A fascinating look at what makes Lance Armstrong tick:

VN: One former teammate once described him as "one of the unhappiest men I've met." Do you think Lance Armstrong is happy?

DC: He is more driven than happy. As Floyd Landis puts it in the book, "Lance doesn't want to be hugged, he wants to kick everybody's ass."

(Via Daily Pundit)

Revenge of the Chickenhawks

George Will(!):

The problem with intelligent-design theory is not that it is false but that it is not falsifiable: Not being susceptible to contradicting evidence, it is not a testable hypothesis. Hence it is not a scientific but a creedal tenet—a matter of faith, unsuited to a public school's science curriculum.

Keep talking like that George, and I might actually start watching baseball.

Nah.

(Via WWR)

"Serving fish at an aquarium is like serving poodle burgers at a dog show." -- Karin Robertson, head of PETA's "Fish Empathy Project," in a letter imploring "the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach to gut its cafeteria menu of fish and seafood."

Mmmmmmm, "poodle burgers" ...

The speech was Bush's most cogent articulation of the strategy, difficulties and stakes in Iraq to date; the use of bin Laden's assessment of the importance of the conflict was particularly effective. The only thing that could have enhanced its political impact would have been a direct, personal appeal to the American people, above and beyond the declaration of resolve. That aside, certainly one of Bush's best speeches - clear and relatively substantial.

UPDATE: Captain Ed makes a very good point during his liveblog:

I wish he had given more specifics about the reconstruction -- as Beam suggests in the comments, how many schools we've rebuilt, how much electricity restored, and so on. He had an opportunity to talk above the heads of the media filters here, and it's a shame he missed it.

Agreed.

Beware "Mantropy:"

British men are being told to be alert to a condition that could "put them on the fast track to extinction".

Symptoms of the "illness" that has been dubbed "mantropy" include a penchant for pedicures, fruit smoothies and small dogs.

American Maxim, one of the biggest-selling men's magazines in the world, has defined mantropy as "a silent killer which strikes men in the prime of life".

The magazine has been urging American men to be macho rather than manicured and to indulge their passion for cars rather than clothes.

The campaign coincides with research that shows that men and women are being increasingly turned off by media images of well-groomed, feminine-looking men.

In the States this affliction is better known as "Ryan Seacrest Syndrome."

Besides - those small dogs? Absolutely vicious!

(Via AoS)

Happy Anniversary to the blogospheric scourge of Cuban Communism! Val's soulful writing and dogged coverage of his homeland make his site an indispensable online resource.

I'm pretty certain that babalu blog will outlive its bearded nemesis.

And after that, there's always gato-blogging ...

Andrew Sullivan, still beset with stiff nausea and hysterical vapors.

"Mah word!"

Oliver Willis, still a rabid dog chewing on a chain link fence.*

* Alternate title: Jon Henke, still futilely trying to explain to a rabid dog that chewing on a chain link fence is bad for his teeth, not the fence.

That is all. Stay tuned for (very) sporadic updates.

Another story by Bill Gertz adds an exclamation point to my analysis of China's methodology and goal of strategic dominance:

China's communist leaders view the United States as their main enemy and are working in Asia and around the world to undermine U.S. alliances, said a former Chinese diplomat.

Chen Yonglin, until recently a senior political officer at the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, Australia, said in an interview that China also is engaged in large-scale intelligence-gathering activities in the United States that, in the past, netted large amounts of confidential U.S. government documents from agents.

"The United States is considered by the Chinese Communist Party as the largest enemy, the major strategic rival," Mr. Chen told The Washington Times in a telephone interview from Australia, where he is in hiding after breaking with Beijing in May.

This has special implications for any US goal that ostensibly requires the cooperation of the United Nations Security Council, of course. Also notable is Chen's opinion on Taiwan:

On China's military buildup, Mr. Chen said Beijing is following the strategy of former leader Deng Xiaoping, who urged China to "bide our time, build our capabilities" -- military as well as economic and political. "What that means is that when the day is mature, the Chinese government will strike back," he said. Mr. Chen said the danger of a war over Taiwan is growing.

"That is possible as Chinese society is getting more unstable," he said. "Once any serious civil disobedience occurs, the government may call for a war across the Taiwan Strait to gather [political] strength from people."

Moral relativism to end all moral relativism: Aussie newspaper editor Andrew Jaspan criticized a former hostage's insensitivity for ... labeling his former captors - who beat him and "killed two of his colleagues" - "assholes:"

"I was, I have to say, shocked by Douglas Wood's use of the a---hole word, if I can put it like that, which I just thought was coarse and very ill-thought through and I think demeans the man and is one of the reasons why people are slightly sceptical of his motives and everything else.

"The issue really is largely, speaking as I understand it, he was treated well there. He says he was fed every day, and as such to turn around and use that kind of language I think is just insensitive."

Via Tim Blair, who has more, including a pledge from another former hostage to track down his captors "one by one."

The Good News From Iraq, Part 30.

*** QandO: The life-cycle of an Insurgency

*** Florida Cracker appreciates consistency.

*** "The real Nigerian scam."

*** A lesson in quacking like a duck. I often agree with Cole, but I think that Eric's pinned him on this one.

*** John Donovan:

The best counter for flag-burners is quiet contempt, or amused, raucous laughter. I prefer the second. Counter speech with speech. Criminalizing the act only enhances the burner's street cred with his or her peers. They'll wear it like a badge of honor. How many Civil Rights protestors, Anti-Globalization protestors etc, *don't* wear their arrests and subsequent convictions as proof of their commitment to the cause? Why give these bozo's a badge of honor to wear? Just exercise your speech right back at them. A little trick I've used before in a dissolute youth was small, magnetic American flags attached to the offender's vehicles in not-likely-to-be-noticed locations. Besides, I just don't like incremental erosion of the Bill of Rights for emotional reasons. Bad enough we keep doing it to the Second Amendment, let's not turn our attention to the First.

I wouldn't engage in magnetic tomfoolery on autos, but otherwise, spot-on.

The "known unknown" about the Chinese is that you know that you never know exactly what they're going to do. With a blazing economy maintaining nearly double-digit growth, Fareed Zakaria has analyzed that China's chosen assertion of superpower status will be economic and political:

The Chinese threat or challenge will not present itself in the familiar guise of another Soviet Union, straining to keep pace with America in military terms. It is more likely to be what Ramo describes as an "asymmetrical superpower." It will use its economic dominance and its political skills to achieve its objectives. China does not want to invade and occupy Taiwan; it is more likely to keep undermining the Taiwan independence movement, so that Beijing slowly accumulates advantage and wears out the opponent. "The goal for China is not conflict but the avoidance of conflict," Ramo writes. "True success in strategic issues involves manipulating a situation so effectively that the outcome is inevitably in favor of Chinese interests. This emerges from the oldest Chinese strategic thinker, Sun Zi, who argued that 'every battle is won or lost before it is ever fought'."

Yet he also acknowledged the unpredictability of Chinese behavior:

At least that's the plan. The trouble is that while maintaining this long-term strategy, China often lapses into short-term behavior that seems aggressive and hostile. Perhaps this is because the rational decision-making that guides its economic policy is not so easily applied in the realm of politics, where honor, history, pride and anger all play a large role. So with Taiwan, last week Beijing was playing out its long-term plan, "normalizing" relations with the island's main opposition party, and smothering it with conciliation. But last month it passed the anti-secession law, which angered most Taiwanese and alarmed Americans and Europeans.

And now, China's military is growing in a pace and specific capability that signals potential aggression:

China is building its military forces faster than U.S. intelligence and military analysts expected, prompting fears that Beijing will attack Taiwan in the next two years, according to Pentagon officials. U.S. defense and intelligence officials say all the signs point in one troubling direction: Beijing then will be forced to go to war with the United States, which has vowed to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack. China's military buildup includes an array of new high-technology weapons, such as warships, submarines, missiles and a maneuverable warhead designed to defeat U.S. missile defenses. Recent intelligence reports also show that China has stepped up military exercises involving amphibious assaults, viewed as another sign that it is preparing for an attack on Taiwan.
...
In the past, some defense specialists insisted a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be a "million-man swim" across the Taiwan Strait because of the country's lack of troop-carrying ships. "We left the million-man swim behind in about 1998, 1999," the senior Pentagon official said. "And in fact, what people are saying now, whether or not that construct was ever useful, is that it's a moot point, because in just amphibious lift alone, the Chinese are doubling or even quadrupling their capability on an annual basis." Asked about a possible Chinese attack on Taiwan, the official put it bluntly: "In the '07-'08 time frame, a capability will be there that a year ago we would have said was very, very unlikely. We now assess that as being very likely to be there."

And what about energy to support such growth?

