Department of Duh: Crazy People Edition

Adherence to Maintenance-Phase Antidepressant Medication:

Conclusions: Patients given maintenance anti depressants vary widely in adherence. This variation is primarily explained by the balance between their perceptions of need and harmfulness of antidepressant medication, in that adherence is lowest when perceived harm exceeds perceived need, and highest when perceived need exceeds perceived harm.

Wow. I totally would never have guessed that. Cross-reference to "Department of Unnecessary Research."

And a McMansion on every acre...

Anti-Sprawl Laws, Property Rights Collide in Oregon (washingtonpost.com):

"If you are going to restrict what someone can do with his land, then you have to pay for it," said Dale Riddle, vice president for legal affairs at Seneca Jones Timber Co., an Oregon firm that was the largest donor to the campaign for Measure 37.

Thanks to Oregon's new law, anti-sprawl legislation has lost political momentum across the country, according to Harvey Jacobs, a professor of urban planning at the University of Wisconsin. "It has really excited the property-rights movement and suggests to its supporters that they can challenge smart-growth laws everywhere," he said.

I certainly WILL blame Wal-Mart

Robert Reich has an Op-Ed today in NYT called "Don't Blame Wal-Mart" He argues that it's not Wal-Mart's fault we want cheap goods. True enough. But it IS Wal-Mart's fault for providing the cheap goods by gross and pervasive violations of labor law. The regulations are already there; it would be nice if the government would enforce them, but surely we can blame a company that violates labor laws for doing so, whether or not the government has the resources or interest in pursuing them for it.

Reich asks "But isn't Wal-Mart really being punished for our sins?" Um, Wal-Mart is not being punished for its own sins, much less for ours. And since when is seeking the lowest price a sin? It's capitalism, baby, and it's why the dogma of 'pure capitalism' is as awful as that other evil dogma we vanquished last century.

Reich is right to blame us, as citizens, for not debating how new regulations might force prices of goods to "reflect the full prices we have to pay as workers and citizens". That debate is one we're not likely to have during the current reality show "Crony Capitalism Gone Wild". But that's no excuse for letting Wal-Mart off the hook for ignoring the regulations we've already got. Responsible companies, at the very least, follow the law.

Of course, why should we expect corporations to follow the law when our government doesn't, and doesn't believe it has to. It's a funny kind of rule-of-law that seems only to apply to individuals acting as individuals, and then only selectively, to certain types of individuals.

Controlling the Girls: Part II

NYT weighs in with an editorial on the alarming behavior of the Kansas AG:

Kansans deserve a full explanation of this gross intrusion into medical confidences that are supposed to be carefully protected by law. But Mr. Kline, a fervid anti-abortion campaigner throughout his career as a Republican politician, would not answer reporters' questions about his investigation. "Clinics should not act to protect the secrecy of the predator," he insisted in a statement, offering a blanket smear in lieu of a proper explanation.

See my previous post on this. And can I say just how sick I am of the right-wing scaremongering about sexual predators, kidnappers, stranger-danger, internet pedophiles, etc. You can't be against going after child molesters, can you?

Why not? Certain archbishops were, and no doubt still are. Though they feel justified denying communion to politicians who commit the sin of praying while liberal. I'm not, however, Catholic, so I won't comment further on things I know so little about.

But this obscene child molestation fear-mongering just drives me crazy. Children are molested. In great numbers. But it's not even a plausible excuse to subpoena the medical records of women who had late-term abortions. It's just a warning to those of us who complain about it: You will be attacked.

Like I said yesterday, that the attacks on critics do not consist of physical violence does not make them less effective as a means of control. Ask Foucault. Or just ask the girls.

Bob Herbert Dares to Keep Talking About the Torture

It's Called Torture:

"As a nation, does the United States have a conscience? Or is anything and everything O.K. in post-9/11 America? If torture and the denial of due process are O.K., why not murder? When the government can just make people vanish - which it can, and which it does - where is the line that we, as a nation, dare not cross?

Thank you, Mr. Herbert, sir.

And to everyone out there who says "But you can't think of emigrating! America is the greatest country on earth!" I reply "I don't want to be a torturer. Do you?" And if you don't, then perhaps you'd better take a long look in the mirror. Because you are.

Why Not Move To Canada?

Not Far Enough Away:

OTTAWA -- The United States will decide when to fire missiles over Canadian airspace whether Canada likes it or not, says America's ambassador. The blunt warning from Paul Cellucci came minutes after Prime Minister Paul Martin announced yesterday that he will not sign on to the controversial U.S. missile defence program.

"We will deploy. We will defend North America," Cellucci said.

"We simply cannot understand why Canada would, in effect, give up its sovereignty -- its seat at the table -- to decide what to do about a missile that might be coming toward Canada."

The warning was no slip of the tongue -- Cellucci repeated several times that Canada's decision had handed over some of its sovereignty to the U.S.

Heh? Canada disagrees with the U.S., and so it has given up some of its sovereignty?

Fascism and Violence

So, as I quoted in a previous post, Orcinus argues that Our Dear Leader is not actually a fascist, but a crony capitalist who encourages proto-fascism in the populace for political gain, believing that the dark forces thus awakened can nevertheless be contained. This isn't quite as dangerous, he thinks, as an actually fascist leadership.

Orcinus is right to point out that the problem is not simply or even primarily this administration, but their base. And that problem will not go away, even if we wrest some power from the Republicans in 2006 or 2008. But I wouldn't let the administration off the hook so easily as that. If Orcinus is right that the administration is not itself fascist, it's still true that neither their means (inflaming fascist passions) nor their ends (the destruction of the state's restraints on untrammeled capitalist exploitation) are noble, in which case, I may not call them fascist, but I can certainly call them evil.

I'm also not convinced (and clearly I'm talking out of my ass here, because Orcinus knows way more about fascism than I do, he having written essays about it, and me only having read them, but perhaps the other half of biscuit can add his thoughts, as he knows way more about actual historical fascism than I do) that it's wrong to call the administration fascist. Orcinus seems mostly to make the distinction that the administration does not openly endorse violence against its critics, and the open use of violence he believes is a necessary component of fascism. Max says that it's true that the historical fascisms he knows about did openly endorse violence against their enemies.

But why should we expect all fascism to conform in all respects to historical examples? If fascism can silence its critics without resort to the open endorsement of violence, then why wouldn't it? Not to harp constantly, as we all do these days, on Orwell, but was Winston held in line primarily by fear of violence to his person, or by something else?

And does not the widespread use of torture against the Enemy constitute an endorsement of violence? Orcinus approvingly quotes an essay by a conservative writer, Scott McConnell, on the torture. McConnell writes:

But the Bush administration still seems more embarrassed than proud of its most authoritarian aspects. Gonzales takes some pains to present himself as an opponent of torture; hypocrisy in this realm is perhaps preferable to open contempt for international law and the Bill of Rights.

And Orcinus says, again, that this is precisely the difference between real fascists and the administration: that the administration hypocritically decries its own actions. It "knows" that torture is wrong.

I don't think it does. It knows that the word 'torture' denotes something which people consider to be wrong; and so to get around having to endorse something people believe to be wrong, it simply drains the word of all its meaning. Gonzales can honestly claim to be against torture, and also to honestly claim to have no opinion whatsoever on what torture actually is. And also to claim that, even though he is against torture, the president does have the right to order it, although he wouldn't, and never has. But since he won't presume to say what torture is, then how can he say whether or not the president has ordered it?

This is not hypocrisy, but doublethink, which is far more dangerous.

My point is that the skillful use of doublethink can obviate the need for the explicit endorsement of violence as a political tool. Should we let Our Dear Leader off the hook because he has found a more subtle means of stifling dissent?

