perfidy

Enjoy watching the high and mighty taking a tumble?

Generally, my response to that question would be "No, not particularly, but thanks for asking". I do, however, make exceptions, and NY Governor Eliot Spitzer would be one of those. From a WSJ email alert of a bit ago:

March 10, 2008

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer apologized to his family and the public but didn't elaborate on press reports linking him to a prostitution ring. "I violated my obligation to my family and my own sense of right and wrong," he said in a brief statement with his wife by his side. Last week, federal prosecutors in Manhattan filed conspiracy charges against four people, accusing them of running a prostitution ring that charged wealthy clients in Europe and the U.S. thousands of dollars for prostitutes.

The one time attorney general for New York built his political legacy on rooting out corruption, including several headline-making battles with Wall Street while serving as attorney general.

Why does he rate my interest in (and hope for) his potential comeuppance? He's a haughty bully, a guy who made his name by being a 14K prick to every company from which he could mulct blackmail payments. As NY AG, he was like a pallid and uptight version of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

He virtually never took a case to court, and in those he did, he virtually always lost. His successes, if you can call them that, were largely obtained by bullying people into plea deals. Sometimes, people plead because they're guilty. Spitzer, a publicity hound of the worst sort, prosecuted his cases in the press, and bludgeoned people into plea deals, so I (perhaps incorrectly) give the victims the benefit of significant doubt in this case.

Spitzer has also been accused, quite credibly, of destoying companies, and thus harming the shareholders in those companies, for no legitimate cause. Other than the fact that he's a nasty, pasty, little holier-than-thou prick, that is.

As governor, he's continued this "I know what's best" motif, siccing his insurance commissioner, Eric Dinallo, on the bond insurers with instructions that time was short, and if they didn't hurry up and do Spitzer's bidding, he'd..., well, he'd do something. Spitzer and DiNallo have a history of Spitzerian overreach, as seen in the WTC reconstruction funding marathon recently forced to an end. Blackmail's almost too nice a word for the games these bastards have played.

Who knows what's really behind the WSJ story? Surely not I. But it doesn't sound good at all for El-i-ot, and I'm OK with that.

[wik] Also see, from Long or Short Capital: "Spitzer in a Ring of Pictures"

[alsø wik] It would seem that this fucking guy is toast. So much for the happy ending.

Not completely, anyway. In fact, it's not even really a post, but just a "fakeblog". I think I've met this guy, multiple times.

(Onion "autoblog" entry moved to the extended entry, because it apparently fucks up our blog in the worst way)

You Know What's Stupid? Everything I Don't Understand

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[wik] (4-Mar-08) Since it would be churlish to have back-to-back fake blog entries, I feel I must tag another Onion item on to this one, if for no reason other than to make it easy for me to locate later:

Biofuels Worse For The Environment

All three fake man-on-the-street comments are winners:

Kirsten Simonon, Tattoo Artist "Just once, why can't one of our poorly considered quick fixes work?" 

Bruce Jones, Systems Analyst "Would it at least offset the amount of time I have to pretend to care about the environment?"

Will Trembeau, Truck Dispatcher "Then where do they suppose we should get this green power? From magic? From the very Sun?"

You Know What's Stupid? Everything I Don't Understand

For far too long I've sat idly by, twiddling my thumbs and respecting the right of others to form thoughts and opinions independent of my own, and...

And why, of course, couldn't it be both?

Willie Nelson wants President Bush impeached

AUSTIN -- American icon Willie Nelson says he supports efforts to impeach President Bush and "throw the bastards out," adding that the administration will do anything to stay in power, including staging an event to cancel the election.

I'm down with him disliking Bush and his cohorts - it's a free country, and he's entitled to his opinions, deranged, inflated, or otherwise. The presumption that there's some secret plot, or even the possibility of such, to derail the election is pure lunacy.
...

Nelson denied earlier reports that he said no planes hit the World Trade Center on 9/11. He said he was talking about WTC 7, which fell in the late afternoon of 9/11.

His denials ring hollow - the original stories on his status as a 9/11 moron seem more credible. The same fevered stupidity that drives his trutherism feeds his certainty that the change of government is to be thwarted.

Dipshit.

He and others like him who think we live in some form of a dictatorship that quashes voters' will and free speech rights seem not to catch the irony that they've not been placed into the reeducation camps of their addlepated nightmares.

From the BBC, this story:

Restaurant sorry over F word bill

A restaurant owner has apologised after diners had their very own F word experience - without Gordon Ramsay.

Ten friends found the abusive and sexually-explicit message on their bill at Joe Delucci's Italian restaurant in Bird Street, Lichfield, Staffordshire.

Diner Clare Watkin said she thought it was written after they complained about poor service.
...

If it weren't for the fact that I seldom eat in either Great Britain or Manhattan, and in any event, am always unfailingly polite to anyone in a position to spit in my dinner, I'd have to start paying more attention to my bill.

This just in:

Don't honk at old ladies.  

I was always taught that when learning new words, it helps to use them in a sentence or to apply them to other things we see in the world around us.

