Friday, August 8, 2008

08 Aug 2008 07:17 am

Coffee As A Health Food

Relax - no real side-effects in moderation and considerable benefits:

Recent disease-related findings can only add to coffee’s popularity. A review of 13 studies found that people who drank caffeinated coffee, but not decaf, had a 30 percent lower risk of Parkinson’s disease.

Another review found that compared with noncoffee drinkers, people who drank four to six cups of coffee a day, with or without caffeine, had a 28 percent lower risk of Type 2 diabetes.   This   benefit probably comes from coffee’s antioxidants and chlorogenic acid.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

07 Aug 2008 09:45 pm

Face Of The Day

A Chinese boy looks at his parents from the entrance of the Forbidden City one day before the opening of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 7, 2008 in Beijing, China. Ten thousand athletes have arrived in China for the Olympics along with hundreds of thousands of fans. By Paula Bronstein/Getty.

07 Aug 2008 09:07 pm

Outta There

The implosion of the Bush-McCain position in Iraq - that any firm commitment to a deadline for withdrawal is the equivalent of "surrender" - is being put under an even stronger spotlight:

The proposed agreement calls for Americans to hand over parts of Baghdad's Green Zone - where the U.S. Embassy is located - to the Iraqis by the end of 2008. It would also remove U.S. forces from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, according to the two senior officials, both close to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and familiar with the negotiations.

Continue reading "Outta There" »

07 Aug 2008 08:33 pm

Browsers, Gender, Gays

A reader writes:

You know that little gimmick you mentioned that peruses your browsing history to figure out your male/female ratio?

An interesting irony of it is that the highest ratios you can get are from gay websites (adam4adam is 4.13 as a commenter points out) which ironically means that, in that world, a lot of gay men get a 100% while most heterosexual male get at least something like a 10% female side.

Political blogs are also skewed pointedly male:

Continue reading "Browsers, Gender, Gays" »

07 Aug 2008 07:34 pm

Was Suskind's Forgery From Feith?

That's Philip Geraldi's take. Tim F. worries that possible errors in Suskind's reporting will undermine the deeper truth of what he's pointing out. The good news is that the question can now be examined some more and the facts slowly flushed out.

07 Aug 2008 07:33 pm

Pardoning War Crimes?

Pruning Shears joins the debate.

07 Aug 2008 06:31 pm

Taking Back The Campaign Nominee

Josh Marshall might as well have entered our video-ad competition. I'm nominating it anyway - an ad on McCain's occasional rambling. It does to McCain on the issue of age what McCain did to Obama on the question of celebrity and alleged elitism:

07 Aug 2008 06:30 pm

"That Little Nipple"

Berlusconi pulls an Ashcroft. Italians are unimpressed.

07 Aug 2008 05:40 pm

Obama and The Heckler

Interesting footage from Ohio. A disturbed man insists on reciting the Pledge Of Allegiance in the middle of a speech on energy. What's striking to me is the level of paranoia and what can only be called patriotism-as-neurosis from the dude. Actually, neurotic patriotism is not a bad description for some elements on the degenerate right. But Obama handles it almost perfectly. Check it out:

Photographer insists on Pledge of Allegiance before Obama rally

07 Aug 2008 05:13 pm

PETA's Problem

There they go again:

As though it were a gruesome scene in a horror movie, a Canadian Greyhound passenger found himself in the hands of a highly disturbed man this past weekend while en route from Edmonton to Winnipeg. Passengers riding the bus reported that Vince Weiguang Li jumped on top of 22-year-old Tim McLean and began stabbing him repeatedly before cutting off his head and allegedly consuming some of his flesh. Parts of McLean's ear, nose, and mouth were found in Li's pocket. This tragic incident will certainly leave scars on the minds of the other passengers and the victim's family and friends.

While it isn't every day that a human is violently attacked and eaten by another human, it's worth noting that it is the norm for many people not to give any thought to the fact that restaurants are serving flesh that comes from innocents who were minding their own business before someone came after them with a knife. How amazingly and conveniently compartmentalized the human mind is…

Sometimes I wonder if they actually want to turn the public off.

