perfidy

Christian Science Monitor has a brief quiz up. Kinda fun. Turns out I'm a "realist", which I believe I copped to when I took polisci 110. So I seem to be internally consistent. So Monday wasn't a total loss- I accomplished something.

Other, more detailed quizery here. My score: Economic left/right: -1.75 (or slightly left of center)
Social libertarian/authoritarian: 1.13 (or a hair above center)

So I'm a touch authoritarian (shocking, I know) and a hair left on my economic ideas, but basically centrist on both axes. Or roughly midway between Gerhard Schroeder and the current Pope.

Just a quick note: Saw it last night and wasn't really all that impressed. There just really wasn't much information there. There are a few nuggets -- like the fact that out of 534 Members of Congress, exactly one has a child who is enlisted. Bush's seven perplexed minutes after being told about the World Trade Center are telling. But beyond that, there just really isn't a whole lot there. It's funny in a few places, and worth seeing for that. But it's just too...simple.

I don't think conservatives should get too upset about the film; it isn't really all that serious. For the same reason, I don't think dems should raise it up to be something that it is not.

I make all the serious arguments right here. Hah! ;) You don't need Michael Moore.

Thank God. SCOTUSBlog has details, but the gist is that the Supreme Court has decided that the Executive Branch may not arbitrarily imprison citizens without trial or recourse. It sounds like a no-brainer, and in my opinion it is. What the hell were they thinking?

Under the government's theory, George Bush could declare John Kerry to be an enemy combatant and imprison him, without recourse or trial. Would they do that? Of course not. But they would have the right. I can't think of anything more anti-democratic, or anti-freedom. It is inexplicable to me that they would even have attempted to assert this power.

The most powerful voice on the opinion is that of Scalia, who thinks that the majority didn't go far enough in slapping down the government. His dissent goes right to the first principles of democracy, and is required reading.

Being genetically designed for cave-dwelling, my recent trip to British Columbia's Sunshine Coast had predictable results. Two days in, I had a nice sunburn/sun reaction. I've seen it a dozen times before and I know that seeing a doctor is a good idea when it gets severe. Since I haven't lived in Canada in ten years, I don't have a provincial health card any more. I therefore entered the BC medical system as a simple cash-carrying person (yes, we do have that in Canada).

I called in the morning, and had an appointment for that afternoon. The doctor and I spent about 15 minutes together, and I walked out with my prescription. Let's tote up the costs:

$40 for the office visit, cash. $9.32 for the prescription. Both those figures are in Canadian dollars, so at today's exchange rate my interaction with the health system cost US$36.57.

About two years ago the same thing happened while here at home. I did get an appointment for the same afternoon, but I had to wait about an hour and a half. The 10 minute office visit cost around $65 (covered by insurance, but shouldn't we look to see how much we're being charged). The prescription cost about $20, for the same medication; our interaction total is about US$85.

There's no discernible difference in the quality of care received, for an interaction like this, between the US and Canadian system. So why do we have such a difference in charges to the patient? There's a laundry list of reasons, I suppose. Doctors in Canada don't have the same vulnerability to malpractice; there's some legislative protection, and large jury awards are almost unheard of in Canada. Staffing costs are higher in the US, which means higher costs to cover.

One of the largest factors is the massive administrative and paperwork overhead in the US system. This burden is estimated to chew up almost 30% of medical dollars; it's the constant paper cut knife-fighting between physicians' offices' admins and their counterparts at the insurance companies. The insurance companies don't want to pay out; the longer they can hold on to their dollars the more they earn on investments. Most doctors in the US have at least one and usually more people on staff who work payment issues almost full-time.

Administrative overhead in the Canadian system is about 6%, and other socialized medicine systems run about the same.

I think the medical insurance companies are at the heart of this. An ob-gyn friend has just been presented with a Faustian deal by her malpractice company; either sign a new agreement with a "tail clause", or lose her insurance. The malpractice insurance policy used to cost $85,000 per year. The "new deal" is that if she ever ceases insuring with this company, she must pay them two years, in full upon doing so. Malpractice insurance companies are local, so if she moves to another state, this amount would be due and payable.

So she should just go to another insurance company, right? Wrong. Malpractice insurance is highly specialized; it turns out that in our area, there is exactly one company offering malpractice insurance to ob-gyns. Of course, that company is likely owned by another, much larger company that does national health insurance, but for the purposes of this contract it is irrelevant.

Her practice of (I believe) eight ob-gyns are all being forced into the same deal. Some of them are nearing the end of their careers or don't have any plans to move; for them the deal is still possible.

There's a bizarre little circle at the heart of the system. That first $85,000 in revenues is paid by insurance companies and then routed right back to insurance companies. We know that the payout rate for medical malpractice insurance is around 4 to 1; for every four dollars taken in, one dollar is paid out. Mathematically, this tells us that the insurance industry needs to keep malpractice underwriting small and local; only when the risk is concentrated can the premiums be justified. In the aggregate malpractice insurance is rather profitable.

By shifting money into the malpractice stream, the cost of health care has been exaggerrated. Insurance companies have dramatically raised their rates over the past four years, citing increased costs and malpractice, when they themselves are the primary reasons for those cost increases.

For those Americans looking for affordable health care, you might want to look north of the border. For the cash-paying patient, it's prompt and efficient, and less than half the cost of American care of comparable quality. Powell River British Columbia has noted a recent trend -- medical tourism. It seems that the excellent hospital and ready availability of care has recently been drawing patients from Canada's urban centers, as well as from the US.

And just to head it off, I'll admit that the finest health care in the world is available right here in the US. Of course, only a tiny fraction of the population can actually afford it, but who the hell cares about the rest? Paying twice as much to insure only 60% of the population is the American Way; that paperwork and overhead is the heart of the system. And private medical care must be preserved at all costs! Private care like you can, uh, get in Canada.

Imposing a system on the population that benefits and works for only a small number of people? That's real elitism; the kind that takes food from children, breaks a man's life with medical expenses, laughs at the suffering, and guides the body politic to cement it in place.

From his (former) campaign site...here's what Jack Ryan has to say about "family breakdowns":

I believe that marriage can only be defined as that union between one man and one woman. I am opposed to same-sex marriages, civil unions, and registries.

I believe that we are all equal before God and should be before the law. Homosexuals deserve the same constitutional protections, safeguards, and human dignity as every American, but they should not be entitled to special rights based on their sexual behavior.

The breakdown of the family over the past 35 years is one of the root causes of some of our society’s most intractable social problems-criminal activity, illegitimacy, and the cyclical nature of poverty.

As an elected leader, my interest will be in promoting laws and educating people about the fundamental importance of the traditional family unit as the nucleus of our society.

In the wake of the recent Massachusetts State Supreme Court ruling that has spawned similar lawsuits in other states, it seems likely that defending traditional marriage and codifying that defense will be required at the federal level. As such, as a United States Senator, I would support legislation such as Senator Bill Frist’s Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), provided the language remains clear in the defining of traditional marriage and protecting the traditional family unit.

I can't quite remember where it is in the Bible, but there's gotta be some traditional justification in there somewhere for asking your wife to have sex in club.

Schadenfreude, oh schadenfreude.

Loyal reader #00012, Guitarpicker, alerts us to recent developments in lethal autonomous robots. USA Today is reporting that the Air Force is testing several new robotic vehicles intended, according to Air Force claims, to "detect the enemy first, will receive any of the initial hostile acts," Meana said. "If you shoot the robot we don't care. We know you're there, you're hostile, and we can keep our forces in reserve to move tactically against the enemy. The robots will save our troops' lives." Staff Sergeant Miguel Jimenez, displaying a stunning lack of concern of the future survival of his own species, said Tuesday, "If somebody wants to spend the money and send something like that out there instead of my life, I'm all about that."

The Air Force is testing two different robots for perimeter security. The first and more expensive is the Mobile Detection and Response System, or MDARS. Looking curiously similar to "Number Five" from the movie "Short Circuit," this robot can be equipped with automatic weapons and pepper spray. It will use radar, TV and infrared to detect and destroy its human prey.

But that's not all. Like Voltron, MDARS can also split into several smaller robots. Okay, only sort of. Here is a snap of MDARS launching Matilda, a mini robot designed to allow inspection under vehicles and into areas too small for the jeep sized MDARS.

Our days as the dominant lifeform on this planet are numbered, as this model will go into production next year. As always, I would like to be the first to welcome our new robotic overlords.

Other cool links:

Here is another, more detailed, story on the robot from the National Defense Magazine.

Globalsecurity.org has pages for MDARS and a related project, REDCAR.

And of course, you absolutely must check this out.

Sayonara, Survivor! Bye-Bye Big Brother! Farewell Fear Factor! It appears the new Arab reality show, Cave In To My Demands Or I'll Saw Your Citizens' Heads Off, is really taking the world by storm. I haven't seen any of this season's episodes yet, but I have read about them and man I am blown away! Many appear shocked at the graphic nature of it, and surprised at the union of ultra violence, political messages, and media saturation; it's that shock that's going to take this show straight to the top!

Lots of good marketing and distribution in US markets, although I don't believe it's getting the same demographic penetration as in the Arab world. Product tie-ins, like with green headbands or specially prepared throwin' stones say, are weak here as well outside narrow markets trending to the young, hip, prostrate crowd. There is some progress on Muslim catch phrases (Allahu akbar; Dar al-Islam; Dar al-Kufr) penetrating the mainstream, but most common usage is still in mosques and prisons.

I have a passing familiarity with other reality TV from the Middle East, like the long running 11th Century House; the unforgettable Candid Clitorectomy; the often imitated A Suicide Bomber Story, and the fun but trifling My Big Fat Obnoxious Husband and His 3 Other Big Fat Obnoxious Wives. But nothing compares to the interest audiences are giving to ...Heads Off.

