Shakesville

The Virtual Pub Is Open

TFIF, Shakers! What's your poison?
"Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll take a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never met, never had a no problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Oh, Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes back to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them, but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back of course, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to the fuckin' job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure fuck it, while I'm at it why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president."—Good Will Hunting

SNN Breaking News: Bush Talks Out Of His Ass

The FISA deal is now dead in the water. Dubya would like you to believe that it's the Dems' fault for not meeting his strict requirements for signing the bill:

[...] I'll ask one question, and I'm going to ask the DNI: Does this legislation give you what you need to prevent an attack on the country? Is this what you need to do your job, Mr. DNI? That's the question I'm going to ask. And if the answer is yes, I'll sign the bill. And if the answer is no, I'm going to veto the bill.

And so far the Democrats in Congress have not drafted a bill I can sign.

A key Democrat in the negotiations, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), says that a deal had in fact been reached with McConnell, who has been busy lobbying Congress on a FISA update all week. "We had an agreement with DNI McConnell," Hoyer spokeswoman Stacey Bernards tells TPMmuckraker, "and then the White House quashed the agreement."

So, did McConnell lie about the agreement or did Bush simply not give a shit? I'm thinking the latter. Either way, these two boys are being sent to their rooms without supper or dessert until one of them fesses up. And no backsass from either of you, misters!

Friday Cat Blogging

Classic pix, because I can't find the fricking cord for my digital camera. Ironically, I've no doubt one of the girlz dragged it off somewhere in a rousing game of "Chase Me! Chase Me!"

Olivia: Big Yawn

Matilda: Big Crazy

More Damon

Angelos mentioned in comments that Matt Damon was on Letterman the other night, so here's that:

I remember that Matthew McConaughey impression; it was fucking hilarious—mostly for how much it tickled David Letterman. So here's that:

Wev. It's Friday.

You're out of order! You're out of order! You're all out of order!

Petulant has the lowdown (including video, natch) of the Congressional chaos last night, during which all hell broke loose in the House over an agricultural vote and dozens of Republicans stormed out of the chamber. (It was downright British, bitchez!)

He's also got an update on the goings-on today and notes: "HA! Just like the rest of the country, the voting machines in Congress are broken. … The sheer insanity of our Congress over the last 24 hours is appalling." Totally.

[More at Balloon Juice from John Cole—who I still like even though he's not especially fond of me or the rest of "the crowd who dares not shave their legs." Actually, I wonder if he'd even write that shit now, or try to disguise it as "humor." Hmm.]

Matt Damon on The Daily Show

Feminist crushworther Matt Damon was on The Daily Show last night, and won me over even further with the cunning use of the word "ornery" and the Walden-esque "In my quiet moments, I remind myself of Schwarzenegger."

Oh Lawdy!

Mitt Romney speaks approvingly of Hezbollah's social welfare network; conservative heads begin to explode. Never mind that it was some sensible advocacy of a wise diplomatic strategy.

Go read Steve Benen, who makes an excellent point about how differently this would have played out had a Democratic candidate said it.

The Noonanator Strikes Again

Headline: Spouse Rules

Subhead: Advice for the ladies who seek to become first lady.

Opening Paragraph: "It's gotten catty out there. Jeri Thompson is a trophy wife, as is Cindy McCain. Michelle Obama is too offhand and irreverent when speaking of her husband, and Judith Giuliani is a puppy-stapling princess. Even Hillary Clinton was a focus, for wearing an outfit that suggested, however faintly, that underneath her clothing she may be naked, and have breasts."

Dear Peggy Noonan:

Hillary Clinton is not running for first lady. She is running for president. Please keep her and her breasts out of your bullshit, retrofuck advice column to the female spouses of male candidates.

With all due contempt,
Melissa McEwan

Religious Matters

Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter for the Bush administration, says that Mitt Romney's Mormonism shouldn't disqualify him from running for president.

