Saturday, April 14, 2007

14 Apr 2007 08:26 pm

What Will Last?

Michael Blowhard wonders what parts of contemporary culture will survive and be relevant in 2300. Here's one candidate on his list. I see his point:

14 Apr 2007 07:10 pm

The Surge, Ctd

The laudable concentration on trying to reduce violence in Baghdad has unfortunately meant less security elsewhere. When you have destroyed the instruments of government, and sent a third of the troops necessary to keep order, the chaos is simply unstoppable - and will be unstoppable under these circumstances, indefinitely. The carnage in Karbala today is simply difficult for anyone who hasn't lived in a war-zone to understand, but among its many victims were women and children:

Two months into the U.S.-led Baghdad Security Plan, at least 289 people were killed and injured across Iraq on Saturday, including 36 dead in a car bomb attack in the holy Shiite city of Karbala. The carnage of a crowd teeming with women and children set off an angry mob of hundreds against the governor and police.

The morning bombing outside a bus station and marketplace ripped through vendor stands near a Shiite shrine where the grandson of the prophet Mohammed is buried. Bodies littered the street and body parts were found as far as 160 yards from the site of the explosion. Three buses of passengers were charred and storefronts lay in shambles.

At least 167 people were injured in the bombing, but the death toll was expected to increase because of still-unidentified bodies and serious injuries, said Saleem Kadhim, spokesman for the Karbala health directorate.

(Photo: An Iraqi rushes a wounded child into a hospital in the holy city of Karbala, 14 April 2007. A car bomb slaughtered 47 people in Iraq's pilgrimage city of Karbala today, the latest brazen attack to undermine a security crackdown exactly two months after it began in Baghdad. By Mohammed Sawaf/AFP/Getty Images)

14 Apr 2007 06:22 pm

Good vs Evil

The Foosball version.

14 Apr 2007 05:32 pm

Baghdad's Garbage Collectors

They have a story to tell as well.

14 Apr 2007 05:20 pm

Nano-Origami

Just add water.

14 Apr 2007 04:35 pm

Face of the Day

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz pauses while speaking to the Doing Business Reformers' Club April 13, 2007 in Washington, DC. Wolfowitz has come under fire for promotions that a woman he was romantically involved with received while working with the group. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)

14 Apr 2007 03:13 pm

The Shamelessness of Cheney

Now he tells us:

Pressing his attack, the vice president charged that congressional Democrats last month added billions of dollars to an emergency war spending bill "to cover items on their wish list - from fighting crickets to spinach subsidies." He added, "Even though it's still early in the session, when it comes to the appetite for tax dollars, the new Congress has already earned a place in the big-spending hall of fame."

I'm not defending Democratic pork - any more than Republican pork. But, again, what's staggering about these Republicans is their total shamelessness. No administration in recent history has presided over anything like the explosion of domestic discretionary spending and pork-barrel spending than Bush  and the Republicans in the past six years. And yet only three months into a new Democratic Congress, they expect to be taken seriously for attacking the other side for the same thing. Cheney is a smart man, and a deeply intellectually dishonest one. From the same poisonous speech, addressing war critics:

"Critics enjoy pointing out mistakes through the perceptive power of hindsight."

Actually, of course, many pointed out mistakes with the perceptive power of foresight. Powell warned of suspending Geneva; Shinseki warned of insufficient troop numbers; even clueless critics like me could see over three years ago the flaws in the occupation strategy. Only Cheney was dumb enough to run a war as badly as this one; and shameless enough to blame others for it.

