Gentle Reader -- You are welcome to peruse my web-based journal. I assure you that my contributions to this medium will be both infrequent and inconsequential. Read on!

DOOMSDAY

The last Doctor Who was quite good, by the way.

After my recent email kerfluffle with Jacob, the guy who writes the recaps on TwoP, I find that site to be less and less essential to my viewing experience. Jacob was cool about the whole thing, really, but the exchange left a bad taste in my figurative mouth regarding the whole TwoP experience.

Aside from anything that Jacob might do or not do, though, our chat started a chain of thought ending in the idea that my internet time is really a way of distracting myself from other, more productive things in life. Like working, for example. And my own writing. Blogging, even. posted by Carlton at 11:20 PM

GOING GENTLE

So we finally killed Saddam -- or they finally killed Saddam, depending on your perspective on how distinct they are from us. At any rate, it is reported that he is dead. I'm opposed to the death penalty in general, mostly on grounds that we can't seem to make certain that the people we execute are the ones who commit the crimes. I'm not sad that Saddam is dead, however.

I do think, however, that killing him was a mistake. Until now, the Bush people have had at least one thin straw to clutch at regarding the colossal blunder that we made by invading Iraq: at least we got Saddam. He was the new Hitler, you may recall. He was a madman. He used chemical weapons on his own people. George Bush, a man who sees himself as completely good, and anyone who opposes him as irredeemably evil, and is motivated almost exclusively by the desire to Destroy his Enemies, had a personal grievance. To him, Saddam was, "the guy who tried to kill my dad." So, George Jr. put Saddam Hussein at the top of the very shortest list of evildoers who must be destroyed, at any cost. Literally, any cost.

Now he's dead, though. Not just merely dead, but really most sincerely dead. I believe that Saddam's execution, far from being a triumph for the Bush Administration, is going to highlight in the most glaring way possible how irrelevant Saddam was to the current mess we've made. Saddam was not the Devil, and his death is not, as the final component of some magic spell, going to make the parties in Iraq lay down their arms and make peace. He has been out of power for three and a half years now, and every single person in Iraq, even the Ba'athist "dead-enders", came to terms with his never coming back long ago.

One by one, the cooked-up rationales for the invasion of Iraq have peeled away: there were no WMD, no democracy has blossomed, no human rights protected. Iraq has not served as an example of American might to awe the region into submission. One thing that we did do, however, was get Saddam. Now he's dead, and every person in the world can look at the state of things and decide for himself whether it was worth it. posted by Carlton at 10:00 PM

STARTING OVER AT ZERO

The government cashed my check a couple of days ago, and so Molly and I now owe, combined, a grand total of $19.47 in student loans. We don't have a whole lot of money left, of course, but after a couple of pay periods and the cleanup of some modest credit card balances, we will be entirely debt-free.

I have a great deal of internal debate about these matters. You have a little extra money left over -- spend it, invest it or pay off some debt? Spending is fun, and investing is it's own kind of fun, if you're into that. Paying off debt seems like a big downer, especially the student loan variety. There are moments when I think I've really screwed up by paying off the loans as aggressively as I have (I finished school in 2001). If I've made a mistake, however -- and that's not clear -- I think it's one of not making the best choice rather than making a bad one. posted by Carlton at 9:52 PM

UTILIZING FUNCTIONALITIES

The eternal question -- why can't they leave me the !#$% alone? Suddenly, I have to have a Google account, and new passwords, and everything looks different . . . Dear Google people: please focus your attention on making the basic program work, all the time, before you start "improving" it.

Like I need this, on top of the fifty-six passwords I have for work. posted by Carlton at 9:49 PM

ALL BLOGS GO TO HEAVEN

It appears that excellent blogger Billmon ("Whiskey Bar" link at left, but don’t bother) has turned out the lights on his site, at least for a while. That’s a real shame -- he always had some interesting commentary, and he was someone I looked to as a model for how a smart, opinionated standalone blogger should operate -- as opposed to the community-building sites, the media empire sites, or the fifty-posts-a-day sites like Atrios. He was just one guy, telling you what he thought. And I was fortunate enough to pay attention, every so often.

It is possible he will be back, of course. Let's hope so. posted by Carlton at 9:46 PM

EXILE

I have been sent to Charlottesville, VA for a week for a tax seminar. More than that, I have to call the Philippines every evening to get the Internet to work. So, I'm probably out of touch for the next few. posted by Carlton at 5:18 PM

ME AND JACOB; JACOB AND ME

Earlier in the week, TwoP recapper Jacob responded to one of my posts slagging him off, which was a surprise to me, naturally since . . . what, I have readers? Anyway, we had a really interesting email exchange for a couple of days regarding what he's doing with my shows there on the Without Pity. I'm not going to reprint any of our correspondance because I don't think that's a great practice and, frankly, it's probably boring to outsiders. In fact, this whole matter is probably boring to outsiders -- luckily we're all family here.

Jacob told me that he does have an actual plan for what he is doing with Doctor Who, which is nice to know -- because I had assumed he was just going ballistic into the ego-sphere each week, which drove me crazy. That doesn't make me like what he's doing any more than I did before, however, nor does it make the project any more comprehensible to me. As time goes by and I skip more and more of what he has written, the pieces of his project that I have read become ever smaller and more fragmentary, and eventually I get nothing. So, there you go, that's it. I will probably stop reading his work on that site, and he will almost certainly continue on as before -- and he should. He's given himself a project, which isn't finished, and for all I know, it could be great. (Ellipsis)

One fact he did refresh for me, which I had forgotten, is that we are looking at the show from opposite ends. Jacob watched the entire season before starting this set of recaps, and I'm watching them (or not, in the case of the last two weeks), as they are shown on cable. Jacob mentioned that he was not able to do that for the first season (which recaps I actually liked all right, up until the Gnosticism forced its way in) -- he referred to that as "flying blind" (otherwise known as "how Carlton watches"). Without getting too deep into it, I think that this opposite approach may be a large part of what irritates me so much about what he is doing.

Anyway, that happened. I think it's over now. It was pleasant and interesting. I appreciate his response, and we were both civil and relatively cogent.

[Fixed some typos.] posted by Carlton at 12:08 PM

ANOTHER TALE OF MINIMAL INTEREST

Our office has two branches, one in DC, where I work, and another in Detroit. I had a folder that had to go back to the other office. I left it for our admin with a note that read "SEND TO DETROIT."

The next day he stopped me. "Who in Detroit did you want me to send that to?" he said.

I named the person whose name I knew who is in that office.

"Oh," he said. "You mean send it to our Detroit office?"

All I have to say is that I'm glad he asked the question. If he'd sent it off in an envelope marked simply "Detroit", there's no telling where it might have ended up. posted by Carlton at 11:13 PM

IN A STATION OF THE METRO

. . . this afternoon, I saw a fortyish man carying a bag with the "University of Southern Mississippi" logo on it. I was about to walk by him, but at the last moment turned to ask him what his connection was with the university.

Me: I went there as an undergrad.
Him: I was there until Thames started bringing everything down.

I didn't ask him how he was there -- I assume faculty, but that might not have been the case.

A not entirely interesting anecdote! posted by Carlton at 11:08 PM

REVISITED

A while back, when Bush's approval ratings first went into the basement, I posted the following:

I had a couple of theories at the time, and here's a new one: the real power-brokers on the Right are ready to let Bush be destroyed. He was never anything but a straw-man anyway, and he is clearly nearing the end of his usefulness. So, let him go down and deflect the blame for the myriad failures of the government during his term onto him and him alone. If so, you'll be shocked at how quickly the hero-worship of the rank and file turns into derision and demands for retribution.

Just thought I'd put that back up the flagpole to blow in the wind. posted by Carlton at 5:17 PM

THE WASHINTON POST INDICATES

Here:

Historians are loath to predict the future. It is impossible to say with certainty how Bush will be ranked in, say, 2050. But somehow, in his first six years in office he has managed to combine the lapses of leadership, misguided policies and abuse of power of his failed predecessors. I think there is no alternative but to rank him as the worst president in U.S. history.

My response: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

(I'm feeling very Atrios-like these days.) posted by Carlton at 5:06 PM

JOSH MARSHALL REMARKS

Here.

But what excuse does President Bush have exactly? His party has controlled the Congress with lockstep majorities for his entire presidency. The one exception came in the Senate from 2001 to 2002. And that was before the war even started. If I'm not mistaken we've been treated to half a dozen years of commentary and news about how the Democrats were defeated, impotent, divided and generally just lame. Since he was so early and outspoken in his criticism, I assume this means Howard Dean prevented President Bush from winning the Iraq war.

But really, how can the president blame anything on a powerless minority in Congress and not indict himself as the weakest and most pitiful chief executive the republic has ever had?

My response: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

That is all. posted by Carlton at 6:28 PM

HATRED

A co-worker asked me a question today, which took me aback: "What kind of a celebration are you going to have when Bush leaves office, since you hate him so much?"