Looks like Muslim TV really has a hit on its hands.

Christopher Hitchens flays, dices, and juliennes Michael Moore's new propaganda flick. In related news, the New York Times Review of Books crucifies Bill Clinton's tell little memoir.

Nellie McKay, "Get Away From Me" (Columbia)
Katie Melua, "Call Off The Search" (Universal)

I'm a sucker for precocious youngsters. Having passed forever out of precocious youngsterhood a few years ago, I remain deeply impressed by people who can, at an improbably young age, turn out an album of assured, complete, and ambitious songs that deserve a wide audience. However, I'm frequently disappointed with the followup. In 1999, I was very much taken by Ben Kweller's self-released EP, "Freak Out It's Ben Kweller!" His super-ballad "Butterflies" was possibly my favorite song of that year, and his Vanilla Ice redux "BK Baby" was improbably fun. However, his follow-on major label debut, 2002's "Sha Sha" (ATO) lacked the same flair, possibly because recording in an actual studio with Dave Matthews' money made him choke a little when the time came to deliver. Ditto Erin McKeown, a Massachusetts singer whose second album, "Distillation" (Signature Sounds) is still one of my favorites. A pixieish woman who plays hot jazz guitar, McKeown mined Tin Pan Alley and some weird angry side of her subconsious to create a strong and diverse set of songs. "Queen of Quiet," "Blackbirds" and "La Petite Mort" crackled with creativity, brilliance, and masterful performances, and a small bidding war ensued for her among indie labels. Unfortunately her next album, last year's "Grand" (Nettwerk) was notable mainly because McKeown abandoned her strengths to experiment with new genres and forms with the result that for the moment her reach exceeds her grasp.

So now when faced with the prospect of some ambitous new hotness, I tend to hesistate lest I sign on to follow the career of an artist who will within two years disappear into his or her own navel. I am especially hesitant to embrace releases by young female jazz singers these days, since every label in the universe seems determined to build their future on cloning Norah Jones. Nellie McKay and Katie Melua are both nineteen years old, both have preciousness just coming out their ears, both grew up in itinerant circumstances (Melua moving from Moscow to Georgia (the Black Sea Georgia) to Belfast, McKay shuttling between the East and West Coasts in a VW van), and both have chosen to be jazz chanteuses on their debut albums. But for all the similarities, their albums could hardly have turned out any different. Where Nellie McKay kicks against the stereotype, dead set on being different from Norah Jones in every way, Katie Melua seems dead set on jumping Jones's claim.

Nellie McKay has already cut her teeth singing in New York clubs, and her official bio claims that she sometimes writes a song a week (precocious, indeed!). Her album cover tells you almost everything you need to know about what's inside. On it, McKays' apple-cheeked face is ringed with cherubic red-blonde curls as she throws her arms skyward in a Mary Tyler Moore moment. She wears a bright Red Riding Hood coat and is in general completely adorable. Behind her is a grafitti-covered wall and construction scaffolding. Her name and the album title ("Get Away From Me") are in yellow, with her name written in a jaunty serif font that brings to mind swingin' releases from the golden age of crooners on LP. The back cover proudly proclaims McKay to be "A Proud Member of PETA."

The title tells you the rest. Part a response to being lumped in with the fuzzy jazz noodlings the Norah Jones Clone Army (Amazon has bundled "Get Away" with Jones' new album-- get both for $25!), and part a psycho-girlfriend outburst, Nellie McKay's audacious debut album is far more entertaining than all the jokiness and contrivance I've mentioned would initially suggest. Mostly dealing with issues dear to the heart of any 19 year old (boys, hypocrisy, sunshine, death threats, alienation, and issuing death threats to hypocritical boys), McKay and producer Geoff Emerick (of Beatles fame) envelop her self-written cabaret-style songs and droll, dark-toned voice in a shiny mix of piano, strings, and a skintight rhythm combo. But where Norah Jones and fellow travellers like Diana Krall make timid albums that threaten to be little more than pleasant background music, McKay enlivens "Get Away From Me" with adventurous writing, sharp and witty lyrics, and a scary yet bubbly personality. One might be tempted to draw comparisons to Fiona Apple and Tori Amos, but where Apple comes off as a poetry-obsessed neurotic and Tori Amos seems dangerously unhinged, Nellie McKay steps right past them with great talent, a smart sensibility, and-- unlike Fiona and Tori-- a sense of humor. Also, where Fiona and Tori seem always on the brink of carving their initials into their arms with a pencil, I get the feeling Nellie McKay is more likely to carve her initials into yours.

In 18 tracks over two discs (a nice contrivance meant to evoke the lost art of the album side) McKay explores everything from reggae to torchlit balladry, with stops at jump blues, perky rock, and rap. Yes, rap. On "Sari" McKay raps convincingly about every petty thing that irritates her (including herself) in a laconic flow that, though obviously coached, still hits harder than P. Diddy's best attempt at a rhyme. Elsewhere, her more conventional songwriting efforts display similar ambition. The jaunty depression song "Ding Dong" manages to simultaneously evoke Frank Zappa and commercial jingles, "Baby Watch Your Back" detours into canned jazz-funk that works far better than it should, and the album opener "David" is colored heavily by reggae. Her voice and piano playing are up to the genre hopping, and even the songs that don't quite work redeem themselves through sheer bravado and the saving grace of a well-turned lyric. Vocally, she reminds me a little of Anita O'Day and Chicago chanteuse Holly Cole's first albums. Her pitch is good, her voice is strong, and like Cole she tends to over-enunciate her vowels and "r's" in a way that makes her sound positively aggressive.

Her lyrics are Nellie McKays' strong suit, and "Get Away From Me" demonstrates a refreshing talent for acid tirades that would put the great masters of invective to shame. "Clonie" is a narcissistic ode to the "apple of my eye, and "the only person I have ever loved"-- her own clone-- and "Won't you Please Be Nice" warns her man "if we part, I'll eat your heart, so won't you please be nice." "It's A Pose" is a rant against men, men, men! in general, whose thesis is that all men are pigs, so using the filthy swine for pleasure isn't really a problem. The second verse goes:

You’re preenin’ in your armchair
and I’m steamin’ at your knee
go on pontificatin’ like I care
Peter Lorre, then a story about AC/DC
Harvard-educated, frustrated dictator
tyrant with a PhD
. . . . . . . . .
but hey hey hey
that ain’t nothin’ to do with you
you’re a sensitive Joe, I’m forgettin’
but every woman knows
it’s a pose, just a pose, just a pose.

It's hard to say whether Nellie McKay will be able to live up to the promises she has made on "Get Away From Me." For all the accomplishment and bravado, it is still very much the product of someone young. A couple songs, notably "Work Song," which unconvincingly evokes the terror of a dead-end job, and "Inner Peace," in which McKay realizes she's not unique, make it clear that she has room to grow as a writer. As long as she can avoid the usual traps; spiralling off into craziness (like Anita O'Day, Tori Amos or Laura Nyro), drugs, (Anita O'Day again), or her own navel (Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, coffeehouse casualties everywhere), I expect the Nellie McKay of the future to be dangerously happy showstopping boatload of fun who sometimes scares us terribly.

Katie Melua's debut album "Call Off The Search" features a cover shot of her with dark curls and a black leather jacket, holding a nylon-string guitar and sitting on a stool under a single overhead light. The rest of the cover is black-- "none more" black. Just as precocious in her way as Nellie McKay (she already has had a #1 hit in Britain with "Closest Thing to Crazy"), Melua has chosen to explore the quieter side of jazz vocals with a fleet of songs mainly by songwriter Mike Batt, with covers of John Mayall and Randy Newman. Melua's album has already gone platinum in the UK, and it's clear that Universal is hoping to make Melua a crossover success, this year's sonic wallpaper for the Audi set's summer soirees.

It will be impossible for Melua to dodge comparison with Norah Jones since they are essentially mining adjacent claims. But where Norah has channelled her pop sensibilities toward country and tentative stabs at soul, Melua takes a different tack, pursuing the folkier sounds of Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake, and Van Morrison. And where Nellie McKay spends her time being explicit about everything she says-- to a fault-- Katie Melua is content to suggest, insinuate, and understate. The trouble is, there is a fine line between understatement and snoozing. "Call Off The Search" recalls at times Nick Drake's "Bryter Layter" and Van Morrison's "Veedon Fleece," two other albums which luxuriate in soft textures and barely upbeat tempos. However, "Bryter Layter" was redeemed by Drake's preternatually acute folk sensibility, and "Veedon Fleece" by Morrison's obessive journey to the center of his lyrics. Despite a few highlights-- the title track, the self-penned "Belfast," and "Closest Thing to Crazy," in general "Call off the Search" too often rolls over and goes to sleep.

The overall impression I get from this album is of some very pleasant and indeed beautiful arrangements marred by some fairly bad lyrics and boring writing. For example, "Tiger in the Night" includes the mediocre Blake re-write, "You are the tiger burning bright, deep in the forest of my mind, all my life I never knew, you were the dream I see come true, you are the tiger burning bright," over an arrangement that sounds a great deal like Van Morrison's "Linden Arden Stole the Highlights." "Mockingbird Song" attempts to revive the nursery rhyme with vodka shots that fail to rescue the song from triteness. "My Aphrodisiac Is You" aims to evoke the wonder of being in lust. Unfortunately, a mellow arrangement (especially an ill-considered soprano sax), Melua's languid delivery and an unfocused lyric sap "Aphrodisiac" of the visceral punch it ought to pack, considering the subject.

