Alternate Brain turned one year old yesterday! (And, they have a snazzy new design to boot—I just dare Karl Rove to tell either The Fixer or Gordon to his face that liberals aren’t patriots and don’t care about defending their country. Go ahead, Karl. I double dog dare ya!)
The Fixer, Gordon, and Knox Rover do great work over there, every single day. Congratulations, Alternate Brain team, and thanks so very, very much for always being supportive of me. I love you guys.
Brainia
Question of the Day: Cruise News
"WHICH leading man landed his fiancée by giving her a five-year contract for $10 million? Now, she's giving an Oscar-worthy performance acting as if she's really in love with him." (Page Six)Okay, I’ve really tried not to pay any attention to this, and not to mention it here, but I just can’t help myself! (And I did manage to get through the entire Michael Jackson trial without mentioning it at all, which has to count for something.) But seriously—Tom Cruise has lost his fuckin’ gourd! What is up with that guy?
So…when was Mr. Scientology’s jump-the-shark moment for you?
The Secret of My Secession
You’ve got to love the thought of a group calling itself ChristianExodus, which seeks to move the nation’s conservative Christians into South Carolina and then succeed from the union, being led by a dude who lives in California.
Ironically, Burnell, who last year was living in Texas, has moved west to California due to a family commitment, but he says he does plan on moving east to South Carolina.Yeah. Right. Why not live high on the hog in a state with more opportunity to party with silver screen wannabes, subsisting off the contributions of wingnuts who are uprooting their families for your crackpot scheme, as long as you can until the dumbos start complaining?
"Why not go to the liberal bastion to motivate yourself to get out?" he said.
Perhaps I’m just cynical, but Burnell isn’t a preacher; he’s a financial advisor, or so he says. Back when he was living in Tyler, Texas, about a year ago, he was a teacher at a Christian school and ran a coffee shop and a mobile phone store. (Depending on the source, he didn’t even run the store, but was described instead as a cell phone salesman.)
And his whole gripe centers around gay marriage (or, as he calls it, sodomite marriage). We all know what that means when it comes to the conservafreaks. Perhaps Burnell ought to keep heading north until he reaches Spokane. I’m sure Jim West can hook him up.
With conservative Christians fed up with fags.
What did you think I meant?
Note to Christian Conservatives
Hate and discrimination aren’t Christian values, and the United Church of Christ, bless them, has just made it a little bit harder for you to continue to claim that they are under the guise of protecting families or the sanctity of marriage or preventing earthquakes or whatever noxious crap you like to spew to further your agenda.
Golly, it’s just getting harder and harder to make bigotry sound like a Christian principle when Christians with open hearts keep pulling wacky stunts like this, huh?
Eliminationism
Go read this.
(Hat tip to Jack at CommonSenseDesk, who really, really should be on everyone’s blogroll.)
Is There Actually a Slimier Job in the World than Being Karl Rove's Lawyer?
Lawrence O’Donnell, who asserted Friday that Puppetmaster of the Mayberry Machiavellians, Karl Rove, would be named as the leak in the Plame Case, has a follow-up in the Huffington Post:
Karl Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, had his holiday weekend ruined on Friday when I broke the story that the e-mails that Time delivered to the special prosecutor that afternoon reveal that Karl Rove is the source Matt Cooper has been protecting for two years…Let the spin begin.
Luskin … told Newsweek that his client "never knowingly disclosed classified information." Knowingly. That is the most important word Luskin said in what has now become his public version of the Rove defense.
Not coincidentally, the word 'knowing' is the most important word in the controlling statute (U.S. Code: Title 50: Section 421). To violate the law, Rove had to tell Cooper about a covert agent "knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States."
That’s the kind of shit that really, really drives me crazy. In my rant about truth having become the great liberal conspiracy, I wrote:
It is as though we have been asked, and, inexplicably, collectively agreed, to rid ourselves of common sense and our very understanding of human nature.Acceptance of anything this administration says seems to be predicated upon a person’s willingness to dump their critical thinking skills, and this is yet another example. What person, with even a modicum of logic, the barest understanding of human nature, and a passing acquaintance with Rove’s role in the Bush administration would possibly believe that he could have passed on Valerie Plame’s name without knowing she was a covert agent and/or that the government was trying to ensure she stayed that way? What reason would he have had to even discuss her otherwise?!
Unbelievable. If this defense flies, I shall truly struggle not to abandon all hope for our collective future, because it means our ruling party has officially sacrificed every last shred of reason and decency to the altar of power, and allowed their absolute power to corrupt, absolutely.