14 Apr 2007 02:38 pm

Ostriches on the Right

I know I should leave the Corner alone, but the intellectual cowardice of much of the right with respect to this awful administration is just so glaring, and so much part of the problem, that it requires pointing out, however awkward it makes any sort of social life in DC. A reader piles on about NRO's Full Metal Silence on a week of brutal bombing in Iraq and the latest damning evidence about the politicization of justice under Bush-Cheney:

If a Democratic administration was: asserting executive privilege on all conversations this side of what they said to the cleaning lady (oh wait, I think that's covered too); and finally admitting to a long maintained parallel email and document destruction (oops - I mean retention) system run through the DNC; and confessing to how that system seems to have "misplaced" 5 million emails, including all those by the president's political guru; and if this same Democratic administration had selected unqualified and incompetent, but politically loyal, lawyers to run many of the top jobs at the Justice Dept; and was protecting a democratic AG who lied to Congress and needed weeks to "practice" before testifying again, the Cornerites would be quiet too. Don't ya think?

Not that some of them haven't already tossed Gonzales overboard (because he isn't a "true conservative") in the hopes that his removal will draw attention away from the real underlying problems with the administration, of which Gonzales is but a symptom.

14 Apr 2007 02:24 pm

Generation Dem

The Democrats now have a staggering 30 point lead among those under 30. Rove is getting his realignment.

14 Apr 2007 01:46 pm

Nancy Grace

A vain attempt to reacquaint her with a sense of shame.

14 Apr 2007 12:34 pm

The View From Your Window

Minneapolis, Minnesota, 10.30 am.

14 Apr 2007 12:02 pm

So Many Books

So little time.

14 Apr 2007 10:59 am

Sperm from Bones?

And I thought the dinosaur DNA was cool. Details here.

14 Apr 2007 08:57 am

Quote for the Day

"The admission of need for something called a Bloggers Code of Conduct is about more than just the Web. The deeper import of what may be happening here should be evident in Mr. O'Reilly's remark, which was the final sentence in a long New York Times article on the subject last Sunday: 'Free speech is enhanced by civility.' It is difficult for me to imagine a more revolutionary sentence. One might call it 'subversive.' 'Free speech is enhanced by civility.' The revolution comes at the end of that sentence. Free speech we know about. Civility we have forgotten. Ask Don Imus." - Daniel Henninger, WSJ.

14 Apr 2007 07:54 am

China And Online Porn

They're addicts too. Of course, Islamist countries are the worst.

Friday, April 13, 2007

13 Apr 2007 07:29 pm

Older White Guys Syndrome

A reader writes:

You make a very salient point about the changing culture of America. I work in the software industry. It is pretty common to have a young, more progressive (yet still predominantly white male)  engineering staff, with Imus-aged rich white guys running the company. I've had many discussions with the old guard who are very disturbed by the fact that racially charged words have different effects in different contexts. "How is it that a rapper can say the n-word but a white guys can't?!!"

This always creeps me out. The world is full of double standards. Congratulations, you found another one. Now, why again is it that it pisses you off that you can't say the n-word without being labeled a racist?

13 Apr 2007 06:52 pm

Books As Art

Some really cool photos.

13 Apr 2007 05:50 pm

Enviro-Styrofoam

You'd think, wouldn't you, that it would be much more energy efficient to use a single, reusable, rewashable, ceramic cup - rather than dozens of disposable styrofoam versions. But it's not as easy as that. What about dishwashing? Yes, there's been a study:

The results are extremely sensitive to the amount of energy the dishwasher requires for cleaning each cup. Hocking's choice for the dishwasher, requiring 0.18 MJ/cup-wash, is barely less than the manufacturing energy of the foam cup, 0.19 MJ/cup. If Hocking had chosen even a slightly less energy-efficient dishwasher as his standard, then the reusable cups would never have broken even with the foam cup.

13 Apr 2007 05:27 pm

Face of the Day

13 Apr 2007 05:23 pm

Nancy DisGrace

A reader writes:

On the day the charges against the Duke lacrosse players were dropped, one of the biggest most sensational legal stories of the year, I eagerly awaited Nancy Grace's comments (though not expecting much in the way of introspection or humility). Instead she didn't even show up for her nightly TV show, sending in a guest host instead. The next night Nancy was back, but made not a single mention of the Duke case, much less any sort of mea culpa. What a coward.

