August 2003 Archives

"Two-thirds of female Air Force Academy cadets in a new survey said they had been sexually harassed, and nearly one-in-five respondents said they had been the victim of a sexual assault"

"Two-thirds of female Air Force Academy cadets in a new survey said they had been sexually harassed, and nearly one-in-five respondents said they had been the victim of a sexual assault"

"Of those who reported incidents to authorities, nearly half said they experienced reprisal of some kind."

Meanwhile, "Rep. Joel Hefley, the Republican whose district includes the Air Force Academy, bristled at another round of media questions about the statistics."

And faith in the military as an institution is at an all time high ? We're not doing the military any favors by giving it a bye on criminal behavior. Accountability is something that should be instilled from the beginning in all buerocracies, especially those which deal w/ the use of deadly force.

Quotes taken from the Rocky Mountain News article on the subject.

Media Giant Claims Rocker's Self-Titled Album Liz Phair Dilutes "Fair and Balanced" Motto

Oh, if only...

The World as a Blog.

The Weidenhammer Wunderkammer: a wonderful diary about going back to the prairie.

Aaron wrote in with another New York story:

So I'm walking to work up sixth avenue today, and there's a small crowd gathered around the intersection of sixth and Christopher street with a fire truck, ambulance, two police cars, and nearby NYPD waving the traffic past the site. I stopped to look, a little apprehensively since the scene was oddly quiet. What some minutes before had been a car was now burning metal crushed around street light pole. The front end was wrapped clear around the pole from the impact, and the front windshield was sprayed across the street in bloody chunks. Grey smoke drifted from what remained of the car.

I was struck by how the angle of impact was completely wrong. Christopher street is one way, this car was heading the other direction and had hit the pole at an extreme speed. What the hell had happened? But then I also notice something equally unbelievable -- there were two very bloody bodies lying on the street, and the EMS people were standing arund them just chatting. Just like that, chatting like they were discussing Yankees box scores. Unbelievable. Nobody was lifting a finger to help the two people on the ground. I was thinking to myself, geez could people around here be any more callous?

I was getting more and more indignant about the situation. Then one of the bodies on the ground lifts himself up on an elbow, and one of the EMS medics pops a cigarette into his mouth and lights it for him. The bloody body takes a long drag and then thanks the medic. A guy with a film camera walks over and says "hey nice work guys" and the bodies stand up and dust themselves off. And I'm thinking then, don't they have a law around here about giving people heart attacks?

One of my Harvard profs, Michael Watkins, has started up his own blog. He teaches negotiations, and has an informed perspective on international relations. A quick search shows at least nine posts here on Ish based on materials Prof. Watkins emailed to me, so I'm sure there will be good stuff there. Click on over.

(With apologies to Greg for the title.) Found in a recent Net Impact ezine: A Hong Kong fashion company has recalled its line of Nazi-themed clothing, which was promoted in stores thusly:

I was interviewed yesterday by WVOX radio in Westchester for a piece on blogging. Unfortunately, I can't get 1460 AM here, and they don't stream, so I can't listen to the sound of my own voice -- something I usually love doing! Guess I'll just have to mutter to myself instead.

I've received several comments from our readers that the comments system just doesn't work all that well. YACCS has been pretty good (for free), but it has been increasingly unreliable. I think that I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and upgrade to Movable Type, which I've been meaning to do for a while anyway. Don't hold your breath on the change, though, as it might take a while.

Oh, and www.ishbadiddle.net now points here again. Thanks Alberto!

Finally, I know you've all been eagerly wondering: when will Mike update his Conspicuous Consumption bloglet? The answer: soon!

Zeno's paradox solved!

Howard Dean rally in Bryant Park, Tuesday August 26, 8:30 p.m. (free!). Sign up for the rally via 1-866-DEAN-4-USA or www.deanforamerica.com/sleeplessnyc and be entered to win a personal Q&A session with Gov. Dean.

(!)