Just for the record, let me explain: I don't hate the man, personally. I think he's very limited, in every way I can think of, and I don't think he is in any way suitable for the position of President. I don't believe he has the intellectual, moral or spiritual capacity required for the position. I don't like him, certainly; I don't like hearing him stumble through a speech or answer a question with a sound bite that nevertheless sounds like the sum total of his thinking on the subject. I suspect the man to have some kind of serious undisclosed mental or physical ailment, but only time will tell about that. I believe he is irrational and small-minded and a cheater. I do not like this man. But I don't hate him.

What I do hate, however, is what has happened to all of us since he became President. He has led us from an era of security and prosperity and into an era of fear and want. He has done with the United States what he has done with every position of responsibility he has ever had: abused his power and squandered assets that rightfully belong to others. He has done his best to wreck stable, necessary, long-standing institutions and organizations for a political benefit that might last a moment, or perhaps for no benefit at all. He has shown an appalling lack of appreciation for human life, both American and foreign.

I do hate these things.

But you know, the Bush Administration isn't exactly the same as Bush himself. Take any one of a number of cockeyed schemes this administration has put in place -- do we really think that George Bush came up with them? He famously declared himself "the Decider", but to what extent is he really making informed decisions? Is it that he has goals that he is working towards and is directing his advisors towards those ends? Or is it more that he is handed papers to sign, given speeches to make, and told where to stand to have his picture taken? Listening to his public statements, it's hard not to hear the disconnect from reality. He, again famously, does not even read the newspaper. How much does he even understand of what is going on?

I believe that, as time goes by, we will see George Bush as more of a pitiable figure than a hateful one: a prisoner in the White House, not understanding why everyone is mean to him, wanting only to go away and drink beer and talk about sports and stop thinking all the time.

What will not happen: he will never understand what he did wrong, never admit to a mistake, and never tell the truth. posted by Carlton at 8:27 PM

THE NO-DIMENSIONAL THINKER

This recent mess (US NEWS reports it as a "PR Fiasco") with the cancellation of the summit/conference/tete-a-tete/casual chit-chat with Our Man in Baghdad Nouri Al-Malaki is illustrative of the dualism running through the entire Bush presidency: with us or against us, patriots or evil-doers, crony or servant. Bush has made this mistake of thinking that Al-Maliki is a servant -- with a certain degree of justification, I suppose. He is a puppet set into place by us, and maintained, to the degree that he is maintained, by us. Bush, characteristically fails to make the further distinction among his servants, between slaves and employees. By brushing the U.S. president off of his agenda, Al-Maliki has demonstrated that he is the latter.

Let's put it frankly: Our president is not used to thinking about the people across the table as though they were, well, people. Like a novice chess player, his strategies for victory fail to take into account that there is an opponent making moves that he can't control. That kind of thinking gives you memos like the one written by Stephen Hadley (trashing Al-Maliki), leaked to the New York Times (possibly deliberately) right before the Al-Maliki-Bush meeting was supposed to take place. The memo lays out some action items that Al-Maliki ought to take, which appear to be flatly impossible. ("Step 1: make the blind to see and the lame to walk.")

The result of this extraordinarily blinkered view is that, when he doesn't have total control of all of the actors in a situation, Bush is pathetically easy to upstage and embarrass. Consider another recent example, for which we even have a script:

At a recent White House reception for freshman members of Congress, Virginia's newest senator tried to avoid President Bush. Democrat James Webb declined to stand in a presidential receiving line or to have his picture taken with the man he had often criticized on the stump this fall. But it wasn't long before Bush found him.

"How's your boy?" Bush asked, referring to Webb's son, a Marine serving in Iraq.

"I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.

"That's not what I asked you," Bush said. "How's your boy?"

"That's between me and my boy, Mr. President," Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House.

Here's a perfect example: Bush has some point to make, whether to be nice to Webb (by feigning concern for his son) or to score a point (by emphasizing that he, Bush, has Webb's son under his control). He goes to make his point, Webb makes an obvious rejoinder -- and Bush can't react. He has the thing he wants to say in mind, and that's all he can think about. He can't recover or respond, except to repeat himself -- with an admonition to Webb, the listener, to co-operate in being placated/insulted. ("Hold still while I bite your nose off!")

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have the President of the United States, upstaged by a junior Senator in the White House and stood up by his own puppet abroad. posted by Carlton at 7:39 PM

THE QUALITY OF THINKING ON THE OTHER SIDE

First, Newt:

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich yesterday said the country will be forced to reexamine freedom of speech to meet the threat of terrorism. Gingrich, speaking at a Manchester awards banquet, said a "different set of rules" may be needed to reduce terrorists' ability to use the Internet and free speech to recruit and get out their message.

"We need to get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade," said Gingrich, a Republican who helped engineer the GOP's takeover of Congress in 1994.

Yes, to protect our freedoms, we had all better, how should I put it . . .

Q: As Commander-In-Chief, what was the President's reaction to television's Bill Maher, in his announcement that members of our Armed Forces who deal with missiles are cowards, while the armed terrorists who killed 6,000 unarmed are not cowards, for which Maher was briefly moved off a Washington television station?
. . .

MR. FLEISCHER: I'm aware of the press reports about what he said. I have not seen the actual transcript of the show itself. But assuming the press reports are right, it's a terrible thing to say, and it unfortunate. And that's why -- there was an earlier question about has the President said anything to people in his own party -- they're reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that; there never is.

Next, Bush:

Later in Riga, Latvia, Bush dismissed calls to withdraw from Iraq before the nation becomes stabilized.

"We can accept nothing less than victory for our children and our grandchildren," he said.

Mr. President, I think events may have moved beyond a point at which your ability to accept them is a critical, or even relevant, factor.

President Bush finds the world around him increasingly "unacceptable."

In speeches, statements and news conferences this year, the president has repeatedly declared a range of problems "unacceptable," including rising health costs, immigrants who live outside the law, North Korea's claimed nuclear test, genocide in Sudan and Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Bush's decision to lay down blunt new markers about the things he deems intolerable comes at an odd time, a phase of his presidency in which all manner of circumstances are not bending to his will: national security setbacks in North Korea and Iraq, a Congress that has shrugged its shoulders at his top domestic initiatives, a favorability rating mired below 40 percent.

But a survey of transcripts from Bush's public remarks over the past seven years shows the president's worsening political predicament has actually stoked, rather than diminished, his desire to proclaim what he cannot abide. Some presidential scholars and psychologists describe the trend as a signpost of Bush's rising frustration with his declining influence.

posted by Carlton at 7:36 PM

HOW IT IS

Atrios has some YouTube footage from CNN of a reporter in Iraq explaining to the rest of us at home how things are in Iraq.

I recommend it. posted by Carlton at 7:41 AM

IF I STOPPED BLOGGING ALMOST COMPLETELY AND JUST OCCASIONALLY BUZZED IN TO LINK TO SOMETHING I SAW ON THE INTERNET, HERE'S HOW I DID IT

Here.

Yeah, I'm pretty much AWOL from this site. Don't ask me why. I'm a little busy, a little bummed out, a little apathetic. Nothing to worry about -- and I'm sure you won't! posted by Carlton at 6:42 PM

JACOB GETS AN 'F'

Why do I bother? Because something good could have gone here:

From page 6 (actually, the whole page) of Jacob's Age of Steel recap:

The etymology for the constant pi comes from the fact that it's the first letter of the words periphereia (periphery), and perimetros, (perimeter). But it's also the first letter in peripateia, which defines this show and always has; periphrasis, which defines Rose, and Ten as well, and only means anything when you apply it to love; perishable, which ditto Rose and Ten, but only by half; periscope, which is how he sees the world, and perinatal, which is what he still is; periodicity and the Siege Perilous, which is what the season's about; perineum, the no-place between the worlds of divinity and excretion, inspiration and burning off what's not needed, breathing in and breathing out; perigon, or an angle equal to 360 degrees, coming back home; periapt, Ten being the charm she wears against danger even though she never needed it; perikardios, around the heart we're circling; perigee and perihelion and perilune, the closest you can be to the Earth, to the sun and the moon, without touching them, without falling in; and peri, a word with which we're familiar: the angel that has fallen, the fairy that takes you away. (And the person who played this game with the Doctor in the Big Finish serial "...Ish," a.k.a. the Who story written precisely for Jacob.)

Also known as Archimedes's constant and Ludolph's number, pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, in Euclidean geometry, or the ratio of a circle's area to the area of a square whose side is the radius. Pi is irrational, meaning it can't be written as the ratio of two integers, and transcendental, meaning there's no polynomial with rational coefficients of which pi is a root. The latter means that pi is not constructible: because the coordinates of all points that can be constructed with a compass are constructible numbers, it is impossible to square the circle: it is impossible to construct with a compass a square whose area is equal to the area of a given circle. But the best definition I've ever seen is this: a circle with a diameter of one has a circumference of pi. Meaning that it takes exactly ? rotations to end up where you started, working your way around the wheel. Irrational and transcendent, but there you have it: what should be easy, matching a static square -- four hearts, two sets of twins -- to a circular journey is impossible, and yet you end up where you started nonetheless, and there's never been a circle that wasn't stronger than this fact, thanks to pi. But what you can't construct can still be deconstructed, even if it takes thirteen episodes: On the other side of Hell, we burn off what doesn't work, and that amounts to 4 minus pi: just a smidge less than one whole heart.