For China, Taiwan is not the only issue behind the buildup of military forces. Beijing also is facing a major energy shortage that, according to one Pentagon study, could lead it to use military force to seize territory with oil and gas resources.

The report produced for the Office of Net Assessment, which conducts assessments of future threats, was made public in January and warned that China's need for oil, gas and other energy resources is driving the country toward becoming an expansionist power.

Tom Clancy wrote about that particular scenario in 2000's "The Bear and the Dragon:"

Moreover, Global Century also concluded that globalization would bring increased conflict over resources, particularly energy and water, as many states unable to keep pace in the economic race would turn to other means for securing vital supplies. Most recently demonstrated in Iraq’s seizure of Kuwait in 1991, the notion of “war as armed robbery” was given fictional expression in Tom Clancy’s recent depiction of a foreign reserves-depleted China who, when frustrated by U.S. efforts to redress the Sino-American trade balance, invaded Russia in an effort to seize new oil and gold discoveries.[6] War used to be politics by other means; in the globalized era, it is becoming economics by other means.

So what's going to happen?

Since it makes sense for China develop the exact capabilities that would represent the most likely and disruptive military threat - in order to vastly increase its political leverage as well as its real options - military conflict is not a foregone conclusion, though its possibility (and thus likelihood) is on the rise. And since China's "goal is to contain and overtake the United States," then ratcheting up pressure on our economy and military capability, as well as maintaining a lukewarm to outright obstructionist policy towards the United States' war on terror and confrontation of rogue states, are all in China's best interests.

Bottom line: "who knows?" And get ready for a bumpy 5-25 years - one fatal decision over the Taiwan Straight could drastically change everyone's plans.

I'd say that the most important preemptive (common sense) steps for the United States are (ranked in order of likelihood):

1. Maintenance of military superiority

2. Successful mid-term disengagement from a stable Iraq

3. Maintenance/Development of a political, legal, ethical, economic and spending environment that puts the United States at the forefront of the new-new-economy of leading edge technological development that will replace restructured loss of low-skill industry and services and maintain economic superiority or parity (exemplified by what Joel Garreau's new book describes as the GRIN technologies: Genetics, Robotics, Information technology and Nanotechnology):

The advances in information technology is now causing an exponential increase in genetic technology and the same thing is true of robotics... and nanotechnology which is this exploding field of the very very small, putting things together one molecule or one atom at a time.

The bottom line to all this is all of these technologies are causing us to arrive at a hinge in history.

US advantages: currently superior intellectual capital, economy and the fact that the weakness of China's intellectual property laws and enforcement is greatly hampering their efforts to attract capital in this area. Disadvantages: we're losing our advantage in vertical barriers to entry as the world flattens, as well as our current advantages in attracting and keeping intellectual capital.

4. Assure long-term solvency and currency strength by minimization and restructuring of the debt via slowing spending, selective deregulation, simplifying the tax code and reformation of massive, long-term entitlement programs (social security).

5. Development of massive lasers that can vaporize the whole of China from space, leaving its entire surface area a pleasant, nutrient-rich loam dotted with strawberry plants and lollipops.

But I guess most of those are no-brainers. Actually, transpose numbers four and five; navigating the political minefields of entitlement reform might actually represent a less likely accomplishment than the mythical lollipop space laser.

UPDATE: Howard Levy points out another wrinkle to China's tech bio-tech industry:

China is truly the land of opportunity for nanotech companies, where their products are likely to reach consumers sooner -- from nanocatalysts for fuel to drug delivery devices.

While many Western corporations are hesitant about funding China due to the security of patents, loose regulatory ethics (as well as disrespect for intellectual property) are driving Chinese research forward in unique ways. As I mentioned to Levy, for example, right now I could online order Chinese-synthesized compounds that are merely in Phase II pharmaceutical testing in the West. I could request such materials and inject them within days, whereas I might have to wait two years (if ever) to legally buy them under prescription. This represents the structural problem with Chinese biotech; it's like the Wild West.

Meanwhile, Cranky graphically illustrates the nature of our trade relationship with China.

*** "Silver Stars Affirm One Unit's Mettle
Women Play Key Roles In Combat Near Baghdad"

An amazing story. Though it's somewhat frustrating that the only accounts of heroism that make it into the Washington Post require a secondary, politically correct or unusual narrative ...

*** How does one pronounce "exiguity," anyway?

*** In his biannual post, Dorkafork features a Batman review that mirrors mine.

*** More shocking tales of horror from Guantanamo!

From behind one-way mirrors, lawmakers watched interrogators grilling three individual terror suspects. None of the interrogators touched detainees.

In one session, they questioned a man who defense officials said was a Saudi national and admitted Al Qaeda member who was picked up in Afghanistan and knew nine of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers. In another, a female interrogator took an unusual approach to wear down a detainee, reading a Harry Potter book aloud for hours. He turned his back and put his hands over his ears.

Harry Potter?! Savages.

Roman L. writes:

Back to the subject at hand: I like reading your blog, Bill. I even listened to you and Goldstein on RightTalk radio. Great stuff. In general, I like reading libertarian blogs. I really like reading Stephen Green's site as well. As for your viewpoint, you can call yourself whatever you want. You can be a South park conservative. You can be a libertarian. You can rip Jimmie from Suburban Sundries Shack any time he tells you to toe the line. It's all good. It's your blog.

"Nonetheless, the Raging Rino thing is just stupid. Wearing a tag that says, "I'm not overdosed on the Party Kool-Aid." implies that republicans are overdosed. It says that you're smarter than me because you're a moderate, and I'm a republican. Personally, I could care less what label you place on yourself, Bill, but do you have to insult me? The Raging Rino post reads like a childish tactic to get attention: "You better be nice to me, or I'll leave the party!" Leave if you want. Just knock off the "I'm not a republican because I don't drink the Kool-Aid" crap.

As for your comments about Malkin and Lopez, I can't say much about
Katherine, but I read Michelle every day. You might remember that she was on your first radio show. As for her disdain for moderates, she regularly links Joe Gandelman. Isn't he a moderate? Does your "Raging Rino" post look stupid to you yet? It sure does to me.

If you want to pick a fight, Bill, pick a fight. Point out the things that you don't agree with. Call yourself whatever you want, but quit acting like a petulant child. You're acting like Michelle and Katherine are your Mom, and you're daring them to spank you.

Roman [L.]

I hate to break it to you Roman, but your sensitivity in reading my tone and intent on this subject (especially my jolly tweaking of Michelle and Lopez for making their own "petulant" RINO jokes) pretty much means that you haven't quite "got" my blog most of the time,* whether you "like reading it or not." So while I'm not unequivocally stating that there's no way that I theoretically could be persuaded that showing affliation with the Commissar's RINO organization is somehow terribly "stupid" and "petulant" - and not just a legitimate political categorization made with tongue-in-cheek overtones - this e-mail just isn't going to do the job.

* That goes for some of the rest of you, too. I know you're out there, lurking. Waiting.

You know who you are.

(Actually no, you don't. You have absolutely no clue. E-mail me.)

UPDATE: Roman responds (in a friendlier tone):

I would have never guessed that was humor.

He has a point. While most of what I write here isn't "reach out and slap you on the back" humor, much of it is written in a wry, sarcastic voice. Thus, the intention isn't for you to laugh, rather to not take me literally (often, not even remotely seriously). As even some folks that know me well have made a similar error, it's understandable. Consider this a regular disclaimer.

PS - Roman and I have made plans to meet at Baskin Robbins and bridge our differences over a root beer float. One float, two straws.

"Cialis can be effective for as long as 36 hours and starts working within 30 minutes. Erections lasting longer than four hours, while rare, require immediate medical attention."

Submit your entries to Wizbang's contest.

Florida Cracker:

The Supreme Court can be overridden by a two-thirds majority in Congress. Please contact your congressmen. If you don't have their e-mail, you can find it here.

As rbj points out:

You also need 3/4 of the states to change the Constitution. But why do something that will check government power when there's the, um, burning issue of flag desecration.

It's probably more realistic to ratchet up pressure on state and local legislators to tighten up restrictions on local power of eminent domain.

Goldstein:

Tom Carroll is putting together “a flesh and blood support group composed of those close enough to help” the homeowners in New London. He’s posted a rough plan of action here. I mentioned yesterday that I’m interested in forming a cyber support group for the New Londoners who are planning a show of civil disobedience—and the first step is to move such an impulse beyond the realm of the theoretical. With Tom’s help, let’s do just that.

Apparently, this will be the second time that one of the homeowners in New London, Connecticut has had his home taken from him by the area's local government. The first instance took place 35 years ago, when the city declared eminent domain in order to build a seawall - a seawall that was never built.

Sheesh. I bet you that he rents his next place.

UPDATE: Heh.