Aaron writes:

Okay, now we all know that celebrity sightings here in manhattan are a dime a dozen and not generally worth getting excited about but this is an exception. I was thinking that the high point of my brush with fame on friday would have been holding the door open for Gwennie Paltrow at my local coffee shop, and since she was a little rude I considered letting the door slam on the (admittedly world-class) Paltrow-heinie.

But -- late that night I was hanging out with some friends at Chumley's, a former speak-easy in the west village, when this curly haired old english dude sat down next to me with two of his friends. I was kind of thinking the guy must be Sammy Hagar or something, because he had this artiste-rock-star aura. So I started chatting with him a bit, something along the lines of recommending the burgers or the shepherds pie, and we started talking about the struggles that artists go through or something along those lines. He went into a long discussion of how important it is to love your work, to really look forward to it at the beginning of the day and all that sort of thing. It was a little bit cliche but the guy was entertaining enough that I was pitching in too. To emphasize the point he toasted to our whole table "so here's to the best thing in the world --- to wake up bright and early and be given a chance to fuck everything up in an entirely new and different way."

So we swapped blackout stories, he and his friends got up, shook our hands, and said goodbye see ya round mates.

The waitress comes up to me totally breathlessly with "ohmygod how do you know Robert Plant?" Not being savvy or fast or sober enough to say "well if you're lucky darling one day I'll introduce you," I smoothly replied instead with a "huh?" (or maybe it was "wha..?") and looked around to see the guy leave and you know what she was right. Holy cats! I was drinkin' frosties with Robert Plant and didn't even know it!

Thank god I didn't say I thought he was Sammy Hagar.

I was asked by a reporter for the New York Post to say "what's missing in your neighborhood?" With help from Debbie and Jay, here's my tossed-off answer:

What's missing in Park Slope? Not much. I tell people that I could comfortably live without leaving my block (7th between Garfield and Carroll) -- I've got pizza, video store, a bakery, a great independent bookstore (The Community Bookstore), Chinese, dry cleaners, pharmacy, 3 bodegas, 2 grocery stores, and a toy store for my sons. We've lived in Park Slope since '99, and I'd say one of the great things about the neighborhood is the independent stores, like the Park Slope Food Co-Op, or Palma Pharmacy where they know my name. There's a Starbucks, but there are still lines outside Connecticut Muffin across the street.

If I could rezone, I'd probably make a few changes: Fewer mobile phone stores, fewer tchotchke shops. (It seems that there are now enough stores selling scented candles so that every man, woman, and child can get a dozen.) Also, we could use a good deli (there's nowhere to get decent matzoh ball soup) and a prepared food shop (the Blue Apron is great but a but pricey for everyday eats.) And considering that the nabe has so many families that stroller gridlock is a serious issue, it's surprising that there aren't more child care options for kids under 2, or indoor playspaces for days when Prospect Park is too cold or wet. And we've needed a new butcher since the local butcher shop closed down a few years ago.

"At the White House's direction, the Environmental Protection Agency gave New Yorkers misleading assurances that there was no health risk from the debris-laden air after the World Trade Center collapse, according to an internal inquiry."

Can you feel the love?

World Beard and Moustache Championships, Carson City 2003

'Nuff Said

Well, I've just written my letter to the editor, as part of Flood the Zone Friday, and sent it off to a dozen or so papers using W's Action Center. It's not the greatest thing I've ever written, and I highly doubt it would be published, but at least it got me to write a letter to the editor, something I haven't done in years:

Oh, these wacky memes. Here's what Liz MD-H wrote:

someone in blogger-dom came up with this wacky concept and i've got nothing new to write about so i decided to give it a whirl. here's a description of the game: "This post is part of a blogging game that seems to be going around. I'm not exactly sure how it started, but it works like this: A blogger answers five pointless questions posted by someone else. Then he/she seeks a volunteer to answer five new questions in their blog."

You'll notice that now, when creating a post, there's a field called "Title" at the top. Whatever you put in there will have the h4 formatting automatically applied. Neat!

Play the National Budget Simulation Game!