As mentioned, Melua's first single, "The Closest Thing to Crazy," is already a monster hit in Britain; in fact the Queen is even on record as liking it, and it is here we can see Melua's future if she's lucky. "Crazy" yokes the album's torpid sound to a nice lyric in the style of late period Elvis Costello, and Melua bites off the ends of lines ruefully, like she means it. It's easy to see why the song was a hit with a chorus that goes

This is the closest thing to crazy I have ever been
Feeling twenty-two, acting seventeen,
This is the nearest thing to crazy I have ever known,
I was never crazy on my own...
And now I know that there's a link between the two,
Being close to craziness and being close to you.

However, even here Melua's bravado vocal performance can't break through of the sleepy haze that envelops the arrangement, and the song ends up hamstrung by these limitations.

All this is not to say that Katie Melua isn't talented. Although her voice is not yet up to the heavy lifting that jazz singing requires (she has yet to develop a wide palette of vocal expression, her breath support is sometimes lacking, and her pitch can be hit or miss) if she can harness the earthy smokiness that comes so naturally to her and links it up with a better set of songs and more ambitious arrangements, I'd give her another listen. She is still developing as a songwriter, and unlike McKay, she hasn't yet had a chance to vet her songs in front of paying audiences night after night after night.

If I had to choose one of these two artists and place $500 on whose third album is more likely to be an all-time classic, I have to admit that I'd almost be stumped. On one hand, Nellie McKay has chutzpah and charisma coming out her ears, and those attributes get her through some flat patches of songwriting. But it's hard to tell whether she's emptied her clip on the first try; what comes next is either going to stun or suck. On the other hand, Katie Melua's first album is a workmanlike piece of folky jazz-blues that will go over huge at suburban PTA meetings and will probably be the listen of choice at cocktail parties in Vail, East Hampton, and Provincetown for the rest of the year. That practical assurance of success might get her through the difficult next phase of her development in which she finds her own voice, and if it does she may well end up an affable hybrid of Cassandra Wilson and Carole King. However, it may also be true that Melua is a one hit wonder of the British variety, blessed with one good song and a lifetime of resolute mediocrity.

As far as I'm concerned, the deck is stacked against artists who don't take chances. At nineteen you should be either too drunk or too stupid to know there are things you aren't allowed to do. A listen to some artists' early albums-- "Never Mind the Bollocks," the Clash, the Ramones, Elvis' first Sun sessions, even the Flaming Lips' long out of print first EP-- burn with a thrilling audaciousness born of wild ignorance. The artists I mentioned at the opening of this piece-- Ben Kweller and Erin McKeown-- first caught my ears because they were doing something it seemed they shouldn't be doing. The danger as I see it is that, for a young singer or songwriter, it's much easier to teach someone restraint than it is to teach them originality. Nellie McKay passes that test with flying colors, and although her next album could be a disaster, I am much less confident that Katie Melua's next album is going to even take that chance.

(also posted to blogcritics)

Ross emails from the great white north:

Weird little DNS errors prevent me from entering this, so I'm just forwarding it to you...

I am currently engaged in some serious R+R on the west coast, up in that Canada place. My gracious hosts have provided me with living quarters that are possibly larger than my house...I've been out on the water, over to the mountains; I've sat on docks watching birds, listened to locals asking for a birthday joint, seen the place where a local grower tragically crashed his harley two nights ago and killed his wife...been on a sailboat at 10:30pm, still in the light, trolling over a reef, catching nothing...i marvel at what my cousin and husband have been able to do out here...it occurs to me that we are all total pussies compared to him ;) i mean, i am typing this in the house he built by hand, a 3000 sqare foot house with beautiful hardwood floors on five acres with its own orchard and swimming hole and five hundred fee of split rail fence, two workshops, a sawmill (that made the lumber for the house)...and i have trouble just organizing my mail. ouch!

people out here just DO things. they do things a lot of people have forgotten how to do. there's ocean and water, children with bikes instead of video games, and everything has to come here on the ferry.

i'll be coming back in two days...

The AFI has released their list of the 100 top songs from movies of all time.

They did remember some of my favorites: "Puttin' on the Ritz" from Young Frankenstein, "Lose Yourself" from 8 Mile, "Springtime for Hitler" from The Producers, and the theme from "Goldfinger" all figure, as does "Rainbow Connection" and the theme from "Shaft." Nice work there.

However, I am hard to please, and I'm flabbergasted that some very worthy selections were passed over in favor of songs from "When Harry Met Sally...", "Beaches," and "Moulin Rouge". Beaches? Did you ever know that you're my hero? Bite my implants, Bette.

Among the reasons for my irritation (not that it takes much to irritate me these days) is that not making the cut is the single greatest film theme song of all time, no discussion allowed:

• Across 110th Street, Bobby Womack (Across 110th Street)

And let's not even mention these worthy candidates:

• Can You Picture That, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem (The Muppet Movie)
• Stuck in the Middle With You, Stealers Wheel (Reservoir Dogs)
• Shout!, "Otis Day and the Knights" (Animal House)
• My Way, Sid Vicious (Sid & Nancy)
• Rock and Roll High School, The Ramones (Rock and Roll High School)
• Purple Rain, Prince (Purple Rain)

"Afghans Behead Taliban in Revenge for Beheadings".

This is not the way. Not at all.

It has been a busy few weeks for the Buckethead family. When I was laid off almost a month ago I dreamed that I would have a period of rest; a time to gather my scattered mental faculties into a pile, give them a light dusting and polishing, and sort them into neat ordered rows. I would do the job search, obtain remunerative and rewarding employment, and rejoin the working week. But as my personal savior John Belushi said, "But nooooo!"

Once I no longer had the excuse of going to work, I was expected to increase my participation in the management of the household. I was able to get several days' respite by "reorganizing the garage," but my wife soon saw through my cunning ruse. But even Mrs. Buckethead had to defer to my new master, the townhouse.

Long time readers will be aware that the townhouse has been something of an albatross for me. While it held out the hope of gleeful capitalist windfalls, it mostly was a black hole of time, effort and money. (Well, let's be fair - it was only a neutron star.) We had finally reached the point where we could rent the damn thing, when the dark clouds started gathering at the workplace. So, we did what any sensible people do when faced with uncertainty - grab for the cash.

But the process of selling our spare house, begun just before I was pink slipped, has proved to be just as much a burden as trying to rent it ever was. Fascist homeowner's associations, recalcitrant plumbing and the prejudices of others have kept me working until my fingers are nubs. One particularly egregious example: just yesterday Mrs. Buckethead and I disassembled our fence, and then immediately reassembled it six inches lower to satisfy an obscure codicil of the association covenant. All the while, my son sat in purgatory, or what toy sellers like to call the Megasaucer. A thousand minor details must all be attended to, so that weeks later, you (cross your fingers) get the cash. I'll need to get laid off from being laid off, just to recover from this harrowing experience.

Then there was the trip to Vegas. Naturally, the first thing one thinks of when one is unemployed is, "Hey, I need to go to Vegas!" What better use for now scarce funds than to buy an airline ticket a week in advance and fly to an entire city scientifically and methodically designed to devour every cent you have, or can easily borrow or steal? Normally, my common sense and prudence (also known as my wife) would preclude such a journey. Thank god for extenuating circumstances! My dear friend Jeff (an actual rocket scientist) had decided after seven years of dithering that the right time to get married was right after I became a government jobless statistic. I met Jeff in 1972. I was born in 1969. I have quite literally known him as long as I can remember. And he asked me to be in the wedding party. I had little choice but to take the hit. I had to go to Vegas.

I got up at 5:30 on Thursday to get to the airport. Arrived at 10:30 Vegas time. Goofed off, found the bachelor. Went to the bachelor party at eight in the evening. Met some fascinating women with wonderful personalities and lucrative careers in the arts. Got back to my hotel at 4:30am, twenty six hours after waking the previous day. Got exactly three hours of sleep before waking to a phone call from Mrs. Buckethead, who apparently didn't think too much about time zones.

Then we gambled. And drank. And drank and gambled. We saw the fountains at the Bellagio, the miniature Statue of Liberty, the smoked glass pyramid, the lions at the MGM, and the Venetian, which would have embarrassed even a Sforza. Outside, it was Times Square - old and new together - on crack. Hispanic street buskers handing out hooker's business cards. Silicone. Elvis. Inside, all the wonderful and clever cheese that is a thin disguise over some rather merciless interior design. Every path leads to gambling. It's uncanny. Free drinks as long as you're playing. Silicone, Elvis.

Then there was the wedding. I could tell you that it had a Brazilian carnivale theme. I could tell you that the minister was a transvestite Carmen Miranda and a Cuban accent. But you wouldn't get it. This picture will give you some idea of what was going on - this is the happy couple perhaps ten minutes into the holy and sacred institution of marriage:

The reception lasted until the wee hours of the morning. I had so much to drink, I even danced. I apologize to all those who had the misfortune to witness that. No one was permanently injured though, which makes it one of my more successful forays into interpretive dance. (By this series of movements, the white male shows his alienation both from soceity and himself. He demonstrates that even his body cannot be a comfortable home for his soul. Here, this movement satirizes the conventional notions of grace, aesthetics, and athleticism.)

In my spare time, I have read exactly one and a half books. All on the plane to and from Vegas. I have pursued the job search thingy - In fact I have a lead on what would be a stupendously fantastic job; failing that, there are still several other attractive options before me. All I have to do is survive until next Monday (when the deed is recorded and I get my cash) on $6.00 and the change under my couch cushions. Then, big money. And I apologize to all four of my loyal readers, who may have noticed my absence and suffered for the lack of a useful reason to say, "Jeebus, what a deranged mongoloid fuckwit!"