Let me try my hand at this:

Sloppy, shoddy, self-congratulatory, onanistic. Neither wild nor random, but calculated. I am smart, I am beautiful, I am connected to the universe of ideas and spirituality in a way that is special, because I am special and if you like Doctor Who and TWoP you'd golly well appreciate my special-ness and keep quiet about it if you don't. I am a boy-king, an umimpeachable voice that cannot be stilled, a mystic quadrangle of wisdom and jism and pot cookies and not ever knowing when I have crossed the invisible line between "ample" and "Ugh! Stop!" Because my voice is music, and my writing is scripture made of the recycled pages of a million other books that I have ALL READ because I am smart, and the circle brings us around to special again. Ezekiel saw a wheel in the sky, do you see how this one turns through its four compass points: Special, Smart, Loved and Unstoppable. Journey wrote a song about the wheel in the sky; writing these recaps has been a journey for me from having a bit of self-doubt and apprehension to having NONE and knowing that I alone of all people in the Universe understand grace, poetry and Cybermen, who are very stampy all of a sudden.

Dreck! posted by Carlton at 1:31 AM

WEBB-TASTIC

I'm working from home again today, and in walking through a local plaza I stumbled into a rally for Jim Webb, at which he acknowledged Allen's concession from earlier in the day. Also present were Sen Chuck Schumer of New York and VA Governor Tim Kaine. I gathered from crowd chatter that the event had been called on very short notice.

So, go me. Of course I didn't have a camera, or even my telephone, so no pictures. posted by Carlton at 5:19 PM

OH, BY THE WAY . . .

It looks like we (the Dems) won everything there was to win on Tuesday. Burns is conceding in MT, Allen in VA. Man, this has been fun to watch.

Go us! posted by Carlton at 1:40 PM

JACOB: NOW WITH MORE SUCK!

Oh, great. Quoth the sage:

Re: the episode ["Age of Steel"]. This might be a more bizarre recap than "Tooth & Claw." Maybe not longer, but there's John Donne and Orpheus and the Gemini stuff, and pi, and "The Five Doctors," and ... I'm only three pages in. So fair warning.

"Look at me! I read a book one time! And I don't have an editor!" posted by Carlton at 1:36 PM

ALLEN REVISITED

It looks like the Allen/Webb race is too close to call, although I speculate that the absentee ballots (such as the one cast by my lovely wife) will put Webb well over the top. We won't know for a few days, I'll bet.

In honor of the clositude of the race, I thought I would revisit the Allen moment that first put him on my radar. Earlier this year, we got ourselves a new chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke (replacing Alan Greenspan). I'm no banker, certainly no central banker, but I understand the Fed chairman to be something like the guy on the boat who stands at the wheel. Whatever the captain says, its this guy who actually turns the boat -- if it can be turned.

It's an important job.

From the NYT:

But in Washington, he is barely on some people's radar screens. Indeed, here is what Senator George Allen of Virginia, who is considering a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, said when asked his opinion of the Bernanke nomination.

"For what?"

Told that Mr. Bernanke was up for the Fed chairman's job, Mr. Allen hedged a little, said he had not been focused on it, and wondered aloud when the hearings would be. Told that the Senate Banking Committee hearings had concluded in November, the senator responded: "You mean I missed them all? I paid no attention to them."

Way to keep on top of things, George. posted by Carlton at 12:44 AM

SO . . .

Do I get a Lieberman win and a Webb loss? Could be. posted by Carlton at 10:25 PM

JUST TO PUT THE ELECTION BACK AT THE TOP

I'd like to say that I really want Joe Lieberman to lose. Out of the Senate.

That's not a prediction.

Would I trade a Webb victory for a Lieberman loss? Well . . . I guess not. But I would really have to think about it.

UPDATE: Here Joe is where he belongs: (click to enlarge)



To quote a local journalist:

Also, people report it is even harder than they thought to find Joe Lieberman on the ballot. One correspondent: "You'd have to be stupid to vote for Lieberman. And then they make it hard for stupid people to find him. It's not fair!"

(I stole all this from Atrios and Kos.) posted by Carlton at 8:16 PM

SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!

From the latest BSG recap:

So okay. This isn't the whole thing yet, but here's what I've got: Life on the basestar is, for us, dreamy and unreal, because Cylon logic is not human logic. We're not in a human space, we're in the kind of world where consciousness is only differentiated twelve different ways, instead of one for every single entity. We're getting a slice of what Boomer and Sharon and Six have always known: The soft edges of reality in a group mind, the way memories can pass like a shroud across the world before you, facts rising to the surface when we need them, math and GPS caroms drifting like clouds before the moon, memories presenting as prophecy and vice versa. We're not in an alien space, but merely an undifferentiated one. Without ego or personal consciousness, there's no need for that "reducing valve" Huxley talked about -- it's all the same. It's not a question of denying reality, it's a question of not denying any particular part of reality in favor of what's at hand. Ontological, cosmological ADD. "Projection" isn't a diss on Cylon selfishness: it's the equivalent of changing your cell phone face, or the skin on your mp3 program. The math underneath stays the same, and is shared among us all. This is the state that Pythia speaks from, and Amanda Plummer and Leoben -- and Drusilla, and even Tara for a short painful while -- and anybody else who looked on the face of God and went mad: the roiling undeniable sea underneath everything that we spend our lives building walls and choices around so we don't lose it completely. Prophets rock at telling you things that don't make sense but are still true, but they can't balance their checkbooks for shit. No wonder the Cylons know Colonial scripture better than most of the crew of the Galactica: they live there all the time. But also, maybe it's even more fabulous than that: maybe she can see a forest because she's been in a forest before, and that's the forest she's currently, actually in, as she says. Maybe "projection" is a willed way of reducing experience into the best possible shape, and the underneath calculations stay the same. Maybe they weave reality out of all the sights and sounds and math they've ever seen or heard or done, all the time, the way we collage together an afternoon flipping back and forth between Tyra and Farscape reruns and TV recaps on the laptop. And if they can do it with linear memories, maybe they can do it with time itself. Maybe she can see a forest because she'll be in a forest someday. Which is cool as fuck, but also really kind of terrifying. (Though not as terrifying as the fact that, if I'm right, that makes Leoben the sanest one, if you think about it.) Anyway, that's my theory right now.

It speaks for itself, and so do I: yuck. posted by Carlton at 3:17 PM

AS I WAS SAYING

Boy, the posts are coming fast and furious, aren't they?

From CNN (yeah, yeah)

Polling places turn to paper ballots after glitches
POSTED: 1:20 p.m. EST, November 7, 2006

AP) -- Programming errors and inexperience dealing with electronic voting machines frustrated poll workers in hundreds of precincts early Tuesday, delaying voters in Indiana, Ohio and Florida and leaving some with little choice but to use paper ballots instead.

In Cleveland, voters rolled their eyes as election workers fumbled with new touchscreen machines that they couldn't get to start properly until about 10 minutes after polls opened.

"We got five machines -- one of them's got to work," said Willette Scullank, a troubleshooter from the Cuyahoga County, Ohio, elections board.

In Indiana's Marion County, about 175 of 914 precincts turned to paper ballots because poll workers didn't know how to run the machines, said Marion County Clerk Doris Ann Sadler. She said it could take most of the day to fix all of the machine-related issues.

Was that so hard?

Which would we rather, a long period of vote-counting, or a long period of arguing over whose vote counts and whose doesn't? posted by Carlton at 2:19 PM

IN UNRELATED NEWS (OR IS IT?)

This is almost too bizarre to be believed.

When Charlotte Catholic's boys' soccer team got to Forestview High School in Gastonia on Saturday night for an N.C. 3A playoff game, the Cougars heard something over the public address system they never would've expected:

A 90-second portion of a speech from Adolf Hitler.

"We were warming up," said Catholic coach Gary Hoilett, "and all of us stopped and looked up at the booth. We were just real shocked. It was obviously a Hitler speech. The voice was coming across clearly. Everybody knew."

Forestview's players took the field after the speech ended.

But before the game, Hoilett said, some Forestview players were chanting something in German that means "On to victory," according to one of his players who speaks German. Hoilett, who is black, said that during the game some Forestview players directed racial epithets at his two black players.

The offending coach/school gives an explanation for HOW it happened, but I still don't really get WHY. It really is a WTF moment.