Without intending or desiring it, the Romney campaign has poked the sleeping bear of debate about the role of religion in American politics. Liberals tend to argue that all theological beliefs, including Mormonism, are fundamentally private and dangerously coercive as the basis of public policy. Some religious conservatives are concerned that this particular theology is too eccentric to be welcomed at the White House.

Facing even deeper suspicions about his Catholicism while running for president in 1960, John Kennedy gave a response at the Greater Houston Ministerial Association that was politically masterful, historically influential -- and should not be Romney's model. Kennedy said that a candidate's "views on religion are his own private affair," which should not be "imposed by him upon the nation." Kennedy did more than reassure Americans that his public decisions would not be dictated by the pope. He claimed that his public decisions would not be influenced by his religious convictions at all.

[...]

Romney, however, should not make Kennedy's mistake and assert that all religious beliefs are unrelated to politics. What Mormonism shares with other religious traditions is a strong commitment to the value and dignity of human beings, including the unborn, the disabled and the poor. This conviction is unavoidably political, because it leads men and women to act in the cause of justice, not in order to impose their religion, but to protect the weak.

The problem with that, however, is that all too often politicians have used their faith and religious beliefs as an excuse for their political actions. Religion is the great cop-out for societies to blame our human failings on, using it both as the scapegoat and the cudgel to control others. It's a very handy way to amass power in a small and select oligarchy, answerable to no one since they derive their power from God. That makes them invincible: to doubt them is to doubt God, and that's heresy. Slavery was acceptable because it's in the Old Testament. Racism is acceptable because some passage somewhere in the bible says so. Demonizing gays and lesbians is done at the behest of Leviticus, and reproductive choice is denied to women because, again according to the bible, they are subservient to man and life begins at conception. (The bible is not known for its scientific accuracy; according to Genesis, the earth is 6,000 years old and flat.)

I frankly don't care if Mr. Romney is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I don't care if he's a Druid. And I don't care if it's his religion that informs his beliefs -- no matter which way he flip-flops -- about gay marriage, reproductive choice, or NAFTA. What I do care about is his or any other candidates' use of religion to say that he or she holds a particular belief because of their religion and therefore can't be questioned on those views because to question them is to challenge or mock their faith.

It's disingenuous to use religion first as a weapon then as a shield, and if you're going to bring it into the give-and-take (not to mention the kick-and-gouge) of a political campaign, it becomes fair game. The electorate and the citizens of this country deserve more than "the bible tells me so" as an answer to their questions as to why a candidate would deny some citizens the right to get married or why they should have control over their own bodies, or veto stem-cell research. (And they certainly deserve to know if a candidate is going to coldly manipulate the religious voters into voting for their party only to get into office and then take them for granted -- or worse, mock them once they're in power.) Defend your stand based on science, logic, the law, and the Golden Rule, which pre-dates the bible and Christianity by eons (and is the foundation of our Constitution), not on fable and superstition. Give credit to human nature to establish a free and fair civilization, and accept the fact that religion and its rites are the inventions of mankind. Like all inventions wrought by us flawed humans, it can be used and abused by the corrupt and cynical among us to manipulate the foolish and the weak. Fortunately, our innate sense of fairness and our human capacity for empathy and caring can outweigh even the most evil use of something that was invented to try to explain the mysteries of life. And if you want to call it God or Allah or Jehovah or the Flying Spaghetti Monster that guides your hand, that's fine. Just don't expect everyone to accept it without question, and don't accuse them of blasphemy if they ask you for more than a ten-word answer.

Mr. Gerson says that Mr. Romney's religion shouldn't disqualify him. But it also shouldn't give him a mantle of respectability, wholesomeness, and gravitas that he otherwise wouldn't earn without the scrutiny that our secular political system bestows on a person regardless -- or in spite of -- their faith.

Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.

Trent Lott: Town Crier

Oyez Oyez Oyez! Heed these words, friends, and flee! Flee for your lives lest ye be caught unawares with a ~~pirate's~~ terrorist's sword at yer throats (on or about August 3rd through September 11th):

Without mentioning a specific threat to the Capitol, Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) ominously advised Thursday that Congress needed to pass changes to terrorist surveillance laws before leaving for the August recess and warned that otherwise “the disaster could be on our doorstep.”