Brits Plan to Withdraw Troops
Via Raw Story, the Financial Times reports:
The Ministry of Defence has drafted plans for a significant withdrawal of British troops from Iraq over the next 18 months and a big deployment to Afghanistan, the Financial Times has learnt.We keep hearing about things that are contingent on the ability of Iraqi forces to assume the responsibility of peacekeeping from US and UK troops; in fact, it’s become the cornerstone of Bush’s response when asked about an exit strategy:
In what would represent the biggest operational shake-up involving the armed forces since the Iraq war, the first stage of a run-down in military operations is likely to take place this autumn with a handover of security to Iraqis in at least two southern provinces.
Defence officials emphasised that all plans for Iraqi deployments were contingent on the ability of domestic security forces to assume peacekeeping duties from UK troops. Iraqi forces have so far proven unable to take over such roles in areas where the insurgency is most intense, and progress has disappointed coalition officials.
But senior UK officers believe the four south-east provinces under UK command, which are largely Shia and have not seen the same violence as more Sunni-dominated areas north of Baghdad, may be ready for a handover earlier than those under US command.
[…]
By next April, a best case scenario would see current troops levels of 8,500 reduced to about 4,000-5,000, with a further cut in the period leading to the first quarter of 2007, when the British military presence is expected to fall to about 1,000 advisers and training personnel.
"Our strategy can be summed up this way: As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down, and then our troops can come home to a proud and grateful nation," Mr. Bush said.But meanwhile, despite all administration claims to the contrary, such progress continues to be decidedly lackluster, and why wouldn’t it be, considering that Iraqi troops are constantly targeted by insurgents? We hear about multiple Iraqi troop casualty car or suicide bomb strikes nearly every day. Iraqi troops have to keep their faces hidden so their families aren’t killed. Not what one might describe as the most fortuitous set of circumstances in which to recruit and train a functioning military.
The deep disconnect between reality and “that which would be preferable and politically advantageous” seems to deepen every day, to the point where the spin is infuriatingly predictable. If and when British troops leave us to our quagmire, we will be a Coalition of One, for all intents and purposes, even more so than we already are. Just wait until Bush is asked about that one, and the asker is accused of denigrating the troops, by suggesting that our soldiers aren’t good enough to do the job on their own.
The Fourth of July in the Land of the Free
The triumph of a minority “is everyone’s triumph. It is also the triumph of those who oppose [laws of equality], even though they do not know this yet: because it is the triumph of Liberty. Their victory makes all of us (even those who oppose [laws of equality]) better people, it makes our society better. … [Laws of equality] generate no evil, [their] only consequence will be the avoiding of senseless suffering of decent human beings. A society that avoids senseless suffering of decent human beings is a better society… [E]very right gained, each access to liberty has been the result of the struggle and sacrifice of many people that deserve our recognition and praise. Today we demonstrate … that societies can better themselves and can cross barriers and create tolerance by putting a stop to the unhappiness and humiliation of some of our citizens. Today, for many of our countrymen, comes the day predicted by Kavafis one century ago: 'Later 'twas said of the most perfect society/someone else, made like me/certainly will come out and act freely.'"
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, on the occasion of the Spanish parliament’s historic vote legalizing both gay marriage and adoption of children by gay couples.
I hope that soon we will have a leader who believes in the words freedom and liberty as resolutely as he is willing to use them for political gain.
Keep up the fight, my fellow liberal patriots. Those words will mean something once again in America.
A Beggar Prepares to Plunge
A few times recently, it’s been quite generously and kindly suggested that I ought to write for a living. Well, it hasn’t totally been for lack of trying.
I’ve always written. The first money I ever made on my own work was the “books” I’d write at my grandparents’ house in NYC in the summers, typically about 5 pages of drawings and scribbles which I’d staple together and sell to them and my parents for 10¢ a book. I wrote my first novel when I was in 7th grade; it was utterly horrible—387 handwritten pages of just the most dreadful dreck you can imagine, but it still felt like quite an accomplishment.
I wrote another in high school, also composed long-hand, which an acquaintance asked to read, and then never returned. It wasn’t a great loss; it also suffered from some pretty severe suckitude.
The third was in college, and I worked on it endlessly, never feeling like I got it quite right. That’s the one that I deleted with the press of a button one day, and it was no great loss, although one of my friends went around for weeks telling everyone that I had carelessly deleted the seminal work of the greatest writer of our generation. With a penchant for hyperbole like that, he ought to have been the writer.
I finally finished something of which I was proud, and the intent was never to submit it for publishing, until a few friends read it and begged me to try. So I did. And I sent it out to a slew of literary agents, receiving in return the most kind and frustrating rejection letters you’ll ever see. Brilliant work. Someone should definitely publish it…but not me. Too literary. Too literary. Well, perhaps that was just a nice way of saying it was boring, I don’t know.
