Where to begin

I was going to fully boycott even the idea of a State of the Union Address today (since I don't drink, I couldn't take my cue from Will Durst), but I couldn't help reading it in The New York Times. (Watching StupidIdiotFace--as we like to call him--deliver it was too much for me to bear.) Honestly folks, I don't even know where to begin crafting a response. It seems to over-dignify the dungheap of lies by analyzing it. That such a man could get up and talk with confidence about protecting the future for our children is an abomination.

And then to end with a Roosevelt quote.

Insert witty and incisive critique here...

New-cle-ar

So it's official. We are all going to hell. That's what I decided today when I read in The Brain's post that Merriam-Webster has added "nyu-cu-lar" to its accepted pronunciation of the word that is, in fact, not pronounced that way. (I'm sorry; I just don't accept it.)
Is it just me, or do they sound positively sheepish in their usage note:

Though disapproved of by many, pronunciations ending in \-ky&-l&r\ have been found in widespread use among educated speakers including scientists, lawyers, professors, congressmen, U.S. cabinet members, and at least one U.S. president and one vice president. While most common in the U.S., these pronunciations have also been heard from British and Canadian speakers.

I love the "look there are stupid Brits and Canadians too!" addendum. Compare that to the entry for "irregardless":

Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that "there is no such word." There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.

I know the Bush family has long tentacles, but I had no idea just how long. This is some serious influence, ladies and gentlemen. I am preparing myself for new rules about subject-verb agreements.

The crucible

I know there are plenty who have poo-pooed the notion that we are in another McCarthy era. And yet, the similarities just keep cropping up, don't they?

Bill O'Reilly seems to have taken up his own personal "are you now or have you ever been" crusade. Keeping America safe by hunting one intellectual terrorist at a time. Currently he is calling for Ward Churchill's head on a stake. M. Shahid Alam seems to have narrowly escaped the crosshairs.

There's little comfort in knowing that decades from now, some of us will be able to look back and know that we didn't take place in the Lord of the Flies witch hunts.

Something you don't see every day

Chertoff, quite literally, talking out of one side of his face.

"I believe the secretary of Homeland Security will have to be mindful of the need to reconcile the imperatives of security with the preservation of liberty and privacy," Chertoff said in his prepared statement to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a member of the committee, said Chertoff's reputation was that of a "thoughtful straight-shooter," but the lawmaker used the word troubling to describe the Justice Department actions during Chertoff's tenure, including the development of legal theories "circumventing legal prohibitions against torture and inhuman treatment of detainees."

And I thought that was just a meaningless phrase.

Okay it sounds like a Monty Python skit

But the Carnival of Bad History looks like it's going to be a pretty damned cool site. Revisionist (and just plain wrong) history is one of my "issues." Take the flag, for instance: the wingers are always talking about how we fought a revolution for the Stars and Stripes, despite the fact that the flag, as such, didn't even exist yet. This kind of invented tradition bugs the crap out of me. I look forward to watching the carnival unfold. (Thanks to Rook's Rant for the head's up.)

Oops

They accidentally tried to evacuate Connecticut tonight. Fortunately no one was paying attention.

I think you're wrong

Crooks and Liars has a great clip of Ann Coulter displaying her stubborn ignorance (via Metafilter).

Haute dioxin

From Yahoo photos: "A model presents a creation from Italian fashion academy students for their Spring/Summer 2005 Haute Couture collection, during Rome's Fashion Week"


This really nice guy invited me to dinner. He says he's the president of the Ukraine or something...

It's a vegetable

What is it with Republicans and ketchup?

More on where the money goes

And they call us tax and spend liberals.

I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. Lillywhite

Well, Bob Geldof, darling of the music world during my adolescence, is taking up a new role. After fronting the band the Boomtown Rats and then becoming a political figure with Band Aid, Geldof is now working hard at his latest incarnation: jaded cynical messed up guy. Perhaps inspired by the lifetime achievement honor he will receive at the Brit Awards next week, Geldof seems to be doing all he can to convince people they were wrong to like him in the first place. BBC reports:

Visiting Africa "bores me profoundly" but the media has confused the roles of politicians and celebrities, he said.

"Who's interested if the leader of Niger goes on Newsnight?" he told Radio Times magazine. "It's 'get Geldof'. I'm 'Mr Bloody Africa'."
. . .