This is not, I'd say, a surprise.

13 Apr 2007 05:04 pm

Rudy and Mitt

They're both punting on a simple question: whether they support South Carolina's ultrasound-before-abortion bill. This is not about Roe. It's a simple policy question for various states. Where do they stand?

13 Apr 2007 04:46 pm

Steyn on Andrew Roberts

A review of the book cited here.

13 Apr 2007 04:31 pm

For The Record

National Review's Corner has yet to mention the bombing yesterday of the Iraqi parliament or the destruction of a landmark bridge in Baghdad connecting Sunni and Shiite districts. Off-message, I guess. Like the entire war.

13 Apr 2007 04:18 pm

A Previous Heretic

I'm not the first conservative to be cast out as a "liberal" by the National Review crowd. Clive Davis remembers another from Sam Tanenhaus's bio.

[Whittaker] Chambers was sounding precariously like a liberal. So be it. He had wearied of ideological battles. "I have scarcely an interest in invective tags." His prevailing interest was simply to "grope for reality".

Another gay man, of course. And so doubly suspect.

13 Apr 2007 04:07 pm

Quote for the Day II

"Does Krauthammer really expect people to buy this crap?" - Matt Yglesias.

To which the answer, I'm afraid, is: yes. The one thing that truly bugged me about Charles's column today is that he approvingly cites McCain's speech which contained the following sentence:

For the first time in four years, we have a strategy that deals with how things really are in Iraq and not how we wish them to be.

Has Charles ever written a sentence as honest as that about the people and strategy he has been supporting for the past six years? Maybe I missed something. But if you really are trying to persuade people that the surge really is succeeding - the day after the Parliament and a key bridge are blown up in the heart of Baghdad - then you'd be more credible if you copped to your own errors of judgment in the past - and explained why now is different.

13 Apr 2007 03:31 pm

Kaus vs Kaus

Same post - with subsequently added, bonus spin:

Howie Carr condemned Imus? If memory serves, Howie Carr's radio show was the most offensive radio program I'd ever heard when I listened to it during the 2000 New Hampshire primary--more offensive, in terms of ethnic insensitivity and general sneering inhumanity than anything I've seen attributed to Imus's broadcast.

**--In 2004, I appear to have blogged that when I tuned in again that year, "Carr's show wasn't vile anymore." I defer to my 2004 self on that issue. Still. ...

Look: Mickey is not guilty of anything here but blogging in real time - and of having blogged in real time for years. Some minor inconsistencies over the years are inevitable - in fact proof that you're a human being and not a robot. I just wish he were a little more tolerant of others, ahem, in the same boat.

13 Apr 2007 03:04 pm

Bush's Favorite Historian

Johann Hari has a profile of Andrew Roberts in TNR. Money quote:

Yet, beyond this surface sycophancy, there is something darker and more fetid. Bush, Cheney, and - in a recent, glowing cover story - National Review, have, in fact, embraced a man with links to white supremacism, whose book is not a history but an ahistorical catalogue of apologies and justifications for mass murder that even blames the victims of concentration camps for their own deaths. The decision to laud Roberts provides a bleak insight into the thinking of the Bush White House as his presidential clock nears midnight.

Matt has a cow here. The piece is pretty stunning. Roberts makes Imus look like Oprah. And he's advising Bush!

13 Apr 2007 02:28 pm

South Park and Imus

I couldn't help thinking about both last night. This week's South Park was its usual sharp, subversive self. And the visual games they play with race and gender and sexual orientation, and the language they use, leaves Imus in the dust. And yet South Park is not in the slightest bit offensive to me at all. This week, they had a hilarious parody of 300, including a battle between a phalanx of determined lesbians defending a gay bar called "Les Bos" and a group of Eurotrash Persian club owners threatening to take over the club and fill it with velvet blue carpet, gold curtain rods and white statues. They also threw in some Latino immigrant stereotypes for good measure. How do they pull it off?

