Garance Franke-Ruta sounds the alarm:
The Bush-Cheney campaign says (all punctuation and formatting as per the original):Yep. While the Bush campaign solecism is intentionally abusive, let's clear up a benign, publicly cherished error. American punctuation employs single quotation marks solely for the purposes of quotes-within-quotes. Only the British use single "inverted commas," as they're known across the pond, for ironic or sarcastic emphasis—and look what their loosey-goosey rules got them from 1776 to 1782.
In Book, Kerry Called Yasser Arafat "Statesman" And "Role Model." "Terrorist organizations with specific political agendas may be encouraged and emboldened by Yasser Arafat's transformation from outlaw to statesman, while those whose only object is to disrupt society require no such 'role models.'" (Sen. John Kerry, The New War, 1997, pp. 112-113)As you can see, though, Kerry never called Yasser Arafat a role model; he wrote that some see him as a "role model." Those scare quotes are key. They completely change the meaning of the words they surround. The scare quotes mean that Kerry is saying that some terrorist groups look up to Arafat, but that the author, Kerry, specifically contests this definition.
For some people it's easier to give up smoking than to hold down that SHIFT key, but no 'scare quotes,' only "scare quotes," as G F-R correctly illustrates.
Nice snag from the Weekly Standard, courtesy of Yglesias:
YOU CAN FILE THE LESSONS of Mussolini's rise under "H" for Hegel, the idea that extreme movements always beget extreme counter forces. It was the far left, by relentlessly chipping away at the foundations of Italian life, that gave birth and power to the far right--as it did a decade on when Hitler rode nearly the same path under similar circumstances.Yglesias reminds that one method employed by il Duce's dragon-slaying apparatus was to pour castor oil down the throats of those accused of dissident speech. Which is a protected freedom, here in America.This is what seems most pertinent today, as "activist" groups like Moveon.org and demagogues like Michael Moore and angry men like Al Gore and George Soros rail so irrationally against both the president (comparing him to Hitler and Mussolini in a variety of contexts) and the structures of daily American life, including the legally adjudicated Supreme Court decision that ultimately decided the 43rd presidency in advance of a tedious recount that would've yielded the same outcome.
As it turns out, Judge Calabresi's intemperate comparison was indeed useful, though with an irony he didn't intend. Either this November or in four years, George W. Bush is going to be turned out of office; even the judge agrees with that. Someday, though, a populace provoked by the left's constant fire-breathing may look for a dragon slayer who won't go quite so easily.
...Or is it? asks Glenn Reynolds:
And here’s a question: Freedom of the press, as it exists today (and didn’t exist, really, until the 1960s) is unlikely to survive if a majority — or even a large and angry minority — of Americans comes to conclude that the press is untrustworthy and unpatriotic. How far are we from that point?Marvelous stuff. I understand that MoveOn once featured but denounced a Bush/Hitler ad submitted by an anonymous Internet nerd. For shame, Internet nerd! I also see that the Bush administration has keenly taken the Internet nerd's unfortunate judgment as an opportunity to link Adolph Hitler to John Kerry. For shame, Bush administration! Now: What about this problem of actually significant right-wing institutions fetishizing the government suppression of free speech?
JACKASS UPDATE: The initial returns of "Fahrenheit 9/11" were less than "Jackass." But the adjusted returns show F9/11 inching ahead of the boys with the toys. Let's see if Moore's propaganda beats out "Jackass's" total $64.2 million.By "adjusted returns," he must be referring to the fact that Jackass opened in 2,509 theaters, whereas Fahrenheit 9/11 opened in 868 theatres. I'd hazard some sort of conclusion from this but I'm frankly too stunned by that Jackass epithet. Toys? As in scrotums?
I don't know if I exactly agree with Atrios's negative reading of this item, but I understand:
WASHINGTON -- The government needs to establish guidelines for canceling or rescheduling elections if terrorists strike the United States again, says the chairman of a new federal voting commission.Surely does sound like the beginning of the end. But read on and Soaries sounds less and less like the harbinger of the presidency for life:Such guidelines do not currently exist, said DeForest B. Soaries, head of the voting panel.
Soaries was appointed to the federal Election Assistance Commission last year by President Bush. Soaries said he wrote to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in April to raise the concerns.
"Look at the possibilities. If the federal government were to cancel an election or suspend an election, it has tremendous political implications. If the federal government chose not to suspend an election it has political implications," said Soaries, a Republican and former secretary of state of New Jersey.That doesn't sound bad to me. One of the really difficult realities to emerge after Abu Ghraib and the torture memos broke was the fact that Bush administration people, namely the Justice Department, were trying to outline a compelling ex post facto reasoning for breaking the law. It would be different if Bush went to Congress or the international community and said that he needed wider discretion in prosecuting prisoners of war, but that's not what happened. I sense it's the same with an election crisis: It would be far better to have a law on the books, even a PATRIOT Act, than to have the Bush administration just wing it."Who makes the call, under what circumstances is the call made, what are the constitutional implications?" he said. "I think we have to err on the side of transparency to protect the voting rights of the country."
[. . .]
Soaries also said he wants to know what federal officials are doing to increase security on Election Day. He said security officials must take care not to allow heightened security measures to intimidate minority voters, but that local and state election officials he's talked to have not been told what measures to expect.
This issue seems more important by an order of magnitude than the post-catastrophe continuity of government hypotheticals, much discussed by Matthew Yglesias and others. If Congress gets blown away, we're definitely in deep shit, but that's simply less likely than, say, a late October attack anywhere in the country. The 5/11 Spain attacks perhaps suggest a precedent for this kind of planning. Moreover, elections are proctored at the state level—as we all remember from 2000—so any state reaction that affected the election process would inspire howls of outrage from one side of the aisle or the other. And if Florida in 2000 is any indication, jury-rigged elections nicely lend themselves to partisan engineering. (Really the 2000 election proves that new laws are warranted regardless of doomsday scenarios.)
I think it's Jim Henley who's said that the real nut of the war on terror is an essential crisis (as opposed to some passé existential one). As what sort of nation are we going to fight this war on terror? The torture, detainees, intelligence, international committments, etc., are all conflated with that question. For what it's worth I think it's best that we set reasonable legal expectations for ourselves and unambiguously heed those limitations—no simple prescription, but better than watching executive fumble after fumble.
University of Buffalo art professor Steve Kurtz—the biotech artist who came under federal investigation for bioterrorism after police, responding to Kurtz's 9-1-1 call, found laboratory materials in his home/studio—has officially been charged. He's facing several counts of mail and wire fraud. It turns out that this suspected bioterrorist received organic materials from a Pittsburgh professor by an improper mailing procedure.
Ah. I feel safer. More later but I'm going to enjoy this safety for a while.
National Review founder William F. Buckley, in the NYT:
"With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn't the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago," Mr. Buckley said. "If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war."NRO's Jonah Goldberg responds:
So here's what I think: I agree and I disagree. It is more than fair to say that if you thought the main reason to depose Saddam was to eliminate the threat of his Weapons of Mass Destruction to then say it wasn't worth it now that we believe with the benefit of hindsight that they weren't there. I think that is what Mr. Buckley is saying.But this is all off, since the relevant question pertaining to the lead-up to war wasn't, "How good is the fish going to be if I order it?" but rather "Do they serve fish at this restaurant?" And it turns out that they don't serve fish after all, and the reason we all followed Bush to this restaurant was because he told us that it not only served fish but stockpiles of fish, and now we've got a less than satisfying meal on our hands. Plus insurgents are trying to blow up the restaurant, nearby restaurants are developing all sorts of seafood-based menus with impunity, etc.But this is also like saying, "If I knew then what I know now, I would have not ordered the fish." In other words, it seemed like the right decision at the time. Some think that, given new developments, this appearance was wrong and others do not. I still think the war was the right decision. Though, obviously, if we knew Saddam didn't have a major nuclear program the debate would have looked very different and the tactics available for toppling him would have been very, very different. But, ultimately, the "if I knew then what I know now" point is an academic one.