07 Aug 2008 04:57 pm

Deconstructing Rove's Latest

A reader writes:

I see three layers:

1) Top layer: main thrust is spin to reinforce the ongoing Obama = celebrity talking point. Of this layer you asked "Is this pure spin from Karl Rove? I mean: could any sane observer see this as true:". Audience = general.   

2) Middle layer: Agree w/ your update, this is Rove's way of signaling to the Christianists that McCain is one of them. I was too pre-coffee to notice, although it did tug on the corner of my befogged mind. Nice catch. But how about this one: 

3) Bottom layer: It's also Rove's private pointed message to McCain (and the McCain camp) that he needs to "share (or allow others to share) more about him[self], especially his faith" - in other words, fake something heartfelt and solemn on that score, package it up and peddle it to the Christianist base.

07 Aug 2008 04:45 pm

Taking Back The Campaign Nominee

A hybrid: a negative attack on McCain's negative attacks:

07 Aug 2008 04:27 pm

The Right vs Obama

First he was wrong and ridiculous about tire guages. Now he's a nag. He can't really win with some people.

07 Aug 2008 04:22 pm

Life-Hacking For The Candidates

How do they ever get time to actually think? And regain control of their narratives and their lives? John Dickerson has a smart piece on the subject. I hope Obama gets a real vacation this August. And that he isn't pilloried as an "elitist" for taking a real one.

07 Aug 2008 03:59 pm

The View From Your Window

New York, New York, 4.09 pm.

07 Aug 2008 03:29 pm

The Age Issue, Ctd

Many of you think it's a legitimate concern, especially my older readers:

This SHOULD be a bigger issue. A commercial pilot cannot fly past 60. Active Duty soldiers in the US military must retire by 62. Even Catholic priests must retire my 70 is some places or 75 at the absolute oldest. If a priest is unable to perform duties past 75, how can we expect a President?

Another:

Until recently I would have dismissed this post as ageist nonsense. Three days ago, however, I attended an AARP sponsored Driver Safety Program.

Continue reading "The Age Issue, Ctd" »

07 Aug 2008 03:21 pm

The McCain-Clinton Axis

The latest sign of what Hillary delivered to John against the Democratic nominee. Here's the DNC response.

07 Aug 2008 03:09 pm

Imperium Watch

I'm occasionally lambasted for noting the imperial overtones of the Mesopotamian occupation. And then we discover that the Pentagon itself commissioned a study in 2002 examining the experience of former empires for American primacy in the 21st Century. The net of analogies is cast far and wide:

The Mongols' military advantage was rooted in their "tactical and operational superiority"; the Macedonians' in the "exceptional leadership" of and "cult of personality" surrounding Alexander the Great; Napoleon's in "innovative operational concepts" and "information superiority"; and the Romans' in "robust tactical doctrine" and "strong domestic institutions" which were "designed to incorporate conquered peoples as the empire grew." In an extraordinary passage, the study cites the Roman experience—from over a millennium ago—as a precedent for America's long-term dominance: "The Roman model suggests that it is possible for the United States to maintain its military advantage for centuries if it remains capable of transforming its forces before an opponent can develop counter-capabilities. Transformation coupled with strong strategic institutions is a powerful combination for an adversary to overcome."

Can you imagine what the Founding Fathers would have thought of this kind of imperial thinking? I think they'd expect it to correlate with mounting fiscal imbalance and constitutional monarchism at home. And they'd be right, wouldn't they?

07 Aug 2008 02:48 pm

The Dumbest Flickrites

Drum roll:

Did I spend several hours perusing photos tagged “stupid” on Flickr? I did. And I did it for you, my friends.

The full list here of dumb-ass ideas captured in Flickr photos is here. My fave:

A guy playing the guitar while driving his van at 65 mph and a dude on very thin ice are below the fold:

Continue reading "The Dumbest Flickrites" »

07 Aug 2008 02:16 pm

Gergen and Obama

Is it me or has David actually gotten a little angry at the McCain campaign? He's not usually this blunt:

"Here is a man who grew up in a broken home whose father left at a young age and who was raised by a single mother," said David R. Gergen, director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, who has previously served as a White House adviser to Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. "It's an admirable story of rising from rags to riches, one that resonates. In many ways he's a modern Horatio Alger."

