Factoid of the Day: 27 Nov 2006

From a story in today's NY Times:

Seattle, which averages about 38 inches of rain annually, is far from the country's wettest big city. Atlanta, Boston, Houston, Miami and New York are just some of the others that get more rain.

I didn't know that.

Thought for the Day: 24 Nov 2006

From a blog entry titled "Growing Up:"

The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. ...

There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

--General Smedley D. Butler, as quoted [T$] by U.S. Navy Petty Officer First Class Anthony McCloskey

Line of the Day: 2006-11-18

Yesterday, on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!, host Peter Sagal said this about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes: "They are the Jim and Tammy Faye Baker of Scientology."

Cross words

From today's puzzle in the NY Times: 1-Across, six letters, clue: "Most distant"

Which got me to thinking: If it's "nearest," why isn't it "farest?"

I guess I'm missing something for the trees.

(Actual answer in the Comments.)

Cultural Learnings of Vietnam for Make Benefit Image of Glorious President

Bubble? What bubble?

From a story comparing the last president's visit to Vietnam with that of the current one, we find yet another example of the Occupant-in-Chief's efforts to stay in touch:

On Saturday, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, conceded that the president had not come into direct contact with ordinary Vietnamese, but said that they connected anyway.

"If you'd been part of the president's motorcade as we've shuttled back and forth," he said, reporters would have seen that "the president has been doing a lot of waving and getting a lot of waving and smiles."

He continued: "I think he's gotten a real sense of the warmth of the Vietnamese people …"

How do guys like Hadley sleep at night, anyway?

A Good Read: John Waters

John Waters has a piece in today's NY Times, titled The Kindness of a Stranger.

Here's how it starts:

Tennessee Williams saved my life. As a 12-year-old boy in suburban Baltimore, I would look up his name in the card catalog at the library and it would read "see Librarian." I wanted these "see Librarian" books -- and I wanted them now -- but in the late 1950s (and sadly even today), there was no way a warped adolescent like myself could get his hands on one. But I soon figured out that the "see Librarian" books were on a special shelf behind the counter. So when the kindly librarian was helping the "normal" kids with their book reports, I sneaked behind the checkout desk and stole the first book I ever wanted to possess on my own.

Another sign that the Republicans have been in charge for too long

Did you know that at certain gyms, grunting while lifting weights is considered grounds for ejection and loss of membership?

This story is enough to make me enroll in the gym, just to make some noise of my own.

You might have missed these

Among the stunts pulled by the White House during their desperation efforts in the weeks before the election:

Oh, and then there's this. The [Agriculture Department's] hunger/food insecurity report usually appears in October. This year's version -- the fifth straight to show an increase in the number of hungry Americans -- was held for release until after last week's election.

--Tim Grieve [S$]

A dark trifecta: More evidence of the breakdown of society (thanks to compassionate conservatism), another Bush Administration effort to suppress the evidence, and a new Orwellian term: People who don't have anything to eat are officially no longer "hungry." They now just experience "food insecurity."

Another item that seems to have escaped the MSM, currently obsessing over something really stupid, is the appointment by Bush of one Eric Keroack as the new chief of family-planning programs for the Department of Health and Human Services. Keroack's last job? Medical director for a group called A Woman's Concern, which believes that "the crass commercialization and distribution of birth control is demeaning to women, degrading of human sexuality and adverse to human health and happiness."

I'm sure women prefer to trust men to take full responsibility in matters of birth control, right? And in any case, no one finds unwanted pregnancies adverse to happiness, don't you agree?

Thanks again to Mr. Grieve [S$] for keeping us aware.

These are college kids?

My sister MK, the college prof, just finished a marathon session of grading papers. One of her chief complaints was the following.

It's different from, as I'm sure you know. But it really grated for MK to have to read different then, over and over again.