... that we all joined a group of people just like us!

Joke aside, there exists a rhetorical need in the blogosphere. Serial centrist mockers Michelle Malkin and Katherine Lopez will be unpleasantly surprised to learn what the acronym "RINO" actually stands for ...

Flag burning amendment: Doesn't a constitutional amendment criminalizing flag burning counterintuitively enhance its appeal as a gutsy form of civil disobedience? If it were to pass the Senate, someone that burns a flag might actually be considered a rebel, rather than merely a petulant fool burning a flag.

The Supreme Court's decision against property rights: Whether you're conservative or libertarian (or liberal with a house that's specifically due to be seized by the state and bulldozed to make way for a Chuck E. Cheese), looks like the SCOTUS done pissed us all off, now didn't they?

I'm with Goldstein's call for civil disobedience. Malkin - linking like a maniac - has the definitive round-up. Reynolds: "A man's home is... somebody else's piggy-bank."

UPDATE: Stones Cry Out:

Kelo blurs further the line between public and private land. While I agree that in the specific Kelo case, the overall development plan would provide for a public benefit, since the petitioners’ property was causing no immediate harm to the public, the government’s role is to establish the plan, and the market’s job to implement it. If Pfizer could not purchase the land required to build their factory, then they have to take their project elsewhere; they have no inherent right to the property. Taking it in this instance is not only unconstitutional (despite what five justices say), it is immoral.

UPDATE: It's believed that precedent from this decision has already had a drastic impact on personal property rights: Hubris v. SCOTUS. (Warning: filthy, puerile metaphor. Crass, even. Whatever you do, do not click on this link)

UPDATE: The complete text of the Supreme Court's ruling.

And I'm not surprised that Bill Quick doesn't approve:

The reason to be angry about this is not that home owners everywhere are in danger of losing their house. This is theoretically, but not practically, possible. The reason to be angry about it is that the courts have completely abdicated all responsibility to check the government's actions in this arena. It is WIDE open. So long as the government has a superficially rational reason for the ED, the courts will allow it. Kelo just clarifies that increasing the tax base is a "public use".

*** Pining to teach your kiddies about deregulation, supply-side economics and polarizing political affiliations at an early age? It's like storytime with Anne Coulter! Yeesh.

*** While you've been busy snickering that Scientology is bizarre:

"Demon be goooone!"

Apparently, "half the population has some level of demonization and doesn't know it," proffers a wild-eyed, demon-hunting version of Dr. Phil.

*** More positive outlooks on Iraq:

As Boot notes, this is probably the biggest problem for the insurgency. It isn't fighting to destroy a tyranny, its fighting to establish one. It is fighting against the direct will of the people of Iraq as demonstrated by their vote. The ball, of course, is in the Iraqi government's court. Forming a broadly inclusive government which satisfies the vast majority of Iraqis will go a long way toward this insurgency's defeat. And indications are that's the way the process is going.

*** James Joyner:

While I have nothing but contempt for Americans who show their displeasure with U.S. public policy by burning the American flag, amending the Constitution to prohibit this activity is absurd. It's a cheap political stunt but one that does nothing to make the country stronger or safer. If enacted, however, it would make it slightly less free.

Bingo.

First, the good: easily one of the top comic book movies ever made, in the same league as Spiderman 2 and X-2. The exposition dealing with Bruce Wayne's metamorphosis into Batman was mildly hampered by the disjointed editing of the training scenes, but was nevertheless superb, primarily because the settings, mood and performances were perfect. Needless to say, Bale is the best Bruce Wayne/Batman the franchise has ever seen and the movie successfully suspended my disbelief by effectively building (reasonably) plausible motivation for a grown man to run around in a black, kevlar bat suit.

Now, the bad: similar to the original X-Men, the exciting introduction is eventually hampered by a bizarre, formulaic doomsday scenario with too many ridiculously convenient moving parts that service a terribly inefficient way for the bad guys to achieve their goal. I think that the writers underestimate the fact that we don't need the ultimate threat to be weirdly complex and fantastical; I also didn't quite buy the villain's motivation. Ace already made a longer point about this exact flaw in his deceptively titled "Batman mini-review."

Summary: perfect atmosphere, performances and early anticipation somewhat marred by hokey climax. B+

Malkin points out that the AP is delusional for assigning John McCain 2008 front-runner status.

Unlike much of the right-leaning pundit class, I haven't exactly developed a seething dislike for John McCain. Yeah, his camera hogging and predictable reactions to issues are annoying, but I've largely maintained my respect for the guy's past, what I believe to be his honesty and moderation on many issues and his steadfast support for and articulation of the war. So, assuming that he actually could get past the party faithful of the primaries, does John McCain still hold immense sway over the rest of the right-leaning centrists, a requisite to give him the vote in the general election?

I'm not so sure. Between the growing negative implications for the First Amendment resulting from McCain-Feingold and the jaw-dropping nanny-statism of trying to regulate and misrepresent the dangers of (rather weak) over-the-counter anabolic supplements (likely scope creep from his ridiculous Senatorial priority of cleansing professional baseball), I'm pretty damn fed up with the guy myself. So, from various right-leaning libertarian angles (medical, business, regulating speech), I believe that he's losing vital support as well.

I'd say that this is a rather bold (premature?) statement:

Egregious acts of terror will continue—in Iraq as in many other parts of the world. But there is now no chance whatever of the U.S. losing this critical guerilla war.

It's certainly contradictory to the current narrative; I hope that he's correct. The ability of terrorists to seriously destroy a country despite a hostile local populace is the real litmus test. As many have pointed out, this is probably a strategically unsustainable situation for the jihadists, but not yet a mark of early, sure victory.

(Via IP)

*** "The Four Forbidden Words Of Iranian Elections."

*** A pictorial review of the Coalition serving in Iraq.

*** Baldilocks and Historian Paul Johnson examine the wildly mutable inconsistencies of anti-semitism and its parallels to anti-Americanism.

*** Susan Estrich: making a lot of sense:

The Dean charge is, of course, the more serious one, particularly since the party chairman has taken to attacking Fox News. There certainly is disagreement among Democrats as to whether party leaders such as Joe Biden and John Edwards should have gone public with the obvious criticism that Dean had gone too far in calling Republicans a party of white Christians who don't work.

But I'm hard-pressed to think of anybody who'll tell you privately that in the midst of debates about such issues as Social Security and the deficits, it's a good idea for the party leader to be turning himself into the issue by engaging in class and religious warfare.

(Via sda)

*** A day in the life of dissonant Dick Durbin (as channeled through Iowahawk):

I mean, I'm honestly sitting here thinking is it just me? I tried calling a couple of Senate colleagues this morning, but everybody seems to be out for some reason. I did get a voice mail from Howard Dean, and he said to let it go, that it was probably a prank from from the rightwing blog/radio attack machine. Well, duhhhhh, Howard. But a lot of the emails were coming from .mil addresses and a few from people who sent me donations last election cycle, and I'm like, WTF?

Heh.

You may recall my previous post (as well as those of Prieto and Malkin) criticizing a pending soiree at the Cuban Interests Section in DC, billed as an opportunity for young professionals "to explore the culture, cuisine, and music of Cuba, one of the most fascinating and misunderstood nations of our time." Hearteningly, it appears that some dedicated folks actually did something about it:

Monday, June 20, 2005. Saturday night Cuban officials expelled a group of peaceful advocates from a gala at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington for distributing cards allusive to repression in Cuba. Party organizers had ignored numerous calls and e-mails objecting to Cuba's totalitarian regime and asking for the event to be canceled or the venue changed.
...
The human rights' advocates passed an inspection at the door as Cuban agents carelessly checked names of arriving guests against a long list of alleged opponents to the Castro regime. Once upstairs, the pretenders proceeded to taste the food and drink and engage in conversation with young professionals in attendance. Shortly into the evening, the small groups began handing out three different versions of glossy 4x6 cards with pictures and messages allusive to oppression in Cuba on both sides. One cited a Human Rights Watch report on the denial of basic rights to Cubans. Another card showed a lavish buffet at a tourist hotel on the island, banned to Cubans while they live under rationing on an average monthly wage of US$10. The side of one card highlighted Amnesty International prisoner of conscience Dr. Oscar Biscet. One card was dedicated to the thousands of victims of the Castro regime and cited 78 minors executed and assassinated.

Willing takers were also given small stickers reading "We support freedom in Cuba," which activists had put on their clothing. The human rights defenders were friendly to all partygoers and suspected agents alike and mindful of not interfering with their enjoyment.

Within a few minutes, the watching army of security agents and collaborators encircled the activists, mostly dispersed in small groups, taking their cards and demanding they leave. All left when approached without resisting, quickly escorted by Cuban agents to the front gate, where DC police were stationed.