"Now the McCain campaign wants to create a dramatically different narrative," Gergen continued.

Continue reading "Gergen and Obama" »

07 Aug 2008 01:16 pm

War Crimes And Cheney

Before I went on vacation, I wrote a brief post about Stu Taylor's recent mini-campaign to get pardons for everyone involved in violating the Geneva Conventions and authorizing torture and other war crimes against defenseless military prisoners since 9/11. After reading "The Dark Side," my disbelief at Stu's naivete with respect to those responsible has only intensified. Let's take the simple example of Dick Cheney. Here's Taylor's bottom line:

"There is no evidence that any high-level official acted with criminal intent... Until mid-2006, the OLC also advised that interrogators could ignore the 1949 Geneva Conventions' far more sweeping ban on all "cruel" and "humiliating and degrading" treatment of prisoners. The lawyers found, and Bush declared, that Geneva did not protect stateless terrorists, such as members of Al Qaeda.

Then five Supreme Court justices gave the administration a nasty surprise."

This argument depends on the notion that a man like Cheney, with all his experience and knowledge, a former defense secretary, a man steeped in the ways of Washington and national security, and his legal henchman David Addington, genuinely had no idea that Geneva Common Article 3 clearly forbids the techniques they were intent on using. It also requires us to believe that the legal judgments of the OLC - divorced from the usual procedures and consultation process, staffed by hacks told to produce legal defenses for plain illegality, shrouded in so much secrecy even the secretary of state, attorney general and national security adviser were kept in the dark - were open-minded attempts to interpret the law. None of this even faintly passes the sniff test.

In fact the entire narrative of the torture regime makes no sense at all unless you assume that the president and vice-president understood beyond any shadow of a doubt they were violating the law, and had such contempt for the law that they simply instructed lawyers to interpret it in ways that are, in retrospect, preposterous, as even a radical advocate of executive power, Jack Goldsmith, immediately recognized. And then, using this obscure argument, simply lied to the American people about what they were doing.

Continue reading "War Crimes And Cheney" »

07 Aug 2008 12:55 pm

The Daily Beast

Tina Brown channels Waugh in her forthcoming attempt to out-do Arianna.

07 Aug 2008 12:35 pm

Deploying The Tire Guage

A WaPo reader suggests a fun little tactic:

Free advice: The Obama Camp should totally co-opt the GOP's silly tire guage thing. They should start giving out tire gages with the Obama logo on them. They should thank them for the idea. They should promote it as a wonderful post-partisan effort to reduce our nation's dependence on foreign oil. If John McCain's finally on board, maybe we can get Newt to sign off as well!

McCain is still mocking the idea.

07 Aug 2008 11:56 am

Pawlenty Gets It

In my view, this is the right Republican approach to the Obama phenomenon:

"Say what you will about Barack Obama, and I say a lot of negative things about him," Pawlenty said. "People gravitate when you've got something positive to say."

Merely throwing the kitchen sink at the Democrat does not resolve the critical problem of why anyone at this point should positively vote Republican.

Continue reading "Pawlenty Gets It" »

07 Aug 2008 11:49 am

Obama: Dry And On The Rocks

I love it when Barack goes all subtle on us:

"I think the notion that somehow as a consequence of not having joint appearances, Senator McCain felt obliged to suggest that I'd rather lose a war to win a campaign doesn't automatically follow."

Who was the last president as wry as that? Reagan sometimes ... but JFK is the obvious fore-runner.

07 Aug 2008 11:21 am

The Ultimate Sacrifice

Al Gore goes there for the environment. But wouldn't that be John Edwards' baby?

07 Aug 2008 11:13 am

Your Twitter Ears Are Burning

Introducing the SteamGraph, a new visual gizmo that tracks words resonating in the Twitterscape:

The StreamGraph shows the usage over time for the words most highly associated with the search word. One of these series together with a time period are in a selected state and coloured red. The tweets that contain this word in the given time period are shown below the graph. You can click on another word series or time period to see different matches. In the match list you click on any word to create a different graph with tweets containing that word. You can also click on the user or comment icons and any URL to see the appropriate content in another window.

