RelentlesslyOptimistic

The Rise of Pseudo Fascism from Orcinus

Orcinus
David Neiwert has compiled and edited his fascinating award winning essay, "The Rise of Pseudo Fascism," and made it available in a PDF. I'm not going to link directly to the PDF, though, because:

This is, you see, my sorta annual fund-raiser. I don't like holding out a tin cup, but I am happy to ask people to pitch in to support my work if I can offer them something in exchange. So download the PDF to your heart's content, and if you like what you read, pitch $5 -- or whatever you like -- into the kitty.

So read it, and if you think it's worthwhile, donate.

Because it is cheaper to have others torture suspects (and kill prisoners) for us

The gyrations of the Republicans and the right wing to justify our use of torture as a policy are growing ever more ridiculous. Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) has introduced legislation to ban "extraordinary rendition," the practice of detaining "suspects" and then sending them to other countries without any hint of due process on our part. Bob Herbert, in today's NYTimes:

"Pete Jeffries, the communications director for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, ...said: "The speaker does not support the Markey proposal. He believes that suspected terrorists should be sent back to their home countries."

Surprised, I asked why suspected terrorists should be sent anywhere. Why shouldn't they be held by the United States and prosecuted?

"Because," said Mr. Jeffries, "U.S. taxpayers should not necessarily be on the hook for their judicial and incarceration costs."

Herbert says: "It was, perhaps, the most preposterous response to any question I've ever asked as a journalist."

Especially since, according to the story in today's NYT, we're not spending much taking care of ordinary prisoners in the US: "Private Health Care in Jails Can Be a Death Sentence"

Right wing thought: Torturing innocent non-Americans is acceptable, publishing about it "undermines what we stand for"

"If...we have to go to other countries in order to successfully interrogate terrorists, then I'm not horrified by that proposition," [National Review Online editor at large Jonah] Goldberg says. And while he concedes that it fundamentally contradicts what the United States stands for, "what undermines what we stand for," he says, "is the publication of all this information." [emphases added]

"There are a lot of people who support the war who simply understand that these are some of the lesser evils of fighting a war on terrorism," Goldberg said in a phone interview.

"I think a lot of people on the right are skeptical of hype: That the allegations are not nearly as horrendous or as widespread a matter of policy as the media portrays."

"I'm not horrified...these are some of the lesser evils"

• "we have to pop their eyes out with a spoon. You have to film it to believe it, but boy, they sure sing."
• "in Afghanistan -- rape, sodomy, beatings, mock executions"
• "How much do you have to know about the Geneva Conventions to know that it's wrong to wire someone's genitals?"
• Iraqi Died While Hanging by His Wrists
• "Terror is watching your house being raided and knowing that the silliest thing might get you dragged away to Abu Ghraib where soldiers can torture, beat and kill."
• Pentagon says: "American efforts have not only failed in this respect: they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended."

"There are lots of things that are ugly and terrible about war," Goldberg adds. "I think that people on the right are more comfortable allowing for that."

From Salon's Right Hook by Mark Follman

Via Meteor Blades at The Next Hurrah, a new blog started by some of the past lead writers at Daily Kos. Quotes via Body and Soul, Juan Cole, Whiskey Bar and Baghdad Burning

New Ads in the Swift Boat Veterans for Social Securty Destruction campaign: Satan!

The incomparable Billmon at Whiskey Bar pointed to the story and provided these latest parodies of the latest ads in the Swift Boat Veterans for Social Security Destruction series, which are so over the top themselves that they hardly need any help to add humor.

Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo has been the watchdog on the Social Security privatization scheme for some time. TPM continues with coverage of the sliming of AARP:

"To me, the main question that comes to mind about this is whether we will have to endure another round of media Kabuki theater over whether this is really a White House operation when it is so clearly a piece of Mr. Rove's handiwork.
...
Another thing that caught my eye was that Jarvis's outfit has retained the services of our old friend Chris LaCivita...a veteran astroturfer and hired gun."

To summarize TPM's many related stories, Chris LaCivita supervised Jim Tobin when Tobin was the Northeast political director of the NRSC (the Senate Republican campaign committee) during the time the Party engaged in an act for which Tobin is soon to go to trial. The charges, for which two other ex-Party staffers received felony convictions, are related to the Republican Party's hiring of a phone bank to jam Democratic phone lines the day before the election, and for, of course, lying about it.