They proceeded to join the street protest on the other side of the street. In one case, a woman left on her own was surrounded by several male agents and angrily told she had to leave as they grabbed her cards. When she refused to hand over the cards, two agents squeezed her strongly by both arms. As they pulled her down the stairs, she began crying out "Freedom for Cuba." On Sunday, she proudly showed off her bruises as her father's day gift to her dad, killed when she was a toddler at the Bay of Pigs after he had fought under Castro for democracy in Cuba.

Excellent - good points, peacefully-executed. Val has the comprehensive coverage.

After both lauding and criticizing Howard Dean, as well as attacking Senator Dick Durbin's recent outrageous comments, Jimmie from Suburban Sundries Shack notes the following:

It’s also good to see that these recent events have finally tripped the good-sense breakers on a couple of notable Republican bloggers. It’s sad, though, that it’s taken blatant anti-Semitism and insane Nazi comparisons to divert them from evangelical Christians and give them back some sense of perspective.

Yes, it is quite "sad" that I've strayed off message these past few months by rationally leveling criticism at conservatives and the GOP on issues that I care about. Sad and contemptible, really. Equally sad? That my "good-sense breakers" required blatant anti-Semitism and Nazi comparisons to start working again! Ridiculous! Pathetic! What was I thinking? I must have been deranged! How could I dare criticize conservatives for extremist associations and violating their own Federalism mantra in the Terry Schiavo matter? Why did I advocate against restrictions on Federal stem cell research? Extremist and contradictory rhetoric on judges? Why am I still possibly pining for GOP loss or stagnation in the midterms?

Why, why, why?!

Why did I stray from message?!

I'm humbled and chastened by Jimmie's stern political guidance, as well as effusively happy that I've been welcomed back into the Party's shining light, now that I've taken a blowtorch to an approved target. Where I - not to mention my "perspective" - once was hopelessly lost in the wilderness of honest and carefully-considered analysis, now I'm found back in the warm embrace of the "team." Thank you, Jimmie. For your kindness. For your forgiveness. For your fatherly patience.

Now could you please pass the delicious Kool-Aid?

Read More »

Can't stand 'em. While a dandy like Robbo the Llamabutcher jumps at every self-aggrandizing opportunity to proudly shout lurid details about his favorite books, personality quirks and psychological deficits, I find viral "me-me-me" lists to be a plague on the commentariat, reducing political blogging to the stature of the schlock-ridden, loopy tripe scrawled on a teenage girl's notebook.

That said, after completing one such list, the Cranky Neocon tagged me with the following implicit challenge:

Three people you are throwing this to next:
...
2. INDC Bill - Because there is just no way he's going to do this.

And since I'm a feeble-minded marionette when confronted with reverse psychological trickery ... well, let's just say that ...

... I'll show him!

Exhaustively honest details about my life to follow:

Read More »

How did SGT Leigh Ann Hester, SSG Timothy F. Nein and SPC Jason M. Mike win the Silver Star? The prelude:

On Sunday afternoon, in a very bad section of scrub-land called Salman Pak, on the southeastern outskirts of Baghdad, 40 to 50 heavily-armed Iraqi insurgents attacked a convoy of 30 civilian tractor trailer trucks that were moving supplies for the coalition forces, along an Alternate Supply Route. These tractor trailers, driven by third country nationals (primarily Turkish), were escorted by 3 armored Hummers from the COSCOM*. When the insurgents attacked, one of the Hummers was in their kill zone and the three soldiers aboard were immediately wounded, and the platform taken under heavy machinegun and RPG** fire.

Along with them, three of the truck drivers were killed, 6 were wounded in the tractor trailer trucks. The enemy attacked from a farmer's barren field next to the road, with a tree line perpendicular to the ASR***, two dry irrigation ditches forming a rough L-shaped trenchline, and a house standing off the dirt road. After three minutes of sustained fire, a squad o f enemy moved forward toward the disabled and suppressed trucks. Each of the enemy had hand-cuffs and were looking to take hostages for ransom or worse, to take those three wounded US soldiers for more internet beheadings.

About this time, three armored Hummers that formed the MP Squad under call sign Raven 42, 617th MP Co, Kentucky National Guard, assigned to the 503rd MP Bn (Fort Bragg), 18th MP Bde, arrived on the scene like the cavalry. The squad had been shadowing the convoy from a distance behind the last vehicle, and when the convoy trucks stopped and became backed up from the initial attack, the squad sped up, paralleled the convoy up the shoulder of the road, and moved to the sound of gunfire.

Read the rest; it's absolutely harrowing.

I like it:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Monday criticized autocratic U.S. allies and praised democratic reformers throughout the Middle East in a policy speech laying out the principles and goals of the Bush administration's democracy campaign.

Speaking to an invitation-only audience at the American University in Cairo, Rice mixed tough rhetoric with assurances that the United States is not planning to impose democracy. The United States, she said, "has no cause for false pride and we have every reason for humility."

Calling the ideal of democracy "universal," she noted that "for 60 years, my county, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region . . . and we achieved neither. Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people."
...
After the address, Rice met with Ayman Nour, the opposition candidate whose campaign has been repeatedly harassed by the government, as well as representatives of other opposition parties. Rice had canceled a planned visit to Egypt in February when the government did not immediately release Nour from jail on what American officials considered trumped-up charges.

In the speech, Rice also criticized another close ally, Saudi Arabia, where "many people pay an unfair price for exercising their basic rights." She noted that three people are currently in jail for petitioning the government and declared, "That should not be a crime in any country." Rice was scheduled to fly to Riyadh later today to meet with Saudi officials.

Bonus points that it's a powerful woman visibly speaking out in that region.

Blackfive.net turned two years old on the 18th. Congratulations to arguably the Big Daddy of all milblogs.

Blackfive's military coverage is an essential portion of my reading diet. Don't miss it.

Watch out for Stephen Green when he's forced off the sauce:

Naturally, Iraq was one of the topics we discussed. Poor thing. She asked one little question – and I went off on an iced-tea fueled rant. I didn't mean to rant, but this one has been a long time coming. Ashley just happened to be in the way when the pressure valve finally let loose. The subject was exit dates.

I'm of two minds about this:

I got to thinking about what kind of country allows people like this to flaunt their unpopular opinions while being protected by the police. The answer, I decided, is only a country that is strong in our democratic beliefs and sense of our own destiny would continue to allow this. Here, at a funeral honoring a hero who had given her life so that people halfway around the world could be free, we saw those charged with protecting the weakest of us, the police, firefighters, and Soldiers, protecting people dedicated to tearing down everything they hold dear. And these people had the strength of character to ignore the asshats trying to ruin this solemn occasion, and concentrate instead on the good of this country: the part of the country that produces heroes like CPL Carrie French.

Specifically, one mind agrees. The other mind thinks that folks that scream hatred at a funeral naturally demand a good beating. In the case of the Phelps clan, on a regular basis.

More pics from ninme.

(Via IP)

I'd planned to eviscerate the WaPo's ridiculously patronizing "exposé" on the evil economics of a Starbucks habit, but David Adesnik beat me to it.

And he's quite brutal and thorough. Key graph:

(emphasis mine)

(WaPo:)She just graduated summa cum laude, after three years of legal training that left her $115,000 in debt. Part of that debt, which she will take a decade to repay with interest, was run up at Starbucks, where she buys her lattes.

Part of the $115,000 debt Kirsten Daniels of Seattle incurred to finance law school went toward her regular caffeine fix. The habit costs her nearly $3 a day, and it's one that her law school says she and legions like her cannot afford.

(Adesnik:) My heart is already bleeding for poor Ms. Daniels. To think that she might be only $112,000 in debt if not for the pernicious influence of Starbucks!

Bingo. Perhaps the author didn't choose the best examples to illustrate an economic toll.

(Via IP)

UPDATE: Invest in your future: The Saeco Italia!

Syria loses its grip:

Pro-Syrian candidates appeared headed for defeat Sunday in Lebanon's first free elections in three decades _ a win that would break Damascus' longtime domination of Lebanese political life and its parliament.

A pro-Syrian leader acknowledged a major defeat for his candidates and an anti-Syrian opposition official said the ticket's unofficial results indicated a near sweep in the contest for 28 parliamentary seats in northern Lebanon.

Suleiman Franjieh, a Christian former interior minister who is close to the family of Syrian President Bashar Assad, said: "We bow to the will of the people."

Update on Michael Moore's brave "minutemen:"

Marines on an operation to eliminate insurgents that began Friday broke through the outside wall of a building in this small rural village to find a torture center equipped with electric wires, a noose, handcuffs, a 574-page jihad manual - and four beaten and shackled Iraqis.

