Sanely free of McCarthyite calling anyone a "traitor" since 2001!
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I'm underemployed (historically particularly as an editor in book and magazine publishing), recurringly housebound with insanely painful now-sporadic (when I have meds) gout, an enlarged heart, and other health problems, particularly including lifelong recurring severe clinical depression. See here for a major crisis. I'm also sometimes available to some degree as a paid writer or researcher. This is a previous update on my situation & this -- and this from December 19th, 2005 update.
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"The brain is wider than the sky, For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include With ease, and you beside"
-- Emily Dickinson
"We will pursue peace as if there is no terrorism and fight terrorism as if there is no peace."
-- Yitzhak Rabin
"I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be."
-- Alexander Hamilton
"The stakes are too high for government to be a spectator sport."
-- Barbara Jordan
"Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to
trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule --
and both commonly succeed, and are right."
-- H. L. Mencken
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
-- William Pitt
"The only completely consistent people are the dead."
-- Aldous Huxley
"I have had my solutions for a long time; but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them."
-- Karl F. Gauss
"Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive empire,
the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences to mankind;
and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the vices, diffused likewise
the improvements of social life."
-- Edward Gibbon
"Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his
expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were
respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom."
-- Edward Gibbon
"There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify
the evils, of the present times."
-- Edward Gibbon
"Our youth now loves luxuries. They have bad manners, contempt for authority.
They show disrespect for elders and they
love to chatter instead of exercise.
Children are now tyrants, not the servants, of their households. They
no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
chatter before company, gobble up their food, and tyrannize
their teachers."
-- Socrates
"Before impugning an opponent's motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer his arguments."
-- Sidney Hook
"Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness."
-- Sidney Hook
"Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization.
We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect
disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about particular degrees of interest
and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimized."
-- Reinhold Niebuhr
"Faced with the choice of all the land without a Jewish state or a Jewish state without all the
land, we chose a Jewish state without all the land."
-- David Ben-Gurion
"...the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him
an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this
or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages
to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right; that it tends also
to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing,
with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess
and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminals who do not withstand such
temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that the
opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction;
that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion
and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their
ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty,
because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of
judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square
with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil
government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts
against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if
left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has
nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her
natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is
permitted freely to contradict them.
-- Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, Thomas Jefferson
"We don't live just by ideas. Ideas are part of the mixture of customs and practices,
intuitions and instincts that make human life a conscious activity susceptible to
improvement or debasement. A radical idea may be healthy as a provocation;
a temperate idea may be stultifying. It depends on the circumstances. One of the most
tiresome arguments against ideas is that their "tendency" is to some dire condition --
to totalitarianism, or to moral relativism, or to a war of all against all."
-- Louis Menand
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis."
-- Dante Alighieri
"He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers."
-- Henry B. Adams
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the
poor to beg in the streets, steal bread, or sleep under a bridge."
-- Anatole France
"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
-- Edmund Burke
"Education does not mean that we have become certified experts in business or mining or botany or journalism or epistemology;
it means that through the absorption of the moral, intellectual, and esthetic inheritance of the race we have come to
understand and control ourselves as well as the external world; that we have chosen the best as our associates both in spirit
and the flesh; that we have learned to add courtesy to culture, wisdom to knowledge, and forgiveness to understanding."
-- Will Durant
"Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is
but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest
winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?"
-- Herman Melville
"The most important political office is that of the private citizen."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
-- Louis D. Brandeis
"It is an error to suppose that books have no influence; it is a slow influence, like flowing water carving out a canyon,
but it tells more and more with every year; and no one can pass an hour a day in the society of sages and heroes without
being lifted up a notch or two by the company he has kept."
-- Will Durant
"When you write, you’re trying to transpose what you’re thinking into something that is less like an annoying drone and more like a piece of music."
-- Louis Menand
"Sex is a continuum."
-- Gore Vidal
"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, 1802.
"The sum of our religion is peace and unanimity, but these can scarcely stand unless we define as little as possible,
and in many things leave one free to follow his own judgment, because there is great obscurity in many matters, and
man suffers from this almost congenital disease that he will not give in when once a controversy is started, and
after he is heated he regards as absolutely true that which he began to sponsor quite casually...."
-- Desiderius Erasmus
"Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule of what we are to read, and what we must disbelieve?"
-- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to N. G. Dufief, Philadelphia bookseller, 1814
"We are told that it is only people's objective actions that matter, and their subjective feelings are of no importance. Thus pacifists, by obstructing the war effort,
are 'objectively' aiding the Nazis; and therefore the fact that they may be personally hostile to Fascism is irrelevant. I have been guilty of saying this myself more than once. The same argument is applied to Trotskyism. Trotskyists are often credited, at any rate by Communists, with being active and conscious agents of Hitler; but when you point out the many and obvious reasons why this is unlikely to be true,
the 'objectively' line of talk is brought forward again. To criticize the Soviet Union helps Hitler: therefore 'Trotskyism is Fascism'. And when this has been established, the accusation of conscious treachery is usually repeated.
