perfidy

Remember that Chi-Chi's in Western Pennsylvania that gave all those folks Hepatitis-A a while back, and killed three of 'em? Well, it's open for business once again. With "larger than expected crowds."

Wha?

Tell 'em, Freda!

"'There cannot be a safer place to eat right now. I'm sure you could drag your tongue across the floor, it's so clean,' said Freda Gennaro, a 59-year-old medical sales representative as she sipped on a berry margarita with her husband Lou, 66."

Human beings are the only animals who would return to the location of a food source known to be lethal, and then rationalize about it. Idiots. I'm not a betting man, but if I was I'd wager that Western Pennsylvania's gene pool is going to get a leetle more hepatitisey in the weeks to come.

[wik] On second thought, I've changed my mind. Live dangerously if you want to. Prove Darwin right. But for the love of God, don't order the human poo burrito.

For once, the headline does not give you the hole story. Apparently, someone in Montana never heard the joke whose punchline is, "No, we ride the horse into town!"

Nekkidness. Hand Lotion Fu. No Breasts. Joe Bobb says check it out.

[wik] hat tip to Rocket Jones.

The wheels of American Justice, just turn and turn...assuming you can get a trial, of course (the SC has yet to weight in on the issue of whether the government really needs to give you a trial at all).

Somebody please explain to me how Andrew Fastow gets ten years for destroying the financial futures of tens of thousands of people by lying and stealing from the public, while a Young woman gets twelve years for being a "part" of a crime she didn't even know was taking place.

These people stole billions from unsuspecting investors. They lied about the state of their company. It's called fraud. Every single one of them should go to jail for the rest of their lives.

Except there's no room for them in jail: We have to continue to imprison people like this:

Date of birth: 1964
Federal sentence: Life plus 5 years
Offense: Conspiracy to distribute
crack cocaine
Prior convictions: None
Date of sentencing: 1992
Algernon Lundy, a Alabama businessman for 15 years and
a father, had never been in trouble with the law and maintains
his innocence. Prosecutors said his cleaning service business
was a cover for a massive crack distribution ring and that he
was the organizer and his friends Ronald and Alvin were his
deputies. No drugs or cash were found or seized, no specific
drug activity recorded, no controlled buys conducted and no
drug source or drug customers identified. Algernon was convicted
of an 18-month involvement in a crack conspiracy almost
entirely on the testimony of Ronald. The sentencing
judge indicated he was bound by mandatory laws to impose
the life sentence. After the trial, Ronald wrote the judge that
he had been threatened and manipulated into falsely testifying
against Algernon in exchange for a lower sentence. The
courts, however, have ruled that Algernon should remain in
prison for life. Ronald is serving a 20-year sentence; the third
co-defendant remains at large.

What the hell is that? No evidence of any actual drugs? Nothing? And the guy gets MORE time than Fastow? Amazing!

This is exactly what we need more of, Repulicans! A judicial system that makes damn sure a judge doesn't become all "activist" and sentence according to the specifics of a case.

Dean rants a bit about how the Left in this country wouldn't be satisfied if we found thousands of tons of Anthrax. Apparently the discovery of a few old shells with mustard gas in them satisfies him, in terms of "going to war 'cause of WMDs".

Do five seconds of research on the internet on Mustard Gas, and you discover that it isn't a weapon of mass destruction. With a lethality level of around 1% on the battlefield, it just doesn't fit the bill. Of course, if you're a Bush apologist who wants to make a little hay, you pretend it's a WMD.

Whatever.

If Bush had gone in and found those ten thousands tons, he'd have been vindicated. Most of the thinking left would have supported his action. But it didn't happen that way. Exactly where should the Buck Stop?

An internal audit of Wal-Mart employment records has revealed a total of more than 100,000 labor-law violations ranging from minors working during school hours to failure of employees to take legally mandated breaks.