Via University Diaries. posted by Carlton at 2:11 PM

SPECIAL PROBLEMS IN DEMOCRACY

I haven't written much about the big voter suppression problems of the day, the robocalls, the misleading flyers, the improper requests for ID. These things exist, though, and all my readers should educate themselves about them. Go to dailykos (at left) TPM, or even CNN for decent coverage (actually, forget CNN).

The problem with broken, misprogrammed or hacked voting machines, though, is inexcuseable. The solution is extremely simple and inexpensive: paper ballots marked with indelible pens and counted by hand. Everyone understands pen and paper, the voter knows that his or her vote is being recorded accurately, and the solution to a problem with the materials is a quick trip to the photocopier. There's delay, for sure, but trust me: getting an accurate count of votes is perfectly in tune with democratic principles -- whereas instantaneous results are often not.

The only losers if my brilliant solution is implemented are 1) Newscasters, who need immediate results to discuss and will turn to dust if they can't announce a winner by dawn; 2) Companies like Diebold, who can't make any money off of pen and paper; and 3) Anyone with an interest in keeping the vote-tallying process opaque and out of the public eye. You know who you are.

So why don't we just do it? Really, somebody tell me why we can't just do this. posted by Carlton at 1:49 PM

I FARTED . . . I MEAN, VOTED

So I am "working from home" today, both to save my sanity and so that I could vote without too much hassle -- or so I thought. I ambled over to my local polling place at about 10:15 AM, thinking the line would be short, and the place was packed. The campaign workers were chatting with people in the line and said that the line was much longer than at the 2004 presidential election.

Notes:

1. We do have one of the more public and hotly contested elections this cycle: Webb/Allen. That may account for higher turnout.

2. There is a "marriage is between a man and a women" amendment on the ballot, which probably inflames both the bigot and the gaylord-friendly voter.

3. There are quite a few constitutional amendments on the ballot (in addition t othe marriage one) and they are long and confusing to read. That slows everyone down.

4. Out of six voting machines at this polling place, one was completely not working and was shut down. I can only imagine that other places have more problems.

So it should be an interesting, nail-biting day. posted by Carlton at 1:36 PM

THE MAN WHO CAN'T BE WRONG, PART THE SECOND

From Krugman (NYT subscription wall), via Atrios:

At this point, nobody should have any illusions about Mr. Bush’s character. To put it bluntly, he’s an insecure bully who believes that owning up to a mistake, any mistake, would undermine his manhood — and who therefore lives in a dream world in which all of his policies are succeeding and all his officials are doing a heckuva job. Just last week he declared himself “pleased with the progress we’re making” in Iraq.

I'm seeing a lot of this, lately. Is this some kind of new observation?

At some point here on the ol' blog, I made the over-extended metaphorical comparison of Bush, et alia, to chocolate Easter bunnies -- the cheap kind that look big but are just a thin layer of pressed chocolate. These types cannot stand any criticism or admit any mistake, becasue the tiniest impact will crack them completely open and show that there is nothing inside. That's why the attacks on critics are always personal and nuclear from the get-go -- Bush and associates cannot even permit their critics to exist, because even acknowlegding the fact that people disagree with them is too dangerous. And bear in mind, this is how they view themselves.

To admit error and apologize is so out of character for these goons that I fear it would require some kind of psychotic break on their part -- and considering that one of them is the President of the United States, we might all be better off not asking so much. You don't have to say you are sorry, you just have to leave. posted by Carlton at 10:28 AM

THE MAN WHO CAN'T BE WRONG

So Glenn Greenwald, who is a much much better blogger AND lawyer than I will ever be (he has fewer typos, for one thing) is just SHOCKED by the fact that Michael Ledeen (some AEI/NRO nutjob) is now claiming he never ever EVER supported invading Iraq and in fact ACTIVELY OPPOSED the invasion. If you think you read something that Ledeen wrote in, say, 2003 that looks like it might have actively supported the invasion and stated that the invasion was the best thing for everybody and couldn't come soon enough and Bush 41 was just a weiner for not finishing the job, well . . . who are you going to believe, Ledeen or your lying eyes?

Writes Glenn:

People like Ledeen simply can't accept responsibility for anything they do or say, and above all, they can never acknowledge an error or mistake. They are single-minded fundamentalists who believe that they have such a monopoly on what is Good and Right that anything they do -- up to and including blatantly lying and then refusing to admit it when they are caught red-handed -- is justified by the overarching importance of their crusades.

On the one hand, yes, this is absolutely true. It is true of Ledeen, of Bush, of Cheney and Rummy and Wolfie and all of them, and Glenn is right and correct to point it out. On the other hand, we have always been at war with Eastasia -- this is perfectly predictable behavior from political amoebae like Ledeen. Politically inconvenient truths must be denied, suppressed, refuted, ignored.

On the third hand, though (which is always where things get interesting) -- Duh, Glenn. Did you really expect these people to admit they were wrong? To admit a mistake? Just because it's glaringly obvious to everyone?

My God, we are naive. posted by Carlton at 10:41 PM

BLAST FROM THE PAST: ONION EDITION

No, It Won't. posted by Carlton at 10:32 AM

THAT CLEARS IT UP: HAGGARD EDITION

Earlier, I posted:

Prediction: After all this is over, [Pastor] Ted [Haggard] will be glad he got caught -- he will be free. His wife will not be glad he was caught.

Well, why should she be happy that her husband Ted took meth and had sex with a male prostitute? After all, it was her fault.

As Mark Driscoll, of Seattle's Mars Hills church states:

Most pastors I know do not have satisfying, free, sexual conversations and liberties with their wives. At the risk of being even more widely despised than I currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this. It is not uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness. A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband’s sin, but she may not be helping him either.

Really, what could she have been thinking?

Via HuffPo. posted by Carlton at 12:30 AM

SNIPES HUNT

Oh, Wesley. You didn't think you had to pay your federal income taxes.

The "Blade" star was indicted on eight counts of tax fraud in Tampa last month, accused of failing to file tax returns for six years and for seeking $12 million in fraudulent refunds.

He fell for the '861 Scheme', it looks like:

Some maintain that there is no federal statute imposing a tax on income derived from sources within the United States by citizens or residents of the United States. They argue instead that federal income taxes are excise taxes imposed only on nonresident aliens and foreign corporations for the privilege of receiving income from sources within the United States. The premise for this argument is a misreading of sections 861, et seq., and 911, et seq., as well as the regulations under those sections.

The Law: As stated above, for federal income tax purposes, “gross income” means all income from whatever source derived and includes compensation for services. I.R.C. § 61. Further, Treasury Regulation § 1.1-1(b) provides, “[i]n general, all citizens of the United States, wherever resident, and all resident alien individuals are liable to the income taxes imposed by the Code whether the income is received from sources within or without the United States.” I.R.C. sections 861 and 911 define the sources of income (U.S. versus non-U.S. source income) for such purposes as the prevention of double taxation of income that is subject to tax by more than one country. These sections neither specify whether income is taxable, nor do they determine or define gross income. These frivolous assertions are clearly contrary to well-established legal precedent.

Given that the IRS has this posted on its website as a 'frivolous tax argument', you might clue in to the fact that only crazy people think it works. If you are one of those crazy people, I might be able to interest you in a new invention that's sure to change the way we live and make you a million kajillion bucks!. Tax free! posted by Carlton at 4:15 PM

IN THE ARMS OF MY DEAR SAVIOR, OH! THERE ARE TEN THOUSAND CHARMS (AND SOME METH)

I don't have a lot to say about the Ted Haggard mess, except to make the following banal observations:

1. Can we all agree that the more fanatically anti-gay a person is, the more likely he (or she, I guess) is to have a bit of The Gay themselves? It seems obvious to me, but whatever.

2. As always, the cover-up is more damaging than the original misbehavior. Dude, giving that interview in the car, then speeding away -- you look guilty of SOMETHING. And your "I bought drugs a lot but always threw them away and I only got a massage from that hot man every month for three years" story is LAME. At least blame it on demon possession or something that your peeps can get behind. A big gay demon that likes meth.

3. Prediction: After all this is over, Ted will be glad he got caught -- he will be free. His wife will not be glad he was caught.

4. So what was Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert doing in the White House during all those visits when there was no press briefing?

Guckert made more than two dozen excursions to the White House when there were no scheduled briefings. On many of these days, the Press Office held press gaggles aboard Air Force One—which raises questions about what Guckert was doing at the White House. On other days, the president held photo opportunities.

On at least fourteen occasions, Secret Service records show either the entry or exit time missing. Generally, the existing entry or exit times correlate with press conferences; on most of these days, the records show that Guckert checked in but was never processed out.

In March, 2003, Guckert left the White House twice on days he had never checked in with the Secret Service. Over the next 22 months, Guckert failed to check out with the Service on fourteen days. On several of these visits, Guckert either entered or exited by a different entry/exit point than his usual one. On one of these days, no briefing was held; on another, he checked in twice but failed to check out.