Three reasons, I think. The first is that they're a cartoon. No actual person has to take responsibility for saying any of the naughty words and stereotypes involved. When Eric Cartman tells Kyle that he should go back to San Francisco with the rest of the Jews, it's the character voicing the collective bigoted id - not an actual human being. It may be that in a multicultural society, cartoons will become the primary medium for speaking honestly and humorously about our differences. The same goes in a way for Sacha Baron Cohen who has created a character, Borat, to voice these things. It's not him. The distance matters, and enables comedy based on bigotry not actually to be bigotry. The creators can legitimately say they're not actual haters; they're just exploring and making fun of prejudice, and invoke the First Amendment to defend themselves. Without this distancing device, Ricky Gervais, Dave Chapelle and Sarah Silverman would be in deep trouble. But even they sometimes balk, as Chapelle recently did, because it's a morally precarious path to travel at times.

Second, South Park's creators actually get and love the subcultures they lampoon. The amazing thing about this week's South Park is how detailed the observation was. The lesbian bar was a classic - it was clearly created by people with actual and acute knowledge of what lesbian bars are like - and there were many hilarious shades of recognizable dykiness in the cartoon figures. In fact, this week's episode was a landmark in mainstream depiction of lesbianism. It didn't rely on any hoary stereotypes that spring from ignorance and fear; it created stereotypes based on knowledge and fondness.

Lastly, anyone watching the show can tell very very quickly that its creators are not actually bigots. You don't need to know these guys personally to see that. In general, I think the American public is pretty shrewd about this. Mel Gibson got roasted because he is, in fact, a self-aware, vicious anti-Semite. Michael Richards? Confused guy who didn't even realize his own repressed bigotry, until it came pouring out. Don Imus? I think most people think he actually is a bigot - and that's why he got fired. It wasn't just a shtick. Ann Coulter? A strange case. I can't tell if she's a bigot; she's just decided to deploy hate in order to make money. Her "persona," however, is not removed enough from her person to get her a pass. And her support for political forces that would demonize and marginalize gay couples deprives her of the South Park defense, however many closet-cases she befriends. Besides, she beat up on "faggots." As Harvey Fierstein points out, we're still fair game. Imus targeted all blacks and all women. That's a majority of the population. Coulter picked on three percent. She's smarter. And viler.

13 Apr 2007 02:18 pm

Zoloft In Love

The romantic drawbacks of some anti-depressants. Can't say I've felt any myself.

13 Apr 2007 01:26 pm

The View From the Stands

A sports-blog variation on one of this blog's features. Cool.

13 Apr 2007 01:23 pm

An Imus Factoid

I didn't know this from Juan Williams:

My sense of what you have here is was that the market spoke. [Y]ou know it’s interesting, you look at the guy who runs — Ken Chenault, who runs American Express, they pulled their ads, Ken Chenault is black. I think there are a lot of people, in American corporate positions, wouldn’t have been there a generation ago, who now have some say, have voice over people like Imus. And I think Imus just didn’t anticipate that.

The culture has changed since Imus started in radio. White straight men don't control everything any more, and they don't get to set the rules for public discourse with the same finality they once did. What we've seen here is, I think, a genuine reflection of the new American mainstream. Most Americans simply find the spectacle of a rich white bigot beating up on young black female achievers after a crushing tournament loss to be gratuitously cruel and unfair. Punishing someone for calling college women "whores" - especially those who have beaten the odds and are role models for other back girls and women - is not a new step in political correctness. It's applying a very old American standard of fairness and decency, which now applies to all Americans, regardless of race or gender. This was the voice of mainstream America speaking. It's not what it once was. I wonder whether many of Imus's buddies realize that yet.