An internal audit and they found that many? Jesus! Let's put Wal-Mart's auditors on the trail of Nicole Brown Simpson's real killers and we'd get that mess cleared up right quick too!

All I can say is, it's about time some attention was paid to Wal-Mart's relationship with their workforce. For all their happy-family rhetoric, Wal-Mart treats their workers with as much respect as most people treat public bathrooms. Union-busting, unfair wage practices, illegal immigrants, unpaid overtime, and tacit managerial coercion are all well-documented.

Wal-Mart responds: "[A] spokesperson told the paper the audit was meaningless, since what looked like violations could simply reflect employees' failure to punch in and out for breaks and meals they took."

So their contention is that they don't watch our workers every minute of every day, and really pretty much leave them to their own devices, like any good parent would. Riiight. Because you know how mellow and easygoing managers are about the time clock. More likely, it was made "known" that anyone punching out for breaks would be pushed to the bottom of the happy-family enthusiasm-scrum and eventually relegated to straightening the bra display and cleaning the crapper. And, jeez, Wal-Mart's protestations would be a lot easier to take if everyone and their brother hadn't already read Nickel and Dimed.

I've worked in union shops and non-union shops, and all I can say is that a good union well managed is a great thing. Right now Wal-Mart is in the same position US Steel was back in the day, what with their size and their benevolent attitude toward the meatsacks that they employ. They union-busted too, and they lost eventually. What's it going to take for a service-industry labor movement to gain traction?

[wik] In response to a question by Minister Buckethead, allow me to clarify. This 100,000 labor violations was collected from a total of 128 Wal-Mart stores only.

[alsø wik] Commenter Murdoc observes that my math is bad, and it's 77.8K violations. But Murdoc takes his arithmetic wizardry one step further and reasons that if these 128 stores are any indication, this suggests that the rate of labor violation for all Wal-Marts is on the order of almost two million per week. Mmmmmm, now that's perfidy!

The Terminator's Bond is bullshit. It's one of the most hypocritical things I've ever heard of. On one hand, he's saying low taxes are good and the big government is bad, and on other hand he's saying, fuck it! Let's just pass the problem to the future!

Deal with it now, asshole. Oh, the problem is harder than you thought? There are huge structural problems in California. More deficit financing isn't the answer. Either make the hard choices to cut services, or raise taxes. I don't give a crap about which way you go.

Although it's probably in bad taste to do so, I get a great deal of pleasure from those sweet times when sanctimonious moralizers are brought low. Bill Bennett, Rush Limbaugh, John Ashcroft, and so on, profess to be good Christians. I'm a Godless Heathen (or at best a Unitarian), and even I remember that thing about the mote in your eye and the splinter in your neighbor's. Or whatever.

John Ashcroft, come on down!

Exhibit A) The legality of medical marijuana use has been upheld in California. That's right, the G-d D-mn Liberals on the Ninth Circuit Court used the pro-Federalism Commerce Clause implications of two recent conservatively-decided SCOTUS cases to decide the Federal Government may not interfere with medical marijuana programs in California. W00t! Seems Federalism is a good idea that the G-d D-mn Liberals can use too.

Thanks to Randy Barnett of the Volokh Conspiracy for the pointer, and kudos to him for being one of the lawers to argue the case in favor of pot before the 9th as well. If I ever see him around Boston, the beers are on me.

Exhibit B) Ashcroft has been rebuked for violating a court-imposed gag order regarding a terrorism trial.

A federal judge in Detroit rebuked Attorney General John Ashcroft yesterday for violating a gag order in the nation's first terrorism trial after the Sept. 11 attacks.

U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen said Ashcroft "exhibited a distressing lack of care" by issuing public statements during the nine-week trial that ended in June, despite a court order prohibiting them. Twice, Ashcroft publicly praised the government's lead witness in the case.

According to Ashcroft, his remarks were "inadvertant." Luckily for him, "inadvertancy" has been long established as a valid defense in American courts. Just try it next time you are caught speeding. "Geez maaan, I didn't mean to!"

