perfidy

The ever expanding story about espionage amongst the translators at Guantanamo has, well, expanded. Johno's favorite TV station, WCVB-TV channel 5 (modestly self described as the "Boston Channel") has a report that a third person was arrested at Logan airport, right under Johno's nose. And he says he's serious about the war on terror.

That American military personnel are passing information to the enemy is a very serious problem. This is treason. If they are guilty, the constitution is very specific about what the penalty is.

Fox News is reporting that Afghanistan is on the verge of unveiling its new draft constitution. For most of the last year, the constitutional commission has been working to write the constitution, but this bit was heartwarming:

The commission sent 460,000 questionnaires out to the public this year and held meetings in villages across the country seeking public input.

"So many people replied, including women who said they wanted more rights and good education," Constitutional Review Commission spokesman Abdul Ghafoor Lewal said. "The illiterate sent cassette tapes and we got tens of thousands of letters."

When the elections are held next June, we can hope that it will be the beginning of a prosperous and peaceful future. If that many people participated (however indirectly) in creating their future, I think they might even have a good shot at it.

As I read this article, I am reminded anew of the crazy shit men will do in the quest for record sales.

(Oh, it's for a cause, I hear you say? What about the rats in a blender? Was that for a cause too?)

China... well ahead of the rest of the world.

(And I refuse to use the word "chinkonauts," though a certain sophomoric glee won't stop me from typing it here.)

As I read Neal Stephenson's "Quicksilver," I am reminded anew of the crazy shit men will do in quest for knowledge.

Well, I don't see what's so remarkable about this. Did it all the time during grad school, and I'm fine.

via Drudge, this quote from Bob Novak, author of the article back in July:

"Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction.

"Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clinton administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else.

"According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives."

This, to me at least, sounds less like Machiavellian scheming than what many people are making of it.

[Update] Dan is pretty sure it wasn't Rove. "There's still a lot of smoke at this point -- but I don't see a fire just yet."

Instapundit has a roundup which links the Drezner post I mentioned above. Insty makes the comment that, "the excessive gleefulness and point-scoring of the anti-Bush bloggers in general on this topic, only serves to make this matter look more political, and less serious, than it perhaps is. More and more, these guys remind me of the anti-Clinton fanatics of the 1990s. Which doesn't necessarily make them wrong, any more than the anti-Clinton fanatics were always wrong. It just makes them a lot less persuasive."

Also, I heard on (I believe, I was channel surfing) CNN that the CIA request to the Justice Department is not exactly an uncommon thing. Fifty or so of those go to DOJ every month, to check out possible revelation of classified information. Apparently, it is a relatively pro-forma inquiry process.

[Moreover] This whole thing doesn't make sense. If, as he seems to be, Novak is telling us that he was just providing background for his story on Wilson's efforts in Africa, what is the deal with the supposed hit job? This is the most ridiculous political hit I've ever heard of. Revealing that Wilson's wife works at the CIA, and thus used her influence to get him appointed by a Republican administration for this job? The fact that his wife may or may not have been outed does nothing to damage Wilson's credibility, or his conlusions - which everyone except the Brits seem to agree with. I would think that if someone wanted to do real damage, they would have released, you know, damaging information. It seems more like Wilson's a bit paranoid, though he is apparently backing off his accusations against Rove.

I don't know, but it doesn't seem terribly likely to me. Read this for more skepticism. See Ross, I was just early with my skepticism. Now I have people at my back. Including the one you linked in your earlier comment. I may have been slow to judge harshly, but many have been altogether too quick to assume guilt.

We'll have to wait and see.

[Update Update] Apparently, the WaPo has altered the wording of its story, downgrading "Top White House Officials" to "White House Officials" and the like.

Attentive readers will have noted that immediately to my right is a brand new perfidy logo. This stunning piece of artwork was created by John Karapelou, who is an award winning and stupendously compentent Bio-Medical Illustrator. The Ministry was forced to use ...persuasion... to convince John of the importance of the project, and to point out the consequences of failing to act with generosity and goodwill towards the Ministry. Happily, John recognized the need for a new Ministry logo, and his pets are as a result unharmed.

Lest you think the Ministry composed of unfeeling, nekulturny brutes, the unknowing contributors of our previous logo, the 1108th US Army Signal Brigade are given a plug here. They truly do set the standard.

From Peter Diamandis, head of the X Prize Foundation:

"We expect to have a winner within the next nine to 12 months.''

Diamandis says that the two front runners are Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites effort, of which I have spoken previously, and John Carmack's (inventor of Doom and Quake) Armadillo Aerospace.

Lindbergh made his solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927 in pursuit of the $25,000 Orteig prize. He was not the first to fly across the Atlantic, not by a long shot. He was the first to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlantic.

According to the Space.com article, Diamandis said Lindbergh's flight "was a mind-shift breakthrough'' for the public. Within 18 months after that daring flight, the number of people boarding airlines rose from 5,700 a year to almost 200,000. Demonstrating that private companies can build and fly spacecraft can be a major step toward making human spaceflight as routine flying on an airliner is now."

Diamandis and many others hope that an X-Prize winner will light imaginations as Lindbergh's flight did, and lead the way to a new golden age of aerospace development.

Given the troubles that NASA has found, I can only say it can't happen soon enough.

Andrew Sullivan's reader email of the day:

"Maybe I am just getting older and don't get it or it could be the fact that I grew up in a small Midwestern burg and understand how hopeless my friends and family are who stayed there. Either way these people are jerk-offs. Two things came to mind when I read this. The first is these people would get their asses kicked if they threw a half-full can of beer at someone at a party. Not just because of the action, but because it is a waste of beer. Secondly, these "hipsters" would not last five minutes in any of the number of small towns in this country where this kind of culture really thrives. Any real goat roper who grew up drinking Pabst will tell you it is skunk beer and small town people know this. The only way to make it better is to add salt to it, I mean how wrong is that? My point is rural Americans don't need condescending pricks in New York to tell them they are cool. We already knew it and embraced it years ago."