So you plug in "Daily Dish" and get the following results:

Somehow, "Andrew" became "Andre." Put any random word in the mix and you get a visual representation of recent twitters. Kinda cool if you've got nothing else to do but listen to other people chatting.

07 Aug 2008 10:47 am

Falwell Died Broke

That's the take of a new book, at least. Money quote:

"He was a bold entrepreneur, but he was a bad businessman. I don't think his wife even let him have a checkbook. He raised hundreds of millions for conservative causes, but didn't raise much for himself."

Almost enough to think more highly of him. Almost.

07 Aug 2008 10:19 am

Are We On The Same Planet?

Is this pure spin from Karl Rove? I mean: could any sane observer see this as true:

Mr. McCain is the most private person to run for president since Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s. He needs to share (or allow others to share) more about him, especially his faith. The McCain and Obama campaigns are mirror opposites. Mr. McCain offers little biography, while Mr. Obama is nothing but.

Update: thinking this through a little, maybe this is Rove's way of signaling to the Christianists that McCain is one of them, just too discreet to say so. But it's obvious that privately McCain could hardly be further from evangelical fervor.

07 Aug 2008 10:18 am

Quote For The Day II

"It took seven years for the Bush administration's military commissions system to get its first conviction for a crime that is regularly prosecuted in federal court. And when it did, it was a driver who even the administration acknowledges did not participate in the planning or execution of any terrorist attacks. Surely there is a better way to protect America and bring terrorists to justice while adhering to the constitutional values that have kept us safe and strong for 200 years," - Rand Beers, President of the National Security Network and retired counterterrorism official.

07 Aug 2008 09:54 am

Quote For The Day

"[John Edwards] absolutely does have to [resolve it]. If it's not true, he has to issue a stronger denial. It's a very damaging thing. ... The big media has tried to be responsible and handle this with kid gloves, but it's clearly getting ready to bust out. If it's not true, he's got to stand up and say, 'This is not true. That is not my child and I'm going to take legal action against the people who are spreading these lies.' It's not enough to say, 'That's tabloid trash,' " - Gary Pearce, the Democratic strategist who ran John Edwards' 1998 Senate race.

07 Aug 2008 09:24 am

The Age Issue

I've tended to dismiss it in the past but a reader directs me to this medical article, Cognitive Impairment without Dementia in Older Adults. He writes:

The March 2008 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, the prestigious peer-reviewed journal published by the American College of Physicians, has an article by fourteen PhD's and MD's who do scientific and medical research at Duke University, University of Michigan, RAND Corporation, University of Southern California, and University of Iowa, entitled Prevalence of Cognitive Impairment without Dementia in the United States. 

In this study which was conducted from July 2001 through March 2005, and initially included 1770 individuals, their results state: In 2002, an estimated 5.4 million people (22.2%) in the United States age 71 years or older had cognitive impairment without dementia. Furthermore, the Editors note the following: This study of 856 individuals from the national Health and Retirement Study found that 22% of adults age 71 or older had cognitive impairment that did not reach the threshold for dementia. Annually, about 8% of those with cognitive impairment without dementia died and about 12% progressed to dementia. Implication  Cognitive impairment without dementia probably affects a large segment of the elderly population.   —The Editors

McCain clearly falls in the population susceptible to this -

Continue reading "The Age Issue" »

07 Aug 2008 07:26 am

Rubber On The Road

Joe Klein has a smart take:

"Oh, so now McCain says it's a good idea to inflate your tires. This is something new: He has taken to attacking Obama on positions where he agrees with Obama. Another example: he flayed Obama for his proposal to withdraw from Iraq, then said it was a "pretty good" timetable. Meanwhile, he also continues to attack Obama for positions Obama hasn't taken or is no longer taking--like Obama's position on offshore drilling, which has become a reluctant yes, in order to get a compromise piece of energy legislation through the Senate. McCain continues to say Obama is opposed. He also says Obama is opposed to nuclear power, which Obama never has been--a position he took some grief about during the Democratic primaries. It's getting hard to keep all of McCain's attacks--and his rules about when it's ok to compromise and when not--straight."

