Belatedly recognizing the insult added to the injury of the current situation in Lebanon, the White House has waived its pay-for-evacuation policy. Perhaps someone told President Bush that free market economics shouldn't apply to rescue efforts.
(Cross-posted.)
No more "fee to flee"
Question of the Day
What’s your favorite joke?
Here’s mine: It’s morning in the heart of Africa, and the sun is just beginning to beat down on the cracked earth around a precious watering hole populated by birds, reptiles, and all manner of four-legged creature. Lions slink down to the water’s edge to lap at its surface with broad, pink tongues on one side, while on the other, hesitant zebras bend their long necks to touch their lips to the water, keeping an eye on the maned predators across from them. Wildebeest gather at the far tip of the oasis’ curving edge, their hooves leaving deep imprints in the mud, encircling their young in a futile attempt to protect them from the crocodiles that haunt the murky water. Long-legged cranes dip their beaks in search of tiny fish whose scales glimmer in the sunlight that penetrates the water’s surface, moving about in between the flocks of smaller birds who peck at water striders scooting on the tension at the pond’s top. It is still and silent, aside from the chattering of the birds, until a crocodile makes a move, rising out of the water in one lightning fast move, crashing onto the shore and fastening its jaws on the throat of a young wildebeest. The herd darts and dashes; the zebras begin to hoot in fear. Even the lions are startled from their peace and raise their heavy heads to see what’s going on. As quickly as it began, it is over, and the croc slides back into the water, thrashing about until its young victim is still and the water runs red. The sun inches higher, grows hotter, and steam begins to rise steadily from the water until two hippopotami surface at once, breaking its evenness with blown spray from their gaping nostrils. One turns to the other and sighs. “It doesn’t feel like a Tuesday.”
(This was reportedly Johnny Carson’s favorite joke, too. The more you can stretch out the set-up, the funnier it is—at least to people who find this admittedly rather surreal joke funny.)
Final Jeopardy Answer
Bald Heads
Turkeys
The Constitution
Alex Trebek: Shakespeare's Sister, what is your Final Jeopardy Question?
Shakes: Alex, I have "What are Things George Bush Can't Keep His Filthy Hands Off Of?"
Alex Trebek: That is correct! What did you wager?
Shakes: Al Gore and John Kerry.
Alex Trebek: Well, Shakes, it looks like even though you got the question right, you've managed to lose, anyway.
Shakes: Sure does, Alex.
Alex Trebek: Thanks for playing.
Shakes: What do you care? You're Canadian.
Coulter the Crackpot
Ann Coulter has been on quite a tear the past few days. On July 12, she used her syndicated column to respond to “Melanie Morgan's assertion that if New York Times executive editor Bill Keller were convicted of treason she ‘would have no problem with him being sent to the gas chamber’” by writing, charmingly, “I prefer a firing squad, but I'm open to a debate on the method of execution." Later that day, she appeared on The Jon Caldara Show in Denver and, referring to the “Times' decision to report on the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program and a Treasury Department program designed to track international financial transactions for terrorist activity,” accused the Times of having done "something that could have gotten them executed, certainly did get the Rosenbergs executed."
Two days after this day chock full o’ eliminationist rhetoric, a letter arrived in the mail room of the Times containing white power and a copy of the Times’ editorial that defended their reporting, emblazoned with an X.
Today, Editor & Publisher reports that Coulter has claimed to be the author of the letter.According to a published report, Ann Coulter has (in jest, we assume) claimed to have sent that mysterious white powder to The New York Times.
Heinous, awful bitch.
Reporter Jacob Bernstein, in a "Memo Pad" item in today's Women's Wear Daily, wrote that he received a message from a New York Times source saying that Friday's powder mailing -- which included an Xed-out Times editorial and what ended up being corn starch -- "makes all of Ann Coulter's comments a little less funny. I wonder if she considers herself at all responsible when lunatics read her columns and she says that we should be killed."
…"Memo Pad" sent an e-mail to Coulter's AOL account and according to Bernstein, received a reply claiming that she was the sender of the mysterious powder.
"'So glad to hear that The New York Times got my letter and that your friend at the Times thinks I'm funny,' she wrote back. 'Good luck in journalism and please send me your home address so we can stay in touch, too.’”
