snidely m whiplash

moscow in general

2010-05-05T10:28:00.002-04:00

alright, so i am off to irkutsk shortly. will be on the train for three days or so, so don't expect to hear much from me. i trust you will survive.

i've really enjoyed moscow. the high points were probably the conversation with that guy andrei who i spoke of in the last post, and a trip to sergeiv pasad (st. sergei's settlement), a town and monastery and cathedral type thing about an hour and a half by train from moscow. touraya, this guy steen (australian guy who has been traveling for a couple of years) and i went. we bought some monastic kvass, which is a russian drink made from bread i believe, and possibly fermented in someone's shoe, though i have no hard evidence of this. 20 minutes or so of wandering around the various buildings revealed to us that we had no idea really what anything was, and that knowing nothing we could learn nothing. so we signed up for a tour.

our guide was a russian woman, somewhere between 60 and 70 i think. she was very opinionated. in particular she held opinions on which i believe some people would find disagreement on the subjects of communism and the funding of the russian revolution, the reputation of ivan the terrible (a better translation would be ivan the awesome in her opinion), and when touraya could use the restroom.

in general though, i had an enormous amount of respect for her. she was pretty understated on the subject of soviet oppression of the church, but from what i understand to be as devoted as i understood her to be would have been sorely trying. she was very patient with our questions, as long as we kept our hands out of our pockets, and had a love of and respect for the traditions and art of the russian church that i don't have and don't really understand but respected and admired. also, she was subtly very cutting on the subject of catholicism, to which touraya and i, rounding up, both professed.

she did say this, which i thought was strange: "now it's a known fact that the russian revolution was funded by american and german banks." i have never heard this, and have no idea if it's true or not, but it seems a bit strange. anyone have any ideas?

after that we went to a cafe where no one spoke english. the meal was interesting but not bad (though in touraya's words, "war food". i liked it. i would do well in a war probably. and we couldn't have the beer the waitress suggested because, as she said "the armenians drank it all". damn armenians...

reagan, what a prick

2010-05-05T02:51:00.002-04:00

last day in moscow. more later/eventually on my time there, but basically i have really enjoyed it. one incident in particular was really fascinating. touraya and i were in the liquor store by where we were staying. i showed her the bottle of vodka shaped like a kalashnikov and we were examining the beer selection. a russian looking guy was also trying to make up his mind. touraya wanted to know what was the difference between a couple of different kinds of baltika (russian beer). i didn't know, so i asked the russki. he said, no difference, they are both piss water. she asked him if he could recommend anything, and he pointed the cooler full of non-russian beers and said "any of these." i quoted something vladimir said to me in somewhat similar circumstances in college, "vui bolshoi patriot" (you are very patriotic). conversation ensued.

eventually we ended up drinking with him by a statue of gogol in a nearby park. he was about 30, had been in the army for a few years, married to a japanese woman with three kids. it was generally a very nice, interesting experience, but the most interesting part was at the end. we were talking somehow about the russian nuclear weapons command center, which he pointed out. he then mentioned reagan's famous open mike "joke" ("ladies and gentlemen, we have just introduced legislation outlawing the soviet union. bombing begins in five minutes"). for me, i have always though of that as just an unimportant piece of evidence that reagan was a jackass, but he told the story of how he'd experienced it. his father was called up to duty and told to report in ten minutes. his father went to grab the then ten year old, where he was building a model car with a friend, and drag him home at high speed. he didn't go into too much detail, except to say that he never got to finish building the model car, but by the end he was crying.

anyone have any memories of that incident? for me, it just seemed like a footnote, but obviously i can understand now how terrifying it could have been here.

rodina

2010-05-01T04:57:00.002-04:00

so i am in position. the following complications arose en route:
1. delta wanted proof of a continuing voyage from russia, and it took about 45 minutes for them to decide that my ticket from piter to istanbul was good enough
2. i somehow contrived to lose my passport on the plane. uh. yeah. when i first started wanting to go to russia 18 years ago or so i had some dreams that i was on my way there and couldn't find my passport. well done, precognition. fortunately it had just fallen out of my pocket, but it was a bad couple of minutes.
3. some idiot forgot the map that showed where i'm staying. that worked out pretty well. i went into a building that made some allegation of having internet, which seems to have been unfounded. but i asked a security guard where this street was. she didn't know, but grabbed a couple of office workers as they were going past ("rebyati, skaji, blah blah blah (basically, boys, where is whatever the hell this street is?"). they also didn't know, but one of them took me up to his office and printed me out a map. so that was nice.

met a cool guy on the plane. he's american, also from texas. him and his wife spent a lot of time working on a baptist mission in rwanda, including, and this is key, the years 1994 and after. he is in russia for about 36 hours, after which he is going back to alabama. if you're scoring at home, that's a travel to vacation ratio of about 1:1. many experts suggest a different ratio is preferable, but he's meeting some loaded friend who is here adopting a kid. hopefully he will not send it back on a subsequent flight.

if anyone's interested

2007-12-01T18:50:00.001-05:00

i got a new blog with some stories i've written here

that's GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY

2007-03-06T12:11:00.000-05:00

well, they got scooter. hee hee. i doubt if they'll keep him, on account of cheney will be after the dauphin to pardon his ass, but still, it's nice while it lasts. though this will take some of the air out of the fired prosecutors hearings going on today, and maybe the walter reed scandal. i really think that's the only reason the bastards have even 30% approval, cause there are too many scandals for anyone but the obsessed to fully absorb any of them.

how screwed are the republicans?

2007-02-28T00:34:00.000-05:00

put it this way: the sheriff of dallas county is a hispanic lesbian.

the greater east asian co-prosperity sphere (now three times cuddlier!!)

2007-02-26T12:58:00.000-05:00

i can't decide if i should be horrified, amused or impressed:

Perky cartoon character Prince Pickles -- with saucer eyes, big dimples and tiny, booted feet -- poses in front of tanks, rappels from helicopters and shakes hands with smiling Iraqis.

The cutesy icon hardly calls to mind the Japanese military that conquered and pillaged its way across Asia in the first half of the 20th century, and that is just the way the country's leaders want it.

As Japan sheds its postwar pacifism and gears up to take a higher military profile in the world, it is enlisting cadres of cute characters and adorable mascots to put a gentle, harmless sheen to its Self-Defense Forces deployments.

"Prince Pickles is our image character because he's very endearing, which is what Japan's military stands for," said Defense Ministry official Shotaro Yanagi. "He's our mascot and appears in our pamphlets and stationery."

Such characters have long been used in Japan to win hearts and minds and to soften the image of authority.

The Metropolitan Police Department tries to lighten its stern image with Peopo, which looks like a cross between a rabbit and a space trooper.

The government hopes the same tactic can work overseas.

scalia family values

2007-02-14T13:29:00.000-05:00

see what liberal permissiveness and failure to strictly interpret the constitution has wrought?

Daughter of Supreme Court justice charged in DUI

By Angela Rozas

Chicago Tribune

(MCT)

CHICAGO - A daughter of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was arrested Monday night in Wheaton, Ill., and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and child endangerment, Wheaton Deputy Police Chief Thomas Meloni said.

Ann S. Banaszewski, 45, was stopped about 7:25 p.m. in a 1996 Ford Econoline van after a citizen reported a possible drunken driver was at the McDonald's restaurant near there, Meloni said.

Three of Banaszewski's "small children" were in the van with her at the time, leading to the child endangerment charge, Meloni said. He would not disclose their ages. Meloni would also not disclose details of her alleged intoxication, but said she submitted to a field sobriety test, though he could not disclose its outcome.

"Probable cause was established to arrest and charge the driver with DUI," Meloni said. Banaszewski was taken to the Wheaton Police Station, where she was released on her own recognizance, Meloni said. A police officer dropped her children at a family friend's home, a "common practice" when someone is arrested with children, he said.

A court date has not been scheduled, he said. Meloni said police knew Banaszewski was one of Scalia's daughters because of "previous contact with the justice" and "common knowledge" in the Wheaton Police Department.

Meloni said he has never spoken to Scalia directly, but the department's police officers routinely patrol Banaszewski's neighborhood to ensure her safety, a courtesy the department extends for others associated with law enforcement, the court system or anyone who requests extra patrols.

Banaszewski, reached by phone at home, declined to speak about the arrest, or whether she was Scalia's daughter.

"I have no information and I certainly would not speak with a reporter about my father," she said.

evil

2007-02-12T11:28:00.000-05:00

how evil is my reader?

You Are 50% Evil

You are evil, but you haven't yet mastered the dark side.
Fear not though - you are on your way to world domination.

How Evil Are You?

hard not to like jack cafferty

2007-02-09T13:42:00.000-05:00

via atrios:

At least Jack Cafferty makes a funny.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Is Anna Nicole Smith still dead, Wolf?

BLITZER: Yes, we're going to -- updating our viewers coming up shortly on...

CAFFERTY: I can't wait for that.

BLITZER: ... the mysterious circumstances surrounding that, Jack. Thank you.

updated:

rest in peace, molly

2007-02-02T13:46:00.000-05:00

so molly ivins died the other day after a long fight with breast cancer. most of my reader knows her and knows her work well, but for that portion that doesn't, christ she was smart, brave, funny, a hell of a writer. when i try to describe her to people who don't know her work i tend to bring up bon mots, such as describing w as being born on third base and thinking he'd hit a triple, or calling him the dauphin, or saying of pat buchanan's speech at the 96 republican convention that she personally didn't care for it, but that she's heard it sounded much better in the original german. funny as all that is, it misses what was great about her, which was how often she was right. krugman talks about that in the times today:

I can’t claim to have known her well. But I spent enough time with her, and paid enough attention to her work, to know that obituaries that mostly stressed her satirical gifts missed the main point. Yes, she liked to poke fun at the powerful, and was very good at it. But her satire was only the means to an end: holding the powerful accountable.
[...]
Molly never lost sight of two eternal truths: rulers lie, and the times when people are most afraid to challenge authority are also the times when it’s most important to do just that. And the fact that she remembered these truths explains something I haven’t seen pointed out in any of the tributes: her extraordinary prescience on the central political issue of our time.

I’ve been going through Molly’s columns from 2002 and 2003, the period when most of the wise men of the press cheered as Our Leader took us to war on false pretenses, then dismissed as “Bush haters” anyone who complained about the absence of W.M.D. or warned that the victory celebrations were premature. Here are a few selections:

Nov. 19, 2002: “The greatest risk for us in invading Iraq is probably not war itself, so much as: What happens after we win? ... There is a batty degree of triumphalism loose in this country right now.”

Jan. 16, 2003: “I assume we can defeat Hussein without great cost to our side (God forgive me if that is hubris). The problem is what happens after we win. The country is 20 percent Kurd, 20 percent Sunni and 60 percent Shiite. Can you say, ‘Horrible three-way civil war?’ ”

July 14, 2003: “I opposed the war in Iraq because I thought it would lead to the peace from hell, but I’d rather not see my prediction come true and I don’t think we have much time left to avert it. That the occupation is not going well is apparent to everyone but Donald Rumsfeld. ... We don’t need people with credentials as right-wing ideologues and corporate privatizers — we need people who know how to fix water and power plants.”

Oct. 7, 2003: “Good thing we won the war, because the peace sure looks like a quagmire. ...

“I’ve got an even-money bet out that says more Americans will be killed in the peace than in the war, and more Iraqis will be killed by Americans in the peace than in the war. Not the first time I’ve had a bet out that I hoped I’d lose.”
[...]
Was Molly smarter than all the experts? No, she was just braver. The administration’s exploitation of 9/11 created an environment in which it took a lot of courage to see and say the obvious.

Molly had that courage; not enough others can say the same.
[...]
Now, more than ever, we need people who will stand up against the follies and lies of the powerful. And Molly Ivins, who devoted her life to questioning authority, will be sorely missed.

charles pierce also has some true things to say about her, and some nice en passant slams at the talking heads while he's in the neighborhood:

I think the reason neither of them really fit the role of modern media celebrity -- I mean, Jesus, Gloria Borger is preferable on TV to Molly Ivins? Maureen Dowd is a better writer? Yeah, and I'm the Tsar of all the Russias -- is that they believed too strongly and too genuinely in too many things for an era in which we've spent two goddamn weeks talking about a caesura in a remark Hillary Clinton made in Iowa a flat year before anyone votes there. Molly made a point often of how much she liked good politicians and believed in the political system. And Father Drinan -- I know. I know. But the honorific is a tic of my Papist heritage that I can't lose -- was deadly serious about deadly serious topics -- war and peace, economic justice. That's not the way we do political commentary -- or politics, alas -- very much any more. What do we get? Michael Kinsley stuffing his IQ into a jar and defending Scooter Libby on the grounds of Business As Usual. Two weeks of idiocy about a caesura in a remark made by Hillary Clinton in Iowa a flat year before anyone votes there. (And let's not get into the fact that the very thought of an HRC candidacy seems to have driven Chris Matthews into some serious brain-fever). Snarky "Messiah Watches" about Barack Obama. The worst thing you can do at the Kool Kids table is be either sincere or serious. Sorry, you pack of smug, insufferable bastards -- a war's gone bad and the country's a mess, and you never were funny, anyway, not like Molly was. So go and take your little slambooks and wreck some other profession for a while. The grown-ups have work to do.

anyway, i personally don't have too much to add. she was an amazing writer and by all account a hell of a human being. rest in peace molly.

if anyone who hasn't read it is interested...

2007-01-29T13:33:00.000-05:00

as most of my reader knows i'm doing this short story contest. i guess i might have already done it, depending on results. anyway, the way it works is you get a week to write a 2,500 word short story in a genre and on a subject chosen by the people who run the contest. your story is judged against 14 others on the same subject and genre. if you win you go to the final where you got 24 hours to write another story on a different subject and genre. if you win that you get a few bucks. anyway, many of my reader has read mine. thanks to my reader for their learned criticism. if by some chance i win i'm blowing the winnings on beer for you guys. for those who haven't read it, you can find it here. let me know what you think if you haven't already.

state of the union

2007-01-23T21:42:00.001-05:00

bush: "free people are not drawn to an ideology of violence and hatred."

snidely: "how many elections did you pricks win?"

one thing occurred to me strategically speaking: whenever pelosi stands up to support something the monkey says, cheney stands up too, and vice versa. pelosi's fairly fit. she should be going up and down like a jack-in-the-box.

bush: "we didn't drive al qaeda out of their safe havens in afghanistan..."

snidely: "true."

idiocracy

2007-01-23T11:47:00.000-05:00

so at long last i saw idiocracy on dvd last night. it's written and directed by the guy who did beavis and butthead and office space. the story is, the most average soldier in the army gets volunteered for a hibernation experiment. he's supposed to be in hibernation for a year, but SOMETHING GOES AWRY!!! he wakes up 500 years later. everyone is really, really dumb. the favorite television channel is the masturbation channel. the movie that sweeps the oscars is ass, which shows a naked male ass that farts sometimes. the motto for carl's junior is "fuck you, i'm eating. CARL'S JUNIOR." luke wilson, as the soldier, has to save the day. i highly recommend it.

katha pollit takes an axe handle to dinesh d'fucking idiot

2007-01-18T15:07:00.000-05:00

my reader may not be aware that dinesh d'souza has determined the source of muslim hostility towards the u.s. it turns out that a: they hate us for our freedoms, and b: quite rightly so. katha pollitt has bravely read the book so you don't have to:

When the left isn't coddling terrorists, it's alienating "traditional Muslims," a group D'Souza believes the right ought to win over. The way to do this is not by building schools and hospitals that might actually improve their lives; it's by defending their cultural values, which fortunately just happen to be D'Souza's own. (Honor killings and child marriage aren't Islamic, he claims, just things that regrettably happen in Muslim societies. As for the veil, he approvingly quotes Sudanese radical cleric Hassan Turabi, who claims it lets women be seen as human beings. It's nice to see the cultural-relativist shoe back on the far-right foot.)

