The Cranky Insomniac: June 2006

The many moods of Osama

It's nice to see bin Laden took my advice and did the narration thing for his new film, The Lion of Jihad: A Tribute to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. I smell Oscar! Or at least a spot on the festival circuit.

Next: Osama drops his acoustic blues album, Mo' Better Mo' Hammed, featuring "I've Bin Laden So Long (I Can't Be Nothin' Else)" and a soulful cover of Bon Jovi's "Wanted: Dead or Alive" featuring The Dixie Chicks' Martie Maguire on fiddle. Mo' Better Mo' Hammed is the album for anyone who wants to experience the many moods, the many shades, the many sides of Osama bin Laden.

An observation about OPC (other people's commenters)

The commenters at Hot Air have officially become the right wing equivalent of HuffPo commenters. I like the stuff Allahpundit's doing over there, but the comments are nothing but boilerplate right wing foaming-at-the-mouth ravings. What makes me laugh is that each group of commenters would obviously loathe the other, and yet they're almost perfect mirror images. Although Hot Air commenters are better spellers - I'll give them that.

That is all.

Bad day of judgment for NY Times

Andrew Sullivan writes approvingly of former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who in a Washington Post op-ed expresses alarm at the sight of journalists being subpoenaed to reveal their sources:

Reporters do not expect to be above the law. But they should be accorded some protection so that they can perform their public service in ensuring the free flow of information and exposing fraud, dishonesty and improper conduct without being exposed to an unanticipated jail sentence. A free society depends on access to information and on a free and robust press willing to dig out the truth and spread it around. This requires some ability to deal from time to time with sources who, for one reason or another, require the capacity to speak freely but anonymously.

I agree, although sometimes I get the feeling the first sentence would be better written as "Reporters should not expect to be above the law."

Of course, none of this goes to the question of what to do when a newspaper publishes classified information or information that may be harmful to America's national security. As Olson notes:

The Senate Judiciary Committee will soon take up a bill entitled the Free Flow of Information Act of 2006, sponsored by a bipartisan group of legislators and modeled in large part on the Justice Department guidelines. It does not provide an absolute privilege for confidential sources, but it does require, among other things, that a party seeking information from a journalist be able to demonstrate that the need for that information is real and that it is not available from other sources. Matters involving classified information and national security are treated differently. The current controversy over publications relative to the administration's efforts to deter terrorists does not, therefore, provide any basis for delaying or rejecting this needed legislation.

To me, the Times' publication of its "expose" of the SWIFT program is more a matter of horrendously bad judgment than it is a matter of whether or not such publication is lawful.

Having the right to do something doesn't mean you're right to do it. Case in point: I believe Fred Phelps and his single-celled Westboro Baptist Church followers have the right to protest military funerals and carry signs that say "God hates fags" (their God is a hateful God), but I think they're wrong for doing so and quite frankly wouldn't mind if some soldiers or Marines casually walked away from a funeral, sauntered over to the WBCers and opened up a huge can of whupass.

Similarly, whether or not the NY Times et. al. had the right to publish their expose of the SWIFT program isn't as important to me as whether or not they were right to do so. And in my opinion, they were about as right as Phelps and his moronic followers. They "exposed" what by their own reporting appears to be a fully legal program that took great pains to respect the privacy of innocent American civilians, that was secret for a reason, and that actually seemed to work. Watergate it ain't.

Nice job saving the Republic, fellas.

Post script: Sullivan says this op-ed shows that Olson "hasn't quite surrendered to the notion of an untrammeled executive in a constitutional democracy." Fine, but why no mention of the fact that this whole notion of subpoenaeing journalists started with an investigation of the Bush administration, not an investigation by the Bush administration. And Bush, despite probably wishing he has, hasn't jailed any reporters - the only one to do that is Patrick Fitzgerald, the Special Prosecutor established to look into possible wrongdoing by members of the Administration in l'affair Plame. Seems like sort of a cheap shot by Sullivan, no?

Carnival of Comedy

This week's Carnival of Comedy is up at Blogs for House, Dr. House operating, FIAR assisting.

Dr. H. and his outstanding staff are to be commended for their keen sense of humor. Meaning finally I placed in the top group.

Paging Mr. Ripley

Okay, I'm not generally a conspiracy theorist (though they can be fun!) but I'm not sure even Ripley would buy this coincidence.

This was reported last night:

The Veterans Affairs worker faulted for losing veterans' personal information had permission to access millions of Social Security numbers on a laptop from home, agency documents obtained by The Associated Press show.

[snip]
The documents show that the data analyst, whose name was being withheld, had approval as early as Sept. 5, 2002, to use special software at home that was designed to manipulate large amounts of data.
A separate agreement, dated Feb. 5, 2002, from the office of the assistant secretary for policy and planning, allowed the worker to access Social Security numbers for millions of veterans.
A third document, also issued in 2002, gave the analyst permission to take a laptop computer and accessories for work outside of the VA building.
"These data are protected under the Privacy Act," one document states. The analyst is the "lead programmer within the Policy Analysis Service and as such needs access to real Social Security numbers."
The department said last month it was in the process of firing the data analyst, who is now challenging the dismissal.
VA officials have said the firing was justified because the analyst violated department procedure by taking the data home; they also said he was "grossly negligent" in handling sensitive information.
Lawmakers expressed dismay over the latest disclosure. They noted that the analyst immediately notified his supervisors after the theft from his suburban Maryland home, but supervisors delayed publicizing the crime until May 22. Nicholson was informed on May 16.
"The gross negligence in this case are the people above him," said Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., the acting top Democrat on the House Veterans' Affairs Committee. "They gave him express permission to take the information home. When it was stolen, he reported it right away."
"They're trying to pin it on this one guy, but I think it's other people we need to be looking at," he said.

And now today, just as a Congressional hearing on this issue was about to start, the laptop was found:

[VA Secretary Jim] Nicholson announced the recovery of the equipment at a House committee hearing today, but provided no details about how law enforcement officials obtained it.
"A preliminary review of the equipment by computer forensic teams has determined that the data base remains intact and has not been accessed since it was stolen," said an FBI statement issued today. "A thorough forensic examination is underway, and the results will be shared as soon as possible. The investigation is ongoing."

I mean, seriously? All this time law enforcement and the VA have no idea where the laptop is, and then just as a hearing is about to start on whether senior VA officials are at fault for allowing the conditions that led to the theft, abracadabra, the laptop turns up? And a preliminary review shows that the data hasn't been accessed?

And they wonder why people don't trust the government?

Ouch

Harsh line from film critic Kyle Smith of the New York Post in his no stars review of the Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert starrer Strangers with Candy:

The Amy Sedaris comedy based on the failed TV show isn't the least funny film of the year - but for that it should send a thank-you note to "United 93."

It don't get no colder than that.

Gaza Escalates

It's officially on in Gaza. The Melbourne Herald Sun:

ISRAEL has arrested dozens of Palestinian MPs including the deputy prime minister during its major offensive to try to free a teenage soldier captured by Palestinian fighters.

And the body of an Israeli settler, kidnapped over the weekend by Palestinian militants, was found overnight in Ramallah, Palestinian security sources said.

Eliyahu Asheri, 18, was the son of an Australian who moved to Israel 20 years ago.

In a raid on a complex of buildings in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the deputy prime minister Nasser Shaer, other MPs and Hamas lawmakers were arrested by Israeli soldiers, Palestinian security officials said.

AP:

Israel sent tanks into northern Gaza and arrested the Palestinian deputy prime minister and dozens of other Hamas government officials early Thursday, escalating its response to the abduction of one of its soldiers.

[snip]
Palestinian witnesses said Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered northern Gaza before daybreak Thursday, adding a second front to the Israeli action in Gaza. The Israeli military had no comment on the latest incursion.

And this:

In a clear warning to Syrian President Bashar Assad, Israeli airplanes flew over his seaside home near the Mediterranean port city of Latakia in northwestern Syria, military officials confirmed, citing the “direct link” between his government and Hamas. Israeli television reports said four planes were involved in the low-altitude flight, and that Assad was there at the time.

The Jerusalem Post is now reporting that the Israeli Defense Force has confirmed the death of 18-year-old Eliyahu Asheri.

IDF combat engineers on patrol late Wednesday night in Ramallah found Asheri's body in an open field. The youth appeared to have been shot to death, and initial findings indicated that he may have been killed as early as Sunday, Israel Radio reported. Asheri's family has been notified.

And now this report from Reuters, via Allahpundit at Hot Air:

A spokesman for gunmen in the Gaza Strip said they had fired a rocket tipped with a chemical warhead at Israel early on Thursday.
The Israeli army had no immediate comment on the claim by the spokesman from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement.
The group had recently claimed to possess about 20 biological warheads for the makeshift rockets commonly fired from Gaza at Israeli towns. This was the first time the group had claimed firing such a rocket.
"The al-Aqsa Brigades have fired one rocket with a chemical warhead" at southern Israel, Abu Qusai, a spokesman for the group, said in Gaza.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the army had not detected that any such rocket was fired, nor was there any report of such a weapon hitting Israel.

If this is true, it's gonna get real bloody real fast.

More to come?

Update: Head over to Israellycool for frequent updates.

Guest hosting at The Daily Gut

Greg Gutfeld has graciously asked me to do some guest hosting over at The Daily Gut while he's on vacation. He made me an offer I couldn't refuse, mainly because I was too drunk to speak. I think maybe he slipped me a mickey. I also may be doing some posting at The Big God Blog and al-Zarqawi's Mom's Blog, but if all goes well you won't be able to tell. In fact, for all you know, maybe I already have...

I'll still be posting here, as far as you know.

9/11 nutters

For a great peek into the soul of irrationality, check out Farhad Manjoo's excellent article on 9/11 deniers at Salon. (You'll have to sit through a short commercial in order to read it for free. Mine had a hot chick in it, so everything worked out fine.)

Then go over to Screw Loose Change, a site devoted to debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories, including the popular-among-the-loons film Loose Change. Pat and James will be your guides at SLC as you enter worlds that exist at right angles to reality and read about crazy theories that would be very, very funny if they weren't so, so sad.

Fun 9/11 conspiracy theory drinking game: do a shot every time someone mentions the Jews or the Mossad! Guaranteed to get you rip roaring drunk or your money back! Triple bonus drinks for spotting references to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion!

(H/T: Allah at Hot Air.)

Smoke 'em while you're still allowed to got 'em

Here we go:

Breathing any amount of someone else's tobacco smoke harms nonsmokers, the surgeon general declared Tuesday - a strong condemnation of secondhand smoke that is sure to fuel nationwide efforts to ban smoking in public.
"The debate is over. The science is clear: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance, but a serious health hazard," said U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona.
More than 126 million nonsmoking Americans are regularly exposed to smokers' fumes - what Carmona termed "involuntary smoking" - and tens of thousands die each year as a result, concludes the 670-page study. It cites "overwhelming scientific evidence" that secondhand smoke causes heart disease, lung cancer and a list of other illnesses.

Really. Now breathing "any amount" of SHS will harm you. Sure. And it's just a coincidence that every time some petty fascist decides he wants to regulate more and more people's lives the claims get more and more dire. Right.

Not one death has ever been directly linked to public SHS. Not one. And this is including people who lived the majority of their life before smoking bans. Yet breathing "any amount" of SHS will harm you. Sure.

A link does seem to exist between long-term constant exposure to SHS (e.g., being married to a smoker) and an increase in heart and lung disease, but there is not a lick of scientific evidence that the occasional exposure to cigarette smoke leads to long-term illness or death. Yet breathing "any amount" of SHS will harm you. Sure.

Even a few minutes around drifting smoke is enough to spark an asthma attack, make blood more prone to clot, damage heart arteries and begin the kind of cell damage that over time can lead to cancer, he said.

Some days it's easy to believe Darwin was an idiot.

Well, at least people will always be free to smoke in the privacy of their own homes. Um, I said WELL, AT LEAST PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS BE FREE TO SMOKE IN THE PRIVACY OF THEIR OWN HOMES:

But public smoking bans don't reach inside private homes, where just over one in five children breathes their parents' smoke - and youngsters' still developing bodies are especially vulnerable. Secondhand smoke puts children at risk of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, as well as bronchitis, pneumonia, worsening asthma attacks, poor lung growth and ear infections, the report found.

It's just a matter of time, ain't it.

I need to do something I very, very rarely do here at the Cranky Insomniac. I need to exercise my right to be profane, and close with a direct message to Surgeon General Carmona:

Go fuck yourself, you ignorant, fascist prick.

KYFHO, motherfucker. KYFHO.

Update: See comments for a possible explanation of why I lost it.

Tony Hendra is a Big Fat Idiot

Slate asked various filmmakers and critics to name the film they've seen the most. Here's actor (This is Spinal Tap), author (Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul) and Huffpo blogger Tony Hendra's response:

Dr. Strangelove. It's also one of the greatest satires of all time and pure satire, at that—never once dropping its mask of concerned sympathy for the military mind, however stark, raving mad it may be. Sterling Hayden's Jack D. Ripper—fall-down funny with his "precious bodily fluids"; George C. Scott's randy blowhard patriot Buck Turgidson, a hilarious preview of his "Patton" a couple of years later; Peter Sellers immortalized by the megalomaniacal Strangelove, but just as funny as the meek and waffly RAF officer Captain Mandrake upon whose ineffectual bravado the entire future of the human race depends. It may be set in the Cold War, but Dr. Strangelove reminds us, 40 years on, that for the military mind there's always a War Against Something that must be won at any cost.

It's painful for me to write this because Hendra's performance as Spinal Tap manager Ian Faith is a personal all-time favorite (as is Dr. Strangelove), but he is a complete idiot. And to be clear, I'm using that word not in the "I disagree with him" sense, but in the "he's an ignorant slut" sense.

"[F]or the military mind there's always a War Against Something that must be won at any cost"? Maybe things are different in England, Tony, but here in the US it's civilians who decide if, when and where we go to war against something, and civilians who determine the cost we are wiling to bear. But then again, if you think Patton was nothing but a blowhard patriot and don't really care that his brilliant and innovative strategies played more than a small part in keeping your nation's flag from having a swastika on it, it's understandable that you don't know this. (And please note the disdain with which Hendra uses the word "patriot." Clearly he's too evolved, too "nuanced" for such a bourgeois sentiment.) Only in Hollywood do you find the stereotypical frothing-at-the-mouth, can't-wait-for-the-glory-of-war General, and this is so obviously the extent of Hendra's experience with "the military mind."

The freedom to spout ignorant nonsense is necessary, but man does it get tiresome.

Constitution 1, Morons 0

The Senate fell one vote short of passing a proposed Constitutional amendment allowing Congress to prevent physical desecration of the American flag.

To put it another way, the Senate fell one vote short of passing an amendment allowing Congress to physically desecrate the Constitution.

This week's highly coveted "I Drink a Lot What's Your Excuse?" Award goes to Republican Senator Craig Thomas of Wyoming:

"The flag represents our right and our freedom for free speech as well as all of our other freedoms," Sen. Craig Thomas, R-Wyo., said in Senate debate Tuesday. "It should receive special protection."

Assuming my English translation of his first sentence is correct, Senator Thomas thinks the best way to show how special the right of free speech is is to ban free speech. It takes a special kind of genius to manipulate logic like this, the kind that should easily qualify you for a seat on the "special" bus. Please join me in congratulating Senator Thomas on beating out some stiff competition to win this award.

Update: Great to see that at least Mitch McConnell still has some principles. [Note: If you think I threw in this update just so the Washington Post will link to me, maybe I did, and maybe I did.]

Al-Qaeda Expresses Appreciation to NY Times (Death to America)

Al-Qaeda Expresses Appreciation to NY Times
(Death to America)

02 Jumada 'l-Akhira 1427AH - Al-Qaeda Worldwide expressed its appreciation to the New York Times for disclosing the program of the infidel Bush to track its financial transactions, AQW Executive Director Osama bin Laden announced today.

"Truly the New York Times once again has shown its solidarity with Jihad by its actions," bin Laden declared. "I am grateful to He Who Edits for the showing us of the path to avoid the watching of the infidel Bush and his pigbathing Jew Agents of the Treasury, may jackals eat of their livers and hyenas feast on their colons, Inshallah! Death to America."

The New York Times had previously worked with AQW representatives during the so-called "Cartoon Wars," when editor Bill Keller (peace be upon him) agreed not to print blasphemous drawings of the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh), but instead ran a picture of the Virgin Mary, may she orally service our Great Prophet until peace be upon him, covered in dung. Keller and the Son of the Jew Sulzberger also aided AQW's operations with their reporting on the Zionist front National Security Agency's data mining operations.

"Truly Allah in his infinite wisdom has worked a miracle through these blasphemers," said AQW Associate Executive Director Ayman Al-Zawahiri. "As a reward for this I swear before my third wife's formal burqa that I shall sharpen my blade to a fine edge so that they may suffer a quick death when I remove of their heads from their swinehugging bodies, Mashallah! Death to America."

Al-Qaeda Worldwide spokesperson Sulaiman Abu Ghaith pointed out AQW's great need for financial advice.

"The one main drawback of the Jew-hating has always been the problems with the keeping of the Book of Checks," he admitted. "But thanks to the efforts of the Might-be-a-Jew Keller and the Son of the Jew Sulzberger this problem is no more. Now are we like unto the blaspheming drinkers of the blood of pigs in the heathen Geico ads - we just saved a ton of money on our Holy War!"

"Should Allah will it, I would someday like to in person also to thank the Frank One of the House of Riches and the Dowdy One named Maureen for their hard work on our behalf. Death to America," Abu Ghaith concluded.

Founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda Worldwide has quickly become the world's leading exporter of Islamism, with Muslims from around the world participating in AQW's training seminars in Afghanistan and the Pakistan border regions. Among AQW's accomplishments under Executive Director bin Laden are the Embassy Bombing Fundraising Campaign of 1998, the Y2K USS Cole Bombing Membership Drive and the September 11 Allah4U American tour. As AQW has expanded, subsidiaries have been established in key areas across the globe, including al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), al-Qaeda in Afghanistan (AQA), al-Qaeda in Peshawar (AQP), al-Qaeda in Hollywood (AQH) and al-Qaeda in Academia (AQAc). AQW boasts an ethnically diverse membership, with all members connected by their devotion to the word of Allah, love for his Prophet (pbuh) and their understanding that to kill Americans and their allies, civilians and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able. Death to America.

-30-

Al Qaeda Press Release Archive:

Al Qaeda Celebrates US Elimination from World Cup (Death to America); AQW Council salutes 13 Democratic Senators for standing up to filthy Jews

Al Qaeda Condemns Proposed Marine Sanctuary (Death to America)

Al-Muhajer to Replace Murdered AQI Leader al-Zarqawi (Death to America)

Jon Stewart crosses the line

I'm not a Jon Stewart basher. In fact, I think he's pretty damn funny, when he's not wrapped up in smugnoxious^TM self-righteousness. (Granted, this is less often than it used to be.)

But last night Stewart and his writers decided that the infiltration and arrest of the terror suspects in Miami was nothing but a big joke, because the "group" never actually made contact with Al-Qaeda, procured any explosives, or developed actual operational plans to take down the Sears Tower. And his audience laughed along with him.

This is disgusting. The suspects never got their hands on explosives because the feds did their job. The suspects never developed operational plans to blow up the Sears Tower because the feds did their job. And the suspects never made contact with Al-Qaeda not from any lack of effort, but because they believed that they had in fact already done so. And this was due to the willingness of some unknown agent to literally risk his life pretending to be with Al-Qaeda. But hey, I'm sure Jon Stewart makes a lot more money than this guy, so he must have earned the right to mock and belittle him.

I guess next time the feds should just wait until potential terrorists become actual terrorists before doing anything. Sure, people might die, but at least there won't be anything funny about that.

If Bill Keller were NY Times editor in 1944

The following is a letter Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, has sent to readers who have written to him about The Times's publication of information about the government's plans for an invasion of Europe:

I don't always have time to answer my mail as fully as etiquette demands, but our story about the government's planned invasion of Europe has generated some questions and concerns that I take very seriously. As the editor responsible for the difficult decision to publish that story, I'd like to offer a personal response.

In the months leading up to the failed invasion at Normandy, the Times learned that American-led coaltion conducted a deception operation, code-named Operation Bodyguard. (As we have previously written, this so-called "coalition" is comprised of a mere handful of countries; hardly an effective way to conduct a war.) Operation Bodyguard was designed to persuade the democratically elected German government that areas such as the Balkans were possible invasion points. Then, in the weeks leading up to the invasion, the Roosevelt administration launched Operation Fortitude, a blatant attempt to trick the Germans into believing that the main invasion would really be coming to the Pas de Calais, as well as to lead them to expect an invasion of Norway. Using tax-payer dollars, a completely fictitious Army Group was simulated.

Some of the incoming mail quotes the angry words of conservative columnists or radio hosts who say that drawing attention to the government's war plans is unpatriotic and dangerous. (I could ask, if that's the case, why they are drawing so much attention to the story themselves by writing to me about it.) Some comes from readers who have considered the story in question and wonder whether publishing such material is wise. And some comes from readers who are grateful for the information and think it is valuable to have a public debate about the lengths to which our government has gone in combatting the supposed threat of world domination by the Nazis.

The press and the government generally start out from opposite corners in such cases. The government would like us to publish only the official line, and some of our elected leaders tend to view anything else as harmful to the national interest. Editors start from the premise that citizens can be entrusted with unpleasant and complicated news, and that the more they know the better they will be able to make their views known to their elected officials. Our default position — our job — is to publish information if we are convinced it is fair and accurate, and our biggest failures have generally been when we failed to dig deep enough or to report fully enough.

Forgive me, I know this is pretty elementary stuff — but it's the kind of elementary context that sometimes gets lost when our government claims we are in a global war.

Since December 7, 1941, our government has launched broad and secret war plans without seeking authorizing legislation and without fully briefing the Congress. Most Americans seem to support extraordinary measures in defense against this extraordinary threat, but some officials who have been involved in these programs have spoken to the Times about their discomfort over the legality of the government's actions and over the adequacy of oversight. We believe The Times and others in the press have served the public interest by accurately reporting on these programs so that the public can have an informed view of them.

Our decision to publish the story of the Administration's use of deceptive practices followed weeks of discussion between Administration officials and The Times, not only the reporters who wrote the story but senior editors, including me. We listened patiently and attentively. We discussed the matter extensively within the paper. We spoke to others — national security experts not serving in the Administration — for their counsel.

The Administration case for holding the story had two parts, roughly speaking: first that its plans were good — that they were legal, that they had been valuable in deceiving the "evil doers,' and that they would save American lives. And, second, that exposing these plans would put their usefulness at risk.

It's not our job to pass judgment on whether these plans are legal or effective, but the story cites strong arguments from proponents that this is the case. While some experts familiar with the plans have doubts about their legality, which has never been tested in the courts, and while some State Department officials worry that a temporary plan has taken on an air of permanence, we cited considerable evidence that the plans might help defeat the Nazis. A reasonable person, informed about these plans, might well decide to applaud them. That said, we hesitate to preempt the role of legislators and courts, and ultimately the electorate, which cannot consider plans if they don't know about them. And, we might add, the fact that the invasion was an abject failure lends credence to our argument that we cannot blindly trust this administration.

We weighed most heavily the Administration's concern that describing this plan would endanger it, that publication would lead the German coaltion to change tactics. But it has been widely reported — indeed, trumpeted by the War Department — that the U.S. makes every effort to deceive our supposed enemies. The Germans know this, which is why they have already been trying to figure out which of the Administrations plans were mere deceptions. A truly well-planned invasion should be able to withstand the disinfectant of exposure.

I can appreciate that other conscientious people could have gone through the process I've outlined above and come to a different conclusion. But nobody should think that we made this decision casually, with any animus toward the current Administration, or without fully weighing the issues.

Thanks for writing.

Regards,
Bill Keller

Anti-drug Bias

A tip o' the hat the Radley Balko for pointing out an excellent column in Sunday's Washington Post that shows how the death of basketball player Len Bias in 1986 directly led to Congress enacting some of the harshest and most absurd drug laws in America's history, laws that still exist today.

The column was written by Eric Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation and Julie Stewart, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. Interestingly, Balko points out that as counsel to the House Judiciary Committee from 1979 to 1989, Sterling actually helped write many of these laws, only to later become a vocal critic of them.

University of Maryland star Bias was found dead of a cocaine overdose the day after he was drafted number two overall by the Boston Celtics. According to Sterling and Stewart, Beantown congressman and Speaker of the House Tip O'Neil almost immediately demanded strong anti-drug legislation:

One result was the innocuous-sounding Narcotics Penalties and Enforcement Act, which became the first element of the enormous Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, hurried to the floor a little over two months after Bias's death. But the effect of the penalties and enforcement legislation was to put back into federal law the kind of clumsy mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses that had been done away with 16 years before. And there they remain, 20 years and several hundred thousand defendants later.
Congress wanted to send several messages by again enacting mandatory minimums: to the Justice Department to be more focused on high-level traffickers; to major traffickers that the new penalties would destroy them; to the voters that members of Congress could fight crime as vigorously as the police and prosecutors.

But as usual, Congress screwed the pooch. (Little known fact: Congress's motto is "If you thought the problem was bad, wait til you see our solution!" True story.)

Instead of targeting large-scale traffickers, it established low-level drug quantities to trigger lengthy mandatory minimum prison terms: five grams (the weight of five packets of artificial sweetener), 50 grams (the weight of a candy bar), 500 grams (the weight of two cups of sugar) or 5,000 grams (the weight of a lunchbox of cocaine). Large-scale traffickers organize shipments of drugs totaling tons -- many millions of grams -- filling tractor-trailers, airplanes and fishing boats.

On top of this, the Justice Department obviously decided that prosecuting small-time dealers is more important than going after the big-time traffickers:

The U.S. Sentencing Commission reports that only 15 percent of federal cocaine traffickers can be classified as high-level. Seventy percent are low-level. One-third of all federal cocaine cases involve an average of 52 grams, a candy bar-sized quantity of cocaine, resulting in an average sentence of almost nine years in prison without parole.

Would it be cynical to think that DOJ goes after small fries because it's an easy way to pad its statistics? Wow, you've put how many drug dealers behind bars? Ooh, let's increase your budget! Yeah, I guess that would be cynical. I can live with that.

So here we are, twenty years later, and as Sterling as Stewart note, we've seen a 527% increase in the federal prison population, from 36,000 in 1986 to over 190,000 today, more than half of whom are "drug offenders, most of whom are serving sentences created in the weeks after Len Bias died."

But at least we've won the "War on Drugs," right? Yeah.

Sadly, the nation's drug abuse situation is not much better after 20 years. Teenagers are using very dangerous drugs at twice the rate they did in the 1980s. The price of cocaine is much lower and the purity much higher, which tells us that the traffickers have become more efficient.

See, here's the thing: I'm opposed to the WoD in the first place, on moral grounds, but even if I supported it wholeheartedly, I'd like to think that I'd be smart enough to concede defeat by now. I mean, you'd think that after this many years of abject failure, even government workers would get the message. (Maybe they're too busy drinking?) Our government is in essence fighting a losing war against many of its own citizens, citizens who quite franky have the right to ingest whatever substances they want.

Sterling and Stewart end on a (very) cautiously optimistic note:

There is a trickle of hope that mandatory sentences as a legacy of Bias's death might come to an end. A handful of conservative members of the House Judiciary Committee have begun to question the wisdom of current mandatory minimum sentencing laws, and some vote against them. The first round of mandatory minimums for drug offenses, enacted in 1951, was repealed almost 20 years later, with bipartisan support. Among those who backed repeal was George H.W. Bush, then a congressman from Texas. With his son in the White House, this would be a good time for history to repeat itself, and for this sad legacy of Len Bias's death to finally end.

I'm not ~~inhaling~~ holding my breath.

Fatah Attraction

This is not good.

The Aksa Martyrs Brigades announced on Sunday that its members have succeeded in manufacturing chemical and biological weapons.
In a leaflet distributed in the Gaza Strip, the group, which belongs to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah Party, said the weapons were the result of a three-year effort.
According to the statement, the first of its kind, the group has managed to manufacture and develop at least 20 different types of biological and chemical weapons.
The group said its members would not hesitate to add the new weapons to Kassam rockets that are being fired at Israeli communities almost every day. It also threatened to use the weapons against IDF soldiers if Israel carried out its threats to invade the Gaza Strip.
"We want to tell [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert and [Defense Minister Amir] Peretz that your threats don't frighten us," the leaflet said.
"We will surprise you with our new weapons the moment the first soldier sets foot in the Gaza Strip."

Now, obviously Al-Aqsa is either telling the truth or it's bluffing. If it's telling the truth, there isn't much doubt that it would use these weapons, and that it wouldn't hesitate to use them on civilian populations. (As a general rule, it's a bad sign when a group with the word "martyrs" in its name gets a hold of biological or chemical weapons.) And I'm not sure I can even imagine what the Israeli response to this would be, although I feel pretty safe wagering that regardless of what happens, the UN, the BBC, Reuters, and most of the so-called "civilized" world will condemn the response without acknowledging the provocation.

If Al-Aqsa is bluffing, it's playing a dangerous game and its leaders should ask Saddam what happens when you lose.

(H/T: K-Lo from The Corner.)

Junior gets the rest of his name back

A quick update to my June 14 post on Dale Earnhardt, Jr. not owning the rights to his name: he does now.

Earnhardt told NASCAR.COM on Saturday that he and Dale Earnhardt, Inc. had agreed to terms Friday evening that awarded him sole ownership of the trademark rights to his lucrative name.

Junior says not to fault his stepmom, Theresa, who assumed control of the rights to his name (and to Dale Earnhardt, Inc.) after the death of Dale Earnhardt, Sr.

And you can't blame Teresa Earnhardt, Junior said, for wanting to protect her late husband's name, its worth, its legacy.
Essentially, it came down to trust. Once she trusted him enough to cherish what Dale Earnhardt means, she obliged the deal.

That's nice of Junior to say, but are we really supposed to believe that its a coincidence that just after this story got out and made Theresa look petty* she suddenly decided she "trusted" Junior enough to own his own name? Puh-lease. You got jacked, bitch. It's just that simple.

On a related note, if you put on FOX right now you'll get to watch NASCAR drivers struggling to make right turns at the road course in Sonoma.

*NASCAR fans will appreciate the sheer genius of this pun. The rest of you can just move along.

The Kos of doing business

I have absolutely no interest in the Kosfuffle currently making the rounds across the blogosphere (not to mention Newsweek and the unlinkable David Brooks in the New York Times' own Gitmo, TimesReject^TM). In fact, I can't even be bothered to provide actual links, so instead here's a link to a Technorati "Kosola" search. Knock yourselves out. (Kosola is a horrible name, by the way. Let's see if Kosfuffle catches on. I think I'm the first to use it. And probably the last.)

Of course, having no interest won't stop me from observing that the barely-concealed joy among right-wing bloggers and the MSM, and their willingness to assume guilt where none has been proven, is more than a bit unseemly and hypocritical. At least now that American Idol isn't sucking her brains out, Ann Althouse is back to making intelligent observations:

So I assume there is a conspiracy and a strategy to investigate Kos. And it's so easy to do because it can succeed even if it fails to turn anything up, because it will provoke him, and when he reacts, they'll all say he's paranoid, belligerent. Escort that man back outside the gate.

(As the Cranky Insomniac, I also love the fact that she posted this at 5:14am.)

I will say that the Kos/New Republic feud has produced some mildly enjoyable writing, and some outstanding vitriol from TNR Editor-in-Chief Marty Peretz :

Forgive me. But I never read Daily Kos until today. Well, now that I've read it, the first thought that came to me is how illiterate Kos is, just plain illiterate. There has been other not-with-a-pick-axe-but-with-a- bludgeon left-wing journalism in the English speaking world, the American PM, for example, or the British Tribune. If you look them up (they must be some place on the Web), you'll see how elegant surgical argument can be. OK, that's not what the Daily Kos is. Daily Kos is actually a rant, Kos's own rant and then his comrades.

And his rant against us, well, borders on a nut case's. When a high- minded or, rather, high-strung moralist is accused by The New York Times of journalistic hanky-panky and then by TNR of running an ideological censorship bureau, reminiscent of the old Catholic Legion of Decency, he will go off the rails. And he did. "This is what The New Republic had evolved into--just another cog of the Vast RIGHT Wing Conspiracy." An old professor of mine once warned me against writers who use capital letters for emphasis. Good advice she gave me. Capital letters suggest some imbalance in the mind of their employer. In whose interests has TNR sought "to destroy the new people-powered movement"? Kos answers his own question: "for the sake of its Lieberman-worshipping neo-con owners; that it stands with the National Review and wingnutosphere in their opposition to grassroots Democrats." Don't look at Kos's grammar. He's ranting.

GOOD STUFF, and he's NOT WRONG about the overall writing abilities of Markos and Co.

Anyway, I don't plan on writing any more about this unless someone gets fired, indicted or killed.

Washington Post Headline Raises Privacy Fears

Financial Search Raises Privacy Fears screams the Washington Post headline.

And according to the article, these fears have been raised by exactly one person: the ironically-named John D. ReVeal, "a lawyer who specializes in financial regulation at the Washington office of Powell Goldstein LLP."

Well, case closed, then.

I'm not saying other people don't have privacy questions, to use a word that actually has some degree of objectivity, but you sure couldn't tell that from Paul Blustein's piece. As for ReVeal, if that is his real name, here's his lawyerly, well-reasoned take:

["I]t's always bothered me that the public has no idea about a lot of this. People seem to care if their bank shares information with an insurance company, for commercial purposes. But they don't seem to mind if the bank shares information with a government that puts people into Guantanamo without hearings and so forth."

And of course the article concludes with another ReVeal quote:

"It's fair enough to say, we don't want to let the bad guys know that we're spying on them, and disclose every detail of how that's being done," ReVeal said. "But it's another thing to pull the wool over Americans' eyes and not disclose what end runs around the Fourth Amendment we may be doing."

Okay, look: I'm a libertarian and a privacy freak (two things I'm guessing a financial regulation lawyer ain't, by the way) but someone's going to have to explain to me how this amounts to an "end run" around the Fourth Amendment:

"As a general matter, [SWIFT's database] does not contain the type of information on ordinary transactions that would be made by individuals in the United States, such as deposits, withdrawals, checks, electronic bill payments and the like," said Stuart Levey, undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence.
Furthermore, the officials said, ever since the program was established, the government has taken elaborate precautions to ensure that SWIFT's data are not used for any purpose other than catching and disrupting terrorists. Investigators must provide evidence showing grounds for suspicion that the person whose transactions they are examining is involved in terrorism-related activities. SWIFT auditors may object if they view the search as unwarranted. The program even has its own outside auditors, from Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., who periodically review the searches to ensure that they are justified under the guidelines, according to Levey.
"We are not permitted to browse through this data, nor can we search it for any non-terrorism investigation," Levey said, adding that in one case a couple of years ago, an analyst was found to be conducting an improper search. "In my view, that shows that the audit process is working," he said, adding that "the person who conducted that search is no longer allowed to work on" the program.