Fucking A! That whole dipshit trucker-hat and Midwest chic thing (which, by the way, has been covered in the Times and is therefore officially over) really pissed this Ohio boy off. Whenever I see an "ironic" trucker hat around town, my arm automatically does this sort of Dr. Strangelove jerk, and I must physically restrain myself from knocking the ironic hat off the dimwit's head in a decidedly un-ironic, looking-to-kick-ass fashion.

The one silver lining is that, as of a couple years ago, one could step into Welcome To The Johnsons on the Lower East Side and get hosed on PBR for under $20. The same could also be said of Joe's Bar on E. 6th, but Joe's doesn't have tabletop Ms. Pac Man, and the bathroom door doesn't actually close.

Also, we prefer the term "briar hopper."
Original post is here, excerpted:

I went to my first white-trash theme party three years ago. I felt cool because John Bartlett was throwing it. We had corn-dogs and twinkies and malt liquor and wore half-mesh ball-caps. Maybe the "bear" trend is also a throw-back to '70s white trash culture. Ditto South Park Republicans, where the politics of the Red Zone has become the politics of the Blue-Red Set. Is all this hopelessly condescending? Maybe. But part of the refreshing nature of these trends is exactly their unconcern with whether they're forms of condescension or not, or even whether they're ironic or not. They're just cool and insensitive. It took only one generation of political correctness to fuse the two. As Rolling Stone editor, Joe Levy, puts it, "If you have a bohemian neighborhood full of people drinking bad beer and wearing ugly T-shirts and trucker hats and dressing the exact same way as Justin Timberlake, it's real and it's ironic, and it's cool and it's uncool at the same time." Exactly.

The Browns are 1 and 3 after losing to the Bungles.

It's so nice to be back on familiar territory. I'm a Browns fan and a Red Sox fan, primarily (with minors in Steelers and Pirates/Indians) so I KNOW how incredibly reassuring, in fact psychically necessary, perpetual disappointment can be.

As China prepares to launch her first chinkonauts, and Europe launches a nifty new lunar probe, the United States is preparing to retro-60s style plan for American manned space flight. NASA is so, like, hip.

ABC is reporting on the push to design an orbital space plane to supplement the space shuttle. NASA is cleverly calling the designs "next generation shuttles" but the fact is, the Air Force had something very similar in mind when it was designing the X-20 Dynasoar back in the fifties.

This image shows the four possible designs:

The vehicle on the upper left is functionally identical to the X-20, a lifting body glider. The one on the lower left is basically a reusable Apollo capsule. All four of these contenders would be launched atop a disposable launch vehicle like the Delta 4 or Atlas 5. The ABC piece quoted John Junkins, Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A & M University:

"The Space Shuttle is 25-year-old technology that has not kept up... But it has done everything asked of it — carry people and carry huge amounts of cargo. No other space vehicle can do that. But it is time to separate the responsibilities."

So, to replace a twenty five year old technology, NASA is reaching back fifty years. We very nearly had a Orbital Space Plane in 1964, with a design going back to the late fifties. While I am not averse (certainly!) to NASA developing new space vehicles, trumpeting this as a next generation shuttle reveals the fundamental vacuum at the heart of a once great institution.

Or something. Drudge has linked to an article by Clifford May in the National review online, which suggests that the fact that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA was not exactly, well, secret. If this is the case, then there was no "outing" of a CIA agent, and therefore no treason and no reason for getting our collective panties in a bunch.

Remember that the primary focus of this is still the uraniumgate pseudo-scandal, and that the British still insist that their intelligence was correct, and that Saddam was trying to buy Uranium somewhere in Africa. Also, Wilson, by his own admission, spent several days drinking mint tea and talking to people, and on the basis of this thorough investigation concluded that Saddam wasn't trying to get the fissionable materials. It sounds as if Wilson, who was a vocal opponent of the administration before his mission, was doing a decent job of discrediting himself before any of this happened, which makes you wonder why someone like Karl Rove would go to this effort to do it himself. If Karl Rove is the satanically brilliant Machiavel with his hand working the strings controlling marionette Bush, why would he be so stupid as to commit an easily discovered treasonous act? We have a problem with conflicting conspiracy modes.

Unless I hear a lot more evidence, or at least a significant amount of convincing evidence, this goes into my unlikely at best folder. It tastes a lot like the BUSH LIED!!! story we've been hearing so much of lately.

Is it possible?

Because that's incredibly illegal*.

Dan Drezner sure is pissed off about it. (see also an exhaustive list of links to updates at Drezner's site)

And all Condi can say is "we don't recall"?!?

[update] Looks like Ross has beaten me to this story. Well, la de dah and a tip of the hat for this insight " since the demise of the Independent Counsel statute, there isn't any way to get an unbiased look inside the White House. "

* I originally used the word "treason" here, but that word's bandied about all too freely these days. However, in the words of Seymour Skinner, "Prove me wrong, children! Prove me wrong!"
What, you ask?

From the Post:

At CIA Director George J. Tenet's request, the Justice Department is looking into an allegation that administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist, government sources said yesterday.

The operative's identity was published in July after her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly challenged President Bush's claim that Iraq had tried to buy "yellowcake" uranium ore from Africa for possible use in nuclear weapons. Bush later backed away from the claim.

The intentional disclosure of a covert operative's identity is a violation of federal law.

The officer's name was disclosed on July 14 in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak, who said his sources were two senior administration officials.

Yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. Wilson had just revealed that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson's account touched off a political fracas over Bush's use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq.

"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak.

That.