The American military has found torture houses after invading towns heavily populated by insurgents - like Falluja, where the anti-insurgent assault last fall uncovered almost 20 such sites. But rarely have they come across victims who have lived to tell the tale.

The men said they told the marines, from Company K, Third Marines, Second Division, that they had been tortured with shocks and flogged with a strip of rubber for more than two weeks, unseen behind the windows of black glass. One of them, Ahmed Isa Fathil, 19, a former member of the new Iraqi Army, said he had been held and tortured there for 22 days. All the while, he said, his face was almost entirely taped over and his hands were cuffed.
...
"They kill somebody every day," said Mr. Fathil, whose hands were so swollen he could not open a can of Coke offered to him by a marine. "They've killed a lot of people."
...
The manual recovered - a fat, well-thumbed Arabic paperback - listed itself as the 2005 First Edition of "The Principles of Jihadist Philosophy," by Abdel Rahman al-Ali. Its chapters included "How to Select the Best Hostage," and "The Legitimacy of Cutting the Infidels' Heads."
...
His town has always been a good place, he said, but the militants have made it hell.

"These few are destroying it," he said, his face streaked with tears. "Everybody they take, they kill. It's on a daily basis pretty much."

No word on whether the guards mishandled Korans or played Christina Aguilera cd's during the hostages' captivity.

This article again emphasizes that much of the enemy in Iraq are common murderers and criminals, a breed apart from nationalist "rebels" or "insurgents" fighting a guerilla war. Also striking is the fact that these self-styled "holy warriors" are primarily torturing and killing fellow muslims, thus even violating their own sickly semantical religious justifications for the commission of atrocities.

Just when I harbor ideas of opposing the GOP ...

Lunacy.

No way. I'd rather share a foxhole with Ralph Reed than Maxine Waters.

Ralph may hog the latrine, hold a carbine like a nancy-boy and drive me nuts with incessant bromides about "the culture of life" ("Hey Bill, watch the 'culture of life' hit that jihadi sniper with a mortar at 400 yards! Hey Bill, the 'culture of life' will race you to the PX!"), but Maxine would surely shoot me* and try to surrender to the enemy (at which point they'd force her to bury their dead and then wack her).

* And if you think that's total metaphorical hyperbole about Ol' Max, read this entire post and look for her name.

UPDATE: Related: "Nice political party you had there, fellers. Sorry to see it go so soon ..."

UPDATE: For once, Howard Dean (!) steps in and says the right thing:

"We disavow the anti-Semitic literature, and the Democratic National Committee stands in absolute disagreement with and condemns the allegations," Dean said in a statement posted on the DNC Web site.

Of course, the vaguely anti-semitic overtones of "9-11 was a zionist conspiracy" were only one disturbing aspect of Friday's meeting. And considering Howard has his own track record with wacky 9-11 theories ...

Caller: Once we get you in the White House, would you please make sure that there is a thorough investigation of 9/11 and not stonewalling?

Howard Dean: Yes there is a report which the president is suppressing evidence for, which is a thorough investigation of 9/11.

Diane Rehm: Why do you think he is suppressing that report?

Howard Dean: I don’t know. There are many theories about it. The most interesting theory that I’ve heard so far—which is nothing more than a theory, it can’t be proved—is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis. Now who knows what the real situation is? But the trouble is, by suppressing that kind of information, you lead to those kind of theories, whether they have any truth to them or not, and eventually, they get repeated as fact. So I think the president is taking a great risk by suppressing the key information that needs to go to the Kean Commission.

UPDATE: McQ coos:

Good for Howard Dean
Credit where credit is due

It strikes me that all of this praise is like awarding a solid gold medal to a problem child because he didn't light the drapes on fire and pee on the living room floor ... this time.

"You really do have the energy Democrats need!"

*** Free screen cleaner. Don't say I never gave you anything.

(Via Dean)

*** A must-read political analysis from Patrick Ruffini:

Here's the Guantanamo narrative, and then tell me who it favors:

Read the rest to find out. Hint: it's not Joe Biden.

Typically, it's unfortunate that complex issues are necessarily boiled down to simple, emotional narratives in politics, but occasionally, this simple narrative is ... "about right," in addition to resonating as a populist issue.

Via Jim Geraghty, who has his own worthwhile thoughts on the matter.

*** Spiccoli, aping his hero, Hunter S. Thompson, finds nuanced abstraction in an old Iranian campfire song.

*** I don't agree with everything in Rick Moran's after-action summary of the Schiavo matter - his original bashing of the medical community is unfair, as doctors and ethicists are just trying to wade through confusing and muddy waters of progress as well; I also think that opining that the government needs to step in and save hospice patients that are being "murdered" opens a larger can of worms than he may realize - but overall, he's got some very interesting and introspective things to say about the passions that ruled both sides.

*** BRAD CHEATED!!!

No, I don't really care.

Just effing wit ya.

Former CBS newsie Bernard Goldberg (the insider that harped on liberal media bias before the blogosphere was even a tiny gleam in Glenn Reynolds' enamored eye) is coming out with a new book titled "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America : (and Al Franken Is #37)." I love the reference to Franken's book that slaps Limbaugh in the title.

From a press release:

A slow poison is running through America's veins, says Bernie Goldberg. It's a poison that is turning America into a far nastier place than it ought to be, a more selfish and cynical place, a less decent and civil place. It's easy to believe that it's nobody's fault; that this is just the way society has evolved. But that's not true. There are specific individuals who, in various ways, are screwing things up in this county - people who are changing America in ways that erode its very ethical and moral underpinnings.

100 People is about those villains - about the various poisons they spread and the damage each does. In short, this is a book about the very real people who are doing us very real harm - people who, Goldberg says,need to be held accountable.

That's certainly a provocative description, but who's on the list?

The release only leaks a few names and standard anti-populist archetypes:

In a series of short, punchy, sometimes funny chapters, Goldberg introduces the specific types: the Schlockmeisters, the Pinstripe Crooks, the Intellectual Thugs, the Hollywood Loudmouths, and the American Jackals, (a.k.a. The Out-for-Themsleves-Screw-Everyone-Else Lawyers). Then Goldberg names 100 of the worst - from people like Jerry Springer and Ludacris to Michael Moore and Al Franken.

Now, Bernard Goldberg is far from a conservative, so I have to assume that he takes some swipes at the Sean Hannity's and Randall Terry's of this world. And aside from the few names in the release, I have to wonder who else makes the cut. Will Goldberg bite the cable news hands that currently feed him?

Any guesses? Who makes your list?

UPDATE: Captain Ed:

The release gets more specific, naming Ludacris, Jerry Springer, and Michael Moore along with Franken as recipients of Goldberg's dubious honors. Having read his other works (Bias was one of my inspirations for this blog), I know that Goldberg will not spare the fringies on the Right, either. I suspect that Fred Phelps and Pat Robertson might inhabit a couple of slots, and perhaps more mainstream people like Sean Hannity might get a mention from the classically liberal Goldberg.

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Results of Terry Schiavo's autopsy:

An autopsy on Terri Schiavo backed her husband's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding that she had massive and irreversible brain damage and was blind, the medical examiner's office said Wednesday. It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused.

But what caused her collapse 15 years earlier remained a mystery. The autopsy and post-mortem investigation found no proof that she had an eating disorder, as was suspected at the time, Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Jon Thogmartin said.

...

She died from dehydration, Thogmartin said. He said she did not appear to have suffered a heart attack and there was no evidence that she was given harmful drugs or other substances prior to her death.

He said that after her feeding tube was removed, she would not have been able to eat or drink if she had been given food by mouth, as her parents' requested.

"Removal of her feeding tube would have resulted in her death whether she was fed or hydrated by mouth or not," Thogmartin told reporters.

He also said she was blind, because the "vision centers of her brain were dead," and that her brain was about half of its expected size when she died 13 days following the feeding tube's removal.

...

The medical examiner's conclusions countered a videotape released by the Schindlers of Terri Schiavo in her hospice bed. The video showed Schiavo appearing to turn toward her mother's voice and smile, moaning and laughing. Her head moved up and down and she seemed to follow the progress of a brightly colored Mickey Mouse balloon.

They believed her condition could improve with therapy.

However, doctors said her reactions were automatic responses and not evidence of thought or consciousness, and Thogmartin's report went farther.

This doesn't critically undermine many of the ethical arguments on either side of the issue, but it certainly kills much of the over-the-top hyperbole and inaccuracy surrounding her condition.

Kathy the Cake Eater hits a common boiling point:

For those of you who are wondering what I'm going on about this time, well, it's this: I am getting exceedingly tired of bloggers who perhaps don't have a huge audience---and would like to gain one---tracking back to a post I've written on a similar subject WITHOUT LINKING ME.

Bi-monthly reminder: people, please, please don't pull this; it's obnoxious.