Meanwhile, The Left Coaster proposes a strategy for AARP and the DNC to "take this ad and beat the White House over the head with it before Chris LaCivita can slither back to his hole, make the media forget about it, and do it again in a week or so."

Social Security Road Show has jumped the shark

What Would Dick Think? (WWDT) brings us this allusion to a television series that is so desparate for ratings that it adds ridiculous elements in an effort to recover the public's fickle attention. It was coined in reference to an episode late in the life of "Happy Days" when Fonzie went surfing and  "jumped the shark."

WWDT points to the addition of cute child actors as another sign that a show has jumped the shark, and says that "It happened to "The Brady Bunch." It happened to "All in the Family." It happened to "Different Strokes," "The Cosby Show" and "Family Ties."

"President Bush's travelling road show for Social Security reform (or, as Josh Marshall likes to call it, "Bamboozlepalooza")...has added nine-year-old Noah McCullough of Tonight Show presidential trivia fame has decided to join the President and entourage in stumping for privatization."

So going on the road to talk to people about the wonders of privatization hasn't worked, because people still oppose it. We can expect to see the road show cancelled soon, especially since attacking AARP has replaced misinformation as the main strategy for the present.

Via Talking Points Memo. Note that the Dick in WWDT refers to Phillip K. Dick, and seems both interesting and thoughtfull. His tagline is "Reality is becoming more like a Philip Dick novel all the time."

May It Please The Court

Whiskey Bar: Pleasing the Court

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected on Tuesday a constitutional challenge to an Alabama law that makes it a crime to sell sex toys.
The law prohibited the distribution of "any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs." First-time violators can face a fine of up to $10,000 and as much as one year in jail.
The law, adopted in 1998 . . . exempted sales of sexual devices "for a bona fide medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial or law enforcement purpose."
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal on Ban on Sex Toy Sale

I want to know more about the legislative, law enforcement and medical purposes! I suspect my imagination would be illegal in Alabama.

 

Swift Boat Veterans For Social Security Destruction

Social Security: The only crisis is the Republicans' attempt to destroy it
USA Next, a ten-year old ultra-conservative right wing slush-fund direct mail marketer of fear, has hired the veterans of the successful Swift Boat smear ads to attack AARP, in order to limit their effectiveness in fighting the Republican efforts to destroy Social Security with a "privatization" scheme.

thereisnocrisis.com has released the first draft of a research report on USA Next that describes the sleazy ties of criminals, white supremacists, fake journalists,  illegal pharmaceutical company contributions, Karl Rove and George Bush to the dishonest network of ultra-conservative groups attacking AARP as "liberal."

USA Next plans a $10 million campaign attacking the nation's largest retiree organization, AARP, an opponent of Bush's proposal. One of its first efforts was an Internet ad linking the AARP to support for homosexual marriage.

The reason, said Charles Jarvis of USA Next, is simple: "They are the boulder in the middle of the highway to personal savings accounts."  When Jarvis was asked to explain the ad, he said that AARP hasn't taken a position supporting benefits for the military while USA Next has. So AARP hates the military?

The Washington Monthly called USA Next's United Seniors Association, a self-styled AARP rival, "a soft-money slush fund for a single G.O.P.-friendly industry: pharmaceuticals." [NYT]

Charlie Jarvis, who runs USA Next, was formerly an executive with James Dobson's Focus on the Family, which advocates extreme discipline against dogs and children, and recently attacked Sponge Bob Square Pants for promoting the gay lifestyle.  The ad above "first appeared Monday on the Website of The American Spectator, a conservative magazine."

The United Senior's Association, which was recently fined over half a million dollars for lying repeatedly by claiming to be part of the Social Security Administration in direct mail, has also proposed privatizing Medicare. The group has ties to Ken Lay, former criminal chairman of Enron, and George Bush.

Via Social Security: There is no crisis, Talking Points Memo, and Daily Kos

Update: fixed some links, added cartoon-bashing.

Body and Soul: And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink

I've been trying to read all the finalists for the Koufax Awards. During that effort I found Jeanne d'Arc's essay from which the photo and the excerpts below come, posted in May of 2004. It resonated after this from last week, which is about the autopsy results of the man referenced in the essay who was tortured by the CIA.

