharing:

"Consider Wal-Mart purchaser John Love, who accidentally ordered five times too many Moon Pies for his Alabama store:

It was a stupid mistake that could have gotten Love fired if he had worked for any of a number of other companies. Not at Wal-Mart. Love's boss just told him: "Use your imagination, be creative and figure out a way to sell it." Love did. He created the first World Championship Moon Pie Eating Contest and held it in the store's parking lot. The contest and the promotion were so successful for the company that it is now held on an annual basis and draws thousands of spectators...

Thus capitalism confronts the specter of postindustrial malaise. As strip-mall revelers fall upon the heaps of faintly toxic snack treats, another tiny crisis of overproduction is transformed into a miracle of overconsumption through the Stakhanovite exertions of a lone-hero salesman. We recognize here a drama of disgrace, forgiveness, and ultimate triumph, revolving around a few primordial themes: trust between supervisor and supervised; the redemptive metamorphosis of clerk into salesman and his centrality in creating a community of consumers; and the community's effort to preserve itself through the yearly reenactment of its foundation epic. And so this spare but exquisite passage from business literature articulates the core motifs of present day corporate ideology, even as it skirts the basic economic issues of efficiency and product quality. It doesn't question the need to manufacture Moon Pies, nor the wisdom of eating a great quantity of them. Instead, with the ancient sonorities of ritual and myth, it infuses sacred meaning into the making and selling of pure junk."

Via Political Wire, a NYT op-ed offers up the one Kerry running mate none of us thought of that would guarantee a win for Kerry – Bill Clinton:

The Constitution does not prevent Mr. Clinton from running for vice president. The 22nd Amendment, which became effective in 1951, begins: "No person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice."

...

In exchange for joining the ticket, Mr. Clinton could negotiate for plum assignments as vice president. Mideast peace? National health care? Racial equality? He could focus on any or all of them. And from a purely personal standpoint, it might be especially gratifying for Mr. Clinton to be part of the team that defeats the man who four years ago promised to restore "character" to Mr. Clinton's own White House.

Somehow, I think the Supreme Court would find a way to prevent this from happening. Ah, but we can dream, can't we?

Edwards would make the best running mate for Kerry right now. Southern charm, big smile, populist message. And more name recognition than Bill Richardson. Or Evan Bayh. I'm not sure how you even pronounce "Bayh."

ITEM: The Golden Raspberry Awards are in! Gigli cleans up!

ITEM: Bobby Brown goes to jail!

ITEM: Jean-Bertrand Aristide's abduction: President Bush urges Haiti's would-be boat people to beware the terrifying voodoo curse that lays waste all who dare trespass near pivotal Florida counties!

ITEM: Worst sketch artist of all time formally declared!

UPDATE: Sketch artist link obsolete. Screw those bastards. Screw 'em.

David Brooks has really given us a whopper today:

Edwards talks about poverty in economic terms. He vows to bring jobs back to poor areas and restrict trade to protect industries. He suggests that if we could take money from the rich and special interests, there'd be more for the underprivileged.

This kind of talk is descended from Marxist theory, which holds that we live in the thrall of economic conditions. What the poor primarily need is more money, the theory goes.

The core assumption is that economic forces determine culture and shape behavior. As William Julius Wilson wrote in "The Truly Disadvantaged," "If ghetto underclass minorities have limited aspirations, a hedonistic orientation toward life or lack of plans for the future, such outlooks ultimately are the result of restricted opportunities and feelings of resignation originating from bitter personal experiences and a bleak future."

Conservatives, on the other hand, believe that liberals have it backward. In reality, culture shapes economics. A person's behavior determines his or her economic destiny. If people live in an environment that fosters industriousness, sobriety, fidelity, punctuality and dependability, they will thrive. But the Great Society welfare system encouraged or enabled bad behavior, and popular culture glamorizes irresponsibility.