Actually, the Bush Administration has been doing just that for some time. It supports the ultraconservative Saudi regime. At the United Nations, it lined up with the Vatican, Iran, Libya and Sudan to oppose comprehensive sex ed. This last item got them nowhere, except with the US Christian right--but that's the point. D'Souza's proposal looks international, but it's really domestic. It's all about revving up the flagging Republican base: The Vagina Monologues caused 9/11! Unfortunately for the Republicans, not only are there not quite enough true believers stupid enough to believe that, but most Americans--not just Eve Ensler and Barney Frank--are on the other side of the culture wars. There is no support, none, for restricting divorce, as the Institute for American Values discovered when it tried to get state legislators to make divorce harder to obtain. Polls show increasing comfort with gay rights. Even South Dakota balked at outlawing abortion. As for the vulgar raunch-fest that is popular culture, Americans, and foreigners too, pay zillions for the music, movies, TV shows and magazines D'Souza claims US leftists are cramming down the throats of the world.
[...]

Besides, the Americans who come closest to sharing "traditional Muslim" family values are fundamentalists like, um, Jerry Falwell, who think Islam is the devil's work. The minute they tried bringing their new best friends to Christ, they'd find out that a mutual obsession with female chastity can take you only so far.

The Enemy at Home is not just slimy and nasty and silly, it's deeply confused. After all, who is urging Americans to combine with foreign powers against their fellow citizens? Not Bill Moyers. Who is saying we must adopt the mores of an alien culture or be destroyed? It's Dinesh D'Souza--surrender monkey.

more beckham

2007-01-12T16:24:00.000-05:00

if anyone was somehow under the impression he isn't a total moron:

Former England captain David Beckham sought the advice of his actor friend Tom Cruise before agreeing his big-money move from Real Madrid to Los Angeles Galaxy worth $1 million a week over five years.
"I was on the phone to him (Cruise) for about an hour last night and an hour the night before," Beckham told reporters on Friday.
"Obviously I asked him for his advice because he is a very wise man and a very good friend of mine. It's going to be a big help for us to have friends when we arrive in LA."

you can read elsewhere about his noble desire to build brand soccerball in the u.s. for fuck's sake. i like the sport, but proclaiming a missionary zeal to make more americans watch soccer is about as holy and noble as trying to make more americans eat popsicles, even if one is willing to scrape by on a million bucks a week to do it. still, i guess he could have worse hobbies.

woohoo

2007-01-12T15:34:00.000-05:00

hey all, i'm published again, which is nice. the mag is a lot more interesting than i thought before they published me. i gather that's a common phenomenon, but in this case it's an opinion informed by reading some of the other stuff.

alright, i'm back

2007-01-11T11:26:00.000-05:00

but only out of a sense of outrage. how that little monkey got that kind of blank check and absurd sense of self is totally beyond me. the reprecussions of this will be felt for a long time. i'm talking, of course, about spice boy david beckham getting a $250 million dollar contract to play soccerball for the l.a. galaxy. for christ's sake. that's $50 million a year, or twice what that pouting little baby arod makes, and he's a: good at b: a sport americans watch. it should be fascinating though. the salary cap per team in the mls is a million bucks per team per year, except that each team can sign one player whose salary doesn't count towards that cap. excluding all the other bigwigs (whose wigs are not really all that big), beckham will be making slightly over 4 times as much as the rest of the league combined. if any mls players are fined for some, shall we say, overexuberance in trying to win a ball off him they should let me know, cause i'd be happy to contribute to it.

soccer chants

2006-12-07T23:54:00.000-05:00

was watching everton play west ham and was reminded of my all time favorite soccer chant. everton's goalie, tim howard, is an american with tourette's syndrome. when he was at manchester united, the fans used to sing, to the tune of chim-chim-chim-chiminee, tim tim tim timminy, tim tim toroo, we've got tim howard, he says fuck you.

while i was looking for the exact wording, i found this one which celtic fans used to chant after an opposing player was diagnosed with schizophrenia:

"Two Andy Gorams, there's only two andy gorams"

baseball story

2006-12-04T17:19:00.000-05:00

some of yiz will appreciate this article about a baseball player answering fan mail from 20 years ago:

Fifteen years ago, I figured Carman as a good candidate for a quick response. With the Phillies, he was a reliable southpaw who chewed up starts (35 in 1987, good for fourth in the National League), before leaving the majors for good in 1993. Where Carman showed greater promise was as a wit, a more cerebral version of Jay Johnstone. After enduring years worth of questions from benighted sports writers ("How'd it feel out there today, Don?"), Carman compiled a list of 37 suitably vapid answers that could be applied to almost any query. These included: "Baseball's a funny game"; "I just want to help the club any way I can"; "I didn't have my good stuff, but I battled 'em"; and, a personal favorite, "We have a different hero every day." Carman posted the list above his locker with a note that told writers, "You saw the game … take what you need."

As it turns out, I am not Carman's only recent correspondent. In October, a Philadelphia TV station reported that Doug Ferraro, 23, received an autographed card from Carman in response to a letter that he had mailed out 16 years before. This was now a legitimate mystery, so I called Carman in Florida to find out what happened.

"My wife told me it was time to clean the garage," Carman said. "So, I started digging through the stuff and found a box behind my tools. I opened it up and saw it was a bunch of fan mail, 200 to 250 letters." For Carman, this was a slight embarrassment. During his career, Carman had worked diligently to sign and return every one of the two or three letters he received each day. Judging from the date of Ferraro's card and the price of my stamp, he must have gotten our batch of letters some time in 1991, the year he left the Phillies for the Cincinnati Reds. "That year was the year I moved; I got a different house," he said. "I even remember putting them in the box, because it was unusual for me to do that. I thought I'd watch a football game and leisurely do them. It never got done."

accent quiz

2006-11-28T16:44:00.000-05:00

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Midland
The South
The Northeast
Philadelphia
North Central
The West
Boston
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

i'm curious what results my reader (assuming s/he still exists) gets. let me know in comments, if you'd be so kind.

malachi ritscher, of whom i had never heard

2006-11-28T12:01:00.000-05:00

it turns out that he immolated himself on a chicago freeway in early november to protest the war in iraq. the weird thing is that i only heard about him while reading a british newspaper.

you can read his suicide note here.

far and away the best thing ever

2006-11-20T16:09:00.000-05:00

not only does lieberman lack the joementum to win a democratic primary, he's even lost control of connecticut for lieberman, the party he formed to run as ~~a republican~~ an independent in the general election:

The political party formed by U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman after he lost the Democratic primary in August has a new chairman - and it's not Lieberman.

However, according to the bylaws adopted by its new chairman, Lieberman critic and Fairfield University professor John Orman, the senator is an eligible party candidate.

According to bylaws established by Orman, anyone whose last name is Lieberman may seek the party's nomination - or any critic of the senator.

Orman seized control of the Connecticut for Lieberman Party this week after registering as its sole member and electing himself as chairman.

Orman has triggered a process that will force Lieberman and state elections officials to decide the future of a party created solely to return the senator to Washington.

"It's an interesting little wrinkle," said Michael Kozik, managing attorney for the secretary of the state's legislation and elections administration division. Orman has forwarded his intention to register with the party and keep it alive to the secretary of the state for review.

"I'm just trying to get the ball rolling so the state will say if it is a legitimate party or not," Orman said yesterday.

After losing the August primary to Ned Lamont of Greenwich, Lieberman and his supporters collected 7,500 signatures necessary for him to run as a petition candidate in the general election. He then got the support of 29 friends and relatives to establish the Connecticut for Lieberman Party - 25 people are necessary to form a new minor party.

Lieberman prevailed over Lamont, Republican Alan Schlesinger and two other minor party candidates Nov. 7 and returned to the U.S. Senate. He will caucus with Democrats but wants to labeled an "Independent Democrat."

Orman, a registered Democrat, challenged the legitimacy of the Connecticut for Lieberman Party before the Elections Enforcement Commission in late August. Orman said the party was created for one man, its members had not changed their party registration, and it lacked a platform and the required rules for nominating candidates.

In an interview at the time, Kozik said Lieberman and his supporters had followed the proper procedures. He also said a new party is not required to submit nominating rules until it wins 1 percent of the vote in its first election.

With Connecticut for Lieberman having achieved its victory earlier this month, Orman made his move. He contacted the secretary of the state, learned the new minor party had no registered members, then visited the registrar in Trumbull, where he lives, to switch from a Democrat to a Connecticut for Lieberman-ite.

"Then I went home and called a meeting of all registered Connecticut for Lieberman members to reflect on our party's victory in the U.S. Senate race (and) organize and submit rules to the secretary of the state," Orman said.

He nominated himself chairman, seconded the nomination, cast his vote for himself and proceeded to establish party rules.

Orman said the "party" is upset that Lieberman has abandoned it and says he is an "Independent Democrat."

"I want to organize it as a group that will keep (Lieberman) accountable," Orman said. "It will be dedicated to critics, opponents, bloggers. . . . I'm just trying to carry it to the next step."

Kozik was not prepared yesterday to officially rule on the legitimacy of Orman's actions. But he said the professor "might be jumping the gun" because the election results will not be officially certified until later this month.

Kozik also said he was uncertain what, if any, role the 29 individuals who helped form the party play.

"I'm not sure I can give you a quick answer on exactly who has the authority to promulgate the initial party rules," Kozik said. "I haven't had the chance to research it. . . . Ultimately, the rightness or wrongness of what Orman did or will do may end up in the courts."

Orman said his request to register as a member of Connecticut for Lieberman and vote himself chairman cannot be denied.

"(The state) were the ones who told me it's a legitimate party and it wasn't a farce political party," Orman said.

And as the only current member, Orman said, he can guarantee that he has no plans to sue himself.

some first rate being a parrot

2006-11-11T15:05:00.000-05:00

this clip is my nephew in aladdin. he's the bad guy's parrot, which role he was born for:

real nice work, nathan.

2006-11-10T12:47:00.000-05:00

if my reader has any use for some post-election gloating and snark, they can probably do no better than the fine folks at sadly, no. get thee hence.

well that's a nice change

2006-11-09T12:15:00.000-05:00

i could get used to the less bad guys winning elections, as, i'm sure, could my reader. woohoo. fuck [insert national republican figure] and all [his/her] [derogatory term for nrf's followers/sycophants/enablers]. woohoo.

now that the election is over, the real fight begins: deciding what it all means. some of the nobs in the democratic party are talking up a book called whistling past dixie, which i haven't read. the thesis is basically fuck the south, at least as far as attempting to appeal to southern voters politically. but if my reader is interested, someone named bob moser at the nation has a pretty interesting piece on what worked for the two democrats who won senate seats in the south (i was going to cut it, but i couldn't find anything to cut]:

The New Southern Strategy
Bob Moser

Just one year ago--hell, even a few months ago--the unanimous view among the Democrats' strategic sages was that the only drama in the South this fall would be whether the region's few remaining statewide Democratic office-holders could hold on to their jobs. Could Senator Bill Nelson hold off Katherine Harris, America's tackiest theocrat, in Florida? Could Gov. Phil Bredesen show his conservative cojones by cutting enough folks off state health care to hold on in ultra-red Tennessee?

After the 2004 wipeout of five Democratic Senate seats in the South, many national Democrats were pleased to think that their long-running debate--can we win in the Dixie, and should we even try?--had been settled. Settled in the negative, that is. Thomas Schaller's recent book, Whistling Past Dixie, brought together years' worth of poll-tested memoranda in calling for the Democratic Party to kiss off the nation's largest region. It was just a more polite version of one of the most popular post-election blogs from the bitterness of late 2004: "Fuck the South."

Tonight, the South--aka "Jesusland"--has a message for those national Democratic wizards: No, fuck you. If the Senate lands in Democratic hands, it'll be thanks to Claire McCaskill's triumph in Missouri and Jim Webb's stunning win in Virginia over the man who was once conservative Republicans' great hope for the White House in 2008. It will not be thanks to the candidate who ran the sort of Southern campaign the sages called "perfect"--Harold Ford Jr. in Tennessee, who went far beyond triangulation and out-Republicaned his opponent with hard lines on gay marriage, immigration, national defense, guns, and an array of Bible quotes that could whip John Ashcroft in a holiness contest any day.

McCaskill, a hard-nosed former prosecutor, and Webb, a tough-as-beef-jerky former Republican cabinet officer, are nobody's idea of wild-eyed liberals. But they both ran campaigns that stubbornly bucked conventional wisdom for Southern Democrats running statewide in the last two decades. Running against hardcore Christian conservative incumbents, neither of them triangulated. They were unwaveringly pro-choice; they called for sharp changes in Iraq policy; McCaskill opposed anti-gay marriage hoo-ha; and they ran as old-fashioned, blue-collar, labor-embracing economic populists. As what used to be called Democrats, that is.

"It's back to the traditional Democratic Party, which was founded on the health of the working person," Webb told me earlier this fall. In her victory speech this morning, McCaskill highlighted the same theme: "Once again," she said, "the Democratic Party has claimed Harry Truman's Senate seat for the working people of Missouri."

For the working people. It's a sequence of words Democrats have continued to mouth, but it's been a long time since anybody living in anything smaller than a McMansion had much call to believe it.

Truly championing the working class--and winning these folks' votes --means plunging in among them. That is what national Democrats are afraid to do. It's what John Kerry had in mind early in 2004, when he sniffed about how "everybody always makes the mistake of looking South" for Democratic votes. Despite forty years of steady economic growth in the region, the South still has more poor, struggling and badly educated Americans--black and white--than anywhere else in the country.

Those were the people who won Missouri and Virginia for the Democrats this year. Not because they finally woke up and realized where their true economic interests lay. McCaskill and Webb won because they took their campaigns directly into the Republicans' working-class strongholds. In the Bible Belt Ozarks of Southern Missouri, McCaskill campaigned hard, emphasizing her blue-collar message without running away from her pro-stem cell, pro-choice, anti-war message. It paid off in the biggest Republican county in the state, Greene, where early polls showed Republican Jim Talent winning a mere 53 percent of the vote--a huge change from recent elections.