When I was a tot, I remember reading an old Mad Magazine history of the United States. The civil rights era was summed up by one panel: a group of African Americans were in the background, singing "We Shall Overcome." In the foreground, a group of dull-looking whities were looking smug, and one was saying "they can over come, as long as they don't come over here." Funny, funny stuff. Riiight.

What does this have to do with the price of soy sauce at Lucky Star Grocers of Delancey Street?

This: The ACLU has finally gotten around to suing the Secret Service for arresting anti-Bush protesters who have the temerity to wave a negative sign in sight of our hallowed Regis Noster. Hope they win big.

Story via Reason's hit and run.

The New York Times is reporting that MiniLuv--oops, I mean, The Justice Department, is "using its expanded authority under the far-reaching [USA-PATRIOT Act] to investigate suspected drug traffickers, white-collar criminals, blackmailers, child pornographers, money launderers, spies and even corrupt foreign leaders, federal officials said. Justice Department officials say they are simply using all the tools now available to them to pursue criminals — terrorists or otherwise."

Ahhhh. And these people are all terrorists? Right? Because that's what the law was for? Ahhh... they're "otherwise." Because that's what the law was.... oh.

In the meanwhile, kids, don't worry! They're not using it against the libraries! Remain calm... all is well, America. Your reading materials are safe. Hey... you're not one of them... potheads... are ya?

The Boston Globe is running a thought-provoking piece in which correspondent Matthew Miller interviews Milton Friedman and Willam Bennett on the role of the "birth lottery" in shaping people's lives.

It's a bit of a mind-blower, in that we find Bennett taking a stand directly BETWEEN nature and nurture, and Friedman asserting that free will isn't really free, not exactly.

In his Washington office, I asked Bennett which he thought was a bigger factor in determining where people end up: luck (by which I meant the pre-birth lottery), or personal initiative and character.

The normally voluble Bennett fell quiet.

"Genes are part of the first?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Parents are part of the first?"

"Yes."

"The first," he said. That is, luck.

Recalling his years as Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan, he explained, "Having visited the schools, I'm convinced that you can change people's lives and people can change their own lives. But it's hard. Those things [genes, parents] matter hugely. They don't matter completely. But they matter hugely."

What should that imply for public policy? I asked.

Bennett cited the Marine Corps as proof of the "plasticity" of human nature, and of the potential for institutions to alter luckless lives for the better. Kids from the inner city come back from boot camp after 11 weeks and they're transformed, Bennett said, with new values, a new spirit, a new future. Mediating institutions -- family, churches, schools -- can create opportunities for people to "exercise autonomy and make a difference in their own lives. A lot of people aren't there because they're in crappy families, crappy schools, crappy neighborhoods."

. . . . . . .
Early in his career, Friedman (the son of poor Hungarian Jewish immigrants) wanted very much to prove -- mathematically -- that luck isn't as important in human affairs as we instinctively presume. In a 1953 paper called "Chance, Choice, and the Distribution of Income," he argued that inequality of income results not merely from chance, but also from the choices, tastes, and preferences of individuals. People who have a taste for working less, for example, and for spending more time basking in the sun, earn less. It's their own choices -- not luck -- that helps shape the inequality of income. . . .

"I think that luck plays an enormous role," he went on. "My wife and I entitled our memoirs, 'Two Lucky People.' Society may want to do something about luck. Indeed the whole argument for egalitarianism is to do something about luck. About saying, `Well, it's not people's fault that a person is born blind, it's pure chance. Why should he suffer?' That's a valid sentiment."

So what are the implications of luck for public policy?

"You've asked a very hard question," he said. In part, he added, because it's not clear that what we think of as luck really isn't something else. "I feel," he said, "and you do, too, I'm sure, that what some people attribute to luck is not really luck. That people are envious of others, you know, `that lucky bastard,' when the truth of the matter is that that fellow had more ability or he worked harder. So that not all differences are attributable to luck."

"I know it's not all luck," I agreed, but I added that it's legitimate to wonder whether it's luck, as opposed to personal initiative and character, that most accounts for where one ends up.

"That's right," Friedman said. "But that's luck, too." Was Friedman saying that character was ultimately a matter of luck? Where does luck stop and free choice begin?

"See, the question is. . . What you're really talking about is determinism vs. free will," he explained. "In a sense we are determinists and in another sense we can't let ourselves be. But you can't really justify free will." . . .

This awareness of luck's role -- even if he wouldn't have put it quite this way as a younger man -- is what led Friedman to stress the importance of providing equal opportunity via education, and of keeping careers open to talent. Friedman also told me that it inspired his call for the provision of a decent minimum to the disadvantaged, ideally via private charity, but if government was to be involved, via cash grants that in the 1950s he dubbed a "negative income tax."

There's more-- read the whole thing. It's an interesting contribution to the debate over equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome. Personally, I lean towards the "allowing all equal opportunity" end of the spectrum, because it's impossible to give everybody the same exact piece of pie. But to go too far toward the "equality of opportunity", to wit, asserting that circumstance doesn't matter as long as the law is blind, is deterministic, mechanistic, and profoundly un-humanistic. And also stupid.

Of course, the article is a bit of a puff piece, not a policy statement, so the question as to what, if any, social programs aimed at improving the situation of people unlucky enough to be born to crappy parents in a crappy neighborhood with crappy schools, would be appropriate.

It's Friday! Hedonism rules!

Over at Slate, Mike Steinberg is bashing California wines, and well may he do so. The vast majority of the California wine I've had recently has been the oenophilic equivalent of Con Air: big, loud, clumsy, vaguely shameful, and a chore to get through.