Sorry, I don't know why this last one sprang to mind -- just free-associating, I guess. posted by Carlton at 11:25 AM

GEORGE M DOES GEORGE BUSH

I saw this somewhere and liked it -- I appreciate these homemeade videos.

YouTube link. posted by Carlton at 11:03 AM

MORE SCOTT ADAMS

Reading more of his blog, I gather that he's a bit on the conservative (libertarian?) side as well -- which is fine. Takes all kinds.

Today, he offers this regarding the efficacy of torture:

Move me to the skeptical column [earlier he states that he was in the "pretty certain" column]. The burden is on the proponents of torture to produce some proof that it works. I still don’t rule out the possibility that torture can be effective, but if it’s being done in my name, I want some fucking evidence.

(Note to prudes: I tried writing that last sentence without profanity. It just didn’t work.)

Welcome to the party, Scott. posted by Carlton at 5:39 PM

WHEN WORDS FAIL

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, recently lost his voice permanently. And then he got it back.

It's a crazy world. Good for him.

Via Scott, at left. posted by Carlton at 5:31 PM

WE'LL FIGHT THE CYLONS IN MORDOR SO WE DON'T HAVE TO FIGHT THEM IN PENNSYLVANIA

I have geeked out on this page in the past about my love for Battlestar Galactica, one of the Sci Fi Channel's Friday night winners: a really outstanding show. (Along with Doctor Who, of course. I haven't said anything about Sci Fi's other shows, like Stargate: Atlantis. Guess what: they suck.)

I also recently pointed to Rick Santorum's use of The Lord of the Rings as a defense of our current Iraq policy. Call it the Mordor/Flypaper strategy. I gave you Stephen Colbert's take on the matter.

Now, there's this article from The American Prospect, about BSG and the right-wingers' attempts to map their own agenda onto Battlestar Galactica.

“The more I watch the new Battlestar Galactica series, the more the Cylons seem like Muslims,” wrote “Michael,” the author of the Battlestar Galactica Blog, back in March. “They believe they are killing humans for their god. This is very much like the Muslim concept of jihad, which instructs Muslims to spread their religion through war.”

Thank you for that insight, Michael.

As the series takes a few turns, notably through a phase in which the "good guys" mount a planet-bound insurgency against the occupying Cylons, a lot of conservative viewers end up shifting uncomfortably in their seats.

But alas, this love affair between Galactica and the right was not to last: in its third season, the show has morphed into a stinging allegorical critique of America’s three-year occupation of Iraq. The trouble started at the end of the second season, when humanity briefly escaped the Cylons and settled down on the tiny planet of New Caprica. The Cylons soon returned and quickly conquered the defenseless humans. But instead of slaughtering everyone, the Cylons decided to take a more enlightened path by “benevolently occupying” the planet and imposing their preferred way of life by gunpoint. The humans were predictably not enthused about their allegedly altruistic rulers, and they immediately launched an insurgency against them using improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers. Needless to say, this did not go over very well in the Galacticon camp.

“The whole suicide bombing thing … made comparisons to Iraq incredibly ham-fisted,” wrote a frustrated [Jonah] Goldberg, who had hoped the struggle against the Cylons would look more like Le Resistance than the Iraqi insurgency. “The French resistance vibe … is part of what makes the Iraq comparison so offensive. It’s a one-step remove from comparing the Iraqi insurgency to the (romanticized) French resistance.”

I have two responses to this:

1. One of the great things about BSG is its moral ambiguity, and how characters that the audience likes and identifies with can end up doing questionable (if not outright pathological) things, and otherwise unsympathetic characters are allowed to be right and take the moral high ground from time to time. It's potent stuff, and it could put off some viewers.

2. What kind of nitwit would try to map the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq onto a show like Battlestar Galactica? Here's a hint, Goldberg: maybe one reason you're having some trouble figuring out whether the Cylons are supposed to be the Americans or the Islamic terrorists is because they are neither -- they are killer humanoid robots that appear on a science fiction television show. Does "with us or against us" go as far as fictional characters who live on another planet?

This goes deeper than BSG, naturally. Many of my cohort on the right grew up with Star Wars, and you see those themes revisited again and again.

At Friday’s House Republican retreat at Maryland’s Eastern Shore, a short video, produced by the National Republican Congressional Committee, depicted GOPers as the virtuous rebels, being pursued by “Darth Nancy” and her imperial henchmen, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Democratic campaign chief Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.).

Yes, that's right -- in February 2006, the Republicans, who controlled every branch of government plus the military, portrayed themselves as the Rebel Alliance versus the Democratic Galactic Empire in their internal propaganda. God bless them, all the kids want to play Han Solo, and no one wants to be a Stormtrooper! (Or even Grand Moff Tarkin, it seems.)

I swear, these people aren't just fighting the Democrats, they are fighting complexity itself. You're either with us or against us, all good or all bad, always right or always wrong -- oh, and WE are always on the positive side of the comparison. Any information to the contrary must be disregarded or suppressed.

Well, that tells you how we got where we are today, I guess. posted by Carlton at 4:24 PM

WHITHER ATRIOS?

For the record, Atrios does suck.

But if you go to a site like that (or this for that matter) for deep analysis, you probably eat dinner at Ben and Jerry's. posted by Carlton at 10:02 PM

A TOUGH ONE

Which will history regard as the greater blunder, the invasion of Iraq or sitting idly by while North Korea armed itself with nuclear weapons? posted by Carlton at 10:29 PM

COLBERT ON SANTORUM ON LORD OF THE RINGS

Don't say I don't keep up with things. (video/audio link) posted by Carlton at 10:22 PM

THE SUCK REPORT: JACOB

I am a big fan of the website Television Without Pity, link at left. I visit there certainly every day, if not every couple of hours that I'm awake. I like the format, I like the community, I like that the people in charge over there seem to like the same shows that I do. But I hate Jacob.

Jacob is the person that TWoP has assigned to recap and forum-moderate my aboslute current favorite shows, Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica. Let me be gentle: he sucks. He's not a bad writer; he is the worst kind of writer -- self-indulgent, with no editor. Result: suck.

What do I mean? Let the man speak for himself. The following is from the recap of the latest (really awesome) episode, School Reunion:

The Doctor grabs Sarah Jane's hand and they run, young and beautiful and in delicious danger. And was the day of my delight As pure and perfect as I say? If all was good and fair we met, This earth had been the Paradise It never look'd to human eyes Since our first Sun arose and set. And is it that the haze of grief Makes former gladness loom so great? The lowness of the present state, That sets the past in this relief? Or that the past will always win A glory from its being far; And orb into the perfect star We saw not, when we moved therein?

Get me? Beyond "The Doctor grabs Sarah Jane's hand and they run," he's just -- not to put too fine a point on it -- beating off. He has his themes, which are invariably of the "look at me, I read a book!" variety (last season it was Gnosticism, for example), and he runs with them. And he goes on and on and on. His School Reunion recap is twenty pages, as opposed to eleven or twelve from someone else, and it's all this nonsense. I have to skim each page just to see if there are any character's names from the show on that page, so far do his tangents run. Blech.

Speaking of last season (from The Parting of the Ways):

Jack then executes a very Yogi Bear kind of self-launched run toward the elevator, shouting out, "See you in hell!" Already there, that's the point. The Doctor and Rose watch him leave, and Rose starts telling lies again: "He's gonna be alright, isn't he?" The Doctor looks at her, but he doesn't have anything to say: Jack's a hero. He's going to die. Back to ex-Gnostic Saint Augustine and I'll keep it short: as a sincere Platonist and rationalist, his Trinitarian explorations are kind of mind-blowingly Aspergers-ish, as any good saint's detail-oriented overthinking should be. They always start with the friggin' diagrams when it gets too close to the uniterable. But he had this idea about how the Holy Trinity was mirrored in every human soul through memory, knowledge and will. Everything that ever was, the ability to analyze it, and the will to commit to the process -- and that's God, which is about as Gnostic 101 as you can get. And, as he saw it, the restoration of the divine was a three-part act of faith: holding God in your mind, contemplating the truth of God, and delighting in it. Retentio, contemplatio, dilectio. Each of the three supporting the others, leading to a meditative ecstatic experience of God, which cannot be put into words. I think you know where I'm headed with this, but for now: Captain Jack is the Will. Even without his memories, he delights in the truth (and the now) in a way that the Doctor can only get to about half the time -- given his cosmic ADD and soul-crushing guilt

.
Worse, though, is what comes from a convergence of this dreck with another TWoP Bad Idea (trademark) -- in the past, each forum has had an "appreciate the recapper" thread, where Jacob or whoever could go for a tongue bath after the recap came out. ("OMG Jacob, I love reading your recaps, they really shed so much new insight on the episode!!@! I never would have seen those parallels without you!") It's a plain attempt to curry favor or get brownie points against being banned later on. I hate that shit, but I didn't have to go into that thread, so all right.