I'm sure we've all noticed that there are alot of weddings being planned these days. I had lunch with one of the happy couples (the Smioedths) and tried to give them some suggestions for "Wedding Themes". Feel free to jump in ! And Owlamphys -- don't be shy -- these are for you too !

My best suggestion (according to them) was a "Shock and Awwwwwww" wedding. We're all shocked that they're getting married, and when we see it we'll all be appropriately mushy headed (hence the latter half of the phrase).

My runner up was a flash mob wedding -- we check our cellphones for a text message, converge on some space where the wedding occurs (maybe the Times Square ToysRUs) and then disperse. Yes, I know that flash mobs are yesterday's news, but we can call this retro-theming.

My worst suggestions were either a "Gone with the Wind" wedding or a "Blaxploitation" wedding (both of which are two sides of the same coin in my mind).

"The question every American wants answered: What makes religious militants want to kill us? Hardball with Chris Matthews, 7 p.m. ET "

If that's the question that every American wants answered, then no wonder we're clueless. And Chris Matthew's hyperbole aside, I think it is the question that every American wants answered, even if they don't want to hear the answers other than "religious militants" (read muslims) are evil people who are irrational and just want to destroy us b/c we're good and wonderful.

And no, I'm not trying to blame the victim here. I'm just pointing out that that's an idiotic question about which people wont actually be thinking at all.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Today I am learning how to use Blogger.

Folks, Camaro Rock is finally done. Hit me up if you want a copy, and specify what kind: trip AT triptronix DOT net.

Speaking of organizing and the web, the folks over at Not Geniuses have come up with something that's, frankly, genius. W has launched his campaign website, which includes a nifty Action Center that enables you to write letters to your local editors. You just enter your zip code and bam! you can mass email every paper around. (It also includes astroturf that you can paste in with the click of a button.) So NG's idea is to use the master's tool to dismantle the master's house. Every Friday will be "Flood the Zone Friday" and bloggers and blogreaders are encouraged to write letters to their editors using the W site, on a specific topic. "On Friday, the blog reminders will go up, and hopefully 10,000 liberals will tell every paper in the country about how Bush supported our troops by cutting their hazard pay (the topic that we've decided upon)." Are you all ready to play?

From the brief research I've done, (namely, one article) I'm not sure this is the best issue to start off with. If I'm not convinced by their "talking points," I'll do the project but on some other topic. Any suggestions?

Leave aside for the moment the fact that we seem to be concocting a whole new generation of terrorists in Iraq, let's ask a simple question, like: why don't U.S. soldiers in Iraq have enough water?

"The trouble is that contractors fall over themselves to sign multi-million dollar deals in peacetime but, when the shooting starts, their employees frequently refuse to drive their trucks towards the action."

Look up the word "privateering" and you'll find this definition: "A ship privately owned and crewed but authorized by a government during wartime to attack and capture enemy vessels." Pirates, in other words. Unfortunately, it sounds like the ones Dick, Dub, and Donald hired aren't quite up to the task. (And yet, somehow I bet they get paid in full.)

Well, I'm sure the contractors will hear about it in the "comments" section of their post-war survey cards. "Was your war experience.... Poor Fair Good Superior?"

In all the articles I've read on Flash Mobs, they invariably trot out some polisci prof who bemoans the wasted political opportunity. "It's too bad they're not really organizing or protesting," says Prof. Z. "But maybe someday someone somewhere will use this technology for something I can write a paper on." The article then goes on to compare Flash Mobs to fads like stuffing goldfish in telephone booths.

Surfing the Tsunami (Kaiko'o) and I/O Error Info to the blogrolling section of the sidebar. Thanks for the link!

Stinking Badges. I don't need no stinkin' web page.

It's a really good collaborative filtering project for movies out of U. of MN.

Should be in the Memo Hall of Fame. . Via the Sect of Homokaasu's Daily Dose.

The Lobster Cam.