Recently the taste in the "O" household has run more toward New Zealand, Australia, Argentina, and Chile. The cheaper end of the scale from those regions still offers good balance, depth, and interest, and since Chile especially isn't yet well-known, you can get some insane bargains. Goodwife O especially likes the tropical fruit flavors that sometimes come across in the Aussie wines, and I'm a sucker for South American whites for some reason. Better for us a $7 bottle of Yellowtail ("Australian for 'wine'") than a $25 bottle of some overfruity Moulin Rouge California Zin.

But that's not to say that no California wine is worth tasting. The Goodwife and I got a case of Rancho Zabaco 2001 Dancing Bull Zinfandel for our wedding, and it was just... great... and they're from Sonoma.

I'm not getting paid to do this or anything. I just want everyone to enjoy the good things.

But whatever. Tonight it's martini time! Or Reisling time. Depending on whether I make it to the wine store. But martini time sounds more hep. "Throw some Arthur Lyman on the hi-fi! It's martini time!"

I offer, without commentary, this post from Right Wing News that features a quote from Ted Rall, the focus of a recent thread on this here website thingy. As an added bonus, it has a similar quote from Jonathon Chait, a senior editor at TNR.

From the comment thread on my recent France post, Johno said about the Anglosphere concept and the split in the west:

Buckethead, I think that may be true only insofar as it's always been true.

When the GI's went into France back in Dubya Dubya Two, there was considerable culture shock on both sides. Although the US and Western Europe have grown familiar with each other on a day-to-day basis, there are both systemic and current reasons why they won't necessarily see eye to eye. You know that as well as I do.

I wouldn't make too much of this grade-school crap. The US and France have been at odds before, and will again and again. At least we're both Constitutional Republics.

It wasn't the deck of cards exactly that prompted the anglosphere comment, but rather the trends we see in Europe that are most visible in the growth of the EU bureacracy, and in the language of the proposed EU constitution. England was always distinct from the general political climate on the continent. The United States, and to a lesser extent Canada and Australia, have focused on the very things that made England different, and are thus more different. The unparalleled success of the United States in, well, damn near everything is dragging the other English speaking nations in its wake, while the continent is pursuing its dream of a thousand year socialist Frankenreich. The two political natures of the west, once more or less evenly distributed seem to be settling into a kind of geographic division. This might actually drive further separation in the core of the west.

Others, such as Huntington, have already suggested that the West has already split twice - that Russia and Latin America are already distinct, though related civilizations. Is it that farfetched to imagine that a similar process could be dividing the west again?

The Don has a post over at the Post about nation building in Iraq and elsewhere. This is an interesting piece, for several reasons.

He examines, as too few people have done, the different results of different types of nation building - in Europe after WWII, Kosovo, and East Timor.

Also, he focuses on the efforts to involve Iraqis in the reconstruction - physical, moral and political - of the their country.

Back in the day, before the libervasion, I thought that we could make a go of civilizing Iraq, and helping them build a republic of law. And that the key would be setting up the institutions of local government before letting them have a go at national government. It seems that we are doing that, and that makes me happy for two reasons. One, I'm right; and two, the Iraqis will have some experience with how democracy works before the training wheels come off.

The contrast that he points out between the current efforts in Iraq and the UN led efforts in Timor and Kosovo are significant. The fact that our desire to leave is obvious will I think contribute to our success.

How interesting! The national do not call list has been blocked by TWO federal courts, and the people are mad as hell.

What we have is a situation where the will of the people and the mandates of the US Constitution cannot work in tandem. The fault here? A stupidly written bill that differentiates between different kinds of legitimate speech. The second judge putting the screws to the list cited the First Amendment, noting that it is unconstitutional for a law to make such a distinction. Therefore, the bill is no good.

Well fair enough. But fifty million people-- that's a LOT-- clearly want this bill passed pretty damn badly. Why can't they just rewrite the legislation to take out the distinction between telemarketers and charities/political entities, and ban all unsolicited calls?

Ohhhh... right... because they're politicians.

Goddamn it.

There's lots of exceptional writers in the world. Nothing incredibly special about that. It's quite another thing to be an exceptional writer with the generosity of spirit and spiritual energy to nuture the careers of other writers whose talents dwarf yours. He will be missed.

Just because I feel like doling out a tiny crumb of largesse today (too much caffeine, too little rest), please visit cdbaby.com.

They only carry music made by small artists, on small labels. Their search engine lets you search by mood, geographic location, or random word, and they have a terrific associative function that lets you enter an artist's name, say "The Flaming Lips," and gives you back a list of albums they carry that you'll like if you like the Flaming Lips. And most stuff is about ten bucks.

This, folks, is how it is done. Please give them your support.

The french author of the book that claimed that no plane ever hit the pentagon has produced a deck of cards intended to mock the deck that the US military produced to aid in the hunt for the top leaders of the Baathist regime in Iraq.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is the ace of spades, and President Bush is the king of diamonds. Thierry Meyssan, the man behind the French deck, said, "We thought this card game would allow us to ... explain why we consider the government of George Bush a threat to international security."

Words fail me.

Space.com relates that Xinhua News Agency reported that China's Science and Technology Minister Xu Guanha stated that the preparations for the Middle Kingdom's first space launch were going smoothly. While no specific date has been set (and the communist government is notoriously tight lipped about such matters, talk around the campfire has settled on two possibilities: Oct 1, China's National Day and the anniversary of the founding of the state in '49, or later in the month. Obviously, weather, technical difficulties, solar radiation levels and acts of God (or acts of nature for you atheistic commie bastards) could interfere with the plan.

I hope that the mission goes well, not because I look forward to a lifetime of servitude to our new ant, I mean Chinese masters, but because hopefully this will light a fire under someone's ass here in the good 'ol U S of A. Either get serious about government funded space travel, or get the hell out of the way and let us do it.

Buckethead,

It's because you're in your mid-Thirties, and had your hip ticket torn up years ago. Let me cite an example of what you're complaining about, from Johnny Cash. In fact, I'll cite two.

