For a little comic relief

Thanks to my brother for forwarding this gut-busting video on the German Coast Guard.

here.

Biscuit Compendium of Pessimism, Decline and Fall edition

Michelle Goldberg in Salon:

It's not just that America is being ruled by small and venal men, or that its reputation has been demolished, its army overstretched, its finances a mess. All of that, after all, was true toward the end of Vietnam as well. Now, though, there are all kinds of other lurking catastrophes, a whole armory of swords of Damocles dangling over a bloated, dispirited and anxious country. Peak oil -- the point at which oil production maxes out -- seems to be approaching, with disastrous consequences for America's economy and infrastructure. Global warming is accelerating and could bring us many more storms even worse than Katrina, among other meteorological nightmares. The spread of Avian Flu has Michael Leavitt, secretary of health and human services, warning Americans to stockpile canned tuna and powdered milk. It looks like Iran is going to get a nuclear weapon, and the United States can't do anything to stop it. Meanwhile, America's growing religious fanaticism has brought about a generalized retreat from rationality, so that the country is becoming unwilling and perhaps unable to formulate policies based on fact rather than faith.

If our era were a reading comprehension test from the 10th grade, this paragraph would be the correct choice for the question asking about the Main Idea.

Panic!

Oh man. I haven't even finished my coffee and in my email is a note from David Neiwert telling me he has answered my question about fascism. Of course, he has done so on a day when the blog has been neglected for a week. Ari is sitting in my lap asking about the killer whale, which is making it difficult for me to even read Neiwert's response, much less come up with some exciting new content for all the people who will click through today. Hello, people! I am a minor and often irregular blogger, but I am happy for you to have clicked through and hope you will come back some other time too. Should I link you to some of my best posts, in the hopes that you will read them and put my XML feed on your newsreader? Or is that just too job-interviewy-ish? Oh, I'm like, thirteen, and the cool kids just invited me to a party.

Speaking of the cool kids and being thirteen, my friend Alicia just loaned me the first disc in her DVD set of Freaks and Geeks, a show about high school in 1980 that ran for one season in 1999. I tried to get Max to watch it with me, but after 10 minutes he declared it way too depressing and got up to read about Vichy France on the Internets instead. The show is excellent, and I am completely hooked, but it is incredibly painful to watch. The main character walks around with a constantly pained expression on her face, and is unhappy pretty much whatever she is doing, and this reminds me so much of my own high school experience it makes me a little bit nauseated. I have some thoughts comparing the show to Buffy, but I should watch more than 3 episodes of it first.

Ari is demanding that we go look at his real saw now. (Yes, my three-year-old has a real saw. We keep it locked up in the tool closet in a tool chest with his hand drill and safety glasses. The idea is that eventually he will use these things to do woodworking projects -- with help and supervision, obviously. Right now, he mostly just likes to put on his safety glasses, take his saw out of its protective cardboard case, and hold it reverently.) So I have to go eat breakfast and finish my coffee so I am alert enough to supervise the handling of dangerous tools. Ta-ta for now, Internets, and I will be back later to write something relevant and incisive and very, very impressive.

screw you, content challenge!

I have a pinched nerve that is causing me to have excruciating back pain and numbness all down my right arm.

Max is morose, and (unrelated), a cousin of his has died in a freak helicopter accident in New Zealand.

Our goldfish is suffering from some vague fishy ailment: probably shock, or maybe constipation. It doesn't look good.

My brother called a few minutes ago to tell me that his fun snowboarding adventure day has ended in a snapped wrist, and he will require me to drive him to the north shore tomorrow to have surgery to put pins in.

So, to you, content challenge, I say "Feh!"

Why I "Hate Freedom"

Because our government thinks that this is a reasonable way for a democracy to behave:

Bush administration lawyers, fighting a claim of torture by a Guantanamo Bay detainee, yesterday argued that the new law that bans cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody does not apply to people held at the military prison.

In federal court yesterday and in legal filings, Justice Department lawyers contended that a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, cannot use legislation drafted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to challenge treatment that the detainee's lawyers described as "systematic torture."

Government lawyers have argued that another portion of that same law, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, removes general access to U.S. courts for all Guantanamo Bay captives. Therefore, they said, Mohammed Bawazir, a Yemeni national held since May 2002, cannot claim protection under the anti-torture provisions.

Bawazir's attorneys contend that "extremely painful" new tactics used by the government to force-feed him and end his hunger strike amount to torture.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler said in a hearing yesterday that she found allegations of aggressive U.S. military tactics used to break the detainee hunger strike "extremely disturbing" and possibly against U.S. and international law. But Justice Department lawyers argued that even if the tactics were considered in violation of McCain's language, detainees at Guantanamo would have no recourse to challenge them in court.

[...]

In court filings, the Justice Department lawyers argued that language in the law written by Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) gives Guantanamo Bay detainees access to the courts only to appeal their enemy combatant status determinations and convictions by military commissions.

"Unfortunately, I think the government's right; it's a correct reading of the law," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "The law says you can't torture detainees at Guantanamo, but it also says you can't enforce that law in the courts."

Thomas Wilner, a lawyer representing several detainees at Guantanamo, agreed that the law cannot be enforced. "This is what Guantanamo was about to begin with, a place to keep detainees out of the U.S. precisely so they can say they can't go to court," Wilner said.