This is not only dishonest; it also carries a severe penalty with it. If you disregard people's motives, it becomes much harder to foresee their actions."
-- George Orwell, "As I Please," Tribune, 8 December 1944
"Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive? If 'needy' were a turn-on?"
-- "Aaron Altman," Broadcast News
"The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
-- Lewis Thomas
"To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. For what is man's lifetime unless the memory of past events is woven with those of earlier times?"
-- Cicero
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it."
-- Samuel Johnson, Life Of Johnson
"Very well, what did my critics say in attacking my character? I must read out their affidavit, so to speak, as though they were my legal accusers: Socrates is guilty of criminal meddling, in that he inquires into things below the earth and in the sky, and makes the weaker argument defeat the stronger, and teaches others to follow his example."
-- Socrates, via Plato, The Republic
"Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself."
-- Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign
"Remember, Robin: evil is a pretty bad thing."
-- Batman
"Being evil is not a full-time job."
-- James Lileks
Gary Farber is now a licensed Double Super-Secret Master Pundit.
He does not always refer to himself in the third person.
Did he mention he was presently single?
The lutefisk is dead. Donate via the donation button on the top left
or I'll shoot this gefilte fish.
No, really, I seriously need the help at present. And I hate asking.
Current Total # of Donations Since Blog Began: 606
Subscribers to date at $5/month: 30 sign-ups; 22 cancellations; Total= 8
Supporter subscribers to date at $25/month: 7 sign-ups; 3 cancellation; Total= 4
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And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
Farber's First Fundamental of Blogging:
If your idea of making an insightful point is to make fun of people's
names, or refer to them by rilly clever labels such as "The Big Me" or "The Shrub,"
chances are high that I'm not reading your blog. The same applies if you refer
to a group of people by disparaging terms such as "the Donks" or "the pals." (Note: I have to say I don't give that much of a damn any more.)
Farber's Second Fundamental of Blogging:
The more interested you are in scoring a "point" for a political "team," a "side," than in exploring the validity or value of an idea, the less interested I am in what you're saying.
(Note: Partially suspended for the Duration. Later note: forget I ever said this.)
Farber's Third Fundamental of Blogging:
If you see a link on another blog, and use it, credit the blog.
Some places I go:
[weblogs, sites, and columns]
People I've known and still miss include Isaac Asimov, rich brown, Charles Burbee, F. M. "Buzz" Busby, Terry Carr, A. Vincent Clarke, George Alec Effinger,
Bill & Sherry Fesselmeyer, George Flynn, John Milo "Mike" Ford. John Foyster, Jay Haldeman, Chuch Harris, Mike Hinge, Lee Hoffman, Terry Hughes, Damon Knight, Ross Pavlac, Bruce Pelz, Elmer Perdue, Tom Perry,
Larry Propp, Bill Rotsler, Art Saha, Bob Shaw, Martin Smith, Harry Stubbs, Bob Tucker, Harry Warner, Jr., Jack Williamson, Walter A. Willis, Susan Wood, Kate Worley, and Roger Zelazny.
It's just a start.
And She of whom I must write someday.
You Like Me, You Really Like Me
...Darn: I saw that Gary had commented on this thread, and thought: oh. my. god. Perfect storm. Unstoppable cannonball, immovable object.
-- Hilzoy
Guessing that Gary is ignorant of anything that has ever been written down is, in my experience, unwise.
Just saying.
-- Hilzoy
Where would the blogosphere be without the Guardian? Guardian fish-barreling is now a venerable tradition. Yet even within this tradition, I don't believe there has ever been a more extensive and thorough essay than this one, from Gary Farber's fine blog. Gary appears to have examined every single thing that Guardian/Observer columnist Mary Ridell has ever written. He ties it all together, reaches inevitable conclusion. An archive can be a weapon.
-- Dr. Frank
Isn't Gary a cracking blogger, apropos of nothing in particular?
-- Alison Scott
I usually read you and Patrick several times a day, and I always get something from them. You've got great links, intellectually honest commentary, and a sense of humor. What's not to like?
-- Ted Barlow
...writer[s] I find myself checking out repeatedly when I'm in the mood to play follow-the-links. They're not all people I agree with all the time, or even most of the time, but I've found them all to be thoughtful writers, and that's the important thing, or should be.
-- Tom Tomorrow
Amygdala - So much stuff it reminds Unqualified Offerings that UO sometimes thinks of Gary Farber as "the liberal Instapundit." -- Jim Henley
I look at it almost every day. I can't follow all the links, but I read most of your pieces. The blog format really seems to suit you. It also suits me; I am not a news junkie, so having smart people like you ferret out the interesting stuff and leave it where I can find it is wonderful.
-- Lydia Nickerson
Gary is certainly a non-idiotarian 'liberal'...
-- Perry deHaviland
...the thoughtful and highly intelligent Gary Farber... My first reaction was that I definitely need to appease Gary Farber of Amygdala, one of the geniuses of our age.