Ishbadiddle is always looking out for you, the blog-reading public, on important health and safety issues. We therefore bring you the following:

From the outside, this all sounds exciting. I just saw Gangs of New York last night, and without spoiling the plot, an event like this fits right in. I still remember the blackout of 1976 though.

So, what did you do during the great blackout ? And should we sell futures on when the power will come back up ?

Films and television shows featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger and other celebrity candidates in California's gubernatorial recall election will likely not be broadcast in the state for the next few months so that stations can avoid having to give rival candidates equal time.

The airing of "Total Recall" or another Schwarzenegger film, or a repeat of a "Diff'rent Strokes" episode with Gary Coleman on broadcast television in California would trigger the Federal Communications Commission's equal time provision, allowing other candidates to demand the same amount of time.

Cable channels are not covered by the FCC rule, which in the past kept reruns of "Death Valley Days" off the air while Ronald Reagan ran for president. A repeat of a "Saturday Night Live" episode featuring Don Novello, aka Father Guido Sarducci, on cable, for instance, would not trigger the provision.

From an AP article that I saw in the Sacramento Bee.

Someone finally calls the G.O.P. hate machine on its brazen two-facery.

I think this kind of awareness needs to get echoed -- but loud -- in the coming year, although cantankerous truth-telling is probably a small and irrelevant part of a winning formula. I've been wondering if anyone here (since we're not shoveling a lot of time into analyzing the Sunni-Shi'ite imbroglio) has an opinion on how the (What's) Left should play the next 14 months.

Me, off the top of my head, I'd love to see a multi-pronged attack that had this shape:

1) Relentless, yet calm, repetition of various Wadminstration credibility lapses;
2) A simple economic message: "Who's making out like a bandit here? Not us.";
2a) Agumented with "basic math says most folks do better under Democratic presidents" which is true;
3) A moral argument for "hands off other people's private lives" under the "minding my own business" clause;
4) A coordinated primary breaking down Wadministration mythology (then we'll know who's best at it);
5) An international policy of making the U.S. safer through cooperation not intimidation (I know! Crazy!).

This kind of approach obviously wouldn't break up the hardcore right; nothing ever will unless they turn on themselves as their power eventually wanes. But a reasonable argument in common language that offers an alternative to big business backrooms and mounting death tolls might work around the edges. Who's growing disaffected as soldiers get picked off and people drop out of the workforce? How does someone's failing school system balance with the moral surety that is hostile to gay marriage? (I really think we need some leadership who can take the heat down on these areas of social abrasion... rather than, say, fomenting it for personal gain.)

I heard an interesting theory at dinner recently, that conservatives (neocons in particular) will always win because their organizations dedicated to cultural engineering are professional. These entities are well funded. It's a career path. They're very serious about using government to control social behavior (and/or punish what they deem misbehavior). Liberals, on the other hand, are amateurs. It's volunteers and college kids. There's (comparitively, anyway) no structure to get pulled into and supported by. They aren't passionate about controlling other people and relatively few people dedicate their lives to protecting basic equalities. Now, how did that happen?

"Today We Face Another Watergate

Samuel Dash is professor of law and director of the Institute of Criminal Law and Procedure at Georgetown University Law Center. He served as chief counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee.

Thirty years ago the Senate of the United States prevented President Richard Nixon from destroying constitutional democracy in our country. Watergate was a wrenching turning point in our history and its lessons must be learned and re-learned.

Now our lives as a free people are also being threatened by an administration bent on grabbing unprecedented power, a timid Congress and an uninformed electorate. That is why the Watergate experience remains so relevant to our republic today....

It was a scary time in America when we almost lost our constitutional freedom and democracy. But fortunately our constitutional system of separation of powers worked. The Senate Watergate Committee, chaired by Sen. Sam J. Ervin Jr. of North Carolina, a courageous public leader, successfully performed the checkand-balance oversight role of Congress. Its dramatic public hearings informed millions of Americans glued to their television sets of the criminal acts of the president and the constitutional crisis in the country....