1) On his live collaboration with Willie Nelson for VH-1's "Storytellers", Cash mentions that he stole the tune for "Don't Take Your Guns To Town" from an old Irish ballad, "Clancy Lowered The Boom," and later jokes that Kris Kristofferson always wanted to write a song called "Let's Get Together and Steal Each Other's Songs."

2) The Johnny Cash hit "Ballad of Barbara" steals its tune, whole, from the English Ballad "Barbara Allen." The words are totally different, but it's the same EXACT version of the tune, down to the tempo, that I have heard most often from Appalachian musicians.

Regrettable as it might be sometimes (I'm talking to YOU, Sean "P.Diddy Puffy Daddy" Combs), theft is the one constant in pop music through the ages.

The difference, I think, is that the recombinant tendencies of pop music are much more in the forefront than they used to be, since the radio drives the market. For about six months there, about half the hip-hop on the radio had Pakistani or Indian music samples (NYC taxi-driver music), because one hit had it, and so everybody else did. A parallel example from the golden age would be the time in the 1930s that a troop of Danish yodelers toured the American backcountry for months on end. They were a sensation. The net effect? The early second generation of country music was full of yodels. Still is, if you know where to look.

Also, don't confuse your distaste for excrescent pop music with the decline of music as a whole. You remember the '80s well because the market has worked its Darwinian magic, ensuring that most of what survived from the era was pretty good. You don't remember Calloway, Rick Astley, The First Coming Of Kylie Minogue, or Tiffany because they sucked at the outset, and once they disappeared from the radio, they were gone forever. Ditto the '90s. You don't hear Candlebox that much any more.

But you're getting the current stuff unfiltered, and it hurts, a lot. At the same time, there are a lot of high points in the mediocrity. In twenty years I will welcome Outkast, Ludacris, Nelly (Hot in Herre!!!!!), 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige, Christina Aguilera, and even Ashanti's stuff as produced by Irv Gotti back to my ears with great pleasure, as long as we can forget about Britney Spears, Limp Bizkit, and Staind.

I would recommend trying not to listen to Top 40 or Adult Contemporary formats. They will rot your brain. In fact the narrowing of radio formats is a symptom of the problem you describe, and I long for the day when you could hear two different-sounding songs back to back on the same station. Like so many other things, the marketing of radio has become so refined and the models so revenue-driven that there is no such thing as music for music's sake, with a few noble exceptions like WFUV in New York, WXPN in Philadelphia, KPIG in San Fran, and their ilk.

[moreover] But you're SO right about sex in the lyrics. It's the audial equivalent of Penthouse (which is RATHER more than I want to see). Insinuation, innuendo, and misdirection are sexy. Talking about fucking is crass. But I would recommend you revisit your old blues records and see if they are all as subtle as you think.

The Buckethead clan was at Taco Bell the other day, thanks to the lack of power at casa de Buckethead. After several days of blessed silence, we were subjected to some stupendously banal pop music. My dear wife asked, "will they publish anything?" Johno's point that the emphasis is on industry rather than music makes it clear that the answer is "yes."

I've been thinking, in my charmingly non-musical way, about music. Especially the pop music that causes me so much pain. Take sampling, for instance. A recent Janet Jackson song doesn't just sample America's Ventura Highway, it hijacks the entire thing. It's one thing to take a small bit of something, and combine it with other small bits from something else, and create something new. A lot of electronica does this without seeming completely derivative and lacking of originality. But the bits have to be small, I think. Rule of thumb - sampling should not consist of ripping off an entire song.

And the lyrics, dear Jeebus help us. Certainly, popular songs are about sex. They always have been. But as far as I can hear, innuendo is dead. Sex is no longer mentioned obliquely, let alone subtly. It's embarrassing to listen to. Granted the innuendo in the early days of rock, let alone blues, was thin. But at least it was there. Many people complain about the misogyny of rap music, but in a way, this is worse. Love is dead, we now sing about sex. And Brittney Spears' singing style sounds as weird to me as old songs from the twenties, nasal and grating.

The fallen state of modern music might be a sign of the apocalypse, or merely a sign that I am in my mid-thirties. But every time I hear this pabulum, I creep closer and closer to Plato's condemnation of music in the Republic. I remember music being terrible in the 80s. But it was awful in a completely different and better way. It was awkward, and used primitive synth too much. It was mawkish and saccharine. But they were trying, it seemed. Then as now there were gems, and you hoarded them. But the vast sea of mediocrity was merely mediocre, not offensively coarse and unoriginal.

There is good new music, and I listen to it. But you don't hear it on the big stations, and you don't see it at the top of the charts. Perhaps if the forces of light defeat the RIAA and a new era is born, the internet will allow a thousand flowers to bloom. But the bastards and beancounters in alliance are a powerful enemy. And one that, sadly, the musicians must collaborate with. 

The Bottom Line will remain open, at least for now. Good news!

Comments from my previous posting to Blogcritics had argued that the club's booking and management have gone downhill in the last decade, and that closing wouldn't be such a shame. Based on the postings on the marquee back when I lived in New York, that's fair enough. The club should be booking Jason Mraz and Josh Rouse instead of faded older stars. In their defense, both Ute Lemper (!) and Odetta are in town soon, and, c'mon folks. Those ladies kick much ass.

Well, maybe a near-death experience will help re-invigorate the club and return it to prominence and quality. It will never be the Mercury Lounge, booking-wise, but at least it can compete with the Village Underground, Town Hall, and maybe even Tonic (if they're smart) in the boutique music niche.

Bill Hobbs links to a sordid little story from the music industry's past, in which a young country singer was shot before he could reveal to the world that the industry-rag "Cashbox" was a corrupt piece of shit.