-- Brad deLong
My friend Gary Farber at Amygdala is the sort of liberal for whom I happily give three cheers. [...] Damned incisive blogging....
-- Midwest Conservative Journal
If I ever start a paper, Clueless writes the foreign affairs column, Layne handles the city beat, Welch has the roving-reporter job, Tom Tomorrow runs the comic section (which carries Treacher, of course). MediaMinded runs the slots - that's the type of editor I want as the last line of defense. InstantMan runs the edit page - and you can forget about your Ivins and Wills and Friedmans and Teepens on the edit page - it's all Blair, VodkaP, C. Johnson, Aspara, Farber, Galt, and a dozen other worthies, with Justin 'I am smoking in such a provocative fashion' Raimondo tossed in for balance and comic relief.
Who wouldn't buy that paper? Who wouldn't want to read it? Who wouldn't climb over their mother to be in it?
-- James Lileks
Gary is a perceptive, intelligent, nice guy. Some of the stuff he comes up with is insightful, witty, and stimulating. And sometimes he manages to make me groan.
-- Charlie Stross
One of my issues with many poli-blogs is the dickhead tone so many bloggers affect to express their sense of righteous indignation. Gary Farber's thoughtful leftie takes on the world stand in sharp contrast with the usual rhetorical bullying. Plus, he likes "Pogo," which clearly attests to his unassaultable good taste.
-- oakhaus.com
Gary Farber is a principled liberal....
-- Bill Quick, The Daily Pundit
I read Amygdala...with regularity, as do all sensible websurfers.
-- Jim Henley, Unqualified Offerings
Okay, he is annoying, but he still posts a lot of good stuff.
-- Avedon Carol, The Sideshow
The only trouble with reading Amygdala is that it makes me feel like such a slacker. That Man Farber's a linking, posting, commenting machine, I tell you!
-- John Robinson, Sore Eyes
Jaysus. I saw him do something like this before, on a thread about Israel. It was pretty brutal. It's like watching one of those old WWF wrestlers grab an opponent's
face and grind away until the guy starts crying. I mean that in a nice & admiring way, you know.
-- Fontana Labs, Unfogged
We read you Gary Farber! We read you all the time! Its just that we are lazy with our blogroll. We are so very very lazy. We are always the last ones to the party but we always have snazzy bow ties.
-- Fafnir, Fafblog!
Gary Farber you are a genius of mad scientist proportions. I will bet there are like huge brains growin in jars all over your house.
-- Fafnir, Fafblog!
Gary Farber is the hardest working man in show blog business. He's like a young Gene Hackman blogging with his hair on fire, or something.
-- Belle Waring, John & Belle Have A Blog
I bow before the shrillitudinousness of Gary Farber, who has been blogging like a fiend.
-- Ted Barlow, Crooked Timber
Gary Farber only has two blogging modes: not at all, and 20 billion interesting posts a day [...] someone on the interweb whose opinions I can trust....
-- Belle Waring, John & Belle Have A Blog
Gary Farber! Jeez, the guy is practically a blogging legend, and I'm always surprised at the breadth of what he writes about.
-- PZ Meyers, Pharyngula
Gary Farber takes me to task, in a way befitting the gentleman he is.
-- Stephen Green, Vodkapundit
HILARIOUS TITLE LATER EDITED IN THE MATRIX AND YOU'LL NEVER KNOW. When you get your DVD of Matrix Reloaded, check out the extremely funny MTV Movie Awards spoof on the Bonus Disc, which is referred to here and can be seen here if you're cheap and patient.
I laughed until I stopped.
And I've never seen a single American Pie movie or Justin Timberlake video. Yet.
I'm not at all a Will Ferrell fan; he has to pry the laughs from me, but I grudgingly admit he can do it on the right performance and occasion. This one made me nearly bust an intestine.
EASTERBROOK FIRED from ESPN. Roger Simon spoke to him by phone, and reported. As do many of Easterbrook's harshest critics over his piece, such as Glenn Reynolds and Meryl Yourish, I think there's no way Easterbrook should have been fired, and suspect that the fact that he criticized Disney, owner of ESPN, and, specifically, Michael Eisner, has as much to do with this, if not more, than his channelling anti-Semitism.
FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE ARNOLD CAMPAIGN TRAIL. I said nothiing about the recall when it was on because -- and I know this is simply no excuse -- I had nothing useful or interesting to say on the subject that someone else wasn't already saying better.
But I've always been a sucker for a good "campaign bus" account, and this one is a doozy.
There are some days in the campaign business when it would be easiest for an aide to wake up, put on her best dress, then step in front of a bus. Today in Arnold World is one of those days. The morning sees charges that Schwarzenegger is an ass-grabbing lout. By evening, he'll stand accused of loving Adolf Hitler. As one colleague puts it, "Any day spent on the trail talking about Adolf Hitler is not a good day."
[...]
Reporters take off after him, hurriedly mounting our buses. All the buses on the tour are named after Arnold movies. His own tricked-out coach is "The Running Man," while his slightly less elaborate VIP bus is "Total Recall" (get it?). The wags in Arnold's press shop titled the media buses "Predator 1-4." But we get the last laugh. In light of the new allegations, we call them "Sexual Predator 1-4."