Webb stumped hard in Southwest Virginia, conservative hill country that has provided Republicans with their statewide margins in Virginia for three decades now. He did not thicken his accent to charm the folks down there; he did not excise the Marx and Engels references from his high-falutin speeches when he campaigned in the deepest, most conservative hollows. Like McCaskill, he spoke to folks in the same tone, with the same messages, that he used in liberal urban strongholds. It won't be so easy for Dixiephobic Democrats to make a "forget the South" argument now. As a recent Pew study found, the South's famously militaristic folks have turned against the Iraq war just as fiercely as the rest of the country. In Virginia, folks were not distracted by an anti-gay marriage amendment. In Missouri, folks were not distracted by this year's hot initiative issue, a stem-cell amendment. For years, they've been voting for Republicans with whom they disagreed on a host of issues; this time, they voted for Democrats with social and foreign-policy views that were often downright liberal.

The war mattered, but the working-class message made the difference for both McCaskill and Webb. It wasn't just their policy positions, which mimicked those of national Democrats in most ways. It was the way they showed up -- over and over again -- in places where Democrats (according to the sages) are supposed to avoid. On Election Day, McCaskill veered from her planned schedule and made the long trip downstate to shake hands at a polling place in Greene County. Like Webb, she looked rural and Christian Right folks in the eye, asked for their votes, and told them where she stood without trimming the edges off her progressive views. And like Webb, she got more votes from those folks than any chart, graph, poll or wishful thought could have conjured up.

No message from this triumphal mid-term election should ring more loudly than this. The South cannot be written off by the Democratic Party. More precisely, Southerners cannot be written off by the Democratic Party. The key to winning the votes of rural and working-class people in Dixie is the same as everywhere else in America. Nobody said it better than that great old Southern liberal activist, Strange Fruit author Lillian Smith. "A vote," she wrote in Killers of the Dream, "...is a small thing to give a man who has made you feel revered for the first time in your life."

one interesting thing

2006-11-03T00:44:00.000-05:00

so my reader obviously has a bit of time on its hands. and my reader has some interest in politics. one interesting thing about google is that if you do a google search, the results you get on the right side of the search page are sponsored pages. meaning, people, companies, etc, pay google for any clicks that result from the placement of those links. so if my reader has any time and interest, my reader could go do some google searches on things like, oh, gop, or values voters, or whatever the hell my reader might think of, and then, you know, click on the links that are most interesting to them. like the lunatic that's trying to take delay's seat. she's got a great web site.

job for my reader

2006-11-02T16:34:00.000-05:00

some of my reader knows about general j.c. christian. for those that don't, he's the only person in history to score an 11 on the manly scale of absolute gender. he's a good, god-fearing patriot. as such, he's written a review of lynn cheney's children's book on amazon. apparently amazon book reviews are spotlighted based on how they're rated by amazon customers. you can do your part here:

I've read every book Mrs. Cheney has written since her first one, "Sisters." Unfortunately, each has been more disappointing than the original. Sure, I think she should be applauded for introducing children to a more faith-based version of history. Heaven knows they need an alternative to that filthy fact-based stuff they're force-fed in the schools.

But why leave out the story of the women she wrote about in "Sisters." They're are just as much a part of our history as the people in other stories in "Our Fifty States. Certainly her young readers would benefit from learning about these two women's very close, very special, very physical relationship. Now, I know that some call such relationships "an abomination in the eyes of the Lord," but that's only because they're confused. As I've said time and time again, women can't know women in the way they know men, because they don't have "little soldiers." I'm always surprised more adults don't understand this.

Anyway, if you want a book by Lynne Cheney, choose Sisters rather than this one. The information about how ladies in the old west used sponges is worth the price of the book alone.

christzilla

2006-11-02T12:28:00.000-05:00

you'd think a jesus this size would have no problem knocking those planes away. maybe as a people we need a more robust, proactive messiah.

to think i knew them when

2006-10-30T11:32:00.000-05:00

as elements of my reader may be aware, my friend justin and his band, the jumping bomb girls have been signed by the independent marketing arm of coca cola. i don't really understand what that means exactly, but it's apparently unequivocally a good thing. so woohoo. go jumping bomb girls. congratulations justin, amy and ellen.

ps. who knows what their career arc would have been had they taken my advice in the beginning and called themselves justin and the jumping bomb girlettes?

UPDATE: under certain circumstance which i don't totally understand you can listen to some of their songs here.

help

2006-10-29T23:41:00.000-05:00

so my reader is highly educated. i'm working on a story, and i need a cliche that approves of or argues for going back to a source that has been previously successful. it will be, if it exists, placed against lightening never strikes in the same place twice. any suggestions?

monkey in chief

2006-10-27T16:14:00.000-04:00

hey reader, if, like me you have a lot of trouble even looking at the smirking little chimp face of the only president we've got this might not be the thing for you. but us news has a transcript of a conversation he had with 9 of his biggest media suckups, journalistic titans like "kuds" and tony blankley and ~~dr. strangelove~~ krauthammer. you can find it here. it's not for the faint of heart or the queasy of stomach.

mr google

2006-10-24T16:32:00.000-04:00

via chris bowers and digby, below is a list of negative articles about various republican reps and sentators, the bastards. if you're bored at work and click on these links, you will move the position of these articles closer to the top of google's rankings for searches on these bastards. so click away, for freedom:
-AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

--AZ-01: Rick Renzi

--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth

--CA-04: John Doolittle

--CA-11: Richard Pombo

--CA-50: Brian Bilbray

--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave

--CO-05: Doug Lamborn

--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell

--CT-04: Christopher Shays

--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan

--FL-16: Joe Negron

--FL-22: Clay Shaw

--ID-01: Bill Sali

--IL-06: Peter Roskam

--IL-10: Mark Kirk

--IL-14: Dennis Hastert

--IN-02: Chris Chocola

--IN-08: John Hostettler

--IA-01: Mike Whalen

--KS-02: Jim Ryun

--KY-03: Anne Northup

--KY-04: Geoff Davis

--MD-Sen: Michael Steele

--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht

--MN-06: Michele Bachmann

--MO-Sen: Jim Talent

--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns

--NV-03: Jon Porter

--NH-02: Charlie Bass

--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson

--NM-01: Heather Wilson

--NY-03: Peter King

--NY-20: John Sweeney

--NY-26: Tom Reynolds

--NY-29: Randy Kuhl

--NC-08: Robin Hayes

--NC-11: Charles Taylor

--OH-01: Steve Chabot

--OH-02: Jean Schmidt

--OH-15: Deborah Pryce

--OH-18: Joy Padgett

--PA-04: Melissa Hart

--PA-07: Curt Weldon

--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick

--PA-10: Don Sherwood

--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee

--TN-Sen: Bob Corker

--VA-Sen: George Allen

--VA-10: Frank Wolf

--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick

--WA-08: Dave Reichert

ni ni

2006-10-17T11:23:00.000-04:00

so i think most of my reader knows i've been visiting detained asylum seekers in new jersey for about six months. the first one i visited got out and is living with some distant relatives in new jersey, and doing pretty well. the second one is a 50 year old woman from burma who says she was arrested and beaten and arrested again for protesting against the thoroughly despicable burmese government. it always sounded like a pretty clear cut case to me, but then i'm not an immigration judge*. she always struck me as a really kind person, really gentle, and really funny in spite of not much english. she loved to talk about her young nephew, who was six and finding out about the ladies. she used the same word, naughty, to describe both him and her lawyer. the other detainnees seem to have looked out for her in a way that makes you feel better about being a human being. but detention, the fear of deportation, the never seeing the sun or the sky, the worrying about her parents, the missing her family and many other things that i can probably only guess at, were really hard for her.

anyway, she lost her case after some really feeble legal representation, which included her cocksucking little fuck monkey of a lawyer not telling her she'd lost her case. a friend of hers found out about a week before the deadline to appeal expired, and she filed a federal appeal. i guess it's fairly customary to grant a stay of deportation while a federal appeal is heard, on account of if an asylum seeker is deported and then their asylum petition is granted it gets awkward if you have to award asylum to a corpse, but the judge refused to in this case. they tried to take her to the airport to take her back to burma a few weeks ago and she screamed and cried and begged them to kill her then and there, because it would be easier for her family. they took her back to the detention center. but then they did it again, with the same result. i hadn't seen her for a week and a half or so, but sunday i found out she'd been deported to singapore. i guess there's a chance that's less horrifically bad than burma would have been.

*=you can tell i'm not an immigration judge cause i haven't hunger-striked myself to death out of shame.

notes on espn's coverage of cory lidle's death

2006-10-12T16:05:00.000-04:00

ask and ye shall receive flora. below are some excerpts/comments gleaned from espn's coverage of cory lidle's death yesterday, not by me. i haven't really been watching the idiot brigade much lately, so i don't personally know how bad it was, but i think in general they're horrible at this kind of stuff. part of it is that it's hard to look at important things through the lens of sports, and sports is the only lens they have. part of it is that they have to be uplifting at all times, i think as part of their contract. part of it is that they are morons. anyway, a friend of a friend compiled these notes (friend of friend, our mutual friend said it was cool to put this up. if it's not or you want to be acknowledged please let me know):

To quote the things I've heard on ESPN about the death of Corey Lidle:

Peter Gammons: "He was an average pitcher"

"Not that big a deal" (compared to 9/11)

"Might not have come back to the Yankees anyway so it might not have an impact on the teammates" (Gammons... it was actually put a lot more badly than this)

"Lidle was going to do what he wanted to do"

"Lidle was a replacement player and couldn't join the union or be in any of the video games"

Ken Macha: (to the effect of) Some news today and as the spokesperson of the Athletics I'm supposed to say something so to his family" (that was it... I swear he didn't say anything of real concern)

He did mention that he threw a 1 hitter against the Rangers... then says he has a funny story...

"We were playing the Orioles and the pitching coach had told the pitchers that they were not to throw any change ups to Jay Gibbons... there were two runners on base and Lidle threw a change up that was hit for a three run homer and the pitching coach was chewing him out... so later Gibbons came up again with two on base and threw another change up and I swear it landed in the same seat".

Only a couple mentions about that he was a human... had a wife... had a kid... is dead... and heck 82-72 not a bad record, he could have had some good seasons ahead of him.

John Kruk and Steve Phillips did a good job compared to these others.

Anyway... I found the coverage in poor taste... obviously these sports news guys aren't the best in times like this.

ingerlund, ingerlund, ingerlund

2006-10-12T14:18:00.000-04:00

this is pretty priceless. england was playing croatia yesterday in soccer in the european cup qualifiers. england was fresh off a bold 0-0 home draw with macedonia, so they had a lot of momentum.* anyway, the croatians already had a 1-0 lead when gary neville passed back to his goalie, paul robinson. things went downhill from there.

*=no they didn't, cause, uh, macedonia.

espn is a bunch of morons part 74/6e+3

2006-10-09T23:45:00.000-04:00

talking about jake plummer, one of those idiots just said "he got his nickname the snake for the things he can do with his legs." yeah. probably.

guy language blending together yet again

2006-10-09T13:51:00.000-04:00

some of my reader will probably have heard me talk about the interest i have in the idioms of war, sports and business each being ripped from their natural homes to become cliches in the idiom of the other two. so sportscasters talk about charging machine gun nests and quote patton, business people talk about slam dunks and brushback pitches and you get a mercenary group in africa called executive outcomes. maybe it's cause each of these endeavors is by itself too flawed to get too excited about on its own merits. maybe business is too boring, sports is too insignificant, and war is too ghastly. i bring this up cause a sentence in a mike lupica column about firing joe torre (ha-ha) jumped out at me and stabbed me in the eye. see if you can pick out the sentence from the following paragraph:

This isn't a referendum on whether or not Torre has been a great manager and a great Yankee. He has. Just for what he has done to grow Steinbrenner's business, he has been the best top manager in sports.

i'll give you a clue: grow steinbrenner's fucking business?for fuck's sake. i mostly like lupica when he isn't sitting on top of the ladder he's mounted on his high horse, but what the fuck does growing steinbrenner's business have to do with anything?

language

2006-10-05T14:33:00.000-04:00

was hanging out in the bar under my house with a couple friends yesterday, plotting facetiously to get rich while ruining the english language teaching career of my friend bruno in the czech republic. the owner of the bar is argentinian. he was joining in the plot, and suggested that the best way would be to start a church. he was explaining all the ways you can make money once you have a good solid church going, and he said the key was "domesticating the people to come spend all their time in your church." naturally i cracked up, but i guess in spanish the word "domesticar" is sometimes applied to people, though it connotes a sort of animal behavior or mentality in the domesticated.

happy birthday

2006-10-03T11:33:00.000-04:00

it's my mom's birthday today. if anyone's interested in her who hasn't seen it, here's a resolution passed by the texas legislature in her memory. and yeah, it's a little odd that when i'm looking for a neutral public history of her i turn to the texas legislature.

anyway, if anyone wants to celebrate her birthday, as i think she would have wanted, i recommend 1. eating south indian food, petting a dog, 2. helping someone who needs it without a: dwelling on it, b: telling anyone about it, or c: counting the cost of it, or 3. adjourning the texas legislature.

what a bunch of wankers

2006-10-02T11:26:00.000-04:00

those morons from espn in the tank for the republicans? woulda thunk it?

For several years, ESPN has been manufacturing fake cheers and fake boos for politicians. It's a very simple rule. If you are a Democrat not named Joe Lieberman, ESPN will play a tape of boos previously recorded and insert them into the audio after the Democrat is announced. If you are a Republican and ESPN is expecting boos, ESPN will play a pre-recorded tape of cheers unrelated to the Republican.

I've witnessed for years former ESPN commentator like Chris Myers call home runs to right field "a Rush Limbaugh shot, right and fair." I've seen in studio college football analysts gush over Ann Coulter. I've listened to ESPN constantly hype individuals who are well known figures in the Religious Right. I've heard a basketball commentator call Jerry Falwell a good man during a basketball game.
[...]
When John Kerry was shown on screen at a Red Sox game in 2004, ESPN played a tape of boos. It was NOT the crowd reaction. I knew the tape was fake by that quick click that transitions from live to pre-recorded. ESPN has done this stunt of playing fake cheers and fake boos time and time again. Last night, during Monday Night Football, ESPN did it again. I heard that same click.