I've given up going to the mat about using than as a preposition in place of the preferred from, because languages do evolve. If enough people make the same mistake in conversation, it becomes accepted usage, and eventually, it creeps into written work. I don't like it, and reading it causes me to lose respect for the writer, but it feels like a battle that's about lost.

But if I were a college prof getting papers infested with different then, I'd mark them all with an F.

After a day or two, I might allow resubmission. But there would have to be as much grief demonstrated by the students as I had suffered while reading.

Murtha + Hoyer + Pelosi = Snooze

Anyone besides me not care a whit about the "battle" for House Majority Leader? Anyone besides me think it's really insignificant that Speaker Pelosi's choice wasn't the one selected?

I can't decide whether it's the Republican spin machine cranking up on about the only thing they have left to talk about, or the MSM being, as always, eager to talk about Democratic Party dissension, or just the familiar groupthink that chronically infects the Washington news bureaus.

I'm glad that a guy who evidently has so many ethics problems didn't get the job. That's better for the Party, the House, and the country in the long run. So Nancy Pelosi owed Jack Murtha a favor or two, and made a public show of support for him to as payback. It's hard for me to believe that she didn't know that she couldn't push this one through -- you don't get to where she is without being able to count noses.

I don't see this as loss of power for her. She won the speakership unanimously, and the real clout of that job lies in handing out committee assignments and deciding which proposed bills (and investigations, oh please, oh please) get pushed forward.

We've seen, over the past six years, what happens when the party in power moves in lockstep. It's a disaster, no doubt about it. Let's stop with the handwringing over a little Democratic squabbling, and get on with the job, shall we?

Free T$ Runs Out Today

Sorry I didn't notice this before, but the NY Times has been allowing everyone free access to TimesSelect this past week, and through today. This is the part of their web site that is usually available to subscribers only.

As I've said elsewhere, I think it's worth paying for TimesSelect, and for good content in general. Now you can see for yourself.

Two more years

I heard on the radio last night while driving home from work about Rummy getting the boot. Bush's taped comments, evidently from his afternoon press conference, were partially replayed. He had some mealy-mouthed explanation about having planned to do this for some weeks now, but didn't want to do it in the final days of the campaign.

Uh huh. Whatever.

The thing that really bugged me about it is that he admitted lying to reporters about the matter, and then tossed it off with that patented "heh-heh-heh." He clearly still thinks lying is okay.

The House investigations can't start soon enough for me.

Mildly Happy Days

Karl Rove, the president's top political strategist, alerted the president that the House was lost at around 11 p.m., the White House said.

"His reaction was, he was disappointed in the results in the House," Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman. "But he’s eager to work with both parties on his priorities over the next two years. He's got an agenda of important issues he wants to work on, and he's going to work with both parties."

(source)

We'll see about that. He's had six years of not working with both parties, so far.

Never Mind the Election ...

. . . Britney and K-Fed are getting divorced!

The country seems already on a better track, doesn't it?

But you have voted today, haven't you? That's what I thought. Good.

We Should Kerry This Election. Easily.

Is the junior senator from Massachusetts working for the Republicans? I mean, again? After his stellar non-performance in 2004?

So you blew the joke, or whatever, Sen. Kerry. Stop mealymouthing with clarifications and parenthetical asides. Stop sort of denying but maybe just admitting. Stop flip-flopping, to coin a phrase.

Just say this: "I wasn't talking about the troops being dumb. I was talking about George W. Bush. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough."

Why is it so frickin' hard for the Democrats to get it together?

Too Good Not To Swipe

Q: Why don't Republicans use bookmarks?

Give up?

Take Charge

From today's NY Times:

But even as some investors have profited handsomely by buying and sometimes quickly reselling power plants, electricity customers, who were supposed to be the biggest beneficiaries of the new system, have not fared so well. Not only have their electricity rates not fallen, in many cases they are rising even faster than the prices of the fuels used to make the electricity. Those increases stand in contrast to the significantly lower prices in other businesses in which competition was introduced, such as airlines and long-distance calling.