See folks, those are the cats that presided over the "golden age" of rock and country. Old-school song pluggers, gangsters, and used-car salesmen with a little extra capital who would think nothing of dangling you off a building, breaking your legs, signing you to a contract so crooked that your corpse is scheduled to do live appearances, or in the case of George Jones, kidnapping your family every time you try to kick cocaine, because your management are also your dealers. What they did NOT do was scrutinize quarterly balance sheets, worry about balanced budgets and projections, manipulate share prices, or employ teams of lawyers analysts to defend "their" intellectual property from Benelux to Boise. That all happened when the neighborhood gentrifed and the beancounters took over.

So ask yourself: who's better-- the bastards or the beancounters?

(Extended parenthetical statement: I've worked in the music industry, and I know this for a fact: the beancounters are firmly in charge almost everywhere. Leaving aside the legions of noble-minded smaller labels whose numbers are tiny compared to the whole, the music industry has shifted emphasis far away from "music" and placed the emphasis squarely on "industry."

Granted, A&R guys are still allowed to be hairy and weird, and artists are still coddled while being bled white, but the focus is almost totally on the health of the parent company's bottom line. Accounting & control run the joint, while Legal Affairs runs interference. While this means that people don't get dangled out of windows anymore-- except in the rap world-- the music is now subjected to microscopic scrutiny and its sales potential projected out for years to come. Ears are secondary now, and demographics and marketing are king.

All this is by way of saying that the music industry has always been a filth-pit, and even though the means may change, the criminals remain the same. )

(Second parenthetical note: I'm not pleading for sympathy for the RIAA. Buncha vampires.)

(Third parenthetical note: Read "Hit Men" for the story of how the bastards and
beancounters came to work together.)

(also posted to blogcritics.)

Barbra Streisand says she finds listening to her own songs is so boring that it was one of the reasons she gave up public performing three years ago.

Well, that makes two of us.

Late last night, power was finally restored to the Buckethead Mansion in Lower Alexandria. The linemen, a team from Georgia, were highly competent and helpful, even fixing some problems left by the electrician who "upgraded" the electrical system in the house. Thanks to Lowell and Champ and their team good work. Hopefully, they will be able to take a break and see their families soon.

And keep in your thoughts the linemen have died in the process of restoring power to the states hit by Isabel.

Last night the Goodwife and I caught a rerun of John Edwards announcing his candidacy on the Daily Show With Jon Stewart (hey... he promised he would!!).*

Observations. Edwards is at ease with himself, and understands that building the longterm goodwill of young voters is crucial. After all, he's like nineteen years old himself and can run for President like ten more times if he doesn't make it in '04. Those young voters will someday be old and responsible voters, and may think better of him due to this dimly remembered moment.

He has a great PR team, but he's not a naturally hilarious or charming guy. That's fine. Bill Clinton could charm the pants off William F. Buckley and get him to pose for photographs. I don't want that again.

Smaaaaart.

But do I want him for President? I'm not so sure. First, he's practically invisible. Second, a quick look at his website finds him pushing for a new federal law for every ostensibly "liberal" cause under the sun-- pay inequity between the sexes, affirmative action, racial profiling, one year of free college tuition for all eligible comers, etc. etc., all of which are really nice ideas (and he does have some good ones), but right now he's coming across as a carefully-calibrated pleasantly liberal bleeding-heart.

Part of the reason Howard Dean is doing so well is that he has rage, which sets him apart from the rest of the pack. Only Joe Lieberman, who rather unexpectedly growing in my esteem, has the stones to stand toe to toe with him. But Dean has made some missteps recently that make me less confident that I want him to be President. He's still the best of a runty litter, but I need to reserve my judgement for when the fight gets ugly early next year.

* Of course, Edwards than repeated his announcement last week in his home state of North Carolina. He's a lawyer.

Get your copy here, and expect lower productivity from certain ministers in the days to come. Neal Stephenson is the voice of my generation, if by generation you mean my narrowly defined psychotopographical coordinate.

Other readings of Minister Johno of late:

• Thomas Paine: Common Sense
• The Portable Thomas Jefferson
• Edmund S. Morgan: Benjamin Franklin
• Simone de Beauvoir: America Day By Day
• Peter Guralnick: Lost Highway: Journeys & Arrivals of American Musicians

Wow... America, America, America. Even when I'm reading a French writer she's writing about America. Ah, what the hell. Other countries are dirty and they talk funny and they don't have the right kind of coffee-- it's too thick and bitter-- and the beer's warm or it's too cold and the clothes fit funny and what's with their money and why can't they just speak english like normal people?

Eugene Volokh, who now works a mere stone's throw up the river from my worker-pod, reminds us to "Repeat after me: I will not believe generalizations from on-line self-selected surveys. I will not believe generalizations from on-line self-selected surveys. I will not believe generalizations from on-line self-selected surveys. . . ."

AP is reporting that an 11-judge panel has unanimously overturned the decision to postpone the California recall election.

This leaves the door open for the ACLU to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, which would have to then revisit the Bush v. Gore decision of a few years back. Hopefully, this will not happen. If you're going to have a recall, do it an be done with it, don't let it drag on in a nightmare of partisan legal and judicial wrangling. I had enough of that back in 2000.

Btw, the 9th circuit is notoriously liberal, so put your tin foil hats away.

[Update] The ACLU has decided not to appeal the decision. It is to be noted that the panel's decision did not rule out the possibility of post election shenanigans. So if there are more hanging chads and disenfranchised confused old Jewish women, we can still see a replay in miniature of the post-2000 fracas.

In the meantime, however, we have avoided a potentially very harmful constitutional issue, which Johno so astutely noticed the potential for in the comments. The problem of Court intervention in elections is indeed a big bag of stinking poo looking for a home. Nevertheless, we should remember that the alternative is worse. The last seriously contested election was resolved by a smoky room bargain - you can have the presidency if you end reconstruction. What similar bargains can we imagine today? The mind quails in fear.