I'm initially assigned to Bus 2, which in the social pecking order ranks behind Bus 1 (TV anchors, big-circulation print reporters, favored California press) and ahead of Buses 3 and 4 (technical people and leftover foreign press, respectively). Bus 4, Gluck tells me, "is like that room in 'Animal House'" where all the uncool kids kept getting steered." Foreign reporters, the campaign constantly reminds us, won't get Arnold any votes in California.
[...]
I take a seat next to some Japanese TV people, who do their best to communicate with me in Godzilla-movie English. An Asahi TV producer tells me Arnold is big in Japan, where he does Cup O' Noodles soup and energy-drink commercials. He says they call him "Schwa-Chan," which loosely translates as "childish boy." Since it is fairly clear early on that access to Arnold will be next to nil, journalists interview other journalists from foreign countries. When my seatmate's colleague starts interviewing the French documentary crew in front of me, the producer feels compelled to quickly get his face out of the shot. He dives into my lap, barking orders in Japanese which are muffled in my crotch. It leaves me with steely resolve to get off this bus and make it onto Sexual Predator 1.
[...]
The kids love Arnold and Arnold loves the kids, and the staff loves Arnold with the kids because kids don't ask questions about women showing up in parking lots claiming that Arnold threatened to rape them. The same can't be said of the big kids on the press bus. The men who must deal with our queries, the conservative versions of "War Room"-era James Carville and George Stephanopoulos, are Arnold spokesmen Rob Stutzman and Todd Harris. They both do their work brilliantly, and if I ever run for office and get accused of being an ass-grabbing Nazi in the final stretch of a campaign, I will hire them without blinking.
[...]
A reporter asks Harris what he thinks the headlines will be tomorrow. "Harris dazzles media with impromptu press conferences," he deadpans. The piranhas are circling and Harris is the chum bag, but he knows how to end a press conference. "There's beer on every bus and it should be cold," he loudly announces.
[...]
The next day, at the L.A. Arboretum, Rob Stutzman tells us that their campaign has actually jumped a point or two in the polls, despite the allegations. It's insane, but apparently true. The way some of us figure, if Arnold can get on the trail and goose some Jewish women, they might not even need to have the election: Davis will be forced to concede.
The new version of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is a contemptible film: Vile, ugly and brutal. There is not a shred of a reason to see it. Those who defend it will have to dance through mental hoops of their own devising, defining its meanness and despair as "style" or "vision" or "a commentary on our world." It is not a commentary on anything, except the marriage of slick technology with the materials of a geek show.
[...]
There is a controversy involving Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill: Volume 1," which some people feel is "too violent." I gave it four stars, found it kind of brilliant, felt it was an exhilarating exercise in nonstop action direction. The material was redeemed, justified, illustrated and explained by the style. It was a meditation on the martial arts genre, done with intelligence and wit. "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is a meditation on the geek-show movie. Tarantino's film is made with grace and joy. This movie is made with venom and cynicism. I doubt that anybody involved in it will be surprised or disappointed if audience members vomit or flee.
Roger is always on a great roll when he gives a film zero stars.
(I don't think Lileks should give this one a try. Do you?)
Uzbekistan, a post-Soviet police state on the strategically important border with Afghanistan, was another potential political minefield. Uzbek security services use "torture as a routine investigation technique", according to the US State Department. But Washington's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have led them to finance much of the regime's security apparatus. In exchange the US gets a military base in Khanabad as a centre for operations in Afghanistan. Last year Washington gave the government $500m (£298m) in aid, $79m of which was specifically for the same "law enforcement and security services" they accused of routine torture.
Mr Murray upset the regime of President Islam Karimov with his blunt remarks on torture. His comments also began to accentuate the differences in the Foreign Office's supposed ethical foreign policy and its support for US actions. In October last year at Freedom House, Mr Murray read a speech that had been cleared by the Foreign Office to the assembled dignitaries, including top Uzbek officials and the US ambassador.
He said: "We believe there to be between 7,000 and 10,000 people in detention whom we would consider as political and/or religious prisoners. No government has the right to use the war against terrorism as an excuse for the persecution of those with a deep personal commitment to the Islamic religion, and who pursue their views by peaceful means."
The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, brought Mr Murray's hard-hitting speech up in a meeting with Mr Karimov. This was said to have incensed Mr Karimov. Mr Murray sent numerous reports to London about human rights abuses, and his dispatches became increasingly heated during the build-up to the Iraqi invasion. He argued Uzbekistan's human rights abuses were as bad as those being used as ammunition against Baghdad. Yet Washington was financing Uzbekistan, rather than invading it, he said.
He received many internal emails of support, and some of criticism. He became personally involved in exposing torture, commissioning a forensic report on the bodies of two political prisoners, Muzafar Avazov and Husnidin Alimov, which concluded they had probably been boiled to death.
What the hell: who wants to let a little boiling to death come between friends?