Yesterday, Keith Olbermann anointed Ann Coulter his Worst Person in the World, advising her "one day, somebody at the Times, probably some guy in the mail room, is going to get hurt and it'll be on your conscience — if you have one."
Clearly, she doesn’t.
Meanwhile, Jill points out that Coulter “just confessed to a crime,” and says, wisely, “Book 'er, Danno.”
Poor Angela Merkel
I’ve been looking through some of the images from Bush’s European Vacation, and I just feel so desperately sorry for German Chancellor Angela Merkel for having to put up with such an onslaught of absolute nonsense from Bush.
She then has to stand over him like a school marm while he signs the golden book.
Later that day: Merkel forces a grin as Bush the Boob “demonstrates how to eat a Bismarck herring.”
Bush spends the rest of the day nattering about a pig, then goes at it while Merkel futilely struggles to retain some dignity befitting world leaders.
And then, to add injury to insult, she had to withstand today’s Gropefest at the G8.
After all that, I honestly think if I’d been in her position I would have hauled off and kicked him straight in the nuts today. This is only one of many reasons why I am not the Chancellor of Germany.
Fizzle
“The House on Tuesday rejected a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, ending for another year a congressional debate that supporters of the ban hope will still reverberate in this fall's election.”
Special kudos to Rep. Barney Frank, who told his Republican colleagues, "I do not understand what motivates you. I don't tell you who to love." It doesn’t really get any simpler than that—but it’s so much easier to trade on hatred when you pretend the problem is ever so much more complicated.
See you next year, homobigots.
ARGH!
Have any of the Shakers in the tri-state area noticed the massive and ever-increasing cloud of steam hovering in the atmosphere today? It’s coming OUT OF MY FUCKING EARS!!!
The Middle East is blowing up, our president is acting like a creepy douchebag, our UN ambassador is running his mouth as if there isn’t a brain attached to it, the Pentagon continues to ignore the pervasive problem of sexual assault in the military, the government is charging people for their evacuation out of a war zone, it’s revealed that Bush blocked the Justice Department’s investigation of wiretapping, plus about a zillion other various infuriating injustices and calamities I’ve not even gotten to yet, and, to top it all off, I’ve got to be reminded yet again that the legislative body tasked with making decisions that affect our lives is comprised of miserable assholes like Sam Brownback (R-Justfuckoff).
Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) is leading the opposition to the H.R. 810, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. Yesterday, during debate on the bill, he held up a picture of an embryo drawn by a 7-year-old girl. Relaying a conversation with the girl’s mother, Brownback said the embryo was asking the Senate, “Are you going to kill me?”All I can tell you is that, when I read that, I broke into a round of maniacal laughter that ended with a ghastly shriek of despair just before my skull thudded against my desk.
Think Progress has the video, if you can bear it.
WTF?
Ladies and gentlemen, our UN ambassador John Bolton:
US Ambassador John Bolton said there was no moral equivalence between the civilian casualties from the Israeli raids in Lebanon and those killed in Israel from "malicious terrorist acts".Rationally, I understand that Bolton is trying to draw a distinction between the motivations that caused civilian deaths and thusly claiming there can be no moral equivalence when doling out accountability for these deaths. In other words, he’s basically saying Israel is the Good Guy and Hezbollah is the Bad Guy, so Israel gets a pass.
…"I think it would be a mistake to ascribe moral equivalence to civilians who die as the direct result of malicious terrorist acts," he added, while defending as "self-defense" Israel's military action, which has had "the tragic and unfortunate consequence of civilian deaths".
…"It's simply not the same thing to say that it's the same act to deliberately target innocent civilians, to desire their deaths, to fire rockets and use explosive devices or kidnapping versus the sad and highly unfortunate consequences of self-defense," Bolton noted.
But irrespective of whether one agrees or disagrees with that black-and-white assessment, or finds themselves (along with most reasonable people) somewhere amidst the grays, surely we can all agree that “I think it would be a mistake to ascribe moral equivalence to civilians who die” is just all kinds of fucked up, no matter what follows. It’s not about ascribing moral equivalence to civilians who die, but to the people who killed them.