13 Apr 2007 12:29 pm

The View From Your Window

Grand Junction, Colorado, 10.56 am.

13 Apr 2007 12:08 pm

The Federalism Dodge, Ctd.

Marc Ambinder defends himself from the charge of being anti-federalist.

13 Apr 2007 11:56 am

You're Wilfing

It's peak hours at the dish, which means you're looking to be distracted from work. The Brits have a name for this. They have a gift for this kind of thing.

13 Apr 2007 11:50 am

The Strange Lack Of Voter Fraud

What will government busy-bodies do now?

13 Apr 2007 11:31 am

Quote for the Day

"This is only the beginning. Sure, Imus is a liberal. You can measure the depth of his vapidity through his endorsement of John Kerry for president ... Some of you have asked how in the world I can say that this is the beginning of an all-out push to damage or destroy conservative talk radio when it was a liberal who bit the dust. Simple. Imus was sacrificed. A 'proof of concept' exercise, if you will. Now the left knows that race hustler Al Sharpton can move large corporate mountains with his racially charged dialogue ... so it's time to use him to go after the real nemesis - talk radio...

Rutgers Coach Vivian Stringer says it's time to 'go forward and let the healing process begin.' Healing process? What healing process? I'm not buying any of this nonsense that the Rutgers woman's basketball team was egregiously hurt by Imus' comments. Tennessee wins the championship and Rutgers gets all the publicity. It wasn't the Tennessee girl that were allowed to sit before the national TV cameras a few days ago. And how many of you can name the Tennessee coach? Let's face it ... the only people really, genuinely hurt in this episode are those connected with the Imus show who are now going to lose their jobs," - Neal Boortz, libertarian talk show host, whose own record of remarks can be found here.

13 Apr 2007 11:08 am

Rudy's Will To Power

Michael Tomasky has a hit-piece in the American Prospect. Except it might actually endear Giuliani to the base. Money quote:

When Giuliani was mayor, did he really believe in abortion rights and gay rights and strict gun-control laws and very liberal immigration policy? "That's a very, very tough question," says David Garth, the legendary New York political consultant who handled Giuliani's 1993 and '97 mayoral races. "My feeling was, the positions he took, he felt them. Whether he really felt them, if you know what I mean … I don't know."

Mitchell Moss, the New York University professor and longtime municipal politics savant (and occasional adviser to Mayor Mike Bloomberg), paused when I asked him the question and delivered almost the exact same answer: "That's a very interesting question." Moss sensed that of the four issues mentioned above, immigration was the one Giuliani believed in more than the others. Indeed, his position was one that many Democrats, let alone Republicans, would have trouble with: He prevented city employees from contacting the federal government when they turned up immigrants with no legal documentation, and he fought for his position in federal court.

That's two veteran Rudy-watchers, neither of whom can say for sure that he meant it. I'm a third, and I can say it more bluntly: He did what he needed to do to attain and maintain power.

(Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty.)

13 Apr 2007 10:47 am

Isn't It Rich?

You can imagine the fury and scorn directed by Frank Rich at anyone associated with rampant anti-gay, anti-woman and racist commentary on the right. But his good old liberal friend, Don Imus? We have the following profile in courage:

"I'll have to wait and see how it plays out," he said. What would affect that decision? "How (Imus) comports himself and how the show shakes (out) when he gets back." ... "I'm not convinced he is a misogynist, racist guy," the columnist said...

Ultimately, Rich said he wanted reserve judgment until he had to make a decision about returning to the show: "I will decide when the question is asked." He stressed he was uneasy about dealing in a "hypothetical" situation.

Sounds like Newt Gingrich, right? Or one of the White House spokesmen Rich makes a living deriding for not being candid. Here's the kicker:

"If this is the pattern of the show, no one will want to appear" on it again.

If? These moments are so revealing, aren't they?