What makes this whole argument so absolutely, so mind-bendingly, soooo painfully hypocritical and obtuse...is that conservatives (as well as business tycoons of every political stripe) have spent the last 30 years struggling to prove the theory that a single, enlightened economic system can solve the problems of humanity: Free-Market Globalization. Deregulation and the free-flow of capital across boarders would smash tyranny, end despotism, save the third world, end starvation, and introduce tribal African society to the wonders of instant-messaging. Everyone's orgasms would be bigger and warmer. Democracy, it was argued, would be the natural result of wider, more bustling markets. Why else extol the internet, the IMF and the WTO as the new holy trinity come to save mankind? However, now that this appears to have been a gaudy mirage, I guess it's time to cast blame on the poor for not being industrious, sober, faithful, punctual and dependable. On the demise of Globalization, John Ralston Saul has written in the cover article of this month's Harper's:

True believers will tell you that [Globalization] could have worked, if only there had been less nepotism, weaker unions, or less corruption. But real economic policies in the real world don't require perfect conditions. Perfect conditions don't exist in the real world. Western growth over two centuries has come in spite of our own shifting flaws.

No, It didn't work. Nationalism, as we all can see, is resurgent worldwide. Having recognized that the power of international business was largely illusory (or at least secondary to that of government), petty and vindictive governments are beginning to cast around looking for ways to flex their power. Witness France and Germany using the U.N. to assert their pre-war objections and thereby their independence from American oligarchy. Witness the bumbling re-constitution of the Taliban in Northern Pakistan, or the impotence of the puppet Aristide in the face of popular contempt. Or how about our own behavior?

Insofar as a possible war with Iraq was concerned, [Colin Powell] declared, "we will act even if others are not prepared to join us." So the United States would act unilaterally – that is, nationally. [Ibid]

Apparently, the new solution to problems like poverty resides less in our ability to incorporate the downtrodden into our economic systems than in our ability to persuade through brute force. Brute force fueled by nationalistic sectarianism.

Dig this: How I PC'd an Apple G5.

The quarter is winding down, and I'm getting busier. Thus, the lack of blogging. I'll be in-and-out of the blog for the next three weeks.

Read my blogging associate Kelly's stuff. He's smarter than me, anyway.

I'm going to vomit a few thoughts before I get back to work:

I hope that Kelly will post something about what's going on in Haiti -- did the US oust Aristide, how can a country not have enough to eat but have enough to revolt, etc. -- because frankly, I don't understand the whole situation. All of the newspaper articles in the world don't have all of the exposition. Normally, I'd Google around and read as much about it as possible, but right now, I simply don't have time, and I'd prefer not to wait until next week's issue of The Nation to tell me what I'm supposed to think about it, either.

Tonight's Super Tuesday, which should turn out to be as predictable as Sunday's Oscars. There's really nothing else to say about that, except that if people are flipping a coin to decide between Kerry and Edwards, your bias will show.

Our Illinois primary is two weeks from today. I'm still voting for Dean -- the primary is my only chance to vote my heart and send a message to the DNC.

Just a reminder, though, that Kerry may be the obvious nominee by March 16th, but we all still have to get out and vote. We have a contentious Senate race. I'm now committed to voting for Barack Obama, who has been endorsed by the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune. As for alleged wifebeater Blair Hull, the Trib has the same opinion as I do:

The editorial criticizes Obama's opponent, front-runner Blair Hull, asking Democrats just how well they know this candidate. "[Hull] has inserted himself in the Democratic Party largely by showering money on political candidates," states the editorial. "Is this the resume Democrats want to offer to the state in November?"

And before you accuse me of pulling a Fox News, (1) I did say "alleged," and (2) I've never touted my journalistic integrity.

Okay, back to work. If you have anything to say, tell me, and I may just post it.

After a long, thoughtful meditation on the Academy Awards, I can do no better than Salon:

Shame on you, Oscar, for being such a craven corporate pussy. Shame, shame, shame. The only way you can possibly redeem yourself is to get Dave Chappelle to host in 2005 -- if not, you may as well go lie down and die in some Opus Dei donation box, because the TiVo contingent will have nothing to do with you. You've never had genitals, but now you clearly have no spine.