Read The Rest Scale: 4.75 out of 5 for more information on our ally, President Karimov, and a British Ambassador in trouble.
BOLLYWOOD'S TRADITION of individual hand-painted posters for each movie for each theater is going away.
India's growing economy has caught up with the movie business. Formula films are suffering record losses. Multiplexes are outpacing single-screen movie halls. And distributors have left behind the familiar hand-painted posters that once papered walls from Kashmir to Kerala for slick digitally designed ones.
The posters are far from their former glory. India's movie industry used to produce thousands of hand-painted posters and billboard-sized banners a year. Some theaters even had in-house artists to keep up with the torrent of releases.
Concerned about the appearance of disarray and feuding within his administration as well as growing resistance to his policies in Iraq, President Bush - living up to his recent declaration that he is in charge - told his top officials to "stop the leaks" to the media, or else.
News of Bush's order leaked almost immediately.
Bush told his senior aides Tuesday that he "didn't want to see any stories" quoting unnamed administration officials in the media anymore, and that if he did, there would be consequences, said a senior administration official who asked that his name not be used.
[...]
The infighting, backstabbing and maneuvering on such major foreign-policy issues as North Korea, Syria, Iran and postwar Iraq have escalated to a level that veterans of government say they have not seen in years. At one point, the senior official said, Bush himself asked how bad it was.
"This isn't as bad as [George] Shultz vs. [Caspar] Weinberger, is it?" he asked, referring to a legendary Reagan administration rivalry between secretaries of state and defense. One top official reportedly nodded and said it was "way worse."
This is both hilarious in itself, and, sure, also, the reporters, Joseph L. Galloway and James Kuhnhenn, are clearly falling over laughing at their keyboards at it.
As they should.
Is the following some sort of response to the election of Schwarzenegger?
That failure was in sharp contrast to the President's lobbying of House members last week. Zach Wamp, a Tennessee Republican who had pushed a loan plan, backed away after meeting with Bush. "If his eyes had been lasers, mine would have burned out," Wamp said then.
Bush's competitive streak? You may be an unstoppable killer robot from the future, Ah-nold, but I have laser eyes.
Lastly, another quote on the Iraqi protection racket, from Senator Sam Brownback, Giant Leaping Asshole Republican of Kansas:
Brownback said: "I think we ought to have the Iraqis have some skin in the game with some loans. I don't know if they're going to be able to repay it. But if it's all a grant, we know it won't get repaid."
Yeah, those Iraqis sure would get off scott-free if we didn't demand they give us ten billion dollars. Gosh, I wish someone would come due to our country what we did to theirs! They have no "skin" in the "game." What a sweet deal we've dealt them.
Did I mention Brownback and the others in this mindset are assholes?
MANILA, Oct. 18 -- President Bush told the Congress of this former American colony on Saturday that Iraq, like the Philippines, could be transformed into a vibrant democracy.
[...]
In an nine-hour visit, Mr. Bush for the first time drew explicit comparisons between the transition he is seeking in Iraq and the rough road to democracy that the Philippines traveled from the time the United States seized it from Spain in 1898 to the present day.
And, great, after independence -- forty-six years from now -- Iraq will get to have a Huk Rebellion! And then an equivalent of Marcos and martial law! They're gonna love it!
That's what George meant, right?
Read The Rest Scale: 1.5 out of 5.
ADDENDUM:
While Mr. Bush made elliptical references to the Spanish-American War, some of his critics have argued that the justification for invading Iraq bore a resemblance to the rationale the United States used to begin that war in 1898, citing evidence. discounted as flimsy, that the battleship Maine had been deliberately blown up in Cuba by Spanish forces. That began the first war in which the United States seized territory beyond its continental shores, and the first in which other nations accused Washington of imperialist and colonial ambitions.
The commissioners say they have found a balance between the need for guarantees for both democracy and Islam. The country will be named the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. "If the name did not include Islam, people would not feel confident," said Professor Ahmadi.
I wonder what all the people who claim that Israel is "racist" for being a Jewish country, and that "Zionism is racism" will say.
Oh, that's right: nothing. Just as they've always said nothing about all the European nations with a state Christian religion and nothing about the 27 nations of the Islamic Conference.
But: Jews. Can't let them have a national state with an official religion. That's racist.
Read The Rest Scale: 2 out of 5 for a mildly interesting article on the construction of the new Afghan Constitution.
George W. Bush's grandfather, the Senator, has long been known to:
U.S. President George W. Bush's grandfather was a director of a bank seized by the federal government because of its ties to a German industrialist who helped bankroll Adolf Hitler's rise to power, government documents show.
Prescott Bush was one of seven directors of Union Banking Corp., a New York investment bank owned by a bank controlled by the Thyssen family, according to recently declassified National Archives documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
There are reportedly new details available. Wonderfully, though, this story asserts that, and then fails to actually, you know, give any.
WHILE WE'RE ON THE TOPIC. This is an example of what gives all the impression of being knee-jerk reflexive responding.