This lesson of Watergate is particularly pertinent now. In responses to terrorists' attacks on our country that threaten our national security, President George W. Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft have sought and obtained from an acquiescent Congress unprecedented powers that are inconsistent with the Bill of Rights' protections. It is not that these powers are necessary to fight terrorism. Prior to 9/11, Congress and the Supreme Court had already given competent federal law enforcement agencies all the power and authority they need to successfully keep our country secure.

The government overreaches when it employs its war against terror to attack the liberties of American citizens....

It is the time of the anonymous informer and the chilling threat, reminiscent of Watergate, that dissent is unpatriotic and giving aid to the enemy....

An alert Congress would check the administration's grab for greater power than the Constitution permits. It would hold hearings and inform the people of the dangers they faced. Unfortunately, Congress today is shirking its constitutional responsibilities. There are no Sam Ervins in the Senate now...."

For the rest of the week, Salon is extending their Premium Subscription Charter Rates of $30 (without ads) and $18.50 (with). It really is one of the only places to get relatively clear-headed political reporting; contributors cover a spectrum of opinions, with the core lying in what you might call a "skeptical-liberal" niche. The other reporting, essays, special features, and ancillary content are also quite good, for the most part (and hey, they've got Lynda Barry each week).

Also, when you're a subscriber, you can get sweet benefits like a subscription to US News and World Report, Utne, Wired, and Mother Jones.* That's and, not "or." So, I got three magazine subscriptions to go along with my Salon sub, and there are more goodies you can get as well. (*MJ sub is six months bi-monthly; the others are a year.)

I highly recommend this as a valuable alternative news source. I caught just a little of the State of the Union, but I happened to see the now-infamous "16 words." At the time, I actually hollered at the TV set, "That's not even true!" Thanks to the reporting of Joe Conason and others on Salon, I knew where the B.S. meter was going into "critical." It was exasperating at the time, but I have been glad to see some attention paid to this issue and I appreciated knowing about it, like, when it happened. (Conason, in Salon and in the NY Observer, is one of the most vocal critics of the administration's flim-flam job and someone worth listening to; his daily journal at Salon is a must-read for me, along with TalkingPointsMemo.com and the Buzzflash.com headlines.)

Time and again, I say, "If Salon weren't talking about this, you'd never hear about it." It's a small investment in an important media outlet, and an important vote for alternative, independent news sources (which will be increasingly rare and crucial in coming years). Eighteen bucks doesn't get you very far in Manhattan, but it will get you a year of excellent commentary and reporting. Even when the prices go up, it will still be a small price to pay, but you can save a few bucks by joining this week.

This is a great time to join.

Reporters Vallette and Kretzmann comment on the recent Bush Executive Order re: legal protection for Iraqi oil resources in Common Dreams via MotherJones.com:

"Anything that could go, and elsewhere has gone, awry with U.S. corporate oil operations will be immune to judgment: a massive tanker accident; an explosion at an oil refinery; the employment of slave labor to build a pipeline; murder of locals by corporate security; the release of billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The President, with a stroke of the pen, signed away the rights of Saddam's victims, creditors and of the next true Iraqi government to be compensated through legal action. Bush's order unilaterally declares Iraqi oil to be the unassailable province of U.S. corporations."

I received a job posting via a "digital divide" listserv I'm on. Salary was listed as "competitive, but not dot-com." Er, does that mean "unemployed"?

Man, I love a good conspiracy. Here's the Undeniable Forensic Proof that Paul McCartney really was replaced with a Look-Alike in 1966. Goo goo g'joob g'goo goo g'joob. Goo goo g'joob g'goo goo g'joob g'goo.

The BBC has done a very cute article on a new modelling agency in India which employs only Sikhs. It includes photos as well, but I've been told it's rude to link through and waste the BBC's bandwidth, so you'll just have to click and look on your own. The only problem is that the first photo looks far more guido than suave. I also suspect that they wouldn't accept me -- it looks like the models have their beards trimmed rather than the religiously prescribed never cut (like mine own). Oh well.