Exhibit C) The FEC has slapped Ashcroft for illegally using $110,000 in his unsuccessful Senate campaign in 2000. The funds had originally been donated to a committee he had formed to explore running for President and as such could not be transferred. He should know that. He became the Attorney General not long afterwards.

The Federal Election Commission has determined that Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's unsuccessful 2000 Senate reelection campaign violated election laws by accepting $110,000 in illegal contributions from a committee Ashcroft had established to explore running for president. Additionally, Ashcroft was fined for lending an extensive donor list to one of his committees that had been paid for by the other [Hey! That's illegal!].

In documents released yesterday by the FEC, Garrett M. Lott, treasurer for the two Ashcroft committees, the Spirit of America PAC and Ashcroft 2000, agreed to pay a $37,000 fine for at least four violations of federal campaign law. Lott agreed "not to contest" the charges.

It's probably clear I'm no great friend of Ashcroft's. And while I don't necessarily agree that he's an evil idiot hellbent on destroying the country, I do think he's a sanctimonious putz who's only slightly more qualified to be an Attorney General than an above-average dog would be. Therefore, neener, neener, neener!

[wik] n.b. Extensively edited and cleaned up to follow a better version that appeared on blogcritics.

Via Spoons:

>Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people Courts.

Just go look at the University of Pennsylvania's page for "Reporting Hate."

MINILUV awaits your report.

Who's your daddy indeed....why, it's Strom Thurmond! What an asshole. He sleeps with a black maid at age 22, gives his daughter hush money (but not enough to give her a comfortable existence) all her life to keep the story quiet, and goes on to build a political career as an unrepentant racist and segregationist. The very definition of a class act. Just look at the picture at CNN-- his daugher is the spit and image of him, except black like the people he dedicated his career to working against.

Just a fun fact, his daughter is now... seventy-eight years old. Strom Thurmond was around a long, long time.

Stuart Benjamin has more at the Volokh Conspiracy.

[wik] Al Barger has more, in screed form at blogcritics.org.

Glenn Reynolds thinks it's just fine to do it. If the victim of a crime talks to the press afterwards, well, there's no crime to be had! Remember that if a reporter walks up to you after you've been mugged and the cops have the guy held on the ground. In Glenn Reynolds' American, you could be giving the guy a perfect defense!

Let's see...she's photographed, but is hiding her face to avoid being recognized.

Glenn doesn't like the fact that Wilson is pissed, and is using every tool at his disposal to get back at those who went after his wife.

I can only hope that there are sober, ethical individuals running the investigation, and that they do the right thing. You have to trust in that.

Here's the question, Glenn: Given that you've just declared the scandal "bogus", do you call off the investigation?

Lileks has today published the nearest thing to a screed he's had in a while. He assaults Ain't It Cool News, head red, Harry Knowles and his recent analysis of the third Matrix movie. I have not yet seen the aforementioned moving picture, but Lileks' pen strikes several telling blows:

Alas, he cannot write. He is a horrid stylist; he writes like someone mashing the keyboard with bratwursts; his politics have the sophistication of a preschool crayon drawing, and his self-confidence in his insights is matched only by his inability to see how fatuous his work often sounds.

The social pleasantries now disposed of, Lileks moves in a little closer: 

and the Machines - they're drilling to put a stop to it all. Now, the problem is - the only person that can put a stop to The War" on Terrorism are the terrorist.

He are, are he?

NOW - What is Agent Smith? Essentially, Agent Smith was Communism. If we are all the same, then there is no reason for violence. Resistance is Futile. Communism was fantastic as it represents an ideology that the Capitalist and the Extremists both hated. And it was spreading and taking over and trying to assimilate cultures and suppress belief systems. Or you could say AGENT SMITH is that Born Again Christian type that is trying to eradicate another's belief system - and ultimately - the elimination of both either politically, humanly or functionally is a move towards peace.