So that's what I've been doing on my summer vacation.

Scenes from the New York Times Magazine interview:

Q: We can't kill everyone who hates America!

A: We can kill a lot of them, particularly when they try to kill us.

Q: You recently created a stir when you defended the interrogation techniques at Abu Ghraib.

A: Most of the people in Mississippi came up to me and said: ''Thank Goodness. America comes first.'' Interrogation is not a Sunday-school class. You don't get information that will save American lives by withholding pancakes.

Q: But unleashing killer dogs on naked Iraqis is not the same as withholding pancakes.

A: I was amazed that people reacted like that. Did the dogs bite them? Did the dogs assault them? How are you going to get people to give information that will lead to the saving of lives?

Q: How do you feel about gay men adopting and raising children?

A: It's so important that children have parents or family that love them. There are a lot of adopted children who have loving parents, and it comes in different ways with different people in different states.

And there you have it. Kill the bad guys, gay marriage ok!, and it's not torture as long as the dogs didn't bite.

[wik] n.b. I originally included a darkly sarcastic analogy in the above to make it clear that I think Trent Lott is out of his damn tree if he's gotten around to splitting hairs on the torture issue by arguing that a) we don't know that the dogs ever attacked anyone, b) ergo, no torture, and c) they deserved whatever they got anyway, and who knows where those bite marks are from. However, the analogy was too unsavory and made me rather uncomfortable. Consequently, I just have to say it. Trent Lott is out of his damn tree if he thinks that using dogs-- the bitey kind or otherwise-- to threaten unconvicted, possibly average-Joe prisoners in the hopes of gaining (*stentorian Prussian voice*) in-formation is the right idea. At least two of my bloggin' buddies disagree with me on this point, but in 100% of cases I've heard of to date, I'm agin' it, and it makes me see red.

[alsø wik] Trent Lott thinks gay marriage is okay by him. Whoosh. I need a minute to process.

The uninspiringly-named "SpaceShipOne" has completed its maiden voyage at America's first licensed inland spaceport, ushering in the age of private space flight. All that remains now is for Bert Rutan's team repeat the feat twice in two weeks, each time carrying three people, and the X-Prize will be theirs. (Let's bask in this a bit... I'm sure we have about twelve hours of glory before al Jazeera, Reuters and the Berkeley Barb find some inane way to blame this success on 'the Jews'.)

Interestingly, SpaceShipOne is being financed the same way all the great voyages in the last few centuries have been: by immense reserves of private capital held by men (not so much women, yet) entranced in equal measure by the potential for profit and the fascination of discovery. In this case, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is the lucky man, to the tune of $20 millon so far. Who knows? Maybe Microsoft will go down as the Medici family of its time in this regard.

As Minister Buckethead has noted extensively on this weblog and in hours of beery pontification, the future of space flight lies in the private sector, where ambition, genius, and market forces can strip away the unnecessary crapola governments bring to the project. SpaceShipOne has taken the all-important first step. Congratulations to Scaled Composites, Bert Rutan, and to test pilot Mike Melvill.

Far be it for me to get all high and mighty about religious people, being a-religious myself, but the ongoing Catholic priest child-abuse scandal is just too much to take.

The Dallas Morning News is working on an investigation that has found that orders of priests (e.g. Franciscans) sometimes shipped known abusers overseas without notifying the receiving diocese of the priest's background, even though internal diocese records reflected known instances of child abuse. Not only has the Catholic' preisthoods' tradition of keeping its own house in order privately become a contempt for the well being of their flock, but it now turns out they can't be trusted to be straight with each other. A more pious man than I might draw from this lessons about the fallibility of humans and the imperfections inherent in human ethical and moral codes, but I just see a bunch of people letting terrible things go unpunished and then foisting the problem off on someone else.

It's big, it's ugly, and it needs to stop. NPR (yes, yes. Shut up.) coverage here.

Mr. EGERTON: One of the examples we'll be looking at in the first day of our coverage involves a priest named Frank Klep(ph), who had a long career working with the Salesians in youth institutions in Melbourne, Australia, and was repeatedly accused of sexual abuse. In the 1980s, the order moved him to Rome for a bit, a little cooling-off period, and then on to New York, and they wanted Frank Klep removed from duty with children, and in one sense he was. And he went back to Australia and he went right back to working, as the Salesians do, with poor and needy children. People began to go to the police at that point. Frank Klep was criminally convicted, got some community service time, went back to work again.

INSKEEP: As a priest?

Mr. EGERTON: As a priest all along. He is still a priest and he has admitted to us and to one of his victims that he did these things. Finally a new criminal i! nvestigation began later on in the 1990s, and his order moved him to Samoa and told his accusers that he was no longer in ministry, that he was in a very remote area, that he had no contact with children. And so we set out to simply test that claim. And we went to Samoa and the first day that we were there, my colleague went to church and saw children running up to Frank Klep after Mass, calling him by his first name. And he was pulling candy out of his pockets and handing it out to all the little kids. We later found that he was in very active ministry and sometimes tutors children alone in his bedroom.

INSKEEP: You found him there and talked to him, and he confessed to what he had done?

Mr. EGERTON: In one case he did. He denied all the others. He said that he didn't feel he was a threat to children any longer, that he had overcome whatever problems he had had in the past and didn't see that it was really a problem to be working with children.

! INSKEEP: Is Frank Klep the only Salesian priest you found with a rec ord like this?

Mr. EGERTON: No, no, not at all. Other cases that we'll discuss include a guy who started in Peru and has worked in at least six countries in the Western Hemisphere. He was sent to the archdiocese of Chicago with a specific letter of reference. We have the document saying that he has never showed any behavior that would give rise to concern about children's safety, and yet we have other documents from the Salesians showing that their own priests in a church disciplinary panel specifically said that he should never be allowed to work around children.

INSKEEP: Were there American priests who were shipped overseas?

Mr. EGERTON: Absolutely. Frequently, what we've seen are priests who worked for a long time in America but remained citizens of another country. They came here and, when trouble arose, there was an easy escape hatch, and that was to go back to their native lands.

INSKEEP: You've already told us of one case where someone outside the United States got in trouble and was shipped to the United States for a while.

Mr. EGERTON: That's right. It...

INSKEEP: Did that happen more than once?

Mr. EGE! RTON: Oh, yes, absolutely. Yeah, we found some folks who are still here, still here.

OMG! LOL! ROTFLMAO! YGBK! And other acronyms to express disbelief and hilarity!

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- Syria is preparing a law that would prohibit trade dealings with the United States in response to U.S. sanctions imposed on the Arab country last month, Syrian legislators said Saturday.

More than 130 members of the 250-seat legislature have prepared a draft of the "America Accountability Act" that would impose "strict sanctions" on American interests in Syria.

So... what? They're going to stop exporting terrorists?

Turns out, no.

Muhammad Habash, a lawmaker with moderate Islamic affiliations who is one of the campaigners for the draft law, said the law was meant to maintain the dignity of Syrians.

"We are not simple-minded to the degree that we imagine we can affect the great American economy," he said. "But we are able to maintain our dignity and slap the Americans so they know that if they continue with their arrogant policies, people everywhere around the globe will spit at them."

Good luck with that, folks. Hope it works out for you. (Thanks to blogmother Kathy Kinsley for the pointer.)

[wik] In yet another example of the uncanny interconnectedness of the world, Syria's decision will actually affect me directly. I bought a pair of discount slacks last week at Marshalls' that according to the tag were made in Syria. They're comfy and have enough room in the butt, so I won't be taking them back even though the little spangled Patriotism fairy on my shoulder tells me I should do so instead of supporting state-sponsored terrorism with my pants dollar. Under sanctions, this debate would be moot because there would be no more Terror Pants for me to buy. So, Syria. Nice job. Pretty soon everyone in the US will be walking around without any Terror Pants. Is that what you wanted?

[alsø wik] Goodwyfe Two-Cents was wondering whether the pants were just manufactured in Syria, or whether the wool and fabric were also domestically produced. It occured to me; maybe my pants were once just fibers, wrapped around a case of Sarin or a disassembled Scud bound from Tikrit. It'd be perfect! "No, no sir, just some wool for the Syrian trouser trade. Nothing to see here."

Just a crazy idea, I know. I'm full of 'em. Maybe I should go work for the State Department as Special Minister of Crazy Ideas that Just Might Be True.

[alsø alsø wik] One might ask: Are these sanctions a legitimate state action taken by the Syrian government in protest of US policy? Or is this whole thing just an orchestrated performance by the parliamentary puppets of the Syrian trouser concern to game the world market in single-pleated brown three-season wool slacks? Inquiring minds want to know!

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] Then again, maybe State has enough of its own crazy ideas to deal with right now. I'd better steer clear.

With everyone's enemies in the Middle East doing the human butchery thing over and over again these days as if there's anything in the Koran about how Allah smiles on the headless corpse of a Yankee infidel-- especially the third or fourth time you do it-- Giblets of fafblog offers some analysis that I think is right on.

George Bush thinks they're doing this to "shake our will." Giblets doesn't know about that. I think this is what they do to do anything. This is what they do to get attention. This is what they do to distract people from things they don't want them to see. If they had enough innocent victims on hand, this is how they'd ask each other to pass the jelly. For a while Giblets thought it was just a serious communications-oriented neurological disorder like Tourette's, only instead of swearing a lot you kill people. But I think these guys just like killing people.

This stopped being about Allah or whatever a long time ago for these dudes, and started being some wierd-ass "Lord of the Flies" trip, except this time the fat kid is America, and our fat ass fights back.