I heard such a new word several years ago, in the comic act of (the unfortunately now departed) Richard Jeni, but had until yesterday been unable to find a context for it outside of his "A Steaming Pile of Me" performance.

No more. That word? Vagenda.

Really - I need to know, having not been there in years.

Is it just Brattleboro, or are all people in Vermont completely fucking retarded?

From Saturday's WSJ: (still subscription, for now)

Burns's Exit Complicates Nuclear Negotiations

Picture located, curiously enough, at the Republicans' Energy & Commerce Committee web site, so perhaps I'm not the first guy to have made this connection.

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(There's more than one "Burns" affiliated with the story, so adding Monty Burns to the mix isn't a stretch)

Burns's Exit Complicates
Nuclear Negotiations
By JAY SOLOMON
January 19, 2008; Page A4

WASHINGTON -- The surprise resignation of the Bush administration's point man on Iran and India, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, injects more uncertainty into U.S. efforts to contain the spread of nuclear technologies.

In the coming weeks, Washington aims to cinch key objectives concerning both countries: a new round of United Nations sanctions against Tehran and a nuclear-cooperation pact with New Delhi. But those policy initiatives, particularly in the case of Iran, haven't generated international consensus, and U.S. and European diplomats say both initiatives, which were spearheaded by Mr. Burns, the undersecretary for political affairs, might ultimately falter.

President Bush named William Burns, U.S. ambassador to Moscow, to succeed Nicholas Burns beginning in April. (The two men aren't related.)

Nicholas Burns, who plans to leave the department at the end of March, is a career diplomat. Since Ms. Rice took the reins of the State Department in early 2005, Mr. Burns, 51 years old, has become one of her must trusted advisers.

In recent months, there have been increasing signs that Washington's strategies toward Iran and India aren't working. Mr. Burns has been particularly focused in recent weeks on pushing the U.N. Security Council to pass a third round of economic sanctions against Tehran aimed at forcing it to suspend its nuclear-development work. But many European and U.S. diplomats said it is increasingly unlikely that sanctions will be approved with any real bite -- especially since a recent U.S. intelligence report found that Tehran had scrapped its nuclear-weapons program in 2003.

The India issue has also tested Mr. Burns in recent months. Washington and New Delhi have agreed to allow the U.S. to share nuclear fuel and technologies with India in return for greater oversight of India's nuclear programs by the International Atomic Energy Agency and other international bodies. But communist and socialist parties, wary of a close alignment with Washington, are threatening to topple Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government if he ratifies the agreement.

New Delhi is negotiating a new safeguards agreement with the IAEA, which, once passed, could allow Mr. Singh to formally sign the nuclear pact in the next two to three months. But U.S. officials said they remain uncertain as to whether Mr. Singh will challenge his government's political partners.

Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com

Again.

372 French cars torched over "calm" New Year
Tue Jan 1, 6:51 AM ET

PARIS (Reuters) - Vandals torched 372 cars as France celebrated the New Year, down on the figure last year after a night the police described as "relatively calm."

Cars are burned fairly regularly in France and the image of vehicles in flames in poor suburbs became symbolic of riots in 2005 when angry youths set fire to thousands of cars.

...

"The night was relatively calm, without notable incident, there were very few direct clashes with the security forces," said a spokesman for the national police.

At 12:00 a.m. EST, the Interior Ministry said 372 vehicles had been burned -- 144 in the Paris region and 228 in the rest of France. That was down from 397 last New Year's Eve.

...

Well, woot! woot! - 25 fewer cars go under the torch! Pat yourselves on the back, lads.

Ignoring for a moment that if my car were burnt, I'd have trouble thinking of the event as anything other than a notable incident, I'm numb enough to the vagaries of stupid people that the story, and its characterizations, don't shock all that much. The world has become accustomed to this uniquely French method of communication, though it hardly seems as though it was done in the language of love.

Here's the part that made me chuckle, while reminding me of Reuters' predilection for "scare quotes": the way Reuters classifies the story, as inferred from the actual link (http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL01382497) makes clear that they don't buy the gendarmes' characterization that this was no big deal.

If such a thing happened in the US, it would be a big deal, and would represent an actual crisis of some degree. Sadly for the French, events like this are neither a big deal nor treated as any sort of crisis. All of which heightens the absurdity of the sometimes-seen French pretense to superiority, it would seem.

And, oh, yeah, only tangentially related - Happy New Year, all.

Odd, but until now, it hadn't occurred to me that the phrase "editorial oversight" has two potential interpretations.

The first, of course, conveys the stern hand of a Lou Grant type character, ensuring that everything's square and nobody's left his zipper down.

The second, I'm reminded by an article in today's San Francisco Chronicle, is precisely what happens when too little attention is paid to the words that go into a published piece, or when a single word, such as "remaining", is omitted from the piece.

Investigation resumes today into fatal attack at S.F. zoo
Steve Rubenstein,Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Police this morning are investigating the sites at the San Francisco Zoo where a 350-pound tiger escaped from its enclosure and attacked three people Tuesday, killing one.

...

