Wednesday, August 22, 2007

22 Aug 2007 12:04 pm

Mental Health Break

A Finnish version of YMCA.

22 Aug 2007 12:03 pm

The Barbarism In Iraq

A story that still manages to appall.

22 Aug 2007 11:38 am

Belgians For Ron Paul!

Feel the global love.

22 Aug 2007 11:33 am

Weimar Watch II

"Our troops are seeing this progress on the ground. And as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they are gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq?" - president George W. Bush, depicting those who do not believe the surge has worked or can work as hostile to the troops. Meanwhile, the ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, assessed the state of the polity in Baghdad - whose transformation was the entire point of the surge - as "extremely disappointing."

22 Aug 2007 11:05 am

Weimar Watch I

The stab-in-the-back right is, alas, only entrenching itself as the need to deny reality in Iraq grows. Glenn Reynolds links approvingly to this strange Victor Davis Hanson splutter at NRO. Let's fisk it, shall we?

After reviewing the latest critique of the CIA's failures to foresee the pre-9/11 dangers of radical Islam ...

This, it appears, is something that Hanson believes we should not have done. No scrutiny for an intelligence agency that failed to prevent the worst terror attack in American history? No accountability? Or such accountability should be kept under wraps? I'm baffled. Read the story this morning on the report. And remember: Hanson apparently wishes you didn't know any of this. Off-message, you see. Tenet, it appears, should be given a Medal of Freedom for failing on 9/11, and instituting torture. But internal criticism? Nah.

and while reading the final sordid details surrounding the Pvt. Beauchamp fables published at The New Republic ...

Again, it is fascinating that this tiny incident, in which a soldier's account of his time in the Iraq war has been disputed by his superiors, and in which we have not yet heard the final word, is of such immense importance to the pro-Bush right. It cannot be about the reported soldier offenses, which have been documented elsewhere (like cruelty to dogs or gallows humor with body parts) or are utterly within the bounds of military life (like misogynist humor directed at an injured woman). Surely Hanson is not shocked - shocked! - to hear that soldiers in a war-zone are not exactly renowned for drawing room manners or political correctness. So Hanson is really complaining here about some kind of anti-military or anti-war bias that may have led TNR's editors (I wrote may) to place too much trust in an anti-war soldier. Now recall that TNR has a long history of proud liberal interventionism and supported the current war. Even they are slimed. And the Bush right wonders why they have lost the argument.

and viewing the latest phony wire-photos from Iraq (the poor victimized Iraqi woman holding unfired cartridges as 'proof' of coalition bullets that hit her home), I was wondering who will monitor our self-righteous monitors?

I saw those pictures; I cannot verify their entire context. If they were staged, and packaged deceptively, Hanson is right to expose and complain (although if I were VDH, I wouldn't mock an Iraqi civilian in the mayhem his own arguments helped create). But again, some of this is inevitable in wartime. Propaganda has a way of infiltrating news. Hanson is right to expose this when he sees it; but the media surely isn't the only one with blemishes. The military gave us the first tales of Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman. I'm not sure why their lies are not as reprehensible as a few in the media.

Continue reading "Weimar Watch I" »

22 Aug 2007 09:48 am

Yglesias Award Nominee

"The recipe for Republicans is to stop acting like, well, Republicans--that is, Republicans of recent vintage. In Congress, they've been soft on earmarks, the source of so much corruption. They practically invited Democrats to trump them on ethics and lobbying reform. And they've allowed their obsession with illegal immigrants to get out of hand. This drives away Hispanic voters and leaves the impression that Republicans are small-minded, ungenerous and nasty. The worst offenders are the presidential candidates, who would be wise to tone down their rhetoric on immigration," - Fred Barnes, WSJ.

Is this the 2007 Yglesias Award winner? Don't Forget To Vote Here!

22 Aug 2007 08:32 am

The Jet As Art

A coffee table book and a website with some very beautiful pics by Jeffrey Milstein. There's an interview with Milstein here.

22 Aug 2007 08:22 am

Ramadan

Not so great for health; but great for research.

22 Aug 2007 07:18 am

Dissent of the Day

A reader writes:

The US being on top in Cancer survival rates is a good thing.  My wife is a US based breast cancer survivor and believe me I sincerely appreciate the good work done here.  However, three things jumped right out at me when I looked at the list:

1) Cancer research and treatment are the "sexiest" things in American medicine.  They get big grants from both charity and government, and oncologists and cancer surgeons are among the highest paid specialists in the country.  However, a medical system shouldn't be judged by the quality of only one of the things it does, just as you shouldn't judge a bridge by the strength of only one of its trusses.