[wik] I would have used "Bride of Chucky" instead of "Lord of the Flies" in the above, except then I would have had to think of someone to compare to Jennifer Tilly. There are some depths to which even I shall not stoop.

[alsø wik] Hijinks like these make it easy to believe that on some level we are in a clash of civilizations, especially since most people in what used to be called "The West" before Political Correctness made that unsavory would agree that one thing civilized people do is not behead people. That was tried with some enthusiasm in France and was eventually soundly rejected.

[alsø alsø wik] Not that "The West" is anything but a semifunctional shorthand for an increasingly diverse set of traditions that started, ironically, in Iraq and continue through the Enlightment and Industrial Revolution, not all of which took place in any locale that could be even generously geographically described as being to the west of anything. We do, after all, live on a slightly squashed spheroid. But still. Regardless of what you call it, for us, beheadings are soooo right out. For them, beheadings are soooo right now.

Thanks to circumstances tragically within my control, posting will be light from me for the next few little whiles, unless that is you welcome hearing from someone in a fit of misanthropy so profound that HL Mencken himself would ask me to lighten the hell up already.

Over to GeekLethal, Ross, and the prodigal and hopefully regainfullyemployed Buckethead.

[wik] As a sop to all the millions heartbroken by the tailing off of my prolific and nonpareil output, well... I've added Fafblog to the blogroll. Go read fafblog!

On June 21, Burt Rutan will send SpaceShipOne (lame! Lame! Why not "Icarus" or "Red Rider" or "Screw You NASA Nazi Punks!"?) into sub-orbital space.

Thanks to the ever-effervescent boingboing website place for continuing daily coverage.

A SCENE FROM SOMEWHERE IN IRAQ

"Soldier, where is the super-secret dangerous prisoner with high-grade intelligence in his cranium that Secretary Rumsfeld told us to hide from the Red Cross? It's question time again."

"Erm... We've lost him, sir."

"Lost him?"

"That's right. We're sure he's around here somewhere since he can't run with his hands and feet tied to a broomstick, but we can't find him just now. He'll turn up."

"Are you certain?"

"Uhh.. sure. What the hell. Certain enough, sir."

...and scene. Seems like Rummy has a lot to answer for. See, we (we meaning the USA, its people, military, and film heroes) don't pull hijinks like this for two reasons: because it's shitty and wrong; and because we don't want other people to do it to our guys when the time comes around.

It's the old schoolyard rule about not going nuclear. If you try a nut-shot and miss (or if the other guy doesn't go down) you better know you just escalated the fight, mister. It's all pipes and pointed sticks from there on out, and someone's not getting up off the ground when it's over.

I will always have a soft spot in my otherwise stony Yankee heart for utter cranks. The moonbats among us enrich all our lives in uncounted and under-appreciated ways. Nothing beats watching them at work, of course, but reading their publications is almost as good. Hell, sometimes it's even better, because you get the footnotes.

Michael Salla, a professor at American University's School of International Service, helps train diplomats and further the academic study of peace and conflict resolution.

He also has a side job developing his study of "exopolitics", or relations between Earth's shadow government and aliens, and has a website for it. 'Cuz, you see, "...many, if not all, international conflicts were related to the extraterrestrial presence."

One of his recent papers describes that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with oil, religion, 9-11, Osama, or anything else so obviously obvious. Instead, Dr. Salla writes that the war is actually about securing Stargates, ancient technologies that allow malevolent aliens to sidestep the existing planet-wide quarantine against malevolent aliens. See, that's why you don't see so many aliens running around, it's because of the quarantine.

Dr. Salla also warns that should Arabs be pissed off at us long enough, it will result in one of two scenarios: attract a certain alien species to pass through the Stargates to wreak vengeance upon the American armed forces in the region; or reach a critical mass, related to numbers and level of fervor, for their wishes of death and destruction upon us to physically appear by force of will. I think.

I'm digging this guy, and think it's great that nutters can find real work at our places of higher learning.

We should have seen this coming. From a New York Times story titled C.I.A. Classifies Much of a Report on Its Failings:

The Central Intelligence Agency has ruled that large portions of a report by the Senate Intelligence Committee that is highly critical of the agency includes material too sensitive to be released to the public, Congressional and intelligence officials said Tuesday. . . .

By law, the C.I.A. and ultimately the White House have the authority to decide what information is classified, giving them significant power over how much of the Senate report can be made public.

An intelligence official said Tuesday that the C.I.A. had "worked closely" with the committee to declassify as much of the report as possible. But much of the report was too specific for declassification, including information that identified intelligence sources and described operational methods, the official said.

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the committee, said Tuesday that he believed the C.I.A. had "overclassified much of the report to the extent that it will prevent the American public from knowing the truth about how the intelligence community performed leading up to the war."

I understand the need for secrecy &c. but that approach has failed in the recent past. Catastrophically.

Today is a special day. This morning I was nearly run down in a crosswalk by an inattentive driver, and in fact ended up partly perched on the hood of his car shouting "woah! woah! woah!" as he plowed ahead. This is fairly common in Massachusetts even though it's state law that pedestrians have the right of way in marked crosswalks. So, that's not so much the special part.

Today, after five cumulative years of living in Massachusetts and nearly being run over dozens of times in clearly marked crosswalks, marks the first time I can remember that the driver of the car did not yell an enraged and indignant "Fuck you!" at me as he drove away.

As if you needed further evidence that the mooks at Enron represent the basest, crassest and most nakedly amoral side of America's financial industry, well... they were kind enough to tape their crime spree.

CBS has the details. Roll film!

"He just f---s California," says one Enron employee. "He steals money from California to the tune of about a million."

"Will you rephrase that?" asks a second employee.

"OK, he, um, he arbitrages the California market to the tune of a million bucks or two a day," replies the first.

When a forest fire shut down a major transmission line into California, cutting power supplies and raising prices, Enron energy traders celebrated, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports.

"Burn, baby, burn. That's a beautiful thing," a trader sang about the massive fire.

"I want to see what pain and heartache this is going to cause Nevada Power Company," says one Enron trader on the tapes. "I want to f--k with Nevada for a while."

"What do you mean?" a second trader asks.

"I just, I'm still in the mood to screw with people, OK?" the first trader answers.

During California's rolling blackouts, when streets were lit only by head lights and families were trapped in elevators, Enron Energy traders laughed, reports CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales.

One trader is heard on tapes obtained by CBS News saying, "Just cut 'em off. They're so f----d. They should just bring back f-----g horses and carriages, f-----g lamps, f-----g kerosene lamps."

And when describing his reaction when a business owner complained about high energy prices, another trader is heard on tape saying, "I just looked at him. I said, 'Move.' (laughter) The guy was like horrified. I go, 'Look, don't take it the wrong way. Move. It isn't getting fixed anytime soon."

Employee 1: "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?

Employee 2: "Yeah, Grandma Millie man.

Employee 1: "Yeah, now she wants her f-----g money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her a—for f-----g $250 a megawatt hour."

And the giant kick in the nuts:

officials at the FERC, the very agency charged with regulating energy companies, has not only known about the tapes for two years, but fought attempts to release them.

Now Senator Barbara Boxer of California has called on the FERC to go after those who gouged energy consumers and end those expensive contracts -- or else.

"I said wait a minute, who are you representing here, those folks who cheated us or the consumers," says Boxer.

"I'm calling on President Bush to ask for the resignation of any FERC commissioner who continues to stand in the way of justice for California consumers who were victimized during the energy crisis," she says.

But to add insult to injury, Enron and other energy companies hope to pull themselves out of bankruptcy by collecting on the contracts, and are now suing their victims.

What I don't understand is why Bush isn't making a load of populist political hay out of crusading to have these mongoloids hung from the nearest lamppost. It would be so easy, and so good for his polling! "I may be a Texan businessman, but there are lines you do not cross. These evildoers must be brought to justice." But sadly, no. Just a black hole of procedure, obfuscation, and casual lassitude.

If you click here you will see a nude photo of former Treasury Secretary Robert Reich holding a basket containing leaf lettuce and an artfully placed baguette.

Consider this fair warning.

Thanks ever so much to Jeff of Protein Wisdom for making my day complete.

The sad part is, Zac Moussaoui isn't even trying for an insanity defense. This is what he calls keepin' it real.

Choice bits of crazy falling from his pen to your upturned eyes: "United Sodom and Gomorrah States"... "Slave of Satan Bush & Co"... referring to the judge on his case as "Brinkema the [unreadable] Death Judge"...

Guilty or innocent, this guy is a hoot! Keep the crazy coming, Zac!

Johnny Ramone is dying. He has been fighting prostate cancer, which has now gone nuclear and metastasized throughout his system.

"Johnny's been a champ in confronting this, but at this point I think the chances are slim," Marky Ramone said in the report. "John never smoked cigarettes, he wasn't a heavy drinker and he was always into his health. It just proves when cancer seeks a body to penetrate, it doesn't matter how healthy you are or how unhealthy you are. It just seeps in and there's nothing you can do."

The greats are dropping like flies these days. It's inevitable; death will get us all, but one of the facts of life is that some things never get easier. The Flaming Lips, one of my favorite bands, have a line in their song "Fight Test" that for me sums up everything you need to know about growing up: "I'm a man, not a boy/ But there's things you can't avoid/ You have to face them/ When you're not prepared to face them." Even if it's a rock star you never met, some things never get easier.

Here would be the time when I typically launch into an extended rapturous encomium for Johnny (before the fight has even gone out of the guy, I'm such a ghoul), but since I've been doing that too much recently so's that people might think I have a thing for rock star deaths or something, I'm going to shut the hell up for a change. We all know who Johnny Ramone is, what he did, and why he's great. Right?