As I have argued in the past, deregulation is not always a good thing. This is especially true in an arena where the competition is unlikely to be completely open, and even more so when the few who can afford to sit in the game can also buy politicians wholesale.

Read the whole story.

Closet Cases

Within the world of gay Washington, many of Capitol Hill's gay Republicans are out about their sexual orientation -- but not about where they work. (source [S$])

That seems sensible to me. I'd only be ashamed of the job, too.

Don't tell W. He might just.

This just in from El Deb:

U.S. Cedes Control of Iraq to Jerry Bruckheimer

Megaproducer to Guide Nation's
Transition to Disaster Film

In a high-risk exit strategy that surprised many in diplomatic circles, President George W. Bush announced today that the United States would cede control of Iraq to the Hollywood megaproducer Jerry Bruckheimer.

The decision to transfer sovereignty of Iraq to Mr. Bruckheimer, best known for such Hollywood thrill-rides as "Pirates of the Caribbean," struck many foreign policy experts as unorthodox at best, since Mr. Bruckheimer has no experience at nation-building and has never set foot in Iraq.

But at the White House today, a beaming President Bush said that Mr. Bruckheimer was the most logical choice to guide Iraq in its transition from a Middle Eastern nation to a big-budget disaster film.

"It is true that Jerry Bruckheimer has never been to Iraq," Mr. Bush told reporters. "But he did produce 'Armageddon.'"

For his part, Mr. Bruckheimer was tight-lipped about his plans for the war-torn nation, but he did offer a sneak preview, telling reporters, "Nicholas Cage will be playing a key role."

Mr. Bruckheimer added that Iraq had "all the ingredients" necessary to become a major summer blockbuster: "lots of explosions, thousands of people running for their lives, and a world-class villain, Saddam Hussein."

But whether Mr. Hussein would be willing to play a role in Mr. Bruckheimer's disaster epic remains to be seen, according to the deposed dictator's Hollywood agent, Adam Leinhartz of the William Morris agency.

"What Saddam really wants to do is direct," Mr. Leinhartz said.

Elsewhere, the G.O.P. announced a new midterm election strategy, saying that it would target voters who have not read a newspaper in two years.

The sad thing about the last line: that really is their base.

Adverbs Added Due to Ad

With a title of Adverbs, how do you not pick up the book? And how do you not want to read it, when part of the inside front cover looks like this?

(Click image to zoom)

iBlame

From today's PC Advisor:

Security and quality assurance experts reacted negatively to Apple's efforts to blame manufacturing problems that resulted in iPod MP3 players shipping with a virus that affects Windows.

Security professionals, including Microsoft's own product release virus scanning chief, called Apple's efforts to deflect blame on to Microsoft misleading and said the batch of factory-infected iPods reveals a troubling lack of thoroughness in the company's manufacturing process.

Ah, c'mon. Ask any Republican. They'll tell you the truth: It's all Bill Clinton's fault.

I read. I gape.

David Brooks has an op-ed piece [T$] in today's NY Times in which he endorses Barack Obama for president.

Well, okay, not quite. His main thrust is that, for now, he's strongly in favor of Obama being the Democratic nominee, and for all of the right reasons. But I think I can read a little more between the lines. Here's an excerpt:

[Obama] has a compulsive tendency to see both sides of any issue. Joe Klein of Time counted 50 instances of extremely judicious on-the-one-hand-on the-other-hand formulations in [Obama's recently published] book. He seems like the guy who spends his first 15 minutes at a restaurant debating the relative merits of fish versus meat.

And yet this style is surely the antidote to the politics of the past several years. It is surely true that a president who brings a deliberative style to the White House will multiply his knowledge, not divide it.

It's a very good column. I'm not saying that I'm surprised that Brooks can write, I'm just saying it's pleasantly astonishing to see him step outside of his usual rut.