2) We have more than forty million people uninsured here.  I think it is reasonable to assume at least some number of cancers in that population remain undiagnosed at death.  This would have at least a small downward impact on our numbers.  Which brings us to:

3) There are five countries that are very, very close to our numbers. If you take into account number 2 above, they may actually beat us.  Yet, they have roughly half the per capita spending we do on health care, and manage to insure 100% of their population versus our 85%.

Another writes:

The statistics you linked are interesting, but do not tell the entire story.  Cancer survival rates are not always a very good measure of the the quality of health care that a person recieves, and here's why.

Continue reading "Dissent of the Day" »

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

21 Aug 2007 08:34 pm

In Defense of the Monument

A reader writes:

I have to differ with your take on Provincetown's own campanile. Yes, it's wildly out of proportion with the place, and it's also wildly "un-Cape"; but so again is Provincetown. Allow me to briefly enumerate the reasons why I like the tower:

1) The tower allows me to pinpoint Provincetown from Duxbury Beach, thirty miles across the mouth of Cape Cod Bay; the town would be invisible (or mostly so) without the tower, and seeing it is something I enjoy.

2) It symbolizes, for me, the heavily Ibero-Latin influence of Portuguese-American fishermen in town;

3) The campanile, like I said above, is a manifestation of Provincetown's out-there-ness. It is not the rest of the Cape, certainly not the suburbanized Upper Cape, nor the wild moorland ruralness of Truro and Wellfleet; it is it's own, neat fishing village/gay mecca. It is appropriate for the architecture to be as glam and inappropriate as the street life.

4) It echoes the architecture of Boston's Pine Street Inn homeless structure, providing a spiritual link with the capital of the Bay State. This architectural echo reminds me of Thoreau's encounter with an old man in Truro in the 1840s, who recalled for him the sound of the cannons at the Battle of Bunker Hill, booming across Massachusetts and Cape Cod Bays -- a linkage with the Bay Province's metropole and a larger American and Atlantic World.

5) Towers in seaports are cool and grand, reminiscent of Tyre and Rhodes.

Oh, and the tone of contempt against the tower is a bit unseemly in its fierceness. Remember, you're a guest there in Provincetown; you wouldn't go around rearranging furniture in a guest's house, would you? This is the colonial/summer person attitude which so often breeds resentment of Englishmen and New Yorkers.

Ouch. In my defense, I do love the now-library, whose just-restored belfry you can see above. And it's because I love Provincetown's indigenous sky-line (before the monument) that I find it such an excrescence. But I was having a little fun with the post as well.

21 Aug 2007 06:41 pm

Bullet-Proofing Baby

Not a joke, apparently.

21 Aug 2007 06:20 pm

The View From Your Window

Mykonos, Greece, 5.52 pm.

21 Aug 2007 05:45 pm

Vitter Survives

He seems to be enjoying continued support in Louisiana.

21 Aug 2007 05:34 pm

Numb In The Heartland

9 of the 10 highest-per-capita areas for Vicodin are in rural Tennessee, West Virginia, or Kentucky.

21 Aug 2007 05:10 pm

A Unicorn Museum!

A response to the Creationism Museum. Help them come up with a billboard to go next to the fundamentalist shrine.

21 Aug 2007 04:55 pm

Face of the Day

Miles Hilton-Barber, the blind adventurer, adjusts his flying helmet prior to his attempt to break the world air speed record for a blind pilot, flying a Hawker Hunter jet fighter at Kemble airfield near Cirencester, on August 21 2007, United Kingdom. Miles Hilton-Barber, whose most recent feat was a microlight flight from London to Sydney, raises money for the Seeing Is Believing charity. By Matt Cardy/Getty Images.

21 Aug 2007 04:54 pm

Priorities, Priorities

"Given that Gideon Rose deploys 'anti-war bloggers are like neocons' as an insult, I suppose he doesn't admire the neoconservative worldview. And yet he can't seem to muster the energy to actually oppose it, even at the very time it's being espoused more loudly than ever by a leading presidential candidate, and the Bush administration itself is once again taking steps to lay a legal predicate for war with Iran. Something is wrong here," - Matt Yglesias.

21 Aug 2007 04:37 pm

Chill A Little

A skeptic gives the new atheists a word of advice.

21 Aug 2007 04:34 pm

Romney vs Giuliani

He's playing the anti-illegal card.