An extra, double-plus evil possibility (though unlikely in the extreme) is total disgust in elections, leading to assumption of power or voter repudiation of the results. Court action, however distasteful, is still within the bounds of the system. We all think or even scream out load the Shakespeare quote, "First thing, we'll kill all the lawyers," but I believe that they save us from worse.

[Moreover] the Supreme Court action in Bush v. Gore merely ended the endless recounting, and restored the intent of the Florida Legislature. And Bush won every recount that was made. You can't, in a moderately honest republic, continue counting untill you get the result you want.

While the case in California was expected to result in a test of Bush v. Gore, I think it is a very different situation. Preventing a election mandated by the CA Constitution on the mere possibility of ambiguity in the election results is different than arguing over the results of an election that was actually held.

Australia is the "world's gayest country".

and from Drudge (who has a knack for good headlines) "Mutant Rats on Rampage in Central Asia" and "House of Filth."

[Update]"Student cuts off penis and tongue after drinking hallucinogenic tea."

Still no power in casa de Buckethead. Four and one half days without electricity gets tiresome. The first two days were fun, like camping. But you go camping with the reassuring knowledge that you can go back to civilization once you've had your fill of primitive living. It seems that we do not have that option.

Nevertheless, there is hope. A crack power company recon team examined our situation, and said that a repair crew should arrive sometime today. And our excellent neighbor Dave ran an extension cord over, so at least we have power for our refrigerator. Of all the electrical gadgets, that is the one I have missed most. 
 

The Online Computer Library Center are suing the Library Hotel in New York City for copyright infrigement. OCLC, the owners of the copyright for the Dewey Decimal System, are suing the hotel for unauthorized use because the hotel, which overlooks the main branch of the New York Public Library, organizes its rooms according to Dewey and puts appropriate reading materials in each (cool!!). CNN reports.

God. I am married to a librarian, and I tell you this: when we visit New York, it is our dream to stay in that perfidous, copyright-infringing criminal institution known as the Library Hotel. The OCLC represent the interests of libraries and librarians much the same way that the RIAA represents the interests of independent music labels. Got it? There's a lot of confusing the forest with the trees here, or more properly confusing the mouthpiece with the horn.

Go read the history of Murphy's Law. I insist.

This is London is reporting that a US research team has made some serious progress in developing a Vaccine for Cancer . The vaccines have produced dramatic results against the most virulent of cancers, such as pancreatic and kidney cancer. Typically, there is a 95% mortality rate over two years for those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, over a third of those receiving the treatment were alive after three years, and one was disease free after five.

The new treatments are tailor made for each patient, using materials from the patient's own body to create the vaccine. Researchers also have reason to believe that the technique might also make possible vaccines against other infectious diseases as well.

Given cancer's place on the list of leading causes of death, this is promising news indeed.

Hey, everybody! Good news!

WE'VE WON THE WAR ON TERROR!!!!

Want proof? The Department of Justice has time to do this (thanks to Arthur Silber for the link)!!!

the Bush administration is launching a massive crackdown on porn. Late last month, John Ashcroft's Justice Department brought the nation's first case against pornographers under federal obscenity laws in a decade. Two movie producers from the porn capital, California's San Fernando Valley, were arrested Aug. 27 on 10 counts of producing and distributing obscene movies. Each man faces 50 years in prison and a $2.5-million fine.

49 more indictments are expected in the coming months, and Attorney General Ashcroft has directed the DoJ to keep it up, targeting hardcore weirdo sex stuff as well as more "mainstream" fare.

According to the [Chicago] Tribune, the [DoJ's] letter to the outside indicated "that by focusing first on the most extreme material, the department can build a record of successful prosecutions, emboldening prosecutors and setting precedent for additional cases." The New York Sun reports Oosterbaan's chilling references to "states that pander 'mainstream' videos" and "tremendous and historical progress" in combating "the scourge of obscenity."

Well, I feel safer. You?

[moreover] I wanna hear you say it, Buckethead. I wanna hear you say you're going to vote for Bush again, when he won't even rein in his raving moralistic whackjob of an Atty. Gen. from riding roughshod over the Bill of Rights. Say it.
 

As of 9:00 this morning when I left for work, still no power. At this point, not having power is substantially more frustrating, because everyone else on my street has had their power restored. The power company won't give me an estimate on when, either. At least, now that my neighbors have power, they aren't running their generators, and I my neighborhood doesn't sound like the middle of a tractor pull.

Thanks to Ross for allowing us to come over last night and pretend that we still live in a technologically advanced civilization, and watch DVDs, order carryout and gaze at the pretty electrical lights.

I have been without power since 9:00 last night. I am posting this from the house of a friend who (seething jealously) has had power restored. Hurricane Isabel did not do too much damage overall, but a significant amount of downed trees has left hundreds of thousands of people in Northern Virginia powerless.

Therefore, posting will be light until power is restored. On the plus side, lack of electrical power for refrigerators is a good execuse to eat shrimp for lunch, steak for dinner, and all the most expensive food in the fridge for snacks before it all goes bad. Natural disaster is a good excuse for breaking the diet. Or for almost anything.

Lots of games of Parcheesi until Dominion Virginia Power gets its act together.

Kevin Drum deconstructs the various strains of truth-flexing the President has indulged in. While it's easy to shout "Liar!" at the top of your lungs, it's another thing entirely to level a nuanced accusation, which Drum does with aplomb. I would prefer if he set aside the "16 words" thingy in favor of the Clean Air Act and the de-funding of Americorps, because I think those are stronger cases than the by now well-gnawed bones of UraniumGate, but his initial point stands.