Our view: What are we waitng for? Bring our troops home now.
Of course, it likely isn't. Jeralyn Merrit is obviously a highly intelligent person.
But I utterly fail to understand how the above is a policy, or is part of a reasonable policy. Bring the troops home? Yes, as soon as humanly possible after reasonable security is restored. Will that condition be fulfulled tomorrow? No, of course not. Next week? Again, no. Next month: no. Six months from now? Maybe. A year? Maybe. I'd certainly hope we could have major draw-down by then, but it will remain to be seen. Five years from now? I damn well hope so.
Meanwhile: what does "bring the troops home now" mean? It means leaving Iraqis to be killed in major numbers, by each other. It means leaving Iraqis vulnerable to the Syrians and Iranians. It means leaving Iraqis to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, alone, after what we've done to them. It means saying "sorry about that hilarious joke we pulled on you, that "invasion" thing, but, hey, gotta go! So long, and good luck with that reconstruction thing!"
How is this proposal a good thing? How would it help Iraqis?
I trust that it's not just a nostalgic Vietnam-era utterance. There's certainly a case to be made that Americans are going to be an elephant in Iraq, insensitive and ignorant, and that the quicker we can get out, and quit giving Iraqis orders at gunpoint, the better. That last sentence is simple fact.
But: "bring our troops home now? Now?
Isn't that a tad unrealistic, not to mention simplistic? Isn't that actually a plan that carries a world of further hurt for Iraqis, on balance?
Most importantly, the Senate version calls for some of the money to be a loan to Iraq, while the House version does not.
[...]
The House measure does not include any requirement that Iraq eventually repay some of the roughly $20 billion in reconstruction funds. In that respect, the House differed with the Senate measure, which calls for Iraq to pay back up to $10 billion. That difference will have to be bridged, one way or the other, before the legislation goes to President Bush for his signature.
The administration has engaged in heavy lobbying on Capitol Hill, urging lawmakers to make the reconstruction money grants rather than loans. "Iraq is burdened by past debts,'' Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman, said today. "Now is not the time to add the burden of new debts.'
Look at that: an issue on which the Administration is perfectly correct, and 51 Senators and 200 Representatives perfectly wrong.
Before the House approved its version, it defeated by 226 to 200 an amendment offered by Democrats that would have converted half the Iraq-reconstruction money into loans.
Representative Lloyd Doggett, the Texas Democrat who helped to round up "no'' votes today, said afterward that he was pleased that 125 House members had registered their opposition.
This seriously bugs me. Were you against the war? Fine, plenty of good arguments to be made in support of that position.
But that was then, this is now, and the pieces have to be picked up, regardless of what you thought of the war.
So how is saying "I wash my hands of Iraq" morally justifiable? Because you opposed the war? Because you oppose Bush?
How does that logically follow?
If you felt the war would lead to too much Iraqi suffering, how does it stand to reason that you want to leave them to more suffering now? How would it punish Bush? (Hint: it wouldn't, and it's morally blind.)
"The American people are very generous,'' said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, a co-sponsor of the loan plan. "But the American taxpayer does deserve to be repaid eventually for some of our investment in this country. And Iraq deserves to be treated as a country that has the enormous economic potential that it clearly has.''
What unspeakable greed and hypocrisy. We're the richest nation on Earth. And we have the gall to demand, at gunpoint -- literally -- that a people whose country we've just -- justifiably or not (and I'd still lean towards justifying it) -- raped (figuratively), give us ten billion dollars?
We invade them, kill thousands, bomb them, drop artillery shells on them, devastate their economy, and then we say we're poor, poor, pitiful us, and demand they PAY for it?
Unbelievable. My words, at this point, they drop dead out of inability to do the job of adequately describing my disgust. The words are humiliated, and commit suicide in shame.
I now go to give them a decent burial, before they stink up the joint.
The politicans who voted for this amendment should have the self-respect to do the same.
SGT. CASTILLO doesn't like it there. That's a negative thing. There are positive things. Negative things also happen. This one, in particular, unless you are volunteering.
Read The Rest Scale: 3 out of 5.
(They've kept opening and closing the door behind me; last year they opened the door to guys volunteering if they were five years younger than me; which didn't work; I might have been crazy enough to take the leap. I'd have been a lot slimmer, and comfortable, and happier, save for, well, all that deserty dust stuff, about which, oh, my, dear.)
Cutting through the useless "politically correct" debates, Dahlia Lithwick (my goddess) makes complete sense. As usual.
Gregg Easterbrook, sensible at times, not so much here. Win some, lose some, Gregg. Worthwhile thought, to be sure, even though Dahlia points out it doesn't work out at all.
Read The Rest Scale: 3.75 out of 5 on the culture of sexual interaction scale.
PLEASE GIVE JIM HENLEY FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS to story outline the first decent Captain America movie, someone? He knows what he's talking about. And, also, give him first option on writing the script, in which case he gets two million if you like it.