Nonetheless, I kept trying until my computer crashed and I lost both the manuscript and the list of agents which I had compiled. (Yes, I know. Backing up my work isn’t my strong suit.) So it’s just been sitting here for a couple of years, one print-out of the whole thing, and I’ve finally started putting it back in an electronic format again. While I was at it, I figured I’d make it available for anyone who wants to read it. It’s been read by men and women, and enjoyed by both, although everyone who’s read it has been a devout lover of books, which is sort of what it’s all about. Chapter 7 provides this passage, which if I had to pick one to sum it up, this would be it:
For anyone who spends so much time in books, life is a riddle to be solved, and the potential for discerning the wholeness of its meaning appears less elusive as one unearths in literature the clandestine clues within. It is the great illusion, and hence inexorable appeal, of the written word that questions might be answered and journeys culminate. But the passionate reader knows the search goes ever on, the only indisputable knowledge to be gleaned that definitive meaning will always remain as frustratingly ungraspable as it is for those who don’t search at all.
I guess if that speaks to you in any way, you might enjoy the rest.
Or not.
In any case, the first nine twelve chapters are up here. I’ll keep adding as time allows.
What Else Can We Ruin?
How about the internets, too?
A unilateral decision by the United States to indefinitely retain oversight of the Internet's main traffic-directing computers prompted concerns Friday that the global telecommunications network could eventually splinter.At what point will “We must seek world domination…because of 9/11!” just become our official policy?
"This seems like an extension of American security in the aftermath of 9-11," said John Strand, a Denmark-based technology consultant. "People will ask: `Do the Americans want to control the Internet?'"
Washington's decision, announced Thursday, departs from previously stated U.S. policy.
Many countries favor gradually releasing oversight of the Internet's so-called "root servers" to an international body, and a showdown on the issue could come in November at a U.N. information society summit to be held in Tunisia. A U.N. report this month on Internet governance is expected to address the issue.
Michael D. Gallagher, an assistant secretary at the U.S. Commerce Department, said in announcing the policy shift Thursday that it was a response to growing security threats and increased reliance on the Internet globally for communications and commerce.
Tartan Tongue
Today, Mannion recounts a phone call with his local power company, which will seem painfully familiar to anyone who has, well, ever called a power company. I commented, “Just be glad you don't have a Scottish accent, too.” (Shakers who have been around awhile will no doubt recall Mr. Shakes’ inability to easily order a couple of sandwiches.)
It’s an interesting experience being married to an immigrant. I have, at various times, felt (undeservedly) special, when someone compliments him on his lovely accent, or vicariously frustrated, when he has a difficult time making himself understood, or confused, when I use a British colloquialism (taking the piss or half four) that has infiltrated my lexicon and am greeted with a blank look, or embarrassed of (and for) my own countrymen and –women, when they show their ignorance of anyplace outside their own borders. Living in a small town doesn’t help.
In the first month we were here, we regularly met with such asinine questions that I feared he would run screaming back to the Highlands, refusing to spend the rest of his life among abject idiots.
Is Scotland part of America?
Is Scotland bigger than America?
Is Scotland a Communist country?
Is Scotland part of England?
Directed at me, after noting he is from Scotland: Does he read English okay?
And the most frequent question: What?
For at least an entire year, I think Mr. Shakes had to repeat everything that came out of his mouth, directed at anyone but me, at least twice.
He never even had a particularly thick accent, being from Edinburgh, which produces a much softer brogue (and therefore understandable to American ears) than Glasgow. (Think Sean Connery, rather than Billy Connolly.) Why 007 could be understood but not him was the bane of Mr. Shakes’ existence—and a green ogre that begged constant comparisons wasn’t on the list of things he appreciated hearing. Ever so slowly, the accent started fading. Tuna replaced chyoona; film replaced fillum. Such retraining of his tongue has made his life easier.
Recently, someone asked him if he was from Texas.
I can’t really hear his accent at all anymore—and I would believe it’s because the brogue is completely lost, were it not for the reminders of others.
Today, on his weekly pilgrimage to the local comic book shop, Mr. Shakes was discussing Batman Begins with the staff; his enthusiastic endorsement, and, no doubt, the use of the word fooking, left the manager in tears, doubled over with laughter. “I feel like I’m in Trainspotting!” he exclaimed.