Check out her full post for lots of intemperate swearing and the like.

(Via the Llamas)

UPDATE: Same wavelength. Eeeeerie.

(Thanks JFH)

*** Learn "The Third Rule of War:"

It's an important story told from the perspective of the military doctors in Iraq. It's not the first time that I've posted about those who tend to the wounded - the story of Saving Specialist Gray is one of my favorites.

This story, however, is not about winning. Unfortunately, it's about "The Third Rule of War" ...

*** As excerpted in the Good news from Iraq, part 29:

Having spent the past two years in Iraq, first as an Army officer and now as the head of the Iraq office of the Washington-based US Institute of Peace, I am struck by the determination and steadiness of Iraqis as they struggle to build a stable, democratic country, and by the continuing, firm commitment of Iraqis to participate in - and manage - that process.

In spite of a constant threat from the various insurgencies over the past year, Iraqi government agencies, political parties, and civil society organizations have gradually expanded their capabilities and activities. They will tell you how much more they could have done had they not been constrained by security threats or - almost as important - the lack of reliable infrastructure, but what they have accomplished already is admirable, as is their unflagging determination in the face of these threats and constraints.

There is a phrase I hear in almost every conversation with Iraqis that captures the mood of this process: hutwa bi hutwa, or "step by step."

Chrenkoff's regular round-up of underreported positive stories keeps getting more and more comprehensive. Check it out.

Yet CNN continues to merely report the violence ...

*** Be sure to check out the "Carnival of the Liberated:"

Welcome to the Carnival of the Liberated, a sampler of some of the best posts from Iraqi and Afghani bloggers. This week we've got Operation Lightning, forefingers, life under occupation, life under Saddam, more blogging from the Green Zone, and much more.

*** Christopher Hitchens continues to impress:

The position of the United States is different, because not only is it a signatory to the Geneva protocols, it is also the power that has pressed other nations to both sign and observe them. (It was also the United States that pressed all member states of the United Nations to sign Eleanor Roosevelt's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia at first declined to do.) Any wavering on the part of Washington thus has consequences far beyond itself.

The forces of al-Qaida and its surrogate organizations are not signatory to the conventions and naturally express contempt for them. They have no battle order or uniform and are represented by no authority with which terms can be negotiated. Nor can they claim, as actual guerrilla movements like the Algerian FLN have done in the past, to be the future representatives of their countries or peoples. In Afghanistan and Iraq, they sought to destroy the electoral process that alone can confer true legitimacy, and they are in many, if not most, cases not even citizens of the countries concerned. Their announced aim is the destruction of all nonbelievers, and their avowed method is indiscriminate and random murder. They are more like pirates, hijackers, or torturers—three categories of people who have in the past been declared outside the protection of any law.

The administration therefore deserves at least some sympathy in its confrontation with an enemy of a new type. I should very much like to know how a Gore administration would have dealt with the hundreds of foreign sadists taken in arms in Afghanistan. I should also like to know how other Western governments, which are privately relieved that the United States assumed responsibility for the last wave, expect to handle the next wave of fundamentalist violence in their own societies. No word on this as yet.

Read the rest for a specific takedown of Amnesty International's hyperbole.

Reno 911! @ 10 PM on Comedy Central. Highly recommended.

Frightening aside: my cop brother tells me that it's the most realistic dramatic reenactment of police work on TV.

              "Don't snap your fingers at me, lady!"

More found art below the fold:

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The duck walks
      like it  
           ...

The duck             uacks.
               q

              duck The

Jesus Juice           jammies with feet

              Hustler Magazines

                                                                yet

                     ?

                     !

                    ...

                    ...

                     .

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Last night I dreamt that I was on trial for a vague yet terrible first-degree felony, and the jury box was filled with eleven doe-eyed, French and Belgian Michael Jackson fans (accoutred in sparkly Pop-King regalia) and one giraffe (American, naked). I remember that I had the notion that the trial was going pretty well, until the prosecutor triumphantly demanded that I sing for the jury, who leaned in and squealed in heavily-accented horror when my voice cracked ("Quel abomination!"). As the resulting and varied furor in the courtroom died down - I specifically recall that Nancy Grace had a stacatto, seal-like orgasm that cut through the rest of the din - the giraffe purposefully leaned his looming neck from the back row of the jury box all the way down to the defense table, steadied his musky snout a taunting three inches from my face and breathed, in Jacko's spine-tingling falsetto ...

"Guuuuiiiilll -teeeeeeeeee."

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Now that's what I'd call a successful inaugural year.

Congrats to Michelle on her anniversary and undeniable status as one of the most influential bloggers in the 'sphere. We don't always agree, but it's pretty heartening to have her on my team on the many occasions when we do. I was especially impressed by her absolute ownage of Easongate (among many other hot stories), as well as her natural affinity for the medium.

Congrats and here's to many more!

That's it?

Super-extended bonus commentary below the fold:

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The funny thing is, I can vividly picture the music video for this.

If Goldstein's not careful with the Christy Lane blasphemy, that green beret from her greatest hits commercial on FOX is going to track him down and garotte him with his shoelaces.

*** "Soccer Revolution:" Gooooooooooooool!

*** Baldilocks: "not white."

(Though she is Christian).

*** More on the great Dean-o's misspeakenmentses. That man could singlehandedly drive the Dems into the ground. I'm not kidding.

*** More Patriarchal Defense Techniques. But they're chauvinist dinosaurs, brutish male products of a bygone era.

(Via WWR)

The Daily Kos is in hot water with the DU'ers for having a racy BlogAd ...

Okay, ladies. Let's see if we can identify all the standard Patriarchal Defense techniques (which have been employed against us whenever we've raised OUR issues, probably throughout all of history) he used in his little whiney rant:

1. Ridicule:
Apparently, having two women throw pies at each other, wrestle each other in a sexy, lesbianic manner, then having water splashed on their ample, fake bosoms is degrading to women. Or something like that.

Uh, yeah. You bet it is, you jerk.

They know about the PDT's?! Man battle stations, meet at Patriarchal Defense Headquarters in 10 minutes!

Though I must admit: man, nothing's hotter than watching a little "progressive-on-progressive" cat-fighting, no?

Saucer of milk, table two.

Rowr.

Better make that meeting in fifteen minutes.

(Via Florida Cracker, who predicted the spat [sort of])

UPDATE: Pennywit defines the Patriarchy's Code of Conduct:

1. When reporting to the Patriarchal Defense Headquarters, no Defender of the Patriarchy is permitted to ask for directions to get there.
2. All Defenders reporting to the Defense Headquarters must bring either the flesh of a tasty animal or an implement that produces fire or may be burned. Members of the Patriarchy Defense Women's Auxiliary may bring salad.
3. Defense of the Patriarchy will be postponed if there's a game on. Otherwise, Defense will commence immediatly.
4. Failure to report to Patriarchy Defense Headquarters will result in revocation of all privileges associatd with being a Defender of the Patriarchy and confiscation of the malingerer's Man Card.
5. If you fall while defending the Patriarchy, you will not cry. Crying is not allowed.

Amen, Fierce Bear (Pennywit's Patriarchy Name). Read the rest.

UPDATE: The Commissar:

For your edification:

Q. How many D.U. feministes does is take to defeat the Patriarchal Defense Techniques (P.D.T.)?
A. That's not funny.

... hilarious.

Bonus laugh from a comment under the post:

This is funny, how, exactly?

Posted by: The Liberal Avenger at June 8, 2005 07:41 PM

Hmmmm. In a visual, unrepentantly silly and ultimately universal human way that transcends political affiliation?

Pinkerton on Intelligent Design:

And while religion is at the core of ID, its proponents generate lots of science-y arguments. One of the best known ID-ers is Michael Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University and author of Darwin's Black Box. Behe argues that it just isn't possible that random evolution could have produced the flagellum -- the propeller/tail -- on a bacteria. Such an organ, he concludes, is "irreducibly complex," which is to say, only a Master of Complexity could have created it.

But it's a fallacy to argue that just because one person -- or even all the people of an era -- can't figure out how something works, therefore such mysterious workings are beyond any human comprehension, ever.

This is what strikes me as the human comprehension-challenged flaw behind Intelligent Design - that just because we don't understand it, or just because something is incredibly organized and complex, why does our idea of sentience, a Creator's consciousness, have to be responsible for its creation? While sentience might be a plausible (and probably unprovable) hypothesis, it seems strange that this would ever constitute an unavoidable, evident conclusion.

But even supposing that flourishes of "consciousness" could be reasonably discerned from something like the complexity of cellular organization and function, similar to the way crop circle hoaxers have been separated out from the earlier natural phenomenon ... then what? As Pinkerton excerpts Professor Richard Dawkins:

To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer. You have to say something like "God was always there," and if you allow yourself that kind of lazy way out, you might as well just say "DNA was always there," or "Life was always there," and be done with it.