Now, however, TWoP has done away with the appreciation threads, and so the miserable sycophants have to post in the episode threads, where I DO like to go. So now, I have to either watch the fellatio or stay away, starting as soon as the (crappy) recap is published.

Worst of all, the powers in charge over at TWoP are notoriously sensitive about criticism, and I do believe that voicing any of these concerns there would get me a one way ticket out of there -- and I like it there. So I have to vent it here, for you fine people.

And it's BOTH my shows. The SAME guy. posted by Carlton at 6:54 PM

I HEAR HE'S UP SEVEN POINTS AMONG THE AINUR

Howdy folks -- there's obviously a lot of stuff going on right now, what with the war and the election and all. What better to bring me back than a story about the war and the election, and of course Pennsylvania's favorite junior senator:

Embattled U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum said America has avoided a second terrorist attack for five years because the “Eye of Mordor” has been drawn to Iraq instead.

Santorum used the analogy from one of his favorite books, J.R.R. Tolkien's 1950s fantasy classic “Lord of the Rings,” to put an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq into terms any school kid could easily understand.

“As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else,” Santorum said, describing the tool the evil Lord Sauron used in search of the magical ring that would consolidate his power over Middle-earth.

“It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S.,” Santorum continued. “You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States.”

In an interview with the Bucks County Courier Times editorial board late last week, the 12-year Republican senator from Pennsylvania said he's “a big "Lord of the Rings' fan.” He's read the first of the series, “The Hobbit” to his six children.

A spokesman for Democratic opponent Bob Casey Jr. questioned the appropriateness of the analogy.

I can't imagine what the objection could be. I mean, Iraq and the War of the Ring are both wars, right? posted by Carlton at 6:49 PM

THE BLOG OF MAHMOUD

Yes, that Mahmoud. The one who is President of Iran.

During the era that nobility was a prestige and living in a city was perfection, I was born in a poor family in a remote village of Garmsar . . .

Interesting.

(If you get the Arabic page, there are some flags up at the top which will translate it for you.) posted by Carlton at 6:08 PM

FOREVER BLOWING BUBBLES

From Drum, again, regarding the housing bubble:

This "soft landing" stuff is all the rage lately, and it reminds of nothing so much as Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's five stages of grief. It goes something like this:

1. We're not in a bubble. Prices are just recovering from years of underappreciation.

2.It's a bubble, but it's a sustainable bubble because the fundamentals of the market have changed in the past decade. People need to recognize this. (Note: this stage is usually recognizable by an explosion in the popularity of increasingly desperate and bizarre financing options.)

3. Yes, growth is slowing, but we think we'll navigate a soft landing. It's absurd to think that housing in [fill in area where you live] will actually lose value.

4.This is a disaster! Somebody better step in and do something! People are losing their life savings!

5. Buyers have learned a permanent lesson this time. Homeowners need to accept the reality that the bubble of the past five years was a one-time fluke and we'll never see it happen again.

I'm out of this market, but could get back in. I'd be interested to know where all this is going . . . . posted by Carlton at 3:48 PM

WHICH IS IT?

I followed a link at Kevin Drum's place to this post, which suggests an interesting theory:

Anything and everything that reminds Americans that the Iraq War has not done a thing to reduce the terrorist threat against the United States will erode [the GOP] argument, and with it, the GOP's belief that any and all concerns about national security will benefit it at the ballot box.

The conventional wisdom (or ConWis, as it shall henceforth be known on this page) is that "terror" is a winner for Bush in all its forms -- terror events, terror news stories, actual terror plots all help Bush. Every time a TV pundit says "Osama", a Republican angel gets his wings. Or something.

But I wonder. Bush has always used the assumption that he was keeping us safe from terrorism to great advantage. But "keeping us safe" implies that any actual terrorism that shows up is a sign of a Bush failure, not a strength. If we are supporting him (right!) because of his ability to maintain tranquility and harmony in this great land, isn't that like a doctor that you pay to keep you well -- and stop paying when we get sick? I'm sure the doctor would spin it both ways: you pay when you are sick to get well, and you pay when you are well so you don't get sick. No terror means Bush is strong, and evidence of terror means that Bush is strong. People have bought it in the past.

(Illogic of this sort is quite typical of the Bush people, of course. In a boom, we must cut taxes -- and in a recession? Cut taxes. Things are just middlin'? Cut them taxes. Don't get me started about WMDs.)

The real question, of course, is what happens if and when we have another large terrorist attack. Does the nation rally behind Bush and give him unlimited despotic powers? Does the populace riot and pull him out onto the White House lawn in his tighty-whities for a good ass-whuppin? posted by Carlton at 11:06 PM

OK GO

I'm late to this (as with everything), but here's a band that has a novel and cheap idea for creating music videos: turn on the camera and dance. The results are mesmerizing. It doesn't hurt that the songs are catchy.

(Warning: YouTube clips with sound. Work safe.)

Original Recipe.

and

Extra Cripsy. posted by Carlton at 5:45 PM

WHEN YOU PUT IT THAT WAY, IT'S REALLY VERY SIMPLE

According to Crooked Timber, the following is an actual Powerpoint slide shown to the Secretary of Defense to explain the situation in Iraq:



Oh, I see. It's clear to me now. posted by Carlton at 8:57 AM

MY PROMISE TO YOU

Not blogging much these days, but . . . in reading other blogs, I have seen the folly of my ways. Everyone on the earth seems to have fallen in love with YouTube at the exact same moment, to the point where no one is posting anything else.

My promise: I will no longer embed YouTube images in this page, but will instead link to them with a warning. There's a lot of funny stuff on there, but the images make the page load more slowly, they are not very attractive (the frozen image doesn't really make anyone want to view it), and many people can't view them at work.

So there. posted by Carlton at 1:38 PM

IT'S OFFICIAL

"In My Room" by the Beach Boys is the creepiest song ever recorded.



Just what is he doing in his room? When I was a lad, the things I did in my room would have been best discussed only with a medical professional. posted by Carlton at 11:41 PM

SITE FEED?

Well, I guess I now have a site feed. Joy.

I also find myself with nothing much to say. posted by Carlton at 3:50 PM

WHY WE FIGHT

Some time ago, I saw this movie. I meant to write about it, but didn't. Here's the trailer:



It's been a while, but I have two things to say:

1. I didn't really know much about the Eisenhower administration before this film. WWF makes out Eisenhower to be a kind of benign visionary, warning us of the dangers of the "military-industrial complex" -- and perhaps he is, when looked at from a certain light.

It's always more complicated than that, of course -- for example, Ike was behind the overthrow of democratically elected regimes in Guatemala (on behalf of the United Fruit Company) and Iran (which is where all our troubles started with the latter country, really). The film references those two events, but doesn't emphasize them (as I recall). Now that I consider it, however, those events may even underscore the fact that Ike was speaking as someone who had his hands dirty, both in the "guilty" sense and the "working hard in the thick of things" sense.

Either way, it's a shame not to know more about history as recent as this.

2. The central point of the film is that we will have war as along as it is profitable. If companies which can exert (almost total) influence over the government will make more from war than from peace, we will have war. I can't see much to argue with about that.

Maybe it's a corollary to Upton Sinclair's quote:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Now we can say, "If a given event will make a man money, then he is generally for it, whatever it is." posted by Carlton at 3:09 PM

FORECLOSURES

Just to continue my earlier post, I don't expect that I'll have anything to do with the practice of actually buying homes at foreclosure auctions. That looks to be a very difficult and complex (and risky) process, and also requires more cash up front that I have to spare. My preliminary research indicates that the buyer often has to have the ENTIRE purchase price -- with no financing -- in hand on the date of the auction.

I do believe that some folks who already have money (naturally) will make a great deal more from this down market, however. Perhaps one of my readers? posted by Carlton at 1:11 PM

WHERE HAVE I HEARD THIS BEFORE?

Oh, right. Baghdad. From the Treason Times:

Ten months after Hurricane Katrina, [New Orleans] still does not have a reliable electrical system. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of repairs are still needed on a system devastated by flooding, the local utility is in bankruptcy and less than half the system’s prestorm customers have returned. Of those who have, many have endured hot and sleepless nights with no air-conditioning.

“How do you expect the city to recover when you don’t have a reliable source of electrical power?” asked Robert Harmon, an engineering consultant in the Bywater neighborhood.

So much for the injury; now comes the insult. Entergy New Orleans, the power company here, wants to increase its rates 25 percent to help pay for part of what it says is $718 million in storm losses and revenue shortfalls. That would increase the average household bill by $45 a month.

Is Bush's goal to make Baghdad look better and better by comparison? Who knows? posted by Carlton at 1:06 PM

WE'RE NUMBER ONE!

As a former and perhaps future homeowner, I have been watching the current real estate market with some interest. According to this article, Americans have taken out $2 trillion in ARMs in the last several years, (and even if that article is wrong, the number is still quite high, I am sure), a great many of those mortgage-holders are going to be affected adversely by higher interest rates once the ARMs start to adjust. In fact, convestional wisdom suggests that there will be a wave of foreclosures and/or bankruptcies on the part of homeowners who were stretching to the limit just to make the lower payment.