Or perhaps I can explain it another way: the explicit endorsement of violence against one's enemies is a masculine approach to control. Ask any woman if there are other ways of terrifying your enemies into submission, and watch her shudder as she remembers what has been done to her by, or what she has done to, other women. Wouldn't it be amusing if the 21st century brand of fascism, while celebrating rampant masculinity, actually consolidated its power through the use of traditionally feminine means of control? We will be a nation of cowboys, headed by a cowboy, and in fact controlled by a snide cadre of nasty pumpkin-headed people who use rumors, innuendo, and the silent treatment to keep us all in line. Ah, to live perpetually in seventh grade, terrorized by Heathers.

Florida girl's senior photo pulled from yearbook

because she wore a tux instead of pearls. Student yearbook editor fired for not complying with teacher's order to remove the photo.More evidence of how much my home state sucks ass. Oh, and also gets more and more fascist every day.

Orcinus on Fascism (Yes, Again...)

What else did you expect him to write about?

What all of them [paleocons who have written recently about Republican party fascism] miss, importantly, is the role of movement leaders -- particularly Bush, Cheney, Karl Rove, and the neocons -- in encouraging these proto-fascist traits. There is no evidence that they're doing so because they themselves are actually proto-fascists; rather, I think it remains clear that these people are pro-corporate crony capitalists, and the evidence strongly suggests that they're indulging this style of politics for the sake of shoring up their numbers and securing their political base. The strongest evidence for this is the ongoing minuet the Bush administration dances with the neo-Confederate faction that now rules the South.

In other words, "movement conservatives" are being molded into a mindset that increasingly resembles classic fascism, but it's being done by leaders who mostly find this mindset convenient and readily manipulable. Unfortunately, the history of fascism is such that the arrogant corporatist belief that they contain these forces is not well grounded.

What's important to understand is the real dynamic: A growing populist "movement" is being encouraged increasingly to adopt attitudes that, taken together, become increasingly fascist. Greater numbers of individuals are being conditioned to think alike, and more importantly, to accept an increasingly vicious response to dissent. This does not mean that genuine fascism has arrived as a real political force in America; but it does mean the groundwork is being created for just such a nightmare, by irresponsible politicians tapping into terrible forces beyond their ability to control.

If even "paleo-conservatives" can see this, there's hope of stopping it. But I think we need to begin with a clear understanding of who, what, and why the fascists are.

The latent fascists who are the biggest problem right now are not Republican leaders. It is their oxyconned, Foxcized, Freeped-out, fanatic army of followers, comprising ordinary people, who pose the long-term problem. Drawing them back from the abyss is the real challenge that confronts us.

This is why we are unconvinced when people say "it's just another four yours" to us. It's not just 'the administration'. It's the Åmerican people. We're not any worse than other people, really, it's just that conditions are ripe. Increasing inequality (courtesy of the crony capitalists), environmental stress, war, plague (Bird Flu. It's the New Black Death![tm]) -- will these things push us closer to fascism, you think? Or will they result in a fabulous Age of Aquarius, with peace, love, and happiness for all? We Report. You Decide.

Digby On The Culture War

here:

Wherever resentment resides in the human character it can find a home in the Republican Party. This anger and frustration stems from a long nurtured sense of cultural besiegement, which they are finding can never be dealt with through the attainment of power alone. They seek approval.

My father-in-law was saying much the same thing over dinner last night. ("They know we despise them, and that we are right to do so.")

But how, then, can this fight be won? We will not give approval; they will accept nothing less.

via Apostropher

Christian dating service from Sean Hannity. Too, too funny to pass up.

Here.

New War Scheduled For June

just as Network TV goes into summer reruns: "In its drive to stop Iran gaining any ability to make nuclear weapons, the United States is ready to give European allies only until June to cajole Tehran before Washington seeks U.N. sanctions, U.S. diplomatic documents show."

Didn't Scott Ritter say recently that we planned to bomb Iran in June?

Bird Flu PR

from the BBC: "Doctors say a 21-year-old man was admitted to hospital in Hanoi suffering from fever, respiratory problems, and liver failure."

Bird Flu. It's the New Black Death.

Controlling the Girls

Atrios has a post about the Kansas AG's subpoena of abortion records.

People ask me "Why do you care, Amy? You're a member of the elite. You'll always be able to get an abortion if you want one -- which you don't, cause you're married and already have a kid, and isn't it about time you had another one anyway? Hah, we were right, your marriage must be on the rocks cuz your kid sleeps in your bed with you. You and Jennifer Aniston think you're more important than your ovaries, don't you?

Now that we're reading In These Times

here's an interesting piece by Slavoj Žižek on authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and the American crusade. Amy usually finds Žižek to be a little "yeah, so?" but I almost always enjoy him.

Exit Polls

A Corrupted Election: Despite what you may have heard, the exit polls were right -- In These Times

American: Stupid, or Just Victims of an Excellent Disinformation Campaign?

We Report, You Decide.

New Harris Poll on Iraq, 9/11, Al Qaeda and Weapons of Mass Destruction: What the Public Believes Now:

64 percent believe that Saddam Hussein had strong links to Al Qaeda (up slightly from 62% in November).

61 percent believe that Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, was a serious threat to U.S. security (down slightly from 63% in November).

More surprising perhaps are the large numbers (albeit not majorities) who believe the following claims not made by the president and which virtually no experts believe to be true:

47 percent believe that Saddam Hussein helped plan and support the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001 (up six percentage points from November).

44 percent actually believe that several of the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11 were Iraqis (up significantly from 37% in November).

36 percent believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded (down slightly from 38% in November).

Another interesting finding is that only 46 percent believe that Saddam Hussein was prevented from developing weapons of mass destruction by the U.N. weapons inspectors, a fact which most reports now support.

One for the Biscuit Compendium of Pessimism

Friedman today: "When a country lives on borrowed time, borrowed money and borrowed energy, it is just begging the markets to discipline it in their own way at their own time. As I said, usually the markets do it in an orderly way - except when they don't."

Note: UPDATED. I paid Tom Friedman a huge compliment by reading his column half-awake and mistaking it for a Krugman column. I have corrected the misattribution.

Bird Flu Way Better than Britain's Much-Touted "Superbug"

The BBC reports that Britain'sNHS superbug death rate doubles. However, Reuters reports that "The World Health Organization's Asia chief, Shigeru Omi, said on Wednesday the world was in the "gravest possible danger" of a pandemic. A top U.S. disease expert said this week the killer virus was the world's number one health threat." But, says the article, the world is not investing enough to prevent its spread in Asia, and poor farmers pay little attention to admonitions not to sell their sick poultry and spread the disease even further. "Governments needed to work harder to inform farmers about the risks of bird flu and persuade them to make sensible decisions," says one expert on the problem. And boy oh boy, that's good news for Avian Influenza, Ltd., because, after all, it's easy to convince people to make sensible decisions for the good of the broader community. Especially when they can save all that trouble and just burn some witches instead.

This Message Brought to You By The Paid Advertising Campaign of Avian Influenza, Ltd.

Bird Flu. It's the new Black Death.

Lie of the Day: Iraq Election was Victory for Women's Liberation

Jim Hoagland at WaPo complains that feminists should be "shouting from the rooftops" about Iraq's election results and what they mean for the "liberation" of Iraqi women.

Um. Ask Riverbend what she thinks about that.

Western feminists are not shouting from the rooftops about the election in Iraq because it was not a victory for women's liberation, but a victory for those who want to turn the country into Iran.

But why bother about reality when you can instead write a column that takes down "feminists" for being anti-American and doctrinaire in their opposition to war, praise President Bush for his revolutionary approach to middle east politics, mislead the brainless American public about the actual result of the Iraqi elections, and make those 'security moms' feel good about their "W stands for Women" bumper stickers?

Germans refuse to participate in Bush "Town Hall" Travesty

Bush in Germany: With a Hush and a Whisper, Bush Drops Town Hall Meeting with Germans - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE

Max's #1 Reason for Considering NZ

The idea of our beautiful son someday dying in an idiot-led war.
The CSMonitor asks about the Draft

We have other reasons (which we keep meaning to post about, but we're too busy actually getting ready to visit NZ to do so), and I don't think that fears of the draft are #1 on my personal list, although they're certainly nothing to sneeze at.