Sometimes I’m jealous of those who can still hear his accent, as if it is a gift that I no longer have. But the ability to hear his Rs that sound like Ds, and his Ts that sound like CHs is gone because he is my husband, and my best friend. We spend more time talking, about anything and everything, than we spend doing anything else, often finding ourselves turning off a fillum a half hour or so after we settled in to watch it, once we realize we’ve paid no attention to it, off instead on a collective tangent about existentialism or whether Spider-Man could take Wolverine. All that talking has left me deaf to what everyone else hears. A small price to pay, in the end, for the rare and wonderful gift of knowing and loving him wholly.
DSM: Congressional Coalition File Freedom of Information Act Request
Raw Story reports:
Representative John Conyers, Jr., (D-MI) House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member, along with 51 other Members today submitted a broad and comprehensive FOIA request to the White House, the Department of Defense, and the Department of State seeking any and all documents and materials concerning the Downing Street Minutes and the lead up to the Iraq war, RAW STORY has learned.See the FOIA request and the list of signers here.
In addition, the Members also formally requested that the House Committees on Judiciary, Armed Services, International Relations, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence commence hearings on the Downing Street Minutes.
"This is the next stage of the Downing Street investigation and brings the investigation to a new more and more aggressive stage," one Democratic Judiciary aide said.
Conyers is tenacious. I love him. Keep it up, you determined little madman!
Rove the Plame Leaker?
It’s what I’ve always suspected, and now, evidently, Lawrence O'Donell's has confirmed it on the McLaughlin Group:
From DailyKos:Oh please please please let this be true. Please let that fat piece of horseshit, that filthy little drip of diseased dogwank, that boil on the ass of humanity be revealed as the source of the leak and be indicted, tried, convicted, and sent to live out the rest of his heinous little life at Gitmo, weeping like a giant, balding baby.
Below is the text of Lawrence O'Donell's revelatory statement on McLaughlin Group today. He began talking about Time having to pay for holding the documents/emails, and not serving its shareholders by defying a (Supreme) court order. He ended with this:
"What we're going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper's emails-within Time Magazine, uh, are handed over to the grand jury is the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is. And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of-for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time Magazine's going to do with the grand jury."
Or, failing that, let him just become a GOP outcast, thereby ensuring he can’t retain his position as the evil, backstage Svengali in any more Republican administrations.
Let this be the end of Rove!
Lefty's II
The bar is open. Lefty's has been closed for maintenence for the evening.
Lefty's has reopened!
Friday Night Name That Movie: Teen Angst Edition
1. If you died right now, I would throw myself under one of my Dad's cement trucks so I could be poured into your tomb.
2. High school's better than junior high. They'll call you names, but not as much to your face.
3. Maybe I'm spending too much of my time starting up clubs and putting on plays. I should probably be trying harder to score chicks.
4. You know how you said before, how your parents use you to get back at each other…? Wouldn't I be outstanding in that capacity?
5. I don't believe this—I've got a trig midterm tomorrow, and I'm being chased by Guido the killer pimp!
6. I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.
7. Even the most primitive of societies have an innate respect for the insane.
8. If I had one day when I didn't have to be all confused and I didn't have to feel that I was ashamed of everything… If I felt that I belonged someplace... You know?
9. I want to be with her more. I want to be with her all the time, and I want to tell her things I don't even tell you or Mum, and I don't want her to have another boyfriend. I suppose if I could have all those things, I wouldn't really mind if I touched her or not.
10. It's not like I'm some modern punk, dickhead. It's an obvious, 1977 original punk rock look. I guess Johnny Fuckface over there's too stupid to realize it.
Blame Liberals
Good lord—these people have no shame:
Several Senate Republicans denounced other lawmakers and the news media on Thursday for unfavorable depictions of the Iraq war and the Pentagon urged members of Congress to talk up military service to help ease a recruiting shortfall.That’s right—it’s the negative media that’s discouraging enlistments, not the terrible tragedy that is the Iraq War itself.
Families are discouraging young men and women from enlisting "because of all the negative media that's out there," Sen. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, said at a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
Inhofe also said that other senators' criticism of the war contributed to the propaganda of U.S. enemies. He did not name the senators.
Meanwhile, the Army met its recruitment goal for June, for the first time since January, even though it’s still 14% behind year-to-date. And how did it manage to meet that goal despite all the negativity? By relaxing standards.
Army officials insist that they can still reach their annual goal, especially with hundreds of new recruiters on the street, armed with big enlistment bonuses and greater leeway to recruit more high-school dropouts and lower-achieving applicants.Ezra notes:
I'm a bit nervous about our new strategy of attracting the most hopeless, directionless, and uneducated recruits we can find. When "a few bad apples"* can do as much harm to the cause as the bushel running Abu Ghraib did, it kind of underscores the need for a military representing the best of our society, not one formed by trawling the bottom of Lake America and enlisting whatever floats up.Right. And perhaps the Republican wankers who are yowling about Dems and the media being at fault for decreased enlistments could stop for a moment and consider that perhaps it’s exactly that host of bad directives, poor leadership, inadequate oversight, and so forth that’s preventing people from signing up, rather than people who seek to point out those issues in the hope they might save the lives of the soldiers who are already there.