See, all this information is in the article, but Blustein and/or his editors chose to end the piece with a quote about pulling the wool over Americans' eyes and making end runs around the Fourth Amendment. So what impression do you think most people will come away with: that this program might actually be helpful in tracking terrorists while minimizing any potential privacy violations to US citizens, or that once again the Bush administration is circumventing the Constitution and not being honest with the American people?

This is pseudo-objective journalism of the lowest kind, because it pretends to a fairness and balance it doesn't possess, and it's emblematic of how little respect our self-appointed and self-important guardians of the truth have for us. But then, those who view themselves as elites rarely do have any respect for those they consider below them.

A Relaxing Weekend

I find that often the best way to relax is to rectally administrate some vicodin using the cold water extraction process. I'll usually start with six extra-strenth pills, which usually leaves me with a about 40mg of pure hydrocodone in a glass of cold water. Sometimes I use a beaker and pretend I'm the Bizarro Mr. Wizard. This makes me smile. I'll then use an eyedropper or some such thing to anally inject the solution. An enema is better, but I find that they're never around when you need them, like last night at 3am.

You should feel the effects within 20 minutes. Radiohead's Kid A and Amnesiac are perfect for this experience, as is the music of Sigur Ros. I would caution the kids at home against listening to any Iron Maiden while experiencing the pleasure of rectally-induced hydrocodone. Even the early, pre-Bruce Dickinson stuff. Also stay away from Pantera.

Just make sure you know what you're doing before you give yourself an enema. It is possible to injure yourself if you do it wrong, believe you me! And let me tell you, constantly having to make up stories to tell the ER people sucks. My advice is to think of your rectum as Carnegie Hall and practice, practice, practice!

(Note to self: remember to ask publisher about getting this one syndicated. Maybe Commentary or Tikkun?)

Nothing to see here

On or about December 16, 2005, "Narseal Batiste" told the "al Qaeda representative" during a meeting that he was organizing a a mission to build an "Islamic army" in order to wage jihad.

On or about February 19, 2006, during the meeting, "Narseal Batiste" told the "al Qaeda representative" that he wanted to attend al Qaeda training, along with five of his soldiers, during the second weekend of April, and further detailed his mission to wage a "full ground war" against the United States in order to "kill all the devils we can," in a mission that would "be just as good or greater than 9/11," beginning with the destruction of the Sears Tower.

On or about March 10, 2006, during the meeting, "Narseal Batiste" swore an oath of loyalty to al Qaeda...

On or about March 16, 2006, during this meeting, PATRICK ABRAHAM, STANLEY PHANOR, NAUDIMAR HERRERA, BURSON AUGUSTIN, LYGLENSON LEMORIN, and ROTHSCHILD AUGUSTINE each swore an oath of loyalty to al Qaeda.

-From the indictment against the seven men charged with planning terrorist attacks on US soil.

I'll bet we still hear over the next couple days how this has nothing to do with Islam. Any takers?

Here's something from a Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR) press release:

CAIR National Board Chairman Parvez Ahmed said: "The American Muslim community is extremely concerned about these disturbing reports. We stand with local and national law enforcement authorities in seeking to keep our nation safe and secure."

Ahmed added that CAIR is urging police departments nationwide to step up patrols near mosques and other Islamic Institutions to help prevent any possible backlash resulting from these arrests.

Well, I'll agree that police departments need to step up patrols near mosques, but not quite for the same reason that CAIR puts forth. If you listen to CAIR and see how the media downplays any Muslim connection any time there's an arrest or a plot is uncovered, you'd think Americans were just champing at the bit to kick the nearest Muslim's ass. But have we seen a huge backlash in America against random Muslims? Uh, we have not, not even right after 9/11. You know why? Because by and large the American people are smart enough to know that the vast majority of American Muslims aren't terrorists and don't hate America.

Someday the MSM will figure out that the American people aren't as stupid or bigoted as they think we are. (I know, I know: I'm a dreamer.)

This just in: Right before I was about to post this I wanted to see if any news came out of CAIR's 12:00 press conference. Lo and behold, K-Lo at The Corner reports that at the presser, a CAIR official

instructed the media to "stop calling these individuals Muslims."

Damn, I'm good. But my question is, why should the media stop? Are they not Muslims? Or is it that once again we're all supposed to pretend that their Muslim ideology had nuthin' to do with nuthin'?

Al Qaeda Celebrates US Elimination from World Cup (Death to America)

Al Qaeda Celebrates
US Elimination from World Cup
(Death to America);
AQW Council salutes 13 Democratic Senators
for standing up to filthy Jews

26 Jumada 'l-Ula 1427AH - Al Qaeda Worldwide announced its support for the Republic of Ghana after the Ghanaian national soccer team defeated the American team 2-1, AQW Executive Director Osama bin Laden announced today. The win by the brave Ghanaian team eliminated the cowardly infidels from the World Cup.

"Today is truly a Day of Days," bin Laden declared. "The scorn of Allah and the Wrath of Ghana have been heaped upon the blaspheming piglovers as they are forced to cut and run from the Tournament of the Cup of the World, much as they will soon flee like the sons of a burqaless woman from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, Mishallah! Death to America."

The failure of the United States to advance to the next round of the World Cup is seen by many in Al Qaeda and the Democratic party as a setback for President George W. Bush and a repudiation of his deceitful and illegal policies.

"On this glorious day Al Qaeda indeed salutes the proud warriors of Ghana," confirmed AQW Associate Executive Director Ayman Al-Zawahiri. "In the name of the Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him), the filthy Jews have learned today that their swine-eating patron does not have the stomach for extended confrontations of any sort, Murtha be praised.

"Even as their women shamelessly flaunt their toned, supple, well-moisturized bare skin, and hairless faces with thick, pouty lips and the noses of straightness, even as their girls go the wild and lay down with other wildings of girls, so shall our purity of essence lead us to victory in the eyes of Allah, blessed be his name," Zawahiri continued, adding, "Death to America."

In other AQ news, the Al Qaeda Executive Council and AQW subsidiary Al Qaeda in Iraq expressed their appreciation to those Democratic Senators who earlier today courageously stood up to the Jewo-conservatives and voted to set a timetable for defeat in Iraq.

"Al Qaeda in Iraq joins the Executive Council in thanking Senators Kerry, Kennedy, Feingold, Boxer, Leahy, Menendez, Durbin, Lautenberg, Harkin, Inouye, Wyden and Jeffords for their hard work and efforts on our behalf," said recently appointed AQI leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri. "On a personal note, allow me to say that for blaspheming tools of the money-worshipping Jews, their guidance has been invaluable and I look forward to working with them in the future as I continue to grow into my new position, Inshallah! Except for Senator Boxer, who truly is the whore of whores. Death to America."

Founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda Worldwide has quickly become the world's leading exporter of Islamism, with Muslims from around the world participating in AQW's training seminars in Afghanistan and the Pakistan border regions. Among AQW's accomplishments under Executive Director bin Laden are the Embassy Bombing Fundraising Campaign of 1998, the Y2K USS Cole Bombing Membership Drive and the September 11 Allah4U American tour. As AQW has expanded, subsidiaries have been established in key areas across the globe, including Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), Al Qaeda in Afghanistan (AQA), Al Qaeda in Peshawar (AQP), Al Qaeda in Hollywood (AQH) and Al Qaeda in Academia (AQAc). AQW boasts an ethnically diverse membership, with all members connected by their devotion to the word of Allah, love for his Prophet (pbuh) and their understanding that to kill Americans and their allies, civilians and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able. Death to America.

-30-

Al Qaeda Press Release Archive:

Al-Muhajer to Replace Murdered AQI Leader al-Zarqawi (Death to America)

Al Qaeda Condemns Proposed Marine Sanctuary (Death to America)

US team suffers fatal attack of Ghanarea

The World Cup ended earlier today. Can we please go back to our soccer-free lives now?

As always, God makes some good points.

PS - While we're talking sports, I totally have a non-sexual man crush on Mets third baseman David Wright. After hitting two two-run homers today, he's batting .338, with 17 HR and 60 RBI. In the month of June he's batting .378, with 9 HR and 25 RBI. Ridiculous, especially considering he's only 24 and in just his second full year in the Majors.

Top 10 Ways To Tell If It's The Right Time To Go On At Length About Your Faith

Inspired by a true story!
As promised in my previous post!

The Cranky Insomniac presents:

The Top 10 Ways To Tell If It's The Right Time
To Go On At Length About Your Faith

10. Your audience is seated in pews.
9. You're surrounded by beards.
8. Tom Cruise and John Travolta are in the audience, but Steven Spielberg is not.
7. It's Friday and everyone else in the McDonald's is eating a Filet-o-Fish, too.
6. The people around you are all wearing the same headgear, but you're not at a sporting event.
5. You've just seen what is easily among the most violent and difficult-to-watch films ever made, yet you and the people around you feel oddly comforted.
4. You live in Texas.
3. You're eating in a Chinese restaurant on Christmas Eve. (A little inside?)
2. When you look around you see a lot of people on their knees, and you're pretty sure you didn't sign up for orgy class.
1. The cries of "Death to America" are overwhelming yet strangely arousing!

Valedictory is mine!

In my post about Brittany McComb, the Foothill High valedictorian whose microphone was shut off by school administrators because she was about to talk about how God was the biggest part of her life, I wrote that the school shouldn't have cut off her mic, but that the extent to which she wanted to talk about her faith was inappropriate for a commencement address. I said:

Look, this ain't proselytizing, but it's obnoxious. It's obnoxious to the many people who don't share McComb's beliefs, and honestly it should be obnoxious to those who do believe as she does, because it's the wrong place and the wrong time to be talking about such a personal issue.

McComb was speaking to her fellow students, their families and their friends, all of whom have their own personal views on religion and their own relationship, or lack thereof, with God, and I'm sure the last thing many of them wanted to hear was an extended soliloquy on how Christ died to save their souls. This is no different from someone giving a high school commencement address and talking about her belief that the war in Iraq is illegal, or Bush = Hitler, or John Murtha is a coward, etc. Yes, it's all protected speech (as McComb's should be), but it doesn't belong in a commencement address.

Apparently a lot of people disagree with that last assertion. (Though oddly, I'm guessing most of those people would be highly upset if McComb had wanted to use her platform to rail against President Bush.)

While ordinarily I might say that my own personal religious beliefs are nobody's business, in this case I feel as though I should lay them out so readers can factor them in, particularly if they find my lack of faith disturbing. Basically, I'm cheerfully agnostic, but unlike many "unbelievers," I have a deep and abiding respect for strong religious beliefs - it just happens that I was born without the faith gene. I can tell you that because I find religion such an interesting subject, I know more about it than most laypeople (including religious ones), but I'm well aware that this is wholly (holy?) different than believing it. I will never understand people who think the Bible is the literal word of God, but that's okay: they don't need me to understand them, and I'm fine with them not understanding me. The only time I have a problem with religiosity is when people want to use their faith-based beliefs to push for public policy, e.g., the idiocy of a constitutional amendment forbidding gay marriage. (I'm not saying that all people opposed to gay marriage fall in this camp, I'm just talking about the ones who do. And feel free to substitute another issue if you'd like: I'm not wedded* to this one.)

Don't get me wrong: If you want to say that something is immoral because God (or Jesus, or Allah, or Yahweh, or Odin) says so, I completely respect that, even if I'm not with you. Likewise, if you want to argue that the State has a vested social interest in keeping marriage between men and women, I may disagree with you, but we can have a rational discussion about it. But if you want to proclaim that something must be illegal simply because in your opinion God says it's wrong, you should tell me that up front so I know I don't have to pay attention to the rest of what comes out of your mouth. Also I would prefer you find another country in which to force your beliefs down other people's throats, but that's just me.

But back to young Brittany.

I have nothing but respect for the fact that God is the biggest part of her life, and for her wanting to thank her Lord and Savior at her commencement. To paraphrase what I said in my original post, if you want to give a shout out to God, or Jesus, etc., nobody should stop you.

But that's not what Brittany wanted to do, at least not originally. The speech she turned into school officials for approval contained two Lords, nine Gods and one Christ. (Not in the polytheistic sense.) Echoing the trailer for the new version of Superman (or do I have that backwards?), it also referenced God giving his only son "to suffer an excruciated death in order to cover everyone's shortcomings and forge a path to heaven."

Now, I'm sorry, but given the setting, that is completely and utterly inappropriate, and Ms. McComb should not be lauded for wanting to include any of it. Know your audience: people who come to a non-sectarian high school commencement aren't there to hear the Sermon on the Mount, whatever their personal beliefs might be. Injecting your religion at length or in great detail at a secular function is, quite frankly, tasteless and rude, regardless of what those beliefs are. (It would be equally tasteless and rude to ruminate about your disbelief in God in such a setting.) It's the wrong topic at the wrong place at the wrong time.

And here's another thing: Is it just me, or does anyone else get the sense that people who constantly feel the need to talk about how great their faith is often are engaging in unseemly self-congratulation rather than humble devotion? To me, this is the equivalent of the guy who's always talking about how much chicks dig him to cover for the fact that he's got a small pe list of girls he's actually gone out with. If your faith is that strong, you shouldn't have to go around telling everybody about it: it's probably obvious from the way you lead your life. Remember, there's a fine line between singing God's praises and singing your own praises for singing God's praises so loudly.

As an added bonus, my next post will be the Cranky Insomniac's top ten ways to tell if it's the right time to go on at length about your faith. Some will apply to all faiths, others will be more faith-specific. Stay tuned.

*Unless otherwise stated, all puns are intended, and will not be apologized for.

Milk was a bad choice

I hate humidity. I love Jill Wagner, the girl from the Mercury commercials. I wonder if Jill Wagner hates humidity. I hope so. Otherwise there could be problems later on. No mention of humidity one way or the other at her Myspace page, so maybe she doesn't have strong feelings either way about it. That would be odd, though, not to feel strongly about humidity. If you have any info at all regarding Jill Wagner and humidity, please let me know. I'll be inside if you need me. ~~As the priest said to the altar boy.~~

Spread a little sunlight on the dark hole of Congress

If you've got some free time, why not help the Sunlight Foundation investigate Congress?

Last week at Sunlight, we exposed House Speaker Dennis Hastert's use of a secret, undisclosed trust to make a $2 million profit selling land located near the proposed route of the Prairie Parkway, a project Hastert has backed with $207 million in earmarks.
There are still 539 congress members and delegates whose disclosure forms haven't been scrutinized.
[snip]
The House Ethics Manual states, "The objectives of financial disclosure are to inform the public about the financial interests of government officials in order to increase public confidence in the integrity of government and to deter potential conflicts of interest." (The Senate Ethics Manual is similar). On June 14, members of Congerss made public those disclosures. As a public service, the Web site PoliticalMoneyLine.com has put them online. The House disclosure forms start here -- and the Senate (all on one page) is here. Go to the site, find your member, download the form, and spend a little time learning about your member's financial interests.

Are there entries you don't understand? Are there private companies, partnerships, or trusts for which no public information is available? Are investments in land identified in ways that you can find them on a map?

Inform yourself, and let me know what you find, either by email or by posting information online on your site (and sending us a link) or on ours.

Let's make sure that we deter potential conflicts of interest by reading their disclosure forms, and making sure they know we're watching.

Check out the Sunlight Foundation's site (linked to above) for more info. Be a patriot: help scare the crap out of your dishonest, pork-loving, bribe- and/or unethical favor-taking Senators and Representatives.

Remember, sunlight kills soulless bloodsucking creatures of the night, so there's no reason it shouldn't work on members of Congress.

(Via Instapundit.)

Truthout is out there

Yes, it does appear that Truthout was used, but not lied to or misled. The facts appear to have been accurate.

- Truthout.org writer Marc Ash defending the organization for erroneously reporting that Karl Rove was going to be indicted by Special Prosecutor Larry Fitzgerald.

So let me get this straight: Truthout got intelligence that it thought was unimpeachable - a "slam dunk," if you will - then used that intelligence to make claims that later turned out to be false, continues to say that its claims may yet turn out to be true - has trouble thinking of any mistakes it might have made, if you will - and insists that there was no lying involved.

I know this sounds like something else, but I can't quite put my finger on it...don't worry, it'll come to me...wait...wait...I've got it...nope, I lost it. Damn.

Y'know, if I were the type of person who thought that a saying was true just because it rhymed I bet I could come up with a good one here. Luckily I grew out of that stage when I was nine.

(H/T: Hot Air)

High School to Valedictorian: Faith No More

Jay at Stop the ACLU points us to the story of Brittany McComb, valedictorian of Foothill High School in Clark County, Nevada, whose commencement address was cut off by school administrators because she was about to talk about her faith in Christ.

The decision to cut short McComb’s commencement speech Thursday at The Orleans drew jeers from the nearly 400 graduates and their families that went on for several minutes.

However, Clark County School District officials and an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union said Friday that cutting McComb’s mic was the right call. Graduation ceremonies are school-sponsored events, a stance supported by federal court rulings, and as such may include religious references but not proselytizing, they said.

They said McComb’s speech amounted to proselytizing and that her commentary could have been perceived as school-sponsored.

Before she delivered her commencement speech, McComb met with Foothill administrators, who edited her remarks. It’s standard district practice to have graduation speeches vetted before they are read publicly.

School officials removed from McComb’s speech some biblical references and the only reference to Christ.

Here's my take: The school shouldn't have cut off McComb's mic and the ACLU should know better. McComb is not a school official, and the Constitution wasn't set up to prevent some idiot from having the wrong perception. (And someone should tell Allen Lichtenstein, general counsel for the ACLU of Nevada, that saying your position is backed up by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is usually the equivalent of saying your position is unconstitutional.)

However, what bothers me every time I read a story like this is the lack of understanding of how talking about one's personal faith is completely inappropriate in a commencement address, unless it's just a quick shout out to the Lord. And this was not what McComb had in mind:

"I went through four years of school at Foothill and they taught me logic and they taught me freedom of speech," McComb said. "God's the biggest part of my life. Just like other valedictorians thank their parents, I wanted to thank my lord and savior."