This was the first thing I read this morning, and I literally could not breathe. I actually had a full-blown anxiety attack over it. And yet, why does this shock me? Did I believe for one moment that the Administration had any intention of not torturing people anymore, just because John McCain really wanted them to? I hope John McCain feels like the pathetic emasculated Karl Rove lickspittle that he is. And I hope Lindsay Graham is proud of himself. Oh wait, he wants to spy on me, cuz I might be fifth column. So I'll bet he is proud of himself.

Further evidence that Bert is evil

We all know about the Bert-Osama connection. Well I, for one, didn't know about the Bert-W connection.

Challenge score

Actually, I'm only behind one if you count the message where Amy challenged me to join in. And that wouldn't be fair, would it? It would actually be fairer to count this post, which I'm not going to do. Nyah.

I am winning the spousal content challenge!

Max is one post behind me. However, I still have not managed to make it through my backlog of news and blogs (we went to the children's museum today, which is great except that it always gives me a migraine). So I have to admit that quality-wise, he is winning. I have absolutely no idea what happened today in the world, and I am afraid to start reading to find out, because I will look up and it will be 2 a.m. and I'll be hopping mad at everything and still have 54 blog posts to read. World: please stop making news for just a couple of days!

Okay, here goes with the reading:

Christ. Former Assistant commissioner of FDA women's health dept, who resigned in protest over Plan B, in WaPo:

It's been nearly three years since the first application came in to make Plan B emergency contraception available over the counter, so that women, including rape victims, could have a second chance to prevent an unintended pregnancy and the need for an abortion. How many chances have we missed? I still can't explain what is going on here, and why women 17 and older are still denied this product in a timely way. When did adult access to contraception become controversial? And why have we allowed it to happen?

This would be a good opportunity to make another plug for a book we will find ourselves needing more and more in the future: Taking Charge of Your Fertility, by Toni Weschler, which explains things they don't even teach you in med school about how human fertility works. If you are trying to get pregnant or trying not to get pregnant, buy this book. If you have a daughter, buy this book for her. (Yeah, even if she's only three. Put it in a closet somewhere, and then she'll have it when she needs it. Who knows what else she'll have, 15 years from now? )

Classic Bush: "No one ever imagined the levees would break!" Except for those people who were videotaped telling you about it, the day before. Bush said he'd send in people to help deal with the loss of property after the storm, and, oh yeah, hope no one dies, too.

Oh crap, I just told Max I was posting, so I'd better post now to stay ahead of him. More later. I haven't even said anything about David Brooks and Harvard yet. At least I"ve made it past the BBC this evening. Did you know that Antarctica is also losing tons of ice? we are so, so fucked, we humans.

gaming geeks meet history geeks

Oh, man, this is some funny shit.

T0J0: lol o no america im comin 4 u
Roosevelt: wtf! thats bullsh1t u fags im gunna kick ur asses
T0JO: not without ur harbors u wont! lol
Roosevelt: u little biotch ill get u
Hitler[AoE]: wtf
Hitler[AoE]: america hax, u had depression and now u got a huge fockin army
Hitler[AoE]: thats bullsh1t u hacker
Churchill: lol no more france for u hitler
Hitler[AoE]: tojo help me!
T0J0: wtf u want me to do, im on the other side of the world retard
Hitler[AoE]: fine ill clear you a path
Stalin: WTF u arsshoel! WE HAD A FoCKIN TRUCE
Hitler[AoE]: i changed my mind lol

(Thanks to Axis of Evel Knievel.)

P.S. I threw a content challenge and no one came

So no one has joined my first content challenge party! Vomitola is busy working. Like that's any kind of excuse! She's preggers, and everyone knows pregnant chicks don't work, they just try to convince their husbands that they really don't need the Bugaboo stroller. And go to birthing classes and things.

I think Max should join the content challenge. He can post once a day, and I can post once a day, and then everyone can vote on which biscuit poster you like best. I think I'll just volunteer him, in fact. Honey, isn't there something in the Ketubah about that? "Husband must provide sex and blog content on demand." I'm certain I saw it there. (Don't worry, readers, the ketubah does not require 'sexual blog content'. )

Content Challenge: MSM links edition

I have been busy all day doing taxes, paying bills, baking bread, chasing after my child, grocery shopping, making dinner, doing laundry, cleaning some five-gallon buckets I found on the street that smell strongly of feta cheese, and doing my home nature study course. I have not had time to read the news at all, internets! And also, I do not feel like reading about the force-feeding at Guantanamo today, or the letter alberto gonzales wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee in which he 'clarified' his non-testimony testimony earlier this month, not that the clarification clarified anything. I don't know what's going on with Dubai ports, I don't know if they've found bird flu in more cats yet, and I have been meaning to point out this article on Bagram: The Other Guantanamo (tm) for a week now. Even looking at this headline 'Rapid Warming' Spreads Havoc in Canada's Forests gives me hives. Oh, and also Alito's Note to Evangelist is Called Just Thanks, to which I say "yeah, right", noting that a total ban on abortions is also rapidly advancing in MIssissippi, so I guess I put his thank-you note to James Dobson in the category of "emboldening the enemy" of my uterus, or at least the uteri of my sisters in that state.

I haven't even read all the way down my newsreader for the day, which is why every single one of those links comes from the New York Times and the Washington Post. How totally mainstream is that?!