And They Found It On Craig's List

TPM notes a Craig's List posting purporting to be from the Social Security Administration looking for people to participate in a focus group on the "privatization or partial privatization of Social Security". The posting has been purged from Craig's List since its discovery.

Loose Links

Note: Swiping posting title "Loose Links" from our friend RJ at The Daily Blague.

Salon on Gannongate.

Orcinus gets a letter from a guy who blames some obnoxious Jewish kids in college for driving him to be a Nazi.

Digby links to Riverbend's blogging the transformation of her country into an Iran-modeled Islamofascist state. Digby comments

It grows more and more likely that the right, who wholeheartedly supported the war and are currently supporting the political handling of the occupation, deposed a totalitarian dictator to install a repressive fundamentalist theocracy in its place. I fail to see how that advances the cause of our country or western civilization. Indeed, it is a betrayal of everything we stand for.

Republican Senators request critics membership lists and tax records

Every time I read yet another denial that we are about to go to war with Iran, I get more anxious. It's like when I was getting an EEG, and I told the tech I was worried I had MS or a brain tumor. Oh, it's not a tumor, she said. This failed to reassure. Then, of course, I grew more anxious, and felt worse, and was helpfully told to just calm down. After a few weeks of this fun, they told me there was nothing neurologically wrong with me, but that I really should see a shrink for my hysteria.

Brainless, Vicious, Hatemongering, Creationist Lawyers Are Blog of Year

Ross Douthat is Bitter About Harvard

I've been meaning to post for a while now about Ross Douthat's Atlantic piece about how Harvard let him down so much. However, I keep not wanting to actually read the damn thing, since Brad DeLong's discussion of it made it sound so icky I haven't been able to find the stomach for it yet. Oh, and it's also subscribers-only, so I'd have to track down a print magazine. Like I have time for that.

So it's not nice for me to say mean things about this article I haven't read. Anyway, Ross is probably just going through the typical post-Harvard letdown. "Oh fuck, what am I going to do now? I've go this fancy degree around my neck, all my classmates are already published, and I still feel like I'm faking it and don't know anything about anything." Not that I'm projecting or anything. Don't worry, Ross, all that fades. After a while you realize that it was not Harvard's job to educate you, but Harvard's job to take your money and give you a degree. If, surrounded by smart people and given suggestions of interesting books to read and think about, you actually get some education, that's gravy. But trust me, you won't know whether you learned anything until several years after you've graduated. It's called perspective. I may not have much of it yet, but I've got more than you do, bucko.

I learned neither more nor less at Harvard than I learned before or since my time there. Which is to say, I learned a lot, but not enough, and that I realize I have a lot of learning yet to do, and that, although my education was once plausibly someone else's responsibility in addition to my own, it no longer is. Nobody else now cares, or in truth ever really cared that I learn from this life. Harvard taught me that, and it's not, after all, such a small thing to know.

Larry Summers, and the Myth of the 80-hour/week White Collar Worker

This tedious saga just keeps going on, and on. I can't keep up. But here's Bitch, Phd with what should be an obvious statement about the ridiculousness of the 80-hour work week.

My mother-in-law once asked me how people who worked got anything, you know, done in their lives. "They do it on company time." I said. 80 hours is the magic number that we, white-collar America, have settled on as the top end of the "career-oriented professional" reasonable hours of work per week. It's ridiculous, both because it is so insane, and so obviously inflated. Professionals have discretion over how they use their time at work.TThey are paying their bills online, they are squeezing minutes off their lunch breaks, they are ordering stuff from Amazon, they are reading blogs, they are writing blogs, and they are IM'ing their spouses about what to have for dinner.

There are people in America working 80-hour weeks, for real, who can't even take bathroom breaks on the clock. They're not doing it to get ahead. They're doing it to stay afloat. You'll find them at Wal-Mart. Or emptying your trashcan when you've stayed late at work to finish some project you procrastinated on by looking stuff up on Wikipedia.

Women and Blogging

Oh, for chrissakes. Three months ago there was some big debate on, what, Crooked Timber?, asking where all the women bloggers were. And lots of women bloggers came by and said "geez, do we have to have this debate every three months?" And now here's Kevin Drum, wondering where all the chick bloggers are. Again.

B-ooo-rrrring. Can we focus again on the torture and stuff? Oh, and the fascists?

Nick Kristof is so adorable

He actually thinks Americans, if shown the right pictures, and told the right facts, will give a shit about genocide. He forgets that we've put torturers in charge of enforcing the law. Nevertheless, we should all write our Senators, etc. to request that they pull their heads out of the bogus social security 'debate' long enough to focus again on the torture, the genocide, the terrorists, and the dead people.

The trouble with centrists...

New Donkey is shocked at survey results showing that,in a hypothetical presidential race, George W. Bush trounces George Washington 62%-28% among Republicans (and what happened to the other 10% -- were they afraid the poll was some kind of loyalty test?):

Depending on what happens during Bush's second term, he is almost certain to go down in history as a president comparable to William McKinley at best (the symbol and vehicle for a political realignment he did little or nothing to cause) or Warren G. Harding at worst (the amiable front-man for a feeding frenzy of corruption and national irresponsibility).

The problem with guys like Kilgore is that they are far, far too generous to Bush and refuse to recognize the actually revolutionary character of this administration. For which I hold Bush responsible.

Plagues

Disclosure: The Biscuit Report has been retained by Avian Influenza, Ltd, to help it with its campaign "Bird Flu: It's the New Black Death." It is in fulfillment of that business relationship that I recommend this link about the coming bird flu pandemic.

Fascist eliminationist rhetoric

Stumbled across some appalling fascist T-shirts at www.thoseshirts.com (copy/paste the link; i'm paranoid), chock full of fascistic eliminationist rhetoric against us liberals, the French, environmentalists, etc. Some of the luminaries of the fascist blogosphere, like Glenn Reynolds and Michelle Malkin are proudly featured wearing their dreck.

There's a "Freedom World Tour" t-shirt at http://www.thoseshirts.com/tour.html. Nice stuff.

Fucking yikes.

TPM on the new "Retired People Turned On By Men in Tuxes, Not Hot Military Studs" ads

here.

Michelle Goldberg Goes to CPAC

and ooh boy, is it a barrel of fascists...

The Next Big Thing

BBC NEWS | Health | Bird flu cases 'underestimated'

Bird Flu: It's the New Black Death!

And an extra helping of torture, too...

Krugman says the Social Security sale is going so badly Bush is likely to switch to, say, a Syria or Iran sale any day now. Wag-the-Dog Protection: But, he says, "Mr. Bush's critics are falling into an unnecessary trap if they focus only on domestic policies, and allow Mr. Bush to keep his undeserved reputation as someone who keeps Americans safe. National security policy should not be a refuge to which Mr. Bush can flee when his domestic agenda falls apart."

Not only is he not keeping us safe, he's not keeping us safe by resorting to utterly immoral policies. Torture, torture, torture. Or are we not allowed to talk about that anymore, now that Gonzo and the CIA are ready with their Gulfstream to jet us away to exotic locales for bondage fun?

Who needs Hitler Youth when you've got competitive sports?

Doctors See a Big Rise in
Injuries for Young Athletes:

In interviews with more than two dozen sports-medicine doctors and researchers, one factor was repeatedly cited as the prime cause for the outbreak in overuse injuries among young athletes: specialization in one sport at an early age and the year-round, almost manic, training for it that often follows.

'It's not enough that they play on a school team, two travel teams and go to four camps for their sport in the summer,' said Dr. Eric Small, who has a family sports-medicine practice in Westchester County. 'They have private instructors for that one sport that they see twice a week. Then their parents get them out to practice in the backyard at night.'

Excesses

Digby thinks the line "We're just trying to keep the Republicans from going too far!" is a good one for the Dems in Congress to use.