You can't make this up. You can only stand in awe. If I can untangle the wet knotted shoelaces of Knowles' prose, he seems to be saying that we can only live in peace when everyone agrees to believe in nothing but peace.

Ultimately what they believe or we believe is inconsequential.

Spoken like a man with no beliefs. Or, more accurately, spoken like someone who thinks that line above demonstrates some sort of intellectual sophistication lost on people who do the whole work-kids-church thing. Trust me, Harry - what someone believes is of great consequence. And if your society believes nothing it ends up making its last stand in the Temple of No Particular Belief System with the squiddies hammering on the door, possessed of a terrible certainty: they believe you should die.

Read the whole thing, as they say. His summation of the Matrix trilogy is especially interesting:

I took away something else from the Matrix trilogy: it is a product of deeply confused people. They want it all. They want individualism and community; they want secularism and transcendence; they want the purity of committed love and the licentious fun of an S&M club; they want peace and the thrill of violence; they want God, but they want to design him on their own screens with their own programs by their own terms for their own needs, and having defined the divine on their own terms, they bristle when anyone suggests they have simply built a room with a mirror and flattering lighting. All three Matrix movies, seen in total, ache for a God. But they can't quite go all the way. They're like three movies about circular flat meat patties that can never quite bring themselves to say the word "hamburger."

Philosophically, the Matrix movies are banal, but they're no worse than the empty animism of George Lucas' Force-centric cosmology. As dramas, they lag - but Wagner wasn't thrill-a-minute, either. The moments of emotional connection are few, but they're there, almost like Burma-Shave signs spaced out every hundred miles.

I have enjoyed the first two Matrices, althought the first was certainly the superior film. One thing that I enjoyed was the cafeteria style eclecticism with which they injected the philosophical bits - it allowed you to construct a better dialogue in your head. You could fill in the blanks in a way pleasing to your aesthetic, without worrying over being contradicted by a awful, banal, overly determinate summation at the end of the movie. Ambiguity is the artist's best friend - it is the cinematic equivalent of the old chestnut about silence being mistaken for wisdom.

Because paying off the sheriff to keep your dive open is exactly like driving a truck bomb down the Vegas Strip. Or at least's that's the lesson I glean from this story of the PATRIOT Act being used against a strip-club owner in Vegas who got caught bribing politicians.

An early contender for the November 2003 Perfidy Prize for Inadvertant or Vertant Asshattery is our own President's staff. From Calpundit:

THE MEMORY HOLE RE-REVISITED....First we had the White House scouring their website for headlines that said "combat operations" in Iraq were over and changing them to say "major combat operations" were over. You know, because the original got kind of embarrassing when American soldiers kept dying.

Then the White House webmasters blocked Google from caching all Iraq-related documents, but they seemed to have a good explanation for that so I let it slide.

But yesterday there was more historical revision: an interview in which an administration official said reconstruction would cost no more than $1.7 billion was mysteriously deleted from the USAID website.

Now, today, Josh Marshall reports that the White House altered the transcript of a presidential speech in a way that completely changes the meaning of what he said. Just one teensy little letter, though!

Is there an innocent explanation? Sure, maybe. But considering the track record here, I'm sure as hell not giving these guys the benefit of the doubt on it anymore.

Me either. My favorite thing this weekend was watching Rumsfeld on the news shows. I have never seen a man so adept at making me feel so stupid, so stupid! for remembering things differently than him, with his strained grin hinting at barely restrained contempt sitting there trying to work a Jedi Mind Trick on the whole nation. Breathtaking!

[wik] Mark A. R. Kleiman writes more about this. He notes that the change-- which made "We see a China that is stable and prosperous" into "We seeK"-- merely follows a similar formulation elsewhere in the article. But this is a public document, and my sense is that Bush's people tend to treat the historical record like a poorly-run weblog, editing text and changing arguments where convenient without a thought of flagging that the update was made. Not a hanging offense, but not something I want in a President either.