That's bad for them, of course, but possibly good for me, a potential homebuyer who is sitting on some proceeds from the last home (a condo). Or it may not work out like that. Who knows? Either way, I occasionally run a Google News search for "foreclosures" or similar terms just to see what's happening.

Today I get this article from the Atlanta Business Journal:

Georgia foreclosures near top in U.S.

And also this one, from Denver's local CBS affiliate:

Colorado Leads The Nation In Home Foreclosures

Not to be outdone, there's the good folks in Indiana:

Report: Indianapolis Region Led Nation in Foreclosures in Q1

I guess the idea is that, if there's bad news happening, at least it's happening to
us worst. We're number one! posted by Carlton at 12:35 PM

DAY 9

I now officially want to eat everything that I can get my hands on. Including telephone books. posted by Carlton at 1:35 PM

OH SNAP

This article from the Boston Globe might be filed under "stupid criminals" except for one thing:

PLYMOUTH -- A newly elected Plymouth selectman was arraigned on charges of soliciting sex from minors on the Internet after he was arrested along with 10 other people in a far-reaching sting operation.

In what was dubbed Operation Trenchcoat, local police, federal officials, and state investigators prowled cyberspace for predators during a two-month probe. One of the men they found soliciting sex from police officers who posed as teenage girls was Sean Dodgson, 45, a selectman who beat his opponent by 100 votes in last year's election.

What's that one thing? The penultimate paragraph of the article lists a bunch of "also arrested but not famous" people -- and I KNOW one of them from my Hooker Street days. In fact, he was LIVING at Hooker Street when he was arrested.

Snap.

(Hooker Street, by the way, is in a state of serious decline. If the cops decided to search the house, I can only imagine the things they would find.)

One thing -- I'm not disputing that this police operation was a good move for law enforcement. Give these men due process and, if appropriate, punish them. (Sorry dude!) But I have questions: Had these men made contacts with minors before? Is it really that easy to commit this kind of crime? I guess I worry a bit about entrapment (a word I am probably not using in its technical sense) -- you don't want your sting to sweep up people who wouldn't have committed the crime EXCEPT for the police involvement, right? (Like you walk up to the kid in the bad neighborhood and offer him 10 times the normal amount for some drugs -- he'll probably find some to sell you, even if he wouldn't have otherwise.)

An interesting experiment might be to have police work the OTHER way -- have cops on the 'net contact teens pretending to be predator types, just long enough to warn them or their parents about the dangers. Telling a girl's parents that she's talking to 45 year-old guys on MySpace should shake up somebody's world, I would think. Outreach, you know.

Unless, of course, the whole idea is to generate high-profile arrests. Outreach doesn't do that.

(UPDATE after some thought: "Yeah! Yeah! I was trying to WARN her! Yeah! I was going to tell her parents! Yeah! Right AFTER I met her at that seedy motel! That's right, I was going to meet her there and tell her how DANGEROUS it is to meet strange men on the internet at seedy motels -- and then I was going to go home and drink all those wine coolers I happened to have with me.") posted by Carlton at 1:05 PM

DIET OF WORMS

Not really! Everyone's been asking me about how my diet is going -- actually, no one has asked, but that's OK!

To recap: I am on the South Beach Diet. I am currently rounding out Day 6 of Phase 1, which is supposed to last 14 days but can last longer. I am pondering whether to extend it a bit -- it is supposed to be the period in which the most weight is lost in the least amount of time, although it is also the most restrictive.

My compliance with the terms of the SBD have been pretty good. My slip-ups are as follows: on Day 1, I accidentally ate a candy that wasn't sugar-free (without thinking), on another day I was parched and bought a Gatorade, and had two swigs of it before thinking, "Hey! Can I drink this?" (Answer: No.) Yesterday, I was at a restaurant in DC and I ordered a steamed seafood platter without the rice (it also had some veggie medley to go along with it, whatever) -- and it came DRENCHED in butter. I recalled a passage from the book saying that butter isn't the worst thing in the world, and I was hungry. I'm not one of those "send it back!" kind of people, so I ate it. It was otherwise fine -- and yummy.

So, that makes two relatively minor "without thinking" mistakes, and one "unfortunate, but not the worst thing in the world."

I know the next question: am I swimsuit-model material yet? I'd rather not post the actual numbers here on the Interweb, but it looks kind of like I have lost some weight.

Some backstory: sometime in February or March, I stepped on a scale for the first time in a long while, and just about fainted dead away at the number I saw. (I mean, WHAT?) I resolved at that time to get on the exercise horse and make a difference. I joined a gym and started swimming 3 or so times a week. I started walking in the evenings, climbing 6 flights of stairs at work, etc. In June, I went to the doctor for a checkup and was weighed by the nurse -- and people, I weighed EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT. To the digit. I was in better shape, probably, but the number hadn't budged. That number was too high.

I started the SBD about six weeks later, I'd guess, after two weddings and my birthday. I forgot to weigh myself on Day 1 of this diet, to get a baseline, so I weighed myself on Day 2 on our trusty bathroom scale (which is accurate to an acceptable degree). At that time, I showed up as about 10 pounds lighter than I was in the doc's office. So what happened in the meantime? Answer: I dunno! I read the SBD book and tried some of the food after the doctor's visit, and I guess I had been thinking about the diet for much of that time, so perhaps I subconsciously altered my eating habits. Perhaps the time of the doc's visit was a kind of unusual maximum, and I reverted to the mean shortly thereafter . . . ? In any case, it was the easiest 10 pounds I ever lost.

So anyway, I weighed myself yesterday and discovered that yes, I have been making progress. Except for the above-referenced lapses, I've kept to the diet, although I feel like I am eating more food by volume than one is supposed to -- although the book says to eat until you are no longer hungry. That's one instruction I have been able to follow to the letter. The food I'm allowed to eat is good, also, so it hasn't really been that difficult.

One bad thing about the SBD -- no alcohol in Phase 1. None.

posted by Carlton at 7:13 PM

HILARIOUS

Star Wars junk -- it's mad stupid.



Just watch. posted by Carlton at 2:11 PM

OLD PICTURES

Found amongst a stack of old CDs . . .

I give you, Greg McDonald, ca. 1992. (At, I believe, a College Bowl event of some type or other.)

posted by Carlton at 11:58 AM

GOING OUT WITH A WHIMPER

I find this hard to believe, (but it has to be true, since it's in Wikipedia):

In Transformers: The Movie, Unicron (whose lips never moved when he spoke) was voiced by Orson Welles. Unicron proved to be Welles's final role, as he died a few weeks after completing work on the project; rumors persist that Welles did not complete recording of all his lines, and that Leonard Nimoy filled in for him, but director Wally Burr and actress Susan Blu refute the claim. There were two attempts to produce Unicron toys for the Transformers toyline, including voice clips from Welles himself, but the unimpressive results never made it to production.

The Magnificent Ambertrons

Except, except: There it is.

When the mighty fall, they end up playing space robots.

posted by Carlton at 8:59 AM

THE SOUTH BEACH DIET

There was a micro-firestorm of controversy here on this page when I included "The South Beach Diet" book on my reading list for the past few months. I am pleased (?) to report that today is my second day on this diet -- Phase I, for the initiated.



(I followed a bit too close, I guess.)

Readers can look at the pictures I've posted recently and make up their own minds regarding the state of my fattitude -- but personally, I'm ready to take some action. My goals are not lofty; I only intend to lose about 10% of my total weight (if I can). The last couple of years (seven months of unemployment, anyone?) did some damage to my waistline, and I'd rather feel like I'm taking some action than feel battered by fate. Or should I say, buttered by fate. posted by Carlton at 10:02 AM

MY BROTHER'S WEDDING . .. IN PICTURES!

Some context: My brother, Kris, married Joy, a Chinese (from China) dermatologist who has recently been living in Japan and Denver. My brother lives in Mississippi. (They were introduced via mutual Christian missionary friends who live in Japan. Initial communication was via the Internet.)

The 'burg!

This wedding was interesting to compare to my own wedding, which took place about a year ago. Whereas my parents are religious, church-going Southern Baptists, my brother and I diverged from that tradition in opposite ways. I went to the left, as it were, and he went to the right. Our wedding was a small affair at a hotel in New Orleans, and we did not schedule a side trip to Hattiesburg for the (not, as it turned out) obligatory reception/party involving the large proportion of the town who knows my mother. Our ceremony was scrubbed of any reference to religion -- Molly was raised Catholic, I SoBab, and neither of us can really be bothered with the metaphysical. The officiant was Johann, a friend of ours, ordained via the Internet. Oh, there was one overt reference to the Almighty: my brother, my best man, chose to make a short speech about something along those lines during the ceremony -- much to our surprise (dismay?).