"Yes, it was always the excesses that we wished to oppose, rather than the whole program, the whole spirit that produced the first steps, A, B, C, and D, out of which the excesses were bound to come. it is so much easier to 'oppose the excesses,' about which one can, of course, do nothing, than it is to oppose the whole spirit, about which one can do something every day." So quoth Milton Mayer. See my New Year's Resolutions for more Mayer

In any case, the country has already gone through A, B, C, D, and excesses, so it's a bit late to be claiming to try to prevent the Republicans from going too far.

Grow Your Own...

I haven't looked at my newsreader in three days. I've been busy planning three gardens (ordering seeds, plotting paths, trying to find room for 38 tomato seedlings arriving May 15..) and getting ready for our trip to New Zealand. So, loyal readers, I apologize for my lack of posts in recent days. I will now attempt a marathon read-and-post session. Do not expect Pulitzer material, I'm just trying to catch up.
Orcinus on Fascist Hatemongering toward Liberals

Digby on new Bush tapes:

This man who pretends to feel such empathy for gays is the same man who ran on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, told James Byrd's family to take a hike, signed off on 150 plus executions without looking up from his gameboy and now claims that the constitution gives him the total power to order torture and execution in the name of the War On Terror.

This goes beyond hypocrisy. It's downright pathological. The Republican coalition consists of a racists, homophobes, dupes and the rich selfish bastards who tell them whatever they want to hear in order to get elected. I hope their religion is real because if it is they are all going to spend eternity in the ninth circle of hell.

What to do with the digital video camera your parents got you so you could send them video of their grandchild: Use it to document your kid's participation in anti-war activism to support his future Conscientious Objector claim.

More soon...

Happiness in Marriage

There was a bizarre and annoying "Valentine-themed" op-ed in yesterday's Times, somehow accusing "attachment parenting" of causing divorce. I am not a fan of Valentine-themed anything, and it's amazing to me how pundits will try to blame divorce rates and bad marriages on the darnedest things:

With the widespread acceptance of "attachment parenting" - family beds, long-term breast feeding and all the rest - the physical boundaries between parents and children have worn away. Marital romance has dried up. Real intimacy has gone the way of bottle-feeding and playpens. In fact, the whole ideal of marriage as a union of soul mates, friends and lovers that's as essential to a happy family life as, say, unconditional love for the children, has taken a direct hit. And in its place has come the reality of a utilitarian relationship dedicated to staying afloat financially and child-rearing of a sort we tend to associate with frontier marriages, arranged marriages, marriages of convenience - marriages far removed, in time and place, from our lives, our parents' lives and even our grandparents' lives.

The Wikipedia entry on attachment parenting is a bit of a caricature of it -- describing a parenting style in its maximal forms and with all the other cultural choices that are more-or-less associated with it. I would lean more toward the minimal description: raising your children secure in the knowledge that too much love won't hurt them. Lots of parents who "do attachment parenting" are anxious, rigid, and obsessive about the rules they follow, about what they must do for their kids, about, generally, doing everything right. So, for that matter, are lots of other parents. There are all kinds of 'systems' out there, and they do make parents crazy. Lots of families involved in "attachment parenting" end up with a rigid division of labor in which the mother is basically completely responsible for the kids and must be incredibly available to them, and the father is busy at work all the time. So, too, do lots of families who don't "attachment parent". Parental anxiety and preoccupation with their kids is real, and no doubt it does put a real strain on some marriages, but my own observations (anecdotal of course, but I didn't see any hard citations in Ms. Warner's essay, either) lead me to believe that parents become preoccupied with their kids because their marriages aren't so great to begin with, not vice-versa. If a husband works 80-hour weeks and the wife is busy with kiddie activities all the time, or if both work all the time and spend their little spare time in a "quality" way with the kids, then yeah, I'll bet the marriage is going to suffer. And it'll suffer whether the toddlers are still nursing and sleeping in the parents' bed.

Our kid sleeps in our bed. And he's going to be two soon, and he's still nursing. We can't imagine going on a vacation without him. We parent this way not because we think we have to, but because we like it, and it works for us. We laugh when people ask us "But if he's in your bed, how do you have sex?" People who have to ask this are neither especially imaginative nor realistic about how much parents of very young children feel like fucking at 11 pm at night, regardless of where their kid is sleeping. There are other times and places to screw, and we manage just fine, thanks. As for including our kid in most of the stuff we do (um, not talking about sex anymore people, okay!), we do that because, amazingly, we like to hang out with him. We don't plan our lives around doing things we think would be good or fun for him. We just include him in what we're already doing anyway. Last weekend we took him with us to Cambridge to go look at some chairs we were buying from a Portuguese couple who were returning home ("What," I said to them facetiously, "you don't want to stick around here?" "Amazingly,no" they said.). We bought the chairs. We gave the man some money, and he helped us fit the chairs into our car. The kid has not yet stopped talking about this transaction. "Man." he says, pointing at the chairs. "Money." "Car.""Many." "Daddy" And we nod: "Yes, we bought the chairs from the man. We gave him money, and he helped daddy put the chairs in the car. There are six of them." If we spent our weekend days sitting around with other parents waiting for our kids to be done with their playdates, or music classes, or whatever, perhaps we'd feel resentful and like we don't get enough time to ourselves.

We certainly appreciate the time that we do get to spend alone with one another. But that time is not what makes our marriage a "union of soul mates, friends and lovers". I'm not exactly sure what does. Luck, I suspect. Perhaps I sound awfully maudlin myself, but I never expected such happiness in marriage. I never expected marriage at all. Max and I were lucky to meet one another, and luckier still to recognize a good thing when we had it, to continue to recognize this good thing we have together. Our love for our child is not, as Ms. Warner would have it, "sucking the emotional life out of our marriage." On the contrary, it enlarges it. I am sorry for those who have had a different experience with marriage and children. But I don't think that Ms. Warner's unbelievably silly advice will help them. She suggests that such couples "leave work early and go on a date with your grown-up Valentine." Because, if your marriage is sexless, loveless, and utilitarian, obviously, a fancy dinner out in a restaurant where everyone else is also dutifully involved in romantic consumption is definitely going to save it. The best that can be said about such advice is that it is entirely in keeping with the spirit of Valentine's Day, for which we have nothing but scorn.

Idiot anti-urbanists

Arrgh, I was turned onto this neocon mealy-brain Joel Kotkin by James Howard Kunstler. The insufferable George Will quotes him in one of his recent WaPO bits. Money quote:

Writing in the Weekly Standard, Joel Kotkin, author of the forthcoming book "The City: A Global History," distinguishes between America's "aspirational" cities and "Euro-American" cities. The former -- e.g., Atlanta; Boise, Idaho; Charlotte; Fort Myers and Orlando, Fla.; Las Vegas and Reno, Nev.; Phoenix; and Salt Lake City -- are thriving. The latter -- e.g., Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco -- are experiencing social fragmentation as government's clients fight over dwindling scarce resources, and many of these cities are losing population, often to the aspirational cities.

Yaaaaack.

Scarce resources? Let's talk water and oil. Which of these cities consume proportionally massively higher quantities of both per capita? The "Old Europe" cities, if you will, or the throwaway pseudocities of the Sunbelt? (And for water: None of the "old" cities except for San Francisco has a serious water supply problem to begin with, while nearly all of the "new" cities do.)

And does anybody moving to, say, Phoenix, ever cite more compelling reasons than "I can afford a 3-car garage there" or "it's a good place to raise kids"? The latter being specious and, in my opinion, wrong.

Anyway, read Kunstler. He often needs a copy editor (as do his books; is his editor asleep at the switch?) for minor factual and spelling errors, but his arguments are right on and very provocative.

NOW for some torture...