It started with right winger Mike Tirico announcing George Bush Sr. to the crowd. Instantaneously you could hear an echo of cheers and not a single boo from the audio. But if you listen carefully to the audio, that audio was not live. ESPN shut off the sound of the Superdome crowd for a few seconds and played this audio of fake cheers. About ten seconds later ESPN had to shut their fake tape off and go to the NFL official on the field for the coin toss. That's when you could hear the REAL crowd noise. The audio on the field was a couple of hundred feet away so ESPN was probably thinking that crowd noise could not be picked up. ESPN was wrong.
.
As George Bush Sr. was flipping the coin, you could hear a chorus of boos so loud that ESPN had its proverbial hand caught in the cookie jar. And remember, this was ten seconds after the announcements so imagine what the initial boos sounded like. New Orleans residents know better than anyone else how Bush 43 responded to Katrina and they know better than anyone else about Barbara Bush's comments about poor people and how sleeping in the Astrodome was "working out quite well for them."

dream/thriller

2006-09-29T12:08:00.000-04:00

i had a dream last night that i thought would make a hell of an airplane novel for uncritical readers. sadly many of the details have escaped me, but it centered around some kids who'd been students at an ivy league school, i think princeton, but did something bad and wound up in jail. BUT... they found out about a plot to blow up the school which had cast them out. and did they turn their backs on that school? i'm sure you'll be surprised to learn that they did not. knowing no one would believe them because of their felonious pasts, they banded together and took on the bad guys themselves. it was very moving. now that i think about it, it might be more of a sunday night abc movie, assuming such a thing still exists. what does it mean if you dream sunday night movies but don't ever watch them?

if i had to rank them, i'd say this is the second best movie plot i've ever dreamt, after the one about the multi-racial band of fireworks operators who foil an al qaeda plot to poison their midwestern town on the fourth of july by shooting down the poison delivery vehicle with their fireworks. though i might have been awake when i come up with that one. i'm not totally sure, but i think my dreams are a little less cynical.

torture

2006-09-29T11:31:00.000-04:00

jesus' general seems to have the most appropriate interpretation.

i don't know what to make of this

2006-09-29T11:16:00.000-04:00

apparently more and more of our nation's children are being tutored not by mom and dad, or some no-account college kid down the block, but by professional tutors located in india.

Private tutors are a luxury many American families cannot afford, costing anywhere between $25 to $100 an hour. But California mother Denise Robison found one online for $2.50 an hour -- in India.

"It's made the biggest difference. My daughter is literally at the top of every single one of her classes and she has never done that before," said Robison, a single mother from Modesto.

Her 13-year-old daughter, Taylor, is one of 1,100 Americans enrolled in Bangalore-based TutorVista, which launched U.S. services last November with a staff of 150 "e-tutors" mostly in India with a fee of $100 a month for unlimited hours.

Taylor took two-hour sessions each day for five days a week in math and English -- a cost that tallies to $2.50 an hour, a fraction of the $40 an hour charged by U.S.-based online tutors such as market leader Tutor.com that draw on North American teachers, or the usual $100 an hour for face-to-face sessions.

"I like to tell people I did private tutoring every day for the cost of a fast-food meal or a Starbucks' coffee," Robison said. "We did our own form of summer school all summer."

The outsourcing trend that fueled a boom in Asian call centers staffed by educated, low-paid workers manning phones around the clock for U.S. banks and other industries is moving fast into an area at the heart of U.S. culture: education.

It comes at a difficult time for the U.S. education system: only two-thirds of teenagers graduate from high school, a proportion that slides to 50 percent for black Americans and Hispanics, according to government statistics.

China and India, meanwhile, are producing the world's largest number of science and engineering graduates -- at least five times as many as in the United States, where the number has fallen since the early 1980s.

Parents using schools like Taylor's say they are doing whatever they can to give children an edge that can lead to better marks, better colleges and a better future, even if it comes with an Indian accent about 9,000 miles away.

SLANG & AMERICAN ACCENTS

"We've changed the paradigm of tutoring," said Krishnan Ganesh, founder and chairman of TutorVista, which offers subjects ranging from grammar to geometry for children as young as 6 years old to adults in college.

"It's not that the U.S. education system is not good. It's just that it's impossible to give personalized education at an affordable cost unless you use technology, unless you use the Internet and unless you can use lower-cost job centers like India," he said over a crackly Internet-phone line from Bangalore. "We can deliver that."

Many of the tutors have masters degrees in their subjects, said Ganesh. On average, they have taught for 10 years. Each undergoes 60 hours of training, including lessons on how to speak in a U.S. accent and how to decipher American slang.

They are schooled on U.S. history and state curricula, and work in mini-call centers or from their homes across India. One operates out of Hong Kong, teaching the Chinese language.

As with other Indian e-tutoring firms such as Growing Stars Inc., students log on to TutorVista's Web site and are assigned lessons by tutors who communicate using voice-over-Internet technology and an instant messaging window. They share a simulated whiteboard on their computers.

Denise Robison said Taylor had trouble understanding her tutor's accent at first. "Now that she is used to it, it doesn't bother her at all," she said.

[...]

A New Delhi tutoring company, Educomp Solutions Ltd., estimates the U.S. tutoring market at $8 billion and growing. Online companies, both from the United States and India, are looking to tap millions of dollars available to firms under the U.S. No Child Left Behind Act for remedial tutoring.

Teachers unions hope to stop that from happening.

"Tutoring providers must keep in frequent touch with not only parents but classroom teachers and we believe there is greater difficulty in an offshore tutor doing that," said Nancy Van Meter, a director at the American Federation of Teachers.

But No Child Left Behind, a signature Bush administration policy, encourages competition among tutoring agencies and leaves the door open for offshore tutors, said Diane Stark Rentner of the Center on Education Policy in Washington.

"The big test is whether the kids are actually learning. Until you answer that, I don't know if you can pass judgment on whether this is a good or bad way to go," she said.

on the one hand, yay for less-well off kids getting more individualized education. on the other hand, our society suffers when jobs are sent overseas. and i do think there are some drawbacks to not having face to face (f2f) contact between teachers and students. and i definitely do not think public money should go to outsourced tutoring. would be curious what my reader thinks.

for that percentage of my reader who's adopted a child from overseas, are you not flying in the face of convention a bit? shouldn't you maybe have e-dopted him instead?

which super hero are you?

2006-09-28T13:02:00.000-04:00

turns out i'm spiderman with a side of superman.
Your results:
You are Spider-Man
Spider-Man: 75%
Superman: 60%
Green Lantern: 50%
The Flash: 45%
Supergirl: 43%
Iron Man: 40%
Catwoman: 40%
Hulk: 35%
Batman: 35%
Wonder Woman: 33%

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

nb: i removed one superhero from this list, on account of i'm not goddamn robin. goddamn it.

anyway, i'd be curious to see my reader's results.

good video

2006-09-26T13:43:00.000-04:00

can you be ironically unironic?

2006-09-26T12:13:00.000-04:00

it's a rare thing, but slate has an interesting piece up (hat tip to dastardly for the article):

The white-collar temple IBM is usually not a source of pop-cultural memes. But this reputation may be receding, thanks to a trio of comedic videos topping the charts on YouTube. Shot in the mock-doc style of The Office, these parodies of internal training videos feature a group of sales executives as they pump themselves up with canned corporate wisdom and hawk million-dollar servers by cold-calling random names from the phone book. In other words, they make fun of IBM at its stodgy core. And while Steve Carell's job is probably safe, what is interesting about these shorts is that they were made by IBM using actual company executives, not paid actors or comedians.

Whatever one's opinion about the content of these videos—making mainframe servers funny is a challenge, no matter how much comedic coaching you buy—this scenario raises some interesting questions. Must everybody try to be funny these days? Are we now compelled, as a culture, to be comical, no matter the setting or the endeavor? And if so, what on earth gave rise to this troubling idea?
[...]
The comedic personalities garnering the most airtime tend to be regular folks (Who doesn't love Raymond? Or Kevin James from King of Queens?) speaking in a universal language of baseline observations ("Men and women often have different approaches to situations, especially when they are married!") about the most pedestrian aspects of life ("Hey, I fight with my spouse about the laundry/kids/in-laws as well … my world must be equally hilarious"), which makes comedy seem like an endeavor that the Everyman should undertake. The end result? The guy standing next to you in line at Starbucks sounds like a nondescript sitcom actor that even your TiVo can't stand.

A related cause could be the contemporary avoidance of sincerity. Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter's post-9/11 declaration pronouncing the death of irony is, five years later, the misstatement of the millennium. From sneakers to cell-phone ring-tones to rain on your wedding day, everything is ironic. Or, more accurately, everything is sarcastic, the less-literary stepcousin of irony. Unlike irony, sarcasm can be printed on a T-shirt or written into every tenth line of an ESPN newscast with the generic (and easily aped) voice of mocking detachment that is so prevalent today.

What is the upside of being funny? Well, apart from getting noticed, it's safer to hide behind the mask of humor, especially in a culture skeptical of intellectualism. Andrew Stott, an English professor whose academic treatise Comedy explored the philosophy of humor, sees it like this: "Being funny is a means of avoiding scrutiny. It's a deeply concealing activity that invites attention while simultaneously failing to offer any detailed account of oneself. The reason humor is so popular today is that it provides the comfort of intimacy without the horror of actually being intimate." Thus, schlock-jock Opie & Anthony clones rule drive-time America while truth-tellers like Bill Hicks linger in relative obscurity.

[...]
The only solution is for some of us to voluntarily retire from the humor game. Let me be the first to forge a new reality by pledging never to try to be funny again. I can only hope that the executives at IBM read this and follow suit, if they're not already busy filming a sitcom pilot for Fox on some back lot in Studio City.

so i'm taking the pledge. no jokes of any sort for 48 hours.

joan crawford

2006-09-25T16:38:00.000-04:00

anyone ever wonder what mommy dearest would have looked like if joan crawford had been, i don't know, crazy?

bedtime reading

2006-09-25T11:31:00.000-04:00

i stayed up late last night reading this biography of hirohito, and the result was some pretty weird dreams. if anyone seriously doubts that it would be a little disconcerting to believe yourself divine because you are the emperor of japan and then come to the conclusion that you are not, all i can say is you've had different experiences than i have.

easy target, schmeasy target

2006-09-22T16:31:00.000-04:00

what do people think? is that a real baby or something spielberg threw together for the lovebirds?

business idea

2006-09-20T15:08:00.001-04:00

so a couple friends (one of whom is female) and i came up with a business idea yesterday: helium filled breast implants for stewardesses. they're light, so easier on the back. plus, they would expand at high altitude due to lower air pressure, meaning that the wearers would be more stacked the higher up they went, but could remain relatively normally endowed on the ground. anyone want in on the ground floor?

r.i.p, steve-o

2006-09-20T11:02:00.000-04:00

so as my reader knows well, steve-o irwin, the crocodile botherer, was killed a couple weeks ago by a stingray which pierced him through the heart with its stinger. i've been trying to figure out what i think of steve-o since. it's sort of complicated. germaine greer wrote a really nasty piece about him in the guardian:

What Irwin never seemed to understand was that animals need space. The one lesson any conservationist must labour to drive home is that habitat loss is the principal cause of species loss. There was no habitat, no matter how fragile or finely balanced, that Irwin hesitated to barge into, trumpeting his wonder and amazement to the skies. There was not an animal he was not prepared to manhandle. Every creature he brandished at the camera was in distress. Every snake badgered by Irwin was at a huge disadvantage, with only a single possible reaction to its terrifying situation, which was to strike. Easy enough to avoid, if you know what's coming. Even my cat knew that much. Those of us who live with snakes, as I do with no fewer than 12 front-fanged venomous snake species in my bit of Queensland rainforest, know that they will get out of our way if we leave them a choice. Some snakes are described as aggressive, but, if you're a snake, unprovoked aggression doesn't make sense. Snakes on a plane only want to get off. But Irwin was an entertainer, a 21st-century version of a lion-tamer, with crocodiles instead of lions.

In 2004, Irwin was accused of illegally encroaching on the space of penguins, seals and humpback whales in Antarctica, where he was filming a documentary called Ice Breaker. An investigation by the Australian Environmental Department resulted in no action being taken, which is not surprising seeing that John Howard, the prime minister, made sure that Irwin was one of the guests invited to a "gala barbecue" for George Bush a few months before. Howard is now Irwin's chief mourner, which is only fair, seeing that Irwin announced that Howard is the greatest leader the world has ever seen.

The animal world has finally taken its revenge on Irwin, but probably not before a whole generation of kids in shorts seven sizes too small has learned to shout in the ears of animals with hearing 10 times more acute than theirs, determined to become millionaire animal-loving zoo-owners in their turn.

and yet... i don't know. now that we got cable in the snidelycave i been watching the animal planet a fair bit, and i have to admit some fondness for him. they had a life of steve irwin thing yesterday. he said two things that really struck me. one, which i don't dispute at all, but which was good to hear him say, was that any time any of the animals gets him, it's his fault, because he's provoking them, and he knows what their reaction will be. the other thing i thought was more controversial. he said something to the effect that the days of the long lens shots of animals are over, to engage people with animals, to make people really care about animals, you have to get up close to them (and presumably grab them by their tails and sling them around). i do think he reached people that more staid, traditional animal shows didn't. i don't see how anyone can not watch the shows. even if you hate what he's doing, there's always the possibility he's going to get mauled. but on the other hand, you don't really get too much information about the animals beyond that if they are grabbed by the tail they are going to try like hell to bite the grabber. and i think it's possible that the volume of steve-o drowned out some of the more sustainable, nuanced animal shows. and the model he provided for human-animal interaction was basically that of a swirlie-giving, noogie-ing, wedgie-ing older brother to a cute, dumb younger brother with sharp teeth. on the other other hand, from the little i know about the subject, it does seem as though he put his money to good use in terms of preserving habitat and all that. so if 40 crocodiles, 6 fer-de-lances, 2 hippos, a puma, 5 boas, and god knows how many other animals got bothered in exchange for the preservation of habitat for thousands of other animals maybe that's a trade that's worth making.

anyway, would be real curious to hear my reader's thoughts.

wildlife

2006-09-20T00:01:00.000-04:00

was discussing the galapagos with a friend of mine yesterday.
snidely: wait, are walruses the ones that bark?
friend: no, that's seals. walruses are the ones that roll over their own babies.

revenge is a dish best served sauteed in garlic, or in a nice salad with walnuts

2006-09-19T16:44:00.000-04:00

so my reader may well have heard about the e coli/spinach unpleasantness. as a vegan, i can say it's taken away dramatically from one of my hobbies, which is smirking a bit when i hear of food-related or food-borne illnesses. i've long theorized* that mad cow disease was probably invented in p.e.t.a.'s laboratories. what do people think? is the spinach thing the work of the national beef council?

*=on the basis of zero evidence, for any snoopy type people reading this

segway

2006-09-14T14:25:00.000-04:00

hee hee. i wandered into a segway convention in dc about a year ago. it's an odd thing to seek or expect affinity in people because they own one of the same things that you do. long-tail personal relationships maybe, with geography not being the major limiting factor it has been historically any more. anyway, apparently they got a little glitch.

It was billed as a device that would change the world, with the cities of the future designed around its revolutionary capabilities.