When asked if people should leave Washington, D.C., during the month of August, Lott responded, “I think it would be good to leave town in August, and it would probably be good to stay out until September the 12th.”

Trent certainly missed his calling. For all we know, he may very well have been a bell-slinging crier back in the day, warning colonists about the dangers of ass-pimples.

I like his implied imagery of Al-Qaeda twirling their collective mustache and screaming "Curses! Foiled again!" at the moment the surveillance law changes get passed. I don't like his initiating his own bomb scare for the months of August and September. Is this another bowel movement, courtesy of Chertoff's gut, or did Trent pull this one out of his ass all by himself? I just hope, for Trent's sake, that he has enough room in his summer home to house all of the DC population that need to skip town for a few weeks.

Gay Old Bogota

At this rate, we're going to be left in Latin America's gay dust, yo!

[I]n Colombia, where Catholicism still reigns and a conservative president is serving an unprecedented second term, gay men and lesbians are closer to getting national legal rights than in any other Latin American nation.

Earlier this year, the country's Constitutional Court ruled that same-sex couples should have the same rights to shared assets as heterosexual couples, a decision that even the Catholic Church supported.

And in June, pushed by a coalition of conservative and leftist congressmen, legislation giving gay unions the same social security, health and inheritance benefits as heterosexual couples passed the House and the Senate…

That legislation, which has conservative President Alvaro Uribe's support, is expected to pass in the coming months.

Colombia is the first Latin American country to move to nationalize LGBT rights. Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and Rio Grande do Sul have already legalized same-sex civil unions. Let's hope this movement through Latin America just continues to pick up momentum—and continues to change attitudes toward the LGBT community along with it.

Let's also hope that the US doesn't end up the meat in a retrofuck sandwich, bordered to the north and the south by nothing but countries who are more enlightened than we are.

[Thanks to my girlfriend Miller for passing that along.]

Woot! Chris Dodd Tears Falafel Man a New One

~~[If anyone can find a transcript, please drop a link in comments.]~~

[Transcript is here. Thanks, Kevin!]
I just love how wound up Billo gets about this stuff. "Vile!" he screams, his face getting redder. "Hate! Vile! Hate!" About Photoshopped pictures, for crying out loud. If he finds this picture vile…

…I'd love to know what he thinks about this one:

Hey, how'd I get in there?!
I have to think it's so metaphorically nonsensical that it blowz his teensy wee mind, sending him into a red-faced rage that culminated in a spectacular head explosion: "Vile! Hate! Vile! Hate! Hate! Vile! Vile! BLURGH!" Poof.

ZOMG: What's the world coming to?

Senate Passes Children’s Health Bill, 68-31:

The Senate defied President Bush on Thursday and passed a bipartisan bill that would provide health insurance for millions of children in low-income families.

The vote was 68 to 31. The majority was more than enough to overcome the veto repeatedly threatened by Mr. Bush. The White House said the bill “goes too far in federalizing health care.”

…The House passed a much larger bill on Wednesday, presenting negotiators with a formidable challenge in trying to work out differences between the two measures.

Still, the strong commitment to the issue by Democratic leaders virtually guarantees that they can work out a compromise before Sept. 30, when the program is set to expire.

A compromise which will nonetheless still likely provoke a veto from Bush, because that's what compassionate conservatism is all about—denying healthcare to children.

Drum suggests that screaming "socialized medicine" and letting that kill bills like this one has seen its day, and it "just isn't going to do the trick this time. It looks like the Senate has enough votes to stop a filibuster and override a veto, and it's possible that a moderate bill will pick up enough House support to override a veto as well." Awesome.

Drum adds: "Alternatively, George Bush might come to his senses and realize that compassionate conservatives aren't supposed to veto legislation that helps poor kids get better healthcare."

That option, however, is predicated on George Bush having sense, which I believe is best described as a fact not in evidence.