21 Aug 2007 04:14 pm

Hitch On Lilla

He's more bullish on the ability of the human mind and soul to forgo the political temptations of religion. But that's a mood for Hitch; he's written elsewhere of its astounding and resilient power. I found Mark's book an enormous relief - a relief that I'm not as isolated as I feared in respecting both faith and secularism, and not so perverse in believing that the Western experiment in secular politics is a terribly fragile one. It takes a willful ignorance of history to believe otherwise - or mere political opportunism. But there's plenty of both to go around.

21 Aug 2007 03:48 pm

The Blight Of Provincetown

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the biggest eye-sore on Cape Cod: the hideous, ungainly, Italianate monstrosity that has blighted the sky-line of Provincetown for almost a century. Andy Towle has a lovely photo of a sun pillar synching with it a few years ago. Well, the sun is lovely. Here's the Cape Cod Times piece and the Boston Herald piece. Why do I hate it so? The architecture so glaringly out of tune with the Cape and utterly alien to the Pilgrims it's supposed to commemmorate; the silliness of trying to claim the Pilgrims, when they had the good sense to move on to Plymouth pronto; the waste of money (it was a government project, of course); and the whole civic uplift that accompanied its Teddy Roosevelt beginnings. Yes, I loathe "national greatness conservatism." A great country needn't build some stupid Siena knock-off to remind itself of its origins. The one saving grace is that if you look at it with its side straight on, the top of the tower looks like Donald Duck. My only regret is that they didn't take the 100th anniversary to blow the thing up. Alas, it's here to stay.

21 Aug 2007 03:27 pm

Ron Paul in the 1980s

Here he is exposing the insanity of the drug war on the Morton Downey show (jeez - remember that?) - with a nice dig at the questioner at the end. (Hat tip: David Harsanyi.)

21 Aug 2007 03:21 pm

Best. Movie. Line. Ever.

"Hey, Stella!" "A Streetcar Named Desire."

21 Aug 2007 02:52 pm

Cancer Survival Rates

The US is top of the world charts. Just one thing that isn't wrong with American healthcare.

21 Aug 2007 01:58 pm

Unmasking Depression

It is an illness beset by stigma, which compounds the illness. I was happy to link to an essay yesterday on the subject. A reader who deals with the illness also recommends this Stephen Fry BBC special on the subject, "The Secret Life Of The Manic Depressive." Here's Part One. The rest is on YouTube.

21 Aug 2007 01:19 pm

The Christianity of War

This gives you a sense of the vibe among some on the religious right today. It's from GodTube.com. The official caption reads:

This video depicts the attitude that the body of Christ needs to embrace for these days that we are living. To be offensive in the advance of the Kingdom of God.

21 Aug 2007 01:18 pm

In Defense Of Giuliani

Jim Geraghty has the mayor's back on his Ground Zero visits and Yankees game attendance.

21 Aug 2007 12:52 pm

What Marriage Is

A heart-breaking but also encouraging story from Buffalo, New York, about a cop and her partner.

21 Aug 2007 12:48 pm

Bush and Charles I

Well, he won't have his head chopped off, but the parallels are interesting. A reader writes:

Of course, historical analogies can be very treacherous and they never hold at every point. That said, like you and Horton I have been struck by the many resemblances between George W. Bush and Charles I. Neither man was stupid in the ordinary sense of the word, but neither had the intellectual capacity required by the position in which fate placed him. Both were genuinely devoted to, and determined to protect, their respective countries and both inflicted frightful harm on the principles that made their countries worthy of that devotion. Both were menaced by actual danger from malevolent enemies. Both had wise advisers whom they ignored or marginalized. Both clung doggedly to policies that everyone else could see had failed. And neither was capable of even the mildest self-criticism. "It would be unjust to deny," says Macaulay,

"that Charles had some of the qualities of a good and even of a great prince ... Faithlessness was the cause of his disasters, and is the chief stain on his memory. He was, in truth, impelled by an incurable propensity to dark and crooked ways. It may seem strange that his conscience, which, on occasions of little moment, was sufficiently sensitive, should never have reproached him with this great vice. But there is reason to believe that he was perfidious, not only from constitution and from habit, but also on principle. He seems to have learned from the theologians he most esteemed ... that he could not, even if he would, divest himself of his despotic authority; and that, in every promise which he made, there was an implied reservation that such promise might be broken in case of necessity, and that of the necessity he was the sole judge."

Add "lawyers" to "theologians" and much of what we have seen over the past six years is right there - signing statements, illegal surveillance, dismissal of the insufficiently servile, the rule of law displaced by his naked will, and all of this accompanied by the willingness to tar those opposed to his designs as traitors. And unlike England in the 1640's, we have no Hampdens and Pyms in our parliament.