The happy couple at the rehearsal BBQ!

This weekend's affair was in Hattiesburg, where my brother (and his new wife, and my parents) live. The ceremony was quite small, and held in a chapel on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi -- which my brother, sister and I all attended, and where my father was a professor for many years. (My sister, co-incidentally, was married in the same chapel some 18 years ago.) A group of ladies threw a reception after the ceremony at the First Baptist Church. Molly and I chose to forego such a party.

The ladies.

The Christianity this weekend was pretty much wall-to wall. My brother is a member of a small church which is itself a splinter group of a church which I would consider to be far to the right of even the average SoBab congregation. (I didn't find out the reason for the split, but I'd love to know.) One of the members of this church hosted the rehearsal dinner (a very yummy barbecue) at his palatial home in
the wild rural area outside of Hattiesburg, reachable only by a very long and dusty dirt road. This home happens also to be where the splinter church holds its meetings. I spoke with a few of these church members. My impressions: almost all of the families homeschool the children, that the group is fairly affluent overall, and that the family ideal for the group is that of a dominant, decision-making husband and a submissive wife whose primary function is to be a mother.

At the rehearsal!

Molly, a Catholic by experience, was unfamiliar with the "free-form" style of prayer adopted by Baptists and other groups -- instead of rote prayers, the speaker just lets loose, speaking conversationally from the heart with no advance preparation (or organization, in some cases). Three men were asked to pray during the ceremony -- and did, at length. There was also some lifting of hands, which is unusual in my own experience. The couple was asked to recite three different sets of vows, which I found odd, and there was talk made of the wife "submitting" to her husband, and the "covenant" between the two plus the Lord. It occurred to me during the ceremony that the two may have had a "covenant marriage", but I don't think those are available in Mississippi.

Awww!

So that was it, really. It was a fun trip, and I was able to see a lot of people that I hadn't seen in a very long time. It was also a bit of an anthropological exercise, a glimpse into my brother's social and religious world. I also learned that my sister, as well as my brother, occasionally reads this page.

Us after the ceremony posted by Carlton at 11:07 PM

IRS UPDATE

I've been out -- my brother's wedding was this weekend in Mississippi, and Molly and I were happy to attend. Pix to come.

Today was also my 34th birthday. It was fun -- a nice dinner and some phone calls/cards from well-wishers.

My JOB, on the other hand, is a giant pile of horse poop.

WASHINGTON - Flood damage at IRS headquarters will take six months to completely repair, the tax agency said Tuesday.
. . .
The General Services Administration, which manages federal buildings, estimated it will take the rest of the year to manufacture and install replacements.

Some employees may return to the building this fall. Taxpayers should notice no change in IRS operations because its computers and employees work at locations scattered across the country.

The last paragraph of the article sends my conspiracy theory antennae up, however:

Bart Bush, assistant regional administrator for the GSA's capital area buildings, said workers pumped 3 million gallons of water out of the building over four days. It will take 30 days for the building to dry and repairs to begin.

We have to wait for a Bush to save us from flooding? I'll never work again! posted by Carlton at 10:47 PM

LOOTERS

I've written about this before, but it's easy to see the Bush gang through the lens of George's own business career: take over as management of a going concern, parcel out all the value, leave behind only a husk for shareholders -- preferably bankrupt. In my Corporations class, we called that "looting." Looters are often characterized by: extreme short-term planning, disregard for stakeholders/owners (i.e. you and me), and an almost pathological appetite for risk. For a looter, there are no consqeuences, so why not gamble?

In that vein, interesting stuff here:

The top officials of this administration are remarkable gamblers and optimists. They have also proven remarkably single-minded in playing the destabilization game. If they are in the Roman-Empire business, don't think Augustus, think Caesar's Palace. Like so many gambling addicts, they've never run across a situation in which they're unwilling to roll the dice, no matter the odds. They just give those dice that special little rub and offer a prayer for good luck, always knowing that this just has to be their day.

Medicare, roll the dice. Social security, roll the dice. Tax the poor and middle class by untaxing the rich, no problem. Wipe out what's left of the checks and balances of the American system in favor of a theory of an all-encompassing "commander-in-chief" government, roll those dice. Launch endless, Swift-Boat-style, bare-knuckle campaigns of fear, lies, and fantasy (accompanied by gerrymandering and vote-suppression schemes) meant to install Republicans in power for decades to come, no matter the cost to the political system -- don't wait, toss ‘em now!

This is, essentially, a full-scale a program for the destabilization (as well as plundering) of this country, one that fits snugly with their operations potentially destabilizing the planet.

Yep, there's more. posted by Carlton at 9:30 PM

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY



. . . From Mrs. Bettye and all of us. posted by Carlton at 12:18 AM

A BOAT IN READINESS

Just a word on CT Senator Joe Lieberman, 2000 Democratic nominee for Vice President, a Democratic contender for President in 2004, and 18-year Senator under the Democratic party banner:

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), the Democratic Party's 2000 vice presidential nominee and a leading voice of its centrist wing, announced yesterday that he will run as an independent in the November general election if he loses a primary battle next month to an increasingly popular antiwar candidate.

and

As his lead narrows, Lieberman has weighed an alternative option: collecting 7,500 voter signatures to secure a place on the November ballot as an independent. But the due date for that option is Aug. 9, one day after the primary -- meaning that Lieberman must begin collecting signatures well before he knows the outcome against Lamont.

That this tactic -- collecting signatures for an independent run before a primary that he should win easily -- shows disloyalty to the Democratic party is no big thing. What, after all, is party loyalty? (I'd say that it is something, as opposed to nothing, but let's call it nothing.)

I think that this shows something worse than disloyalty on Lieberman's part. I'll let Sun Tzu speak for me:

There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general:

b) Cowardice, which leads to capture;

Ts`ao Kung defines the Chinese word translated here as "cowardice" as being of the man "whom timidity prevents from advancing to seize an advantage," and Wang Hsi adds "who is quick to flee at the sight of danger." Meng Shih gives the closer paraphrase "he who is bent on returning alive," this is, the man who will never take a risk. But, as Sun Tzu knew, nothing is to be achieved in war unless you are willing to take risks. T`ai Kung said: "He who lets an advantage slip will subsequently bring upon himself real disaster." In 404 A.D., Liu Yu pursued the rebel Huan Hsuan up the Yangtsze and fought a naval battle with him at the island of Ch`eng-hung. The loyal troops numbered only a few thousands, while their opponents were in great force. But Hu an Hsuan, fearing the fate which was in store for him should be be overcome, had a light boat made fast to the side of his war-junk, so that he might escape, if necessary, at a moment's notice. The natural result was that the fighting spirit of his soldiers was utterly quenched, and when the loyalists made an attack from windward with fireships, all striving with the utmost ardor to be first in the fray, Huan Hsuan's forces were routed, had to burn all their baggage and fled for two days and nights without stopping. Chang Yu tells a somewhat similar story of Chao Ying-ch`i, a general of the Chin State who during a battle with the army of Ch`u in 597 B.C. had a boat kept in readiness for him on the river, wishing in case of defeat to be the first to get across.

In Lieberman, we see a powerful candidate who is afraid of a weak challenger. Lieberman should be able to crush Lamont, with institutional bias alone if not for the power of his connections and fund-raising. Cross-eyed with fear, however, he can't seem to shoot straight at Lamont, and has hit himself in the foot more than once. How on earth could this be? More than anything, Lieberman seems to have internalized the idea that his position is his by right -- a real, if weak, challenge seems to have driven him completely off the rails.

To run as an independent, Lieberman will need to make use of the same organization and operatives that he is currently using in the primary. As the Chinese generals in the example discovered, your followers may not be so willing to fight for you if they think you are ready to bail out on them at a moment's notice. We will see. posted by Carlton at 11:52 PM

ADD THIS TO THE READING LIST

I've just started The March of Folly, by Barbara Tuchman. By some strange co-incidence, I have been seeing references to it almost everywhere I look for the past few months. So, off to the local library.

It should be instructive. In the intro, Tuchman quotes the Encyclopedia Britannica regarding Philip II of Spain and his disasterous campaign against England: "No experience of the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its essential excellence."

Yes, it should be instructive. posted by Carlton at 11:08 AM

ROBOTS RISE UP!

When you run out of things to say, try pictures!

I'm a big fan of magazine art from the Fifties and before, especially pulp scifi covers. It's so, so . . . earnest. I mean, this metal guy is clearly ripped up about his lil buddy (or maybe he did the ripping up . . I don't know!):



More than just a Queen album cover!

Robots are heavily anthropomorphized in sci-fi -- how can they not be all snuggly-wuggly when they are so cute! Surely this robot is sad about the dead spaceman:



And for some reason, the robots always get the hottest blondes!


(Although they are usually unconscious.)



Not many artists care to explore how different and inscrutable a computer mind might be from our own:



That is all. posted by Carlton at 11:07 PM