[This is actually something I've followed for a while. There was one "pink" Sikh model in London, and then a NYC playboy was part of a spread in Vogue I believe, but nothing more]

I'll be blissfully far away from the Internet for the next week and change. It's a heavy burden to place on my fellow Ishbadiddlers, but I'm sure you'll be up to the challenge of keeping things lively around here. See you soon!

Really!

In today's New York Times, Tommy Friedman makes his case that there's a chance that everything will work out in Iraq. (He articulates it far better than the Bush Administration, but Whatever.) The column is worth a look; for one thing, he dares to comment on what other Arab countries are thinking about Iraq, which is... not much. There something of a wait-and-see game going on at the public level, per Friedman, though this doesn't fully jibe with regional news roundups I've seen elsewhere.

In any event, his column includes this quote:

"Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah recently convened an unusual dialogue between Sunni and Shiite clerics in Saudi Arabia to head off tensions that could flow from Iraq's being ruled by its Shiite majority for the first time in its history. Fears that a democratically elected Shiite-led government in Iraq could stir downtrodden Shiite minorities around the Arab world to demand more power are rife among the dominant Sunni Muslims. Many Sunni Muslims look down on the Shiites as inferior. Think how Southern whites would feel if a black had been elected governor of Mississippi in 1920, and you'll have a taste of how uneasy the Sunnis are about a Shiite-led government in Iraq."

I know there is a longstanding animosity between the Sunnis and the Shiites, and I know that... well, what I discovered was that I don't know much more than that. (I know a little more, but, really, it's just vamping.)

So, I've come clean, and I'm inviting the rest of Ish to step up and school me. I give you: an Ish Pop Quiz.

Without the benefit of outside resources, Internet or otherwise, just how much does the Ish community know about the Sunnis, the Shiites, and their ongoing staredown?

This is an invitation to parade your intimate knowledge on an important subject... or wallow with me in the shallows of the American culture pool, sipping a Zima and saying "dude!" over just how tense things are getting now that we're down to the wire on "For Love or Money 2."

No points, just cred.

Begin.

Forget Chicago or Moulin Rouge -- it's Buffy who's brought back the Great American Musical from the dead!

Funny reviews!. Thanks, Colin!

Go on, make a fantasy pitch! Find out how much you'll make! Mine was ''Persecution Complex,'' a Woody Allen adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story. Found on fshk.

Kobe Bryant probably isn't excited to be standing trial for sexual assault. His victim also probably isn't too thrilled - at either the alleged physical assault or the more recent media circus attached to the trial. But at least one person seems happy she (allegedly) got raped - Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban:

"From a business perspective, it's great for the NBA. It's reality television, people love train-wreck television and you hate to admit it, but that is the truth, that's the reality today," Cuban told Access Hollywood.

In its Tuesday editions, USA Today asked Cuban to elaborate on his "It's great for the NBA" comments:

"Notoriety sells in this day and age," Cuban told the newspaper. "... I can't think of anyone who is going through a legal problem who doesn't get high attention. Is that cold-blooded? Yeah. But it is bottom-line reality."

Cuban noted that Kobe probably won't do for basketball what O.J. did for football: "I don't want to compare Kobe with O.J. (Simpson) because Kobe's case hasn't been decided, but the reality is there is more interest in him (Kobe) now." What did O.J. do for football, you ask? Oh, you are just missing the point.

Cuban also said the intrigue will make Dallas' season opener against the Lakers on Oct. 28 "must-see TV." "Take away the personal aspect and the reality is that there will be more people watching our game against the Lakers," Cuban told USA Today. "Who do you know won't watch the Lakers game with Kobe?"

I love the idea of "taking away the personal aspect" of a rape. You know - thinking of it in terms of "ratings" rather than "crime." Anyway, I'm sure Mr. Cuban is disappointed Kobe didn't go on a larger rape-and-killing spree, but hopefully this one crime will be enough to make the October 28th game a real winner in the overnights.