But the Segway electric scooter now seems to be heading the way of the Sinclair C5, after its manufacturers announced that all 23,500 models would be recalled today because of a software problem that causes it to throw off its riders.

Segway said that a problem with the self-balancing scooter's internal programs could cause its wheels to unexpectedly switch into reverse.

The company had received six reports of Segways failing to operate, causing injuries to the heads and wrists of several riders.

The incidents seemed particularly likely to occur when riders tried to slow down one of the scooters by pulling back on its upright handlebars.

good soccer team

2006-09-13T12:46:00.000-04:00

so barcelona, the soccer team i root for the most after ireland, being a relentless front-runner and jumper-on of bandwagons, is doing GOOD WORKS:

For over a century club bosses stubbornly resisted the march of time and capitalism to keep their team strip sponsor-free, at a time when every other club from football's upper echelons right down to your average Sunday League side had given in to financial expediency. To be fair this may have profited them, with their logo-free red-and-blue-striped tops taking on something of an iconic status worldwide, and it was always assumed that when they did eventually sell out they would be all set to command unparalleled sums for the taking of their sponsorship virginity

Instead, quite without warning, Barcelona's top brass have gone in a very different direction. Last Thursday, president Joan Laporta signed up to a five-year collaborative agreement with Unicef that will see Barcelona not only sport the children's charity's banner on its shirts, which they did for the first time yesterday night against Levski Sofia, but also contribute just over £1m to its humanitarian projects each year. Obviously that sort of money is barely going to register a dent in the club's finances, but if you take into account how much they could have made from selling to a conventional sponsor [surely even more than Juventus's £15m-a-year deal with Tamoil], the decision is staggering.
[...]

The conspiracy theorists will paint this as just another cynical marketing ploy by a club that is doing a fine job of casting itself as 'everybody's second favourite team', but with the sort of popularity and worldwide appeal they already had, I find that argument hard to swallow. Barcelona's squeaky-clean image has been overstated at times and I don't doubt for a second that they have been guilty of as much gamesmanship and underhand tactics on the pitch as any other team, but after constant reminders of the greed in football over recent weeks, let's give some credit where it's due to a team that's giving something back, even if only a little.

it's sort of interesting to me that people are suspicious of barca for sticking a unicef logo on their shirts. a few years ago i was at the halloween parade here in new york. these idiots (who i think i later ended up working with) were going all knee-trembly over the various floats and things sponsored by internet companies. then grampa munster, who was running for mayor on the green party line, came strolling by. oh didn't that piss off the knee-trembly people. "this isn't the place to bring your messages" one of them said. like, uh, buy my products? but the theory i brought away from this occasion is that blatant commercial motives are acceptable to many people even while they are suspicious of seemingly altruistic motives. anyone else have any experiences along those lines?

maybe i'm becoming bitter

2006-09-13T12:39:00.000-04:00

but this movie sounds appealing:

In a nutshell, On an army base in Virginia, we are introduced to Private Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson), an average man who wants nothing more out of life than to finish the last six years of his time in the military so he can collect a nice pension. Against his protests, Joe is volunteered for a top-secret project, the Human Hibernation Project. For years, the armed forces have been training a number of excellent pilots, soldiers and officers, only to see their entire careers wasted during extended times of peace. So before the military sends their best and brightest into deep sleep, they want to test these hibernation chambers on ordinary test subjects. Thus, the most average person in the Army will be the first test subject: Joe, who is unmarried, childless and an only child with no living relatives to ask nosy questions if something goes wrong. Unable to find a suitable female soldier, the brass are forced out into the private sector, bringing in a young woman named Rita (Maya Rudolph), who only agrees to join up in exchange for the dropping of some criminal charges and a fee paid to her pimp, Upgrayedd (with two D's for "a double dose of the pimpin'"). As is wont to happen, the project doesn’t quite go the way it was planned, and Joe and Rita are kept in hibernation for five hundred years, until a tidal wave of trash their pods have become a part of sends them crashing into an unfamiliar future, which has become overrun with simpleton mongoloids, caused by hundreds of years of overbreeding by the cesspool of society and a lack of breeding by the best and brightest.

In my January 2004 review of the screenplay, I said “So savage and scabrous does this screenplay get at times, this reviewer cannot imagine the powers of be allowing everything in the script to make it to the final cut. Which would be a shame, because what makes the screenplay so uproarious is its brutal honesty about what is happening with the world today.” There are a number of minor scenes that ended up being scaled down or outright truncated between the writing of the screenplay and the release of the final film, but that could also be because Judge was never given a proper chance to finish the film as he saw fit. (Rumor has it that Robert Rodriguez donated a number of special effects shots to help Judge, a fellow Austin filmmaker, get the film completed, one that could have a basis in fact, judging from the special thank you Troublemaker Studios gets in the film’s end credits.) What is surprising, though, is how much of the screenplay actually did make it to the screen. (Rumor also has it that the film was the target of a civil suit by several large corporations who were unhappy with the way they were being satirized in the film, and the lawsuit helped the studio lose confidence in the film, even though this all happened after the film was greenlit.) The favorite channels of the future being The Masturbation Channel and Fox News. The favorite television show being “Ow! My Balls!” and the favorite film being “Ass” (a single shot of a bare ass, which farts every few seconds). The size of a Costco being bigger than a large city. Starbucks being a place where you can get a lot more than a coffee (if you know what I mean, huh huh).

Like many of the greatest cinematic comedies, “Idiocracy” is a lean machine, clocking in at a mere 83 minutes. It sets up its premise succinctly and gets right into the story, flooring the acceleration right from the get-go and never looking back until the very end. Not a moment is wasted. Everything that happens on the screen is there for a reason, every joke set up to payoff two or three more down the road. And like all great comedies, having a talented cast with the smarts to trust in their filmmaker makes all the difference in the world. Luke Wilson gamely spirits Jimmy Stewart as the story’s everyman, constantly befuddled at what the world has become, while Maya Rudolph shines in her too few scenes at the prostitute who quickly comes to understand she has a lot more advantages in the future than she ever would have had in the present. Dax Shepard and “Everybody Hates Chris’s” Terry Crews are always hilarious as Joe’s future lawyer and the WWE-esque President of the United States, respectively, and there are great cameos from “Office Space” vets David Herman, Greg Pitts and Stephen Root.

Mike Judge is like a modern Lenny Bruce, recognized as a genius in his time but destined to become an immortal, the impact of his jabs not truly felt until years and decades after. “Idiocracy” will find its audience in the very near future, and that audience will chuckle, chortle, snicker, cackle and guffaw at how right Judge got it. But then they will stop laughing and remember one of the opening lines in the narration, “Evolution does not necessarily reward that which is good or beautiful, it simply rewards those who reproduce the most,” and will begin to cry, as the scenario depicted in “Idiocracy” is truly becoming more and more a probability with every passing day.

billmon, as usual has sommat interesting to say on the subject of the literary antecedents of the movie:

It only adds to the instant personal appeal of his new flick that the plot appears to be loosely based on a short story by Cyril M. Kornbluth, a notoriously dyspeptic and misanthropic science fiction writer from the 1950s.

To call Kornbluth a Social Darwinist would be much too kind --- his view of his fellow humans was more like a technician studying a cage full of diseased lab rats than a sociologist trying to justify economic class distinctions. Kornbluth firmly believed that humanity was, as he put it, polluting its own gene pool by allowing "defective" members of the species to reproduce. Over time, he said, this would lead to the progressive retardation of the masses and the eventual collapse of what we quaintly like to call civilization.

It is hard -- very hard -- to look at the modern Republican Party and not suspect Kornbluth may have had a point.

If his genetic theories make Kornbluth sound like an out-and-out Nazi, he certainly never went to any great lengths to dispel the impression. In his dystopian future, the world is secretly ruled by a tiny elite of geniuses (perpetuated through a strict eugenic breeding program) who work nonstop to develop high-tech tools that are powerful yet simple -- so simple even complete idiots can use them. Somewhat like Microsoft Office, in other words.

In the end, Kornbluth's time traveler persuades the smarties to solve their population problem by conning the morons into boarding space ships to emigrate to Venus -- and then ejecting them out the airlocks into space. Borrowing a page from Hitler's playbook, the organizers of this astral genocide even mail phony postcards to the remaining morons back on earth -- "Havin a wunderful time, wish u wer heer."

Needless to say, it doesn't get more politically incorrect than that. It might seem to make Kornbluth a natural for a slot on the Pioneer Fund's board of directors, or a co-author for Charles Murray's next book -- that is, if Cyril hadn't died at the relatively tender age of 34 in 1958 (owing, natch, to a genetic defect that led to chronic hypertension.)

But Kornbluth, at least as far as I can tell, was no racist. He hated everyone -- without regard to race, creed, color or national origin. And he hated stupid people most of all, which I imagine would have made the Cheney presidency almost unendurable for him. He also was blessed with a sharp intellect, a biting wit, and a gift for the English language -- which probably explains why hardly anybody has heard of him today. If he was alive, he'd probably be in Guantanamo by now (or running the Justice Department).

deadwood

2006-09-12T13:14:00.000-04:00

so my reader might appreciate this bit of dialogue from deadwood. hearst, the champion evil guy in the camp, is talking to two henchmen of swearengen, who is the former champion evil guy in the camp, but now at best maybe 5th place in the evil stakes, though probably the second most powerful guy in town. johnny is his dumb henchman, dan dority is his badass henchman. hearst has not to recently inflicted a fair bit of violence on swearengen, to whom both henchmen are devoted.

hearst (from his balcony): good morning.
johnny (bitterly) : mornin'.
dan dority : mornin's the best time of day to go and fuck yourself.

season's greetings

2006-09-11T11:22:00.000-04:00

i'd like to wish my reader a very happy Thank THE MAN for your freedom day. remember, freedom isn't free. it's a reward from the almighty for thinking what you're told to think, and not asking awkward questions.

my old company, up to new stupid tricks

2006-09-07T11:18:00.000-04:00

not sure if my reader is aware of the 9/11 docudrama abc has patched together out of bush campaign commercials and fox news reports. it's all held together, apparently, with christopher hitchins' drool, which has remarkable adhesive powers, but which is about 180 proof. abc has apparently pre-screened the movie to such neutral observers as rush limbaugh and some right wing blogger named patterico, but hasn't sent them to, for instance, the clinton people depicted in the film. here's roger cressey, who was a counterterrorism official for both clinton and the monkey, talking about the movie:

CRESSY: Joe, it’s amazing, based on what I’ve seen so far is how much they’ve gotten wrong. They got the small stuff wrong such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed instructing Ahmed Rassam to carry out the millenium attacks. Then they got the big stuff wrong, this fantasy about how we had a CIA officer and the Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Massoud looking at Bin Laden and they breathlessly call the White House to say we need to take him out and the White House said no. I mean it’s sheer fantasy. So, if they want to critique the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, based on fact, I think that’s fine. But what ABC has done here is something straight out of Disney and fantasyland. It’s factually wrong. And that’s shameful.

SCARBOROUGH: But at the same time, doesn’t history show that Bill Clinton had several opportunities to go after bin Laden, but the President and his cabinet were afraid to do so because they may offend some people in the Arab world?

CRESSY: Actually, Joe, that had nothing to do with it. If you read the 9/11 Commission report, it makes it very clear. In most of those cases, George Tenet, the Director of the CIA, said because there was single source intelligence it was his recommendation to the President not to take the shot. There was never a case where we had a clear shot at Bin Laden and the decision to take it wasn’t made.

now it emerges that my old company, scholastic, has teamed up with abc to provide educational-brand materials to schools based on the movie.

if anyone's interested, scholastic can be reached at this number: 212-343-6400

they've apparently already removed links to the materials from their web site. but it's still not clear if they're distributing the crap. if anyone is interested, it wouldn't hurt my feelings much if they were provided with a piece of your minds.

dunking booths

2006-09-05T17:05:00.000-04:00

so as my reader may be aware, lynn swann, nfl hall of famer and former steelers' receiver and later styleless imitator of ahmad rashad as a football "journalist", is running for governor in pennslyvania as a republican. apparently franco harris is campaigning for his opponent.

anyway, swanny had a little incident at the fair this weekend:

The Republican candidate for governor was touring the Allentown Fair when he drew the attention of one of the mouthy clowns who sits in the dunk tank, taunting passers-by. After Swann missed the target with several balls, the clown went for the jugular.

''I hope you do better at the polls, buddy,'' he yelled.

That did it. Swann, who had turned to leave, went back to the tank, throwing ball after ball until he hit the target. As the clown dropped into the water, Swann stuck his fists in the air, beaming in triumph.

the story brought back an interesting memory from my childhood. i went to a catholic grade school that ~~set money aside for future settlements~~ offset the cost of tuition through an annual carnival. me and several smaller snidely siblings went with my dad one year, i think when i was in sixth grade. i didn't totally process this, but my dad apparently found some people to buy him beer at the beer tent, which meant he was pretty blotto. the carnival had a dunk tank. at one point, the pastor of the church which operated the school took his turn. my dad discovered this opportunity and brought all the little whiplashes over to try our hand. he had it in for this guy for a number of reasons, some personal (he failed to adequately condemn divorce) and some as a result of honest and heartfelt disagreement on catholic dogma (the church occasionally had guitar music during services).

unfortunately, the cheap catholic bastards set the throwing line pretty far back from the target, and i missed. dammit. optimistically, my dad funded attempts by the smaller (and less athletically inclined (gasp)) whiplashes, and then from me again. no dice. my dad was, as usual, impecunious, so we were defeated in short order. or were we? cause my dad sort of meandered around to the booth, from where he watched further throws. i think the school secretary missed, and missed badly. my dad shouted "no, hit it here, barbara!" andthumped the target attached to the lever that released the stool. splash. wet, surprised monsignor.

all in all it was a pretty interesting experience.

map fun

2006-08-31T17:53:00.000-04:00

try this one out, reader. i struggled a bit with algeria and oman.

"you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means."

2006-08-30T12:17:00.000-04:00

here's a story on cnn: The new GOP buzzword: Fascism.

i guess i don't really see what their interest is in reinforcing the perjorative implications of that word.

ol' robert zimmerman

2006-08-29T14:58:00.000-04:00

the bright boys at sadly, no have put together a list of their top 10 favorite dylan lyrics. since about half of my reader is a big dylan head, i'd be curious to see how that list compares with y'all's.

also, the entries to the spurious love-letter contest keep pouring in. dammit, real prizes. real ones!

new contest : spurious love letters

2006-08-28T17:46:00.000-04:00

alright, we're going to have a new contest here at snidely, one with real, actual, though yet to be determined prizes. it's inspired by whichever wag perpetrated this prank. the challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to write a love-letter purportedly from a publicly known figure in history or literature. the letter should also include a hidden insult, either to someone associated with the purported author of the letter, or to anyone likely to read it who you want to insult. i hope dastardly can be prevailed upon to judge this one as well, in view of his past successes, but i haven't actually gotten around to asking him.

joementum

2006-08-28T17:36:00.000-04:00

my reader probably knows or can surmise that i was up for ned lamont, who won the democratic senate primary in connecticut over holy joe lieberman. but looking at the website for lieberman's independent campaign has really made me reconsider my preferences. it's worth a look, reader.

hee-hee

2006-08-28T14:02:00.000-04:00

below is a love letter purportedly written by john betjemann, the poet who wrote, among other things, slough. the letter is addressed to honor tracy, who betjeman had some unexplained connection with. anyway here ya go:

Darling Honor,

I loved yesterday. All day, I've thought of nothing else. No other love I've had means so much. Was it just an aberration on your part, or will you meet me at Mrs Holmes's again - say on Saturday? I won't be able to sleep until I have your answer.