The torture hasn't stopped, and isn't going to stop. It leaves me wondering about evil: at what point does a person or a government or a society become evil, and how does it recover from it? Have the Germans recovered from the evil they did in WWII? How many generations did it take? And it makes me sad. For us, and for those who are being tortured and killed by us, because we're afraid, or arrogant, or both.

Body and Soul: And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
I can't remember where I read or heard it, but in response to the suggestion that the MPs at Abu Ghraib were untrained, not even aware of the Geneva Conventions, someone snarled, "How much do you have to know about the Geneva Conventions to know that it's wrong to wire someone's genitals?"
...
When it became clear that the "boys will be boys (and sometimes even girls will be boys)" spin had frozen mid-pirouette, the new story was introduced: Damn those idiots who make the rest of our brave men and women look bad.
...
The most important thing to remember about the crucifixion of Jesus is not that it sullied the reputation of all the good Roman soldiers.
...
Perhaps we shy away from this deeper recognition of individual moral agency because it has such far reaching consequences. When we deny another's moral agency, we help to create the conditions for denying our own. If we start talking about individual responsibility when it comes to soldiers, how long is it before we discover our own individual responsibility when it comes to war, colonialism, disproportionate consumption, racism, ecological damage, global poverty and hunger, millions of dead children who lacked simple drugs.

Read the entire entry, which was a finalist for Best Post in the Koufax Awards.

PS: The Koufax Awards are done by Wampum, which had to purchase additional bandwidth because of their effort this year. Help out with a contribution if you can.

Cephaloblogging Friday: Arms, mating, evolution

Here's a fun and out of context fact from Wikipedia:

When under attack, some octopuses can detach and autonomise their limbs, in a similar manner to skinks and other lizards. The crawling arm serves as a distraction to would-be predators; this ability is also used in mating.

Wikipedia didn't explain further how octopuses* use their detached limbs in reproduction. Any cephalogeeks** want to elaborate? Is this just another example of guys' showing off in pursuit of sex? Or something kinkier?

Meanwhile, mostly unrelated except for the arms part, the NY Times reported that:

"octopus...arms are highly flexible in a way that the arms of vertebrates, including humans, are not.

But when an octopus fetches a piece of food, researchers have discovered, it can transcend its invertebrate ways. Rather than curling an arm completely to bring the food to the mouth, the octopus stiffens portions of it and bends it at three points...

As the food was drawn to the mouth, the arm began to bend. One joint was near the food, one was near the body and the third was midway between the two. Most of the bending occurred at this mid-joint, with the far joint rotating at the last minute to put the food into the mouth...

The work suggests that the octopus has evolved an arm-movement solution that is similar to that of vertebrates, although it is based on a completely different mechanism."

Which makes sense: octopus eyes evolved independently from mammals, but function in a manner similar to mammals (iris to control light, etc.), too.

*Wikipedia cites the OED in saying that octopuses is the preferred plural; octopi is second in frequency based on the mistaken belief that octopus derives from Latin. It actually derives from the Greek oktopous, which would be pluralized as oktopodes if we were trying to be consistent. Fortunately, we optimists value consistency in logic but not in language. OED does list octopodes, but says it is rare. Feel free to use it to impress your friends, though its use isn't recommended as a reproduction[geek]strategy.

**Note that geek in this context is an affectionate term, since anyone who finds his fun in octopus facts must be one. I haven't looked, but I suspect there's lots of overlap in the "fun" and "science" categories in this blog, which is a science-geek tell. No offense intended to fellow geeks, especially of the cephalo-variety.

Ich bin ein fraud

Bush in Germany: With a Hush and a Whisper, Bush Drops Town Hall Meeting with Germans

During his trip to Germany on Wednesday, the main highlight of George W. Bush's trip was meant to be a "town hall"-style meeting with average Germans. But with the German government unwilling to permit a scripted event with questions approved in advance, the White House has quietly put the event on ice.

The Washington Post reported "Somewhat ironically, according to the transcript of the public part, the first question was about free speech -- in Russia."

Catblogging variation, or a young "crazy cat lady?"

Everyone loves a mystery. Today, callalillie is collecting cast off cat whiskers. I look forward to reading the speculative comments about her purpose, and hope she shares the results and accompanying stories. And eventually, I hope she reveals the purpose.

Sometimes, dear internet, you make a request that defies any real explanation. This is because we all contain an inner freak, and some of us are just larger vessels that others. I might look small but I can hold a lot of crazy.