If not, I guess Mr. Cuban will just have to talk to some of his players about what they can do to raise the team profile - can't let Kobe hog all the "ratings," right?

Oh, by the way, this is mainly being covered by ESPN. Apparently, the major news networks don't find it newsworthy that a multi-millionare team owner of an NBA franchise thinks rape is great for his business.

Useful the next time you're trapped in a car with an evangelist who's trying to convince you you're going to Hell.

Sure, it’s been played on the playgrounds for a while, but The Covers Project, a variation of Six Degrees of Bacon (or Star Maps as my friend who independently, and not using Kevin Bacon, came up with that concept called it), has made its way online. Pick a song and a artist who covered it. Lather, rinse, repeat. And you can learn things, too, like the fact that Van Morrison really didn’t write “Bein’ Green” like I had thought he did. In their biggest honkin’ chain of serial covering (157 songs), there’s some scraping going on, IMHO, but all in all it’s a notable good achievement. (Annoying Google text ads and annoying photo of an in-the-middle-of-rapture be-headphone’d woman notwithstanding.)

(How do the good people at Coudal find these things? Do they work? Is the business just a front for competitive culture blogging?)

That's the RNN Poll Question for today. My sound bite:

I sure hope we don't know the answer to this question, unless we happen to be working for the police or counterterrorism agencies. For a member of the general public to opine on this issue is armchair quarterbacking at its worst. It's a question best left for experts, who know what the real threats are and how to guard against them. As a New Yorker, I hope that our security is "up to par" -- but the only way to be disproven is for a terrorist act to succeed. Still, the recent assassination at City Hall shows that security measures can make us feel safer, but can still critically fail.

...or Serial Killer?

Every now and then, neocons show their true colors. Bob Novak, recently on Crossfire:

---
NOVAK: Ms. Birch, they're going to have a gay high school in New York. They're going to teach gay geography, gay math; is that going to be the drill?

(LAUGHTER)
---

That Bob, what a jokester. In fact, of course, there is a huge vein of comedy to be mined in the concept of Gay high school subjects (anyone? anyone?), but that's not the laugh Bob Novak is after. He knows, we know it, and the folks who want to regulate the way you live, love, and die know it. I can think of at least one great reason not to have a separate school for gays in New York City, but NeoCon(trol Freak) paranoia is not one of them.

P.S. -- Yeah, liberals have no sense of humor, I know. Sorry! Answers to the question in the headline also welcome in comments. My bid: "Dark cabal."

Welcome to Static Ephemera, a fellow ephemeral blogger and Co-op member, to the Blogrolling Department over on the sidebar. Thanks for the link! Also: removed East/West, as it's no longer a joint blog and no longer links to Ish, It's A Mystery, also because it doesn't point here any more, although it's still a great blog and I'll continue to link to it from my links page, and SMCTM, which still links to us but hasn't updated in almost a year.

Big, dumb, summer movie? Yes! Goofy movie spoofs? Yes! Celebrity cameos? Yes! (But Debbie says: not enough cool undercover work, like they did on the TV show, of which she is a longtime fan.)

Felt more like a Cheever short story than an actual movie. But Bebe was great. (Note to screenwriters: take course in Manhattan geography.)

A great show, but almost too much closure in the final ep. Also, things are getting a bit soapy. We'll see if they can keep it up next season....

The whole joke seemed to be casting Patty Hearst in a movie that spoofed the SLA as a movie crew. I didn't make it through.

See the IM review.

We saw this right after Little Voice (see below) -- for some reason, this play adaptation worked much better as a movie, even if they never leave the hotel room. Further proof that DeVito can bring humanity to the right role.

samorost is a flash game that the 3-legged armadillo calls ''a thriller of little prince proportions.'' And it's not impossible!

Excerpts from a roundup of recent polling at Tompaine.com...

Last week (July 21-17), Bush and the Republicans' ratings continued to slide across the board. Most notably, Democrats are now favored by 17 points over Republicans on the economy. That's up from a 1 point Democratic disadvantage in January. The Democrats have also increased their margin on the federal budget deficit, from 4 to 13 points over that same time period. ...