What the weeping hey has this country come to?

Yesterday [actually, March 23... as commenter Patrick Fleury wonders, 'God alone knows why it did not hit the news then.'] a bipartisan group of Congressmen-- US Congressmen-- attended a ceremony in which the Reverend Sum Yung Moon was crowned Emperor of America.

Cut to the ritual. Eyes downcast, a man identified as Congressman Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) is bringing a crown, atop a velvety purple cushion, to a figure who stands waiting austerely with his wife. Now Moon is wearing robes that Louis XIV would have appreciated. All of this has quickly been spliced into a promo reel by Moon's movement, which implies to its followers that the U.S. Congress itself has crowned the Washington Times owner.

But Section 9 of the Constitution forbids giving out titles of nobility, setting a certain tone that might have made the Congressional hosts shy about celebrating the coronation on their websites. They included conservatives, the traditional fans of Moon's newspaper: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA.), Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah), Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) and Republican strategy god Charlie Black, whose PR firm represents Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress. But there were also liberal House Democrats like Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.) and Davis. Rep. Harold Ford (D-Tenn.) later told the Memphis Flyer that he'd been erroneously listed on the program, but had never heard of the event, which was sponsored by the Washington Times Foundation.

Rep. Curt Weldon's office tenaciously denied that the Congressman was there, before being provided by The Gadflyer with a photo depicting Weldon at the event, found on Moon's website. "Apparently he was there, but we really had nothing to do with it," press secretary Angela Sowa finally conceded. "I don't think it's quite accurate that the Washington Times said that we hosted the event. We may have been a Congressional co-host, but we have nothing to do with the agenda, the organization, the scheduling, and our role would be limited explicitly to the attendance of the Congressman. . . ."

The spokeswoman for one senator, who asked that her boss not be named, said politicians weren't told the awards program was going to be a Moon event. The senator went, she said, because the Ambassadors promised to hand out awards to people from his home state, people who were genuinely accomplished. When the ceremony morphed into a platform for Moon, she said, people were disconcerted.

"I think there was a mass exodus," she said. "They get all these senators on the floor, and this freak is there."

And yet, they stayed. Goddamn great. For pix, including face-shots of sitting Senators participating in a ceremony crowning a right-wing moonbat Emperor of these here United States, go here.

I always say that Washington can't get any worse, or any weirder. I must be a man of faith because time and again I'm proven to be wrong, wrong, wrong and yet I persist.

[wik] And that's the problem with emperors. Almost two months he's been emperor, and... what? Nothing! No largesse, no continental royal progresses, not even any beheadings or indulgences granted. I demand a recount!

BIG!, the Discovery Channel's new entry into the increasingly crowded TV genre of people working hard while we all watch them, is airing the big guitar episode tonight. Go to the sight, work the tabs, read all about it: 31 feet long. 14 foot fretboard. Giant pickups designed by pickup stud Seymour Duncan. And a bigass amp to play it through to boot.

This project is a curious intersection of cool- guitars, big amps, heavy gear; and dorky- because only a total dork would ever crave a 31 foot guitar. I will add that Peter Frampton somehow plays the thing in the finale. I leave it to you, gentle reader, to decide which side of the intersection that fact lies.

Begging to Differ has been following the development of a new reality-type music show, called "Rock Star." Produced by Survivor Svengali Mark Burnett, the show will follow the efforts of contestants to earn the job of lead singer for Australian nostalgia act INXS. There'll be an album, maybe a tour, an onerous and unprofitable contract and everything!

Not to be crass, but, to be a little crass, INXS are notable in the annals of Rock Deaths for being the only band known to include a member who died of autoerotic asphyxiation. Out of a panopoly of choices: the boring old OD; choked on vomit; choked on someone else's vomit; electrocution; stabbed by father; wrapped car around abutment on the M1; riding in car with Motley Crue; died under mysterious circumstances, body stolen and burned in desert; shot in own home; heart attack on stage; plane crash; helicopter crash; plane crash in fright wig (Chase); murder-suicide, INXS are unique. (With apologies to Greil Marcus.)

That's quite an achievement and some serious shoes to fill. I wonder if the competition will include a psychological profiling of the contestants? Given the media's need to sell papers and latch eyeballs, I wouldn't be surprised if in the next few weeks we are all reminded repeatedly of the tawdry and tragic circumstances surrounding the death of Michael Hutchence. Of course, I'm getting the ball rolling here and now, but that's only because I am a follower of Rock Deaths and found this one to be particularly remarkable.

I only have one question. Rock star? INXS? There's plenty of bands out there in need of a lead singer. Both Van Halen and a reformed, Axl-less Guns & Roses would make for better TV than would INXS. But that wouldn't be a wholesome yet manky Mark Burnett production, now would it? May the, um... best... singer "win."

[wik] BTD Greg helpfully corrects my terminology: it's "autoerotic asphyxiation" not "erotic autoasphyxiation."

Cincinnatti resident and Somalia native Nuradin Abdi has been nabbed while trying to lay down some P-Funk, uncut funk, The Bomb, namely trying to tear the roof off a mall in the Columbus, Ohio area.

A resident of the hometown of prime funkateer and latter-day crackhead George Clinton, Suspected terrorist Abdi appears to be an adherent of a sect whose members are the greatest threat to peace and mass funkatization facing the world today. Led by noted killjoys such as Osama bin Ladin and known to the Clone Funk Army as followers of the Heresy of a Groove World Order, Abdi and his brothers-in-arms break with the Funkadelphian orthodoxy of One Nation Under A Groove, misinterpreting that message of Hardcore Jollies to mean One World under ONE Groove, a decidedy unfunky situation where noses grow, motor booty goes unshaken, and the whole world must bend to the will of the cobwebbed minds and tightly wound spines of the Groove World Order.

The GWO has done a number on such formerly funky places as Afghanistan, Syria, Ethiopia, and Sudan, laid low the twin towers of the Wizard of Finance, and have even made inroads in Egypt, where the secrets of Clone Funk lie hidden beneath the pyramids until such time as humanity is ready to have the cobwebs blown out its collective mind by that most ancient of wisdoms. Their music must be stopped before the funk is fully faked and we all march as one to the pi-sided rhythm of the Groove World Order's dead-minded dance.

It is a shame that in the war to keep the Flashlight lit and the Aquaboogie wet, we must partner with such unfunky freaks as John Ashcroft, but for the time being he is doing funk's work and funk must recognize that.

Stank you very much, John Ashcroft, for keeping Ohio funky.

Andrew Sullivan is leaning increasingly on the administration, particularly on the issue of torture. Being a right-wing writer, he describes being "inundated" with emails that are pro-torture. That is disturbing in and of itself, but I don't think we should come down too hard on his readers just yet. The question has not been correctly framed for them.

Most justifications for torture read something like this: If, by torturing an Al Qaeda member, we can gain information that will save hundreds or thousands of lives that might be lost in a terrorist attack, do we not have an obligation to do so?

This is not the correct question. The correct question is this:

Should we torture hundreds or thousands of people, not knowing with certainty if they are Al Qaeda, in order to gain information that might prevent hundreds or thousands of deaths in a terrorist attack?

The use of power is rarely confined to a single incident. Once torture is an deemed acceptable in certain circumstances, those circumstances have a way of enlarging and changing. Should torture only be used against known terrorists? Who makes that determination? And what is a "known terrorist" anyway? The government is vigorously pursuing prosecution of persons it deems to have supported terrorism. I have no problem with the legitimate prosecution of real supporters, but a recent case comes to mind.

In that case, a Saudi named Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, 34 years old, studying for his doctorate in Computer Science here in the US on a student visa, was prosecuted for "supporting terrorism", when he created a web site and discussion forum for Islam. On this forum, speech was engaged in and comments for and against terrorism flowed back and forth. My knowledge of this case is limited, but I do know that he was acquitted of the charge of supporting terrorism.

"There was a lack of hard evidence," said John Steger, a retired U.S. Forest Service employee who was the only juror to discuss the case publicly. "There was no clear-cut evidence that said he was a terrorist, so it was all on inference."
Steger called the First Amendment aspects of the case important to the verdict, citing Lodge's instruction that the Constitution protects speech even if it advocates the use of force or violation of the law unless imminent lawlessness occurs.

"What the First Amendment actually meant was more extensive than I thought," Steger said. "I was surprised that people could say whatever they wanted."

Justice Department officials in Washington, D.C., declined comment on the acquittal. But U.S. Attorney Tom Moss in Idaho said it would not deter future attempts to bring people supporting terrorists into court.

"We'll continue to go after people who support terrorist activities," Moss said. "You don't just need people who will strap on bombs and walk into crowds. You need people to support them. For terrorism to flourish, they have to have a communications network. . . . This was a case as prosecutors we're expected to pursue."

The government prosecuted him for supporting terrorism. Setting aside issues of free speech, should that same government also have a ability to torture him to gain more information? Is this man a terrorist or not? The government thought so; it prosecuted him for supporting terrorism.

Under the Bush torture doctrine, this man could have been tortured. This torture would have been performed away from the watchful eye of any court, or any check and balance.

A court found him not guilty. It is sobering to juxtapose the horror of torture, the willingness and desire of an administration to use it, the declarations and decisions of an administration that it is above the law and that it retains executive privilege to do what it deems necessary without review or consequence, and the decision of a jury of peers that a man is not a supporter of terrorism.

It seems that our court system serves a purpose after all. The founding fathers were correct to provide checks and balances between the branches of government.

Bad things happen to good people. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Would you torture one terrorist? The lazy comfort of black and white is held before us, a temptation...

This slippery slope is the one that matters.