In the 750-word unedited version of McComb's speech, she made two references to the lord, nine mentions of God and one mention of Christ.

In the version approved by school officials, six of those words were omitted along with two biblical references. Also deleted from her speech was a reference to God's love being so great that he gave his only son to suffer an excruciated death in order to cover everyone's shortcomings and forge a path to heaven.

Look, this ain't proselytizing, but it's obnoxious. It's obnoxious to the many people who don't share McComb's beliefs, and honestly it should be obnoxious to those who do believe as she does, because it's the wrong place and the wrong time to be talking about such a personal issue.

McComb was speaking to her fellow students, their families and their friends, all of whom have their own personal views on religion and their own relationship, or lack thereof, with God, and I'm sure the last thing many of them wanted to hear was an extended soliloquy on how Christ died to save their souls. This is no different from someone giving a high school commencement address and talking about her belief that the war in Iraq is illegal, or Bush = Hitler, or John Murtha is a coward, etc. Yes, it's all protected speech (as McComb's should be), but it doesn't belong in a commencement address. To quote the Reverend Jesse Jackson in an old Saturday Night Live episode, "I cannot emphasize this point enough."

If God and/or Jesus is "the biggest part" your life, please, by all means, throw in a sentence thanking Him/Them, tell us how you couldn't have done it without Him/Them, and then move on. Show some respect for your audience and recognize that not everybody shares your beliefs and that they're quite frankly not all that interesting anyway.

Besides, by flapping your gums you're making the after-commencement parties start later.

Update: More thoughts here. Vaguely tasteless humor here.

Fathers Day

Apologies to those of you looking for new posts this past weekend.

I always spend Fathers Day in a complete and utter state of fear. Every time the phone rings I start sweating uncontrollably at the thought that there will be a little voice on the other end saying, "Happy Fathers Day, Daddy." And I'll realize that no matter how many times I move, or change my name, or bribe a judge, I'll never truly be free.

So you understand why I had to lay low over the weekend.

Also I went to a barbeque.

Al Qaeda responds to Bush's marine sanctuary plan

Al Qaeda Condemns
Proposed Marine Sanctuary
(Death to America)

20 Jumada 'l-Ula 1427AH - Al Qaeda Worldwide condemned the plan of the infidel Bush to create a haven in Hawaii for murdering US Marines, AQW Executive Director Osama bin Laden announced today.

"There shall be no sanctuary from the will of Allah for the pig-farming Marines," bin Laden declared. "In the name of the Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) they shall be consumed in a sea of holy fire and their women shall be made to wear the burqa, Inshallah! Death to America."

The infidel Bush plans to create the world's largest Marine refuge in order to prevent justice from being delivered upon those who have carried out his illegal war on the people of Iraq. The Haditha massacre is the latest example of child killing performed by the Marines, according to AQW Associate Executive Director Ayman Al-Zawahiri and many Huffington Post bloggers.

"The filthy blaspheming Marines and their lower-than-swine Jew officers shall not escape the vengeance they have brought upon themselves by their offenses against Allah," Zawahiri said. "Truly it shall be a glorious day when the righteous and faithful slaughter them and scatter pieces of their flesh among the pigs from which they were birthed, Mashallah! Death to America."

Founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda Worldwide has quickly become the world's leading exporter of Islamism, with Muslims from around the world participating in AQW's training seminars in Afghanistan and the Pakistan border regions. Among AQW's accomplishments under Executive Director bin Laden are the Embassy Bombing Fundraising Campaign of 1998, the Y2K USS Cole Bombing Membership Drive and the September 11 Allah4U American tour. As AQW has expanded, subsidiaries have been established in key areas across the globe, including Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), Al Qaeda in Afghanistan (AQA), Al Qaeda in Peshawar (AQP), Al Qaeda in Hollywood (AQH) and Al Qaeda in Academia (AQAc). AQW boasts an ethnically diverse membership, with all members connected by their devotion to the word of Allah, love for his Prophet (pbuh) and their understanding that to kill Americans and their allies, civilians, and military is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able. Death to America.

-30-

Al Qaeda Press Release Archive:

Al Qaeda Condemns Proposed Marine Sanctuary (Death to America)

Al-Muhajer to Replace Murdered AQI Leader al-Zarqawi (Death to America)

Gitmo from your PR

Dean Esmay has an interesting post up regarding the doings at Guantanamo Bay. Key grafs:

This being an odd kind of war, the question has always been open--in this free, liberal, tolerant democratic society of ours--as to what we should do about captured enemies. Histrionics aside, the truth is that we are talking about approximately 500 people rounded up instead of simply killed. Since we know with reasonable certainty that some of them are terrorists who will attempt to kill others if they are released, while others may be harmless, it's always been hard to know what exactly to do about them.

I'm comfortable that, after going back and forth with legal wranglings for a few years, the administration has seen fit to (A) ask the Supreme Court what the most appropriate final disposition of these prisoners should be, and (B) they will close the prison probably within the next year or two. That's a thousand times better than the treatment of prisoners in the Taliban's Afghanistan or Saddam's Iraq. It's a million times better than anyone captured by Al Qaeda.

There are those who behave as if those at Guantanamo Bay were a bunch of innocents rounded up merely so sadistic members of the U.S. military could torture them. But to believe that requires not only a profound lack of respect for the United States and its military, but for America in general. It's also more than a little naive: do you think that if our military were so evil, they would even have bothered to put them in a special prison in Cuba? Why? Whatever for? Why not capture them, torture them manically, keep them totally hidden until they were no longer useful, then shoot them in the head and dump them in a mass grave?

Honestly, if that's how you think the American military works, why would we even be having this discussion? These people would be dead, and you'd never know they existed at all. They'd meet the fate of a Christian in the Taliban's Afghanistan: simply liquidated with no one in the outside world ever noticing or caring.

I mostly agree.

However, in my mind it's not so much the actual goings on at Gitmo that are the problem, it's the bad PR the US is getting.

Obviously some of this is due to the reflexive anti-Americanism of many Europeans, Middle Easterners and leftists in general, but that said, the Bush administration has done an absolutely horrible job communicating the necessary involvement of certain strategies and tactics in a global war on terror. I'm not saying the Bushies haven't tried, just that they've done a really bad job of it.

For instance, who, exactly are the people being held at Gitmo? Maybe a list was released at some point, but if so, I don't remember. And that's my point: If I were running the PR for the GWOT, I would counter every absurd Amnesty International "gulag" statement, every handwringing op-ed, with a list of exactly where these guys were found and what they were doing when they were captured. There's no getting around the fact that it's anathema to many people, myself included, that the US government is holding people prisoner for an extremely long time period without formally charging them. Constantly explaining who and what these people are would go a long way towards reducing the unease shared by a lot of folks who aren't reflexively anti-American or anti-Bush. And quite frankly, if this entails revealing some details the administration would rather not be made public, too bad. In my mind, this is more important.

Because in this day and age we shouldn't downplay PR as a necessary component of warfare. If it weren't important, the Army wouldn't have a battalion devoted to psychological operations. The fact is that it's perhaps more important in this war, an assymetrical war that has no clearcut end, than in any other war this country has ever fought.

In what is at its essence a war of ideologies, we can't underestimate the necessity of winning hearts and minds.

Today's obligatory Gutfeld post

Continuing my almost non-stop pimping for Greg Gutfeld, there's a good interview with him over at Human Events Online.

"The Cool Conservative" is a bad title, though. Makes it sound like liberals are the default cool ones when everyone knows it's libertarians who are the soul of coolness.

I'm just spitballing here, but a better title might have been something like "Greg Gutfeld: Right-wing Provocateur."

Good-bye and good riddance

Jay at Stop the ACLU has a good take on the Dems stripping video star William Jefferson of his committee assignment. (Sidenote: am I the only one who has to keep stopping himself from typing "Clinton" after "William Jefferson"?)

Money graf:

Jefferson was caught red handed on video in very embarrassing predicaments. The Democrats have been drooling at the chance to exploit Republicans in what they have dubbed the “culture of corruption.” Unfortunately for them, this culture is hard to hold as a mantra when its tentacles extend deep into their own political party. This play by Pelosi is an effort to gain the upper hand in a political play. Regardless of whether there were double standards here, I don’t buy into the argument that they were racially motivated. It should be obvious that they were politically motivated. At the end of the day does it really matter why? We have one less shady character in a position where trust is very questionable.

Yep. That's one down.

Cameron Diaz is no Cameron Diaz

The New York Post's Page Six reports that:

CAMERON Diaz has had some work done. She was so impressed with the changes to Ashlee Simpson's nose, Diaz decided to trust Simpson's doctor with her own schnozz. Diaz has had a slight bump on her nose since a surfing accident last year and wanted to correct it - and sources say she recently did just that.

I've found that the best way to simulate the experience of seeing Cameron Diaz without makeup is to watch cartoons until somebody gets hit in the face with a frying pan.

And now I want veal cutlets.

Fun Fact!

Fun Fact #58: If you do an MSN search for fat gay, this blog is the second hit. Also, MSN politely asks, "Were you looking for fat guy?"

I was not, but thanks for asking.

No Knock, No Problem

Updated at 0400.

As you might expect, Radley Balko (multiple posts at link) is all over today's grotesque Supreme Court decision in Hudson v. Michigan.

SCOTUSblog reports:

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled on Thursday that a violation by the police of the "knock-and-announce" rule when they enter a home with a warrant does not bar the use of evidence gathered in the search. "What the knock-and-announce rule has never protected...is one's interest in preventing the government from seeing or taking evidence described in a warrant. Since the interests that were violated in this case have nothing to do with the seizure of the evidence, the exclusionary rule is inapplicable," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion in Hudson v. Michigan (04-1360).

Here's Balko in a Cato Institute press release:

"The rise of paramilitary-type police units conducting 'no-knock' raids on American citizens is a disturbing trend in domestic law enforcement. Police excess, procedural errors, and reliance on 'confidential informants' of dubious character have caused hundreds of violent raids to be waged on completely innocent civilians. Dozens of nonviolent offenders, bystanders, and innocents have been killed or injured as a result. Because the courts have set the bar extremely high in allowing victims of botched raids to sue police officers and their superiors, the only real defense left against wholesale disregard for the rule requiring police to 'knock and announce' before entering private residences was to exclude evidence seized in illegal raids. Today, the Supreme Court removed that defense.

Apparently the majority of the Court believes that civil remedies (i.e., the possibility of lawsuits) are enough to keep the police on the straight and narrow. But as Balko says:

Bullshit, of course. The only time a suspect wins a civil liability case when police violate the knock-and-announce rule is when they have very clearly screwed up, i.e. gotten the wrong address, or killed someone. And even then, it's rare.

Not surprisingly, the five Justices in the majority were Chief Justice Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Kennedy and Scalia, who wrote the opinion. Kennedy filed a concurring opinion.

Head over to The Agitator (Balko's blog) for much more on the continuation of the sometimes slow - but always sure - increase in the power of the State over its citizens. Legal types should check out Orin Kerr's many postings on Hudson.

Update: I just read part of Scalia's "reasoning" as cited in the Washington Post and it is beyond scary:

Scalia's opinion focused on the guilty defendants who go free when otherwise valid evidence is thrown out of court. He concluded that that "social cost" is too high in relation to whatever additional privacy protection residents get from the "knock and announce" rule.

Scalia's a staunch "original intent" strict constructionist, so I'm sure I've overlooked the clause in the Constitution that says that "social costs" should override constitutional protections and that it's permissible to screw the innocent in order to punish the guilty.

Scalia argued that the law enforcement landscape has changed dramatically since 1961, when the Supreme Court first imposed an exclusionary rule on the states to protect against warrantless searches. Today's police are more professional than those of 45 years ago, he observed, and there is "increasing evidence that police forces across the United States take the constitutional rights of citizens seriously."

If this is true, then why did Scalia need to give police a greater ability to disregard those rights? In fact, why did SCOTUS even need to hear this case? The fact is, it doesn't matter if 10%, or 50%, or 99% of police forces take the constitutional rights of citizens seriously: the exclusionary rule was established to protect the citizenry whenever they don't, regardless of how often that is. Following Scalia's "logic," if you believe that the government's gotten better about "allowing" its citizens to have freedom of speech, you could argue that we no longer need the First Amendment.

As a citizen there's really nothing you want more in your last line of defense than someone who sides with the government almost as a matter of reflex. Can somebody check the statue of justice? I think someone stole her blindfold and put it on Scalia.

Mirror, mirror...

Ann Althouse on American Idol's Taylor Hicks being named "Hottest Bachelor" by People magazine:

The man continues to confuse America. First, with the help of a TV show, we came to understand him as a pop idol. Now, with the help of a magazine, we've [sic] supposed to see the pudgy grayhair as a sex object.

Is something very, very wrong with us?

This from the woman who live blogged every episode of that asinine show?

(By the way, Professor, the answer to your question is "Yes." And you're not part of the solution for this one.)

I had to take a quiz

Finally an internet quiz that actually tells you something useful about yourself.

52 Wife Pick-up

Some of you may be following the story of Jeffrey Nielsen, adjunct professor of philosophy at Brigham Young University, who was informed by BYU officials this week that he would not be asked back next year because of a June 4 "anti-antigay marriage" op-ed he wrote for the Salt Lake Tribune.

In his column, Nielsen took issue with a statement from Church of Latter-day Saints leaders telling Mormons to support the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages and urging them to let their Senators know how they felt.

Nielsen wrote:

As a member [of the Mormon church], I sustain the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as LDS general authorities; however, I reject the premise that they are thereby immune from thoughtful questioning or benevolent criticism. A perfect God does not require blind obedience, nor does He need unthinking loyalty. Freedom of conscience is a divine blessing, and our privilege to express it is a moral imperative.

When the church hierarchy speaks on a public issue and requests that members follow, it is difficult indeed if an individual feels the content of their message would make bad law and is unethical as well. I believe opposing gay marriage and seeking a constitutional amendment against it is immoral.

Nielsen points out the wealth of scientific research pointing towards the fact that sexual orientation is "biologically based," and says that in his opinion a just God would not create the reality of same-sex attraction only to condemn those who are wired that way to a life of guilt and second-class citizenship. He also takes issue with what he calls an "appeal to religious authority to create law":

Our Founding Fathers were inspired by theirstudy of history to separate constitutional authority from religious belief, recognizing as they did the potential for tyranny in unchecked religious influence. In our pluralistic democracy, attempting to restrict an individual's rights and privileges based upon a religious claim is a dangerous rejection of our Founding Fathers' wise insight, and it should be unacceptable to all Americans.

Finally, Nielsen cautioned the LDS church regarding being actively involved with this issue:

As for the statement by church leaders that God has ordained marriage to be a union between a man and a woman, I find it quite troubling. It sidesteps the role of polygamy in past and future church teachings. It seems to me that if church leaders at one point in time, not very long ago, told members that the union of one man with several women was important for eternal salvation, but now leads them to believe that God only recognizes the union of one man to one woman, then some explanation is required. (I am not endorsing polygamy.)

God is not the author of incoherence or injustice, but we humans often are. We in the LDS Church must be more honest about our history, including the past and future practice of polygamy in our official doctrine. This will be difficult, for it will reveal that we have been less than truthful in our public relations, and it will show our inconsistency with current statements opposing gay marriage.

Needless to say, none of this made church leaders very happy, and since BYU is an LDS-operated institution, Nielsen was told that his services would no longer be required. The Tribune reported Tuesday that in a letter dated June 8, BYU Philosophy Department Chair Daniel Graham told Nielsen:

"In accordance with the order of the church, we do not consider it our responsibility to correct, contradict or dismiss official pronouncements of the church. Since you have chosen to contradict and oppose the church in an area of great concern to church leaders, and to do so in a public forum, we will not rehire you after the current term is over."

So who's right and who's wrong?

Andrew Sullivan waxes sarcastic:

Once you let philosophers think and speak freely, who knows where it will lead? A university cannot have that kind of thing going on, can it?

I agree with Sullivan, with one very big caveat: BYU is not an ordinary university. It is "founded, supported, and guided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," and as such has every right to let go an untenured professor who directly challenges the leadership of that church.

BYU's mission statement says in part that the university "must provide an environment enlightened by living prophets and sustained by those moral virtues which characterize the life and teachings of the Son of God." To that end:

All students at BYU should be taught the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Any education is inadequate which does not emphasize that His is the only name given under heaven whereby mankind can be saved. Certainly all relationships within the BYU community should reflect devout love of God and a loving, genuine concern for the welfare of our neighbor.

Because the gospel encourages the pursuit of all truth, students at BYU should receive a broad university education. The arts, letters, and sciences provide the core of such an education, which will help students think clearly, communicate effectively, understand important ideas in their own cultural tradition as well as that of others, and establish clear standards of intellectual integrity.

Now, to me, letting go a philosophy professor for publicly disagreeing with church leaders is the spiritual antithesis of providing students with a "broad university education" and doesn't do much for establishing a clear standard of "intellectual integrity." But if your church teaching is that homosexuality and/or gay marriage is immoral, is a sin, is an evil right up there with putting Jews in ovens or dragging Africans to your continent for slave labor, then I suppose you'd feel otherwise. After all, would anyone be upset if BYU fired a professor for publicly expressing the belief that the slave trade was moral?

There are two issues here: first, does BYU have the right to deny employment to someone because his beliefs run counter to current LDS teachings? Here the answer clearly is "Of course."