Also via Brad DeLong, a letter in which someone points out that John Yoo, infamous auhor of torture members, actually told Jane Mayer of The New Yorker that the 2004 election was a referendum on the U.S. policy of torture. Letter points out, then, that Yoo actually said the equivalent of "A vote for Bush in 2004 was a vote for torture."

Do people who voted for Bush in 2004 understand that? And which is worse: that they voted for him knowing they were supporting torture, or that they voted for him believing otherwise? Perhaps there's no longer any difference.

"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again : and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself."

Ah, the essence of doublethink...

Amusing and Not Particularly Political: No Torture Involved, I promise

Brad DeLong has two funny posts this morning A Conversation About Infectious Disease at the Dermatologist's and A Conversation About Homework.

Prostitution

Digby discusses the Jeff Gannon story here. Gannon, you may recall, is the 'reporter' who called the Democrats "divorced from reality" during a question at a recent Bush press conference, after which he was discovered to be using an alias. Oh, and also a male prostitute. No, really.

Now, I continue not to have problems with gay men, prostitution, S&M, etc. Nor do I think anything will actually come of this story, other than some further sniping at liberal bloggers for being allegedly homophobic for even suggesting it might be relevant that someone with White House press credentials is at the same time a working prostitute. I have absolutely no hopes that anything discovered about this administration will bring them down. This story is just one more illustration of the extent to which these people believe, and so far, correctly, that they are untouchable. Torture, yeah, we do it. You got a problem with that? Oh, gay prostitutes writing anti-gay screeds for Republican-financed 'news sites'? Whatever. Oh, we paid members of the media to say nice stuff about us. So? WMDs never found -- what, you think Muslims don't deserve freedom and democracy?

They lie, and they are caught in their lies, and everything blows over, and they just don't care. They erode public confidence in the media so that most people have no idea what's true anymore anyway, and they say and do whatever they feel like.

No big story is going to save us, people. Even one involving gay sex for sale.

Torture Tales

Australian citizen tortured in U.S. custody

Sunday Special: Fascist Church-based Military Recruiting

Max was not surprised by this photo essay (you must click through to the pictures...). I would be less disturbed by it if the guy who attended the event hadn't sounded so shocked by it himself, because that means that, even if it's not an entirely new phenomenon, it's now spreading to populations it hadn't previously touched.

(This link came via Bellatrys at Nothing New Under The Sun.)

well, we're citizens, so we must be safe, right?

Here's a U.S. Citizen (born and raised) held by the Saudis at U.S. request since June 2003, charged with no crime by either government. His parents are challenging his detention in a U.S. court, and the government wants the court to decide if their son can be held indefinitely based on evidence it is willing to show only to the judge:

The U.S. government asked a judge yesterday to dismiss a Falls Church couple's challenge of their son's imprisonment based on reasons and evidence that would be kept secret from the family and the public.

Justice Department lawyer Ori Levi, while acknowledging that such a ruling would be unprecedented, told the judge "there's very little risk" that Ahmed Abu Ali, a U.S. citizen detained in a Saudi prison for 20 months, has been wrongly deprived of his freedom.

Oh well, that's okay then. If the government says so, it must be true. right? Right?

Wal-Mart and Department of Labor, Together At Last

The U.S. Department of Labor recently signed an agreement with Wal-Mart to notify them 15 days in advance of any investigation they intend to make on labor violations, to allow Wal-Mart ample time to correct the problem. Oh, and they fined Wal-Mart $130K for breaking child labor laws -- for example, allowing minor employees to operate chainsaws. Also,

Several federal employees voiced concern about a Jan. 10 e-mail message sent by the director of the Little Rock, Ark., office for the Labor Department's wage and hour division after the settlement was reached, that said, "Wage & Hour will not open an investigation of Wal-Mart without first notifying Wal-Mart's main office and allowing them an opportunity to look at the alleged violations and, if valid, correct the problem."

Incidentally, this article is an excellent example of the perils of only reading the headlines. The headline says "Wal-Mart agrees to Pay Fine In Child Labor Cases" but the article is about the fine, the fact that the settlement with DOL was reached a month ago but not disclosed to the public, and, most especially, that the agreement includes provisions that several federal employees have complained are there to allow Wal-Mart to continue violating labor laws.

Hullaballoo on John Yoo

Or, Digby Does Depressing

Dear Readers: Who Are You?

You don't have to say, of course -- we're not the Department of Homeland Security. Just curious. Writing a small blog with small-blog traffic can be lonely and futile-seeming, and a list of IP addresses isn't as fun as knowing something about the people who read us. And yes, we do have a few readers, we get site stats.

We don't want your names or photos of you in your underwear. Just, you know, a general outline. "Senior Administration Official who wishes to remain anonymous," for example.

Frank Rich's "Bathosphere"

Very nice distillation by Frank Rich on the bizzare maudlin sentimentalia ruling today's culture in today's NYT:

What really makes these critics hate "Million Dollar Baby" is not its supposedly radical politics - which are nonexistent - but its lack of sentimentality. It is, indeed, no "Rocky," and in our America that departure from the norm is itself a form of cultural radicalism. Always a sentimental country, we're now living fulltime in the bathosphere. Our 24/7 news culture sees even a human disaster like the tsunami in Asia as a chance for inspirational uplift, for "incredible stories of lives saved in near-miraculous fashion," to quote NBC's Brian Williams.

I love his term "bathosphere."

Misc.

First, a little provision they're trying to stick into some immigration act exempts the Department of Homeland Security from all laws, and from all judicial review of its exemption from all laws. But don't worry, it'll only be exempt "whenever it acts to secure the borders and remove 'obstacles to detection of illegal entrants.'"

Orcinus chronicles more suppression of dissent. Orcinus, for those who don't know him, is always worth a click-through, by the way. He doesn't post indiscriminately, and he's actually a professional journalist.

What a surprise: a congressional committee investigating election 2004 problems is upset because the Florida and Ohio Secretaries of State declined invitations to testify.

I can't believe anyone could make a case going after CNN for being anti-american, though. Well, actually, I can.

Finally..Humor: I want me some of this...

Oh, for Christ's fucking sake...

Atrios:

Gannon leaves, and is magically replaced with GannonBot Mark II (or is it KinsolvingBot Mark III?). From the gaggle:

Q Does this administration believe the Democratic leaders are now engaged in a deliberate disinformation campaign as the best way to undermine the President's goals and objectives on a number of issues?

MR. McCLELLAN: A deliberate?

Q Yes.

MR. McCLELLAN: We would certainly hope not. The President has made it very clear that he wants to reach out and work together on our shared priorities. That's what he's going to continue to do.

So far I've been unable to determine who Scotty's new suppository is. If anyone knows...

Digby has more on our friend Gannon

Wolf Blitzer and Howie Kurtz taking those mean liberal bloggers to task for going after the poor man's personal life. What bullshit.

"Still sexy after all these years..."

'Jeff Gannon,' the fake reporter/wanna-be-military-escort, has closed up shop. Some people in the blogosphere are trying to blame this on supposed gay-bashing on the major left-wing blogs, triggered by the discovery of a photo of him in his underwear that he'd posted on the internet (no longer up, sorry) with the legend "Still Sexy after all these years..." Vanity afflicts people of all sexual orientations, so the photo certainly doesn't prove anything about his. So is it gay-bashing for lefties to make snide remarks implying that he is? Only if, as the right believes, being gay is something to be ashamed of. When Lynne Cheney complained about John Kerry mentioning that her daughter was gay, when Ken Mehlman puts out press releases tarring Democrats with close relationships to gay rights groups despite the open secret of his own sexual orientation, when Alan Keyes rails against gay people while his daughter posts pictures of herself making out with her girlfriend on the internet -- that is gay-bashing. Commenting on these things is not gay-bashing, it's hypocricy-bashing. Likewise, I don't care what Jeff Gannon's sexuality is, but the consumers of his fake news probably do.