We definitely need to keep asking how it is that the Bush administration bought this fishy intelligence hook, line, and sinker.
Title totally stolen from Monday night pub quiz team name. (Others of note: Mary Kate Doesn't Swallow; US Pulls Out, Iraq Still Getting Fucked; Woke Up This Morning With a Terrible Handover. I tried to suggest Borg Chick Not Down With Collective Action, but I was overruled and we went with Cheney Needs a Good Leahy. OK—I'll spare you more capital letters and disgusting Washington insiderism. Here I've seen a team name pun off steel tariffs, and worse, get laughs.)
Probably better not to throw a Super Bowl-sized going away party for the transition of authority, because it makes a Super Bowl-sized target, so the surprise departure was a good idea. Maybe the CPA did catch wind of a disastrous attack, in which case I hope they're also going to try to prevent it, but hanging around to see if it happens isn't smart. (Do insurgents cancel?) And it could just be the Bush administration being gamey; remember Preznit No Give Me Turkee surprise Thanksgiving—this is Bush's bread n' butter play.
But if some see this move as fleeing, I'm not going to argue with that. The choice to leave early seems to have been made in anticipation of some bad shit. Laura Secor says in The American Prospect (print) that Baghdad's murder rate is nearly double that of DC—not bad given the lack of any real police force, but still frightening, and that's just the normal gamut of violent homicides. The day before the handover, insurgents killed 100 Iraqis, and martial law looms. It's just not a nice place—better in some sense than it was under Saddam, though.
Anyway, welcome to the neighborhood, Iraq. We suggest getting cable TV as soon as possible—people just love that Tony Soprano. Drop by the UN barbecue this weekend, and here's Nato's number if anything happens.
Andrew Sullivan wants to see the transcript of of F9/11, so the real "fiskathon" can begin. This is monumentally ignorant. If I had an architecture of Andrew Sullivan's blog I'm sure I could treat it to some criticism, but something of his point would likely be lost in that translation.
Garance Franke-Ruta notes that Jack Ryan is "perhaps the first politician in history to be brought down by a sex scandal involving wanting to have sex with his wife." That's perfect. I have to say, I was frustrated with Jack Ryan's exorcism until I realized that his "crying is not a turn-on" quip was not just general commentary.
While this window's open I figure I'll throw something out on Fuckgate. While it makes the man sound psychopathic, it's altogether great that the VP is playing toward a FOX News/NASCAR/National Greatness Whatever attitude in saying, you know, sometimes you just have to tell a dude to fuck off, 'cause sometimes dudes deserve it, and sometimes it makes you feel better to let let the dude have it. Even better is the fact that it seems to be playing well with the nation. Great—I can handle a Republican Party that spins a nice Christian moral clarity yarn in pursuit of its goals way better than actual religious fundamentalism among the powerful. It would appear that the Republican Party can still get on board with abject incivility/getting dag-nasty/crowning cult leaders, so there's always a little light at the end of the relativist's tunnel. Depending on how you feel about light and darkness, of course.
So maybe the left could use to come together and, in a unified voice, condemn this un-Christian, vehement attack in the holy ground of God's chosen Senate, which should be the true picture of brotherly Christian unity—something like that. Eh, whatever—we're never going to be as good at that game, but we've got Hollywood.
UPDATE: Wonkette:
Conventions attract call girls like Halliburton attracts no-bid contracts, and political conventions are no different. Today the New York Daily News is reporting that escort agencies in New York "are flying in extra call girls from around the globe to meet the expected demand" during the GOP convention. (Like getting sucked off by the energy lobby isn't good enough for them!) Agency operators are optimistic about business prospects: Says one, "It's going to be big."♪ I've got to admit it's getting better, a little better all the time. . . ♪
Josh Micah Marshall refers us to this widely noted Financial Times piece, which has identified the individual/forger behind the Niger/uranium documents that were passed to Italian journalist Elisabetta Burba. Only, JMM says, FT has it wrong:
My colleagues and I have reported on this matter extensively, spoken to key players involved in the drama, and put together a detailed picture of what happened. And that picture looks remarkably different from this account which is out today -- specifically on the matter of the origins of those forged documents and who was involved.That's. . . astonishing. I'm guessing this has something to do with the piece he's been collaborating on that stands to "shuffle the tectonic plates under th[e] capital city." I'm listening, anyway.I cannot begin to describe how much I would like to say more than that. And at some later point in some later post I will do my best to explain the hows and whys of why I can't. But, for the moment, I can't.
Let me, however, offer a hypothetical that might help make sense of all this.
Let's say that certain individuals or organizations are responsible for some rather unfortunate misdeeds. And let's further postulate that such hypothetical individuals or organizations find out that some folks are on to them, that a story is in the works -- perhaps more than one -- and that it's coming right at them. Those individuals or organizations -- as shorthand, let's call them 'the bad actors' -- might well start trying to fight back, trying to gin up an alternative storyline to exculpate themselves and inculpate others. If that story made its way into the news, at a minimum, it might help the bad actors muddy the waters for when the real story comes out. You can see how such a regrettable turn of events might come to pass.
Still no word out on the grand jury deliberation into the bioterror investigation of artist Steve Kurtz, but another subpoena has been issued—to publishing company Autonomedia, which has published writings by Critical Arts Ensemble (of which Kurtz is a member), Michel Foucault, and Hakim Bey.
The FBI's certainly not going to find anything good in there. More writing from artists working in the biological warfare medium, some guy with some rather un-American ideas about sex, and Mr. Bey, who's going to wish he never advocated acts of cultural terrorism. In all seriousness, Bey is a massively important resource in the visual arts. On my bookshelf I have a catalogue that features a number of contemporary artists who are working from Bey's "temporary autonomous zone" concept, the results being the sort of thing you see with Steve Kurtz or al-Zarqawi or whoever. How much help the subpoena will be to the FBI is difficult to say since—like the artwork that's been confiscated—all this stuff has been public for some time.
Matt Yglesias points to this KnightRidder account suggesting that Iran seems to have emerged holding the strategic spoils of the Iraq war:
The logic of Iran's ascendance is simple. Iran sat back as the United States launched expensive wars and defeated Iranian enemies on two of its borders, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran's population is predominantly Shiite Muslim, and with Iraq's Shiite majority certain to dominate any new Iraqi government, the two nations will share cultural and religious ties that will likely bringing the formerly warring neighbors closer.In this week's New Yorker Seymour Hersh explains that it gets even more complicated than that:Senior U.S. officials in Washington fear that a Shiite uprising in Iraq could trigger unrest in neighboring Kuwait, where Shiites are 30 percent of the population; in Bahrain, which is 70 percent Shiite, and in the oil-rich eastern province of Saudi Arabia, where Shiites are a narrow majority.
Iranians, who succeeded in exporting their Islamic revolution to Shiite parts of Lebanon after Israel invaded that country in 1982, believe they've now played their cards well as America stumbled into a guerrilla war in Iraq.