21 Aug 2007 12:41 pm

Losing the West Bank To Hamas?

The threat is apparently growing.

21 Aug 2007 12:34 pm

Michelle Obama In Context

My first post stands. This does not seem to me to be an attack - even a veiled one - on Senator Clinton:

That one of the most important things that we need to know about the next President of the United States is, is he somebody that shares our values? Is he somebody that respects family? Is a good and decent person? So our view was that, if you can't run your own house, you certainly can't run the White House. So, so we''ve adjusted our schedules to make sure that our girls are first, so while he's traveling around, I do day trips. That means I get up in the morning, I get the girls ready, I get them off, I go and do trips, I'm home before bedtime. So the girls know that I was gone somewhere, but they don't care. They just know that I was at home to tuck them in at night, and it keeps them grounded, and, and children, the children in our country have to know that they come first. And our girls do and that's why we're doing this. We're in this race for not just our children, but all of our children.

21 Aug 2007 12:26 pm

Responding To Vick

I haven't written on this hideous story about dog-fighting and the NFL because it seems obvious to me what is wrong about it. In a word: cruelty. It's a vice we don't talk of much, but it is essentially the aspect of the human psyche that sees a vulnerable person, animal or thing, and exploits that vulnerability with further violence or power. It's evil. It's why I despise torture in every form. It is not just the absence of love or respect; it's the active presence of its opposite. And animals, creatures over which we have near total control or dominion, are more vulnerable to such cruelty than many humans. Vick is an inhumane bully, an exemplum of cruelty and arrogance. That's all I have to say, although Dusty and Eddy may enjoy this.

21 Aug 2007 12:12 pm

Bush's Exit Plan?

Cut but don't run too fast. Bribe the Sunni Arab governments to keep Iraq from falling apart. Install a Sunni in Baghdad. Allawi? Get an Israel-Palestinian deal of sorts. Pray. That's Douglas Davis' take in the Spectator of London. Sounds pretty desperate to me, and I have no knowledge if it's for real. It may well be the case that we need to firm up the Sunnis to avoid a total collapse or genocide. But trying to prop up a Sunni regime in a Shia majority country we liberated seems to me a fool's errand. Whatever else we fought for, it wasn't to keep the Saudis happy.

There are also rumors, however, of something quite surprising that might happen in September. Petraeus may disappoint Hewitt and the Weimar brigade and call for a serious but gradual drawdown of troops along the lines of Warner and Lugar. The reason is an obvious one: the total impasse on the political front and military deployment limits. The Maliki government is more dysfunctional than ever; and its sectarian agenda harder to conceal. It would take some sort of miracle to extend surge-level forces beyond next March. Such a drawdown, of course, is perilous and could well lead to even more violence and mayhem in Iraq, which may, in turn, mean the need to accelerate withdrawal. Will we have another Vietnam-style rush to the helicopters? It would mean a lot of helicopters and a serious rush.

21 Aug 2007 11:39 am

Thompson and the FEC

Fred's cruising for a bruising. And you have to hand it to Lane Hudson for making his life difficult. He has a track record: Hudson started the chain of events that brought down Mark Foley.

21 Aug 2007 11:20 am

Rudy's WTC Love Shack

Megan investigates.

21 Aug 2007 11:10 am

"Tired Of Being Afraid"

I'm sorry but I just don't get the idea that this was an attack on Senator Clinton:

At another stop, in Atlantic, Michelle said she travels with her husband in part "to model what it means to have family values," adding "if you can't run your own house, you can't run the White House." She didn't elaborate, but it could be interpreted as a swipe at the Clintons.

Please. Doesn't this obviously mean that a strong family helps a president in the White House? I guess it could be seen as an anti-Clinton swipe in a pinch, but it's pretty subtle if it is. But whatever it may mean, don't jump into the gotcha politics with this. Notice what she's really saying. Notice what matters. Michelle Obama is giving the core message of her husband's candidacy: the case against fear. You know: Arianna is right about this. The one overwhelming fact about Hillary Clinton is that she reeks of fear. Obama doesn't. We need more fearlessness. Not recklessness; fearlessness. Michelle Obama is strong medicine. But we need some strong medicine.

21 Aug 2007 10:54 am

Chocolate Rain Update

The original YouTube legend is here. But I missed the best parody, as several readers have noted: Chad Vader rocks.

21 Aug 2007 10:18 am

Has Bush Made Obama Impossible?