Sami Omar Al-Hussayen is still being prosecuted by the government on immigration charges intended to deport him, based on the theory that his student visa entitled him only to study while in the US; as a foreigner, he did not have the right to speak his mind, create a web site, or engage in discussion.

What right to free speech do I have?

Eric Marciano, daring filmmaker, swashbuckling adventurer, and true-blue, apple-pie (with zabaglione or gelato) loving yet gently demented American presents a showing of his films Narrowcast and The Age of Insects.

Tuesday, 15 June, 7 pm, the Two Boots Pioneer Theater, 155 East 3rd St (at Ave A).

Joe Bob Briggs considers "The Age of Insects", "the 'Citizen Cane' of underground films". Take your rosebud downtown and check 'em out.

Radio has come full circle, and we're back to the good old days.

During a single week in May, Canadian pop rocker Avril Lavigne's new song Don't Tell Me aired no fewer than 109 times on Nashville radio station WQZQ-FM.

The heaviest rotation came between midnight and 6 a.m., an on-air no man's land visited largely by insomniacs, truckers and graveyard shift workers. On one Sunday morning, the three-minute, 24-second song aired 18 times, sometimes as little as 11 minutes apart.

Those plays, or "spins," helped Don't Tell Me vault into the elite top 10 on Billboard magazine's national pop radio chart, which radio program directors across the country use to spot hot new tunes.

But what many chart watchers may not know is that the predawn saturation in Nashville — and elsewhere — occurred largely because Arista Records paid the station to play the song as an advertisement. In all, sources said, WQZQ aired Don't Tell Me as an ad at least 40 times the week ending May 23, accounting for more than one-third of the song's airplay on the station.

The Don't Tell Me campaign is part of the latest craze in record promotion, a high-pressure part of the music business in which the labels try to influence which songs reach the air. . . .

In the latest twist, it's the radio stations themselves that have been reaching out to the labels, offering to play songs in the form of ads, often in the early morning hours when there tends to be an excess inventory of airtime. The practice is legal as long as the station makes an on-air disclosure of the label's sponsorship — typically with an introduction such as "And now, Avril Lavigne's Don't Tell Me, presented by Arista Records."

To be sure, Don't Tell Me is a bona fide hit, even without spins being bought and paid for. Radio stations must play a song many thousands of times for it to crack the Billboard top 10. Nonetheless, a few hundred spins here and there can move a song up a place or two in the rankings — and ensure that it is climbing rather than falling on the charts.

Now, don't blame the labels, at least not totally. The second a record loses spins, BAM! it's history. At least now they're being up-front about everything.

Man. What's next-- poodle skirts?

And what a thin and bony pair o' women ye'll be!

Happy birthday to the Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen Phenomenon Worldwide Enterprises Ltd., who turn 18 this weekend.

AND they just graduated high school!

I'm sure we're all so very, very proud.

I like to make fun of Detroit. As an Ohioan from outside Akron with a soft spot for Pittsburgh, part of it is a friendly rust-belt rivalry. Hey, Motor City! Look at us! Our economies aren't tanking! Neener, neener, neener!

But the rest of it is that Detroit is the armpit of America, and they can't even be relaxed about it. Jimmy Kimmel's show has been pulled off the air in the Detroit area (not that anybody would notice) because during halftime at at Lakers-Pistons playoffs game, he said "They're going to burn the city of Detroit down if the Pistons win, and it's not worth it."

Why is everyone so damn sensitive? I'd tell Detroit to buy a helmet, but I think it might be too late. Brain damage is permanent.

Now I need a nap..

I got 172/200. Beat that, I dare ya!

In a post earlier this week on Bill Parcells, Larry Bird, and the Whole Big Race Thing, I observed that I think

it's funny that affirmed non-liberal Patton also acknowledged the potential third-rail-ness of the question by [jokingly] prefacing his first comment with "well, not to sound illiberal..."

Has Political Correctness turned us all into a nation of pussies, or is merely an epiphenomenon of something else? Last night I was watching a bowdlerized "Blazing Saddles" with every "n**ger" cut out. It wasn't the same movie. Can you even imagine a film like Blazing Saddles getting made today?

Patton latter responds

"we're all just a bit too thin-skinned, which has led us to a place where normal discourse, particularly in politics, but also in art, sport, and other areas, is either neutered to the point of uselessness or poisoned to the point of, well, moveon.org, DU, Ann Coulter, KOS, or a whole bunch of other shrieking nitwits. Picture a ballpark vendor: "Umbrage! Get your umbrage here!"

When I was a serious academic historian, I did a lot of work in African-American history, particularly on the images of black maleness in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as captured in folk ballads and popular song. Characters such as Stagger Lee (later memorialized in the 1956 Billy Price hit of the same name) represented a subtheme of African-American masculinity, an alternate road to renown and greatness separate from the mainstream of American culture. These songs acknowledged that the traditional avenues of the American Dream (land ownership, equality before the law, etc. etc.) were closed off to a great many people in the aftermath of Reconstruction, and instead recounted tales of resistance (to use the Marxian term) in the form of unfettered badassery. Mediating between stories of real criminals, sometimes Robin Hoods but often not, and artificial figures emulating them, the badman ballads of the 1885-1920 era presented homegrown figures to celebrate (and loathe) for people stung by the reversals of Reconstruction and the failed promises of deliverance its end represented. Stagger Lee and his latter-day decendents such as the Black Panthers, Iceberg Slim, Sweet Sweetback, gangsta rappers, and Dee-bo from the movie "Friday" represent an important ongoing theme in American cultural history that has never been fully addressed, much less studied.

But I digress. The reason I stopped working on this stuff was it was becoming too difficult to be a good historian, that is, progress along tangled lines of inquiry with an open mind, without worrying too much about political bullcrap or whether this white boy from Ohio is even allowed to speak about issues of African-American male identity, even 140 years ago. Between the tacit understanding that no serious historian would spend time analyzing the sex scenes in "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" (a character who was named, by the way, at the age of 12 for the sweetness of his sweetback by a prostitute) for how they addressed and reinterpreted continuing themes in American cultural history, and the very overt understanding that if I were ever to present my work in conference I'd better be ready to eat a mountain of crap, I lost my taste for it. Moreover, I got sick walking on eggshells, trying very carefully not to be insensitive to all and sundry in the course of working out what all of it means.

The reason I bring all this up is to argue that, despite Dinesh D'Souza's fatuous argument, "The End of Racism" has not yet come. The major issues are sewn up, the big issues are settled, and racism has gone underground where it's harder to fight, but it's not dead. The battles now are so subtle, so intangible, that it's possible (easy, common as dirt) to go way to far to the other side and see racism where none could possibly exist. The word "niggardly," anyone?

It's very difficult to speak in a nuanced fashion about race, and even harder to evoke a nuanced response-- that is, "have a discussion". Why is it only getting harder?

Ray Charles on all our money.

I like it!

At the peril of igniting a flamewar, I have this to say: lay off the Gipper.

I don't direct this at fools like Kos or Ted Rall who are beyond help or reason. I mean the bands of partisans who are wearing metaphorical sackcloth and ashes and beating their breasts over the death of a 93-year old citizen of the republic who, at the end of the day, was just a citizen. To hear FOX news tell it, Reagan single-handedly tore down the Iron Curtain, shit bullets, and invited Marines to dine nightly at the White House, all the while restoring America to greatness. While there's something to that, after a while it all seems rather indecent.

We have had a weeklong period of mourning with the same 24-hour news coverage afforded Laci Peterson, OJ, and a semen-streaked blue dress, capped off by a federal holiday (ironic, considering the cost and who it's for), and now keepers of the flame want Reagan's name or countenance on the Pentagon, the Mall (now, not 25 years from now), the $10, the $20, the 50-cent piece, and the dime. Isn't it enough that an airport and the largest Federal building in Washington (again, in a Churchillian grumble, i-rony) bear the guy's name?

While Reagan was the father of modern conservatism, and while (yes, yes) modern conservatives are perhaps underrepresented in memorials, I offer two thoughts. First, modern liberal Presidents outnumber conservatives about ten to one, with the other great modern conservative being dim star Richard Nixon. Therefore it's fitting that there are memorials to Wilson, Kennedy and Roosevelt (a three-termer, let's not forget) on our currency or the Mall. Moreover, the 25-year moratorium on memorials for Presidents is in place to ensure that history remembers well the man the monuments stand for. Can you imagine if the Mall were littered with the Garfield Memorial, the Taft Memorial, and the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Wishing Fountain? The bills currently in Congress to replace Hamilton on the $10 and Jackson on the $20 are particularly laughable. Replace the father of American Finance? The father of American popular democracy? Please. Of course, a flag-burning amendment has once again made it out of Senate committee, so I can't take any of this too seriously.

[*Initiate snark sequence*] Where is the mad rush to place memorials to LBJ in every corner of the country? His was the last state funeral (if I'm not mistaken), and he was the closest Democratic cousin to Reagan in terms of legacy and impact. [*Ending snark sequence*]

I just wish Reagan's partisans could have a sense of perspective, of restraint. Reagan wasn't a king, and he definitely wasn't superman, and a week-long national spasm of grief and plaudits followed by a mad rush to erect statues assuring future generations of his greatness seems, well, kind of crass.

[wik] All this being said, I will never forget the sight of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the United States' enemy for most of the last century, paying his respects to Ronald Reagan in the Congressional Rotunda.

Ray Charles is dead at 73.

Ray Charles was a genius. His combination of blues, soul, gospel, jazz, swing, and barrelhouse piano was his alone, and although he is remembered best as a hacky spokesman for Diet Pepsi, he was a giant among giants. Nobody put the various threads of American music together like he did, especially not as early, and though he shied away from the spotlight in his last years, his live performances remained heartstoppers.