The second issue is murkier: Should BYU deny employment to someone because his beliefs run counter to current LDS teachings? I would argue that the answer here is a qualified "Maybe." (I'm nothing if not bold.) In Nielsen's particular case, it seems counterintuitive to let go a philosophy professor for disagreeing with religious doctrine if you're truly seeking to provide your students with a broad education and teach them the meaning of intellectual integrity. Nielsen considers himself a committed member of the LDS church, so it's not as though he's trying to bring down the Mormon church, in which case it would be understandable for BYU to not keep him on its payroll. And for him to pretend to go along with a teaching he obviously finds abhorrent wouldn't exactly meet industry standards for intellectual integrity. (Not to mention, how do you hire someone who wrote a book entitled "The Myth of Leadership: Creating Leaderless Organizations," and not expect him to take on established authority? Just askin'....)

It seems to me that ultimately BYU's administration and LDS church leaders had to make a decision as to what was more important to them: LDS policy on homosexuality and gay marriage, or the freedom of BYU professors to publicly take positions against the church. They made the choice to shelter students from opinions that run counter to church teachings, perhaps overlooking the idea that hearing dissenting views and learning how to respond to them is often the best way to learn how to defend your own beliefs.

But the bottom line is that it was Brigham and Miriam, Mary Ann, Lucy, Harriet, Lucy Augusta, Clarissa, Clarissa, Louisa, Zina, Emily, Eliza, Elizabeth, Clarissa, Rebecca, Diana, Maria, Susannah, Olive, Mary, Mary Harvey, Margrette, Rhoda, Emmeline, Mary, Margaret, Mary Ann, Olive, Emily, Ellen, Abigail, Mary, Mary, Amy, Julia, Abigail, Naamah, Nancy, Eliza, Jane, Mary, Lucy, Sarah, Eliza, Mary, Catherine, Harriet, Harriet Amelia, Mary, Ann Eliza, Elizabeth, Lydia and Hannah.

Not Brigham and Steve.

Baseball trivia questions

What team just went 9-1 on a road trip, sweeping its last two opponents?

What team is the first in the history of Major League Baseball to score in the first inning of eight straight road games while winning all eight games?

What team has a 9 1/2 game lead in its division before the All-Star break?

What team has the best winning percentage in baseball?

What team has two legitimate MVP candidates and two legitimate Cy Young award candidates?

Carnival of Comedy up

This week's Carnival of Comedy is up at Radioactive Liberty. Check it out.

(Side note: From now on, the proprietor of Radioactive Liberty will be known as FINAR. He knows why.)

"Warren court" overrules SF gun ban

A San Francisco Superior Court judge showed uncommon sense in shooting down a citywide ban on handgun possession that had been voted in by San Francisco voters last November:

Proposition H, which passed with a 58 percent majority in November, would have outlawed possession of handguns by all city residents except law enforcement officers and others who need guns for professional purposes. It also would have forbidden the manufacture, sale and distribution of guns and ammunition in San Francisco.

Judge James Warren ruled that handgun possession is a matter properly handled at the state level, and that California law "implicitly prohibits a city or county from banning handgun possession by law-abiding adults. "

And now we see the violence inherent in the system:

City Attorney Dennis Herrera, whose office defended Prop. H, will decide whether to appeal the ruling in the next day or two, said spokesman Matt Dorsey.
"We're disappointed that the court has denied the right of voters to enact a reasonable, narrowly tailored restriction on the possession of handguns,'' Dorsey said.
Supervisor Chris Daly, a chief sponsor of Prop. H, urged Herrera to appeal and criticized Warren. The judge "sided with the powerful gun lobby against the safety of San Franciscans....''

Yes, in the best Orwellian tradition, a total ban is a "reasonable, narrowly tailored restriction." I can only imagine what an unreasonable restriction would be. (Actually, no I can't.)

And what does "sided with the powerful gun lobby" mean? Judge Warren didn't rule that gun ownership was Constitutionally protected, or that San Francisco had trampled on the civil rights of its residents: he simply said that the authority to deal with gun ownership resides with the state of California rather that with individual municipalities, and therefore that ~~Preparation~~Proposition H violated the state constitution. And beyond that, saying that a judge sided with a lobbying group sounds suspiciously like complaining about an activist judiciary, which last I checked was something liberals derided conservatives about. If I were the cynical type I might think that "activist judges" means nothing more than "judges I don't agree with." And I'm the cynical type.

(Sidenote: how come we never hear about the "powerful abortion lobby" or "powerful free speech lobby"?)

Fact is, for all its liberal rhetoric, for all its gay weddings, for all its "progressive" policies, at the end of the day San Francisco is among the US cities least tolerant of dissent from its political orthodoxy. And don't get me started on the unwarranted and unearned "too cool for school" attitude of a large number of its residents. (I've always said that San Franciscans have the attitude of New Yorkers without the reason.) When I lived in Los Angeles I always got a laugh out of how so many San Franciscans looked down on LA, not realizing the extent to which their pseudointellectual snobbery was a pathetic joke.

And now that I've offended an entire city, I believe my work here is done.

Good night, San Francisco!

Headline of the day

Police remove Darryl Hannah from tree

CheChe Watch

Gutfeld gets it. JPod and the other Cornerites get it. I get it.

Riehl doesn't get it. Ace doesn't get it. Leon Wolf at Red State doesn't get it. Iceman doesn't get it.

All you have to do is read the comments at Gutfeld's HuffPo blog to understand why humorless lefties might not get that CheChe is punking them, but it's disturbing that some bloggers on the right haven't figured this out.

(If any of the above bloggers really have figured it out and I somehow missed it, then obviously I'm the idiot.)

More to follow?

BREAKING NEWS: WE HAVE A NEW POET LAUREATE!

Librarian of Congress James Billington has announced that our nation's fourteenth poet laureate is none other than Donald Hall.

Yes, the Donald Hall.

Zarqawi dead and a new poet laureate in the same week...pinch me, I'm dreaming!

I feel safer already.

(This is not meant to disparage previous poet laureate Ted Kooser, who I'm sure did a fine job defending the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.)

Hawking Stephen

The Daily Gut has a list of things you didn't know about Stephen Hawking. Among the surprises for me were:

-He hates picnics because there never is enough shade for him to read the screen.
-His one big regret is that he did not bang Helen Keller and have "super human deaf dumb and blind babies."
-In 1987 the scientist was accused of shoplifting an entire canned ham from an Albertson's in San Mateo, California. The matter is now closed in a sealed court document.
-He refers to amputees as "throw pillows."
-Was secretly cured of his affliction back in 1972, but has been faking it ever since.

In other Hawking news, the New York Times reports that the mad scientitst is collaborating on a children's book with his daughter Lucy. Hawking says the book will be like Harry Potter, but with no magic. Sounds exciting! I can't wait for the audiobook!

The Robbery of the Scion

When do you not own the rights to your own name?

When you're the son of The Intimidator.

ESPN.com sports business writer Darren Rovell has a fascinating article detailing how, because of the fame of his father, NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, Junior lost the rights to his own name and signature three years ago. To his stepmother:

How did this oddity happen? Apparently, Dale Jr. didn't care much about the business side of racing when he began his NASCAR career in the Busch Series in 1998. Many of those arrangements, including the terms of his insurance and where he banked, were set up by DEI. And his driver's contract, at least through 2002, was somehow a simple handshake agreement.

Dale Sr.'s signature is on the initial trademark filing for his son's name. And perhaps Junior wasn't quite aware of what he signed on April 3, 2002 when he put his name on a one-sentence consent form required of any living person who is either trademarking his or her own name or conveying the rights to someone else.
Records from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office show that soon after Dale Sr. died in a crash at the 2001 Daytona 500, the rights to Dale Jr.'s name automatically were transferred to his father's estate. As the executor of the estate, Teresa then transferred the rights to Dale Jr.'s name to his father's trust and eventually to herself.

Any person can sell the rights to his or her name, but as Rovell says, it's highly unusual never to have legally owned those rights, particularly for an athlete who's still in his prime. (Rovell points out that many former athletes, such as George Foreman, sign lucrative licensing deals involving the rights to their names, but usually after their careers are over.)

Dale Jr.'s driving contract with Dale Earnhardt Inc. allows him to use his own name on licensing agreements and endorsements, said his older sister, Kelley Earnhardt Elledge, the president of JR (read: Junior) Motorsports, which handles his off-the-course business. But she said that the details of any payments Dale Jr. has to make for use of the name will be kept private, along with the intricacies of the agreement between DEI and Junior's company, and that Dale Jr. would not comment. DEI spokesman Steve Brown said company officials will not comment on the arrangement.

Why is this a big deal?

"With the value that NASCAR merchandise has today, it's extremely important to be able to control your own name," said Cary Agajanian, whose company -- Motorsports Management International -- represents Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth, Kasey Kahne and Jamie McMurray, among others. "In Dale Jr.'s situation, it's obviously unusual that he doesn't control that."

And Mark Roesler, chairman and CEO of CMG Worldwide, which manages the licensing rights of many ex-athletes, says that this most likely means that Junior doesn't get a full cut on merchandise that features his name.

I know most of you reading this aren't NASCAR fans, but understand that we're not talking about pocket change here:

Of the 20 Nextel Cup drivers whose names are trademarked, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is the only one who does not own his own name. And yet, he (and his name) are among the most marketable commodities on the circuit, with more than $5 million in endorsement deals off the track. A recent Harris Interactive Poll ranked him as the fifth most popular athlete in the United States.

There's a reason Earnhardt is most often referred to as simply "Junior." His dad was "The Intimidator," the largest of the many larger-than-life figures who have been part of NASCAR's history. On top of that, Earnhardt, Sr. died in his car in a horrific crash at the 2001 Daytona 500, the biggest event in the second largest spectator sport in America, at almost the same exact time that year's winner, Michael Waltrip, crossed the finish line. If The Intimidator needed something to further cement his legend, this was it.

Being the son of a god - sharing the name of a god - can be both a blessing and a curse. Junior is easily the most popular driver in NASCAR, despite the fact that he's nowhere near the best. At the same time, he has to live with the constant comparisons to Daddy, comparisons which inevitably leave him holding the short end of the stick. Yet through all of this, he comes across as a very likeable and down-to-earth guy, the kind of dude you'd like to just kick back and drink a Bud with. And I respect the hell out of him for that.

Dale Jr. has said he's in the process of getting the rights to his own name back, although that might prove difficult. To date, he has not filed any action against Teresa with the government office.

"If I didn't have the same name -- and I kind of wish I didn't sometimes -- I wouldn't have to be worrying about it."

Doormat of the year

"And if it's a no-knock warrant, please wear full body armor and kevlar helmets, as I can't assume you're the good guys." (Okay, that may be a bit much for a doormat.)

Interestingly, nowhere does it say "Does not apply to members of Congress."

Available at Target. No joke.

(Via JimmyB at Steve the Pirate.)

Who is CheChe?

The blogosphere is abuzz with the question, "Who is CheChe?" Everyone from Allahpundit at Hot Air to the Cornerites to the Protein Wisdomheads is trying to figure out the answer to this burning question.

Briefly, "CheChe" is the nom de blog of someone who apparently posts fairly regularly at Daily Kos. His posts always take the same form: stories about him trying to comfort his daughter who doesn't understand why the evil Republicans do the things they do. Here's today's post:

I don't think I've ever seen such a look of misery and dejection on the face of my daughter as I just did a moment ago. She just couldn't understand why the President would be going to Iraq when so many things are wrong in this country. "Doesn’t Mr. Bush care about us anymore?" she asked pitifully.

I sat down with her on the sofa and (as calmly as I could) tried to explain to her why the President seems to be abandoning his country. "Honey, I think his boss, Mr. Rove, sent Mr. Bush out of the country in order to keep himself out of the newspapers. You see, he wasn’t sure if he was going to be arrested today or not, and so he planned Mr. Bush’s trip ahead of time just in case...”

I tried to keep my voice steady, but it became increasingly difficult - the rage and feelings of helplessness were just too much. I think my daughter could tell something was wrong. I found myself at such a loss for words - nothing made any sense; nothing makes sense anymore. I finally had to admit, "Honey, I just don't know - I don't know what's going on in this country anymore..."

When I finished her lower lip started to tremble and her eyes began to fill with tears, "Daddy" she said, "why are the Republicans doing this to the country?" Well, that was it for me: I finally fell apart. She just fell into my arms and we both began sobbing for several minutes.

For once she had to comfort me and get me back on my feet. Sometimes I just think it's too much, but seeing the strength in my young daughter's voice helped me to get through.

Here's CheChe's May 11 post:

I don't think I've ever seen such a look of misery and dejection on the face of my daughter as I just did a moment ago. She just couldn't understand why the President would be spying on everyone. "Even my Grandma?" she asked pitifully.

I sat down with her on the sofa and (as calmly as I could) tried to explain to her why the President has ordered a group of spies to collect information on every American. "And yes honey, even Grandma", I was forced to say.

I tried to keep my voice steady, but it became increasingly difficult - the rage and feelings of helplessnes were just too much. I think my daughter could tell something was wrong. I found myself at such a loss for words - nothing made any sense; nothing makes sense anymore. I finally had to admit, "Honey, I just don't know - I don't know what's going on in this country anymore..."

When I finished her lower lip started to tremble and her eyes began to fill with tears, "Daddy" she said, "why are the Republicans doing this to the country?" Well, that was it for me: I finally fell apart. She just fell into my arms and we both began sobbing for several minutes.

For once she had to comfort me and get me back on my feet. Sometimes I just think it's too much, but seeing the strength in my young daughter's voice helped me to get through.

There's more from April 27 and April 19, but you get the idea.

Until today, none of the KosKids caught on (and their sympathetic responses to being unknowingly punked are hysterical) , but a commenter named Wisper busted CheChe early this morning. So now the question is: Who is CheChe?

Early money was on Greg Gutfeld, and it really does sound like something he'd write. But a source with absolute moral authority tells me it ain't Gutfeld. (Although said source could be tweaking me.) Whoever it is does a good Gutfeld - maybe even as good as mine, which vaguely pisses me off.

More to follow...

Seth MacFarlane speaks at Harvard

Seth MacFarlane speaks at Hahvahd's Class Day as himself, Peter Griffin, Stewie Griffin and Quagmire.

Video here.

Funny stuff, including a little retaliatory zinger aimed at Trey and Matt of South Park, who dissed Family Guy in an episode earlier this year.

Giggety giggety, giggety goo.

Iraq of Sacrificial Lambs

Tom Harper, blogging at Who Hijacked Our Country, has a bone to pick with some statements our President made today:

Asserting that "the stakes are worth it," Bush told reporters, "It is worth it to help Iraq succeed. It is worth it to have a democracy in the Middle East. It is worth it to show other reformers and people who want to live in a free society what is possible."

Here's Harper:

Yup, Bush really said that. The Iraqi war has been worth the billions of dollars, the tens of thousands of deaths. Easy for him to say. As long as somebody else supplies the money and the bodies, this war is well worth it.

It’s an excellent investment, as long as you’re investing somebody else’s sons and daughters.

What the hell has Bush ever sacrificed? Nobody even remotely related to Bush (or Cheney or Rove or Wolfowitz) is serving in the military. Bush and his corporate donors aren’t paying for the war. Between the endless tax cuts and the “offshoring” of more and more corporate headquarters to Bermuda or the Cayman Islands, the cost of the Iraqi war is falling on those chumps who work for a living.

Our Great Leader is willing to fight to the last drop of somebody else’s blood.

It's a well-expressed sentiment, and one that's shared by many who opppose the war. The only problem is that it doesn't make a lick of sense.

Does anyone really believe that reliably anti-Bush folks wouldn't take issue with him saying that the war in Iraq has been worth it even if Jenna were a PFC? I don't. And I'm not sure what Harper, et. al. would have Bush do. He's the President of the United States - he can't put on a uniform and grab an M16 from the armorer, nor can he order any of his friends or family to enlist. And the same goes for Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, etc. (As far as Wolfowitz goes, he served his time in Iraq, whether he was in a uniform or not, so I'm not sure he should be lumped in with this group to begin with.)

As for other forms of sacrifice, the fact of the matter is that this president hasn't asked any Americans other than those serving (and their families) to make any sacrifices for this war effort, whether it's the War in Iraq or the Global War on Terror. I would argue that this has been a critical mistake, but given that most Americans these days think paying 50 cents more for a gallon of gas is cause for a revolution, I can't say I'm surprised.

None of this has anything to do with whether the War in Iraq has been worth it: that's a wholly separate issue, or at least it should be. (Although why do I suspect that if liberals supported this war they wouldn't be complaining about Bush's lack of personal sacrifice?) The question here - at least as I understand it - is whether a United States President can morally serve as Commander-in-Chief during a war he is not personally affected by. Prepositional ending aside, the response to that cannot possibly be "no" if the Republic is going to continue having a civilian serve as head of the armed forces.

If Al-Qaeda issued press releases

Al-Muhajer to Replace
Murdered AQI Leader al-Zarqawi
(Death to America)

16 Jumada 'l-Ula 1427AH - Abu Hamza al-Muhajer has been appointed the new leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al Qaeda Worldwide Executive Director Osama bin Laden announced today. Al-Muhajer's appointment was confirmed by acclamation by Al Qaeda in Iraq's Executive Council. He replaces the murdered former leader of AQI, Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi.

"I am grateful to the Council for their unanimous selection," said al-Muhajer. "Although nobody can truly replace my brother Abu Musaab, I am honored to be given this opportunity to serve Allah and the Prophet Muhammed, peace be unto Him. Death to America."

Al-Zarqawi was killed last week after being injured by the bombs of the cowardly Americans. The infidels then proceeded to beat and torture him until he Allah took him to Paradise, where he is now in the company of many virgins and our beloved Prophet (peace be unto Him). (Death to America.)

"Abu Hamza is a beloved brother with holy war experience and a strong footing in knowledge," said Ayman Al-Zawahiri, AQW's Associate Executive Director. "I'm pleased that AQI's Council made such a wise choice. Truly, the spirit of the Prophet, peace be unto Him, must have been with them. Death to America."