A reader writes:

I'm a Clinton supporter - most of the objections I had to her have faded, for some of the reasons offered by other readers you have quoted, such as her obvious competence and willingness to work hard.  These days, certainly, I don't need warm and fuzzy in a President.  But for those, like yourself, who can no longer abide the current crop of Republicans but who are desperately looking for an alternative to Hillary, on paper Obama may well be the most desirable option - he provides a fresh and calm global perspective, one much more likely to earn vital cooperation from abroad; a new and thoughtful articulation of what has gone wrong with our politics and how to right it; credibility on the problems of our inner cities; and a much greater sensitivity to the economic, health, and educational issues that ordinary Americans confront every day.

But he's not going anywhere, and here's why:  His inexperience is not only a hurdle in itself, but carries with it the added burden that after the disaster of the Bush years, voters just aren't going to take another chance on another inexperienced candidate.  That's the real reason his poll numbers haven't moved.  Obama is ahead of his time, and in four or eight years his moment may come.  But for now, however unfortunately and unfairly, Bush has made Obama impossible.

And yet it could also be argued that Bush has made Obama essential. But that's an argument for another day. I'm working on it.

21 Aug 2007 09:16 am

Marriage Rights In Australia

Some movement - coming from the top:

The High Court judge Michael Kirby highlighted the inequity recently when he pointed out his partner of 38 years, Johan van Vloten, would have no access to Justice Kirby's pension if the judge died before him.

Under current law, if a retired judge in a heterosexual relationship dies before his or her partner, the partner is entitled to 62.5 per cent of the judge's pension. But Mr van Vloten would not receive anything because he is not female.

One minister supporting the change expressed amazement there was opposition to the idea.

"There shouldn't even need to be a debate," the minister said.

21 Aug 2007 09:13 am

The Election In Three Acts

Mark Blumenthal has some cautionary words about reading too much into the early polling. As the graph above shows, although may more are following the campaign than at this point in previous cycles, the real game has yet to start. We're entering Act II now. Much of the critical action - and events - are yet to come.

21 Aug 2007 08:54 am

Design and Churches

Some hopes for a revival of ecclesiastical architecture can be found in a teensy building in Uruguay.

21 Aug 2007 07:51 am

Brits and Muslims

The distrust is real:

Just 59 percent believe it is possible to be a Muslim and a citizen of their country, a smaller proportion than in France, Germany, Spain, Italy or the US - the other countries surveyed.

21 Aug 2007 06:42 am

Super Adventure Club News

More class acts in Israel.

Monday, August 20, 2007

20 Aug 2007 09:27 pm

More Coup Rumors

First Allawi's weird op-ed. Now this. It's probably a trial balloon - and a sign of growing panic in the White House. More tomorrow.

20 Aug 2007 09:15 pm

A Star Is Born

How did the Dish miss this one? There's an instant parody, of course, as well.

20 Aug 2007 08:58 pm

Rudy and Ground Zero

He spent a fraction of the time there that the rescue workers did; and spent more time at Yankees games in that period than at the remains of the WTC. The more you find out the more understandable it is that the 9/11 rescue workers despise him.

20 Aug 2007 08:04 pm

Mark Penn's Micro-Trends

Marc Ambinder reads Hillary's guru closely so you don't have to. And it's more interesting than you - all right, than I - might think.

20 Aug 2007 06:41 pm

The Case For Drugs In Sports

I have to say I'm highly sympathetic. Let athletes take whatever drugs they want, within a clear boundary of non-destructive pharmaceuticals. As long as they aren't damaging their health, why not let them all compete on the same level? Why should random genes have more clout than carefully managed science? Peter Singer goes there. He has a point. The current system can't work; and benefits the genetically lucky and the sneaky and duplicitous. Let's see what science and the human body can give us in sport, with everything on the table. And if non-drugged athletes want their own natural leagues and contests, that's fine too.

20 Aug 2007 05:35 pm

The Existential Email Dilemma

You know it exists. I know it exists. And there are several hundred in my in-tray. What to do? There's nothing to be done:

Correct emailing practice does not exist. The true mood of the form is spontaneity, alacrity—the right time to reply to a message is right away. But do that and your life is gone. So you reject the spontaneous spirit of email; you hold off replying for hours, days, even weeks. By then the initiatory email has gone stale, and your reply is bound to be labored. You compensate for the offense with a needlessly elaborate message. You ask polite questions to which you pray there will never come an answer. Oh, but there will.

The full anti-email screed is here.

20 Aug 2007 04:59 pm

Quote for the Day

"Sean [Hanity] is not a journalist - Sean is a conservative commentator," - Bill Shine, Fox's senior vice president of programming, on Hannity's fundraiser for Rudy Giuliani.