The closer the two are on substantive matters, the more stinging the McCain attacks.

07 Aug 2008 12:34 am

For Starters

Grandfathered into the contest: this ad about Dick Cheney and Dr Strangelove.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

06 Aug 2008 10:17 pm

Neo-Soul

A reader writes:

A new meme? Stuff Educated Black People Like has been up for months; it's hardly new.  Always a funny, self-critical read. And you don't know about "neo-soul" yet, brother?  Man, are you in for a treat. 

Go on iTunes and sample Jill Scott, Angie Stone, Musiq Soulchild, Anthony Hamilton, Kindred the Family Soul...or really, any of the artists listed here. And check the following videos:

Continue reading "Neo-Soul" »

06 Aug 2008 09:07 pm

Taking Back The Campaign

Thanks for the feedback. If you missed it, here's the original concept for a campaign video contest. An idea: we'll also open the contest to positive, effective ads for the candidate you support that you feel the pros aren't creative or smart or ballsy enough to run. Out-Schmidting Steve Schmidt is great; but so would be outdoing positive messages for either man. I didn't suggest this at first because I felt there were enough of these out there, but it strikes me that many are lame (especially those gauzy Obama ones) and letting the amateurs get in on the act could only be a plus. Maybe the really good ads - substantive ones, especially - could even shift the atmosphere a little. The contest as is is a little too cynical.

And we'll run the contest for a while and post the best - positive and negative - as we go along. These things are labor intensive. But maybe it's time for a well-trafficked blog to help send a raft of new ads into the viral ether. I should add that ads for Bob Barr and Ralph Nader are fine as well. I'm sure a few of you could do a nice little take-down of Ralph in 30 seconds.

06 Aug 2008 07:44 pm

The Religion-Cooties Connection

Some pretty interesting evolutionary research:

Their hypothesis is that in places where disease is rampant, it behoves groups not to mix with one another more than is strictly necessary, in order to reduce the risk of contagion. They therefore predict that patterns of behaviour which promote group exclusivity will be stronger in disease-ridden areas. Since religious differences are certainly in that category, they specifically predict that the number of different religions in a place will vary with the disease load. Which is, as they report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, the case.

Proving the point involved collating a lot of previous research.

Continue reading "The Religion-Cooties Connection" »

06 Aug 2008 06:37 pm

Why So Close?

Ambers' take:

Right now, the type of voter who's paying attention is primed to support John McCain. After the conventions, when younger voters typically tune in -- and by younger here, I mean, under 55 or so -- then Obama's margins will widen because these folks are his folks.

06 Aug 2008 06:37 pm

The Earth As Rocks

A new multi-national organization, OneGeology, is pooling resources and research from over 100 countries to provide a new, dynamic state-of-the-art map of the world composed of rocks alone. The maps are very, very pretty.

06 Aug 2008 06:12 pm

"Stuff Educated Black People Like"

A new site; a new meme. Neo-soul?

06 Aug 2008 05:50 pm

When Your Pedicurist Is A Fish

Eww:

First time customer KaNin Reese, 32, described the tingling sensation created by the toothless fish: "It kind of feels like your foot's asleep," she said.

06 Aug 2008 05:23 pm

Face Of The Day

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich scratches his face during a news conference in the U.S. Capitol August 6, 2008 in Washington, DC. Gingrich was in Washington to give support to House Republicans who are calling on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to reconvene the chamber and vote on the American Energy Act, a Republican bill designed to address America's dependence on foreign oil. By Chip Somodevilla/Getty.

06 Aug 2008 05:06 pm

"Henchmen Needed"

A Craigslist classic from London:

20-30 henchmen needed for moderately-sized supervillain organisation with large expansion potential (fortresses built into geological structures, corruption of government officials, possible genesis of 'nemesis' vigilante). Electrical theme...

Desired (but not necessarily required) in applicants:

-interesting deformations/obsessions/powers(?) giving rise to interesting nicknames (e.g. Claws, Pyro, Buzzsaw, and similar)
-unwavering loyalty
-being a corruptible government official
-ability to work as part of a close-knit team (unless interesting obsession is of the 'lone wolf' variety)
-grudge against any well-known vigilante
-flexible moral code.