Although al-Muhajer's true name and full biography cannot be revealed because of security reasons, he is widely considered to be among the best liberators of the people working today, with a strong background in both Sharia law and the making of explosive devices. "If the Americans knew who he was they would be even more terrified than their womanlike soldiers already are," said AQW Executive Director bin Laden. "Even as their Marines bathe themselves in the blood of innocent Iraqi children and the filthy swinelike Jews run their foreign policy, the Americans will continue to learn that their decadent ways of the flesh are no match for the Holy Warriors of Al Qaeda Worldwide and its subsidiary Al Qaeda in Iraq," concluded bin Laden, quickly adding, "Death to America."

-30-

Right Wing Nut House goes sane

Bravo to Rick Moran at Right Wing Nut House for taking the Gitmo suicides seriously:

There are many who dismiss the suicides of the three detainees at Guantanamo with a kind of “good riddance” wave of the hand, a casual shrug of the shoulders denoting indifference to the fate of those who, if given half a chance, would kill us all.

But it is by no means clear that those detainees and the others being held there pose that kind of threat. And the reason we aren’t sure – sure enough to have a clear conscience as we lock them away for the rest of their lives – is because of the unconscionable foot dragging by the Administration on determining exactly what rights the prisoners will be granted before US courts.

From what I understand from many of Rick's commenters, statements like this are proof that he's "gone soft":

Much as we loathe the men who have sworn to kill us all, we simply must come to grips with the idea that if we aren’t able to kill them on the battlefield, they must be granted some of the rights guaranteed by international law and our own constitution. To do any less cheapens our entire justice system. It isn’t a question of loving the terrorist. It is a question of loving liberty and the blessings granted by a constitution that recognizes value in every individual and equality before the law.

Respect for the constitution, loving liberty and recognizing equality before the law are not evidence of "softness." They're evidence of "American-ness."

Update: Allahpundit at Hot Air "basically agrees" with Moran and provides some good linkage. Gribbit at Stop the ACLU takes some time off from gaybashing to not surprisingly disagree. Surprisingly, he makes a good point about the increasingly annoying ACLU.

Derbyshire Agonistes

Via Andrew Sullivan, I see that the original cranky conservative John Derbyshire has issued a mea culpa for supporting the Iraq war. His reasoning?

Did I support the 2003 invasion of Iraq? Yes I did. Do I support the continuing effort to get civil society going in Iraq? No I don’t, and haven’t for over two years. So do I support the war? Well... define “war.”

Let’s start from the fact that the whole thing, taken in one piece—attack plus follow-up nation-building effort—has been a huge negative for the USA. Is there anyone, really, who is glad we did it? Most of my NR colleagues are still talking up the administration’s Iraq policy. It’s hard not to think, though, that if wired up to a polygraph and asked the question: “Supposing you could wind the movie back to early 2003, would you still attack Iraq?” any affirmative answers would have those old needles a-jumping and a-skipping all over the graph paper.

We are stuck there in that wretched place with no way out that would not involve massive loss of geostrategic face. Getting on for 3,000 of our troops have been killed, and close to 20,000 maimed. We’ve spent untold billions of dollars. For what?

Derbyshire, ever the pessimist (or realist, as he would no doubt call himself) believes strongly that nation building is doomed to failure.

One reason I supported the initial attack, and the destruction of the Saddam regime, was that I hoped it would serve as an example, deliver a psychic shock to the whole region. It would have done, if we’d just rubbled the place then left.

All liberals cheering at Derb's "defection" can now sit down.

Far from being seen as a nation willing to act resolutely, a nation that knows how to punish our enemies, a nation that can smash one of those ramshackle Mideast despotisms with one blow from our mailed fist, a nation to be feared and respected, we are perceived as a soft and foolish nation, that squanders its victories and permits its mighty military power to be held to standoff by teenagers with homemade bombs—that lets crooks and bandits tie it down, Gulliver-like, with a thousand little threads of blackmail, trickery, lies, and petty violence.

I don't think the strongest supporter of the war can honestly say that Derb is completely wrong. Maybe if we'd had more boots on the ground immediately after Baghdad fell, maybe if we hadn't foolishly disbanded the Iraqi army, maybe, maybe, maybe things would have turned out differently. But that would have entailed having a Defense Secretary who can admit he doesn't know everything and/or a President strong enough to overrule his Secdef. And we had (and have) neither.

We are not controlling events in Iraq. Events in Iraq are controlling us. We are the puppet; the street gangs of Baghdad and Basra are the puppet-masters, aided and abetted by an unsavory assortment of confidence men, bazaar traders, scheming clerics, ethnic front men, and Iranian agents. With all our wealth and power and idealism, we have submitted to become the plaything of a rabble, and a Middle Eastern rabble at that. Instead of rubbling, we have ourselves been rabbled. The lazy-minded evangelico-romanticism of George W. Bush, the bureaucratic will to power of Donald Rumsfeld, the avuncular condescension of Dick Cheney, and the reflexive military deference of Colin Powell combined to get us into a situation we never wanted to be in, a situation no self-respecting nation ought to be in, a situation we don’t know how to get out of. It’s not inconceivable that, with a run of sheer good luck, we might yet escape without too much egg on our faces, but it’s not likely.The place we are at is surely not a place anyone in 2003 wanted us to be at—not even Vic Davis Hanson.

Since the Iraq war was obviously a gross blunder, is it time for those of us who cheered on the war to offer some kind of apology? Here we are—we, the United States—in our fourth year of occupying that sinkhole, and it looks pretty much like the third year, or the second. Will the eighth year of our occupation, or our twelfth, look any better? I know people who will say yes, but I no longer know any who will say it with real conviction. It’s a tough thing, to admit you were wrong. It’s way tough if you’re a big-name pundit with a reputation to preserve. For those of us down at the bottom of the pundit pecking order, the stakes aren’t so high. I, at any rate, am willing to eat some crow and say: I wish I had never given any support to this fool war.

I wish it were easier for me to argue with this. From Day 0, I supported the war in Iraq on mainly humanitarian grounds. 300,000 bodies in mass graves and the nochalant existence of rape rooms and torture rooms was enough for me. It's not that I didn't care if Saddam had WMD or not, I just didn't think it was necessary that he have them for us to do whatever we could to end his reign of terror.

But if I had known how incompetently this war would be fought, not by the men and women doing the actual fighting, but by the pointy heads in Washington, I don't know how I would have felt. Certainly I continue to believe that a world without Saddam is a better place, but increasingly it feels as though the war in Iraq has become a war on Iraq, and I can't begin to imagine the state of mind of the Iraqi people. A "long, hard slog" is one thing, but as Derbyshire says, our fourth year over there looks much like our third year, or even our second, and that ain't good. And not all of it can be attributed to the media's biased coverage. (Although some of it can.)

I'm not quite yet ready to join Derb in his meal of pate de crow gras, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that the way the Bush administration has conducted this war is highly disturbing, and it's become increasingly difficult to be at all optimistic about the final outcome. That said, I still refuse to agree with Derbyshire's conclusion:

So why am I eating crow? Because I think it was foolish of me to suppose that the administration would act with the punitive ruthlessness I hoped to see. The rubble-and-out approach was not one that this administration, or perhaps any administration in the present state of our culture, would be willing to pursue. The universalist dogmas that rule unchallenged in our media and educational institutions have fixed their grip on our foreign policy, too. When the Founders of our nation said “all men” they had in mind Christian Anglo-Saxon men. Our leaders, though, want to bring the whole world under the scope of those grand Lockeian principles.

Perhaps this will work, or perhaps it won’t. My belief is, and always has been, that it won’t. My fault was in not grasping the scale of the administration’s multiculturalist ambitions. (Of which, to be fair to them, they had given plenty of hints, and even one or two frank declarations of intent.) George W. Bush believes that, to borrow and adjust a line from the colonel in Full Metal Jacket: “Inside every Middle East Muslim there is an American trying to get out.” The effort to stabilize Iraq, and the reluctance to just leave the Iraqis to fight each other among the rubble, followed inevitably from that belief, which is, according to me, a false belief. I see all that now. I didn’t see it then. I am sorry.

I think one of the biggest problems we have is that there are many people in the Bush administration who agree with Derb, including Cheney and Rumsfeld. I don't think either of these men - arguably the two most powerful people in Bush's inner circle - ever had any interest in bringing freedom and/or democracy to Iraq, or any other nation, and in large part, I think that's why we're in the mess we are now. We had a saying in the Army: Proper planning prevents piss poor performance. It's beyond debate that we never properly planned for the post-invasion period in Iraq, and I find it impossible to believe that the fact the neither the Vice President nor the Defense Secretary has the stomach for nation building had nothing to do with that.

Finally, I don't - and never did - believe that inside every Iraqi is an American trying to get out, and as much as I'd like to believe that inside most people is a free person trying to get out, sadly I don't even think that's true of Americans anymore. But I still believe that there is a point at which, as the world's only superpower, America has to look at a situation and say, "Enough. No more." For me, Iraq under Saddam met this standard. And on matters such as these, Europe is unfortunately mostly useless, and the UN is a sick joke, so whether we like it or not, it's us or no one. And, unlike a growing number of Americans, I don't like the idea that it's no one.

Absolute moral authority?

Al-Zarqawi's mom is blogging?

"Don't question my patriotism"

It used to be the U.S. Marines who said they preferred death to dishonor. Now, and tragically, it's our Marines who dishonor everything the U.S. says it stands for by shooting first and asking questions later. And instead of our boys, it's our detainees -- those unlawful combatants -- who are choosing death at Gitmo rather than accept the dehumanizing dishonor their keepers inflict upon them day after day after day. [Disgusted emphasis added]

-Peter Laarman, head of Progressive Christians Uniting, writing at the increasingly pro-"the other side" Huffington Post

P.S. Of course he supports the troops. How dare you think otherwise!

A motherfkin' snake, on a motherfkin' plane!

For real.

(Via Colby Cosh's excellent site)

Cops to Vets: Don't Worry, Be Happy

I don't find anything reassuring about this story:

Police believe that thieves who stole a laptop and external hard drive from a Department of Veterans Affairs employee were interested in selling the equipment, not harvesting the sensitive personal information it contained, VA Secretary Jim Nicholson said yesterday.
A series of burglaries targeting computer hardware has hit the Aspen Hill area, where the employee lives, Nicholson said. More than a month after the May 3 crime -- which compromised the names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of millions of veterans and active-duty military members -- the FBI and Montgomery County police have no evidence that anyone is using the information to commit fraud or identity theft, he said.
"They believe that these were young burglars whose goal was to get computers and computer peripheral equipment," Nicholson testified before the House Government Reform Committee. "And from other houses, like they did this house, they took a laptop and hard drive, and overlooked other valuable or semi-valuable things. . . . They further think that their MO is to take these things, clean them up -- actually erase them -- and then fence them into a market for college campuses and high schools."

Nicholson cautioned that authorities had no assurances their theory of the crime is correct. And although police have arrested some people in connection with the recent burglaries, serial numbers on recovered computer equipment did not match those of the items stolen from the employee's home, he said.

Haven't we all seen enough heist films to know that smart thieves don't spend their loot right away? Why is this any different? How is one month enough to make police think the most likely possibility is that the thieves didn't want the data?

Here's the part that really annoys the hell out of me:

The committee hearing examined the VA data breach, the largest in government history, in the context of information security concerns across the federal bureaucracy. The VA theft put at risk the unencrypted personal information of 26.5 million veterans and active-duty military members. But smaller security lapses take place routinely, said Clay Johnson III, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget.
"I'm told that there are dozens of security breaches involving laptops in a year," Johnson said. "None of these involve 26 million, 27 million names. So this is the 100-year storm of security breaches. The magnitude of it is the alarming thing."
He said the key is to minimize the number and impact of data breaches by requiring agencies to tighten enforcement of existing security policies. "It is currently the standard that all sensitive data on laptops be encrypted," Johnson said. "That is the standard. It's just not enforced."
Despite assurances yesterday of stringent security policies from officials with the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration, both agencies have suffered smaller-scale breaches in recent months.
Early last month, an IRS employee lost an agency laptop on an airplane; it contained unencrypted names, birth dates and Social Security numbers for 291 workers and job applicants, agency officials said this week.
An SSA employee's personal laptop computer containing Social Security numbers and other sensitive information for 200 people was recently stolen at a conference the employee was attending, William E. Gray, a deputy commissioner at the agency, said in written testimony yesterday. [Emphases added.]

Let's take the second one first. How the hell do you lose a computer on an airplane??? It's an enclosed space that can be thoroughly searched!! Was the IRS employee on Oceanic Flight 815??

As for the fact that the encryption of all sensitive data on government laptops is the standard, but is not enforced, let's start with immediately terminating the employment of anyone who doesn't meet this "standard," along with their supervisors. And let's make the failure to properly encrypt sensitive files a felony (I'm assuming it's not already) and prosecute it to the full extent of the law. Maybe that'll get the point across.

It takes me thirty seconds to encrypt a Word document, and it doesn't take that much longer to encrypt a database. If you can't be bothered to take the simple steps required to keep information about American citizens safe, you shouldn't work for American citizens. Taking home your work is understandable, and with modern encryption methods it can be perfectly safe (assuming it's not the NSA that steals it), but - and here's the tricky part - encryption doesn't work if you don't use it.

Here's my nominee for Intellectual Giant of the Week:

Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.) said media accounts had blown the VA data theft out of proportion. "So far, there's no evidence that any of these people have actually sustained any real damage," he said.

The nerve of people to make a big scene about the theft of the personal information of 26.5 million veterans. Don't misunderstand me: I get that Rep. Gutknecht has more important things to deal with, like stopping homos from getting hitched or protesting the serving of warrants on corrupt Congressmen But that aside, it's not possible to blow this out of proportion. Even if the cops' new theory is right and the computer's been wiped (and this assumes it's been securely wiped, by the way), it's the fact that this theft was even possible that has to be dealt with swiftly and severely.

Hello, China? This is the US. Just wanted to give you a heads up that one of our nukes that was aimed at Beijing somehow got loose. But don't worry about it: there's no evidence it's gonna actually hit Beijing: in fact, we now believe that it was never armed, and we further think that it's gonna end up splashing harmlessly in the ocean anyway. Excuse me? Hey, look, don't blow this out of proportion. After all, there's no evidence that any residents of Beijing have actually sustained any real damage, right? What's that? Nah, since nobody's been hurt so far I don't think we should worry too much about it.

(Via fellow vet Gun Toting Liberal, who as usual ain't havin' none of it.)

Illinois makes a meth

Believe it or not, I would love not to be a whiny little bitch, as Sue famously called Mike in Swingers. Really, I would. But then I read things like this in Stop the Drug War's Drug War Chronicle:

Under a package of bills passed by the Illinois legislature and signed Sunday by Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), people convicted of making meth will now join sex offenders as social pariahs so feared that the state will keep a registry of their names available to the public via the Internet.

What's next? Potheads? Smokers? Gays? Smut peddlers? People who read books? Stoned gay smut peddlers who smoke and read books?

When was the exact moment in time that Mrs. Grundy became the inspiration for both parties? It's pathetic.

Reason number 4,857 why I could never be a Democrat.

Web 2.01 - Now powered by Gutfeld!

Some brand new sites from the bane of Arianna Huffington's existence, Greg Gutfeld:

The Daily Gut
The God Blog
Adventures of Keira Knightley's Jaw

All brought to you through the magic of TheInternetDotCom (powered by Google), which astonishingly enough already has over 40 pages indexed!

It wouldn't surprise me if more sites were in the works, so get in on the ground floor cuz before long you'll need an up escalator just to get to the freakin' basement!

MP Ching

Blogger seems to be working just fine today, which of course meant that my computer decided to stop connecting to the internet this afternoon.

I realized that the only way I was going to get a handle on what's been happening lately was to consult the modern version of the I Ching, which of course means putting your mp3 player on "shuffle" or "random" (whatever your brand uses) and, using as your guiding principle the notion that nothing in this universe is truly random, trying to discern the message being given to you by the order the songs are played in. As I'm sure you remember, it was the German philospher Leibnitz who first noted that the I Ching hexagrams correspond to the binary numbers from 0 to 111111. Indeed, who among us can't recall when he or she first came across this great discovery in Leibnitz's 1703 article Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire? And who among us hasn't tried to figure out why a German wrote in French? (Leibnitz also believed that we lived in the best of all possible worlds, a belief which was sorely tried when he was accosted by a filet of sole named Ned who proceeded to repeatedly beat him with a green umbrella for reasons he was never able to satisfactorily determine. Later in life, Leibnitz could often be found eating alone in some of Rome's finest restaurants, ordering dish after dish of seafood just to ask them if they knew "that jerk Ned." This tended to frighten the other customers, particularly since Leibnitz was actually in Berlin.)

The key to MP Ching is figuring out which six-song cluster is important. (I would caution against trying this at home unless you're very sure of yourself.) After some study, it became clear that this the cluster I was looking for:

Kung Fu - Curtis Mayfield
Larks Tongue in Aspic, Part II - King Crimson
Now I Gotta Wet Cha - Ice Cube
The National Anthem - Radiohead
Rosetta Stoned - Tool
The Bunker - Beirut

As you can imagine from the obvious message inherent in the interrelationships between these songs, I feel much better now.

UNdo It

The UN needs to go away. I don't mean take five, chill for a minute, kick it or take a timeout. I mean die, or at the very least, get the hell out of America.

You want corruption? The UN makes the US Congress look like Boy Scouts.

You want bad guests? UN "peacekeepers" have been accused of rape and pedophilia in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Congo.

You want incompetence? Look at - well, look at anything the UN does.

(I've written about all of the above in more depth here.)

Now comes the fun part.