Bush's overall approval rating in this poll shows a 3 point decline to 59 percent over the past week and a half. And, over that same time period, his approval rating on the economy has declined the same amount, to an anemic 45 percent, with 51 percent disapproval.

Finally, the poll shows Bush's margin over an unnamed Democrat in 2004 at just 6 points (47 percent to 41 percent) among all adults, and at just 4 points among registered voters (46 percent to 42 percent). ...
Consistent with other recent surveys, the poll shows substantial erosion of the public's trust and confidence in Bush's approach to foreign affairs, especially the Iraq situation. Right now, 47 percent say they cannot trust what Bush is saying about weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, up 7 points in one month. And 52 percent agree Bush did not adequately plan for the postwar Iraq situation and doesn't have a plan to win the peace and bring the troops home.

Gallup poll of 1,003 adults for CNN/USA Today, released July 22, 2003
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll of 1,014 likely voters for Democracy Corps, released July 23, 2003

Right now, 57 percent of the public believes that rebuilding efforts in Iraq are going not very well or not well at all, compared to just 38 percent who say that things are going very or somewhat well. Most strikingly, the public now overwhelmingly believes that it's more likely that Iraq will be unstable and chaotic six months from now (65 percent) than that it will have a stable government (30 percent). This is a complete turnaround from April, when the public thought stability was a more probable future by 53 percent to 40 percent.

In addition, 80 percent of the public say that the greatest challenges for the United States in Iraq are yet to come, rather than behind us. And 63 percent believe that the difficulty the United States is currently facing in Iraq is greater than the Bush administration assumed it would be.

On the issue of the WMD, most believe the Bush administration (63 percent), and even President Bush (55 percent), were not being fully truthful in presenting evidence on Iraq's WMD to justify going to war. Reflecting these views, half of the public now says that, in the future, if the president presents evidence about a country's secret WMD program, they will feel more wary than they did before, compared to 45 percent who say that they will be as trusting as before.

Knowledge Networks poll of 1,066 respondents for Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), released July 23, 2003

My literary friend from Radnor -- Jill, not Emily -- recently sent along a long list of recent reads. Herewith:

This ascii movie of Matrix clips is pretty cool, but I still prefer the shadow-puppet simplicity of ascii Star Wars. The former found on meme pool.

Very strange spam I received this morning, from a Chinese site. It goes like this

Subject: pond

tests tastes houseboat microprocessing messengers tampered hurler horseshoer cravat schoolgirl auerbach taxpayer mileage exponentiated thatches scudding adage millinery covenants additions pontiff sears scours teflon sandpiper teahouse tasked tenebrous memos bowdlerize $RANDO MIZE televisors pomade argive tenure adsorption excitable pole husbands sang adopt talks cotangent horsemen bassett maximizes exceedingly milking theme bonnet human covalent terrorism adventists accessible scratcher crafter adores pomegranate tactic bouncer $RANDOM IZE scientifically crewcut bergson boy biometrika exporting scan illicit plotted mets excretion exasperates scientifically mated bowel measuring abernathy scrolled plush memoir scatter

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playground countless terrible huts poetical meander immersed hydrochemistry bolshevism militarist seashores actinic scavenge scouting boasters postgraduate excised bolsters pragmatic crepe excision bookend act body berkshire boxing mesenteric excisable countrymen humorously $RANDOM IZE mathematical bolshoi cove metallic illustrious talisman measurements crazing barrington algol sanguine tape explicitness mignon countably alison botched cowering expel etude testings telegraph searing craziest crossed plaza saute scoria memorized ice $RANDOMI ZE activation evidently telegraph temptation mentioning evacuate mewed bolshevik horned bona beatrice acculturated acting costumes crawler hurling hydro artie hydroxylate metes pragmatically

I feel like it's some sacred incantation that's supposed to turn me into a pod person if I recite it backwards. Pretty unusual for either spam or virus mail, eh ? Where's Willow when you need her ?