"I'd dearly love not to have to go there the day after tomorrow.

"More often than not, it bores me profoundly . . . .

I'm going to have to agree with Andrea on this one: I'm thinking somebody needs Betty Bloody Ford.

The green parka. . .

. . . is really the least of the issues here. Yes, it was a total US-VP-as-Homer-Simpson moment, but sartorial disrespect pales in comparison to, say, putting Nazi war criminals on the US payroll. Senator Mike DeWine and Representative Carolyn Maloney are pushing the CIA to comply with the 1998 public disclosure law that requires all documents relating to the Holocaust to be declassified. Documents released so far "show links between US intelligence and Nazi war criminals," including, at minimum hiring Klaus Barbie. At least one inside source says the CIA is not being entirely forthright about their cold war hiring practices, and it seems they will petition to keep remaining documents classified.

Let's all stop a minute and think about the idea of hiring Klaus Barbie.

Would we hire Bin Laden if we could? Put him on the US payroll because he can provide inside intelligence about terrorism?

When the US adopts a "by any means necessary" attitude, scary and unethical things happen. Those on the right who accuse some of us Michael-Moore-lovin' MoveOn members of "hating freedom" are one thing, but the "liberals" I have recently encountered who seem at best willing to roll back the Bill of Rights and at worst enthusiastic about it--these are the folks that really worry me. I mention the McCarthy era a lot here because that is one dark specter that presents itself when we start down this kind of path. But here is another.

When you say to me, yes, you think the "guys in turbans" should be pulled out of line at airports and subject to more rigorous security than you, or when you agree that Cat Stevens shouldn't be allowed in America anymore because he supports terrorism, you're plunging headlong down a slippery slope folks. (And lest you all think I am setting up a straw man here, both of these comments came up during a recent trip east. Both were uttered by "liberal" Democrats.)

The important questions

Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its conditions are improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are a delusional spin from the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?

That's one way to increase turn-out

Am I the only person in the universe who didn't know voting is mandatory in 25 countries?

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Republic of the Congo, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Greece, Honduras, Lebanon, Libya, Luxembourg, Mexico, Nauru, Paraguay, Peru, Singapore, Thailand and Uruguay

I must say, I am growing quite fond of the LA Times (which also totally exasperates me sometimes). I often learn something when I read it.

Sittin' here thinking...

. . . where does the money go?

Who got a slew of calls/emails/etc. asking them to donate money to the Dems' presidential run? I know I did. Would that I could find a suitor as ardent as the Dems in their pursuit of my pocketbook last fall. Then you read a story like this one, and you feel a little taken don't you? I do.

But Kerry's not the only one having trouble making it all add up. It seems there's a small matter of nine billion dollars unaccounted for in Iraq. There's a bit of belly bucking going on between the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction--who released an audit report on Sunday criticizing the lack of oversight in finances--and the Coalition Provisional Authority. For instance, among other findings, the audit reported that at one ministry, 8,206 guards were being paid, but it seemed there were only 602 actual guards. In another case, 1,417 received paychecks, but there were 642 guards. The CPA defended its actions, explaining that Iraqi families depended on those checks (so even if 90% of those families don't exist, one needs to think of the 8% or whatever it is that do). What's more, Bremer, head of the CPA, said, it was better to keep cutting checks than "to stop paying armed young men," which would represent a security risk. Freedom is on the march, folks.

And the third piece of money news: yes, it's true. If you've somehow missed hearing it, let me tell you, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are getting out while they can. Because we're going down folks.

Everything's inflated
Like a tire on a car
Well, the man came and took my Chevy back
I'm glad I hid my old guitar

Dianne Feinstein writes back

Dear __________,

Thank you for writing to express your opposition to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice's nomination to be Secretary of State. I appreciate the time you took to write. [Translation: Dear Travis, I didn't actually read your letter, but if I had, this response is to say I am a better person than you because I am responding politely to your insults.]

I regret we disagree on this issue. As you may know, the votes in the Senate for confirmation were 85 to 13. I have attached a copy of my remarks before the Senate which states my reason for support. [Translation: I'm sorry you are wrong, but if you've been following the news, you'd know that almost everyone agrees with me.]