So let's hope for the numbers when it comes down to a vote.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Empty Nest

More Beauchamp

[It's not often that the contributors around here disagree on something, but this seems to be one of those rare cases. While Kathy was writing her piece below, it seems, I was writing this one about something that just isn't sitting well with me. Anyway, I just wanted to mention this wasn't written in response to Kathy, because it's more interesting, IMO, that we both read the same thing and came to different conclusions. Even though we ultimately probably agree more than not.]

The New Republic has completed their investigation, and, aside from one error—an incident purported to have taken place in Iraq actually took place in Kuwait—everything written by Scott Thomas Beauchamp has been corroborated by current and former soldiers, including five other members of Beauchamp's company, forensic experts, and other war journalists, with assistance from Army Public Affairs officers.

So…all good, right?

Well, I'm about to say something that I expect will be deeply unpopular with a lot of Lefties. I'm not sure that error noted above is No Big Deal.

The incident in question was from the piece "Shock Troops," which was about the effects of war on soldiers, how "the things we soldiers found funny were not, in fact, funny." Beauchamp was recounting "how he and a fellow soldier mocked a disfigured woman seated near them in a dining hall," and the clear implication was that the horror of war had made them this callous, that Beauchamp had become the sort of person who cruelly mocks a disfigured woman, detailing her "severely scarred" face and "half-melted mouth," because he'd been in the shit.

But—if the incident really took place in Kuwait, "prior to the unit's arrival in Iraq," then can he honestly attribute it to war? Is there a qualitative difference between being in a war and on its edge? Knowing soldiers consider some assignments better than others even in the war theater itself, I have to imagine there is indeed a distinct difference between being in the war and, well, not.

Obviously, I have no experience on which I can draw here. I'm not a soldier, and maybe my impressions are just. plain. wrong. I absolutely don't doubt that even heading off to war is frightening as fuck, nor that sitting on a border waiting to be sent across it into war itself seriously alters one's psyche and emotions. So maybe I'm being unfair. Really. Maybe I am.

But, if I'm honest, it seems like an important difference to me, at least important enough that it can't just be glossed over like nothing, even if it wasn't a deliberate lie, not when it was the centerpiece of an article about what this war can do to soldiers. And not when the woman in question is herself either a solider or contractor who damn well did see the horrors of war, and damn well had been indisputably changed by them for real. Doesn't that matter, too? Shouldn't it?

Ugh, I feel a bit like Lieberman giving bipartisan cover to some heinous administration policy, because I know there are a lot of rightwingers who are still going after this with gusto. And I really don't agree with a lot of their complaints; I don't think that Beauchamp's "ideological agenda," whatever it may be, makes him any more or less representative a soldier than any other—soldiers' politics span the spectrum—and it's a sad little bit of mendaciousness to suggest that TNR meant to suggest he was emblematic of "the troops." The piece was labeled a "diary," for goodness' sake; it doesn't get any more my-voiced than that. And I don't give a rat's ass if Beauchamp is married to someone who works at TNR. Wev.

But I don't think the Iraq-Kuwait discrepancy is nothing, either. That is, in the context of this one blogospheric kerfuffle over one article written by one soldier about the war in which he's fighting.

Of course, in the scheme of the war as a whole, it's pretty much as close to nothing as it gets. That's another place where my opinion appears to diverge from my rightwing colleagues.

Question of the Day

Yesterday's QotD was about teen idol crushes. Let's get a little edgier this time.

Who's your #1 celebrity opposite-sexuality crush?

(In other words, straight people pick someone of the same sex; gay people pick someone of the opposite sex. Bisexuals, just go nuts and name your ultimate crush.)

Ever since I first saw her, I've had a thing for Kirstie Alley.

(For those of you keeping track or with great memories, yes, this is a repeat from February '06; but good ones are worth repeating. Thanks, Melissa!)

William Saletan: Slightly Less of a Gigantic Tool. Sort of.

So, people rightly let William Saletan have it for his piece last week suggesting that people should trade their fat friends for thin ones, so as to avoid catching teh fat -- while retaining the health benefits of multiple friendships! Win-win!