Doctors at San Francisco General Hospital said early today that the victims, whose identities have not yet been released, were recovering remarkably well. The men, Dr. Rochelle Dicker told KTVU, are "awake and alert" and in stable condition.

Yeah, except for the dead one, unless he's no longer considered a victim.

And further down, this bit of a description on the last time a tiger went apeshit at the SF Zoo:

On Dec. 22, 2006, the 350-pound Tatiana chewed the flesh off Lori Komejan's arm during a public feeding demonstration.

"And that, kids, is what it actually looks like when a tiger eats. Any questions?"

All small beer, I realize, but I've not experienced this much cognitive dissonance while reading an article in quite some time. Which might say more about me than it does about the Chronicle, but in this case, I think not.

WHERE DID THE WHITE MAN GO WRONG ?

Indian Chief, 'Two Eagles', was asked by a U.S. Government Official, "You have observed the white man for 90 years. You've seen his wars and his technological advances. You've seen his progress and his mistakes."

The Chief nodded in agreement.

The Official continued, "Considering all these events, in your opinion, how has the white man done?"

The Chief stared at the government official for over a minute, and then calmly replied. "When white man find land, Indians running it. No taxes. No debt. Plenty buffalo. Plenty beaver. Clean Water. Women did all the work. Medicine man free. Indian man spend all day hunting and fishing... all night having sex."

Then, the chief leaned back and smiled: "Only white man dumb enough to think he can improve system like that."

"NYC doorman suspended for bad breath"

From the afternoon inbox, I thought I'd share:

HOW THE FIGHT STARTED

I rear-ended a car this morning. So there we are alongside the road and slowly the driver gets out of the car . . .and you know how you just get sooo stressed out and life-stuff seems to get funny?

Yeah, well, I could NOT believe it. . . he was a DWARF! He storms over to my car, looks up at me and says, 'I AM NOT HAPPY!'

So, I look down at him and say, 'Well, which one are you then?'. . . and that's when the fight started . . .

So says the heading at Long or Short Capital. The reason, below the fold.

Since I'm a master of the obvious, that's almost certainly the result of some funster fucking around at end of day. But still.

The wise men at LoS close with:

Recommendation: Sell through to the end times.

Marginally related, since I'm fake-blogging anyway, also at LoS:

The Cephalopod Story Strengthened

From today's inbox:

Thanksgiving Divorce

A man in Phoenix calls his son in New York the day before Thanksgiving and says, "I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing; forty-five years of misery is enough.

"Pop, what are you talking about?" the son screams.

"We can't stand the sight of each other any longer," the father says. "We're sick of each other, and I'm sick of talking about this, so you call your sister in Chicago and tell her."

Frantic, the son calls his sister, who explodes on the phone. "Like heck they're getting divorced," she shouts, "I'll take care of this," She calls Phoenix immediately, and screams at her father, "You are NOT getting divorced. Don't do a single thing until I get there. I'm calling my brother back, and we'll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don't do a thing, DO YOU HEAR ME?" and hangs up.

The old man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife. "Okay," he says, "they're coming for Thanksgiving and paying their own way."

Happy Thanksgiving, all.

Nearly 3,500 Chinese named 'Olympics'

Sun Nov 4, 2:52 AM ET BEIJING -

The upcoming Beijing Olympics is more than just a point of pride for China — it's such an important part of the national consciousness that nearly 3,500 children have been named for the event, a newspaper reported Sunday. ...

"If we ever got to Hillarycare in this country, Canadians will have nowhere to go for health care"

Rudy Giuliani

Ugliness ensues, and the internets get weakened.

You should read the whole Wired article, honestly. The money quote from Mr. Schneier:

Oddly enough, Storm isn't doing much, so far, except gathering strength. Aside from continuing to infect other Windows machines and attacking particular sites that are attacking it, Storm has only been implicated in some pump-and-dump stock scams. There are rumors that Storm is leased out to other criminal groups. Other than that, nothing.

Personally, I'm worried about what Storm's creators are planning for Phase II.

Be scared, but also be aware that breaking the internet for one country breaks it for all developed countries. The wonders of interconnectedness!

From last week's Economist (subscription), in a story explaining the inevitability of Hillary's ascension to the presidency:

Most Americans are happy with the idea of a female president (if not with this particular female). And the presidential field is full of people who are “different” in some way, from John McCain, the oldest man to run for president, to Rudy Giuliani, the most divorced man to run for president, to Mitt Romney, who is a Mormon, to Dennis Kucinich, who is, well, Dennis Kucinich.

As a side note, the reasons they cite for Hillary's inevitability are the same reasons that would cause me to give consideration to casting a vote for Mrs. Clinton. She's head and shoulders above all the other contender. (yes, it's singular - Silky Pony is a spent non-force, and the rest are even more laughable).

As a further side note, they also list multiple excellent reasons she shouldn't be elected - high negative ratings, continuation of a two-family dynasty that's been in place for a quarter century, her presumed underlying shrillness and dictatorial nature, the risk of her husband outshining her at every turn, and the return of the same cast of cronies who made a hash of many elements of the first Clinton presidency. Whatever - she's still the class of the Democratic slate, right now, even though she's "different".