His statement comes perilously close to suggesting that some civilian deaths are worse than others—and in the middle of an escalating conflagration about which the US is expected to provide some literate commentary, providing instead an idea that is both unacceptable and inflammatory is totally idiotic. Though the specific role of an ambassador is to do precisely the bloody opposite, I’m quite certain that such a grievous misstatement will not result in any criticism from the administration, but be chalked up to a simple blunder, just a little careless language, blah blah blah, the usual bullshit—that is, if the media even takes more than passing notice of it.
Considering the AFP then saw fit to mention that there have been 12 civilian deaths in Israel versus 183 in Lebanon, it seems they just might.
(Thanks to SAP for passing that along.)
Pentagon says no to “Office of Victim Advocate”
In spite of a Defense Department report from its Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response in March, detailing a 40% increase in alleged sexual assaults in a single year, the Pentagon has rejected a "proposal to establish an office to assist victims of sexual assault in the military."
A number of groups concerned with the problem of sexual assault in the US Armed Forces, along with Rep. Louise Slaughter, a Democrat from New York, had called for the creation of an "Office of Victim Advocate" within Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office. A contracted study submitted by researchers at the Wellesley College Centers for Women on the establishment of the office had been considered within the Pentagon, but a brief report in the Washington Times on July 7 indicated that the proposal had been shot down within the Defense Department.
There's much more at the link.
The Pentagon declined to offer a detailed explanation of why the study's recommendations were not implemented. A spokesman only told RAW STORY "the Department does not tolerate sexual assault of any kind and the department has worked vigorously to implement programs to prevent [it]."
...However, Anita Sanchez, the Director of Communications at the Miles Foundation, an organization that advocates for military programs to prevent and respond to sexual assault, sees problems with the current approach. She told RAW STORY that for many of the advocates, "This is a voluntary position, many are uniformed personnel, and for both the victim and the advocates themselves it poses issues. They have limited education and training, and their background is not within this type of assistance or services."
These concerns were echoed by Rep. Slaughter, who warned that in the military, "victim services remain incomplete and inconsistent among the various branches. There have been reports that victims advocates, charged with protecting the victim's rights, have been denied resources to do their job, and in some instances been forced off the base all together," and added that in the absence of better services, "the military will continue to lose valuable female and male soldiers."
Rep. Slaughter has been working tirelessly on this issue for a long time, from seeking protections for soldiers on active duty to addressing issues of sexual assault at military academies. Each time she brings up a new issue, the response is the same. The military takes these issues seriously, but isn't willing to make any changes -- two diametrically opposed statements, as taking sexual assault seriously necessitates making some much-needed changes in policy.
(Crossposted at AlterNet PEEK.)
Evacuation from Lebanon: Worse than Katrina?
The Bush administration's response to Americans trapped in Lebanon has become a sluggish affair on par with its "response" to Hurricane Katrina. Even worse, in a way: so far as I know, the government didn't make Katrina evacuees promise to pay for being rescued:
Dozens of Americans were evacuated from Beirut by U.S. Marine helicopters Tuesday, but hundreds of other U.S. citizens were stranded. Some expressed frustration that the evacuation was taking so long. The Americans being evacuated were told by U.S. officials that they would have to reimburse the government for the trip to safety.
I hope our town's Rev. Lawrence Biondi - president of St. Louis University and one of an estimated 25,000 Americans depending on their government for safe passage - has his credit card handy.
One bright spot: At least no one can blame FEMA or Michael Brown for this debacle. But just as before, no one can honestly say that the White House couldn't see this storm coming.
Note: A request, posted at Hollywood Elsewhere, on behalf of another St. Louisian trapped in Lebanon:
A longtime St. Louis reader named Josh Capps has a fiance named Nadine, a PhD student who recently went to Lebanon to visit her mom and is now having trouble getting out due to the hostilities. He's gotten his fiance on the evacuation list, though she's behind a lot of others. Capps is asking me to pass along requests to readers to contact their House reps and Senators with the specific request of broadening the parameters of the evacuees to include special-case permanent residents and student visas.