Today, he's published a "clarification" of that piece, which is about two parts "Um, you're getting warmer, I guess" to one part "OMFG, when in hole, STOP DIGGING."

First, he says he probably shouldn't have ended the piece by saying:

And realistically, to add normal or underweight friends to your circle, you have to relegate others who are overweight. That may be bad for your fat ex-friends, who will lose your friendship as well as your thinness. But it's fine for you, since you'll have just as many friends as before.

Maybe it's not nice to speak these truths. But maybe being nice, when you should be speaking the truth—especially to your friends—is the problem.

'Cause what he really meant was, of course you shouldn't ditch your fat friends! And of course friends aren't just interchangable like that! And of course you should stand by your friends!

He just forgot to say any of that. Honest mistake, y'all!

Then he admits he goofed in suggesting that eating too much and not exercising are the only things that make you fat. And to make amends, he busts out the Fat Bingo chestnut (actually, I'm not sure if it's on one of the cards, but it should be), "Some people can't help being fat, but most of us can get fat just by slacking off!" ("Slacking off" is his phrase, btw.)

Never mind that there's absolutely no proof that naturally thin people could get fat just by "slacking off," or that most fat people have "slacked off." He admitted he shouldn't have used an absolute! What else do you want from him?

An apology for saying we should stigmatize fat people more, perhaps?

Well, okay. It turns out he thinks you shouldn't stigmatize the good fat people, but you should still stigmatize the bad ones. And since you can't tell by looking if you're dealing with a Good Fat Person or a Bad Fat Person, maybe you shouldn't go ahead and act like a complete asshole.

But he really does believe there's not enough stigma directed at fat people. The proof? FAT PEOPLE AREN'T GETTING THIN. If we stigmatized them sufficiently, they would!

It's scientific, y'all.

But wait, that's not enough proof for you? Well, let's whip out that study showing that most overweight and obese people DON'T KNOW they're overweight or obese!

And let's not talk about the fact that all that study really showed is that people don't know which BMI category they fall into, not that they don't fucking know if they're fat.

Let's definitely not talk about the fact that this is an obese person:

Or that when the very same currently obese person was a size 6 she was in the "overweight" BMI category.

(Also, let's not talk about her roots.)

Because those trifles clearly have no bearing on the study in question. FATTIES DON'T KNOW THEY'RE FAT! Someone must tell them!

Finally, his ace in the hole? A study that shows fewer people now agree with the statement "[a] person who is not overweight is a lot more attractive" than in 1985. Clearly, SOMETHING'S NOT WORKING!

Or, you know, people factor things other than looks into their perceptions of "attractiveness" Or they just don't think thin people are a LOT more attractive than "overweight" people, though they might think they're moderately more attractive. Or they just read that stupidly written question wrong and thought they were being asked to agree with "A person who is overweight is a lot more attractive."

Or this group actually was defining "overweight" according to BMI, and were therefore saying no, a woman who wears a size 6 is not a LOT less attractive than one who wears a size 2.

But ZOMG, what if it really does mean fewer people think fatties are nasty? What would we ever do? IT'S CONTAGIOUS, PEOPLE!

Stop digging, Saletan. For Christ's sake.

There Once Was a Man from Nantucket

An email exchange between Melissa and I today:

Liss: Check this out. Cue the Freeper heads exploding...NOW!

Spudsy: I dunno, do you really think the Freepers give a shit over who's poet laureate? "That poetry shit's for fags, man!"

Caption This Photo

"Now, on which aisles can I find fava beans and a nice Chianti?"

[Thanks to Shaker Jeff for the image and the caption!]

If Only There Were Some Brush That Needed Clearing…

Submitted without comment:

"We in the federal government must respond, and respond robustly, to help the people there not only recover, but to make sure that lifeline of activity — that bridge — gets rebuilt as quickly as possible," Bush said in the Rose Garden following a Cabinet meeting.

Okay, one comment: Wev.