On Tuesday, UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown gave a speech in which he basically blamed all the UN's shortcomings on the US and castigated American politicians, along with Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, for keeping the truth about the UN's successes from the American people.

US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton's moustache said that Brown's remarks were

“the worst mistake by a senior UN official” that he had seen in many years and would damage the world body.

Johnny Walrus then "denounced Mr Malloch Brown’s 'condescending, patronising tone about the American people'.

“Fundamentally and very sadly, this was a criticism of the American people, not the American Government, by an international civil servant . . . It’s just illegitimate.” He said he feared that the fallout would hurt the UN far more than the US and warned Mr Annan of the “potential adverse effects these remarks would have on the organisation”.

And now UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has backed his deputy:

Annan told reporters the thrust of the speech from Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown was that the United States and the United Nations need each other. He also warned the U.S. against abandoning efforts to reform the world body because of the remarks.

If one is going to use the argument that 'I'm not satisfied with reform and I'm going to close down the shop,' they will have lots of explanation to do, not just in this building but to the people out there," Annan said.

Oh, really? I, for one, won't need "lots of explanation." The UN is beyond reform. Kofi Annan is either incredibly inept, thoroughly corrupt, or both. The man's own son benefited financially from the Oil-for-Food scandal, but Annan has the chutzpah to talk about "reform" as if he himself isn't part of the problem.

The most useful thing the UN could possibly do for humanity would be to leave New York so its headquarters could be turned into a low-income apartment complex or even a bowling alley with a really high ceiling. Anything would be an improvement.

Blogger Hell

Blogger, aka BlogSpot, the blogging host owned by Google and used by yours truly, has been truly awful this past week. It was down all day yesterday and most of today.

My point is, don't blame the lack of posting on me.

And don't be surprised if this blog (and a lot of other Blogger blogs) moves to a different hosting service fairly soon.

Blogger has some good features, chief among them being that it's free, but good features don't count for much when you can't post. And Google ain't all that great at letting its users know what's going on when the network is down, which is really annoying.

Oh, I think I may be about done with using blogrolling.com to handle my blogroll. It's been five days since I lost my 'roll, and I've heard nothing from them.

What I don't understand is how companies don't get that keeping their customers informed counts for a lot. One of the main complaints at the Blogger help group is how frustrating it is to not know if a problem you're having is on your end or if it's a Blogger-wide issue, and if so, what that issue is, and approximately how long it'll be til it's fixed. And I've submitted three or four "contact us" forms to Blogrolling without hearing a single thing back. Just send me an email telling me that you're trying to figure out what's wrong, and keep me updated as time goes on, and I can deal with technical problems. But when you don't even have the courtesy to let me know you're aware of my problem and working on it, that tells me you don't much care about keeping me as a customer. In Blogrolling's case, they have a basic free service and a premium pay service, and I'm a non-paying customer, so maybe I don't deserve the same level of support as those who pay. But on the other hand, why would I want to pay for premium service when the basic service ain't doin' so great? In fact, I more than likely would've upgraded my service to get some extra features, but not now. I'd rather maintain my blogroll manually and know it's gonna be there all the time.

Anyway, that's probably enough of my fairly calm rant. I just wanted to let my loyal readers know why my posting has been almost non-existent lately.

More to follow, assuming Blogger doesn't go down again.

-Cranky (but strangely calm)

Zarqawi killed by US forces

MSNBC is reporting that al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musaab Al-Zarqawi has been killed by US forces. One of Zarqawi's senior aides, said to be carrying crucial information, was reportedly captured in the same raid that resulted in Zarqawi's death.

NBC's longtime Pentagon reporter Jim Miklaszewski is reporting that according to military officials, a US Special Ops task force had a good fix on Zarqawi's location in an area near Baquba, approximately 40 miles north of Baghdad. Sometime before sundown last night, Special Ops forces, including helicopter gunships, closed in on this location. Initial reports are that Zarqawi was not immediately killed in the operation itself, but died later of wounds suffered in the attack.

Good night, and good riddance.

Update: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki just announced at a news conference that "Today Zarqawi has been terminated."

Good PR move by the US to have the newly-minted Iraqi PM make the official announcement. This needs to be seen for what it is: a victory for Iraq moreso than a victory for the US. As the spin machines crank up, it'll be interesting to see how much credit the US gives to the Iraqis. My bet is on d) a lot.

Crisis: Day 04

Day 04: Blogger was down for most of the day today and I wasn't home for most of the night tonight.

My blogroll is still being held captive in a musty basement somewhere, and nobody from blogrolling.com will respond to my SOS messages. I found this message scrawled on my bathroom mirror in some kind of sticky red substance:

RIB ROSE GLORY LOU VOL

Please help me figure out what this means.

[Actual issues-based blogging to resume Thursday, assuming anything works.]

For Whom the Blog Rolls

Day 3 without a blogroll. Earlier today I was sure I heard someone coming, but there was nobody there. Still, how do you explain the Doritos?

I fear I am going insane.

Update to "Shock not awesome"

Updating Saturday's post on Shock magazine's unauthorized use of blogger/war reporter Michael Yon's photo of Army Major Mike Bieger cradling an Iraqi girl name Farah in his arms: Yon now reports that he has reached a settlement agreement with Shock's publisher, magazine giant HFM:

I am satisfied that Hachette Filipacchi Media believed they were acting in good faith when procuring the publishing rights from Polaris to use my photograph in SHOCK magazine. Both sides worked to find a solution, and, as a result of our discussions, Hachette Filipacchi Media agreed to pay a licensing fee, and to make a very generous contribution to Fisher House. Fisher House is a first-rate charitable organization dedicated to providing low cost lodging to veterans and military families during visits to military hospitals. I have met many families who benefited greatly from Fisher House beneficence, and though many people have not heard of this fine organization, all military members and their families are well advised to know about their excellent work.
Most important, in the end, service members and their families will benefit from this episode.

All's well that ends well.

My Big Fat Gay Wedding Post

"Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman."

These are the 53 words social conservatives want to use to debase the Constitution of the United States, to lower one of the most important political documents in history to roughly the same level as a PTA handwritten note tacked to a bulletin board that lets us know that Martha will be making chocolate chip cookies for next Thursday's bake sale.

These so-called "conservatives" want to take a document set up in no small part to prevent the government from infringing on individual liberty and add 53 words that amount to the exact opposite. So much for original intent and strict constructionism, which have always been nothing but convenient code words for conservatives looking to prevent the judiciary from interfering with their agenda anyway. (Just as loose constructionism serves the same purpose for liberals, in that it's a philosophy that conveniently allows judges to see things in the Constitution that match up suspiciously well with their desires.)

The last time something like this happened it led to what I'm sure was the wonderful and charming Prohibition era. It's an unfortunate truism that there will always be people who think it's their duty, whether before God or just "for your own good," to make unlawful the things that they find distasteful. These people for some reason can't stand the thought that somewhere, somehow, consenting adults are doing something they think is icky, as if the mere fact of knowing that two men may be married in Massachusettes is just too much for them to handle even if they live in Iowa.

Obviously I don't have a problem with gay marriage, and in fact, I'd be happier if the government weren't involved in marriage at all. I simply fail to see how the fact that one man might want to listen to another man nag him for the rest of his life affects me at all. Sorry, but I'm not buying the "It'll weaken the institution of marriage and therefore be harmful to families and therefore lead to the unraveling of Western civilization" argument. As has been pointed out ad nauseum, the institution of marriage is being weakened just fine by straights.

But beyond all that, even if you oppose gay marriage, the notion that this issue reaches the level of a constitutional crisis is absolutely ludicrous, particularly if, as supporters claim, the primary goal of the amendment is to allow "straight states" to not recognize any gay marriages or civil unions performed in potential "Pat Robertson says we caused Katrina" states. The Defense of Marriage Act signed into law in 1996 by perjurer and liberal icon Bill Clinton already allows for this, and should this Act be ruled unconstitutional at some point - a key conservative argument for the need for a constitutional amendment - there's always the public policy exception to the Full Faith and Credit Clause:

Section one of Article Four of the United States Constitution is known as the Full Faith and Credit Clause. It was primarily intended to provide for the continuity between states and enforcement across state lines of non-federal laws, civil claims and court rulings. Without this clause, enforcement of state-to-state extradition, portability of court orders, nationwide recognition of legal status, out-of-state taxation, spousal and child support, and the collection of fees and fines would all be impossible without separate federal action, or a similar action by the other states.

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

Though courts from the lowest magistrate courts to the highest state courts practice full faith and credit on a daily basis, appeals courts in the various appellate court districts often make conflicting rulings on matters of law, which may stand in conflict until resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court or by legislative action. The Supreme Court of the United States has long recognized a "public policy exception" to the clause. If the legal pronouncements of one state conflict with the public policy of another state, federal courts in the past have been reluctant to force a state to enforce the pronouncements of another state in contravention of its own public policy. The public policy exception has been applied in cases of marriage (such as polygamy, miscegenation or consanguinity), civil judgments and orders, criminal conviction and others.

So ironically, if DoMA were ever ruled unconstitutional on the grounds that it violates the Full Faith and Credit Clause, the public policy exception of that same clause would almost certainly be sufficient to achieve the goal of DoMA anyway. Eagle-eyed readers will no doubt wonder, given this, why DoMA was enacted in the first place, or perhaps even question the need for a Federal Marriage Amendment.

To answer the latter question, let's first take a look at what Walter M. Weber, senior litigation counsel with the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, wrote last Friday at National Review Online (via Stop the ACLU):

The FMA does leave marriage to the states. If a legislature wants to legalize homosexual “marriage,” it can do so. What the FMA does is stop federal and state courts from forcing states to allow same sex “marriage.” So if you’re pro-state choice, you should support the FMA.

Really? Let's take a look at the first sentence of the FMA again:

Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.

Doesn't sound like much is being left to the states, does it.

Turns out that NRO published a correction earlier today, stating that contra Weber, the FMA would prohibit state legislatures from legalizing gay marriage. Weber's response to this correction is a meisterwerk of the kind of contortionism we haven't seen since Slick Willie oozed his way out of DC:

I’d call it more of a clarification [than a correction]: I wrote that under the FMA, “If a legislature wants to legalize homosexual ‘marriage,’ it can do so.” The FMA would bar a state legislature from enacting homosexual marriage under the name “marriage.” At a minimum, the state would have to use a different name (like “civil union”). And if the FMA means that the substance of marriage (not just the name) is reserved to one man and one woman, a state legislature would also have to limit the benefits/responsibilities of a “marriage lite” so as not to come “too close” to real marriage. How close is “too close” would be up to the courts to decide. See, e.g., Knight v. Superior Court, 128 Cal. App. 4th 14, 26 Cal. Rptr. 3d 687 (2005) (ruling that California law giving domestic partners the ‘same’ rights and responsibilities as spouses was consistent with a state initiative reserving marriage to ‘a man and a woman’). The bottom line is that, under the FMA, state and federal courts could not force homosexual marriage on the states, but that legislatures could go as far as the courts would let them.

I ran this through my patented DoubleTalk^TM translator and this is what came out:

Damn. You caught me.

The DoubleTalk^TM translator is nothing if not efficient.

You see, whereas old school conservatives really did believe - for better or worse - in the concepts of federalism and states' rights, today's conservatives, particularly those of a religious bent, have absolutely no problem using the full power of the federal government to advance their agenda. The only time they start screaming about states' rights is when a federal law is passed that they don't cotton to. And yes, there is a word for these kinds of people, and yes, the word is hypocrites. But don't be fooled: the purpose of the FMA is not to ensure that one state doesn't have to recognize another state's gay marriage: it's to take away the right of the people in all states to decide this issue for themselves. Oddly, this is the same thing conservatives complain the judiciary is doing now.

Everyone knows the FMA doesn't have a prayer of getting the 67 votes it needs to pass the Senate, and that it's being pushed to a vote by conservatives solely because they think it will help them at the polls in November. And once again, I thank God that we've won the war on terror and that our politicians have the time to concentrate on issues that are clearly critical to the nation's security.

Because nothing says "I deserve your vote for re-election" like playing cheap political games with the Constitution.

Free the People^TM!

And remember: If you're opposed to gay marriage, just don't marry someone of the same gender and you should be fine.

Taggers: FMA, Gay Marriage, DoMA, Constitution, Full Faith and Credit Clause, Public Policy Exception, Free the People, Walter M. Weber, ACLJ, National Review, NRO, Stop the ACLU, Cranky, Cranky Insomniac

Crisis in Crankistan Continues

Most recently updated at 2015

1645: Not only has my blogroll been retaken hostage, but Blogger decided not to work for most of today.

Someone is clearly trying to tell me something. But who, dammit, who??

Courage.

1945 Update:Blogrolling seems to have temporarily gone out of business or been the victim of a DoS attack or something.

O mighty Roller of Blogs, why have You forsaken us as we wander through the darkness seeking only to bask in Your light?

Courage.

2015 Update: I just got off a conference call with Sir Bob Geldof and Bono to discuss preliminary plans for a Crankistan benefit concert. More to follow.

Courage.

The Return of the Roll

0415 - My blogroll is back and appears fully functional. Only time will tell if it suffered any permanent damage from the traumatic experiences of the day.

A big "Hooah" to those involved in the rescue operation. You know who you are.

The long national nightmare is over.

Who stole the roll?

My blogroll apparently has been taken hostage. No demands have been issued as of yet. More to follow...

*********************

1700 Update

Still no demands.

Courage.

End 1700 Update

*********************

2200 Update

A banner commemorating this tragic event now adorns this blog.

Courage.

End 2200 Update

Apparently we've won the War on Terror

Apparently we've won the War on Terror:

A Chatsworth, California film production company and a Tempe, Arizona video distributor and retailer, along with three owners of the businesses, have been charged by a federal grand jury in Phoenix, Arizona with operating an obscenity distribution business and related offenses, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Justice Department's Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Paul K. Charlton of the District of Arizona announced today.
In an indictment unsealed yesterday, Five Star Video, LLC, of Tempe, Arizona, and Phoenix residents Christopher Warren Ankeney and Kenneth James Graham were charged with four counts of using an interactive computer service to sell and distribute DVDs containing obscene matter - identified as "Gag Factor 18," "Filthy Things 6," "Gag Factor 15" and "American Bukkake 13" - and three counts of using an interstate common carrier to transport obscene DVDs. In addition, Five Star was charged in a separate count with using the mails to deliver a DVD containing obscene matter. Jeff Norton Productions of Chatsworth, California, also known as JM Productions, and Mike Leonard Norton, who resides in Woodland Hills, California, were charged with six counts of using an interstate common carrier to transport DVDs that are obscene. All of the defendants were also charged with three counts of engaging in the business of selling and transferring obscene matter. The government is also seeking forfeiture of certain obscene materials and profits, together with Internet domain name and website ownership rights.

According to the indictment, JM Productions and Norton distributed to Five Star via UPS various obscene films in DVD format that were in turn sold and distributed to the public by Five Star, Ankeney and Graham via UPS and the mails.

If convicted, the defendants face a maximum penalty of five years in prison on each of the obscenity counts.

An indictment is merely an accusation. All defendants are presumed innocent of the charges and it is the government's burden to prove a defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.

The case is being prosecuted by trial attorney Sheila Phillips of the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force of the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona. The Justice Department's Obscenity Prosecution Task Force was formed recently to focus on the prosecution of adult obscenity nationwide. The Task Force is directed by Brent D. Ward.

Shut down Gitmo, bring the troops home, end all controversial NSA programs. If the Justice Department has the time and manpower to waste on prosecuting people for this, we must have won the War on Terror.

Please note that nowhere in the indictment are the words "coercion," "against their will," "forcibly," "underage," or "minor." The defendants are being charged with making videos featuring consenting (and compensated) adults and selling these videos to other adults who freely choose to purchase and watch them.

The only obscene thing here is that DOJ recently formed a task force to prosecute consenting adults. What a bunch of losers. Seriously, go get laid or something and just leave the rest of us alone.

I honestly can't even fathom the type of mindset necessary to want to treat grown men and women as if you know better than they do what's best for them. I tried once and just ended up with a splitting headache, intense nausea and, oddly, a pulled groin and strained hammy.

Reason number 3,523 why I could never be a Republican.

(Hat tip: James at Killer is Me)

Canadian Club of Terrorists Arrested

Via the seemingly never asleep Jay at Stop the ACLU, AP is reporting that Canadian authorities have arrested 17 people on terrorism charges, including "plots to use explosives on Canadian soil."

Good work, eh.

But here's the part that would be funny if it weren't so sad.

This is how AP described the suspects:

McDonell said the suspects were either citizens or residents of Canada and had trained together.

“The men arrested yesterday are Canadian residents from a variety of backgrounds. For various reasons they appeared to have become adherents of a violent ideology inspired by al-Qaida,” said Luc Portelance, the assistant director of operations with CSIS _ Canada’s spy agency.

That's all AP tells us.

Now here are the names of the tewlve adult suspects: Fahim Ahmad, Zakaria Amara, Asad Anasri, Shareef Abdelhaleen, Qayyam Abdul Jamal, Mohammed Dirie, Yasim Abdi Mohamed, Jahmaal James, Amin Mohamed Durrani, Steven Vikash Chand aka Abdul Shakur, Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, and Saad Khalid.

I applaud AP for not jumping to any hasty conclusions regarding what the common background of the men might be.

Malkin has a roundup of blogosphere reaction to the arrests.

More on Canada's growing homegrown terrorist problem at Counterterrorism Blog.

Shock not awesome

There's a new magazine out called Shock. Don't buy it.