Bingo. Who designed the designer? And why must we have a supposedly scientific answer, despite the fact that such an ultimate conclusion can only now be realized via faith and completely subjective reasoning, two human traits that largely fall outside of the mandate of true scientific inquiry.

And while some scientists certainly do cling to imperfect theories and protocols like their very own articles of religious faith, those examples fail to meet the true standard of scientific inquiry as well. Which is why that common strawman used in defense of ID - one that highlights flaws in scientific execution spurred by human emotion - sits mutually exclusive from the fact that science (clearly defined and executed), by its very nature, should maintain a healthy delineation from faith.

I'd even go so far as to say that using science to support religion could actually undermine religion, chiefly by challenging its central reliance.

(Via Reynolds)

Would your conscience be clear to devour a lavish Hanjeongsik spread with the smiling representatives of Kim Jong Il's terrible regime? Could you drink and dance the night away with Mugabe's government goons, whereas Zimbabweans are routinely starved for political reasons? Might it give you pause?

Well, then why is "Professionals in the City" blithely pimping a black tie fiesta at "the elegant Cuban Interests Section ... to explore the culture, cuisine, and music of Cuba, one of the most fascinating and misunderstood nations of our time."

Ah, "misunderstood."

Val Prieto:

Of course, you neednt worry that this particular true Havana evening would be either a throwback to the pre-castro days of La Habana, or most likely a true Havana evening for the omnipotent tourist crowd of today's Cuba, where foreign jetsetters lavish in a posh lifestyle while the natives live as indentured servants. Slaves to the tourists and to el comandante. There's no need to bring all that reality with you. Its a party!!!

There's no need to wonder how many actual Cubans, from la Habana, will be allowed to attend this event!

And dont forget to bring an appetite to this fabulous gala because there will be a bountiful dinner buffet! Yes, a plethora of Cuban cuisine will be served for your culinary pleasure! And without ration cards!!!! No standing in lines for hours for a few pieces of bread and a handful of beans! No need to trade with those evil black marketeers for a few eggs and some powdered milk!

The Cuban Interests Section in DC is going all out, just for you, folks!

Make sure you wear your dancing shoes too, because there's nothing better than a little salsa to ease the conscience. A cha-cha-cha to wash away the guilt! Dance the night away! Eat, drink and be merry!

Dont worry all that much about those little pangs of remorse. Dont let that nasty feeling of guilt get in the way of a good time. The hundreds of prisoners of conscience on the island wont be bothered too much. The millions of Cubans that have never, can never, and will never be able to attend such an event, in DC or in Havana, want you to enjoy yourselves at their dignity's expense.

Here's my advice: if you'd ever like to experience the "unusual opportunity" to drink mojitos, enjoy "The Cuban style of cooking," listen to the "the incredible music of Cuba," watch a "salsa demonstration" and even meet real, live Cubans, do yourself a favor and buy a plane ticket to Miami. The Cuban culture there is truly free, as opposed to the choreographed song and dance put on by representatives of a regime that jails all of those that dare speak out against it.

If you'd like to contact Professionals in the City, info below the fold:

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"Dream on."

(Lifted from the Flea)

I'd mock Kerry's yearbook photo, but I know that mine is out there somewhere.

Lurking.

And I feel preemptive empathy and karmic pressure to refrain. His grades, on the other hand ...

As far as I can figure, the man wasn't "nuanced," just confused.

UPDATE: Predictably, the Llamas are not above such cheap mockery.

Joe Gandelman has a great blog round-up regarding yesterday's Supreme Court decision.

Personally, I'm even more exercised about the impending verdict in California vs Michael Jackson. If MJ goes to jail, Goldstein is going to start up his faux-prison diaries, a la Martha Stewart. And what a hoot that will be.

Quote Number One, LaShawn Barber:

Despite what they may say, Muslims are and have always been on a mission to conquer and kill infidels. They’ve been doing it for centuries and will continue until we’re all dead, or they’re all dead, or the world ends, whichever comes first.

Quote Number Two, Jim Geraghty:

[T]hat’s what January 30 was about.

Because it was a day when it was no longer about what the Americans were doing, but about what the Iraqis were doing and their courage. They knew there were people trying to prevent them from voting and trying to kill them. They did it anyway. They said, “We don’t care, we’re not going to be scared,” and they stuck their fingers in the purple ink. And a people who had known nothing but fear and oppression and dictatorship stood up and said, “I’m going to be treated like a human being, and I’m going to choose my own destiny.” A lot has gone wrong in Iraq — it’s embarrassing to not find weapons of mass destruction, and the ties to terrorism are widely disputed. But this is the good that will come from all this, a working democracy where before there had only been Saddam and Uday and Qusay.

Here's my choice:

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I eagerly await conservative cries of "where is the strict constructionism?" after this nifty ruling. I don't recall "smoking weed" to be an activity specifically enumerated in the founding document nor any of its amendments, but I'm not exactly a Constitutional scholar.

And no, the federal right to regulate interstate commerce does not apply to the specifics of this case.

UPDATE: Goldstein writes:

Or, to put it more bluntly, there is nothing conservative about the prospect of federal law enforcement officers going state to state arresting sick people using a plant prescribed by doctors for medicinal purposes. I’m eager to see the how the social conservatives who supported Lawrence (as I did, provisionally) will react to this. Hopefully they won’t tie themselves in knots trying to reconcile the two decisions…

Well, on the flip side, the philosophical consistency between opposing state law in Lawrence and also opposing the Federal overreach of Ashcroft v Reich is that such a succession of stances places a higher value on individual freedom. From a strict constructionist's standpoint however, there is no legal consistency between opposing one and favoring the other. Nada.

Three Days of the Condor (1975): The basis for all paranoid leftist analysis of American foreign policy in the last 30 years. "Oiiilll!" Nevertheless, recommended.

Finding Neverland (2004): The naive cinematic validation of Michael Jackson's worldview. Nevertheless, recommended; a superb, touching movie.

Planet of the Apes (1968): A documentary about young Earth creationists. Nevertheless, also recommended, especially for Linda Harrison's underappreciated mute (yet emotive) performance.

Ok, maybe she was just super-hot.

Can we skirt the ethical debate?

If only human embryonic stem cells could sprout anew from something other than a human embryo. Researchers could harvest them and perhaps harness their great biomedical potential without destroying what some consider to be a budding human life.

But like a low-calorie banana split or the proverbial free lunch, there is no such thing as an embryo-free embryonic stem cell.

Or is there?

In recent months, a number of researchers have begun to assemble intriguing evidence that it is possible to generate embryonic stem cells without having to create or destroy new human embryos.

The research is still young and largely unpublished, and in some cases it is limited to animal cells. Scientists doing the work also emphasize their desire to have continued access to human embryos for now. It is largely by analyzing how nature makes stem cells, deep inside days-old embryos, that these researchers are learning how to make the cells themselves.

Yet the gathering consensus among biologists is that embryonic stem cells are made, not born -- and that embryos are not an essential ingredient. That means that today's heated debates over embryo rights could fade in the aftermath of technical advances allowing scientists to convert ordinary cells into embryonic stem cells.

...

"The president has said it is wrong to destroy a life to save a life," Lanza said. "This might be a way to get some cell lines that the president . . . can get behind."

Fingers crossed.

John Kerry to call for President Bush's impeachment? Well, Al Jazeera thinks so.

Though, I'm not sure how much I trust an analysis that relies on Michael Moore's web site and the Democratic Underground for mainstream sources of internet intelligence. Also, this makes it sound like they have an inordinantly expansive interpretation of a John Kerry statement of resolve:

Failed presidential candidate Kerry advised that he will begin the presentation of his case for President Bush's impeachment to Congress, on Monday.

Kerry said of the memo: "When I go back [to Washington] on Monday, I am going to raise the issue. I think it's a stunning, unbelievably simple and understandable statement of the truth and a profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home. And it's amazing to me the way it escaped major media discussion. It's not being missed on the Internet, I can tell you that."

(Thanks to Napoleon)

UPDATE: I'm unsure why Polipundit assigns Al Jazeera such credibility ...

UPDATE: Commenter MarkJ points out that AlJazeera.com is a different entity than AlJazeera.net:

Important note: Aljazeera Publishing and Aljazeera.com are not associated with the controversial Arabic Satellite Channel known as Jazeera Space Channel TV station whose website is Aljazeera.net.

Noted.

Aside from that, the story states that John Kerry plans to bring up impeachment, when his quote suggests no such thing. This is either bad reporting (not including the direct quote that reveals that intent) or propagandizing/sensationalism. I suppose we'll find out on Monday.