Note: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the situation grows more serious for Father Biondi and his traveling companion, the Rev. Andre Mhanna, a Lebanese rector also from St. Louis:
The Rev. Lawrence Biondi, president of Saint Louis University, and the Rev. Andre Mhanna, a Lebanese rector from St. Louis, were not part of the first wave of U.S. evacuees out of Lebanon on Tuesday and continued their nervous wait to leave the battle zone."We have gone up to the mountains because it was getting too dangerous," Mhanna said by cell phone at his parents' home about 20 minutes outside Beirut. "We will not be too hopeful that we will leave soon at this point."
It's unclear here whether Biondi actually joined Mhanna in the mountains, or is still waiting at the hotel per previous instructions.
Mhanna, whose family is from Lebanon, said his larger concern was for the safety of Biondi and his family."I just want to make sure Father Larry is on board and he's safe," he said. "But it seems things are worsening by the hour."
Mhanna said about 15 other families from his church in St. Louis were also trapped in Lebanon because most travel has been blocked by Israeli forces. The Maronite Church, an old Eastern Rite branch of Catholicism, is based in Lebanon.
"We had dinner with four of the families last night, and everyone is OK, for now," he said.
But he said the situation was deteriorating quickly.
(Cross-posted.)
Soulful
Filing it as issued from the Department of Obviousness, PZ reports on a study that sought to determine whether clones have separate identities. Rest assured, they do.
Well. I don't see the point of this study, but I suppose there are people who need to be clubbed about the head with the obvious who would be well-served by reading it…I see PZ’s sarcasm, and raise him one grouse about the unspoken word at the center of this study: Soul.
We can stop worrying about the clone armies full of self-loathing bodies with a single mind between them, I guess. I wonder if they also pursued the question of why, in any pair of twins, one individual gets all the good qualities, and the other is always pure evil?
One doesn’t have to spend much time on Google (or one’s search engine of choice) to find articles on conservative websites that take up the important question of whether clones have souls—and the assertion that it’s a question science can’t answer. Certainly this study is some attempt to dispute that claim; it’s not just that clones don’t share a mind with the DNA-providing body from whence they came, but that they would be wholly unique individuals. Evidence of a soul, natch.
What else could be the point of the study? The Religious Right wrings their hands with worry that clones aren’t imbued with God’s greatest gift, and, hence, the capacity to be saved. One soul per genome, they fear. Just like every other study that emanates from the Department of Obviousness—gay people can be good parents, kids raised by gay parents aren’t machete-wielding gay psychos, abstinence-only education doesn’t work, girls can have an aptitude for science, too!—it’s designed to counter the inane rumblings of the anti-science brigade.
They will, however, remain unconvinced—which is probably the best reason not to bother in the first place.
Sheriff’s Dispatcher and Deputy Canned for Sex Party
A guy comes home expecting his wife—a dispatcher for the sheriff’s office—to be alone, but instead finds police cars in his driveway. So he goes to a convenience store, buys a disposable camera, and walks in to capture on film pictures of his wife having sex with a male deputy sheriff. Then he gets into a scuffle with a female deputy sheriff, who’s there with her husband—a Texas Ranger—and runs away, calling 911 out of fear for his life. He later turns over the photographs as evidence.
Guess who gets fired?
The dispatcher wife, because “She is a married woman,” and “It looked bad for the department.” And the female deputy, because “sources said she made threats against the husband.”
The male deputy…well, he just resigned. And the male Texas Ranger…well, he’s still got his job.
Why, pray tell, does it look bad for the department for a married female dispatcher to be having an affair, but it doesn’t look bad for the department for a male deputy to be having an affair with a married woman?
Something tells me the best explanation for this double standard can be found right in the nameplate of one of the reporting sources.
(Via Sploid.)
I'm an Octopus
"Why the Left is furious at Lieberman"
In an op-ed for the L.A. Times, Duncan Black (aka Atrios) lays out the case for why the progressive blogosphere doesn't like Joe Lieberman, the quisling from Connecticut (to borrow a phrase from Mannion). Most important in the piece is the reminder that ol' Joe has jumped right on board with one of the most dangerous bits of political dogma emanating from the Right these days—that administration critics undermine national security.