Open on a foxhole near Tripoli. Daytime, but with the sandstorm it's not doing the GIs much good. There's an upturned jeep beside the depression, and three black GIs from the motor pool taking fire. They're lightly armed because this is the segregated army, though we don't stress that. A tank shell blasts the jeep to smithereens. The camera angles are all low, right down in the hole with the troops, and when the glare from the blast subsides, a Wehrmacht rifleman almost trips in with us. He tries to fire, but one of the troops, a sergeant, gets him first.
Another shell hits near the hole, showering the soldiers with sand. What are we gonna do? a private demands. Take a bunch of them with us, says the sergeant. He rolls to a vantage point and fires.
Smoke, sand, voices, guns, confusion. More jerries appear out of the sand, and one of them gets the drop on the Sarge.
Then the shield creams him. And the sergeant and the camera track the spangled disc as it bounces back, and when it gets picked up we get our first, momentary full-figure shot of Captain America.
Then, because he's a soldier and not an idot, he hops down into the foxhole with them.
"You ain't one of them," the sergeant says, "but who are you? And what kind of uniform is that??"
"The one they gave me, Sergeant. Are you ready to get out of here?"
"Yes, sir!" he says, that being the most politic way to address a white man, no matter how oddly-clothed. "I don't know if that tank's ready to let us out of here, though."
"Sergeant," the costumed white guy says, "give me a grenade and some covering fire, and he won't have a choice."
Roll titles.
And now you start the flashbacks and explain the backstory. But as I learned from a Rita Mae Brown book on writing, job one is to establish your leading man with a memorable first shot. The initial impression you make on the viewers is "ridiculously-garbed savior." You invest the credit immediately and make sure the returns pay off.
Yep. Jim knows poetry. Jim knows comics. Jim knows writing. Jim knows what's up here.
Added spice: the later feature where Captain America announces he is a libertarian, and denounces American intervention in other countries!
Okay, now we're on trickier ground, but I'd be delighted to read Jim's version. It's not like he's committing -- or uncommitting -- us. And -- kewlness -- we can all decide what we think about it on our own.
Read The Rest Scale for more Captain America and comics and libertarian and fitness and other bloggy goodness: 3.75 out of 5. (No matter that Jim hasn't linked to me in a year and a day! Figuratively speaking; he remains an Amygdala many-times-a-day-check.)
THAT WACKY PAT ROBERTSON is at it again, being responsible, and calling for the mass murder of US government officials.
The State Department has protested to televangelist Pat Robertson about his "despicable" suggestion that someone blow up the department with a nuclear bomb, an official said on Thursday.
Robertson, a former presidential candidate, made the remark in an interview with Joel Mowbray, author of a new book entitled "Dangerous Diplomacy: How the State Department Endangers America's Security."
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, asked to comment, said on Thursday: "I lack sufficient capabilities to express my disdain. ... I think the very idea is despicable." The department has made its views clear to Robertson, added a State Department official, who asked not to be named.
Introducing Mowbray on his Christian Broadcasting Network, Robertson said that a person who read Mowbray's book would reach the conclusion that a nuclear explosion at the State Department was the best solution. "I read your book. When you get through, you say (to yourself): 'If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom (the State Department's main building), I think that's the answer' and you say: 'We've got to blow that thing up.' I mean, is it as bad as you say?" he said.
"It is," Mowbray replied. Mowbray himself did not make the suggestion, either in his book or in the interview. According to the network's Web site, Mowbray's book "exposes the mixed allegiances, hidden agendas, and outright anti-Americanism found in the State Department."
Ann Coulter wants to blow up The New York Times building. Robertson wants to nuke State (no overkill there, boyo). These folks are just gonzo for mass murder, aren't they?
Of course, it's all right, because thems' libruls we're talking about, and them folks ain't rieel Amuricans.
Read The Rest Scale: 2 out of 5 for a complaint filed about this.
The one thing that did not change, and will not if you ask me, is that bribes are still accepted and welcome. Give the people at the check point who are supposed to check your luggage $10 and they will not look. You don’t have to open the trunk let alone bringing it out of the car. It is actually a mighty drag, especially if like me you have got four plus lots of small bags and most of them are filled with books and CDs. You don't really want to explain why you have five Salman Rushdie books, it never makes a good impression on the border guards. He would report you to his superiors as the anti-Allah. Don’t start with your "but you are free now" speech, it will take more tan six months to change that.
So the border point was made more pleasant by paying 10 fucking dollars, can you imagine that, only ten dollars and I could have a car full of explosives. Long live bribable corrupt countries.
THE CHINESE VIEW OF WAR: Of interest really only to professional military and arm-chair generals, this rather interminable book-length look at various recent developments in American military strategy from several Chinese analysts is nonetheless apt to fascinate those interested in this esoteric subject.
Read The Rest if you have such a specialty interest.
William Rotsler. Robert Silverberg. Arthur Thomson. Arthur C. Clarke. Ken Fletcher. Reed Waller. Steve Stiles. Ted White. Walt Willis. Robert Bloch. Nalrah Nosille (try it backwards). And more!
Oh, and Lee Hoffman.
Read The Rest Scale: 5 out of 5.