Israeli intelligence and military operatives are now quietly at work in Kurdistan, providing training for Kurdish commando units and, most important in Israel’s view, running covert operations inside Kurdish areas of Iran and Syria. Israel feels particularly threatened by Iran, whose position in the region has been strengthened by the war. The Israeli operatives include members of the Mossad, Israel’s clandestine foreign-intelligence service, who work undercover in Kurdistan as businessmen and, in some cases, do not carry Israeli passports.Yikes. The Kurds are seriously agitating about the prospect of a Shiite majority government—which Iran is promoting. Iran, Turkey, and Syria don't want to see Kurdistan emerge—which Israel is urging. Sometimes I hope that I'm just reading about the world's worst game of RISK, and I'll wake up soon with a solidly fortified position in Brazil, which everyone knows is the key to holding both South America and Africa and the road to victory, and a vast array of tanks/Roman numeral 10s at my disposal, because everyone knows you don't fight a land war in Asia, and the whole Middle East is only one territory anyway.
While we're talking about this stuff at the Stratego level, it's unequivocally good news that the Iraqis seem to approve of the new government framework, with "support spanning ethnic and religious groups." Who'd of thought—the transitional authority figures haven't been slurred as US stooges. There may be a good honeymoon in this transition. The countervailing opinion, of course, can be found in the unimpeded insurgent attacks, like the coordinated display yesterday that killed 100 Iraqis. If that trend continues unabated, I bet the honeymoon sours quickly. We're going to at least need some lucky dice.
So not prepared for this sort of language before my first cup of coffee!
On Tuesday, Cheney, serving in his role as president of the Senate, appeared in the chamber for a photo session. A chance meeting with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, became an argument about Cheney's ties to Halliburton Co., an international energy services corporation, and President Bush's judicial nominees. The exchange ended when Cheney offered some crass advice.That's not good coworker team-building. You kiss Chalabi with that mouth?"Fuck yourself," said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency.
UPDATE: Howard Kurtz on the WaPo's decision to print the ol' F-bomb:
But The Washington Post actually printed the word today for the first time since publishing the Starr report in 1998. And that set the town buzzing.Sure, Dana Milbank cowrote the piece, so no doubt he's going to want the word printed. But point-scoring aside I think there's a case to be made for printing the word. Certainly a face-to-face verbal exchange on the Senate floor is a league apart from an under the breath comment picked up by a mic or an interview with Rolling Stone or anyone else. And as far as degrees of profanity go, "fuck yourself" is far more severe than "asshole" or even "fuck it up." I'd call the former fighting words."When the vice president of the United States says it to a senator in the way in which he said it on the Senate floor," says Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., "readers need to judge for themselves what the word is because we don't play games at The Washington Post and use dashes."
Oddly, the same article recalled that in 2000 President Bush made an off-mike comment about Adam Clymer, then a New York Times reporter, calling him a "major-league [expletive]." Cheney responded, "big time." Downie said the paper used the derogatory term for backside at the time and that he saw no reason to repeat it in today's newspaper.
The Post did not report when John Kerry used the F-word in a Rolling Stone interview, saying he did not "expect George Bush to [blank] it up as badly as he did." Downie said there was no need to report that language, given that the music magazine is a very different publication from The Post.
The only other time the word appeared in The Post was in a 1992 story about a death row inmate, according to a database search.
A few dozen readers have called to complain, some saying the word was inappropriate in family newspaper read by children.
But more to the point, people really think kids read the Post? Where did they print it, in Garfield? And how come parents can't just sit their tots down and explain the use/mention distinction?
A couple of the guys at Begging to Differ are tearing me a new one, in part for topping off a post—in which I quote several conservative bloggers regarding the al Qaeda/Saddam link—with this line: "That they can acknowledge Cheney's BS and simultaneously praise the Bush administration over Iraq is still beyond me." Were I to have been very to-the-point in what I wrote, I would've said that none of the bloggers/writers I quoted (who didn't flatly disavow Dick Cheney's comments, as Oxblog and Tacitus did) was able to provide even a middling defense for Cheney's assertion. His comments call for empirical evidence. What I read from those sources was: Americans don't care anyway (Derbyshire); an ABC News reporter says that a Clinton-era source once said that bin Laden would "almost certainly... be welcome in Baghdad" (Tim Graham); Cheney was wrong about WMD, and though he may be wrong about al Qaeda too, the war was otherwise justified (Sully); and, I'm crazy-crazy-crazy (LGF).
BTD Steve says that these quotes prove the opposite of what I'm saying. I don't see that, clearly. Let me be more explicit, by repeating what I said before: You tell me. Because I'm baffled. I tentatively supported the war, because 1) I was told Iraq possessed WMD, 2) I was told Iraq had connections to al Qaeda, and 3) I'm something of a liberal interventionist.
On point 1, the administration was either supernaturally wrong or intentionally deceiving the citizenry. On point 3, the administration's abject lack of preparation seems to have quelched the war's potential for positive change; only time will tell if Iraq will fall apart utterly, but that's a lousy standard to bear. An imminent state of martial law probably wasn't what any of us had in mind.
On point 3, the march to war saw the administration drumming confidential intelligence that proved Saddam's ties to al Qaeda. Which was fine—America understands confidentiality, even if the international community wanted to set a higher bar. But then the 9/11 commission dug deep and astonishingly referred to a lack of "credible evidence" suggesting any such thing—leading Dick Cheney and subsequently President Bush to stick to their guns, holding high the vagueries of the English language as compelling evidence that the American people. . . misheard them in early 2003? Ought to have realized that the relationship that obviated war fell short of collaborative?
BTD Nick thinks I should "add constructively to the debate, not just snidely." Truth be told, I've been busy with work, I'm smug like that, and, frankly, there's not much of a debate in my mind. So long as Kerry doesn't pull off his Treebeard mask to reveal that he is in fact Dick Cheney, Kerry gets my vote. But BTD Steve says that "[w]e are rapidly approaching the point (if it is not already past) at which productive debate about this issue will be impossible." This I agree with, but I think that this trend is less dependent on purely partisan bulwarks than a state in which two sides of the aisles are drawing from entirely disparate sets of facts. And I am baffled at the Republican set of facts, because I see—and these items have yet to be reasonably refuted—an absence of WMD; a less than hypothetical cooperation between Saddam and Osama; no hearts and minds won over; significant strain on our worldwide military presence; increased terrorist attacks across the globe; relatively obscure Iraqi religious figures rocketed into Islamicist godhead status; intentional escalation of the culture wars; degredation of the American intelligence apparatus, courtesy of Ahmed Chalabi, the Vice President's office, the Office of Special Plans, and one calculated CIA agent leak; administration-initiated obfuscation of our writs of prohibition against torture; a dissolving situation in Afghanistan; widespread evidence of the continued proliferation of nuclear arms; and no new ground won on the myriad, longstanding domestic issues that stymie our growth as a nation. I can't explain the Republican dataset, but it's not what I have in front of me, and I admit—it's all somewhat puzzling.
Following up on Erik's comment below, Barack Obama is something of a rising star. Highly educated, relatively young, and rooted in a safe Democratic district. Some time back I read a nice piece about him in the Atlantic (I believe); the New Yorker I found in the mail yesterday features a profile on Obama, written before his opponent Jack Ryan's political collapse at the hands of his busty Borg wife.
Obama's now fast-tracked to become the nation's third black senator since Reconstruction. I understand that the GOP is probably yanking Jack Ryan tonight, and I'm not informed enough to comment on the depth or paucity of the Republican bench in Illinois, but I imagine it's going to be tough to quickly produce a candidate to match the exiting one, who has saved the nation from the Soviet menace on multiple occasions, served as president, moonlighted in a battle against the galactic Empire, and even defended archaeological artifacts from Nazis from time to time. But according to Republican dogma, sexual deviancy presents a clear and present danger to American family values—I expect they will terminate Ryan with extreme prejudice.