* Abu Ghraib, of course, was not the work of a few bad apples, but a host of bad directives, poor leaders, inadequate oversight, and so forth. Nevertheless, since conservatives seem to think we really do have an Army of Ones, they should be fairly nervous about recruiting individuals who the Army, mere months ago, would've rejected out of hand.
Of course, that would undercut their steady drumbeat of “Blame liberals!” which is becoming increasingly necessary as they desperately scramble for a scapegoat to take the fall for this failure of a military mission.
TFIF
What a fucking day - honestly!
At work, we started the day with a leaky ceiling, then the electricity went out (for a totally unrelated reason, no less), then once it was back on, the internet was on and off all frigging day, then Mr. Shakes' train was late, and I'm tired and crabby as fuck.
To top it off, Sandra Day O'Connor has to go and quit, the bitch.
And Luther Vandross died, whose music I didn't even like, but he always seemed nice, so it makes me sad.
Thank the motherloving fates for a three-day weekend; I need one.
Asleep at the wheel? They're not even in the car.
A recent sobering post by John at Americablog has me infuriated at the may-as-well-not-exist American MSM, and brought to mind a thought that's been rattling around in my head the last few days.
Why the hell is the media not responding to all the criticism against it?
It's a basic "rule" if you are running a business, organization or group, when someone publicly criticizes you, you had best get off your ass and respond before public opinion is irreversibly turned against you. The only entity that seemed to be immune to this was the Bush administration. Thinking they could do no wrong, they have indulged in one insane scheme after another, assuming that wrapping themselves in the flag and shouting “9/11” over and over would be enough to placate the American people. However, even the seemingly bulletproof Bushies are beginning to feel the heat. (Energy dome tip to Francesca for the link.)
Half of all Americans, exactly 50%, now say the Bush administration deliberately misled Americans about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the Gallup Organization reported this morning.
"This is the highest percentage that Gallup has found on this measure since the question was first asked in late May 2003," the pollsters observed. "At that time, 31% said the administration deliberately misled Americans. This sentiment has gradually increased over time, to 39% in July 2003, 43% in January/February 2004, and 47% in October 2004."
Of course, the White House still feels no need to have to explain themselves to the likes of common Americans; serfs are not worthy of explanations or (heavens!) apologies from their leaders.
The spineless media, terrified of the Bush team, has allowed them to do this. And taking a cue from the monster they created, they are behaving in the same way.
The American Media has become a joke. The cash cow of Fox’s “news as entertainment” meme has corrupted this supposed informer and protector of the American people into a 24/7/365 infomercial. The deliberate killing, distorting, and dismissal of highly important news stories by the media in this country has done as much damage as the reckless, dangerous policies of the Bush Administration. They have helped keep Americans lazy, uninformed, ignorant, afraid, and complacent. "We're giving people what they want" and sucking up to your advertisers is not an excuse.
Time and again, bloggers and webmasters, writers and independent journalists, documentary filmmakers and independent news sources, and entire conventions have stood up, made their voices heard, and bashed the media for becoming the shameful laughingstock that it is today.
And the response from the media? Absolute silence.
It’s jaw-dropping. There is not one person out there in the media that is willing to stand up for their camp? Not one person that’s willing to refute all the charges against it?
Not one person that is willing to eat a little crow and say “Yes, we have been the tools of the Republican Extremists and Radical Right for too long. We have failed the American People, and we apologize. “
Ha! I crack myself up.
The American Media has finally arrived at the point where they cannot defend themselves, because their actions are 100% indefensible. They have been the puppets of a bully administration, and no amount of apology, wheedling, and backtracking will come close to repairing any of the damage they have done. The American Media has failed The American People. And not one person has the balls to stand up and try and explain him/herself.
I suppose I’m answering my own question, here. How in the world can they defend their “news reporting” at this point? It’s impossible.
Still, if someone came into my office and said I was doing a really shitty job, even if they had reasons to say this, I’d still get riled and try to defend myself.
Unless I’d been ignoring my work and playing Tetris online all day.
There’s really no excuse for that.
UPDATE: Some of these links are wonky. I think I've fixed them.
MORE UPDATE: Jeri pointed me to this cartoon that pretty much sums it up.
(If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some cross-posts in your hair...)