Love has given me a miss for so long, and now this miracle has happened. Sex is a part of it, of course, but I have a Romaunt of the Rose feeling about it too. On Saturday we could have lunch at Fortt's, then go back to Mrs H's. Never mind if you can't make it then. I am free on Sunday too or Sunday week. Signal me tomorrow as to whether and when you can come.

Anthony Powell has written to me, and mentions you admiringly. Some of his comments about the Army are v funny. He's somebody I'd like to know better when the war is over. I find his letters funnier than his books. Tinkerty-tonk, my darling. I pray I'll hear from you tomorrow. If I don't I'll visit your office in a fake beard.
All love, JB

it was included in his biography by his biographer, a.n. wilson. the good part is, if you take the first letter of each sentence after the first one, it spells out "A.N. WILSON IS A SHIT".

the theory seems to be that it was done by someone who'd been dissed by a.n. wilson, which makes a certain amount of sense. but i would love to believe it was john betjeman himself, having some premonition that a.n. wilson would eventually be prying into the details of his life. i also like the idea of one of the better recent english language poets signing off with the phrase "tinkerty-tonk".

just a few of my favorite things

2006-08-28T13:33:00.000-04:00

well, one anyway:

google is watching

2006-08-28T13:08:00.000-04:00

this article from the guardian talks about something that gives me a fair bit of pause from time to time, to wit, that google very possibly knows more about you than anyone else, through searches and emails and that kind of stuff.

In March this year, a man with a passion for Portuguese football, living in a city in Florida, was drinking heavily because his wife was having an affair. He typed his troubles into the search window of his computer. "My wife doesnt love animore," he told the machine. He searched for "Stop your divorce" and "I want revenge to my wife" before turning to self-examination with "alchool withdrawl", "alchool withdrawl sintoms" (at 10 in the morning) and "disfunctional erection". On April 1 he was looking for a local medium who could "predict my futur".

But what could a psychic guess about him compared with what the world now knows? This story is one of hundreds, perhaps tens of thousands, revealed this month when AOL published the details of 23m searches made by 650,000 of its customers during a three-month period earlier in the year. The searches were actually carried out by Google - from which AOL buys in its search functions.

The gigantic database detailing these customers' search inquiries was available on an AOL research site for just a few hours before the company realised that substituting numbers for users' names did not really protect their identities enough. The company apologised for its mistake - and removed the database from the internet. The researcher who published the material has been sacked, as has his manager, and last week AOL's chief technology officer, Maureen Govern, resigned. But those few hours online were enough for the raw data files to be copied all over the internet, and there are now four or five sites where anyone can search through them using specialised software.

What was published by AOL represents only a tiny fraction of the accumulated knowledge warehoused within Google's records - but it has given all of us, as users, a dramatic and unsettling glimpse of how much, and in what intimate detail, the big search engines know about us.

The number of searches Google carries out is a secret, but comScore, an independent firm, reckons that the search engine performed 2.7bn searches by American users alone in July this year. Yahoo, its main rival, conducted around 1.8bn American searches in the same month; Microsoft's MSN around 800m and AOL 366m.

All of this information is stored. Google identifies every computer that connects to it with an implant (known as a cookie) which will not expire until 2038. If you also use Gmail, Google knows your email address - and, of course, keeps all your email searchable. If you sign up to have Google ads on a website, then the company knows your bank account details and home address, as well as all your searches. If you have a blog on the free blogger service, Google owns that. The company also knows, of course, the routes you have looked up on Google maps. Yahoo operates a similar range of services.

All this knowledge has been handed over quite freely by us as users. It is the foundation of Google's fortune because it allows the company to target very precisely the advertising it sends in our direction. Other companies have equally ambitious plans: an application lodged on August 10 with the US Patent & Trademark Office showed that Amazon is hoping to patent ways of interrogating a database that would record not just what its 59 million customers have bought - which it already knows - or what they would like to buy (which, with their wish lists, they tell the world) but their income, sexual orientation, religion and ethnicity. The company, of course, already knows who we are and where we live.

Even though the search logs that AOL released were made anonymous, by assigning a number to each user, it is not difficult in many cases to discover somebody's name from their search queries. And it is easy to follow exactly what users were thinking as they sat at their computers, in the apparent privacy of their own homes, since the time and date of every search is given.

On April 4, for instance, user 14162375, the melancholy Portuguese-American in Florida, seems to have passed out on the keyboard at 6.20pm, when he asked, suddenly, "llllfkkgjnnvjjfokrb" then "vvvvbmkmjk" and "vvglhkitopppfoppr". An hour later he had recovered enough to search for variations on his wife's name - he thought she might have moved to New England. On the evening of April 16, matters came to a head. "My cheating wife," he typed; and then, five times, "I want to kill myself," and then "I want to make my wife suffer," followed quickly by "Kill my wifes mistress," "My wifes ass," "A cheating wife". Two days after that he was back looking for audio surveillance and bugging equipment and four weeks later he seemed to have cheered up and was looking for motorcycle insurance.

The story stops abruptly there, at the end of May, because that is when the three months' worth of released AOL search records came to an end.

One of the first researchers to demonstrate that we will tell anything, however intimate, to a computer, was Joseph Weizenbaum of MIT, who in 1966 wrote a programme called "Eliza" that parodied non-directional psychotherapy. If the user typed anything in, Eliza would appear to ask a question based on that cue. In no time at all, unhappy students were telling the computer all their troubles as if there were a real and sympathetic person behind the screen. Stories and jokes about this circulated for decades, but the men most successful at turning this concept into a fortune were the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergei Brin. As users, we think that the Google search engine is a way of supplying us with information about what's on the web. But the flow of information is two way. We ask Google things that we would hesitate to ask anyone living. The price for the answers is that Google remembers it all.

[...]

These stories, with all the revealing information they contain, cannot always easily be tied to a specific individual, but sometimes they can. The social security number, with which all Americans are issued, conforms to a recognisable pattern which is easy to search for in the data that AOL released. So, too, are telephone numbers. On the internet, you can buy anything from anywhere, but there are some things, such as pet care, which people mainly buy locally, so it is easy to spot where they live. People often search for their own names, which can then be cross- referenced with the telephone book.

At least one person in the AOL group, a blameless grandmother in Alabama, was identified by the New York Times within days of the AOL data release. And though it may be hard to identify complete strangers, it is very much easier to recognise in the AOL data details of someone you may already know. A church lady in the midwest, whose quest for Christian quilted wall hangings was interspersed with inquiries about vibrators and arousing frigid wives, is probably easy for anyone in her congregation to identify.

This is knowledge beyond the dreams of any secret police in history. Earlier this year Google fought a lawsuit to keep a week's worth of random search data out of the hands of the US government, but other search companies have handed over their data without complaint and nobody has yet discovered what deals have been struck between search engines and the Chinese government. China is generally thought of as attempting to censor the internet, which it does; search engines that do business in China must censor their own results if they are to succeed. But the real power for a totalitarian government is no longer just censorship. It is to allow its citizens to search for anything they want - and then remember it.

No western government, so far as we know, has gone that far. But if one ever does, it will know where the information is kept that will tell it almost everything about almost everyone. This morning, as I logged in to Googletalk, to chat with my sister, the programme silently upgraded itself. "Would you like to show friends what music you're playing now?" it asked.

keano

2006-08-24T21:57:00.000-04:00

so i think a high percentage of my reader doesn't follow soccer at all. it's a shame, cause it is missing out on a pretty great story. my favorite now-retired soccer player and semi-retired psychopath, roy keane, is about to take over as manager of sunderland.

keane used to play for manchester united, aka man u, aka the glazerball rowdies, and, more importantly for our story, for ireland. i remember reading a translation of a story from the italian press detailing a champions league game between united and some bunch of eye-talians that read as follows "roy keane stood strong in the midfield, dealing it out with a cudgel in his customary fashion. where there is keane there is no way through." with the possible exception of johnny giles, he's the best player ever from the republic, and christ is he a psychopath, in an interesting fashion. among his greatest hits are complaining that some of the upper crust fans at united games were too interested in their prawn sandwiches to take a real interest in the game, blasting the suits who run the irish soccer team for taking the first class seats while the players sat in coach, and calling noted english *@$# mick mccarthy (at the time manager of the irish side) an english #)@(, and walking out on the team before the 2002 world cup. he's kind of shy, and reticent about speaking his mind.

anyway, keane just retired last year on account of bad knees and hips. now he's taking over as the manager at sunderland, which is run by niall quinn, another recently retired irish player, who keane once referred to as saint theresa (from which you should not infer that spends a lot of time counseling indian street children as to the horrors of birth control, or cosseting duvaliers). the last full-time manager sunderland had was noted english ##*( mick mccarthy, who took sunderland up to the premiership and then took them down again with a record low point total. the best part is, noted english @*(# mick mccarthy is now the manager at wolverhampton, who play sunderland twice this season.

anyway, watch this space for further updates. it should be fascinating.

the little league world series or "for fuck's sake"

2006-08-23T13:45:00.000-04:00

not sure if my reader has been watching the little league world series, though if i had to guess i would say no. man i hate that sporting event. espn has jumped on it with both tasseled loafers, to the point that it's on tv for hours at a time, they show highlights on sports center, and they send crack announcers out to the games to marinate the whole extravaganza in a big vat of espn juice. ah, the purity of sport (tm, all rights reserved).

i don't know that much about the history of the event. i do remember hearing about it growing up, and hearing i think roger staubach (though maybe jim sundberg, and maybe someone else of that ilk) making some vaguely racist remarks about the training of one of the asian teams, so it was always covered to a certain extent by sports media. i wonder, though, about the inevitability of the increased coverage. are these 12 (and 13, 14, 15, 16, etc) year-olds being ground up into little hype-sausages by espn's hype-sausage machine at bristol community clown college* because espn has all this hype-sausage production equipment that would otherwise be put to work rending the coed foosball championships in windsor, ontario for espn 11? or has our society changed to the point that there is more actual, indigenous interest in the athletic accomplishments of 12 year-old boys with whom we are not acquainted? or is it impossible to separate the two?

*=bob raissman's term for espn and its training facility.

spike and katrina

2006-08-22T00:53:00.000-04:00

so i watched the first part of spike lee's documentary on katrina tonight. it's on hbo, which my reader may not have, so if my reader wants to watch it themself let me know and i'll knock off a copy.

what i thought... well, it's probably not profound. nagin kept supressing a smile when talking about things. bush kept patting him on the back. it seemed like nagin thought he was the hero of the piece. i didn't think so much of him, but of him, blanco and bush i... uh... fuck... do i have to pick one? no? good. what a bunch of (@#$)(@# #(@)@#(@) cock-sucking little fuck monkeys. saw blanco revelling in the eagerness of the national guard to shoot looters. saw bush heckuva job brownie. kept thinking of the pink floyd song on the turning away, which would be a hell of a soundtrack for this documentary. it's still a national disgrace that people suffered like they did in this country, and it's even worse that basically no one has been called to account for their egregious, deadly failings.

busy day at work

2006-08-21T16:50:00.000-04:00

via the poor man institute, we find this site, where one can allegedly track people's aol web searches, either by id (maybe session id) or by query. the poormen people claim that entering the number 711391 at this page will yield "the greatest character study in literary history" and who am i to argue?

free booze for bloggers

2006-08-21T16:36:00.000-04:00

this is free stuff day on snidely. first we had free smite the gays merchandise, then free research, and now, free booze. this winery is giving away a bottle of wine to anyone with a blog at least three months old and a shipping address in one of these states: CA, CO, HI, IA, ID, IL, MN, MO, NE, NV, NH, NM, ND, OR, TX, WA, WI and WY. which is, uh, probably none of you. but maybe you could figure something out.

help

2006-08-21T14:39:00.000-04:00

alright, i'm working on a story that involves a flower. this flower has to be polinated by a hummingbird, and has to bear at least a mild structural resemblance to a human face. so, like, no orchids. oh, and it needs to have petals, if possible. it's probably not necessary to say that this is not an area of expertise for me. anyone know anything? suggest a flower or flowers in the comments if you would be so kind. i'll give you a percentage of the profit.

free stuff from focus on the family, or "soon the leaves will change color, and the weather will become colder"

2006-08-21T14:15:00.000-04:00

the stranger has a step-by-step guide for how to get up to $100 worth of crap from focus on the family at absolutely no cost to you (and, more importantly, absolutely some cost to them). it's a real good deal. plus, you can sell the stuff to morons on ebay:

Few people know that Focus on the Family—the powerful evangelical Christian para-church based in Colorado Springs—will give you, absolutely free of charge, books, CDs, and DVDs. Usually people pay for these products, and the millions of dollars raised helps Focus on the Family produce yet more books and CDs featuring Dr. James Dobson and other Focus "experts." (Focus on the Family's experts, when they're not chatting on the phone with Karl Rove, run around the country teaching people how to stop being so gay and when it's appropriate to kick their kids' asses.)

still not doing none of my own blogging

2006-08-18T15:10:00.000-04:00

but if you've ever wanted to know what right-wingers see when they read the new york times, here's your chance (just click anywhere in the box on the next page, and then roll over text or headline for the translation).

convergence

2006-08-17T16:27:00.000-04:00

sometimes you're able to combine one of your favorite things with a comment on your blogging of late:

celebrity table tennis

2006-08-15T15:41:00.000-04:00

not sure if, like me, you've ever wondered what your favorite celebrity would look like playing table tennis, but now you can find out. thank god.

public-spiritedness

2006-08-15T15:33:00.000-04:00

in the interest of there being a world for my evilly-inclined nephews to one day dominate, and in the interest of that game being worth the candle, i point my reader to this article, which points out some pretty america-hating facts:

* The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
* Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).
* The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.
* "The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.
* Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)
* "U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.
* Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).
* The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
* Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
* The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).
* "Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent" (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time.
* As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
* "Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.28).
* Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).
* "Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).

happy birthday, nathan

2006-08-14T12:33:00.000-04:00

for those scoring along at home, today is the 10th birthday of the guy holding the trash can lid above, who is also the guy getting his head squashed below. we'll all be working for nathan some day, probably in his hidden underground lair, helping him accomplish his evil schemes. so start sucking up now.

happy birthday nathan. i wish i could be there.

most of the writers i like, on the middle east

2006-08-11T14:17:00.000-04:00

i nicked this from the nation:

A Letter from 18 Writers

The latest chapter of the conflict between Israel and Palestine began when Israeli forces abducted two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from Gaza. An incident scarcely reported anywhere, except in the Turkish press. The following day the Palestinians took an Israeli soldier prisoner--and proposed a negotiated exchange against prisoners taken by the Israelis--there are approximately 10,000 in Israeli jails.