The Right has beautifully turned the arguments of liberalism into rhetorical devices against liberalism itself, calling us racists for opposing Condi and Torture-guy, anti-gay for complaining about gay Republicans who push legal reforms discriminating against gays, and so on. It's stupid to fall for this trick and try to argue with them about it. To say that those who opposed an AG nominee on the grounds that he supports torture are racist because the nominee is Latino is to drain the term 'racism' of any meaning whatsoever.

But then, they're draining all language of meaning, as fast as they possibly can, so what else is new?...

cracked Greenspun

I have enjoyed reading Philip Greenspun's often-provocative writings on many things -- software engineering, photography, politics -- for years. He is a very interesting character: a part-time MIT computer science faculty member who ran a company where Amy briefly considered working, which flamed out during the dot-com holocaust. He's famously arrogant, but he's also often right.

This article is pretty cracked, though. I don't know what is going on in his head.

Jeff Gannon, white house plant and hot military stud

Last week I pointed out a Globe article on a guy named Jeff Gannon, the pseudonym of a fake reporter who gets daily white house press passes and is frequently called on by the White House goons to badmouth democrats in question format (hey, new game show!). For example, at Bush's press conference, 'Gannon' called Democrats "divorced from reality" and asked how Bush was ever going to deal with such people.

Today, Atrios provides a list of domains he's registered, including hotmilitarystud.com, and a link to a picture of the man himself in his underwear. "Divorced from reality," indeed.

James Lileks

Back when I lived in the Twin Cities ages ago, James Lileks was an amusing social commentator in the alternative weeklies. He still publishes amusing commentary on decor and architecture, but anything by him in the last while on politics is in that deluded "realistic" far-right wing vein. One of his core theses, as you'll see below, is that Bush is a tough promulgator of liberal democracy.

The guy is syndicated in the Washington fucking Times. Need I say any more?

Digby on...

Fascism.

New Zealand is looking better and better every day.

Via TPM, we learn that the RNC is threatening TV stations

that are carrying a MoveOn.org ad against the president's social security bunker-buster. SouthBendTribune.com: RNC asks stations to kill 'false TV ad':

Kevin Sargent, vice president and general manager for WSJV-TV, said he viewed the RNC letter as threatening.

The last two paragraphs of the letter said:

"As an FCC licensee, you have a responsibility to exercise independent editorial judgment to oversee and protect the integrity of the American marketplace of ideas, and to avoid broadcasting deliberate misrepresentations of the facts. Such obligations must be taken seriously and I urge you to decline to broadcast this advertisement.

"This letter places you on notice that the information contained in the above-cited advertisement is false and misleading. Your station should act responsibly and refrain from airing this advertisement."

"When a letter says 'this letter places you on notice,' " Sargent said, "that's kind of threatening."

"intelligent design" makes it to NYT op-ed

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: Design for LivingThis guy is with some outfit called The Discovery Institute, which among other things advocates 'teaching the controversy,' aka "Evolution is just a theory, kids. You know, like Fox Mulder's theories."

Welcome to the new Dark Age, kids. Let's throw science out the window. Stupid, stupid science.

global warming apocalypse porn

Apocalypse Now: How Mankind is Sleepwalking to the End of the Earth A report from the most recent 'climate change' conference. It's shrill, hysterical, and terrifying, and it's probably correct. Quick, honey, let's sell the apartment before it becomes a swimming pool.

Democratic Senators who deserve our contempt

(1) Senator Ken Salazar (Colorado).

(2) Senator Joseph Lieberman (Conn.).

(3) Senator Ben Nelson (Neb.).

(4) Senator Mary Landrieu (La.)

(5) Senator Pryor (Ark).

(6) Senator Bill Nelson (Fla.)

They voted to confirm Gonzales.

Of course, all the Republican senators did too, but we already knew they deserved our contempt. Even John McCain, who was himself tortured, apparently doesn't think the experience was that bad after all. (Perhaps with torture, as with labor, you forget the pain?). Which suggests that peoples' 'personal stories' have little effect on their political behavior.

Contrarian view of Summer's gaffe

As a graduate of Harvard's women's studies department (well, it's not a department, it's a commitee, and my major major was actually 'Religion, Comparative Study of', also a committee), I've felt my failure to comment on the Summers thang as a positive deriliction of duty. But I just couldn't get it up about the whole thing. Why would someone so smart say something so dumb? I thought. And then moved on to thinking about torture.

However, here's a Boston Globe article on what came out of the uproar:Harvard aims to spur advancement of women

In response to the outcry that followed Harvard University president Lawrence H. Summers's remarks on women in the sciences, the university announced yesterday the creation of two task forces to develop concrete ways to better recruit women and support the careers of female scholars at Harvard, especially in science and engineering.

Harvard also announced plans to create a senior position in the central administration to focus on the recruitment and advancement of women on the faculty.

Now, imagine you're a senior administrator at a powerful institution, trying to control a bunch of ornery cats who think they know better than you. Some of those cats think all this gender bias crap is bullshit. Everyone's fighting over money, initiatives of all sorts are started and then flounder in committees, and people think you're a crazy motherfucker anyway. Say you really do think there's a problem with gender bias in the academy, but am getting nowhere with your efforts to get your staff to take it seriously.

What if you said something so outrageous to a bunch of other university presidents that the ensuing uproar practically forced your institution to take positive steps toward correcting the problem? People would scream and shout and call you a pig, but the net result would be progress.

Who knows what Larry Summers was really thinking when he said that? Who, however, can doubt that the result will probably be good for women at Harvard?

Geekout

O'Reilly has started a new magazine called 'Make.' Target audience: people who think it's fun to install Linux on their microwave ovens.

Ah, to be a Member of The Party

Orcinus comments on a recent story by a reporter who covered the inauguaral balls, who says he was followed everywhere by 'minders' and has the following to say about their purpose:

Consider that the escorts weren't there to provide security; all of us had already been through two checkpoints and one metal detector. They weren't there to keep me away from, Heaven forbid, a Democrat or a protester; those folks were kept safely behind rings of fences and concrete barriers. Nor were the escorts there to admonish me for asking a rude question of the partying faithful, or to protect the paying customers from the prying media.

Their real purpose only occurred to me after I had gone home for the night, when I remembered a brief conversation with a woman I was interviewing. During the middle of our otherwise innocuous encounter, she suddenly noticed the presence of my minder. She stopped for a moment, glanced past me, then resumed talking.

No, the minders weren't there to monitor me. They were there to let the guests, my sources on inaugural night, know that any complaint, any unguarded statement, any off-the-reservation political observation, might be noted. But maybe someday they'll be monitoring something more important than an inaugural ball, and the source could be you.

And the Fargo blacklist is, surprise, probably NOT the work of an "overzealous volunteer".

Why Did Salon Publish This 12-year-old Masquerading as a Book Reviewer

Someone named Ann Marlowe reviews The Neocon Reader, a book I'd actually like to read a real review on. Unfortunately, Ms. Marlowe, whose most impressive accomplishment to date has been to write a book about her love affair with heroin, has the mentality of a twelve-year-old:

If you're old enough to have followed politics in the '70s, you'll remember that liberals used to be the exciting ones. They were more open-minded, more imaginative and, well, sexier than conservatives. And one big reason Bush won in 2004 was that many of us who were ambivalent about the man and his politics -- I voted for Gore in 2000 -- found the Democrats and their candidate smugly self-righteous, prissy and joyless. Sure, red-staters can be smug, too, but it's as incongruous in liberals as it is in garage bands. My liberal friends asked how I could support the candidate of the Christian right, but Kerry came off as so plastic and corporate, so backpedaling and two-faced, that by election night I felt that wearing a Bush button was a punk rock gesture.

Not just a twelve-year-old, a fascist twelve-year-old. Why did Salon publish such a piece of shit 'review'?

No remorse

School Halts Adopt a Sniper Fund-Raiser:

CHICAGO - A U.S. university in Wisconsin has blocked an attempt by Republican students to raise money for a group called "Adopt a Sniper" that raises money for U.S. sharp-shooters in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The students were selling bracelets bearing the motto "1 Shot 1 Kill No Remorse I Decide".