Please send me your cat whiskers—your LOOSE cat whiskers, meaning those that have fallen out of your cat’s face—the ones that you find on the floor while sweeping...if you find a whisker or two, stick them in an envelope, email me for my mailing address, and send those puppies out.

So join in - send in your whiskers! Aren't you curious?

"We're Evolving to Eat Mush:" How Meat Changed Our Bodies

I admit that part of the reason I chose to post this is because I wanted to be able to repeat "Impenetrable Forest National Park." I bet the U.S. doesn't have any parks with "impenetrable" in their name. Who wouldn't want to visit?

Impenetrable Forest National Park
"Located in south-western Uganda, high on the edge of the western Rift Valley...this is one of the largest (331 sq. km) natural forests in Africa...     Half the world's population of mountain gorillas are found in Bwindi...     There are 163 species of trees, 346 species of birds, 202 species of butterflies and a wide range of reptiles...120 species of mammals...[and] a small number of mountain elephants"

"Evolving to Eat Mush": How Meat Changed Our Bodies
Meat-eating has impacted the evolution of the human body, scientists reported today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in Washington, D.C

Our fondness for a juicy steak triggered a number of adaptations over countless generations. For instance, our jaws have gotten smaller, and we have an improved ability to process cholesterol and fat...

Our taste for meat has also led us into some trouble—our teeth are too big for our downsized jaws and most of us need dental work...

Craig B. Stanford, an ecologist at the University of Southern California...has spent years visiting the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park in Uganda, Africa, studying the relationship between mountain gorillas and chimpanzees.

The Edge...the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over

The World According to Pete.
Blood runs cold down the snow-covered mountains of Aspen today, seeping into the fiber of the American Dream as it goes. The fear & depravity continue to spread & pool along its path and, sadly, there is one less able hand to help staunch the bleeding.

Hunter S. Thompson is dead.

I could fill pages with some of the amazing writing eulogizing Hunter S. Thompson. It's a measure, I think, of how much his writing influenced other writers

Via The Sideshow

Title from Hunter S. Thompson, Hell's Angels

Hunter S. Thompson, 1939(ish) - 2005

Thompson always claimed that he didn't tell all the truth he knew, but his ability to describe the truths he saw so clearly through his drug-addled eyes will be missed in these days when truth is too rare, and the BS he always called is just part of the spin.

Like all cynics, HST believed in a better world. Some might say that such a cynical force of nature shouldn't be memorialized on an optimistic blog. But seeing as clearly as possible, and speaking as truthfully as possible, is essential to prevent optimism from turning into fantasy. We're the poorer now.

"America... just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable" [source]

"We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws" [source]

"Objective journalism is one of the main reasons American politics has been allowed to be so corrupt for so long" [source]

Famous Dope Fiend Trading Card via Gonzo.org

Update: The best eulogies: Rox Populi, Majikthise, The Rude Pundit, Jesus' Genneral. Go, read!

Happy Birthday Terry!

I had a dream last night that you were six, and we were in your room, looking at your stuff, and I was going to get you some latest electronic Star Wars toy variation, big enough that the Millennium Falcon model could dock at it, and we were going to have to move your bookshelf out of your room to fit it in.

Of course I waited until the absolute last minute, until my only choices were a belated card through the mail or an online greeting card. What I found in online greeting cards convinced me not to go that route.

The Toaster Greeting Card site has some general cards, but no birthday ones.
Awesome Greeting Cards, on a page anti-marketed as "the oldest of our several birthday card collections" described (without graphics) a list of cards that started with:

Swingin', Swimmin' Day Features one fish wishing another a swingin', swimmin' good day. Add the words "Happy Birthday" as the Main Greeting for this versatile card. (Works equally well for birthdays, fishing season, anniversaries, Father's Day or as a friendship card. Also listed in Cards for an Awesome Dad and in All Occasion Cards.)

The card didn't live up to the expectations created by the description, although I'll admit that the thought of having one card for every occasion imaginable (Happy Fishing Season?) was attractive.

I found this entertaining photo at the Tacky Postcard site, which I thought I could use to tell you not to party too hearty, but seeing as how it's a Monday, it seemed unlikely to be relevant enough to be funny.

So I decided a blog entry would be best, just to tell you that I love you, and have always been proud of you, and am frequently impressed by the person you've become.
Happy Birthday!

Love, me.