Late last year, after President Bush's job approval ratings hit record lows, Lieberman decided to lash out at the administration's critics, writing in the ultraconservative Wall Street Journal editorial pages that "we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril." In this he echoed the most toxic of Republican talking points — that criticizing the conduct of the war is actually damaging to national security.It's one thing (though not a small thing) to depart on a big issue from one's party and particularly the party base; it's quite another to essentially accuse them of treason.
Duncan clearly makes the point that the aversion to Lieberman is not just about the war, although he leaves out (for reasons of space contraints) one of Lieberman's most significant problems of late: His record on women's issues is appalling. Lieberman refused to support the Democrat-led filibuster to challenge to the SCOTUS nomination of conservative Sam Alito, not an ally to reproductive rights advocates, voting instead for cloture. Then, in March, female eyebrows (and none too few male ones) raised all over the progressive blogosphere when Lieberman asserted that Catholic hospitals shouldn't be required to dispense emergency contraception to rape victims if they didn't want to, instead providing transportation to another hospital. "In Connecticut," he said, "it shouldn't take more than a short ride to get to another hospital."
Suffice it to say, this did not go over well in the feminist blogosphere—even among women who weren't being directly represented by Holy Joe. The conventional wisdom among the punditry may be that the blogosphere is rife with "blogofascists" who are out for blood, but they might do well to consider that the liberal female voters of Connecticut—not to mention liberal men with wives, daughters, sisters, mothers—may be out for something, too. Like a Senator who actually reflect their interests.
(Crossposted at AlterNet PEEK.)
The Groper-in-Chief
Eclipsing even his father's unfortunate chunk-hurling on the Emperor of Japan, Bush has made yet another shameful blunder on what is now undoubtedly the most embarrassing official trip abroad for any American president. After stumbling from Putin's smackdown at his suggestion that Russia ought to emulate the democracy in Iraq to babbling about wanting to eat a pig to getting caught on tape cursing while chomping on a roll, Bush channeled the Creepy Guy at Work who gives a female coworker an unwanted massage, much to his repulsed target's chagrin.
Of course, it wasn't just any gal The Groper went after. It was German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Mash has a series of still shots here, and Crooks and Liars has the video.
This is the ultimate in rude and presumptuous behavior. I've worked with men who feel compelled to touch me in exactly this way, with one even responding to my terse request to back off with a more determined shoulder rub and the comment, "But you're so tense." To which I replied, "That's because you won't get your fucking hands off of me." He backed away then with his hands in the air and a big, "Geez!" like I was a bitch. What an asshole I was for not considering my body community property like he did.
As Lindsay notes, "Every woman will recognize the guy who sidles up and starts 'casually' giving you a backrub without even looking at you, because he wants to preserve deniability in case you freak out. Like any practiced groper, Bush stares right past Merkel as she recoils from his touch. The play fails, but he just moves on, eyes averted, like it's her problem. ('Oh my God, there's a hysterical woman displaying inappropriate behavior! I'll just pretend I don't notice her egregious gaffe.')" Exactly right. A woman who doesn't welcome being groped is always the one with the problem—not the groper.
Bush needs to stick with staring lovingly into the eyes of foreign leaders to look at their souls and keep his bloody hands to himself.
(Crossposted at AlterNet PEEK.)
Question of the Day
What's the funniest novel you've ever read?
I'd have to think about this for ages to come up with the funniest, but the first that sprang to mind were Youth in Revolt (and its sequel, Revolting Youth), Flashman, and Sick Puppy.
Can we fire Congress yet?
Determined to quicken their slippery slide toward utter worthlessness, undeterred by the sound trouncing Senate homobigots recently received, and destined to fail, tomorrow the House will nonetheless vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment. “The vote, scheduled for Tuesday, will occur in a week devoted to several priorities of social conservatives — what House GOP leaders call their American values agenda.”
Which, though nauseating, is at least accurate. “A new report [released by the human rights organization Global Rights] says the United States isn't doing enough to protect its gay citizens from discrimination and abuse.”
Hatin’ the gays: It’s as American as smashing an apple pie with a baseball bat.
(Hat tip Queerty.)