Imagine a president who uses his brain instead of relying on his gut. Be still my beating heart.

Reprint: "Sami's Shame, and Ours"

This might not make the NY Times too happy, and if they complain, I'll take it down, but Nicholas Kristof's column [T$] of 17 Oct 2006 is too important to be hidden behind the TimesSelect wall. Thus, I am displaying the full article here.

October 17, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Sami's Shame, and Ours
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

There is no public evidence that Sami al-Hajj committed any crime other than journalism for a television network the Bush administration doesn’t like.

But the U.S. has been holding Mr. Hajj, a cameraman for Al Jazeera, for nearly five years without trial, mostly at Guantánamo Bay. With the jailing of Mr. Hajj and of four journalists in Iraq, the U.S. ranked No. 6 in the world in the number of journalists it imprisoned last year, just behind Uzbekistan and tied with Burma, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

This week, President Bush is expected to sign the Military Commissions Act concerning prisoners at Guantánamo, and he has hailed the law as "a strong signal to the terrorists." But the closer you look at Guantánamo the more you feel that it will be remembered mostly as a national disgrace.

Mr. Hajj is the only journalist known to be there, and, of course, it’s possible that he is guilty of terrorist-related crimes. If so, he should be tried, convicted and sentenced.

But so far, the evidence turned up by his lawyers and by the Committee to Protect Journalists -- which published an excellent report on Mr. Hajj’s case this month -- suggests that the U.S. military may be keeping him in hopes of forcing him to become a spy.

Mr. Hajj, 37, who attended university and speaks English, joined Al Jazeera as a cameraman in April 2000 and covered the war in Afghanistan. He was detained on Dec. 15, 2001, and taken to the American military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan.

"They were the longest days of my life," Mr. Hajj’s lawyers quoted him as saying. He told them he was repeatedly beaten, kicked, starved, left out in the freezing cold and subjected to anal cavity searches in public "just to humiliate me."

In June 2002, Mr. Hajj was flown to Guantánamo, where he says the beatings initially were brutal but have since subsided somewhat.

At first, interrogators said Mr. Hajj had shot video of Osama bin Laden during an Al Jazeera interview, but it turned out that they may have mixed him up with another cameraman of a similar name. When that assertion fell apart, the authorities offered accusations that he had ferried a large sum of money to a suspicious Islamic charity, that he had supported Chechen rebels, and that he had once given a car ride and other assistance to an official of Al Qaeda.

One indication that even our government may not take those accusations so seriously is that the interrogations barely touched on them, Mr. Hajj’s lawyers say.

"About 95 percent of the interrogations he went through were about Al Jazeera," said one of the lawyers, Zachary Katznelson of London. "Sami would say, ‘What about me? Will you ask about me?’ "

He added, "It really does seem that the focus of the inquiry is about his employer, Al Jazeera, and not about him or any actions he may have taken."

Mr. Katznelson also says that interrogators told Mr. Hajj they would free him immediately if he would agree to go back to Al Jazeera and spy on it. He once asked what would happen if he backed out of the deal after he was free.

"You would not do that," Mr. Hajj quoted his interrogator as saying, "because it would endanger your child."

The Defense Department declined to comment on Mr. Hajj’s case, saying that in general, it does not comment on specific detainees at Guantánamo.

While Mr. Hajj is unknown in the U.S., his case has received wide attention in the Arab world. The Bush administration is thus doing long-term damage to American interests.

Mr. Hajj’s lawyers say he has two torn ligaments in his knee from abuse in his first weeks in custody, making it exceptionally painful for him to use the squat toilet in his cell. The lawyers say he has been offered treatment for his knee and a sitting toilet that would be less painful to use -- but only if he spills dirt on Al Jazeera. And he says he has none to spill.

And while Defense Department documents indicate that he has been a model inmate at Guantánamo, he protests that he has been called racial epithets (he is black) and that he has seen guards desecrate the Koran.