Either guy Ritchie is casting his next movie or Dick Cheney is anticipating private sector work.

(Hat tip: Wired.)

06 Aug 2008 04:44 pm

60 Cents To Re-Fuel

Introducing the battery-powered plane.

06 Aug 2008 04:16 pm

Taking Back The Campaign, Ctd.

Some readers are enthusiastic:

My outloud words were "Ah he is fucking fantastic"!   GREAT IDEA.

Others less so:

I'm unclear how encouraging viral ads to go negative "pre-empts" the professionals from using the same ideas.  Surely you are giving them those ideas, and how to execute them, as a gift. 

The idea of a competition seems to me to be based on a fallacy; the mass audience and the audience for home-made political ads on YouTube are just not the same.  Now, you may be thinking: this isn't about the mass audience.  It's the pundit class that I want to influence here; surely it's worth tiring them of negative ads ahead of time? I would suggest that bombarding the Net audience with negative ads will only accustom them to constant negativity, so they're no longer offended when the pros do it.  So there'll be fewer protests and less fallout for the perpetrators.  The lingering feeling some of us have that such ads are wrong is about all we have to oppose them with, since negativity can be so successful. Do we really want to erode that feeling?

Another writes:

I understand your concept, but it's a lot like trying to take the power out of offensive words like "queer" and "nigger" by having people repeat them over and over in everyday conversation.

Continue reading "Taking Back The Campaign, Ctd." »

06 Aug 2008 03:53 pm

Proposition 2 In California

It's an initiative to prevent the worst abuse of farm animals in the food industry in the state. It seems to me that chaining veal calves by the neck and forcing pigs - as intelligent and as emotionally evolved as dogs - into crates that prevent them from even turning around are practices that truly need to end. I'm not a vegetarian and I don't like some aspects of the animal rights movement. But I do believe that a civilized society is defined by how it treats its most vulnerable, and among the most vulnerable are those parts of God's creation who are currently abused and tortured for our benefit. Here's a link to the Humane Society in California behind the initiative and here's a video detailing the campaign. I'd say it's worth your time and money and vote.

06 Aug 2008 03:29 pm

Hey, Hey, Hey

The use of magic tricks as a way of studying the human brain has recently gained traction in the scientific community, with a couple of peer-reviewed articles coming out this month and next. Money quote:

"I think magicians and cognitive neuroscientists are getting at similar questions, but while neuroscientists have been looking at this for a few decades, magicians have been looking at this for centuries, millennia probably.  What magicians do is light-years ahead in terms of sophistication and the power of these techniques."

06 Aug 2008 03:03 pm

Substantive Paris

Steve Benen:

Watching the Hilton video, a few questions came to mind. First, why is that Paris Hilton’s fake ad includes more substantive talk about energy policy than John McCain’s real ad? Second, if writers helped Hilton with her script, and writers helped McCain with his script, why is it that Hilton seems to have a better grasp on policy details than McCain does? Shouldn’t that be, you know, the other way around? And third, why is it that a 27-year-old heiress/reality-show star can read a teleprompter better than the presumptive Republican presidential nominee?

06 Aug 2008 02:54 pm

The Depth Of Russian Corruption

It's hard-wired into Putin's legacy, whatever Medvedev says. The Moscow Times:

Is there anything new here that differs from the system Medvedev criticized for its inherent incompetence, nepotism and corruption? The fundamental problem is that there is no place for a truly transparent and merit-based selection personnel recruiting process in Putin's political system -- a system Medvedev actively helped construct. Thus, Medvedev's presidential reserve will differ little, if at all, from the cadres he has criticized.

The bureaucratic elite rely on a caste system. Every bureaucrat's job -- and, more important, the extra "unofficial income" earned on the side that far exceeds official salaries -- is dependent on the goodwill of his boss. These perquisites are bestowed on subordinates based on a strict code of loyalty to their bosses.

06 Aug 2008 02:41 pm

Oeno-terrorism

The French innovate.