More Memory Hole...

A Whistle-Blower's Inside View of the Homeland Security Nominee

Senator Dodd's speech opposing Gonzales nomination

here (via TalkLeft)

TNR on the race for DNC chair

Thanks to Bellatrys for the link: The New Republic Online: The Outsiders. The truly amazing thing in the article is this quote from James Carville:

To many Washington Democrats watching the circus-like contest from afar, it has been an embarrassment. "I think it's pathetic," says James Carville. "It's so indicative of the Democratic Party. Now we're just playing into every stereotype: We're weak, disorganized, flopping around. ... Somebody should have fixed this damn thing in November. I wish someone would have taken charge and three or four people would have gotten together in a smoke-filled room. ... They're not running for president! They are running for party chair. This is supposed to be a rigged deal. You think the Republicans would do it this way?" 

As Bellatrys points out, um, Mr. Carville, you fuck the enemy. You are no friend of ours.

I was an anti-Deaniac in the presidential race, but I'm glad Dean's gonna be DNC chair. I think we're hosed, no matter what we do, and we may as well go down with a feral, rebel yell. This is not the time to go gently into that good night. History will remember those who went down fighting, and scorn the appeasers.

Daniel Okrent admits NYT killed story on Bush's Bulge

The Emperor's New Hump

Not My President

Salon reports: you decide. Is it unpatriotic for me to say that Bush is Not My President? Well, I would never actually be allowed to speak to him or attend any events of his, so he clearly doesn't think he's my president either.

A bigger question, of course, is whether I want to be patriotic in a country that condones torture by promoting those who promulgated the policies that produced it. And the alliterative answer to that is: no. Not just at present.

A new book on the Nuremberg trials just came out.: "Said Hanz Frietzsche, senior minister in Joseph Goebbels's Ministry of Propaganda: "I can defend myself in one sentence, 'I did it as a German patriot.'"

Lock Up the Little Old Ladies!

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Our Battered Constitution:

In one hearing that led up to Monday's decision, Judge Green attempted to see how broadly the government viewed its power to hold detainees. Administration lawyers told her, in response to a hypothetical question, that they believed the president would even have the right to lock up 'a little old lady from Switzerland' for the duration of the war on terror if she had written checks to a charity that she believed helped orphans, but that actually was a front for Al Qaeda.

Reuters: U.S. General Says It Is 'Fun to Shoot Some People'

Yippee Kie Yah, MothaFuckas

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior U.S. Marine Corps general who said it was "fun to shoot some people" should have chosen his words more carefully but will not be disciplined, military officials said on Thursday.

Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and is slated to be portrayed by star actor Harrison Ford in an upcoming Hollywood movie, made the comments at a conference on Tuesday in San Diego, California.

"Actually it's quite fun to fight 'em, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you, I like brawling," Mattis said.

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis said during a panel discussion. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

Volunteers for Prosperity: Your Tax Dollars for Jesus

Yesterday I mentioned a federal program Bush created in 2003 to funnel your foreign aid dollars into Christian organizations: Volunteers for Prosperity. Today I'm reading the 2004 VfP annual report, touting the recipient organization of a $200,000 grant called Partners for Christian Development. Actually, they've since changed their name to "Partners Worldwide: Christian Businesspeople Transforming Lives." Max Weber would have gotten a kick out of these guys -- here's their explanation of their 'spiritual foundations':

Partners Worldwide grieves when people are unable to image God through satisfying, productive, self-supporting ordinary daily work.   But neither passive acceptance nor guilt-based activity are options because we are privileged to be co-workers with Jesus Christ whose promise is “I am making everything new” (Revelation 21:5a). 

Partners’ special focus is actively seeking out ways to affirm and create satisfying God-imaging daily work for everyone*, especially for those living in poverty because of pervasive conditions of high unemployment. As members of Partners Worldwide, we see all ordinary daily work, both for ourselves and for those with whom we partner, as joyful expressions of our calling to image God as He originally intended in His good creation.  We believe working toward this goal for everyone will be blessed with surprising results because it is based on this biblical promise:  “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” (Revelation 11:15*)

As Christian Partners we seek out ways to partner with other Christians to provide jobs and opportunities for profitable personal and business growth so that everyone, especially those unemployed and otherwise marginalized, will be more fully empowered to image God through productive, satisfying, self-supporting daily work.

It's not that I have a problem with Christian charity. I have a problem with using public funds for Christian charity.

We have no idea how much of our public funds are being diverted to 'faith-based' organizations, because none of the departments involved are required to keep track of it. Who needs accountability, when you've got Jesus?

Oops, sombody pooped on my 'Parity': A mental health coverage rant

So I just got off the phone with our crapporific health insurance carrier, trying to get pre-authorization for my shrink visits so that they'll deign to reimburse some of the money I pay.

Even though there's supposed to be what they call "parity" for "biologically-based mental illnesses", which my particular illness (DSM IV 296.26, with a side order of 300.4) is, the insurance companies have devised all sorts of insane ways to avoid paying the bills. It's true that they try desperately not to pay ANY of our medical bills, but they're particularly awful about mental health.

First of all, if I don't get "pre-authorization," they penalize me by only paying half, rather than 80% (after my out-of-network deductible, of course, because any decent shrink is out-of-network..), of my 'eligible expenses'. Second, they farm me off to some 'behavioral health' division (Why is it 'behavioral' if it's biologically-based?), with a totally different claims address. Third, they needed crap from me like my shrink's Tax ID number and some number I'd never even heard of that proves she can prescribe for me. "She's prescribed for me before," I said, "I'm pretty sure she's allowed to." Fourth, they tried to only authorize 20-minute medication management appointments. No, I told them, I have 50-minute psychotherapy with medication management. Fifth, they gave me authorization for 8 sessions, after which my shrink will have to fill out a 'treatment plan' to get them to authorize another 8 sessions, and so on.

If I had diabetes, would my endocrinologist have to fill out a treatment plan every 8 times I saw her, justifying my continued need for treatment for my diabetes? Would I have to get preauthorization before initiating treatment with my endocrinologist for my diabetes? No, and no. Is someone who is in the throes of mental illness more, or less, capable of managing a pre-auth process than someone with diabetes?

You can take your parity, kids, and shove it up your ass.

Department of Gray Lady Understatement: Reprisals Edition

The NYT published an editorial today on the fate of the lawyers who mounted the Ohio vote challenge. Apparently Ohio's AG is now pushing the State Supreme Court to sanction the lawyers for their 'frivolous lawsuit'. The AG, of course, is representing Ken Blackwell, he of the "that paper's not thick enough" voter registration rules. What's the Times say about this?

One of the strengths of our democracy is that citizens are free to question the results of an election. But four lawyers who did just that in Ohio, contesting President Bush's victory, are now facing sanctions. These lawyers, and other skeptics, may not have cast significant doubt on the legitimacy of the outcome. But punishing them for trying would send a disturbing message.

YA THINK?

And also: does the Times really need to pretend that the 'disturbing message' is a sort of side effect of the whole thing, rather than the entire point? What possible reason is there for punishing these lawyers except to send exactly the disturbing message that it ain't okay to challenge election results?

Why not just shoot them, send them off to re-education camp, or send them on a mission for Volunteers for Prosperity, part of the USA Freedom Corps?.

Stench of Death Department: Public Sphere

Also, educated labor pool (see also NYTimes article on the death of reality-based information about evolution).

AlterNet: Whacking Libraries:

In the depths of the Great Depression, not a single public library in America closed its doors. Banks went under, farmers went bankrupt, millions of people were out of work and out of luck—but the American public clung to its libraries, not only because of their inherent value to our society, but also because they are symbols of community strength and hope.