When Sudan detained an American journalist, Paul Salopek, in August in Darfur, journalists and human rights groups reacted with outrage until he was freed a month later. We should be just as offended when it is our own government that is sinking to Sudanese standards of justice.

This doesn’t look like a war on terrorism, but a war on our own values.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

And now for some good news!

After wallowing in the gloom of my previous post, I now feel a whole lot better. Thanks to Brando's Top 10 Tuesdays (special Wednesday edition), I came across this nugget on the Huff Post: "Fox News' Ratings Take a Nosedive."

Read them both and howl. With joy!

Phish Warning, FWIW

I apologize if this post sounds a little Chicken Little or Nervous Nellie, but I've thought about it for a while, and figured I'd just get it off my chest.

Just so you know, there seems to be a new phishing scam going around. This one involves the telephone, not email. Here's what happened to me. (I use BankXYZ as the name of the bank in the following, for obvious reasons of obfuscation, but it was a real bank, one with whom I do have a credit card.)

I got two automated phone calls in the past week or so, both saying it was BankXYZ and they needed to talk to me about my credit card, and "this is not a sales call." They gave an 800 number.

The first time I called the number, I got an automated answer, which began by asking me to punch in my credit card number, just as always happens when I call my real credit card company for whatever reason. Fortunately, I'd had a couple of cups of coffee, and I didn't fall for it. I just hung up. But the call and the answer were pretty professional-sounding, and had I been a little more distracted, I wonder if I might have gone into zombie mode and just punched in my number.

I finally got around to calling BankXYZ, using the number on the back of my card. They said there was nothing wrong with my account, and that they had no record of having called me. The customer service rep agreed with me that it was probably a scam, but she didn't sound like she was ready to call out the troops.

I now wish I had written the phone number down. Maybe I'll try to call my phone company and see if they'll let me have a list of the 800 numbers called from my phone in the last month, and then I could think about who I might report this to.

Anyway, pass the word. There definitely seems to be a new variant of phishing going around, and it's not as obvious as most email spam. I heard from a friend out west that something quite similar just happened to him, too.

The next time I get the call, if I do, I'm going to punch in a made-up number, just to see what happens next. Hope I don't inadvertently use yours! Come to think of it, it would probably be best if you sent me a list of your numbers, just so I can be sure not to use any of them.

---

[Update:2006-10-19 14:00 EDT]:

It turns out that it wasn't a scam. After a bunch of phone calls, I found out that my phone number is listed on a credit card account, a Sears account which is managed by one of the giant banks.

The account that's generating all the phone traffic, however, is not my account. As I have only had my current phone number for a relatively short while, it seems likely that the guy who had this phone number before me moved and neglected to inform Sears of his new number.

Thank you for your patience. We now return you to our regular blog, which is typically not nearly as riddled with paranoia. Neurotic, obsessive, and misanthropic? Granted.

Attitudinal Dissonance

What is a card-carrying pessimist to do when he reads this?

One reason despair is not an option is because things can always get worse, and then what'll we do?

--Molly Ivins

So, despite my dark and gloomy outlook on life, I am evidently required to remain upbeat? Ouch.

The column where the above line appears discusses the Vietnamization of Iraq, and it's quite good. You might also like another recent column by Ivins, which discusses Bush and North Korea.

Good columns. Molly Ivins. At least some things are consistent.

Shiping Charges May Vary

I just finished writing a lengthy screed in response to an email that contained an essay moaning about the supposed persecution in this country of those with religious beliefs.

Never mind my screed, although you can read it if you want to. What I want to talk about is this:

Which word is spelled correctly: worshipping or worshiping?

My email spell-checker said the latter, where I had the former. My American Heritage dictionary and Princeton's WordNet accept both, although they list the single p version first. The spell-checker built into the Blogger editor flags neither.

If you're going to argue for the latter and you skipped past the title of this post, I ask, have you ever read The Shiping News?