13 Apr 2007 10:45 am

The Military's Media Problem

Some constructive advice:

Troops on the ground who see inaccurate reports about their operations should contact the media outlets in question and demand corrections—or take other steps to publicize the facts as they know them. In short: stop griping about the press in private and start doing something about it in public.

13 Apr 2007 10:43 am

A Poet Against Poetry Month

About time.

13 Apr 2007 09:43 am

The Cheney Era

A glimpse:

A Pulitzer Prize-winning war photographer is seized by U.S. Forces and locked up for one year. The U.S. refuses to bring any charges. When American military spokesmen suggest their "suspicions" in interviews with the media, virtually all of them are exposed as false within a matter of weeks. No matter. He is still held.

And we know  Cheney's official response to those of us who dissent. We can go fuck ourselves.

13 Apr 2007 09:38 am

How Wrong Is David Brooks?

He's in a tough spot, and I think he's as good a columnist as there is out there. I'm more convinced than he is that Iraq is beyond salvage - or rather beyond the West's salvage. Others are not so happy with his McCain column. In order of magnitude: Wrong. Still Wrong. And a money quote:

Does Brooks really believe that a candidate currently evaluating the war in Iraq without sufficiently considering the needs or desires of the Iraqi people is either mature or substantive on the Middle East? Moreover, can Brooks really believe that an individual capable of such serious myopia wouldn't absolutely wreck the region? An inattention to Iraqi opinions and decisions, at this point in the war, should be disqualifying for participants in the debate.

13 Apr 2007 08:32 am

How To Talk To Nancy Grace

A professional guide.

13 Apr 2007 08:30 am

Drunk Spanish Doctors

They drive! And they know better. But like many doctors, they think they know best.

13 Apr 2007 07:41 am

Post-Communist Russia

A reader writes:

Your post reminded me of a joke which was ubiquitous in Russia when I started working with refuseniks in the early 1980's.  It would usually be whispered after furtive glances to the left and right:

"So, comrades, we know that capitalism is the stage that follows mercantilism, that socialism is the stage that follows capitalism, and that communism is the stage that follows socialism.  But what is the stage that follows communism?"  "Answer: alcoholism."

13 Apr 2007 06:26 am

The Climate Change Solution

It's the truly conservative response to an emerging problem. It's simple, involves as little government bureaucracy as possible, and will unleash the private sector to do its magic. Neither Democrats nor Republicans really want to go there, which is a sign of how broken the system is. But Steve Chapman is absolutely right: we need a simple, effective carbon tax. Now.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

12 Apr 2007 09:50 pm

Bras As Shopping Bags

A reader writes:

It may not be fully clear from the post at Gizmodo, but that item was produced as part of an ongoing PR campaign to draw consumer attention to environmental problems. (The tag attached to her bottoms says "[say] no to bags at the cash register.")

Over the past few years there has been a national effort in Japan to reduce the number of shopping bags distributed at retailers to cut down on pollution. The point they're trying to make is that people needn't mindlessly rely on store-provided bags when shopping. You can do your part by employing reusable carrying devices, such as those made from cloth.

Because Triumph is primarily a bra manufacturer, they're making the point using their particular expertise. Since 1997, they have produced four such attention-grabbing items (more important for creating buzz than generating actual sales of the bras) — all have been meant to focus consumers on the environment. Culturally speaking, wrapping is a very important part of Japanese gifting culture which has carried over into packaging and bagging at retail. This is a part of a conscious effort to encourage more earth friendly consumption.

12 Apr 2007 09:48 pm

The Imus Ranch

It does amazing things for some very sick and needy children. It does not excuse Imus' bigotry, but it's worth noting nonetheless. It's more than I've ever done for sick kids. And probably more than you have either.

12 Apr 2007 09:28 pm

Those Missing Emails

Not unlike that missing Padilla DVD. Take it away, Glenn Greenwald.

12 Apr 2007 08:52 pm

In Defense of Teenagers

Well said. And someone's got to come to their defense.