(I've lived through receiving seven issues; that's frightening.) (Special Amygdala game: count the number of times my name is mentioned, and win a no-prize!)
BLOGOSPHERE: This is fascinating, though. BoingBoing, Salem Pax, and Glenn Reynolds have more links from blogs, at 1357, 994, and 973, respectively, as measured by Popdex, than The New York Times at 830.
Of course, you need to link to our outstanding site, so the crack Amygdala editorial team can, sooner or later, break into the top one hundred on this index.
This is the result, in my unhumble opinion, of an overly sweeping, and thus not as useful as it might be, definition of "blog." Which is also to say, I'll turn 45 on November 5th.
Nonetheless, some interesting results in the survey.
Read The Rest Scale: 2.5 out of 5 if you care. (Also via Natalie.)
Yesterday, the Japanese daily newspaper Sankei Shimbun shed a chink of light on the lurid private life of the man behind the nuclear threat. It quoted a "Korean peninsula source" for its report on Ms Ko's road accident, but had no other details. Since the latest nuclear standoff began, growing numbers of high-ranking North Koreans have fled to the South, including Mr Kim's cook, his bodyguard and his hairdresser.
All have revealed astonishing details of a bizarre and feudal regime run as the private fiefdom of Mr Kim.
Kim Jong Il's younger sister runs the family's businesses which include gold, zinc and anthracite mining operations and the smuggling of opium, heroin and amphetamines. The CIA estimates that the family is worth $4bn [£2.4bn] apparently managed by a Swiss bank.
This wealth enables Mr Kim to lead the life of a leisured aristocrat with thoroughbred horses, speed boats, racing cars, a private pool in his residence and a cellar of vintage French wines and Hennessy Cognac plus a library with 16,000 films and a multinational team of personal chefs.
[...]
Ms Ko reportedly caught Mr Kim's eye as one of 2,000 girls employed in the dictator's "pleasure groups". She was a dancer in the Mansudae Art Troupe in Pyongyang. Each "pleasure group" is composed of three teams - a "satisfaction team", which performs sexual services; a "happiness team," which provides massage and a "dancing and singing team".
These teams, recruited from girls' high schools, undergo a six-month training course before they are assigned to one of the dictator's 32 villas and palaces until the age of 25.
Reports filtering out early last month suggested that....
Amygdala loves Kim Jong Il and his socialist paradise. Hail the Dear Leader! He gives great blog.
Read The Rest Scale: 4 out of 5 for more juicy details. (Via Amygdala's favourite British libertarian skiffy fan and sewer, Natalie Solent.)
"Abandon the Vulcan ways." That was the first order of business for "Star Trek: Enterprise" costumer Bob Blackman entering this third season of the UPN show. Throw logic out the space portal. Get downright emotional. And dress T'Pol, the logic-loving, unemotional Vulcan portrayed by Jolene Blalock in as little as possible.
[...]
Why the sudden change in fashion statement?
"The ratings dropped," Blackman said. "That's the frank, real answer. If you want the show to run seven years, you have to think about demographics."
Betcha the Paramount execs, and Rick Berman and Brannon Braga were thrilled to find their costumer being so "frank."
Read The Rest: if you want more dish on sex in Star Trek.
GENE HACKMAN Yeah, I've thought about that. (Looking at Hoffman) You were a little different. Most of the kids there were right out of high school. I was older. And you were 18 or 19, but the first time I saw you, you were in a, uh, a corduroy vest. And that's all.
DUSTIN HOFFMAN Pants!
HACKMAN But just a corduroy vest. No shirt or anything. And I thought, "This is a weird looking little guy."
HOFFMAN I have no memory of this.
HACKMAN I only went one year ——
HOFFMAN Three months! He got kicked out for not having any talent.
HACKMAN We used to get graded on a scale of 1 to 10 for movement, interpretation, gestures ——
HOFFMAN Attitude.
HACKMAN Attitude.
HOFFMAN Voice projection, which you always failed. So they kicked him out. But I was shocked, because he was still picked to be on their main stage.
[...]
HOFFMAN Of course, we understand that at our age. Brando has it down pat: he wears a hearing aid that you can't see, and a woman by the name of Caroline, who's off the set, feeds him his lines. Each one. Matthew Broderick told me he didn't know this when he did "The Freshman" with Brando. He told me that on his first day, he was sitting in his dorm on the edge of his bed, and Brando was on the other bed, and they were facing each other, and he was so intimidated — Marlon Brando! So they started the take, and he's talking, and Brando answers, and then he talks some more, and Brando answers, and the camera's rolling, and Brando keeps looking at Matthew, and suddenly, he says: "Caroline? Caroline! Are you eating a tuna fish sandwich right now? Caroline? Because I can't understand what you're saying! Stop eating that tuna fish sandwich!"
[...]
HACKMAN (doubled over) Now that's funny.
Read The Rest Scale: 4 out of 5 for hilarity from two giants.
You want to find about about Zasu. Getting fired from The Graduate. Your best sexual experience.