For those of you who don't know who Michael Yon is, he's a blogger and author who sent himself over to Iraq as an embed and filed some of the best dispatches of the Iraq War. (You can read more about how he did this here.) He also took some amazing photographs, including one of Army Major Mike Bieger cradling an Iraqi girl name Farah in his arms. Farah had just been mortally wounded by a suicie car bomber who chose to send himself to hell by detonating his explosives as Bieger's patrol was surrounded by Iraqi children. Yon reports that this photo eventually ran "on the front page of more than 50 US newspapers, was the Time Magazine online Viewer’s Choice Photo of the Year image, was selected by MSNBC for its 2005 Year in Photographs feature and was submitted for a Pulitzer."

So Shock magazine puts out its first issue right around Memorial Day, and Yon's photograph is on the cover with a headline that reads:

WAR IS STILL HELL! Jarring Proof that Iraq is the new Vietnam.

Inside, on the table of contents page, is a picture of Yon holding the photo of MAJ Bieger and Faran, with the caption:

Picture This: Amateur photographer Michael Yon captured history when he snagged our cover shot while reporting on the war for his blog. Could you be our next cover photographer? Send pics!

Only one problem: Yon never granted Shocked permission to use his photo.

Shock is published by magazine giant HFM, and Yon contacted them:

When confronted, they claimed to have gotten the photo “legally” from a photo agency, Polaris Images, but I have no relationship with Polaris Images and never authorized them to distribute my work.
When we confronted Polaris Images, they at first claimed they might have been given permission to sell the photograph by the wife of the soldier pictured in it. But the Major’s wife has a habit of saving emails that put an end to that nonsense. In the end, it doesn’t really matter outside of the courtroom who learned about it and when they were so enlightened, because once they did learn, the clock started ticking on their obligation to rectify the situation.

That’s why when I learned of this blatant infringement of my copyright on that photograph, I issued an immediate statement clarifying that I had not given anyone authorization for this use, and never would have allowed an image which I’ve called ‘sacred to me’ to be used in a flagrant attempt to profit from discrediting and demonizing American soldiers. What outraged me the most is how the timing of this launch coincided with the Memorial Day weekend, putting 300,000 copies of a slick attack on the very same soldiers Americans were honoring across the country. I am so disgusted with what they did with that image, which to me symbolizes the true nature of our military, that I demanded the publisher take it off the shelves.

So how did HFM respond?

HFM not only refused, they intimated in writing that they may have a claim against me for defamation based on the complaints they received from third parties about their unauthorized use of my photo.

Welcome to 2006.

Like most illegal usages, this only came to my attention after readers found it. Once I began trying to clear my name, several bloggers wrote about it and published contact information to the publisher, who began getting a flood of complaints. That’s when the publisher turned around and threatened me, in writing, with a defamation lawsuit. That’s no misprint: they took my property, used it a vulgar way, further dishonored our military and our country by timing their inaugural launch to Memorial Day weekend, and then, when some patriotic bloggers dared to call them to complain about it, they threatened me.

Yon is now filing suit against HFM.

Given that its inaugural issue apparently had only five advertisements in it, I don't think Shock will be around very long. The magazine game is tough enough for periodicals that have plenty of ads, let alone those that depend strictly on sales. But let's help hasten its demise.

Read Yon's whole story, and whatever you do, don't buy Shock.

(H/T: Mudville Gazette)

The Da Vinci Load cometh

I don't know about you, but I feel much better knowing that there's an adult film named The Da Vinci Load out there. (The link is to a review of the film from Nick Denton's Fleshbot site. It's hardly super-graphic, but there is some upper-body nudity, if you know what I mean. So if you're easily offended, for God's sake please don't click on the link and then blame me . In fact, to be on the safe side, maybe just skip the rest of this post.)

From Fleshbot's review:

Operatives of the Priory of Semen, including penile profiler Dr. Nadia Saint (Missy Monroe) discover that Leonardo Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa using his own sperm. Determined to resurrect Da Vinci and overjoyed that the master's sperm was not all "lost up a man's ass", they steal the painting and kill anyone who gets in their way.
This is already so much more believable than that whole Virgin Mary thing.

The actors often fall just slightly short of Nelson X's script, which is the most dialogue-intensive porn script since "Personal Best." Somehow this makes the tongue-in-cheek movie better.

Standout sex scenes are delivered by fleshpots Monroe, Hailey Paige, and Tory Lane, and Frank Bukkwyd and Evan Stone ham it up with gusto:

Monroe: So Da Vinci jerked off in his paintings?
Stone (as Professor Lee Teabag): It's just the way things were done!

I'm still trying to figure out just what the reviewer meant when he said it was a "tongue-in-cheek movie." I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, just so you know where my mind is, I think that the Priory of Semen is borderline genius, and Lee Teabag isn't far behind. (In the "real" book and movie the character's name is Leigh Teabing, in case - like me - you forgot.) Plus, is there a better possible response to the question, "So Da Vinci jerked off in his paintings?" then "It's just the way things were done!"? I don't think so.

This may be the mythical porno film that has guys actually fast forwarding through the sex to get to the plot. (I mean, probably not, but still.)

Is the press out to get the Haditha Marines?

Can anyone point me to a legitimate news source that has prematurely convicted the Marines who were involved in whatever happened in Haditha? Because I can't find one, and I keep hearing about how the media is railroading these guys.

Case in point: Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette, who is one of the top two or three milbloggers out there, in my opinion suffers a rare swing and a miss in taking on the AP and New York Times coverage of Haditha here:

About a week ago, AP ran a story with the headline, Investigators: Unprovoked Marines killed Children. Greyhawk says:

But regardless of what happened, unless there was no bomb, unless Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas wasn't really killed, unless Lance Cpl. James Crossan wasn't really wounded, there was a provocation that the Marines responded too. To the best of my knowledge, no one disputes the IED attack that started this incident, and no one disputes that civilians were killed. It seems indisputable that the attack was indeed provoked - a point that's actually a substantial factor in answering other questions regarding the ensuing events.

I understand that there's a difference between cold-bloodedly killing people and killing them after an IED attack that kills one of your brothers. But if - I say again, if - the Marines knowingly killed innocent civilians in retaliation for that attack, then they murdered people who did not provoke them, and I think that this is what the headline is getting at.

Greyhawk continues:

But quite clearly, according to this headline, the investigators say unprovoked.

Or do they? Here's the first paragraph of the story:
(AP) WASHINGTON Investigators believe that their criminal investigation into the deaths of about two dozen Iraqi civilians points toward a conclusion that Marines committed unprovoked murders, a senior defense official said Friday.
Read that again if you didn't get it the first time. To clarify, we'll name the actual source up front: a senior defense official said investigators believe that's what their investigation points towards. But that's certainly not the stuff of good headlines, so presto change-o, eliminate the middle man and roll out the 24-point Times New Roman. "Investigators: Unprovoked Marines Killed Civilians"
But nowhere in the story are investigators quoted as saying any such thing. A "senior defense official" is.

Or is he? Skip forward one paragraph:
The official ...said the evidence developed by investigators strongly indicates the killings last November in the insurgent-plagued city of Haditha in the western province of Anbar were unjustified.
That's closer to an actual quote than the first paragraph, and it says the killings were "unjustified" - something significantly different in meaning than "unprovoked". But quotation marks are noticeably absent from the story - meaning that what we really have is a reporter claiming that an unnamed senior defense official claims that people conducting an ongoing investigation currently believe that the attack was unprovoked.
All beneath a headline that reads Investigators: Unprovoked Marines Killed Civilians. As noted, you must ignore an IED, one death, and one serious injury for that to be true. ("Unjustified" may or may not be more accurate - but it certainly doesn't "sex up" the story to the same degree.)

Let's further illustrate this point. You and I are in a crowded room. Suddenly I throw a punch, and hit you quite squarely in the jaw. You go down but arise quickly, though quite shaken, and immediately throw a punch at me. I'm ready though, so I duck, and you light up the young lady standing behind me, sending her to the carpet.

No doubt at this point you are quite remorseful, but there's no one in the room who could reasonably accuse you of having launched an unprovoked attack on the young lady in question. Yes, you punched her. Yes, you were acting in anger. Yes, you lost control. But as the guy who struck first then avoided your retaliation, sane people might think I deserve most of the blame.
Unless, of course, your response was the entire point of my actions in the first place. And if the room is full of my friends who are quite willing to go along, you had best start backing towards the door. Because you hit a girl, you sumbitch. One who had done absolutely nothing to you, so it was unprovoked.

Two points here: I'd bet money that the "senior defense official" is someone involved in writing the report. Obviously, the article couldn't say that because it would narrow the field of possible sources immensely. As someone who's been on both the "reporter" side and the "source" side, I can tell you that this kind of thing goes on all the time. In fact, often someone will be quoted by name in an article and be quoted in the same article as a "senior official," or whatever, because he or she was comfortable being identified with some quotes but not with others. In this case, there's virtually no chance that AP would have run with this story if the reporter's source wasn't reliable. (Whatever bias you think AP has, Sy Hersh it ain't.) And my money's on the fact that he or she is reliable because he or she has a direct connection to the investigation.

Secondly, Greyhawk's "throwing punches in a crowded room" analogy doesn't work, for the simple reason of motive. Unless I'm completely mistaken, the Marines aren't under investigation for allegedly trying to kill someone and accidentally killing someone else: they're being investigated for purposely targeting and killing civilians. In Greyhawks' analogy, he punches me, I try to punch him back, he ducks, and I accidentally punch an innocent young lady who was standing behind him. It doesn't scan.

Moving on, Greyhawk notes another instance of the use of the word "unprovoked":

But let's get back to the real story and watch it grow. Que The New York Times:
President Bush expressed concern today over reports that 24 Iraqi civilians may have been killed by American marines in an unprovoked attack in the city of Haditha last November.
So now President Bush has used the phrase "unprovoked attack"? A careful reading of the New York Times quote reveals nothing; the only use of quotation marks in the story is here:
"I am troubled by the initial news stories," Mr. Bush said. "I am mindful that there is a thorough investigation going on." If laws were broken, the president said, "there will be punishment."
and here:
The president said he had discussed the incident with Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "He's a proud marine," Mr. Bush said.
But it's possible the reporter's original question used the term "unprovoked". But that question isn't included in the NY Times story. Fortunately the White House has a full transcript of the statement, which came in a question and answer session during a visit with President Kagame of Rwanda:
PRESIDENT BUSH: Welcome. The President and I will take two questions a side, starting with the Americans. Nedra.
Q Mr. President, what have you been told about the killings at Haditha? And are you worried about the impact it could have on the situation in Iraq?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I am troubled by the initial news stories. I am mindful that there is a thorough investigation going on. If, in fact, the laws were broken, there will be punishment. I know this: I've talked to General Pete Pace about the subject, who is a proud Marine, and nobody is more concerned about these allegations than the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps is full of men and women who are honorable people who understand rules of war. And if, in fact, these allegations are true, the Marine Corps will work hard to make sure that that culture, that proud culture will be reinforced, and that those who violated the law, if they did, will be punished.
Well now, it would appear the "unprovoked" bit was an after-market construct of the New York Times. (Side note: the unreported aspect of the meeting was the discussion of US support to Rwanda, whose troops are deployed as peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur region, but hey, who gives a damn?)
That should end the "unprovoked attack" story - but it won't. Because it's a very necessary element in getting these Marines condemned to death before their trial - and enraging certain elements of the population of Iraq to kill some more. So please do look carefully at future news stories that include that mysterious phrase from nowhere - along with all others from similar sources.

It's obvious that Greyhawk is correct in saying that the Times itself chose the phrase "unprovoked attack" to describe what happened in Haditha, and that the President didn't come close to using it. But saying "So now President Bush has used the phrase 'unprovoked attack'?" is a non-starter, because the Times didn't put those words in quotes. If Bush had used that exact phrase, you can be sure it would have appeared in quotes. That aside, however, Greyhawk's larger point is that the Times chose that phrase "[b]ecause it's a very necessary element in getting these Marines condemned to death before their trial - and enraging certain elements of the population of Iraq to kill some more."

I don't buy that for a second, but I can't prove that Greyhawk's wrong, just as he can't prove that he's right. This one's a matter of opinion. But look: I loathe the New York Times with a passion. I think its coverage of Iraq (with the exception of John Burns) has been woefully biased, and I think its coverage of military affairs in general shows an almost complete lack of knowledge and - worse yet - an almost complete lack of interest in acquiring knowledge. However, I'm sorry, but I find it next to impossible to believe that the Times has any kind of interest in either getting Marines condemned before their trial, or in "enraging certain elements of the population of Iraq to kill some more." If I understand Greyhawk's point, I think what he's saying is that the Times is so anti-Bush and anti-military that it'll do anything to make the US look bad. I believe that there probably aren't many things the Times wouldn't do to make Bush look bad, but I firmly believe this is one of them. The Times is not the Democratic Underground, it's not Atrios, it's not certain elements of Daily Kos. Does it have a liberal bias? Absolutely. But unless you think all liberals want Americans to die just to make Bush look bad, you have to separate the rational left from the loony left. (Just as you do on the right.)

The bottom line is that of course the Marines are innocent until proven guilty. (Hell, they haven't even been charged with anything yet.) But I think it's foolish to paint every story that mentions what is alleged to have happened in Haditha with the broad brush of left-wing propaganda. And if the Washington Post is correct about what Army Major General Elden Bargewell's report is going to say - and let's face it, the odds are that WaPo had very solid sources for its story - then the Marine Corps is going to be in for what could be one of the toughest times in its history. And it won't be the New York Times' or AP's fault.

Third party people in the House say yeah!

Dean Esmay has written a characteristically intelligent post about the near impossibility of a third political party gaining any real traction any time soon:

It's much easier to define what you're opposed. You can be against Bush, or Gore, or whoever, and you may have all sorts of people who agree with you. But once you put together a statement of what you actually are for, what you will actually do, your third party will disintegrate, or become a marginal player like the Green Party or the Libertarian Party or the Constitution Party here in America.

He's right. Tapping into anti-establishment rage is simple, especially when the establishment makes it so easy. Explaining to people why you'd be a good alternative is hard. And even if enough people might agree with you, getting the word out without the support of one of the major parties is still almost impossible, even in today's "Army of David" electronic world. Third parties face the catch-22 reality of not being taken seriously by the media because they're so small, and being so small (at least partially) because the media won't take them seriously. Other than the occasional Ross Perot, or even John Anderson, a third party candidate is dead to the MSM. And say what you want about the power of the internet or the blogosphere, it's not enough to overcome this fact. (Yet.)

There's a blogroll that I was just made aware of (and joined) yesterday called American Bloggers for Inclusive Debates, which is made up of bloggers from all over the political spectrum who are fed up with business as usual. One of its goals is to get third party candidates involved in the 2008 presidential debates:

Even though there is little chance of a third party candidate being elected to the nation's highest office, including these candidates in the Presidential debates pressures the Republican and Democrat candidates to address more diverse issues and points of view. When candidates from smaller parties are allowed to participate in Presidential debates, and are allowed to directly confront the major candidates before a national audience with tough questions, and/or fresh new ideas it forces the Democratic and Republican candidate to, in some cases, even adopt those ideas into their campaign.

It's a noble goal, which is why I joined, but it's about as uphill a political battle as you'll ever find. Still, some way has to be found to make it as crystal clear as possible to the Big Two that many Americans are tired of their sorry acts, tired of them putting party above country, just as we're tired of politicians putting themselves above the people. It's a little early for calls to refresh the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots (though four years ago I couldn't have even imagined typing that phrase), so why not try everything possible to get a message through?

Then, of course, there's my modest proposal, which I'm now modestly referring to as the Free the People^TM campaign, and which so far is a campaign of one. This proposal involves sending a message to our political class by voting against all incumbents this November, regardless of party affiliation, and with no exceptions. I plan on writing about this a lot in the coming months: I call it the Andrew Sullivan Torture Technique. Those of you who read Sullivan will know what I'm talking about and probably think I'm a genius for coining that phrase. The rest of you will soon find out how torturous this technique can be.

A Modest Proposal

02 June 2006 Update: This proposal is now officially known as the Free the People^TM campaign and has been bumped to the top of the blog. End 02 June 2006 Update

Wherever you are in this great nation of ours, whatever party you belong to, whatever your personal political proclivities, I believe the most patriotic thing you can do this year is to go to the polls in November and vote against your incumbent Congressperson.

These people are out of control, they care about nothing but keeping and extending their own power, and they need to go find honest work for what in many cases will be the first time in their lives.

A personal note to Jim Sensenbrenner: Americans are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan and you think the most important thing you can do right now is hold hearings disparaging the raid on William Jefferson's office? I hearby officially question your patriotism, mainly because, like most of your comrades, you've given no evidence that you have any ability whatsoever to place anything ahead of your own selfish interests, including your country.

Update: Many of you have written to say that you think this is a great idea, except that your Congressperson is actually pretty good. I've been asked to tell you that management has a strict policy of no exceptions to its "You don't have to go home, you just got to get the hell out of Congress" protocol. Management reminds you that you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs (see Iraq, War in) and that the goal here is to make an omelette big enough to feed Africa. Management apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause, and hopes that you all understand the necessity for strict adherence to policy at such a critical time.

Management also advises you that failure to comply with the aforementioned policy will be considered un-American, potentially punishable by having your patriotism brought into question.

That is all.

Data minding

As I first blogged about over a month ago, Attorney General Alberto "Gonzo" Gonzales is seeking to mandate that internet service providers (ISPs) keep their records of your surfing habits for a far longer period of time than they currently do. Here's what's changed. A month ago, the reason the AG gave for wanting this was to better track child pornographers and potential child stalkers. Well, apparently even invoking the usually foolproof "It's for the children" mantra hasn't been working, because according to Declan McCullogh at Cnet News.com, Gonzo now says this data retention is necessary for the War on Terror:

Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller privately met with representatives of AOL, Comcast, Google, Microsoft and Verizon last week and said that Internet providers--and perhaps search engines--must retain data for two years to aid in anti-terrorism prosecutions, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussion who spoke

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