That this "kidnapping" was considered an outrage, whereas the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and the systematic appropriation of its natural resources--most particularly that of water--by the Israeli Defense (!) Forces is considered a regrettable but realistic fact of life, is typical of the double standards repeatedly employed by the West in face of what has befallen the Palestinians, on the land allotted to them by international agreements, during the last seventy years.

Today outrage follows outrage; makeshift missiles cross sophisticated ones. The latter usually find their target situated where the disinherited and crowded poor live, waiting for what was once called Justice. Both categories of missile rip bodies apart horribly--who but field commanders can forget this for a moment?

Each provocation and counter-provocation is contested and preached over. But the subsequent arguments, accusations and vows, all serve as a distraction in order to divert world attention from a long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation.

This has to be said loud and clear, for the practice, only half declared and often covert, is advancing fast these days, and, in our opinion, it must be unceasingly and eternally recognized for what it is and resisted.

PS: As Juliano Mer Khamis, director of the documentary film Arna's Children, asked: "Who is going to paint the 'Guernica' of Lebanon?"

John Berger
Noam Chomsky
Harold Pinter
José Saramago
Eduardo Galeano
Arundhati Roy
Naomi Klein
Howard Zinn
Charles Glass
Richard Falk
Gore Vidal
Russell Banks
Thomas Keneally
Chris Abani
Carolyn Forché
Martín Espada
Jessica Hagedorn
Toni Morrison

the winner

2006-08-11T13:23:00.000-04:00

well, it was neck and neck there for a while, but auberon pulled out the victory in my fill in the lyrics contest. big upset there, folks. he wins six cents. that's some real nice clicking there, snidely reader. for those interested in the answers, here ya go:
1. where was i cutting a rug?
Down at a place called the jug (with a girl named Linda Lue, if you want to pry)
2. for what purpose are those evil natured robots programmed?
To destroy us
3. where did jimmy play harmonica?
In, as Auberon told us, the pub where I was born.
4. what did i yell upon seeing molly in the crowd?
“Hey there Molly, ain’t you proud?”
5. small change having been rained on with his own .38, now that dreams are no longer broken, how are they walking?
With a limp
6. about what sort of band does the crowd of young boys fooling around in the corner not give a damn?
As Auberon noted, any trumpet playing band.
7. from where do i spend my whole day stealing chickens?
Mama, from the rich folks’ yards.
8. what are the friends shaking hands really saying?
A A n, I love you
9. what was formerly situated on the site of the bowling alley?
The local pali
10. what thought came into my head as i was sittin' by the fire?
A A n, that I’d like to marry O’Reilly’s daughter
11. when we packed away our sorrows, what were we saving them for?
A rainy day
12. what sort of teeth do the bulldogs have on the big rock candy mountain?
A A n, rubber teeth
13. what do i try so hard, my dear, to show?
That you’re my everything
14. in what chain hotel does dr. jeep play on?
A A n (how he knew I don’t know), in the sheraton
15. upon what did the devil jump up?
A A n, upon a hickory stump
16. what, like me, has the lonesome whippoorwill lost?
His will to live
17. where does one confess all the secret things?
In the warm, velvet box
18. before what psychological crisis should we make the best of the situation?
Before I finally go insane
19. give the ranks of the six men who sought reilly's daughter.
The colonel, the major and the captain, plus the sergeant, the fifer and drummer boy too
20. when did the old pirates sell me to the merchant ships?
Minutes after they took I from the bottomless pits
21. what shouldn't romeo come around here doing?
A A n, singing up at people like that
22. what does mussel shoals have (hint: they've been known to sing a song or two)?
The Swampers
23. with which woman did fallin' james in the tahoe mud fall in love?
A gun street girl. He’s now dancing in a Birmingham jail oh boy.
24. for what relatively blameless activity did i get six months hard labor?
A A n, my courting in the kitchen
25. in what county did i take up and shoot my dog?
Oh down in the County Kildare

library search

2006-08-11T13:10:00.000-04:00

so there's now a public web utility that lets you track the availability of allegedly every book, in libraries around the world. for instance, this book seems to be available in 436 libraries. cool eh?

dang i got weird taste in music

2006-08-08T01:30:00.000-04:00

alright, i been listening to music today, and i thought i'd virtually share it with you in a way that deprives the music of everything good about it. so it's quiz time. winner gets all snidelymwhiplash productions ad revenue for the period of til i decide to stop giving it to you. answer, if you are really bored, the following questions, each of which is based on the lyrics of a song i've been listening to:

1. where was i cutting a rug?
2. for what purpose are those evil natured robots programmed?
3. where did jimmy play harmonica?
4. what did i yell upon seeing molly in the crowd?
5. small change having been rained on with his own .38, now that dreams are no longer broken, how are they walking?
6. about what sort of band does the crowd of young boys fooling around in the corner not give a damn?
7. from where do i spend my whole day stealing chickens?
8. what are the friends shaking hands really saying?
9. what was formerly situated on the site of the bowling alley?
10. what thought came into my head as i was sittin' by the fire?
11. when we packed away our sorrows, what were we saving them for?
12. what sort of teeth do the bulldogs have on the big rock candy mountain?
13. what do i try so hard, my dear, to show?
14. in what chain hotel does dr. jeep play on?
15. upon what did the devil jump up?
16. what, like me, has the lonesome whippoorwill lost?
17. where does one confess all the secret things?
18. before what psychological crisis should we make the best of the situation?
19. give the ranks of the six men who sought reilly's daughter.
20. when did the old pirates sell me to the merchant ships?
21. what shouldn't romeo come around here doing?
22. what does mussel shoals have (hint: they've been known to sing a song or two)?
23. with which woman did fallin' james in the tahoe mud fall in love?
24. for what relatively blameless activity did i get six months hard labor?
25. in what county did i take up and shoot my dog?

some days you're in a mood

2006-08-07T12:07:00.000-04:00

Slough
John Betjeman
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

---
note to the security services: this is probably best read in a figurative sense.

matt taibbi on the dlc

2006-08-04T12:33:00.000-04:00

matt taibbi (author of my two favorite anti-tom friedman screeds), has a great column in rolling stone bashing the david brooks and the dlc, the "centrist" democratic group whose main political strategies seems to be supporting joe lieberman and murmuring mild suggestions for how the bushies could maybe, i don't know, be a bit nicer. a brother of mine once suggested to a sierra club member that, if there was one tree left in the world, the sierra club would be working to save half of it. the dlc would advocate leaving the stump. anyway, here's taibbi:

Marshall is the president of the DLC's Progressive Policy Institute and owns the distinction of being the first public figure to use the term "body count" in a positive sense with regard to the Iraq war ("Coalition forces still face daily attacks but the body count tilts massively in their favor"). He wasted no time in giving me the party line: "What we're seeing is an ideological purge," he said cheerily. "It's national effort by the left to get rid of somebody they've decided to demonize . . . we have concerns about narrow dogmatism. . ."

We went back and forth for a while. I noted that his conception of "narrow dogmatists" included the readers of Daily Kos, a website with something like 440,000 visitors a day; I also noted that recent Gallup polls showed that fully 91 percent of Democrats supported a withdrawal of some kind from Iraq.

"So these hundreds of thousands of Democrats who are against the war are narrow dogmatists," I said, "and. . . how many people are there in your office? Ten? Twenty? Thirty?"

"Well, it'd probably be in the thirty zone," sighed Marshall.

I asked Marshall if there was a publicly available list of donors to the DLC.

"Uh, I don't know," he said. "I'd have to refer you to the press office for that. They can help you there . . ." (Note: a DLC spokeswoman would later tell me the DLC has a policy of "no public disclosure," although she did say the group is funded in half by corporate donations, in half by individuals).

"So let me get this straight," I said. "We have thirty corporate-funded spokesmen telling hundreds of thousands of actual voters that they're narrow dogmatists?"

He paused and sighed, clearly exasperated. "Look," he said. "Everybody in politics draws money from the same basic sources. It's the same pool of companies and wealthy individuals . . ."

"Okay," I said. "So basically in this dispute over Lieberman, we have people on one side, and companies on the other? Would it be correct to say that?" I asked.

"Well, I guess if you live in a cartoon world you could say that," he said.

The DLC are the lowest kind of scum; we're talking about people who are paid by the likes of Eli Lilly and Union Carbide to go on television and call suburban moms and college kids who happen to be against the war commies and jihadists. On the ignominious-sellout scale, that's lower than doing PR for a utility that turns your grandmother's heat off at Christmas. And that's pretty bad -- but with enough money and enough of the right kind of publicity their side still might win in the Lamont/Lieberman primary on August 8th.

Which tells you just about everything you need to know about the modern Democratic Party. Why is anyone surprised that the Republicans never lose?

boston sports guy column generator

2006-08-03T13:49:00.000-04:00

some of my reader will know the boston sports guy. he's a sports writer from boston, believe it or not, who writes diet versions of hunter s. thompson columns. anyway, some wags (it's always the wags) have created a sports guy column generator, which works along the same principle of mad libs. here's what i came up with:

The Sports Guy Goes to an Auction

So I'm sitting there the other day watching ESPN2 and I see that Jorge "Fieval" Posada had a great game. There is nobody, with the possible exception of Joe Morgan, that I dislike more than Jorge "Fieval" Posada. In the pantheon of people that 'Make the Sports Guy Alex Gonzalez,' these two are a 'Alex Gonzalez.

The phone rings. It's my friend Bish. madder than a peach orchard boar! Bish is always willing to discuss our mutual distaste for Jorge "Fieval" Posada. Don't get me wrong--we respect his abilities. But he's the the entire cast of "Friends" of sports. Totally annoying, yet on TV all the time. Bish mentions that it would be nice if Jorge "Fieval" Posada caught a case of Malaria at the beginning of September, paving the way for the Red Sox to the playoffs like Earl Campbell on Vodka.

Bish points out that the chances that Jorge "Fieval" Posada will come down with Malaria in September are minimal, but that if we expanded the possibilities, there would be a greater chance for debilitating success. As usual, Bish is a crazy genius.

Here is what we came up with:

4. Jorge "Fieval" Posada receives a vicious Iron Claw from Mike Lowell in front of 40,000 fans jammed into the Boston Garden.

(On a side note, has there ever been a greater moment in sports than when The Iron Giant choke-slammed Hulk Hogan? I don't even care if it was fake, that was the bomb. That rivals when Gus the Mule kicked the winning field goal for 'Most Inspiration Non-Real Sports Moment 2006.)

3. Jorge "Fieval" Posada is informed by his wife that their child was not fathered by him but rather by either Heathcliff Slocum or Billy Beane.

2. Jorge "Fieval" Posada hangs scrapbook-style clippings of Luke Perry and Ali Mills in his locker and is immediately put on the DL.

1. Jorge "Fieval" Posada meets Ethan from Survivor, falls in love, and leaves team to begin filming 'My Fair Yankee.'

After we finish with the conversation about Jorge "Fieval" Posada we turn ourselves to the real topic of conversation, the upcoming draft of the Susan Waldman is Sexy Memorial Baseball Association, a new fantasy league that Bish and I will be joining this year.

Ordinarily, I'm never an advocate of partnering up to own a fantasy baseball team. That's like getting picked up by Eva Longoria and going back to her place, only to find out that Wilt Chamberlain is already there. If the best you get is to share, sometimes it's not worth it at all, right?

However, this league only had one slot open, so Bish and I agreed to partner up, in the hope that one of us could switch over and manage the next vacancy. After much debate, and eliminating the excellent possibilities of 'Naked Stratego with satin doilies' and 'Cecil Fielder's Shiny cactus' as potential team names, we settle on 'Fieval and Gerbil back on the wheel.'

The thing that's exciting about this league is that it's an auction format league, which is totally different than a draft league. I mean, it seems as though it would be the same as a draft league, but it's not. It's like the difference between NHL 93 and NHL 94-you take out fighting and add one-timers, you've got a whole different game, even if they are both hockey. Any good sports fan knows that undefined but not everyone knows how to do an auction.

Pre-Auction preparation is important. First, it is important to choose a date when the auction will take place. This is easy. Choose the date when the whipped guy does not have to cringe beneath Her gaze, and that's your date. Finding the whipped-guy-can-make-it date is crucial for auction success. (speaking of which, what is with all these girlfriends who think that 'fantasy draft' is code for 'I'm going to have my buddies over to watch The Bangles perform songs by A-Rod while I massage? Though that would be cool.)

Next, and more difficult, is the auction location selection. Many times people will choose to have their auction in an automotive garage. This is a bad idea. Nothing good can come of this; at the end of the day every person in the room is going to be woohoo and have an extremely sore undefined after four hours.

No, the auction must be held in someone's house-biggest furnished basement wins. The coolness of the wife/significant other can be a deciding factor if two people have similar options-say, if owner A has a pacman arcade game, but owner B has a case of Keystone Light. Nothing will kill a fun evening faster than the host's wife emasculating him with a 'I'll tear your heart out and feed it to the rabbits.' We have selected next Tuesday night, at 8 pm, at a guy's house where his wife will be knitting, and therefore unable to disrupt the festivities.

I will not be sharing with you my player ratings for this coming season-after all, Bryan Kershnar doesn't play poker with the hand face up-but I will give you some insight into my auction strategy. The thing is, an auction has so much more of an influence on your season than a draft does. In an auction, every player in the league is at your disposal. Everyone starts out equal. It's the Libertarianism of fantasy sports.

It's also like sloth sex. It requires endurance, it requires stamina, it requires concentration and planning. Without further ado, here is my 'Sports Guy Auction Strategy Guide':

Round One-stick and move

Once the auction starts, timing and strategy are much more important than they are in a traditional draft. The first hour or so of the auction has to be spent feeling out your opponents. Are they particularly loyal to the Milwaukee Brewers? Do they have a tendency toward slobbering? You are looking for weaknesses that you can exploit later on. Store these like string

Here is a good place to test people by chucking out a few names of guys you-d never want on your team-aging, oft-injured players, like Justin Thompson, or over-hyped rookies that will never pan out like Ruben Mateo.

Everyone is going to get some good players at this point, so make sure you don-t overpay and find yourself begging for money like Johnny Drama asking for Vinny Chase's AMEX Black.