UPDATE: Or maybe not, says Wonkette. The GOP might not be giving up on Jack Ryan in its hunt for a red November candidate.
Also: Morgan Freeman costarred in The Sum of All Fears. Developing. . . .
From the NYT:
WASHINGTON, June 22 - President Bush has authorized a team of American negotiators to offer North Korea, in talks in Beijing on Thursday, a new but highly conditional set of incentives to give up its nuclear weapons programs the way Libya did late last year, according to senior administration officials.Give that man a cigar—President Bush is finally addressing the threat of nuclear proliferation. With, you know, blackmail. Under the instruction of China, who sold North Korea "dual-use missile-related items and raw materials" and "allowed North Korea to use its air, rail and sea ports to ship missiles and other weapons."The proposal would be the first significant, detailed overture to North Korea since Mr. Bush took office three years ago.
Under the plan, outlined by American officials on Tuesday evening, in response to pressure from China and American allies in Asia, the aid would begin flowing immediately after a commitment by Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, to dismantle his plutonium and uranium weapons programs. In return, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea would immediately begin sending tens of thousands of tons of heavy fuel oil every month, and Washington would offer a "provisional'' guarantee not to invade the country or seek to topple Mr. Kim's government.
Certainly I'm interested in scoring partisan points, but I'm also interested in de-escalation with nuclear-armed nations. I'm happy to see the Bush administration drop the absolutist (evil) rhetoric and start picking up where Clinton left off. Clinton's plan had its pitfalls—primarily, a belligerent Republican Congress who had no intention of backing any single avenue Clinton pursued. Maybe this time around, since the Republican-controlled Congress isn't out to stymie the executive office—in fact I think they could rightly be described as having played a Monica Lewinsky to the current President's office for most of the last four years—we'll see some follow-through.
UPDATE: And maybe not. Kim Jong-Il could tell us to go fuck ourselves. The point of course is that in reverting to the Clinton plan, we're moving toward a track that isn't wholeheartedly dedicated to realizing the apocalypse.
Star Trek fans, take note: Jeri Ryan, the hottest Borg ever, alleges in her divorce papers that Senator Jack Ryan (R-IL) asked her repeatedly to have sex publicly in "avant garde" sex clubs. Jeri Ryan said no. Now, I'm no Star Trek buff, but I thought that the Borg were all about the collective action. This may not be good for continuity, but I'll call it a +1 for the Democratic senatorial race this year.
If you haven't been keeping score, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a comprehensive article regarding the FBI investigation into Steve Kurtz, a Buffalo artist who called 9-1-1 after he discovered that his wife had died. Kurtz uses bacteria in his art, so he's being investigated now for, well, something:
Regardless of what was found at Kurtz's house, the government's investigation is not about terrorism, said Paul Moskal, a spokesman for the Buffalo FBI office.If Kurtz is being investigated for potential bioterrorism charges, why play patty-cake? It's as if the FBI doesn't have their heart in this.It's not about fears that items in the laboratory caused Hope Kurtz's death, he said, and it's not about artistic endeavor or the First Amendment.
Instead, Moskal said, it has everything to do with concern about public health and safety. After Sept. 11, 2001, Moskal said, first responders became more sensitive to anything out of the ordinary. A home laboratory with bacteria samples qualified.
[. . .]
The FBI won't discuss what potential criminal charges it is exploring. But according to [attorney Paul] Cambria and [colleague Claire] Pentecost, who was called to testify before the grand jury, the subpoenas reveal the government is investigating possible violations of the U.S. Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act, which makes it illegal to make, buy, sell, or possess biological agents for use as a weapon.
An expansion of the law under the Patriot Act lists certain people who are restricted from dealing in biological agents because of such things as mental illness, imprisonment, drug use and dishonorable discharge from the military.
The Post-Gazette makes the next logical leap:
The nation's artistic and scientific communities both are monitoring the case to gauge how the government's policies in the aftermath of 9/11 will affect their fields.Clearly the scientific community ought to take notice, because Kurtz's case has fewer implications for, say, painters than it does for a small lab using identical equipment. And special kudos to the paper for mentioning Eduardo Kac, who any good reader of Leonardo will recognize as the founder of transgenic art.[. . .]
"This is not an insignificant case for scientists," said Mark Frankel, director of the Scientific Freedom, Responsibility and Law Program for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "It could have implications for how scientists might be treated or how the law might be interpreted or implemented."
Still, I must make one objection to the report:
Some use adjectives like "Orwellian" and "Kafkaesque" to describe the situation.Dude. Orwellian and Kubrickian, fine. Kafkaesque and Heinleinian, okay. But I'm pretty sure the only apt combination of Orwellian plus Kafkaesque refers to Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, in which you not only get your post-apocalypse but also Tina Turner wrecking havoc.
UPDATE: To clarify I think the connection to the scientific community is perceptive but not because the FBI is actively cracking down on science. This whole investigation is about context: Had the FBI walked in to Kurtz's home and seen a bunch of easels and paintbrushes, there wouldn't be cause for investigation. And were Kurtz a chemist or scientist or what have you working in a lab, the equipment would also seem to be in place. If there's reason to believe that Steve Kurtz is a bioterrorist, I think they should have arrested him from day one, because I don't like the idea of bioterrorists running around bioterrorizing. But if it's just about this equipment and the FBI not liking the looks (or politics) of Kurtz and his organization, that's a precedent that tenders to effect small labs and private scientific organizations. I think here the FBI just have a list of criteria and Steve's place, which fell into their lap, fit the bill. That's disappointingly distinct from the perception of the FBI as having files, tracking cases, solving problems, etc.
Stoic, apolitical CBS, apparently violating their own abstinance policy regarding issue-advocacy ads, will run an anti-Clinton attack ad during his 60 Minutes interview on Sunday. The ad is being launched by the conservative Citizens United, who explain, "Amidst the hype surrounding the release of former President Clinton's new book, 'My Life', Citizens United sets the record straight by exposing the real legacy President Bill Clinton left for America." Probably won't hurt Bill Clinton's book sales, but I'm afraid that this is going to put a serious damper on his bid to become president. Hope he can recover by November, but what with September 11th, the torture memos, the tumult surrounding his war in Iraq, I'm not sure he has a chance.
I'm going to have to call on my fellow Democrats to make an extraordinary sacrifice and boycott CBS's primetime lineup. I don't doubt your love for Two and a Half Men. I know what Joan of Arcadia means to you. Think I'm not going to miss JAG? But suck it up—we're doing this for our candidate. Link courtesy of Atrios, who I hear has a softspot for all things CSI.
Batman Begins: Directed by Christopher Nolan, who directed Memento, which as you might remember was a movie that was not universally laughed at, unlike the last eight Batman films. Featuring a very acceptable Christian Bale as a younger Batman; a sure-to-provoke-outcries-from-the-ideologically-pure(-but-whatever-she's-hot) Katie Holmes as the Female; 28 Days Later's Cillian Murphy as DC's only honest-to-god cool-looking villain, Scarecrow; Liam Neeson, because US labor laws mandate that he appear in one of every five films; and—get this—oh sweet resuscitation of this series—oh hallmark harbinger of success for the hero who's only power is to be better prepared than his enemies—Morgan Freeman is in the cast. His are movies that will not fail. No one has ever thought he's done a bad job or made a bad call, because he hasn't; Our Favorite Supporting Actor, indeed, bears his own infallibility doctrine, and Morgan's standing strong with the Gotham Knight.
It's going to be sweet.
Very sweet.