I live north of Boston, and commute to the city every day to work. So imagine my consternation when I find that North Station, the only train station I can get to from where I live, will almost certainly be closing for the duration of the Democratic Party convention in July of 2004. Traffic will be re-routed as well, but that's an everyday thing around here.

I'm glad that the city of Boston got the convention, as it's quite the moneymaker. But can't they figure out a better way to accommodate thousands of commuters than to shut down their only conduit in and out of the city? Oh, I COULD take a bus, but I'm already up at 5:30 to commute as it is. I realize it's not the fault of the Democrats, but since I can't vote against the people who did this in Boston elections...

I won't make cracks about Canadians having beady eyes and flapping heads whenever I disagree with Ross.

For its expose of the Gest/Minnelli nightmare.

If I ruled the universe like I was rightfully born to do I would institute some hard-and-fast rules.
One is this: All celebrities who in my estimation outstay their welcome, by say, getting a daytime talk show after starring in Gigli and serial-marrying marginally talented hunks, will be summarily consigned to a facility run by Wolfgang Puck where they will be "repurposed" and fed to the next generation of studs and starlets.

This will make the universe a happier place, and Hollywood will run more efficiently, no longer forced to continue supporting vampiric fading stars. No more Carrot Top! No more Tara Reid! No more Osbournes. That Puck dude from The Real World who keeps hanging around would become that on which Jake Busey feeds. I'm so goddamn brilliant.

The entire blog-world is up at arms about the Senate's vote yesterday to require Iraq to repay some $20 billion of the $87 billion aid-and-reconstruction package currently up for vote.

Of all the stupid, craven, shit-headed...

Go read. Start with John Cole, who has links to about 80 percent of the rest of the blogsphere. Cole writes, "[A] coalition of greens, sociaists, liberals, center left Democrats, center right Republicans, little-l libertarians, and conservatives in the blogosphere all think this is a shitty idea. Can we all be wrong?"

Not if I agree with you, you can't! Write your Senators and Congressmen today!

[alsø wik] MuffinMan comments that the Senate is not being stupid, in that they know exactly what they're doing in catering to their constituents. Fair enough. But I think it is stupid yet very clever at the same time. That is, the Senate is pandering to some focus-group constituency in demanding that Iraq pay back money we're giving them to rebuild after we kicked their asses. Clever for pandering and stupid for demanding! Two great tastes that taste great together!

[alsø alsø wik] A while back, Buckethead compared America's foreign policy obligations to Spider-Man: "with great power comes great responsibility". In a comment (now lost) I observed that there is a crucial difference between the two: after Spidey defeats Doc Ock, he isn't obliged to stick around and make sure that his minions and slaves get housing, food, hot water, etc. The US, to some measure, is.

I now wish to augment my point. Buckethead is right, I think: the US is like Spider-Man. It's a fun metaphor with a lot of truth in it. So can you imagine a situation in which Spidey sticks someone with a bill for rescuing them?

"Don't worry ma'am, I'm here to save you!"
"Spider-Man! I'm so glad you're here!"
Biff! Sock! Zook! Kazsh! Bort! Arrrrgh!
"Oh, Spider-Man! Thank you!"
"All in a day's webcrawling, ma'am. I think he'll be tied up for a while... um... you wouldn't happen to have your wallet on you, would you?"
"What's this?"
"Just your friendly neighborhood invoice, ma'am. My terms are 30 days."

I was watching the news today, when the anchor starts a lead in for the next story: "Presidential candidate the Reverand Al Sharpton is upset that a new game reinforces negative racial stereotypes."

Now, my first reaction was, "what is the little tubby bastard exercised about now?" After the commercial break, it was revealed that the offensive game is called, and I am as serious as a heartattack,

Gettopoly

The game is a stolen property fencing game. The one property I remember was "Tyrone's Gun Shop." Reverend Al might have a point here.

Since the the game's site is not working, here is a link to a story about the game.