How lame, then, to see public officials today—from George W. Bush to city council members—reaching for the budget axe to whack library funding, forcing branches to close, valuable services to be eliminated, and hours to be cut. In a time of unprecedented wealth in America, in a time when governments dump billions of taxpayer dollars into corporate subsidies and boondoggles, our so-called leaders are failing the people by going after these true public treasures.

Stench-of-Death Department: Journalism

Boston.com / News / Nation / Washington / White House-friendly reporter under scrutiny:

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has provided White House media credentials to a man who has virtually no journalistic background, asks softball questions to the president and his spokesman in the midst of contentious news conferences, and routinely reprints long passages verbatim from official press releases as original news articles on his website.

Jeff Gannon calls himself the White House correspondent for TalonNews.com, a website that says it is 'committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news coverage to our readers.' It is operated by a Texas-based Republican Party delegate and political activist who also runs GOPUSA.com, a website that touts itself as 'bringing the conservative message to America.'

Called on last week by President Bush at a press conference, Gannon attacked Democratic Senate leaders and called them 'divorced from reality.' During the presidential campaign, when called on by Press Secretary Scott McClellan, Gannon linked Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, to Jane Fonda and questioned why anyone would dispute Bush's National Guard service.

My only comment on the SOTU

Nothing much to say about the SOTU. But one thing caught my eye. From C-span's transcript: "We will pass along to our children all the freedoms we enjoy -- and chief among them is freedom from fear."

Our president is peddling pipe dreams.
Freedom from fear does not come from spreading peace through making war.
It does not come from the sniffy-dogs, the lines at the airport, the PATRIOT act, or the department of homeland security.
We gain freedom from fear only when we realize that there is no freedom from fear.
Today the world appears poised to become a more, not less, dangerous place. Can our president protect us from the effects of global warming? Can he save us from our hurricanes and our earthquakes? Can he avert the avian flu pandemic, even now brewing in Vietnam? Fear? It's all around us. This president makes us sick with it (as if we weren't already sick enough) and then comes along, all innocence, and offers us a Kool-Aid cure. As long as we continue to seek freedom from fear, we will not find it. It lives, with doubt, in the hollow place inside us. Arise, America, and reject the lies of those who would proclaim that hollow space filled up! Let us learn instead to live with it, and then we shall be free of the fascist drive to certainty and wholeness! As some Buddhist monk said to some Buddhist seeker, this glass we drink from is already broken.

But we have the Best Medical System in the World!!!!!

Half of Bankruptcy Due to Medical Bills -- U.S. Study

Vitriol

Kevin Drum points to the following Fred Barnes Quote (originally noted by Sully):

Senate Democrats have enough votes to block major Bush initiatives like Social Security reform and to reject Bush appointees, including Supreme Court nominees. They may be suicidal, but they could undermine the president's entire second term agenda. At his news conference last week, Bush reacted calmly to their vitriolic attacks, suggesting only a few Democrats are involved. Stronger countermeasures will be needed, including an unequivocal White House response to obstructionism, curbs on filibusters, and a clear delineation of what's permissible and what's out of bounds in dissent on Iraq.

This rhetoric sounds suspiciously like a James Dobson childrearing manual.

And also, Mr. Barnes, I say to you "We have not yet begun to obstruct!"

Mr. Orwell's Neighborhood

Ashcroft Defends Tough Policies (washingtonpost.com): "Outgoing Attorney General John D. Ashcroft forcefully defended some of his most controversial policies and statements yesterday, arguing that aggressive law enforcement and intelligence gathering were 'expansions of freedom' that helped prevent terrorist attacks on the United States."

Of course. Cuz freedom is slavery, poverty is prosperity, and war is peace.

For fairness' sake, I looked for a transcript of the original comment to see if the notoriously leftist WaPo was misquoting. Couldn't find it, but I did find a propaganda website run by the DOJ, www.lifeandliberty.gov. Oh, and why not check out the White House Office of Faith-based Initiatives while you're at it?

Wondering why I'm not live-blogging the SOTU? I have a migraine, and don't want to vomit. I will read the transcript tomorrow, which is slightly less nauseating.

Beware: Buffy Reference!

Does anyone else think that Michael Chertoff looks remarkably like one of The Gentlemen?

Thank God this Philip K. Dick story I've become stuck in still has Buffy!

Biscuit's plane accidentally set down in a Philip K. Dick story

In this story, the newspaper headlines include:

Terror suspect C released
An Egyptian terror suspect known only as C has been freed after being interned in the UK under anti-terror legislation for more than three years. [Guardian Unlimited]

Athletics: New steroid found
The World-Anti Doping Agency says it has unearthed a new "designer steroid". [BBC News]

CO2 emissions put corals at risk
Israeli scientists predict coral reefs could begin to collapse in as little as 30 years from now. [BBC News]

Also, in this story, there are highway signs like this one, courtesy of Orcinus, who also reminds us that plenty of people still hate Jews.

And something called research-intensive rapid response blogging: " a new blog ready to revolutionize the world of research-intensive rapid response. Debuting in tandem with the State of the Union address on Feb. 2, Thinkprogress.org will give journalists and the public real-time access to American Progress’s highly regarded rapid response operation for the first time ever." (From TPM)

Also via TPM, I learned that a powerful organization called the GOP, headed by a chimpanzee, controls the government in this Philip K. Dick story. The GOP's control appears to stem from something called their 'branding strategy,' which is devised by a ruthless pumpkinheaded person called Karl Rove, and promulgated to the 'media' through press releases, advertising, political theater, and Mr. Rove's minions, who resemble Nazgul. Right now, for example, this 'GOP' is working on dismantling a reasonable-sounding social insurance program that is extremely popular and saves many old people from abject poverty. In this quote from a newspaper, two minions (one, a minor person named Santorum who apparently has sex with dogs, the other, even more minor, referred to only as a 'congressional aide'), release the new words to be used in describing the planned abolition of the popular social insurance program:

At the center of the GOP pitch is a language "branding" plan that Republicans hope will undercut Democratic criticism of Republican plans. For instance, the GOP has been pushing to move from describing the investment accounts as "private," preferring to use "personal," which they believe is less loaded politically. Similarly, Santorum said Friday he preferred to avoid calling costs associated with the creation of the accounts "transitional," favoring the use of "prepaying." A senior GOP Senate aide acknowledged that both of these semantic changes are part of the party's broader strategy to reframe the Social Security debate.

I first thought this must be a joke -- but it turns out this 'GOP' has been very successful with Orwellian word games in the past.

In this Philip K. Dick story, the country is engaged in several wars at once: a War on Terror, a War in Iraq (this one is a War to Bring Democracy and Freedom to the Middle East, although at one time it apparently was a War To Rid the World of Dangerous Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Hands of a Madman Who Cavorted With Terrorists), and a War on Drugs. There may be more wars, I'm not sure yet. These wars are invoked as justification for all sorts of bizarre behavior on the part of the government and individuals.

Also, there is something called The Bill of Rights, a mythical document created at the country's founding and still invoked regularly by some citizens in need of defenses against the government. However, more and more of the country's inhabitants, especially the younger generation, are unaware of it, don't believe in it, are shocked to discover it exists, and when told what rights it guarantees, find they disagree with it. The more modern citizens believe that the Bill of Rights, like another mythical document, the Geneva Convention, which apparently set down the laws of war, is "quaint" and "obsolete". The current wars are not being fought according to the Geneva Conventions, and all those who call for a return to them are "branded" traitors. It is said that those who cling to these ancient documents "aid the terrorists" and "hate freedom."

The more I find out about this story I'm stuck in, the more terrified and bewildered I am. It has given me an awful migraine, this Philip K. Dick story. I think I will have to go lie down for a while, and perhaps when I get back up, I will be in a more pleasant story. If not, I will continue to write about what I find in this strange story-land. I have read that if I appear too much to be "aiding the terrorists" I may be seized myself by the Homeland Security Department, and subjected to something called "waterboarding," a process by which, if I understand it correctly, I am drowned repeatedly until I confess to being a witch and having evil lesbian sex with Satan.