[sound of fluttery bats]
[and other awesome Batman sounds]
If you haven't seen this already, you'll be pretty familiar with it soon enough:
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in comments sure to help President Bush, declared Friday that Russia knew Iraq's Saddam Hussein had planned terror attacks on U.S. soil and had warned Washington.I can't make heads or tails of it, but I can tell you this much: I've already believed intel and supported the Iraq war because of it. What we were told about Iraq didn't turn out to be remotely true, and that intel surrounded for the obvious, ostensible, above-ground justifications for going to war. Was there a sub rosa justification for the war?Putin said Russian intelligence had been told on several occasions that Saddam's special forces were preparing to attack U.S. targets inside and outside the United States.
"After the events of September 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, Russian special services several times received information that the official services of the Saddam regime were preparing 'terrorist acts' on the United States and beyond its borders," he told reporters.
"This information was passed on to our American colleagues," he said. He added, however, that Russian intelligence had no proof that Saddam's agents had been involved in any particular attack.
If this bit is true, it sounds like the liberal-hawk approved, properly preemptive war that Bush was looking for. I can only assume that he went with WMD instead because he found that case more compelling—which doesn't speak well for this Russian intel. Still, I'm listening (and we're certain to hear plenty about it).
UPDATE: Shit. The Poor Man unequivocally beats the pants off my lame-ass post title with his "Rushin' Attack," clearly a reference to one of the superior examples of Cold War literature, Rush n' Attack.
So far as the connection between 9/11 and Saddam's regime -- or any other Middle East regime -- is concenred [sic], most Americans probably share the attitude of a neighbor of mine, who, when I tried to raise the topic, shrugged and said: "Ah, they're all in it together."David Adesnik:
My best guess is that Bush himself (along with Cheney) is deeply in denial. It's the same phenomenon we saw with Reagan. When you believe in something with all your heart and then stake your reputation on it, letting go is the hardest thing to do.Tacitus:So is that an excuse for Bush's misleading comments? Hell no. His remarks were embarrassing and unpresidential. Period.
On the one hand, you have the 9/11 commission stating there's no hard evidence that al Qaeda and Ba'athist Iraq worked together. This much we knew, whatever the Vice President might say. (And by the way, see Steve Hayes for evidence that not all proponents of this thesis are reality-denying hacks.) On the other hand, we also have the 9/11 commission stating that al Qaeda actively sought cooperation with Ba'athist Iraq, and that Ba'athist Iraq gave the notion serious consideration. Note that we don't know that Ba'athist Iraq actively rejected the proposal -- there's simply no evidence of followup. . . . [T]hat absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It's something that I doubt most of those reveling in schadenfreude over this news will bother to acknowledge.Instapundit quotes a bunch of e-mail that all purport to illustrate that "[the 9/11 Commission's] behavior to date certainly hasn't been credibility-enhancing. [sic]" Kim du Toit is busy posting pictures of his guns and calling John Kerry "Fuckface."
The liberal media now scoff at the idea that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had any kind of partnership, but back on January 14, 1999, ABC News aired a prime time report about links between the dangerous duo. Reporter Sheila MacVicar cited sources from the Clinton administration's intelligence agencies: "Almost certainly, they say, bin Laden has been told he would be welcome in Baghdad."Andrew Sullivan:
The NYT had the gall to demand that Bush and Cheney apologize. In fact, it's the NYT that needs to apologize.LGF:THE DEEPER POINT: But it's also true, it seems to me, that even if there were no contacts, Saddam was still a clear and present danger after 9/11 precisely because of his record with WMDs and links with terror groups. One recalls that Saddam's official press was one of the few to openly celebrate the 9/11 attacks against the "Great Satan." Bush made the right decision - the only decision a responsible president could have made at the time. What frustrates about Cheney, however, is his inability to concede that the intelligence he used about WMDs was embarrassingly wrong. [WTF?]
Evidently, unless someone finds a notarized contract signed by Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, agreeing to undertake terrorist enterprises for a well-defined purpose, there cannot possibly have been a connection.There aren't nearly enough conservatives willing to call a spade a spade, but at least many of them are acknowledging that there is no evidence to back up the BS that Bush and Cheney fed us before the war. A dash of Clinton-hating, a touch of media-bashing, but these people at least aren't screaming and alleging that the 9/11 Commission is covering up evidence or anything. They're looking at Cheney while they're looking the other way, which is a start, even if it feels defeating. That they can acknowledge Cheney's BS and simultaneously praise the Bush administration over Iraq is still beyond me.
More on Kurtz:
Nothing in her experience as associate curator at the University of Washington's Henry Art Gallery prepared Robin Held for her interview with the FBI.So the FBI and the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force really are pursuing CAE's travelling exhibit, which has been displayed in 4 different states over at leat 4 months. If CAE are indeed bioterrorists, they clearly need to work on their delivery.Two agents came to the University of Washington recently to ask Held about artist Steve Kurtz, the subject of a grand jury investigation into bioterrorism in Buffalo, N.Y. Although well-known in performance art circles for the rigor of his thinking and his interest in the politics of genetic manipulations, Kurtz needed the FBI to make him a star.
[. . .]
Kurtz, 46, isn't talking, on advice from his lawyer. He and his group, Critical Art Ensemble, were included in Held's exhibit titled, "Gene(sis)."
Among the artifacts of his performances in "Gene(sis)" were sealed petri dishes with the kind of E. coli that is commonly used in science labs in colleges and universities around the world, said Held.
[. . .]
After closing at the Henry, "Gene(sis)" ran without incident at the Berkeley Art Museum in California and the Fredrick Weisman Museum of Art at the University of Minnesota.
Nevertheless, the investigation is escalating:
At least six people who were called to testify before the grand jury in the Kurtz case Tuesday refused to appear, invoking their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, legal sources said Wednesday.When I first read the headline, I admit that my immediate instinct was to assume that this was a rather showy protest display. It might be, but it sounds to me like refusing to testify merits a reasonable act of self preservation.Several defense lawyers involved in the case said federal prosecutors refused to tell their clients whether they might become targets of the probe, and also refused to grant them immunity from prosecution if they testified.
"My client declined to testify, and so did quite a few others who were called before the grand jury," said Thomas J. Eoannou, attorney for Paul Vanouse, an assistant art professor at the University at Buffalo. "People in the art community are concerned about this investigation, and where it's going. They don't know who is being targeted."
Attorneys James P. Harrington and Daniel J. Henry Jr. said their clients, UB assistant art professor Andrew Johnson and California artist Beatriz da Costa, respectively, also declined to testify.
[. . .]
Kurtz, Vanouse and da Costa all are associated with the Critical Art Ensemble, a controversial group of performance artists who sometimes use human DNA and bacterial growths such as E.coli in their art exhibits.
Once again, I can't express how little it matters that CAE use biotech (or as they prefer, "tactical") media. The question is whether they were performing or plotting terrorism. That's a question that has nothing to do with art. I use fire all the time, but I am not an arsonist, and it would be absurd to investigate me on arson premeditation because I have been known to cook from time to time.
Can't let a thoughtful post like the comprehensive one John Holbo wrote about Catholic politics go without note. Starting with the snark, Holbo is astute:
Bush’s Al-Sadrist gambit: locked in a death-struggle with the forces of democratic reconstruction in your country? See if you can get zealous souls to lay down suppressing fire from the holy places. If you succeed, fine. If the holy places end up getting shelled when the targets lose patience, you cry religious persecution (even if it was pure self-defense) and make hay out of that. It’s win-win.That's witty, but that's not what John's really talking about. The nut of the question centers around the propriety of Catholic officials leveraging religious rites against political obligation.
Now, I've seen many people bring up a common criticism: It's hypocritical of the Catholic Church to suspend Democrats' communion for x when they don't revoke Republicans' communion for y (with x primarily being support for reproductive rights, equal-opportunity marriage, and stem-cell research, and y largely representing support for war and the death penalty). But this formulations assumes and accepts a maximalist intersection between religious obligation and political liberalism. You've surely seen the quotes from JFK—American politicians weren't always literally obliged to the dogma of their faiths. Regardless, that formulation judges Catholicism from a political perspective, i.e., which political issues garner praise or condemnation from the Catholic faith. But if we're going to accept the maximalist tack, why shouldn't we reverse the equation? What other Catholic beliefs are essential to being Catholic—are obligations of the faith?
The Catholic church seems to be setting the bar rather high by saying that not only is abortion fundamentally wicked, but so is voting for a politician who would demure on the question to women or voters or the constituents he represents regardless of his own views of abortion. The Catholic church is suggesting that it is so mandatory to prevent a vote in support of gay marriage (an issue which honestly has zero capacity to affect practicing Catholics), the obligation of a politician in a liberal democracy to vote for his constituency should be put aside. It's like saying that a soldier who kills someone in duty should be prosecuted under the Ten Commandments: It's a conflating of two distinct sets of responsibilities. The church is deciding whether to levy a strong condemnation upon Democratic politicians as a bloc.
If you know anything about Irish politics, you know that just decades ago Ireland saw the same action over the question of divorce. It is deeply disappointing to me to see that that ruckus was not solely a function of Irish politics, seeing as how the same divide has turned up again in America—this time, about being a Democrat, more or less. In America we understand Catholics to not necessarily agree with divorce but not object to a non-Catholic American's right to seek one. And that's right. But I don't see any reason to take this for granted any longer. If new Catholicism has no respect for liberal democracy, how do we respect Catholicism? I fully believe that it is completely compatible for a Catholic Democrat to believe that God abhors abortion while simultaneously believing that it is every American's right to pave his own road to hell. As John Holbo says:
Obviously we are in no serious danger of fighting in the streets, let alone religious war. But it does seem reasonable to point out to any Catholics who support these denials of communion that a predictable result will be probably permanent discomfort at the joints where the church touches the legal order of the liberal democratic state. The church is not a liberal institution, nor does it wish to become one. Nor does it wish to exile itself from modern society. Nor does it wish to overthrow the Western tradition of liberal democracy, these last couple centuries, and advocate a sharp turn to absolute theocracy. This means the church has no resort but to cultivate what will probably be somewhat cognitively dissonant padding - semi-Catholic absolutist/semi-liberal - between itself and the liberal state. At present this cushion resides largely in the inevitably somewhat conflicted minds of Catholic politicians and voters. If the church forbids its presence there, by denying communion to those who do not resolve the muddle consistently in favor of Catholic dogma - where will it go? I suspect most Catholics don’t really want for some people to start thinking Catholics are unfit for public office in virtue of their faith, which makes them unable to honestly swear to uphold the Constitution. Even less do most Catholics want for many people to think this because it becomes sort of true, even though it didn’t used to be true at all, back in good ol’ JFK’s day.I suppose we'll see the verdict sooner or later, but I'm already lamenting this development. Taking cues from Tom DeLay's mutant, rabid Protestantism isn't going to get them anywhere in my eyes—though, to be fair to big Catholicism, I'm pretty sure they invented this game.
Ted Rall surely understands why John Kerry went after John Mccain. That recent Mother Jones poll shows McCain as ridiculously popular across the entire political spectrum (with the exception of the "conservative Republican," where he's simply popular)—and that's reason enough. But Rall doesn't understand why Kerry would go to him, unofficially, seven times.
I do. Just half an hour ago President Bush disputed the 9/11 commission's assertion that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, clearly coming to the defense of VP Dick Cheney in his intention to promote a fog today around the Bush administration's formerly crystal-clear claim of cooperation between Iraq and bin Laden. We're now starting to see some light regarding the Iraqi prisoner whom Donald Rumsfeld quite illegally ordered the military to keep "off the books." A week or so ago torture memos began emerging from all over DC, pairing the Pentagon and the Justice Department in agreement over the expansion of presidential authority to promote some of the tactics employed by other nations against POWs like McCain. Before that, Abu Ghraib. Najaf and al Sadr. The advance upon and subsequent retreat from Fallujah. All paired with continuous GOP mistreatment of McCain: That's a simple string of seven events that would have me back in McCain's office each time to see whether he's reconsidered. And McCain's a hawk—there's surely been even more gnashing of teeth on the man's part over Bush's domestic policy (cf. Andrew Sullivan). But McCain's made it clear that he doesn't want the job; Kerry made it clear that he offered it to him. Seems that everything played out as well as it could have without our seeing an optimal ticket emerge.
After McCain. . . I'm undecided between Vilsack, Richardson, and Edwards, but I think that voters are going to respond to Edwards the best. (I'd frankly love to see Bob Graham in the seat.) All I ask is for the love of all that is holy—don't let it be Gephardt. There's a reason that he stepped down (i.e., could not tenably hold his position) as House Minority Leader, clearing the way for Nancy Pelosi, and that's because he fucked Dems on the war vote—pure and simple. He deserves to be punished, not promoted. Kerry's handlers had the vision to devise an effective plan for both acknowledging McCain lust and gently disappointing those affected by it; surely, surely they recognize how much we all despise Gephardt. "A miserable failure," indeed.
Sully makes the case against Bush:
But Jonah himself recently pondered the following observation: "While I still think it would be bad for America if Bush lost the election to Kerry — and terrible for Republicans — it's less clear it would be bad for the conservative movement." Hmmm. And why would he say something like that? Could it be that Bush has not governed as a conservative in critical ways - and hasn't even governed competently in others? Let's list a few: the WMD intelligence debacle - the worst blow to the credibility of the U.S. in a generation; Abu Ghraib - a devastating wound to to America's moral standing in the world; the post-war chaos and incompetence in Iraq; an explosion in federal spending with no end in sight; no entitlement reform; a huge addition to fiscal insolvency with the Medicare drug entitlement; support for a constitutional amendment, shredding states' rights; crusades against victimless crimes, like smoking pot and watching porn; the creeping fusion of religion and politics; the erosion of some critical civil liberties in the Patriot Act. I could go on. Is there any point at which a conservative might consider not voting for Bush? For the editor of National Review Online, the answer is indeed "fairly obvious." But for people not institutionally related to the G.O.P., the only question is: where would that line be?Yep. Here's my question for conservatives: What do you want out of 2004-2008? From what I understand the main rationale is that Bill Clinton did reciprocally terrible things over two terms. There's also Mars. Otherwise I'm with Sully, George Will, many from the Weekly Standard, and the others in the growing conservative chorus that believe that Bush is not turning out to be the president they thought he was.
I'm aware of how unimportant this case might sound in the larger scheme of recent constitutional rights violations, but another note on the Steve Kurtz/FBI case: Though it's difficult to follow for certain, since neither the FBI nor Kurtz is talking to the press, the investigation seems to have widened to include other members of Kurtz's artistic posse, Critical Arts Ensemble (CAE). According to the NYT, Beatriz da Costa, a University of California-Irvine art professor, was recently served with a subpoena. The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art's (MassMoCA) Web site says that the piece removed from the current exhibition by the FBI was not by Steve Kurtz but by CAE. Links associated with the show aren't functioning.
There's no good reason for the FBI to suppress a show that's been touring for months—I think we'd know by now whether "The Intervensionists" show represented biological warfare. There's the crux of the backwardness of this investigation: Steve Kurtz & co. have made a career of being extremely public about their ideas and practices, so if behind works regarding the capacity for biotechnology to do evil they've been developing biotechnology with the intent to do evil, that would be one of the more underconsidered sinister schemes I've encountered. It's possible that this investigation uncovered something secret and extraordinary, but if the anthrax labs didn't surface under Kurtz's easel, why are they extending the investigation and preparing to prosecute? They either have something—or they're saving face. Right? We'll see.
Big protests today regarding a grand jury investigation of Steve Kurtz and his association with a group called the Critical Arts Ensemble:
Kurtz, a 46-year-old associate art professor at the University at Buffalo, is the target of a federal investigation into a form of art that sometimes includes the use of human DNA, E. coli and other biological agents.There is absolutely nothing astonishing about artists who work in biological and biologically themed media. Patricia Piccinnini and Michal Rovner arguably swept the 2003 Venice Biennale with pieces derived from and featuring petri dishes, respectively. I remember seeing a piece in an Austin gallery just over a year ago that featured botulism as a medium. Biotech art is a big trend, so the FBI better be going on more than a chemistry set and some crack point about the dangers of genetically modified food.Support for Kurtz is widespread in the art communities of Europe and the United States. On Tuesday, while six of his friends testified before a federal grand jury investigating Kurtz, at least 100 supporters demonstrated a couple of blocks away in Niagara Square.
One of those protesting the FBI's actions Tuesday was Nato Thompson, curator of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Mass., where a Kurtz-designed art exhibit about genetically altered food was scheduled to be showing now. In the space where the exhibit would have appeared, the museum has posted a sign, explaining that Kurtz's work cannot be displayed because the FBI seized it.
The difference between these pieces listed above and the work by Steve Kurtz, obviously enough, is that Kurtz employs biotechnology for inflammatory politically centered work. Art leaning toward the anti-. Now if art professors do indeed represent a significant front in the war on terror, have at. But if an artist's work is to be suppressed in an unrelated gallery show, and his home fully quarantined for the purposes of an investigation, we better see some goddamned oil paintings of terrorist plots.
The Pew Hispanic Center reports that of the 1.3 million jobs created between the first quarters of 2003 and 2004, 28.5% were captured by non-citizen immigrants. Unsurprisingly the job growth has been matched by widespread wage stagnation; median wages have fallen for Hispanics in every quarter except the third of 2002. As the report indicates, that's both an absolute and a relative decline. If Latinos are achieving the most significant gains from the turnaround of the jobless recovery, and they don't have much to show for it, can we call this job growth strong?
Charles Kuffner thinks that the cell phone virus diagnosis probably signals an epidemic to come. I don't know about this. Virus makers aren't all chaotic-evil in alignment; plenty of viruses target specific systems for specific reasons. You could say that there's room for more motives in the computer virus arena since computers have more numerous functions, are better interconnected, are employed for varied causes, etc. Also, computers (or networks or what have you) are indispensible—they don't really reduce to calculators and typewriters these days—but phone calls can still quite easily be made if cell phones are knocked out. The chaos-benefit assessment just doesn't really fall the same way for cell phones. Far be it from me to rule out that bored nerds won't do anything to get their names out, but I'm thinking that this won't be a watershed. Hardier nerds are welcome to correct me here if I'm wrong.
I've heard before what Henry Farrell is saying:
Dubliners who don’t have some tenuous connection to the novel are perhaps even rarer than Dubliners of a certain age who don’t claim to have been regular drinking companions of Paddy Kavanagh, Brendan Behan, and Myles na gCopaleen (aka Brian O’Nolain). Which is to say, very thin on the ground indeed.Apparently all Irishmen have a relative from Ulysses. I don't think I even have a good anecdote to share about James Joyce, much less a family story, but I'm so impressed with a holiday named from a novel that I'm determined to share. From Cheers:
[Diana is testing out a campaign slogan.]PS: Check out Bookslut for a slew of Ulysses-related links, such as this BBC crip sheet for you unwashed who haven't read the thing. (Because, you know, it impresses the ladies. . .)
Carla: "Wim with Jim?"
Diane: I thought it up. It's very Joycian.
Carla: If that means stupid, I agree.
Scott notes below in comments that I'm devoting an awful lot of attention to the torture stuff. It's true that there's only so many ways I can write j'accuse. At the same time, I'm not rehashing any points—I'm only barely keeping up with reading all the leaked information. Were this blog a leaky boat, and each post a pail for the purpose of keeping afloat, I'd still be drowning from all the information springing out of these leaks. So if the blog suffers from single-mindedness, atrocious metaphor construction, or actual water damage—so be it. This story is actually important, with longstanding consequences for our policy, our military, and the office of the president—even Glenn Reynolds thinks so, and he doesn't even much care for rights sanctioned for American citizens. And it's one of these cases in which we're starting to see the big picture but we still need to keep track of the dots, and that's what the blogosphere does well.
So, you know, j'accuse, but I'll try to improve the tone or vertically diversify or what have you. Let's see. . . I understand that the first cell-phone virus was identified. While on the one hand the news makes me quite glad to not have a cell phone, it also compels me to get one now while I can still find one that doesn't use an operating system. Or whatever. If I'm ever asked to install anti-virus software on a cell phone—especially considering that I don't have to do that for my computer—then I'm moving into a cave.
Picked this up in an article entirely unrelated to the torture business:
[U.S. District Judge Peter J.] Messitte ordered the state, within 48 hours, to give [convicted murderer Stephen Howard] Oken's defense a complete copy of its amended execution manual, which he said should have been made available to the attorneys no later than the end of May.Ad hoc politicking, or perhaps a barb aimed at Jay Bybee, the 9th Circuit judge and former head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel who signed off on the torture memo released yesterday? I know it probably isn't directed at Bybee, but regardless I'm comforted by the knowledge that many in our justice system yet abide by the unambiguous admiration of the law."The court is deeply solicitous of the family and friends of Dawn Marie Garvin," one of the three women Oken was convicted of killing, Messitte continued. "Nevertheless, it is the court's duty, strongly reinforced in light of current events, to see that the guarantees of the U.S. Constitution are respected even in the case of someone who may be despised by the entire polity."
UPDATE: Maybe this is the sort of thing Judge Messite is thinking about when he mentions the our obligation to protect the rights of the despised:
Reversing itself, the Army said Tuesday that a G.I. was discharged partly because of a head injury he suffered while posing as an uncooperative detainee during a training exercise at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.That's a story from last week that I missed, and it does not inspire much confidence that abuses were confined to Abu Ghraib. It is also an instance of the military covering up a damaging story, which does not inspire much confidence in the brass's ability to tell the truth. Anyway, the Bush administration partly agrees with Messitte, I think, which is why they've gone so far to establish Guantanamo in some sort of legal-detainee limbo outside the sphere of constitutional and international sanctity. I know those guys being held in Gitmo were bastards, probably every one—like Stephen Howard Oken—but we're America. They deserve the due process of the American system. It's actually a pretty fine system, despite what the Justice Department might have you believe.The Army had previously said Specialist Sean Baker's medical discharge in April was unrelated to the injury he received last year at the detention center, where the United States holds suspected terrorists.
Mr. Baker, 37, a former member of the 438th Military Police Company, said he played the role of an uncooperative prisoner and was beaten so badly by four American soldiers that he suffered a traumatic brain injury and seizures. He said the soldiers only stopped beating him when they realized he might be American.
For my Texas readers: According to some site called www.utexas.edu, apparently not only was the Jester Dormitory not designed by the architect who built Huntsville Prison, Jester also does not have its own zip code. It has its own 4-digit suffix code, like every other building on campus—that's it. I am as shocked and appalled as you are. Nothing in the handbook about that Jester chlamydia strain, though.
UPDATE: Apparently Major Applewhite never in fact died for your sins. Didn't know this, though: There's a cutest quarterback award named after him. That's something. Of course if you think Major is better looking than another nominee for the award, Chris Simms, I'm downloading viruses to your computer as you read this. This is apparent enough to me, and I am the sort of very masculine fan of college football and its culture of mysogyny who can only make objectively true observations about these things.
University of Miami law professor Michael Froomkin reads the torture memo leaked today by the WaPo so you don't have to. Because, really, you don't want to.
Unlearned Hand points out that fear of reciprocal violations against our own troops is not the only reason, perhaps not even the best reason, for the US to not practice torture. Enemies don't surrender if they know torture or deportation and indefinite detainment await them—UH points to the large numbers by which Germans surrendered to Allies on the Western front compared to the nonexistant POW situation on the Eastern front. That's not quite a perfect illustration, I think, but his underlying observation is disturbing when applied to Iraq, where we have every indication that Iraqis knew about the shit going on in Abu Ghraib. Frankly, I'd fight like hell myself.
I'm thinking that yet another reason why a policy condoning torture is unacceptable is that it threatens our allies who fight in concert with us (for the same reasons it threatens our own soldiers) and hampers our ability to recruit allies to our cause in the future, which ought to merit some thought no matter how thoroughly you despise the UN. Also, America torturing people is totally insane, and reasoning this out feels like evaluating whether or not it's a good idea to eat babies or punch grandmothers in the throat. (No and no, for the defenders of the Bush administration out there.)
The NYT:
In the fall of 2002, in the preparations for possible war with Iraq, the Pentagon sought and received the assent of senior Bush administration officials, including the vice president's chief of staff, before hiring the Halliburton Company to develop secret plans for restoring Iraq's oil facilities, Pentagon officials have told Congressional investigators.So, that's it. "We stand by the total horseshit that Dick fed you, Congress, and the rest of America. And that's good enough because what the fuck do you think you're going to do about it?"The newly disclosed details about Pentagon contracting do not suggest improper political pressures to direct business to Halliburton, the Houston-based company that Vice President Dick Cheney once led.
But they raise questions about assertions by Mr. Cheney and other administration officials that he knew nothing in advance of the Halliburton contracts and that the decisions were made by career procurement specialists, without involvement by senior political appointees.
Kevin Kellems, a spokesman for the vice president, would not comment on the disclosure, except to say, "We stand by our earlier statements on this matter."
There are no circumstances under which I would ever trust a word Dick Cheney uttered. Not under oath, not on a polygraph. He hates transparency—even though nothing illegal apparently transpired in the Pentagon's contracting of Halliburton, Cheney still lied about it. He believes in the unchecked power of his office and holds himself accountable to no one.
The SCOTUS decided not to evaluate the consitutionality of the "Under God" clause of the Pledge of Allegiance. This is the right decision, though the SCOTUS deferred to some midling custody battle between the plaintiff and his ex-wife, ruling that he did not have sufficient legal authority over his daughter to speak on her behalf. (Isn't it shadier to employ your kid in a grossly public, distracting lawsuit than to ask her to mumble some bullshit every morning?) I really don't feel that a hint of ceremonial deism threatens our children or nonestablisment unless, you know, our children start taking the Pledge seriously—by my own distant empirical reckoning, along with the fact that I can't remember the words anymore, I really don't think our kids are getting all children-of-the-corn about patriotism. They sometimes get freaky about God, but that's not the Pledge's fault—this I say to you as a more or less devout athiest.
Besides all that, after all that Reverend Moon has done for us, is a token gesture of respect too much to ask?
I thought that "World Tribune" sounded familiar—a site to which good people like J. Scott Bernard have linked, as well as less good people like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly—and only during my diligent rereading of the Poor Man's most recent did I remember. Who's responsible for the online news source that told the world that Saddam's WMD were on the North Korean train that exploded in April (linked to favorably by Winds of Change)? And that those WMD were (are?) simultaneously being shipped out of Iraq before and after the war? And that those WMD—those not being shipped out of Iraq and/or through North Korea, I suppose—were found buried (in August of last year, no less!) in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley? The answer to all the above is the World Tribune—the digital flower on Rev. Sun Myung Moon's journalistic lapel!
"Rev. Moon? Whodat?" you ask. Why, that pistol-starter Moon is none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent. "You playin, KC," I hear you say. I wouldn't clown you like that. But don't take my word for it—ask Congressman Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), who crowned Rev. Moon as such earlier this year at the Dirksen Senate Office Building!
I always figured the USA would play a part in the next big thing. And not just Rep. Davis, either, according to John Gorenfield:
Now, this March, Moon was telling guests at the Dirksen Senate Office Building that Hitler and Stalin, having cleaned up their acts, had, in a rare public statement from beyond the grave, called him "none other than humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent."Damn, dude, sounds big time. You'd think this guy was a megalomaniac or something were Congress not endorsing his act. So where's that liberal media with coverage of Rev. Moon's discovery of WMD? Or, arguably more important in the long run, his coronation as the Lord Our God?[. . .]
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.
It's birthday time for everybody's favorite, Sue and Not U! Tomorrow she turns twenty-ahemahemhmm, and we'll be spending the day white-water rafting out in God's country. I'm somewhat concerned about all the rain we've been seeing lately—I understand that the river difficulty rating has been upgraded from "sort of like the fast part of Comal tubing" to "a Klingon gik'tal." (Susan traditionally tries to hit up a Star Trek convention for her birthday, so that's only appropriate.)
You want a Gmail account and you want to contribute money to a worthy cause, you say? Your lucky day, my friend.
As a precursor, let me say that I can only identify two solid reasons why a human being should run—you know, move your legs real fast, like a hunter-gatherer or whatever—in the 21st century: 1) An evildoer is chasing you, and the cost-benefit analysis tips toward flight, or 2) It somehow raises money for less fortunate folks. Though suspicious for her penchant for running under conditions outside of these two acceptable scenarios, Catherine of Zunta fame is running for the forces of light in October. She's entered herself in the Marine Corps Marathon, a whopping 26.2-mile run that likely violates several tenets of the Geneva Conventions, and proceeds from her physical destruction go to the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her mother was treated for cancer at the Lombardi Center, so no one can tell you as well as she can about what good work they do.
However, to enter this visible marathon, Catherine needs to raise $2,000—no small feat.
For my part, I'm trying to harnass the incredible market potential of G.p to send a little scrilla her way. I have 3 totally hott Gmail account invitations that I'm going to auction off here as an incentive for you to donate. If you don't know, Gmail's great, look around, lots of folks talking about it, and you're not going to get one publicly for a while.
I figure the best way to hold a blauction is through comments. (Feel free to email me if you prefer, whatever.) Minimum bid for each is set at $10, and, just to keep it interesting, I'll match the total amount of the sales. So if maybe helping people out isn't your thing but realizing my financial ruin sounds intriguing, have at. Auction ends Monday at 5pm EST; highest three bids win. I'll announce the winners, who can contribute $$ through a variety of means listed at Catherine's site. Then I'll send your invite and you'll be well on your way to the upper eschelons of nerd delight, and better off in Heaven's estimation to boot.
So dig deep, drink a couple fewer fancy mo-jitos this weekend, skip out on that ecodisaster flick you've been thinking about seeing, and help Catherine pay to run a bajillion miles. Of course if you don't want a Gmail account, donate for that warm feeling you'll get, you Good Samaritan you. And if you're a blogger, and I know you are, do Catherine or me the kind favor of a humble link on your estimable site. Cheers!
UPDATE: No takers? Well do consider a donation to Catherine's cause if you're a regular reader t