I'm already on the "anybody but Bush" bandwagon... the only problem is choosing among so many mediocrities and slightly terrifying standouts (I'm talking to YOU, Howard Dean and Wesley Clark).

The eeeevil landlords at New York University might be shutting down the Bottom Line, one of THE most hallowed stages in the history of rock, folk, blues, and American music of all stripes. In the wake of September 2001, business fell way off and the Bottom Line got behind on their rent with NYU, the owners of that property as well as most of the rest of lower Manhattan. Here's the statement from the Bottom Line:

The problem is as follows: Even before the terrorist attacks on the World Trader Center, the nation was already feeling the downturn in the economy. Our business, along with so many other small businesses, has not been able to recover since the tragedy of September 11th. Attendance to shows has declined. In addition, our customers are feeling economic stress, our bills have been multiplying, and we have found ourselves substantially behind in our rent. Our landlord, New York University, has started eviction proceedings. During our negotiations with New York University to resolve this situation, the Bottom Line has presented several different proposals to pay our past due rent, while at the same time keeping current with a new, higher rent proposed by NYU. Unfortunately, NYU has not been open to negotiating a long-term solution to our mutual problem. We want to pay off our debt to NYU, but to do so we need to remain in business. To stay in business, we need a promise from NYU that, if we pay off the rental arrears, they won't evict the Bottom Line.

This is awful. I don't know the whole story, because I no longer have business with the Bottom Line's owners, but regardless of the details it would be an enormous tragedy if this venue were to close. There are few enough good places to see music in New York while actually sitting down without the Bottom Line going the way of the dodo. Co-owner Allan Pepper might be an abrasive curmudgeon, but he's a lovable, ethical, and hard-working abrasive curmudgeon who has spent the last thirty years dedicating his life to the betterment of humanity through transcendentally great music. That should count for something, but of course it won't.

<CelebrityAppeal value="Suzanne Somers">

The Bottom Line's website (linked above) has details on how you can help, or at least show support for, this pillar of American popular music. West 4th Street used to be the center of the universe, as far as folk music goes, and the Bottom Line is one of the last vestiges of that world.

Just last night I was in a conversation about Boston, and how much less interesting Kenmore Square looks now that they gentrified the Rathskellar out of existence and moved the Disney Store in. Change in and of itself is not bad, but it sure does hurt if you care.

</CelebrityAppeal>

[moreover] The way the Bowery's looking these days (that is, less full of homeless people, syringes, and gunk-- all charming), I wouldn't be surprised if CBGB gets the boot someday soon in favor of a Starbucks or a Body Shop.

Via geekpress I find this CNN story about Doune Castle, about forty miles outside Glasgow Scotland.*

Avast lubber keelhaul.**

It turns out that Doune castle is the site where Monty Python filmed The Quest For The Holy Grail, and the tour guides are pretty cool about the whole thing.

The castle manager even keeps coconuts on hand for those vistors who wish to pretend to be King Arthur and Patsy, and the staff are known to help out with on-the-spot reenactments of crucial scenes filmed at the castle-- Castle Anthrax, the Rescue, the French Taunter, the Knights of the Round Table song, etc.

I declare the first ever Ministry of Minor Perfidy State Visit, for the purpose of reviewing the grounds and facilities of Castle Doune. The mission will commence just as soon as sufficient capital has been raised to fund such an excursion. Now, who's with me? Who's with me?!?!

Scurvy dog grogbarrel purple monkey dishwasher plank something something eyepatch.***

* What really burns my biscuits is that I've been right by there, repeatedly, and never knew. Damn damn damn damn damn damn damn.

** Obligatory pirate-speak. Arr.

*** More. Isn't it annoying?

Yarrr, it be National Talk Like A Pirate Day, and be warned, ye lubbers, that me pirate name be Mad John Flint. What be ye's. . . ye,

ye's'er. . .

uh. . . yours . .

er. . .

Fuck it. Check out the funny quiz, you, um. . . scurvy dogs, you . . . something.

Arr.

There are a million ways to take the Bush administration to task. There are a million and one ways to catch them in a bald-faced lie, or at least a mendacious prevarication.

And yet Andrew Greeley of the Chicago Sun-Times feels the need to invoke Godwin's Law, corollary 1 with his first sentence in this editorial.

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda chief (director of communications, in the current parlance), once said that if you are going to lie, you should tell a big lie. That may be good advice, but the question remains: What happens when people begin to doubt the big lie? Herr Goebbels never lived to find out. Some members of the Bush administration may be in the process of discovering that, given time, the big lie turns on itself.

Is that the best he can do? Hitlering the President? Pathetic, and approximately as mature as the outrageous canards launched by Benjamin Franklin Bache against John Adams. Except Adams had Bache arrested for treason, and that hasn't happened yet to anyone this time.

<paranoid>Yet.</paranoid>
 

The Ministry, in its relentless quest to improve no matter the price in blood or suffering, has developed another new category, and a new icon for an old one.

This icon, we felt captured the essence of the Horseshit category far better than any sophomoric fecal imagery, and so the old one was liquidated: [Update] this has been altered to reflect the new category name.

Click the webtastic punditry expander link below for more information on the categories.

For your edification, here is how the Ministry uses, and abuses, the categories:

The following categories may seem similar, but here are the guidelines for their use:

[wik] The Ministry of Future Perfidies notes from the distant vantage point of the year of our Lord 2025, that many of these categories proved to be unnecessarily precise, and were merged. Intermittent improvements to the quality of icons was seen every time someone bothered to pay attention to the site. (So, on average, about every 5-7 years.) 

Via John Cole (again, yes), I find that he blogged about the welfare contribution inequality thing a while back, long before CalPundit, and long before my lazy, sorry ass stumbled on the scene (um, yesterday).

And then Jane Galt puts the hurt on us. I'm not totally sold, but yes, nuance is dawning in my paleolothic head.