Reading Recommendations: 2006-10-17

The first three links on this list point to Salon. You know the drill. The last is on the NY Times's site, and free.

• The real menace to American kids

  Bill Maher, making a guest appearance. A fine rant in his usual Politically Incorrect fashion, which may strike some as a bit over the top. Me, I like over the top in general, and Bill Maher in particular.
  
  

• Abramoff's "rock star"

  File this one under "surprise, surprise" if you will, but Mark Benjamin does a nice job of reporting. Hard as it may be to believe, current RNC head Ken Mehlman was seriously in bed with Jack Abramhoff when Mehlman was working in the Bush White House a few years back. The House Committee on Government Reform got right on the matter, and three or four years later, delivered a report. Benjamin summarizes it, focusing on an appendix detailing the email trail that proves that the name of the game is pay-for-play.
  
  

• Hillary is us

  The incredibly good Rebecca Traister takes some time out from her regular beat on "Broadsheet" to give a lengthy piece on feminist perspectives of Hillary Rodham Clinton. The article is complex and nuanced, so I hesitate to give a "money quote," but this phrase hints at Traister's understandably hesitant embrace and rock-solid analysis: "... what Hillary Clinton can offer the American left: unreliable, occasional, but intermittently effective action on behalf of the good guys." Definitely not for women only.
  
  

• The Vegetable-Industrial Complex

  A short essay from Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, reflecting on the lessons that should be learned from the recent spinach unpleasantness. Among other things, he makes a good argument for buying from local farms that doesn't require the reader to also have a fondness for Birkenstocks.

Disturbing Image of the Day: 2006-10-16

I just had a thought.

You know how it's common among the punditocracy to make fun of bloggers like me by characterizing us as sitting around in our underwear?

Does this mean that those loudmouths who think spending their lives in Fox News studios is somehow worthy are all going commando?

Lends a whole new meaning to "empty suit," don't you think?

Andrew Sullivan: Follow-Up

A while back, I posted a bit of snark about Andrew Sullivan and his changed views of the Bush Administration. Now I'm feeling the tiniest bit guilty, because I just read an interview [S$] with him on Salon.

Sullivan, as I have said elsewhere, is someone whom I respect. I read his blog regularly, as part of my ongoing efforts to find people who doesn't share my views, but who don't sound like they're just repeating Karl Rove's talking points. He makes a far more coherent case for the conservative point of view than do most pundits these days. His explanation of his change in mindset about George W. Bush, the war in Iraq, and the Republican Party, is well worth reading.

I still disagree with Sullivan about some things, to be sure. For example, his view of conservatism in the ideal, as Salon quotes from his new book, is: "… a political philosophy designed to check power, to ensure individual liberty, to protect individuals from lawless government authority, …"

This strikes me as hopelessly utopian, an attitude he critizes in other people and in other contexts later in the interview. I mean, dude, who isn't against the gummint minding your business? Just because liberals like me think we have a societal responsibility to help the less fortunate, and just because we haven't yet come up with a better way to do so than through policies which are summarily dismissed as "tax and spend," doesn't mean we like the president behaving as a dictator or his buddies telling us who we can boink and what we can ingest.

I'll also point out that every administration -- nay, virtually every single politician -- in my lifetime professing a conservative stance has been in favor of pork, ridiculous military spending, and more pork. The only place spending is ever cut is from poor people and the environment. Tax cuts, which inevitably grossly favor the already rich, are invariably paid for by a crippling amount of borrowing. And forget about these "conservatives" letting you live your life the way you want to live it, of course.

Nonetheless, my respect for Andrew Sullivan was only increased by reading this interview. You should, too. (You've followed the my "[S$]" explanatory link before, right? If not, do so.)

---

As further evidence of what a good guy Sullivan is, check out his appearance on The Colbert Report. He has posted a YouTube excerpt.

I can't resist the urge to salute him for playing a straight man so well.