I would like to make an additional point. While the Secretary of State is always an extension of the sitting President's foreign policy, I believe the key is to be able to work with a Secretary to make changes for the better. I intend to do that with Dr. Rice as the second Bush Administration gets underway. [Translation: Why should W be the only one getting in Condi's pants? It's a losing battle to be a democrat right now, and I'm at least hoping for a little action.]

Again, thank you for writing. [Please fuck off]

This one goes out special to my coworkers

Via ResearchBuzz comes The Budget Traveller's Guide to Sleeping in Airports. Admittedly, I am at an age and stage of my life that the most obvious method for me is, find out the nearest decent hotel, get in a cab, and charge it. Nonetheless, there are those times (last month for instance), that you find yourself like Charlie on the MTA, trapped forever in those sky kennels we call airports. This site offers advice, anecdotes, horror stories, and more. Have a great airport squatting story? Post it here. Would that I had known, for instance, when I got stuck at Detroit airport for 9 hours, that the airport is connected to the Westin hotel which has a large, deserted lobby where you can take a nap and watch TV.

Even if you're not traveling, the site is slightly addictive. You get these marvelous visions of snafu travel:

In September of 1997 I spent the night in the American terminal of the Dulles, VA airport (one of the major airports in Washington, DC). The chairs were quite uncomfortable (armrests on all of them) but worst of all it felt like sleeping in a freezer. By the end of the night I was wearing all the shirts I had packed and had wrapped myself in beach towels. I also would go into the bathroom and sit under the hand dryer, blowing warm air on myself, to warm up. The only good thing about the evening was that the place was totally deserted, except for the cleaning people, who cleaned right around me and didn't disturb me at all.

To my coworkers, I hope that you have no need for the site, but just in case, now you have the URL.

My neighborhood

By now you've probably read about the new visual (smile you're on candid camera) yellow pages with A9. Of course, I had to check it out and since LA is one of the ten cities that you can zoom in to facial mole-level, I thought I'd "stroll" the virtual path from the nearest starbucks to my apartment. The below is from a pic about midway between the two. It just seemed worth noting.

Distressing headline of the day

From CNN: "Freedom of what? First Amendment no big deal, students say"

We all know Americans are ignorant. That is to say, we've all read the shame-faced accounts that Americans can't find the Indian Ocean on a map and high school students don't know what the Declaration of Independence is. But CNN's story isn't the typical hand-wringing report that students don't know what rights the Constitution protects; the story explains that students think those rights are excessive:

. . . when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes "too far" in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.
. . .
When asked whether people should be allowed to express unpopular views, 97 percent of teachers and 99 percent of school principals said yes. Only 83 percent of students did.

Is it any surprise that the Youth Brigade took hold with such enthusiasm during the Nazi reign?


Really, who needs any of those pesky amendments anyway?

It's all Bin Laden's fault

So Kerry is saying that the Bin Laden video aired a few days before the election was his downfall. It distresses me a great deal that he seems to really believe this and he's thinking of running again. About a month ago, John at AMERICAblog wrote a post titled "Kerry Sucked" and that pretty much captures my feelings about the campaign as well. I respect the stand Kerry has taken against Rice and Gonzales, but I agree with John: Kerry wasn't enough of a fighter and, in fact, he was a waffler. Once again, this is why I think Dean should be DNC chair--because he most clearly states the need for the Dems to set the agenda not just be a reactionary party. I think that Kerry was "forced" into his waffling mode by two things. First, he isn't that liberal on some issues, so it was hard to distinguish himself on certain things. Second, if the Republicans are setting the terms of the debate, it's tough to make inroads on that kind of field.

What I mean is this: If "the need to keep America safe" is articulated by the Republicans as the most important issue, then the Dems have to continually answer the question "How are you going to keep America safe?" Thus Kerry's wishy washy stances on Iraq.

On the other hand, if "the need to preserve the Constitution--the principles of freedom and justice" is articulated by the Democrats as the most important issue, then the Republicans will have to answer the question "How are you going to preserve these principles?" And here we could have a Republican candidate seem wishy washy when he tried to square the Patriot Act with the Constitution.

But...Kerry voted for the Patriot Act. And the war.

I think if the Dems can run someone who really is liberal (is there anyone other than Boxer left?) then they might stand a fighting chance. Otherwise they just keep coming off like Fascism lite.