Must-read post.

*** Beautiful Atrocities celebrates one year of blogging with a vacation. Wish congrats to certainly one of the top 10 funny-bloggers on the internet. (Top 5?)

*** Speaking of funny ...

*** ... and funny ... (though it probably won't make much sense unless you read the preceding post and comments first)

*** More on South Korean stem cell research. Be sure to catch the author's second comment under the post.

*** I wasn't present, yet the mere description of this conversation has my blood pressure up:

Not "our" side or "their" side mind you. Not "democracy" or "fascism". No. "His side" and "their side" as if her very freedom to voice such sophomoric nonsense was not guaranteed by the brutal sacrifice and ultimate victory of "his side". Well, heaven forbid an educated Canadian ever take sides. No, for us is the rarified pleasure of sneering at those who speak of "evil doers" even as we sleep soundly, all smug in our beds, while those rough men we sneer at protect us from harm. All I could say to her was to thank God she has no roll(sic) in setting public policy.
...
I think it is barely possible that a Canadian with internet access and a university degree might have been so brainwashed by the relativism of our education system that they should now become testy when challenged on their subjectivist reading of the Second World War.

Believe it. As haze still hung over lower Manhattan in 2001, a freshly-graduated young Canadian woman that I knew told me that she couldn't "understand why we're getting involved in any of this; it's not our problem," when the Canadian government signed on to help go after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. I had to leave the room.

"Gulag" vs. Gulag

(It's like "Kramer vs. Kramer," but with one less adorable tow-headed moppet and much, much more forced labor and starvation.)

UPDATE: ... vs. gulag.

The main shortcoming of the Thornburgh and Boccardi report on CBS's fraudulent National Guard story - not unequivocally declaring the documents fake, despite forensic testimony in the detail of their own report, as well as the irrefutable anachronism of the information contained in the documents - rears its head and again insinuates itself into the history.

On Larry King last night, Dan Rather continued to claim that the documents were never proven to be fake, and the following line found in CNN's story (as well as Rather's soundbite during broadcast) will be typical of every nostalgiac news story written about the topic:

Thornburgh and Boccardi, he noted, found the story wasn't the result of political or personal bias. They also weren't able to prove the documents were fraudulent.

I have to admit, in light of so much indisputable evidence, it's more than a little bit frustrating. Maybe even a lot. A lot-lot.

Try to keep that in the back of your head as you watch the media massage itself over the glory days of Watergate.

UPDATE: Video.

Now that Amnesty International has declared Gitmo the "gulag of our time," the terrible stories are leaking out:

“Americans are very kind people,” one English-challenged detainee said in the March 4 paper. “If people say there is mistreatment in Cuba with the detainees, those type speaking are wrong, they treat us like a Muslim not a detainee.”

“I’m in good health and have good facilities of eating, drinking, living, and playing,” remarked another. “The food is good, the bedrooms are clean and the health care is very good.”

In a February 16 Gitmo dispatch, an American Forces Press Service report described the treatment of Camp Delta’s roughly 520 detainees from about 40 nations. Troublemakers wear prison-style orange jumpsuits and mainly are confined to rudimentary accommodations. But those who follow camp rules wear white outfits and exercise seven to nine hours daily, often playing soccer and volleyball. In quieter moments, “chess, checkers and playing cards are the most requested items,” Rhem wrote. As for reading, “A security official explained Agatha Christie books in Arabic are very popular and that camp officials are working to get copies of Harry Potter books in Arabic.”

Detainees eat culturally sensitive meals and follow arrows painted on dorm floors to face Mecca. “Prayer calls are broadcast over loudspeakers five times a day,” Rhem added.

This only confirms earlier stories of torture and humiliation from 2004:

Mohammed Ismail Agha, 15, who until last week was held at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, said that he was treated very well and particularly enjoyed learning to speak English. His words will disappoint critics of the US policy of detaining "illegal combatants" in south-east Cuba indefinitely and without trial.

In a first interview with any of the three juveniles held by the US at Guantanamo Bay base, Mohammed said: "They gave me a good time in Cuba. They were very nice to me, giving me English lessons."

Mohammed, an unemployed Afghan farmer, found the surroundings in Cuba at first baffling. After he settled in, however, he was left to enjoy stimulating school work, good food and prayer.

"At first I was unhappy . . . For two or three days [after I arrived in Cuba] I was confused but later the Americans were so nice to me. They gave me good food with fruit and water for ablutions and prayer," he said yesterday in Naw Zad, a remote market town in southern Afghanistan close to his home village and 300 miles south-west of Kabul, the capital.

He said that the American soldiers taught him and his fellow child captives - aged 15 and 13 - to write and speak a little English. They supplied them with books in their native Pashto language. When the three boys left last week for Afghanistan, the soldiers looking after them gave them a send-off dinner and urged them to continue their studies.

Shocking.

Now, I'm not stating that Guantanamo - based on either the case review policy and criteria for continued detention, or all individual cases of confinement and interrogation - is a paradise or fair, but when Amnesty International compares the facility to the network of Soviet slave labor camps where millions were worked to death ... well, let's just put things lightly and say that it mortally undermines itself as an effective and credible human rights organization.

Take note, Human Rights Watch.

Especially when the WaPo editorial board backs up that assessment.

Also, John Podhoretz: "Why Gitmo's no gulag."

(Second link via AoS)

UPDATE: Yet they keep digging ...

The Commissar remains on fire:

One of the easiest, most popular, roles is what I'll call Party Enforcer (I'd better not say "Commissar," because that would be wholly confusing, but that's the role.) Bloggers can look through the news and reserve their severest scorn for the "Party Unfaithful," the Voinoviches, the Gang of 14, and (on the other side of the aisle) the Liebermans. It's easy; it requires no thought, and no depth. One of "us" steps out of line? Simple ... Hit him with both barrels. Your readers will love it. I recall a long time ago, Meryl Yourish accused Ariel Sharon of "not having a spine." Now, I'm a strong supporter of Israel, and whatever criticisms I might level at Ariel Sharon, not being tough enough isn't one of them. So it is with the Main Stream Bloggers. Any Republican who gets out of line ... whammo, they go right after him.

The Main Stream Bloggers (and any others who might admit to being affected by this dynamic) have gone overboard. There's a lot of 'playing to the galleries' in the blogosphere, and at some point, it goes beyond mere entertainment and moves into partisan, even (dare-I-say-it?) "unpatriotic," divisiveness.

Amen. I don't think that most bloggers have consciously manipulative online personas, but I do think that it's become a "political team sport" on almost every issue. I can think of at least four possible motivations for this tendency:

1. As the Commissar mentions in his post, there's a subconscious tendency to appropriate positions that result in positive reinforcement from the faithful, the folks that butter your bread.

2. "Extremists" (sorry for the negative connotation) or party faithful/hardliners are naturally more likely to make the effort to express themselves via blogging. Often. With piss and vinegar.

3. The amygdala-driven tendency to make binary positive-negative distinctions reinforces an "us vs. them" mentality extending to most party line issues. This is further reinforced because bloggers opine on almost everything in quick succession, run in self-reinforcing ideological circles, and it's easy.

4. Some combination of the above.

I wouldn't presume to insult someone by automatically impugning his honest motivations for coming to a party-approved conclusion; there are indeed many individuals that have value systems almost perfectly in step with the platforms of either party, or of analogous ideological proxies like Al Franken and Rush Limbaugh - much like many "mavericks" come to their own honest conclusions that buck the party line. But the take-no-prisoners crescendo of outrage at recent compromise, combined with the incessant "mean-girls" sneering at political moderates, "mavericks" and party "traitors," is sort of repellent. Not to mention, politically self-destructive.

The inside scoop on recent operations "New Market" and "Mongoose" in Iraq.

*** Who's "like Hitler?" Jeff Percifield examines the most abused simile in modern history.

*** A Llama on the radio? Lord help us.

*** Joe Gandelman wonders: "Will The Stem Cell Issue Be Point Of No Return For White House And GOP?" I don't agree with the extent of his rhetoric, but it's probably notable that more than one person is asking the question.

*** Catholics decry adoption.

*** And a cold jolt of reality for those who complain about the Cuban embargo:

Western embassies report increasing complaints from their nationals whose businesses were liquidated without any guarantee they would be compensated.

"Cuban partners say they will pay back investments and money owed for operating costs from future profits, but it is doubtful the companies will even exist in the future," said the commercial attache at a European embassy.

Cuban officials did not answer requests for interviews on the trend.

Companies have the option of going to arbitration, but many feel they would be wasting time and money because the government would ignore the rulings anyway. "Castro does not blink at bucking the United States and Europe, so what chance do I have?" said one investor, in town to negotiate a liquidation.

...

That's what happens when you deal with the devil.