Round Two-Have a Sense of anthropology

In round two, there will be one moment that defines your draft. Things will be going along smoothly, and all of a sudden you'll get involved in a bidding war on a player. It's not unlike a big pot in a no-limit hold-em tournament-you'll have your Snidely Whiplash-Dudley Do-Right in The Dudley Do-Right Show moment, and you need to decide what to do.

Oftentimes, this will come down to a single dollar, here or there-if you bid 145 for Billy Martin, you know you'll get him, but you're facing a bid with the clock ticking. Are you going to be a hero, carried off the field like Kirk Gibson? Or are you Marv Levy, skulking off the field into the jeering history of your team's fans, with only your family still willing to speak with you. Now is your moment. Set the tone.

Round Three-Moving Day

Hour three of the draft is moving day, like the third day of The Masters. You need to shoot a 63. This is where you'll fill out a lot of the players that, while less calypygean, make up the core of your team. Do not discount the importance of moving day. If you wait until the next phase to build the core of your team, you'll find yourself as lonely as Paris Hilton in a Mormon service.

Moving day is the time to make things happen for your team. This is where you are going to define the season that you have. If you end up moving day by taking an accurate mix of future stars, injury-risk players, and Alex Gonzalez, you'll be okay.

Round Four-The Game of Trivial Pursuit

By the end of the fantasy auction, the endeavor has become interminable. The only thing it can be compared to is a game of Trivial Pursuit, played among friends. Something that, at the beginning of the endeavor, seemed like such fun, but by the end of it, is just a group of people banging their heads against the wall, adamantly trying to finish what they started, the joy of competing against your friends replaced with a desire to prove that you are the Duke of All Trivia and that is that.

In this phase of the auction, you must be careful. This is the 'Luca Brazzi sleeps with the fishes' moment of the draft. People will be exploding like semtex, screaming incomprehensible things like Snidely and threatening to hop up and down if they do not get their way.

Just bite your lip, set your jaw, and try and endure. It's a long season coming forward.

'Tell Leo he's not God on the throne, he's just a cheap political boss with more hair tonic than brains. '

kitty genovese, revisited

2006-07-31T13:53:00.000-04:00

most new yorkers know who kitty genovese was. for those that don't, a: read the damn link. but b: failing that, here's a quick capsule summary:
kitty genovese was stabbed to death in 1963 in kew gardens, new york (i used to live there myself, though was never stabbed). she was stabbed in two separate attacks by the same guy in front of an apartment house, allegedly in front of 38 eye witnesses. allegedly no one acted on her cries for help, which got everyone fascinated and appalled about humanity in general. the bystander effect, the phenomenon of people being less likely to help people in crisis when there are other people around, is also known as genovese syndrome. the whole thing is sort of received wisdom. i've heard the incident used as an example of why if ever you are in urgent need of help you should single out one person to ask for help rather than a group of people.

interestingly, this guy is arguing that the circumstances were not nearly so clear cut, that people did or plausibly claim to have called the cops, and that the circumstances of the attack would have made it difficult for the witnesses to have understood the gravity of the situation. i recommend the whole (long) thing, but in a nutshell he argues that only a couple people actually saw the initial attack, and then from far away. others heard her scream, but probably indistinctly, and because both her and her attacker left the scene, she stopped screaming, it was 3:20 in the morning, and she was in front of a boisterous bar, it wasn't likely that they would perceive and be able to convince the cops of the scope of the emergency.

israeli deaths on the lebanon border

2006-07-31T13:31:00.000-04:00

this is from a blog called speaking truth to power, via juan cole:

A Note on Israeli Deaths from May 24, 2000 to July 12, 2006.

A total of six Israeli civilians died in that six year period, including one who was killed by a falling anti-aircraft round (fired at Israeli aircraft violating Lebanese airspace) and five in a March 2002 incursion, which Hizballah claimed it had nothing to do with (a claim that I discount). A sixth Israeli victim died in the March 2002 incident, but he was an army officer. I may have missed one or two deaths, but I do not think that the total number is no more than ten.

fuck, i can't even read the thing below any more

2006-07-27T17:43:00.000-04:00

so here's a nice little story about rabbits from comedy central:

A little rabbit is running happily through the forest when he stumbles upon a giraffe rolling a joint.

The rabbit looks at the giraffe and says, "Giraffe my friend, why do you do this? Come. Run with me through the forest! You''ll feel so much better!"

The giraffe looks at him, looks at the joint, tosses it and goes off running with the rabbit. Then they come across an elephant doing coke.

So the rabbit again says, "Elephant my friend, why do you do this? Think about your health. Come. Run with us through the pretty forest, you''ll see, you''ll feel so good!"

The elephant looks at them, looks at his razor, mirror and coke, then tosses them and starts running with the rabbit and giraffe. The three animals then come across a lion about to shoot up.

"Lion my friend, why do you do this? Think about your health! Come. Run with us through the beautiful forest and you''ll feel so good!" The lion looks at him, puts down his needle, and mauls the rabbit.

The giraffe and elephant watch in horror and look at him and ask, "Lion, why did you do this? He was merely trying to help you."

The lion answers, "That little bastard! He makes me run around the forest like a f**king idiot every time he's on ecstasy!"

read this is you find the world is making you too happy

2006-07-27T17:36:00.000-04:00

the guardian has a diary from a filmmaker's trip to iran to film a documentary about a 16 year old girl who was hung for having sex without being married.

Day 10: Safer Ali [the girl's father]

He finally turns up, overexcited and exhausted after an eight-hour journey. He's sunburned, with bright eyes and is wearing an army jacket. Knowing Atefah's photos as well as I now do, the family resemblance is very strong.

Safer Ali takes the strangeness of a foreign, and female, director in his stride. It's a very good interview, very impassioned.

He was not there for his daughter when she needed him most. She was abused by Ali Daroubi, by a man he knew, and he did not spot this or protect her from it. Though he tried as hard as he could, with no money, to get a lawyer for his daughter, surely there was more he could have done? The truth is that his heroin addiction made him a pretty useless human being for years. But there's no doubt at all that he's very sorry now. He seems clean and determined to stay that way.

The strangest thing is hearing him repeat Atefah's words. For example: "Atefah used to say the moon won't always stay behind the clouds - and she was right." You get the sense she was a very articulate teenager.
[...]
Atefah was killed at dawn, six in the morning. On the day of Atefah's execution, the Mr N told us, this patch of wasteland was nearly full of people come to watch.

According to sharia law, execution for sex outside marriage should be by stoning, but shortly after the revolution, the Iranian authorities took to hanging people from cranes no matter what the crime. It's quick, cheap, and provides a spectacle for the crowd.

We've seen footage from other recent executions in Iran. The technique is so perfunctory. A lorry with a crane is parked up. A noose is put around the victim's neck, and the victim is blindfolded. Some people have told us that a mullah says words from the Qur'an, but in the footage we've seen the killers have been perfunctory. The crane arm is then raised to its full height, and with it the noose. The victim dies of strangulation. The body swings in the air. B told us that sometimes they move the crane arm slowly from far left extension to right to display the body to everyone in the crowd.

Atefah's friend told us that he saw a couple of men in the crowd filming Atefah's execution on mobile phones. Someone rushed to her aunt and said - "We've filmed it, we'll put it on the internet." So far this footage hasn't surfaced. I don't know if I could bear to watch it. A sixteen-year-old girl's execution in accordance to laws written in the early middle ages, filmed on a mobile phone.

Haji Rezai put the noose around Atefah's neck himself, and left her body hanging for 45 minutes. Then he drove away in his black Peugeot 406.

bike riding

2006-07-27T16:52:00.000-04:00

for those of you who missed it, floyd landis, the american who won the tour de france last week, has tested postive for a high level of testosterone, which could indicate he's as big a cheater as, oh, all the other top cyclists. the sport itself isn't really my cup of tea, but i really hope he gets cleared. he seems like a decent enough guy, and apparently he said he would hang up on bush if he got a congratulatory phone call from him. though his mother was somewhat less than thunderous in her defense of him.

still writing letters

2006-07-25T17:54:00.000-04:00

i should have this whole crisis cleaned up pretty soon. anyway, senator schumer, along with some of the other democrat nibs in the senate, has been shooting off his mouth to the iraqi prime minister regarding his statement that, uh, blowing up lebanon wasn't such a great idea. here's my letter to chuck:

Hi Senator Schumer,

I'm writing to seek clarification of your statement to Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, calling on him to affirm Israel's right to defend itself. I have two questions:
1. Why do you think it's a good idea, considering his tenuous position and the horrible, volatile situation in Iraq, to attempt to impose your ideas as to the language he should use on him?
2. This paragraph is from the Jerusalem Post:
A high-ranking IAF officer caused a storm on Monday in an off-record briefing during which he told reporters that IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz had ordered the military to destroy 10 buildings in Beirut in retaliation to every Katyusha rocket strike on Haifa.

Presumably if these buildings were targeted for military purposes there wouldn't be any link between them being bombed and Israel being attacked. So what, in your opinion, is the difference between bombing 10 buildings for every missile launched at Israel and terrorism?

Thank you for your response.

playground invective for the 21st century

2006-07-24T16:41:00.000-04:00

was in the park yesterday and heard this five year old scream to some kids she was playing with "you guys are cesspools! cesspools!" one of the other ones screamed "i have really sharp teeth!"

been writing some letters

2006-07-24T16:02:00.000-04:00

this guy is my congressman. i always thought really well of him til i read this.

I sent him this:

I called your office today to explain that while I've consistently voted for you in the past, I will vote for your opponent, whoever that may be, in all future elections, until such time as you retract or modify your irrelevant and, frankly, idiotic statement of July 13 regarding Israel's attacks on Lebanon.

At least hundreds of Lebanese civilians have been killed by Israel's vicious attacks on unequivocally civilian targets. The infrastructure of Lebanon has been reduced to rubble. Israel has destroyed bridges, ambulances, powdered milk factories and homes, in a response that is not only completely out of scale with the initial provocation, but that has been planned for at least a year in advance of any provocation, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

How is this not a "violent, premeditated attack launched for political gain"? How is this not terrorism, assuming the word has any real meaning? How can you, who I've always found so principled and so sensible in the past, justify and even laud this slaughter of innocents?

how do i get this job?

2006-07-21T17:02:00.000-04:00

this is from the end of a ny times article on efforts to sequence neanderthal dna:

If Dr. Paabo and 454 Life Sciences should succeed in reconstructing the entire Neanderthal genome, it might in theory be possible to bring the species back from extinction by inserting the Neanderthal genome into a human egg and having volunteers bear Neanderthal infants. This might be the best possible way of finding out what each Neanderthal gene does, but there would be daunting ethical problems in bringing a Neanderthal child into the world again.

Dr. Paabo said that he could not even imagine how such a project could be accomplished and that in any case ethical concerns “would totally preclude such an experiment.”

Dr. Lahn described the idea as “certainly possible but futuristic.”

The most serious technical problem would be creating functional chromosomes from Neanderthal DNA. But ethical questions may be less surmountable. “My first consideration would be for a child born alone in the world with no relatives,” said Ronald M. Green, an ethicist at Dartmouth College. The risk would be greater if, following the plot line of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” a mate were created as a companion for the lonely Neanderthal. “This was a species we competed with,” Dr. Green said. “We would not want to recreate a situation of two competing advanced hominid species.”

But Dr. Green said there could be arguments in the future for resurrecting the Neanderthals. “If we learn this is a species that was wrongly pushed off the stage of history, there is something of a moral argument for bringing it back,” he said. “But the status quo is not without merit. Curiosity alone could not justify what could be a disaster for both species.”

charles pierce on ann coulter

2006-07-21T16:15:00.000-04:00

wow this is some first rate invective:

Will nothing rid us of this venomous harridan, this walking, spavined simulcrum of modern politica dentata? Why is this woman not screaming at passersby from a soapbox in Tompkins Square Park? Why was she ever allowed to tunnel her way out of her original career as a pornographer’s arm candy?

This country can do so much better than a bubbling, goat-footed, venom-saturated sub-primate with less essential worth to the species than the fungal residue in roadside rest area in Bugtickler, Alabama. This country’s national discourse is better off without someone who is a disgrace to every major step in the evolution of the human intellect that has occurred since we were throwing rocks at each other across Olduvai Gorge. This country has serious problems that require serious solutions and we’re all busying ourselves with parsing the public utterances that emit from a brain long since pockmarked from cerebellum to medulla by the passage of tiny worms of self-contempt. When did we give license in our politics to the ravings of wine-soaked crazy women? When did the movement of William F. Buckley hand itself over to a pustulating Id in a cocktail dress? When, oh Lord? When?

israel and lebanon yet again

2006-07-21T15:51:00.000-04:00

man i hope they stop the fighting soon so i can go back to writing nasty limericks about ken lay with a clear conscience. anyway, alexander cockburn has an article on counterpunch about the history of israel in lebanon:

In 1982 Israel had a problem. Yasir Arafat, headquartered in Beirut, was making ready to announce that the PLO was prepared to sit down with Israel and embark on peaceful, good faith negotiations towards a two-state solution.

Israel didn’t want a two-state solution, which meant -- if UN resolutions were to be taken seriously -- a Palestinian state right next door, with water, and contiguous territory. So Israel decided chase the PLO right out of Lebanon. It announced that the Palestinian fighters had broken the year-long cease-fire by lobbing some shells into northern Israel.

Palestinians had done nothing of the sort. I remember this very well, because Brian Urquhart, at that time assistant secretary general of the United Nations, in charge of UN observers on Israel’s northern border, invited me to his office on the 38th floor of the UN hq in mid-Manhattan and showed me all the current reports from the zone. For over a year there’d been no shelling from north of the border. Israel was lying.

With or without a pretext Israel wanted to invade Lebanon. So it did, and rolled up to Beirut. It shelled Lebanese towns and villages and bombed them from the air. Sharon’s forces killed maybe 20,000 people, and let Lebanese Christians slaughter hundreds of Palestinian refugees in the camps of Sabra and Chatilla.

The killing got so bad that even Ronald Reagan awoke from his slumbers and called Tel Aviv to tell Israel to stop. Sharon gave the White House the finger by bombing Beirut at the precise times -- 2.42 and 3.38 -- of two UN resolutions calling for a peaceful settlement on the matter of Palestine.

When the dust settled over the rubble, Israel bunkered down several miles inside Lebanese sovereign territory, which it illegally occupied, in defiance of all UN resolutions, for years, supervising a brutal local militia and running its own version of Abu Graibh, the torture center at the prison of Al-Khiam.

Occupy a country, torture its citizens and in the end you face resistance. In Israel’s case it was Hezbollah, and in the end Hezbollah ran Israel out of Lebanon, which is why a lot of Lebanese regard Hezbollah not as terrorists but as courageous liberators.

happy pictures from the mid east

2006-07-19T13:41:00.000-04:00

this guy's got a bunch of pictures from israel and lebanon. a lot of them show lots of body parts, so if that's not your cup of tea please don't click. i did find a few that are family friendly though. just a bunch of kids having a good time outdoors: