This is not about four years of taking it up the butt, no matter what the headline might lead you to think.
Regarding #4 in my list of "Things I've done..." This may be disappointing, but here's the whole story:
I was in Oakland for a week working on the NCTM Standards 2000 project, and it happened to be a week when a new Prince album came out. The hotel was just a mile or so from a small strip mall where I had noticed a CD shop, so during a break I headed out to pick up the new disc. As I passed a gas station, a plainclothes cop jumped out in front of me, pointed a gun at me and yelled "Hands behind your head! Down on the ground!" Needless to say, this was something of a shock, and my listening skills went out the window. I put my hands in the air and just stood there for a second, then with the cop's assistance (he pushed me down) I complied with his request.
After taking out my wallet he walked me to a police car where I had to sit while the victim took a look at me from behind the garage. While this was going on I managed to regain my composure and explained that I was a graduate student from Indiana University and was staying at the hotel nearby, etc. Fortunately, the victim didn't finger me, and they let me go on my way. I walked across the street, bought the CD and continued with my day.
When I heard about Bush's planned "town hall" meeetings in Germany, I wondered if there would be genuine questions, or the same kind of propagandized bullshit they''ve been doing here. Well guess what-- the Germans wouldn't let him hold a scripted event, so the Bush folks weaseled out.
Via Memeorandum
Well, this seems to be going around, so I'll play along:
Seriously, they put this shit on page A26?
ATTORNEYS FOR the Justice Department appeared before a federal judge in Washington this month and asked him to dismiss a lawsuit over the detention of a U.S. citizen, basing their request not merely on secret evidence but also on secret legal arguments. The government contends that the legal theory by which it would defend its behavior should be immune from debate in court. This position is alien to the history and premise of Anglo-American jurisprudence, which assumes that opposing lawyers will challenge one another's arguments.
Ahmed Abu Ali was arrested in June 2003 in Saudi Arabia. He and his family claim the arrest took place at the behest of U.S. officials who, though unable to bring a case against him, have encouraged the Saudis to keep him locked up. The facts are murky, and Judge John D. Bates refused in December to dismiss the case, writing that he needed more information before he could decide whether a U.S. court has jurisdiction.
Since then, the U.S. government has acted to frustrate all reasonable searches for answers. It has moved to stay discovery based on secret evidence. It has proposed adding to the facts at Judge Bates's disposal by submitting secret evidence that Mr. Abu Ali's attorneys would have no opportunity to challenge. Most recently, it urged that the case be dismissed on the basis, yet again, of secret evidence -- this time supplemented with what a Justice Department lawyer termed "legal argument [that] itself cannot be made public without disclosing the classified information that underlies it."
Judge Bates is cautious and generally deferential to government concerns. Yet he was evidently disturbed by this argument, at one point asking whether the government could identify "any case in which . . . even the legal theory for dismissal is not known to the other side?" The government could not.
In this case, the liberty of a U.S. citizen is at stake. It is not clear what role the U.S. government played in his arrest, nor that he is innocent. What is clear is that Mr. Abu Ali has been held for 20 months without being charged and that, as Judge Bates wrote in December, his lawyers "have presented some unrebutted evidence that [his] detention is at the behest and ongoing direction of United States officials." It should be unthinkable that the courts would resolve this matter without hearing from both sides on key legal questions. It should have been unthinkable for the government to propose such a step.
You can uncover the hidden bits here by just selecting the text or following the link above. It's going to take a lot more to fix what's wrong with this country.
"It's amazing what a tired, drunk dopehead can do, huh?"
As much as anything, this neatly sums up the differences between progressives and conservatives in this country.
Started a new job today, which should provide a little more challenges than the last one. There are some drawbacks, such as having to share an office and work on a Windows computer (shudder), but hopefully the benefits will outweigh them. The first day is always about getting acclimated, so I don't have a real good feel yet for what I'll be doing. Fortunately, there's wireless in the building so I can grab the Powerbook and catch up on my email and blog reading (not to mention kill more spam trackbacks) over lunch. I expect the blogging to be lighter than it has been, unless I just shift to evening hours for it.
Now on top of everything else, it looks like Gannon/Guckert was given a heads-up on the Iraq war before everyone else.
I find this kind of thing is disturbing:
Salon.com News | Behind the walls of Ward 54: "In fact, repeated interviews over the course of one year with 14 soldiers who have been treated in Walter Reed's inpatient and outpatient psychiatric wards, and a review of medical records and Army documents, suggest that the Army's top hospital is failing to properly care for many soldiers traumatized by the Iraq war. As the Soto-Ramirez case suggests, inadequate suicide watch is one concern. But the problems run deeper. Psychiatric techniques employed at Walter Reed appear outmoded and ineffective compared with state-of-the-art care as described by civilian doctors. For example, Walter Reed favors group therapy over one-on-one counseling; and the group therapy is mostly administered by a rotating cast of medical students and residents, not full-fledged doctors or veterans. The troops also complain that the Army relies too much on pills; few of the soldiers took all the medication given to them by the hospital.
Perhaps most troubling, the Army seems bent on denying that the stress of war has caused the soldiers' mental trauma in the first place. (There is an economic reason for doing so: Mental problems from combat stress can require the Army to pay disability for years.) Soto-Ramirez's medical records reveal the economical mindset of an Army doctor who evaluated him. 'Adequate care and treatment may prevent a claim against the government for PTSD,' wrote a psychologist in Puerto Rico before sending him to Walter Reed."
Meet the true promise of stem cells.
This isn't really all that remarkable, except that I heard NPR this morning say that the UIA were just short of a majority and would have to ally with the Kurds. Strictly speaking, they'll have to ally with the Kurds for form a government (select a Prime Minister, etc.), but that's because they need a 2/3 majority to do that. For anything that requires a simple majority, the Shias are in like Flynn.
Shia majority for Iraq parliament: "Iraqi officials announce final election results giving the main Shia party 140 of 275 seats in the new parliament."
I'm not familiar with this publication, but scenario aside this article has as good a run-down of the Gannon/Guckert shenanigans so far, with a number of links:
Me, I'm just still stunned that any of this has actually happened. With all the talk of media people being whores metaphorically speaking, who'da thunkit that a real honest-to-God cock-sucking man-whore would pop up in the middle of the White House? The mind boggles.
So I get a note that comments are broken (d'oh), and a split second after I fix that I get slammed with a dozen trackback spams. Scum and villainy! Now I'm forced to install MT-Blacklist, which will hopefully solve the problem. We're trying to have a community here, people!
RFE/RL apparently is using the same photo of the Iranian/Korean nuclear plant that CNN had. Just to make things more surreal, the filename of the photo is "Iraq-nuclear.jpg".
Over at Salon this morning, there's a piece looking at the Bush administration's Social Security efforts, and speculating that they might change course and pull the rug out from under Democrats:
Of course, a number of Democrats could try to block any version of the plan, arguing that any Social Security legislation passed by Bush, even a relatively good bill, would hurt Democrats. But if Bush endorsed centrist ideas on Social Security, the Democratic unity would shatter, Ornstein says. And Ornstein believes the White House is nimble enough to refocus its efforts to cash in on a fruitful plan -- after all, that's what the Bush White House does when it meets resistance. Bush was against the 9/11 Commission before he was for it. The president criticized the McCain-Feingold bill before he signed it. And remember Bush's sudden decision, in the spring before the 2002 midterm election, to co-opt Democrats' plan to create the Department of Homeland Security? And we remember how well that election went for the Democrats.
Note that in each of these examples the Bush administration was resisting active efforts on the part of someone else to push an agenda through. In this case, we have the reverse situation. I'm not following the process in minute detail, but as far as I know there are no firm proposals or legislation on the table, and no sign that Democrats are going to produce one. Without that, there's nothing for Bush to co-opt. I suspect that everyone realizes this, which is why we're not seeing anything. As long as that continues, Dubya will be left out on his own. While I have no doubt the Bush administration can claim someone else's ideas as their own, I have yet to see evidence that they can come up with any good ideas without help from the other side of the aisle.
Via Juan Cole:
Lebanese Broadcasting Co.'s satellite television news is reporting that the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), comprising Shiite religious parties, has won an absolute majority (141 seats) after adjustments were made in accordance with electoral procedure. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the list leader, expressed his pleasure at this 51 percent outcome for his coalition. The UIA still needs a 2/3s majority, and therefore a coalition partner or partners, to form a government (which involves electing a president and two vice-presidents, who will appoint a prime minister). But it can now win votes on procedure and legislation without needing any other partner.
The UIA has ties to Iran, is big on Islamic law, etc. In the immortal words of J.J. Binks, "Ooh, thissa gonna be messy!"
I've wanted to modify some signs by the loop along these lines, but this seems somehow less likely to get me fined.
Kevin Drum pointed to this guy, a conservative/Republican arguing that torture is wrong and Republicans (specifically those in power) should put a stop to it. He ends with this:
"If we can't make a principled stand now, we never can."
While I hate to sound cynical, I have to think that the moment has already passed to make a principled stand against torture, and Republicans never will. Senate Republicans certainly had their chance with the Alberto Gonzales nomination for Attorney General, and they blew it. This isn't to say that they will never take a stand against torture, but I predict that if/when they do it will be because it suddenly becomes politically expedient, not because it's the right thing to do. If even John McCain voted to support Gonzales, then he can have no principles.
I can see it now: "Hang on, honey, I need to check the rating on that before we get all freaky."
And wow-- 38 liters? Girls, don't ever let some young stud tell you they're too big for one of those things.
The hell with apples.
Via a diary entry on Kos, I came across an article in the Denver Post that takes a look at what Jenna Bush might get from Social Security. This is great, but I don't think it really speaks to her in a way she's likely to understand. So Jenna, if you're listening, I'd like to help clear things up for you.
The article starts with this premise:
You were born in 1981. You have a college degree from the University of Texas. We'll assume you'll find fulfillment in the classroom, and that your salary as a teacher leaves you in the middle of all U.S. workers when it comes to lifelong earnings.
Ok, now we both know that's crazy. You didn't go to the University of Texas because you wanted a career in education. Everyone knows that education degrees are for chicks who don't really want to go to college, but for one reason or another feel like they have to. You're just in this teaching gig until either you can either bag some rich and/or ambitious young stud, or your parents die and leave you their money. Your dad's also trying to get rid of that pesky inheritance tax, so there's no reason why this strategy won't work for you, right?
So if you can live off the fat of others, why should you care about Social Security? Well, because it can provide you with drinking money! (Yes, I see your "hook 'em horns." Put down your hands now. You look like a WASPy metal-head.)
Now, according to the article's calculations, if the current Social Security plan were adjusted slightly you would receive $20,500 the first year of your retirement at 65. If we assume an average drink price of $5 (hey, sometimes you want the good stuff, and other times you're more goal-oriented, right?), then that gives you 4,100 drinks that year. Not bad, eh? Yes, I know numbers are hard. Here's a visual representation of that year's bounty. In this picture, each shot glass represents 100 drinks:
I know what you're thinking-- "Those are really big drinks." Focus, Jenna.
Unfortunately, that's the best case scenario. Let's say that the Social Security system doesn't get adjusted at all between now and your retirement. In that case, you would only get $19,700, which translates to 3,940 drinks. That's 160 less drinks, so not too bad:
Now, the big question is what happens under your dad's plan? Well it's complicated, but the short version is that if everything goes right, the best case would be that in your first year of retirement you would only get $14,300. That's only good for 2,860 drinks, over 1,000 drinks fewer than if your dad took the time he's spending trying to push this Social Security plan through and just played golf.
So I think the question you need to ask your dad is, "Why don't you want me to have any fun?"
I turned comments off a while back due to getting mostly spammed in them. Now that Google and the gang have implemented rel="nofollow", I'm going to try them again. This new feature won't prevent spammers from hitting the blog, but it takes away any benefit they get, so hopefully they'll concentrate their energies elsewhere...
Aargh. Working on some animation today, and Maya's playback has gotten all jerky on me. Apparently I've passed some threshold of complexity that my G4 and/or graphics card can't quite handle. The only way I can be sure that anything looks right is to playblast it, and then I lose the audio so I can't be 100% sure that everything's in sync. Grumble...
Or not.
I've been highly skeptical of the numbers that have been reported from the recent Iraqi vote. Sunday morning I actually heard NPR say that turnout was something like 80-90% (yes, really). Since then the number seems to keep dropping. And the footage of people dancing in the street? Some of them have been soldiers, and you know that there are US Marines or Army troops not far away from them. Knowing that news people can't go far without military escort doesn't help the credibility of the other footage, either.
You would think that the media would learn, but they never do. Even Jon Stewart seems to have bought into it this time, which surprises me. He seemed reluctant earlier in the week to refer to "Mess o' potamia" because of the recent news. Of course, we all know how this plays out by now. The first report is trumpeted to the heavens, establishing the storyline. Corrections come later after interest in the story has waned, and many people never hear of them. And on and on...
I've been feeling more positive recently about efforts to prevent Bush from killing Social Security, but Josh pointed out that there is a weak link in all this...namely the news media.
Wonkette - Live-Blogging the State of the Union: "Clearly, the only good gay is an unborn gay."
God forbid the president should talk to anyone but his fawning acolytes.
Check out the chart on this page. The plan referred to there may not be exactly what Dubya has in mind, but apparently it's close. Looks like under that plan people in my generation can expect 27% less than what we would otherwise get under Social Security, and people in my niece's generation would get even less than that.
It's bad enough they expect me to BOGU-- Dubya & his cronies need to stay the hell away from the kids.
I'm going to dribble this quote out for full effect. Yes, this is another one of those Bush's-plan-to-"save"-Social Security-is-a-steaming-pile-of-crap posts. The quote is from an article in the Washington Post.
"If a worker sets aside $1,000 a year for 40 years, and earns 4 percent annually on investments, the account would grow to $99,800 in today's dollars..."
Ok, so that doesn't sound like all that much, especially if that money is supposed to last what, 10-20 years? It gets better, though. Just read on:
"...but the government would keep $78,700 -- or about 80 percent of the account. The remainder, $21,100, would be the worker's."
Wow. So after putting in $40,000 you get back just over $21,100. Sounds like a great plan, doesn't it? I know I personally can't wait to piss away my hard earned money so that I can live like a pauper in my golden years. Just how dumb does this son of a bitch think we are?
Oh, and just for the record-- there is no crisis.
This hadn't dawned on me before, but Senator McCain was tortured in Vietnam, and I don't actually know his position on Gonzales. I have to say that if he votes yes, I will lose all respect for him. I don't really expect Bush or his cronies to know any better, but if anyone should have a visceral understanding of what torture means, it's John McCain...
Just learned about the Wergle Flomp Free Poetry Contest. No, I won't be entering it, but some of the samples are a hoot.