Man, I hate it when this happens.

Because the issues are so complicated, I've constructed this handy guide to American political principles! It comes in easy-to-digest table form, and as an outsider, I hope I can do my little part to bring a little light and knowledge into all of your lives. This absence has been lengthier than I expected, as my brain recovers from too much working. Read on, beneath the fold...

CNN brings us a breath of fresh legal air. In 1998, Jane Costa sued the Boston Red Sox for half a mil because she got hit in the face by a foul ball. The suit has been dismissed by a state court panel. Costa, who was "more than angry. I was in critical condition,"gets nothing, though she is reportedly upset that the Sox are "bickering over millions and millions of dollars to hit a ball, and when one of their fans get hurt, they don't care."

Why did this take six years to resolve? Didn't she read the back of her Red Sox ticket? I did!

By use of this ticket, the ticket holder agrees that... [t]he holder assumes all risk and danger incidental to the game of baseball, or preparation therefor, including specifically (but not exclusively) the danger of being injured by thrown or flying bats and thrown or batted balls and agrees that the participating clubs, their agents and players are not liable for injuries resulting from such causes.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that Ms. Costa is one of those "casual (read:"non") fans" who litter ballparks, the proportion of which to actual fans rises the closer one sits to the infield. Not a casual fan like my wife, who when she accompanies me to a game takes a good book for the slow parts but remains alert to the possibility of high-speed projectiles (as vanishingly unlikely as they are in the right-field grandstands underneath the balcony), but a casual fan who jabbers on their cell phone the entire game, is upanddownupanddown in the middle of tense at-bats and sighs/bitches loudly in the fourth inning that the game is taking so loooooong.

If I have mischaracterized Ms. Costa's fandom, I'm sorry. But odds are this next statement is for her: if you are lucky enough to have dugout seats, watch the goddamn game. Hell, if you were bored, perhaps you should have perused the words written in red capitals on the back of your ticket. I'm sorry you took one in the face. I bet that hurt. But still.

Larry Bird today: "[Basketball] is a black man's game, and it will be forever"

Later in the same interview: "The one thing that always bothered me when I played in the NBA was I really got irritated when they put a white guy on me."

Bill Parcells yesterday: "Mike wants the defense to do well, and Sean, he's going to have a few ... no disrespect for the Orientals, but what we call Jap plays. OK. Surprise things."

Bill Parcells has apologized, abjectly and repeatedly. Larry Bird has not yet apologized (though the interview does't air until tomorrow). Should he feel compelled to?

Discuss.

When he puts his mind to it and appends more than a fatuous and ill-considered "heh" or "indeed" to someone else's comments, Glenn Reynolds can write. His Tech Central Station columns are usually thought-provoking at least, and this week's is no exception. He tackles an issue that is close to my heart at the moment: aging.

I'm turning 30 in a few weeks, and even though I know in my head that it's not a big deal, not like birth, dying, or having a kid, I still can't shake a certain sense of temporal vertigo. As GeekLethal wrote a few weeks ago, time's a bitch (I paraphrase). Basically, 30 means I can't in any way at all possibly whatsoever be a kid anymore.

Glenn's piece is a musing on age-extending technologies. In answer to the inevitable critics of Methuselah drugs and whatnot, who might argue that the planet is overpopulated as it is, etc. etc., he writes

I've watched people I love age and die, and it wasn't "beautiful and natural." It sucked. Aging is a disease. Cataracts and liver spots don't bring moral enlightenment or spiritual transcendence. Death may be natural -- but so are smallpox, rape, and athlete's foot. "Natural" isn't the same as "good."

Well said. Not an argument, exactly, but well said. "Natural" gave us hemp underwear, hippies, and the clap. To hell with natural. And long live, well, me!

NDR of The Rhine River just doesn't seem to get this whole blogging thing. Instead of tossing off snarky, ill-considered polemics on current events at a furious pace, he keeps issuing thoughtful, interesting, and well-written posts on relatively obscure topics.

Check out two of his most recent: Why Not Marry Your Rapist?, about a terrible case in Ethiopia, and A Tale of Two Frances, which discusses the vexed legacy of Alsatians who fought for Germany during Dubya Dubya Two:

Thursday will be the sixtieth anniversary of one of the most notorious massacres of the war. Surprised by the D-Day invasion, German troops were sent into Vichy France (the technically autonomous France in the south) in order to shore up security. Near Bordeaux, a unit of the Waffen SS massacred almost the entire population of the small town of Oradour-sur-Glane. The men were separated out and shot. The women and children were shut up in the church, asphyxiated, shot, and burned. 642 people died.

As shocking as the event was, it was discovered after the war that fourteen of the German soldiers were Alsatians:malgré-nous, people who were considered German citizens (Reichsdeutsch). Because the National Socialists considered Alsatians to be Aryan and ethnically German, they were obligated to serve the state as other Germans. Furthermore, the Nazis were anxious to show the participation of Alsatians in the Reich. Many Alsatian men were forced to serve in the military–often members of their families were held hostage or were harmed in order to compel them to fight. Most malgré-nous fought on the Eastern Front in the Waffen SS (the military division of the SS, often given the most arduous missions). . . .

A court in Bordeaux tried the Alsatian soldiers, along with seven Germans, in 1953 and condemned them. But the sentence caused outrage in Alsace. People felt that the rest of France did not understand the unique suffering that they experienced during the war. Not just occupied, the Nazis put tremendous pressure on the Alsatians to integrate and Germanize. . . .

Dialogue between the two is still difficult. The Limousin demand recognition of the massacre, and they are unwilling to recognize the precarious situation in which Alsatians found themselves. In the 1980s, one of the malgré-nous sued for a military pension (something which he would be entitled to despite fighting for Germany), but was lambasted by a storm of public opinion.

I did not know that.

As an olive branch to the people of the Limousin region, here via epicurious is a recipe for a traditional Limousin dessert: clafouti:

1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 large eggs
2/3 cup milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon orange zest
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup Bing cherries, halved and pitted
1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter, cut into bits
vanilla ice cream as an accompaniment if desired

Preheat the oven to 400°F. In a blender blend together 1/3 cup of the sugar, the flour, the eggs, the milk, the vanilla, the zest, the almond extract, and the salt until the custard is just smooth. Arrange the cherries in one layer in a buttered 3-cup gratin dish or flameproof shallow baking dish, pour the custard over them, and bake the clafouti in the middle of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the top is puffed and springy to the touch. Sprinkle the top with the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar, dot it with the butter, and broil the clafouti under a preheated broiler about 3 inches from the heat for 1 minute, or until it is browned. Serve the clafouti with the ice cream.

When I make this, I sometimes use blueberries, since I do live in New England near the source of those wonderful low-bush Maine berries, but cherries are traditional and delicious.

Writing on the death of punk icon(oclast) Robert Quine, Phil Dennison asks "[w]hat the hell is it with these guys – Quine, Dee Dee Ramone, John Entwhistle – who lived through the worst the 70s and 80s had to throw at them, only to OD as old men? Cripes!"

Cripes, indeed.

Not being a big ol' druggie myself, apart from a few desultory stabs at self-medication here and there (nothing hard, nothing to write home about, nothing even that fun), I have a hard time understanding, much less identifying with, folks who fail to die before they get old, then manage to go and succeed at the end of a needle. This is particularly so when it's someone unexpected. Dee Dee Ramone isn't that surprising, actually, if you've ever listened to the lyrics to "Warthog Boy" or "Fifty-Third and Third." But John Entwhistle was a rock, the trillion-ton black hole that kept the Who from flying apart. Was he a tortured soul, or did he just like to get high a lot? And Robert Quine? What the hell?

And why Quine and not Keef, Iggy, Ozzy, or Phil Lesh? The more I muse on the vicissitudes of mortality and the decisions people make, the less I understand.

Maybe I'll write a little more on this tomorrow when I've had time to think it over. But for tonight... cripes.

NDR helpfully pointed me to Sabernomics, a weblog which combines a love of baseball with the rigorous statistical modeling of a dedicated economist. Actually, more an econometrician. But still. Cool as hell!

Check out author JC's analysis of why and whether perfect games have been more common in recent decades.

Tacitus has this story down so I won't add anything. The short version is this; some DoD lawyers wrote up a brief arguing that the President can do anything he wants, including order torture and indemnify subordinates from swinging if caught allowing torture. One part reads, "In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign ... (the prohibition against torture) must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander-in chief authority." In other words, if we aren't getting good information playing by the rules, well... the President can say there are no rules!

The NY Times has more.

The memo, prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, also said that any executive branch officials, including those in the military, could be immune from domestic and international prohibitions against torture for a variety of reasons.

"One reason, the lawyers said, would be if military personnel believed that they were acting on orders from superiors "except where the conduct goes so far as to be patently unlawful. "[my emphasis]

Didn't work sixty years ago. Won't work now. But rest easy! "'The April document was about interrogation techniques and procedures,' said Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon's chief spokesman. 'It was not a legal analysis.'"

"Not a legal analysis," my shiny metal ass.

I'm not saying the President has sanctioned torture. But some pointyheaded wonks somewhere in the Pentagon were told to start with the assumption that "authority to set aside the laws is 'inherent in the president'" and work backward from there.

Take it tacitus:

Two possibilities present themselves: either the finest legal minds in the Department of Defense are terrible scholars (hardly an impossibility), or they were presented with a conclusion and told to construct reasoning from which it derives. My guess is the latter. You don't typically see this sort of thing emanating from the American legal profession absent strong compulsion to produce it..

Yeesh.